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 over seventeen hundred doctors have signed a letter urging the Senate to reject RFK Junior as Health Secretary. How is it only seventeen thousand? We have such a great show for you today, The Nation's jet here gets to the bottom of why Trump is so excited about annexing Canada. Then we'll talk to Senator Tammy Dunckworth.
But first the news Somali.
The Supreme Court shocked everyone last night and let the sentencing go ahead with Donald Trump. And the sentencing has happened. What are you seeing here?
Let us rephrase this.
The Supreme Court proved to not be complete partisan hacks.
This is the shock was so Trump.
He had a call earlier this week, perhaps completely unrelated but likely not, with his good friend Justice Alito, And who knows Alito said it. It was about recommending a clerk for the Trump two point zero admin. Maybe perhaps the appearance of impropriety is certainly appearing anyway, So then Trump went to his good friends, said I shouldn't be sentenced for this fraud stuff because I'm president or will be president.
And ergo I am God king.
And you will be completely shocked to find out that there are five justices who do not think Trump should be king, and this is perhaps very good news for American democracy. You will be very unsurprised to hear that Thomas Alito, who have complete brainworms and our maga to the core, and Gorsich, who who is just a complete disaster except when it comes to Native Americans, which somehow is one thing. And Justice keg stand three white men, and Justice Thomas who is not white, all believe that
Donald Trump should be God king. On the other side, we have the three liberal justices, Justice Amy, who actually we have heard in oral arguments is quite smart though she was put on the court to overturn row, which she did for Trump. And Justice Roberts, who is theoretically the chief Justice, though he's behaved in a very kind of non chief ye way, those guys said, no, Donald Trump can still be sentenced. We are not going to step in. We are not going to do everything he wants. Now, look,
this is insane. Okay, we need to take a moment here. I think I've been pretty calm about the coming Trump admin. You know when we talk about how to protect the norms, and this is not normal. This is not normal, even a little right, not normal at all to have a president call up the Supreme Court. Or maybe he was talking about something totally different with Alito, but there certainly is. It really feels like impropriety, and it's not normal to go to the Supreme Court and say, please just fix
this for me. They're not supposed to be fixers. They are supposed to be beyond politics. They are supposed to be the arbiters of the Constitution, and so watching this is pretty insane. So we can be grateful that there are five still, say in Supreme Court justices, but we should also realize that the even being here is so beyond the norms, is so not how any of this is supposed to work. We should be screaming from the rooftops. There are I have said, I say again and again.
Trump is not going to annex Canada. That's just a distraction. And a lot of this stuff is just a distraction. Sending Junior to Greenland, distraction, distraction, distraction. I'm calling up the Supreme Court because you want them to do something for you. This is fucking bad, and this is the kind of stuff that we all need to be talking about and writing about and thinking about.
And again, there is no ethics.
Code for the Supreme Court, so they can get away with doing whatever they want. And this is how we got here, and it's just wrong and bad and Jesus Christ, so that I think I have, that's as soap boxy as I'm going to get.
Well, well, let's do a little celebrating and some good news. Then in that case, Joe Biden first president ever to have job growth in every month of his presidency since they started measuring it. And this job support, we'll be shocked to say it's doing pretty well.
Yeah, they chose not to re elect him, but the economy he's leaving is a gift, a gift to a guy who is planning to put tariffs on everything.
But the funny thing is Pop, Fox News Night and Day is preparing everyone for that. The economy is going to take. It's because Joe Biden has given Trump a ticking time. Bob is what they.
Say, right, I mean, Rupert Murdoch sees what's going on here. He sees the writing on the wall and so he is trying to run a little bit of interference for his buddy. Yeah, job growth, great economy, and then Joe Biden cannot get reelected. You know, It's enough to make a person very, very very depressed.
It really is something so in other horrifying Supreme Court news, because we can't find two stories in a row that are good. Jimmie Raskin did reprimend Samuel Alito for that call with Trump? What are you seeing here?
Look again, protecting norms and institutions sometimes means avoiding the appearance of impropriety, even if this wasn't improper, though I really do believe.
Also, I just want to point out.
That Alito had this clerk fourteen years before now, so he's had this cork, had had many other jobs after Aledo. And the question is why was it so important for Donald Trump to talk to Alito about this clerk when he was you know, his fIF you know, his fifth most recent employer. And so even if it wasn't improper, no one knows what was said on the call, But even if it wasn't, the appearance of impropriety is absolutely just a norms crusher in every way. And look, you know,
a lot of politics. What we saw in Trump one point zero is that a lot of politics was Trump was able to crash through these guardrails because a lot of American politics was just a certain level of gentility that kept things in place and what allowed for some level of It's not real corruption per se, but there were guardrails just for the fact that these politicians had to interact with each other, and those guardrails were really
blown through by Trump. So we really need to make get clear that the Supreme Court is a redline and that Donald Trump should not be able to bully them into doing what he wants and being a rubber stamp on him, though we know they will be to a certain extent.
Well, there are guardrails and then there are laws, and mister Trump broke some of them. There is now about a week and a half left for Jack Smith to get the details of that out to the world in a report. What are you seeing here with what's going on with the Federal Appeals Court?
The Federal appeals courts, and on Thursday would not block the Justice Department from releasing the report by Special Counsel Jack Smith. Again, this is the last possible moment for sleepy Merrit Garland, my buddy, sleepy Republican. By the way, poor went out for all the Republicans who did not do shit, right.
Merrick Garland.
What about our friend head of the FBI, Chris Ray, another Republican who did not do shit? All these people who just were like, if we close our eyes real tight, Donald Trump will go away.
Good work, everybody, good work.
I'm going to do a standing ovation, which you standing up did not do.
Both sections of mister Smith's two volume report remained for the moment under an injunction put in place this week by a lower court judge in the state of Florida. You know who that judge is, the one.
Who's about to replace Alito or Thomas, whichever retires first.
Yeah, or to replace Amy if cat Turd has his way.
Yes, yes, well, we know that we have to always save a space like it's Elijah at the political table for cat turd.
Yep, exactly, cat tired the Pat Buchanan of America, of America of the twenty twenties, Cat tired or went out for poor cat turd, very mad at Justice.
Amy for not taking care of his guy, Donald J. Trump.
By the way, I just want to point out what this whole sentence in fiasco.
He was sentenced to nothing.
Yes, like I mean, yes, now he's a fallon congratulations.
But I know a lot of people.
I don't know a lot of people, but I know a few people have gone to jail, and I think if they were just fealons and didn't have to go to jail, like generally, the jail part is the worst part. Again, I am not a prison consultant, but my sense is if you don't have to go to jail, that's a win.
Yeah, I'm with you.
Jed Here is a contributor to the nation and the host of the Time of Monsters.
Welcome to Fast Politics.
Jed Here always great to join the program.
I am so you know why I wanted to have you on. Besides the fact that we often have you on and think you're very, very smart.
It's because of the fact that I'm soon to become an American after Donald alex Is the Canada and we become the fifty first state head al I'll let you know of Washington, DC and Puerto Rico. I welcome our American liberators. Although I will also say, like the last time Canada in the United States Thought Award. The White House did burn down.
So we're mateen twelve.
Yeah, that's right, that's it's all.
Yeah.
I think you know, like where the whole New Territory. We're not in counses anymore, isn't.
There's like a debunked story about one of the first ladies saving a painting.
Dolly Madison. I think, yes, that's right, that's right. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, I know that that did not happen. But she was rewarded with chocolate ice cream named in her on her behalf because she saved painting from the Canadian hordes. But it's not true, rude, it's not true.
No, yes, it's both stupid and also didn't happen.
That's right, that's right.
Yeah, like so much of American history, but we are making our own stupid American history right here.
So let's talk about what the fuck is going on.
Trump has decided that he is going to annex Canada. Not really, but really, but also, can I just ask, aren't you guys all like pretty liberal up there?
Yeah?
I mean I think that the polling does show that if the American election were held in Canada, Kamala Harris would have gotten something like seventy percent of the votue. In some ways, if Canada we're annexed, it would change American politic Their leaked It depends on jerrymandering the Electoral College. Who does. But I don't think it's in the interest of the United States Republican Party necessarily to do this, right.
I mean, I think that ultimately, like you'd probably be better off adding Puerto Rico because at least Puerto Rico has some conservatives. But again, what I think, and again, we are going to have four years to try to figure this out, and we did it so magically last time.
What do you think Donald Trump is doing here?
I will end up saying this sentenced ten thousand times because basically Donald Trump has made the world his interpreter. You remember when he was on the campaign trail and he said bacon and everyone had to explain that he meant the price of bacon, right, that they were all this shorthand, but his people understood, but that if you
weren't completely read in on the machinations, you wouldn't. But basically, what I think is happening here is that he's doing this Nixonian thing of I'm the craziest guy in the room.
Do you think that's correct?
Yeah, sure, sur sure. I think there's a couple of things that are going on. I mean, I do actually think this is not a serious proposal. It is the sort of very typical Trumpian let's throw crap against the wall, and you know, and also a little bit of a distraction as well. I think the and it says I don't think there's any serious plans to take over.
Yeah.
Yeah, But having said that, I mean, I think both Trump and I think, interestingly Elon Moss are very interested in using the presidency to reshape not just America but the world and American aligances with the world. And Musk much more of course, rightly is basically trying to abilies Europe and to push the far right in Europe, including in Germany, where you know, like I don't think the history of promoting fire right governments in Germany has been
a happy one. And he's, like, I mean, Musk, he's also trying to like overthrow the government of England. He's called for Prince Charles to call for an election. There's
a couple of things going on here. Like we know that Trump and Musk do not like NATO, and they don't like what they call globalism, and what they mean like globalism is basically the system that was set up by Franklin Roosevelt and its successors in World War two, sort of like an international system of alliances where the United States has collective security with other nations and has
things like NATO and also has trade agreements. And this was you know, like one could argue that there was a form of American im perialism, but it's also like an attempt to work within the nations of other countries to have some sort of system in place. And there's always been a critique on the right that this system of the liberal international order, the system of alliances, is bad for the United States. It doesn't give the US the room come maneuver, and it ties America to these
like diabolical governments in Europe that will exploit America. And that was the critique of the right going back decades. This was like, actually what Herbert Hoover thought, this is what Charles Lindberg thought, this is what Robert Taff taught.
People forget this, but I mean, the Republican Party was in the forties was against NATO, like Robert Taff had this sort of critique of NATO that I'm articulating, And there have always been figures on the right that haven't wanted that, and what they wanted instead.
Right, it's this America Last phenomenon, Right, we both read that book.
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Quit yeah, So, and what they wanted was what they call in America First policy, which is sometimes mislabeled by the media as isolationism, but it was actually basically a policy of hemispheric domination. The idea is that the United States should leave Europe to the Europeans, it should concentrate on dominating the Western hemisphere, and then also using if it's going to expand, expand into Asia,
because the Pacific is America's lake. Now, this all sort of fell by the wayside during the Cold War, when with Eisenhower and Nixon and Reagan you basically had Republicans who bought into the liberal international order, the idea of working with NATO and work with alliances. But there'll always been people on the right who have not thought that way, who have like wanted to return to the foreign policy
of Charles Lindberg and Robert Taft. And I'll just remind people Charles Lindberg's foreign policy was like, let's let Hitler be overlord of Europe. He will protect us from the communist right.
Yeah.
So one person who thought that way was Pat Buchanan, who I think is a very important yes.
Yes, yes, And this is this John Dance book When the Clock Broke, So yeah, so talk to us about this because he makes a direct parallel from David Duke to Pat Buchanan to early chomp is so discuss.
So I think this essential precondition was the sort of waning of the Cold War in the nineteen eighties and the Soviet Union not no longer being seen as a communist threat, and there were a lot of people on the right who are thinking, well, okay, you know, like we're not fighting the Soviets anymore, then, like why do we need NATO and also why don't we like return to the foreign policy of Robert Taft? And then these people were called paleo conservatives, and I think the most
most of them are very obscure kind of intellectuals. But the one person people will know why we is Pat Buchanan. I mean, there's two parts of this. One is we're not fighting communism abroad. So we should focus on the main enemy, which is liberalism at home, and we should have a culture war at home. We should take the ideas of David Duke about race and like try to use them as our own. The second component of this is like, yeah, returning to a Robert Taft foreign policy.
So in nineteen ninety, Pat Buchanan wrote a column where he said American the American dream annexing most of Canada. And Buchanan said, like, well, you know, Canada, they're having this problem with coveect separatism. This could be an opportunity for the United States. We should invite like parts of Canada. He mentioned the maritime provinces, the western provinces of Verda
and Saskatchewan, and then North Northern Territories. And he added in this column we should also buy Greenland from Denmark. And also Pat Buchanan had a long standing belief that it was a mistake to have handed over the Panama Canal to the people of Panama and that the United State should take it over. So so in nineteen ninety Pad buy Cannon is basically saying, you know exactly what Trump is saying. Now He's not alone. A lot of these other paleo conservatives think along this line, and some
of our very bizarre creatures. One is Peter Brimlow, who's most known now for a racist website called v Dare. Another is this guy Craig Shoemaker, who Pat Buchannan quoted and cited as an authority and who was the head of something called the American Expansionist Party.
Oh Jesus Christ, great, should I.
Just wanted it's a little digression, but it's actually very interesting to get a set to where these guys are coming from. So this guy basically started off as a gay rights activist of the sixties, but ran into problems because he had views of women that other gay rights people didn't like. Like he basically said, we should be a Menzoni space. I don't want to have like this whole gay lesbian by translating, you know, like no women,
no girls. He also was like a virulent racist who basically said black people are and I am quoting here the enemy who should be exterminated. We're pretty crazy crack blaw people. So I think one of the things with the Trump era, and I think, you know, like Musk is also part of this is that like these kind of crazy fringe ideas that have hovered up the wings of the Republican Party. They've decided, let's take them up
again and let's mainstream them. And they're partially able to do that because the old Republican elite has been discredited and so therefore they need to juice things up. I mean, what basically happened was, you know, the Cold War won down the presidency of George W. Bush attempted to revive a kind of a right wing internationalism in the form of the Global War on Terror. But that was a disaster that totally discredited the sort of intervention is swinging
the Republican Party, and that created a vacuum. And into that vacuum step Donald Trump, who was able to leverage a his celebrity and b the fact that he realized that there were all these string components of the Republican coalition that you could energize and get worked out by, you know, bringing back the ideas of Pabri Canon and Craig Shoemaker. You know that these so basically like, now
how serious it is as policy? As I said, I don't foresee like actually buying Greveland or taking over Canada but I do actually think that it's well, we've already seen it. It's it's how did this reptive effect? I mean Justin Trudeau stepped down, and I mean he's been unpopular for a long time. I think there are a lot of people in his own party, like you know, like as with Joe Biden, who have wanted him to step down for a while and make up for another leader.
But what happened was he got into a dispute with his finance mister Christia Freeland, and in her letter resignation, Freelance said these very important that like you know, Canada is facing a crisis with Trump pretning carepors. We need like a leadership that can unite the country. I no
longer feel like you can provide that leadership. That was like, it's not the ultimate cause, which I think is you know, it's unpopularity due to COVID and inflation, you know, as was Joe Biden, as everyone with everyone, But I think it was the precipitating cause that like the Canadian elite
is very very scared of what's happening. This is this is up truely just of like so he said, Canadians are liberal, Well we have conservators here, but I'll tell you, like quite conservative Canadians, you know, don't want to like lose their country and join the United State. And there are people like the Globe and Meal is kind of like a business newspaper. One of their more conservative columnists Andrew Coin, who's a real sort of emblem of sort of you know, like the sort of like old wasp
elite in Canada. His father would have been headed the governor of the Bank of Canada. Andrew Coin has basically said, you know, Canada can no longer rely on the United States as a reliable ally. We have to have like a new foreign policy, perhaps like deepen our ties with Europe, deep in our ties with the last in American countries, try to have some sort of counterweight that that is a kind of like thinking that's happening even among conservative Canadians.
I think that the same thinking is happening in Europe. I think we're already seeing a lot of people in Europe. I mean, they're the EUS protesting against Trump's the plans to anna Greenland, and I think that they are serious people in Europe who are thinking, you know, like we've relied on America for our protection for like seventy years.
What if they're going to keep electing I was like, drop, who are gonna, like, you know, have people like Elon Musk or literally destabilizing our societies who are promoting I cannot begin to explain like the people that Elon Musk are promoting, people like Tommy Douglass and the AfD. This would be like someone from outside of America. So let's say someone being like.
Make David Duke your president.
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. It would be like like, as of powerful people in Europe, we're certainly saying we want America to elect David Duke. It's an incredibly destabilizing thing. So there are people inside the European elite who are now explicitly thinking, well, you know, why don't we leverage culture ties with China. Why don't we like, you know, open up trade ties with your China. China can offer us, you know, five g they can offer us cheap electric cars.
President g is a tyrant. He's bad for his own people, but he's far away from us and he doesn't want to interpere in our domestic politics. I think that's a very serious conversation that's happening in Europe, and it's happening in Canada. Like, I don't think Canada would necessarily, although I think the other interesting thing is that the Chinese
are very aware of all this. The government of China has just basically announced to Canada that, you know, guys, if you want, like, you know, closer trading ties with US, you like, if you want to sell your product products if you can't, if you have to care for and you can't sell your products of America, we're here, You're We'll be happy to find No. No, I don't think for a variety of reasons, I don't think the Canadian elite is going to go for closer ties with China.
But I think the smart play for Canada, as for Europe, is like closer integration with each other and with Latin America.
Yeah, because they're the only people who are normal anymore. Honestly, with Africa, it's destabilizing, and the goal is to have it be destabilizing. And there's a larger question here about whether tech the tech bros want to see America succeed or want to destabilize America so that they can make more money. It's not entirely clear that those two things are aligned in any way.
I mean the thing is like money has no loyalty, money has no patriotis on at resultant like Elon Musk, I mean he wins both ways, both like a kind of more destabilized Europe and a more details America. I mean he gets us regulation so he can do what he wants with his companies, but also like a stronger China is not bad for the Elon muss right, right.
Right, exactly. And I think that's a real question.
And Elon Musk has lots of deals with China and is very conflicted. So let's talk about what we're seeing here. We've got Trump is coming, We're trying to sort of figure out. You know, I feel like we're in the calm before the storm here. So here's my question for you, which I actually start we started talking about. Is like the bombastic language that Trump is using. If you look back on four years of Trump, it tended to be he wanted people to think he was crazy and then
would sort of back down. But Trump is much older, his rhetoric has continued to be quite a explosive. What is your take on where the people who want the sort of normal, what the people who want.
A sort of normal democratic order should be doing.
I think the main thing is to be much more oppositional than they have been. I think that there has been a kind of instinct to say, I, once seeing what we're seeing this in the immigration vote, you know, well Trump won like you know, a plurality of the vote, a sort of decisively the eleccoral college, we should like try to, you know, get along. I think that's just like the wrong thing to do, especially since he's doing
all these crazy things. And I think like the people who are hoping that he's like like this all just rhetoric that you know, ultimately the more stable advisors will come along. I mean, I think it's not just Trump is older, but also he has a cattery of people around him who are like not the sort of you know, Rex Tillerson Maddest type people he had in the first term,
who are like real hardcore idologues. And I think Musk is the wildcard here, right because like in the first term, Trump had Steve Bannon, but I think the revoking establishment was very cagey and very quick to kind of push Brandon out of there, and you know, like leverage Bannon's own bad tendencies against them. But I mean, I think it's much harder to get rid of Ela Musk, that is, to get rid of Steve Bannon. I mean, Musk has like, you know, he's the richest man in the world. He
has a huge media outlet. So I think that the unstable, radical element of Trumpism has a much like stronger power than now than before. And to my mind that that actually argues for like, you know, the real strategy of resistance, which I don't think that we're seeing right now. And I actually think in the long term, I think the smarter play is to stake out like a position like of like you know, like opposition, because I think a lot of this stuff is going to come crashing down
on Trump's head sooner rather than later. And I think that what the democratic is smart politics, is not in fact smart politics. I think they think that, you know, they can triangulate.
But I think there's anxiety that maybe he'll be normal this time, which all of us want, but history shows us that that is not how it's going to go.
Yeah. No, I just I don't see him normalizing anytime soon. And I think the one one has to prepare for quite a radical Trump administration. And it could well be, though I think that real political opposition will have to come from outside the Democratic Party, like in terms of like social movements.
Yes, and that's a real question. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Jeete. I hope you won't come back.
You can't give me away. I'm going to be a fellow American anytime now.
Senator Tammy Duckworth is the junior senator from the state of Illinois.
Welcome to Fast Politics. Senator Tammy Duckworth.
Thank you, it's good to be on. Thanks for having me.
I'm delighted to have you. So let's talk about what is going on on your article to responsibility and these hearings that are coming up.
Yeah, I mean, my job is to make sure that the people who are nominated to the various positions within the president's administration are actually qualified and capable of doing their jobs. And I've had quite a few meetings, and you know, I've met with Senator Rubio who's been nominated to be Secretary of State. I've met with Hamasman Collins who today I met with him, he's nominated to be
Secretive Veterans Affairs. I might have had very good conversations with them where I've been able to ask them their questions of their vision, with experience they have, how they're
kind of running the department. And then my next person is going to be mister Pete Hesath, who is nominated to be Secretary of Defense, but he is avoiding meeting with me and all that the other senate them, so I've not been able to ask in questions about his qualifications for the job, which makes it really hard for me to do my job.
What do you think that is? I mean, why do you think that he's doing that? Because sooner or later he's going to have to sit and do hearings that are going to be public. I mean, this is the thing I don't understand. So can you talk us through that?
Sure? So at the hearing, each senator has seven minutes to ask questions. I certainly have more questions for him than the seven minutes. And usually most nominees will come and meet with the senators, especially those who sit on
the committee. You have a pretty thorough, in depth conversation and to establish a relationship because we're going to be working with these people for the next four years, right, and so to make sure that we understand where they want to take the department, what their emphasis are going to be, and I can express to him the things that I'm concerned about. And usually it's a pretty collegial process because it is about the well being of the
United States of America. It is about making sure that our country remains safe and strong, especially when it comes to the Department of Defense. But he's only met with Republicans, and he's only going to make himself available to meet with me after I'm going probably after I'm going to be asked to vote for him. So I'm only going to get some minutes to ask him questions. And you know,
he's a TV personality. He'll stall and not answer questions, and then we won't get answers to our questions, and then I'm going to be asked to vote for him.
So there are a lot of people who are pretty cynical at this moment on the left and the right about Trump getting his nominations through. Pete Hagg said, he has no history managing an organization, especially one with three million plus people. Do you think that you know they have enough Republicans to get these people through?
Do you think there.
Are Republicans you are in the setting, but in the Senate a while, and you know a lot of these people really, well, are there any Republicans where you have faith that they will take their article to responsibilities?
Seriously?
If you asked me that question a couple of weeks ago, my answer would have been yes. But unfortunately, what I see now is that some of my Republican colleagues who have spoken out about their concerns to miss a hexseth immediately came under just a huge onslaught of attacks from Resident Trump along with other you know, leaders in the Maga Republican wing, to the point where now they have walked back some of their concerns. So I worry that
they will bow to the pressure. I hope they won't realize wn't happen yet, but we'll see, We'll see what happens.
So you really think they're just I mean, because we've all had our time in the barrel in Maga world. So you really think these people, even though they have security, even though you know, we've seen people like Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, we know what happens. Like, you really think they can't stand up to Trump.
Well, they could, but they probably won't be Senators very long. I mean, Romney could not get re elected in Utah, which is why he retired. So I guess it depends on whether my colleagues choose country over self. I hope they choose country.
But what I saw in the last weeks was that Murkowski did complain about the mag of movement on Jony Earnst, Like, do you think that that is because there's some sense that she may do the right thing, or do you think that that is just talk.
I hope that she should do the right thing, but we won't know until then. The best that I can do is do my job and ask mis the hex seth questions that show whether or not he's qualified to do the job, and make it clear that if you vote for this guy, you're voting for someone who is absolutely unqualified to do this job.
So I read reporting today that a bunch of Republicans do not feel that Tolsey Gabbert is actually not going to make it through. Do you think there's a certain sacrificial lamb math here, or do you think that some of these Republicans do have a spawn.
I hope that my Republican colleagues she used to put the national security of the United States of America above their own personal loyalty to President Trump. None of us swore an oath to the President of the United States. We saw an earth of defender constitution, and so I hope that maybe you know, more of them will step up and say, we can't get somebody who met with and was essentially a talking point for Bashar Assad to
be Director of National Intelligence. We don't think that somebody who has never commanded a unit larger than leading an infantry platoon should be in charge of three million personnel. I hope that my colleagues would do the right thing, but I won't know until the votes are cast.
So we'll see.
The person who keeps me up at night is cash Battal. Does Cash Battel's hearing go after the other cabinet secretaries? And is there any sense in which there's kind of a more of a fullsome conversation about him as an FBI like a bunch of these nominees seem like very unusual, strange, inappropriate, but he seems like a whole other level.
He keeps me up at night as well to think that this is the position that he's been nominated, and frankly, if the likes of cash Bertel or Trolsa Gabbert are confirmed, I don't think our allies will work with us. I mean, if I were our allies, I would immediately cut off all intelligence sharing with the United States because I wouldn't trust it would be true rule of law in the United States and true guarding of intelligence information in the
United States with the two of them in charge. And frankly, that will put many assets in deep jeopardy and could result in god forbid that the death of our troops who are going to have to be in harm's way because we're not going to receive information that could keep our troops safe overseas.
Yeah, I think that's a real worry. That seems like a nonpartisan worry. I mean, I know it's not a trumpest worry because Trump has appointed her. But you must see Republicans who can relate to this.
I know that they can relate to it, But whether or not they will act on that is, you know, not something that I can predict. Were this, you know, six years ago, when you had folks around like Amid Ronney, or if you had John McCain, if you had some other folks. Yeah, but those folks are all gone.
Yeah, but there are still.
I mean, you don't have faith in like Collins and Murkowski.
And Collin's voted for Kavanaugh.
Yeah, it's true.
So talk to me about Senate Democrats and what you guys are doing to sort of try to sort of hold the line on some of Trump's scarier policies.
Well, we are united in our effort to stop these policies that we feel will be harmful to the United States. We are going to do everything we can to stop these policies that are harmful to working Americans. We're going to make sure that when they try to pay for their billionaire tax cuts by cutting Medicare and mediciate, that we're going to do everything we can to make sure the American people know what they're doing and to slow
them down and try to stop them. And with the case of Missa Hexseeth, the best thing we can do is at this hearing to ask questions that Americans can look at it and say, oh, you know what, that wasn't partisan, that actually was something that makes sense.
You know what do you mean?
He has never led an organization larger than forty people, So so really speak to whether or not these people can do their jobs. From the fact that Tozy Gabbert was called a Russian asset by state controlled media in Russia should worry people.
Yeah, I mean agreed. And it's also a real question about sort of how the government works. Trump has a lot We know that there are a lot of executive orders coming down the pike. We don't totally know what they are, but there's a lot of them are pretty dystopian. What can you guys do in the United States Senate to come up the works?
I mean, there's a lot of procedural things that we can do. And part of it is also just shining a light on what is happening. Because when you shine a strong enough light and there's enough pushback, you do win. I mean, they tried to end the Affordable Care at the last time around, and we were able to stop
that from happening because we rallied the American people. The Republicans said that the Packed Act was too expensive, and we shined a light on that and rallied Americans around, and so that shame Republicans to voting to support the Packed Act. So that our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans can actually get the care that they need that they've been
injured in their service of this country. So the best thing we can do is to be as open and shine as strong a light as possible on these tactics of theirs.
Because what I'm struck by is like when you think about the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court we know is heavily trumpy, but we did see with this immunity decision that five to four they said, like the.
President is not a king.
Now they've done a lot of other very trumpy things that struck me as a little bit surprising, and perhaps, I mean, of course this is norms crushing all of it, but I just am curious.
Well, yes, they have a lifetime appointment senators.
Right, but senators have long I mean long terms, and people like Tillis, I mean Tillis is in a swing state, Collins is in a blue state. I mean, the calculus of getting re elected. You think that's largely what's happening.
Oh, I think so again. I bring up Mitt Romie, a former Republican presidential candidate from Utah, could not win in a primary to be re elected and has left. Right, that's the consequence of standing up to Donald Trump. That is a consequence of putting country above Donald Trump.
Right, yeah, no, it's worth thinking about. Thank you, thank you, No mo pftly Jesse.
Cannon by Jung Fast. You know, one of the things that we've been using as a tool to sleep well at night is that these people make big claims and they can't do it. You know, we now have the Golf of egg prices, I mean, I'm sorry, the Gulf of America. And then we had that Elon Musk was going to cut the government by at least two jillion dollars. It's looking like that ain't going to happen.
Yeah, so you'll be shocked to find out that Doge is just not is anyone somebody who was going to cut the federal government by at least.
Two trillion dollars. But you know, here's the thing.
He's very busy interfering with all of the other things. Look, you know, interfering with the German election, interfering with the British election, making fun of Trudeau. Listen, Donald Trump is putting Elon Musk in this weird fake government position. Elon Musk is getting all of his very rich friends. They're going to fix the federal government. No one has ever thought of this before. Let me just point out that, like we're watching in real time, Elon discover how the
federal government works. It does a lot of stuff besides give him tax incentives that made him the richest man in the world who knew Well, see, you know, I actually think he's going to try to cut a lot of stuff, and I don't think that it's going to work.
But he's already hedging.
And he says he was asked by Mark Penn, famous liberal Mark Penn, who writes pieces for The New York Times about what liberals should do.
One might say, the king of concern trolling.
Right, this famous liberal Mark Penn, who is most famous for trying to use no labels to stymy democratic legislation.
I thought he was most famous for giving Hillary Quinton the advice that helped her lose to Barack Obama.
Yes, he's also famous for that, Mark Penn. That's right.
That Mark Penn was sitting with Elon because he's such a liberal, and Elon wants to give interviews to liberals so clearly, and he was interviewing him, and Elon said what all of us thought which is I think we'll try for two trillion. I think that's the best case outcome. Must responded, but I do think you kind of have to have some overage. I think if we try for two trillion, we'll get to one trillion, all right, So that is about half of what he's saying.
And if you're just making up numbers, why the fuck not.
This is vindicating for budget specialists and also for people who have half a brain who have been deeply skeptical about Musk's claim from the jump about any of this. Look, everyone likes the hollowed out carcass that is Twitter. It works really well for the nine people who are still on there. He's going to do that. He's going to hope he's going to try to do that to the federal government, and let's hope he can.
I know that Doze is named after a dog, and I think we have a sleeping dog that's going to lie.
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