Kurt Andersen & Josh Turek

deranged Republican nightmare we live through today. Then we'll talk to Josh Touric about his run for the open Iowa Senate seat. But first we have the stories the media is missing.

He's a housing official. But what I think is really interesting about him is that he's basically found all this mortgage stuff. How he's found it, we don't know. So he uses it against the president's enemies. So he used it against Lisa Cook. He has used it against New York ag Tish James, so he basically trots us out. Now we have found that his parents use this using two houses. So basically Poulty had accused Cook of listing both a house in Michigan and a condo and Atlanta

as a primary resident. Poultice's parents did this, And I think the bigger question is why is he using this federal agency to investigate Donald Trump's enemies. I don't think any of this is legal. So let's see what happens here. We got democrats. Raskin sent Pulty a letter. He demands

that Pulty produce all records related to selective investigations. I think this is really the way forward for Democrats that the only way that anyone is ever going to take them seriously is if they do stuff like this, like they just push and push and push and hold these people accountable. So I think this is really good again, like we're seeing members of the House do this, We're just not seeing it from leadership. And I wish we were.

then he died. So that seat is now being filled, and then there's another seat that Democrats are going to get. So even if Republicans don't do the right thing here and sign this discharge petition, they will get to the number in these special elections. So Johnson has already so embarrassed himself with this story. He said that Donald Trump was an FBI in format. There is no evidence to support this that he was trying to shut down Epstein

from the inside. Mike Johnson walked it back. Always a great sign and always a little bit shocking when someone from Trump World actually walks something back like amazing. But yeah, walked it back.

which is repurposed to be nonsense. But it's a very interesting museum and everyone should go there. It's also free because they feel it is aligned with their mission. But anyway, so Trump is in this museum giving a talk about religious tolerance. These are like he's trying to hit the

notes that get the base excited. So evangelicals are being discriminated against is a big one, and he gets in it and he just starts musing and macking about domestic violence and he calls it a little fight with the wife.

up your wife. What I think is so interesting about this moment that we're in is that Donald Trump is, while he has captured all these institutions and we're such a weak and soft country that we've sort of let him do whatever he wants to does, he's really still got a sort of Shakespearean thing where he can't stop telling on himself, he can't stop sort of self destructing. You know, there's a real lesson here about people getting what they want. I think this kind of stuff is

pretty interesting. I mean it's obviously quite disturbing. Kurt Anderson is the author of Evil Geniuses and Fantasy Land. Welcome to Fast Politics, Kurt Anderson.

Donald Trump has embodied that. He came along just as I was finishing that book, and it was like, you know, I felt some guilt, like, oh, I have my poster boy here for this, but he is so that and you know it was published in his first year, and you know, the week after it was published, QAnon started. And then there's Donald Trump lying about everything and building this movement, this true movement. You can unders states that of people who who share, you know, not a coherent ideality.

That's the thing, right, It's interesting they share all kinds of fantasies and conspiracy theories in the Bobby Kennedy flavor and the government's taking over this or that, you know, and and and just the inconsistency and incoherence of it all is phenomenal. And you know, people keep saying, oh, you should update it, right anew and well, no, it's just there, it is. I mean, you know, I could devote my entire life to doing a daily thing about it. No,

it's it's nuts. And and I don't know what to say, you know, and I keep waiting for enough people to have since slapped into them. And I think, as I talk about in fantasy land, when the economics go wrong as they did in two thousand and eight, right, you

can't pretend there's not a giant, great recession. You can't pretend prices aren't going up, you can't pretend the economy is now starting to go into recession, so that there is the reality slap of economic reality, which at this point, you know, I guess I'm depending on because in political terms, because he can't wish that away. They can't wish that away.

And just as you know, not to compare it to Joe Biden, but just as we the Biden and Democrats can say, oh no, the inflation is really yeah, it's going away. It's Okay, shit, you know you're not feeling it. Well, people didn't buy hat and they're not going to buy this. And more than more than ever again my hope, I always find the glimmers of hope and green shoes. You know, this is so clearly and so undern mily his he still occasionally tries as, oh, no, it's Biden. I'm I

heerd Biden. You didn't. Terrorists are years, you know, all all of its years, the the the you know, this radical change in the labor market, apart from the grotesque street thug fascism of the master importations, you know, all of it is going to is going to be his and and uh you know, I mean I was already hopeful about the midterms, and and the timing of the of the economic wreckage looks just great for politically speaking, you know, a year from now it's going to be terrible.

So that's my failing. But as you said that, you're framing the descent into fantasy land and the degree to which the evil geniuses, which is to say, rich people and corporate ba by and large and the elected Republicans in Washington have all all you know, as we know ninety six percent of them absolutely bought in and hope there will be a price to pay, because and I think there will be. And I think this is not

going to last forever anymore. I say to myself, not off in a public anymore than it did in Germany. We just got to keep as nearly as we can shouting the truth in you know, non hair on fire. But it's extreme and it's not normal. And what it's going to take all kinds of new things, whether it's letting the government shut down in a couple of weeks or or whatever it is to it's a new ball game. It's a new ball game.

dersh weed. There's you know, it feels like another world.

you know it is. It is of another time because of the names and less West and Alan Dershowitz and all the rest are everybody except Donald Trump are gone more or less. The entitlement is still absolutely there. And I see I still see that. I mean, and and I would say, I mean obviously the great wealth and I can do anything because I'm rich. Thing is here more than ever. And I see not Epstein, sex trafficking, examples of it all over all the time, but but

similar things. It's just as grotesque. The thing about that too, I mean again in terms of in terms of just the delusional or welly and fantasy. The denial yesterday by the the you know, Deputy White House Chiefs and Staff in charge of comms and by the Press Secretary of like, no, no, no, look these things obviously aren't his. Well, they look just like the ones you were showing. And they look just

like the ones I have in my personal files. First of all, and and and then the Wall Street Journal, which in it's.

under Bush too. You know, Donald Trump obviously most of his friends and the people around him, And I just wonder if you know the the thing that made Trump and the thing you know, I was talking to someone who knew him and had talked to him pretty recently and said that one of the things he spends the most time worrying about is is this breaking through? Like are people watching? Are people seeing me? Are people right? Am I getting the airtime? Is it being shown now?

Because he's right, he's still thinking about like traditional linear television and not necessarily where a lot of people are. But I think that you know, he was at the US Open yesterday, He is at He is trying to be at every sporting event. He wants to have USC fighters on the on the lawn of the White House. And I just wonder if you could talk about this idea of being downstream of culture and how Donald Trump learned that and how that equates the nineties.

and make that show business too. And as I've written about, you know, it was in this long, perfectly calibrated timed way to do what has always been done in America, which is everything is show business, you know, I mean, religion was show business in the United States, or in America before it's the United States unlike anywhere else, and everything and every you know, Buffalo Bill, all of it

was show business. And you know, presidential politics had started that becoming how with television and then Robt Reagan and then up to Donald Trump. And he was perfectly positioned to do that. And so being a WWE famous guy before he was you know, I mean, that was as important a part of his fame in the nineteen nineties

as anything else. You know, then came apprentice orything and playing the character that this character against that rival evil character and just doing whatever it took to make people watch and cheer and like, Okay, they know it's a fake, but but like, well, we still like it, right, And to bring that to make our politics, at least our Republican politics, at least his unique and singular version of politics that was, you know, I mean, it's like a

wild movie, a piece of satire, might judge idiocracy thing that a novel I wrote in nineteen ninety nine about the murder of reality and and and and television and it's it's it's just come true. So yes, the seeds robbed too laid there. And of course all of these people too, just because of their age, because they're you know, the nineties, people were still young enough to now be compositions of power. But so many of these people, of course,

were not in politics at all. I mean, Bobby Kennedy of the nineties was still you know, a drug addict and a failed and a failed district attorney who had then become apparently a legit environmental lawyer and stuff. But yeah, I mean, but again there the why is he there because his last name is Kennedy? Period and destroyed? Why

is our public health system being destroyed? And and and years and years of important all kinds of medical and other scientific work being destroyed because this kid, my cocaine dealer's name is Kennedy. And again it's this crazy you know, celebrity tale wagging the dog of the republic in a way that yes, it begs all understanding.

There are things like yeah, sure, if that's Maha, I'm down with it, until you get into no, all vaccines are bad and and I should be able to not take vaccines if I want all that and tell you into the craziness that there's there's you know, saying Maha and and simply like California, you know, healthiness and and and then there's insanity and and you know you I think it's important to distinguish those and and make make the people who were attracted to the right reasonable part

of it. Like I understand like this guy is uh, you know is I mean, you're going to make your kids die and make us make make your parents die.

But you know, I mean the buy the crazy binariness, and and here we are way over here like in the real burn it down sense, And and that nihilism, the burn it down nihilism is is a significant part of the Trump uh base movement feeling, you know, just fuck it, fight it, yeah, burn it down. It's not working. It's rigg you know, And and that's that's dangerous.

three sisters in one brother. I was born to a Vietnam veteran father that was exposed to agan ORNs, so I was born with a condition called spina bifida, had my first surgery at one day old and had twenty one surgeries by the age of twelve. And someone that went through an enormous amount of economic adversity and certainly on the healthcare side. A family that we shared clothes and got a lot of our clothes from the Goodwill and a mother that at times that was putting the

groceries on the credit card. In the summer times, we were going to the free summer lunch programs to get our food. And I'm grateful that I grew up in Iowa at a time when we were number one in public education, and I had a lot of support from

the AAS which provides special education here. Thankfully for me, what really saved my life was I was exposed to wheelchair basketball and an adaptive sports program across the river in Omaha, Nebraska, and that really gave me everything that I needed from friends and it legitimately saved my life. I played well enough in wheelchair basketball that I was able to get a partial scholarship to play at the collegiate level. I went to a place called Southwest Minnesota

State University along with the help of vocational Rehabilitation. Had it not been for wheelchair basketball or voke rehabit never would have went to Calle and played well enough there that I set a lot of records, scored sixty three points in a game, and scored four thousand career points, which I'm proud I barely eked out Caitlin Clark there and then had the opportunity to play something I did not actually know existed when I was in college, which

is professional wheelchair basketball, which doesn't exist in America, so the have to play abroad. So I had the opportunity to live and play basketball in places like France and Spain and Italy and Australia. But by the time it was done and the biges accomplishment was I had the opportunity which was my goal from day one, which was to represent the country in the Paralympic Games, which the Summer of Paralympic Games is the second largest sporting event

on Earth behind the Summer Olympic Games. Played in four Paralympic Games and won two gold medals in wheelchair basketball back to back, and finished my career in Tokyo. Last game that I played was winning a gold medal. Along the way, got a bachelor's degree in history, got a

master's degree in business administration. Briefly was a small business owner as well for more than ten years been a director of a nonprofit organization that helps disabled kids have access to adaptive sports programs like wheelchair basketball, just because it honestly had saved my life and profound impact it made on me, and to be a role model to other kids with disabilities because they don't see enough role

models from the from the disabled community. And then as well, what got me interested in politics is when I finished my basketball career, I started working as well with disabled individuals. Working for a company called New Motion. I was assessing and providing wheelchairs, power both power wheelchairs and manual wheelchairs and mobility devices for the disabled population. And it was in there that every single day we were dealing with

denial rates and delay rates. I was working specifically with individuals with muscular dystrophe and als LU Garrig's disease, and these are people that just do not have time for denial rates. And we were showing that since Iowa had privatized the medicaid system, we were showing a thousand percent increase and the denial rate, and I felt that that was wrong. And then with a little bit of recent search, had found out that Iowa we had never had a

permanently disabled member in the Iowa legislature. That's one hundred and fifty year history of the state, a governing body of one hundred and fifty members. Meanwhile, we have one in five io ones that are blind or death or intellectually disabled or physically disabled. And I thought, well, is.

one in five here here in Iowa. But you know, along with our cancer rates, we could have higher levels of disabilities.

Republicans day after day. I outperformed the top of the ticket by thirteen points and won my first election by just six votes, and then turned around in a year that was actually twenty four was actually even worse out here. Trump won my county by twenty points, one of the two communities that I represent, by double digits, and I was able to win by nearly six percent. So I was very proud of that outperformed the top of the ticket by much more than any other Democrat in the state.

And I went out and drug my wheelchair up to have conversations with and it was almost exclusively Republicans and independence and I found that although I wasn't particularly efficient, you know, sometimes it would take me ten or fifteen minutes to crawl up there, that I became very effective. And I would find that, regardless of where people sat on the political spectrum, always the very first question that I would be asked is, well, how in the world

did you get up here? Well, I crawled up here.

That's how important your vote is. And then I would find that even if it was the most extreme Republican or conservative, that they would be willing to give me three or four minutes of their time given the fact that I just drugged my wheelchair up there and crawled up there to have a conversation with them, and I would find that in you know, four or five minutes of conversation, I could be very effective about here's who I am, here's what I've done, here, here's why I'm running.

And I would focus on the kitchen table issues. That's what I talked about was I'm doing this because I'm someone that's gone through an enormous amount of economic struggle and an enormous amount of health care struggle, and people are people are struggling legitimately, it doesn't matter where you said on the political spectrum of a livable wage, of keeping food on the table, keeping the lights on, of

you know, struggling with their healthcare cost. I would hear over and over and over from people they didn't have insurance or they were underinsured, or the waiting list, or the denial rates, the out of pocket costs, and these are people even that were on private insurance. And then even more grotesque, I would hear over and over from people, you know, I've changed my job, I've changed my insurance, and now I can't afford to take my insulin or

I can't afford to take my medication. It's just fundamentally wrong to live in the richest nation on Earth and people happen to make the determination do I take my medication, do I take my pills, or do I pay my bills? It's just wrong, and these are things that I focused on. I also talked a lot about Iowa was growing cancer rate,

because that's something that affects people all over. We don't do anything really about that at the at the Iowa level, and certainly now with what we're looking at with nih cuts, we're the only state with a growing cancer rate.

cancer's cartomes. So I ran a bill for Iowa to be the very first state to ban the EhP and

have no state appropriation go with time. So I was actually spending a lot of time at the University of Iowa talking with him about the can rates because my assumption was where they are going to see the highest rates of cancer, we're going to be in the disabled population, those that are using intermittent catheters, because we were seeing a bladder cancer epidemic, and they were saying no, by far, the areas that we are seeing the highest rates of

cancer are in these rural communities and those that are exposed to the glaveh of states and the pesticide and lack of water qualities.

on cultuur war issues. And then the other issue is that maybe we have not done a good enough job of ensuring that we are the party of the workers of the middle class, that we are the party that is going to ensure that you're going to have a livable wage, that you're going to have affordable housing, and that you're going to have affordable healthcare. One of the fascinating things for me and going out there and knocking basically every single door in my district twice now in

a very red district. Is that the one singular issue that I found that was unanimously supported was that our healthcare system is fundamentally broken, that we're the only country that doesn't provide at least a baseline level of health care for its citizens. That we pay three times as much as any other nation on earth for our health care,

but we get by far the worst outcomes. However, I found that it was a complete disconnect of when people are showing up to vote, them not understanding that the way that they're voting, both at the local level, certainly at the state level, and certainly at the federal level, that that was directly correlated to how their healthcout outcomes were coming out. So's you're right, there is a disconnect there and something that I tried to make a good job of saying, no, No, I am a prairie populist.

This are the things that I'm focusing on, and that is driving down the cost and making sure that you have access to all these things so that you're not voting against your own self interest.

that's fighting for small farms. It's someone that's fighting for our public schools, that's fighting for affordable healthcare, affordable pharmaceuticals. It's voting for affordable housing, which is really the essence of the American dream. That's fighting for a livable wage in a a in a minimum wage. That to me

is what true populism is. I think that one of the big mistakes that with that that we have made is that too many people have sat back and said, oh, you know, there's there's just there's just too many ignorant people that are that are voting for the Trump administration or for you know, people like Joni Urns and Chuck Grassley.

I have said that Donald Trump accurately addressed that the the status quo is not working for the middle class, that the middle class is being hollowed out, the system is rare, the system is rigged, absolutely, that the middle class is disappearing, that the people are legitimately struggling with keeping a roof above their head and keeping food on the table. The problem is that his policies of faux populism are not addressing it. They're actually just making it worse.

And that we are now living into Americas the haves and the have nots. It is literally a second Gilded Age. It is the ninety nine versus the one. And that is what I have talked about, is I am a genuine populist, a true populist, someone that is not only accurately addressing that you're struggling, but I'm going to actually go up there and fight for you, not just for billionaires, not just for large corporations, not just for lobbyists, but fight for you. And I think that that is an

important distinction. And I think that people see an authenticity and a genuineness to me and to my story. You know, I'm someone that I've won gold medals, I've accomplished my goals. I didn't need to get involved in this, certainly at the state level. I've made an enormous amount of sacrifice

for this. But I understand in like a genuine patriotic sense that people are strong buggling, and they're struggling both on the economic side and on the healthcare side, and they need someone that understands that and empathizes with that, but also is going to work worth with the party and with the other party, work in a bipartisan way to provide solutions to their problems. That's what people want at their essence. They don't even care red versus Blue.

They want someone that really cares and is actually going to do the hard work to provide solutions to the problems. That, to me is what a very populist is as well.

my political hero, Senator Tom Harkin. We are someone as recent as Trump's first midterm, and I'm feeling a whole lot more energy now than even in Trump's first midterm, where we won three of the four congressional races and we nearly won all four of our congressional seats. We are as recent as twenty twenty two, so we're not talking about old history in old time that we were only one point five percent away from having three of

our six statewide officials being Democrats. We are, at our essence, we are a common sense state. And I would say that I am a common sense Prairie populist. And you ask how we win, well, the greatest future, you know, indicator of future success is previous success. And I am the Democrat that has been winning out here in the reddest part of the state, outperforming by the largest margin of any Democrat, outperforming by fourteen points in what was a very very red Trump district. And I did that

by what I told you. It's the right candidate, the right work ethic, and the right message you can win. And I believe that my story, my background, my resume, but even more so my grit, my determination, my work ethic, and arguably most importantly, the issues that I'm going to

focus on the kitchen table issues. Doing something about the actual plights of Iowans of driving down cost a livable wage, affordable healthcare, affordable pharmaceuticals, doing something about our cancer rate, doing something about our water quality issues, supporting our public schools, supporting infrastructure, supporting family farms. This is what's going to win because islands are ready for change. I feel everywhere that I go, we're getting turnouts that we haven't seen.

That's both in the rural areas in the urban areas. And I'll tell you this that it is a scary time right now to be in rural Iowa, and Trump's chaotic tariffs are only making this situation dramatically worse. There are a lot of farmers that are terrified We're not moving any of our soybeans. Commodity prices are going down, and we are looking at the possibility of moving into a second farm crisis here, and people are tired of it. I hear over and over and over everywhere I go,

but particularly in the rural communities. I voted for Trump. I voted for Ernest, but I did not vote for this naked corruption and certainly not to cut people's health care and food assistance to poor kids and disabled individuals just to give tax breaks to billionaires. And I think that we are common sence state and we are ready for change.

hard work. We've got an east coast trip coming up. We're going to go out to Davenport, to Burlington and Dubuque and Waterloo. That's what it's going to take is we, as Iowans and as Iowa Democrats, we cannot anymore just rely on the urban areas turning out and voting for us. We've got to be willing to go out there to these red communities, to these small rural communities and preach this message of prairie populism and talk about the issues

that actually matter. We got three point two million islands that need to have a roof above the head, that need to have a Liverpool wage, that need to have healthcare and talk to them about enough of the faux populism. We need to get back to genuine populism and that I'm someone that is practicing what I'm preaching. I'm not taking any corporate pack money. I'm going to be up there fighting for Iowa in Iowans, not just looking out for billionaires in large corps operations.

Court said, no, do whatever you want. So we see Donald Trump just destroying these government institutions and the Supreme Court saying he's fine to do it. The other thing that just to add for a moment of fucker, because I think it really is something that we should is that the Supreme Court said that ICE can detain Americans based on race. By the way, they said, you can't allow people to get into college based on race, but you absolutely can detain people based on race. This is

pretty wild stuff. And it also means that ICE will now have open season on Latino's. Latino voters, some of whom voted for Trump, now have less freedom and if you look a certain way, you are now less free than other people in this country. Just a mind blowing thing for the Supreme Court to do. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics

make sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.