Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And Ron De Santis called Trump voters listless vessels. Whoops, what does that even mean? We have such a great show today. Quick Political Report editor and cheap Amy Walter analyzes the latest polls. Then we talked Lakota Nation member Jesse Shortball about his documentary Lakota Nation
Versus the United States. But first we have the host of the Enemy's List fan favorite my friend in yours, the Lincoln Projects, Rick Wilson. Welcome back, too, Fast Politics, Rick Wilson.
Molly John Fast, zero presence.
I want to talk to you.
There's so such a broad spectrum of fuckery to talk about today, Like we got to start with your close personal friend and man who desp really wants you, Dad roger Stone.
You know, Molly, the reason roger Stone hates me is because I'm one of the few people in the world who's who's been around long enough now to know that Rogerstone's entire life is built on one line of bullshit. It's a fake, it's a fraud. Everything about him is a fraud. And the fact that he's been caught out, uh once again criming for Donald Trump. Criminals don't like it when you say, hey, I just saw that guy
robbing a bank. So you know, look, I'm not really worried about Roger being able to kill me at this point. First off, he's like ninety seven years old. He's not gonna he's not gonna. He's not gonna come to me that way. And all of his little proud boy bitch minions are going to go to jail. That was his
little sort of shock troops. What you see in this, in this uh, in this documentary on the Storm for Cold documentary, is that Stone was behind a lot of the plotting and scheming and the inspiration for a lot of the plotting and scheming that went into this whole thing.
Right, A lot of this was his idea.
Yes, the fake electors is same to have in part originated from Roger, and of course it also came out of Sydney Powell and the rest of the frame cru Yeah. Right, if there's an opposite of a brain trust, it's like the brainless trust whatever. These super lawyers around him, and so look, Roger is always in trouble. I suspect that this documentary. I do know that this video has already been in the hands of the January sixth Committee, and
it's now probably in the hands of Jack Smith. I think that the methodical nature of the prosecutions as it's gone up and up and up the chain with the one six prosecutions, that Roger is preparing for his time. As they say in the barrel.
I mean, do you think you'll go to jail?
Roger was going to jail before until Trump pardoned him. This is a guy who is not going to have an easy ride when it comes to sentencing, because in part Trump commuted his sentence, and I'm sure there was some sort of like go forth and send no more commandment after that, but instead Roger said, up, I got my sentence commuted, and as the documentary also shows, he was asking Trump for a preemptive pardon. That to my mind,
was the most like revelatory moment in the documentary. He wrote Trump an email saying I need a party for the things I've done for you and in the attempt to steal the election, and I mean, you're just like unbelievable. The one more thing about Roger I observed in this whole thing. Was that as a sad and lonely old man. Yeah, I mean he's a lot of the like the high school football star in age twenty five, crews in the parking lot in his camaro. Yeah, you can see how diminished his world is.
I really want to talk to you about another person you know from this world. One you actually worked for America's mayor, hair dye aficionado Rudy Giuliani. I mean, so this week we had he's selling his apartment, He's in financial trouble. He went down, you know, Hail Mary Pass to try to get Trump to cover his legal bills. That did not work. Talk to me about how you think that went. Can you imagine going down to Trump to beg him to pay your legal bills.
Rudy is a very proud guy. Yeah, Okay, he has a very very very healthy Egan from what everybody in prior Rudy world is talking about and what everybody in the Trumpian demimond that leaks like a sieve is talking about. As Rudy went down there, he needs millions of dollars and he believes that he had a handshake deal with Trump. First off, there's a flag right there. Handshake deal with Trump for twenty thousand dollars a day.
Twenty thousand dollars a day.
Pretty five thousand dollars a day or twenty or twenty five seems like a lot. He says he ran up eight hundred thousand legal bills during the space between election day and whenever he was thrown off the boat. Trump was never going to pay him and is never going to pay him, and all these poor son of a bitches who do not understand at this point, Molly in the Year of Our Lord twenty twenty three, that that
motherfucker does not pay his lawyers. He just doesn't. But Rudy's, Rudy's decline that we're we're now in the and I was, you know, I did an interview with Dan Barry from the Times article The Times yesterday about Rudy's you know, the crisis and the decline and everything else. It reminded me. I told Danni's story of the time I ran into Rudy and it was at one of the debates in twenty sixteen, and he was all up on Trump, and I was like, boss, listen, I'm begging you. This guy
will destroy you. He will absolutely destroy your reputation. Please don't do this, Please don't do this. Because my relationship with Rudy was always I was a smart guy that worked for him, but there was always like a you're not a new worker, you don't get it thing that underpinned a lot of our interactions over the years.
Yeah, because you're from Florida, man.
Sorry, right, However, I am a fucking genius and I also and one of the most experienced political consultants in the world. But that's just not just let's leave that aside for a moment, because my modesty is too great to talk about. I was going to say, but my consistent record of being right, especially regarding Trump. He just kind of shrugged it off, and it was like, you know, hey, he gets me. I get him. He's going to take care of me. I'm like, oh my god, this fucking
guy got taken by the worst con artist in America. Yeah, by the most obvious, fucking conn artist in America. And so here we are. Rudy is broke, he's selling his apartments, he's doing cameo videos for people for three hundred bucks.
Speaking of which Jesse's.
Thanks you very much. Two fifty. Oh, it's a discount, now, I love it.
It might be somebody's birthday when this show airs. This might be the birthday episode. It might be someone's fucking birthday tomorrow. God damn it. Go on.
Yes, Molly, Yes, you're gonna your your thirty fifth birthday is wonder celebrate. Yes, and I just I want to wish you a very happy in advance.
No.
Look, but Rudy, Rudy is He's probably the most extreme outlier of the everything Trump touches dies premise. And I said this in the CNN documentary. All of us who have been around Rudy over the years have said some variation on this, whether it's you know me or Ken Friedman or John Avlon or anybody. The truth of the matter is, if Rudy had stopped, if he had just stopped after two thousand and eight, you have gone and done the Giuliani Center for Public Governance NYU or whatever
whatever something. You know, some withdrawal from the from the the addiction from the hair. When he needed a public adorage. Well, you know what, when he dies in a few years, when the cigars take him in a few years, they would have named Bridges after him. They would have named high schools after him. There would have been a valedictory moment in this guy's life that would have said, you know, he was complex, he could be a very bad guy. But when push came to shof in the moments of
the worst crisis, he did this. But now his eulogy, his memorial, his memory, the thing written on the cenotaph of Rudy's life will be that he shamed and humiliated himself in service to a con man, an entertainment huckster who tried to overthrow the government of the United States and spent the remaining years of his life either in prison or on probation as a convicted felon. And that Rudy was the king of Rico prosecutions when he was a US attorney is the richest irony of all Molly. Literally,
I sat with him at dinners in New York. He's like, you see that guy over at that table that was like Jimmy the Bone And I put his cousin and his brother and his brother in law and jail and this, I mean all this crazy shit, right, he knew how to Wilbe's cases. How is it that he's in the middle of one of these things, building a criminal conspiracy against himself, and never has the self awareness to go, hey,
maybe I've stuck my dick in a light socket. Maybe I should stop fucking said light socket because I might electrocute myself and burn my dick off. This is something he had no self awareness that they couldn't figure out, and he thought. And this is part of a broader theory that I'm starting to articulate, not just about the conspiracy.
I think there's been something that's happened to an entire generation of Republican leaders that they've lived in this soft bubble of fox for so long, and they've decided they can get away with any line of bullshit they because they're only feeding the bullshit back to their people, and the world doesn't operate that way. Now, when they're actually having to answer questions under oath, they can't just say, well, what about Hunter Biden's laptop and the dick pics?
Right, So let me ask you a question. Here.
We are this Republican Party, it's going to be the nominee I mean unless I mean, it just seems like we are careening into disaster for them.
Well, deserved yet again.
Look, Donald Trump's numbers Americas have now had a week to process it. Okay, they've had a week to see the charges out of Georgia. And you know what's happened to his numbers of Republican base voters in the primary voters. They've got up again. Yeah, and I'm sorry. I've been saying this to people for a year and a half.
If you think the Republican base vote in the primaries, the likely Republican voter profile in the primaries is crying out for Glenn Youngkin in a sweater vest or Vivek Ramaswami and his sassy comebacks, or Ron DeSantis and his weird posthuman android malfunctioning like Lichi software. If you think that's what those people are after, it is not get help, because they're not. They want the show, the spectacle, the chaos. They want Donald Trump and they're not shy about it.
They tell people this all the time. I don't You can focus group the living fuck out of these people, and you know what you're gonna find.
They love Trump.
They love Trump. And here's the other dirty little secret. Most of the people, even in those focus groups that say, oh I wish you wouldn't tweet. I hope you know. I'd love to have a president who doesn't commit crimes every day. You know what, they're still going to do.
Ninety percent of those fucking people are still going to vote for Donald Trump because the behavioral impulses in the Republican Party to go back in the nest, to get back in the matrix, are so powerful that it's almost irresistible.
So let's just talk about this for one second. I want you to game this out for me. I was talking to Nicole Wallace about this yesterday. I feel like this you both come from a similar or. You know, you were working for Rudy, she was working for Bush. I mean, game this out for me. What happens? I mean, do they become the wigs? I mean, I mean, does No Labels make Trump president again?
I mean where does this go?
First off, No Labels is trying to reelect Donald Trump. That's they can posture all they want. You know, they put up this commonsense policy briefing last week, and it turns out the guy that wrote it is a rabid Republican who what's Joe Biden impeached and Kamala Harris put in prison. So that's great news. But we're going to see Trump as the nominee again. We're going to see a brutal race where the alternate reality version of everything
is going to come front and center once again. You know, we're going to live and pretend world where even our friends in the mainstream media see things like, well the hunter budon laptop is very concerning, even though they know it's bullshit. We're going to have a hard fight. Look, Joe Biden's in a better position than he was in twenty twenty. The economies much better were past COVID as
a rule. I mean, we may have some more like adventurous with it, but it's it's not the scope and scale that it was in twenty On the economic front, we're seeing progress that if it were Donald Trump in this position, the people would be screaming from the rooftops. It's the greatest, most most brilliant active.
Genius of all time, right right right.
But instead now we've got like even allies, I'm like, well, I just wish we could have gotten more climate change. Okay, take the fucking win, people, take the win.
But I do want a minute to say progressives have been much more in line than you thought they would be.
I'm happy to say you're right. Yeah, I was concerned that they were going to be, you know, grumbling on the sidelines. But I think they're getting it, and I think I think America is getting it, and I think the media is starting to get it as well.
But the media has been slow.
They have been slow, and and look, my biggest concern a couple of weeks ago was the media was like, well, let's cover RFK Junior, like he's a real person that came that win, that's gone away now, which I think is a sign of maturity that they're not going to get played by Steve Bannon's bullshit show. We've got a very significant suite of challenges ahead of us. These trials
are going to be insane. The Republican field is going to have some sprintsing back and forth, but it's at the end of the day, it's going to end up where we think it's going to end up. I mean a short of Donald Trump having a massive stroke and dying in place, and even then he may still win the primary. Right, he's not dead, he's just resting or actually being put in prison in communicado that's that.
Rick Wilson, thank you so much for joining us.
I am delighted to be with you. As always.
Amy Walter is the editor in chief of Political Report.
Welcome back, Too Fast Politics, Amy Walter, Well, thank you.
I'm glad to be here and to hopefully be fast.
Yes, you just well, hopefully people just listen to this at two x speeds, sad, very speedy.
I wanted to get you here because I think of you as the person and there are other people too, but I think of you as the person who sort of knows what the landscape looks like for the House and the Senate and also the presidency. But like that, you really have a sort of a lot of data and history of doing this, so you really are able to sort of pull from previous decades.
Frank, get that you're that old, but you know.
Well I am that old, but you know, I like to think of it as seasoned, right, And yes, I try to spend a lot of time pulling back from the weeds, because we all get caught in the weeds. It's understandable it is hard to take in all this information day in and day out and try to make sense of it. You've got to really make sure you have some perspective on it. And I think we're living at a time where, in some ways our politics is
so incredibly stable. Just think about what has happened over the course of the last three years between pandemics, impeachments, and economic fallout from the pandemics, and the facts that you've had January sixth and indictments and all of the stuff that happened, and yet opinions about former President Trump and President Biden remain pretty stable.
Yeah, that's a really interesting and important point that I don't know that we spend enough time talking about, which is that it seems like very.
Little moves the needle in a certain way.
That's exactly right. And so if people are really just now, they are so committed to their team, to their side, however you want to describe it, they're not moving off of them regardless of events. So what events tend to do then is either energize or depress one side or the other. Or they may bring people who are not jersey wearers, in other words, people who do not spend their time they get about politics, they don't wear wake up and wear a blue jersey or red jersey every morning.
It gets them engaged or disengaged versus the old days when we would look and you know, I'm old enough to remember the nineteen eighty eight election where you know there were big blowouts in presidential elections, that there could be these big wave elections from year to year.
Those just don't happen.
So is this a Dave Wasserman moment where we're talking about it will all come down to turnout.
I think it all comes down to a lot of things, right, So, of course turnout always matters, and the kind of people that turn out, and this is always the challenge. I think in trying to understand who turns out. We have pretty rough data. We can say, well, what percent of the electorate is Latino, what percent of the electorate is under thirty, But who those people are within that demographic
matters too. And so what we saw, for example, the analysis after the twenty twenty two election about Latino voters. The Latino voters who turned out in twenty twenty two were more likely to be supportive of Democrats. But a lot of the Latino voters who voted in twenty twenty but and then show up in twenty twenty two, those voters are more likely to be supportive of Republicans. So if those voters show up in twenty twenty four, right, right,
it's going to change them. It's going to change the map. So it's not just what percent of the electorate is X, it's the kinds of people within that And that is really hard to get from such a crude measurement that we have in traditional pulling.
Right, Yeah, And I mean that is one of the polling problems I think. So let's talk about that in relation to the Senate map, because I mean, I know we're still eighteen months away from it, but we've spent so much time on this presidential and very little on the Senate map. I feel like in the mainstream media it's a very hard map for Democrats. But it's also a map where if you ran the wrong people, like in twenty twenty two, you could lose as a Republican.
Yeah.
I'm fascinated by this too, Mali, because we have two ends that are about to collide. In listening to Eletteresting, one is we have a map that you're right, on its face, looks really bad for Democrats and historically li since twenty sixteen, It's been really hard for a candidate that is of one party to win a Senate race in a state that that party's presidential nominee does not
also win. In those last two presidential elections twenty sixteen and twenty twenty, only Susan Collins has been successful in winning an a state where the presidential nominee of her party did not win. So obviously Trump lost main she won me. Now, can three Democrat buck that? Can we just stop the death for one second? What about Lisa Murkowski?
A little more complicated, but that same kind of idea, Right, Well, I coult her in a different category only because they have that ranked choice voting.
Right. Oh, interesting, Okay, continue.
But it's a very fair point if you then look and you say, all right, based on that, Even in twenty twenty two, Mally, all the Democrats who won, Look, they had tough races, and they were in swing states, but those were also states that Biden carried. Democrats didn't need to win any red states in order to hold the Senate. This time they do. Now we also know though that beyond.
The fact that the candidates on the Republican side are unknown, and to your point, they could end up being really flawed, and right, they could carry Lake exactly, we could have somebody like Kerry Lake. But let's even go to the three that matter, West Virginia, Montana, and Ohio. I say they matter because if Republicans win two of those, it's game over. It doesn't matter what happens in Arizona, Wisconsin,
or Pennsylvania. Now, West Virginia obviously being the toughest, but you look at Joe bang and you go, well, the I has won in presidential years where obviously no Democrat carried that state. I don't remember how much Barack Obama lost that state when Mansion won it, but obviously he had to outperform Obama considerably. Now he's got to outperform
even more, right, kuse the state's even more republican. And then you even go to a place like Ohio, where you know, we look at that state now and we go, boy, that's a really republican state. But in twenty twelve, the last time that Jared Brown was on the ballot with the president in a presidential year, he got the same percent of the vote as Obama did. They both got fifty one percent. Joe Biden's not gonna get fifty one
percent in all. And then Montana again, another place where Tester has pretty consistently outrun a presidential nominee, He's going to have to do it again. So we have two places where they have outrun the presidential nominee, one place where they have it. We're in a different era.
Now. That's why I say there are these two factors colliding.
Right.
It's like it looks as if we nationalized everything. Yet these three have a history of overcoming the drag of the national party brand, and Republicans also have their own intraparty challenges right right, who may be problematic, So that all politics is local between and all politics as national really will come to a head in those third places.
I want to talk about share O Brown for a minute.
If your shared you're feeling pretty good about that ballot initiative. I know ballot initiatives tend to lean more liberal than the candidates, but that has to feel like a good sign for him, right, Ohio ballad initiative in August.
Absolutely, because it wasn't a narrow win one and two. It really energized the kinds of voters that Brown needs to show up in twenty twenty four, saying this really matters. When you participate, it matters, and then it makes a difference. Now, of course, if your shared Brown, you also really would prefer that the actual ballot initiative on abortion would be in twenty twenty four, not twenty right three, right right, But their contention, and my colleague Jessica Taylor wrote about this.
If you go to Cookpolitical dot com you can read her story about this. The your side contends that, look, even though it's not on the ballot in twenty twenty four, the energizing and the organizing matter. Right that you organize voters to show up and vote in twenty twenty three, you can go back to those voters in twenty twenty four and say, you know, continue the progress we made. The other thing that Brown has going for him, as you pointed out, is, you know, he's seen as kind
of his own person, right. He's a unique kind of brand in an era where so many candidates are seen as kind of cookie cutter, right, or you know they just sort of ear liberal democrat, you're conservative Republican. He fits into that style of uh, you know, populist working class democrat who look, he's not he's not a moderate, he's not conservative, but he's hard to brand as a sort of a typical Democrat.
Yeah, it feels like he has sort of been able to create his own thing. I don't want to compare him to Susan Collins because he's certainly nothing like Susan Collins, but Susan Collins had a similar people. They thought of her as more like Angus King and less like, Yeah, she's not Ted Cruz.
Nobody's gonna nobody's gonna believe it. If you ran a campaign against Susan cons and said she's just like Ted Cruz, everybody in Maine would laugh you out of the state. But the one thing that I think is challenging for Brown, as I said, you know, he he basically got the
same percent of the vote as Oba. In some ways, you know, Ohio, it has moved much more to the right in this last That feels again not that it would be these voters saying I'm against Shared Brown, but that it's harder for a Democrat to be able to
make the case. I mean, you know, you talk to somebody like well, we saw it in twenty twenty two with the Democratic nominee running for Congress there who had a similar message to Shared Brown, and you know, he would go into these places make the same sort of pitch that Shared Brown did get really good response, and yet voters would go, yeah, that's that sounds great, But I'm voting for the Republican. I'm voting for the Trump candidate.
And the having a D after your name is is much more of a drag now than it was even back when Obama was was running or in twenty eighteen, the last time that Shared Brown was on the ticket.
So let's talk about the House, because it does seem to me. I was writing about George Santos this week, and it really does seem like these New York Republican seeds, these guys all won by like three thousand votes, I mean, just unbelievable.
And they are being overshadowed by not just George Santos, because even if you're a Republican An upstate, you're getting asked about George Santos all the time, but you're getting overshadowed by Trump all the time. You are right that if you look at New York in California, two states where Democrats were really underperformed, turnout was really low mistakes were made exactly. You can look at both of those states and go, look, turnout will be higher in twenty
twenty four. And so all Democrats need to do is put a decent candidate on the ballot, and the turnout the higher. You know what, that whole high, higher tide lifting all boats. But just that that turnout is going to be enough to get those Democrats over the top.
And that's true in California too.
Yeah, so the freshmen are the ones who are in the hardest position. And look, we saw this in twenty twenty where Democrats fell short in the House or those races they picked up in the midterm election in seats that were really basically in Republican districts. Charleston, South Carolina, Oklahoma City, some of the one of those upstate New
York districts. Right, these were places that they won in a great year, but when when turnout turned back to normal and we got to a presidential year, they just couldn't hold up.
They just couldn't hold them.
The other thing Democrats have going for them is that these redistricting cases actually are breaking their way.
Yeah, so me isign.
Yeah, in a way that we really hadn't predicted. So between new districts in Alabama potentially Louisiana. Now there's movement in Florida as well. Well, this isn't twenty seats that are going to shift. But as we know, when you're talking about a five seat majority, you put three Democratic seats now into the mix. Boy, that makes a difference. Right, you're more than halfway there.
I want to ask you a question about leadership. So you have McCarthy. By all outside indications, the man is not a whipper, right of a whipper. He is really kind of he always feels like he's a little bit behind.
And you have McConnell.
Who is known as kind of a genius at winning votes, and he's not himself clearly, and also he is being targeted by Trump and by Trump's people who are furious with him. So I'm curious, like what you think the effect and it may be nothing, but if you think that this leadership problem will hurt as you go down.
The ticket, yeah, you know.
What I find kind of interesting though, is after the vote on the speaker that took the fifteen ballots and all that, the initial response from a lot of media folks was Okay, well, good luck Kevin McCarthy making it to the end of the year, right, like you're going to get ousted or you're going to get rolled. This guy is just not going to be able to be effective. And you know, actually that hasn't happened, and he's kept his team together and he's gotten the votes he's needed
time after time. Now to your point, it's still at any moment the ice could break and he's in trouble. But I'll say this way, it's much less chaotic, and I think many assumed it would be in the House, and that while the Freedom Caucus is still flexing their muscle, I think that McCarthy and leadership or however this has worked out, has been effective in allowing them to blow off steam in other ways. Right, Oh, you want to go put a committee together, go after Hunter Biden?
Great, go to you that you want to.
Talk about impeaching my Orcus Okay, right, like you guys, go google those things.
Just let's not shut down the government.
Right, But doesn't that ultimately hurt the hurt the swingy candidates.
Doesn't that hurt the Purple State Republicans?
I mean, the reason why Paul Ryan wouldn't let people do that was because ultimately, and the reason why Nancy Pelosi wouldn't let people do that the sort of the left and the right, was because they knew it would hurt the swingy candidates.
That's right, and that's what we're going to have to find out is Look, I think at the same time, you could argue that one of the things that really hurt the swingy candidates in let's say the twenty eighteen election. Trump was obviously a major factor, but so was the votes taken on overturning Obamacare and the tax cuts, right, those were also really problematic for Republicans. In this case, I do think the thing that could be most problematic for those swing voters kind of know it is an
impeachment against Biden. Thus far, McCarthy has kept the door open. Oh yeah, no, we're going to investigate, We're going down all the roads. We're gonna do what we can without giving them the aok on, let's go full on, you know, so that in twenty twenty four we're impeaching Biden. Now the pressure it will be very interesting to see where Biden case goes. We obviously case with Trump. So but
if I'm a House member. Right now, my biggest concern if I'm a vulnerable House Republican, the one thing that I cannot control but that has the most impact on my chances to win is Donald Trump. They can't do anything other than try to show some independence from him.
And then they get crushed in the primary without drawing a primary. So actually they're in some ways, it's much better than it was in twenty eight.
Right.
He's up present, so they don't have to run around saying, what do you think about this?
How come you voted with him on that?
Now it's just like, look, he's this, I'm going to do what I do in the House, and I've been doing all these great things and blah blah blah. Oh yeah, then there's Donald Trump. You bring with him on this, but whatever Joe Biden's worse and then pivot back. Right, That's that's going to be their play. But that that top of the ticket drag is going to be a bigger problem for them than whatever happens.
I think on the House side.
Amy, I hope you will come back.
So interesting, so important, So many months still to go.
So many months, so so many months.
Oh my god, it's a lot of months.
Jesse short Bull is a member of the Ogla La Lacodaation tribe. I'm the director of Lacodaination Versus United States. Welcome too fast politics, Chelsey.
Oh, thank you, Molly. Pleasure to be here.
So let's talk about this movie. First. Explain to us how.
You've decided to do this movie the Lakota Nation versus the United States.
Yeah. Yeah, so, Molly, how I became involved with this project involved quite a bit of synchronicity. I grew up in South Dakota. I knew of our Treaty councils. I've heard of the Treaty before, never quite too familiar.
With it, but I was aware of it.
Explain to us what the treaty is.
Yeah, the Treaty is basically the document that sets everything for our tribe's governance today and everything that we have, our healthcare, education, and it's basically the foundation of how we exist today. And it also involves our land, which is predominantly centered on the Black Hills in South Dakota, and for our indigenous nation in South Dakota. The Treaty is something that's very much alive and discussed every day and is a part of everyday governance through these sovereign nations.
I want to give a little backstory for people who don't completely know the story here. In nineteen eighty, the United States Supreme Court ordered one hundred million dollars to be paid to the Great Sioux Nation, which is the tribe.
Right, Yeah, the Great Sioux Nation, that's correct.
After ruling that the US government broke a nineteenth century treaty by taking control of the Black Hills from this group, from.
Your group, which includes the Lakotas.
Yes, that's correct.
So now this sum it has been put in escrow and it's now two billion dollars.
Yep, that's right.
The money has been sitting there because now explain to us why exactly what happened?
Yeah, yeah, Well, to the people, it was never a question of money, and today is still never a question of money because there is no amount of money that the ocetti chacolin, or the term that's used to describe all of the tribes together. It's impossible to put a monetary value on this place because for Lakota culture, Dakota culture, and Dakota culture, it's how that culture was emerged from. It came from there. It's a covenant that can't have
a price on it. I think it's really remarkable that our people, despite economic challenges, despite immense poverty, continue to refuse that money.
Right, so there is two billion dollars in a bank account. Can you explain to me why you can't just take the two billion dollars and buy the land.
That's a good point that sort of discussion, as you know, using that money or rant, you know, kind of using it looking at as rant or a payment and to use that money to purchase land. But I think that it's also a very slippery slope for our tribes as once you get a hold of money and you have money, well,
then things start to change. You know, maybe we do this, maybe we do that, and then there's a very immense amount of distrust with money and that what it can do to people and some of the decisions that can lead to less than desirable outcomes. We don't want to go any of that route. I mean, our people whole firm, They just want the land. They don't care about the money. What's on the land right now, Well, it's you know, South Dakota. One of it's primary industries is tourism and
Black Hills are a tourist haven. Of course, there's the Custer National Forest, Black Hills National Forest, there's several national parks, and then of course Mount Rushmore.
Oh wow, that's so interesting. So talk to about where you are with this struggle right.
Now, Molly. You know, our people since the time of warfare, so late eighteen sixties till today, the time that there was bloodshed, our relatives experienced Immen's tragedies. But ever since that time, there have always been people committed to the sovereignty of our Indian nations and the upholding of the treaty.
A lot of those people will never know their names, but it has come down through the generations and I think that you know, in the movie, we showcase that as early as eighteen ninety, our tribal leadership has been trying to get some sort of remedy. The decision to take the Black Hills was in eighteen seventy seven, and then by eighteen ninety our people started to take action against the United States to try to uphold them to
what they said they would do. And I think that through that time, you know, they're there's been hope, but there's also been We've been told no things have not gone in our favor, and things look very bleak.
I think now though, at least.
In the short time that I've been paying close attention, I think that the optimism for the United States to resolve this somehow has been probably at its highest that at least I can recollect. And I think that's because you know, we have a Native woman in the Department of Interior Secretary Debt Halan. I think that really stimulated a new sense of optimism that maybe we can exert some sort of influence at the highest levels there in
Washington that you know, hey, this still matters. It's very much matters to a lot of people, and you know, legally, you know, again, we uphold our end of the bargain of the treaty. It's never been a relic, it's never been an antique or a scrap of paper that to no value. We've always upheld our end of the bargain. And now, like one of our elders, stay Milo Yellow here in the film, we're still waiting for the United States to do the same.
Right, right, right? What will the next steps be?
Yeah, well, I think that they're already actively going Mali because once the current administration. The Biden administration came into office, people were trying to take advantage of that momentum, and I think that for the first time, I mean, and the Biden administration, you know, set a standard about how they were going to work with tribes government to government, and I think that what we're kind of seeing is
and this is maybe behind the scenes. Most people may not see this actively or hear about it in the news, but I think that our tribal governments are treaty governments are looking at ways with the United States to see how, at least in the terms of public land stewardship co management are possible as a first stepping stone. I think
that is actively being pursued as we speak. Anything more than that, as far as land return, that might be a longer term picture, because the Black Hills have an incredible amount of public lands that are federally control and so I think those wheels are turning, and it's just a question of what that's going to look like as this administration comes to the close of this term.
I spend a lot of time thinking about what justice would look like for Indigenous people in.
This country, and I'm curious what you think it would look.
Like there's a couple of things that at around my mind there, Molly, I think first and foremost, I look at our young people, and our young people are a good reflection of what needs to be done. Our young people have the hardest burden to carry, and some of that burden is way too much for a young person to have. And I think that until we can have be satisfied that they have a quality of life that can be as safe as possible, maybe safe as other communities,
you know, in the United States. And I know that nothing's perfect or there's no challenges, not wherever you go. But to get us to some level where our young people feel good about their future and feel good about themselves, to me, that would be the ultimate victory. So how does that relate to land. Well, again, our land and people are we view ourselves as interconnected to one another. So I think that the reflection in the land is also reflected in the condition of the land is also
reflected in the condition of the people. But at the end of the day, Molly, I mean, yeah, I want land returned, I want sacred sites to be returned. I want try sovereignty to be acknowledged. For how sacred it is and how unique it is, but nothing else. I want kids to have a good future and I want them to have a better quality alife.
So I want to talk to you about that because one of the things that I know that the reporting sort of bears out is that growing up on the reservation, that a lot of your young people are struggling and that they're not necessarily getting all of the advantages they should be.
Would you say that's fair?
And is there a way for the federal government to give indigenous people more?
I think it's a mix. I worked in tribal government, Molly, and you know, I know that a lot of times you can throw money at things, right, Sometimes if it's a fire, it does no good.
Right.
I do think that you look at the boarding school and brutal assimilation that our people went through, I think one of the things that need to happen, and I don't know how it can happen, but almost a reverse engineered sort of model that helps people undo a lot of the traumas that are stacked up on each other through the generations and still much very alive in people, whether or not it's their trauma or maybe their relatives trauma from generations back. That is the really big course
of attack is helping people to feel good. And like you said, Molly, our young people know that things are wrong, they know that things aren't safe, they know that the world around them is hope is hard to find, and I think that there's a massive amount of responsibility on
the shoulders of the government. How we work together to try and undo that, I'm not too sure how that can be done, but we do know that if we can take care of people helped them to feel good about themselves, I think that that can get us to a point where we can start to undo, you know, like the cycles that our parents, you know who went through the boarding school, and including my own father, who is a part of that generation, start to undo that and go into opposite direction.
It's funny because I have a friend whose mother was Japanese and put in a tournament camp in California, and she told me the story of her grandmother burning down their house as they laughed. And I think a lot about this sort of collective generational trauma, right. I come from a family that came over in the eighteen hundreds
during the programs for Indigenous people. They're living on the land, they were robbed sometimes and you know, you are living through this trauma again and again in a certain way.
Yeah, you know a lot of the times we get the counter argument, you know, like, well, the people that done you guys wrong are gone, they're they don't live no more. And I didn't do anything to you know, exacerbate anything. We get that argument, you know, like it's in the past and you can't change the past. Well, here's the thing, of course, people come and go. Our lives are very short, and time goes by. It may seem like it goes by forever, but it goes by
really fast. I think that something systemically started back in that time of war and deceit and bloodshed that is still very much active. It's not a person, but it still continues to this day. And our people are still under duress. And what is this faceless thing? You know, we know the ingredients trauma, we know racism, we know that we see it, but how do we see the whole thing? Expose it for what it is and then
try to address it because it's not working. And I can take anybody, come come visit me, and I'll say, would you want to trade places? With anybody here, and I don't think the answer would be yes, because there's something wrong and we have to and I think too Mally that sometimes we become very numb to it. It becomes something that we got to really think that this isn't right. I'm not sure how to do it, but it has to be done right.
No, no, I agree, and it's such an important thing. And I hope that Secretary Holland will be able to write this or to start, you know that the Biden administration will be able to start writing this wrong.
Tell us about the movie, Molly.
For Laura, my co director, and everybody that is involved, this movie is a superhero movie to us. And I say that because everybody that we feature, which is tribal members from throughout the different resermeations in South Dakota, I see them as superheroes. These are people, whether they or not they're involved in the day to day treating matters
or just a regular person as anybody else is. They represent a cross section of the beauty of Lakota culture, the resilience of Lakota culture, and the wisdom of Lakota culture. And anybody can learn from these people. We all can learn from each other, and these people have something to say that can help anyone throughout the course of their day because they just they uphold a standard amongst themselves that is just really special. And they're superheroes to me.
So everyone needs to see the movie. Thank you so much, Jesse, I hope you'll come back.
Oh, thank you so much, Molly. It's been a pleasure.
They're no momental fuck Rick Wilson, you are a special celebrity guest for Fuckeray. Only you ever get to stay and do with us, no one else, not even James Carvel.
Okay, if we're going to talk about fuckery, do you have a moment of fuckery?
I have a superb moment of fuckery.
Good. Great, let's hear it.
The greatest moment of fuckery this week was the re or two clever by half bullshit that came out of the DeSantis super pac this week where they leaked their debate prep strategy. In politics, we call it a red box where it's a way for a super pac to legally communicate with the campaign. Oh interesting, they released their debate prep memos. Now, the guy that wrote the memo named Jeff row He's DeSantis uber consultant.
Okay, if you read Puck, you will know all about Jeff Row.
Yes, yes, Anyway, Jeff Row's memo when it started circulating immediately inside the consulting community of those of us who have done debate prep at the at the highest levels, we're all reading it, going the fuck is this? It read like something I swear to you. If one of my minions had brought me this plan and said this is our debate prep memo for the state Assembly race in bumfuck Arkansas, I would have gone, you're fired. That's ridiculous,
that's so amateurish. What are you doing? It was so bad and so amateurs And it just goes to show that Ron DeSantis, for all his reputations being a smart guy, is what I call a dumb smart guy. He's smart on paper, he's dome in reality. So that moment of fuckery cost them tens of millions of dollars from Jeff Row's beach house fund, as I call it.
So let me ask you about that, because that's also my moment of fuckery, that leaked debate thing where it said, you know, attack the vac twice, attack right, I mean attack Joe Biden six times.
I mean it had sort of numera.
It had pieces of numerology in it too, was totally fascinating. My question was, so you think Jeff Road late to that and not someone like this is not Trump World just going.
After these red box links. They're public but obscure, if that makes sense. Like nobody publicized it and said, hey, look here everyone in the world. Right, someone said to a cutout, hey, you know, we've got a lot of ins This might be really helpful to you at Axiomstrategies dot com, slash our fucking stupid debate plan dot org, dot mill dot ru. The stupidity of the way they did it is rivaled only by the weakness of the
council they gave Ronda Santa. It's like, here's one of the tips they put in there that I just loved that. It just like two of the tips that killed me. The first one was show warmth.
I'm like that, I'll do it.
Show warmp what you're gonna roast him at four hundred for thirty minutes?
I mean, also show warmth? What does that mean? Like go over?
And I mean how Chris Christy right?
And the and the other was take a sledgehammer to Vivic Ramaswami. This is a reflection of the reality where Rodnes Sennys's campaign is, is that he has now behind in both national and state polls in New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina behind Vi Swammy, right, who.
Is basically running on it's not even clear.
What no Vivick Ramaswami is running on the troll platform, right, you know, he's basically the candidate from you know, our four chan.
Well, his whole his whole presidency is that he's gonna pardon Trump.
Yeah, good luck, have fun storm in the castle. Although I just had a moment where I saw like and Trump was a vivic. I need to come to the White House over to thank you. And then he murders him and he sits at the desk. That's the end of this season of House of Cards.
It's House of Cards if everyone was stupid.
Well, yeah, that's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening,