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 Mitt Romney says Trump is not fit to be president again after losing his defamation suit to Egene Carroll.
We have a great show for you today.
Rhode Island Senator and frequent flyer to Fast Politics, Sheldon Whitehouse tells us about the newest revelations of how dark money is affecting our democracy and more specifically, our Supreme Court. Then we'll talk to Greta Kemp Martin, who's running for AG in the state of Mississippi, hoping to unseat the age who brought the Dobbs decision. But first we have the Mary Trump Shows's host, the one the Only Mary Trump. Welcome to Fast Politics, fan favorite, my personal favorite, Mary Trump.
Hey, Molly, how are you?
I am just delighted that you could join me because I actually was watching some of this town hall last night and I was thinking to myself, well, I'm masochistic, obviously, but I was seeing myself there's this really important psychological component to trump Ism and Trump that you, being both his niece and a clinical psychologist, are uniquely, Like, you know, it's funny because it's like I'll go to therapy and talk about my family and it's many nuances. Your family's many nuances matter more.
Sadly, I mean, so do you.
I mean that was the thing I was thinking about last night, was we were watching him and he was saying, you know, he'd say something like he's called Kaitlyn Collins a very you're nasty woman like and the crowd seered explain to me what that is is like that ability to I.
Think it's less about his ability. He's literally just who he is. It's not nuanced, it's not strategic. It is that for reasons that we are going to be trying to suss out for the until the end of history, maybe a million years.
Who knows.
He has been given an opportunity time and time again to be himself right exactly. So I think you put your finger on what's really important here, the people in that audience who are setting in for his base or his followers, and that's actually thinking about this the other day. It's like it just comes naturally to say his followers, right. Nobody ever uses that word with any other politicians voters.
They say supporters or constituents, or nobody uses the word followers except for this Republican base visa.
VI Donald, Right, So I don't even know.
I mean, it's always important to understand what's going on, but I think we need to understand what's going on with them in order to make sure that they get completely cordoned off from participating beyond casting one vote in anything having to do with the American experiment going forward. So what I think a lot of people understandably forget sometimes is that we cannot use our feelings about Donald, our reactions to Donald, to stand in for other people.
They don't see him the way we see him.
Yeah, I really think that is like a very very very important data point, and that is the fascinating warshack of Donald Trump. You'll hear people, and I think one of the things that happened during the time when you would see these anchors do these monologues about Donald Trump, where they would talk about how disgusted by him they were.
It wasn't effective to other people, not at all.
And I think that's because those other people saw something different, you know.
I actually I want to amend something I said.
I think it's absolutely true there, we cannot judge their reactions through the prism of our reactions at all.
Those are qualitative for the.
Different I don't necessarily think they see him differently. It's just that they value what they see in him very
differently from how we do. So okay, Yes, there are the diluted few who do see the guy who looks like a superhero, right, you know, they do see the guy wearing the Special Forces uniform, riding around in a tank, even though the Jim Norton paintings, yes, you know, holding the Constitution whatever, even though he's clearly not in good shape and he hasn't been for decades, and even though he got five deferments and never served a day in his life.
So yeah, those people are totally delusional.
But I have to be honest with you, I'm pretty sure that's how donaldsy is himself when he looks in the mirror.
Right, no question, absolutely.
For most of them, it's that they actually identify with the things that repulse us. They identify with his being a loser, And for them it's aspirational though he's a loser, but look how spectacularly he's been allowed to fail upwards, Right.
They love his laws.
They love that he gets away with lying to that degree. They love the cruelty. I mean, I think that's been obvious for a really long time now. So again it's not like, oh, if only they.
Could see who he really is. Well, that's what they love about.
I mean, they love that this man who is literally stands in for them. He shares their grievances, he shares their sense of victimization because for him, those things are quite real, as bizarre as that might sound. Once we get everybody to kind of agree that that's what's going on here, we can stop pretending that it's worth wasting our time on anybody who voted for Donald Trump twice.
One of the things that Trump is very good at is just lying. You know.
You say, well that the sky is blue, and they said, no, it's green. I can tell you it's green, and then everybody cheers. How would you like in your mind, how do you think you would be able to get into a more of a sky is actually blue?
Discourse with him? Is there a way? Is there? Someone?
Yeah?
Yes, yeah, of course.
I don't know that a journalist could do it, or that a journalist who would do it would be allowed.
To do it.
It would have to be somebody running against him. Interesting who just realizes that if it's a Republican, that his or her political future is much less important than stopping him, right, or a Democrat who understan answer what's at stake?
And it's very simple.
You're lying.
You lost the popular vote in twenty sixteen.
You lost the election in twenty twenty by five million more votes than you lost in twenty sixteen.
You perpetuate this big lie.
Do you understand how destructive that is to the democracy you purport to want to lead again, You're responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans because of your willful and malignant and competent you know, on and on and on, and you don't let up. He calls you a nasty person. You say, granted, but answer the fucking question.
This is my question here.
And I say this as you and I are both feminists pretty passionately. So I don't think he respects women in a way that they would be able to challenge him like that.
That's a question.
Well, he doesn't respect anybody. Yeah, So I don't think it's that. I think it's more in a different role. Nancy Pelosi could do it, you know, Hillary Clinton could do it, but they're not available from this kind of thing, and he wouldn't subject himself.
To it anyway.
I don't know Katele Collins, and I don't know if she was contractually obligated to do that to herself last night. So I think the bigger problem, as you said at the beginning, was the crowd, not just in terms of the danger that they represent, but in terms of how it emboldened him to have the worst things he said, including most of his lies, cheered to that degree, which
made her job harder. But you need somebody who is just willing to tell him to shut up, answer the question, or literally, we'll just shut it down because you're lying and we cannot allow you to continue to lie to the American people.
Sorry, like that is little, And to make it clear that you don't.
Respect his power, that he's just a candidate in this context, and he's a I don't want to say dangerous because that would make him think he's cool. But he was impeached twice, he has been found libel, he's a sexual abuser, he's a defamer. You know, you need to point out all of the things that make him so unfit for the role he seeks to hold once again. And I say a role in a very conscious way, because it's
just something he's playing at to make money. Short of that, though, he needs to be brought up short, and the only way to do that is to be very blunt about who he is and what will not be allowed.
If you had a Republican Leagah Mitch McConnell, who decided they were going to just give it all up to bring him down, that is the scenario that I think keeps him up at night.
Do you agree? Or you think he just knows it's not going to happen now because he's been allowed to get away with so much.
Yeah, and I think that's too amorphous for him to grapple with. You know, I think he if anything keeps him up at night beyond the twelve diet cokes that he drinks every day, it's things like Georgia because now, especially now that he realizes he is vulnerable and he can be found liable or guilty by a jury of his peers. You know, I think it's little not that those are little things, but it's more concrete things that
are having a direct effect on him. And also there's literally no reason for him to think that's going to happen, and I don't think it's going to So he has learned, and he talked about this. His poll numbers go up every time he does something horrific or is found to have done something horrific.
And the problem for him though.
And again this is not a slam dunk here because of Jerry Maddering's voter suppression voter subversion, but his numbers are going up in a pool of voters that's shrinking.
Yeah, they have decided that his worst qualities are what they.
Love about him.
Yes, that's absolutely true, because they identify with them, and they give those qualities give them permission, you know. I mean, I've said many times that that twenty five to twenty eight percent of base voters on the Republican side are supposed to be walled off from participating in the American experiment beyond the one vote they're allowed to cast.
I think, I think that's one of the purposes of liberal.
Democracy, right, But for two years, that twenty eight percent was represented by one hundred percent of the federal government.
Yeah, so that disease metastasized.
And now we're dealing with a much bigger percentage of people who either learned that they like these things or realize that they don't have to hide their love of them anymore. And that's you know, that's how you get from sixty two to the seventy four million voters voting for this.
I mean, it's not strange because we have talked about this a nauseum, but I continue to be amazed by it. It doesn't matter why they love it, but they definitely do love it. And I mean I wasn't surprised. I thought this was coming. But when Trump was indicted in New York, the biggest loser, the political loser in that situation, was Rond DeSantis.
What a world?
What a world? Or I should say, what a country. I mean, first of all, I do think it matters why, but it's you know, unfortunately that's not the most urgent issue.
Like we're going to have to figure that out though in the long run for sure.
But yeah, you're right. For our purposes, it doesn't matter right now. We don't have the luxury of doing that deep dive. And I think that's that cut a couple of ways. First, of all, it just shows you how completely bought in they are to this idea that the thing that matters most is power and impunity. And secondly, it underscores the degree to which, and increasingly the cult
of personality and charisma function in our politics. On the right, the reason Ron Decentis doesn't have a political future on the national stage isn't because he's a fascist.
It's because he's not a charismatic fascist.
Right. I have to say, I don't want to laugh because it's so scary.
Well, what else, what's the alternative? But it is? I mean that's right.
I mean there's no policy disagreement here. It's more just a question of like do people want to have a beer with him?
And they don't? Or a right exactly no flatwear alone.
Right. It also just underscores that they were talking about earlier, how it I think it just strikes at the heart of those of us who are like, but you'd want to have a beer with Donald?
For the all, Donald wouldn't have a beer.
With any of you.
And it's not because he doesn't drink alcohol that he wouldn't have a beer with them.
He disdains all of you.
He would step over you if you were bleeding out on the sidewalk and say, oh my god, that's disgusting.
But you know, here we are.
And I don't know if you've ever met him, but if you do meet him in person, you get it. You're like, oh, yeah, I mean it doesn't appeal to me, but I get it. There's that thing there, you know, that indecipherable, ineluctable thing.
Yeah.
I'm so struck by just how much trump Ism has you know, it's one man. Do you think some factor of this is that he was on television?
Oh my god, totally, which is why Mark Burnett should go down in history as one of the most.
Despicable creatures to roam the earth.
This doesn't happen without The Apprentice, because up until The Apprentice, he was just a guy who filed for bankruptcy a lot of times and was allowed to live the luxurious lifestyle they lived because his banks put him.
On an allowance of four hundred and fifty thousand dollars a month. Nice work if you can get it.
Yeah, few people have benefited more from the affluent white man welfare.
I don't know if anybody has benefited more, because you know, in addition, to that he also got a couple of bucks from his daddy.
In that way, he's very much like Elon Musk. Yeah, they have more in common than I care to think about. Yeah, it's so interesting.
I continue to be, you know, one of your biggest fans, and I'm sorry that you have to do this more because I know you would. Just your dream is to not have to fucking talk about this. As a NEPO baby myself, you know, my nightmare is talking about my mother again and again and again. So I like, so appreciate you doing this for us, and.
It is time for all hands on deck again.
I'll have to do our because yeah, because listen, you know there's self interest here too, because if we don't do this now.
We're going to be dealing with this forever.
Yeah, but probably from an undisclosed location in another country.
Yeah, no, no question, I mean no question. Thanks Mary, Thank you.
Mollie.
Sheldon white House is the junior Senator from the state of Rhode Island.
Welcome back to Best Politics, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.
Good to be with you again, Mollie.
We're delighted to have you. The first thing I want to get into is the Senate Budget Committee.
You out the hearing on the New.
Republican it's not the budget because they're just trying not to pay their bills, but it's pretty amazing. Talk to us about where the big oil giveaways are, well.
They're all over the place. If you're looking for a tell about what is really going on in the MAGA Republican's Ransom Bill, two hundred and seventy five out of three and and fifteen pages of the bill are devoted to giveaways to the fossil fuel industry, and they include things like undoing the recent fee that we imposed on
oil and gas industry polluters when they release improper methane leaks. Now, there's really no excuse for a methane leak, and we didn't get a whole lot of pushback against that, but the oil and gas industry, despite the fact that the fee actually helps the federal budget, I mean, it actually reduces the deficit, and supposedly the Republicans are supposedly concerned about the deficit, They're willing to run up the deficit to encourage methane leaks as long as it's the fossil
fuel industry, which of course connects very obviously into the fossil fuel industry through its dark money, superpacks and front groups more or less prop up the Republican Party.
Yeah, talk about this because this is really interesting.
The fossil fuel influence on the US Supreme Court is pervasive.
Explained us.
What that means that fossil fuels have made their way to the Supreme Court.
Well, if you look at this Supreme Court, which I refer to as the court that dark money built, yes and enjoys, you see that the Trump appointees came through a process in which there was a so called Federalist Society list off of which she was going to choose. But it's recently been confirmed, actually by a Federalist Society insider, that there was no Federalist Society process. There were no
proceedings related to the list. The Federalist Society led its name to a list, but the list was developed by Leonard Leo, who was an operative of a bunch of right wing billionaires, including one who just dropped one point six billion dollars into his little armada of phony front groups. So you have justices basically selected in a back room
by billionaires. Then you go down the hall from the Federal Society to the judicial crisis network literally down the hall, same building, and there the billionaires are writing checks for fifteen million dollars seventeen million dollars to pay for the ads for these justices, and then once through their confirmation proceedings, and then once they get them on the court, they're these flotillas of phony front groups that come in and file what are called amicus curity eyed briefs, Friend of
the Court briefs, and they use those briefs to instruct the justices as to what it is that the billionaire donors expect of them. And of course, unsurprisingly but horrifyingly, the statistical correlation between what those federalist society billionaire selected justices do and what the billionaire funded Emmicky CURII have recommended is statistically perfectly aligned.
I'm shocked. Who could have seen that coming?
Who could have seen that coming?
I feel like.
Harlan Crowe is now the sort of king of this kind of malfeasans. Let's talk about these disclosures. Clarence Thomas used to disclose until the La Times wrote a story about him. Now for the last twenty years, he really hasn't you guys, recently asked for a list from Harlon crow talk to me about where we are in this cluster.
Harlan Crowe is a right wing billionaire who ingratiated himself with Justice Thomas once he was on the court and has been paying for family vacations, family tuition, family rent, basically supporting this guy's lifestyle.
Using Kelly and Conway to funnel him funneled Guinia money.
That was Leonard Leo, right, Oh sorry, Leonard Leo.
Yes, but when you look at the telltale portrait in all of this, Leonard Leo and Harlan Crowe and Justice Thomas are all sitting together, so it's not like there's a huge differentiation between Leonard Leo and Harlan Crowe. So that has created this whole scandal because none of it was reported, and there's no excuse for some of the non reporting, and the excuses for the rest of the non reporting are hollow and phony. So we are looking
into that question of the reporting. The Finance Committee has asked force of information about whether gift tax was properly paid on these enormous gifts.
I'm sure it was not.
Yeah, we were stiff armed by Harlan Crow's lawyers. The Judiciary Committee has asked for information. I suspect the response will be about the same. And the problem for them is that when you look into this secretive funding of the Thomas household, it opens into this larger scheme of billionaire influence and control over the right wing just justices of the Supreme Court. So they're desperate to try to stop this before we get into any real further information.
But I think we're going to just persist. I intend to persist anyway, and we're going to continue to dig into this. We're going to find the information. I hope people will come forward, maybe even whistleblowers, and the full extent of what appears to be rock solid, old fashioned corruption at the Supreme Court will be exposed.
You've asked the DOJ to look into this. I mean, are you frustrated with this?
DOOJ?
We're actually not quite there yet.
I asked the Chief Justice to start the process that ends up with a referral to the Attorney General of whether or not the failure to disclose was wilful, And if the failure disclosed was wilful, then civil finds can be assessed and the Chief Justice referred that to the Digital Conference, who in turn referred it to their Financial Disclosure Committee. So we're waiting for the Financial Disclosure Committee
to act. The Financial Disclosure Committee's job is to find out if there is reasonable cause for a reasonable person to believe that it might have been wilful, in which case they send it to the Attorney General to actually make the determination whether it was wilful and then pursue civil fines.
So Senator Dick Durbin was on the Sunday Shows and he was talking about this idea that you know, you could tell he was trying to appeal to Justice Roberts. You'll remember that before these three Trump justices, Justice Roberts was very concerned with the legacy of his court and he was trying to make the case that Justice Roberts really does have the power and I think he does to bring some order back to the court.
Do you think that will work?
Yes, I actually do, and I think that the way it's going to work is through the other federal judges. There's a thing called the Judicial Conference which oversees the administrative side of the judicial branch of government. The Chief Justice chairs it, but it's made up of the chief judges of all the circuit courts of appeal and of chief judges from district courts around the country. And my belief is that those judges are absolutely fed up with
the mischief and the shenanigans at the Supreme Court. And they're doubly fed up because they know perfectly well that they could never get away with that kind of nonsense, that what's going on with the Supreme Court is in flagrant violation of reporting and ethics laws and principles. And furthermore, thirdly, they're even more aggravated because when the Supreme Court says, nothing to see here, folks, this is just the way judges behave.
It makes all of them look bad.
Like they might actually be doing the same kind of stuff, and they know perfectly well that they aren't, that they can't, and that.
They'd get in big trouble if they did.
So. This whole exercise of having the Supreme Court police itself has been many people are saying, an enormous failure, complete joke. Do you think that there's any possible chance that Thomas could be impeached?
Count the UH Republicans in the House, and count the Republicans in the Senate and do the math right for them. This is entirely political, And to me, it is an absolute tell that you have an entire party there's unwilling to take a look at undisclosed free gifts of hundreds of thousand dollars worth of vacation rent for the mom, private school tuitions, all of this stuff, and be willing
to say that that's all okay, just because it's their judge. Now, if this court weren't politicized, why would the Republicans be so desperate to defend the indefensible? It to me confirms my case that this is a court that has been captured and put to work for the right wing billionaires. When the Republicans are so completely beholden to the operation that they won't condemn what is painfully obvious to anybody is wrong.
I mean, I think Trump really changed the calculus for Republicans. I mean, Trump is still the Republican front runner, and yesterday at court ordered him to pay one of his twenty.
Six accusers of sexual assault.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, don't you think that's kind of incredible?
Yeah, The fact that that's not the end of his career, and that so many Republicans are still standing by him and saying that this is no big deal.
Folks.
I was struck by Tommy Tubervell's defense that he wanted to vote for him again.
Do you think he ends up being the Republican front runner?
And sort of more to the point, I mean, do you think that Republicans can switch now?
There's a very good chance that he's still the Republican front runner, and they're going to have to address with lots of voters who are concerned about this stuff, not just their red hot, fossil fuel funded Fox News fed base. The problem of putting forward to the American people a candidate who's been found liable for sexual assaults, who has been charged with offenses. By then, I suspect there'll be a considerable number of offenses that he will have been charged with as a criminal defendant.
Good luck with that.
They have reaped what they saw. You're in the Senate, and the Senate has sort of managed to work despite the craziness. What is your secret there?
We've had a pretty solid Democratic majority on most things. There have been a few unfortunate times when we couldn't gather a Senate majority, But I think We've just worked very deliberately with the Republicans where that's possible, and without them when they refuse to cooperate, to do things like the Big bipartis an infrastructure bill, but also the Big
Inflation Reduction Act. That was our first big climate measure, our first step to hold pharma accountable, and our first adjustment to the tax dodging practices of the super rich.
What is the thing right now that's keeping you up at night. It's still climate change. It's still you know, the IRA made progress on climate change. We have a lot more work to do. And what's frustrating is that the fossil fuel industry still funds a whole armada of sleazy front groups who usually hide their fossil fuel funding as best they can, but sooner or later it comes out, and they spend an enormous amount of time and effort here in Congress to defeat climate legislation. And some of
them are actually pretty well known. One of the worst, believe it or not, is the US Chamber of Commerce, which is pretty stunning. It's been ranked by Influence Map as one of the worst climate obstructors in America. And you know, we all have chambers of commerce at home that are all very nice people who argue for local businesses.
And are friendly and community oriented. And then you've got this US Chamber of Commerce which is a worst climate obstructor and take gobs of money from the fossil fuel industry that it won't disclose.
Yeah, unbelievable. Thank you so much, senator.
My pleasure, Thanks so much for having me on.
Hi. It's Mollie and I am wildly excited that.
For the first time, Fast Politics, the show you're listening to right now.
Is going to have merch for sale over at.
Shop dot fastpoliticspod dot com.
You can now buy shirts.
Hats, hoodies, and toe bags with our incredible designs. We've heard your cries to spread the word about our podcast and get a tow bag with my adorable Leo the Rescue Puppy on it, and now you can grab this merchandise only at shop dot Fast Politics pod dot com.
Thanks for your support.
Greta Kemp Martin is a candidate for AG in the state of Mississippi.
Welcome to Fast Politics.
Greta, thank you for having me. Molly.
All right, tell us what you're running for first.
I am running to be the next Attorney General for the state of Mississippi.
Mississippi, Yes, that's a red state. Oh boy, tell us why you can win in Mississippi.
Plain and simple.
I can win because this state deserves better, and I'm the person to do better for the state. Historically, this has been a Democratic seat when Fitch, my opponent, is actually the exception, not the rule. And I believe that Mississippi is ready for a change. Are my opponent. She's abused this office as a way to get her rich friends even richer, and has looked the other way as they've sold a nearly one hundred million dollars in funding from the people that need it most in this state.
And you know, she's used this office as her own personal springboard to overturn Row versus Wade. I've had enough, fellow Mississippians, have had enough, And you know, I hope people will support us and join in this fight and check us out at gretathurag dot com.
All right, so let's talk about the age you're running against. The case you are talking about is Dobbs versus Jackson. It is the case that these Republicans use to overturn Row.
So you are at ground zero for this fight.
Tell us what it is like in Mississippian what women feel about having their age overturn row.
So, you know, being in Mississippi, as you mentioned before, it's a red state, so the issue of abortion is always a hot topic.
And always has been. But right now Mississippians are mad.
Our Attorney general seems to care about anything and everything but Mississippi. She's shown that in a couple of instances, won most recently by leading a group of ages to attack heartbeat law in Ohio. Of course, she also joined the lawsuit about junk science in Texas. So she's truly pushing an agenda across the country, but she has forgotten about people right here in Mississippi. You know, we have seen Republicans launch these full scale attacks state by state
on abortion rights. But people in Mississippi, they care about their health care freedoms. I don't believe that my opponent, nor anybody else in state leadership is paying attention to what Mississippians really want and honestly, what they need.
This is a thing we're seeing again and again in these Republican legislatures is these Republicans have real goals that have almost nothing to do with their local constituents.
Are you finding that, yes, absolutely, Mississippians have expressed time and time again what they need right. They need healthcare here, they need Medicaid expansion. We need full Medicaid expansion, not piecemeal wins that the Republicans are trying to pass off as helping them. They want health care freedom. They want good physicians in this state, and we want to be able to keep our physicians. We want to make sure that our doctors feel safe in providing adequate healthcare to
our citizens. You know, my opponent's actions make it very clear that this fight is about increasing women's suffering. Overturning Row is not the endgame. They are not done. This is about controlling women's bodies. And you know, honestly, I think Mississippians understand that.
It's interesting because we had the great Jams Carvell on this podcast as we often do, and he was talking about your top of the ticket with Governor Presley.
Can you talk to me a little bit about what your ticket looks like.
We have a really dynamic to get starting with the top at Brandon Presley. Right now, we have a radical governor in Mississippi that supports our abortion ban that makes no exception for rap or incest. He is someone who has expressed an openness to banning birth control. So clearly the future Governor Presley and I agree that Tate Reeves needs to be kicked out of office in order to
move our state forward. I have never seen movement like what Brandon Pressley has brought to a electioneer this early. And what we have in both Governor Reeves and my opponent is an ignorance of the issue that's most important
to Mississippians. And both brand and Pressley and myself come from an area of our state filled with working families and people that struggle and work paycheck to paycheck, and so what he and I are both up against our leaders who have not only abused their office and ignored corruption, but have been negligent and it has resulted in in hurting working families. Our leaders are just out of touch.
We are both running against two people who truly do not know what real Mississippians go through day to day.
So let's talk about Tate Reeves. Because Tate Reeves.
Has a really big national profile and he's sort of sold himself as less maga, but that's not really true, is it?
That is not true?
Tate Reeves and lend Fitz are what I like to call gold star students for the Republican Party and the MAGA Front. They are focused everywhere but Mississippi and that it's evidence and how they have ignored what their constituents want. They are putting parisanship before people. They've refused every opportunity to expand Medicaid in a state that I can't overly express what kind of healthcare crisis we are in here in Mississippi.
Tell us a little bit about that, will you? Yeah?
Absolutely, The percentage of rural hospitals that we have closing on an annual basis is startling. I believe the last time I looked where at almost forty percent of rural hospitals are it at immediate risks to close, while our leaders refuse to expand Medicaid and take in this funding that could assist that. I mean, we're talking about people in certain areas what I call healthcare deserts in our state that takes hours to get to emergency medical care.
So you know, for example, you'll have potentially a pregnant person in the Mississippi delta who requires specialized OBG in care. It may take them two to three hours to get to a healthcare facility that is equipped when they go into labor. It is outstanding that the state leaders in Mississippi are looking at the same data that I am. They just cannot be. It almost makes you feel like you're crazy. We can't be reading the same data and you continuously ignoring what Mississippians need with.
This rural hospital crisis.
Republicans really don't want to take this Medicare expansion even though they can. They don't want to do it on the sort of principle I guess that this would help poor people. So you have these royal hospitals for which are closing, and you have a real problem with women wanting to get healthcare.
Now, I want a dovetail.
On that for a minute and ask you about the problem that pregnant women are having now, which is you are pregnant in that state, you have a miscarriage, you're out of lock.
Right, that's right, because what we have seen in the post op landscape here in Mississippi, I know many other states are seeing it as well. You're seeing doctors who are scared to appropriately diagnose pregnant people when they have significant issues that pop up during their pregnancy.
You have doctors who feel.
Like they have to get on the phone with their lawyers before they make adequate health care decisions with their patients, and that is egregious. It's disgusting. Actually, just read a story out of Oklahoma about a lady who was diagnosed with a molar pregnancy, which is a completely non viable pregnancy, who was told before they could help her, she'd have to bleed out in the parking lot because it has to reach the point of seriousness before they feel comfortable doing what they need to do.
To help someone.
If you can read that and not be completely gut punched, I don't understand that kind of logic. And that is what my opponent is advocating for. She is advocating not just in Mississippi, because let me tell you, her agenda is not just here in Mississippi, it is across the country.
Yeah, I wondered about that.
What we've now seen is that Roe is wildly popular and that people want women to be able to get treatment for miscarriages and even to end a pregnancy. So I'm just curious, did they have any excuse for this, well, especially with my opponent.
You know, her position is that she is doing this to empower women. She has used the the Dobs what I call her Dobs media tour to establish and I'm doing air quotes here empowerment agenda. I don't know about anybody else, but this is not empowerment. Everywhere I have went in the state, nobody, certainly nobody feels empowered.
When they think about empowerment.
They are thinking about somebody fighting for equal pay for equal work, someone fighting for paid parental leave, someone fighting for you know, assistance with childcare. I think my favorite quote post Dobbs is my opponent put out there that she believes this empowers women because they can just get their daycare or their nanny to help them, or.
They can get their family.
I mean it shows a complete just out of touch with with Mississippians and what Mississippians are facing. I can start on several statistics, but just the poverty level here in Mississippi. Idea that one of our state leaders could believe that Mississippians are hiring nannies and that Mississippians eyes a community or a family that could jump in and help them. It's unreal and so out of touch with what's going on here.
I want to ask you about what Mississippi looks like demographically? How do you win as a Democrat in Mississippi.
First and foremost, we have to motivate people to get out and vote in August to November. I do not have a primary in August, but of course our primaries are very important, but we have to motivate Mississippians to get out there and vote.
And what I have found to.
Be most useful is making sure that they understand the stakes in this race and talking about things that they care about. I've mentioned a couple of times now, the unchecked corruption that we've had going on, nearly one hundred million dollars worth of welfare funds. To me, that's finding those factors that really motivate them to get out to the polls, because a lot of times, especially with my race, you really have to educate people on how the attorney
general directly impacts their life. Right now, it's easy for them to see maybe how the governor does their legislature, but okay, so tell me how this chief legal officer affects our life, and so getting out there and educating them on how the age has left this money unchecked, right, and how he has used this office to pursue this agenda of banning abortions not just in our state but just across the country, and that one of her goals is to use that Dobbs decision and are our immediate
trigger laws here in Mississippi to criminalize medical providers when we can barely keep them in this state. So, I mean, you know, it's just really touching in on that. And also, I'll say another thing they've really found interesting in a state that we really depend on our workers and farmers, I think it's interesting that we do not have a
dedicated a labor division in our state. So we have no Department of Labor, there's no dedicated division under the Attorney General's office is to support and dedicate resources to Mississippi workers. And so that is something that is one of the top priorities for me. A lot of people are very interested to know that, especially given how industry and farm driven our state is.
So I want to ask you about the big scandal with building those enormous stadiums.
Can you talk about that, because that is pretty interesting.
Absolutely, so just a little background, and just a great shout out to Misissippi Today, the reporter that has reported on this just won a Pulitzerprise for this reporting of what she calls the back Channel. And so I've encouraged folks to read about it because it's a crazy.
Situation saved by local news.
Right.
You would never know this story if it weren't for local news exactly.
I mean, it's just it was an awesome research. But what we had is a nearly one hundred million dollars theft of what's called tanna funds. An acronymic escapes me right now, but essentially it's welfare funding that it's supposed to go to underserved communities in our state. And what that does is provide them job training, childcare assistants, things that they need in order to get back on their feet.
And so what we have seen through some pretty strong evidence is that we have Republican leaders, donors, you know, NFL quarterback, thanks even the personal trainer of our current governor, who has benefited directly from this money, and they have utilized in a way that was not meant to be used, one of which, as you mentioned, was establishing a volleyball stadium at one of our universities here in Mississippi.
This was money that was supposed to go towards fighting pover day. That's right.
These were supposed to go to some of our more underserved communities in this state. And essentially, my opponent has shirked her duties and no investigation or prosecution has come out of the Attorney General's office as it relates to this situation. Because these are her friends, right, these are Republican donors. This is our former Republican governor Phil.
Bryant, who is taught caught up into this mess.
And she doesn't want to do that. And I'll be perfectly frank with you, she's scared again. I've called her one of the gold star students of the Republican Party, and she doesn't want to lose that support. And in the way she doesn't want to lose that, she has decided I'm not going to do my job for Mississippians. That's wrong. You are there to protect Mississippi's interests. She'd rather play games with people's lives than lose support of these top Republican leaders and donors.
Yeah. Will in the end there be no charges on this.
So what we have seen since our ag will not get involved, she has punted this to other agencies. So I do believe that there are there will be some federal investigation and potentially federal charges that will.
Come of this.
But we all know what's going to happen, right We're going to have a Republican saying, oh, the federal government's coming in and bullying their way into this case. Well, they're doing that because our state government won't look into this. They have also had some several charges come up within Hines County here in Mississippi, So there are some things happening around this. But I think it's important for people to realize that our top legal officer in this state
has left this for other people to deal with. She has washed her hands of this when this is absolutely within her job description. My dad is a police officer in t Shringa County. He's running for sheriff right now. My mom was a nurse. She's retired, but they taught me that justice is about putting others first, and you apply justice no matter who you're applying it to, and that's what I want to do as attorney general. I'm
a Democrat. But if a democratic leader requires investigation and ultimate prosecution, that's my.
Job, right, No, no question.
That's why we're all here, right, I mean, that's what business we're supposed to be doing here. What do you need right now? Are you guys registering voters? I mean, how are you going to flip this state?
First and foremost people that are supportive of this and want to join our fight, I truly would love for them to go to my website at gretaforag dot com. Obviously, we are pushing for fundraising and support even outside of the state because clearly we have shown that things that go on here in Mississippi can absolutely trickle out into the country. But this fight is truly about meeting everyone
where they are. I want to go around the state and talk to the folks about what is important to them, you know, and that's Medicaid expansion and bringing back accountability and just protecting healthcare freedom.
When I talk to people.
You know, they know that our current AG is ineffective and she's corrupt. And even the ones that don't know about her involvement in overturning Roe, you know, they know her. And when we talk about Roe and her involvement. They are even more ready to get rid of or and send her to the unemployment line. So again, you know, education is going to be at the forefront of this campaign. And to do that, obviously we got to have money,
we got to have support. We truly are relying on several agencies in the state to help us get out the vote.
And I'll be meeting people where they are everywhere.
Yeah, so good, Thank you so much. I hope you'll come back.
Yes, thank you so much for having me.
There.
Noo, Jesse Cannon, Molly Jong Fast.
This George Santos character always up to something, but this time he's caught for something.
Imagine how bad you have to be.
The DOJ arrested why not George Sandos if that's his name, which again probably is. He was then booked on many counts wirefraud campaign finance. I always think it's interesting, like the guy is a serial liar, but a lot of the sort of more offensive things he lied about, for example, as a Jew myself, like he lied that he had
parents who were Holocaust survivors. He lied that his mother as someone who's lived through you know, who lived in New York during nine to eleven, he lied that his mother was in the trade center.
She wasn't.
Those things are actually not illegal, so what they got him on is not the stuff that really makes you dislike the guy. The stuff that they got him on is more technical stuff like wirefraud. But either way, he gets our moment of fuck grade a day because he got five hundred thousand dollars in bail from three people and we don't know who they are. Is it Harlan Crow, Probably not, because he deals with higher value candidates, But whoever it is, they are our moment of fuckery. 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.