Rep. Ruben Gallego, Jay Willis & Jared Holt

millionaires even more power over politics. But first we have the host of posting through it, the Institute for Strategic Dialogues, Jared Holt Jared Holt's Fast Politics. Happy to have you here, Yeah, good to talk again. How have you been the usual? I'm very conflicted about this Diamond thing. She died. Trump spoke at her funeral. By the way, did you see that he truthed it was too long. I didn't realize

that he had posted that. I he said something to that effect of like, oh, they said fifteen minutes in and out here, I am stuck here right three and a half hours. I mean, that's kind of the relatable content we crave from our elected because I have been at events where I was told it was fifteen minutes and it just went on and on. Though it is not a great way to honor the dad, the whole event was really weird, Like I can't possibly imagine uh,

you know, dying. And then my best friend who I make Facebook videos with, gets up there and it's just like the one world government is going to kill you with vaccines? What a way to go out. I just gotta say, Oh man, the thing that I'm struck by is so there were a lot of conspiracies surrounding the death of Diamond. The one that struck me as the most ridiculous was basically the idea that someone had shed the vaccine on her, a famous thing that happens all

the time. But I mean Will Sommer had tweeted out like a a sort of thread of like, but they were never they were never vaccinated, those two right allegedly. I mean, it could could have been a Tucker Carlson situation right where it's you know, Tucker Carlson won't say if he got the vaccine, but I think we all know that dude is like quadruple vaxed. I mean, I don't know, I don't I don't know if she was

vaccinated or not. But if we believe them and what they said they were not, I don't know that you can be unvaccinated and then still somehow try to commence your followers who died at the vaccine when your whole stick has been anti vax Yeah. I mean they were

really promoting the phrase like died suddenly. They would pick up these instances of seemingly healthy people, athletes, younger people, I mean, just random people that were otherwise healthy who had sudden deaths and you know, speculated on their vaccination status. They were really big on that. And I think it is, you know, very par for the course that the grift couldn't even stop at a funeral, right, that Silk still had to go up there and in this eulogy do

the same thing like the funeral was content. The content train never stops, and you can't just like set aside the narratives and your content for a little bit. That's not how you know the Diamond and Silk Facebook page works. It's not how you get the attention of a president. There is no world in which this ever stops. I just want to get into this for a second. Died

suddenly is now an anti vax or phrase. Not in all parts of the anti vax are world, but it is a very common at the very least, we can say it's like a common sentiment, right, it's a common

talking point. You know, for the last year straight, if not more, I've seen anti vax influencers and commentators repeatedly point at these, you know, instances where you know, unfortunately a person happened to die suddenly, and you know, kind of baselessly speculating, especially if it had to do with any kind of heart issues or anything like that, of the vaccine being to blame, when really, you know, the people making these kind of claims have no way of

knowing that they're just exploiting a person's death to you know, try to make a point and try to make a buck in most cases. Are you a little surprised that this has still gone on? Like, you know, I was thinking about this because like Republicans are um. You know, Ron de Santa's especially fighting against vaccine mandates, but there aren't mandates right most places. You know, he's fighting against mask mandates that don't really exist. I mean, I guess

it's kind of surprising. It's I don't know, it's COVID was such uh like unique and I think sort of

red pilling moment in Republican politics. It was this sort of universal war drum to bang against government, and you know, the conservative movement had been you know, looking for something to fill that void, especially you know, before election, but then especially afterward, and you know, COVID stuff, whether it's vaccinations or before that it was mask mandates have been really reliable in getting conservative activists to turn up places and to you know, I assume contribute to campaigns and

to get involved in different respects. Um So at this point, I think it's just kind of cannon. Now, it's like something that politicians perceive as a thing that they have to acknowledge. And uh, sort of like pander too is the you know, desires or the battle cries of people who are still obsessed with vaccines. And I guess it makes kind of sense too. I mean, some of the rhetoric we saw around vaccines, you know, was just apocalypse

dick too. And if I actually believe that the vaccine is like part of a New World Order conspiracy to destroy the human race. That's pretty fucking intense. I don't know what to tell you that. That's pretty you know, I don't think you know, even though these influencers, you probably don't believe the ship and just move on. Like if you actually believe that, you probably don't move on from that. And I'm sure politicians and stuff recognize that

reality at least somewhat. No, they've definitely opened Pandora's box. And how they close it? None of them? No, right, because I mean this is like the problem with trumps Um too, write none of them. You know, they've gotten in bed with these evangelicals, but they can't, they can't get out of it, so they have you know, they've gotten them painted themselves into a corner. Yeah, and it might not even be a corner that some of them

are really interested in getting out of. You know, all throughout history, inspiring fear in the masses is like a really great way to get power without having to argue. Anything you're gonna do is going to benefit anybody. If you can scare the crap out of people and say, look at this terrible thing. I'm not that thing. In fact, I hate that thing too. It sounds very silly and simplistic, but historically it works. I don't know, it's it's kind of depressing to think about. I guess a bunch of

Oathkeepers have now all been found guilty. I mean, it continues to be a scenario where the people who were actually sort of we're, you know, doing the things that they thought the Republican electeds wanted them to do, are getting punished, but the Republican electeds are not. Yeah, exactly.

My colleague Eric Leavey and I just published a piece at Institute for Strategic Dialogue today that's all about accountability, and in it we kind of make this point where, you know, these trials for seditious conspiracy against you know, members of the Oathkeepers or members of the Proud Boys are arguably a step above the general bulk of the prosecutions the d o J has brought against people for participating the Capital riot. UM. So it's like kind of

getting at the next level. But I think it's really just almost impossible to ignore that the d o J hasn't seemed to express any sort of interest in applying that same source scrutiny towards the people at the top. UM. I think That's a really common criticism of the American justice system, which is, you know, when you get high enough in American society, whether that is political power or wealth,

the rules don't work the same for you anymore. And until that's leveled out, it's hard to say that we have had full accountability for something like the Capital riot, because accountability has to be applied consistently Otherwise it requires the question of, well, who are these rules for if they're not for everyone. The thing I'm so struck by, though, is this idea that these people are going to jail

some of them for very long time. And whether or not they got direct orders a lot of times, we won't ever know, but they certainly consider themselves to be acting on the behest of these electives who told them things like go out there and kick ass. Are you seeing anything where those people are like, we got screwed

or now? It kind of various case to case. I've certainly seen a couple of instances reported out in the press where people have sort of doubled down on their views, you know, believing the government was out to get them and destroy the world and punish Trump supporters in the

YadA YadA YadA, it's just confirmation of their suspicions. And then other people like I forget the fellow's name who testified during the January six committee, hearing's kind of coming forward and expressing regret that he got caught up in the moment and that you know, he fell for this

lie that Trump was selling. You know, I think skeptics would ask how much of this is sort of a convenient defense that entertains prosecutors that would try to get more serious charges again them, you know a little bit of like, oh, woe is me, I'm looking at me, I'm so foolish. Whoops. Maybe there's a theory there that a defense would argue that to try to soften the strike that the prosecutor would try to lay down on them.

But to some degree, I think it is kind of apparently true on its face, you know, if you're gonna take an honest assessment of it. So, you know, like all things, I think it exists in probably some sort

of gray area between absolutes. We have. The big kind of fight in Maga world is between Ben Shapiro and Stephen Crowder, and it involves fifty million dollars and a contract discuss working class hero Stephen Crowder turning his nose up at more money than I'll ever make in my life of us well ever, I mean, I'm fifty million dollars. I mean, come on, man, you know it's this four year contract. So the Daily Wire. I think the most

public figure out of the Daily Wire is Been Shapiro. Um, it's run by this guy named Jeremy Boring, which is also a pretty great name for someone who runs something like The Daily Wire, Right, But does this mean the rest of them are making fifty million dollars? That's what I wondered too, Like how much money is the Daily Wire really bringing in? And then, of course where is

it coming from? Because there's no way even you know, if you get the most devoted like Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro fans to buy a coffee cup that says liberal tears on it, like, you could not sell enough of those to fund one fifty million dollar contract, let alone what the rest of these guys are getting paid. I mean, that's why I have a little bit of skepticism about this whole thing, and I wonder if maybe

it was just the whole thing is bullshit. This group has not tended to be able to pull off something like that, because they're not geniuses. But you could see a world where this was just sort of like I mean, because remember the Daily Wire is always doing things that sort of juice their numbers and make them seem more successful than they are. Oh yeah, the amount of money they dump into Facebook ads alone is just outrageous. Yeah. Do you think there's a world in which this is

just like a complete fake thing. Maybe that would be some pretty hardcore devotion to the bit and I would have no choice but to respect it. Yeah, you know, nominate these guys for oscars, you know, next year's Big Picture or whatever that awards called. Yeah, yeah, I mean, just completely insane. So the other big controversy and maga world involves gas stoves. By the way, I have a gas stove, and it's obviously better to cook on than electric scoop stove, but I don't want my kids to

get brain damage. So in a very cathartic sense, I enjoy cooking on gas more. I mean everybody does. But but in the same sense, it has become ted Cruise's come and get it right, a tone that these guys usually reserve for like uh, machian guns. After schools full of children are killed, They're like coming at my stove.

And like, I had Amanda More on my podcast this week and we talked a little bit about it, and you know, she brought up the fact that I guess the question, like when was the last time any of these guys cooked their own food? I would like to know the answer to this those questions. Right, Yeah, I think that's a good call. I mean, I just have trouble imagining Ted Cruise cooking Heidi a nice dinner. But maybe who knows. I mean, who am I to say that Ted is not a domestic god in his own home? Yeah.

What I was disappointed that I didn't see was like a mashup of cooking video nightmare clips where it's like the suburban mom being like, oh, I'm making a stuffed Derito's chicken breast parfait or something. You know, Yeah, that sounds amazing. You know. I wanted so bad to see one of these like coming take my gas stove guys to be like you'll never stop this and cook one of those nightmare meals. Yeah. I figured statistically it just had to happen, But I haven't seen it, yet it

seems like it's coming. The one last question I have for you is, we're seeing a lot of like fracturing in Magot world. For example, like this r n C fight, one of the candidates for r n C chair has both Never Trumpers and Charlie Kirk. I mean, we're seeing like a lot of strange bad fellows. We're seeing that in like candidates and in Congress where you have people like Matt Gates fighting against people like Marjorie Taylor Green. I mean, how is mag and world dealing with this

or are they just taking instride. For all the talks of in fighting and how dramatic it may look on its face, it's pretty normal for political movements to do this during a period of transition. You know, I have observed the political right for most of my career and they have done this every time. So like when Trump came into off us, there was a big power jockey to say, you know who was going to be the MAGA contingency in Congress, or you know what think tank

was going to represent the Trump train of thought. Um So, in the same sense that that happened when he came into office and people started you know, jockeying for power

for themselves. It also, I think kind of makes sense that, you know, as Trump leaves office and is in the public spotlight less, that the people that had obtained power in that way, or people that were seeking power in that way would sort of do a heal turn, or not a heal turn, but like a pivot and try to solidify some of that power or try to exert that power in a way that cements the status that they may have been able to accomplish for themselves in

that era. So I don't think it's terribly unusual. I don't think it's going to like rip the place to the ground. I am curious this year to see though, if Trump is able, you know, if he does come back online and you know, as manages to grab the news headlines every day, will he, after everything, be able to re emerge as the leader of the GOP and I think he still is kind of the de facto leader, but he's not in public life as much anymore. Or will someone's sense of vacuum there and try to step

into that vacuum. The power struggle at the very top I think is going to be the most interesting because over the last five or six years, the GOP has kind of rearranged itself into the Trump Party, and if there's something after Trump, you know, in the near future at least, I'll be really curious to see what that looks like. Yeah, me too, I mean curious and also depressed, horrified. Yeah,

Jared Holt, I hope you will come back. Thanks for having Congressman Ruben Diego represents Arizona's third district and is running from the United States Senate in Arizona. Welcome back to Fast Pole at Techs. Ruben Diego, Hi, how you doing. Do you have something to tell us? Do you have something to announce? I'm having a baby girl, ly eight. Oh my god. Congratulations, thank you, thank you, And I'm running for Senate for Arizona. Wait, I'm back to the

baby girl. This will be your second kid. You're running for Senate in Arizona. Talk to us about why you decided to run against the worst person in the world. I'm going to go that far. Was it the performance at Dabos? No. Look, I'm a very lucky man, Molly. I've told you about my my background, and I'm very appreciative everything this country has given me. I'm not even supposed to be here in many sense of the word.

But because of you know, hard work, my support from my family, support from teachers, support from the crazy, weird government that people are all afraid of, I was actually able to live the American dream. And I'm still in the living American dream. And I feel that there's people that are still you know, want to believe in that, but you need to actually have, you know, people that backed them, people actually fight for them, and people that actually will go to the seat for five to fight

for them. And let me tell you what, Cinema is not doing that, and she has not done that for a while. And there's no way that you know, she's inspiring people to even believe in any way that she is there to fight for the little people and not for you know, the big money interests. I was thinking about that video of her at Davos swearing for vest or maybe a bath matt that where she was bragging about keeping the filibuster and her work doing that. Could

do the people of Arizona ever benefit from keeping the filibuster? No, because the filipbuster really has become a tool of obstruction. And let's just go back to Davos. Right, is there a problem with her being Davos? Maybe not necessarily right. I've never been a Davos. Don'tquit understand what it is. But that's fine. You were high fiving Mansion for using the filipbuster to kill the William Rights Act on m

Okay Weekend. She wasn't in Arizona. She wasn't in all the l ok events that we have and Martin Luther King Weekends extremely important Arizona because we actually have unfortunately not a great history with Martin Luther King Weekend in Arizona. We got boycotted for many years because we wouldn't pass it.

It was just a lot of bad things. And you know, cinema decides to number one skip I'm okay we can again, which I think she has for many years, but then to high five killing the boy and Rights Act named after her so called like who she calls her friend John Lewis using a you know, Civil War era rule. This is just ridiculous. All that being said that, you know, I think she actually gives more and more reasons all

the time for this type of campaign. Yeah, I want to ask you about this because some of the criticism I saw was like, well, someone who's on the left can't beat Cinema, but Cinema actually ran as a very lefty can today. I mean, the problem is that Cinema can't win. She can run, and if I step out and for some weird reason don't run, she's still gonna lose because she's alienated everybody, because nobody trusts her in Arizona.

She's terrible. She's taking some horrible positions, and she has really decided to back some of the some of the kind of but not the best entities in the country. When it was the time for us to negotiate lower drug prices, instead of saying I'm gonna go help negotiate lower drug prices, she went to negotiate on behalf the pharmaceutical lobby, which, by the way, they have a lot of lobbyists on Capitol Hill, but they don't need one

more that's paid by tax dollars. You know. When it was time to like try to pass you know, the Inflation Reduction Act, and it looked like the you know, ultra rich and private equity and hedge ones were about to get taxed a little more, she held up the bill until they was there was a car v out for this really small population of people that mostly don't live in Arizona. So she has broken the trust with

the voters of Arizona and it's not coming back. And it doesn't matter what she changes to she could change the Republican tomorrow, she's still not going to be successful. I mean, she basically is a Republican, though at this point, I don't know. I think at least Republicans have some some you know, moral values that they'll stick to, right, I don't. I wouldn't go that far, but I do

think it is interesting. The polling shows that you definitely have a path and that actually Cinema really takes from Republican voters as much as she takes liberal voters at this point. I mean, our our polling shows that she

will take more from Republicans than Democrats. And also, once we run a full campaign where people all across Arizona get to know my story, my history, and my dedication to service to this country, I think we're going to actually be able to hold a lot more Democrats than she's going to be able to take in terms of and she'd be she end up taking more Republicans in the end, you're in this very interesting place. You're young, congressperson,

You're ambitious. I mean, explain to us sort of what you think you could be doing for Arizona when you

get to the Senate. I think the most important thing you can do, and you know I'm not anything special, is to just be a servant and just listen to your constituents and actually open your ears, uh and go to places that sometimes you maybe are not even wanted, and go to meetings where you need to hear why people maybe are disagreeing with you, or at least go to any meeting and have a public meeting like Cinema hasn't had in the last three or four years, and

explain why you are taking your position. So at a minimum, what I'm doing is I'm gonna be a representative of Arizon that's going to be available. Number one. Number two, I do have an experience in background that I cannot let go. It is part of who I am. I grew up poor, I worked hard. I've lived the American dream. You know, I've served my country. You know I saw some hard times in combat. I am, you know, a survivor of and and someone who thrive a survivor and

Thriver of Pte. Those experiences make me who I am, and I cannot go to the Senate and deny that. And I think that's sometimes we need people like that. We don't need necessarily all these perfect people that don't remember you know how it feels to struggle, how it feels to figure out, you know, whether you're gonna be able to pay your grocery bill this month or utility bill or can you pay your car bill uh and your mortgage the same month. I understand that, and as

a matter of fact, millions of Americans understand that. Unfortunately, a lot of politicians don't understand that, and when they're operating in the Senate, they think more of the top one percent first than they do of the you know, the bottom of this country. It is incredibly weird because Kirsten Cinema was like very I mean just that what happened to her. She also came from a very poor family,

but she had this kind of strange lobbyist meltdown. But anyway, one of the things you did serve just and I saw that you're actually close friends with my favorite Jason Candor, and I was happy to see that, and you're both young veterans. How do you think that will help you? I mean a lot of the Senate is about making decisions like that. How do you think your experience in the Rock War and will affect that? Look, I think when I was not an officer in the Rack War,

I was enlisted. And not only was I enlisted, I wasn't even high enlisted. I was basically as low as you can get in terms of rank. You know, my job was to be a rifleman, and not only that, I had to carry extra AMMO and barrels for the machine gunner. That's what I did, and you know, I didn't complain. I did my job. I thought I did

my job well and everything that came with it. One of the things I do now in Congress is that I bring the perspective of that man or woman at that rank, because when all these generals and all these like big policy thinkers are thinking about war, they think about it from the level of general or you know, or a colonel or something that when in fact, most of the time everything that happened starts with a very scared eighteen or nineteen year old man or woman, you know,

having to do the first move and I've been in those situations, and I want to make sure that people remember that when we start making some very heavy decisions when it comes to our military personnel. And I certainly have done that in Congress and the House representatives, and I'm going to do that in the Senate. Also. You also, I mean, when you're in those lower ranks you have, you're more likely to get killed, right Yeah, unfortunately. I mean that's the one third of everybody in my company

was either killed or wounded. That's unfortunately sometimes happens. The thing I was struck by with your story was you raised your siblings. You had a single mother. I was also, you know, I mean, I just wonder you know how that informs your Senate candidacy in later career. Raising children when you're a teenager is not an easy thing because you yourself are a child. I had to grow up

very quickly. I had an after school job. I also had to be a role model to my sisters, and I also at some point had to be a teenager. And actually, you know, you know, whatever that experience is and something I had to give, and so I gave up I think my teenage life in order to be something for my family. It showed me one thing more than anything else, that in order for you to be a leader, you have to sacrifice. And I did it and I probably did it for my family, and my

family I feel is better off because of that. It also taught me a lot about, you know, being accountable. You you know, when you're doing these types of when when you're a leader in your family, were a leader in your community, when you're leader in anything. Uh, you also have to realize that it's not a title that's given, it's something that's earned. You know. I had to learn early on that my sisters weren't going to respect me, weren't going to listen to me if I wasn't going

to be a good role model to them. And the same thing holds with anything in politics, Like people aren't going to respect people are gonna follow you, people aren't going to try to work with you if they don't at a core trust who you are and you haven't earned that. But enough about Kevin McCarthy. I want to ask you, you are in Congress right now, how is George Santos? What is he like? What's he up to? Good old Jorgey? I mean, what is happening. Do people

hang out with him? You know, Jorge lives, uh not, but probably lives because he sleeps in his office. I'm sure like the other Republicans, his office is next door to mine. Oh my god, Oh my god, I'm definitely coming to visit you. Wait, So have you hung out with him at all? Seen him on the Oh? Yeah, so we are office. We share an internal door, like you know, like, oh my god, I opened the door and I kind of go out and hang out with him a little bit and I have a little coffee

to see how he's doing. We talked about all those multiple personalities job. Do you really have a door? I asked him. I asked him for like some stock tips as you used to work at JP Morgan. Oh, yeah, it's great, it's great. Do you really have a door? We really actually have a door between our office and their office, but we don't obviously we don't open it because you know, our office as different offices. But I guess we could at some point for you know, ships

and giggles. As I used to say, that is terrifying. What do you want our listeners to know about you? You know? That is sort of like I mean, I feel like I know you and I don't really know you, but I mean I know you know I barely I met you like a few times, but I always feel like I know you because you just like very personable. But I mean, what do you want our listeners to know about you? Look? I am who I am, and you know I have my rough edges, but you always

get the straight, straight answer for me. Uh, And I'm always gonna be fighting for the little guy. Sometimes that gets you in trouble. Sometimes people don't want someone that's just there for the little guy. But I know where I'm going and I know what I want to do, but I help So you know, people that want to help me out, please go to diego for Arizona dot com and and give us up because we're not going to be getting donations from the hedge fund managers. We're

not gonna give donations from private equity. We're gonna really rely on like a lot of our donors. Yeah that's right, Oh, Ruben, thank you so much for joining us. I hope you'll come back. Keep in finding me back. I will come back. I know you. Our dear listeners are very busy and you don't have time to sort through the hundreds of pieces of pundentry each week. This is why every week I put together a newsletter of my five favorite articles on politics. If you enjoy the podcast, you will love

having this in your inbox every Friday. So sign up at Fast Politics pod dot com and click the tab to join our mailing list. That's fast Politics pod dot com. Jay Willis is the editor of Balls and Strikes. Welcome too, Fast Politics, Welcome back. I don't know Jay Wells from Balls and Strikes talk to us, leave all of us in. This is great. Yeah, he leaves in some of this stuff that really I sound like an idiot, but it's okay, my,

that's my brand. So we look forward to this being plated at the r n C. I am here to talk to you about betto O'Rourke and a very interesting case that involves dark money and Greg Abbott discuss. Yeah, that's like a we're three fits of the way to our Fox and News bingo, right there. Yeah, let's hear a baby. Yeah. So this is a story of betto O'Rourke and as I understand, his close personal friend Kelsey Warren.

Kelsey is one of these like mega rich cartoonish Texas oil and gas guys who donated a cool million dollars to Greg Abbott's gubernatorial and payne in which Abbott the incumbent beat should we say, former Texas congressman and noted election losing enthusiast. Yeah, betto Rourke. By the way, pipeline billionaire is having fun with oil bust. And then there's

a picture of him with a shovel. Yes continued, Yes, the million dollars to Greg Abbott is is Kelsey Warren's largest donation in a state, in a Texas political race, biggest check he's ever written. And you've got to remember, just before we get to Betto, that this election is happening in the long tail of power crisis in Texas. If if Ted Cruz flying to Cancun during a pandemic while his constituents are freezing to death, rings any bells,

that's the story we're talking about here. Oh wait, so he wants to sue Betto for Bettos making Ted Cruise fly out of Cancun. I wouldn't put logic like that patch Greg Abbott, Right, how dare Betto do that? But no, not quite. But that's like an important part of the

background here, so that that power crisis. Greg Abbott and other Republicans they blamed that on if memory serves wind turbines, and the actual culprits for that were the results of sort of all of the the policies Republicans know and love, dependence on oil and gas, deregulation of those industries in Texas, and the failure to invest in climate change prep because you don't believe in it. So here's what Betto comes in. And I want to shout out the reporting of Jordan

Yule who wrote about this on his sub stack. A sub stack is called I Hate It Here and Never Want to Leave, which is a great title. And also I'm getting that tattooed on my face once we're done recording. Yeah, but if you'll never regret a face tattoo, never, that's what I hear. So Warren's big donation to Gray Abbott comes two weeks after Greg Abbott signs a law with a provision that let's fossil fuels companies like Warren's out

of certain winterization requirements. They don't need it. What recent events would prompt us to think that those might be important? Yeah, absolutely none, and certainly not that frozen power gad where all those people frozen to tess in Texas. Right, So, Beto on the campaign trail, he of course cuts an ad where he talks about the Abbot tax, which is what he refers to as increases in utility bills that

he associated with Greg Abbott's policy. And the key line, and I'm quoting here from the from the ad, the profiteers who made billions off of grid failure are being allowed to hike your bills by a governor who they gave millions. He's implying that Kelsey's million dollar donation was in exchange for, or in recognition of the winterization exemption. Now, like, maybe you already spotted the egregious and frankly offensive error

in betos ad. A governor who they gave millions. Obviously that should be whom, because governor is the object of the sentence, right right, exactly, not the subject. Thank you for clearing that up. No wonder that explains why didn't win. I agree, because Texans are a stickler for grammar, famously high up on that stuff. Yeah yeah, but Kelsey Warren,

he was upset about something else. He said that Beto, by cutting this ad had accused him of bribery, corruption and extortion based on his and again I will quote here perfectly legal campaign contribution to the candidate of his choosing end quote. He says that this caused him mental anguish, and he is suing Beto O'Rourke for the contents of this campaign. Ad. Now, I want to be a little careful here because I don't want Kelsey Warren giving this

podcast like the full Peter Teel treatment. Yeah, yeah, me too. I don't want you to get sued. But if you do get sued, I plan to take the other guys. No, I'm just getting going. So First Amendment lawyers will refer to lawsuits like this as slaps, a strategic lawsuit against public participation, and the goal is not really to like win, but to discourage people like Beto from public criticism by making them afraid of getting dragged into court for god

knows how many years and God knows at what price. Now, because there is this thing called the First Amendment, many states have enacted laws that actually just limit your ability to uh, not to file slaps, I guess, but to make them as punitive as they're intended to be. There's like there's procedural outs. You can you know, file emotion to dismiss or emotion to strike and say, look, your honor, this is a this is a matter of public concern,

like this is speech. Um, this shouldn't go any further, but like this is like if you're listening to this and you think, I'm sorry Beto is getting sued over a campaign ad, and you think this is objectively like batch it insane, Like that's correct, Like candidates say all kinds of ship on the campaign trail, many like usually frankly with far less factual support than Beto had. Here, Like, we're at a point right now where Donald Trump is

getting ready to run for president again. If we're going to allow candidates to sue other candidates for falsehoods in campaign ads, like Trump is going to be broke by Labor Day, Like this is not tenable. I also want to put this talk about the broader political and cultural context, because this case really unites to sort of through lines

of conservative thought. First, the idea that money is speech. Right, That's how we get Citizens United UM, which dealt with federal campaign finance reform that equated money with speech under the First Amendment, that's how we get take cases like Ted Cruz the FEC, a more recent Supreme Court case that makes it easier to effectively bribe politics atians. That's

how we get cases like McDonald the United States. I think that case is seven years old now, um which narrowed the scope of what bribery of a public official means. In the first place, it's a line of thinking that gives very rich people the chance to basically infuse as much of their money as they want into the political process. But the second thing conservatives love is the idea that there should be no consequences for speech. Money is speech

and no consequences for speech. Citizens United fueled the rise of dark money, the political spending where the spender doesn't have to identify themselves. I also think it's just sort of underlies the entire right wing reaction to cancel culture right the idea that speech is only quote unquote free if the speaker suffers no consequences for it. So this case combines these two dynamics. Money a speech. Kelsey Warren is exercising his First Amendment rights and the government can't

stop him. If you're wondering, how did this guy don't a million dollars to a single political candidate. Doesn't that violate some kind of campaign finance limit? Jokes on you, Texas doesn't have any I would hope not. Yeah. Um. But also the message of this case is that your speech speaking about people who speak with their their very

thick wallets might end up landing you in court. And Jordan Yule has a great quote that he pulls from Kelsey Warren's lawyer quote he wrote that check in private, if he even wrote it himself in the quote, and the idea that the fact that Kelsey Warren wrote the check in private is somehow like important or dispositive here, I think just speaks to the detachment of rich people from politics and the sense of entitlement that they carry.

It's like money allows us. The Supreme Court has said that money allows us an outsize influence on the political process and also that we deserve that we deserve to be able to do that with how having people say mean things about us will betto end up getting sued. Where do you think this goes? So my understanding is Justin Miller at the Texas Observer incidentally has done like great reporting on this. My understanding is that it's still

winding its way through Texas courts. And like, better's got money, right, because he raised a ton of money and lost again for the third time. But he raised a ton of money. He can defend himself. He can fight this. Yeah, But like not everyone who's going to get hit with a slap has this kind of money, right, And that is

how slaps succeed. If everyone has in the back of their minds the nagging possibility of getting dragged to court over some bullshit, You're just going to find something different to talk about that You're not going to take the risk. And then the wealthiest people with the means and the motive to influence politics can do so just a little more confident that no one's going to say anything about it. This feels like a really a pretty good example of

the Donald Trump school of law. I share those concerns about just like the use of the court system by the right is a shield against what they would perceive as the excesses of cancel culture, and like heavy use of scare quotes there, right, because the key characteristic of cancel culture is that the people who complain about it almost never actually suffer any material harms other than like a couple of headlines that make them feel bad about themselves.

But we're at a point right now where the reaction to cancel culture is maybe like the single most important issue for Republican voters. And if politicians like sees on the strategy to try and silence there their political opponents, like, things are gonna get nasty pretty quick. So the Supreme Court found themselves not guilty of the leak, really, I mean, ultimately, wasn't it. I mean, I guess they did exonerate some of the clerks who had been targeted by right wing media.

Right yeah, I think even even saying that the Court found themselves not guilty is kind of more generous than the Court deserves because they didn't even like investigate themselves and the potential right. None of the justices or their spouses had to sign Appa David's right. Right. So background here is last year, before the Dobbs opinion that overturned

Roe v. Wade. Before Dobbs was published, there was a leak that was published in Politico of the draft opinion from Justice Alito, and it turned out to be nearly identical to the one that the Court published. A couple of months later. And this is like more or less unprecedented, the combination of high profile case leak from the court, and leak not just of like you know sources say X, but of a seventy page PDF that basically has not happened. I mean, uh, that that has not happened. I can,

I certainly cannot think of anything on this scale. So the court immediately announced like an investigation into it, and the person tasked with performing this information was the Supreme Court Martial GAYL. Curly, who, as I understand, is like a well respected military lawyer. All due respect to Gail Curly, like her primary job is shouting or crying as it's called oyer, oyer oyer when the Supreme Court comes into session.

I'm wonder, is that a high paying job? No? Anyway, go on, yes, I bet, I bet it's a pretty good gig. Yeah. The point is that, like, if you're actually trying to do an investigation like this is not FBI C I A level type ship. So the results of this report were published last week and they were inconclusive. They said, we cannot figure out who the leaker was.

But there are two main takeaways from it. I think the first one is that Yeah, as you mentioned, the report talks about the sort of the gauntlet that court employees clerks were subjected to. They sat for interviews, they had to sit, they had to swear that they, you know, didn't do the leak, didn't know anyone who did the leak. Some of them had their phones examined, all of that good stuff. The justices, by contrast, did not have to

do that stuff. The Marshal said in a follow up statement that they had talked to the justices, you know, interviewed the justices, but the investigation had focused all along on the assumption that a Supreme Court employee or clerk something to that effect, someone who's not a justice, had done the leak, which in the wake of us like a credibly sourced on their record story talking about Justice Samuel Alito's alleged history of leaking opinions like I don't

know who did it, but but not investigating the justices at all just speaks to how sort of how differently they are treated like royalty compared to everyone else, not just in the country, right, but in their own place of work. They're considered above suspicion. And if it's if a justice didn't do it like, how are we ever going to know about it? Because nobody's looking that way? Just about the lameness we would expect. Jay, thank you so much. Is this so interesting? And I really appreciate

having you and my pleasure. Good to talk, Molly John Fast, Jesse Cannon. Mike Pompeo, that forgettable guy with no charisma has lost a lot of weight for his book tour and now he needs attention. So Mike Pompeo lost a lot of weight, probably running for president, and during this book tour has done this sort of most craven attention seeking thing he can, which is he's going. First of all, he blurbed his own book. So for that alone, blurbing

his own book is a non starter. I guess he assumed there was no one more fabulous than him to blow his own book. But he gave this little nugget which he wrote in the book, never given inch, Fighting for the America. I love. He didn't deserve to die, But we need to be clear about who he was that he were talking about, as Jamal Kashogi, an opinion journalist for the Washington Post. Pretty famous guy. I want to read this again. He didn't deserve to die, but we need to be clear about who he was, and

too many in the media were not. By the way, what like MBS, a murderous psychopath killed an opinion columnist for the Washington Post, and somehow this is the guy who got murdered. Fault Pompeio, who served as CIA director in the Trump administration, God knows what he did when he was there, described Kashogi as an activist, claiming that he was a journalist only to the extent that I and many other public figures our journalists. So the guy that I don't think he knows what opinion journalism is.

But either way, because Shogie shouldn't have had an opinion and he shouldn't have worn that short skirt. And I'm just gonna say, Mike Pompeo is trying to pedal outrage in the hopes that it will sell books. But I have news for Mike Pompeo. No one is interested in his book and he's still polling at like that's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds and 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.