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 Congressoman Lauren Bobert says, I am not doing that when asked about the two hundred billion dollars supplemental for Iran. We have such a great show for you today. The nation's gene here stops by to talk about the very stupid ways Donald Trump is navigating
the Iran war, the Iranian War. Then we'll talk to the bulwarks, Will sommer about the many strains of anti Semitism circling MAGA. But first the.
News, Smiley, this headline is just unbelievable. Global oil prices struck in triple digits. We have one hundred and ten dollars a gallon oil now and Goldman sex as it may stay there for years. As I've been reporting diligent reporting on my part. I walked to my corner. I look at the gas station. We're up a dollar and sixty cents since this war started.
Who could have told us that going to war in the Middle East would make gas more expensive? Everyone would have told you that, literally everyone.
It literally sounds like every day we read a report that it's like this person had told them that this would happen.
I mean, we were there, we were alive, Like we know what happens. And what happens is that if you go to war in the Middle East, and especially with a country that has a strait that where twenty percent of all oil, gas and fertilizer goes through that when they close it, everything is going to get more expensive. This is like tariffs, but stupider, totally unforced error, completely
self created. And by the way, when you talk to oil people, when you talk to the people who are trading in these markets, they say that we are not going to be able to get back online for a long time. That this is going to be like the supply chain stuff during COVID. Oil is going to be more expensive, Fertilizer is going to be more expensive. Food's going to be more expensive. Plan tickets are going to
be more expensive. You are going to feel this. Even if Donald Trump said the war is over, we win tomorrow, he won't be able to put the genie back in the bottle.
Yeah, so, Mollie, many people were shocked this morning that Trump put out a policy report. Oh my god, like this doesn't happen, but it was on AI. And you'll be really shocked to hear that it's basically trying to block states from being able to regulate AI because this administration is totally captured by the AI bosses.
Yeah, you'll be surprised to know that Trump's policies are just nothing, no regulation, no anything. Now, the good news for Trump is the democrats policies when it comes to technology are also nothing. So we are going to likely be ruled by AI OVERLA. I mean, who even knows
what they'll do. It's not going to be good. Congress should pre eminently state, by the way, Congress, you'll remember Congress as the thing Donald Trump almost always ignores, should preempt state AI laws that impose undo burdens to ensure a minimally burdensome national standard consistent with these recommendations, not fifty discording ones. Here's what it is. Donald Trump gets a lot of money from the AI lobby, just like a lot of other politicians, just like Chuck Schumer, god
love them, has a kid who works in technology. All of these people are low key compromised by the tech lobby. Sorry to tell you this is what it is. And so here we have Donald Trump trying to prevent state regulation. Here's the thing, and you're going to see a lot of ads about kid safety. Do you know why you're going to see a lot of ads about kid safety? Tell me, because kid safety is the low hanging fruit, right,
the idea that chatbots are making children kill themselves. Like if you were a government that was going to regulate anything, that might be one of the things, you know, like kids aren't supposed to smoke cigarettes, you use seatbelts, like these are things that we have learned in this century would be useful, should be useful. But that is not what's happening here, right. They are trying to make it so that there's no regulation. What I think will happen
because I'm seeing this more and more is that. And you'll see this when you hear ads for like meta meta we care about your kids. They don't care about your kids, but they care about regulation. And then you don't want to be regulated, and so they'll do lots about that, say like we care about your kids, we
care about online safety. What they're doing here is gas lighting you into thinking that they care about your kids in online safety, so that the government doesn't regulate them or they don't have to do any kind of safety. That's real.
Yep. And it's very funny. When you read the Trade magazine's documentaries right now, all you see is every documentary is on protecting kids from social media and AI. Yeah, but why so this is a really fun report from the Times an Aran Gaberd turned intelligence duties over to Trump. That's like one of the worst headlines I've ever read in my life.
Yes, so here we are Telsey Gabbard again. Telsey Gabert's job is this PDB, this Presidential Daily Brief. We know Donald Trump doesn't read it. We knew this, We've heard this, he said it. I don't know how they get it to him. So this is a headline that is about a hearing where during the Senate Intelligence Committee, Gabbard was asked whether or not Trump knew or whether or not she told Trump that there was an imminent threat, that
Iran posed an imminent threat. And what they were trying to do here was trying to get her to say what everybody knew, which was that well, Iran might have gotten nuclear weapons, they didn't have them yet, and so this was actually not imminent. Was it could have happened in a year, could have happened in two years. Yes, but there was the reason he went in was because you know, it wasn't because they were about to blow us up. But Tulsea just wanted to not answer this question,
so she did everything she could to punt it. And here we get this headline. And again what is worth seeing is like these people and in mister Kent's letter, we talk about Joe Kent later in this episode where we talk about how he is really not a hero because he's resigning largely because of anti Semitism, But in this letter he writes that or On pose no imminence threat to our nation, which is what everyone else says. So instead of saying the truth, Tulsea had to sort
of bob and weave through it. This is You're going to see this more and more. You're going to see this more and more because there's so much lying and there's so much dishonesty coming out of this advent that you see people trying to bomb and weave their way through, and so it's worth just like watching it. Eventually, some of these people will get in trouble for lying to Congress if we survive.
Yeah, I have to give you a report from one of the most dogged journalists in journalism on the subject that just came in. It's one Laura Lumer. She says, Scoop Tolci Gabbert's political staff expect that she's about to resign following the resignation of her colleague Joe Ken What for those that following at home or a lumber is
not a reliable reporter. But this is very, very funny since it does not really align with her behavior ear So we'll see how it plays out because we can never tell because all the liars are always lying.
Whoa correct?
Speaking of the liars lying, the Trump team changed a report to hide how bad Doge made things, particularly with wait times at the Social Security Administration.
Yes, so Doege cut the government and made everything just completely fucked in every which way, and now they are trying to hide what they did. So the Social Security Administration shows that just like the TSA, you're going to be waiting a long time, about forty six minutes to more than two hours. And this detail, which seems like a big deal, was taken out of the Trump administration report on that you know why, because these people are big liars and so they take stuff out and this
is how we got here. We have exciting news over at our YouTube channel. The third episode is out now from our series Project twenty twenty nine, Imagining, where we examine what went wrong with democrats approach to policy and how we can correct it and deliver changes for the American people. The first episodes dove into campaign finance, reform, anti trust and regulation. Our newest episode is on how
we solidify reproductive rights for women. We talk to the smartest names in the field like Abortion every Day is Jessica Valenti, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Nancy Northam, UCLA is oh and Mary Ziegler and the gout Macher Institute's Kelly Badden. Republicans were prepared for when they got the levers of power. Democrats need to be too. So please head over to YouTube and search Molly John Fast Project twenty twenty nine or go to the Fast Politics YouTube
channel page and you'll find it there. Help us spread the word here as a contributor to the nation and the host of the Time of Monsters. Welcome, Welcome, ged.
Here, Welcome Molly.
You are here to talk about America's forever wars.
Wait wait wait wait wait wait no, no, no, we elected a MAGA president who promised no more forever wars and also that he would deal with the inflation and affordability crisis.
I don't know what you're talking about.
No more forever wars except for this one.
Yes, because we just like almost war alcoholism, So you know that that's always great logic.
One last one. This is it. We're gonna We're gonna put now. I'm sure has having those thoughts on both alcohol and war.
Right now, I still have a little money in my bank account, and so I'm just gonna stop off at this bar right next to the casino.
That's it, that's right.
Yeah, Obviously things are not going well with the frever war, you know, like obviously a lot of people have drawn the in lga with Iraq in two thousand and three, and there's something there. And I actually think one of the things we're witnessing now is that the insurgency in Iraq is.
Building up again. I mean, this is one of the old big worries. And I believe that the US is trying to evacuate the Green Zone. It was just like the web. There were a hold onto during the Iraq War.
I think listen, you should also think about another moment in American history, which is like nineteen sixty five where Lindon Johnson was drawn into Vietnam with Operation Rolling Thunder. I think it's more pertinent because the Iraq War, will remember, was sold to the American public. There was a big pr campaign weapons of mass destruction, don't let the woking
gun be a mushroom cloud. Yeah, there's some of that, but I mean it's what's interesting here is like there's actually not really been a real effort to sell this, and it's more like the physician Lyndon Johnson found himself in where you know, like against I think Johnson's better judgment, he was kind of like Railroad had been presented a set of bad options where it's sold like you know, you're you're either going to lose or you have to
send in another undred thousand troops, another two hundred thousand troops.
It was that sort of you.
Know, sinking into alcoholism situation where like you know, just a little bit more, you're going to start feeling better.
And so now we're seeing like you know, like.
The calls for like sending the Marines to the Strait of Hormuz and also Petexas.
Like we just think that another two hundred billion dollars.
Which is the cost of all of the Ukraine war stuff. It's to this moment, it's a little more. It's actually twenty billion dollars. I mean, who's counting when you get into those numbers. But it's funny because I actually was thinking about Vietnam too, and I was thinking about it because there was that same kind I mean though that said Vietnam was at least like there was we were going to bring democracy, whereas we were going to end communism. Right there was an anti communist.
Yeah, there was an ideological restaurantal Yeah.
Wait, there is almost no ideological anything for this.
Right yeah, yeah, no, no, no, I mean I think Islamophobia.
I mean, yeah, well.
They're we're trying to revive that has like you know that obviously appeals to the MAGA account, but it doesn't have a wider popular purchase. I mean, there hasn't been a lot of very good justifications for the war. I mean, I think in some ways it was sold to Trump. To the Venezuela example, like you know, Venezuela went very well, you know, and this is something Crup wants to be doing stuff, And this is something a president can do,
is the domestic stuff, Carter. What we're increasingly seeing is is the divergence of agendas. I mean, like Natanyao's agenda is very clear, which is like he wants regime collapse in Iran, which is not something that US wants, right as other than that, something open the American allies want in the abilities to earn Europe like that would be like a serial level of catastrophe.
Yeah, it's interesting because clearly he was goaded into this by Israel. Plus also perhaps you know, he had Wickoff and Jared go in to negotiate, two people who are unapologetically very Zionist and very close with Nan Yahu. So you had negotiators who were a not skilled in negotiating, be had a horse in this race when it comes to Israel.
Yeah, and also I see like don't know anything about the come up with so the people who actually like know what around was offering were saying, like, wow, this is actually like a good deal.
You know.
Jarrek Kistner's history at Woodcoff's knowledge of New York real estate is not actually.
Translate to dollarge of nuclear negotiations.
And furthermore, they've actually like purged the State Department and the government of like all the people who have any knowledge of the region and could like be offering advice. I mean, I think there's a lot of backers, and
you know, I did emphasize that in Yahoo. But I also, you know, like in some ways that's been used as an excuse by some of the MAGA people like Tucker Carlston to say, you know, like well, you know this Israeli trick to Trump, but you know, like Trump went along with us, and it's worth asking like why he did. And I think a lot of it was sugar high he got out of Venezuela La, which I think now in Yucker's back was.
Kind of done to convince him of this.
And it is like the way Rumsfield had conducted the Afghan War like a light footprint, basically paying awful lot of people so it looked like a quick, easy and letting bin Laden run away loaded, so it looked like a light, easy war.
That Junior was like, oh, wars aren't good and.
Easy, right, I think that's a really good point. But I want to go back to Vietnam for a minute, because what happened with Vietnam is really I think worse thinking about for a minute, because we had more that we could not get out of.
Yeah, yeah, for.
Pretty much, I mean president after president. One of the things with Iran is that it's a huge country, right, It makes a rock look like Rhode Island. So I want you to talk about besides the twenty percent of all liquid natural gap you know, LNG and oil and fertilizer that go through the Strait, there's still also which is a huge country, and if the regime fell, you would have a refugee crisis, like you can't believe.
Yeah, I know, I know that's absolutely the case.
I mean, I mean there's two possible situations, both of which are bad. Which is one is that they could I think the more likely one is that actually the regime won't fall, and this is apparently what the intelligence community thinks, that it's actually quite a resilient regime.
I mean, I think one.
Thing is that it is not unlike you know, Saddam Hussein's Iraq. It is not just a preserved personality cult of a family, and it's retainers. It has an ideologic and ideology and also a wide popular base. I mean the Iranian Revolution, if you look at the ir GC, you know, you're talking about like hundreds of thousands of people and their families, which was like prepared for all this.
I mean like they knew, oh you know, because they've had twenty five years of experience of this, the really can kill their leaders and they had the dispersed leadership and dispersed group. So but also like just as you mentioned the terrain, it's like a vast be lots of mountains. They have like done a lot of digging, there's a lot of like the radio that it's like deep underground, which again the Vietnam analogy, like you have a people that are prepared for war, that are prepared to like
live underground to find dead. And the other aspect is that the nature of war has changed. We've seen this in Ukraine that grown technology gives us certain advantage over American high tech, which we haven't really the American military hasn't been able to grapple with and so so the you know, there's actually quite a resilient and powerful regime.
So but that's actually the best case scenario around holds and continues to to voke because yeah, I was thinking, which is actually he thought, you know, we just need to send in a few more marines and then this whole thing will collapse. And the thing is, like, you know, like their idea is first of all, they're they're they're fostering they're allied with like groups that are very unpopular with.
The two big groups that the US has allied with are the Family of the Shah, the monarchy, you know, which is like you know, like exactly these people who are like, you know, the real housewives of Los Angeles, right, yeah, you haven't been in the country for forty years, and are you know, not going to be popular. And then also another group called the m K, which is like a formerly Marxist cult with their own version of Islam,
which is like hugely hated in Iran as well. So the Israeli strategy is to like use these outside group to foment this and and.
To like foster civil war. Civil war.
Yes, and they think, you know, like as in Syria, that this would actually be good for them, But I mean, like I don't think it's actually good. We already saw what Syria did like to the region, huge refugee crisis. Yeah, it's and also like a state collapse of a state that has a lot of weapons. I actually has like nuclear material. People they're like they like, just like game this out here, where this could go. There's a lot of very bad directions.
Yes, And it's also just a huge country. You know, it's like a third of America. I mean, it's these is a lot of people to get going into a war. What I want to talk about with you is the censorship in the rest of the golf, because there is this very interesting phenomenon happening in the golf where you have all of these very modern Islamic states, right, you know, we have the Emirates, we have Katar. We have countries that are like what Lebanon was supposed to be. They
are fabulous countries. I mean, you couldn't have problems with the way they were built or how they run because they used slave labor, which is unacceptable. But they have you know, hotels and casinos and people live there so they don't have to pay taxes. And it's very European and you know that was something that was not in Go War one, Golf War two. We didn't have them. We didn't you're you know, it wasn't all built up
like that. These countries have a lot of censorship. Yes, So if you're a social media influencer, which like eighty percent of Dubai is, you can't necessarily share what you're seeing. I want you to talk through what that means for this moment.
Yeah, I mean, obviously there's a lot of censorship.
It does seem like there's a lot of reasons to think that the Iranian has been actually like getting through a lot of their drones and missilets and causing a lot of damage. And if you just think about the sort of social structure of these societies, as you said, like there's kind of like a great places to be rich.
It is like, you know, like getting Beverly Hills as you're being like, you know, the unit for war, right, like let's organize the militia of Beverly Hills, you know, like society or sociologically, you're talking about ten percent of the population that are these Arab monarch you know, royal families, another ten percent are the European tax cheats, eighty percent are like indentured servants like the Philippies, in India, you know.
Like that's so like a warrior society.
Like I know a lot of what the US has been trying to just encouraged these societies as the ones that are going to join in and in the war, which is like I don't actually see it, and I already want to see all sorts of like sort of side effects, one of which is like these are you know, Katar, we know had bribed Trump, but they're also had been giving huge amounts of money to El Mousk Silicon Valley,
funding all the AI stuff. And now you're seeing a lot of the AI people, but they're really worried, you know, like you know, okay, do not an assessor sound bite. You remember what Trump did the Board of Piece and they talked about let's turn Gaza into Dubai. Well, actually they turned Dubai, as my friend David Cleon said, They've turned Dubai into Gaza.
You know, I mean not quite yet, but that's.
They're getting there. They're getting there, yeah, but.
We can't tell because it's illegal if your social media influencer to share these videos. So we saw a few of them.
Said Israel as well.
I mean like it's actually astonishing the difference between what is one is served peering from people in Israel and like the complete dearth of images. But yeah, yeah, I mean, like this war is having a huge impact on these areas.
And we're not seeing any of that, yeah, which is kind of strange. Like it's funny because I always think about, like my grandfather blacklisted during the House of an American activities in the nineteen forties, late forties, early fifties. I always say, like the media then was very regulated, right, they had censorship. You know, you couldn't show things unless you were allowed to show them. You had to clear things with the government. Well, the Trump government is probably
a little more nefarious. It's not so much more nefarious than those old governments in the fifties and sixties where they had their finger on the scale. But with the Internet, with TikTok, with Instagram, the censorship is pretty intense.
It's incredibly intense.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know we're not getting a good image of the war. I mean there's also like you know, in terms of like the government census show, I mean the casualty figures, yeah, oc casually they sort of late leak out, and the thing is like you know, there's like the people killed, but like you know, like as we saw in Iraq, like actually the vast number of
people who are like wounded or traumatized or whatever. And we have like no sense of that except that it already seems to be like at least in the hundreds, you know, if not thousands. But obviously the governments in the region have some sense, and they I mean ideal. I think the Gulf States are so trapped between pressure from the America to join in, and you know, their anger at Iran for being attacked, but also their anger at the US and Israel for like having caused this war.
And if you look at like Trump's like he did actually did a tweet this morning, his returnal strategy is to say to NATO and to the Gulf State allies, you know, we don't need you, your pathetic, your losers. Oh by the way, can you help us this strait of from us? You know, it's is like literally you start tweeting out this morning, and I mean it's basically a neggting strategy, you know, like while you're disgusting and pathetic, let's go for dinner.
Yeah, And it is like the Europeans. And it's funny because I was just talking to different people are in Europe and they really fucking hate US. I mean, you're in Canada, so you can tell me about this, but like the Europeans hate US. Everyone in Scandinavia fucking hates US for the Greenland staff, Like, so talk us to what our allies look like at this moment.
Yeah, I yeah, I mean I think that's exactly right. I think there's like a huge intense level of anti Americans on a popular level, Like I think, yeah, like you know, I know you want to see it impulse. I mean, like the US is now considered you know, more grain gifts in China in like all the ally countries. I mean on the government level, like obviously you have governments that are tied into NATO that are relying on
US military exports for things like the Ukraine War. And so therefore I started like walking on tiptoes, but are also like kind of thinking like how.
Do we get out of this?
How do we like you know, it's like you're in a toxic relationship and you got to think, like, Okay, what stuff can I move into my friend's house? Like today, so so so that like, you know, like if I have to run away next week, everything is in place,
like what bank accounts will have to change. I think people are looking for an exit strategy, not just from Trump but from the US, and I think that's what Carney's uh, you know, famous speech was all about, Like not about immediate action because they are really tied to the US in a lot of ways, but long term, like you know, like how we build ties with China, right that are at least not run by lunatics.
It's so dark, It is so incredibly dark.
I mean, I'm all a find of the Chinese government, but like they have at least some interesting stability like they seem to want to have, like the world trade run smoothly. I mean we're basically heavy towards a global depression that was caused by two men like Trump and Nehingahu. The larger consequences of that for both Israel and the United States are like, you know, they're not going to be good.
Yeah gee, thank you, thank you.
Oh, but the fund never ends.
Will Sohmer is a reporter at The Bulwark and the author of Trust the Plan. Hello Will Soma.
Hey, thanks for having me back.
Do you remember when we used to know. Anyway, I was going to reminisce, but no one wants.
That good old days.
Yes, the good old days. Okay, now we have the good new days. Candace Owens versus Erica Kirk discuss Yeah.
So you know, obviously this has been going on for a couple months, but as we join here today, there's been a bit of a development. Candace or her or sort of her acolytes, appear to have gotten their hands on Erica Kirk's shopping registry or shopping history at the Aloe Yoga Company. People may know these are the ubiquitous clothes and the hats with the logo. You know, if you're on vander Pumper rules, you're probably wearing them a lot.
It's yoga clothing that basically just looks like it comes from the gap.
Yes, and you know, not my style, but people love it.
Very expensive.
So this week someone got her Erica's essentially receipts. Presumably someone within the ALO leaked her shopping history and it showed that I think the day after Charlie Kirk was shot, she had bought a bunch of clothes at ALO. And now this was well, there's an explanation. But basically, you know, this plays into the kind of like Erica Kirk is this feeling, this queen who went on a on a you know, an aloe shopping spree after her husband's murder.
Now one of Erica's associates has said, well, you know, we had to fly out to Utah. No one had any clothes because we didn't pack bags, and so she gave me her credit card to go buy some outfits for people, which I think makes some sense. But this is really being taken as like, you know, just another a bit of a proof of the conspiracy theory.
This is so stupid. I'm sorry, I so, but I want to We're going to talk about this for another minute. So Candice Owens basically believes that Charlie Kirk was murdered for speaking out about Israel.
That's right, yes, And like you know, it can be a little hard to like get a handle on it because there's like so many characters. Like at some point she'll say the French Foreign Legion was involved, or she said that there was like a cult that worships bees that might have been involved. But kind of where it stands the like it's sort of the one takeaway that you should have is that you know, yes, she thinks Charlie Kirk was murdered for opposing a future or with Iran and Israel, did it okay?
Candice Owens really hate Macrone and he's like, she's like obsessed with missus McCrone. I want you to talk about that backstory. You've come on and talked about it before, but just explain why France might figure into this.
Yeah, So when she left the Daily Wire, she was looking for kind of like a thing that would you know, make her career big, and she latched onto these old claims that Brigitte Macrone, the first Lady of France, is trans and not just that, but that she's part of a sort of centuries old criminal trans cabal that is also needless to say, Jewish, and so she.
One would hope.
So she got really into this and now the Macrones are suing her, you know, I think credibly she's claimed that Trump with the Macrones asked Trump to to shut her up essentially, and so now of course the Macrones have been folded into this, and it's a convenient conspiracy theory to sort of act like anything French or French American or anything is evil because you'll look, I mean, French is the major economy, so you look around and you go, oh my gosh, this guy's French. Or the
DuPont family, the Pont Chemical company is French. And so so it's a very lucrative, you know, vein for her to mine.
I also think that when we talk about Candace, she's constantly this is a thing conspiracy theorists do. She's constantly trying to connect things. Yes, so France, McCrone, anti trans, anti Semitism, like there are different veins in the party where they're already I mean, MAGA has already anti Semites and it has anti trans people. So this is a way to get all of those different groups engaged, right, Yeah.
I mean I think you're right on the money. I mean, and you can you know, you can draw in. I mean, she all these characters are people that you know, she's kind of slimed in the past. Or she'll say, well, you know, Harrika Kirk went to a charter school, and you know who really promotes charter schools as Bill Gates,
and you know we all know about Bill Gates. And then you know, I mean, it is these things that are so broad, Like she'll say this charter school had a lot of Jewish teachers, you know, like, you know, what do you think of that? So you know, she's pulling in all these things, and she's playing on this kind of post October seventh, this discontent among young people, even a lot of young Republicans with Israel, and so she's kind of drawing all these different threads in.
Now.
One of the things that I think is really important to sort of pause and talk about here for a minute is that her anti Semitism. She felt that Charlie Kirk was kind of hers Yes, I want you to talk that through.
This is interesting. I mean there's obviously a lot of speculation that because you know she's out with this series, this Bride of Charlie suggesting you know, after for a while she was going after the French Foreign Legion or whatever. And then now in the past, you know, ever since they had this kind of peace summit broker by Megan Kelly in December that pos did not work, and now I mean, who better of a conciliator And now she's
sort of directly hitting her, hitting Erica Kirk. And so you know, people are saying oh, you know, Candice was in love with Charlie Kirk. All this stuff me. I don't like to speculate. However, I will say in the past couple of weeks it's gotten a bit odd. She's saying, well, here's Eric Kirk telling the story of how she met Charlie, and it's like they were in an airport whatever, they
bumped in on it. But then Cannas says, but what Erica Kirk leaves out is that I was there too, and you know why she cutting me out of the story. And if you take this out outside of the realm of politics and YouTube drama and whatever, if you had a situation where there was like a girl best friend who was saying and then his girlfriend never mentions how that I was there when they met, you say, huh, is there something going on here? Is this an affair of the heart.
It is also, though, easy to love someone who's no longer here, right, Like, it's part of that. You can lieonize someone who's dead, especially someone who gets murdered. But what I want to talk about here is that Candace is actually super popular. This is not some rando like you know, we've been talking. You and I for years and years and years, and it used to be these people were really on the fringes, right. You would go to Seapack, you would see the guy with the brick
wall suit, you would see the MyPillow guy. You would think, well, these are very fringe characters, and yes they're hilarious, but they're really on the outskirts. But explain to our listeners just how popular Candice Owans is, because she is, like I mean, she's basically she's got a sort of level of fame that is pretty intense.
Yeah. I mean the brick wall suit guy, you know, his name is brick Suit. He's basically the Republican establishment at this point. Is he'll go out there and say like, well the canus is getting a little crazy, you know, I think, I mean, she's really enormously popular. And that's a good thing to underline in a way that I think a lot of these people, even like someone like Laura Lumer, who like is interesting, it is influential in her own way. But Cannas has broken out into kind
of the broader, mainstream, non Trump world like d git celebrity. Oh, I mean, her podcast right now is kind of trading the number one spot with Rogan on Apple and so I mean, this is like really an enormous thing. And when you watch her show, and I mean, you know, it is really like, you know, she's endorsed the idea that like Jewish people drink children's blood and stuff. I mean it is like Hidlarry Levels stuff, and all these
people are consuming it. I mean, I was getting my haircut and the barber was, you know, otherwise a liberal woman, and she said, you know, oh, but you know, I gotta say Kennist was really onto something with this idea that Erica Kirk murdered her husband what And I hear this a lot just kind of out in the world, and so you know, it's you know, each of her videos is pulling three four million on YouTube, which is are like enormous numbers, and she's doing it four times
a week, I think. And so I mean, this is someone who does really have a lot of influence in the culture. Broadly.
We're going to talk about Lumour to get us to Joe Kent. I saw a tweet yesterday from Laura Lumor that I was convinced was not real. Do you know the tweet I'm talking about.
Well, she just met with the Dali Lama?
Was that it?
Did she really meet with the Dali Lama.
She's on the tour of India, She's on her Nirvana quest.
Oh man, No, I'm going to read you this tweet because I think it's really important, and it's also more important than that. It also I think speaks to some of what's happening now in this I literally saw it and I was like, that can't be real. You know, as I do many times a day, that can't be real. I used to mock Democrats when they said the future of the GOP is Nazism. They were not wrong. Tucker
has been glorifying Hitler on his show. Kent lost his congressional campaign when he was exposed for going on a Nazi adjacent podcast. This is after Cernovich said a Tucker Carlson Joe Kent ticket would steamroller anything Democrats or Republicans could bring.
Go.
Yeah. I mean, honestly, I too have been thinking about the Tucker Carlson Joe Kent ticket. So yeah. So, Laura, it's funny. I think when she's referring to the Nazi adjacent podcast, I think she's talking about Joe Kent's sort of frenemy relationship with Nick Fuentes. Now, who else has hung out a lot with Nick Fuentes and appeared at his conferences.
Laura Louverer.
This idea, I mean, I mean she's right on, Like, I mean, there is this like Groyper, the Nick Fuente's followers. I mean, we see like every few months we get a young Republican operative racist group chat leak where I mean the people who are really kind of like the future of the Republican Party are just like insanely racist. I mean, there was one that came out among Miami operatives a few weeks ago that was just nuts. So, I mean, I think she's right on there. I mean
she's in a sort of challenging position. A lot of the energy, the dynamoism in right wing media right now, unfortunately, is with these anti Semites. People who kind of play with it, are deep in it, you know, whether it's Nick Fente's, Tucker Carlson, Candastanes and Laura is Jewish obviously and very pro Israel, and so she's kind of stuck in this world with Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin, I
think they're losing audience share. I mean I think on one hand, I mean, obviously they were able to get a war with Iran, But I think that like.
She puts too fine a point of yeah, I.
Mean, she's kind of jammed up there, and so I think now she's belatedly realizing, like, wait a minute, was it wrong for me to platform a Holocaust? And I are like Nick went'es, like, you know, I don't think they're the's gonna be a ton of introspection there.
So let's talk about this idea that we're seeing this anti semitism vein, because I want you to tell the story of Joe Kent. He works under Tulsi in whatever it is Tulsi does, he decides to resign. This is like, we have yet to see anyone break with Trump as right, You basically can only get kicked out if you do a grift so big it's like the same amount of money as making two Barbies, right the movie. But otherwise
you can't. You basically can't ever get kicked out. And nobody ever breaks with him despite the fact that he's doing absolutely the opposite of everything he promised on the campaign, except Joe Kent. So talk us through that.
I mean, Joe Ken had this. You know, he ran for Congress twice. He got beat by Marie Glues and camp Perez is obviously kind of a prominent politician herself, but he was really this guy that I think people in this more at the America first they're Marjorie Taylor Green, Tucker, Carlson wing thought. You know, he had this extensive military background. His wife was killed in an ISIS bombing, and so he had this kind of claim to be like, look, I'm like a tough national security guy, but I'm sick
of these forever wars. He had this real background, He's handsome, you know, he's kind of like it looks like a war guy. And so I think there was a lot of political hope placed on him. And as you said, he was working for Tulsea Gabbard. They're in this kind of like non Neocon wing of the administration. And I think him quitting is really interesting. For one thing, he didn't leave quietly. He didn't just sort of resign and lead us to assume why he'd resigned. You know, he
said Trump is being misled. I mean, he really went on the war path, and I think it puts an interesting amount of pressure. I think this war. If you look at the polls, yes, you know, eighty eighty five percent of Republican voters are okay with the war. But I don't think there's like a lot of like energy
like we gotta do the war. On the other hand, the opponents of the war are really energized, and I think in a few years or even a few months, this could be a situation where anyone who's sort of supported the war in the administration is going to be really damaged politically. And so Joe Kent is kind of raising the stakes and he's saying, I think if you want to run for president, someone like Marco Ruby or
j D. Dance. These people aren't going to resign obviously, but they're gonna, I think, face tougher questions about their role in the war because someone like Joe Kent was able to resign.
Joe Kent is not a Miles Taylor. We will not be seeing him on MSNBC. Explain why.
Yeah, I mean, he's a very unsaving guy. I mean in terms of his associations. You know, I mentioned Nick Fuentes, he had a proud Boy working for his campaign. He really kind of emerges from these right wing fever swamps. And if you read his resignation letter, he says, you know, well, my wife was killed in this war created by Israel. I mean we're talking about isis like the serience Civil War.
I guess you know. I mean he's a guy who's like very anti Israel, and it is coming from it from a very what we would you know, call like a paleocon, this kind of isolationist right wing point of view, someone who like you know, from the Steve Bannon point of view, is like anti semitism. Yeah, yeah, I mean anti semitism, this idea of like, well, we should not be doing these wars because I want to focus on using political capital for nefarious things domestically and like deportations.
And so you're right, he doesn't really fit into this sort of never Trump mold.
No, he is not going to be organ at the bulwark where you are.
He's not going to the cubicle next to me.
Yes, right, he's really like, you know, national socialist. Now, this is why he has such a tight relationship with Tucker. I want you to talk about this. So what the war has done has made the people who are anti war. So this is like the weird VENN diagram. Right, I'm anti war. I hate war. I think it's stupid, I think it's expensive. I think it's not our job. But Tucker Cross and his anti war but for a very
different reason. So explain sort of the anti Semitism, anti war stuff that we're seeing pop up in the party.
Sure, I mean, so there is this, you know, from people who are just sort of about American support to Israel. But then I think often that shades pretty easily into anti Semitism. Someone like Candice Owen's I mean, Tucker Carlson had said, you know, the Hubbab Jewish organization had sort of led America into this war. There is this sense I think of like, you know, once you start saying, you know, Israel's like pulling all the strings, I think
pretty quickly it becomes anti Semitic. There's just like a lot of energy in that group right now, even if the administration, I mean they seem to have very little influence over it. I mean, Tucker Carlson has claimed, you know, he was going to the White House to try to stop the war. Obviously he failed. Now both Tucker and Joe Kent are reportedly under some kind of Justice Department investigation, and so I think that group they have a lot
of energy with the grassroots. And that's why I think in a year or two, we're going to be looking at this as something really notable that he resigned.
One of the great things about this administration is you can't tell who's lying. So do you think they're under investigation? Do you think I'm going to give you multiple choice here. Do you think someone told them they were under investigation to scare them but they're not really under investigation, or do you think they're actually under investigation.
Well, let's say it one by one. I mean in the case of Joe Kent, I mean semaphore. Notice all these people have reported it with like mini sources that there is this leak investigation into Joe Kent, supposedly for a leaking to Tucker. I mean, come on, like Tucker's in the White House constantly. I mean, it strikes me it's not like he's leaking to Russia or something, you know, it strikes me as really pretextual.
And they said Tucker talking to foreign governments.
Yeah, well, and then that goes into the Tucker side of it. So he claimed that the CIA made a criminal referral to the Justice Department over his contacts with Iranians or people kind of associated with the Iranian cause. Tucker, it's obviously kind of a hard guy nailed down what's true. I suspect he's not making it up out of whole cloth. Mark Caputo did some reporting claiming that, well, there's not
a CIA investigation. But you know, I feel like these things could be shaded in different ways, And as you said, perhaps it was kind of like, hey watch out, Tucker. You know, maybe you should clam up a little bit. It's interesting, though, and I think if there were a prosecution of either of them, it would be I mean, obviously you don't need me to tell you. It would be an apollcable moment in the MAGA media civil war.
The idea of like we're going to send Joe Kent, this kind of martyr for this right wing anti war cause, We're going to try to send him to prison, particularly when the Trump administration has flouted has basically anyone who's a Trump supporter gets to break the law at will and get a pardon, I think would be crazy.
Yeah, one last question, because you keep mentioning this and I think it's important. I just want your opinion here. Do you feel like this anti Semitism, anti interventionist wing of the party is strong enough so that it might take over MAGA.
I think there's a very good chance it will take over MAGA. I mean, I think particularly when you talk about young people, you know, I think there's this kind of classic like the Boomer Cohn right, like these like
classic like Sean Hannity viewers. Obviously there's a lot of them, but you know they're not going to live forever and someday, I think when you just look at the young people, I mean, look, look, take another example, James fish Back down in Florida running for governor, a guy with an unbelievably terrible resume, a Charlotte and you know, more than two million dollars in deck currently, like just totally manufacture
this campaign at a whole cloth. And yet because he's aligned himself with Nick Fuentes, because he's been critical of Israel, he goes to the Dennys that have a campaign Evander the waffle House and he's mobbed with young people. And so look, he's not going to win the primary. But I think there is a real and if you had a candidate, you know, he obviously has these these allegations about a relationship with a seventeen year old when he
was in his twenties, this illegal relationship. If you had a candidate who wasn't facing all those issues, I think they'd be doing a lot better. And obviously there are a lot of them, and so I think potentially this kind of shows the way for these kind of groper
type candidates to have a lot more success. Not good, Molly, If I can make one more point, you can look at Megan Kelly, who I think is really kind of going where the wind blows, and she's very much avoiding fighting someone like Candace or Nick Fuentes, And I think that tells you all you need to know about the direction of the party.
Not great, not great, Thank you well.
So yeah, thanks for having me. They're no more perfectly.
Jesse Cannon, I jump fast.
Would you be shocked if I told you that the Trump administration is messing with the census to try to make it so that undocumented people are not counted and other things that will help them get Congress back since their policies are unpopular.
Yep, I would not be shocked. I would not be surprised. I would absolutely believe that one hundred percent. Is it true?
According to this article in one of our favorite newsletters, Notice it is true.
Yeah, I believe it. Trump World tried to fuck with the census in its first administration. They will do it again. I don't know if it works for them, but they're certainly going to try. That's what we're looking at here. So I believe it. I know it to be true. They're also going to make it very intrusive so that people won't necessarily want to fill it out because they'll be scared. Remember, world has this really scary ice situation where we do really find that a lot people are scared.
And again, that's why they want to use them for the midterms. That's why they want to put their finger on the scale with the census, because they know that none of this is popular. 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 send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.