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 VP Harris leads Trump by two points in a Reuter's ipsos poll. We have such a great show for you today. New York Times contributor Justin Wolfers drops by to talk about Biden's strong economy and how Kamala can run on it. Then we'll talk to Massachusetts Attorney Generals Andrea Campbell about regulating assault rifles. But
first we have talking points memos. Josh Marshall, Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Josh Marshall, thanks for having me.
I'm so excited to have you because I feel like during.
The last three weeks of just democratic freak out, you and I both had the same take, which was that all of this needed to slow.
Down, and that the gut reac action to dump the nominee, well, it ultimately was the right call. I think, I mean, we don't know yet, but people were just being a little bit emotional.
I think that's right to me.
As you say, I mean, we're kind of we're onto this new period yet, like you know, whether whether it's a good idea or not. It's the reality we're living in. If you're a Democrat and if you care about these things, there's you know, one choice, which is to get on board and get everybody pushing in the same direction. My sense from you know, the early days of this sort of like three weeks of agony that Democrats had, that people needed to understand the gravity of what they were proposing,
that this is something that never happens. It's something that you know, the one if you if you look back through history, there is one singular thing that gets you elected president, and that is being president. Power of incumbency is just massive. And we had a primary process and Joe Biden was elected to be the nominee. You know, sometimes unforeseen things happen and you kind of have to toss the rule book out the window. But there's a
reason there's a rule book. And at least for me, I was, you know, wanting to at least you know, to the extent that my job is to commentate and all that kind of stuff, to get people to slow down a bit and remember why that rule book exists, and that it's a pretty good one to follow except in extreme cases. And there's also you know, just one of these things that I always try to remind myself in politics, which is that it's important to keep your head about you, and it's very easy for that not
to happen. And it's also important to not just keep your head about yourself, but maintain some kind of dignity and sense of balance in really extreme and frightening and bewildering moments, just because that's a good way to live
in the world, right. I think this is a case where, you know, in piloting, they have something called I think it's like, you know, instruments only piloting or something like that, And what it is is that it's when you're in really bad weather conditions and you can't literally you can't see,
you can't do it by eye. And what they tell pilots is you just look at your instruments because your sense of balance gets off, your sense of literally what's up and down gets off, how fast you're going gets off.
Your brain is not able to process what's going on, and so you just look at your instruments and you don't look at anything else because you have all these cases where pilots, you know, like they fly straight into the ground because they think they're going up when they're going down, and in politically stormy moments, that's really key. And poles are the closest we have to instruments, even
though they're very imperfect. There was that point where we'd been a couple weeks into this and in fact, the poles had maybe moved like literally one point. You know, I think what really decided this is that over the course of the last week they really did start to dip, but at least as long as we were in that you know, one point move.
Right where it didn't move.
Yeah, you kind of I think you have to say, like, look, maybe this is the right idea, but if you're telling us that he's done, he can't win. The bottom is falling out. Let's just take one moment to look at our only version of an instant panel and say, that's actually not true. The stormy weather and all the weirdness is making you think it's true, but it's actually not so. Anyway, that was I guess my version of kind of like, let's take this one step at a time.
It's interesting because I actually have a theory that those three weeks were really important for the base to galvanize around Kamal Harris, and that if he had just dropped out right after the debate and not waited to see some of the fallout, and there had not been these very obnoxious conversations where donors had said things like, can we skip over the vice president because, you know, because we think that these two white people from Anaheim are better to do this?
You know, can we just west wing this thing?
If there hadn't been that inane op ed where Aaron Sorkin had said that Democrats should nominate Mitt Romney, if we had not had those three weeks, there might have been more questions about Biden dropping out, Like I do think that letting it play out for those three weeks may have actually been a good thing. And then the Vice president has now raised one hundred million dollars. It was eighty, but now I think it's a I think I saw a hundred, but even.
Still, I think at this point probably passed one hundred, right.
Yeah, but eighty and twenty four, right, So that's record breaking. And we're seeing like a lot of enthusiasm for her.
Now.
Whether that enthusiasm translates to polls, we don't know, and whether those polls translate to winning again another question, But it's hard to think of a more seamless rollout. The other thing I want you to talk about because that speech yesterday in the campaign headquarters, which now, by the way, all those people live in Delaware forever. I'm sorry, Yeah, I'm sorry, TJ. You'll grow to love Wilmington. But she came, and I thought the handoff was as generous a handoff as I had ever seen.
I think so many people would agree with this, that if you care about beating Trump, if you care just about Joe Biden as president and as a person, and if you care about democratic politics, the last three weeks just pure agony at so many different levels for so many people. First of all, I think you're right that if Joe Biden had dropped out of the race like Sunday after the debate. First of all, I think at a very basic level, that would be a shocking and
terribly irresponsible thing for Joe Biden to do. I mean, you're the president of the United States. You were chosen, you know, elected by primary voters to run again. You have a bad debate, and you have like forty eight hours of bad press, and you drop out of the race. That's in that would be so bad, and I do think there would be a massive probably eventually overcome, but a shock from Democratic voters like what just happened? You know what was that? A lot of people saying they
don't accept it. This was such a big thing that it really probably took three weeks for everyone to process it, certainly for Joe Biden to process it. I still can't even begin to get my head around what he has grappled with over the last three weeks. Fundamentally, this is not about Joe Biden. It's about electing a president. It's
about beating Donald Trump. But as a separate issue over there, that's also a big, fascinating, heartbreaking thing going on during this and a lot of people, and I was one of these people at certain points, were very against this push to push him out. As you say, there were a lot of sort of the Thunderdome crowd who wanted to just you know, jump over Kamala Harris. There was a lot of stuff to process, and I do think by the end of that three weeks most Democrats had
come to the conclusion that it was necessary. Even if they hated it, it was necessary. I mean, for me, I mean, one of the ways I was looking at this was that I think it was probably possible for Biden to sort of after the debate, after the post debate appearances, to slog it out, and I still think have a chance of winning the presidency, not as much as he had had a chance of winning the president,
but a chance. What really ended it, I think was that once you know, by Sunday, before he made his announcement, basically everybody in the Democratic Party had come out against him running again, and a lot of those people had become angry at him, publicly angry at him, and I think that really broke him as a candidate. Now he broke himself a lot three weeks go, but after that happened, I just think it was literally not possible to continue because if you think about it, think about the convention
in what is it, three weeks or whatever. Imagine having that convention where the whole point is for everybody to be saying rah rah rah Joe Biden. And yeah, it's just if you think about that, it's it's absurd because all of those people are saying, Biden, drop out, you can't do it. And again, about half of those people had moved from drop out to being furious at him not dropping round, so it was impossible, and there we are.
That is really a big part of this massive enthusiasm for Kamala Harris is not just her, although a lot of it's her, it's whole.
We're done with that.
We got through that three weeks and we're putting that behind us and we're moving on. And that is such a relief and such a you know, you have to, like anything in life, people have to process things.
Yeah, I think that's right.
One of the things with the people calling for him to drop out was they didn't know Sincereily like, if a president drops out, the vice president the job is that right to be there when the president cannot. You don't nominate a vice president for any other reason. So the idea that a lot of these dropouts were like you know how there's like polling where they say, like, would you like another candidate? And everyone says yes, because of course you'd like someone else, because someone you know.
It's like would you like to sleep with someone who's.
Not your spouse?
You know?
I mean I don't know, So I think what's interesting is like, but ultimately you'd ask those people and they'd say ten percent would say, you know, I'd like Michelle Obama will absolutely, unequivocally not run, you know, ten percent. I'd like Oprah, I'd like Mark Cuban, I'd like this one.
I'd like that one.
Like I like FDR. I mean, okay, great, great.
Yeah, it just felt like West Wing fantasy. I'd like Mitt Romney. Nobody actually wants mid Romney.
But it didn't feel like it was grounded in actual reality. It was more just like hostility to our Biden. So I think there was some like emotional preparation that needed to happen.
It wasn't just about Biden. It was about a sneering contempt a lot of those people have for Kamala Harris. That was kind of ugly.
And very racist and sexist.
Yeah, I mean, or a lot of things. And part of my kind of antipathy or resistance to that kind of thinking is that, I think, if that's where you're at, and let's you know, let's set aside the reasons for the moment that people wanted to skip over Harris. I think if you're thinking, like, hey, Biden will step aside, and then we'll have like a whole cool thing where everybody will throw their how to and.
It'll be it'll be awesome.
I think if you're thinking that way, you're not understanding the gravity of what you're doing. We're not doing this kind of make your own adventure thing. We're doing it because this is something that can never happen, that does never happen. But we have a totally unforeseen, you know, set of circumstances, and we have to do an emergency thing. And in an emergency thing, you don't get a chocolate
Sunday with all the toppings you want. You hopefully you just you know what I mean, you just it's it's not that kind of thing in an unforeseen emergency. It is in the bedrock of American politics, president has to step aside. There's one person who steps in, that's the vice president.
No, a really good point, and I think that with all that sort of stuff. And the thing I was struck by two was when I would talk to people about it, they would say, you know, I'd say, well, this is like a major thing you would be doing. And the historical president for it is not great.
To put it mildly, yeah, right.
Exactly, Like historically, you know, when a president steps down. It's just not great, you know. So, I mean, now, remember this is we are in a historic times, right. She's running against a man who has convicted Fallon. Now he has two more cases because one was dropped by a maga judge.
That one I think will come back.
Yeah, whether Trump is elected and they all disappear, but I think that one is likely to come back, right.
And that you have just he's been impeached twice. I mean, he just you know, you have a Supreme Court that is preparing to make it so that he can be God king forever. And then you also have the Heritage Foundation with this fulsome plan to just dismantle the entire federal government and make it so women can't have anything at all. Basically, So I do think that it is a historic times, and so we have to wonder. And again, like the mainstream media is decimated. There are like three
outlets left. So whether people understand the states of this, we have no idea. And whether they'll ever understand the stakes of it or even get that information, we don't know, right.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, I feel funny saying it, but I do think that, as you kind of mentioned before, that this three weeks. I think was just necessary. You can't get through something like this in a couple of days. It's not even the idea to get through something like this and a couple of days. And it's funny probably, I don't know. Four or five days after the debate, I was talking to a person who has a very high up position in democratic campaign politics, but not someone
in the Biden campaign. And this person told me that what they had seen from the people knocking doors was not nearly as dramatic as you know, what the pundits were saying. So it was definitely in a kind of like, let's not freak out mode about this. But this person said again very early in July that let's kind of let it play out. If it really seems necessary, it would actually be better to do it after the GOP, just right after the GOP convention.
Interesting, why, well.
I think a because there's no rush, which was I think always an important part of this. I mean, like from the perspective of July second, or third, it's months or a year or two late, right.
Right to have a regular process.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean you need to rush backwards in time, right, it's such a rush. But having said that once you're already in July, doing it in early July versus mid July is really not.
A big deal.
And b what the conventions really are, unlike what the Thunderdome crowd thinks, is there four day commercials for your slate. It's a singular chance when you kind of command everything for four days, and it's not a bad thing to have the other side go first, and then you come out a day later and say, well, cool guys, but we're actually running someone else, so sorry, too bad, you can't do another convention.
The timing was incredible. They made this entire thing about mental acuity because Biden was so old. But now that Biden has dropped out, Donald Trump is the oldest person ever to run for president.
Whoops.
The other good thing that Trump did for the Democratic ticket was that speech, right for ten.
Minutes of normal and an hour and a half of crazy.
Yeah, I mean everybody was, I mean, coming after the shooting and after the convention and after all the ra rah, like most of the press was basically, let's just move on to building the cabinet. I mean, this is a formality, right, and like you know, most of the sort of the DC Insider sheets went totally in with new spiritual, serene Trump and all this kind of stuff, and then he gets up there and it's just like a total freak
for an hour and a half. And that was if you're writing a non goofball script for this that was I think an important inflection because a lot of people people were still uncertain assuming it was Biden.
But a lot of.
People, a lot a lot of press, people who sort of chatter on Twitter and create the sort of the background noise of politics, we're saying like, ish, he's kind of whack, Like well, you know, you know, even if Biden's a wreck, this guy's kind of a mess too. The Republican convention, i think ended with this guy's campaign is going to be a bit of a mess too. Let's slow it down a little because you know, maybe it's not to be a straight line from everybody wearing a near thing to the inauguration.
Yeah that's right, Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm really glad that you came on.
No, thanks for having me.
You're real grown up, Oh, thank you, And you know these are grown up times, right or a historical hopefully?
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More of a podcast person and not a YouTuber, you can and now I'm going to explain into something very complicated. Hit play on YouTube, then put your phone in the lock screen and it will play back so you can listen to it like a podcast. New episodes are dropping in the next few weeks. We need to educate Americans on what Trump's second term would look like and exactly what his plans are.
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Justin Wolfers is a professor of economics at the University of Michigan and a New York Times contributor.
Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics.
He's back in the US of a after seven months in Australia. Our favorite economists. Don't tell Paul Krugman, and I said that justin.
Wolfers, you can tell Paul, go ahead.
It's our secret. Justin Wolfers. I feel like we've been through so much. I was thinking about like you and me being like, is it going to be a recession? And you were saying, I still am optimistic. I don't think remember that where everyone was like, it's going to be a recession, it's going to be a recession. I feel like I'm like, one of the things that really helps me is I remember six months ago, whereas.
No one else does.
And this makes me a super genius when it comes to political commentary.
I'm just giving myself a little credit that I do not deserve. Paul Krookman told me that, Yeah, exactly.
But can you explain what it has, what's going on and where we are, et cetera, et cetera.
Well, so I'm just thrilled that you want to talk economics after everything that's happened. So yeah, the story turns out to be much simpler than the emotional rollercoaster that the media and so many Americans have been through. Here's the story. Twenty nineteen, the economy was doing pretty well. I'm going to say that Trump economy was a strong economy.
That's the truth, right, I've heard that from Trump before.
Yeah, that's how I know it. He told me, yeah, no, but it's true. Unemployment got down to a fifty year low, and that's the single best barometer of how we're doing. You might have liked it if when we grow the pie we gave some of it to the rest of us and not just the plutocrats. That's what the Trump tax cuts made sure that that's where all the cream went. But overall, the pie was big. Then the pandemic hit, and it was the sharpest, deepest, most terrifying moment of
any of our economic lives. It can be hard to remember how bad it was. We have a natural psychological tendency to want to memory hold the whole thing, which matters a lot, because if you ever asked the question, are you better off than you were four years ago? Four years ago, the virus was everywhere, The economy was shut down, and you and I were scared for our professional, economic lives and personal The administration tried to pretend the
pandemic wasn't happening, which is a terrible thing. To do to a pandemic, because virus has spread whether you acknowledge them or not. And so we in the United States had a worse time with the pandemic than most of the rest of the world. And then the Biden presidence he began in January twenty one, take the virus seriously. The virus was the single thing holding back the economy. The economy bounces back, surgeres, surgeres at a rate never
seen before. Now Republicans say this is just bounce back, We're just recovering the jobs we lost, to which the answers, yes, that's true. That's what happens when you take the biggest economic calamity of our lifetime. Seriously, the economy bounces back, and it did. Economic growth was extraordinary through twenty twenty one, amazing through twenty twenty two. And just because people are pessimistic, they started to say, oh, then we must have a recession.
I don't know it's due. And that theory doesn't work with roulette and it doesn't work for economics. And so when an economy's going well, that tells you it's probably likely to continue going well. In fact, that's what happened through twenty twenty three, everyone was saying there's a recession, except you and I, Molly, we were right. And what happens after the bounce back from a deep recession is the economy's got to start to get back to normal
at some point. It's got to go from recovering from a deep high at an extraordinary rate to we're there and we need it to become boring again. And in fact, that's what's happened through twenty twenty four. The economy has gotten boring. You know, you might never have thought you would need calculus again after high school, but it matters for understanding the economy because if we said how's the economy doing, the answer is great. Unemployment is just a
touch above a fifty year low. Output incomes all are well above pre pandemic levels. So that's the level. There's this thing, the first derivative, which is the rate of change, the rate of change. Things are getting better, yeah, they kind of are. They still are getting better, but now we're going to go one more derivative. The rate of change are the rate of change. Things aren't improving miraculously anymore. They're just improving at a good old slow and steady space.
And so if you were used to this incredible bounce back through twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, the disappointing news is it's not happening right now. The great news is we're in a great spy, and we're moving in the right direction, and we're moving in a sustainable pace, and all of this is pretty much exactly what you want to hope for. So I think it's so worth framing any economic discussion in the context of where were you four years ago? Where are you today? You're much better off today.
So let's talk.
About the sort of complaints, the bad faith complaints that inflation is too inflationary and everything is too expensive.
Well, inflation has been too high. You'll notice a tense that I just used. There has been what happened as part of the look, the pandemic's crazy. We've never seen anything like it before. You shut a whole economy down and then you try and open it up the next day. Economies don't work like that. Old people don't work like that.
I don't work like that. Takes a while to get the engine running, and because of that, we had imbalances between people wanting to go back and spend and the economy's ability to produce and to move goods around the world. That caused high inflation in almost every country around the world. Really important because if you think Biden caused inflation is a genius because he managed to do it in every other country. Now inflation got to real crisis levels nine percent.
I want to be careful, that's not a crisis. That's uncomfortable, and it's uncomfortable because it could become a crisis, as countries like Argentina have shown us. But instead of continuing to go north, it went south. And so inflation today is back around three percent. We want it ideally down around two percent. You might say, what's magical about two percent. It's when economists look at this and they say, we want inflation so low you barely notice it. Two percent
is basically barely noticeable. Three percent is one percent away from being barely noticeable. Our interesting, So we're on our way back. We're almost there, and actually by election day there's a pretty good chance will be all the way there. And so the story that the folks who write talking points haven't yet come to grips with is the inflation crisis was a crisis of twenty two and twenty twenty three.
But by November twenty twenty four, inflation will be either barely noticeable or a touch above barely noticeable.
Can you explain to our listeners what it means with the wage growth going up?
Look, here's the thing. Inflation is back to normal, but prices aren't. That's what's got people upset. Stuff at the store is still expensive. Now. One thing we could do is we could try and have the opposite of inflation. That's called deflation. That's when price is full. We could have them fall back to where they were in twenty nineteen before the pandemic. The way to do that would be to have a deep recession, maybe even the depression.
It's not what you want.
I think it's a bad idea. Let's not do that.
Yeah.
So the other way to make sure that people aren't hurt by inflation is if prices go up twenty percent, if wages go up twenty five percent, then we can now all afford five percent more than we could before the inflationary first And actually that's what's happening. So when inflation was as high as nine percent, it was hard for wages to keep up. It was sprinting out of the blocks. It was the hair. But once inflation then falls, the slow and steady thing that is wages, it catches up.
And so people now they still find the prices at the store offensive, but there's more money in their wallets and they can afford it.
Talk to me about interest rates, because part of this inflation landscape has to do with interest rates. Can you explain to me why interest rates? And I actually know why, But were you for our listeners, what's happening with interest rates?
Okay, when inflation speeds up, economists start to worry that that's because the economy's ability to produce stuff isn't keeping up with how much stuff people want to buy. Demand exceed supply, so people raise prices if you can't bump around supply, and actually can. There was a lot of what Biden was trying to do with the Inflation Reduction Act, trying to get the supply side of the economy back to normal so that we could start producing as much
stuff again. But once you've exhausted all of that, if you want to try and reduce the gap between demand and supply, you've got to reduce demand, and the way to do that is you raise interest rates, because if interest rates are high, if I are an investor, it's going to be less likely to makes sense for me to borrow money and start and you've build a your factory.
Or if I am thinking about building a house if interest rates are high, I'm going to be less likely to do that if interest rates are high, because I'd have a much bigger mortgage as a result. And so the idea is you want to slow the economy enough that you'll slow inflation. This is where you get the word soft landing. You want to slow it enough that you won't cause a crash, but it'll be enough to reduce inflation. Economists talk about this all the time. Every
business cycle, we hope will get one. Almost every time we fail. But this time it looks like we've nailed the soft landing. The economy's going well, there's no recession in sight, and inflation has fallen from its very high levels down to barely noticeable levels. We'd like it to fall a little more, and so that's where there's a little bit of debate about what should we do now. If you think inflation's all the way back to normal, or or you're confident that it will be soon, Then
you say, hey, we're putting on the brakes. Let's not do that, in which case you want the Fed to reduce interest rates. But if you're worried that inflation is still a little bit higher than we'd like it to be, then maybe you want us to still keep a foot on the break to slow the economy, to slow inflation. Look, well, debate backwards and forwards. Will the Fed cut rates in September, you know, one month or two months, you know, changing the timing or whether it's by half a percentage point
or a quarter. But step back, and the one thing we can be confident of is the Fed looks like it stopped raising rates. It might leave them where they are for a couple of months, but then it sees interest rates coming back down to the sorts of levels that most folks are used to. So if you've been putting off getting a mortgage, sure put it off for another few months still, but be confident that interest rates are going to be lower, you know, I think within a year for sure.
Can you explain to us a little bit about what is happening right now with the billionaire oligarch class going very trumpy and where cryptocurrency figures into that.
Oh my goodness, Marley and Marley, I'm sorry too?
Is that too mean?
No?
Not mean enough? I mean, honestly, I wish we lived in a world where the most important question on people's tongues was how do you think the working class are doing? How are people getting by? There are a lot of people with food insecurity, unable to put food on the table during the pandemic. Where are they at now? And instead because they're so splashy, so ugly, die They have so many colors, where so many types of folicece vests. We talk about mask and Trump and all of these clowns.
You know, they're a big share of the world's worth and a small share of the world's humanity. One of that's meaning to dodge your question, Molly. Look, I think if I were a billionaire, I would think about my political activity as a horse race between two things. One, I want people to like me and I want to fit in. Two. I want to keep as much of my billions of dollars of cash as I can because I like bathing naked in a vault full of US dollars.
What happened in twenty sixteen is Trump was, and twenty twenty the person who he is, which is awful, a rapist, a criminal, a person of low character, a person of low leadership ability, an economic illiterate, and so it was simply too embarrassing. The first of those factors I want
to fit in led the billionaires to stay quiet. What's happened since then is they've realized that the tax cuts they stand to get are enormous, and once one or two billionaires comes out pro Trump, the rest start to realize that when I go to sun Valley or when I go skiing and an, the other guys are still going to talk to me, even if they come out of creatrum.
They're disgusting too.
Yeah, so you know, we all know how hard it is to vacation on Martha's vineyard. As a pro Trumper, it's a little less hurt and probably it's almost comfortable over on Nantucket. So once one goes, you expect a fare few of them to go to them. I say, on the one hand, you might care to make sure that you get your big piece of the pie. On
the other hand, competence matters. The size of the pie will be determined by the quality of the economic advice the next president gets and the decisions that he or she makes. The quality of economic advice under the last Trump administration was literally the worst in any of our lifetimes.
The decisions the president made were abysmal. And the single greatest test of economic leadership and economic policy was the pandemic, and the United States under Trump failed that to a greater degree than any other industrialized country.
It's just tax cuts, I mean, and maybe a lack of regulation too.
It could be that. And also like, look, how am I meant to understand a person who spends forty three billion dollars just so the rest of the world will stare at them more frequently. I don't have a great theory of these guys.
That's really good.
One of the things that there are some business leaders that felt that some of the regulatory stuff that Biden was doing was anti capitalist. You and I have very similar views on this. Can you explain to our listeners why capitalism with regulations is much better capitalism with no regulation?
Boy, that sounds like a leading question.
This is a layer for you, right.
Hey, listen, I want to stop by actually acknowledging the critique, which is they said Biden is anti capitalist. Sometimes they mean anti.
Capitalis yeah, good point.
Think about the economy bakes one big pie, and then we have to decide who gets what slice. If capital gets a big slice, there's less left for labor. Biden is unapologetically pro labor. If you're in favor of labor getting a bigger share than you are anti capital. So yes, he was anti capital to the extent that that's what's required to be pro labor, given that most of us
are not billionaires, that's kind of okay. So that's saying if the size of the pie is given, being pro labor might help more people because most people get their income from labor. Now, the truth is the size of the pies not given, which is markets. Now, I'm going to sound like everyone's favorite libertarian or the libertarian of your nightmares. Markets are an extraordinary way of generating wealth. You just need to compare North and South Korea to
see this. North Korea doesn't use markets users central planning. South Korea adopted markets and in the post war period, has grown extraordinarily North Caore people are short, they're hungry. They're short because they're hungry, they're poor. All sorts of outcomes are much worse in North Korea than in South Korea. So that says markets are a fantastic way of generating wealth and lifting all of us out of poverty. The problem is, the reason markets work is because of the
value of competition. The problem is, if you own a business and you're in competition with other firms, the first thing you want to do is eliminate competition. That's why Apple and Google used to have a deal where they wouldn't steal each other's employees, they wouldn't compete and pay the workers more. And when you don't compete, then we don't get all the benefits of markets. Now, you can't
just ask people to compete. You've got to force them to because otherwise what they'll do is they'll try and run monopolies in which they screw you and I with higher prices. And so that's the essential point of regulation. Markets need rules to work. It's just like thinking about football or any of your favorite sports games. If there were no rules, it'd be kind of a game. Once we have rules, we have competition, and it's that competition that produces the beauty.
So interesting, Thank you so much.
Justin it's always a great pleasure. And Molly, I'm just going to offer one unsolicited word of advice. Here's the question I was expecting you to ask. I love the fact you went to let's go to the meat and potatoes economics. Let's continue our econ one oh one journey together. But I would have thought the news of the week was there's Kamala Harris running for the presidency, and the question is how should she run on the economy?
Yes, give us that answer.
She should own the economic record. She should say we faced the economic calamity of a lifetime, and we've turned the economy around. Consider where you are compared to where you were four years ago. Remember the fear, Remember the horror, Remember the concern about how we would be in a few years time. And look at life today. Isn't it better?
We did that?
Yeah? That's good. Well, I'm I'm pressed. Thank you, justin. I hope i'll here. I hope you'll come back soon.
I look forward to it.
Andrea Campbell is the Attorney General of the state of Massachusetts. Welcome to Fast Politics. Attorney General Campbell. I'm not going to call you General Campbell. We just talked about this you know, it's too weird, but I think Attorney General Campbell is good.
Right, that's great, Thank you for having me.
You are the Attorney General of Massachusetts, which is I think a really important state for any number of reasons. First, I want you to talk a little bit about what you guys are doing when it comes to guns and young people, because you know, we had this assassination attempt on Donald Trump, and you, like so many of these violent gun crimes, right, and like so many of the school shootings, this was a twenty year old with an AR fifteen.
That's exactly right. And you know, there were some that suggested, while you're, of course extending prayers for the former president, which I did immediately to him and his family, and of course was praying that he was okay, that we should wait in talking about gun reform and gun violence, and I said, absolutely not. It's been an epidemic, not only in Massachusetts but in this country as you know, for a very long time. I'm proud of the progressive
gun laws that we have in Massachusetts. Actually, the weapon that this gentleman used you couldn't have purchased in Massachusetts, and you couldn't have purchased copies or the duplicates of that weapon. So clearly we're ahead, but there's still work to do. So since becoming Attorney General of Massachusetts, I have started a gun violence Prevention unit, and we are focused on all things related to gun enforcement, so actively enforcing our current gun laws because sadly they are under attack.
And then the second was making sure that we were in the state House to expand our existing gun laws, so we had to update our assault weapons banned. We had to actually make sure there was lef legislation pass to protect and regulate ghost guns, which just recently happened. We expanded our red flag law, which also recently happened.
And then the other piece I think is just as important, Molli, is there are a lot of community based organizations in Massachusetts that are on the ground breaking cycles of violence in community and so I'm pushing my team to think about funding these organizations through our new gun violence Prevention unit. And so we're convening a lot of folks right now. We just got the unit off the ground last year, but that's also going to be a major focus of the unit too.
Can you explain to us what that gun violence unit does.
And looks like absolutely.
So it's the first time such a unit as existed in the office. And the reason I set it up is when I was campaign for Attorney General, there were a lot of folks, including those in law enforcement, who felt like in the state, we needed a one point of contact, a place for folks to go one to be informed of about our existing gun law. Law enforcement included they needed a place to go to ensure they were in compliance if they had to, for example, comply
with certain regulations. Who could they talk to to make sure that they were doing that. Our storage laws, are licensing laws, you name it. So that was really the brain child for creating a gun violence Prevention unit, was to be a one stop shop for folks to also be a convening power. Massachusetts is progressive, so how do we work with other states, including surrounding states, on making
sure removing guns from our communities addressing gun trafficking. So the unit is involved with efforts with respect to that at too, and right now it has a director and a deputy director. They're working really hard. They also work with other parts of the office to make sure the
work is more intersectional. So one division is enforcing our gun laws, but making sure that they're also talking to our grant's division that can put out grants and resources, for example, to fund community based organizations taking on gun violence. So they're doing a lot of that work to make sure it's intersectional, not siloed in the office. It's a tall order, but as you know, it is timely, it has been timely for a long time. And then lastly, I will say it's not any less significant. I'm a
mom of two beautiful boys. I have a four year old and a six year old, so going to be seven and five, and I want to make sure that, of course they are living free with no fear of gun violence. It's a candidate running for office, someone going to the grocery store, going to school, should not live in fear of losing their light. And so actively thinking about how we protect our children and our kids is also a major focus of the unit.
Yes, so really good point.
Can you talk to us about what the other sort of key issues as an attorney general that you're facing in the Massachusetts right now.
In addition to addressing, of course, gun violence, other issues include everything having to do with affordability and economics. The number one issue I would say, based on polling and conversations complaints into our office, it's just to it'ssive to live in Massachusetts. Healthcare is to expensive groceries and too expensive. That is far and wide what we're here across the country. So we do a lot of consumer protection work. We're putting money back into the pockets of workers every day.
Wage stuff is an issue, so when they go to work, they're not getting paid and we're setting absolutely not. So we have a whole division that takes on that work. We're taking on scams, particularly in the context of our elders. I established an Elder Justice Unit to direct and do that work. We are also making sure we're taking on
student loan debt. We have great federal partners, so we are wiping out hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt for folks in Massachusetts, taking on junk fees, all those hidden fees. We have some proposed regulations out there. I think we're ahead of the game working with the Feds on this in Massachusetts as well. And then the other
sets of issues. I want to mention everything having to do with protecting our civil rights, and that includes reproductive justice, I have a reproductive Justice unit that we got off the ground yet last year that is at the forefront of protecting all access to reproductive healthcare, but also gender affirming care, and also making sure we're addressing the disparities in black maternal health and then taking on hate, the uptaking complaints in terms of anti Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, you
name it that's on the rise. In Massachusetts, we have sued a neo Nazi group that started in Massachusetts. Sadly, it's not something we want to be known for, and that has been significant work. In addition to suing this neo Nazi group, we're also doing a lot in terms of school based training to make sure our kids are not dealing with bullying and harassment. So it is a lot. That's a snapshot of just what rises to the top for our constituents. I think what's also relevant to folks nationwide.
Yeah, Like, one of the underreported stories this cycle has been the number of black women who are running for election, and I'm thinking about Angela Osbrooks, our vice president, who is now running for president. One of the things that has really struck me is Vice President Harris was actually the second black woman ever to be in the Senate, which is insane. That's where Angela would be fourth, which
is still insane. I know you've campaigned with Harris, and also can you talk to us about like what this feels like for you.
I so appreciate the question, Mollie, but also your frame. Right. We are very proud of Vice President Harris. And I say we because I have been on so many different zooms with so many different women and men who are just proud of the direction we're going here and saying, frankly, it's about time. And she does have an extensive career.
When I first met her, I was at UCLA graduating from law school and she was my convincement speaker and she was a district attorney then and then becomes the first black woman ang in the country, as you said, the Senate vice president. She's been doing the work. But like you've also lifted up, so have other black women who are taking on these challenges of running for office, which is not easy putting themselves out there because they feel as though they can bring a unique voice and
of course a great professional background. So I would add even Lisa Blunt Rochester who's running as well, right.
Who we've also interviewed who's amazing. Yeah, he's amazing.
And folks with incredible stories in their own right, right, fourth and fifth, right, we could get that's a good bust cycle.
Sorry, that's right.
You know.
We're working hard to increase these numbers, and kudos to you for always lending your platform. I'm working hard, not just in Massachusetts on local races, because we need more black women too. I'm the first black woman to serve as a g in Massachusetts and the first woman of color to win statewide office in Massachusetts. While I'm proud, it clearly speaks to the work we still have to do in a state that we deem to be very progressive. And we know that's true across the country. So I'm
doing the work in Massachusetts. I'm supporting some local incredible women, but also showing up nationwide and also looking at other ag races. But this is a moment in time where the inspiration and the hope that people are feeling is exactly what we need. We have candidates up and down the ballot that are uniquely positioned not only to bring people together, but have a story that offers hope and inspiration and then they have a track worker of actually
helping people. They have the substance right. So it is a unique moment in time in this country. It feels really good. And as a black woman, to see other black women stepping up and stepping out there means a lot. And the Vice President has been a mentor and friend for a long time. So I'm proud of the work
she's already putting in. She's not taking anything for granted, and I look forward to supporting her not just at the convention, but even beyond the convention and all the way through November.
One of the.
Things that has come out in the news besides this massive one hundred million dollar fundraise in twenty four hours, is that there have been these calls, these enormous calls when with black women, black men to you twenty forty thousand,
I mean crazy numbers. Do you think that that kind of ground game, that kind of real enthusiasm, which I think, you know what's happened in the last twenty four hours, and this is going to air tomorrow, so where I actually will be forty eight hours, is that what we've seen is there has been grassroots enthusiasm that was literally not there for her predecessor, who is you know, who has been incredible and I believe one of the best presidents of my lifetime. But I was anxious that Democrats
would not galvanize and get their shit together. But in fact, I mean I could not ask for a better twenty four hours for her. You know, what are you hearing from people?
What are you seeing?
Oaks are excited, they are inspired. People needed that right and you hear it all the time, the vitriol that is out there, the political divisiveness, the hate. People were feeling despair on all sides, in a sense of hopelessness. And kudos to President Biden because he gets all the credit. Like you say, I think the greatest president we have had, because he didn't just put his ego aside and really put our country first and his sacrifice on full display with he decided not to run for him in the
same day to immediately put his support behind Kamala. How he did it also, of course will submit his legacy, and of course he selected her as vice president. But he I think drove that right. I think he probably recognized that wait a minute, we need some inspiration and we need some greater energy and I remember even after the debate, I said, it's his decision whether or not he's going to run, but he will have to step it up because we need someone who's going to bring
energy and inspire and pump people up. And so she has hit the ground running. But I think the context was there because people were just waiting. So kudos to Biden from making the decision and not wasting any time to pivot to this new generation of leadership. And I think all of the conditions were there. And just add the assassination attempt, regardless of your party, we don't want
that in unentry, right. So I think the doom and gloom that people were also experiencing the gun violence topic coming back up to say what the heck are we doing and protect our kids and to protect ourselves at public spaces.
Enough is enough.
All of that coming together, I think was just the perfect condition in context for Kamala Harris right to come out there, insert some enthusiasm and for folks to have something to attach to. And even as a candidate running for different levels of government, people need something to believe in, right,
They need a want, hope, in positivity. Even if folks say, well no, they don't they do, because at the end of the day, life is hard, life can be hard, and so I think we are in that moment in time where it was just perfect timing and he delivered. So kudos to President Biden. They're just really grateful to him.
Yeah, one of the things that I've been struck by was just when you listen.
To that speech, how this was not a grudging passing of the torch.
This was a complete belief that she could do this. And I think that is important.
That's exactly right. And I actually had goosebumps when I read his statement regarding her and him throwing his full support and then tears because I recognize, even as a woman and as a black woman, in many industries or places, for you to be successful, you need a mentor, you need folks to invest in you. You need folks to, as they would say, sponsor you, to give you the infrastructure, to give you the relationships. Otherwise good luck, and especially
if you are the first. And so for him to do that so quickly and so full with full heart and passion was exactly what we need. And I think it demonstrates in whatever sector we're in, that woman can do the job. We don't need another report on that, including in law enforcement, public safety agencies, the military. We
can't do the job. We need folks to believe in us, to invest in us, and to empower us and give us the space and maybe in many ways get out of the way a little bit to allow us to lead, to step in who we are, to step into our leadership. And he did that, and that can never be lost because I hear in politics a lot of times people saying we want the next generation of leaders, but then they're holding on so tight to their own power, or they let go to move on to whatever's next for them.
They don't go back to send the elevator back down right, to send the resources, to send the relationships. And anyone who's ever made it, who's ever been the first, you know, you need folks to invest in you early on, to take a risk on you. And he did just that. So I'm so proud of him, and I'm proud of this country.
You know, it's so interesting because it's like I grew up with so much privilege, and I had parents who were famous and grandparents who were famous, and a lot of financial privilege, and I still feel it.
You know, and I am like.
A white woman like you just can only imagine how fucking hard it has to be for black women to do this thing.
And so go on, Molly, God bless you because you just get it on the head. We have to recognize it's hard for anyone who has ever been a part of a marginalized group to move forward, to move ahead, and if you are the first in any setting, that is also really hard, and to become the first, you need support. But I also recognize you naming the privilege piece. It is another layer for black women. Even on the fundraising, I should say for black women who are running for office,
it's harder. You have to prove more, you have to do more to get folks to invest in you. And of course you wish you weren't so hard, but it is. And even if you have all the credentials, even if you have the background that they think is appropriate, in the best background, it's still a sales pitch to get folks to invest where sometimes, of course, it comes more natural because others have their relationships or the generational relationships.
And so Bike has done what's necessary to set her up for success, and we can't discount that as you have remarked, it's critically important if we want our political leadership to be reflective of the people we serve.
So here's my.
Question, and this is a question I asked a campaign guy last week too. Which is the anxiety that a lot of people will listen to this podcast have, Which is our voters in the country going to just be so racist and sexist that they're not going to vote for her?
I don't think so.
What will have to happen is she, along with every other organizer and Sarah Gate, will have to get out there with a strong message one not really make it about her. People want to know who is des vice president? Where does she come from? Her record of accomplishment? Of course, but what are you going to do for the American people? How are you going to bring them together? How are you going to deliver on all things economics and affordability? How are you going to create an opportunity for folks?
What are you going to do in the context of repro What are you going to do about the Supreme Court? What are you going to do about Congress?
And how do you go to white There's a long list.
There's a long list. That's what people want to hear it. The sooner we all get out there with the message around who she is, and each of us have our different stories, then what we're going to do for the people. I think it's in stark contrast of frankly the noise that we're hearing from the other side. But we have to work. And let's not discount black women voters. I was just on that zoom the other day. I had
forty thousand black women show up. And if all of them are organizing, all of us are going to tell our respective networks and people that voting block has always been, as many have suggested, as significant backbone of the Democratic Party's base. They are excited, they are mobilized. You have folks who were thinking about sitting this one out now they're not. So we just can't take anything for granted.
Have to get out there with a strong message and do the work all the way through November and of course early voting states mobilizing as soon as possible.
Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you. I kept you too long. I'm sorry. This was great.
Thank you Mollen for having me. Thank you to you and your team. Thanks for the work you do.
Now moment Jesse Cannon.
Holly jug Fast It's really been amazing five days of turning this selection around, and one of the funniest turns is the turn on jd Vance. What are you see in here?
So?
Jd Vance was picked by Trump, perhaps at the instruction of Don Junior. He was a good friend of Don Junior's, also the favorite of Peter Teal. I have always thought jd Vance was not that good, and in fact, if you look at Ohio at the election, he became a Senator and he ran about twenty points behind Republican Governor Mike DeWine, so it makes sense that he was absolutely
not a great candidate and not great at politics in general. Anyway, he gave his first solo rally and he bragged about drinking diet mountain dew, which I guess he feels makes him seem more appellation.
I don't know.
He also said that Democrats say everything is racist, and that they might say mountain dew was racist. Needless to say, he did not get a laugh, and for that that is 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.