Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds, and in a major upset, Democrats flipped a Pennsylvania State Senate seat that Trump won by fifteen points. We have such a great show for you today. The nation's own Jeet here stops by to talk about the group chat heard around the world, or as we call it,
Signal Gazi group chat Gate. Then we'll talk to Michigan State Senator Mallory mcmarrow about her new book, Hey, Won't Win, Find your power and leave this place better than you've found it.
But first the news Somali.
You'll get into all the specifics of group chat Gate and Signal Gazi with Jeet when you talk to them. But one thing you guys didn't discuss is Tulci Gabbert really losing this moment since she seems to have amnesia.
Who could have seen it? Practically everyone? Tulsi Gabbard. By the way, I want to remind people that Trump put Tulsi Gabbard in his cabinet because he loves a convert and because he felt that she was, you know, a Democrat for Trump is like his favorite thing. But she has always been not a great candidate, very weird. She was a Democrat from Hawaii in a cult, had a lot of pro assade of views. That's a very small wing of the Democratic Party that is both Democrat and
pro asade. That's like no one. And she's just not a particularly talented politician.
Now that's it, we should say, though some of the strategy was is that she does have a weird contingency of Joe Rogan fans who think that she's like this heterodox thinker, which will she's not.
She's just dumb. But heterodox turns out to me just dumb. She was put in this administration. They had these hearings where happened to be poorly timed for them, and so you had these Democratic members able to ask Telsie about Signal Gazzi. And so we have Jim Hines Representative, Jim Hines, who's actually done really well and has been fighting trump
Ism and not be clowning himself. And he says, so it's your testimony that two weeks ago you were on a signal chat that had all this information about F eighteen's and MQ nine reapers and targets on strike, and you in that two week period simply forgot that you
were there. He asked. She said, my testimony is I don't recall the exact details, and then we got that sort of she then we saw Heinz from Connecticut comes back with your testimony was that you were not aware of anything related to weapons package, his targets and timing, and he basically just caught her in the line. He kept pushing and then on Tuesday, Mark Kelly followed up
and he said, did the chat? He asked whether the chat had mentioned timing units, targets or weapons, and she said, I don't remember right there being a discussion around targets in general. By the way, Wednesday saw all of these chats released, and in fact they had all of these things. So she clearly either got hit in the head or is just pretending that she doesn't remember anything.
Here we go, We should say that Congressman Nadler is calling for Gabbert and Rockcliffe to be prosecuted for perjury following this.
Yes, good for Congressman Nadler for calling this out. Democrats need to be brave and be strong.
So boy, though in unconstitutional dues Mike Johnson is making a I don't think outrageous is the right word.
This is absolutely crazy.
Well, it's just anti democratic. So Mike Johnson has floated this idea of eliminating the federal court right because they are not doing what Trump wants. This is so deeply problematic on so many levels. This is authoritarianism in action. Right Republican House speaker suggests potentially defunding, restructuring, or eliminating US federal courts as a means of pushing back against judicial decisions that Donald Trump doesn't like. This is so bad. This is the kind of stuff that is absolutely a
no go. Like this is the stuff. This is victor Orbon in Hungary. This is how you end American democracy. The road to authoritarianism is paved with shit like this. This is just absolutely a no go. Democrats must push back on this if they have any business being in office, they must fucking push back again hard, because this is anti democratic. It's insane, it's a no go. This is the road to authoritarianism right here. This is actual authoritarianism,
and it's really scary. It's really bad, and it needs to be stopped at this minute. Because this is the way we end American democracy right.
Here, Somali DOJ's star and plointe one Big Balls. He reportedly ran a company that was used by a cyber criminal ring who also abused an FBI agent. And there's all sorts of crazy stuff in here. What do you see gear?
So this is a guy who has all your data, right like Doge is in every single part of the federal government. They've put they're putting. You know, they know our socials, they know where we live, they know where we bank. I mean, this crew is in everything. And one of the guys, DOEG staffer Big Balls, provided technical support to a cyber crime ring. Okay, so a guy who worked with a cybercrime ring is in the Social Security computers, he's in the federal NIH Grant computers, he's
in the this, he's in the that. This guy Big Balls. These people do not have clearance for a reason, right because they do stuff like this. Our entire federal government is set up to not have people like this have access to sensitive data. Here we have big Balls with access to sensitive data after having worked in a cybercrime ring. Do you think Elon Musk's Doge is doing good work? I do not. I do not want big Balls to
be able to see my social security information. I do not want him to know what my identifications are where I live. I do not feel good about big Balls. You're lack.
There's a quote for the age.
Yes, I do not. Get here is a contributor to the nation and the host of the time of monsters. Welcome back to past politics. Get here.
Always good to be on the program.
Nothing going on, yeah.
Full losey sull losing yeah, yeah yeah. Do you ever seen any good movies?
Yeah? Nothing. So when you add the editor in chief of The Atlantic to your top secret signal chat and when you're talking about going to war, I mean, the level of incompetence here, I think is spectacular.
Yeah, I think that. I mean, there's obviously incompetence, but I think that one thing that people aren't quite doing is like the incompetence came for about for a reason, which is like Trump himself does not like to keep records, and he's got into a lot of trouble in the past because as you're a president, the document your decisions
and he's just like tears up papers, you know. But that's a typical you know, someone who's like, if not a mobster themselves, let's say mobbish, you know, like a mob friendly like you never like put everything anything in writing or work can be found. And it happens that this particular group chat was set to have like the messages deleted, which is again totally in violation.
Of like presidential records.
Yeah, presidential records orders. And I think that so it's not just I mean, obviously the screw up is putting Goldberg into the loop, but the actual practice, the actual practice was to try to evade scrutiny, to you know, evade like anything that people could find out, your information, that historians could find out, that Congress could find out.
That's the other aspect now that now that we have the statements out there, I mean, this is old fashioned and Trump is not the only one guilty of it, right, But like, as I read the Constitution, it's pretty clear that the only Congress can authorize a war. Like it's like I think that now that's obviously the last time that happened was in World War Two. But having said that, even with all the powers that the president has, the normal procedure is that if you're going at bombing in
their country. You you know, loop in the uh not THEAR the Atlantic, but the Senate for a relationsis committee, right, so this is the Congress you know, has some understanding that was not done. And also if you're going to be bombing in like you know, this highly sensitive area and allegedly doing it on behalf of Europe, one would think that you would be contacting the allies in Europe and then never the least you know, to let them know.
And again that was not done. So I think that so I will all of which is to say, like, you know, like I understand the opp SEC thing, and like there's a lot of people that you know, like curly violations and rules and there's an easy thing to trip them on. But actually, like if you think about the contents of what's actually in those messages, like there's which are not getting the attention that they deserve. There's actually a lot of scandal there.
A lot, and there's also trashing Europe. I don't want to those freeloaders anyway. And then I would also add that a week before they had gotten an email saying you got to watch out for signal it's not secure and the federal government has all sorts of safe ways to communicate with other like you don't have to put this in signal. There are special sort of army messaging apps that are more secure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I said that those apps because their government apps would actually have record keeping procedures and it's literally done so that they could evade like having a record of us. I think that's interesting.
I also think it's eighteen. This is a small group chat. It has eighteen people in it, including two that are just mal which I assume is mar A Lago.
Yeah, that's right, that's right. I think I think there's all sorts of weird misteries about that. There's like two separate ones for Rubio anyways. Yeah, there's a lot of people in that conversation, more than one would think is necessary.
It's certainly done in a roundabout way. And yeah, I mean the thing that you mentioned about Europe is also I think the kind of big news which is this America first thing is not just for sure, this is something that like they talk about privately and it is and it was Vance that brought it up, like, well, we're trying to get the Europeans to pay for more stuff, and then why are we doing this bombing on their behalf, which I think is you know, like a fair question.
I think, you know, if we're the other question one is asking that no one, you know, is generally not being asked, is the hoolies in Yemen where like they've been blocking the naturally we're blocking the SEUs Canal at the time, but they were threatening to block it if Israel resumed the bombing in Gaza, which they have done, which to my mind indicates that they the creverent administration knew ahead of time that the ceasefire was over and that issual is going to violate it, right, which I
think is interesting in and of itself. But the second thing is if you just want to like keep this who has kind of open. The easiest way to do that is to tell Israel, you know, don't bomb Gotha like that you might e two months are doing this?
But are you a leftist?
Yeah? But I mean, I get this is a conversation that's not being had right, Like I don't I don't like your aphobia or whatever aspect of what he's saying. But he was actually raising an interesting question like why do you guys doing this like it? Actually this is not materially benefit the US. You just gets so little of it straight, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Like are you getting stuff coming on this u US get out?
No dvance? Is that worst person? You know meme?
Right?
Yeah, when it comes up with stuff and you say, well, actually it's maybe not wrong, but he's obviously the way he's getting there is wrong. Right, I hate to help those free loading Europeans.
Well no, no, but because he's in that world, and that's the way you can sell his caution. But I think his caution should be well taken, like if you actually, like before you bomb into the country, I think you know, like even if you're not a leftist, even if you're like a conservative yourself, does this benefit the United States?
Right?
And I think that there's a pretty good argument that it does not benefit the United States. And we know, like a few people are raising this, but maybe not enough. And I'm the europe the hatred of Europe point, which is now we can tell since here that's we're thinking about, just because you know, like Trump is now like I know if you saw it, but it was just talking about you know, how we need greenland, you know we have to have right, well, we have to have it,
and we have to have it. I thought this is very interesting, he says, for defensive reasons and maybe even offensive reasons. So like, yeah, I just look at a math right, what are you having a Greenland that could allow you to you know, lunch at a time who dot com? And you know I have to say, yeah, I'm a Canadian. I have sort of say like, okay, you know that's one country. Greenland is near is Canada, maybe Iceland or maybe Europe. Greenland is like nowhere near Russia or China.
Right.
I think something though that I want to stop and go back on for a second is Jeff Goldberg in this group chat. He is mister military, my man loves a war, doesn't want to mess with any national security, very into military, so he just publishes a tiny bit of the chat right. He's probably more cautious than any other magazine writer, newspaper reporter. He'sn't made be never Trump in a certain way, but he's absolutely military industrial complex.
That's why he was in the group chowb right.
Exactly, and and Trump World says, no, he's lying. There is no war planning, none of it is, none of it is confidential, None of it is top secret. So he then releases a bunch more of it, which shows that they're all liars.
Yes, yes, absolutely, I know. I mean I mean Hexeth was like saying, like, after the White House has said yeah, yeah, Goldberg was on the group, Chad, you know, like it was a mistake. Hexpt was calling it the hoax right after that, right, like I don't understand, Like I do understand, but like any other administration, everyone would be calling for
his head, including Republicans. I mean having said that, I mean, you know, you and I are neither of us fans of the idea that you know, like they're Republicans who can be flipped.
There are no Liz Cheney Democrats.
Yeah yeah, but I think that on this particularly few because of the national security aspect. I mean, you are certainly seeing some interesting things from.
Who are you seeing pushback from.
This guy Bacon the Republican Congress ran and he was like you know, pre aswering pretty harsh words against heigstaff on the national security stuff. And frankly, I was very gratified to see on the insults to Europe. So some of these people in Congress in the Senate are you know, like obviously they're in hawk to Trump, but they're also very close to the military. I mean the military who take this stuff very seriously because you know, like their
own careers depend on it. Like if they ever did anything like this, you know, they know they'd be they're not just real, they'd be court martialed, right, They'd be like in the dock, they'd be in jail. I'm kind of thinking, you know, this thing has legs. For that reason, the point you made have a Goldberg is totally on point. I mean, there's a way in which, like, you know, it's not an accident that he was a guy on
the phone list that accidentally got put on. I mean, you know you can tell even though it's an anti Trump publication, they have a lot of ties with the national security state that doesn't like Trump or whatever. And so yeah, yeah, and he did what you would expect him to do. It rise a little bit of the you know, the New York Times before the Beya pigs. They knew the BA pigs was happening. They had reports, but they said, well, you know, this is the national security terrist.
My man is in the signal chat for a reason. I think we can all agree all the national security people who wanted to go against Trump when to chaff So I also think that this like a never Trump Republican is meaningful right because he does understand the full implication of this, whereas someone like me who wants war to end, who actually is anti war and believes that it's bad and that we should not be going to war period, paragraph has a sort of different take on all of this.
Yeah, yeah, I mean I interesting. I mean the politics of this are such that it could cause a large trouble for the Republicans. I think that there might be people in the Republican Party who might not turn against Trump on like anything else, like ninety nine other things, but this one will actually like cause them to shift. And what they might end up doing, and what you kind of see the conservative the right wing people doing
is like finding a scapegoat. And it looks like they're going to focus in on walt rather than just to save he Seth by going after Waltz, right, I think that they might have a private face a case like I think Waltz is probably the guy who like screwed up here. But having said that, I'd be like heg sas you know, he's the guy who was sharing the
military secrets and he's like, I lied. I think for the Democrats or you know, the interesting thing is like not to let them have like just one escapecook like to actually like say honestly, like you know, like everyone you know, and it's the entire Trump like national security tea, everyone on that child signal, Yeah, has to resign.
I mean what's so shocking is that nobody says, you know, this is crazy and unsecure, we should do this somewhere else. You know, this information could be read by Vladimir Putin or Chi or.
I mean, like, yeah, I actually think like the Republican congressman I mentioned Vacan basically said that she said he's presearching that the Russians of Chinese were reading this because they would be wondering single which is an encryption thing. But it's not like fool proof by any means. But also the fact that no one raised that question, to my mind think means that like they're using signal and other things all the time.
Yeah, And the hearings, and they had hearings between these two things, and in the hearings they just all lied. So Mike Wald said he had never met Jeffrey Goldberg. There's a picture of the two of them together. We heard Tolcy Gabbert just saying that she wasn't on the thing, when of course she was.
I mean, just yeah, I mean the question I would have and if you had, I mean, this is the thing. I'll tell you got a Democratic Senate and Congress. You're not going to House. You're not going to get this. But you really should have an investigation because if they're doing this for this war, they're doing it for elsewhere. I don't want to read a situation where you know, they launch a nuclear war through WhatsApp, Right, you want.
That's what's coming, is nuclear war through what'sapp. But I also think it's important to remember they are squandering what little credibility they have, and in fact, they maybe want Mike Walce to be the fall guy because he's lesser. But clearly this is a top down problem, Right you have your DoD.
Yeah, no, no, no, I have to say that's why at the beginning, if you want to understand, like, just think about Trump, who Trump is, how we handles records, how he trice to never use official channels. It's Trump. He sets a tone for for everything, you know, like, you know, let's just say, like you know, the fish rots for the head down, right, and it is exactly like sort of you know, it's the way that mafia communicates, right,
it's like use peithes. You the only guys who are still using people, the wafiosos, and probably that maybe that's the next thing, maybe that they'll start like using peoples to communicate.
We know they are trying an authoritarian takeover of the courts. We see Mike Johnson talking about wanting more power over the federal judiciary, willing to give away all of Congress's power to Trump except perhaps to do something to the judges to make their guy happy. I mean the fact that Mike Johnson is like basically at this point the valet at mar Lago, right, He's just about that he
has that level of power and control. I just wonder, as we're looking at this, when things like this start to happen, at least in Trump one point zero, that was when they started to really undermine book trust. Now, since we're the United States and amnesia, no one remembers that, but I remember there being a moment where it was like, oh, everyone realizes these people are idiots. Is this that moment?
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, I'd be curious to how much this resonates with the larger public. I kind of worry just on the political angle that this is, like, you know, it is an insider baseball thing that you have to be really invested in the national security state and to semby, I mean, has significance that they're you know, I honestly think Jeff Signed of the Washington Posts had like a really terrific report about how, you know, social Security system
is falling apart. You know, like if I were doing the politics of this, I would like be talking about that because I have to you know, for every like one person that is really concerned about OPSAC, there's like going to be like fifty to eighty that they're like, you know, would freak out if they're bad do to get a Social Security check right, you know, like the
social Security system. I have to say, like there's a lot a lot of the things the US coverent doesn't do right, but yes, actual social Security system, this is the crazy things like one of the great achievements of American civilization, Like you also set up that many checks that regularly with that level of security and then the fact that you know, like Musk has basically found nothing like against it,
but it's still dismantling like this like magnificent system. That's a big thing, and that's you're already having people having trouble like you know, like being able to call into their Social Security office. I would emphasize that more than the op SEC stuff.
To be honest, I think it's important that we talk for a second about my man, everyone's favorite, very very rich guy. You will know him. I will just read this out. He is the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnik. He has this incredible quote. Let's say Social Security didn't send out there checks this month. My mother in law, who's ninety four, she wouldn't call and complain. She just wouldn't. She'd something got messed up and she'll get it next month.
A fraud straw always makes the loudest noise, screaming and yelling and complaining. When your son in law is a billionaire, Yeah, of course, really sweat whether or not you get your Social Security check because you know you can call your billionaire son in law.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, I yeah like that, you know, with the special elections and going to the returns, like you just have to like run that ad say, like, you know, this is a guy that Trump has put it tied to the economy. This is what they think. And I think you have like you know, tens of thousands of people are going to hear Bernie and EOC to hear about what are the proper channels for government
communication rights. These are people that are freaking out of you know, the coming attacks on the ongoing attacks on Medicare and social Security. That's just where the juice is. I think, you know, like I think the inside washing, you you can do more than one thing at a time. Inside Washington, I think they have a lot of juice on this because I think Republicans are really rattle. And you notice one thing is interesting is they haven't been
able to come up with a consistent story. Like usually if there is like, uh, you know, Republicans are being attacked, they come up with some sort of line and Fox goes with it, Everyone goes with it. They don't have a consistent story. They're kind of like fighting each other, contradicting each other. Like obviously, like the inside politics is great for the Democrats, you should use that, but like you know, stepping back, let's not forget what the real
game here is. And the real game is that to point out that this is a party of oligarchs who are going to like steal the patriboni of the American people to make themselves to make like people who are billionaires into trillionaires.
Correct, get here, Thank you for joining us.
Okay, great to be on.
Mallory McMorrow is a Michigan State Senator and the author of hate Won't When find your power and leave the place better than you found it. Welcome back, too fast politics, Mal I'm tomorrow so thrilled.
Thanks for having me back.
So you have a book. Let's talk about this book. But why did you write this book? Tell me everything?
So.
I had a very strange year in twenty twenty two after a colleague accused me of being a groomer and sexualizing kindergarteners.
Right, twenty twenty two was the year when they called everyone a groomer.
That was That was the start of it, and a speech I gave went crazy viral, and that afforded me the opportunity to travel the country. I was raising money to help flip our states Senate. Here in Michigan, but I was in more than a dozen states, and no matter what group I was speaking to, thousands of people said a version of the same thing, which was, I'm so overwhelmed. I know I have to do something. I have no idea where to start. That's what this book is.
It is half memoir that is about my very unlikely and unplanned journey into politics and everything I've learned along the way. And then the second part is a very practical step by step guide for anyone and everyone, based on what I've learned on how to get involved and make a real difference, because we're going to need every damn person in this country to participate to get out of this mess.
Yeah. I mean you are in Michigan. You are on the ground where this is all happening. What are the vibes in Michigan. Because I know what the vibes in New York are, and they're not the same as the vibes, Like the vibes in DC are just cataclysmic. The vibes in New York are sort of like, it's all fine as long as we don't deal with politics. But what are the vibes in Michigan.
I feel like, especially in the last two weeks, we have really, I think hit a turning point where the first month or so of the second Trump presidency, I still don't think everybody was in a state of shock and not entirely sure what to do or how to engage. And we are now seeing at every town hall and coffee hour an event that we do it is overflow capacity, crowds. Hundreds of people are showing up to all of these things,
and they are very deeply engaged. They know what's going on, they know all of the chaos that this administration is unleashing, and they're not just demanding that Democrats do something about it, they're asking what they can do too. So I think this is a very unique moment where people are ready, they know they have to stand up and they have to do something, and they're looking for that guidance on what to do to fight all of this.
So that I think is actually sort of hopeful, as much as anything can be helpful, this idea that there's a critical mass in this country who is not okay with losing their rights. I think there's so much anxiety in pundent world that this is going unnoticed. But your sense is that this is actually going quite noticed, very much.
So.
We had just at one of my town halls, and we've done numerous but just one a couple of weeks ago, we had three federal workers who had either been fired or fully expected to be fired kind of any moment. One who worked for NAH, one who she was so scared to even tell us what department she worked for,
and one who worked for the VA. We had one woman who shared, She's like, look, I bring home sixty percent of our family's income and my kid's healthcare is on my job, and if we lose this, you know, I've always been really transparent about the fact that I had ADHD, And she said, my son does too. You know, the medication's expensive, This psychiatrist appointments are expensive. We will not survive if they just slash and burn and cut our jobs with no rhyme or reason.
Right. Of course, some of this is in the courts coming back. Some of it is not. Do you have a sense that things are being fixed by the court or do you think that that's not really happening.
No, And I think people recognize that too. People are keenly aware of the fact that the Trump administration is either directly defying court orders or that the courts are so overwhelmed at this point. I mean, the strategy from the administration seems to be an all out assault on every aspect of our government and our systems, from elections to the courts, to the pace of executive orders and
the implementation of Project twenty twenty five. Mind you that they're not able to keep up, but I think what we're seeing is that hasn't led to people becoming apoplectic. It's led to them recognizing, you know, nobody's coming to save us. It's on us, and we have to show up. We have to show up in every one of these Republican districts because the only way that we fight back is by letting the people in office know that they have to do their jobs.
You're in the Michigan State Center right now, and you are with these Michigan Republicans. It is some of them are are among the most craven. What are they saying publicly? What are they saying privately?
So what's crazy right now is it's almost like public opinion doesn't matter. Matt All is the new Republican Speaker of the House, and he's modeling himself, as I called him, timu Trump this week where he's holding long, meandering press conferences an hour long, where it's he's just you know, he's doing everything Trump does, of just rambling incoherently and
blaming everything on the Democrats. But I'll just add this, So, at a moment when Trump has just announced that he is going to eliminate the Department of Education, the state House Republicans introduced a budget that slashes five billion dollars from our state education budget, which is twenty five percent of the budget. And now they're trying to backtrack and say, oh, this is a stop gap spending measure, which is not something that we do here in Michigan.
By the way, our.
Budget is due October first or nowhere near the end, and they don't care. I think that people are going to have to push back. But it has been devastating to see that the lessons are just do what Trump does. This is Trump's Republican party all the way down to the state level.
This is what we keep seeing, right, a Republican party that does not care about public opinion. Right, But what do they think is going to happen? Do they think there won't be elections anymore. I mean, what's the thinking here behind those craziness.
So I think my sense is that there may have been some fear that Trump and trump Ism wasn't going to work, but that they've been emboldened by the fact that we're now in a second Trump presidency. So my sense is that the feeling on the Republican side of the aisle is if we go full speed ahead on the entire Trump agenda on. There have been talks of creating a state level Doge.
There was a.
Republican representative who wants to suggest that the Supreme Court overturn Obergefel to ban same sex marriage, and to ban pornography, you know, all of these things that are not about people's cost of living. And I think their hope is that if we just do it aggressively enough, that people will love us the same way that they love Donald Trump. But I think the mistake is that only one person
is Donald Trump, and it's Donald Trump. And we've seen, you know, look at where Carrie Lake is right now. She just got fired effectively. Nobody's been able to replicate that. So I think that that's on Democrats. We can't just get caught up in talking about how bad Donald Trump
is and how bad the Republicans are. We have to be aggressive and show people an alternative vision so that when we do have elections, because we will have elections again, people see themselves in a different way out of this mess.
And it's with us for sure. This is a big question, right, And this is why Schumer got in so much trouble, right, is that these Republicans are focused on this idea that there's continuity, that his polls are much better than they were the first time, and so people like it better. And I'm not sure that it's true.
No, that's not true at all. I think it's just trying to ride the momentum and the energy and the pace. And it's kind of a Jesus take the wheel attitude. And while while you're taking that attitude, you're burning everything down in your path. I don't even know that it's hoping that people won't notice. It's hoping that you've done it too fast for people to react, right, right, right, right.
But you would think there'd be some like we need to keep the house kind of trying, right, You.
Would think, I mean, we just haven't seen any Republican you know, say for maybe Lisa Markowski, who I can think of in the last kind of week or so, who's standing up. But at the end of the day, the votes are still the votes. So you can be brave in a town hall and you can say the right things, but until we see a version of the Republican Party that's willing to vote to get back to you know, not even vote with Democrats necessarily, but vote for normalcy, it's going to keep happening.
Right exactly this twenty twenty four cycle, there were a lot of Democrats who bucked the trend. Right. There was Tammy Baldwin and Reuben Diego, and you know there were states that went to Trump. But also you know they they voted for Trump and left the bottom of the ticket blank, or they voted for Trump and Diego. Make sense of that to me as someone who does politics in Michigan, because I feel like Michigan's a great example
of a state where you have everything. You have the Michigan Militia, you have ann Arbor.
Oh yeah, we are I tell everybody all the time. Michigan is the microcosm of the entire country, and we are the the coal mine. Michigan is one of those states. You know, at the top people voted for Trump, and we now have Senator Alissa Slatkin. The Democrats lost the state House, but it was only by five thousand, four
hundred votes across four districts. It's a battleground state. It's a purple state, and we did see people, particularly young men, show up and vote for Donald Trump and nothing else. One of my colleagues was on Michigan State's campus on election day and he said that anecdotally, you know, he would watch young guys coming in maga hats. They were there, clearly, they bubbled in one thing and walked out. But Michiganders want to see themselves. This is a state where you
do not have to register by party. We have open primaries. This is a state where people are fiercely independent. And if you look at people like Alyssa Slockin and Krista McDonald Rivett who won in a tough district in Congress and overperformed, it was about the economy and cost of living and frankly, just talking like a normal person and not taking any bullshit. And that is something that Michiganders can connect with. They see themselves in and are willing
to vote for. And I hope the rest of the country takes notice.
So in your book, you talk about the sort of how to make things better and that hate won't win. Explain to us how you got here and why you think this is the tact that leaders should take.
So you know, I became known across the country for this speech that I gave that was a result of anti DEI, anti LGBTQ attacks on me, But I really reframed my response to talk about my own upbringing. I said multiple times throughout the speech, I'm a straight, white Christian, married suburban mom who knows that hate only wins when people like me stand by and let it happen. And
throughout the book I talk about community. I talk about my mom raising me in a small town and a town wide yard sale that she hosted every year, and
how we all got to know each other. And I firmly believe that rebuilding this country from our community on up, where you get to know your neighbors, where you share values, because at the end of the day, we all want safe communities and good schools and all these sorts of things that we will be able to with stay and defeat attacks that try to pit us against each other, attacks that try to say you are not doing as well as you imagined you would growing up, and it's
somebody else's fault, whoever the person to be attacked is today, whether it's immigrants or the LGBTQ community, or women or you name the attack. But that requires all of us to put in the work, to get to know our neighbors, to get out of our bubbles, and to participate as a relationship with our country, not just as a vote. I am sick and tired of politicians saying this is the most important election of our lifetimes, because it implies that if we all just vote for this one person,
then everything's going to be fixed. So what I try to do in the book is make the case for you know, this is about becoming an active participant in creating the future that we want to see. But it doesn't happen if you don't participate. Everything collapses.
Yes, say more about that though, because one of the things that we talk a lot about is democratic messaging. What is the right message? And people use it to support their priors. So people on the far left, progressives, you know, want more progressive values. Conservatives want more conservative values. But I'm kind of obsessed with the chief of staff of the governor from Illinois, Pritzker, who talks about that
it's you fight or you don't fight. So one of the reasons why that speech went viral was because you fought right, you didn't hide. So talk to me about you fight or you don't fight.
It's absolutely right, and people want to see you fighting for them and fighting for their future. And I think where Democrats missed the mark in twenty twenty four as the campaign cycle went on was there was kind of the summer those guys are a weird line of attack, which I think was very effective, and then it ivotted towards the end of the campaign back to a very doom and gloom dark Donald Trump is a fascist and this is the end of democracy. And I actually Pluff
is one of He followed me on Twitter. I guess I'm one of one thousand people that he followed. And sometime around October I recognized on the doors in Michigan this wasn't working, and I shot my shot and I DMed him. I don't know if he ever read it, but I tried to make the case. It cannot just be about all of the bad things that Donald Trump has done or who he is or what he's likely to do, because everybody already knows that, and people are exhausted.
But if we don't give them a positive, if there's not an alternative vision for the future, and you know, I agree with pritz kerschief of Staff. I don't think it's between progressives or moderates or a type of policy. I think it's are you fighting for a future or not? And if we don't even talk about that future, people don't believe we're fighting for it. So, you know, I think about this in terms of I'm a member of
the millennial generation. I'm an elder millennial, and I think for Gen X, millennials, gen Z, we are largely generation that are expected to do worse than our parents. That you can do everything right, you can play by the rules, you can work hard in school, you can go to college or go into a trade, and you still can't possibly fathom the American dream. You know, you can't afford to buy a house. We've seen house prices double from
just twenty nineteen to now. And when people do not believe that systems work for them that the institution is working for them, and you have the Democrats are saying this is the end of democracy. People are not thinking about democracy as a system of government. They're thinking about it as the institution that's not working for them. And we have to lay out a clear vision and we have to fight for that vision, not just against Donald Trump.
And I think that's where it's certainly very true. So what are your next steps?
So I am haven't been shy beath. That's very seriously exploring running for the US Senate. Gary Peters are now senior senator announced that he will not seek reelection. So it's a big decision to make, you know, it's a big state. I do not take this decision likely, but will have an announcement very soon.
All Right, we are waiting with Beta Brat. Thank you, Maler McMorrow.
Thank you, Molly.
No moment, Jesse Cannon, Molly.
Trump is considering a compensation fund for pardoned January six ers.
Let's listen to what he has to say here.
I took care of him, I said I was going to and I did.
Is there any talk of because they lost opportunity, they lost income, any kind of compensation.
Fucker?
Well, there's talk about that.
There have a lot of people talk about a lot of the people that are in government now talk about it because they a lot of the people in government really liked that group of people. They were patriots as far as I was concerned, I talked about I talk about them a lot.
They would treat it very unfairly.
You know, the thing they show is they show a group of a thousand, what it may being fifteen hundred people down but they don't show you never see the crowd that day. It was the biggest crowd I've ever spoken before.
It went all the way to the Washington Monument.
It was so wide you couldn't you virtually couldn't see anything else but people.
They never show that.
Whether it was a million people or less than a me, I don't know what it was.
But you know, I see Bertie.
Sanders as a few people out there, they say, oh, the crowd is so big. They don't talk about the crowds. But a group of people went down there peacefully and patriotically.
Remember that, all right?
So I love that. You can't stop Trump from riffing on this just is like, you know, it was a riot, but it was my riot. My question for you is who is the reporter who's asking if they should compensate January sixth rioters.
I could answer that for you real America voice.
Nope, it is Greg Kelly over at Newsmax, of course.
So yeah, should they be compensated? Yeah, if you do a crime might be entitled to compensation.
Reparations for rioters is what I like to think of it as.
By the way, again, this is like the Doge that you were going to get these Doge checks because of Doge, that they were going to get checked. They were going to make checks for you. You were going to get doged checks because they were saving you so much money, and every person was going to get five thousand dollars. That's not happening.
I got mine with my Obama.
Phone, that's right, that's right. You got it with your when you were on a death panel.
Yes, yes, yeah.
So anyway, they're going to say a lot of stuff. They're going to say a lot of lies. They're going to say it because they know they're incentivized to lie, and you're going to see more of this and it is going to every time be our moment of fuck.
Right.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please intto a friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.