Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines, and Fox News' own Brian Kilmead says Putin is a bad guy, which for some reason he needs to say.
We have such a great show for you today.
Ziteo's own Maddi Hassan stops by to talk about Trump's promises to the American people and his current presidency. Then we'll talk to Congressman Jared Moskowitz about his long feud with Congressman James Comer. But first the news.
So my Elon musk Stoge has been sued after using US marshals to take over the US African Development Foundation.
I think the interesting data point here is that the head of the US African Development Foundation is actually a conservative Republican. So the current chair Ward Woke Ward as we call him, by the way, I just want to point out this administration is so crazy. Here's Ward Bream. He is a Massachusetts based businessman. I just want to
have two seconds here. He has a photo with George W. Bush, you know, famous leb w. He gave the keynote address at the National Prayer Breakfast in two thousand and eight. You're going to be shocked to hear this. But this guy ate no lib. Does it need to be said, if you give the keynote address to the National Prayer Breakfast, you're probably not going to be a liberal. He was the named the us ADF President. This is like yet again another case of just mind blowing stupidity.
So he wrote a letter that.
States, in my absence, I have specifically instructed the staff to adhere to our roles and procedures and not allow any type of this kind of meeting without my presence. I look forward to working. So let me just point out these guys did not let the young DOGE employees in.
They did not let them go into the computers. Again, remember these DOGE employees ranged from Big Balls you'll remember Big Balls, to the guy who got fired for racism but then rehired because racism should not be disqualifying in DOGE because if it were, hahaha. This is all about trying to disrupt, trying to cut off aid, trying to neoter the federal government, make it not work, make everyone afraid, and that's what they're doing. So Elon is going to be met with a lot of lawsuits, just like he
was a Twitter. I mean, in some ways, watching him do this in federal government, it's a little bit. He just is exactly using the same playbook he did in Twitter. You know, remember in Twitter when he showed up with the same let that sink in You know, we saw him on the floor of seapack with a chainsaw saying.
I am meme. I have become meme. You know.
It's low comedy followed by corporate malfeasans.
Yeah, and it really is hilarious because anyone who's ever met people who work in these agencies knows that these people are largely very conservative people. Them pretending that these are all woke liberals who are like marching in BLM Plaza is the one of the most silly things I've ever heard.
It's ridiculous.
So, speaking of very silly things, MAGA is very concerned that Justice Amy Tony Barrett is now Justice David Suitor part two and has gone woke.
Yeah. I want to point this out.
When someone does something that displeases MAGA, it doesn't matter what it is.
If you step out of line at all, you get.
The hail of hate and threats if you are one of their people and you step out of line, you get it ten times more. So, for example, there's a reason that MAGA hates Bill Crystal. There's a reason that Trump is like tweeting about Bill Crystal. It's because they think these are their people. I mean, not anymore obviously, but there's a reason that MAGA turned on someone like, you know, the people who they consider to be their people.
There's a reason that Trump.
Hates John Bolton so much, right, because he dared to criticize, to not deliver, to not sign off on the most craven of Trump's orders. And so here we go, Amy Coney Barrett. She was unwilling to vote for some of the more craven Trump ideas. There were two different rulings that Trump World.
Did not like.
One was they were mad that she's one of the only checks on the administration's efforts to freeze federal spending.
So she had ruled against Trump in these efforts. So now Musk posted the only way to restore rule of law to the people in America is to impeach judges, right, because of course, so look, you know they want her to just sign off on whatever it is they want to do in Trump World, And so she is going to catch a lot of ir She did, remember overturned Roby Wade, so there's quite a lot of reason to think she ain't no lib. But the Trump world's angry
influencers are furious. DEI judge influencer Jack Pasobiac posted on ex diversity, Equity and inclusion higher as opposed to DUI, which is more of Trump's administrations.
To say Mike Johnson's staff.
Yes, Amy was a DEI appointee, said Laura Lumer, who is always trying to get back and probably by the end of this admin will be Trump's chief of staff.
Again. They're very mad.
You know, you can never make these people happy because they really are so completely you know, they just demand complete and utter Fieldy.
Yep, speaking of Fielty, What are the funniest things to watch on Keeople news these days? Is everyone trying to justify these stupid tariffs. Trump's best buddy, Elon Musk, is now one hundred and eleven billion dollars from them.
Yeah, that's the one bright spot here is that Elon Musk is destroying his wealth for some reason. It turns out that destroying the federal government does not make you popular. Basically Elon Musk on Wednesday the world's richest man, with his pockets one hundred and ten billion dollars lighter than his peak networth of four hundred and sixty four billion. Here's what happened. Elon Musk and Donald Trump have made
the stock market plummet because of two things likely. I mean again, you know, there's a lot of factors, but the two biggest factors are the incredible instability of watching someone take a chainsaw to the federal government and then the incredible instability of tariffing our closest neighbors and allies. Tesla stock, which makes up a lot of Elon Musk's enormous wells, took a hit from this market downturn. Musk lost a billion dollars in one day, one point five
billion dollars. Here's the thing you have throughout the country and throughout the world, people burning down Tesla showrooms. By the way, no one should be doing anything violent, but we're seeing that. We're seeing a groundswell of rage at the richest man in the world. And also he is losing money as it's going, which is you know, one
of the things that happens when you do that. I think it's important to remember that he's also doing SpaceX recently had some interplanetary trash raining down from the sky in Florida. Again, you would think there would be some legal would be some legal recourse.
Yes for that.
Maddie Hassan is the founder and editor of chief of Ziteo.
Welcome to I don't know. Have you been on? Have you not been on? It doesn't matter. Hi, Maddie, I've been on this show. I know.
Was I not forgettable by medical.
Well, it's because honestly, you were a fancy cable news host and I had to go through PR That's true.
Now I'm a non fancy formal cable well as.
Someone who is not a host of anything but her own home. I host my canine friends in my own house.
When I do.
Something to be proud of exactly, can we just talk.
We're the United States of Amnesia. We know nothing, we remember nothing, we learned nothing, discuss.
We have the memory of goldfish.
We memory hold everything, and therefore we at shot, surprised, credulous when Donald Trump does things either a he told us he would do or be did before.
So, yes, we are in.
This mess because people don't remember shit in this country. America in general has a lot of problems because we don't remember anything from our history or anyone else's history. And now Donald Trump has obviously weaponized that for his advantage, to the point where he said in a press conference with Kirs Starmer last week, did I say Zelenski was a dictator?
And it's kind of like, I'm sure there.
Are many of ems.
Y did he say that? I'm sure he had a receptive audience of people, like maybe he didn't.
I mean, I'm telling you my favorite was I'm old enough to remember nine to eleven. And Trump was amusing in the office that Europe never came to our aid.
Right, Okay, America went to war. I don't know if you know about this. I feel like you may not.
In numerous countries had nothing to do with Saudi Arabia, right done under that right, stunned because we were mad about terrorism. And look as someone who smelled the smoke and flew over the ashes, like I get it, man, but also like NATO has actually worked out pretty well for America.
Oh very well.
All of the post war international architecture was basically constructed to boost American primacies.
There's a great irony.
While some of us on the left, you know, have had our criticisms of NATO, had our criticisms of view n security.
Care Chatrian Act.
My point being, like even the liberal international architecture that now the Republicans want to tear down. Elon Musk is talking openly about withdrawing not just from NATO, but insanely from the United Nations. All of that has been a great benefit to the United States and its role in the world as the sole superpower post Cold War. And it's interesting that he's tearing this down because it makes people ask questions whose interest is in It's clearly not
in the US Empire's interest. It might be in Donald Trump's personal financial interest.
It might align with his.
View of the world, where the world is just a kind of group of warring autocrats and he's just one amongst many, alongside Shi Jinping and Vladimir Putin and the rest of them.
That's how he sees the world.
And by the way, on the memory front, there's a bunch of Americans who can't remember stuff, and then there are a bunch of Americans who are just ignorant of history. And Donald Trump is obviously in that second group. He just doesn't know anything. Remember when he went to the grave the cemetery with John Kelly and said, you.
Know which side were we on in in the World Wars.
In fact, he said in the Oval Office just this past week, Molly, why does.
Japan not have to defend us? And we have to defend them.
Because we freaking run their constitution that way them in a horrible world war and said you need to be pacifist and we'll guarantee your security.
And Trump's like, why did we do that? Who did?
My favorite is USA?
Because it was like they were like, we must staff USA it And I'm like, isn't that just a front for the CIA?
Hasn't that always just been a front for the CIA?
But that's what's so funny is that some on the far left and some of the far right and be like, yeah,
goodwinness to USACA. And I'm like, yeah, USA, I did did some horrible stuff in terms of foreign governments pushing American propaganda, but it also saved a bunch of babies lives who are now going to die because Donald Trump has basically gutted this department and what should have been a bigger story was the former Acting Assistant Administrative USID who published a memo to his superiors was then put on leave. The New York Times and other outlets got
the memo, and it's stunning. It talks about your quarter, I think, quarter of a million kids getting polio. It talks about how many people are going to die from malaria and HIV.
It's horrific.
It's just it's mad Max predictions, and this should be the biggest story in the US, but it's not.
In MAGA world's defense, American children are also getting measles.
So yes, all the children can suffer together before we send them down the mines, right.
I mean, there is a sort of call back to Victorian America that is meant to be nonpartisan.
When they say make America great again, I always say, well, what date.
What year you want to go back to? Though it was great?
Really, we're getting more and more intel here from there. It's not nineteen fifties. It's more like eighteen fifties.
One of the things that I think is the most impressive about where we are right now is that the federal government well not as decimated as it will be if this administration ever ends, it's still pretty fucking decimated. We know there are measles right now in Texas, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania.
What we don't know is.
Whether or not there are measles in everywhere else. I'm pretty convinced that measles are going to be the next thing we're going to have to fucking deal with because it's wildly contagious and we don't have the vaccination numbers to get us where we need to be to prevent another pandemic.
I mean, get in line measles with bird flip. In terms of what's coming back, you saw a couple of things, I would say.
One is you saw Donald Trump literally push the autism bullshit in his fake State of the Union in his addressed to Congress. That might I mean, I don't know how many people have pointed this out, and maybe I'm wrong here, but surely, surely that is the most the singular high profile platform that an anti vaccination talking point has reached in modern world history. The President of the United States using an official speech to Congress to basically
push this idea that vaccinations are causing orders. He didn't say very cleverly said we don't know why the rates are going up. We do know why the rates are going up because of better information, better awareness, but clearly not to do with the vaccine, as every single study is shown. But he wanted to push that talking point in the RFK junior sitting in the crowd loves. It's a deeply dangerous talking point. It will end up killing kids.
My biggest objection to Donald Trump's return to office was the memory holding of the pandemic. Next week, thirteenth of March is five years since we went international emergency mode.
Here we have memory hold the pandemic.
I had people telling me we survived one Trump term, we can survive another.
Actually, no, four hundred thousand people didn't survive the first Trump term.
About two hundred thousand of them, according to the Lance and Medical Journal, could have survived if Donald Trump hadn't been president. So he literally oversaw the mass death of Americans in his first term. We memory hold a Now, God forbid is you say we could see the deaths of more children from diseases like measles that are easily preventable and were preventable. But here's the worst, worst part of it. Here's the real dystopian point. And I don't
want to leave your listeners hopeless. That this really really makes me kind of darkens my mood. Is The evil genius.
Of Trump and co.
This time around is that they have found a way, unlike every right wing predecessor, to avoid any accountability by basically destroying all the methods we have of knowing what the fuck is going on. So you say, measle spaces, okay, but how do you know there are any measles cases?
The Department of Health's not counting.
If a tree falls in a wood and no one's around to hear it, does it make a noise?
If there are lots of meus cases.
And the Department of Health and the CDC and the NAH say there are not or aren't counting, And how do we know?
You know?
And every in every aspect of government, he's destroying the ability to document and examine whether in the past, whether we had a Republican president or democratic president.
And George W.
Bush tried to do what Trump did in terms of undermining the statistical collection of basic data. They're trying to destroy the Weather Service, right, So when climate change carries on destroying our country with more natural.
Disasters, who's going to know, because they won't be an.
Official count of how many natural disasters there are right now.
It's not great now. The good news is no, there is no good news. What is the good news?
The good news is that so far, in the short period of time he's been president, most people have seen through this bullshit, some people in his own base who are quickly getting economically.
Harmed in a way. We didn't realize it would be this quick. I knew who's going to harm his own base, but I thought it would be a bit slower.
I think that that kind of move fast and break things is costing them popular support.
Now.
You could argue they.
Don't care about popular support because they have no interest in winning free and fair elections in the future. But clearly that polling shows he's more unpopular than any president at this point in their administration. Two months in, you're seeing Muscus super popular. You're seeing Republicans at town halls shouting at Republican members of Congress, and they'm now canceling all town halls.
So I think in that sense, people are not that befuddled.
I think most people outside of the magabase get it that this is bull shit. Firing veterans across government is bullshit. But how does that translate into actual political costs for him?
I don't know yet, because this is not a normal political party in a normal country. Worried about normal consequences.
Yeah, no, I think that's right. I would also add that yesterday I was at a dinner and I looked at my phone. The woman next to me was giving me a hard time about looking at my phone. I had like literally had it away for like an hour, and then find she was like, you're not supposed to do this here, and I was I wanted to like punch her, which I know is not how you're supposed to act. So I didn't, but I did think to myself.
Well, the good thing is that woman doesn't go on her phone, so she can't hear you saying this.
Yes, let us pry.
But the point of this is I looked at my phone and there was a that they had closed the airports in various parts of Florida because of space dust
debris coming from a SpaceX launch. Now you'll remember that the man who is currently pruning the federal government despite having no elected office, is also the man who is launching these rockets into space that are closing these airports in the state that is governed by Ron DeSantis, who is sort of Trump's, one of Trump's sort of mini Me's slash rivals.
Kind of incredible.
I mean, you're very generous in referring to it as pruning the federal governess more like flattering and burning a federal government. Yeah, Rondi Santis is a pathetic figure who is even more pathetic than he was when he ran in the primaries and then pulled out like he's like Roonder Sanders was the white knight of the Republican Party who was going to save them from Trump. Some of
us said at the time that was bullshit. The man has a glass jaw, he's got the of a chair, and he you know, he crashed and burned very quickly. Donald Trump mocked him and said that he grew fingers. I mean, Donald Trump suggested that Roondes Sanders was secretly gay. He suggested that Rondes Sanders was cheating on his wife. He suggested that Ronder Sanders had groomed high school girls when he was a history teacher. And Sanders just took
it all and endorsed Trump for president. I don't know, if you saw Megan McCain this week, Molly saying thank you Donald Trump for something he said in his beach that she liked, and you know, you have to think about Meghan McCain and Meghan Kelly, and Ron De Santis and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio publicly humiliated, but you have to think about who are up against it. These
people have no spines, they have no shame. They have been publicly humiliated and beaten down either directly or indirectly Viya their families by Donald Trump, and yet they are part of his praetorian guard.
Right now. They are his strongest defenders.
Marco Rubio is going out in the media and defending his Russia policy, even though Marko Rubia does not believe in his Russian policy even one percent.
Marko Rubia spent the past ten.
Years being a hawk on Russia, warning against any appeasement with Putin, saying we have to stand with Ukraine, et cetera, et cetera. And now he is the face of the Donald Trump administration's complete pivot to being as pro Russian as possible.
Yeah, no, it's true, but I do think it is interesting to watch Elon Musk learn how to do government in.
Real time, or not learn how to do government right like we saw him in the Oval.
Say he had fire the ebol of people, but then he had rehired the Ebola people. But it turns out in fact he had neither right. He had fired them and not rehired them.
Yep.
And he fired the nuclear weapons protection people then tried to rehidd them.
Those people he did rehire.
I think he fired the bird.
Flu people and then tried to rehire the bird flew people. Oh, the veterans are fair hotline where they fired the people who manned the hotline and then tried to hire them back.
And I don't believe they have done so yet.
Wow, those veterans, I mean, why do veterans need any help?
They're fine fine. I mean Donald Trump's a veteran. Oh no he's not.
No he's not certainly not.
So El Musk is a veteran. Oh no he's not.
So.
Look this guy, I just find it ironic. I was talking to Paul Krugman yesterday and I said.
You're an economist. You've written about the economy for years. Have you ever seen you?
We talked about oligarchy and abstract and like academic texts. Have you actually seen oligarchy in practice? The world's richest man is in charge of basically dismantling the elected government in the name of fighting an unelected bureaucracy. He's not elected, he's not vetted, he's not Senate confirmed.
And the best part of it is, at the same.
Time as they're doing all of this, he's also getting new government contracts to add to his previous government contracts.
The hypocrisy is out there in plain sight.
And the even better part of it is CNN we reporting this week that Republican lawmakers are asking Elon Musk can they please have a vote on dose cuts?
Please?
That is amazing?
Could we vote on something I want to.
Just talk about a second. So here we have Congress.
Giving up all of their power, right, all of their power, not just in the executive branch, to a random dude.
Well he's a very rich random dude. Let's be honest.
What I think is so amazing is there been so many wealthy people for so long who have been considered to be boogeyman of the left or the right. The Koch Brothers, George Soros, this guy just wanders in. He doesn't even go here, right, he has three different you know,
he's Canadian South African Americans, who's three different passports. So he doesn't even have really any skin in the game here, and he goes in, he gives Donald Trump a lot of money, and then he gets to run the government and really destroy it.
The push back on is he clearly has very financial skin in the game. The guy made his fortune here at The Washington Post reports that he oversee.
With subsidies with governments.
Before we even get to the subsidies, the Washington Post reports that he may have violated his visa in terms of illegally working here when he shouldn't have been working here, which is great because he's the champion against illegal immigration, he's the champion against government waste and overspending. And yet, according to the Post, thirty eight billion dollars he's made in contracts and subsidies and tax credits over the last
couple of decades. He wouldn't be the richest man in the world today were it not for the support at certain points of the federal government, not just the federal government, Democratic Party administrations. Barack Obama saved Tesla after the financial crisis in two thousand and.
Nine, probably a mistake. Looking back on it, that probably was a mistake.
I think many things the Democrats did visa vi Elon Musk was a mistake. Funny though, because some people and rocannor who's a congressman, I like a lot who's Silicon Valley congressman?
He pushed this art which I think is nonsense. And I've said this to Roe's face.
Well, he does represent that district.
And he says Democrats.
A lot of people pushed the argument Democrats were mean to a Musk. They pushed him into the arms of the Republican. First of all, he's a grown ass fan. He has to take responsibility for his own decisions. To amplify Nazis on his website, no one forced him to do that. But number two Democrats actually soft on Musk.
I would take the exact opposite view.
Obama saved Musk back when Musk was pretending to be Tony Stark. This great, I'm going to get us Tamar's guy. And then even after he goes full right wing, they just led him by Twitter. Did you notice that they put no impediments, no sand in the wheels, twenty twenty two Biden administration, Democrats in control of Congress. They just let him buy Twitter. I give you this example. If tomorrow George Soros was about to buy Fox, do you think the Republican body would sit quietly and say, yeah,
sure you can buy it. They wouldn't haul him in front of the sec various they would doj They wouldn't do everything in their power to stop Soros from buying their main communications platform. Democrats did nothing. And then after Musk goes full fash, they didn't invite him.
People forget this.
Chuck Schumer invited Elon Musk to a meeting in his office to discuss the future of AI with a bunch of tech bosses while Musk was leading a full right wing campaign against the Democratic body. So this is who the Democrats are. Unfortunately, this is where I have no hope. To go back to your early question, this party does not understand the moment we're in. This party does not.
Know how to fight.
The leadership is the wrong leadership and needs to go asap. Otherwise rules continue to be screwed.
Yes, I would quibble with certain parts of.
That which wits the leadership.
No, I think for sure.
And this was the thing that got me quite mad was that there was a sense in which, you know, they campaigned that this is an emergency. Democracy is on the ballot, which I actually think is completely true. Let me recount a fight that I had with someone who I am friendly with, who is a member who voted for Jerry Connolly. And I said, really, said, you're going to vote for Jerry Connolly as a ranking of oversight over AOC who has millions.
Of people who follow her every move.
And he said, I O, Jerry, so yes, that kind of bringing your stuff to animal to a knife fight. We're polite where we operate in the statistico I hate and I think is wrong. Dad said, I am not convinced. I mean, I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think that they need more focused and more aggressive leadership. I think that it is possible that hikeim can get there.
Come on what evidence? Do you know? That?
This is the man who said Donald Trump's captain chaos, which is a joke.
Well that was really stupid.
This is the man who, when asked about Eric Adams being held hostage by the Trump DOJ, said what's up to New York As to decide. This is a man who this week, apparently according to Axios, in private, has been dressing down Democrats who made noise during the Congressional address, saying, you know, we need to respect the office's presidency and not act like that.
Come on, all.
Right, maybe not? I don't know.
I mean, I think there are some Democrats in office who have been doing a really good job, like Chris Murphy. Right, there's one Chris Murphy, Brian Jotts, AOC, Maxwell Frost, Jasmine Crockett, and that's it.
Jamie Raskin.
No, I mean there are some, but I'm not convinced. You have to have the best communicator as the head of the party, Necessariah lay. You need to have a head of the party who doesn't hold you back, which what you're saying is a good point about Jefferies.
Though I don't know.
I was a little bit heartened.
I have been very down on him, and I was a little bit hardened that yesterday he did, in fact do this little video where he seemed like he was starting to take this seriously, taking the challenges more seriously. But again, I defer to you on this because you seem more passionate.
That doesn't mean anything. I'm passionate about everything. I'massionate about what I'm gonna f Lungelo and fast.
I'm passionate about that. I have to wait a few hours to eat. Well.
Look, if we can continue pressuring him, maybe he'll.
Improved, and that is ultimately has to be the goal. So anyway, thank you, Maddy. I hope you'll come back.
Thank you definitely if you'll have me.
Congressman Jared Moscowitz represents Florida's twenty third district. Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Representative moscow it's what's going on, Mollie. I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Explain to me what's going on?
Hold on, you seem confused.
What's wrong? I am with that word.
I am as confused as James Comber reading a book.
He's angry these days. Have you seen Comber in com I mean he's yelling at members, he's throwing them out.
Why is he angry?
He won He's angry because he's James Comer. I mean, if I was Comber, I'd be pissed.
Let's sort of talk this through Donald Trump. He did a State of the Union you're not supposed to call it a state of the Union because it's the first one. He is terrifing us. Explain to us what you think this guy is up to.
I mean, I'm not a psychologist, and I don't know how much time we have. You know, he gave a speech. It was not a state of the Union. It was not a state or union. And it was a borderline not even borderline. It really was a campaign speech. It was, you know, relitigating all the things he said about Joe Biden on the campaign trail. It was a red meat speech,
and I think that was intentional. I think it was a red meat speech in order to rally his troops, not to unify the country, not to appeal to independence, not to try to figure out what Democrats he might be able to work with. It was to appeal to the base, who right now is upset over how some
of dose is executing these firings, especially with veterans. I think he was trying to rally the base because his people go to the grocery store and the price of eggs or the price of gold, every egg is a Faberge egg now, right he was trying to appeal to them. You know, they saw the tariffs, they saw the stock market go down, they were worried about their fourwin k So I think he was giving them a pep rally to rally the troops. I also think he was trying
to talk to the people in the caucus. He's got to try to figure out how to keep government open next week, and he's pitching for them to vote for a clean CR, something Republicans don't want to do, hate doing. Historically thirty forty members vote against. And so I think that was the intent of his speech.
And I think it's important just to pause for a second and remember that actually there is no CR yet. It's supposed to come over the weekend.
Right. It does strike me.
That nobody is in any kind of rush, despite the fact that the government shuts down in what fourteen days, twelve days.
E's going bever the weekend when Congress is not in session or here, and that's really when we do our best work, quite frankly, Molly, is when oh, yes, we're not even here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mike Johnson has always seemed to me to be a person who is not great at math, but sometimes he's been able to get stuff done like, for example, when he passed this reconciliation, which has eight hundred and eighty billion dollars cut over ten years for Medicaid, explained to us that was a situation where they didn't have the votes.
They had the votes, they didn't have the votes reporting said that actually just Trump called up members of Congress and told them did basically Mike Johnson's job right whipping the vote.
Yeah, look, I think Trump is obviously he's the president, but I think he's also the de facto speaker of the House. I think I think Mike Johnson will do what Trump asks, and I don't think Mike Johnson will do something Trump doesn't want. And so what we're going to watch in this timeline that we're all stuck on, what we're going to watch is we're going to watch thirty or forty Republicans who have stood on principle, whether we agree or disagree, stood on principle against CRS because
they don't believe that's how government should be funded. They believe in single subject spending bills that they don't want to vote for the Nancy Pelosi COVID spending bill, which is what that's the budget. We're using if you do a CR. That's been their position. We're going to watch Trump come to the Hill tell them that they need to vote for a clean CR. Trump's going to lobby them to do it, and we're gonna watch all of
these folks just fold and do what Trump wants. I can tell you I'm not voting for a clean CR next week.
And you're not known to be a wild leftist, So tell us why you're not voting for a clean CR.
Yeah.
I'm not voting for a clean CR for two reasons. One is whether I like the results of the election or not. I think the American people voted against the status quo, and so a CR is the status quo. It's literally just continuing to do what we've been doing, which is the American people have said we don't want. Okay, Mike Johnson promised to do spending bills, he promised his caucus. It was a commitment he made to the Freedom Caucus,
and he's gonna go against that. That's number one. Number two, it's a trap because whether you like Doge or you don't like Doge, you think the mission of Doze is right, but you think the execution of Doze is wrong, which is actually what the majority of American people look like. They believe. About seventy five plus percent of Americans believe in the mission of Jos, but only thirty four percent
of Americans believe in how they're doing it. They claim they found, you know, one hundred billion dollars worth of fraud, waste, and abuse.
But it's impossible to substantiate any of that.
Yeah, let's not argue that for a second. That's what they say, Molly, So let's just for this conversation take them at their word. What Mike Johnson is proposing is to refund all that fraud, waste, and abuse. And there is no way on God's green Earth. And I am going to walk myself into a trap where someone could say we found that they were sending condoms to Gaza,
which we know is not true. They we found that they were sending condoms to Gaza or Sesame Street in Iraq, or they were making transgender mice, also not true.
Right, those mice are actually a different anyway, It doesn't point matter, but the point of the mices.
And Jared Moskowitz voted to refund all of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm out walking into that trap, and so listen. They have been telling us for months now that they have a mandate, which, to be clear to my Republican friends, a mandate is not when me and Tim burd should go to dinner, right. A mandate, okay, is that they feel they won the House to senate the presidency. They won the popular vote. They have a mandate, but they only have a three vote majority in the House. So
go pass it. Do it on your own. You don't need us, you're not talking to us, you're not negotiating with us. Do it on your own.
They can't do it on their own, though, well.
Look, don't say that, Molly. If the President really comes down on them, it appears at this moment the only one, and I disagree with him on just about everything, the only one that has any principle is Thomas Massey. Right. The entire Freedom Caucus, which has not voted for a CR since I've been here, has railed against the CR as the devil's milk and you know it, the Satan's this. It looks like they're about that is rollover and capitulate,
and that's just where we are. It's a party of one and they're going to give the president whatever he wants.
Okay, So then oh.
And they're gonna add the debt. Molly, how about that one? Right? The Reconciliation Bill is going to add trillions of dollars to the debt. A cr will add trillions of dollars to the debt. And yet you know, somehow they want to talk to us about how the country's bankrupt.
Yeah, well no, I mean, obviously there's so many lies here. It's hard to farce what is real and what is not real?
Right?
What is the sort of priorities here?
I mean, like they're like, it's an emergency, it's an oil emergency. But we're the largest exporter of lergy, right, loquified natural gas. Obviously it is an emergency when they want something, not an emergency when it doesn't. But it seems like we're hurtling towards the shutdown. But there are and this happened in Troum one point zero. There are all these unintended consequences of trump Ism. For example, there's
some measles outbreak. This is, you know, insane. In Texas, we have RFK Junior saying that CODs liver oil is an excellent treatment.
It's not, well, Miley, you're not taking that. I've been taking that now for years and it keeps the spirits away.
I'm just going to say that because I'm a normal person.
I got vaccinated and then I ended up having to get vaccin again because I was born in that weird period where the vaccine didn't work. So I just had my numbers check to make sure that I'm vaccinated because measles is coming.
I mean, the best part about that whole thing, by the way, is our of case children are vaccinated.
Of course, he's not an idiot, He's just a Charlottan. So we have measles. We have a trade war. China just said they're ready to go to war with us on trade.
Yeah bye, I like that. China was giving us options. So like, whichever type of war you would like, we are ready.
Okay.
We have Trump tweeting about moss, because why wouldn't he. It strikes me that we are hurtling towards a number of bad outcomes, none of which are necessary discuss.
Well, I look, this is did by design. Okay, it's by design. It's always been by design, and Steve Vannon has talked about this a lot to flood, the zone, overload, create chaos.
You know.
I mean, yesterday the market goes down six hundred points, today it goes up five hundred points, born or eighty five points, whatever it is. This is the chaos they're creating. Canada is gonna become the fifty first state. Governor Trudeau, We're getting greenland. We need greenland, Panama Canal Gaza is gonna be the Riviera. You're gonna bring your whole family to Gaza, Disney Gaza. This is the whole thing you know that we're doing. Oh, we're putting on tariffs, a
little bit of pain. Oh, but today we're taking off auto tariffs because you know, the auto manufacturers weren't happy, and let's create all this chaos. And while we're doing that, we're doing other things that no one's talking about. And that's why, you know, and some people disagree with me, but that's why I've just operated that we can't always be at a ten like, we can't always be at a ten like I can't be constantly outraged every hour
of the day. I need to figure out levels of outrage. Okay, this is a seven, this is an eight, this is a ten. Everything can't be a constitutional crisis. If you disregard the Supreme Court, that's a constitutional crisis. If you disregard a lower court, we appeal. And so I know everyone's to be like, no, this needs to be all hands on deck all the time, screaming, yelling, going crazy. And I'm going to tell you that's not going to work in a messaging communications war, which is what we
are in. We are in a messaging communications war. And if you don't think that's true, just look at last night. Who won that messaging war?
Who won that messaging war?
He did? He won that messaging war last night.
And tell me why and how?
Because he had the microphone. If it's tough to battle with a person who literally has the microphone when you don't, and when he's putting people up there that have childhood cancer and who have buried children.
I just have a question about the childhood cancer for a minute. So that poor kid TJ has cancer, but they have frozen ANIH funding that funds childhood cancer research.
Oh my god, you're one hundred percent right, Molly. But here's a question to you. Do you think the proper thing then would have been to stand and clap for DJ and then immediately sit down and put out an X out of press release, go to the cameras and say, we pray for DJ, but Donald Trump took away funding to try to cure what DJ has in other people. Yes, that's how I think we should have handled it. I think you're right.
Yeah, Because the thing is, if we learned anything from twenty twenty four, it's that if you don't respond to every lie, if you don't flood the zone with facts, after you know, the zone is flooded with shit. Unfortunately for you guys, there is no mainstream media, so you have to go in there and be like, this kid
has cancer. It's terrible. Wouldn't it be good if we were focused on medical research and not cutting medical research By the way, he got it from being exposed to chemicals, chemicals that Donald Trump is bragging about cutting regulation of.
No, I agree, there's going to be more tjs.
Yeah. When I talk about who won the messaging war yesterday, this is a good example. Yes, correct the reason why this is a key point, and not everyone has to agree with me. I'm not the most progressive member, but I do understand messaging and the reason this is a key point is because we are in the minority in the House, and we have weakened the minorities power in
the House over years. We've weakened the House in general, Congress over a period of years, and so a lot of people are looking at Democrats saying, do more, do more, do something. There isn't much we can do in Congress, right. We can file bills, they don't get heard. We can file amendments, they don't get heard. Okay. What we have is we have the TV cameras, we have the Internet, we have social media, we have podcasts. We can message on bills on the floor, we can message on bills
in committee. We can talk to the American people, and we have to out communicate them, and we have to be smarter on how we do that. That is what we have. We can organize in the streets. But as far as what we can do within the chamber, okay, there is almost no power at all for us to do anything. And so messaging, messaging, messaging, messaging. There is low hanging fruit here. The Republicans are firing veterans, right,
that's low hanging fruit. The price of eggs is more now than it was during Joe Biden I thought we were fixing that on day one, low hanging fruit inflation. We're gonna fix that on day one, low hanging fruit, the tariffs which are gonna make goods more expensive for Americans, low hanging fruit, over and over and over again. We should be talking about it.
I mean, yes, I just don't understand why you guys aren't.
I think right now we're caught up in this idea that we're hearing from our constituents and from activists of like, you do more, do more, right, And so this idea of doing more doesn't mean what we're doing is smart.
Right, But I do think more. I mean, this is like the fundamental problem here right. One of the things that I'm struck by when I talk to Democrats in Congress is that there's a lot of feeling like, oh, we have to get this message right, and I don't think you do. I just think you need to get it out. Look, you're never going to be Trump, right. The rules of political gravity do not apply to Donald Trump for whatever reason.
And he's got the bully pulpit and he knows how to use it.
Yes, for sure. But here's the thing.
I believe that there is a sort of sense in which we have. Yes, he has the billy pulpit, Yes he knows how to use it. But also he works incredibly hard to like he works the media. He's constantly talking to media, He's constantly letting media in. Meanwhile, democrats are like so worried about is the message the right message? Are we saying the right thing? What if democrats just talk and just go out there and do one hundred interviews? Like do they need to be quite as controlled and
fearful as they are? Like should Al Green have screamed at that thing?
I don't know.
Al Green's tried to impeach Trump like fifteen times, but the reality is like he did it, and I actually think more is probably a little bit better.
The strategy you're highlighting I agree with, right, which is we can't be afraid to communicate because we might make a mistake. Lord knows, I've had to delete some tweets over time, okay, And so we can't be afraid to communicate, So we can't be in our bubble. We can't only talk to friendly media. Also, right, we got to go out, We got to communicate over and over and over and over again, and we got to try different messages, throw things at the wall, figure out what sticks. That's what
they do, right, cry all of these things. I totally agree with that, But we also shouldn't make it easy for them when we try to do something for them to just you know, give them a gift. And I think there were some instances yesterday where we gave them gifts.
What are you thinking about?
Well again, I just I think that, you know, forget what individual members did. I think we should have separated Donald Trump from his guests.
And explained the ways in which Trump is going to hurt these people. I mean that, I just don't understand how you don't thread the needle on that, Like he's advertising people who's actively hurt.
We gave them a gift. Here was the message. The message was Democrats are so out of touch they couldn't even stand for a kid with cancer, right, Okay, that was a gift, sure.
I mean I think more of the question is like, why is there not more research going to cancer funding? Why is Elon Musk holding the federal government hostage?
How is that? Okay?
All the one hundred percent and so members that are going out there today talking about it, Okay, they're talking about it. I'm talking about it, they're talking about it. We're out there saying they're cutting cancer research. I mean, my dad died of pancreatic cancer. The issue now is you say that and the first thing they say is did you stand for the kid with cancer?
Right?
We can say this is silly standing or not standing, but you know, look, I'm a parent, I'm a parent. A lot of us are parents, and there are some things that cut through. There are times where I don't hear from some of my friends for a while. They're not really political. When I hear from them, I know a message broke through, right, and I heard from them on the Hey, how come they didn't stand for that? With that for that kid? And so we can think this is all silly.
Right, but if it's getting through, it's getting through out.
But if it's getting through, it's getting through. My opinion of it is irrelevant. That got through. It just made us. We are not out of touch, right. We are the party who cares about that. Okay. We are the party that cares about the working people, cares about the federal worker, cares about government, cares about social Security, Medicaid, Medicare. We are the party yet they are constantly being able to show we're out of touch because we're making it easy
for them. Molly, that's all I'm saying.
I don't think it's there better than Democrats. I think it's ease better, right, I mean, obviously Republicans or not.
They're better at messaging because he sets the message, they amplify, right.
So yes, and he's much better a performance, and that's where we are. But he's also not bound to the truth. Right.
Imagine a Democrat being like, we're cutting cancer funding. Clap for the cancer kids.
You monster.
If Donald Trump, from the microphone yesterday had said, you know, everyone stand for DJ we're making you a secret service agent. We're standing, and then Donald Trump said, and we're cutting cancer funding. Okay, his members they would have stayed clapping. Okay, but this is not news. We know that this was like it was like this in the first term. It's even worse in the second term. It's not news. So, yes, the rules don't apply to him. Yes, you know, he
can get away with stuff other people can't get away with. Okay, but know that know that work around it, figure out how we communicate. So anyways, we don't have to Harbor on that very interesting. Thank you, Jared Moscow it no no moment, Jesse Cannon.
Smile, jun Fast.
I have to say, you know, when you're running around with a chainsaw cutting everything, just smashed everything and seeing what sticks, sometimes you smash very stupid, stupid, stupid things.
Is it gay to have the last name Gay? Are you gay if you have the last name Gay?
I don't think so.
No, I don't think so. Yeah.
Congratulations to all who celebrate, we have hit peak stupid. Here's what happened a guy named Aola Gay. I know you're gonna be shocked to hear this, but having the last name Gay does not, in fact make you gay. This photograph of a person named Aenola Gay a B twenty nine bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, so he named his plane the Anola Gay after his mother. The photograph of the Anola Gay was flagged for being gay.
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