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 Republican Representative Michael McCall won't seek re election after eleven terms. We have such a great show for you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joins us to discuss the rights escalating rhetoric of revenge
for Charlie Kirk's death. Ben will talk to the former chair of the Wisconsin Democrats, Ben Wickler about how the Democratic Party effectively builds to counter the GOP.
But first the news, so BALI, there is a leadership fight a bruin. It seems Chris van Holland is looking to become the leader in the Senate. Hakim Jefferies has some choice words for him, but I think Chris is dead on here and as the type of fighter I think we could use personally.
Chris van Holland had this really good point about Mom Dami and he said, yet many members of the Senate and the House representing New York have stayed on the sidelines. And he's right. He said that that kind of spineless politics is what people are sick of. They need to get behind him and get behind him.
Now that's about as boys words as Dems do. That's like a political smack in the face to start a fight whatever sek for.
Old white guys like this is as rough as they get. And look, Holland is right. Mondanni won the nomination. He won it by as it's not like there's a primary going on. And I think what's really interesting about this is it's not like Mondani is some unpopular candidate. He's a really popular candidate. So then you have to ask yourself think about this, Why are they not endorsing someone
who won their districts. These are politicians. They tend to do things that are politically expedient, So what is the move here? Why are they not doing it? And when you think about it that way, the reasons they're not doing it are pretty damn it.
I think Jeffries has long been accused by the left of being hostile towards them in a way that they can barely make sense of.
I think the most important thing about Leader Jeffries is that he is really bad at the Internet. And so you may not love Gavin Newsom ideologically, but the guy is good at the Internet.
You can be Bernie Sanders would be nine billion years old to be good at.
The internets, AOC good at the Internet. There are a lot of Democrats, Chris Murphy. Not anyone's idea of a crazy leftist good at the internet. You know who's not good at the internet. Leader Jeffries, Leader Jeffries. This is what poor Justin said. Leader Jeffries will have more to say about the general election, well advanced of November fourth, by the way, in case for those keeping Scurt home, we are at September fourteenth, so he really only has
six weeks if he's going to do it. Meanwhile, he said, confuse New Yorkers are asking themselves a question Chris van who. No, we're not. We know exactly who Chris van Holland is, and making fun of Chris van Holland does not make you then seem like you have the situation in hand.
Yeah, okay, Well, speaking of situations, we're monitoring as the joke quakes to go. The mayor of Memphis, Paul Jung, says he's certainly not happy about Trump's National Guard deployment.
Nobody should be happy, right, I think we all need to pause for a minute. The framing is a lie. He's not sending the National Guard into fight crime. The National Guard does not fight crime. The police fight crime. The National Guard get there and they end up having to do terrible jobs that they're not meant to be doing, picking up trash, intimidating people. So the whole you know, it's like reject Trump's framing. He didn't go to war
with universities because he cared about anti semitism. He went to war with universities because they saw from Victor Orbond that if you want to enact and authoritarian crackdowns, you have to start with the universities. That's what this was. So when you look at this, this is not about crime, This is about deployment. This is about spectacle. And also, by the way, this is about distracting from the tariff
fiasco and inflation. Trump has decided that going into Memphis is better because Tennessee is a red state, and that he'll be greeted as a liberator, you know, tends to be. We are not greeted as liberators when our military role into different cities, especially ones that have their own protocol for protecting themselves.
I thought part of trump Ism was that we learned the lessons of Iraqis and now what he always claims, but he didn't learn that they'll greet us as liberators.
Thing.
Listen, man, he's brought peace. He's brought peace everywhere. He's brought peace to India and Pakistan, he's brought peace to the Middle East.
This is why he's going to get the.
Yeah, he's spent forty five piece deals in five days.
That's what I've been told.
Do you remember when we were ninety trade deals in ninety days?
You know that seems to have stucked my mind because there's a shit from every single day to forget about all the lives. They tell, well, we never.
Got the deals. There were no deals, no deals, no deals, just days.
Well.
Another myth of this administration is the Party of free speech.
Yes, they love free speech except sometimes do you.
Know what the Party of free speech is talk about doing? A new bill would allow Marco Ruby of a strip US citizens' passports over political speech.
So we talked about this with Rip and my grandfather did, in fact have his passport strip. The Supreme Court has ruled against this. Now trumperol doesn't mind doing illegal stuff. That's like kind of the brand a legal stuff. But I do think that the fact that this crew has decided that they're going to go after passports and maybe
they pass it, it's unconstitutional. It's against the Constitution. I mean, I don't know, well the Supreme Court like rollover probably, but I think we're seeing here that this is we're just in water world here where they just make up stuff.
Yep.
So I find this really disturbing. This is balls onto that banner of the cruelty is the point, and also getting rich people stupid tax cuts that barely hurt them. The Trump administration is canceling grants that support deaf, blind students and special education teachers.
This is cute.
This is how we got here, right like, this is fraud, waste, and abuse. I was told that the richest man in the world, he's not the richest anymore, but the second richest man in the world was going to cut out fraud, waste, and abuse. What he meant was just getting rid of money for teachers to teach disabled children. Wisconsin had planned to work with these funds to include direct support of deaf blind learners and their families in an effort to
recruit and retain new special education, teachers. It's one thing. They cut all this international foreign aid, the kind of stuff that you know, millions of people are going to die from this, but this is just stuff that is like, we have this ballooning debt, we have billionaires not paying taxes. Like you guys can pay for deaf blind kids to get teachers. I promise you can afford it. Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project and the host
of the Enemy's List. Hello, Rick Wilson, Mollie john Fast, Great to.
Be back with you.
You had a nice littification we did.
We went to England and Renee and I spent a few days in the Cotswalds and a few days in London. When I was over there, their number one story in the news for like four or five days was that the deputy Prime Minister had not paid enough property taxes. It wasn't did Trump nuke the moon? It was there something cuckoo.
There's still time. While you were away, Stephen Miller went on Fox News and he said some stuff. We're gonna We're gonna cut to the veil.
I know what you're talking about.
There is a dynastic terrorism movement in this country, when you see these organized docs and campaigns where the left calls people enemies of the republic, calls them fascists, says they're Nazis, says they're evil, says they have to be removed, and then prince their addresses.
What do you think they're.
Trying to do.
They are trying to inspire someone to murder them. That is their objective, that is their intent.
And when you see online Sean, as we've seen for the last few days, tape after tape after tape of federal workers, Beeracrez staffers and the Pentagon educators, professors, healthcare workers, nurser nurses celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
These are radicalized people. There is a domestic terrorism movement in this country.
I just want to say, you think that the cardigan is going to make him seem a little more mallow, but it really it's I guess it's a fleece like you want to like a guy in a gray fleece.
Look, I mean it is the It is the sort of modern day business bro uniform you want to quarner zip or a fleece. You know, it makes you it seem like you're casual and yet still smart and sharp and approachable and yet not necessarily rabid, bouncing off the fucking walls. And you know, Stephen Miller, there's a real tell in all of this. Steven Miller immediately goes to it. Oh,
they call us Nazis, they call us fascists. Well, listen, Stephen, if the jack boot fits, wear it, well, I don't think that.
I think that the I think the name calling whatever right. Nobody has ever been convinced of anything by calling someone a name. The question I have is where are these nurses, where are these federal employees celebrating this brutal killing, because I have not seen that. Now. Maybe I'm siloed up, but I'm not seen for fer.
Did see a weeks ago Mike Lee and JD. Vance and a whole bunch of other Republicans laughing and joking about the murder of the former House speaker in Minnesota. You know what I did see when Paul Pelosi was beaten with a hammer by a crazy guy who was inspired by MAGA. I saw Don Junior making jokes about it online, thought it was hilarious, And frankly, we saw Charlie Kirk hoping that that guy would get bailed out at the time.
So let's just pull back because Stephen Miller is basically Trump's chief of staff. So this is not like some guy on the internet saying this. This is the President's chief of staff.
Not Molly. It's important to realize not only that Stephen Miller is the effective head of the both the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
Right she is.
It controls those things top to bottom.
And one of the things that I think has been really interesting about this week that we've seen a lot of is that we've seen people from Trump World and
how they're like, I'm thinking about cash Battel. So Cash Battel was so worried about the way that this was playing out in the media, social mainstream, and we have now Steven Miller going on television, going on Fox News saying, you know that he's going to sort of we ideal I mean the goal what it sounds like to me here and I certainly could be wrong, but it sounds like ideological culling of the federal government.
Look, I think you have to expand past that. You have people like Representative Clay Higgins, you have people across the across the MAGA verse now saying that anybody who doesn't sufficiently praise Charlie Kirk is going to be targeted. And I think what you see Miller doing is taking a tragic moment, a horrible moment of violence, and now trying to weaponize it into a further expansion of the power of the executive branch.
When you have just doing they executive there, Yes we.
Need the state Department now saying that they want to be able to cancel Americans passports if they say the wrong things.
This is an increasingly censor dark visionship. Yeah, well, such a sentiship. It's the use of the power of the state state to harm the political opponents of the president.
It's funny because my grandfather after he got out of jail caring mccarthier, they actually did take away his passport and that's why the family went to Mexico after he got a jail, because you could go to Mexico without a passport. And they actually went to a very conservative Supreme court and were given their passports back because the court said you can't take people's passports away for political reasons. Now,
that was seventy five years ago. Now, our court is significantly more conservative than it was I mean seventy five years ago. I mean, I feel like this court. You give them that question, they might decide differently.
There was an article in The Times on Sunday about the number of times the Supreme Court agrees with the administration and the current Supreme Court. No Supreme court in history has ever agreed with an administration more frequently than this one does. So, you know, Donald Trump could say my opponents have to have to be branded in the middle of their forehead with an L for loser, and they would probably go, well, the executive power should not
be constrained. Look, Molly, I think what we're seeing here these are the kind of things that really show us who this administration is. And Stephen Miller by saying that he wants to enforce a speech code in this country and enforce ideological conformity, and to try to use this tragedy to pennant on everyone who speaks against the president, you know, it does show you also something that clip, in particular, that Steven Miller's crazy. This guy has more
than a couple of bolts loose up top. I wonder in some ways the president looks at Miller and says, he's the guy who understands my base. I wonder in some ways, just like with RFK, if we're going to star reaching a point of diminishing returns with Steven Miller soon because that stuff he's doing on TV is cuckoo Town.
Well again, I think it's also a question of like is it more trouble than it's worth? And that goes to Chicago. And I'd love to talk about Chicago because Trump was all ready to go into Chicago last week and he changed his mind.
Right.
That is like when Trump says uncle about things that is really important to.
You, it means kil a lot when Trump. When Trump tacos, it means a lot. And especially because he really had spent a in the in the period before the Kirk incident, he had spent about a week saying Chicago was weak and dangerous and and the streets were running with blood and all this other stuff, and you know, and and people like Miller had been out talking to reporters telling them We're going to go in, We're gonna we're gonna take the city back. You know, if they if they
screw with us, we'll arrest them. And then he backed off, and now we're hearing that he's going to send troops to Memphis, which needs it, red state, blue city, red state, and to Louisiana, which also red state.
Blue cities, but again needs it. Is like, is a fake framing, right needs it?
You know what?
You know? You know, I stand corrected, I stand. You could make a better case for it in those communities.
But you still should not make any case that the National Guard should be fighting crime because that's not their job.
And also with the Unity Sty, they're picking them a trash.
Right, They're picking up trash, they're planting things, and by the way, they are furious. Right. National Guard troops are really mad because these people signed up to save drowning children and fight wars, not to pick up trash and intimidate their neighbors, which is not the purpose. But I think it's worth just for another minute talking about why Trump did not go into Chicago, because Pritzker has certainly has something to do with it. He went into California
that was ruled illegal. And then I also wonder about Brandon Johnson. You know, there was a really united front there.
Yeah, I think he I think he started to look at Chicago, and there was a possibility there that the Chicago government and courts and law enforcement would all say no, not here, bro. And he has been losing in court a lot, as you know. And I think that there may have been part of this that said, we don't want to have a precedent set because look, in Tennessee and Louisiana, the state governments are going to say cool,
we love mister whatever, right. But been in Illinois, I think there was a real chance he could have been legally and professionally embarrassed by this in terms of the city, might have been able to really, you know, put up some meaningful obstacles legally and otherwise to this kind of behavior. So I think the window in which Trump can use the National Guard is closing or has closed. I don't
think it's an effective strategy. There. There is pushback inside the military about it, quietly of ours, because they're all over Trump.
And it was emailed to a reporter at the Washington Post that that this was terrible for them and that they.
Were a look a bad look and killing morale in the Guard.
Yeah, which I mean, the thing that is so interesting about this administration is like at so many points. So they blew up this boat off the coast. It does it certainly seems like the boat they blew up, they don't have a definitive answer on what was in it.
Does they strike you that the boat they blew up might not have really been dug.
Well, they were turning around, you saw that, right, they got you know they You know, when people are in the midst of surrendering, you're not supposed to kill them, right.
That is the rule that is part of the Uniform Code Military Justice and also in the Geneva Convention a variety of other practices of war where someone says, hey, okay, I give up. You're not supposed to just kill them. And look, I think what you're seeing. Also, and there's a little bit of a reporting about this, You've got Rit Grennell and Marco Rubio fighting over control of who's going to be the Venezuela person. It's an odd fight and one that I will never see on pay per view,
I presume. But it really strikes me that one side is leaking like a sieve, and it doesn't seem like it's Rubio's side who was controlling this until that moment. And I wonder what the value added is for the Trump administration to declare war on Venezuela and to pretend that they're stopping Trendiagua by blowing up shrimp boats.
Yes, but then there's also the larger question of a lot and I feel like so much news got drapped out by the by his other stuff. But like Scott Bessen had, yes, White House Fight Club, Scott Bessont has, now he's going to beat up Pulty. I'll be very curious to find out what happens with Bill PULTI because this guy provided all of this evidence of stuff, and now Lisa Cook it looks like is exonerated, right.
Or not just a little exonerated, like like completely she said in the filings when she filed for the mortgage, this is a vacation home. I'm not asking for a homestead exemption. So I mean, I think she's got a case against this guy.
I don't parents actually did commit mortgage fraud.
Right, Yes?
They correct so they So the irony here is incredibly rich. Bill Pulty has made an enemy out of Scott Besson. Scott Besson, who you know had his last scene focusing with Elon Musk, meaning I just.
Want to see these guys, Like, I want to see these guys fight it out.
You know what's funny, They said they were going to do mm A fighting at the White House. Remember that, Yeah, why not just go all in? Well, maybe it's already happening. Maybe the m m A fighting is.
The along the way, right, or.
Maybe it's just the it's just Scott Best and beating up different people from the administration.
So it's a lot of thrills and spills the fans. We'll see on here.
Is a white House Fight Club, White House fight Club. So, and the first rule of White House Fight Club is that Scott Besson does in Scott the apparently the White House.
Flight Club is you leak it to Axios.
Right, Well, and the second rule of White House Fight Club is if you're fighting with someone who has more than seven jobs, you're probably gonna get fired. So like, yeah, Marco has had fights with people and he's gotten their jobs. Scott Bessen has had fights with people and he's gotten their jobs. So I could see a world in which this is the end of Bill PULTI yeah.
I mean, I don't think Bill Poulty is a guy that Donald Trump wakes up in the morning and says, my god, what will I do without him?
But it is interesting, like that's just another guy, rich guy who Trump was friends with. I mean, the barrier to entry in this administration continues to be an Evolf right, do I like you? Are? The vibes good? Right?
He was a developer, I know them, I am one, I love them all.
I think the real question, though, is just the idea that you have a guy who is just sort of putting people in the cabinet. It is the one thing that I think is different from Trump one point zero is we're not seeing like the wall of firing, which means all of these people are staying in the administration, which means true. Talk me through that, because that seems like I feel like Scott, like firing your your head, your director of Defense might have been a better move than keeping him in.
Well. I think Trump looked at the things that hurt him politically in the first administration and determined he was going to take that sort of Roy Cone approach from now on. My people never do anything wrong. They're always right. Screw you. If you criticize them, you're criticizing me. And I also think there's something that's changed inside the administration is he's willing to move people laterally, like Mike Webles was was National Security Advisor until they added to Laura Lumer.
Well and didn't he ask, oh Laura Lumer okay, yeah, yeah, And.
Laura Lumer fired all of his staff and then Trump said, well, Marco, you can be National Security Advisor. And and but Mike Walls didn't get humiliated and he got the United Nations job. You know, So they play it a little differently this time because Trump doesn't want to be seen as losing any battles, and so it's going to take a lot to fire even sect drunk Pete Hegseth.
But Pete Seth is still like adding people to signal chat. I mean, maybe he's not actively doing it, but clearly the problems have not gone away.
No, and look, Pete Hexseth is is a singularly destructive Secretary of Defense. And at no point should the folks that are on the current Joint chiefs of Staff ever wake up and think I'm serving this country effectively by working for Petexseth. They will not be replaced by somebody better or more responsible. They are. They're in a deep hole with this guy because he is I mean, without like being funny or exaggerating, petexth is mentally incapable of
doing this job. They will put somebody stupider in the job. When Pterexath goes.
Rick, give us like a reason to not despair.
Donald Trump is a failing president. His poll numbers suck, and they suck hard by the way they are bad. Donald Trump's numbers are now in the high to mid thirties. He is not a popular president. His policies are failing almost across the board. Everything he does, almost every single day is mediated by the fear of revelations on the Epstein matter.
Right, that is true.
He has been permanently branded as being a friend associate running But however you want to describe it of an infamous sex trafficker and an infamous pedophile. He's talking about freeing the woman who ran the operations of that infamous sex traffickers pedophile child trafficking ring. Yeah, nothing about this is good for him. Donald Trump is also now an international laughing stock, and he knows about the world knows it. The tariff move has absolutely empowered China more than almost
any other country on Earth. The United States is a laughing stock in foreign policy because no matter what Vladimir Putin does, Trump will say, yes, sir, three bags full, can I go wash your car? Yeah. So he's a terrible president. His presidency is failed and failing. He is doing awful things, but that ability to do these awful things is now diminishing with a weaker economy. It's diminishing with an administration that is obsessed with one issue, Jeffrey
Epstein behind the curtain. And as much as he can do evil and do wrong, he's also eighty years old, and he's not in good health, and the time is ticking, and the actuarial tables are undefeated. And I don't think that we should look at Trumps as powerful as he would have been if he'd come back in twenty twenty one, either a reelection or through January sixth. He's physically and mentally office game. He's slipped.
Yeah, he seems to.
It's going to catch up with all of us eventually. But he is not the guy he was six months ago. You can see it, you can feel it. And he doesn't have the same instincts and the same ability and the same power. Is the Republican Party still his bitch, of course it is.
Ben Wickler is the former head of Wisconsin Democrats. Welcome Ben to Fast Politics.
Thanks got to be back, Bally.
I wanted to have you on because I wanted to talk about the moment Democrats are in and I've written a lot about it. I've been thinking about a lot about it. It's an insane moment in American life. So talk us through what this looks like right now. And I want you to talk us through like where the Democrats are. First, talk us through Democrats more generally, and then talk us through what easing to party party structure.
Sure, so we have a split screen right now, and the split screen is a kind of national conversation that's totally dominated by Trump and his allies for two reasons. One is that they own the means of distribution. They own acts, the federal government, as browbeating national media, as the usions the newspapers have been bought by people who now have a huge financial interest in koutout and to
the Trump administration. And the other side is that Trump himself and the whole ecosystem that people on the right are extremely skilled at driving conversation constantly and so it's both that the people who control the algorithms have an interest in lifting out their narratives, but also the fact that they're a lot better using those algorithms to get the word out, and they're doing horrible, horrible things. And so there's authoritary breakthrough national crisis moment, and the public
basically is only hearing from the right. They're not hearing from Democrats, in part for structural reasons and in part because the kind of across the board, and there's lots of individual people that are getting this much better. But Democrats need to get really good at figuring out how to do things they can break through the news cycle.
And that means actually not just having the right words that are not offensive to anyone, It means actually driving actions so that Republicans are responding to what Democrats are doing to fight back as opposed to Democrats girl clutching at the latest horror. And the horrors are very real. It's not wrong to condemn the horrors, but as long as we're playing on their turf, we're losing. So that's
the first part. All of us feel that any what has made attention even a bit feels of like how could this all be happening and there's no like, you know, nothing's breaking through, there's no pushback. Is mind rending. The other side of the split screen is what is happening
on the ground. And I got an early taste of this because I was in Wisconsin leading the Democratic Party Wisconsin when Elon Musk came in and dropped what you know, by my math, it's about fifty three million dollars on the Supreme Court race the spring and then lost by ten percentage points to Susan Crawford, who got more votes not only than any Supreme Court justice ever in the state, she got more votes than any Republican candidate for governor
in a November election in an even numbered you know, midterm year has ever gotten That turns out was not atypical. Democrats are overperforming over and over and over and over. The average over performance is like sixteen percentage points this year, which is like vastly higher than it was in twenty seventeen, which was a banner year for Democrats kiking ass and
special elections. And that is driven by this just palpable sense of urgency and rage and readiness to do anything to save the country that millions of people feel on the ground all over the place. If you ask run for something, they're saying they're seeing vastly more people signing up to run for local office than they've ever seen.
You can see this whole crop of people announcing campaigns for the US Senate, which was supposed to be unwinnable, and now in state after state after state, we have these really compelling candidates that are communicating in new ways.
There's just a huge boiling energy. And in a sense, these two things are going to crash into each other in the next year and a half because on the one hand, you have a Trump administration that's trying to dismember the country, rig the system, completely lock in permanent control, and on the other side, this energy that's coming up from below, that is, you know, both through massive organizing and mobilization, through ways of lawsuits, through like every non
election day tactic, but also through political mobilization, is trying to counter this this lurch to the right. And I think they're going to be booed by the fact that Trump has been a total disaster for working people across the country, especially the people who pay the least attention to politics, who you know, were sort of changing the channel, like she's trying something else, because that felt like what
was going on before wasn't working. If you look at the public, they're also concluding that this is not working. And so I think there's every likelihood that to the extent we have a fair and freevy election, then it could also be a wave election and a major change election in twenty six. I think the same thing could happened this fall. Pennsylvania statrib Court is incredibly important fight Virginia, New Jersey. And what the Democratic Party is two things.
It is, on the one handed, kind of a morphous blob of everyone who publicly identifies as the Democrat, every elected official of the d next to their name, and a lot of people eyes next to their names. It's the commentators, it's all the different committees, the spaghetti sup of different organizations, it's all the affiliated allied groups. It's the all these different elements and this deep fundamental partnership
with the union movement. And then it's also an institution with like the Democratic National Committee, with state committees in each state. And this is a moment of reckoning for the Democratic Party. And in those moments of reckoning. There's always going to be a lot of conflict, Like that's just how that's how generational change works, that's how shifting shifting gears, how begging things through.
Works.
If there wasn't, I think that would be really bad news. And I would love to see, like I would love to see the Democratic Party breaking through and demonstrating into the country that we have an opposition party at this moment and that it is fighting back at the same time, Like there are these internal conversations that are happening all over the place and often spelling out into the public.
And the most important thing is whether millions of people are deciding themselves to become the heroes in this moment and taking on the work, which could be recruiting candidate or running for off as yourself, or it's donating it, marching every weekend and talking to friends and neighbors, making list of people you know who didn't vote in twenty four Like, there's so many things that people can do. So I'm in a hair and fire state about the risk of the country to every person in the country.
It is basically locked in that millions and millions of people are going to die because of this administration, because of what they've done to vaccines, because of what they've done to global health at fart AID, because of what they've done to health policy in the United States. Like, there's so much pain that has already begun for so many people, and it's going to get so much worse, and their threat to the basic function of democracy is
so bad. But I'm heartened by the level of and the intensity of the response, even if it's you have to look pretty hard to find it because it's not being covered properly. That to me is really hardening.
Okay, you've made me feel so much better. I can't decide is it because I like you so much anyway, because I'm always like, give a supers wee of red hair, so people with red hair are always good. But also that you have a soothing present in a moment that is not very soothing. Why are you not DNC chair And shouldn't you be DNC chair? And make me feel better that you're not DNC chair?
Well, I ran for Dunca chair. I have a lot of respect for Kim Martin. I've known for years. I think in the race, I was reminded of something that I say all the time, you know in Wisconsin, which is that if you want to build the trust of an electorate, you have to build relationships with them over years and not just show up in the last couple of months. And I very conscious that I jumped into the race for DNC chair on December first of twenty
twenty four, two months out from election day. This is not something that I'd dreamed of and Lake groundwork for. And Ken has been leading the Association of the state parties and was building relationships, serving on the DNC executive Committee. Was making the case to people and they knew him. And trust comes from knowing someone and seeing them in action, So like elections are like that, and it's why I think year round organizing is so absolutely essential. That's the
gospel that I was preaching. But Ken was making the same argument and people knew him, so they heard it from him in the same way, which kind of proves the argument itself. I will find lots of other ways to lead into the fight. And I also think that in a sense, this is going to be a fight where the DNC of everybody's fantasies wouldn't be able to
do this by itself because chance. It's going to be this huge surge of a bazillion different folks stepping into the breach in a bazillion different ways, and that there are a lot of voters for whom the Democratic Party will never be the right messenger. So even if the Democratic Party said everything perfectly in every perfect place, and that might improve the party's brand, imagine it was ten
percentage points better, it would still be really low. Right, Yeah, that would be if we could spike up its approval as a national party by an unprecedented degree, that still would not be enough to get a majority. People like great candidates of which we're seeing all these people coming out of would work. I love like launch video TV
is my have replaced right now? These candidates are making the case that they see what's wrong with a broken system and they're going to challenge the system of role and they're going to change it. That people, it is not Democrats running on like restore the status quo. Democrats are running on this isn't normal, but what's normal is not okay, Like we need to actually make this whole
country work. And if the Democrat like correct party in a sense isn't the right messenger for that, because it's the oldest political party, I believe, the oldest continuous political party in the world. As an entity, it doesn't embody the idea of fighting for change in the minds of the people who are most skeptical of it. So, you know, there's just there's a lot of heroes that we need at this moment, and some of them are in the party and in the party structure, and a ton of
them are outside of it. And a lot of the voters that we need are people who think that both parties are fundamentally broken, corrupt and evil, and who nonetheless we need to find, you know, who can communicate with them and build enough trust to say it is worth it casting a vote in this next election because everything's on the line.
You're seeing these huge wins and these specials. Example, as there was a Virginia seat fifteen points over deliver on that seat. When you look at Democrats in office, Robert Garcian oversight is a really good example. They got the birthday book, They got the birthday book out there. I was shocked at how much that, you know, they handled it in just extremely in a way where they were able to break through one of the big problems is
Democrats can't break through. Harris had real problems breaking through by an administration could not break through. Give me your feeling on.
This, Yeah, I mean I think that the chair or breaking member borg on the Birthday book, it's a perfect example of the right kind of move. I'm like working in my house right now, and part of what you do when you're trying to you prove your house is you put positive air pressure into the house and see
where the air leaks. And I think of what Trump is trying to do right now, as it's like you're putting air pressure into the whole American political system to see every crack in the system where you can then like shove through authoritarian power. So like the federal government
doesn't control the police. Oh, but you can create your own secret police force through the ICE funding and through sending in truth with all these different things, I think in a sense democrats need the same kind of approach to think about how to break through, which is to say, you have to try a ton of stuff. You have to try doing things you haven't done before. You have
to try. Like the big thing is that message doesn't mean anything if no one hears it, and right people hear things tends to be through actions, not through words.
There need to be actual events, things need to happen for it to become you know, of note, and that is going to I'm sure form the conversation about the shutdown, which is like why are we you know, funding the This is destruction then the wholesale destruction of the systems that have saved millions of American lives for the last like half century, like the attacks on healthcare, all these different things, Like yesual they have to have a fight
that draws attention, that shows whose side you're on, and there are there are a bunch of people who have figured out interesting ways to do that across the country. That there should be more like learning from each other, and they should be constant experimentation, like the worst has already happened. So the risk of screwing up is much lower now than it is if you think that, like you're right on the right on the border being able to to win something back. If Democrats try something and
nobody notices it, then it's like it never happens. You might as well try enough things that eventually some of the things are gonna get noticed. And I think that that's you know, I think that the fight of a redistrictigain actually retaliating with that is great. I think that fighting new ways to community communicate is great. I think
upping production value is great. I think a lot about the the January sixth Committee, the fact that they brought in you know, serious news like TV producers to create something that would actually be a storytelling vehicle and create
spectacle in moments. That to means the right idea you should like simultaneously, you should try super high production value stuff that is really well crafted is storytelling, and also try a lot of totally spontaneous stuff that is gritty and low production value, but that actually, you know, it gives people the sense that they're there. There's a political scientist who I think it was the discussible had.
The Fedris Scotch peal with Lover from Harvard.
Yes, the out party innovation the idea that basically the political party that's out of power tends to innovate more. And you know, if you remember two thousand and eight, Democrats had figured out how to use the Internet first and boom, like did they crush it? And then twenty sixteen they were still using the vaccine technology they'd built when they were out of power. It was literally built on the Obamba campaign digital platform and it was trying
using the thing at that moment. Yeah, this is Democrats are out of power now and they need to act act like it. And that means like you know, cracking things open and seeing what's inside and letting a million flowers bloom. Algorithms are changing, like man, I mean AI is a good example right now. Right Like there's there's this explosion of new ways to create media and create content. You can create songs that's only professional songs in a
couple of minutes. You can create video. There's constantly new things. Democrats should try creating a bazillion different things all the time and then also used totally not anythings. But like it is, it is so much cheaper to be able to try making videos like make a you know video guide to the Epstein birthday book, like try and make twenty different ones, come up with the contest who can make the best one to get it up there, and that stuff provokes conversation, So I like it's just the
time to play it. Stafe is so far in the back and in the RuView mirror for me and like this is a time for a walls car and spaghetti, like some of it's going to stake.
I just wrote this piece for Vanny Fair about democratic messengers, who are the democratic messengers? And one of the things that I was struck by was a staffer told me that they thought that during this election, the twenty eight cycle, god willing, that there would be moments where there may be like actually going on something like Joe Rogan or theovonn would actually be more meaningful because it breaks out of the silo.
Oh yeah, a bunch of Democrats have been on Joe Rogan and the Theovan and it's great, Like the water's fine. Your part of it is that long form podcasting ass like a medium form the fath Politics pod.
Yes, I think we're pretty much short form compared to that to three hours.
Yeah, anything bigger than cable news lends itself to actually like finding rapport finding some of you agree and if you have a conflict that tends to like go to resolute as opposed to people like just get like cut, getting their micscut when wandering off. And that's good. It's good for Democrats to learn how to do that well.
And not be constantly like dodging like every possible landmin or eggshell, having a bad news cycle and surviving it, like is a very good way to discover that Actually it's like it is more risky to be completely risk averse than it is to create a larger volume and a larger presence and the larger footprint. And that's the
general direction. Like you a world where every media out that like at best only has a tiny fraction of the country's attentionion, you have to just be in a lot more places, a lot more at the time to be able to break through, and then every so often, like something actually catches the whole country. If you live in fear of ever having a bad viral moment, then you'll never have a good viral moment. And if you ever have a good viral moment, no one will know that you exist.
Let's talk about that, because I think one of the things that really hurt by world was being so cautious.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty clear probably to everyone in the universe at this point that the yeah, the volume of communication that was coming out of the illustration became very very small. And if you remember the beginning, of the Harris campaign. It was this explosion like the Brat summer that that moment, like all the Viepstakes with all my presential candidates going on to TV all the time,
the kind of audition to spokespeople like that. People were actually hearing from Democrats and hearing for them in ways that felt new right, and they loved it. Yeah. I was at the first I was the opening speaker at the first rally in a battleground state of the presidential campaign. Emily Harris came to this high school in Wisconsin and it was just explosive, like people were ready to lift
the roof with their cheering and joy. And then that's red and they recruited other people and you know, people got involved in a level that was like just totally amazing. And I think like those good feelings are good People fundamentally remember, like at the deepest level, they remember what political figures make them feel about themselves, how they make them feel in their bodies. And to be able to get to the point where you can then trigger any
kind of feeling, it involves vulnerability, which involves risk. It just does They're communicating a lot and then being able to find your groove and all the when you think through like the kind of political turning point moments, they're all things that involve emotion fundamentally, they go deeper than
arguments or ideas. And I think that's the in a way, part of what we need to be looking for in candidates for offices at every level and leaders who spokespeople all this stuff is people who can actually make people feel something, because that's how you can build, like memories formed around emotions. The strongest memories are all built around emotions. If you have an idea that you can attest to
that connects to the broader vision. The Democrats are for the country, Like Ben, that's great, but the baseline has to be what actually like touched you and made you feel something and remember it.
Yeah, I think that's right, Ben. Will you please come back?
I'd be the leaded. Thanks for having me man, No, Rick Wilson, Yes, Molly.
How much of our lives have we spent talking about Fox News?
Too fucking much?
Honestly, Brian kill Mead you may remember him from nothing, that guy kill me? What did Brian Meed say this week?
Brian killed me this week advocated for giving the homeless lethal injections to get them.
On the street.
That's right.
You know. I was told I heard, I heard this week that the rhetoric in this country was too hot, yes, and that we need to all back down and talk nice to do each other. I did not have injecting the homeless with lethal injections and killing them on my Fox News bingo card this week. Maybe I should have, Maybe I should have lowered the standard a little bit, but.
Jesus lowly, I mean, I understand we're not supposed to call them unhoused because it makes us seem unrelatable as liberals. But I still think we shouldn't kill them, you.
Know, whether you call them homeless or unhoused or whatever view you have of them. Brian kill Me is now advocating since about sixty percent of homeless folks are veterans, he's advocating killing homeless veterans. Now he has supposedly walked it back some like week walk back on it now.
He I did apologize, yes, And by the way, for a Fox News host to apologize is not nothing.
No, it's not nothing. But here's the thing. This shows you the hypocrisy of how the networks work. If that had happened, as we saw from somebody getting fired on MSNBC this week for not being sufficiently sensitive about Charlie Kirk. If that had happened in another network of any kind and any other outlet, he would have been taken off the set. But a Fox, it's like haha, So look, Ryan killed me. There's no rocket scientist to begin with.
And maybe he thought it was a funny joke or thought he was working up to some sort of like statement on it, but he basically was anyone to kill the hoholmus. I don't know, call me crazy, but that doesn't seem like lowering the temperature with Wilson.
I'll see you next week.
I'll see you next week.
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