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 farmers are saying tariff's and Canadian goods are already having devastated effects. We have such a great show for you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joins us to discuss Trump crashing the economy. Then we'll talk to kat Habu Gazala about her run for Congress in Illinois ninth district. But first the news Somali. We're playing some clips, baby.
Yeah, I personally think it's very funny when the infighting happens. I know these are very serious times. People are getting very there while it's very seriously hurt right now by Trump's stupidity. But I want to play you and get a reaction of White House Senior Counsel Peter Navarro talking about Elon Musk.
Listen, man, I'm not where am I going nowhere?
That's interesting to hear at the beginning to talk about his euro tariff zone when here Ada doesn't understand that. And the thing that's I think important about Elon to understanding he sells cars.
That's what he does.
And if you look, for example, at the Tesla factories in Texas, their assembly plants, and they get a lot of their content from China, Mexico, Japan and Taiwan and elsewhere.
Yeah.
Wait, you're saying Elon Musk is conflicted.
Wait wait, wait, wait.
Wait till you hear about where is contracts come from.
Will you hear about this guy, Donald Trump that you work for.
Well, I'm sorry, but like you think Elon Musk has a conflict, here, wait to hear about SpaceX, his company that does space travel for the federal government. My man, Elon Musk makes eight million dollars a day from the United States government. The fact that somehow the tariffs are going to be the moment when he's corrupt. Look, what's fun about this is that it's so incredibly bad that they're all fighting with each other. And while Donald Trump crash is the economy. So expect to see a lot
more of this, and in fact, we have more of this. Right.
Oh, I could go out about this all day. But the stupidest one, of course, comes from the stupidest member of the Senate, one Tommy Tuberville.
It's Thomas Tuberveil.
My apologies. Let me put some respect on.
Thomas Thomas to Berveil, the dumbest senator from Atlanta.
People in the United States back on track being self sufficient.
Speaking of China, the market is concerned.
Traders aren't concerned.
That the retaliation we saw on Friday could turn into a full blown trade.
Wark your thoughts, well, First of all, Wall Street, it's one of our biggest problems. They're the ones that's really standing up and pushing back against President Trump. Wall Street and the globalist they did not want change. They wanted to stay business as usual. We cannot stay business as usual in Washington, DC with President Trump, Northern American people. We have to change course and we have to build
a different team in this country. If we don't do that, it's the only chance we have of surviving like we had an opportunity the last two hundred and forty nine years.
So Wall Street has gone woke.
Molly, Yeah, is capitalism woke, ladies and gentlemen, Capitalism is woke. Now better to do huge tariffs and crash the economy so that we can keep our way of life going. Oh, Dear God, thinking about Tommy Tibervelle, I mean that man is he's not smart. You don't say yes, you don't Yes. I want to move on because it's not just them ruining the economy Trump. The partition is doing other stuff too.
Yeah.
The judge that is taking up the case about them deporting people to El Salvador is saying that they have to undo their wall as deportations.
Yes, woke judge says, you can't just send people to scary prisons in El Salvador. Look, this is DC District Court judge who says that describes one of the most notorious and inhumane and dangerous prisons in the world. I think they've sent at least two guys to this prison in Al Salvador with no evidence of them being members. This is a guy called Albrago Garcia. They said he was a member of MS thirteen, but it turns out he's just a guy and now he's in a really
scary prison. Look. Trump administration doesn't want to get him back, probably doesn't know how to get him back. But judges need to make this administration follow the law. As much as this administration doesn't like to follow the law and just likes to do crime and also golf the law's law for all of us.
Yeah, speaking of laws, they do like them when they can do stupid things like, for reason, reversing bands on toxic forever chemicals.
Yes, they are very into forever chemicals. Like Trump World may not want to grow the economy, but they do really like to pollute. And we'll remember this from Trump one point zero when they put an oil and gas lobbyist in charge of the EPA. The ruining the planet is the point. And by the way, I love the fact that when they put RFK Junior in charge of our health and human services, they were like, yeah, he's going to do all this good stuff with pollution. By
the way, what did he do? He just fired everyone who believed in vaccines. Right, he didn't do any of this stuff. The very few things he might have done that one have been completely fucked up. Here we go. Trump officials quietly moved to reverse bands on toxic forever chemicals because toxic chemicals are your friend. EPA bids to change chemical risk evaluations because honestly, do any of us
have enough plastic in our brains yet? Trump administration is quietly carrying out a plan that aims to kill hundreds of bands. I'm highly toxic forever chemicals and other dangerous compounds, and consumer gifts goods, because really, honestly, how can we live without more plastic and our brains. The bands, largely at the state level, touch facets of daily life, prohibiting everything from forembra chemicals and children's products. Those damn kids.
We had to get them to work in the factories asap, to mercury and personal care products, to pfas in food packaging and clothing. What's the worse it could happen? This should be fine. If successful, the public would almost certainly be exposed to much higher levels of chemicals linked to a range of serious health issues such as cancer, hormone disruption,
liver disease, birth effects, and reproductive system damage. By the way, the good news is that DOGE caught a lot of NIH funding the National Institute of Health, so there's less cancer research. So when you get that cancer, there's going to be less treatments. Congratulations to all who celebrate.
So speaking of things that are all of a sudden woke that shouldn't be woke, Mitch McConnell is calling out Trump for hiring amateur isolationists at the Pentagon and firing the NSA director after Laura Lumer told him to.
Turns out Mitch McConnell and Laura Lumer on the opposite side of the issues, who could have seen it? Certainly not I. So you remember earlier this week in season two of the End of American Democracy, Laura Lumer, who is from Florida and has had a lot of plastic surgery but is shockingly only thirty two years old, got back into the White House. She got her claws on the dawn and she started explaining to him some of her wacky worldview, and then she was able to fire
a number of national security professionals because she's Laura Lumer. Ergo, why not? She fired a guy called Timothy haw a for star general with thirty three years of experience and intelligence by Laura Lumer has thirty one years of being fabulous and getting filler. So without providing any explanation, he was fired. Trump fired now six other National Security Council officials after meeting with the conservative activists and social media
influencer Laura Lumer in the Oval Office. Lumer presented a list of officials to Trump that she argued were not loyal to the president. Oh yes, in case you're wondering, it probably will get stupid or but it is very hard to imagine at this moment. Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project and the host of the Enemy's List, started to think.
Things out there right now, Molly, who.
Have always known this, who have from the beginning been quite clear about this, who knew from the jump not only that this was dumber than a bag I had here, but also that it was also inevitable that the dumbest president to ever hold the office would do the dumbest possible thing.
And here we are.
It's a world of incredible stupidity.
Listen, man, I'm going to read you the axios. Axios does this thing because breeding one hundred birds is too hard. Why it matters? All all Bolds, The conservative think tank says the error led to tariffs raised massively higher than they should have been to achieve the goals the administration saw. I mean, why it matters. It matters because they're crashing the public markets.
It matters because they've incinerated ten trillion with a t dollars of invested funds, and those funds weren't like there just by the sovereign wealth fund of some other country. A lot of those funds were little old ladies who put their retirement in the market. A lot of those funds were the local school board or the state pension fund or whatever it is. Trump has gleefully incinerated. And he said it this weekend. I don't care if I crash economy. He doesn't care. He does not care. You
know why. First off, for him, the more chaos. I've really been thinking about this a lot over the weekend. The more chaos for him right now, the better. So this week, when he announces he's going to invade Greenland or whatever other unbelievably dumb thing comes out of his brain, he's got more distractions waiting in the wings to have America go, oh, that's interesting. We're not just doing this
the one or two stupid things. We're doing a lot of the once and to distract people from the absolute economic calamity that he has engineered for this country.
But I also think, and I want to add this because I think it's important to remember how stupid everything is. There's a guy called Josh Marshall. You and I are friends with him. Sure, he is very, very smart. He actually has a PhD. Like Matt Greenfield, my long suffering spas and need a really good point, which is that doge is actually not saving any money, and found it's going to lose about happened trillion dollars this year, probably more one hundred percent.
Just breaking things does not save money. Just causing chaos does not save a single time. And what they're doing right now is just breaking things and causing chaos.
Yes, and also perhaps enriching themselves as as is the want of yes a mystry.
You know, I heard on Sunday that Donald Trump had sold off two billion dollars to Shares, a true social just before the announcement. Now I haven't run that whole story down yet, but that would be the most on brand thing for this corrupt m effort to do that I could conceive, because why wouldn't he.
They pardoned all of these people who had done like financial crimes, like the Silk Road guy. I mean, the Silk Road guy also may or may not have hired hitman, but like there were all sorts of other people. I mean, for example, they brought over the Tate Brothers. I mean, you know, basically, the idea was like crimes against women and financial crimes, that kind of stuff like fraud anything white collery isn't really a crime. Also hiring a hit man.
You know, look, as long as you do it online, it's shiny and modern and digital and not sordid and terrified. We're in a moment of corruption in this country. I'm going to use a Trumpian phrase now, the likes of which we've never seen before. It is corrupt because as a nation, we're letting it be. The US Senate right now has shown some vague, elliptical stirrings of life in the last few days.
Yeah, they don't like it when their guide crashes.
The economy suddenly. And look, most people in the Senate who were in the Senate got to the Senate because they like power and they like money, and they would like more of the same. And I think that there is a sense right now. You know, look they're all saying it. Ted Cruz is out saying Donald Trump is leading us towards an electoral political disaster. Let's help broken clocks twice a day all that.
I like to call them lion Ted, But yes, continue.
You know that's got a ring to it.
I like it.
Yeah, Yeah, look, they see the writing on the wall. What I'd actually like to talk to you about is so Ted Cruz, there are a lot. There are a couple other senators we're thinking of. I think we were actually talking about this on We talked.
About this the other day. Yeah, you've got Cornyn, You've got Tillis, You've got Susan Collins, who Trump has definitely learned his economic lesson. There's a lot of people. Now. The muttering is not McConnell. The muttering isn't just behind the cloak of anonymity. Now where senators declined to comment on the record to protect their lives insanity, they're not out saying this is a dumb, bad, horrible, stupid idea. Stop.
But I also want to talk about something else, which is, yeah, so you've got some Republicans going against crashing the market for no reason. Then you also have this very interesting phenomenon which we didn't talk about but we need to talk about, which is the Koch Brothers.
Go on, tell me more about these mysterious fellows.
You may have one of them is actually dead. You may have worked for them. In fact, we know you did. So the New Civil Liberties Alliance which perhaps you've heard of, a five oh one nonprofit public interest firm which their interest is largely about serving the Koch Brothers. That crew has launched a challenge, a legal challenge to one Donald Trump for his tariffs on China. I know you will be shocked to hear this, but they have decided that they're going to sue Trump over these tariffs. So now,
this is the Citizens United crew. This is the worst of the worst. This is the Koch Brothers crew. This is these guys tend to win because they're so evil and naughty discussed.
My question for you now is and I'm gonna I'm going to go back and wheel back to unlesson. I learned along time ago, and I've applied this to many candidates when they say to me at the end of the campaign, I.
Don't want to run that terrible negative ad. No, my wife hates it, my kids hate it, and my friends all hate it. At the country club. I can't shut my face again if I run that terrible ad. I know the polling says I have to do it, and you ask them a simple question. All right, So next Tuesday night, around eight o'clock at night after the election's over. Do you want to be the scumbag or the honorable scumbag?
Putting the honorable scumbag ahead generally tends to be the thing that gets people over the hump of doing what has to be done. You may not like these guys, you may find them uncomfortable.
As an ally the enemy of my enimey.
Yes, but they have a fairly long track record of being able to deploy resources to whack bad guys in their mind, whoever they're bad guys they're targeting at that moment. They have a fairly good track record of that. And in this world, you don't really want to like leave a lot on the table. You don't really want to leave a lot of questions on the table, like did we do everything we could to fuck Trump up? Did
we do everything we could to kick his ass? If it involves a center right coalition joining the other broad coalition of people around the country to go and kick Trump's ass, let's all go kick Trump's ass together. We can fight later, we can we can shake all that
shit out later. Everybody can agree to agree to to, you know, attack the monster while it's bringing down the village, and then later we can figure out all of our old beefs can come back and we can settle our all all the family business later.
Yeah, it's true, but I do think it is pretty amazing that this crew receives financial support from entities affiliated with Charles Coke and Leonard leon There is a weird it's called capitalism, capitalism versus moronics.
No, here's the other part of it. There is a degree to which inside even even the federalist society world, there is a certain concern about rule of law that is real. They have many flaws, but they have a certain concern about rule law that they have not been able to say publicly. Like everybody else trapped in the Trump matrix. Once you're stuck in there, like you get something good out of him once and you're like, okay, well now all I have to do is pretend everything he does is right.
Yeah, for the rest of my life, for.
The rest of my life. And they're trapped in it. Look, Scott Bessen wants to run the fuck away from Washington and the Treasury right now because he's embarrassed and horrified, but he can't. He's now trapped. He's like, I'll never work again if I if I cross the sky. You know, what do I do?
He's probably never going to work again either way.
I mean, that's still exactly. That's something they often fail to realize, like that Wilson rule about everything Trump touches and dies. Yeah, that's a real thing.
Guys.
Well, let's ask Rudy Julian how it's going.
Well, he was at least on Wall Street through the day with Chris Ruddy with the NEWSMA.
So on Friday when the market dropped, I don't know, fifteen hundred points, twelve hundred points that some jillion points, yes, quite lost, you know whatever. Millions of dollars just evaporate, atro trillions of des with your te trillions of dollars evaporated. The people who raging the opening bell were Newsmax, just ready in Newsmax.
Yep.
Some of the follow on propagandists to the Rupert era for those that you can find Rupert Murdoch to Middle of the Road and the Fox products to restrained his praise of drup Right, there's Newsmax.
You know.
I like to think of it as Fox without the good production values.
I like to think of it about as Fox without the restraint in the dignity yes.
Well, what I like about Newsmax is that Greg Kelly's son has a program on there.
Oh my god, that guy is a truly agreedious grunting more on the best.
So let's just talk about this. We have this massive Trump tariff based on massive Eric conservative think tank says tomorrow the market's open. Trump has been golfing all weekend.
We don't have to saw it with a Saudi murder murder regime.
Right, It's called the Live Yes golf tournament. A lot of stuff has happened, none of them.
Whats you buy Striker? Striker industrial medical tool is perfect for dismembering dissidents.
Yeah, so that's going on. I mean, does the market just keep creating? What do you think what.
Has happened over the weekend to change anything?
I mean, does eventually Susie Wilds go like, come on, man.
No, where's what I actually I think is going to happen. We're going to end up with a real blood bath for about another week to ten days.
Wow, that's going to be millions, billions, trillions, zillions.
Yes, at that point, John Thune and Grinder Grinder Johnson are going to go down to the White House and they're going to say, sir grinder John, We're about to lose both houses spectacularly. We're about to lose fifty seats in the House and fifteen seats in the Senate. We're about to lose every governor's race. We're about to lose state legislatures. We're about to get blown the fuck out. Yeah, so you either stop this shit right now or it's
on your head. We love you, we worship you, and yet you have done something profoundly stupid.
And then what do you think happened?
Look, he so dug in Molly on Sunday afternoon, the overnight action on the on the markets, you're going to see another drop on the NASDAK of six percent, another drop on the S and P of six point five percent, another drop on the Dow Jones of five point five percent, the Russell four point three percent. The only index that's going up right now is the VIX, which is the uncertainty and fear index, and that's up fiftyo point nine to three percent. This weekend is a bad.
Dayo Oh that who celebrate? You think he's just going to at some point.
I think at some point they're going to say to him, sir, sir, they came to be in said here, we have to pass a bill that says your tariffs are bullshit, and Trump will veto it and they'll have to override it, and we're going to go into this long, ugly grind of I think very great hostility between Trump and his own base, or Trump and his own allies in Congress, and I'm here for it. He has already done a phenomenal job of tainting the rest of of his second term.
I mean, this is like such a weird moment, right, because the question really for Trump's first administration, Democrats were able to sort of prevent a lot of the carnage, right, and Republicans would behind the scenes be like, yeah, yeah, he's a total lunatic. But then they would be able to pretend that they agreed with everything, right because they
didn't want to get death threats. Now we are in a moment where it's very likely, I think quite likely that there's no one else to sort of tell Trump no, and that unless that unless Johnson and Soon do it, there's no one else to do it.
There's no one else to do it. No one in this White House is going to sacrifice themself to save Trump or to try to convince Trump that he's wrong. They just they are not going to do it. These are not brave people. Everybody in that in the White House understands the rules. If you criticize Trump, even in private, even amongst your colleagues, you could be abstinent. You could be thrown off the island in a matter of minutes. That is a superpower for authoritarians. When you have the
Saddam problem. You know, never be the first guy in the room to stop clapping when he's talking, Never ever ever disagree with whatever his theory of whatever the case of the day is. You can't. It's a really scary universe.
So you think it's just going to have to bad not for our publicans to say something before.
Yeah, but by the time we get there later in this week, we will have basically killed off the greatest economic boom in modern history. Everything that was going on, for all the critiques of Joe Biden in the post COVID era, the things he did to stabilize the financial markets, which made it possible for American jobs and investment to come back after COVID have all, it's all been squandered. It's all been destroyed, it's all been blown out, and
there's nothing. There's nothing ahead right now for American consumers and for American voters and for American workers. But pain and chaos and fear and confusion, and this idea that, oh, well, the era of cheap stuff is over and we're just going to instantly make it all here in America. That's a theory that it's what I call the toilet brush theory. You know, you can go to Walmart right now by
a toilet brush for ninety five cents. Okay, and maybe we need an American toilet brush industry, but right now in America, we don't have factories to make toilet brushes and it's going to take five years to build them. This is not a pretty picture for consumers in this country. And the Trump folks just don't They understand it, but they just don't care.
Thanks, Rick Wilson, anytime, talk to you soon. Kat Abu Gazala is a candidate for Congress in Illinois's ninth district. Welcome too fast politics.
Kat Thanks for having me, Mollie.
So you're doing it. You are doing something that I think we're going to see a lot of people do over the next couple years or months because of fucking chaos that the politicians who are ruining our country are doing. So let's talk about it. You're running for Congress.
I am running for Congress here in Illinois ninth District.
I know why, but tell our listeners why.
I got sick of waiting around for Democrats to do something. You at the inauguration, there were so many people sitting behind him looking, you know, very somber or whatever, but it's like this is this man is a fascist. You have to do more than just be upset and write letters, especially when you have power. And like, when we stand up, no one's there for us. We don't get the fancy lawyers, we don't get the photo ops, we don't get police scared to touch us. But like you guys, you guys
have that, and you're still not standing up. You're not even like with the cr You're just rolling over on votes, parliamentary procedure. This was supposed to be the thing you guys like to do. So I got sick of waiting around for someone else to do some things. I'm trying to run a campaign and be a type of person that I would like to see in our government.
Yeah, let's talk about this because there are a lot of people in Congress right now who are in Congress because they can't get a better job.
Yeah, and the rest of us, we don't do our jobs, we get fired. Why don't they bullshit?
So tell me, are you primarying someone? What is your district? Like, what is the race?
So I'm running in Illinois ninth district, which is northern Chicago, the northern suburbs. Illinois lost a seat in redistricting in twenty twenty two, so it's jerrymandered to go out west, which was not that way beforehand. It's currently represented by Janshikowski, who has been in this position since nineteen ninety eight. There has not been a competitive primary since that was before I was born. This district has been represented by
two people since nineteen sixty five. Janshikowski is historically one of the most progressive members of Congress. Like I keep telling people, I'm like, this is not some referendum on her. Yes, she's eighty, but she's done a lot of great work. You know, she stood against the Iraq War when it happened. Yeah, but obviously what the Democratic Party is doing isn't working, and so I am trying something different, and I think
that voters deserve another option. I talked to a lot of shit last year about how Democrats are terrified a criticism, terrified of primaries, terrified of like giving people choice, which I think is essential to democracy.
So I'm just trying to lifk by them about.
I think that's a good point. It's not that we're not incredibly grateful to these women and men who are octagenarians. We are so grateful. I think about Dick Durbin, who is eighty years old and thinking about whether or not he's from Illinois. He wants to run for another six year term, which would get him to eighty eight when he finished his term. The question is not if we don't love these people, respect them, and are so grateful for their service. The question is, if you're eighty years old,
should you be running for reelection. I mean, there are certainly people like Nancy Pelosi, who at eighty four continues to be a firecracker, But there are people in their eighties. And I do think that we look at this election cycle and there's a reason that Democrats. Democrats lost, and it was Joe Biden's age.
Yeah, I mean you have, like you said, you have Nancy Pelosi who is very with it and is still trying to run things her way. I think when people here eighty years old, they automatically jumped to like this idea of like mental faculties or some of the concerns we had with Joe Biden. But I think that the main issue I have because it's a different person to person. There's just like no human experience is the same. My big concern though, is that a lot of people in Congress,
not just eighty year olds. The average age of Congress is fifty eight. The average American is thirty eight. There are just experiences that most of our lawmakers have never experienced. For example, they didn grew up with mass shooter drills. They've owned a home for a long time. You know, I don't have health insurance right now. Most if not all, of our Congress does not worry about at of pocket costs when they go to the hospital. Half of Congress
are millionaires. This isn't to say like it's their fault that they don't.
Know what it's like to grow up with school shooter drills, but it is a very real and like significant experience for a huge portion of current voters that just isn't represented, and how we make our legislation in our priorities.
Yeah, I think that's a good point, and I would say at this moment, Democrats need to focus on winning. You know, Trump is an authoritarian. He has this authoritarian vision for the country. Republicans are bought in on this authoritarian vision for the country. One of the things we saw in the Biden administration was that people like Merit Garland and Joe Biden, I think there was a lack of imagination there. I don't think they realized that a
person could run for president and blow through all those guardrails. Now, this may be the sort of shot that America has this next election and the election after it to beat back authoritarianism, right, to put in place the kind of guardrails legislatively that need to happen in order for us to have a really working democracy that represents to everyone and that cannot be hijacked by one person. In that case, we need people with fresh ideas who are willing to
not stand on ceremony. So talk to me about how you would do that.
Yes, So I think there are like two big things that I feel I am positioned for. I keep getting called influencer, and like, I've never chosen that label. It's fine, but I mean, you know, my background is like original reporting and analysis.
But it is a good point though, that one of the other reasons Joe Biden lost was because he could not transmit what he did in office. The Democrats have a real communication problem when the guy who wants to cut taxes for billionaires is the populist candidate.
Right Like last year, I mean, I among many many others were like, please listen to us, like we need like it's not even progressive, it's just common sense if we deserve to be able to live without everything sapping our money and our souls dry. My campaign has one issue on our issues page that says it's just called basic existence, and it's the idea that you should be able to afford housing, healthcare, and groceries with money left over. That's just like a very basic idea. But I've already
had people tell me this is unrealistic. I think you're right about just kind of this neutered approach Democrats have been taking. We need some FDR type governance here. I mean this was a man that said, I don't care what these company that like. Honestly, the Great Depression, it almost seems like gazillionaires are trying to pressure me in I'm giving people social security, We are making this happen,
we are giving people jobs. And instead we had Democrats who let voting rights legislation go by the wayside because well it wasn't bipartisan enough. We couldn't get we couldn't get jo a mansion pressured enough. And it's like, are you kidding me? We need some clause, especially when it's fighting authoritarianism, this sitting back and letting as many I mean, you know my background, but for people who don't, my background is I have been following the far right for my whole career.
I grew up as a.
Republican and now I'm just kind of fighting those exact narratives that I understand the workings behind many conservative people's brains and like how they're viewing the world and the way that they're just going about this of like let's see how many people will get hurt and then they'll be sick of Republicans and then they'll vote for us. In twenty twenty six it's not just morally wrong, but
it's also a shitty electoral strategy. If you just let Trump eliminate all guardrails, I don't think there's any guarantee for a fair twenty twenty eight election. But if you just like hands off approach, what the hell is he going to do before the midterms. I mean, he already took away a UN ambassador slot because he was like,
we're in deep shit. This is not going to be pretty, and we need people that can handle that instead of trying to I think that there's a way, like people can debate approaches to certain things, but we all need to agree on a very basic level of like human rights and human dignity and values. And right now, Democrats keep saying we need to move closer to the center, but what they really mean is we need to go farther to the right, and I think that's bullshit.
One of the things that I think you can do, which is important as commune because you have a platform. One of the mistakes I thought we saw was that Democrats had an opportunity to elevate AOC as the ranking member of oversight, and instead they elevated Jerry Connolly. Now AOC has millions of followers, and Jerry Connolly has hundreds
of followers. Now again, followers are not the metric. But if you need to communicate and you're a party with the communications problem, wouldn't that be a good way to start.
One hundred percent?
Any of the tout of the DNC is like the creator's convention, is that the creator election. And I was one of those credentialed creators. I was the only Palestinian one. And unless you were following a party line, and I came to it with a more like reporting type perspective, but unless you were following a direct party line, you
got no access. And the unwillingness to even engage with like another point of view is part of the And they're such shitty communicators because Democrats, look are democratic leadership right now often looks at social media as something like you plug in this meme and then you get this outcome, and that's not how social media works, just like how in a conversation, that's not how existence works. My background
is literally explaining things, making video explainers. I have an hour long explainer of white Christian nationalism that was like my favorite video I made last year and go watch if you have it. I think that talking to people clearly not in a condescending fashion, and just really like our campaign is focused on our ground game, but we were able to raise four hundred thousand dollars in eight
days because we connect with people online. My video explaining the bullshit between behind like FBC deadlines and when you get those texts, they're like, we need your donation before midnight.
Talking about the behind the scenes aspect of that has gotten almost a unanimous positive response because people are just desperate for actual communication and transparency and unless Democratic Party does that, then they're going to have to deal with more people like me trying to primary their candidates.
But also, don't you think like one of the lessons from twenty twenty four is that primaries are actually good.
Yeah, this shouldn't even been a lesson. This should just be like common knowledge.
If there had been a real primary process, it would have helped sharpen the message of whoever would have been the nominee. One of the things that happened was on election day you saw people googling who was on the ticket? Is Joe Biden still on the ticket? So clearly not everyone was watching the Democratic National Convention or anyone or anyone.
I mean, I wasn't.
I was sitting outside, sleeping on the concrete because they discriminated against my ethnicity. They were like, we can't have a Palestinian speaker.
Wait, they didn't let you in.
No, I was there.
I was at the sit in for when they wouldn't allow a Palestinian speaker. And then I couldn't go out and get my credentials because we were at the sit in, and so I couldn't go back inside the next day.
And yeah, anyways, yeah, but I totally agree.
I mean, I am telling people and like, if you've been waiting in line for the incumbent to retire in this district, I have no idea if Jan's gonna run or if she's going to retire, but if you've been waiting in line to run for this position, do it. Cut in line. Let's get this primary on. If I am truly the best candidate, if what I say resonates with voters, if my strategy is the best strategy, then I'll win.
And if not, maybe I don't raise the money.
Maybe my ideas of like trying this on the ground, mutual aid direct action stuff isn't the best idea.
I mean, I think it's a great idea.
I think it's also good because win or lose, we don't waste your money. But no matter what, you're at least giving voters options and everyone has to bring their a game. And if you really care about democracy, shouldn't you want that?
No? I now, I mean that, And I think that's a real question. Shouldn't we want the best people being in their representing party? Right?
We shouldn't just annoy people, right?
So let's for a minute game out what your campaign looks like. So you raise four hundred thousand dollars, you are on the ground talking to people. What is your sort of day to day like For people who are watching this and thinking maybe they want to run for converbs.
Yeah, and I would love that. Please email us let us know if we can help. We're planning on like a zoom meeting sometime this month to just kind of like we have such a big response from people wanting to run for office that we need to start big and then see who really wants to follow through with it. But yeah, for me, what we're trying is kind of
completely new. I think that there is so much waste behind campaigns, and I've asked why can't we do it this way or this play I'm always told, well, this is how you do it. That won't work. I ask, you know, did people try it? And then I'm told no, and so I am trying it. Basically, what we want is to invest back in the community directly, and that's going to be very relevant right now, especially as trumb
creates all of these gaps in relief. So this means, for example, our kickoff event instead of we want every event to be accessible in no matter your income. So instead of paying like five hundred dollars for a plate, you just had to bring in a box of pads or tampons which were donated to Chicago's Period Collective. And we counted it all up and we got over fifty six hundred tampons and pads which will be donated to people who can't afford them. That's the type of stuff
we want to keep doing. This is food bank support, clothing exchanges, school supplies drives, diaper drives, pet adoption events, recreational things. I actually got some embroidery kits that I commissioned that have like you know, campaign slogans on them and stuff, because I started a women's club when I moved here in Chicago, and I wanted to bring that
to the campaign trail. So those are going to be free to attend, but just with a similar type of donation structure, something easy, sheep, but also it can help you know that you're doing good. We want to cut checks for local organizations. If you are in this area and you need help, let us know we want to help you. I just I think that that's a better way to use money rather than just a shit ton of ads and like a bunch of consultants and a
bunch of very expensive events. And you know this district, especially since it's gone west, we had people drive all the way to our Kikoff event to say that they hadn't talked to the representative ever. There was never an event out there that they had gone to or heard about. So like tomorrow, for the big fifty to fifty one protests and the hands off type events, we're going to one out in Algonquin. We're trying to make this the
most accessible campaign in history. That means that we're going to help a lot of people, and I'm very excited about.
It you're talking to voters, do voters seem angry to you? Because they seem anger in the marri.
Voters are livid, They're so mad.
I've never seen ignormies like we are always in politics, you and me Mali, like our profession, like we're tuned into everything that's happening. I have never seen people that, you know, they hear the news, but they actually have lives unlike us. This mad about like specific political things in my life, even during COVID, I've never seen this. I also, I was worried because you know, I'm new to the area and I'm also kind of coming out of nowhere at especially being framed as like an influencer
or whatever. I was worried that people not online would not know who you are, no, just be very unwilling to talk or immediately discount me. But that hasn't been the case at all, even if they haven't heard about the campaign. If I say I'm running for Congress, I hate what Democrats are doing, and then I ask, you know, what do you wish they were doing? The response has been unanimously positive, like very excited. You may be skeptical, which I think is great. I think you should be
skeptical of anyone asking for power. You should even if you like me, you should want to hold me accountable. But like the in real life voters I met, I was just the federal workers rally over by the VA at the Level Healthcare Center, and just a lot of very angry but determined people that we're just excited to even think about the possibility of other people tried to come in and push for something better.
Thank you, Kat, thanks for having me. Molly, No no, Rick Wilson.
Hey, Molly, I've got a moment of fucker here. That is one of those moments of fuckery that's actually a serious and horrible kind of thing. A few days ago, four American Army soldiers lost their lives in an accident in Lithuania. They were there serving with our NATO allies and they were killed. Now, when American soldiers are killed abroad, they are treated with enormous dignity and respect. They are flown back on special Air Force aircraft to Andrews Air
Force Pace. I have been to one of these in the past, a couple of them actually, and it is a very very wrenching moment when these families see their kids come off the plane and know that they're not going to have a father or a brother or a son ever again. And presidents go to the airport. That'll make a big deal out of it. Obama did it, Bush did it, Bregan did it, Carter did it. Clinton did it. They go to Andrews quietly, small package nighttime,
and they greet those families. They commiserate with those families for a few minutes, and they tell them about the love their country had for their sons or daughters. And this weekend, Donald Try, who one time criticized Joe Biden for allegedly looking at his watch during one of these ceremonies, is golfing with a bunch of fucking Saudi Arabian murderers down in Jupiter. He's golfing. He's been golfing all weekend. This is not one of my funny ones. I'm sorry
to say. This is not one of my hilarious ones. This is a real sign of the contempt that this motherfucker has for our troops, and it makes me sick.
Rick Wilson, thank you for joining us anytime.
Talk you later, by ye.
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