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 Mitch McConnell says impeachment ought to be rare and that it's not good for the country. I wonder what else is not good for the country. We have such a great show for you today, Democracy Dockets. Mark Elias joins us to talk about the latest voting rights issues, including Ohio's Issue one. But first we have the one and only Mary Trump Shows.
Mary Trump.
Welcome back to Fast Politics, Mary Trump, Thanks.
Billy, How are you? I don't know.
I mean, I'm actually in Europe right now and I'm coming home tomorrow and I've been We've.
Been on quote unquote vacation.
But so because it was on vacation, I was at a television studio doing a television hit because that's what one does on vacation.
And producer was like, the.
Host goes like, well, I mean, this is history, this is historic, and I was like, it's happened three other times.
This always happening.
Yeah, I We're all a little bit iner to this at this point, I think, And that's.
A problem, right, And I'm talking about the new federal indictment for Donald Trump, the one where we finally get to see he's in trouble for doing all the stuff we saw around the twenty twenty election.
Yes, almost three years later. It's troubling for a couple of reasons. And I'm with you in the sense that every time something like this steppens, I feel less. I felt nothing about this indictment except okay, this could have happened a year and a half ago.
Yeah, you know.
I didn't feel that it was anything to be happy about, or solemn about or anything. So the problem there is that it's just another way in which Donald manages expectations in his favor. You see this with his all caps, insane tweets. He says the most vile, vicious, violent things, and people shrug and say, yeah, well, I mean, I guess that's just what we would expect. If it were anybody else, we would do something about it. But it's him, so he keeps getting away with it, him pushing the envelope.
And by the same token, because this is the third indictment, I now see people saying, well, this is so much more serious than the other two.
Which is just false.
I mean, yes, it's incredibly serious, but you cannot tell me that we know enough yet to say that the stealing of national security doc classified national security documents is a big deal. We don't know what he did anything with them, if he did anything with them, if he implicated anybody because he stole them and potentially showed them.
To our enemies or what have you.
And I'm also really tired of people referring to the New York case as.
You know, hush money.
It was an attempt at election fraud and potentially successful attempt at election fraud. So you know, it's once again, none of it's cumulative. It's like, oh, well, this terrible thing happened and has been replaced by the next terrible thing that happened and has been forgotten.
And yeah, and that's that's also one of his strategies.
It's, you know, just flooding the zone, which is I guess what Steve benn And has counseled him to.
Do time and time again.
It's funny though, because it's like, so here, you are trained psychologist and also niece of the defendant, do you find like the thing I'm struck by with him is that he is like, it's almost and it's funny because it's like, I.
Come from a crazy kind of.
Family, not quite not quite as ethically so as you. But do you feel like what you're seeing here is a person who has been able to really run roughshow through American democracy.
Yeah, just as he's run roughshot over everybody.
Yeah, he's been allowed to his whole life. And that's the problem here.
I don't give a shit about Donald anymore in the sense that I haven't for a long time felt that he was the problem. The problem is anybody who enables him.
Do I feel that he has deteriorated? Yeah, I do.
I think that his impulse control is very compromised. But we also have to remember that sometimes it is just strategy. One of his negotiating strategy used to be to come into a boardroom when a deal was about to be signed and actually throw a temper tantrum until the other side, which was pressed by time constraints, agreed to a deal that was less in their favor than the original deal he'd agree to. You know, so a lot of what he's doing is just throwing temper tantrums. Okay, that's what
he does. Is it strategic or is it simply because he's decompensating. I don't care. What I care about is a legal system that allows him to endanger the lives of potential jurors, prosecutors, judges, and their families. What the fuck is happening?
Like?
Why is he allowed to engage in the kind of rhetoric that gets people killed?
It seems like to me he is both diminished and inevitable.
No, I love that. I mean, I hate it.
But it's brilliant, right, I mean, that's the thing I'm struck by. It's like he doesn't have the same power he used to. You know, it used to be he would tweet about you and you would get one hundred death threats, right, you'd have people going into hiding. I mean, I don't And again I'm not saying that that that, you know, what he does do now is somehow better. It's just that he doesn't have the same kind of army, largely because a lot of those people went to jail
and they have actually been punished. But it's just interesting to me because so you know, you saw that. I mean, I'm sure you saw the video of him with this second federal indictment. And it's just him and one other person. No, you know, none of the kids, none of the pomp you know, just this sort of seventy seven year old man going in for his third indictment, and yet he
is crushing everyone else in the polls. And Republicans are you know, you see Mitch McConnell, who is you know, the man who made all his dreams come true, stole three Supreme Court seats for him being booed and screamed that.
He should retire.
Yeah, listen, this is this is the bed the Republican Party has made for itself. And what I find fascinating, and they deserve every all of it, for sure, Yes, of course, exactly what I find fascinating is their lack of ability to see beyond their own egos, their own narcissism,
and their own short term victories. And I think part of that is because their goal is to destroy American democracy now, because this may be their last attempt for them to claim to cling to power, no matter how illegitimately.
But somebody like Dessantis, if he could get out of his out of his own way, I would have understood that the thing to do is wait or preferably the candidates not Donald, would have understood that this is their opportunity to change course and attack him as the pathetic loser he is, and not just as loser personally, but a loser for the Republican Party, because otherwise they risk
losing everything. You know, if they were willing to attack him in the way he deserves to be attacked by his opponents in the primary, they won't win the presidency in twenty twenty four, but it sets them up better going forward, especially as there's no at the moment, no lear successor to Biden, even though of course there should be, but you know, racism and misogyny reign supreme in America.
That part's also just very weird to me that the reluctance, because the base is the base, is what are they going to do if Donald loses the primary or is it running?
Are they just going to stay home? I don't think so. Right.
The thing that is such an interesting problem that Republicans have now is they have this candidate who has lost them every election since twenty sixteen, every single one including twenty sixteen except for a technicality, right exactly, and they are pretty sure they're going to be okay, which, look, maybe they will be. The electoral colleges is a funny thing.
And it's funny because I think that the thing that it's been just so disappointing about these Republicans, and look, I mean, there are so many things to be disappointed with this Republican party, but the thing that I've been
strupt by is just how stupid they are. Like, you know, everybody gets behind If they had found a normal candidate and gotten everyone behind him like Democrats did in twenty twenty, right, I mean they there was a moment where it became clear that everyone was going to have to figure out who the most electable candidate was and get behind them.
And all of a sudden, even though a lot of people loved Elizabeth Warren and a lot of people loved Mayor Pete and this and that, they just were like, we just have to get behind the guy who can win. And the calculus was that Joe Biden was the guy who could win. And so Democrats fell in line because they did not want to lose. And I don't think of Democrats as such mercenaries, but these Republicans are mass.
Yeah, And as for twenty twenty, in Biden. I think he was like my seventh choice in the primary. But when it became clear right that he could win right well, or that he was going to win the nomination for sure, we fell in line, which you know, what's the expression, Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love. For the first time perhaps that ever, we fell in line because we understood what was at stake.
And then I think it was.
The combination of the two, because Joe Biden is a decent human being who cares about American democracy. You know, he may go about trying to save it in a way that I don't necessarily think is the most effective way, but he's been the best president of my lifetime.
Well, I'm in London right now. They keep raising the interest rates in this country. They are completely screwed. I mean, we are. You know, we have banks saying that they're going to lower you know, they're going to raise the projections. Now they're not seeing a recession, they're seeing a soft landing, and that was unthinkable two years ago. I mean, they're building chips, they're building trains. I mean, they're not Our
inflation is controlled. I mean, I'm sorry, but if a Republican had done this, I would be fucking impressed too.
I mean, it's unbelievable. It is unbelievable.
I do think that the Guide does not get a ton of credit for any of that, and the polling is still pretty scary.
Yeah, I'm not going to pay attention to pulls quite yet, although we always have to understand that the mainstream media is not our friend and shockingly is not the friend of democracy. Which it's weird because journalism needs a democracy in order to strive. But I guess if the bottom line is really the only thing you care about, you don't really care about journalism either. But I think with
the Republicans, they continue to make the same calculus. Dat don't need Trumpism so called, to scale because they're not going after a majority. This is a policy free party of grievance, racism, misogyny, and anti immigrant hatred and increasingly LGBTQ plus hatred. They have no ideas beyond cutting taxes
for obscenely wealthy people and dictating people. So I think they must on some level understand that it's too late for them to become a party of policy, so they have to much like Donald does, they have to double down on the things that turns most people off but keeps enough people in the game fighting for them that if they can just cheat around the edges, it might
be enough. You know, those electoral College numbers in twenty sixteen and twenty twenty are the things that should be keeping all of us up at night, because Joe Biden didn't win by eight million votes. He won by like seventy seven thousand or forty four thousand or some horrifyingly
tiny number. So I think that's why we see we see them making the kinds of moves they're making in Ohio, for example, and making it more and more difficult for ballot initiatives that would get people to the polls for Democratic initiatives harder and harder. They're making Alabama just to all the Supreme Court to take a flying leap because they are not going to change their congressional map, denying
Democrats at least one or two seats. That's what they're going to keep doing because they know that's their only chance. So I don't know that it's stupidity as much as it's cravenness. And I mean it's stupid, like I think that you know, you look at people like Jared Kushner or Rodsentis or Mike Penz. Narcissism in its extreme form makes you stupid. Yeah, you know the fact that Mike Pence thinks that he can win the presidency, the fact that Radescanthus thought this was the time for him to run,
these are just bizarrely idiotic moves, right. But I think the larger issue with the word dangerous one is they have no principal core principles. They have no they don't care about American democracy. They only care about their own power.
Yeah, exactly, And it is kind of It's a pretty stark realization.
So let me ask you.
I always feel like I hate to ask you this, but I feel like you have an insight here.
Where does Cisco? What does he do? I think I have an idea, but you tell me you think. I'm very curious to see what happens tomorrow.
In the hearing, I thought it was a good sign that the prosecution in DC flagged it for the judge and that they made the decision to get a protective order. I thought it was a good thing that the judge denied Donald's team where they needed more time to respond to I don't know. It's absurd denied his team's appeal
to have it delayed. So I'm very curious to see what happens there, and then it's hopefully it's something serious enough that it will put Donald in a situation position of having to change his behavior.
I don't think he can anymore.
Yeah, I think I think he'll continue to double down, triple down, quadruple down on his egregious behaviors because at some level he knows that's all he's got left. You know, he's nothing else to offer. It's just grift and grievance and this pretense that somehow he's saving everybody else from being pursued by the DOJ. I personally don't worry about that because I haven't betrayed my country and I haven't
stolen classified. Maybe maybe his base has done things that we're not aware, but you know, he's really the only person who's whose future and freedom are on the line here. But he knows what's worked because he's always gotten away with it, and it will be very interesting to see
it for the first time in over seven decades. This person is told this much and no more, and if you cross that line, we'll see you in jail, right, or you know, we'll ask you to put up a balie of hundreds of a mill I don't know what her I don't know what the recourse is here, but I think he's already setting up this this dichotomy here. Either I get to say whatever I want because First Amendment, or I'm going to get persecuted for exercising in my
first Amendment rate to free speech and then martyred. I think that's what he's banking on, and I don't think he would be wrong quite honestly, Mary.
Trump, thank you so much for joining us.
You are the best.
Thanks Will I.
I'm really happy to be here with you.
Mark Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket. Welcome to Fast Politics.
Mark, thanks for having me.
Delighted to have you so at First, I want to talk to you about something that when this podcast airs, will be decided, though it seems like it's happening right now, which is this Ohio vote.
Look, the Republicans as a whole in this country are no longer a majority party, and they know that they no longer actually in most areas, seek to compete in arena as. We're getting fifty percent of the vote is enough to win. So if you think about their strategy around the Electoral College or the Senate, it's all around how do they win majority power with a minority of voters.
So it's it's no surprise that in Ohio, where Democrats and Progressives put a pro choice ballot initiative on the ballot, that the Republican reaction was to then try to change the threshold for a ballot initiative passing from fifty percent to sixty percent because they know they will lose in a head to head on the choice issue where the threshold is fifty percent.
So let's talk for a minute about what's happening in Alabama, because we have a Republican state party which is going against the Supreme Court, the very conspervative Supreme Court.
Yeah, and by the way, under appreciate created in this whole Alabama drama is the fact that the three judge panel right the trial court, which is in this case a three judge panel, is two judges appointed by Donald Trump and one who was originally appointed by Ronald Reagan. Right, So so it's really something. But Alabama is showing that despite Chief Justice Roberts saying times have changed, you know.
That was his phrase in the Shelby County case. Apparently times didn't change that much in Alabama.
Yeah, I mean, but I mean, is there any mechanism to force them to make that district or now?
Yeah?
So look what happened is for those folks who have not been sort of following this blow by blow, Alabama created its congressional district. It created one majority black district.
It was sued.
My law firm was among those who brought the litigation under the Voting Rights Act, saying that there needs to be two majority black district A three judge panel, as I pointed out, two of whom two judges of whom were appointed by former President Trump, agreed there needs to be a second majority black district. Alabama went to the US Brief Court thinking they'd get relief from it there.
They didn't.
The Supreme Court upheld that there needed to be two majority black districts. So Alabama, when the case came back down and it was now time for Alabama to draw two majority black districts, what did it do. It drew one majority black district. The second closest to a majority was thirty nine percent. So that's where things stand right
now in court. The next step will be that the trial court will hold a hearing on August fourteenth to see whether a district that is thirty nine percent is greater than fifty percent, which the court will find it isn't, at which point I think it's pretty clear the trial court will have its own special master draw district. It's already made preparations for its own expert called the special Master, but it's essentially a professor who knows how to use
mapping software. And so I think the way this drama ends in Alabama is the legislature gets to say it defied the court's order and the court winds up having its own expert drawing you.
Yeah, and they've really had to twist Alabama's arm.
Yeah, it's more than twist its arm. I mean.
The thing about the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County, when the Supreme Courts had times changed, is that one of the things that Chief Justice said had changed is that you no longer had these predominantly Southern states disobey or violating court decrees. Well, that's what we've seen here, right. It's Alabama was under a court order to draw a to draw two majority black districts. And you know, as I as I said, when they didn't, you know, that
wasn't an invitation, wasn't you know? They were in invited to do it and they could either come to a dinner party or not. They were ordered to do it, And when you fail to comply with an order, that's a serious thing.
But that's where we are.
States like Alabama don't want to comply with the Voting Rights Act and are being forced to do so, which looks a lot like times not having changed.
You, right, and also just super upsetting as a person who lives in democracy. So right now we are in this run up to twenty four, we're seeing Republicans quietly trying to sort of make it so their guy can win. What are the things you're seeing that are really worrying?
Yeah, So look, I think the way I describe it is that Republicans are trying to make it harder to vote, an easier to cheat. The harder to vote is the voter supression liss.
Right.
We've seen them in state after state enact laws that target black voters, other minority voters, and young voters by throwing barriers up that are disproportionately aimed at them, either because they taught target urban areas that tend to have more Democrats, or because they target college campuses which tend
to have young voters who tend to be Democrats. So we continue to see that, and that has been a steady drum beat now since everyone will remember in two thousand and one when Georgia passed it's omnipus voter supression law in the Major League Baseball moved it's All.
Star game in Texas. It's right all that.
But the second part, though, I think molly, is the part that I think people don't pay enough attention to, which is that Republicans are trying to make it easier to cheat. And what do I mean by that all of these elections of version methods that they are engaged in. What Donald Trump did in twenty twenty was he tried to cheat, right at the end of it all, he tried to cheat. And when you have fake electors, that's
just trying to cheat. And when you see election officials at the local level, their office is being infiltrated by these election deniers who are stealing data or otherwise in gauge in those kinds of behaviors. They're just cheating. So I think we need to be prepared not just for voter suppression, but for this kind of election subversion that unfortunately has become quite normalized in the Republican Party.
Yeah, it does seem to me like that A lot of the Trump defense now with these fake electors is you know, there's sort of almost like is democracy really so great anyway?
Oh?
Yeah, I mean I think you see, you know, particularly among the apologists for Trump in the legal profession, I mean, you know, it's it is no surprise that when you look at the the Trump indictment in BC, that at least five and potentially six or six of the co conspirators, the unindicted co conspirators were lawyers, and those lawyers and others on the outside are pretty much saying, you know, maybe this whole free and fair election thing isn't all it's cracked up to me.
Right, that's in itself pretty shocking.
It is shocking.
It is unfortunate in so many respects, but it is extremely dangerous for the future of our country, right, I mean, fundamentally, if one of the two parties in a two party system and one of the problems. People point to other countries and say that there have been right wing parties La penn in France or or you know whoever. But those are multi party systems, so you know, those systems
can correct hopefully over time. But in a two party system, when one of the two parties is essentially no longer committed to democracy and you know, majoritarian rule, it's extremely dangerous because how do you have how do you have elections where inevitably Republicans are going to win sometimes where the consequence of that may be these extremely anti democratic results.
Yeah, that is so incredibly I mean, it just seems like there's no way. I mean, right now we've sort of relied on Democrats winning elections. But if God forbid that doesn't happen. I mean, I think a lot about those midterms because you know, I thought, if Carrie Lake ends up being governor of Arizona, we will never have another free and fair election in Arizona. You know, those points will not go to whoever wins, They'll go to the Republican.
Yeah.
I mean, one of the things that people may or may not know is, you know, in this country, in order to take office, whether it's president, or Senate or House, or governor or whatever, you need to be certified the winner, and in most states the governor is integral to that. For presidential the governor is integral to it in every state. Right, these certificates that get sent to the National Archive and get sent ultimately to the powders to be counted have
to be signed by the governor of the state. To take a Senate seat has to be signed by the governor and counter signed by the Secretary State. So I think it is a real I think it was a real risk with a carry lake, and a real risk in the future that if you get an election deni er in office, they simply will refuse to sign the certification necessary for a Democrat to take an office.
Right, and you could see a place where Republicans then decide, this is how we're going to do it. Now, you were talking about Republicans cheating, what are the ways in which they're cheating.
So, look, I think that they are cheating in a couple of ways. First is, I would argue that the shenanigans we've seen in Ohio of raising the threshold from fifty percent to sixty percent or trying to do that is in itself a form of cheating, right, It is moving at election threshold in a way that is fundamentally anti demotic. I think the more conventional sense of cheating that people have are what the Republicans are doing around
the takeover of local election offices. This periodically jumps up on the national radar screen, but because it's so diffuse, because it's all localized at the county or subcounty level, it oftentimes gets overlooked. But you know, we have whole counties in America now that are administered by election and we saw in the midterms as smoothly as they went otherwise. You know, we my firm had to sue Coache's County Arizona because Coache's carrier and Arizona was not going to
accurately count and certify election results. We had to sue a county in Pennsylvania because it was refusing to certify accurate election results. Those kinds of activities at the local level are a form of cheat. And of course, you know, I just have to add real quickly, there as an article in pro Publica about the mass voter challenges that we see Republicans engaged in states like Georgia, and that also, I would argue as a former chief.
Yeah, I will say, what are you looking at now as we are in this run up?
We are looking at the states that in twenty twenty three seem to be being targeted by Republicans for new voter suppression laws.
So in Idaho we saw a.
Law that targets only college students, I mean literally only targets college students. In Ohio we saw a law of the targets college students, but other groups as well that tend to vote more democratic. We've seen Montana pass some anti voting laws. North Carolina looks prepared to potentially pass.
New voter suppresson law.
So number one, we're kind of always looking out for that, But number two, we're trying to We're looking at the role of Trump supporting AGA extremists in the administration of elections because our system of elections relies on large numbers of local election officials and volunteers, and they have been under attack for years now, and that system of local election administration has been weakened, and so we are looking at what we can do in a variety of ways,
including in court, to try to bolster local election administration to make sure we have free and fair elections next year.
Yeah, it really is the only game in ten right, free and fair elections. Mark, I want to ask you, do you think that in twenty four that these litigations are going to be sort of a regular thing.
Yeah.
I look, there was more there were more cases filed in twenty twenty two than there were in twenty twenty.
Yeah.
Think about that, and I think that that will be true in twenty twenty four. Both because Republicans every time the demography of the country turns further and further against them, they have to go to more and more extreme measures to figure out how to win elections without a majority of the vote. So that requires them to engage in more and more extreme tactics. The other thing, though, Molly, is we have to acknowledge is that Donald Trump faces prison.
I watch some of the things he says on TV and his lawyers say on TV, and they think it's some political thing. Donald Trump has been indicted in two federal cases that if he's convicted in either of them would normally and I think this instance would would carry a term of incarceration. And Donald Trump is a self
preservationist above all else. So if he was willing to go to extreme measures in twenty twenty, just imagine what he'll be willing to do in twenty twenty four when he thinks that the only way he of avoids that is by winning the White House in pardoning.
Yeah.
Well, and also we've seen the very few we've seen Republican senators who aren't even running for president going all in on I mean, Jade Vance tweeting about how you know these cases against Trump are cases against the First Amendment?
There is almost no one saying left in that part. I play this game with folks sometimes. Think of the most moderate republic the most pro democracy Republican you can in the Congress. That person voted against the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. That person voted against the Freedom to Vote Right. For all of the talk about Republican moderates, where are they, I mean, on democracy, they don't exist. There are a handful of Republicans in the
House who have f ratings with the NRA. There are none of them, zero who voted for any of the pro voter bills, including the Voting Rights Restoration Law or the Freedom to vote.
Yeah, unbelievable. Thank you, Mark.
I hope he'll come back anytime. I loved him. No moment o.
Jesse Cannon, I drunk fast.
Donald Trump had a little afternoon rally this afternoon, and who the crazy was more crazy than usual?
I feel like, I mean.
I just think that with Donald Trump, we constantly see him doing this same stick and he's doing it now. He did it on Hillary Quintin. He continually does it for whoever he's in competition with, and now he is turned his sights to Fanny Wellis. During this speech, he said a lot of lies about Fanny Wellis and they were gross and they were racist, and they were disgusting. And that is who Donald Trump is, and that is
who he has always been. And for that little vignette is our moment of Fuckery's 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.