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 Attorney General Pam Bondi has shuddered the FBI's Foreign Interference Act. They just don't want to know about it. We have such a great show for you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joins us to discuss Trump's voters learning about his agenda in real time.
Then we'll talk to more perfect unions. Josh Miller lewis about the lobbying firm funneling massive influence into Donald Trump's White House. But first the.
News Smiley federal employees say they had to justify their existence to Doege College freshmen in fifteen minute interviews. This is a common thing when private equity comes in. I remember there was this documentary about when Bain came to town, you know, and McKinsey time that this is what they do.
End.
Uh.
Well, we're now seeing that culture spread to the US government.
Yeah. Elon has decided that he is going to make the government efficient. I want to pause for a minute and just talk about efficiency. What is efficiency? So efficiency is in Elon Musk's mind. What he did to X right, he took out the things, the bells and whistles, the things that he felt didn't add to it. So now you get spam and now you sometimes the messages go down, but you know it ultimately works, but it works not as well as it used to. This is sort of
I think, his hope for the federal government. But what I think you have to realize about this, And we saw this play out in real time right today when he was tweeting against me. Was like, I said, you know, it's the richest man in the world cutting cancer research, and he was like, no, I'm not. And here's the thing. He's cutting part of the National Institute of Health, right, and it's considered to be overhead. But overhead is like leaning the labs and renting the space and paying for
the scientists. Like this is overhead. And the idea here is when you start messing with grants, you start messing with research, and there's less money for research. Now you might have an argument that the government shouldn't be funding cancer research. I would say that is really so stupid, but you could, you know, you could go down this path of what does the government do. But it really isn't up to the richest man in the world, despite how rich he is, to decide what the government should
and should not do. Right, We elected people to do that job, and they are not doing it because and I think this is really important when you think about the Republicans in Congress right now, they couldn't legislate this, and so they're just doing it anyway. And there is not a public appetite for less cancer research. There is not a public right. There's just not People aren't like, oh, people were just doing too well with our cancer treatments here.
I would love to just see people in my life die because the richest man on earth wants to pay less taxes.
Well, And it's also just like even if you ideologically believe that the government should be smaller, I mean, we talk about this so much when we talk about Project twenty twenty five, right, Project twenty twenty five, the Grand Plan to dismantle the administrative state, to end government oversight, but also to end you know, the things that nobody really wants to end, right, cancer research, that kind of stuff because it's expensive and because they don't really feel
the government should be paying for that stuff. So when you go down that rabbit hole, the question is where does it end? And then also if it's not being done by elected people, but it's just being done by random rich people, how is that constitutionally okay? And how is that legal? And why even have elected officials right if they are not allowed to control the power of the purse, if they are not legislating, I mean, what are they even doing? Like, and so we're watching here.
Besides the fact is very scary because there will be a lot of government services lost, and that will be
things like you know, healthcare for veterans, science. I mean, you'll see people in red states where the university is the big employer in the state suddenly panicking because there will be job lost, there will be financial ruin, there will be you know this all this will actually trickle up, believe it or not, to billionaires eventually, but it will also trickle up to the people who are elected to handle.
This crashes the economy, which has a lot of potential aduces. These are people are high value spenders of the economy, right, and they're.
Also remember like you lose these scientists, they don't come back. I mean, that's the brain drain. Question, right, like, what does it look like to lose scientists? What does any of this look like? And so, I mean, that's what we're setting ourselves up for. So this is the accelerationist case for trump Ism, is that, like, it's better to have him crash and burn now than to slowly lash
the federal government the way of John Roberts might. But I mean, I'm not convinced that there's any good coming from any of this.
So a federal judge, though, has blocked Doze from accessing Treasury Department records after nineteen States of sued Trump after nineteen states of sued Trump's administration for this, But it also has come with a lot of Elon having rage tweets.
What's important to realize here is that none of this is legal. Just because Elon is very rich doesn't mean he gets to just completely rewrite the way we do government. And what is important about this story is that we have these Democratic attorneys generals And remember this summer, Jesse and I interviewed one of them who was talking to us before we were reporting about how they were ready because they really thought that the Democrat was going to
lose and that Trump was going to win again. And that was why these blue state attorney generals were getting together and planning the lawsuits that they were going to have to file. They were really organized to fight back against a lot of this stuff. And that's what we're seeing here. So, look, this judge ruled against Elon and doage because it's not okay. Now what's going to happen now is that you know, Muscus is tweeting against him
and saying he's a corrupt judge protecting corruption. And again this is like really important here. Part of the double speak, the sort of Orwellian double speak that these people engage in, is this idea that you know, if you are against this, then you are for corruption, that you're if you're against because this is all about how they're going to make the government more efficient. And if you're against efficiency, then your four waste. It's not true and also it's not correct.
And also it's just completely not right. And so that's what I would say is like, don't do not, do not do not into this, do not trust it. And also like this judge is doing the right thing because this is illegal. So now are they trying to set the table to ignore the court order? Very possibly. I think that's very likely.
They're definitely trying to establish a culture of that being okay. On Twitter through Vans and Charlie Kirk tweets yep.
This judge said that it's not okay. But you know, it's interesting. I mean. The other thing that's really interesting a lot of the laws that are being used to correct this corruption or to fight this corruption, or laws that were put in place after Nixon. So we have this violation of the Privacy Act of nineteen seventy four, that's another one of these, after the Empowerment Act, another one of these post Nicksonian reforms, and then the Tax Will Reform Act of nineteen seventy six, as well as
other laws. The lawsuits are used also that don't access poses security risks, and you and I both know that these guys are all like, very young, these hackers. One got fire for not respecting privacy at a different job. One tweeted racist stuff. I mean, there's a pretty good case for why the people who are messing with all of our computers should have some kind of security clearance.
Yeah. Fun stuff.
So one of the first actions of O and B director Russell Vought is to get rid of the CFPB. I see just earlier today he tweeted that it is a woke and weaponized agency against disfavored industries and individuals for a long time, and it must end because making sure banks don't charge you extra fees and things like that.
Very woke, very woke.
Very woke. Yes, anti corruption, very woke. Look, this is again. We are in this world where everything up is down and left is right and anything they don't like is woke.
And here we are really is the case for uh, they have a hammer and everything is a nail with the word.
That's the woke mind virus to you, baby. Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project and the host of the Enemy's List Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics, Rick.
Wilson, John, you sound phenomenal. It was good to see this. Last week.
Yes, Rick and I went to a book festival called the Rancho Mirage Writers Festival together and we had a great time.
We did have a great time. Did not like what we.
Said about him, did not like what we said on stage.
Somebody was like, send me a message there like, well, it's your fault because you used to work for like, for fuck's sake, We've been doing this for a decade now, and if you'd been there, you would have seen us spanking him.
Yeah. I mean, he's such an interesting character. Whatever. Let's not talk about Karl Rove, who cares so, but let's talk about Republicans dismantling our government. One of the things I'm struck by is so the Doge project is cutting billions of dollars of wasteful spending, like research into cancer.
Obviously cancer being so woke and all woke cancer, wolke cancer, the woke mind virus. I think we are seeing right now that it is not yet sunk in at the state level. What is going to happen here and in states across the country where there are billions of dollars of NIH grants that do not go to Antifa or
whatever imaginary demon they have out there. They go to universities that do the cancer research and the scientific research, and the physics research and the computer science research that has made so many people's lives so much better.
And it's made America great. Let's if we're gonna worry about American greatness.
Yeah, if we're going to actually talk about American greatness, one of the things that made to America great is that we have great research labs all over this country doing great work. And once again, isn't some weird fantasy like, oh, they're all researching lesbian boot Brazilian pan flute music. They are out there looking for the cures to cancer at
Alzheimer's and everything else. And all those things that happen at these labs, they are then materially made into research that goes to pharmaceutical companies and technology companies and healthcare systems and doctors and nurses and all of it, Every single bit of it is not about some political agenda. It's about helping people's lives become better.
Well, it's about science, right, It's about science. So even if it's not necessarily you know, science, the science that sends rockets, the science that Elon.
Uses well, by the way, by the way, by the way, you know, I have to tell you, Elon Musk directly benefits every single day, materially benefits from the research that was done by National Science Foundation grants over and over and over getting.
Which is why this is such a mind truck.
Yeah.
Well, and look, I am still waiting for the day and we are starting to hear a little bit of this now. Like I was following some stuff this morning about these Georgia soybean farmers who are the reddest of red states, right, saying things like wait what, we're losing our what?
Yeah?
All this money they've made over the years selling soybeans for overseas markets through aid. Oh my goodness, Suddenly, wo kid is a good thing?
Yeah, I mean that this is where we are. I mean, this is sort of the craziest part of it is that it's.
Just the goofiest timeline.
Yeah. But I mean it's also really worrying. And there's a real war on their credits, which is scary, right, I mean that's a real thing. And there is also a real, you know, war on the truths what little is left of it. So let's talk about that for a minute.
Yeah.
Look, I mean, Molly, I think we are right now. If you're going to play the game that Elon and Donald and everybody else is playing, you have to have a contempt for the truth. You have to have a hatred almost for the truth, because you don't wake up in the morning and think, hey, we're going to tell both sides of this lie, and that's going to be equally valid. It's not equally valid. The lie is the lie is the lie, and so so much of this stuff that we're seeing right now. Elon I said, oh,
sixty thousand people took the offer that cuts thirty billion dollars. Well, the average federal salary is about sixty five thousand dollars, and sixty five thousand times thirty five thousand is about three point one billion dollars or somewhere in that neighborhood. So it's become very Trumpian, it's become very exaggerated and hyper you know, hyper focused on the on the can we make the Libs cry harder every minute of the day.
And I just I think we are right now on a terrible position as a country because for Republicans, the reflexive defense of Trump on everything has now applied to Elon as this guy starts to tear apart the things that they have done in their states and districts. Because even the most dickhead hate fuederal spending, even ran Paul Okay every year is saying going home and saying, by the way, I just got this amazing thing. We're going to build these three bridges in our district. We're gonna
provide x number of student lunches in our district. Our state's going to now get a research grant to study Alzheimer's or whatever it is. And the disconnect right now between whether Republicans believe in that they that they represent their constituents anymore is more increasing is increasingly like obvious to me, they don't and they don't want to.
They want to.
They want to please Trump. Yes, yes, my lord, Donald, only you can save us, blah blah blah, and did I please you today, my lord? It's crazy, but that is what it is.
So one of the things happening right now is we're getting ready for the Republicans to ignore the courts. That's what we're seeing online is that the Republicans are trying to make the case that they shouldn't have to rely on the courts, that the Cords are not legit because
of one reason or another. One of the things I love about the sort of brain trust here is that they're for they'll like sort of jump around, so you'll say, last night I tweeted about Elon and cancer research, and Elon was very mad and saw that what are you talking about? And then his people were like, cancer research is for cocks.
You know.
They were like they couldn't quite message it. So they were like, he's not doing that, you mainstream media liar, right, even though like he's.
Delayed, he's absolutely well.
He's writing about, you know that we're going to cut the NIH which is cancer research, among other things. And then his people are like, private companies should do cancer research. The government has has the cure for cancer. They're just not letting you know, like the.
Oh, yes, of course, yes.
The response range was so incredibly shade, and yes, it was such a big range that it was clear that they just didn't know how to message it.
Right.
No, I don't think they do know how to message it, Molly. I think that's part of the problem here, is that they've had a long window where trump Ism was actually a bit disconnected from real impact in their lives. So when during COVID, right, there was a connection between the craziness and the dusts. But now there's a sense, I think that that they're going to have to go out there and work hard to spend the damage that's being done.
And this is not about just so everybody's clear on this, this is not about the size of government or about government waste. No one literally a constituency for government waste is zero. There is no one who believes the government waste is.
Bad or is good?
Is good government waste?
Right but right now, what we are seeing from Elon and company, I think is incrediblely silly and dangerous moment because nothing about what he's doing comes down to any sort of sensible approach to governance. And I know that's really hard for August to accept as that you should be sensible about things from time to time. I know how tough that is. Guys, I get it, I really do. I feel your pain. But they don't want good outcomes.
They want the chaos. They want the destruction. And I do think by the way, this is sort of a big theory of the case, but a theory of the case. Nonetheless, I think Elon and team tech Bro have all convinced themselves that they're not going to need any of this research because within a year or a month or however long they think it is, AI.
Will do everything.
I think that's part of their thought process here, is like we can say this is great, and then the AI will figure it all out for us. It is a weird and I think semi apocalyptic viewpoint, but I don't think it's wrong.
Yeah, I think there's certainly a lot of different things going on here. But I think the real question is going to be how long does a government function until this is over? Right?
Listen, I think I think the government is functioning right now about like Twitter functions. Now, if you look at the fact that Elon went and he cut seventy percent out of Twitter's headcount when he took over, and a lot of people.
Said, oh, yeah, it needed to be cut.
It was this, it was that. And if you even take that point, Okay, let's just take that point for a second. He didn't make those cuts with a sense of a plan. He did it because he has a sort of fetishization cuts being good as a signifier of leadership. Does that make sense? Yeah, And I think it's a silly kind of model in a lot of ways, but it is nonetheless one of his models.
Right. Well, And the question is do the American people like it or do they not like it? They are they happy with this? And I don't know that we know the answer.
Yet, right, I don't think we have the answer yet. Honestly, I don't. I don't think we have an answer on that yet because I think part of this is it we're still in the entertainment phase of this new iteration of trump Ism. There's still a great joy on the right that the Libs are being owned. They absolutely couldn't be happier, how owned the Libs are, how upset people are. That to my mind is like they love people being upset.
They love people saying oh, please don't cut cancer research and saying cancers for cooks, Oh drink rail milk, you won't get cancer, right right right?
I mean that I think is a big question. There is a question still of like how much Elon can do in the federal computers, right.
I think if you just take the scope of what the court orders are saying, look at what Elon has done, and if anyone is comfortable right now that their social Security number, they're privately identifiable information, all that business is has somehow been somehow more secure than it was before a bunch of jacked up in cells when in there and started rifling through your most intimate files. God bless you, God bless y.
So today we saw a lot of It's the show airs on Monday. On Sunday, we saw all of MAGA world working this Sunday shows, oh, trying to sell this all sign right.
Well, you know, and I got to tell you the Sunday shows have got to step it up. Margaret Brennan's on there today on CBS. And you know, you have this Republican reps and senators and they're asked direct questions of things they absolutely don't believe, and even when confronted, they go right back to the well, we were funding
transsexual pan flute bands in Chile. Okay enough, they won't answer. Hey, by the way, do you think this guy Darren Beattie, who is a flaming racist of the highest quality, A guy so racist Elon Musco's ease up their comrade. It should be in the state Department. Blah blah blah blah. I don't know him. They know every detail of the of the usai D budget for South American LGBT spending, but not who's going to be in the State Department the fuck out.
A senator from Alabama, Katie Brett, Young, very smart, quite terrifying, says that she realizes that we should maybe have a smarter, more targeted approach to cutting NIH funding. You'll note that the stage largest employer is in fact a Benny ficiary of NIH funding, the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
That is a shock, indeed, that Alabama.
I think one of the things again I go back to this this idea that Silicon Valley has prospered so extraordinarily from spending on science and technology, and the Red States have too. This is what I find so remarkable is that people like Katie Britt are so effing disingenuous where now they're thinking, oh God, now what do I tell my people? You know who was going to benefit tremendously from the infrastructure bill?
Red states?
Red States, they would have a ton of spending that was going to help them to prosper and to help them to improve their infrastructure. And trust me, as a Red state guy, I can tell you one thing. It is increasingly like living in the fucking third.
World, right, I mean, well, and again, we don't call it the third World. We call it the Global South. Not to be pedantic here because I know, but but I do think you have a really good point here, which is that this spending is actually about making the economy better, also making the infrastructure better. America's had real infrastructure problems. Now, what I think is interesting is that this is one of the many ways in which Trump one point zero has run into trouble with Trump two
point zero. You'll remember and Trump one point.
Zero infrastructure week.
Yes, every week was infrastructure week. Yeah remember that? Yeah, So I guess now, no more infrastructure weeks.
No infrastructure weeks for cous molly. Yeah, infrastructure weeks are for weak cucks. They're for the deep state, human filth.
I'm me and just insane. So what are you going to watch this week?
Well, look, I'm going to watch the way in which court orders are either obeyed or disobeyed. And I think that I think that we are very much at the edge of a constitutional crisis, a precipice that really has a it's really going to be a moment where we're going to decide that this country is going to follow the constitution or whether an entire political party is going to say, you know what, goodwill will last and let's go have some fun.
Right, Yeah, that's not good. And give me a minute on like what you think, like what guardrails there are still left?
My dog's thought something.
Yeah, I thought it was fun.
I think there are three guardrails we always counted on in this country, principal political opposition, a strong press.
Being dismantled, and the courts right being ignored.
Right now, there is no action that is being in the courts to my mind, that is going to be honored by the Trump administration. I don't think these people have a single intention to say, yeah, you know what, we got a federal court order, elon, give us back those hard drives with everybody's Social Security data on them. I don't think there's a single chance of that. And look, there is no honor inside the Republican Party. They do
not care. They care about Donald Trump. They will not ever cross Donald Trump, but they don't care about anything else.
Right now.
They are completely oblivious or what not, Well, not oblivious, they're completely callous in the way that they're treating everything else in this country. And I think we're in a lot of trouble because institutions and the media is And I am not a media basher for the five million of time, but I think the media has not met
this moment. I think they are still playing the game of allowing a lot of Trump people to go on TV and to talk off the record to newspapers, and they're not presenting with the Americans with a fo implications and context of what's happening to our country. I think it is so dangerous right now that we don't have a press that's willing to go in the briefing room
every day and not say. Some people say Elon Musk is cutting central government programs, but others say he's cutting Fuck you go in there and call it out for what it is. This is a takeover of our government by insane people, and they are doing things that are materially harmful to the people of the United States. How hard is that to understand? That, to my mind, is one of the great sort of failings we're having as a nation right right.
No now, I mean exactly, and I think we're going to see more of that.
Rick Wilson Moly John Fast A pleasure as always.
Josh Miller Lewis is the senior director of more Perfect Union. Welcome to Fast Politics.
Josh, thanks Molly, thanks for having me.
So first we're going to talk about you are the what is.
Your title, senior editorial director at more Perfect Union, but you.
Come from the world of Bernie Sanders, which I think is important to inform the sort of populist, pro union wing of the Democratic Party. Is that fair? I feel like that is narrow, but it's fair.
Yeah. Absolutely.
So First, let's talk about this lobbying firm. You shocked to see that Donald Trump is once again in bed with lobbyist when we were told that he was too rich to be corrupted in any way.
Shocked?
Shocked?
Yeah, No, I mean so. I think one of the big, sort of undercovered pieces of this administration so far right is their relationship with lobbyists in K Street. And as you said, trumb on the campaign trail, attack the influence of lobbyists. He told his followers that lobbyists play a terrible role in Washington.
And as soon as he got elected, he named Susie Wiles as his chief step right. And Susie Wiles comes from Ballard Partners, big lobbying firm, big Trump backers since the early days in twenty fifteen. It won't surprise you that in the days after Trump was elected and after he named Susie Wiles as his chiefest staff and another Ballard partner, Ham Bondy as his Attorney general, that corporations
have flocked to Ballard Partners. They have added I believe the last time I saw forty one new clients since Trump was elected. And just to give you some context, I think the next highest firm has added fourteen new clients in that period. So this is clear that corporate America sees a path to influence the Trump administration through Ballard Partners and through the connections that they now.
Have at the highest levels of the administration. And you know, I think the firms that have been signing up with Ballard Partners tell us a little bit about as well, about out what the key fights are going to be over the next four years.
Oh that, yes, that is exactly the kind of stuff that I'm so interested in because I want to know what are the fights for the next four years. Prayer hands that he leaves after four years, So tell me. I'm not even kidding. I'm just sick about this.
No, I think there's a few things that, like you start to some of this, you know, we're seeing already start to play out. But tax cuts obviously is at the top of the list, right, and Chevron is a big ballot client. They I think they saved two billion dollars alone in one year. After the first Trump tax cuts are put in place in twenty seventeen, they stand to save, you know, billions and billions of dollars sift the TOX cuts are extended along with the rest of
corporate America. Crypto is just huge topic over the next four years. Is a number of crypto companies that signed up with balot Right, Ripple Labs, Blockchain, and Kraken. They've all signed up. The Ripple ceo actually met with Trump. Brad growing House he met with Trump after the election and Trump said that the US will be the crypto capital of the planet. And the question of well, what do they want? Why should we care about crypto? I don't own any crypto. Well, I think that the crypto
is intent on infiltrating the global financial system. And so whether you own crypto or not, I think you have to be concerned that this asset that is really not based in anything meaningful, that is really just used for
fraud and scams. That they were prosecuted during the proNT during the Biden administration for rampant fraud and obviously stand Making Free is the highest profile example of that this asset could your your retirement savings, your four oh one K could end up ultimately being tied to this bubble that could collapse at any moment. But in the meantime they stand to get very, very wealthy in their very intent on influencing the direction of the Trump administration. Tariff's
is obviously another huge issue. Right number of big importers have signed up with Ballard over the last couple of months. And the thing that I you know, there's this whole debate around tarifs, but the thing that I think is not getting enough attention is there was a study after the last Trump administration that found that companies that had ties to Republican lobbying firms got more tariff exemptions from
the Trump administration than any other company. There's an enormous amount of corruption that's happening within these tariffs that are where the Trump administration in the first term at least was dolling out favors to companies that were associated with the Republican Party. And I fully expect that that same thing will play out in this administration. And I think we have to look hard at sort of the corruption that that is happening again as a result of the
connection between Trump and big lobbying firms. And then last, the last thing to highlight is another consumer protection piece, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has played an enormously important role in saving millions of Americans' money and protecting them from corporate scams. This is they have been a
big target by Zuckerberg, by Mark Andresen. And there's a number of firms under disguise of dbanking, which we could talk about more firms that are are signing up with Ballard and are ultimately interested in, in Elon Musk's words, deleting the CFPB.
Right, No, I mean for sure that these are all really interesting. The cutouts for tariffs, we saw that a lot in Trump one point zero and Trump two point zero. They said they weren't going to have cutouts for tariffs, right.
L L Yeah, we'll see.
But you know, there's there's a reason I think that Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos and all of these people who are heavily reliant on producing stuff in China are all of a sudden big bands of Donald Trump, right. And famously, Apple got huge cut out carveouts in the first.
Yeah, for the iPhone, and that seems really like an important point. And again this goes into this cleptocracy thing, right, picking winners and losers. Trump Ism is an embraceive crony capitalism, and the gas company is super interesting. Donald Trump is funded though by Elon Musk. Right, Elon Musk made billions of dollars in climate change subsidies because irony is alive, and well, how does this not collide? Right, Donald Trump
is in the pocket of the oil company. He's always has been, right, we had Rex Tillerson and the first Trump admin did not even try to hide it. So explain to me the tension there and how you see that playing at tension between the tension between Elon and Exon.
Yeah, it's an interesting thing, But I mean, I think there's some interesting things going on though with Tesla. Obviously, Tesla benefited enormously, as you were saying, from you know, carbon tax credits and that that sort of regime. Right, They've sort of built a huge part of their business
and their revenue on trading like carbon tax credits. But I also think in some ways Tesla has benefited the least of all the electric car companies from the inflation reduction app that Biden passed and this move to promote electric vehicles. They've lost an enormous amount of market share over the last couple of years as other companies like Hyundai and US companies like GM have ramped up their
electric vehicle output and started to produce better cars. And I do think that Elon and Tesla to some extent have an intro in undermining the progress that was made by the RA because they had such a strong foothold already in this market. The competition is actually ultimately bad for Tesla.
Right, Yeah, so Elon has Tesla, he has SpaceX, he has Twitter. Whatever. That's I think kind of a rounding error. But I wonder if you can explain to us, you know, there are a lot of different things in the case and how Elon is sort of functioning in this Trump government. But part of it, right, is that he's there for
his companies, right. Part of it is that he's there for power or part of But if he has all these companies, and he does have a vested interest, and we have all of these different players all who have vested interests, right, So, and you talked about this before. Tim Cook wants car Vattes for China, and you know, you have Andreas and Horowitz has a bunch of portfolio companies.
They're just everybody has these different instant different you know, they're all sort of trying to curry favor with the ma King in order to get what they want because Trump is very transactional. So what do you think and since you sort of know all these companies Elon is doing in the federal government, because you know, from what I understand for the people I know who used to know him well, of which I know one person, my sense is that he cares the most about his companies.
I mean also his weird political stuff, but his companies. So my question is, what do you think the sort of goal there is.
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think all you have to do to understand this is look at the agencies that he's going after, and recently came out right that he the Department of Labor is his next target with do Oche, and you look at the labor violations that his companies have had over the years. There's been workers who die building a Tesla gigafactory at Osha investigated.
You have Tesla, which has been notoriously anti union. Mosque has talked about how he doesn't believe in unions when they have fired where workers for unionizing, They've come under fire from the NLRB. SpaceX has also been under fire for labor violations, a total lack of regard for environmental regulations, and you know, really, I think negatively impacted the community
in Texas that they operate in. You don't see him going after the Defense Department where he gets you know, billions and billions of dollars in contracts from for SpaceX and Starlink. You don't see him going after the agencies that ultimately are very beneficial to his business and those contracts. But he is intent on tearing down, you know, important parts of the federal government that defend workers, that encourage unionization, to make sure workers are and it's it's I think,
clearly ultimately to benefit his company. And you know, I'll say this too. I don't think it's just Elon Musk. I think all of this sort of tech billion airs and major chech corporations that are involved in the Trump administration are engaged in a similar effort. They want their piece of the pie, and they want to strip away the important parts of the federal government that stop sort of their rule breaking, in fraud and lawlessness, and they see this as their opportunity. With Trump, we're.
Into Lena Khan world. And I want you and I to talk about Lena Khan because Lena Khan has made all the very rich people very mad. This is like, I feel like a great moment from the Biden administration. Here is the most important probably person in the admin in certain ways. Right, She's a trustbuster. She has made everyone furious with her who's wealthy, and in the end, the people who would have benefited from what she's doing didn't even know she was there. So make us understand.
Because you come from world Bernie, I think was the last time that Democrats were able to connect with populism, despite the fact that their legislation is almost entirely populist. So make it make sense why they can't, how they could and anything else we want to talk on this topic about.
Yeah, I think one of the things that populists need to do, and I think Lena Conda quite well was.
Root her effort and her.
Work in the fights and the issues that millions of working class people are concerned about. You look at her efforts around housing, efforts to take on big corporate landlords or this wasn't her who was DOJ and Cantor, but efforts to take on companies like Real Page incredibly powerful work that was rooted in essential an issue that millions and millions of people are concerned about in this country,
housing affordability. And you're totally right that it is. It's so painful to me that one of I really think one of the most effective communicators and someone in the administration who was engaged in some of the most important fights in this country taking on big tech companies that have become increasingly powerful. And you heard Joe Biden talk about in his farewell speech. She didn't get the sort of attention that it deserved. She wasn't uplifted by the
president on a daily basis. The fights that she was engaged in were sort of relegated to the background. And I think that if you're going to build a populist movement, we can learn a lot from the sorts of fights in the ways that Lena Khan engaged during the administration. But it is really important that we talk about that that it is front and center that the fights with corporate America on behalf of working families are centered in our politics and not something that we try to hide
too often. I feel like Democrats are afraid of that tension. They're afraid to have a fight, and the fights are what animate and tell people what we care about. They're so important to helping people understand what side the Democratic Party is on, who we're fighting for, and what we're fighting for. And Trump does this every single day and it's incredibly effective. Yeah.
That's my real question is when you're looking at these you know, there's almost populous legislation, right, I mean that's what it is. You know, a lot of populous legislation boost up the economy. Really, you know, sort of writed a lot of the mistakes from two thousand and eight. Yeah, but could not or would not transmit any of that to the American people.
Yeah. No, we obviously suffered from an inability to communicate what we were trying to do, and fundamentally, I think outline a vision for what we want America to look like, who we care about, the ways in which the system is broken, and how we were attempting to fix it. I just don't I'm not sure. I do think that there was a vision in an ideology that was attached to a lot of the progress that President Biden made,
but it was not communicated to people. And I think going forward, as we think about, you know, how we respond to Trump and how we sort of rebuild the Democratic Party, we need to do more than just reject what Trump has to say. We need to actually build an agenda that engages in the most important fights and outlines a vision for the American people about what the
core issues are the Democratic Party stands out. I think if we're just in this resistance mode, if we're just in it reject everything Trump does if he's bad, sure we might be able to win in four years, but are we going to actually be able to rebuild a working class coalition that can win elections in eight years
in twelve years? I don't think so. I think there has to be some real sort of agenda setting and we need to reckon with why the Democratic Party has lost working class people over the last twenty years.
Yes, one hundred percent. And also again they voted for the guy who wanted to do tax cuts for billionaires because they thought he'd be better for workers. So like, obviously something is going terribly wrong here, right, I mean.
Well, I think fundamentally though, Like, what it's really about is people are pissed off with the status quo. I really don't think that it's about Donald Trump in particular. Starting in two thousand and eight, basically people were frustrated with the status quo and wanted something fundamentally different, and they elected Democrats and a landslide right twenty twelve of them was able to hold on, But then you have another rejection in twenty sixteen, another rejection in twenty twenty,
and then another rejection in twenty twenty four. We just keep swinging on this pendulum, and the same thing is playing out all over the world right where incumbents are losing. The economic system has been broken now at least since two thousand and eight. People want something different, They want some sort of change. Neither party is offering that to them.
I just would add, I think you're right for sure, But if you look at like government spending around social safety net, one party did give it to them. I mean again, wealth and equality, you know, we just not rising. Inflation is the mind fucked and all mind fucks Like I get it. I know what it's like to pay you know, one hundred dollars more a week on groceries or a month on groceries. I mean, I get it, but I'm just saying that, like, if you look at the numbers, perception is real reality.
Right, Yes, I agree with you. And this gets back to what we were talking about earlier, right, And like how do you brain your politics? How do you communicate your politics? Do you engage in fights or do you shy away from them? I think that that all contributes to it. There's no question you're right that the Democratic Party has done a lot and has tried to fight for working people.
But it doesn't matter. If you can't transmit, it doesn't matter.
Josh.
I hope you will come back. This as really really interesting for sure.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
No moment, Jesse Cannon.
Molly Jung Fast.
So we are seeing a lot of officials say fuck off to Trump, trying to get them out of their seats, and the latest is the FEC commissioner Ellen Wintrump, who's considering her options after being ousted by Trump.
You know what part of this is that Trump doesn't have the authority to do any of this extracurricular stuff. He's not a king. He's part of the government and now is I think a really important point here is that we are really seeing like their right to not do that. They're right to not let him go crazy on stuff. So Ellen Wintrapp, she was put on this bipartisan commission by George W. Bush. Woke George W. Bush Thursday. She was fired by a brief letter. At least it
wasn't a tweet. She shared a copy of the letter on X and she said, there's a legal way to replace the FEC commissioner. This isn't it. I've been lucky to serve the American people again. Look, this is this idea that trump Ism wants to weaponize every part of the federal government to protect Trump. And this should not surprise anyone. This is what they do, right, This is what they told us they were going to do, and this is what they're doing. And none of us should
be surprised. And everyone is going to have to keep going. Everyone is going to have to fight against this. There's absolutely no reason that anyone should let this happen because it's not right and it's not what they were elected for and it's not constitutional. 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.