Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And Judge A. Goren has reprimanded former President Trump for posting a false personal attack on the judges clerk. We have such a great show for you today. Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett checks in with us right before the
vote to strip Kevin McCarthy of his speakership. Then we'll talk to NBC's news is Ben Collins about his Blockbusters story on how a white supremacist newspaper article inspired Elon's game plan for Twitter. But first we have the Mary Trump Shows, the One the Only Mary Trump. Welcome back to Fast Politics, my favorite friend and to someone I really adore, Mary Trump.
Hey, Mollie, it is great to be here. It is always better to share the apocalypse with you.
It's true. I feel like we've lost so many years of our lives to your uncle. Obviously it's not your fault, it's he's your uncle. But years ago, would you ever think that he'd be holding the entire country hostage?
No, there was literally no reason to think that he'd be holding a network hostage.
At the beginning of the all. I mean, you know, it's absurd.
It's a devastating indictment against so called it adults in America. And I was actually just working on a piece about this stupid age controversy.
You know, they're the same age. For anybody who's listening, Donald and Biden are the same age?
Is that?
Yes?
Does everybody wish Biden were younger? Including Biden? Sure?
I wish I were because it feels like the last seven years have been three decades.
It's true. It's such a good point. I mean, there is such a feeling that we are in this soul vacuum of the last seven years. Right now, Trump is in New York for this fraud case. It feels like this fraud case, which is by the way, one of many, and it's sort of a different kind of case than a lot of his other cases. It's a civil case, I think, and so it's not a case where he
could end up in jail. But it does seem to me like this is this case where it's the family business has hit him in a way that other cases have not.
Yeah, a couple things. First of all, yes, it is a civil case. It should absolutely have been a criminal case. In fact, the codes being cited in the case are all criminal codes.
It just shows you how corrupt the DOJ was under Bill bar And listen, he had a lot of company. Syvan's could have done something about this a long time ago. The man who preceded Elvin Brad. Yeah, a good point about Syvan's. Don't give Syvans a pass.
No, let's not do that.
So Donald is in court because as you as you mentioned, this case matters to him more than any other. First of all, he doesn't care if he's accused of stealing the election or stealing documents, because he can justify.
This in his own little mind.
He thinks it makes him look tough, that he's beating the system. He thinks it helps him with his base, and he's unfortunately not wrong about that. This goes to the heart of who he believes himself to be, who he is on the most fundamental level, And as this case unfolds, it just underscores what a lot of us have already known.
This is the.
Last nail in the coffin of the empire my grandfather created, and that Donald, in the span of three decades totally destroyed all by himself. You know, usually takes three generations to destroy. Well he said it in half a generation, and it shows that he is a fraud and that on his own he's worth nothing. So he's going to be there saying the most outrageous things just outside the courtroom without any pushback. Apparently he's going to stare down Letitia James one as if she cares, and two as
if he's some kind of schoolyard bully. And he's gonna cross his arms and power and look dour and stern and try to spin it.
And he can't.
And that's the beautiful thing about it.
So Trump sort of built this empire from stealing from his siblings. Well he didn't build any one of whom is your father, right, But I mean he was able to consolidate this wealth by stealing from his siblings.
Not exactly what happened is that during my grandfather's lifetime, he disproportionately favored Donald, so that, as we learned in twenty eighteen from the New York Times, Donald received from his father. They're in excess of four hundred and thirteen million dollars through gifts, trust funds, and unpaid loans. My father aunts and other uncle did not receive the same benefit, so you know.
That he had that leg up first of all.
And then, yes, Kristen, he and his sister go get together and try to figure out a way to defraud you and your and your siblings.
Yes, they essentially got together and made sure that this is going to sound vaguely familiar. I mean, the goal was twofold. One was to diminish the value of my grandfather's estate by so much that they didn't have to pay as much an inheritance tax.
Right, which is cheating the irs.
Cheating the irs.
And the other goal was to make sure that my dad's estate was worth significantly less on paper than it actually was.
So when my grandfather died, they were claiming that his entire estate and.
I literally do I think he owned something like forty eight buildings in Queens in Brooklyn, and I don't know how many acres of property. They were claiming that his estate was worth thirty million dollars, and three or four years later they sold it for seven hundred million.
Wow. So it turns out that devaluing assets is a common Trump family tactic.
It would appear, So I'm not saying it's an uncommon practice.
Right, it is illegal, though, I mean, I think it's important to realize, like, intentionally misstating the value of assets in order to not pay taxes is fundamentally illegal.
Well, and also, let's put it this way, there's also the scale at which one does that. There's also the flip flopping on it. What he seems to have done is overvalue for purposes of getting loans, undervalue for purposes of not paying is fair or taxes. And the problem then becomes because it's you know, quote unquote comment practice. We get headlines like at Donald's fraud trial's first day,
opposing views on property valuation. Well, okay, yeah, they're closing views, but one of them is corrupt, false, and illegal, right.
Well, both of them are, they're just for different reasons.
No, No, I mean the county's assessment or the IRS assessment. Right, no, question, are as close as you're going to get to what's factually accurate.
As we are sitting here like talking about this trial, and this is just one of what will soon be a continual stream of trials. What I think is interesting about this trial is like, he didn't need to be here, right, He's here because he thinks it'll help his cakes.
Yeah, he does well.
I think it's also he's there to make sure that his lawyers behave in the way he wants them to, and that's a huge strategic mistake on his work.
Say more about that. That's quite interesting for.
Reasons that aren't entirely clear, either because his lawyer is fucked up or because this was going to be a trial without a jury. Anyway, it's a bench trial, which means the judge is going to rule, which, as we know, he already has, so we're already at the penalty phase here because the judge has adjudged that the facts favor
the prosecution's argument. So what Donald seems to think is going to help his case is for his lawyers to relitigate facts not at evidence, or an argument that the judge has already ruled against, so which is completely counterproductive. But it's as if Donald is not interested in making the case for the judge. He's interested in making the case for his followers, and the lawyers are interested in making the case for Donald.
If that makes sense right. Trump has a lot of people performing for an audience of one, including perhaps Kevin McCarthy and Matt Gates. I want to continue on here for a minute and talk to you about like it seems in my mind that Trump is kind of diminished.
Yeah, he really is, and that's why he's doing all of us a favor by showing up.
He thinks it's a sign of strength.
I'm not sure why he thinks that, but it's clearly a side of weakness and desperation. He thinks that his rantings outside of the courtroom somehow make him seem strong, and he just seems increasingly like a whiny, aggrieved toddler. I don't I'm not totally sure why there was a camera the courtroom for fifteen seconds, but there was.
We see him just sitting there.
He's pouting, he's looking like somebody who just had his lunch money stolen from him or something. So it's a miscalculation, but again, it just shows you how important this is to him. What is unfortunate for him but fortunate for the rest of us, is that that ship is sale. There's literally nothing he could do at this point to prevent what seems to be the pretty obvious outcome, because it's already been litigated and decided in some ways.
I just want to know, like he is the Republican front runner. He is the Republican nominee. Right, he's going to be the nominee. I mean, there's no world in which he's not going to be the nominee unless something happens, but he clearly doesn't scale Right, McCarthy would not have refused the government shutdown had he not thought the chances of losing the House because of shutting down the government were bigger than the chances of his own peril by
betraying Trump, right, because Trump wanted this government shutdown. So this is like clearly a case of Trump having diminished power in the MAGA Caucus. So I mean, like, I just am curious. You know a lot about psychology, you know a lot about how people behave. I mean, Trump rides this to zero, does that mean he announces for twenty twenty eight? I mean, what do you think this looks like?
What it looks like is absolute chaos and just the stark truth that the Republican Party, with or without Donald Trump, stands for nothing except burning it all down. And we need to take that in. Let's stop pretending that there's anything constructive happening here. Donald Trump wants to cling to power because he doesn't want to go to prison. If Donald ever gets to the point where he feels like he's losing and he's going down, he'll do whatever he can in his power to take the rest of us
down with him. We already see this with his engaging in stochastic terrorism. He is calling for violence. He is calling for the deaths of his political opponents as he perceives that because, let's face it, General Billy is not Donald's political a vote it. He's just doing his job essentially. So it's the same thing writ large in the Republican Party, Kevin McCarthy stands for nothing. Medgate stands for nothing except their own advancement and clinging to power no matter what.
I'd like to think that the events of the last three days will make that impossible, but the American electorate continues to remain stubbornly unmoved by the machinations of the politicians whom they continue to empower. It's it's quite mind blowing, and I think from now on it's the voters we need to pay attention to.
Right, It's just incredible to watch this unfold. As we are watching him, it does seem like I saw the Trump boys. It's so interesting to me because you know, this is just my own brain. But like when Trump left office, this Trump family, filled with grifters, Charlatan's and low IQ socialites, really could have taken over Republican politics.
Right.
Lara was getting a lot of push to run for office in North Carolina. John Junior was saying he was going to run for office in Florida. There was a sense in which the party was theirs for the taking. I mean, they probably could have even found a job for Eric, but it seems like that didn't happen. And the kids really only exist to support the father. Can
you talk about that? As a child of great privilege and who has benefit from nepotism, It's quite strange to see, in my mind a powerful father who seems so uninterested in the success of his children.
Yeah, that's an understatement. He couldn't care less.
They exist to serve his needs and help him in his endeavors, not the other way around. And you know he has that in comic with my grandfather. My grandfather's children existed to be of use to him, and he picked the one whom he believed would be of the most use and essentially discarded or killed off the rest
of them. The difference between my grandfather and Donald, however, was that my grandfather saw the utility in promoting Donald because Donald had certain capacities my grandfather didn't have, and Donald could only help him expand his empire. The other thing that my grandfather was interested in was his legacy, his empirement everything to him, his empire's surviving him, and everything to him. Donald, on the other hand, has no
interest in helping his children advance. They are used to him to be of use to him solely, and he doesn't care about what happens next. In other words, there is no legacy here. Donald doesn't think the world can or should continue to exist beyond him, and that's terrify all of us.
Yeah, it's really not what you want in a president is someone who doesn't care what happens when they die. I'm laughing to keep from crying again. But it is just a terrifying, terrifying thing to do. It's just terrifying and also so depressing. So I want for our listeners to be able to take this little bit of joy with them. He destroys the Republican Party, burns it all down on the way out.
Yeah. Absolutely. If the Republicans can't deliver for him, then what use are there. He's not beholden to anybody.
We see how he gets rid of people who aren't sufficiently loyal.
Well, I don't know. We want to edit a good note, so that's let's let's leap it down.
No, that's no problem. Tell us the problem. That's good.
Well, the problem is that it won't stop with the Republican Party.
So you know, it's not like he'll destroy the Republican Party and the rest of us will survive and thrive and live happily. Ever after so much damage has been done, and let's not forget that the project of continuing to save and try to shore up and protect democracy makes it impossible for us to pay attention to other things. So I think what we need to do is just blow them out of the water to such a degree that both Donald and the Republican Party become power.
That's the best we can hope for it.
Thank you, Mary Trump. Can't wait to see you. We're both going to be at the New Republic Stop Trump's summit next Wednesday, and I hope that some of our listeners will join us.
I did you.
I just wish they'd put a little asterisk next to Trump. It can get awkward if people were there to stop me.
Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett represents Texas's thirtieth district. Welcome to Fast Politics, Congresswoman.
Crockett, Hey, I'm happy to be here.
We're so happy to have you. Incredible course of events. So the reason I booked you was, do you remember we met at a party like last year?
Yeah, but like we met at the correspondence dinner maybe.
Yeah, I think that's right. But I was so incredibly blown away by your speaking at the impeachment hearing. Talk to us just for two minutes about what happened there, Like I've never seen an impeachment hearing turn into a democratic showcase like that.
Listen the Republicans they may not like the terms. That is that they are out gunned when it comes to the Oversight Committee. And you know, this wasn't really so much about defending the president as much as it was about process and trying to restore what the process should look like and trying to make sure that we didn't degradate it or contribute to the degradation of what the process is supposed to be. We don't just impeach people
because we don't like them. We impeach people because we have some sort of evidence that leads us to believe that this person is a detriment to our country, because they have committed high crimes or misdemeanors. And you know, for them to try to downplay what happened with the previous president and act as if Democrats went off the plantation and they were the ones to bring about a
sham impeachment, it's just disingenuous. And I really wanted to make sure the entire team wanted to make sure that we not only laid out the fact that they didn't even try to bring fact, witnesses or evidence, but more importantly, every turn that we have and we give as it relates to Trump, they try to pretend as if there's nothing to see.
So you're a lawyer, you come from Texas, you served in the Texas House of Representatives, which also had its own impeachment. Give me two seconds on that insanity with Ken Paxton.
Listen.
I will applaud the Texas House Speaker Dade Feelin. I will also applaud the way that the House worked in a bipartisan fat We definitely have our differences in the Texas House. There are random times that we come together for the overall good, and this was one of those times. Unfortunately, the Senate is our problem in Texas As. The Senate tends to be the problem in most places, even though right now the US Senate is not. The problem is
definitely the House. It is very disappointing that we consistently see senators that just don't have the gumption to do what is right, no matter how much there's nothing that the impeachment prosecutors could have put on that would have made them vote to impeach him. I am convinced of that kind of like what we saw with Trump, the senators decided that they would not go through and convict him, and those convictions are necessary. They're necessary to our democracy,
at least at a very minimum. I do applaud the Texas House for having the gumption to just say enough is enough and decide to at least do the impeachment.
So let me ask you right now, it's seems like you had a nine am meeting, there's going to be a vote. It seems like the House Democrats are united.
I mean, we've been united since day one.
If anybody's been paying attention on anything that was super duper monumental or consequential, you didn't see divisions within us. I mean, definitely some things happened as relates to the debt ceiling, So our overall attitude was absolutely a united attitude. On the debt ceiling. We obviously had issues with the way that things unfolded. We obviously had trust issues as it relates to kind of going forward with the budget conversation.
So definitely some of us on the further left flank were like, we don't want to do this, so we're going to go ahead and just say no to this vote. But if we needed to do it, we would have. And then when it came to keeping the government open, we all stood together except for one member, and you know, he has a large Ukrainian population, and so obviously it was a big slap in their faces. And we all
stand with Ukraine on the democratic side for sure. But we were briefed and we feel confident that we still have an opportunity to take care of Ukraine. But we could not decide that we would sacrifice those every single day and make the Ukraine issue the Wedge issued.
I think that McCarthy desperately needs some Democrats to save him. If they save him, they actually end up setting a terrible precedent and it ends up being really problematic for any number of reasons. Do you think that there are blue dogs in your caucus who will do that or do you really think that the caucus is united.
I think the caucus is united, and I want to be clear. You know, there are those that couched our last vote as we save McCarthy. Anything that the Democrats have done has never been about saving McCarthy. It's always been about the American people. Whatever we do today, we will do in a united way, and our focus is not McCarthy. Our focus has never ever left the America people. But to be clear, McCarthy hasn't really done anything that
is honorable, and that's why he's in this predicament. He's not lived up to whatever promises he made to his far right flank. He's obviously not lived up to the promises that he's made to the president. And you know, he essentially went on Sunday morning shows and decided that he was going to reinvent the history that took place just the day before and say that Republicans were the ones that saved the shutdown and that the votes are clear.
They're very very clear.
And what I can say is that Republicans are the ones that took us to the brink.
Yet again, that is for sure.
Republicans are the ones that decided that they did not want to engage in conversations with the Democrats. Republicans are the ones that decided that they did not want to behave in a bipartisan way. And Republicans are the ones that are having their own inner war honestly right now. Republicans are also the ones that have the pro putent caucus. So listen, this is very clear what is going on. But I feel very confident in the entirety of my caucus,
and I think the American people understand. In fact, I know that while I was in caucus meeting and I couldn't have my phone, I came out and I had some messages from some constituents that, honestly, I didn't really think they were paying attention. You know, like every day working people, They're like do I have food?
Do I have guess? Do I have my job?
Do I have my house, right, So I wasn't really banking on them paying attention, but I had a few messages and they had some very strong feelings about McCarthy really, and that's.
What it was that they felt like I should do.
And I was shocked that they're paying this close of attention, but they are, and I.
Think that that's a good thing.
People just want government to function, regardless as to who was in control.
Some of this machination feels like it's two in the weeds for voters. Are you surprised that they're involved in this? I was completely shocked.
And you know, I have those constituents that are just very big into politics in general, and they're kind of always reach you know, I'm talking about people I've never heard from. I'm like, I need to double check and make sure you're a constituent. But I mean, I mean they're telling me like where they live, right, so technically they're in the district. And I'm like, okay, Like this is great that first of all, they were all on the same page, and second of all that you're paying attention.
You know, I've got to do some interviews with some local news folks, like towards the end of the week, and I don't know if maybe at home they decided to put it on the local news networks what was going on that may be what's happening. I'm not really sure, but I was really shocked, but in a good way, because I want people to pay attention. When I ran for office, one of the things that I said is that I want to be held accountable because that's one of the things that I think we fail to do
with elected officials. So I am confident in all votes that I take. I know that not everyone will ever agree with me one hundred percent, but I want to hear from my constituents.
I believe in democracy.
I believe that I should be challenged if my district feels as if I am not truly adequately representing their voices in Congress. I believe in this stuff like I drink the koul Ai right, I can't really say that the other side really believes in how we are supposed to function, as evidence by the way that they have functions. I think that Matt Gates is an attention whrror, and I think that the media helps him out.
With that because this is a half baked idea.
There is no way that anyone under Nancy Pelosi, regardless of how they may have felt about her, would not have orchestrated anything of the kind, even if it only took one vote. They wouldn't have done it simply because you can't do this in a half baked way. This is half baked. He has no plan, right.
I mean, this is the question. So they remove McCarthy and there's no one else. I mean, does anyone even want this job in the Republican Party.
If they have any semblance of a mind, they would not want this job at all, because, mind you, he's being.
Baked because he managed to keep the government open.
Like what world are we living in where the biggest problem that we have is that we're going to keep the government open, that we're gonna make sure that the people that work hardest for us, the people that they've been really against and complaining about and saying that they're not working hard enough that they don't need to work at home, the people that are complaining because our constituents are calling us telling us that they can't get passports and.
All the things, and they're saying, never mind, shut it out.
It doesn't make any sense.
But it also doesn't make sense that the terrible bills that he's keeping us here for the next two weeks, even though we were supposed to be at home and have our district work period for these two weeks. They're just messaging bills. He's not trying to govern. These bills have no chance of making it through the Senate, no chance of making it to the President's desk and being signed into law because they are way too draconian.
Yeah, this is what I was actually going to ask you, was if the Speaker gets removed and there's no one, it doesn't necessarily matter per se, because I mean, the only thing he's been able to do is name all those post office right.
That is true.
There's nothing that he's attempted to work on in a bipartisan way, and there's no clean way that I can see for us to truly hold McCarthy to a new standard and say, listen, you can continue to be beholden.
To this very small.
Radical caucus, or you can just walk across the aisle and meet us in the middle. I mean to have conversations with Republicans that are voting for bills that they don't even believe in.
You know, I'm asking, I'm.
Like, how could you vote for this, say for agriculture, right, agriculture, they want to cut funding all the way down to two thousand and seven numbers. We're dealing with the farm bill this year, and our farmers are hurting. We see what's going on as relates the climate change, those climate issues that we're having, these climate emergencies. They're not just happening, say in Florida to the non farmers, right, They're happening everywhere, and our farmers are hurting, and our farmers are the
ones that make sure that we can all eat. And so the idea that you say, no, no, no, we're going to make sure there's less money. We're going to go to two thousand and seven numbers, which means that we've not adjusted for regular inflation, let alone hyperinflation. And they've decided that crypto is now a commodity that falls under agriculture. So we've passed the bad partisan bill where we said ninety million dollars for an agency to make sure that they can oversee crypto, like in what world?
So I'm like, why are y'all voting for this.
Terrible ag bill?
And it's also that they can say, well, you know what, we've bought a cut spending like no, no, no, Let's tell the real story in real life, if you don't have the money that you need, but you've got necessities. You've got to keep the roof, you've got to make sure that you've got a car, You've got to make sure you've got guess, you got to make sure you've got food.
You got to make sure you've got health care.
You got to make sure that you have these necessities covered.
Right.
Real people in.
The real world a lot of times end up going to get in the second job or a third job. And I'm not saying that that's right, but people do what they've got to do to serve. So the idea that the Republicans refused to look for any other way to bring in more money, which means that we tax the rich.
That's the problem. We can't survive this way.
So do you think there's a world in which Democrats are open to a power sharing agreement with the Republicans?
Oh?
I absolutely think there's a world.
The problem is that we don't have an honorable broker on the other side of the deal that would enter into such an agreement.
That we could say we can trust this. That's the problem.
There's really no one to trust on the Republican side, right.
There really isn't. I don't know who it would be.
I mean, I think that leadership has a better idea of some potential options because they've been here longer. But anybody that probably is semi trustworthy probably would never.
Get the votes. That's the reality.
Like, they probably wouldn't get the votes because that far right flank again would not want to see that person. Matt is having a conundrum because things are passing in a bipartisan way. I don't know when we got to this world, but this is the world that we're living in where we have a House that's run by Republicans that don't believe in bipartisanship and somehow can't recognize you know, I feel like we should take them back to the
YouTube video of like how you do a bill or whatever? Right, Like, you're never going to get this crap through the Senate and to the President and get him to sign it anyway, you may as well work in a bipartisan way, right.
I Mean, that's the thing. It's just incredible to watch Republicans scramble. Does Trump want Gates to shut down the government?
Yeah?
Absolutely, No, absolutely, Gates is just a tool, and he is trying to be as extreme as he can, kind of like his failed governor who is about to go down in this Republican primary. You know, Gates, it's our understanding he wants to become the governor of Florida. So the more extreme and radical he acts, the more points he feels like he puts up on the scoreboard with Trump as well as the extremists, and he's thinking that he's most likely in a good position to get the
governor's mansion in Florida. Unfortunately, we need him so function as a responsible congress person at this moment, you know, because one of the things that had been discussed widely was this idea of the disaster funding and hoping that that would entice the lights of.
A Matt Gate. I mean, it's like, dude, you're in Florida.
Your constituency is directly impacted by shutting this down because we know that this emergency disaster funding will become problematic, and you still voted against it, Like you're not voting your district at all.
Like, I mean, that's that's just what they.
Do, so important and so true. Congresswoman Crockett, we have to let you get to let you get to your vote. We appreciate you your time so much. Thank you.
Absolutely have a good one.
Ben Collins is a senior investigative reporter for NBC News. Welcome to Fast Politics, Ben Collins.
Thank you, Bradley Mulley.
What is going on? This is a wild story. First of all, how tell us the top line and how did you discover those?
Basically, there is this text that was sent to Elon Musk about ten days before he bought Twitter that outlines almost exactly what you would do for the next eighteen months after he bought the company. It was a link to an article by it's guy named Darren Batty. Oh and Darren Beatty, Yeah, you might know this if you're deep in the weeds on what i'd call rat bookers on yes, really try to mess with politics from the inside out. You probably know Darren Beatty, frequent guest on
Tucker Carlson's show, a big guy in that space. You probably know him best from being fired from the Trump White House. He was a speechwriter for Stephen Miller and some other people. In the truck White House.
It turned out to be a white nationalist, right. Yeah.
Basically he spoke along this guy on a panel who runs this White House I supposed to called v Dare.
Oh yeah, v Dare I remember yet?
Go on?
Yeah, So he writes this thing. It's basically, here's what Elon Musk will do once he buys Twitter. Ten days after the story comes out, Elon buyer, and then it outlines basically exactly what happened. It talks about him losing all of his regular users once he lest right wires back on, bar right people back on. Then it says he should blame the ADL for it, which is like most people in the last few weeks, Elon's spewed to the ADL came out of nowhere, wildly antismitic, which it is.
There was precedence for this in this sphere where Darren Batty lives. It really lines up one to one. It even talks about things like being softer on Russia. He says that Russia in this game plan has been canceled right using the George Floyd tactic is what it says in there. So it lines up one to one, not only with Elon's politics but with his decisions, and that text was revealed last year in a lawsuit from when
Elon tried to back out of buying Twitter. Twitter actually sued Elon to go through with that enormous inflated purchase price that Elon off. The issue is a big problem that we had for nine months in looking into these texts, is we still don't know who sent him this text. Right, That's what my colleague, Lord Colauney, and I have been trying to deduce for nine months. But this is this is our last like tree shaking thing that we can do.
We can say what we know here. The judge in the Delaware Chancery Court has said that whoever sent this doesn't have to be revealed necessarily. There are people that have this document, with this unredacted document that says who you sent this text. If you're one of those people, just please hit me up because I would love to know.
I always think that it's never the person playing three dimensional chass because like, I came of age in the time, and came of age is obviously hyperbole, but of Donald Trump. So I always think it's like awk, I'm stupid, Right, It's always this straight line. So this would in fact point to the idea that Elon is not just like Trump, that he's not just sort of trying to stay alive another day, but that he does have a grand plan.
So it's kept to a lot of people on the Elon speats throughout this space other than the tech world. They come out from that end, from the sort of culty alternative lifestyle world that need in habits as well, and they all basically have combed to the same conclusion. A person can have a plan that sucks, right, Like, the plan can be really dumb, right, and you can follow through the plan that might even be detrimental to you. It can definitely be detrimental to most people, but it's
still a plan, and that's basically what this was. And this story sort of outlines that as well. It talks Darren Baby's plan says, look, you're going to lose a lot of your money. You should buy this company out right, and you're going to lose a lot of your money. All the advertisers will flee. They're all in on it on this big globalist American agenda. But only you, sir, only you can take down the globalist American Empire says it like that in that article. So this is his
Blaze of Glory. And by the way, that's the nickname for the app when you look it up in the app store now x Twitter, it says Blazier Glory, right, And that's what this is. He's going out in guns a blazing. That's what this looks like.
So what does it say that he's going to do next.
So that's sort of the issue with this whole thing is that it sort of ends at destroy everything and leave everything in rubble. Like this story doesn't have like a like a lot of things. Steve Bannon accolytes think it's mostly just about tearing things apart and then rebuilding from there, and they assume that, you know, people can
capitalize from there. That's the issue with this. This story ends with Twitter being form apart, there being no direct line to the news anymore, people being lost in the information ecosystem being hasn't happened. But the issue is there is no plan from here. That's sort of the issue with Dan and Knight politics as it is, you know,
the the baby Tucker Carlson style thing. It's all about getting rid of these guys you think are in the way the ADL or you know whatever that ethnic substitute you would be for that, you know, getting the Clinton's out or getting the Biden's out or getting the obamasucking always by the way, but there's no replacement. They think it's a step to a white national style state, but there is no land from here. It's just destruction.
So the next plan is just flood the zone. Was a conservative media conservative with with al right media and hope that that somehow wins use the election in twenty four.
Yeah, confusion and panic and chaos and maya, that's the plan. And also, by the way, this helps Elon's business interest. You know, there are a lot of regulators we're sort of zeroing in on Elon about full self driving the Tesla thing that right is not full or self and also SpaceX, which had a pretty disastrous launch that because of Twitter they were able to reframe as you know, a successful mission, things like that.
But that is there now.
Under particularly through need from regulatory age these so that has been helpful to him, Like the chaos is helpful in the interim, and this state is pretty good, pretty good place for Elon to be right now, he gets to have control over the pipeline to then do this, and this is basically where I think he wanted to end up. This is a good situation, especially considering you know, all the contenders have also sort of failed to launch or have gone up and burst into blames immediately.
But he can't service the DAD. I mean, even though he's the richest man in the world, he still has to service the DAD. So ideologically this he's winning. But financially, even though he's the richest man in the world, isn't this ultimately unsustainable?
Yeah, of course it's understandable. In fact, like it's kind of crazy to be a better progress built a lot of people. Again, a lot of people sort of benefit from the destruction of a very useful citizen journalist pipeline that we've built over the last ten years.
Right.
You know, Saudi's are also part of people who invested in this in China as well. You don't want people finding out about human rights abuses and then those things going viral and then the news having to cover them. So I'm not saying that they are I don't I have no information on this. This This here is expect right,
I'm not saying they're in on it. I don't know any about that, but I will say that it is probably a better news environment for them than where we were before, where Jamal Kashobi's death could be at amplified all day long as like the number one trend on Twitter. Now it would be muddied with a bunch of I would say, stupid bullshit.
So I'm glad you feel comfortable cursing here. I'm sorry to be like the boring finance person here, but there's still no way for Elon to service this debt. So sooner or later X ends up owned by the bank.
Yes, at some point they will come calling on this stuff. It depends on I just don't know when that is right. And the banks also a lot of these places have money tied up in the myth of Elon and other sectors right right in SpaceX and Tesla and the boring company in all your places. Just because that myth of Elon has been exposed through this, they still have to make it work on these other places.
So I don't know.
I mean, it definitely appears like he went rogue with his stuff, and the respectable parts of finance now have to come collect the bag. But I don't know how long this can last. You're exactly right, moll. This is not something that a person who in good stead would want their money tied up into.
I mean it was purchased for forty four billion dollars, so a lot of people have billions of dollars invested in this.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
It's not a pretty seat, it really isn't.
Is there some reason why Threads has had such inability to capture the market share?
Well, I think it's a series of things, Like the magic of Twitter is that it really did drive the news it drives still to this day. The ability to sort of sort of aimlessly yell at power get people's attention.
Did you see that thing this weekend with the liftcats situation? Now, okay, there was this guy who was going to the vet and he left his hat on the other side of the footwell nearsid of the car, and then he got out of the car to go to the other side of the car to cat up, and the driver drove away and then wouldn't respond to him and literally left cat on the side of the road. I mean, I was personally like angry on behalf of him and this guy went to Reddit and the Austin section of Reddit,
and he was like, I don't what to do. They were like, everyone is like call the police, call the police, please it. And then they were like, go on Twitter and we'll flip a shit right right, and we'll yell Lift until they do something. And then they did, right. So this guy goes on Twitter. He goes viral on Twitter. Lift sends a team of investigators to go searching around every possible area to find his cat.
And then they do.
They find this cat that's covered and Fleess dehided at all this stuff, but Lift sends all these employees out to go find this guy's cat because of this monstrous Lifter. Good that there is the magic of Twitter. Thread stuff now that still goes on for now. Yes, that still goes off now because Lift is still there. There's a way to scream up right right in Twitter. There is there is a way to basically get in the year
of power on Twitter. You can't really do it on threads, which feels like the mall blue sky too small.
Why is threads so hard to use? Like they have so much money and yet it's so hard to use.
Because all those things that has mentioned right. That was a side effect of Twitter that wound up being the most important part of it. There's no impetus for Facebook to build a platform where people can stream at lift until somebody does something, or people can create a protest movement or something. That's the most important part on Twitter. But no venture capitalist, no part of big money would intentionally build a website like that. Now that's insane to
how they view power. So like they were trying to make a nice little stream service on threads that kind of mirrored Twitter, right, but it didn't have that sort of It didn't have the same functionality. And that's on purpose. That's how it gets complicated, is to build something like this.
It can't.
I don't think it's going to come from one of the big players because there is no reason for them can make one.
Now we're going to go to the Mally confession part of the interview.
Here we go.
I'm excited. I come from like a lot of privilege and I'm married to someone who's the venture capital has focused as in education, but who does do this. And I always thought that there would be like good capitalism would win over bad capitalism and save the world. I'm starting to think that was a little naive.
Look, I don't know. I'm sorry to get into that. That is a I would say, literally above my pay gader mine too. In this instance, it's not a great scenario, right, I just thought we were smarter than this. A guy bought the pipes to the news and instead of the news covering it, Like, I can't believe a guy bought the pipes, they just covered what his whims are. Instead
they covered the spectacle and the cult of personality. Maybe I should have expected that co thirty what happened with dolld chom right, But cover the pipes, Cover why he was so interested in doing that, Cover how he's changing the way we get information, like instead because that the game is rigged in this way, if you have enough money, you can just buy the news screened it.
It does seem to me though, like when you read his tweets, he does not sound like someone who feels he won. Like he feels like someone who is desperately like selling lemonade on the street. And when you get Linda Yakarino, the two of them, you know they're like the you know, he is like going to Taylor Swift. You should post on X, this is really great, you know, like he's the richest man in the world, Like he
feels like he's like a shoe salesman. So clearly he has some anxiety because every tweet is like, now we've decentralized news. Stop reading legacy media. Only read my weird friend who lives in Singapore and posts you know, strange memes. I mean, like, do you think though, like it doesn't seem from his point of view, from what I gather from his information, that he feels he's winning.
Oh no, I do think you thought people would bend the knee by that point, right, I think that's you know, with most of these sort of fascist autocrat fantasies, the idea is to crush people into submission and everyone will be in the knee, and it never actually works out that way.
Right.
You might be able to make a lot of people very upset or sound people, but you never actually win the culture war because your culture war is making people's lives worse. Right, it's just like like the very basic things that I like, or else we will call you slurs. That's not really you want a good pluralistic society, right exactly. I do think he thought he would win by now, and it is I would say, the testament to both the human spirit and the concept of what we are
as found free that he has not done that. But we are in the middle of this real information war, yeah, real operational war, and the way it was expressed by him, his weapon was a particularly vile in months long tantrum.
The goal here was to change hearts and minds. Right, So he clearly isn't winning the elite like you and I. I mean that ironically obviously that whatever we work for legacy media. But will he change hearts and minds or is it just too soon to know?
I do think that he has, and I think that this is a long If you talk to people with eleven year old boys right now, yeah, it's fifty chances that they're into Andrew Tate because that's the averag dozen, right, and Tat is in the same world that elon It's right, and that's not a thing that manifests until not just voters, but in society so much later on, and having those thoughts and beliefs is so dangerous not just to women
but to how we operate. Like culture wars don't happen on a second by a second basis, I would say they don't even happen on a like electoral cycle by electoral cycle basis. I think they happen in big swaths, and they're in waves that you can particularly tell us they're happening while we sit here and make fun of them and we're like, oh, you can't be winning because he sounds so ridiculous and sounds like he's throwing a fit.
Right, he still could be winning even if we don't. We really don't know what's happening because we really can't trust any of the pole line.
Yeah, I completely agree with that, and I don't think anybody has appropriately called anybody under the age of thirty.
Yeah, correctly in severals.
And I think that people are saying look closer to those abortion special election votes than to look at the actual polls. I think probably right, But we just don't know. We won't know until next ship.
Ben Collins bringing the Nightmare Fuel, Thank you very much, Thank.
You, Molly No moment, Jesse Cannon, Molly junk Fast.
The last episode, we were laughing about the Republicans being in disarray, but like the infighting right now, this is like nothing in our lifetimes, right, m TV. The motion to vacate has made the GOP cr azy, including the facial hair festooned Chip Roy, who told Matt Gates he could kiss his ass. I think that is a not not suitable for cable news, but okay for podcasting. Unbelievable stuff. Republicans are in disarray. We'll see if Kevin McCarthy survives
another day, but odds are now. Let's not forget when people are bragging about the Republicans' accomplishments of this Congress that they're getting laughed at. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.