Rep. Adam Schiff, Rep. Chris Deluzio & Angela Vasquez Giroux

legislation to make our railways safer. But first we have Nay Rals Angela Basquez Jirou. Welcome back to Fast Politics. Angelo, thank you, thank you for having me. I'm excited to chat about the horrifying state of affairs. We're you know, so super interesting. Something we had talked about. I think you thought it was my worried notion, but it was actually, believe it or not, something that Robin Marty had told me.

Robin Marty, the woman who wrote the post Row Handbook, who works in what was an abortion clinic in Alabama and is now a women's health clinic because they have no abortion in Alabama, which is she wasn't seeing in Alabama, the doctors were stopping treating the highly political condition of

being pregnant. Talk to me about what's happening now. Yeah, you know, I think when we first were worried about what exceptions and exemptions to the lawment and what the decision to overturn ROW could mean, a lot of folks were worried about this initial state of chaos and confusion, right because what the law says doesn't always match how medicine works. And that's you know, always been a problem

when it comes to aborsion, but especially now. Doctors have said in countless places, I think most recently in Texas, that they don't know when they're allowed to do something. They don't know when you know, how close to death do I have to be before you're allowed to treat my ectopic pregnancy? How close to death do I have to be before I'm allowed to have Miffie pristone? Those

things aren't clear. We're asking doctors to take on a tremendous amount of risk, and you know, I think now where we are with hospital systems, they're starting to see that you can't have a labor and delivery unit without having proper abortion care because abortion care. As you've said before, it as we've all said, it is healthcare. It is a critical part of that cycle of your reproductive life. And you can't promise or even attempt a safe pregnancy

if you don't have abortion care as part of your practice. Yeah, I mean, it just seems completely crazy we're seeing this kind of movement away from treating pregnancy. Yeah. It's also you know, there's this failed, kind of naive idea, right that you can create these laws that only impact people in certain situations, right, like this idea of there are

good abortions and there are bad abortions. It's okay to get an abortion if you didn't want to have the sex that led to the pregnancy, but it's not okay have an abortion, you know, if you were having sex outside of marriage. Laws don't apply that way, and neither does medical care. So, like a lot of folks predicted, you know, Robin, most prestiently, these laws, they don't stop at some fictitious borders that you know, right to life

ers think they do. They impact the entire scope of healthcare and the lives of you know, anyone who can be pregnant. And that's why now we're seeing this is you know, I hate to say it because I don't like to be a pessimist, but it's this is just the first domino to fall. We'll see more hospitals who feel like they can't provide appropriate care anymore. Even though the letter of the law doesn't say it's illegal to treat pregnancies now, but it does say enough that it

stops it from happening. What I think is so interesting, and again I don't want to say interesting, because the whole thing is just a fucking nightmare and it's so upsetting. But one of the things that I think is really

interesting is that you are seeing. The reason in nineteen seventy three the role was decided so broadly by many conservative judges was because what ultimately was happening was doctors were afraid to treat women right, no matter what, they were afraid to treat them because they didn't know what. You know, Again, once you get law and medicine together, it's always a fucking disaster. So you had all these women who could not get treated, and now we're seeing

again a return to women being unable to be treated. Yeah, it's a thing that we say that, you know, another one of these mottos that sounds a little pithy at first, but then plays itself out in real time. You know, in a post for a world, is a ban is

a ban? Is a ban? You ban you know, abortion after twelve weeks, you're also banning all abortion before twelve weeks because doctors aren't going to stick around in practice in this limited scope where it's all confusing anyway, it doesn't make sense to continue to believe that that it's possible to legislate what happens in a moment of crisis. Right.

There's just no place that I can think of where this lens of law is applied to situations where you know, a life hangs in the balance in a matter of minutes, and what you're supposed to call your malpracticed lawyer and get the hospital board together to make a decision. No, right, And like we knew the answer to this in the seventies, you know, like we didn't even know that smoking was bad in the seventies, but we knew how to do

this right. So it's very colossally confusing to me about why it's so hard now and the answers it's not hard, we know this, but there's a small vocal and somewhat powerful segment of Zealots who don't care. I want to talk to you about this Texas case because you know, we've talked about her a little bit. It's really meaningful explain to us a little bit about that. Yeah. So, there's an organization that formed expressly for the purpose of

trying to outlaw medication at board. They've filed suit in Texas with a specific court, a specific judge who they all will rule in their favor, and it will ruin our ability to access most medication abortion. The suit actually asked the FDA ask the court to force the FDA to withdraw its approval for Miffi pristone, which is one of two drugs used in the Medication Abortion Protocol. This drug was approved decades ago, it's been in use for

more than twenty years, safer than thailan all. They're coming for it now because political reasons. Right. A part that's so devastating about this and horrifying is that this case in Texas would impact every single person in the country. You know, if you're in California, you're still going to lose access to Miffi pristone if you're in Michigan, You're

going to lose access to MIFFI pristone. We did some research at NYALL and we found that at least sixty four point five million people would be impacted by this decision. That's more than are currently living without abortion access due to the decisions. So to classify this as seizemic is almost an understatement. But it's impossible, as all of these impacts have been to really understand how bad things can get until it happens, which is almost anticipating a healthscape, right, Yeah,

I mean, I just am shocked. Can you explain where we are now with this? Because this was a case where the organization chopped for a venue, found a venue where they knew they would only get one judge. The judge it's a part of Texas. The judge is a very conservative judge appointed by Trump, very active and anti choice legislation, anti choice activisty. He now is trying to

figure out if he can do this right right. The read on the ground from a lot of lawyers who are watching us closely is that he's, you know, he has made up his mind. He will rule in probably the worst way imaginable, But he is now sort of pantomizing the motions of what it would look like if he were actually considering our gus. He had a hearing last week which he tried not to publicize. He wanted to have this in secret so that no one would

have and no one would hear what was happening. And in that hearing it was pretty clear from the questions he was asking that even though to rule that to force the FDA to withdraw approval for a drug would be unprecedented, but the fact that that was set out loud by the plaintiffs and he didn't really have a reaction to it, right, everything that we're seeing on the

ground is telling us that this will be bad. And you know, I know there is a lot of great hot takes and legal conjecture out there about whether it would actually do anything, whether this ruling would actually have an impact. But if there's one thing, especially folks and reproductive rights have learned over the last three or four years, it's that there's a first time for everything, and it's usually the first time for a worse time for us. Right, no one thought SVA in Texas was going to stand,

and then it did. I actually thought SBA in Texas was going to stand. I thought they're going to fuck us now, you know, I thought that, But I also thought, well, but there's where I still had this tiny shred of sacred, you know, feeling for the Supreme Court that, like, you know, despite the fact that they're filled with, you know, these conservative activists who are just hell bent on returning us to eighteen ten, you know, but they stand on precedent

and they won't rule against something that's clearly unconstitutional. And you know that band aid was ripped off real fast for me there. I think that's sort of why I have this position now, right is I don't think that they're going to be a backstop or a protector for us on this. They weren't on SBA, so why would they pass up a chance to do it here. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. I mean, just so so incredibly upset and I'm just so grim. What else are

you seeing? I mean, again, this will get if he does enact this on the banning the pills, they will it will go up to the next court, which I think is the fifth Circus Circuit right, Yes, Circus though is kind of a good um good for how it feels sometimes to deal with these courts. It would go next to the Fifth Circuit. Obviously there would be some appeals or request for a stay, So there is a chance that, you know, whatever decision we get might not

be implemented right away. That's important to note, especially for folks who are concerned about access, as all of us mostly are. We might not lose access the day of the court decision, but we will have again as we're having now mass confusion about what's allowed where. You know, if you if you can get pills delivered to your house across the border. All of those things are going to be thrown back into the complete chaos no matter what happens, no matter what the ruling is or the

timing of it. But you know, the hope is that cooler judicial heads will prevail and that there will be some relief. If the decision is bad, If the Fifth Circuit rules, you know, to override this and to keep the Hills legal, it will go to the Supreme Court. You know, the Supreme Court is always going to make the worst possible decisions at every stage. Yeah, that's where the heartbreak is, right that we don't have what we

thought we had. An elementary school which as a you know, an impartial branch of government that was there to save us from ourselves, and it seems like, you know, instead, what we have is this court that's been packed with anti abortion activists and they're not going to stop. They're going to stop until they fanned abortion, all abortion everywhere. And again, I think the Biden administration has done a

lot of really good things. But do you think that they made a mistake by not pushing harder on the Supreme Court? I mean, we know that we have a Supreme Court that is just beyond the pale. I mean when it comes to women's rights. We're seeing what's happening here firsthand, in front of our very eyes. I mean, do you think that the Biden administration should have done more? I mean, again, you know we're in very murky legal water here, but I mean, do you think that they

should have pushed harder? You know, it's a really hard question to answer without you know, obviously we have the benefit of hindsight, and anything more than what anyone did would have been helpful. Right, But looking forward, we do have a chance now, including in partnership with a Biden administration as a sort of movement to look at what

meaningful court reform would be. You know, we do have a court system right now that is has been rigged in favor of of conservatives, has you know, a lot of unelected power, with unchecked unelected power, and there are things we can do to offset that, to change it, to remove some of those bad actors. And I think that's where some where a lot of our energy and focus needs to be next. This is the last frontier. You know, we don't we don't elect judges, but we

do elect the people who do. And we do have some levers that we can pull, and we do have some things we can organize around, and court reform is certainly one of those things that for the future of our movement, in the future of democracy, we need to fix it fast. Yeah. Wait, I want to ask one more question. What else is Neirau working on? This is such an important time. You're from Nerau. What else is Neirau working on? Well, we are working hard on making

sure that folks know what's at stake right now. One thing we're finding is that now that the folks know about this Texas case, or if they do know, they're not sure that it actually impacts them so a big part of our work right now is making sure that we're talking to people that people like you are talking to your listeners and your audience. And then the other

part is getting ready for this decision. Know, when this happens, there's going to be confusion, there's going to be anger, and it's our job as an organization that's built on the power of people, of people organizing each other and organize themselves, to help direct them into the places where they can be productive and make the most positive and powerful change. So really it's spreading the word, getting ready for the decision, and once that happens, it's getting folks

organized and mobilized. Thank you so much, Angela, absolutely anytime. Congressman Adam Schiff represents California's thirtieth district and is running for the open California Senate seed. Welcome to you, Fast Politics, Congressman Adam Chief. Thank you. It's great to be with you. We're delighted to have you. Now we're all in California, so I can bitch about how cold it is here. So California, you are in the beginning of this primary race. Talk to me about this race and about how it's

going and what the landscape looks like. You know, I think the race is going really well. We launch short campaign, I guess about six weeks ago and at a tremendous response, with support coming in from every county in this and my colleagues have been hugely supportive of me as well.

Speaker Policy early endorsed me. Now more than half of my California House colleagues are supporting me, as well as local and state officials up in down California, and we've been traveling to state meeting with constituents, meeting with voters, and the response has been terrific. So I feel very

good about it. And what I'm enjoying the most, I have to say is traveling to other parts of this state and sitting down with people, getting to know some of the unique challenges that people face and getting some great ideas and how I can help them meet those challenges. I want to talk to you about SVB Bank because it's a pretty interesting article about how that has become a sort of moment in the campaign that everybody's kind

of weighing in on. Will you talk to me a little bit about that, you know, I think this was a terrible tragedy for the state and potentially a terrible tragedy for a lot of employees who have had their bankroll done at SBB without even knowing it. We were desperately concerned that there could be hundreds of thousands of people who wouldn't get paychecks when this bank failed, who had no fault of their own, simply had their payroll

done SVB. But this is I think a tremendous failing of the management of the bank, as well as a tremendous failing of regulators and oversight. The overseers at the FED saw that there were problems at SBB, saw that the bank was at a huge percentage of its deposits and uninsured accounts because there were accounts over two hundred fifty thousand. Saw the bank was invested in a lot of long term debt that was diminishing in value as

interest rates were going up. And yet nothing was done and certainly nothing commensurate with the risks to fend off what ended up being this run on the bank and failure. But the primary responsibility were the bank executives, and I've introduced legislation to fall back their stock profits and bonuses because those bank executives took excessive risk, which enriched themselves but nonetheless put depositors at tremendous risk and ultimately put

a chuck of the banking system at risk. And I was grateful to see after I introduced the bill that President Biden announced that he was also going to support legislation in Congress helped clawback that compensation from banking secutives.

I want to talk to you about that, because they're really the tides have turned on bailouts, and I mean, if they ever were pro bailout, but there certainly have been times in American life where these banks were very, very precarious and much of the economy seemed like it could collapse. Now it feels like a lot of these banks were short up. I mean, is your sense now that this crisis has been averted largely? It has largely been averted, but clearly there are still other shoes that

are falling. The near collapse of Credit Suite and its takeover by UBS shows that the shockwaves started in California. They were reverberated to a regional bank that failed, also in New York and around the world. And I think the market is still trying to settle down, but it points up to points up some real continuing failures, and that is banks that are of the size of SBB don't have the same level of oversight. They don't go through the same liquidity tests and stress tests by regulators.

And now we're discovering that you can be much smaller and still be too big to fail, and so we need to, I think, strengthen the oversight of these midsize banks or smaller banks, because they too can create a contagion that really threatens the whole system. So I want to ask you about this idea of how this happened. I mean, do you think ultimately this is a failure of regulation. I think it's certainly, without doubt a failure

of the regulators. It's also failure of the management of the bank Congress also, and I voted against this weekend Dodd Frank that oversight regime by essentially in twenty eighteen watering down dot Frank and allowing banks of this size to undergo less regulatory scroup. But even with that, the regulators were apparently aware of this, aware of the danger, and didn't act with sufficient urgency defended off. So I think that movement twenty eighteen was in the wrong direction,

and I opposed it. But even so, regulators saw the risk and just failed to do enough about it. And for the bank executives, they were willing to take the risk because it made the more money it made, the more bonuses, it increased the value of their stock, and they were essentially gambling with other people's money to potentially disastrous effect. We had Katie Porter on this podcast. We may have other people running. Tell us why you're the person.

I mean, this is such an interesting center race because it is completely decided at the primary level. So tell us why Democrats would do better with you than with Katie Porter. You know, I think all of us that are running order or relieve myself, we're all progressives. It will be hard for people to distinguish a lot about

our voting records that are all pretty progressive. I think what voters are most looking for is who's going to make progress, Who's going to be able to tackle the problem of homelessness, Who's going to be able to increase the safety of our neighborhoods and the quality of our

public schools. Who's going to be able to deal with the utter unaffordability of housing for billions of California families who in the Central Valley, can do something about some of the worst air quality in the country and a

lack of adequate drinking water. And I think the reason why so many of my House colleagues and the Speaker, and so many elected officials that have experienced with all three of us have decided to support me is they're looking for someone that can work within the Senate to get things done to approve the quality of life for Californias, And this is what I'm offering. I think I have a record of getting things done, and more than that, on some of the seminal issues of the day facing

the country, threats to our democracy. I think I've shown the kind of leadership that California has come to expect of its senator. We all had the opportunity to fight back against the effort to tear down our institutions during the last administration. We had not the opportunity. We have the responsibility to do it. But I think that my record is distinguished in the prominent role I played in that and continue to play in that because directly, our

democracy is still very much at risk. So you were very involved in the impeachment, very involved in Trump administration. Kevin McCarthy seems to completely hate you, which is probably a good sign. Like Eric Swawell, if you frequent flyer on this podcast, you're the constant target of Kevin McCarthy. As a senator, a junior senator from California, how would you be able to sort of enact that same kind of muscle. First of all, it's very rare for a House member to have the kind of voice that I've

been able to have as a House member. I would begin the Senate, I think as a very atypical junior senator. I would begin my effort and the Senate very well known to the people of California and to the people around the country, and I think I can use that prominent position to defend our institutions. We are not out of the woods at all, as we see with what is likely to happen this week in New York for a former president and lashing out against the rule of law.

I'm on the Judiciary Committee now, since McCarthy took me out the Intel Committee. I told how King Jeffreys put me where I could be useful, and he said I want to put you in my seat as a senior member of the Judiciary Committee. Well, Jim Jordan is now trying to interfere with the Manhattan District Attorney's office and the rule of law, acting again as Trump's Carol defense counsel. I'm going to push back on that in the House.

I'll be even more able to push back on those kind of assaults on the rule of law in the Senate. But equally important, one of the things that I've been championing for years now is the inter relationship between the weakness the fragility of democracy and the flaws the structural

problems in our economy. The fact that the economy is not working for millions of people, that at a time of historically low unemployment, people still can't afford a place to live, They still can barely afford to access healthcare, many millions can't. Many others see their quality of life to something below that of their parents. All of that leaves people vulnerable to a demagogue who comes along and

promises that they alone can fix it. And so I've been very focused on trying to build an economy that works for everyone. This is really a central focus of my campaign, and I think I can do that. It's even greater effect In the Senate. I wanted to ask you about that. Some of the big problems in California are also problems we have in New York. Homelessness, super expensive housing. You know, these problems, they seem almost insurmountable. I mean, how do you even begin to start getting

serious of effecting them. Well, first of all, I think we have to recognize that the fact that is not working for millions of people is not an accident. It's not the product as my Republican friends would like us to believe, the product of some impersonal forces, the Adam Smith's invisible hand. This is often the result of a

very visible hand by very powerful special interests. And to give you just a couple examples, during the pandemic, when we want to double the child tax credit, something I fought hard to ensure, we lifted forty percent of the kids in the country who are in poverty out of Parker. That single step of increasing that single provision of the tax coat had such a demonstrable impact. And that should tell us a couple of things. That should tell us that this isn't rocket science. We don't have to wait

to be inspired by some bolt from above. But it also should tell us this is a policy decision we've made. And when Congress allowed that child tax credit increased to expire and millions fell back into poverty, that was also a policy choice. And we've made scores of these choices.

When we treat the carried interest of hedge fund managers as a capital gain rather than ordinary income, we're deciding as a policy matter that we should help the most successful do even better, and we let the child taxpread expire, we should let those who are strugg in the most struggle even more. And so it's not just a tax code.

Of course, there are a myriad of ways in which the Congress has decided who should win and who should lose in our economy, and the result is the economy that's just not working for millions of people, and we need to change that. I think there are lots of ways we can change that. In terms of the most graphic illustration of an economy that's not working, and that is people living on the street. We need to better identify what's working what's not working. People are generous and compassionate.

They want to help people find a place to live and get off the street. But they also want to make sure they're not spending taxpayer dollars on things that don't work. And so I think one of the things that we can do that I would certainly pushed, let's have greater accountability over what's working and what's not invest in the things that can cost effectively move people into housing. My experience as people in comparsion if they want to help, but they also want to know that it's being done

in a way that is cost effective. Yeah, I mean it seems really like not an easy situation. Let's talk for two seconds about this Trump whatever is coming down the pike, and this will air on Wednesday. So he may already be indicted, he may not be indicted, he may never be indicted. Do you think that Mary Garland waited too long? I do, And I've been a very outspoken and critical of the delay at the Justice Department. And I came out of the Justice Department. I spent

almost six years as an assistant US attorney. I have great love and affection for the Department. But for almost a year it appear the department did nothing except focus on those who broke into the Capitol that day and beat police officers. And that works if you're going to roll up people who are sort of foot soldiers on the higher ups, if it's a case involving a single line of effort to overturn the election. But of course

there were multiple lines of effort. There was a president on the phone with Georgia, with the Secretary of State trying to grabbe at him into finding eleven thousand, seven hundred eighty votes that don't exist that his own attorney general told them were bs. There were efforts to put pressure on the vice president. There was a whole fake electro plot. Those other matters the Just Department didn't seem to even be looking into until a year after the fact.

It is so unusual that a Congress, in the January sixth Committee, which I was so proud to serve on, should be so far ahead of the Justice Department in an investigation. But we were, and as a result, Manhattan appears poised to go forward with charges which, while very serious a campaign fraud scheme is very serious, are not as serious as an attack on our democracy, a violent insurrection incited by a president who wanted to stop the

piece transfer of power. If the Justice Department had moved with more swiftness and following the evidence where it led, and it led to Donald Trump. The first prosecution would be by the Justice Department, which has the resources, the wherewithal, and most importantly, the jurisdiction or the most serious potential charges against the former president. We have a situation now where it looks like the state charges are going to come before the DOJ charges, If the DOJ charges come

at all. There are a number of problems with that, as you well know, including that the you know, there's the appearance of partisanship because these are elected officials, and also there is a real question over whether or not these state charges. The thinking is that the dug would rather go first. And having waited so long, I mean, do you think that there's a chance here that we'll

see accountability or now? I certainly hope to pray that we see accountability, because one thing that we have seen time and time again with Donald Trump is and he's not held accountable, it leads him to commit worse and worse misconduct, abuse and offenses. When he wasn't held accountable for his Russian miss conduct, he engaged in worst miss conduct vias in the Ukraine. When he wasn't held accountable for that, he engaged in even worse miss conduct, leading

to a violent attack on the Capitol. If we should have a precedent where a corrupt former president can escape accountability because it would be perceived as too controversial if he were held to justice, then then either he or someone else in the future will do even worse. I understand the concern around New York, but at the same time, a much bigger concern from my point of view, is establishing a precedent that a president can be wallless and there's no way to hold them account. You can't hold

them to account while they're in office. You can't hold them to account whether or out of office. The Founders would have never subscribed to such a dangerous idea. And so if the Manhattan Grant Jury has probably caused to believe Donald Trump committed a crime, and the District Attorney's office believes it can prove that crime, it not only

should go forward, it really must go forward, right, no question. Now, I have one last question for you, because we're almost at a time, explain to us why Gavin Newsom had said originally that he would, you know, put, there hasn't been a black woman in the Senate since our vice president. The Senate has been very white, add very male for a long time. Explain to us why, you know, in my head, I'm really just thinking about it in my head. If I'm voting in this primary, explain to us why

the vote should go to you. Yeah. Well, I mean, first of all, I think that voters are going to consider issues of race and gender, and I think they should think that diversity is extremely important. And I've been very proud over the last six to eight years as the national Battleground Finance Chair for the Congressional Campaign arm to go around the country and help elect money for campaign for stumped for an incredibly diverse set of candidates

for the House and for the Senate. I've been very proud of the work that I've done to do that, and so I think voters are going to consider those issues. I think they'll consider my track record. I also think they'll consider what is the leadership ability of the different candidates, What is their ability to get things done on behalf of the American people, What kind of skills are most in need at a time of such fragility and our democracy and at a time when our economy is simply

not working for so many people. And above all, I think the voters have a choice to decide who they think is the best person right now, and I'm making the case why what I offer is the most compelling. But I have great respect for my two colleagues are also running, and I want to do my best to be articulating the case for myself, not the case against anyone.

And I think the case for myself is really one based on my leadership ability and the ability to get people gettings done for the people of California, to help attack the problem of homelessness and the unaffordability of housing, to create safe neighborhoods for people and their families, to support the public education, and to make sure that people can access healthcare of the very kind of bread and butter that people are looking to their elected officials to

try to address. Thank you, thank you, thank you, great to be with you. Thanks for having me on. Congressman Chris Delusio represents Pennsylvania's seventeenth district. Welcome too Fast Politics. Congressman Delusio, Molly, thanks for having me talk to me about how this train and derailment entered your life. Yeah. I represent Western Pennsylvania District. One of the counties represent is Beaver County, and my constituents, my neighbors in Beaver County,

they border Ohio, they border East Palestine. People in Darlington Township there were within the evacuation zone. Lots of folks have been upended by Norfolk Southern's derailment. People evacuate out of their homes, a bunch of farms in that area, small businesses nearby impacted and worried about the economic costs for years to come. And so my team and I immediately started working on federal resources for folks on the one hand. But then the other side of this is

rail safety legislation. To make sure that these railroads can't just dictate terms. They've got to have some safety rules and requirements coming out of the Congress, I think to really change what they're doing. And listening to the workers in this industry, you've been sounding the alarm. I think for a long time that the railroads have been squeezing them and everybody else, putting profit way above safety. In the communities I represent, who these tracks run right through

our neighborhoods, like a lot of folks in this country. Yeah, I think this is an incredible kind of moment here where we have seen the rail workers from long time. I mean, if you read any of the reporting you know to twenty eleven, twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, you know they're saying, you know, they're cutting corners, they're taking safety risks. If we're going to squarely look at how something like this happens, I mean, I want you to talk to

us about it. Seems like you cannot trust these industries to regulate themselves. Absolutely not. And I think the rail industry is a good example. For years, they've been doing everything they can to squeeze every penny of profit out of their operations as they can. Precisions scheduled railroading PSR has been a doctrine. Wall Street loves it. Right. You lengthen the trains, you reduce the staffing, you reduce the inspections,

You do everything you can to choose profits. And the people who pay for that are the workers and the communities like the ones I represent. When these trains run through our towns and our neighborhoods, and ultimately and eventually and unfortunately, the rail and you have what happens at East Palestine to my neighbors in Beaver County where there are toxic chemicals released. So this this idea that railroads or any other other industry, if left to their own devices,

will just keep us safe. It's it's crap. I don't know where else we need to see you to know that. If we're thinking about the lack of railroad regulation and railroad accidents, imagine what's happening that we can't even see in technology. Yeah, again, you listen to the workers in this industry or others. I sat down with a union

carman in my district. There's a rail yard the north from southern owners of my district that I was talking with him about you know, what do you see on the ground, what do you and your co workers experience? And he told a pretty basic story to me about how much time they have to inspect a car. Not that long ago, it was three minutes a car. Years before that, it was as long as something like five minutes.

They have one minute to inspect each of these cars, and the reality is that's not enough time, and so they either do a half ass job or they do the best they can in a minute or they risk losing their job. And again that puts workers in the position of not being able to do their job well enough to protect us, and it puts all of us a risk. And it's the same thing over and over, certainly in this industry and with this railroad. Yeah, so

I want you to explain the landscape. Is Norfolk Southern kind of the train company when it comes to hazardous materials? Are there others? What percentage of this situation did they kind of control? I don't think it's unique to them. And given some of the common carriage rules, you know, the railroads have to take the materials that come to that subject to whatever rules we've got. So it's not unique to Norfolk Southern, which means this and likely will

happen in other places where it's not just that. But they're a big player in terms of tracks and their footprint in my neck of the woods, in my district. I mean, they own bridges, they've got lines, they've got a rail yard that runs through my district. So they're

they're here in western Pennsylvania. And with the consolidation in this industry, which again a similar trend across a heck of a lot of industries, fewer and fewer of the big railroads to deal with, which means they have more and more power over all of us, over Washington, over their workers. Do you think that it makes sense full

make buy backs? Stock buybacks harder for companies to be able to do, Like, it seems to me like a lot of what we're seeing with these consolidations and the you know, is there's a real incentive from these companies to do stock buybacks and a very little downside. Yeah, and look, this country used to treat stock buybacks as

market manipulation. Right. Norfolk Southern's a good example. You know, in the last couple decades, you know, they've cut their workforce around a third, and at the same time they've pushed out to their shareholders buy backs and dividends forty five percent increase with that money, right, So these companies are investing and enriching themselves, and they're doing the expense of paying their workers and investing in safety. That's again

not unique to this railroad. It's a problem, and it's a problem that isn't going to be changed by changing the hearts to make executives less greedy. Right, It's going to be changed by changing the rules in the laws. I got lesson for us, right, And that's what I wanted to ask you, was the stock buybacks are really a case of unregulated financial actions, right. I think so, And I think again, we don't. We don't fix this

just by wishing it to change. We got to have concrete action in the Congress, rulemaking in the administration, and in concert with each other. Now we get to this very exciting bipartisan rail safety bill. Tell us about it. Yeah, look, I'm proud to be partnering up with a Republican Nick Loloda, fellow Navy guy from New York. We're introducing the Railway Safety Act. It's a House companion of the bipartisan Senate bill that my Senators Fetterman and Casey introduced with Jade

Vance and Shared Brown. It shows there is biparts and interest, I think, and standing up to this industry and make it safer. There's a lot the bill does around safety requirements, staffing levels. I mean, look, the railroads have lobbied against a two person staffing requirement for these trains. It's crazy. It also adds stiffer penalties when they break the rules. I mean the penalties now are weak, and I think that's an important piece of it. So it does a lot.

I think it's something we need because these types of derailments they're going to continue. I mean, they happen in the order of hundreds of them a year. And if you'd all change the industry, we'd all change the rules around how they operate. They are not going to do it themselves. And so I think it's important that we're able to do this in a buy partisan way because look, I said, in the House Representatives, where the Republicans are the majority, if you want to get rail safety reform,

you got to get some Republicans on board. I'm I'm glad Nick's doing this with me. I think we can build this out and hopefully get it done. But Republicans, I mean, I just want to play Devil's advocate here for a second. Republicans, especially these New York Republicans who barely won and many of whom won because Democratic Party of New York fucked up. I mean, they have every reason. Again,

we know Republicans doing again. I'm very partisan, so I can say this hate doing any kind of governing, but I just want to point out there's no incentive to let these railroads get away with it. No, And look, if you you know you represent an area where the tracks come through. If this happens in your district, or this hurts your people, you're going to feel that pressure. And you should because one of our basic jobs here is to make sure our government can keep people safe.

You know, the tracks in East Palestine look like a heck of a lot like neighborhoods all over, certainly Western Pennsylvania. In this country, they run right through people's backyards, they run right through town. Yea, this will happen in other places if we don't change this industry. It's going to happen, and I hope not be worse than this one was. And this was pretty bad. So I think you know that the incentives for any member, whatever your party are.

You gotta do something here because this will continue if we don't change this industry and make them operate more safely and frankly, make them pay more when they screw up. So I just want to I want to ask you about how is it going over and East Palestine. Look, people, and I should be pretty clear about my constituents are just on the state line and Darlington Township right across from East Palestine. So I want to speak for the folks in Ohio, but what I hear from my constituents

people are mad at the railroad. They are nervous and worried about their health, right, their air, their water, their soil. You've got a lot of farms in that part of Pennsylvania. Farmers are worried about crops or cattle or whatever the case may be, and whether, if whether one there's going to be an issue in terms of health and quality, or even if there isn't, whether people aren't going to

want to buy their stuff because of the stigma. And that's a real concern, that's a real business impact for farmers, for small businesses all over this part of my state and certainly in Ohio. And you know, there's not an easy answer for how to make everyone whole. But the part that I do not stray from is that this railroad has to make everybody whole. And there are costs well beyond just the obvious ones of well, we had

to evacuate and pay for a hotel bill. Well, you know you're going to have if there are issues around water testing, air testing for years to come if there are mitigation efforts that are going to take a long time, if you have business impacts in your farm or otherwise, those are not short term, easy costs. And I don't want any world where they're as a railroad like nor Frolk Southern it gets to do this and walk away and leave folks holding the bag. No way. Yeah that's right,

and it's incredible. So what's the meat of the spill. Well, the meat of this bill is a bunch of things. You know, we require that two persons staffing, which is really important to know. Secretary boota judge is working at Department Transportation. Do that through rulemaking. I want us to codify it. You know, it gives the Secretary authority to change the requirements. And what is a hazardous material like vinyl chloride which wasn't considered EE hazard and thus not

eye hazard. Flana will train where there are stricter rules around speed and breaking. This requires more advanced notification to local communities and states. And you've got something hazardus coming through. I mean, there are things in here to reduce the risk. And these wheel bearing failures, which seems like was was what caused the derailment and he's Palestine. Those detectors that didn't do their job, and they're more. There are more pieces of this, but the piece I want to hold

in on too. The penalties for violations go up substantially under this legislation. You know, they were very weak in some cases go up tenfold if not more, depending on the size of the business here. So I think that has to be part of this, and beyond just you know, my bill, things like what the administration did where the EPA now has this order holding Norfolk Southern account for all the cleanup cost. That has to be part of

what we're doing, and they're going to be. There's going to be and there is private litigation against the railroad, I'm sure. So there has to be a mix of not just a week and do in the Congress to change the industry, but executive action and private action to hold this railroad accountable. Yeah, and the environmental catastrophe here seems much larger than what is being sort of cop

too right now. Well, I think that to me is why it's so important that we are doing all of the testing and things to understand the scope of the problem and what the heck we can do to mitigate it for my constituents and for their neighbors and East Palestine.

You know, this cannot be the railroad cleans up gets the tracks going again and issues some you know, small checks to people like that's not adequate, right, And you know, you if there is contamination and if there are mitigation efforts that have to happen for years to come, well, you know that's going to affect people's property values for a long time. It's going to affect those small businesses and farms, and affect people's health for their lifetimes. Right.

So we can't even begin to understand how we make folks whole until we understand exactly what the risks are for people. And you know that was why we pushed to have not just the EPA, but the CDC there to understand if there are things we're picking up. You know, folks have reported publicly about symptoms they felled the aftermath, so there are you know, there are real risks here. And you know, I don't want us to ever be whitewashing what's happened in the cleanup, because it's it's not

over and we're in this for the long haul. Yeah. One of the things that We had Aaron Brockvitch on this podcast and she talked about animals dying. Yeah, that even that weekend. I mean, we saw in public reporting really quickly a lot of fish right in the waterways. Its palastine. And you know, I've talked with farmers out there who you know. I thought, the guy who's got cattle, he seemed he seemed fine with where his animals work.

But I come back to, even if that's if there isn't anything wrong, you still risk that someone does want to buy your beef because coming from this area. But I also think you risk if the beef. I mean, we don't even know what the tail on the beef looks like. Right, they eat the dead fish. I mean they obviously don't eat the dead fish, but they drink the water, you know, I mean, they just could go anywhere. Right.

To me, it gets back to there are a lot of questions we still have to answer, and that requires substantial investment for testing and resources for a long time. And that not just that we identify this stuff. Can we figure out how to mitigate and help people be made whole? And those to me, are not cost the public should be bearing. That's this railroad right exactly. I

mean just incredible stuff. Do you have anything else you want to sort of talk about that's happening in your district that is will be just super illuminating for listeners of fast politics. I would love to And it's a little off topic from Real Safe. It's the biggest newspaper in my region, in my district, the Pittsburgh Post. Is that the workers they have been on strike for months. They have gone without pay raises for more than fifteen years,

there without healthcare. There's been violence where some workers on the pick and line were sent to the hospital. It's

a brutal fight. They've been really basically standing up for dignity on the job in a way that it's sad they got to be out in the pick of mine doing this, but here we are, and so I'm trying to always bring attention to their struggle and make sure folks are paying attention that this is probably happening in a local media landscape and lots of cities and towns around this country where you've seen big papers and big groups buy up small outlets and gut newsrooms and gun

print operations and the rest and Phittsburgh Post Becausett's owners have been no different there. Yeah, really important local news is something very near and dear to my heart. Thank you so much, Congressman, thank you for joining us. Yeah, Molly, thanks for having me on. Molly Jung Fast Jesse Cannon. Trump slawyers were deceived by him. I don't get it. The sums out of character. ABC News had a big scoop.

Special Council claims Trump deliberately misled his attorneys about classified documents. Can I just say I think that the beginning of the problem here is you are a Trump attorney, right, do you like getting paid? I mean you obviously don't because you are a Trump attorney, and also you like criming.

So any way, again, this is one of these scoops where it's like, obviously, we're only learning a little bit of the story, right, because if that means that the idea here is that Howell, who's the judge in any sealed filing, ordered that Evan Corcoran, one of Trump's many attorneys, should comply with a grand jury subpoena for testimony on six separate lines of inquiry over which he had previously

asserted attorney client privilege. So it sounds like Jack Smith has a number of possible veins that he could take here against Trump again. Trump responded in a very trumpy fashion with lots of all caps. Shame on fake news ABC for broadcasting Capitol illegal capital leaked false allegations from a never Trump now former chief judge. So we'll see how this plays out. Not the purple walk we were expecting on Tuesday, but certainly something makes our moment of fuckoray.

That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to your 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.