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 soon to be retired Senator Joe Manchin says Trump will destroy America if he wins. Really you don't say, perhaps he'll reconsider learning for president with no labels. We have such a great show today. Congressman Wiley Nicholl joins us to talk about the oh so
important jerry mandering happening in North Carolina. Then we'll talk to Talking Fed's host Harry Littman about Trump's latest legal fuckery, and of course my mother.
But first we have the host of the.
Lawrence O'Donnell Show, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell. Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Lawrence.
Always great to be here.
We had to have you on for a number of reasons because when things get chaotick.
One, okay, it's early, just pick one.
One of the things that I've shood by is you have such experienced working in the Senate and we had this wild, kind of insane congressional week. I mean, I'm just curious your take as someone who has actually worked in the institution, I mean, with the cr and now it's they're going to do this, They're going to kick the can until twenty four.
I'm just curious what your take on that.
It's a good thing that it's been a gradual decline, and so so I've processed a bunch of these moments that bring us ultimately to the thing where Bernie Sanders becomes a wrestling referee. I mean, that thing was the ugliest thing that I've ever seen publicly in the Senate. I saw a couple of ugly, private, very private moments in the Senate, but I don't know, it's probably been like a fifteen year decline into that.
I want to pause and just talk about what you were talking about. This was a hearing where Bernie Sanders had to interrupt a senator from Oklahoma who was threatening the life of the president of the Teamsters Union or he was challenging him to an MMA fight.
Yeah, everybody's seen this crazy video of this guy, who, by the way, the clue to the madness that was going to come is this is the senator who's decided to bring the Jim Jordan dress code to the United States Senate and you know, sit there without the suit code, but It's the kind of thing where you know, when you see your former workplace degraded into something ridiculous from something by the way that you fully respected, you know. I mean when I worked there, I fully respected it.
And I also thought when I worked there in the nineteen nineties that this was the low point of the United States Senator because it had become by the definition of say the sixties, seventies, and eighties, by the mid nineties, it had become dysfunctional. And now you look back at that, go, oh no, no, that was great compared to where we are now. And everybody adhered to a code of at least public behavior. And the big thing is they just
were not as stupid. You know, the American voter in Republican States was not in the business of finding the stupidest person, which they've now succeeded at. And here's the decline. You can measure the decline this way. Okay, here's this Oklahoma senator who is, you know, challenging somebody to a
fistfight in a hearing. When I was there, the Oklahoma senator was a Yale man who was of course secretly gay, and had this entourage of very very attractive young male staffers around him, and a Democrat by the way, So all of those things, right, you had a gay Yale Democrat senator from Oklahoma when I was there, And now that you have this, and you just couldn't ask for a more dramatic illustration just in that way of what
it's become. And it's ridiculous, you know, and it's pathetic, and it's and right by the way, right across the street. You have every right to the same feelings if you ever worked in the Supreme Court of the United States, you know, if you were a Supreme Court clerk in the nineteen nineties and really you know, up into the beginning of the twenty first century, you had a right to an air of pride, you know about what you'd done.
And I have to say, you know, of all the intro items someone can have, I remember meeting a guy at a New York party a minute after someone whispered to me he was a Supreme Court clerk, and instantaneously changed like, oh my god, I just immediately changed me completely, and I like, oh my god, there's someone really smart here. Oh wow, you know, and I was like I was kind of intimidated like, Okay, I have to be really
careful now when I talk to him. You know, that currency has been completely destroyed, and so you know, by the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court and the John Roberts Supreme Court, I think it's kind of hopeless. I don't expect those institutions to probably ever recover because Republicanism is just on a one way street to stupidity. They've arrived there and there's no way out. Once you're living in stupidity, there is no way out.
So let's talk about that Supreme Court.
This week, the Supreme Court decided that they were going to create an ethics code that was.
With no enforcement. I mean, what's your hot take on that.
My take on that is it's a good thing, and so it's not everything, and it's not the best thing, but you went from nothing to something. And that's my experience in government is that you take those wins, you know, we call them wins, but you have to think of it, you know, as a eighteen inning baseball game, you know, and if something good happens in the third inning, good, you know, you know it's not over. You know, there's
more to do. I recognize how the coverage has come to the point where the very first thing said about it was there's no enforcements. And that's a fair point, you know, And unfortunately, the only enforcement on Supreme Court justices has always been impeachment. That's the only enforcement, and it's an extremely heavy mechanism to try to use, and you need the two thirds vote, and so, you know, it's never happened. But by the way, it has happened
multiple times for federal judges. Routinely, the United States Senate impeaches and removes from office federal judges, and it happens with remarkably low visibility.
You know.
I remember in the nineties we had this you know, judicial impeachment trial going on in the Senate, and we would do it for like, you know, an hour a day, you know, for over over, like it took about a couple of weeks, and you'd forget about it, you know, but you'd realize, oh, no, we don't have the floor for the tax bill from ten to eleven am because they're impeaching a federal judge.
Oh yeah, yeah, I.
Remember, not, you know, And so, which is, by the way, is the way it should be.
I wish those things were taken as a more routine and likely outcome to human behavior is that, of course you're going to have to impeach some So that's the problem, is the enforcement part of it.
But look, it is absolutely.
Going to change Clarence of Thomas's behavior somewhat. But the trouble and the problem there is, of course he's already fully corrupted, so it doesn't matter like if he does everything right from this day forward. He's fully corrupted. He's taken hundreds of thousands of dollars directly in effect in cash, you know, in this loan to purchase this thing, this you know, rolling home of his and then you don't have to pay back the loan. That's not a loan.
You know that somebody just gave you cash and you took it, and it gave you cash only because you're a Supreme Court justice. That person only met you because you're a Supreme Court justice. It's something. Though I liked a bunch of things about those rules. I also was highly amused at the section that the Chief Justice wrote specifically to allow his wife to make nine million dollars
a year from law firms. It appear before the Supreme Court, and let's just remember, these are all challenges that have occurred because of progress. When the Founders were creating the Supreme Court, there wasn't a wife in Washington who had a job, and every Supreme Court justice was supposed to be a man forever, and none of their wives were ever supposed to work. So there was never supposed to be a Jinny Thomas problem or the Chief Justice's wife problem.
None of those problems were supposed to exist, and so we have a governmental structure that doesn't know how to deal with those problems.
Yeah, it's interesting because this Supreme Court is quite obsessed with this originalism, this idea that you can't make gun laws. There's you know, brewin last semester, and now we have Rhini, which is the idea that there was this sort of textualism that if domestic violence didn't exist when the Founders are at the Constitution, because it didn't, maybe you should be able to have a gun, and even if you are in trouble for dovests.
So this idea is kind of dovetails, right.
The more I reflect on the Founders and what they did, the more I see it as not terribly visionary, but in fact terribly imprisoned in its moment, And I have to say, I think they'd all be shocked if they came back and they said, you're kidding me. You're paying
attention to us two hundred years later. That's crazy. We didn't know about airplanes or you know, nuclear weapons, or anti trust, like no one had ever even thought of anti trust then, you know, so I think they'd quite reasonably be shocked that anyone was paying attention to it and treating.
It like it's some divine work.
Bible.
Yeah, it's the Ten Commandments, you know.
And in fact, the proper way to approach justice is justice, you know, the principle guiding my Supreme Court opinion is justice. I think it is just that the following things happen, the idea that like no, no, no, I've got to find I've got to f and somebody way back there, preferably in English common law in sixteen twelve, you know, And if I'm lucky, I can cite a legal source from England in sixteen twelve who was not a witch prosecutor, which is of course what they did cite in the
crazy abortion decision. They cited two guys from England who were prosecutors of witches who strongly believed in and got the death penalty for witches. They cited them as legal authorities. Now that's madness, you know, that's Alito clerks being utterly insane and uneducated, like shockingly uneducated. And so it's a ludicrous pursuit that they're in when the guiding principle of every Supreme Court opinion should simply be justice.
It's funny because one of the things I think about is this lie that this was about states, right said overturning Row was really bringing abortion back to the States. You're seeing these arguments with the metha pristone with the abortion pills that by allowing it to stay on the market. We're going to talk about the Comstock Act because that, I think is the next Republican play when it comes to abortion, despite the fact that they cannot stop losing on this topic, which is so amazing to me, but
they seem not to care. So I'm curious in your mind, like this disconnect between having wildly unpopular ideas and just keeping going with them. I mean, is that because Republican Party is hostage to its base or am I missing something?
It's because you have Republicans in office now whose entire lives were consumed with the abortion debate. You know, these forty year old, forty something Republican office holders and state legislatures. They were born into a Republicanism that was publicly opposed to roe versus Way. The Republicans who started that crusade started it based on this little slice of pulling that
they found owned. You know, in Ronald Reagan's early polling that indicated there was a band the time that looked like it might be as much as three or four percent who were single issue voters who would vote for anyone who said I want to get rid of roe versus Wade. That's the reason it entered the Republican platform. They wasn't in it before they found it in polling.
Right.
The older people who did this didn't believe it. They did it in a completely cynical way, and they were very happy with it because they believed that roe versus Wade was the law of the land. It was going to stay that way forever. Therefore, we can fundraise on this forever, and we can command the loyalty of this voting block, the anti abortion voting block, forever, and will never have to deliver on it because the Supreme Court
has taken care of it. And by the way it worked in a similar way on the Democratic side, the Democratic Party didn't start as the pro Row versus Wade party. They were positioned into that because of the what the Republican Party choice was, which was to be anti Roe versus Way. And so the Democratic Party was fundraising on it and asking for your vote on it, and they believe they were going to be able to do this forever because Roe versus Way was going to last forever.
Don't be surprised if you are, you know, baptizing children into this belief that when they're forty years old and they're working in state legislatures in Oklahoma and Indiana, don't be surprised if they actually believe the thing you were
selling to them. That's part of your problem is that there's a bunch of these Texas legislators and Oklahoma legislators and Indiana legislators who believe this stuff and are now stuck with it, and they live in this isolated way in their districts, in their legislative districts where they're fully protected. You know, they're not going to lose their jobs because they're trying to ban abortion. None of them are, and so that thing is just going to keep happening in
the most right wing states. The tricky part is going to be for governors of the states that aren't so right wing on issues like this. If you look at say Florida, where they're not so right wing on issues like abortion, if you're running statewide there, you have to be much more careful as a Republican on that issue.
I want to ask you about Florida because I feel like what we're doing here is I have all these theories and I just want you to tell me if they make sense to you and if they're smart or if I'm insane.
This is, of course, because I'm a well known expert on Florida.
So Desander's running for president, decided that he was going to make Florida a kind of lab of authoritarianism. Do all the stuff that they had talked about in Republican primaries, right book banning, where woke goes to die, you know, all of those kind of sound bites turned into legislation because he had a very right wing legislative body state legislature, so he could really go crazy. Do you think that
this has actually scared voters and other states? I mean, do you think it's had an effect or do you think it exists in a vacuum.
I think it didn't work, as the one thing I'm sure of, because he wasn't doing it. He didn't care about Florida.
He was doing it.
For Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. He was doing it for Republican primary voters who he had a right to believe were crazy, and he wanted to sound as crazy as they are. And it just hasn't worked. And what's really funny about how much it hasn't worked is the latest polling that I just happened to see this morning on the state of Florida shows Donald Trump at sixty percent and Dessantus going down. He's gone down below where he was before, so he's down around twenty or
so right, So he's in a Florida primary. He will get absolutely destroyed if he's still a candidate. And the mission of kind of presidential candidates on their way to losing primaries always been make sure you get out before your state you know, which you know to Scott for example, has done, but make sure you get out before your state, because what you don't want to do is have someone come into your state and beat you in the presidential
primary in your state. And we could all just hope that Ron de Santis hasn't heard that rule so that he actually does stay in there for this incredible rebuke that he would get right now, right now today, that he would get from Florida voters. So it didn't work with national Republican primary voters, and it didn't work in Florida. Donald Trump, who never tried to ban any books, is crushing him in Florida.
Yeah, it's some real incredible sorcery there. Do you think that Republicans have so overstepped on these cultural war issues that they.
Will give it up? Or do you think, like abortion, they're just addicted to bad ideas.
No, I think with abortion, you know, Trump's not going to play it and hasn't played it at all, you know, the way these other people play it.
He's just going to do this. He's gonna he takes.
It to a different level of stupidity, which is to say, you know, just to elect me president and I will figure out the best formula for you know, who should get an abortion and Republican voters apparently are stupid enough to go with that. But he's playing it much softer than, you know, than any of the others who always believed, you know, you had to play it really hardcore, including George W. Bush, you know, George W.
Bush.
When John McCain was running against him, John McCain was asked on the bus, you know, well, what if your daughter was pregnant, and McCain gave a human answer, he said, well, you know, we would have a family discussion about that. You know, well that obviously includes the possibility of an abortion right. So that answer lasted about, you know, twenty four hours because the Bush people just beat him to death on it, and he had to then McCain had to come out and say no.
Of course, of course there'd be absolutely no abortion.
You know, he had to be beaten back, you know, into that corner because Bush was so hardcore on abortion, and so Trump is actually, you know, the softest one they've had on abortion, and it turns out the most effective, you know, because he's the guy who delivered to you the Supreme Court that could do this.
Thank you so much. This is so good, It really I appreciate you.
I only wish the listeners could see your background. It's so hard to concentrate because I'm just sitting here reading book titles.
You know, That's all I'm doing.
Your vision is so good.
Congressman Wilie Nickel represents North Carolina's third district. Welcome to Fast Politics.
Representative nicol Thanks, I'm so glad to be with you.
So first we're going to talk about jerry mandering. You are a member of Congress from the great state of North Carolina. February twenty twenty two, North Carolina Supreme Court blocked the Republican led state North Carolina State Legislature's unconstitutional partisan gerrymander of North Carolina maps, putting in place interim maps for the twenty twenty two election cycle in a fifty to fifty purple state. There was a huge win
for voters in North Carolina. Now fast forward and tell us where we are now.
Like you said, our Supreme Court last year drew fair you know maps for we're a fifty to fifty state.
They drew a map that would elect.
Seven Republicans, six Democrats, and one seat that could have gone either way. A true fifty to fifty seat that was the seat that I won in the last election. We were one of just six Republican seats that we flipped in the last cycle. Now, obviously, you know, the state wide results weren't as good as we needed them to be. We lost two Supreme Court seats and now
it's a five to two Republican court. And the Republican on our court are just total partisan hacks, so we expect no relief from them on what is a totally egregious and horrible Republican gerrymander that now we'll elect ten Republicans, three Democrats, and one seat that's pretty pink but could stay in our column. This is not fair. I mean, the voters get totally screwed when you have this kind of extreme parties and jerrymandering.
How can you push back on this? What can you do? Where are we here?
There will be lawsuits. We've been successful around the South with these racial gerrymandering cases. There certainly was extreme racial gerrymandering going on with these these Republican maps, so you know there will be litigation.
We're hopeful that it's successful and.
We keep our current seven to seven map in place, but you know, it's an uphill battle and the lawyers have it. Now, my takeaway from all of this as I'm here in Congress is you have so few seats where voters have a real choice in November for Congress, and you know, it's really it's probably down to just thirty out of four hundred and thirty five seats that could that could go either way.
The rest are just a total foregone conclusion.
And that's why we have such a just dumpster fire of chaos and confusion here in Congress because you know, the Republicans could just care less. They are governing for their Republican primary in their base and we're not getting anything done.
Yeah, let's talk for a minute about this, because the partisan jerrymander is really destructive in ways that I think a lot of people don't necessarily understand. For example, we see it right now. I mean with this Republican Party. I don't think this is as true for Democrats. But then again, I.
Am an opinion columnist and that is my opinion.
But the Republican Party is really you know, Chip Roy and Matt Gates are pretty much calling the shots over there.
A one thousand percent. It's the tail wagging the dog they're just really stupid with their approach to this. I mean, if you game it out, you can get together, you settle your differences privately. That's how I understood that Nancy Pelosi ran things in the last Congress. We've moved tons of bills, we moved legislation. We didn't have all this, you know, chaos and confusion and constant literally fighting. I mean, that's what we saw this week was literally fighting between
Republicans spilling out into public view. But if their publems were smart, they would work together and you know, move a bill through the House and negotiate with the Senate and take half a loaf. But they're not even doing that. They can't even pass their own stupid messaging bills for the budget, which we continue to see these bills that they just can't get a majority of Republicans. It's either too far to the left or too far to the right in terms of Republican stuff, and we just we're
just not getting done. And that's a direct result of extreme parties and jerrymandering.
Yeah, it's such an interesting problem for Republicans. We keep seeing Johnson bring bills the floor and not have the votes. Nancy Pelosi never had that problem.
Mike Johnson and Kevin McCarthy, they're horrible vote counters.
Yeah, that's that's my lesson.
Don't bring the bills to the floor unless you've got the votes.
They passed this CR. It's a clean CR.
But it doesn't it gets It's this tiered thing which is basically really nothing right. It's some expire a month before the other ones. I mean, it's just it's sort of some way to distract the far right and get him to not have lost his job yet Mike Johnson. But ultimately even I mean, you saw, you know, this pass, but like once they start having to really negotiate, they're not going to be able to do it. And you know, Republicans who are supposedly such great friends to Israel, they
did not prove any aid to Israel. They did not prove any aid to Ukraine. So none of that stuff happened at all.
People should be pissed off. I had my staff compile the bills that have been signed into law. We're up to twenty one. There is nothing that really helps people. We raise the dead ceiling. We've done two crs and the rest. You know, you're talking about renaming a VA clinic or a great Marine.
Coin or a post office.
Yeah, you know, but the least productive Congress now since the Great Depression at this stage. But you know, fixing jerry mandering is would make this place work a lot better. And as you know, people look at maps that for North Carolina, you know, will will guarantee three maybe four seats that clip from one part to the other just with with the drawing of a few lines. You know, it's something that we got to fix, and we can
do it. And I think when I talk about all the stuff that's happening is Washington, it's it's hard to find a lot of hope in things. But the place I find hope is in the House and the people I serve with. And you know, I think people listening should know that Keem Jeffries is going to be the next Speaker of the House. We are going to take back the House in the next Congress because of all the crazy stuff that the Republicans are doing where.
They just show their audit to govern.
But we want to fix maps, we take back the House, we pass non parts and independent redistricting on a nationwide level. We can do that in Congress and in the Senate, we just got a nuke the filibuster and get fifty votes on a bill that that does just that. That's that's the best way we'll be able to do it.
Yeah, Mike Johnson, he looks more like Paul Ryan, but his heart seems very much like Sidney Powell. How do you have that person as a Speaker of the House.
I think it was just sort of a situation where they just needed someone who could get you know, two hundred and eighteen votes from the Republican conference and they were just tired after three weeks.
I think he's in charge, you know.
I think it's maybe more, maybe more of a collaborative effort among other Republican leaders. So I'm not sure, you know, how much a leeway he has to really do his own thing. So I think that's kind of my question. I don't know the answer. But the thing that makes sense is he is working with Democrats in the Senate and in the House and Republicans in the Senate who want to do the things that the American people think
we ought to be doing. Supporting Israel, supporting Ukraine, you know, secure in the border, those are things that we're talking about.
So Republicans had to get Democratic votes to pass a CR. In fact, they got more Democratic votes and Republican votes. That does not bode well for the future for this party if they can't whip their own votes right.
And this isn't something that should be controversial. It's literally just keeping the lights on with the federal government. So no, I mean, the question I have I think anybody watching Congress is what's going to give? You know, something's got to give because the met gates and you know, Freedom Caucus, you know, far right crazies aren't going to stop and they're not going to work with with the majority of Republicans. So the only alternative is working with Democrats on things
that a majority of the Republican conference supports. And that's very controversial. You know, it's crazy that that's the case, but you know, that's what we're talking about is probably just having bills that are on suspension so this bench county reads two thirds two hundred ninety votes. They don't have to pass a rule. They can just bring anything to the floor to get two ninety and that's what we did for the CR and I'm expecting that that's probably what we're going to do with so much of
this stuff. It's they're going to have maybe a bare majority of Republicans and all the Democrats to get basic things done.
I mean, this is just so crazy.
I was listening to I'm not going to plug another podcast, but it was actually quite interesting, and they were talking about how Mike Johnson has this Christian nationalist flag, this flag that is associated a lot with Christian nationalism. It's a white flag with a tree on it. And I'm wondering,
you have to serve in Congress with these people. Mike Johnson is much more genteel than a Marjorie Taylor Green or Lauren Boeper or a mad I mean, Matt Gates is a little bit genteel too, But these people, you know, they want to destroy the government, and they have some very out of line beliefs that are, you know, not shared by most of the country.
I mean, is it hard to just go to work with these people.
It's a pretty goofy group. It's the same clown car as before, just a different driver. I think the people who send us here expect us to get things done and build those relationships, and you know, I work really hard to build personal relationships with the Republicans who are willing to work across the island. There certainly are some there. I'm part of the problem Solver's Caucus Democrats and Republicans.
You know, we meet usually once a week to talk about biparties and legislation hasn't been a lot of it. But I see it as my job to try to build those relationships so that when we have to do things like passing a cr or passing a budget or do an aid for Israel, there's some level of trust. But it's really tough, especially when you look at their Twitter feeds and you look at the stuff that they say when they're out out of Congress, because it's really
dangerous and really out of the mainstream. But you know, I think what we're seeing is people are standing up to this across the country. You know, we saw in Ohio, you know, huge numbers of people coming out for women's riots. We're going to continue to see that play out, and we're just on the right side of these issues and that's ultimately going to get through to the voters.
Why do you.
Think that North Carolina has been such a tough nut for Democrats to crack? We saw Georgia flip blue before North Carolina.
I mean, that's wild.
North Carolina is the only state I think people should be talking about this next election. It's the state that Trump won by the smallest amount, and it's trending our way, you know, it's it is moving every election cycle, you know, is getting better and better for Democrats state. Why then they can jerrymander districts and they can do it in a brutally affective way, but they can't jerry manager the state. We're going to have the most competitive governors race in
the country. Are great Attorney General Josh Stein running against someone that makes Mega Mike and the Republicans look tame in comparison. Are Tenega owner Mark Robinson. He's just nuts. And it's the state that Biden's got to win. And from all that, you know, every every indication we have, I've talked about it with with Biden myself. You know, they're going to be all in on North Carolina because they've got to win the state if he's going to go back to Washington. So you know, we will see
a ton of spending. I think that matters. I think you know, you're talking about other you know, elections in the past. Obama won at the first time, didn't make the big investments in North Carolina. The second time around became really close. You know, that's one I think you talked to the people who are part of that campaign. I was, you know, a staffer, and you know they'll tell you, yeah, if we if we'd done more in North Carolina, we probably could have gotten there. And you know,
Hillary was close, Biden was very close. And you know, I think on the state level, this stuff like jerrymandering. You know, we have a Republican super majority in the legislature that's taken away women's rights, defunding public education, and those things will matter. Bathroom bill, yeah, absolutely, and I mean they continue to attack the LGBTQ community in just horrible ways that all will matter in North Carolina. You know, in addition to the national issue of literally protecting democracy.
I mean that's the choice, you know, democracy or not. With Trump and Biden.
The thing I'm so struck by, and Dave Weigall from Semaphore wrote a really smart piece about this. The Republicans really went crazy on social issues in a way that Americans don't want. And we saw that in Kentucky, like people don't want the government tracking women's periods.
My approach is people just want people solving problems. That they're tired of the demonizing groups attacking the LGBT community. And that was my takeaway too with the Kentucky race. You know, they're just they're tired of it. They want both people focused on protecting rights, not taking them away. And you know that's I think a winning message.
Yeah, so tell me what it looks like for you now in North Carolina, this jerry mander will go up the courts. I was pleasantly surprised that this very conservative Supreme Court did manage to slap back at Alabama. So it does seem like they are interested in I mean, shockingly, they don't seem like they are letting these right wing legislators have their way, or at least to a certain extent.
Yeah, the courts.
We're waiting on the courts to wane before we make any choices. The district with my number on it went from an R plus two to an R plus eighteen. So that's just totally unwinnable for a Democrat. It's off the chart in terms of Democrats. Who ever came close to winning a seat like that, so it's an unwinnable seat.
But you know, I think there's good legal arguments.
And I just have this hope as I kind of sit back here in Congress and watch the dumpster fire that is the Republican Conference, and I just have to think that John Roberts is sitting across the street at the Supreme Court watching it, and if he gets a map in front of him that's North Carolina, that's a really horrible jerrymander for Republicans, and then New York that could be a really horrible jerrymander for Democrats that's you know, in control, and he takes them together and maybe we
finally get a standard for how bad you can screw democracy with these maps. That's that's my own hope. I think it makes sense in a lot of ways. But the lawyers, you know, are much more focused on, you know, very specific stuff with with racial gerrymandering, and we've had some success.
There, so interesting.
I really appreciate getting to talk to you about this. It's such an important issue, and I hope that the courts break your way.
Thanks anytime. I'm glad to talk, excited to get to talk with you here.
Love love following you on Twitter as well, so you usually once a month did you tweet something? And it's like it's like that just made my day? So thank you for that.
Well, thank you.
Harry Littman is a former US attorney and host of the podcast Talking Feds. Hi, Harry Man, Welcome to Fast Politics.
I'm Alli don Fast. Welcome to Talking Feds and another politics long mashup. I'm looking forward to being educated on some important political questions that kind of escape me.
I am looking forward to asking you the question you never get asked, will Donald Trump go to jail?
I never get asked.
That, never, ever, ever, certainly not every day, multiple times a day.
All Right, here's a scoop. Here's a scoop on Fast Time with Mully Young Fast. You know I think he will. It's funny because you know, you and I lived through Watergate. You can imagine some grand resolution of this national nightmare like them that would just get him the hell off
the stage and keep him out of jail. But because of the real obsession with treating everyone alike, I think the chance for that has passed the chance for someone like who would it be Biden or possibly Garland to make that kind of and resolution as Ford did, or arguably as they did with Agnew He's now specifically in the stocks for in Georgia, where he can't pardon himself in New York and not to mention the federal system. And I'm going to turn this on you pretty soon.
But you know, assuming he doesn't get elected. So I actually think the possibility that would have been concrete for him, you know, notwithstanding the bloodlust that many people feel for him staying out of jail, because of the insistence that it be this sort of regular, routine process. I think that a train has started that can't stop. It might
be paused for he to win the presidency. I think he could make the federal cases stand down, and probably the Supreme Court would put a pause on the state cases, but just a pause now, you know. So it might depend on his longevity. But yeah, I actually think he's going to jail, you know, bad hair and lack of privacy and all I do.
Yeah, I mean, I think clearly the goal here is to beat back these indictments, right, to try to run out the clock, win reelection and parton himself or you know, do whatever he can.
Well, okay, although I don't think he can parton it, but it doesn't matter because the federal ones will still be going on. He can make him stop. He can just announce to DOJ stop this. It's still on appeal, but he'll have trouble on the state side. And of course that's the big if, you know, were he to win. It's been a time for people who are concerned about his getting the reins again when he's he's promised basically
to impose fascist rule and shred the constitution. You know, where there are all kinds of nervousness at the among Biden's supporters. Do you credit the polls that have it as a toss up at best? And are you I'm going to ask your personal view, but your political analysis of you know, there are a lot of pretty senior voices actually telling Biden this is the time to step aside,
let someone else lead the ticket. How do you sort of handicap the chances of Trump's winning, assuming Biden and he are the matchup.
So I'm going to push back on that and.
Say I'm no fair. Okay, go ahead.
And say, actually, there are not that many voices. Okay, there's a feeling. I think in the mainstream media people would like to see a primary, but you never have a primary for an incumbent president.
That's not how we do it. So the idea that we're going to have.
A primary because the guy is old is crazy. Okay, like you're going to give up incumbency because some people think he's old. It's just nods. I would push back on that, and then I would say the fact that there has not been a serious primary, that the only person that could be found to run against him is Dean whatever his name is from Poxatawny, Pennsylvania. No, actually he's from Minnesota. But you know, he's a rich guy, rich mediocre white guy who used to work in gelato.
I mean, look, I love gelato.
Don't get me wrong, you gelato fans don't write in Okay, this is.
In no way an indictment on gelato. I mean it's like what I eat every day. Eighty percent of my diet is gelato. But I'm here to tell you that that guy is not a real serious political player, and he's been on this age thing forever. He tried to take down Nancy Pelosi. Ask him how well that went?
Not that well?
I'm so glad to hear that. And I'll just add, you know, there's objective in disha of how well hit, you know, how strong this record is. Our current podcast is with Paul Krugman, Stephanie Rule, Dean Baker. You know, the economic benchmarks are off the chart. And also there's a history of incumbents in the year before looking kind of vulnerable.
Obama Reagan. They told Reagan he was too old to run.
W yeah, W you know so.
And I would say that, you know, I don't think that this is a statement on Biden. The other thing is, you know, Biden is in China. This is I would say, like, this is one of the worst times geopolitically in my lifetime. Right. We have just horrible, horrible stuff going on in much of the world, and Biden is like this very normal white guy, he's old.
He's the generic D.
And so when you look at this polling, the people who do the best in all of these polls is the generic D. If you were to think about like people rallied behind him in the Democratic Party because he was the generic D, you know, you didn't look at him and think like this is you know, the most liberal or even the most sort of cerebral you know, he harkened back to another time when politicians kind of disappeared behind the job, and you know, part of what
he ran on was this aggressive, boringness, and I think it served him well and I think it will serve him well again in twenty four.
Yeah.
You look at his bio. I mean, I think him very much as a kitchen table democrat with certain progressive strains. But you look at his bio and it feels like he came of age, you know, fifteen minutes before the sixties, and he's really the last of a previous generation of basically fifties gray suit figures. There's a lot have to be said for that, especially in the foreign policy world.
But I'm very very very very relieved to hear your general analysis so I don't have to, you know, plan on my move to New zeal.
Trump could still win. Anything could happen. But I just feel like there's two parts. Right.
There's a mainstream media that wants to have a traditional run up to a presidential.
Care what's a horse race, right, Yeah.
And I think some of that is because it's very boring to have the same two people running against each other again. Then I think part of it is that Trump juiced our numbers, all of us. Trump was the big media juicer, and he happened to destroy democracy, try very hard to destroy democracy while it was doing it. There's both anxiety and some wish fulfillment when it comes to Trump. You know, people on the media side like the numbers. Do they like the fascism?
I certainly hope not, but I think the numbers get a little addictive.
All right, I want the TLDR on Georgia right now. Fanny Willis is sort of wrapping everybody up right.
How high does this go?
Do you think this goes to Rudy? Do you think this goes to Trump? Explain?
I see this as basically a six person in case right now, the six would be and sort of four level Trump, Meadows and Juliani, probably Eastman and Clark, and then David Schaeffer, who's the most guilty of the Georgia elector. So let me tell you what I mean. She's given out these you know, flurry of clead deals, real sweetheart deals, non custodial time deals. They're the flurry of others to go because the general calculation given how she charged it is.
It's a very very expensive defense to make over half a million maybe more, and the you know, they're looking at really serious charges. So obviously Trump is the jewel in the crown for her, and you don't offer a deal to him, Juliani. I don't think you offer a deal a because he's very culpable, and especially in Georgia, he goes down and tells all kinds of horseshit about Georgia to Ruby Moss and Chay Freeman. Plus he's a
disaster witness. You couldn't use him for anything anyway. And then Mark Meadows at this point I think, has nowhere to go with her. So I think those three are really in the hot scene and when it comes to it, very very expensive defense. I think Julianni's only sort of play is to try to get Trump to fund it as much as he can. Trump's going to give him, you know, a fundraiser and Christmas I don't see much more.
But it's just a matter of time I think for those three, and that push'll come to shove when a new trial date is set, which could happen as soon as December. First, the judge has is having a new gearing. I got to say, I was perplexed that after being ready to go in a week in one trial for everybody, that Fannie Willis said two days ago it's going to take till twenty twenty five, among other things. That takes
the immediate pressure off. If that's the stance she holds to, others think that that's possible, but it hasn't been her so far anyway. To me, the important triggering event will be setting of a trial, same as it was for Chesbro and Powle that got those others started. David Schaefer, I think is toast also, but in a Georgia way. Remember she's a Georgia elected DA and so Meadows and Juliani and you know, I think you can say, Jeff Clark,
who what did he want to do? He wanted to get the DOJ to lie and tell Georgia there was fraud in the Georgia vote. She's, you know, going to really exact a penalty for that. So I think you'll see the electors plead out. You'll have that kind of package, and the evidence is pretty strong, you know. I think, however, once you get above, once you get to the Meadows Giuliani Trump level. We already know. They haven't been offered
pleased so far, and they've been overtures to others. I don't think they're gonna be so, whether it's you know, by summer or by as she says twenty twenty five, I think those three, at a minimum, probably with Schaeffer, are sitting for trial. My best guess is Eastman and Clark too, and my best guess they're going down.
But Trump No?
Trump?
Yes?
Why Trump? Y ass?
Because he's guilty, because the evident against against him is very strong. Because the people who are going to cooperate, the most valuable thing they can do is evidence against Trump, like Jenna Ellis. You know, we know she's going to provide that from a week ago. Now, why no, because they're you know, it's Georgia, the purple list of states, and the hope will be for some jury nullification person, you know, pro Trump person, to have a hung jury.
I think an acquittals out of the question, and she'd probably retry it. So with the caveat the asterisk that if he becomes president, he's going to start an investigation against her, there are ways that you know, Betts could be off, But yeah, I think I they killed. He will go down Molly before, you know, more assuredly than the others, because he is the number one target here. You can imagine a state of affairs where Meadows pleads and testifies against Trump. You cannot imagine the reverse.
Right, that makes sense.
Meadows has been sort of walking this line where he's kind of gives just enough but not enough to be helpful everywhere except in Georgia.
Can you explain that.
He's got the best lawyers in the whole game here, both is regular and his He's got us the guy who does the writing, and it's just taught, and they've been pretty adroid so far. You know, got him out of the hot water with Congress, that was quite a feat. Got him out of the hot water with Smith in the January sixth case. He's not even a co conspirator, he's not one of the six. He testifies, but not with any kind of deal. That was quite a feat, I thought also. And then he plays a big gambit
of trying to get removal in Full County. Here's where I think he's going to hit the brick wall. And at that point, you know he's I think he cannot in this slam. Of course he's running make this last gate, and he's going to sprawl badly. But I think I think Fulton County is where he comes to and end. And again he at that point, you know, might well want to plead, But I don't think they're given for
a guy off his culpability. They're going to be giving out, you know, these sort of non custodial sentences as they've given to the crackpot lawyers. As Mike Pensmith put it fifty years ago last month, your mother, Erica John is not a joke. I mean, this is a really serious question to you, Mollis, as a person to publish Fear of Flying, How has that novel and that and you know, and her kind of incandace and success at least then with it shaped your life?
Well, I mean that is, you know, again an unknowable question, but certainly had a lot of advantages because my other success, I mean the book it was published in nineteen seventy three.
Years ago right here that row.
Was passed and I was not born until nineteen seventy eight, so I was negative five. But I do think it changes the calculus of your life in innumerable ways. I had tons of advantages that it would not have had.
But there's a downside. No, my mom was modestly famous. She was a lawyer, a successful one, and a pioneer, and you know, among other things, it made the question of my becoming a lawyer both on everyone's lips and also made it feel like I wouldn't really match that success. And you know, I mean it's a complicated psychological situation having such a successful mom.
No, I mean, it's still better than living in war zone and there's a lot of real adversity in this world. But yes, I mean, for sure it created complicated dynamics in my life. But I don't think of myself as you know, I really was so lucky.
Was it fun?
It wasn't that fun because you know, my mom was an alcoholic. Our lives were very fraud But it was fun in the fact that, like I got to go to a lot of places and see a lot of things. But it was very lonely and sad childhood. I mean, I was an only child, and my mom was terrified of being a mother because she felt that it had destroyed her mother's life. So there were all sorts of weird things that caused her a lot of suffering. She also was a deeply tormented person who was wildly unhappy.
You know, it's funny because it's like so.
Funny so many artists and writers. It's a shame. It's it's what I It's what I almost it was my childhood ambition. In reality, man, it's a tough world for artists. Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
I mean, is it a tough world. I think we're very fucking life.
I think genuine artists and writers have it tough, is what I'm saying. They're often unhappy. Yes, thanks for that. I'm sure your fans would thank you. You've written a lot about the GOP. You know, many dwarves phenomenon. Why are they all trying to ride the Trumpism wave? What's wrong? And I mean, seriously, what's wrong with the Republican Party
in that sense? And is it clear to you that nobody, but nobody, but nobody, Nicki Haley, but nobody has any shot at the nomination other than Donald Trump, come hill or high water.
I was talking to Morning Joe this morning. I was talking to Joe and Miko about this. If Republicans wanted to Nikki Haley. And again this is in no way an endorsement of Nikki Haley. I don't agree with her.
You're an analyst.
All this pulling, which you know is so fraught, like people like her. She seems electable. There's a case to be made for her electability. And yet this Republican Party cannot, for the life of themselves shake themselves from Donald Trump. And they know that Trump has an ear retracted people hold on the base, and so they can't do anything.
So if tomorrow every Republican donor, the sort of very big donors and all the you know, Jeff Rows, all those people went and said we are going to support Nicki Haley, this is it.
If the sort of top down and the rn C chair, all the people who have.
Never been brave ever and who have continually you know, supported and enabled Trump and Trump is if those people
all said tomorrow we are getting behind Nikki Haley. I still don't think that the BASS would go along with it, and I still think they would have no chance and they would just I mean, their whole anxiety here with these Republican you know, the sort of Republican elites, is that they cannot get the base away from Donald Trump, which, okay, my question is in four years or even in two years, do.
You guys think Donald Trump is going away? Because I do not. I don't think if he loses.
He says, Okay, obviously, I've had a few shots at this. I'm done. I think this guy drags the whole party to zero. I just don't see a world in which these people keep sort of thinking that Trump is going to magically go away, and I just don't. I don't see that happening.
It feels so true just as my lay person of view from you know, starting an access Hollywood, well that's it, and definitely at January sixth, that's it. And shit, here we are, Hey, can we do this next month? This fun?
Yes?
Yes, thank you? No mo Jesse.
Cannon, Molly jong Fest that document. We've all been waiting for the George Santos ethics report drop today, and my bet is he's doomed since the only reason he didn't get it expelled last time was that this hadn't dropped yet.
Who's Janet? Janet Yellen is proposing taxing people like me to death. I'm reading a text from the Santos texts Janney Yellen, who is proposing taxing people like me to death. I can't move, would wake up? Who is Janet? And then the other person texting him makes a sad face. She's the Secretary of Treasury. Congratulations, ladies and gentlemen. Not only is George Santos a complete, an utter fraudster, he also had no idea who Janny Yellen was.
That's kind of a big Manza ball right there.
Also, I would like to add, at no point does Representative Santos appear to have owned a Maserati, despite telling campaign staff otherwise. Also, I would like to add he spent four thousand, five hundred dollars at Ermes.
That was a.
Campaign money, and for that he is our moment of fuck ray. That's it for this episode of Fast Poloty. 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.