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 Project twenty twenty five's Paul Dan's confessed on CNN during prime time to having deep ties to the Trump campaign. We have such a great show for you today. Investigative journalist Dave Troy tells us about Crypto Bros.
And their plot to sink.
The dollar and crash the United States economy and perhaps the world's economies. Then we'll talk to Janelle Bynum who's running in the fifth district of Oregon.
Refirst.
We have a reaction to the Harris Trump debate with the host of the Time of Monsters, the Nation's cheat Here.
Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Cheat Here always good to be honest, especially I think todight was a very delightful night.
Yeah, so let's talk about what happened there.
I think that the real is that it was not just a debate, but it was a bating debate, and that Tavala Harris is not just a master debater but a master baiter. That does sound right, that's about books joke anyways, But she did a masterful job of baiting Donald Trump, just like casually mentioning stuff that she knows would provoke him to go on like long, digressive tirades.
And that was just succeeded in like basically derailing him from his talking points and making him sound incredibly unhinged, which is I think it's harder thing to do than you would think. I think he's unhinged when he's speaking to his crowd at rallies, but during debates, he's a little bit more control. He knows a little bit more that he's addressing a mainstream audience. And I think what Harris did was like just provoke him to go into take mask off, like just revert to the Donald Trump
that he is in the rallies. And I think that this will serve her very well. She had her defending the January sixth protesters or insurrection asked, had him say that no one was heard on the government side on January sixth, had him cited Victor Orbon and there's the
European leader who respects me, Victor Orbon. So he has had him defend the Charlottesville by citing Laura Ingram and shot like, none of these things are like things I would have appealed to mainstream bodies at all, they would actually turn off before mainstream you had him talking about like eating cats and dogs. So if the goal was to McDonald trump sound and hinged, bevision accomplished.
I think it's worth realizing that there's an axis become a very right wing site now. But but their trending is you know, oh my god, Trump right never a great sign and also has Trump and I think both of these show that he is actually really he did not What's funny because it's like, we just saw this other debate where I really did see that Trump wasn't great, but it was he was so upstaged by Biden, yes, whatever was going on there, that it was hard to focus on Trump.
But when you.
Got him with someone who and remember he had been running on mental acuity. He had literally the campaign had been like Trump is more with it.
And then you now have.
A candidate who is fifty nine years old and who actually what she did tonight and I say, this is someone who who manages, who does a lot of live television. It's really hard to keep your wits about you. And then also she basically provided a real time fact check.
That's absolutely right, Yeah, I know she did all that,
and I want underscore again. Her strategy was clearly to bring up to hit his buttons and to imagine the stuff that gets him annoyeded that crowd sizes did just yeah, gradually crowd sizes and then Trump goes on a long tirade about how great his crowd sizes are and how people love him about rallies, and that's something that I don't think has like mainstream appeal, like people that actually plays up what people don't like about Trump, which is
ego test. So I think the way she handled them, I think she totally dominated and got in a few very good singers where he said he kept on talking about Joe Biden, and she did that partially. She would mention things that would get Trump to start using his talking points about Joe Biden, and then she had the perfect line, I'm not Joe Biden. You're not pretty Joe Biden. So I yeah, I think it's pretty clear for everything we're seeing for the betting markets to like the online reaction,
it's pretty clear that Harris won the debate. And it's a very striking contrast to the first debate with Biden, and I think you actually see the abortion issue where on both cases, like Trump basically said the exact same thing on abortion in both debates where he said, like everyone wanted to get rid of Roe v.
Wade right right right?
Why didn't totally watch that response when he started talking about illegal immigrants killing people like for whatever reason at Harris, her response was totally on point about like all the horrible things that are happening now that abortion is being restricted to America. You had concrete stories and then basically getting the basic point, which is actually the vast majority of Americas like rollv Wade and see the restored. I just think, yeah, I will see how things play out.
But I think this is a very strong debate perfore Vince, and I think this puts her in a very good position for the remaining campaign.
And one of the things she was able to do, which I was really struck by, was she was able to stop and say things like she talked about the woman bleeding out in the hospital right in the parking lot, right. She's talked about the kind of the kind of real
life things we've seen since overturning ree v Wade. And one of the things he does is he speaks very broadly about things, partially because he doesn't really care, mostly because he doesn't care, but also because the sort of minutia of these policies is lost on him, and also because a lot of the minutia is his policies not working.
And so for her to bring it to that moment of the woman in the parking lot waiting to bleed out, I think was poignant and you could see he didn't quite know how to process that.
Yeah, no, absolutely, yeah, I think that. I mean from his point of view, like, I think the best thing that he could do is like cabrit where he is strong at least warding the polls, like immigration. And I think that part of the success of this was that whenever he would do that, she would just get him to derail himself, like just mention something that got him off topic. And so Trump, as the debate progress, was increasingly incoherent, increasingly angry, and increasingly showing his age, and
so she could end with that very nice. Really, I'm not Joe Biden and I'm not Donald Trump, Like it's time for a new generation, So turning the age issue against.
Them, right, And I think I also think you definitely saw some of the kind of you know, just her ability to speak more clearly, think more clearly, you know, understand policies more clearly. Part of why Trump won, I think in twenty sixteen was because he was a celebrity and she and even though Clinton was very good in these debates and she did win, worth remembering that Clinton did theoretically at least win every debate. I think there was one where it seemed like he did a little
better than she did. But she did really make these debates. She didn't she wasn't able to articulate policy in the same way that Harris, since I think Harris has been really able to particulate policy in these sort of bite sized nuggets that are easier She's they're easier to sneak in there. If that makes any sense.
Yeah, well absolutely, I know. I think, Yeah, it's hard not to praise her performance. I think there were moments where she's seen a little bit nervous, Yeah that's about it. But even that I find really humanizing and understandable. Whereas I think she got Trump to present himself at his worst, and she also clearly present was able to show that she has a mastery of detail as you said, and
then a mastery of policy. So I think that like for the voter, yeah, I think for the people who are still in doubt or the double haters, I think she's given them like a really good permission structure to come support her, you know. Having said that, I will say that, like, I'm looking at the polls and it really seems like the weaknesses are still like young people and Latinos. They haven't come on board as much as
they did in twenty twenty. So I'm thinking that now that I think with the debate they've gotten that sort of center of swing vooters, they really need to wrap up the base now. I think there's part of the Democratic Party base that needs to be tending to and I'm hoping that's where the campaign moves to.
And I mean that I think, Look, the campaigning is going to be a real thing. Right, she has to campaign, but she knows she has to campaign. The question was can she win double haters? Can she make a case that she is in fact, that she is in fact just that she is actually a solution to their problems. It seemed to me that she made a lot of cases about that, whether or not they don't vote for her because she's a woman, and because she's a woman of color that we can't know until election day, and
I think that is central anxiety. But he is completely on he thinks he kept saying things about Biden, and then he said Biden got money from China, Like he just cannot adjust to the fact that he's not running against Biden.
Yeah.
No, he clearly seems like out of touch and not present, not like in the present moment, which is the way Biden seemed in the first debate. I think that just as the first debate really marks the end of Biden's political career, let's hope that this marks this debate marks the end of Trump's political career, at least the right the beginning of the end, the beginning of the sine going because this is I think we've been waiting for a long time, Like, actually have a really competent prosecutorial
debater go after Donald Trump. And I think, like I have to say, like everyone else, I was nervous going in. I she harris more than living up to my best hopes for her. Like I think it's hard for me to say see how she could have done better, at least in terms of the presentation and argument.
It's also true that Trump is a liar and he's not bound by the same stuff the normal candidates are. We all have this anxiety, I think, and you tell me if I'm wrong, which is real we all know sitting in our rooms, in our living rooms watching that Harris definitely won. She fat checked him. She was saying she made sense. He had teen You're the puppet moments, right, he said. Victor Orbon says she's doing a terrible job. Right, like at every point she was able to own him intellectually right.
She knows policy. He doesn't know policy.
She knows this, she knows that she actually knows stuff, and she's smart. The question we all now have and is do the American voters want someone who's smart and capable or do they want an orange guy they saw on television.
I don't think the Americans have ever wanted Trump. He has never won the popular vote, right with it if the popular vote world of better. He has two substantial losses and is on track for a third one. The real question is do the crucial swings voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia how they track down? But I think that
there's a lot. I think there's a lot of reasons to feel happy, like not just the debate performance, but it's gonna be coupled with a really great get out the vote machine and as you said, super campaigning, not just by Harris Balta, by Waltz, the Obama's Elizabeth Warre and Bernie Sanders. They have a great crew of people that are going to go out there. So I'm pretty there's no sure thing, but I'm feeling much better now that I was. Like the end of the debated June's.
Yes, yes, that was, and the debate in June really felt very It felt like the inverse of this, right.
It felt like Donald Trump.
Was able to really make Biden look like he didn't have control over the situation, and that was really pretty bleak. There was that moment where Trump said to him, I don't know what you're saying, but you don't either, and it.
Was just so dark. I actually watched the whole debate.
Everyone else in my living room was like, I'm going to bed, I can't watch this, which I think is a pretty good sign of just how bleak it was. And again, this is not Joe Biden. I think we will look back on his presidency as an incredible filled with incredible accomplishments for the American people. But he is also eighty one. Now, of course Donald Trump is seventy eight.
That's right. No, he's seventy eight and he looks seventy. I think, yeah, debait really brought out like his age as a factor, and hopefully you'll be picked up in terms of the lies, like I do think she did the fact checking. I have to give ABC credit, they did some fact checking. Yeah, but I think that the real rubber hits the road is the coming days because
the newspapers, everyone will have to take it up. And I have to say, I think that Trump was provoked into some lines that are so egregious and so terrible. I think the cats and eating.
That you know.
Aboutationis, yeah, that's that's a lot of that stuff to me, like that only appeal to the hardcore like who likes that, Like Stephen Miller, right.
Miller likes that.
It's not gonna I think appeal to a mainstream American audience. And I think that I think the Democrats have to stay strong on this. They hit back, and I think, yeah, I think just like the people like citing in a debate, who's he citing as like his authorities Urban Laura ingram Sean. So you're basically running to win that Fox audience and it's like you you can't win an election with that.
Yeah, get here, Thank you, thank you, thank you. You are the greatest.
We have even more tour dates for you. Did you know the Lincoln Projects, Rick Willson of Fast Politics Mali jug Fast are heading out on tour to bring you a night of laughs for our dark political landscape. Join us on August twenty sixth at San Francisco at the Swedish American Hall, or in la on August twenty seventh at the Region Theater. Then we're headed to the Midwest and we'll be at the Vivarium in Milwaukee on the twenty first of September, and on the twenty second, we'll
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Dave Troy is an investigative journalist and columnist at The Washington Spectator.
Welcome to Fast Politics, Dave.
I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me on.
So explain to us this incredibly worrying sort of situation that's going on that's sort of running parallel to the election.
Yeah, so, you know, obviously the election is super important and everybody's concerned about the outcome. We also have some other brewing crises that are not really at the top of people's radar. There's a lot of feeling that Harris wins things are going to be okay, which is partly true. But we have a situation coming up with the government potentially being shut down at the end of September, so there's a bill being worked on right now to get
past that. And you know, this comes up periodically, and oftentimes the government gets shut down for a couple three weeks and it creates a certain amount of chaos and noise,
and then we move on. That situation. Isn't that big of a deal because it does happen sometimes, and you know, the only issue with that really right now happening at this moment, is that it's going to happen right in the middle of the election run up, and so it might create an opportunity for people to say that, you know, the Biden administration is chaotic and to sort of pin that on Harris.
Right, but the general thinking is actually that the shut down with her Republicans because they're in charge of the House.
But yes, right, you could still come up with a scenario where they think that they might be able to pin it on the Biden Harris administration. So that's not great, but you know, we'll probably survive that. The bigger issue that's coming up right at the beginning of twenty twenty five is that we have the debt ceiling coming up again, And for those that don't remember, basically, you know, we have a cap on the total amount of what the US debt can be, and every twelve to eighteen months
or so. Right now we seem to be having to raise it again in order to kind of pay our bills and move on to do what needs to be done. So what's happening is we last raise the debt ceiling in mid twenty twenty three, and the ceiling was raised until January second, twenty twenty five is the estimated date that that's going to expire. So what you know that means is that we need to at that moment or beforehand, ideally pass authorizing legislation that would increase the debt ceiling
and to avoid a debt default. Now you might think, well, we've never done this before, and every time this comes up, you know, we seem to get around it and it's not a huge deal. The issue is is that we don't really know what the makeup of the Congress is going to be coming into twenty twenty five, and we also don't know who the president is going to be.
And there's a lot of reason to believe that if Trump wins that you know, he and some other Republicans which are in the minority will effectively push us into a default scenario, which would be financial armageddon and really economic art armageddon for the world. It would set things back tremendously. Moodies as estimated that that would cause a loss six million jobs in about fifteen trillion dollars in wealth to be destroyed.
So I think it's pretty unlikely that Trump would default on the debt, and most people who Trump knows would not like that except explain to us what the tension here is, who the people who want him to default on the debt are, and what this scenario would look like. Yeah, there's one group that benefits from those Well.
Yeah, there's basically there's I would say, there's three different factions that you could look at that are interested in default. One is kind of the Elon Musk Peter Teel faction that thinks that the dollar is fiat currency in general, central banks are evil. Crypto, Yeah, we should do it. We kind of get rid of those, you know, instruments and replace them with new kinds of currency. And this
goes back to the nineteen thirties. Those of you that you know study the depression and stuff, you know, you know about like the gold bugs and the people who are super into the gold standard. This is kind of that worldview moved into the twenty first century. So that's one group. The other group is Christian reconstructionists Christian nationalists, who have a very similar idea about the gold standard.
They're not quite so interested in like the bitcoin digital money type aspects of this, but it's more about that kind of old school anti New Deal sentiments pro gold and really rooted in kind of the protocols of the
Elders of Zion type of thinking. You know, the idea that there's a Jewish banking network that controls the world and is evil and we need to disrupt that, and the Federal Reserve isn't really valid and isn't a government entity, it's a private entity, which is true, but they bake into that all these kinds of conspiracy theories that then cause them to want to get rid of the dollar replace it with, you know, rebase the dollar on the gold standard, let's say. And then the third group that's
bought into this is Russia and China. And you've probably been hearing a lot lately about the bricks currency and the idea that there's all sorts of countries that are wanting to join into this bricks block, which is really kind of a notional thing. It isn't really a formal alliance exactly, but you know, it's sort of turning into a list of countries that doesn't like the West and is willing to challenge it through really challenging the dollars.
So they're talking right now. The buzz this week is that there's a bricks currency that's going to be unleashed in October at a summit, and it's going to be forty percent based on gold, most of which is going to be provided by China.
And if you can't trust China, how can you know?
I mean, come on, well, yeah, but you know these groups, you know, in their heads, they think that this all makes sense. And so when you have those three groups online together in common cause against the dollar and they think they're all right and they think that they can succeed, then there's a lot of damage that could potentially come
if they get the opportunity. So this is why it's so important that say this fall probably starting right after the election, the president needs to focus very clearly on making sure that we raise the debt ceiling so that we don't end up with a default situation in the first quarter or first half of twenty twenty five.
Yeah, I mean, the idea of devaulting on the debt will be a catastrophe. Explain to me how any of these people. I mean, I get that tech bros get very high on their own supply. If anything, we've seen this from the RFK candidacy to you know, any number of things they've gotten excited about.
But explain to me, are there just no grown ups in the room.
I mean, do these people have any sort of person telling them that this is maybe not the best idea.
Yeah, the evidence points to there being maybe thirty percent of the Republican Party that thinks that this stuff makes sense. So it's not a majority. And in fact, you know, every time that there has been a vote in Congress to prevent a default and to extend the debt ceiling and all of that, it's always passed by like seventy seventy two percent margin. This is a majority thing that
most people don't want a default. However, you know, there are these this minority group that thinks that that's the way forward, and that's the only way to kind of undo, you know, this sort of stranglehold that they perceive that the FED has on the world. So this really comes from like the Ron Paul kind of point of view.
His network of people is really what's behind this. And so when you talk about the tech bros being high on their own supply and there's no adults in the room, I would say that both those things are true because they've effectively isolated themselves into this little clique of people who believe this stuff in a really deep religious way.
Right, there's a lot of crypto money that could be made on this, and there's also a lot of crypto fraud. Can you talk to me about the recent fraud that just got announced. There's sort of some legal looking into the sort of crypto sleaziness.
Well, yeah, I mean, one thing that has come out is that there's more crypto influence in this election cycle than from any other single source bi sector. So, for example, there's about one hundred and twenty million dollars that's been spent on this cycle alone from crypto interests and big oil you would think would be also very large, but it's less than that. I don't remember what the exact number was, but crypto is the large influencer in this election,
which a lot of people wouldn't find intuitive. So part of what's happening here is that if let's say that there is a default, what they think is going to happen is that the price of gold is going to go way up and the price of bitcoin is going to go way up. Now, gold people, I think understand because you know, it's a kind of traditional asset and right now it's actually at an all time high relatively, and so the idea is that might go up more.
But then the other thinking with bitcoin is that you know, there's only twenty one million bitcoins are possible. So basically what's happening is is as more and more people buy into it, the price just kind of keeps going up and up and up. And broadly speaking, that's kind of what's been happening. The price, you know, has continued to
rise since last fifteen years. What they think is going to happen is that if there's a dollar default, you know, a US debt default, then all kinds of assets are going to pour into both gold and too bitcoin in order to prevent the destruction of value that would come from devaluing the dollar, and they think that at that point there would be a huge tipping point. And of course bitcoin, like right now it's around fifty sixty thousand
dollars per bitcoin. If something like a big shock like this were to happen and the price of bitcoin were to go up to say one hundred and twenty thousand dollars or two hundred thousand dollars something like that, you would have much much more influence going into elections. So what's happening right now is crypto money isn't just buying
candidates on the Republican side. It's also you know, influencing candidates on the Democratic side to support lighter crypto regulations so that crypto can challenge the dollar kind of no matter which party is in power, which a lot of people don't have on their radar yet.
Crypto is basically pretty corrupt.
It sounds like, you know, there's a lot of different flavors of it, and you know, little of it is really valuable in terms of like solving a problem that can't be solved some easier, better way, But there's a certain ideological attraction that people have to it, right because explain well, because it's external to the Federal Reserve and
it doesn't require, you know, any central entity. The basic theory is that if you have to rely on a central bank, then that's bad because you can't trust bankers basically, and that might be because they're Jewish, you know, that's the other problem that they see.
Yeah, so pull back for a minute and explain to us how it works, how this factors into the larger Project twenty twenty five. For example, part of the kind of calculus of Trump is one of the things that's snuck in there is making the FED part of Trump's cabal.
Well, yeah, so one of the recommendations in Product twenty twenty five is actually to end the FED, which of course is a slogan that goes back to Ron Paul.
Let's just pause for a minute and explain to our listeners what ending the FED would mean.
Well, so, for those that aren't familiar, the Federal Reserve is a bank that it was set up in nineteen thirteen. There was a legislation called the Federal Reserve Act that you know, set that up, and it basically serves as a central bank, as a bank of last resort really for all the other private banks in the economy, and so it you know, manages the dollar and the interest rates and all of that. And so these guys just believe that whole construct is fundamentally invalid and that the
Federal Reserve should go away. And you know, I don't actually think they've thought through much what would happen if they did this, Like it's more of a religious matter of faith that this need to be done. You know.
One of the ways in which America is not Venezuela is that the Federal Reserve is independent of the executive branch. So the president can't tell the chairman of the FED to lower interest rates. Even though Donald Trump did in fact do that all the time, he didn't have any power. He theoretically did not have control over what the FED
would do. You know, the Harris Walls ticket would benefit from a rate cut for sure, but Harris doesn't talk about it because for obvious reasons, it's a huge no now in the in the way that the federal government works. So the goal here is not just to end the FED, because there's also a scenario in Project twenty finety five, which is just to make the FED an arm of the Trump campaign and even.
Yeah, so you know, I would say there's competition over you know, what the future should look like within different factions within these camps. So like, you know, one scenario that you could potentially end up with is that the FED chair is no longer independent and the president just decides when to you know, raise and lower interest rates, which, as you say, would be a populist nightmare and would lead to crazy inflation and all of that. So, you know,
I would say that it's a dangerous scenario. Whichever one of those factions wins, either the end the FED faction or the like, radically reshaped the FED to make it be responsive to the executive branch would be also very bad.
But the purest ideological thing here that they're pursuing is to just eliminate it all together and replace it with some kind of free market mechanism, much like this bricks currency, because the whole idea with the bricks currency is that it's backed up by commodities like gold and other assets like a oil and you know, silver, precious metals, whatever.
So that's kind of like the most ideal list version of this, but there's a lot of really other bad versions that could come about just through the act of trying to blow everything up.
Yeah, and that is the fundamental issue here, is the want for a cryptocurrency to sync the dollar to booy cryptocurrency, right, yeah.
I mean that's fundamentally what they're after in crypto as well as like these bricks currencies, because the idea is that at least with you know, bricks currency, the theory is that if you trade it in for other stuff, you'll get you know, like a barrel of oil and a chunk of gold and you know a little bit of silver or whatever it makes up the basket that
provides the backing. And you know, for those that don't remember, the gold standard was set up in a way that until nineteen seventy one, you could actually trade dollars for gold at a fixed rate, which was swell except for when people wanted to do that at scale and you know, basically clean us out of all the gold because you know, there was a lot of money being printed to support
the Vietnam War, et cetera, et cetera. So one of the items of faith in all of this is that if you end the FED, you can eliminate war because you know, FIA currencies fund war is the logic. Well, of course there was never any war when it was king's hoarding gold like that never happened, right, So there's
some real logical leaps that are involved in this. But again, these folks have isolated themselves in such a way that they are kind of high on their own supply and they all kind of believe the same stuff.
Yeah, and ultimately this could plunge our economy into insanity. And also I feel like the goal is sort of to destabilize America, right.
Yeah, very much. So, you know, I mean certainly that's Russia on China's goal is to kind of end US hegemony. And the US really has a couple of superpower type strengths, like one is the dollar and the other is our military. And so what this would do is to you know, really radically disempower US in terms of the dollar and you know, shift things around. And the thing about it is you don't have to like guess or speculate that this is what they're after. I mean they say it.
I mean there's books that, like from twenty sixteen, there's a book by a Russian economist named Sergei Glasiev that outlines this entire strategy, so we don't have to guess that what they're doing, they've they've already said this is what they're doing.
Yeah, I mean, and I think that's really important.
You know, this kind of nihilism really does feel like it's something that would really have seen Trump sort of open the door to it.
But it feels like.
Desanders and Vance are really relishing in it. I mean, DeSantis is already sort of off the stage at this point, but Vance does seem like that's kind of his massive right.
Well, and yeah, I think that you know, Vance is a strange character and that he doesn't really seem to have kind of an internal core of like actually who he is. So he's very seems like he's very influenceable by, you know, people around him. And so he's been working with, say Kevin Roberts from the Heritage Foundation, who was one of the architects of Project twenty twenty five. And you know what is kind of crazy is that he's kind of put himself in the position to actually become president,
perhaps sooner than anybody imagine. I mean, if you think about it, Trump's just like a big mac away from Vans being president, right, and you know, that could be a very scary proposition. People like Roberts have written essays talking about the need for you know, like an American Caesar, a red Caesar that would pursue all of these kinds of hardcore, slash and burn kind of approaches to government. And I think if he were to get in, it
would be a very very ugly situation. You know, it's easy to make fun of Vance for being a weirdo, and he is definitely a weirdo. But he's also very dangerous potentially because he could just be used as a tool to be a wrecking ball in government, and he's closer to being in that role than I think anybody guesses.
Yeah, I mean that is the thing about him. That's also true about Trump, which is interesting, as they both have no ideological beliefs really, right, it's just whatever they think they can win on.
Yeah, I think that's right. And you know, they have a few things that maybe they you know, have said so many times they think they believe it. They're very morally flexible and certainly flexible from a policy standpoint.
Thank you so much, Dave, Hey.
Thank you really enjoyed the conversation.
Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how awful Trump's second term could be. Well, so are we, which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make a limited series with the experts on what a disaster Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right now, we have just released the final episode of this five
episode series. They're all available by looking up Molly Jong Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if you are more of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber, you can hit play and put your phone in the lock screen and it will play back just like a podcast. All five episodes are online now. We need to educate Americans on what Trump's second term would or could due to this country, So please watch it and spread the word.
Janelle Binnum represents Oregon's House District thirty nine and is a candidate in Oregon's fifth district.
Welcome to Fast Politics.
Janew thank you for having me.
So you are a member of the Oregon State House and you're running for Congress. I am.
I was trying to retire, but recruited to run this race as the person who has beaten the Republican incumbent, not once but twice and of course ready to do it a third time.
Really interesting talk to me about getting recruited and what that looks like and why you were recruited and what your instincts were.
Well, this is a Biden plus nine district and the race was lost by two points last cycle, and I think when people looked around at the values that Lori Chavez Drimer is bringing to the job and how she is or isn't representing the district, well, they looked around and said, you know, a who's the person who could actually win this race and be who's the person who who has a knack for making sure that people around
the district are heard. So I've been representing like a swing seat for the last eight years, basically one third D, one third R, one third non affiliated ISH right. So I've never had the luxury of being in a safe seat. I've never had the opinion that my opinion was better than anyone else's, and I've never gone with extremism. I've always been viewed to someone who's practical and tries to
work across the aisle to get things moving. And so I think my record reflects that and people respect that. So just Saturday, I was with my daughter and we were going to get some Demali's and I went into the shop, and the shop Bonner says, Oh, if I didn't know any better, I would think you were the lady running for.
Congress, right, And I was like, oh, shay, what just we're coming to get to lines, and he's like, you're running.
And you know, I'm a Democrat, but I've voted for Lori last time. But I really really like you, and I'm going to vote for you. You're exactly what we need, and I've been following you, and so that made me feel good, even though I just wanted some Demali's.
So a lot of us are obsessed with this idea of like what makes a candidate a good candidate for a swing district because the whole country is very swinging in a certain kind of way. Can you explain to us sort of why you think you're a great candidate for these swing districts? Well?
Sure, I think the first skill that you have to have is being willing to listen right and to setting the infrastructure in the way that you do essentially the way you do business right. So for us, I would have walking town halls so I had my calendar set up. Anyone could set some time with me and we would do like a fifteen minute walk. I'm a mall walker, and so we do fifteen minute lap. And that allowed people for any reason to have access and just tell
me what was on their minds. Right then I would do like taco town halls. I was realizing that I was going to these town halls that we were setting up, and I was coming home hungry. So I was like, Okay, how do I make sure that my needs are met so that I can serve my district. And so I set this thing up called Taco town Hall. So you bring the tacos, I show up, We have a great time, and then or I have to have something for like vegan people, gluten free, like tacos cover the whole gamut.
And then the other thing is I'm also a deeply spiritual person, and I would go at the Capitol. You know, they're different little groups that meet based on their interests. So of course we had like the sportsman caucus, and we had the beer caucus or craft beer or something like that caucus. So I would actually go to the
prayer ones. And so I made a lot of friends there and friends in politics is loose, I will say, But you know, it was just a time for me to convene and commune with people who I didn't necessarily agree with ideologically on all of the political issue shoes. But one thing was sure was that I was going to keep my values and morals intact even as I tried to represent people in a very very contentious place. Right, So those are that's kind of how I do it.
I'm a mom of four, I live with people who have differing opinions, and I've learned to be humble because there's nothing like a thirteen year old boy that will humble you. And so I've just learned to be a good listener and to try and understand without judgment, how a person got to that opinion and how I can represent them best.
What are the issues on the ground in your state and your district.
Well, for starters, housing and I think that is universal around the country, So whether it's the type of how the availability of housing depending on a person's stage in life and their needs. So I'm a mom of two college age kids, so that makes me also a renter by proxy. And the amount that it costs for us to get you know, a one bedroom apartment for them is just astronomical. So when I think about that, I think who gets to attend college and participate on what terms?
Because it is almost cost prohibitive, right. And then they are seniors. So I had one senior tell me on the phone that she was secretly wishing that her son would build like a mother and law unit when he moved houses, or you know, secure a unit for her. And she was saying that her social security wasn't keeping up with the increases in her rent. So we have this wide spectrum. So housing is one of the issues.
Reproductive health care full stop. Oregonians have said time and time again that they want the access to reproductive health care open, full stop, no restrictions, and we see that that's being tightened up around the country as Republicans have started to talk about, you know, states implementing their own versions,
but we know that that means restrictions. And then the environment is very important, whether it is is the abundance of water, the cleanliness of water, whether it's wildfires, the smoke related to wildfires, the reason that they start, and then also the economic impact of wildfires. So healthcare wildfires, housing. Those are the things that are rising to the top in this very very I would say it's a very diverse district. I'll say that.
Inflation seems like it's a big, big issue here. What do you think are sort of nuts in bold ways that democrats can lower inflation.
There are a couple of things. We saw the price of vehicles and durable home goods increase in a large part because of supply and demand, and I think bringing back American manufacturing. While that seems very high level, it actually is very important because you're not relying on things having to cross the ocean in order to be built, and you're bringing jobs back home. So that's one very concrete way democrats can help with inflation. Number two really
goes back to what I was talking about. In terms of housing. We are thirty years behind in the housing stock that we need, and so we know if a lot of people are rent burdened and they're paying more
than thirty percent in rent, that is significant. So I was really happy to see that the federal government was looking into these algorithms that are adjusting the prices of apartments and basically pricing people out, increasing their prices by about twenty five percent without providing any real value or responding to any real market issues. So those are two very quick examples of high level policy that can have a very strong and fast impact on the ground.
Your state is pretty blue, though your district is very swingy, and you're running for a very swingy district. Why do you think that Trump supporters still support him.
I know why I have drawn a broad base of support. It is because when we're talking about the issues, I'm not pivoting to something else that's extreme or something that's like my personal opinion. It's really about the nuts and bolts.
I think having kids who are you know, twenty twenty two, who are entering the workforce, launching into life and understanding what their challenges are, along with having parents who are baby boomers, and really being able to lean into the challenges that they're having, whether it's with the cost of prescription drugs, whether it's with like downsizing their housing or making sure that their retirements are able to cover their basic needs. That's why people have been drawn to me consistently,
and I've been to houses one. Even when I first ran back in twenty sixteen, Trump was on the ballot, I remember there was a house in East Portland, which was odd to have a Republican in East Portland because it is pretty blue there. But he was like, Janelle, I like what you're saying. He's like, but I don't know,
you know, I'm kind of a trunk guy. And I was like, well, at that's your local level, you know, at the at the level which I am offering to represent you, I promise to be here one hundred percent of the time that you need me, and I am here to listen to what is important to you, and there are very few people who are willing to put in the work. I'm a door knocker. That is what keeps me, like, keeps my ear really low to the ground. So I don't know what is attractive to Trump voters.
I know what is attractive to voters in general in Congressional District five and in my previous house districts thirty nine and fifty one. It's someone who listens and gets that their economics are what is driving a lot of their decisions.
Yeah, that's a really good answer.
Well, being you could talk about door knocking, because one of the things that the Harris Walls campaign has made a real important point of is door knocking. There's a huge digital chasm between all of us right in this country that there are. You know, it's easy to yell at someone on the internet and harder to yell at them to their phase. I don't think the right and the left are the same at all. I think the
right has really gone off the rails. But one of the things that the Harris Walls team are doing is this ground game, this opening field offices and knocking on doors and canvassing and in a way that perhaps goes back to earlier elections before this sort of technological bubble killed all of normal print media. What's your take on this, and also just talk to me about what it's like.
Oh man, it is the most powerful form of democracy that I have ever experienced. So I have a lot of people who are immigrants in my district and I noticed, like, for instance, when I would knock their doors, they would be very hesitant to talk to me because this idea of the government coming to your door can be pretty scary.
On the other hand, I would have people who were so excited when I showed up, I mean just over the moon, like I can't believe you came then we have people who are of course my surrogates, right, So neighbors knocking doors and what it means Like there was one lady who told me who's out in Bend. She said, she knocked a door. She's a neighborhood leader and she knocked a door and the lady came and she's like, oh, I know it's time to vote because my neighbor's here
reminding me. And so that neighbor to neighbor connection is really what this is all about. I had some triplets asked me to come and talk to them about democracy on time, and so I was. I was in the legislature. We were in session during that time. So I said, oh, well, I can stop by tonight on my way home and I'll just you know, I'll just come talk to you. And they were like, really, you live here, and I said, I said, I'm your neighbor. I am literally your neighbor.
And it is to me the most special thing that you can do is have a civil conversation with your neighbor about what is important for our community. And that's everyone's recon responsibility. In my opinion, that shouldn't just be left to people who read the newspaper all the time
or watch the news. That's everybody's responsibility. So I think the most important thing for this election is for our young people eighteen to thirty five to not become apathetic and to actually engage and to vote on at least one issue and make voting something that is a priority for them and that they don't delegate to the rest of us.
You know, I wondered about that you have run for office under the Biden ticket, under the Harris ticket, and also right under the Quinton ticket. Can you speak to us about the differences you've seen between these three candidates and what has been like.
It's interesting, I've never been able to count on the top of the ticket because, as I mentioned, like one third D, one third R, one third non affiliated, and so I've had to pick off some Republican votes. I've had to, you know, pull off some votes of people who said they weren't voting, and so I've always just kind of had to go on my principles and my gut. What I can tell you is different today than say, eight weeks ago, is that there is a certain level
of engagement and enthusiasm that I've seen. We've had some extraordinary canvas numbers that I didn't expect, and people have told me, oh, I haven't canvas since Bill Clinton was on the ticket. I haven't John Carry And so of course things are different. Now we do things on our mobile devices, and you know that kind of throws people a little bit for loop. But I also see more young people getting engaged and people bringing their kids, So you do.
See a noticeable difference between and again this is in no way to cast aspersions to Joe Biden, but more I'm curious if you think that Harris has energized the ticket, if you've seen that on the ground.
I think there's a certain energy in the air and a sigh of relief that there's going to be a lot stronger of a punchback to Trump and histics. I think we get the democracy we deserve. So if we engage and we canvas and we vote with intention, we get good leaders. But if we sit back on our hands and yield to, as I said, the antics, then
we get Trump. Yeah, but I want when Trump was on the ticket, I won in precincts where Lori Chavez Dreamer one and where the Senate campaign for the state House candidate one and so I know that I am a very solid purple candidate, and so that's what I've always focused on.
Yeah, exactly, And I think it's really important and relevant and also just I think what you're saying is really important that the bottom of the ticket isn't dependent on the top of the ticket, and especially when you have such a good message and you connect with people. Do you think Harris has an opportunity to message on the economy? You own a bunch of businesses, You're a businesswoman besides
being a politician. I've always thought Democrats were actually weirdly more pro business than Republicans.
Is there messaging there?
You think she is required to have messaging on the economy?
Right?
As a middle class American, if you're not talking about the economy, you're not winning. And this is what I found around the district. If you're not talking about how my kids and my grandkids and their kids are going to thrive in this great country for the next twenty to one hundred years, you don't have a message, right.
No, I agree.
Are there any other sort of things that we should know about your race, or about organ more generally, or about what Democrats can do to win anything you want to leave us with.
I think the most important thing for Democrats is to recognize that there's a path to victory. I believe that it runs through Oregon's fifth congressional district. I would love to take the vote to make Leader Jeffries speaker Jeffries, and I'm really excited about the prospect of Kamala Harris becoming president. These are all things that are possible if we engage, if we decide with intentionality that this is what we want, and so I think we should be
rewarding people who step up. This is a very, very difficult act of patriotism to engage in, but I say we should choose people who are moderate, people who are really really focused on the issues, the bread and butter issues, and are rejecting extremism full stop. So that's what I think is on the agenda.
Yeah, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you for having me. This is fun.
They're all no moment in second.
Jesse Cannon, my John Fast.
My Twitter feed is flooded with the stupidest memes of Donald Trump's animals, a thing you would never do. What the fuck is happening here?
Basically, a few people on the right, Jade Vance, Ted cruz Elon Musk, Stephen Miller, of course, all spread the racist lie that Haitian immigrants were eating cats.
It's not true. It was based on.
A photo of a guy who was black carrying a goose.
I don't know what to tell you. This is so stupid.
But it's also again this world of post truth trump Ism, where if a lie is repeated enough times, if enough people believe a lie, perhaps it is as good as something that is true.
Another sign of the deep right wing infecting them. Since this comes from Nick Land's hyperstition theory and he's a real psychotic right wing extremist.
Well, I think it's also just they just don't care if it's true or not if they can get their people to believe it, And that is the element of post truth conservatism we're living in right now, and they are our moment.
Of fuck Ray.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening,