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 Trump mentioned Biden three hundred and sixteen times on social media in fifty days, mostly to blame him for thing. We have such a great joke for you today, the Lincoln Projects. Rick Wilson joins us
to discuss Signal Ghazi and it's continued fallout. Then we'll talk to The New York Times own Annie Carney about her and Luke Broadwaters book Mad House, how Donald Trump, Magamine Girls, a former used car salesman of Florida, and fo Baby and a man with rats in his walls broke Congress. But first the news Somali.
Donald Trump is having a little bit of a dose of copium as he sees the implications of his tariffs. He's told Howard, let Nicky Kit go on Sunday shows anymore.
We're Howard, that's all here, Yeah, yeah.
I know.
This is like if you told Trump they couldn't paint himself a color anyway. He now says that he couldn't care less if far an automaker's raise prices due to tariffs.
Who could have seen it coming all probably everyone. Look, if there was one thing that Donald Trump had as a mandate, and again mandate, use the word mandate very loosely, but Donald Trump said he had a mandate. He did not have a mandate. But if he had one thing, one reason that anyone voted for him, it was that he said he was going to make the price of eggs cheaper. Guess what he's not doing making the price of eggs or anything else cheaper. And here we have
a great example of that. The guy is obsessed with tariffs. He believes that they will somehow make things cheaper, and that they will, in fact, call that they'll be crazy tax revenue from He just has no idea how any of this works. So instead of listening to advisors, he's just going to go ahead with it. And earlier last week we saw that he said he might make it
so that car companies can't raise prices. If Harris had said that, they would have put they would have done the twenty fifth Amendment on her right, because that's it's anti capitalists, and Republicans hate things that are anti capitalist. You'll remember that actually she had said that there was price gouging and that she was going to look into price gouging, and all those Republicans weren't crazy. So Donald Trump said he might make it so that companies can't
raise prices because of tariffs. Now he realizes, I'm sure that a lot of very rich people called him to yell at him, and so now he's saying that he doesn't care if they raise prices. The whole point, the reason they voted for you was because you lied and said you were going to make things cheaper. Now here he is directly making things more expensive and saying he doesn't care.
Yeah, the free markets, they just just love this stuff, and hence why our stock market is in the toilet down. I'm like two friends of the Pod and another professor of departed Yale for Canada. Some people are calling this brain drain. Some people are calling this much meaner things. What are you seeing here?
Okay, So I know Timothy Snyder and his wife Marcy and Jason Sanley, and you know what, they've been planning this for a while. I tried to talk Jason out of it a number of times. I don't know Timothy well enough to try to talk him out of it. I really think this is a mistake. I said it to all of I didn't get to say to Marcie, but I think it's a mistake. I think that we are in it's a huge country and this is just a foray into authoritarianism, and we Americans don't like it,
and we are going to push back. And I think that it's a huge mistake. And there are many many academics who are not famous and who can't just pick up a move and we stay and fight for them. So I respect that this was what they felt they had to do, but I certainly think it's a mistake and I think they will regret it. And I know I think so much about this my grandfather, Howard Fast, who chose to go to jail rather than name names during the house. In an American activities, we have to
be brave, We have to be brave. It feels very scary right now they're picking up graduate students off the street, but it's scary by design, and we have a responsibility to be brave. We must be brave. And I am proud to get to live in this country and I will not leave and I will be brave, and that's what we all need to be doing. So I'm very disappointed about this, and it's a loss for Yale and it's a loss for America. But it's also just not what any of us. What the rest of us are
going to do. The rest of us going to stay and we are going to fight to keep our democracy and we will prevail eventually.
Well said.
So, speaking of not being courageous, the White House Correspondents have fired comedian Amber Ruffin after insulting Mega on a podcast. My company produces no comment there, but what do you see it here?
So this is just like one of these things that the White House Correspondents Association did, And we know that it's important to push back against this administration's authoritarian impulses. We know that. So they basically fired Amber because she went on she went on a podcast and she said
she was going to be a comic. And I think it's worth remembering that, like the White House, for the White House Press Association has had an opportunity to push back on a number of things I'm thinking of, like what happened with the Associated Press and the Gulf of America. They had an opportunity to say, no, this is not all right, that you can't ban one if you ban one outlet, you ban us all, and they didn't. And I think like the only way to survive in this
authoritarian White House is to bargain collectively. So Trump loves the mainstream media, and in a situation like this, what I would have done is I would have said, okay, if you don't take us, if you don't keep up, if you don't have one of us, you don't have any of us. And I think that would have been
the play. Now we're seeing that the White House wants to do the seating, which the which the So the White House, the White House Association, the Press Association, has has done this, White House Correspondence Association has always done this seating in the gallery, in the press gallery, and now the White House is saying they want to do
it themselves. So what's happening here is that the White House Correspondence they're giving and giving and giving, and and what's instead of like that giving being respected the bullies. The White House, which is filled with bullies, is doing the thing we expected them to do, which is just take, take, take, take take. So the only way to stand up to bullies is to be strong and say this is not okay, and here we have a really good example of just what not to do.
Yep.
So another very very very stupid news. Trump says he's open to using military force to seize Greenland.
Yeah, this is so stupid. I mean, Greenland doesn't want us. It's worth listening to that very stupid speech that jd Vance, who is actually quite smart, quite smart Jadvance gave this baffling speech where he said, Denmark is not doing for you what they should be doing for you. Okay, I mean what should Denmark be doing for Greenland? I mean it's just ridiculous right these Greenland does not want out of its relationship with Denmark. The only person who has
any interest in Greenland is Donald Trump. Right that the idea that somehow Denmark is not serving them, it was that was really embarrassing. Gdvan says had to do a number of really embarrassing things, but that was that struck me as even more humiliating than the more. Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Product and the host of the Enemy's List. Come back to Fast Politics.
Rick Wilson, Molly John Fast, how are you on this fine day?
Oh? I was at the New Orleans book Fair and it was very fun, and I just flew home and it was.
It's it's a good town this time of year.
It's great. And the thing that I was so struck by and I want to and we're going to talk about it today, I hope, is that it's like we're, what nine ten weeks into this presidency something like that, and I think this is the week we can say for sure that the doors fell off.
I think we can say that this week was one of the most evident weeks of disaster for Trump that that we've seen so far in either administration. And I say that because I truly believe that this week Trump had lost, he lost complete control.
Over his ability to dominate the message.
Yeah, yeah, okay, so signal Ghazi. Okay, it's not a Gate, it's a Gazi.
I'll take Yes, it's a gazi.
Was So what happened there was broke on Monday, Jeff Goldberg added to the group chat, probably because because Mike Walls had some kind of let's not pretend right that, probably because Mike Walls leaks to Jeff, or maybe because they did a conversation at some point, but it's worth having a second of why Mike Walls has Jeff Goldberg's private cell phone number, right, I mean not I have it, but not everybody has it.
But look, as was revealed, Mike doesn't have my number that but he could have it if he had me.
To a group job.
I've got his number, he's got mine. But that's the story for the day. I wasn't added to the group chat. Was a bridesmaid.
That's right. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't happen for.
You, reck I know, right, I feel I feel, I feel so. So one of the things to think about here terror Paulmiery has reported, And now if you look back, it's quite evident Walls ran for this job. He was out there working reporters to make sure that Trump kept looking at him as the logical candidate for this job. He ran a program, a press effort to get this job. Who do you have to talk to if you're going
to do that the press? And so the idea that Mike Walls not only has a cozy relationship outside of Trump's direct supervision with this reporter, but that it could be even more, that could be even more reporters that he could add to some potential future group chat, I think is not great for his survivability.
So I want to sort of continue on this thinking. Trump has said that he is not going to fire a Waltz. I'm not in his head, but it seems to me like the thinking here is that if you don't, if there is no scalp, then it wasn't a real scandal. And I think that this is absolutely wrong. And I think the reason why they fire people right, the reason why scandals lead to someone getting thrown under the bus is because if you don't throw one person under the bus,
then all of you eventually go under the bus. Discuss so.
One of the rules of political physics in Washington, and that until this week Trump has defied for years and years and years, is that when you screw up and you admit blame, you take the steam out of the system. You reduce the pressure to cause a bigger cataclysm in the system. And this has been a rule for White House's Republican and Democrat for generations. Where people say, oh, yeah, Cabinet member so and so, director of whatever agency such
and such, they screwed up. They go out and they say the following words, I take full responsibility for what I have done. Here's what happened, They explain what happened, They own it. It sucks for a while, but it stops the wolves from trying to get in the door to the president himself. This procedure works because it's how human beings work, It's how humans think and work. And it's not just because Trump has some magical superpowers that
he got away with it. He got away with it in part because the media lived in this wonderful bubble where Trump would get in trouble and then to get himself out of the first trouble he'd caused more trouble. He knew something else more outrageous. Right, Oh no, I didn't just go out with that with that girl. I killed her, and you set off one bomb to distract people from the first bomb, and.
On and on.
But with this one, what it showed was something that people in Washington and the country already sensed that these are not the top of the political and talent food chain in America. These folks came out looking and looking like they were a bunch of backslapping bros. They didn't look that spin that the White House put out. Briefly, what you saw was how serious they were. No, you didn't see that. You saw that these guys were flipping emojis back and forth, as David Remnick wrote, like the
average middle schoolers. And the idea here that this was some kind of group chat that showed how competent they were is completely wrong.
People knew this stuff was classified. They didn't.
You can't argue it into into Even Trump's people can't bend that reality into the shape they wanted to be. Right, So, if they had given up, if they had thrown somebody off of the of the sled to the wolves, if they had some one or two reasonable admissions that we shouldn't have done this this way, but that is but Trump can't do that because that's the Roy Cohne Roger Stone world of never apologize, never admit, always attack the person who identified your mouthfeasance, et cetera.
But what I think is interesting is that Mike Waltz does not He doesn't necessarily matter so much, right, member of Congress, very red district. Now, he's a security he has some kind of nebulous security.
He was a Green Beret. That is national security about it.
But I'm just saying he has this sort of nebulous security. He's not compared to Pete who who is who really is as the head of the d D and is someone for whom you know his resigning would be a big fucking scandal. I think it's a smarter play to get rid of Walls, to keep heg Seth if you're just sort of trying to do politics.
One hundred percent. And I'll tell you why I think that. And again, I don't think they will formally fire Walls. They will he in a few months. He will just say I've helped the president make sure that we are safer and set our foreign policy on the on the best possible pet path, and and now I need to go spend more time with my family.
Yeah.
And and look, honest to god, most of the press will go, yes, he's this is secretly being fired, but it won't have the same blow up that Pete Hegseth would have.
And there's a reason Trump won't fire Heseth.
He's better looking, He's and for Trump, he still sees Oh Hegseth goes on TV and says fuck you to reporters and that and whereas and I did hear this out of somebody close to the Trump organization. He Trump flipped his shit when Walls went on Laura Ingram. He thought that was a terrible performance. That is very very bad for Michael.
Yeah. Yeah, no Michaelalls. I mean I still think he ends up not surviving this. But what that looks like, I don't know, but it is. I think it's worths realizing, like, this scandal is not about the scandal, right, It's about that these guys are not good with data, that these guys are not good with keeping secret secure. That these guys are and we see hag Seth hired his brother and his wife, well.
His wife has been attending classified security meetings with Pete hag Seth. I just I just want to let you guys know, having been around the National security apparatus, that's fucking insane.
Yeah, that would be my take.
Yeah.
So, I mean, so there's all sorts of nepotism stuff, and then there's right, Mike Wallas has an open VENMO, so you can see a venmo's with journalists. I guess they're just these guys are so incredibly they feel like so messy.
They are the hottest possible mess They are a they are a convention of hot messes meeting on the top of Burning Tire Mountain. This is this is this White House again. If you just if you just watch them outside of the Trump matrix for one second. These people are over their head. They don't know what they're doing. They are they are all engaged in this performative, one eye over their shoulder, watching out to make sure that Stephen Miller or Donald Trump doesn't get mad at them. Yeah,
and and none of it's working. Telling people we're not seeing the promised piece in Ukraine. In fact, Trump is now realizing finally that Putin has been jerking them around. We're not seeing economic prosperity. In fact, we're seeing the opposite of it.
Market's crazy.
Just after we got the markets were like, okay, that last tariff thing was the last one.
Trump's not going to be that stupid shit again.
And so this on Friday or Thursday, excuse me, of last week, he of course goes much further. All that is breaking the wrong way for Trump right now.
And another thing which I think is pretty interesting. So he's got the tariffs, he's saying he doesn't care. I mean, there's reporting again, who knows if it's true or not because it's Trump and everybody leaks and everybody lies, but saying that he doesn't care about the tariffs if they're unpopular because he doesn't have to run again. Then talking about a third term right on television, he says he or he says it to Kristen Welker on the phone,
that maybe he does he's going to run again. But the other thing that I think is worth sort of doing a minute or two on is that he came out and said that maybe he won't do the tax right. The whole reason they're very rich people got involved in this Trump presidency was because they they didn't want the tax cuts to expire. Now he throws out that maybe he'll actually let the tax cuts expire because he wants to cut taxes on tips.
So what you're going to end up with is neither at this point, and that's a loss for him in every direction. First Off, he had a absolute rock solid death grip on Wall Street, and he had the folks at Goldman, the folks at Blackwrook, the folks at Blacks, and the folks at State Street.
All of these people have for.
The last two and a half months been working there, working overtime, saying, oh the tariffs are just a prank. It's just that we're all going to get. Don't worry. It's all for the tax cut. It's all to get us to the tax cut. Well, now, the tax cut is an impossibility if you even if you even if you accept the bullshit math that they had out there before,
it's an impossibility to pass it. If you say that we've got so much, so much, such a great deficit in all these other things right now, there's no way to do this even if you accepted like the goofy modeling of oh the trickle down and all the other crap, they would say. The Republican conservative fiscals in the House
are going to say, no, we can't do this. So all these people are going to get absolutely fucked on Wall Street because they built into all their expectations that they were going to get twenty seventeen tax cuts times ten, right, and it's just not going to happen.
The question is will they expire? And remember they have burned so much capital on this CR. Right, so there was this right, there's cr that they had to pass. They basically went around and got everyone except Thomas Massey on Born in the in Congress now they have to pass the tax cuts. One of the things that we remember from TROM one point zero is that they passed
the tax cuts before they went tariff crazy. So now here's a scenario where the tariffs are already choking the public market and now they have to try to get a tax cut through. I think this is I think this is going to be a lot bigger, heavier lift.
I think it's going to be a I think it's going to be a nearly impossible lift for a couple of reasons. One, we are almost certainly going to see an even smaller majority in the House after next week. It looks like we're going to pick up one more seat.
Well, well, you're talking about Florida seven, Florida six, Florida six, Okay, Florida six. You that you can't just like drop that into a conversation because Florida.
I'm not I'm not calling it hard yet.
Right, but it's an easy call.
I'm going to say this the signs of panic behind the scenes in Florida six, because if there's one thing I know, it's the Republican Party of Florida. On Thursday morning, they basically told every human being whoever has worked for or makes money from the party, you better be in Ovido down there in the heart of the district knocking doors this weekend. We're keeping track. Also, they were beating up every lobbyist that could find. We need a million dollars here, we did five hundred thousand.
There.
They weren't getting it. They were turning very they were turning very shitty.
Why.
Look, Randy Fine, the Republican candidate, and I want you to just everybody who's listening to calibrate this as I say it. Randy Fine, even for Florida, is one of the shittiest, most horrifying, most terrible human beings you will ever meet. I haven't even had that much to do with Randy Fine, but in my experience, I wouldn't piss on Randy Fine if he was burning alive.
Oh and I'm not even that much of like a I don't even have a big beef on the guy.
But people here hate him. I've seen his Twitter and it's pretty bad.
Oh he's a shitbird.
So Randy Fine, And then this is an R plus Why in our plus ten and our plus eleven.
Like eleven or something.
Yeah, and the Democrat who's running against Randy Fine is.
Called what Josh Wheel and look right now.
Seven million dollars.
He's raised ten million dollars.
Right the last week of the campaign he had about he had about two in the bank and Randy Fine had ninety three thousand.
So we'll see how it goes. Look, it's still.
A very red district in a very red state and all that blah blah blah. But the Republicans have had to pour a gigantic sum of money and warm bodies at this problem. Trump was doing a teletown hall over the weekend about it all this crap. Right, Yeah, that seat, if that seat goes, and look off, your races are not one hundred percent predictive. But if that seat goes, you're gonna know why he kept you know, you know
why he kept saphonic back. You're gonna know why they're suddenly telling these guys never to do a town hall. Don't speak, don't meet anybody, don't breathe.
Don't talk.
If Randy Fin loses, what Randy Fine loses?
Your down? Now, where the margin.
Is one seat is one seat, and.
If you take victorious sparks, Tom and Tassi.
Sometimes Andy ogles sometimes. Now.
Now, the danger zone for Mike Johnson isn't just he's going to lose CR votes or he's going to lose votes on different bills. It's that they're going to say, see, we told you Mike Johnson was all wrong for this moment.
He needed to be crazier right, more things.
And I got to tell you, if you're Mike Johnson, I don't think you're in a good.
Spot right all right, No, I don't think so either. And it's and it's a delight to watch. Thank you, Rick Wilson.
Absolutely delighted to be with you as always.
Annie Carney is a congressional correspondent for The New York Times and co author of Mad House, How Donald Trump, Magamine Girls, a former used car salesman of Florida Nefo Baby, and a man with rats in his walls Broke Congo Us. Welcome back to Fast Politics, any Karney.
Thank you, Molly, it's actually my first time.
Well, I feel like you've been here before because we're friends. Before we were recording, we were talking about how you cover Congress for the New York Times, and I said to you, while nobody's interested in Congress anymore, So let's talk about that because why well.
I think what's happened is that they have really like seeded all of their power to Trump. Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, is like on paper, the head of a coequal branch of government, but he has you wouldn't know that by watching his actions. He's looks like he's part of the Trump entourage and is acting like a junior partner or like a White House aid, like he's filming JD. Evans going to the Oval, and he is not acting like he's a you know, a head
of a co equal branch of government. They have just seated their power to Trump. So in a way, they've made themselves irrelevant.
Yeah, which is an incredible You know, we're in the first couple months, first little more than two months into this Trump presidency, and Congress has already completely flattened itself. Let me ask you a question, because I feel like some of the kind of jiu jitsu that the Senate has been able to do during the time of say Lyndon Johnson or you know, when the Senate was run by people who really were masters, has sort of fallen by the wayside because nobody remembers anything because we are
in the United States of Womonesia. If you had a Congress that was really a coequal branch of the government, what would you see it doing right now?
I think that the main thing that people know that Congress did so far is confirm all of his cabinet picks, including Robert F. Kennedy Junior, Telsea Gabbard, Pete Hegseth Cash, Mattel like these people that we know Republican senators sound totally unacceptable, voted anyway, and that was sort of the most even Trump I think, didn't think like even Trump was like started out talking about how he wanted to
do Reci's appointments. I think because he didn't know for sure that he could get the votes and is laid down. So I think that you know, in a more normal time, with a more functional political party that wasn't just scared of one man's power, you would have seen senators rejecting at least those four that I mentioned as like unacceptable. That is a big part of their job to advise antent on cabinet nominas, and they did.
Not do that job.
So I'd say that like so far, in terms of what Congress has done and what like has broken through to the American people. I'd say that's like a huge one for the Senate side.
Obviously they're scared, but Trump is largely in some ways. I hate to say this, but like he is a paper tiger, right, Like nobody's organized her roles, right. I mean, the whole organization is is run by shoestring. Elon has a gazillions of dollars, but there's a lot going on there. I'm wondering sort of what you think kind of has caused this collapse in the Senate And if you think they could come out of it.
I don't think they're coming out of it anytime soon. And it's not just I think it's both sides. I'll answer it in two parts. First, is that Trump's control of the party is like near total that he doesn't even really have to threaten very much. They anticipate it. They know, like they've seen the playbook, like you fall
out of line, the bait. Like there's also this like echo chamber that exists now that will do the work for him of threatening a very challenge like going after you, making it so you can't keep your job unless you fall in line. They all know that the playbook. They don't need Trump to actually threaten them anymore. And he knows that they know, so he's mostly like carrot at this point. With Republicans in Congress, they kind of especially
in the House, they love him. He takes them on Air Force one, he takes mar A La, he calls, they have his cell phone number, they text with him.
He texts them on their on TV.
Like mostly he gets to be the host. They know that, like the stick is there. It's just like at this point it's unspoken because his power is so total.
And in terms of the book, like this started we last.
Congress, the one hundred and eighteenth Congress was the first maga Congress, Like that is what our book is about. When it really like took all of all these characters who ran the place and ground it to a halt and like actually broke Congress, Like basically were Trump's mimicking minions who just carried it on even when he was out of power, and a lot of people who were
not in that mold left just exited Congress. It was like too horrible, too dysfunctional, and they left Jeff like types right, like people like kind of like the old school more center or leaning Republicans.
A lot of them just quit in the middle, like didn't.
Even finish out their term. And the people who are still here and are rising and basically have tenure because they come from like red districts are the Marjorie Tailer Greens and the Lauren Boberts and the hard to write people who are you know, just diehard Trumpists. And that is Congress now, and we our book if you want to understand this moment, like it's really like brought to you by the last Congress and very very relevant to like why they're acting the way they are today.
So the last Congress was famous for having passed less legislation then talk us through sort of how much legislation they passed.
So the last Congress was the most insane story ever. They couldn't elect a Speaker of the House for a week, then they ousted him, and then they took another week where they couldn't choose someone else, no one could get the votes, like they routinely just ground the House for to a standstill by blocking their own parties bills. And they like barely managed to like avoid defaulting on our debt.
So they like barely managed.
To do like what should be the bare minimum of governing, and they passed the least number of laws in like decades, So they literally forgot And what they did do was like engage in petty personal feuds that they like pretended were about like bigger issues.
So are we talking about Matt Gates here?
Are more not just Matt Gates everybody? For instance, that first week obviously Matt Gates's personal feud against Kevin McCarthy. But that first week, one of the people who was with Matt Gates throughout opposing Kevin McCarthy was Lauren Bobert. And the reason we in our book we reported that she originally had made a deal with McCarthy that she was going to be with him, but then she saw that Marjorie Taylor Green had also made that deal, and she hates Marjorie Taylor Green so much that she got
she went the other way. So like it looks like these people are taking these positions out of some sort of like stance. It's really she hates Marjorie Taylor Green and like cannot be on the same side with her on anything. So it's about any personal feuds drive So
much of what's happening. It's like the American people don't know that, Like they're being asked to weigh in and having a decision made for them by people who like are just totally embroiled in their like high school level drama between each other, and when the House is not really doing anything. Also it was a moment of divided government, so they couldn't do as much. But when you're not doing anything, also, like they tried and failed to impeach
Joe Biden. But when they're not doing anything, these like feuds, they started to act like feuding and playing games and censoring each other like that that was the job.
So it became idiotic.
But it also like just broke the place for actually like doing anything like passing laws or doing anything policy wise, And it really sets the stage nowt Now Republicans control all of government, the Senate, the House, and the presidents and like the owner. Now they kind of like if they can't get anything done in this Congress, it's gonna look worse because you can't do it now, you really can't do it.
Ever, they actually have to pass some laws.
Now, Yeah, so let's talk about law passing, because yeah, the last Congress was insane. They didn't pass anything, they named some post offices, they fought with Democrats, they had the weaponization. Do two minutes on the weaponization. I just say, please place place.
So our book like traces most of these big fights that probably everyone remembers, like the speaker fight, the second speaker fight, the fight about Ukraine funding, the dead ceiling fight, and you think that you know what happened. And then like the most fun thing about writing this book was like the way we did it was we would like wait a month or six weeks till after the fact and circle back and talk to everyone in the room and like all these insane stories that didn't come out
of me, and then the world moves on. But like you go back and then people are willing to share more because it's news anymore. It's oh, and we found out like so many more, just like jaw dropping.
And insane behaviors, like what, let's see.
I learned that there's a drunk caucus and they're literally called the drunk Caucus, and how.
The drunk Wait what there's a drunk caucus?
Well, informally, I mean I wouldn't say they're yes, but.
They're called the drunk communists.
They are routinely pretty wasted if there's an e vote, and leadership knows that, like if you schedule a vote after six, like it's problematic because a lot of people are drunk, especially in last Congress when like there's nothing
to do all day, so they're drinking. And this reared its head during the Kevin McCarthy's speaker fight when like they were like very close to closing the deal on like the fifteenth vote, and Patrick McHenry saw someone who he told everyone looked inebriated, like beyond functionality.
Best Van Done of Texas.
Who denies that she is inebriated beyond function trying to get involved in like talking to Bobert and like messing up the deal they had in place. And they fear the drunkards on the houseboard. So we all watch someone lun literally lunch at bat Gates. But it wasn't he wasn't the only person who was potentially under the influence, Like it was the.
Drunk As someone who's been sober since they were nineteen, I laugh, but I also cry because I know how shitty alcoholism is and how it makes you just an unfunctional human. I wonder if you could talk to us about this how Trump got this CR passed, Because we know Mike Johnson serves at the pleasure of Donald Trump. He is installed by Trump. He's basically Trump lackie. But
he also has this incredible ability he cannot count. So the fact that as we were watching this CR come to the floor, there were a lot of people, you know, I read punch Bowl, I read you, I read that. You know, I was listening to the punch Bowl podcast. I am the only non lobbyist to listen to that podcast, and they were saying, you know, it's hard to imagine that Mike Johnson can actually get this past. So what happened that got a past?
Trump wanted it, and so a few things happened.
So Chip Roy is a far right Republican from Texas who has done on the wrong Donald Trump for a long time. He endorsed DeSantis early in the primary. He you know, blamed Trump for January sixth and then didn't really ever walk it back. So he's had a Trump problem.
He is an ambitious guy who's pretty smart, who wants to rise and I think he saw an opportunity here to play kind of the deal maker and make the case that these fiscal conservatives who have never voted for a government spending bille in their life, should get on board with this, which is what Trump wanted, and he organized these Freedom Caucus guys, organized a White House meeting
to bring them over and meet with Trump. So part one is like chip Roy saw it opening here to beat the deal maker for Trump, and now their relationship is great. And two, Trump like leaned on these guys again, like I was saying, he didn't even really need to yell at them.
It's good.
He had them over to the White House and he says to them, you know, I totally understand your concerns. I totally agree with you, but I need a starting point and we'll get more cuts later.
And they roll over.
These guys who literally ousted Kevin McCarthy because he made a deal like this to like keep the government open on a short term funding bill, like just voted for it with no problem because Trump asked them to.
Some of them like acted like holdouts till the end.
But it almost seems like kabookie theater, like they act like holdouts and then Trump calls them and then like also in this tight slim majority they have, like they have one vote to lose. Anyone can put themselves at the center of the news cycle for a day, which they love to do. So you just say like, I don't know how I'm going to vote, and then you get a call from the President and then the reporter swarmium and you can say like, I had a really good talk with the President and he you know.
I'm like, that's what they do.
But ultimately they all fell on line. It didn't even take particular arm twisting from Trump. It took like listening to them and calling them and asking them, and they did the end and it was it was like a lot of these guys who voted for it literally have never voted for a government spending bill in their life and ousted a speaker of their own party for it last Congress.
Yeah, so part of it was their sick vincy, but part of it was the Elon MUSKMANI train talked to us about that.
Well, yes, so what a lot of these guys called it.
In their argument, they were like, like chip Roy pitched it as this is a doge protection act, like we can keep the government open, Elon can keep doing his work and we can get more cuts down the line, but like this keeping the government open alow Doge.
To keep cutting. That was like how they framed it.
But also didn't Elon basically donate to people who voted for it and threaten people who didn't vote with primaries? Did he Yeah, because there were donations made.
I know he just donated to people who are doing judicial impeachments.
Right, Okay, so that's another one. But the point is there definitely is a fair amount of like Elon is the bank.
Well, what Eyon is doing is like he's making it clear on various issues that he cares about that like if you're with him, he'll like, for now, he's just doing like the maximum hard dollar. So it's not that much money, it's like seven dollars, but it's a signal that like if you're on the team, Like he has other ways of funneling money to candidates, Like for now, that's what he's doing. He could do a super pack sort of thing. He like, it's a sign that like
if you're on board, you're taken care of financially. You're not, you're in trouble. So like between Trump's like power of the Bay and you can't get crosswise of like the president tweeting at you or calling for a primary challenger, or getting like the Steve Bannons and the echo chamber against you and Elon's money. Like there is one path for these people who want a political future in the party.
Annie Carney, I hope you'll come.
Back, please anytime, No moment, Rick Wilson, momly, jog fast.
Is it that time again?
It is that time? The best? It's Liberation Day, that's right, lib Oh my god. By the way, if you're a Trump world, you're gonna make Liberation Day so close to April Fool's Day. I mean it seems like an unforced.
Error, right that unforced errors right now? Truly on brand?
Yeah, I'm for sure. Who what is your my moment of fuckery? Liberation Day, the tariffs, April second, April Fool's Day. Let's see what happens. What is your moment of fucker?
Mine is much smaller. I have a moment of a nano nanofuckery, microfuckery. Perhaps nanofuckery is certain. I don't need to see the White House, what I considered to be one of America's sacred historic spaces turned into a fucking vulgar casino. The goddamn gold leaf all over everything now and taking away paving, paving the rose gardens so that he can do disco night like he does at mar A Lago, all the all, the gold leaf, all the
all of a sudden like like gold earns. And it looks like it looks like a brothel in Atlantic City attached to a Trump casino. And you know, the smell is like despair inside and mildew. But it's just like it's so irritating to me right now. It's a small thing in terms of the giant scope of every other piece of horror they're doing. I'm like, not only are you tearing down everything that America has worked for for for one hundred years, you're now making it look vulgar at the same time.
I know it's a small thing, I.
Know, but didn't you also didn't we also have we're going to talk about the Wisconsin judgeship.
We were and Elon paying people a million dollars out bribing people.
Let's not look, I know he's got good election.
Lawyers, because I know who these election lawyers are, and they're going to argue this case until the end of the day, but he's bribing people again, and at some point state and federal law, both states and federal laws prohibit bribery, sorry, Elon.
And at some point it's got to catch up. But it's so offensive, it's unbelievable.
That is right, Well, good thing, Thank you, Rick Wilson. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.