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 a gay so LGBTQ. I would assume furry group, a group of them furries or people dress up like animals. They got together and hacked the agencies that attack gender affirming care.
We have an interesting show today.
NBC's John Allen talks Bidenomics and the dynamics of him taking responsibility for the economy. Then we'll talk to Heated's Emily Atkin about our changing climate and what can be done to help our climate crisis. But first we have the host of Fastball, Matt Negrin. Welcome to Fast Politics, Fastballs, Matt Negron.
That's the take, because we're keeping it.
It's the best.
I am the host of Fast So pretty exciting weeks and Supreme Court ruining our.
First fly of the day.
Pretty exciting week, and.
Supreme Court's ruining our country number one, but they're doing it with zeal.
Yes, and I'm sorry, just I don't I'm not familiar with your cannon. But are we still referring to the Supreme Court as like a legitimate institution.
We call them not the best.
That's harsh. Yeah, that's the battle. That's a suation. That's right, really fits the headline in the onion Supreme Court rule, Supreme Court Rules, which is one of the best onions. It's an eight to one decision, and I think like, like Clarence Thomas dissented not because he didn't think it ruled, but just because he thought it was so obvious a rule that they didn't need to have a case and get me to the notion of rolling on it.
I would like to mention something which I've like, since we are the United States of Amnesia, no one remembers anything from longer than three years ago, which is like the best part of the whole situation.
But there was a time of.
Television for sure, because we don't need to we don't need to think about previously on.
Yeah, we forget that there was a time when Justice Thomas did not speak for years.
It's kind of like the weird bit you keep going like, you keep it going on for way too long, Like I really committed to this bullshit and everyone's like, oh, I'm the like one person's like, oh my god, Like he's the bringings brownies to work guy, and like, oh, she's the like always has like a fun story about her weird vacation friends. And Clarence is like, I will just not talk for a day and like that was my thing. And everyone's like, we love that about you.
We love how you just don't say anything. But I can never talk.
Right And once he got those three trumpy justices, he was able to start talking again.
Broke his self.
Brocus it's right.
In a way, he's he is more monkish than all of us. In a way, he's closer to Zen than any one of us could dream to be. He's taking in the bow of silence.
He can be zen because he does not have to fly commercial, so you.
Know, imagine flying commercial and not saying and not being able to complain.
I mean that is the right.
But I want to talk to you about Biden today. A reporter asked Biden, this is like my favorite Biden up there. He says, we're not going to let this break us, and then the reporter calls out to him as he's leaving, is this a rogue court?
Oh great, because we're not able to.
Say, and then Biden says, this is not a normal court.
Again, this is not normal. Wow.
So but just to be clear, we had the resistance has extended its very clean tentacles to Joe Biden now and he is part of the this is not normal crowd.
Okay, so I'm going to fight with you for a minute. I'm going to fight with you here for a minute.
Trade So trade barbs, Let's trade barbs.
Let's let's have some hardball. Should we have some hardball? Let's play hardball?
You know what.
I think this brings us to our next segment, hardball, where we talk about fastballs, curveballs, and hardballs.
So let's go service with the fastball.
So, well, here's my question for you.
Biden said two days ago at a fundraiser, he said that he was a Catholic and he was not super comfortable with abortion. And I saw people quite mad about this on the internet, and I wondered, I'm someone who grew up Jewish, atheist communists benchon drawings, I always thought that abortion I.
Went to the same I went to the same synagogue. I went to the communist Synegague.
That's right.
We didn't belong to a synagogue because that's very bourgeois, and we would never belonged to a synagogue because that would be other Jews there. But I do want to say he said he wasn't comfortable with people very mad at him for saying that, but part of me wondered, And again, I'm like, just thinking about this for a second. There are a lot of people who are not comfortable with abortion, but they still believe Roe v Wade should
be the loved land, and that's what he said. I don't agree that Biden needs to be as progressive as I am, Like I think part of why by second.
Second light of the day.
But I feel like part of why Biden won was because there were people who related to this guy who thought, like, you know, this is a white Catholic guy.
Like I'm a white Catholic guy.
I think there's no room for the middle of the road garbage, and there's good and bad, and if you say something that's not good, then it helps the bad people in some way. So I'm kind of a binary extremist. I think I get what you're saying that his comment was like not crazy, but at a time when like all the rights are being taken away, I think it's probably good to have the people on the good side just try to like be very firm about what's right and what's wrong.
I don't know if it gives like the bad people ammunition that I'm.
Making right, But I just wonder. I mean again, and I appreciate your take on this.
Yes, no, listen.
I mean the question is how do you win? Right? I mean, that's what matters, is winning right.
I had a conversation like a while ago after the Rose overturned with someone who was like, everyone's so tired, and I was like, people aren't tired of like fighting, people are tired of losing. We have been thrown into a world in which like we're trying to win this game, but the other side isn't even playing a game. They've like destroyed the board and burned the pieces, and we're still like trying to figure out like what's the best move, and like we're not even playing on like a real
table anymore. There's no point in trying to play when won.
That is a very good point.
And we had just on this podcast just a little bit ago, we had this Minnesota State Democratic Chair or Minnesota has done things and pass progressive legislation in a way that Republicans do shitty legislation in red state, So like they did a school lunches and codified row and protected trans people and like did all our wishless stuff. Like, by the way, this wishless stuff is like take care
of people. I know, it's like the most basic thing that children from dying of starvation and poverty, you.
Know, Woway, I don't know. I think that might be hear the other side on that before we.
Commit a dress climate stage, because some.
Kids are just right, like annoying, right.
And should they starve to death? I mean, so the question is as.
Supreme Court day, talking about the Supreme Court, we have a federal Democratic party that's pretty scared of doing hard things.
So do you remember the night that Ruth Vader Ginsburg died or it was announced that she died? Where were you and like who were you texting and what were you like posting?
Do you remember that all memes of her? And now I'm.
As you would have.
Lord, I remember seeing a tweet by I think it was Raisa Oslon who said, like, if they even think about.
Replaces ven, you will burn it all down, right.
Yeah, there was a lot of there was a lot of that sentiment that like, oh, are we ready for a real like genuinely popular leftist, left leaning whatever revolution where if the fascist right rushes a nomination in and makes the court truly illegitimate, that we will do some sort of never before seen protest or action or concerted organized effort or whatever. I remember being on a call that night with like a bunch of like activists who are like, Okay, here's the message, Like we're gonna support
like the Like what were they saying? It was something like really weak, And I was like, what about packing the court? Like isn't that the message now? Like shouldn't we pushed a month before the election, and like there was this like tug of war.
Were like what are we going to do about this?
And then obviously they replaced her and we didn't brit it down and we were like, well, we have to win at the ballot box, and like that, right, that's that's what you're referring to. I assume when you say the democratic state or whatever is like, yeah, not really willing to do strong things.
Yeah. I Mean the thing that I.
Was sort of surprised by was just how here we find ourselves in this situation. The Supreme Court is radically remaking this country from the Dobbs decision last year to the Clean Water Act this year, where this clean Water ruling, which didn't get that much attention, basically states that if these bodies of water are not if you can't see that they're connected, then they're not connected.
Right, so it limits clean water.
And again, I mean that is such anti science bullshit, right, if I can't see it, then it's not happening. Like that is like the Alido, And that's how Republicans are with climate change. I mean, I just got an alert on my phone that says you can't that it's over one hundred air quality today, So like, but.
You can see it in the air, you can't.
I can.
I can taste it, you know. But so it is a fundamental issue of like.
Obviously reality denying. Right, It's like all the fact that they've denied. It's science, it's the election, It's like all these things that are real they deny, they deny reality. And if an institution is voting along reality and non reality lines and they're voting in favor of the non reality, that seems to me that it's definitionally illegitimate. So I think that needs to be kind of like accepted that we should not any longer. I mean really probably shouldn't
have since the Bush Gore decision. But that's like a more uninteresting conversation to have. You shouldn't have refferd to it since then, but certainly not now. Like there is nothing legitimate about an institution that knows what is true and decides to, as you said, like deny everything because it's just like better for them, that's right, and the way that they were pushed in is also illegitiate. All of it's terrible.
Yes, yes, yes, earlier times Justice when it was really the Kennedy Court, you know, or was the Roberts Court. I mean, it's really like the Kavanaugh Court now, even though Roberts is still the Chief Justice.
It's the Beach week Court.
It's the Shark week Court.
It's Shark week Court.
Yeah, yes, it's always every week like sharks.
For this one, maybe it's it's very exciting, and then you know, coming up with the fall, like there's going to be a ton of a ton of new decisions and shows coming out. They are not on strike. The Supreme Court Justice Guild is really weak. They have not authorized the strike. Unfortunately we lost them. Yeah, bid that sag DGA and now the Supreme the SCG.
But I think it is important. Like during Reconstruction, we had Steve Laddock on this podcast. He talked about how during Reconstruction, the Congress told the Supreme Court to fuck off.
And we have a Congress right now that could tell that.
I mean not obviously not the GP House, but you know the Senate.
Democrats control the Senate. They could tell the Supreme Court to fuck off right now. They could put together all kinds of restrictions. I mean, they could make their they could make justice.
Alito's who's the life a living likeliest person to do this in the Senate, like the most liberal White House. Yeah he's not the most liberal, but he's the most obsessed with the court.
He is the most obsessed with the court. Yeah. So like he's a he's been in the Senate for.
Ten billion years ten he's eight thousand years old.
But he's still quite cute and we love him and he comes on this podcast all the time.
Yeah, right, he's super We don't just judge elected officials based on how they were their looks, but one but he's on yet, but we do sometimes.
That's right, And he is he's the aos, he's middle aged women, but.
He's also probably an institutionalist. Right, So is that are those the forces at play that would prevent him from taking it.
And lead it?
I mean at some point, right, I mean that's the question, is alone, right, can you get a durban white house together to bully everyone else to doing it? I mean, if they wanted to, the fact that they're institutionalists, I feel like could be theoretically helpful to getting them to deal with this institution.
Do you think that's a good point? I mean, I also.
Hate the term institutionalist in the time when I actually don't even believe anything is an institutions. I don't even know that phrase. It's like a really weird like everyone is in it for themselves. They are no institutions.
I think in the House that's true, and in the Senate that's less true.
Why.
I think, because in the House people.
Are just isn't Tommy Tuberville in.
Well, no, there are except Tommy Tubberville's a dumbit. He is the Louis Gomert of the send.
I mean, fact that he can get in is like, Okay, it's not an institution, but.
It's Alabama man. I mean Marshall, like Burrow.
It's like if they're letting people like me on Riyah, like it's not exclusive.
So Taco Carlson starting a media company discussed that was.
Not reported in The Lucky Clover because I tried, you need to know more about this. I assume this is about Twitter, like he's on Twitter.
Puck reported that Elon Musk is not Elon Musk. I'm sorry that the Tucker Carlson. I don't know why I confuse the two.
I don't know why I used two fascists with each other.
Yes, that Tucker Carlson is starting a media company. It is he's going to raise a lot of money, he believes, and he's going to make Ben Shapiro really pretty miserable, which I.
Guess he's going to make Ben Shapiro his editor in chief.
But I think I think that two of them will I mean the one good part of his whole sort of tale.
What's the point of the media company?
The point is yeah, I mean yeah, I mean I think that would.
Like this thing, is it like a fake media company or is it.
Wait, what's Devin nuon as this thing like truth Social Yeah, I mean I assume true Social.
Some kind of money laundering thing.
But that's what I mean, Like it's fake, But is Tucker Carlson's does it have more intention? Like truth Social is a thing that doesn't exist, whereas it's like just for Trump to tweet on and then we see screenshots of it's Tucker's thing, an actual uh, like media enterprise that will produce original content with different hosts like and I.
Would assume it's basically the same thing.
It's awesome.
It's awesome for us in the in the world of people who watch crazy right wingers professionally, we are losing people to watch, okay, like Tucker Tucker fres like, oh my god, Like great, now there's less content to make. So this is great. I embraced this. I think there's like a lot of people out there, you know, the the Aaron Ruperts of the world, the Ason's, Brendan Murphy's, the Nicky McCann. Ramirez is all the media matters crowd. Uh, this is our livelihood, Like, we we need stuff to post.
So I'm glad to see that Tucker is giving us the kind of finally acknowledging our role in the media world and giving us things maybe there's new fresh faces into the mix, like propagandas we haven't even heard of. Maybe that like that Charlie Kirk guy will get.
Oh yeah the best right, yeah yeah.
But not to be too boring here, but I'm just curious, like this right wing stuff tends to be really for an older group. I mean, how do you can't just I mean, I guess you could start a cable network?
Is that still is that still true?
I think the I mean I think that.
The Joe Rogan phenomena, I don't want to say phenomenon, the Joe Rogan like era of like, yes, the top rated is it even rated? Most popular Spotify playlist post whatever? Is a really unfortunate guy, like someone who gives a voice to white men who feel like they're a victim, has like Jordan like that. So is that not a sign that whatever conservative means, which at this point probably just means like not talking about before, like but it's just like reality denying. It's just like a false victim
and whatever. Does that not mean that that's more appealing now to younger people than you know, sixty and up. Because Jordan Peterson has trying to reach young men and giving them a message that will be like hurtful to a lot of non white men, and Joe Rogan is
kind of doing the same thing. I think that message is working because they have millions and millions listeners, and but I just know that people listen to Joe Rogan and even man, I this is so hypocritical of me to do this, but like, I have a friend, it's like a friend of a friend, and you know, I've known her for a few years, like don't like keep up with her a lot, but we were catching up and then I made a Joe Rogan joke. But she was like, oh, I really like him, and I was
like why. She was like, it's just like interesting, like he has people on from like both sides, And I was like, oh, fuck.
Like does he really know?
He really just he doesn't. He doesn't like he does so that he can say he does. But the damage you do by having like vaccine deniers and all that stuff is not undone or made fair by also having like a person on there who believes that you know sciences right right right, So it's a it's an unfair defense to say, yeah, I have like the demons who want to eat our skin but I also.
Have the people whose skin is being eat So it's not like it's not good that someone that I considered.
Intelligent and in my peer group was like, I think it's really cool that he has like these people. So I just think there's more people like that than I knew, like three or four years ago, because Joe Rogan's podcast
is very popular. So I think back to what you were saying that it's not just old people now, like Tucker speaks to that older generation of I guess you could say racists or just like Republicans, but there are younger people who want to hear their views affirmed, and I think Tucker is really good at doing that, So it probably will reach a younger crowd, especially if it's like again, I get all my news from the Blucky
Clever Gazette and ZELD, but especially has reported. I assume it's going to be like lots of videos and like different online and different hosts and things like that, not just like Tucker's bock show, like repeat probably going to be more right, I would assume it's gonna be bigger.
I have no idea. Matt Nagrin, thank you so much.
I hope you'll come back, Okay, but I will come back if you let me talk more about the ethical issues in the legend of Zelda's newspaper, Flagship Newspaper.
John Allen is a national political reporter at NBC and the author of Lucky How Joe Biden Barely won the presidency. Welcome back, too Fast Politics, your friend and mine and really my friend, though I think we're going to get into it today, Jonathan Allen.
Oh, try not to slow down fast Politics too much. Molly.
By the way, Fast Politics, I hope.
All of you are listening to this at one point seven speed. It's the least you can do. So that I sound like many mouse, I.
Mean say go too well.
Two two is like two is like At some point you're like, is this English?
Are you trying to get in a fight with Rodney Panthers.
The Minimal Mini Mask. Before we were recording, we were talking about this.
We are in this very strange run up to the twenty four election where it looks like the twenty four election is going to be the exact same matchup as a twenty twenty election.
Is there a historical president for this?
There is historical president for this, but it doesn't happen very often. You have consecutive elections, I believe you, with Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland. Oh my Cleveland, So Cleveland with President then Harrison beat Cleveland, and then Cleveland beat Harrison. So it has happened before, but it is it is unusual.
It's like a sort of mind blowingly.
I mean, let's just let's just go into the GOP primary contest because it is happening. Still, does it seem like there's any world in which the great hope of the National Review crowd? Do you not very charismatic on de Santis is able to somehow rise from the ashes.
I think there's certainly a scenario, But you know, the more we try to figure out with what that scenario is, like, the farther we get from the current reality. What I mean by that is like, sure, I can qujure up a scenario like Trump decides he's not going to run, and.
That's a zero point zero zero scenario. Let's be honest for.
Just saying this, I think or anybody else to beat Trump, what you'd have to do is effectively have a one on one with them, and you would have to hair away some of his base and I think the only way to tear away some of his base is to prove that you were like a better Trump than Trump. There's a personal following of Donald Trump, right, that like thirty five percent of the Republican Party has, and they're
pretty fixed to him. And it's like unless somebody comes and knocks him down, knocks him off the perch, you know, I don't see them beating him. I don't think it's just a matter of collecting the people who are anti Trump. I think it's a pretty small percentage of the Republican Party that's actually anti Trump.
Yeah, you know, I want to just get into that for a second, because it does seem to me, like, really, what you're saying is there's another reality television star who's also a Republican who appeals to the far rights basist instincts in a way that's charismatic.
I mean, there is no person like that.
Right, Like if Steven Sagall was funny or something, Yeah.
Maybe right and not living in Russia, right.
I mean, there are impediments to the Steven Sigall presidency, obviously, But your point is the right one value, which is that there's a celebrity quality to Donald Trump. It is all about personality. I mean, not all all about personality, but the idea that you're going to come up with some sort of clever way to contrast with them on policy or you know, on demeanor or whatever. I mean, it just it hasn't worked. We've been watching the script play out for eight years.
Yeah, and I mean again, I think the Desanders's larger problem is that Trump is not policy. Trump is that he was famous for twenty years, so everybody knew who he was, and then he you know, was very charismatic. I mean, you don't beat a charisma candidate by running to the right of him and saying, you know, I want to end birthright citizenship, which he.
Which again I don't know where that came from. He ran.
You know, you win against a charisma candidate by being more charismatic or being sane and not a complete sociopath, as the case may be.
Yeah, I mean I think that they just looked at the Brian Camp model in Georgia, where Camp ran to the right in terms of ideology of David Perdue who he was running against and Purdue, who was a Trump endorsed candidate and you know, worked for Kemp to go pretty hard right on olicy and then and collect all the anti front boat in that primary. But the problem was David Perdue wasn't Trump. You know, It's not as applicable.
Also, Brian Camp had support.
You could say what you want about him, he stood up to Trump, so like he may be far right, but he at least like you know, I think a lot of like conservative voters felt like he had protected their democracy.
I should also say, like an operative recently said to me that the be in a Republican primary is not you know, which candidates do you want to have a beer with, but which candidate will break a beer bottle over someone else's head?
That's terrible? Has that always been true? Is that new?
I think there's always been a pretty strong element of that, but more so now you know big part of this Manto. I'm like, I do think that this matters, you know, in terms of if you are a candidate who you want to defend your positions and fight for your positions and defend your country. Looking for the biggest, baddest person out there is not the worst metric necessarily, right, It's
one of many. But I think in the Republican Party the toughest candidate is where the persons perceived to be the toughest is often in the best place to win.
Okay, I'm going to do something mean now, because we're friends. I'm going to redo a tweet and you're going to have to guess what year this is?
Oh wow.
Nearly half of all registered voters say they're not satisfied with the two major presidential candidates and want other choices. Forty seven percent not satisfied. Guess what election twenty twelve, two thousand.
And eight, John McCain and Barack Obama.
I was going in the right direction.
You were, same story in two thousand with Bush vy Gore, also Carter Reagan in nineteen eighty.
Yeah, but Twitter did not exist for Carter Reagan really and really for Obama and McCain. Like, I mean, the extent that any I'm not even sure when Twitter started exactly, but the extent that anyone was on Twitter during the Obama McCain election, you would think that it was basically just a handful of journalists.
I'm just saying that it does seem in my mind, like that question is, you know, the question of like you're not happy with either candidate feels like everybody feels that way all the time.
Yeah, I mean, it shouldn't be shocking, Like the two parties are going to spend you know, a couple billion dollar between the candidates and the parties, a couple of billion dollars destroying each other in campaign ads and mailers stuff like that. So you know, you look at that and you're like, no, wonder people are angry about the
two parties. It wouldn't be shocking. Like if every morning you wake up and you turn on the television and it's like, you know, this party is gonna take your house and your family and your car and then you know, shoot you in the street, and then you turn on the TV the next morning it's the other party saying the exact same thing. Eventually gonna be like, maybe there's another alternative to these two parties, and.
That alternative is RFK JUNI, you're just kidding.
No, it's not those a real shot in the army.
We are the worst people.
That was a terrible joke and both of us, no I appreciate the hell out of it. So let's talk about everyone's favorite MAGA congresswoman CrossFit Queen Marjorie Taylor Green.
She's hit a bump in the road for sure.
The Freedom Caucus basically wants to get rid of her, and most of them don't want her anymore.
Does that work?
She's too mainstream? He went, like she partied out. I mean the original kin was that she threw her support to Kevin McCarthy, and she's been fighting with Lauren Bobert. They had nasty words with each other on the House more recently.
And there was a great moment where the was it Bobert who said that MTG was just that the reason she had called her a nasty little bitch was because she was a nasty little bitch.
Yeah, I think that's the way it read.
Yeah, that's what did you call this person?
I did because she is well.
Well, I mean, you know, that's a Washington apology if I ever heard. But it was MTG that called Bobert that, So I think I think you asked if.
It was called was No, it's MTG. Yes.
I mean, look, I think they have very different profiles. In Congress number one, Marjorie Taylor Green's in a pretty safe district, and it seems unlikely she's going to lose no matter what she does, whereas like Lauren Bobert's in the district where she could lose and she's kind of doubling down on extremism, so maybe that will work for her. I would say the commercial wisdom is that it won't, and maybe that Marjorie Taylor Green doesn't have to worry about Lauren Bobert for very long.
Yeah, but Marjorie Taylor Green does have to worry about the rest of freedom carcos if she gets kiboshed.
Yeah. I mean, I guess, I you know, are they going to end up a primary challenge or two? Or does anybody really believe that she's like not extreme enough? You know?
I mean, I guess I love how exhausted you sound.
I mean, if you ever like saw the movie Mean Girls, Like it's like some groups sitting at one of those tables that's not the you know, the plastic table. They're like sitting at one of the like outer rain tables, and then they're like starting to pick on each other. They're like, oh, you're not You're not cool enough to be in the av club now, you know, Like, I.
Mean, right, there's a larger Republican congressional problem going on, which is McCarthy has like really kind of long. I mean, he did this thing, which was he kept the federal government from defaulting and crashing the American economy.
He's kind of like lost the will of his caucus.
Now I'm not sure that he had it to lose. That is just say we watched him go through fifteen rounds of taming. It's been a long time since there's been anyone in politics at that level that has had such a little room to maneuver. Sometimes people make a choice and they decide, you know, to do things that they know will harm the moment. You could see John Bahner doing that. But I think McCarthy's just simply trying to figure out the best thing he can do to
maintain his place. You know, it's like he's walking a tightrope and juggling, you know, fiery sticks at the same time, and there's diosaurs coming at him, just trying to stay on that pipe rope. Then all of a sudden, boom, out of nowhere, you know, Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Bober fighting each other, and you know, he says awkwardly something about how Trump might not be the best handed pig on Biden and then he has to like put that back back in a box really quickly, and yet
guys like he's got no room to maneuver. But also, let's just say he doesn't have the strongest vertebrae of any congressional leader we've ever seen. So maybe it's helpful as you try to maneuver into tiny spaces.
But I want to I just want to go further with this for a minute. Is the problem a lack of spine with McCarthy, Because I would argue there have been other leaders of Congress.
I know this is going to that you're going to be shocked by this.
Who themselves did not have deep and real beliefs in the things that they were pushing. Like, I don't know that the problem McCarthy has is a lack of a spine as much as it's a lack of a brain. I mean that in the nicest possible way.
Obviously, I am certain that Kevin McCarthy has a brain. Having interact with Kevin McCarthy before, I can I assure you that Kevin McCarthy has a brain.
But that there's a sort of golden retriever like quality to him.
I think that Kevin McCarthy, like most congressional leaders, as somebody who wants power more than they have particular adherents to any one policy or even total ideology, right like what they care about his advance of themselves. But I think with McCarthy it is more transparent and more evident than with most that he's just doing what he has to do to get along. And you almost never see him take a position that is like the difficult one
to take. I mean, I guess, I guess arguably maybe you know, not the fault thing was difficult to take. But he's trying to find the positions he can take that are going to keep him in power. And look, the founders, I think designed a system that relied on, you know, the ambition of individuals. They understood it, right, They knew that people that were in these jobs, that were members of Congress or whatever would act in certain ways and try to get reelective and whatnot, and so
they understood the infernal politics. I just you know, McCarthy is again in this position where you.
Like, he can't move, he has no he doesn't have the numbers.
Right, one misstep and his career was over.
Yeah, heartwarming story I want to get into this sort of where Biden is right now. Jesse and I were both saying this before we started recording, that we thought the Biden economics message was good.
And those graphs.
From the European the G seven, and they're not all European obviously, but the G seven countries showed that really the Bidenomics, for whatever it's worth, is actually working.
Yeah. I mean, I think there are about zero Americans who are going to vote based on how the US economy is doing at large versus other countries.
Right, But I mean I think it's a meaningful indicator.
Sure, I guess what I would say about the biodonomics message of this. There are strong indicators of recovering economy, and there are also some indicators that are not where the Biden folks would like them to be. But there's only so much the president can do to control the economy. And if the economy surges back and people feel that it surges back, because of course, the perceptions of what's going on to voters are often more important than the reality.
If by next November voters feel like the economy is a good place, Biden's going to want to be able to take credit for it, and he's not going to be able to do that unless he lays the ground for that. So now is when he's laying the ground, or to say, he's here is our economic plan. We believe that it's working now, and we believe it's going to be working more next November. And the thing is, if he's wrong, he's going to lose anyway. Maybe he
wins anyway. But if the economy has fallen off the cliff a year, you know, a year and a half from now, if we're in deepercession or depression or something, then it doesn't matter what he said today. On the other hand, if it's going well, he wants to be able to take credit for it, so he lays that credit it now.
It does seem like, you know, every time and again, I feel like every time we talk about this economy, when we've talked about this when we've had a Republican in office, I feel like there's more kind of the president gets credit for the economy than when we have a Democrat in office. And remember when you see all that polling, people are always saying, oh, Republicans are better on the economy, and that's just sort of like a
conventional wisdom baked in. I mean, there's so much evidence, and I always think about this, there's so much evidence, and in fact, like what did Trump do? He did a huge tax cut, He raised the taxes in the Blue states with this making the state and local income tax assault not deductible, so raising our taxes. And then because to punish blue states, and then he uh, you know, he did all these sort of crony capitalist moves and
then we had a pandemic. So I mean that obviously these things are not related in that way, but like he didn't show any great economic chops. And then you have Biden here who was doing this massive infrastructure spending.
So again like that does pump up the GDP.
So I just wonder, like, why do people who are pulled always think Republicans are better on the economy.
It's you have thirty seconds to answer this question.
If your assertionist the Democrats are better on the economy, and if people think Republicans are, then that would seem to be a messaging the spirit.
But I mean, you think it's just sort of baked in there.
I don't think it necessarily is. I don't think people felt Republicans were good on the economy in two thousand and eight when the economy was like falling through the floor. So you know, it depends on the moment, but Republicans talk more about the economy, or at least traditionally have talked more about the economy. Last thirty years or so is a little different. It's always sort of a core focus on business, and the markets are core focused bubblekan politics.
So I think the Democrats have they have to make sure that they you know, am a competitive standpoint, that they talk about that issue that is most important to most voters and talk about it in a way that resonates with voters.
John Allen, I hope you're not mad at me.
Why would I be mad at here?
And that you'll still come back and visit us again. This was really a great conversation. I appreciate you.
I'm never mad at you. Molli.
Hi, it's Mollie and I am wildly excited that for the first time, Fast Politics, the show you're listening to right now.
Is going to have merch for sale over at.
Shop dot fastpoliticspod dot com.
You can now buy.
Shirts, hats, hoodies, and toe bags with our incredible designs. We've heard your cries to spread the word about our podcast and get a tow bag with my adorable Leo the Rescue puppy on it. And now you can grab this merchandise only at shop dot fastpoliticspod dot com.
Thanks for your support.
Emily Atkin is the author of the climate newsletter Heated.
Welcome to Fast Politics, Emily.
Oh, it's so great to be back.
I was just talking to my husband and he was saying, like, maybe we should go for a walk, and then he's like, there's an air quality alert out. This is like the first summer where like you can't walk because of the air it's bad.
I think that people are starting to kind of see how this is connected to climate change and starting to realize like, oh, I don't think I like puffs la, Yeah, I really do.
I'm excited if that's true. I'm a little worried that they're not putting it together. We did have orange smoke. You know.
There was one day where we got.
Up to like almost five hundred on the AQI, which is like, is in five hundred when you start like getting really sick and dying.
Yeah, that's like the worst air quality you're running up on some of the worst air quality in the world. That can trigger a stroke, It could trigger a heart attack in people with cardiovascular problems, it could trigger it out asthma attack. Yeah, that's the level that you really don't want to be outside, particularly if you have any pre existing conditions, but also just generally.
Yeah, I mean that was pretty scary.
I mean, so what's happening right now is that there are wildfires in Canada. Can you just talk a little bit about what exactly is happening and how this is sort of playing out.
Yeah, I mean from a climate change perspective and from just a weather perspective, wildfires are It's normal that wildfires would happen, and it's normal that the smoke would travel from the place that the wildfire is to a different place.
Right, That's that's a normal thing that would happen.
Yeah, you know, wind fires, it's all good. The problem right now is that we're seeing these massive wildfires and it's not really wildfire season. It technically is, but it's right at the start and the amount of acres that are burning from these wildfires is unlike anything that people have ever seen, particularly for this region in Canada that
they're burning. So that is very consistent with predictions from climate scientists that say, you know, the more carbon women into the atmosphere, the hotter the average world temperature gets, the drier dry places get. One of the funny things about climate change, it's not funny, it's just complicated, but it's that drier places get drier, and wetter places get wetter.
It just makes everything a bit more extreme. And so when.
People ask me, how do you know if this event was because of climate change or influenced by climate change, the answer is that every single weather event that we live through is affected by climate change because we live in a climate that has already changed. And these fires that we're seeing are very consistent with predictions that wildfires burn stronger, burn longer, and that translates to air quality alerts in places that the fires aren't even happening.
It does seem like that is pretty unbelievable, like the change I've seen in my lifetime.
And I'm forty four, so I could probably be your mother. But if I had you when i was fourteen, I'm just kidding.
I'm sorry, But what I've seen is that there's like.
There's also like no snow, we even had snow.
I was actually just at this climate summit where there was this awesome presentation of climate data. The name of the organization doing this is eluding me, so I apologize to them in advance. But it was this awesome presentation of what the country looked like forty years ago versus
now in terms of the warming that's already happened. They zoomed in on Maine, for instance, that these towns in Maine, and they could tell you what the average snow season looked like forty years ago and what it looks like now, and how that corresponds with the one point one to one point two degrees celsius of warming that has happened over time, right right, because the world has already.
Warned a certain amount.
So like what you're seeing over the last forty years of your life is backed up by the data. Like you can look at a map and see that this thing that you feel that you're getting less snow, that it's not as cold, it is happening and it is consistent with these predictions.
As horrifying as that is, it is, at.
The same time, the way I look at it kind of nice to know that, like, Okay, we can sort of we can trust these predictions are correct, and so therefore we can trust the science that says here what you need to do to have it not get worse.
So let's talk for a minute about what that science looks like. I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of anxiety about carbon capture. There's a lot out there that sounds like bullshit.
So talk to us about what is bullshit and what is real.
The most important thing that you need to know about what is bullshit is anyone that tries to make the claim that we can continue to extract and burn fossil fuels at the current rate and not reach a level of climate catastrophe that makes a large chunk of the planet unlivable for millions of people.
And by the way, I think what's important when you say that is we're not talking about like just climate crisis in one country. If people are dying of heat stroke in the UAE, that is echoing out everywhere else too. Well.
Yeah, I mean climate change is so common, flex right, that there are many different ways that the planet or an ecosystem can become unlivable. In let's say, a three sea world, a world that has warmed on average three degrees celsius since the pre industrial era. Like, yeah, there are going to be areas of India that regularly become too hot for the human body to actually live in. That's going to spur refugee crises. We're going to have a lot of people moving. They're going to be sea
level rides. That is going to make some places also unlevel. Pretty easy stuff to visualize there. There's also going to be more wildfires that bring more smoke into cities that makes it unlivable for people with asthma, or people with babies or old people. Right, stores, hurricanes, things like that, and then there's just all of these social effects that
come with those things. Right, maybe you can actually live in the place with a lot of smoke, but there's not enough hospital capacity or something like that, or you can't get to work because you work outside. Right, It's livability is not just about your health and about whether you die. It's about also the quality of life and the.
Way you live your life.
So there is no unfortunately, there is no credible science that shows that we can limit these effects without transitioning away from fossil fuels. The fossil fuel industry and a lot of conservatives in particular, will try to tell you that just by switching to natural gas or just by installing carbon capture, we can avoid a lot of these emissions and keep using fossil fuels. The only thing that they don't offer there is evidence to show that that will work. And the reason they don't offer it is
because it doesn't exist. It's just a lot of buzzwords that sound really cool. Carbon capture is not a feasible technology at scale. Natural gas is a fossil fuel that's made of methane right which it's hugely polluted p greenouse gas that is the most was harmful bullshit that is out there right now.
For sure, there was.
Some weird elon Musk climate change stuff where he was saying crazy stuff about climate change and how I wasn't quite following. But isn't that a little scary that that guy who made all his money on an ev.
Is uh doesn't believe in climate change.
It's wild because he is very much cited as this savior for climate change because he's.
Developed evs a tesla.
First of all, like simply developing EV's doesn't help that much you actually have to reduce the number of cars on the road. That's also been pretty clearly laid out in scientific literature that like just merely switching to EV's, switching all the gas powered cars to EV's is not going to help. You have to you have to make it so that people drive less and that there are actually less cars on the road.
And Elon does not want to do that. It's just so interesting.
He's got this really weird view of climate change I've been looking into recently where he acknowledges the role of fossil fuels but doesn't think that farming contributes to climate change, which is wild because it.
Does, right, Obviously, I really don't know.
What's going on with him.
The latest thing that he was in the news climate wise, for was that he responded to this New York Post story about.
Oh, the coal pizza ovens, yeah, which you wrote brilliantly about.
Thank you.
Yeah.
He was like, these won't do anything to fight climate change.
They're bullshit, and it made so much news that it was so wild because it was like, these rules for pizza ovens have nothing to do with climate change. So unfortunately, I would say, like, the thing that's so wild about him is that he's just so vulnerable to misinformation now because that's like who he's decided he is.
Yeah, no, now, I mean quite interesting to watch him just flail around. So it's basically fire season now, even though it used to only be fire season in California, I guess now it's fire season in New York too, right.
Well, yeah, I mean you wouldn't normally see a lot of wildfire in New York, but unfortunately that's another effective climate change, is that the dryer it gets, the more areas are vulnerable to wildfires. So yeah, I mean wildfire season normally, like wildfire and hurricane season. Like, while the West is getting messed up by wildfire season, the East is getting messed up by hurricane season. They kind of intersect,
they're like at the same time summer to fall. And now we're seeing that that's still happening, but both coasts are also getting the threat of the other coasts problem too. We see very clearly now that the East Coast is starting to feel the effects of wildfire season because wildfire season is expanding, and now even the even the West coast gets hurricane threats now they haven't seen you know, a big storm in the way the East Coast has gotten yet, but it's coming.
It's it's wild, it's not great.
Can you explain to us what this warmer Alnino means? Basically, the the ocean in the Atlantic is as warm as it's ever been.
Right, you'll have these anomaly years, right. I don't think that the meteorology of it is necessarily as useful for us to explain and understand as the effect of it is that when it's an al Nino year, everything is magnified in terms of heat. So anything any you're probably an al Nino year is when you're probably going to see the hottest temperatures on average in a long time.
Probably when you're going to see more heat waves, and then also extreme weather like hurricanes because warm water, warm ocean water fuels storms.
This is like unprecedented how warm the Atlantic is right now, right.
Right, Because it's an al Nino, it's like we're talking about earlier, the climate has already changed, so this will will be the hottest El Nino ever. And el Nino is normal, that was always going to happen, but in the world that it now exists is a hotter world. So it's going to be the hottest alnino.
That does not seem good.
None of it is good.
I think the question really is like, what are we going to do now that we know about this, now that we see it. Are we going to stop denying that it's happening? And are we going to take some necessary steps to ensure that every single El Nino now in the future is not the hottest El Nino that's ever been?
Right?
Do you have anything hopeful you want to tell us? Yeah?
I do, actually, which is that I think there's this general idea that it's kind of too late to do anything about this, which just isn't true. I mean, it's very clear that it's not true. And every single piece of action that anyone does to help, even if you can't like see the effect on the atmosphere, it does help because even if it doesn't change emissions, the things that we do help change culture. One of the things that I write about a lot in my newsletter is
that climate change is not just an emissions problem. It is a society and cultural problem. It's about what we value and changing the things that we value. Because we won't do what's necessary to solve climate change until we change the things we value. So even like posting online and making podcasts about stuff like this and trying to like envision a different worlds where and an economy and world is not based on extraction and that's you know,
based on reciprocity with each other and with nature. It's that kind of messaging is actually really important.
And there are so many movements.
I think what's so great about the climate change activism community, which is so broad by the way, is that if there's one thing they know how to do, it is create community. And I think that there is a joy of working on something that you really care about with other people. I think we tend to have this capitalism driven need to not do anything.
Unless we know that it will have, you know, an impact.
It's like, oh, I'm not going to do a hobby unless I'm going to be the best editor, unless I'm going to monetize it, and not just doing things because they make us feel good and we get to be with people and you know, and enjoy ourselves. I feel the same way about climate activism and climate writing and anything based on ecological solutions. Is that like, if you go into it with the idea that you don't want to do it unless you can save the world, then you're never going to experience.
Any joy out of it.
The point should be to experience joy out of it and to make yourself feel better. And the more you do that, like, the more progress is going to be made.
Oh very interesting.
Is there anything else that you feel like is important that we should be talking about when it comes to climate?
So many things.
My reporter Aril is currently working on a story about how renewable energy in Texas is actually saving the electric grid from shutting down during their extreme heat. Oh wow, that's a really good climate story. And it's funny because you'll see still from Texas Governor Abbit and other politicians. You know, they'll still say that solar and wind energy are unreliable, we can't rely on them to power the grid.
But the reality is right now that as the grid is overheating in Texas because of climate fueled extreme heat, the natural gas plants that are shutting down. It's the nuclear facilities that are shutting down, the ones that depend on thermal regulated heat. The only reason the grid is up and still working and people have their air conditioner right now is because Texas also has a ton of
solar and wind. So we're seeing the positive news play out before our eyes, like these renewable energy sources are really working, and so it's really important, I think, for people to know that and to be armed with that information.
Right on that note, thank you so much, Emily.
I hope you will come back.
I hope you will have me back. It's always great to be here, and thank you for covering this.
Now.
Pet Jesse Cannon, Molly junk Fast. You know that Kevin McCarthy doesn't have a lot of good qualities, and one of them is nefitely not his backbone.
I was really impressed today with how much stupid Kevin McCarthy is managing to involve himself in. But today he said that maybe Trump wasn't the best candidate. You will remember Trump as having been impeached twice, in dieted twice, and having led the January sixth armed insurrection at the Capitol. Kevin McCarthy suggested that perhaps that person was not the
best GOP presidential candidate. Well, I'm going to fast forward and tell you unsurprisingly, he has now apologized for that terrible misleading of the American people, and he and his incredible stupidity is once.
Again are a moment of fucker.
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.