Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds, and Trump says to his supporters, even if you die voting from me, it'll be worth it. We have such an interesting show today. Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg tells us what he's watching in order to predict
the twenty twenty four election. Then we'll talk to every Town usay is Jonathan fine Black about the downfall of the NRA and how every town is policing gun manufacturers. But first we have the host of the Katie Fang Show, the One, the Only Katie Fang. Welcome two Fast Politics. My actual friend, who I hang out with and who I love and who is on my Instagram all the time.
Katie Fang. Hello, Hello, So Katie, you have a new show premiering on Saturday, which is The Katie Fang Show, New Time, New Place, but all Katie.
Yeah, it's new Time, same Katie Fangs Show. I think I'll call it Kikanti, same spite that we can have. But I'd like to think, you know, I'm kind of venturing out on year three of the Katie Fang Show. So We're gonna try some different stuff. It's still going to be the same focus on law, politics, culture, etc. But you know, you may see some new stuff coming out this year. I think it makes sense for us to kind of branch out a little bit and see, you know, what else we can do. But I'm excited.
Twelve o'clock Eastern means that my incredibly faithful and loyal followers on the West Coast can actually sleep in and watch at nine am Pacific, which would be great for them.
So let's talk about Trump Legal because that seems like an endless cavalcade of excitement and excitement. I mean, fuck great. So let's talk about what the landscape looks like right now, sort of what's coming up, what's just happened? Give me the sort of four one one on this, Okay.
So we are waiting to see what the d C. Circuit Court of Appeals does with the Donald Trump's appeal of Judge Tanya Chukin's decision to deny his emotion to dismiss on the basis of absolute presidential immunity and double.
Jeffrey right, that's that he's a king.
It's actually more than a king. I feel like sometimes maybe in the history of the world that were enlightened spots, and maybe they were, you know, kings and queens. I mean, what he's asking for is Corplank to do whatever he wants to do, whenever he wants to do it, under the guise of the Oval Office. And I think people don't appreciate the danger of it, and they probably should
by now when you hear a ceteral appellate judge. And I'm sure this is the first time any of these incredibly brilliant jurists have ever asked a lawyer during oral arguments in their careers, right, you know, so you're saying, mister Sower, that your client or president could order the assassination of a political rival by dispatching Seal Team six and he would have immunity, to which Sours says, Oh,
I'll give you a qualified yes. I mean, when you have that type of Q and A going on, you know that we've jumped the shark, but we've done it in away. Where Now those safeguards, those guardrails, stuff that you and I talk about a lot on my show, Molly,
those have been destroyed. And I think that's the most disconcerting thing that the destruction of norms by Donald Trump has become just so okay by the GOP and others that we face a very real, very scary, terrifying, uphill battle to get us back to where we need to be.
That Trump lawyer's argument that the president could do crimes and that you would just have to impeach and convict before you could prosecute, which is so interesting because remember, impeachment was created as a political mechanism, right, it is not a legal mechanism. And we saw this happen in
other impeachments, right like Nixon's impeachment or even Bill Clinton's impeachment. Right, political mechanism, but also a way for a president to be held accountable when they did something really beyond the pale.
One of the things I'm so impressed with with Trump world, and impressed by impressed, I mean, these guys are such hypocrites, is that they will do a thing where they'll say like, no, you have to try them and a court of law during the impeachment, and then during the trial they'll be like, no, this was something that should have been dealt with during impeachment.
Yeah, And one of the three appellate judges during the oral arguments this past week made that distinction and said, you know your client and you may not have been the lawyer at the time, mister Sewer, but your client explicitly stated that impeachment should be stayed. You know it occurs at all, there's recourse available, and that's when Trump is out of the office. And now mister Sowerry, you're claiming, oh no, no, no, you have to be impeaching pcted.
I mean, that's the reason why a lot of us, in terms of legal experts, we're waiting to see what happens because it is a foregone conclusion that this DC Circuit Court of Appeals is going to affirm the decision by Judge Chuck into deny these motions to dismiss, and so the Supreme Court in the United States then has to decide whether or not it wants to take this case or not. Now, it could just let that decision
by the DC Circuit stand. But you know, I've had conversations with others, I mean, and this is an admission of how you know much of a loggeek I am that these conversations dominate my life outside of the Katie Fang Show. And when I do legal analysis on MS and we talk about how he's raised this defense and other jurisdictions, and so it kind of makes sense that Supreme Court will want to take it up to kind
of put it to bed. The problem is, if you're a Supreme Court justice, do you necessarily want to touch this issue? I don't think you do. Well, this is the problem, right, you don't want to touch this issue? And so are you going to take this issue up? And that's really the one that we're This is really the case that we're waiting to see, you know, what happens, because it really drives the rest of the other criminal prosecutions that are you know, at issue for Donald Trump.
And I would say I think it's interesting there are a couple of things that Trump wants the Supreme Court to weigh in on the Supreme Court that he installed to weigh in on, right.
Heah, he always wants these people. But I mean that's why Alina Habba is going on Fox News and saying that Charump fought for Brett Kavanaugh and Brett Kalan I was going to step up and do the right thing. I mean, it is egregious to see the quiet part out loud, and yet they don't give a shit, right, like, there's been no accountability for them saying quite part out
loud for years. And so that's why she thinks it's okay as an attorney who's barred in the state of New Jersey and perhaps other the jurisdictions, she thinks it's okay to go on natural television and say, hey, Brett, are you're listening, Hey Brett, we fought to get you on the Supreme Court, and that it seats u OUs. It's time to cash in the chit, right, That's what she's saying.
My guess is she's doing this because even though Brett may not watch Fox News, we know Justice Alito loves to watch Fox News and has Fox News brain. And also just Clarence Thomas's wife, Ginny is.
A far right media act right, Yeah, I mean, and that's a whole other that's a whole other conversation for us to right about Clarence Thomas not or choosing himself when these cases come before him, especially considering this one deals with the heart of the twenty twenty election.
I mean, what we're seeing as a collision that was bound to happen and it's a collision of interests, political legal interests, the public policy interest. I mean, it's all kind of coming to rust. And now you really want to know what your legacy is going to be. I mean, listen, if you're a federal court judge that has a lifetime appointment, especially through Supreme Court justice, many of you don't care
what your legacy is. But I would hope that you would care about what your legacy is if you decide that somebody like Donald Trump can be not only king for a day, but you know, dictator or autocrat for life. But then, you know, I've been seeing these these things flying around a social media malli about Oh well, then if that's the case, then Joe Biden could take Donald Trump and stick him and GETMO and say it was
okay for Nashally. I mean, listen, you and I both know that to tit for tat is not the way to do this.
I mean, Trumpism only works for Trump. I mean not that Joe Biden would never do that. He's very much a traditionalist. But also even if he tried to do that, it would never work for Biden.
On my last Sunday show that I did, I had this commentary where I said, look, you know it, maybe it may seem really dark, but we have to keep the faith. And that's kind of my manager going into twenty twenty four. I am very big on reporting what's happening, and there's just so much going on legally and politically, but you know, we do have power and numbers. There is a collective power to us, and if we don't kind of take the bait, and if we don't kind of buy into that, we have to respond to it.
For tat we preserve what's left of democracy in a way that should be preserved. I find it to be so disheartening and exhausting to always be having these conversations, and yet we have to. We have to have these conversations. We need to be very blunt about what there is in store for us if Trump wins in November, because in the meantime, I don't see these cases going to trial before November. I don't have a trial date from
McAfee and Fulton County yet you don't. I both know Alen Cannon's going to plunt her trial beyond November, and then depending upon what happens with Skotis and the efficacy or the expediency of what happens. You may not get this chuck and trial before November. The Manhattan DA's office is supposed to go to trial in March, but Alva Bragas said he'll take a back seat to a federal prosecution. I mean, there's so much going on, and I feel
like our judicial system. Joyce Vance wrote a piece recently about how they owe us expediency. I don't see them moving as fast as they should, but you know, I'm hoping that we have some type of resolution of at least one of these cases by November.
Yeah, you and I are both big Choice fans, fans. She has dealt with cases at this level before, But the case that seemed the most likely to go first was the document's.
Case, right Yeah, but for the assignment to Aileen Cannon.
Right, so she's going to keep punting and that is really ultimately the case that's the simplest, right.
Oh yeah, I think it's not only the easiest to understand, but the guilt is in your face. You know. People have this big discussion about the Section three fourteenth memic cases that are working the way to the Supreme Court right now, Colorado is the only one that's made it there. And you know, when we look at it, and it's very clear to you and I, right when we have our conversations about what constitutes an insurrection, et cetera, what's inciting,
what's engaging in an insurrection. I mean, it's pretty black and white to us. But you know, and from the mall Logo case standpoint, how much more clear does that have to be? The guy wasn't supposed to have the docs. He had them and he didn't return them. I mean, that's what you and I teach our kids, right, We've taught our kids you're not supposed to take it. If you take it, you're in trouble. I don't mean to make it too elementary, but that's how it's supposed to be.
I mean, as a prosecutor, you want a case that is that straightforward. You want a case that doesn't require you having a conversation about the intent to foment an insurrection or rebellion, and so that case is the easiest to do. That case was p miss on a search warrant, Molly. And that's the other thing that people need to remember. You know, all of these were indictments that were returned
against Trump and others. But in the mar Alago context, there's a search warrant that was executed on Mar A Lago. I mean, there was probable cause that was found over and over again that crimes have been committed and that the evidence of those crimes would be located in Donald Trump's Florida residence. And so I think these are the things that would make it so compelling as a prosecutor. But Alien Cannon is held bent on doing her version of justice. And you know, I take my job as
I'm still a trial lawyer. I mean, I'm not actively practicing that. I take my job as a lawyer and my oath of you know, being a lawyer, seriously, Molly. And we're not supposed to criticize other lawyers, and we're not supposed to criticize judges. But when you see injustice happening, you have to see something. Unfortunately for me, I have a platform where I'm able to say what I think. I'm calling balls and strikes and if I see something wrong, that's what I'm saying.
Yeah, And now I I want to ask you with the fake electors, there are all these other cases that might be sort of bubbling under the surface.
I mean, do you.
Think there will be more cases? We don't have a crystal ball as to what cases will go first or one they'll happen. Trump obviously wants everything to happen after the election because he's really running to stay out of jail anyway. But with the fake elector's stuff in Michigan and we saw that in other state, it's like, do you think that there will be more cases.
With that stuff?
The answer is yes, you're going to see more cases. That are several attorneys general in different states and mainly the states that we've talked about over the past few years about where there were active attempts to be able to manipulate the outcome of that twenty twenty election. One of the kind of people that we watched carefully to see if there's going to be where charges coming is Ken Chesbrow. So kay Chesbro had doing a little bit of what I call a retribution for I need you.
To stop and explain to our listeners who Ken Cheesebrow is. And again his name is not Ken Cheesebro, but yes, continue Ken.
Cheese bro, Ken chesbro, Ken Cheezbro, the architect of the fake electric scheme, fascinatingly, he's very independently wealthy from investments. I think he did big Cooin or something whatever.
Right and cryptodoy.
Yeah, he lives in Puerto Rico.
As well, so he doesn't have to pay federal taxes.
Yes, and he has a very interesting personal life. But ken Chesbro, as we know, moved to sever his case file the speedy demand in Fulton County. He was the architect of the fake elector scheme. He's the guy who
was writing the memos, him and Jeff Clark. I mean, you know, these guys were hustle in right to be able to get a legal scheme in place so Donald Trump could install fake electors in specific states to make sure that Mike Pence did not certify the valid legal results for the twenty twenty election of Joe Biden be president. But the reason why I say we should watch ken Chesbro what he's doing is I call it his retribution toro,
although it's two wills away. But as a condition of his plea of guilty down in Fulton County, Georgia, he's had to go and cooperate with other jurisdictions and that's
what he's been doing. He has been going to different jurisdictions and cooperated with investigations there about fake electric schemes, and so I think if you want to know if there's other charges that are going to come beyond just Michigan, I think that you can look and see where's ken Chessbrow kind of like where's Walda, right, where's Ken Chessbrow today?
What is he doing? Who is he talking to? But ultimately, what people need to remember is to prove a case beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt, because that is the standard of proof and a criminal case, you need to make sure that each defendant, each criminal descendant Molly has their own independent liability ability. Right, So ken Chasbrow going to Arizona or going to another state and saying you know, this is what I did and doing a Maya kalpa in a full confession is one thing.
How does that tie to Donald Trump?
Though?
Right?
Like, how does it tied to other major players? And Donald Trump? I think if there's one thing he's done really while his entire life is he has figured the art of not making money because we all know that all of that is bullshit, but figured out the art of making other people take the fall for him, right, He's figured out the art of making other people feel like they owe him something. Now, there could be because he has dirt on them. It could be because he
has compromonts on them. Fine, but it still takes a skill to do that. And no matter how stupid I think he is, no matter some days I think he's crazy like a fox, Trump has figured out how to make even brilliant lawyers because by everybody's admission, Ken Chesbrow is a and was a brilliant.
Right, and he is doing a plea deal.
Yeah, the band's plead and guilty. People can take the fall for Trump. But is there the evidence to link? And that is what we're always kind of looking at, which is why getting to your point, mar Alogo, is the compelling case, the on six case that Chuck and has even though Chuck and has her, you know, pedal to the metal in terms of the gas to get this thing done that was not is clear cut for
some people. I think it is, but you know, I obviously have a bias on this, so you know, we're just like the in Manhattan criminal case that one may not be as clear cut for others as well. So I feel like mar Longo is one of the tightest, strongest cases. But because of ailing Cannon may not get there anytime soon.
Right, And that is so such a bomber. My god, just on that idea of people taking the fall for Trump one, Rudolph Juliani. The thing's going to end well for Rudolph Juliana.
He looks like he's going to drop dead any day, right. I mean, I'm not amazing, I'm not wishing it. I'm just sade. Look that.
I feel like you bet on those actual arial tables it never works out. But I'm curious. Legally, the guy's in a lot of trouble, right.
Yeah, so I'll stay in my legal lane, Molly, and I will you know, opine on dropping debt. So here's the deal. Giuliani finally for bankruptcy is not the save all for him. His continued defamation of Ruby Freeman, Shamas and others by the way, not just Rugy Freeman and Gamas, that is going to be a serial problem for him. The bankruptcy thing is fascinating, and people always think, oh, yeah, you file for bankruptcy, it goes away. It doesn't. Alex
Jones tried it and sailed miserably. Rudy Giuliani's going to try this, He's going to feel miserably as well. But people also need to know it's not just Seae Aus and Ruby Freeman that are now judgement. Creditors are going to come after Rudy Gielani. He owes a lot of money to his sex wife, He owes a lot of money to other creditors, and so Giuliani's luck will run
out when the money runs out. But the money hasn't run out because Trump is still, you know, pushing people to spend fifteen hundred dollars a plate for ditters and support of Ruey Giuliani. But don't forget there's still leverage in Fulton County because Rudy still has a criminal case in county. And by the last media reports, Fulton County DA Fondi Willis is not going to be offering it plea offered to rud Gianni, Mark Meadows and Donald Trump.
So Rudy is going to have to figure out whether he can survive I won't say literally getting financially to trial in Fulton County. Again, we don't have a trial date. There's a lot of stuff that's going on in fact, there's a hearing tomorrow on some of the stuff that he's filed. And so the latest for Rudy Giuliani is he wants to be able to interview Sidney Powa, Ken chesbro Scott Hall, and Jenna Ellis. Those are the four people that I've taken to police so far in Fulton County.
He wants to be able to interview them because he says he has to get all this information out of them. But it's interesting because Giuliani still has massive exposure as well criminally and that has to always remain an incentive for him. But I don't know again. I mean, if there was anybody on that kind of you know, batting order of people of lawyers, specifically in Trump world, that had the greatest fall from grace, it's obviously Rudy Giuliani.
Yes, but he's not alone. Katie Fang, thank you so much for joining us.
Oh this is lovely. It's like when I'm just hanging out talking to Mollie John the.
Next Simon Rosenberg as the founder of the New Democrat Network and the New Policy Institute. Welcome Too Fast Politics, Simon.
Rosenberg, good to be here, Mollie.
Explain to us a little bit about what you do and how you got there.
Yeah. So I've been in democratic politics for more than thirty years. I ran a think tank, I've worked at campaigns. I've done it all. You know, raised money, do stads, the whole thing. And you know, a year and a half ago I started challenging the conventional wisdom that there was a red wave coming based on data that I was seeing, and I collaborated with a guy named Tom Bonier, and he and I were looking at things other than polling to assess and to gauge the election at twenty twenty two.
Twenty four to seven, this is all I think about. What are the things other than polling that can show us?
Yeah, I mean, look, I think we learned in twenty twenty two that's centering your understanding of American politics around poling is very risky, right, I mean, there was it didn't work in twenty twenty two, and it didn't work because there was all these other things. And the other things were strong democratic performance and special elections all across the country. In twenty twenty two, after Dobbs, we saw
voter registration numbers get far better for Democrats. We saw Democrats out raising Republicans by huge amounts three four, five to one. And then we saw in the early vote, you know, heightened democratic performance unexpectedly by the way, heidened democratic performance, and all of those indicators suggested that the intensity was with Democrats, not with Republicans, and that it was the opposite of a red wave. And that's actually what happened in the election. What happened in the election
was that Democrats dramatically overperformed expectations and pulling. We gained ground over our twenty twenty results in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Minnesota, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. We got all the way up to fifty nine percent in Colorado, fifty seven percent in Pennsylvania, fifty five percent of Michigan, which would be amazing results in a good year. And this was so called you know,
red wave, bad year for us. And so, you know, part of what happened is that I think polling is really struggling capture the current dynamic of American politics because for one central reason, which is that response rates and polling have gone way down, and getting an accurate poll now has become much harder and expensive. And what's happening is shortcuts are being taken, and we're getting a lot more junkie polling in our system than we used to,
even from very credible news organizations. I mean, the Washington Post deserves a lot of credit because they had a really bad poll a few months ago, and in the write up of the poll, they acknowledged that they thought the data was bad. It would be it would be good if more media organizations, independent media organizations, were a little bit more honest about the limitations of polling. And you know, because it's become such a huge part of
our understanding of our politics. And I'll give you one other example, right, I mean, if everything was so bad for Democrats, and Biden's numbers were so terrible and his approval reading was so bad, why do we keep winning elections all over the I mean, twenty twenty three was an even better year for us politically than twenty twenty two. We gained ground in state legislative races five points. We had a five point higher number than we had in
those same districts in twenty twenty a crazy result. We took away two in the largest Republican cities in America, Colorado Springs and Jacksonville. We took away it was constant Supreme Court seat. We took away the six week abortion ban in Ohio, we took away the state house in Virginia. It was a blue wave that washed all over the country this year, and in the political commentary that didn't even happen, right, It was absent from the discourse and
the understanding. And so I think my basic lesson here is that there's a lot of other things we can look at to assess where we are in politics. Polling has its limitations, and I think the media industrial polling complex needs to be a little bit more honest about the limitations of what polling can really tell you.
If we look at twenty sixteen, right, that was an entire year where we spent leaving that Hillary Clinton had a seventy eighty ninety percent chance of being elected and Donald Trump had a fifteen and you know, eleven percent chance. And some pollsters, if you complain to them, they'll say, well, you don't understand polls or just this or that. But
I want to get back to this idea about results. Though, because I certainly believed the red wave narrative, I wondered, but I thought, you know, history is president the president's party always does poorly. I could see historically that there was some president for a red wave. But in twenty twenty three we had had all of these special elections where basically every special election since Doobbs, Democrats have done ten fifteen, I mean, crazy numbers better than they should, right.
And then there was that Ohio special which was in August where they had hidden it away and they got you know, Democrats won that by ten points or something crazy. But I know ballot initiatives tend to skew more liberal, so maybe I threw that out. But with twenty twenty three, I really thought, and this is like the sort of pundent industrial complex. And me I thought, youngk and wear's a vast people like him. You know, he's got this
number for abortion bands. It's fifteen weeks, it's polled very well again poland he's going to win the state houses in Virginia that did not happen.
He praised so many different things, I'll check them off really quickly. In twenty sixteen, remember that election was over. Hillary was going to win. We had had the three debates and then the FBI intervened, and if the FBI had not intervened, she would have won the election by five or six points. I mean we know this from polling data.
Yeah.
So though James came and the FBI and their intervention is what handed Trump the presidency and made that fifteen percent chance happen. Right, And so the polling wasn't wrong in twenty sixteen. It was that there was a dramatic thing that happened that changed the election at the end. And that's what happens. I mean, elections changed. Things changed in this last year. As you pointed out, we won
every type of race. It was a ballid initiative, a Supreme Court special election, we won state legislative special elections, we won mayoralties, right, we won everything. We won the state House in Virginia. And I think that this idea that the traditional fade of the party in power has not happened now in two elections in twenty twenty two and in twenty twenty three, is a very dramatic outcome
in our politics. And it's the most important electoral data that we have, and it's basically not being discussed at all, right, I mean, it's barely part of our discourse, and it should be central to our understanding of our politics, far more than all this bouncing and junkie polling that we're seeing around. I mean, I've been in the business, right you win or lose. I've been a onnreal campaigns, winning an election, winning again and again and again, all across
the country, in all sorts of different races. You'd so much rather be that party than the other party, right, and who keep underperforming. And keep in mind, in twenty eighteen, right once Trump kind of ripped his shirt open and became mad in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, which you know, there was some belief he might be kind of a country club Republican. You know, in twenty sixteen he ripped his shirt open, he became maga.
He's lost ever since.
Yeah, he's been getting crushed. And in fact, if you watch what's happening inside the Republican Party right now, the criticism of Rona Romney McDaniel for continuing to lose election after election is a major part of their current discourse. And that discourse is not bleeding into the broader commentariat. Right. And so let me just say very quickly why I'm optimistic about twenty twenty four. First, Joe Biden has been a good president and the country's better off, and we're
going to have a really strong case for reelection. Second, the Democratic Party is strong and we're winning elections all over the country, and it's been heightened since Dobbs in spring of twenty twenty two. Finally, they have Trump, and Trump is a far weaker candidate than he was in twenty twenty. He's more degraded, he's more extreme, he's more dangerous, he's further away from the electorate, and I think it's going to The Republicans are taking extraordinary historic risk by
backing him. I think that what's happened in the commentary is that we have overly discounted two big factors. One is our strength, Our continued electoral strength is being sort of dismissed as being unimportant, and it's obviously hugely important. The second is that we're overly discounting Trump's historic negatives. I mean, I wrote it on Twitter today that there are at least nine potential disqualifiers in twenty twenty four,
and I'm going to try to remember them all. But first is that a court has determined that he sexually assaulted a woman in a department store address. A court is determined that he committed one of the largest financial frauds in American history. A court has already determined that he led an insurrection against the United States. He is
singularly responsible for ending ROW. We know that he stole hundreds of most top secret documents in the country and allowed other people to access them and lied to the FBI about it. His relationship with Epstein, I think, is going to become far more material and reinforce some of these other issues. And oh, he took more money as president from foreign governments than any president in American history, and his family took two billion dollars from the Saudi government.
I mean, the level of corruption that we're talking about has no precedent in the history of the United States. I think that was eight I'm forgetting the ninth. But any one of those things are going to make it very, very difficult for people that have already not supported him, and I've already been voting against MAGA to turn around
and now embrace him. And so I think as Democrats, we should be unbelievably optimistic about our chance to have the kind of election we want to have in twenty twenty four.
In twenty twenty two, a candidate named Mandela Barnes one a very hot Wisconsin Senate primary for the Democrats. He wanted. I interviewed him twice. He was really great, progressive and interesting and smart and some of the never Trump people in my life. I'm not going to say who said he's way to progress it for Wisconsin. He'll never win in Wisconsin direct quote. They're racist in Wisconsin. They won't
vote for someone black. The polls all showed him getting creamed eight points, nine points, ten points, eleven points, like a bloodbath. He lost by half a point. This is the danger of polls.
Yet what happened in twenty twenty two and the New York Times I bushed a peace on Christmas Day in twenty twenty two, they went through this. There was not only the traditional issues we have with polling, but there
was actually manipulation of the polling. In twenty twenty two, the Republicans launched and op that we still don't know who ran it, but they flooded the zone with hyper Republican polls and yeah recipient in the final three weeks that pushed the polling averages down and including in Wisconsin, right, And the impact that that had is that it caused the journalist community to re embrace the concept that we were witnessing a red wave when the independent media polling
was not showing any of that happening, and nor was our own polling as Democrats, by the way, And so not only did Mendela Barnes probably lose because of this, but we probably lost the House because House Democrats will tell you that when the red wave narrative returned, there was money that had been committed to them by major donors that went away and went to other places, and we barely lost the House. And so yes, the polling game is now part of the information war, right, this
is part of the daily scrum. And in twenty twenty two, the Republicans did what they do now and everything is they cheated, right. They invented fake polling. They put it
through the polling averages. And you know, credit ABC News for having some accountability because they got rid of Nate Silver over this, right, and who laundered this false information that we all knew was false, by the way, I mean, I called out the first piece I wrote that there was an operation going on here was on October twenty
third of the election in twenty twenty two. So Democrats have to get smarter, as we often do, And most things involving this daily information war is that this stuff is getting reponized against us, and we've got to be smarter about it. And you know, I've tried to do my part in presenting every day on Twitter and on
my substack Opium chronicles. You know, the world that I see, having been in this now for over thirty years and been an awesome former TV producer and writer and former journalists than I was, is that I try to present to democrats the world that I see, which is often at odds with the media world that we live in that's been so influenced and shaped by the right wing noise machine and by the bullying of the media by the right that we have to start extricating ourselves in
that and creating our own understandings of them. And that's part of what I try to do every day.
Right. You know, I have a lot of pollsters on this podcast, and I have posters who I really love, who are really smart and who are partisan dems. So here's my question for you about the polling. What's happening here is that most of these polls are still calling cell phones.
Right, Yes, there are still too many polls that are being done with antiquated methods. And what it means is that it's harder and harder for them to reach young people and Hispanic voters too.
You know.
John Della Volpe from Harvard has a great piece today and his substack about the problems that we're starting to see or rise with young voters and Hispanic voters because there's there's just wild unprecedented periances coming about, you know, in the polling. But let me give you one other sort of advice. Right, the more interviews you have, the
more accurate the pulling is. And so if you have an eight hundred person sample poll or a thousand person sample pool, you know, traditionally we would not then take the hundred interviews that somebody does with young people, which has a margin of era of ten percentage points, not
two or three, and really treat that data seriously. You could treat the overall poll seriously just in traditional way the math works at polling, But you didn't then say, in this poll of one thousand people, the one hundred interviews we did with Young People's Show X and have
that become meaningful. And so one of the things that's happening this psych which I think is unique to this cycle and was not happening as much in twenty twenty two, as you're starting to see, you know, mainstream news organizations USA Today last week, the New York Times a few weeks ago, starting to make judgments about demographic groups based on very small number of interviews. And it's not right. It's a violation of what is possible to extract from
a poll. And the USA Today was deeply, deeply guilty of this last week, where they actually claimed over two full days front page stories USA Today two days in a row leading their website that Donald Trump was winning young voters and losing older voters. The chance of that being true is zero, right, there is zero chance, and they knew that and they ran with those stories anyway.
And so what's happening is the media organizations, I think, are getting lots of clicks on these more exotic polls and polls with you know, particularly with pro Republican leans because the information the Twitter world, social media world, you know, you get a lot of clicks when you attack Biden, right, you get a lot of traffic when you go after
by it. And so I would just say about polling is that I think what's happened is that the people that make their living off of interprening polls and doing polling are exaggerating a little bit about what you can actually read out of a poll. And I'll just give you two final bits of advice. One is, no poll can predict anything. All pole can do is tell you where things are today. They can't even tell you where they're going to be tomorrow, let alone eleven months from now.
And so any concept that there is predictive capacity from a poll is just false, wrong, and it's irrelevant.
Right.
And the second thing is this, you know, being more reliant on independent polling of large samples, and for the media organizations to be more honest, as the Washington Post was when the data comes back a little junkie and a little weird, which happens, right. And you know, if those poles were being presented to a candidate, a candidate would tell them, Hey, I know I've lived in this district. I know how this district's voted for the last twenty years.
There's no way this data is right. You go fix it and go do it again and eat it. You got to go redo the poll instead. What's happening like with this USA Today's Suffolk poll is last week is they released a poll that they knew was wrong and they shouldn't have done that. In journal the media organizations have to take greater responsibility for making sure the information they present the voters isn't misinformation, and that's their job, and they are misinforming with polling.
Now.
It's a serious problem. And it also means that all of us who know better, we have to create more consequence and also create more consequence for them for this right, there needs to be more calling out, naming, and shaming for this kind of behavior because this stuff not only can determine, as you pointed out, what happened in twenty twenty two, but House Republicans may be making judgments about
how they played Biden based on this polling. Foreign governments maybe making decisions about whether to invade another county right based on Biden's approval rating. These are serious matters. The gun is loaded on this stuff. This isn't sort of just oh, we got a bunch of numbers. Let's dump it out and see what happens. This is big stuff and people got to take greater responsibility for getting it right.
That's so important. Thank you, thank you, thank you everything I wanted to know you answered. I appreciate you well.
Mollie, thank you, And I just went to in by saying, listen, folks, let's be optimistic. I mean, I really do think we're going to have a really good election. My view is that we're just as likely to win this election by five, six seven points as we are a couple points. Trump is in a lot of trouble. He's a weak historic candidate. We're going to kick his ass. Let's just go do the work and get this done together.
Thank you, Simon. John fine Blatt is the president of every Town for Gun Safety. Welcome too fast politics, John.
Oh, thanks very much.
Thanks for having me.
I feel like so many things make me depressed, but your organization makes me a little bit hopeful. So talk to me about every Town and what you're working on right now.
Well, you know, I think the interesting thing is when we started every Town ten years ago, we said we needed to build a counterweight to the NRA. We said that for a simple reason, which was, you know, the NRA really treated Congress and the White House like its clubhouse and outsize power. Many people say it was the
second most powerful lobbing organization in the country. And the truth is that they at that time could block most common sense gun laws and interestingly block laws that the American public, at least according to polling, widely support it. And so we felt like you had to clear the brush and you had to really focus on what the obstacles to making progress were. And there's no question about it, the NRAs was one of the biggest obstacles.
I feel like last week was a bad week for the NRA.
No question about it. In fact, it's not just last week, it's really the last couple of years when the onions start to get peeled on the NRA and we started to see that they really treated to the NRA like a personal piggy bank. And we've all heard the story about the Brione suits and the yachts and the private plane.
But I think what we don't hear enough about is the fact that when we've all forgotten about the extravagances, there are many families across this country who will never forget the fact that they lost their children and their loved ones, and in many way to tie that back to the NRA, which is blocked at every juncture the most reasonable gun safety legislation. And I really can't help but going back to the days after Sandygook, where everybody in the country thought, well, this is the moment that
we're finally going to have common sense gun legislation. And it was a pretty modest bill that was in front of the Senate. It was a background check bill, and it was, as you might remember, was supported by Pat Toomey or Republicans from Pennsylvania and Joe Mansion from West Virginia.
Had to me, who's retiring because you can't stand this?
You thought this was the dream team you know of sponsors, and yet at the last minute, this very modest bill, witching fact, I'm almost embarrassed to admit, had some giveaways to the god lobby in it, with Republicans voting against it, but a handful of Democrats voting against it, which is just a good reminder of the fact that while Republicans were opposed to this, Democrats were too, and not because Democrats weren't sympathetic By and large, but because the NRA
really had disproportionate power at that point. And those days are over. And in many ways those days are over because we've seen firsthand what the NRA is really about. But just to give you some sort of sense of it, in twenty twelve, seventy Democrats running for the House or Senate received a's from the NRA. You don't receive an A without filling out a questionnaire today zero. And so you can see how things have changed so dramatically. And as you might remember, a year ago or so, we
finally passed a bipartisan bill in the Senate. It was the first really gun safety bill to be passed in twenty seven years, and it had every Democrat on it, unlike the days after Sandy Cook. And it had fifteen Republicans on it, including Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Ram and John Cornan, who was the actual lead Republican negotiator. So the political calculus has changed significantly on this issue. The NRA's letter grades, which used to be a king and queen maker, now are a little bit more like a
scarlet letter. And the NRA itself is just a shadow of its former self.
I think.
I think the New York Times last week called it a ghost ship, which I thought was very descriptive. But when you look at almost any measure, when you look at the money they spend on lobbying and politics, it's down like seventy five percent. If you look at their membership dues, I think they're down forty percent. Spending one and five dollars on legal fees to defend them in court. They're in very bad shape, there's no question about it. And interestingly, you have to ask the question, well, does
that translate to a loss of political power? And I think the most recent interesting example is the elections in Virginia. It's November because that's their home, that's where their headquarters are, and from a reputational point of view, if nothing else, Virginia is very important to them. And every town outspent them ten to one. And it wasn't just that we
outspent them. We actually denied them what they were looking for, which was control of both houses of the legislature so that they could actually roll back the gun safety legislation that had been passed there. And so they're broke and they're down on their influence.
Yeah, it's such an interesting and also well deserved position for them to be in. The thing that I'm surprise is the pulling on this issue, like people don't actually want to live this way, but we're stuck here. Tell me how we're not actually stuck here. Explain to me where we are.
It's a good point you raised, because this was always the conundrum that we had to deal with ten years ago when we started, which is, you know, how can after Sandy Hook you lose on a background check bill when you pull it and you see that eighty five percent of Americans support background checks. I mean, I think that our lowest number, which was somewhere I think it
was in Wyoming, was seventy two percent approval. And I think because the NRA in those days had a real stranglehold on elected officials, and it was an interesting example of the fact that and this isn't the only time we've ever seen this where elected officials really aren't representing their constituents. And so that's why we thought it was so important to really shine a very harsh spotlight on the NRA and as I say, really expose what they're about,
which is actually not a gun rights organization. Certainly not a gun safety organization, which they proclaimed in many years past to be. But they are a personal piggyback, and that's what they are. And I think that in many ways that harsh spotlight has helped significantly to change how people see the issue of gun safety and most importantly, how politicians do. And so I gave you the example of Virginia, but I can give you lots more examples.
In twenty sixteen, the NRA was probably Trump's largest outside donor. They put thirty million dollars into his race. By twenty twenty, they could only spend half of that on politics because they were harhaching money and they only made three bets. One was Trump and the other two were the two Georgia runoffs, and obviously they lost both. But so much has changed. Twenty one states now have universal background checks,
twenty one states have red flag laws. I think thirty some states have laws barring domestic abusers for being able to buy guns. And so what we've seen is at the state level, we've made a significant amount of progress. And then just about a year ago that progress extended to the US Congress. And the truth is that the NRA opposed the bipartisan build that was passed a year plus ago. But Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham and John Cornyan didn't care anymore.
They don't have the power they used to, right, So there's the Raheemy case. This Supreme Court is pretty antagonistic to any kind of you know, they feel that if the Framers had muskets, then everyone else should have, and then everyone in the world should have AR fifteens.
It's quite a leap.
Yeah, it's quite a leap. But it's called but I don't know if you know this. It's called textualism. And so I'm curious where you are now. They seem to be backtracking a little bit, but again, we never know of this court.
The decision that Judge Thomas wrote has basically just created so much chaos in the federal courts.
That's the Bruin case we're talking about. The idea was that New York State was not allowed to make the kind of gun laws it wanted.
Yeah, basically, what it required, as you said, was in historical underpinning or historical context for laws. And if a judge couldn't find some sort of historical precedent for the law, then the law actually violated the Second Amendment. But say it created just chaos. I mean, you've got judges basically saying, can I hire an historian. I'm a judge, not a historian. I don't know what the laws were in England before
this country was founded. I don't know what the lalls were, you know, in the late sixteen hundreds or the early seventeen hundreds. And so you've got real chaos in the federal courts with judges, you know, in one part of the country deciding one way another part in the other way. And why that is so damaging is because, you know, courts are supposed to actually provide predictables. That's why precedent is so important from our courts. But in fact, what
we've got is just unpredictability. But the case that you are actually referring to, this most recent case that the Supreme Court heard arguments, the Rahemi case, is one where you've sort of at the far outreaches where the challenge was, could you actually bar a domestic abuser from owning guns?
And this was a Fifth Circuit case with a judges basically saying, well, there's no historical precedent for such a bar, which is crazy because you know, what's historical precedent that women were property, not even human beings, right, and so
there was no question about it. When this case was argued before the court, you had I don't want to be somebody who's a prognosticator of Supreme Court decisions, but clearly there was a lot of sympathy across the bench for the idea that, of course you would bar a domestic abuser from owning gun. I mean, what could be
more dangerous? And so my hope is that we'll start to resolve what the Brewin decision really meant, because right now nobody really in the judiciary knows what it means, and they're sort of grappling with it.
Yeah, it is such an incredibly crazy time right now. So let's talk about this online hub dedicated to holding the gun industry accountable. This is one of the really interesting things. The NRA has worked really hard on protecting gun manufacturers, right. That's sort of which makes sense because corporations are people.
It's really interesting to me because I think the RA and this was in their sort of height of their power. I think they learned some things, probably from other fights about industry, whether it be tobacco or auto. But what they did was they persuaded Congress to bar research. Can you imagine where we would be with tobacco if we didn't have medical research. They convinced Congress to give the
industry blanket civil immunity. I mean, where would Ralph Nader be if the auto industry had blanket civil immunity, meaning that you couldn't actually sue them. And so what they did was they built sort of a fortress around the industry because in many ways, really what is the NRA.
It's really it represents the industry, it's their protector. And so it used Congress to really build this sort of impenetrable fortress around the industry, and it sort of took away some of the tools that are normally used in fights against corporate malfeasans such as research very important, such
as the ability to sue very important. Now we've been able to do some very creative workarounds around that blanket civil immunity and actually have been quite successful very recently in suing the industry, and there are a number of
cases that have given substantial award to plaintiffs. But more importantly, many of the settlements that we've reached have actually changed the industry's practices, for instance, requiring online sellers of ammunition to embed an age verification system in their platform, or barring ghost gun sellers from selling in the state of California, or shutting down manufacturers and dealers who were responsible for disproportionate number of what we call crime guns, and those
are guns that are recovered at crime scenes. But there's much more to be done in this area. But you've got to bring the industry to the table. And I think the only way you're going to bring the industry the table is by actually holding them accounta bill in court. But just think of some of the things that the industry could do. What if you had a palm print
recognition gun that could only be fired by the rightful owner. Well, we wouldn't be waking up in the mor and reading about, you know, a four year old playing hide and go seek and finding their parents' gun in the sweater drawer and accidentally killing their sybil hurting themselves, or we wouldn't be reading about which sadly we are reading a lot about teenage suicide. Where did team you know get their guns? They usually get them from their parents or their relatives
who have negligently stored them. Or here's something that most people don't realize. In fact, there was a point where I didn't realize this, which is when you ask, well, how do guns get into the black market? One of the most reliable ways is through home burglaries and car break ins. Well, those guns would have no economic currency in the black market if they could only be fired
by their rightful owner. I mean there are other even simpler things like you do when you read, you know, these stories of a four year old, you know, firing a gun. You think like, well, how can a four year old actually pull back the trigger of a gun. Well, it's because of the way it's weighted. But you know, couldn't the gun in industry rewait the trigger?
So it's harder to paul. Yeah, So this database that you guys are, that you guys have, right, you'll be able to sort of point to I mean, this is like a gun mocker institute a little bit, right that you give the evidence to people to see just what the numbers are. Right.
Yeah, I think that the gun industries, I hate to say it this way, but I'm going to the gun industry has gotten away with murder, and somehow, you know, nobody really puts the gun industry front in the center.
Yeah, why not.
I think it's because there have been so many protections built around them, truthfully, But you know, think about when a police department does a press conference, you know, and they lay out the guns that they recovered, and they talk about actually the perhaps the caliber of the gun,
but they never talk about who made the gun. So it's a very simple thing about naming the gun that's so important and so truthfully, what we are trying to do is use some of the same tax we use with the NRA by shining a harsh spotlight, by feeding the facts to the public. We're trying to do that about the gun industry as well, because the truth is they are getting away with murder. It has been hard to hold them accountable. But times up.
Yeah, and I think we should end there. Thanks so much, John, Thank.
You very much.
A moment oct Jesse Cannon.
Molly, John Fast. I have to tell you this story really sent me into a rage that my usual numbness does not allow. But I am pretty angry about this situation here at the border.
Tony.
What you're seeing here.
So Greg Abbott, who is like the Henry Kissinger of Texas, has you know, really into trying to make it so he actually said something this weekend about how he does everything but shoot the migrants.
We are using every tour that can be use, from building a border wall, to building these border barriers, to.
Passing this law that I signed that led to another lawsuit by the Biden administration where I signed a law making it illegal for somebody to enter Texas from another country and they're subject to arrest and.
Subject to deportation. And so we are deploying every tool and strategy that we possibly can. The only thing that we're not doing is we're not shooting people who come across the border, because of course the Bide administration with charges with murder.
So basically what happened here is that three migrants were drowning, and it looks like and again we don't totally know yet, but that the Texas military would not allow border agents to come in and try to save them. So I'm sure there's going to be a lot of investigation here.
They have at many points, the people at the state level in Texas have done things to hurt these people but this might be the closest they've gotten to really actively being involved in killing people we don't know yet, but really just one of the worst things I've ever seen. And for that Greg Abbott is yet again the creator of our terrible moment of buckery. 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.