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 of political polls. As seventy two percent of Americans think there's too much money in politics, we have such a great show for you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joins us to discuss Trump's Golden Cap. Then we'll talk to Iowa State Auditor Rob sand about his run for governor.
But first, Somali, the people are pissed because they love their SSRIs and RFK Junior is threatening to come take them. We long heard this rumor. People brushed it away, said, oh, you're so paranoid. This is in nineteen eighty four.
Ed.
No, Now we have very credible reports that he really wants to do this.
Let me explain to you how fuck this is OURFK Junior is doing a lot of very unpopular stuff, and this is probably the most unpopular. I don't know, but he basically is obsessed with SSRIs and wants to make it so that people have to come off of them, which is like an insane thing that literally nobody wants. And it's just like one of the most fucked up things.
Kennedy is blaming the country's mental health crisis, not on our guns, not on our lack of therapy, not on many many things that are a problem in this country, but on the one thing that maybe helping people, and that is SSRIs. I mean, I have to tell you, this guy is such a fruitcake and it makes me so angry, and it's just insane. And there's someone who has had great success taking effects or and who is the child of two people who took SSRIs and had
it saved their lives. This is just really absolutely insane and it's terrible, and I mean, I'm very curious to know at the polling on this is because I bet the American people fucking hate this.
Yeah.
And you know, the other really crazy thing is is the details of what it's like to get off these pills are not not pretty details, right.
No, No, I mean the whole thing is completely But it's also like, why should we go off for SSRIs because RFK Junior, a guy who we saw to a zin and who tans I mean, and this doesn't exist in a vacuum, right. We also know that this HHS has made it so they're trying to bring flavored vapes back on the market, flavored vapes which are used primarily by children. And they are also trying to make it so that underage people can use tanning beds, tanning beds,
which is something that causes cancer. You know, they're trying to bring Roundup back. I mean, these guys do not give a fuck about your house. What they care about out is whatever they're weird agenda is, and so you know it's anti vacs, anti anti antidepressants, pro smoking, pro tanning, pro I mean these guys pro chemicals and roundup, and I mean, these guys are fucked and their idea of health is insane and no one should listen to them. And you know, this guy should be fired tomorrow, agreed.
Speaking of people who should never have been hired and should be fired tomorrow, we have Janeine Piro Janin Piro really demonstrating what you're starting to hear. John Ossuf and Graham Platner explain really well. I think on the campaign trail that the rules for Trump and his friends are a world apart. They don't even resemble the rules for you, and you're the people, you know, because she thinks that the penalty for anybody who's involved with them.
They should just really be late.
Okay, So Judge Box of Wine, you may remember her from being on teav on Fox News, says that a lobbyist who embezzled one million dollars should get no more than twenty four months in prison. Why because this guy,
Jonas Murphy says a romantic relationship prompted his crime. Yes, Jeanine Pierro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, recommended that a lobbyist who admitted to abasling more than a million from his employer's political committee, received no more than twenty four months in prison, according to a sentencing memorandum a wild Thursday. So he is the former director of the National Venture Capital Association, and FYI he used their capital for his venture. Oh, I have longed to
make such a joke. Yeah, I mean, look, this is they don't think of white collar crime as crime because there's a reason for that. Do you know what the reason for that.
Is because it's their business model.
Well, yeah, and right exactly, there you go. That's a good line.
So, speaking of their business model, this is the reality TV in Fox News administration. So Sean Duffy, who has a job that he's been not doing very well and just believes Pete boota judge all day for every problem he encounters. He decided he has enough time to have a reality TV show, since that's the world he comes from.
Yeah, I mean, look, these are actors. These people are not politicians, they're not legislators, they're not cabinet members. They're actors, and they're not very good actors. So Sean Duffy was over the last seven months not working in the Department of Transportation, which he was ostensibly, at least supposed to be the secretary of. No, he was doing The Great American Road Trip, which will air for free on YouTube
ahead of America's two hundred and fiftieth birthday. He says it costs zero taxpayer dollars were spent on my family and he did not receive a salary, though he did receive a salary. Can you guess what he did receive a salary for, Oh, I know, being the head of the Department of Transportation. Also, let me just add I know that since these guys all they do is cryptocracy, we don't really think about that much anymore. But like
the sponsors. Okay, so these are companies which sponsored a television show which features the head of the Department of Transportation. These are companies now that have like a special relationship with the head of transportation in the government. Do you understand how fucked this is? So Boeing and Shell and
Toyota and United Airlines and Wereal Caribbean sponsored this? So does that mean that Airbus doesn't have the same relationship with our government because they did not sponsor this great American road trip? Do you see what I'm saying? Like, this is why you can't fucking do this? You need right? It is because you can't. We cannot have a government that does deals with some people and get uses those
deals to you know, do their little side hustles. And it's funny because it goes back to what Obama said, right, Obama said, we need to have a president who doesn't do side hustles, like who doesn't do real estate, who doesn't have crypto, who doesn't do you know, who isn't making money five different ways? And there's a reason for that because this is our money, This is taxpayer money and should not be used to enrich or to use the people who serve in government is just cleptocracy all
the fucking way down. Also, the hilarious, the truly hilarious part of this is that gas is like ten million dollars a gall.
Yeah, great stuff.
So it really does remind you that gas is ten gazillion dollars agall.
Yeah, And I can't wait to see another TSA shortage or another air traffic controller shortage, and it's like, no, I have to be taping my road trip.
It's just ridiculous.
So this is another one of those articles that we could have predicted really easily that this was happening, but we now have proof. FEMA club blocking grants the states that didn't vote for Trump.
Yeah, and he said he was going to do it, right, he said, I'm going to block grants for blue states. I mean, this is this is how it works with Donald Trump. Right, he is the president for the people who voted for him, and that is it. So FEMA has been deliberately delaying grants to blue states. The Washington Post reported that FEMA significantly decreased the amount of hazard mitigation grants to Democratic led states last year. I mean, this is the agency appears. I mean, this is just
exactly right. California received only eight hundred and thirty thousand dollars from FEMA. Since July twenty twenty five, Colorado has not received anything. Experts say this is deliberate and targeted. A deliberate and targeted decision. I mean, there you go, ladies and gentlemen. Very unsurprising. This is how it is. This is Trump World in a nutshell. Hey, it's Molly john Fast here. My memoir How to Lose Your Mother is out now on paperback, arriving just ahead of Mother's Day.
How to Lose Your Mother has garnered a lot of praise from Good Morning America, then Your Kind, Book Review, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and a lot of other outlets Washington Post. The book is about what it's like to be part of the Sandwich generation, to take care of your mother and your children. And I talk about being a mother and a daughter and the relationship I have with my mother and all of its complexities. It's funny and it's fraught,
and it's sad, and it's about life. My story, this story, the story of How to Lose Your Mother, follows a year in which my mother, Erica Johng, is diagnosed with dementia. My husband faces a life threatening illness, and what unfolds is a really honest story about what happens when the shit hits the fan and everything goes wrong. As The Washington Post said, the book is filled with lines so good you won't just want to underline them. It's a memoir that continues to resonate, so please pick it up
the news. Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project and the host of the Lincoln Podcast. Welcome, Welcome, Rick Wilson.
Hey Molly, how are you now?
I am. I do not have a gold statue of May not yet. Uh explain this?
Why you don't have a gold statue yet?
Because people don't love me the way they should? Can you explain the gold statue story.
Down at Durral? Yes, there has now been created a It is a twenty two foot tall which, if you're using biblical terms, that's fourteen point four to seven cubits. I had to golden statue of Donald Trump. It was inaugurated by having a group of maga religious figures come and praise and bless it now as it has been a long time since Divinity class. But I do recall thou shalt have no other God but me was very early one of the prohibitions that the Lord in Exodus
laid out pretty clearly. But this is a example of outright idolatry. This is an example of how MAGA has
become a religion. And you know that it hit home because immediately after it, a lot of the MAGA pastors were suddenly racing to the Internet writing five thousand word screeds like oh no, no, no no. Even though we're all talking about how Trump is better at the Bible than the pope and and understands everything better than everyone else and has magical powers, we're not really worshiping like a god, except that we built a golden statue to it.
The minute someone says that I'm not engaged in idolatry and idol worship, they are engaged in idol worship.
It is also like, you know, Trump, this week, we had Marco go over and try to smooth things out with the pope, and it is like Trump constantly runs a foul with the pope, which shouldn't be something that a president does.
One should not attempt to run a foul of the pope in a deliberate way.
What I think is interesting though about Trump running a foul with the pope, is that the pulling on Trump putting himself in an outfit to look like Jesus is as like the maga no like maga no likey. Yeah.
Look that has caused another one of these other And look, I keep telling people like, never expect a single day where fifty percent of manga goes. I'm done, But it's half a percent here, a percent there, two percent here, two percent there. And the religious stuff with Catholics fighting with the Holy Father going up against the Vicar of Rome is historically a bad debt politically. Yeah, and Trump keeps doing it. Yeah, Marco going over there and giving the pope a tiny crystal.
Football and didn't he say didn't he say? Oh wow?
Yeah? The Pope was like oh wow.
The interesting thing about the Pope is, so this is young American pope who speaks English and who became pope because of his work in South America and his ministering to the poor. And he was not, you know, a celebrity minister. He was a you know, he had a small parish that was really you know, involved in in sort of fighting poverty. I think this is relevant.
I mean, I mean good works amongst the poor and deserving rich. No private didn't get a private jet out of it.
You mean right, it's relevant when you're the administration that is filled with kleptocrats and billionaires to be to have run a foul with the pope who is known for quiet service to the poor.
There is a broad there's a broad area of Catholicism that is about those good works amongst the poor. There is a very different aspect of American evangelical Christianity that is about prosperity gospel and who gets the biggest jet and God wants you to be rich if you'll donate to my church and all that stuff. I think that culture clash in some ways really represents a It sort of exemplifies what's going on in America right now, Molly.
This country has a choice to make. Broadly speaking, are we going to do like that hard work of democracy stuff which is more akin to what the pope does, or are we going to do the cheap sugar rush of you know, a church that has fireworks in it
on Sundays and smoke machines and trapeze guys. None of that, to me is clearer than when you see, you know, this pope who came out of a very strong tradition of faith and works versus the American evangelical movement, which got what they wanted in Trump, which was a new kind.
Of god right prosparity, and that that.
Statue going up there, you know it is it is people are making the North Korea analogy that just doesn't get there. Maga feels about Trump with a sense of he has supplanted God in their faith structure.
So I want it go from there to hear because I both agree with you and also want to add, which is I think that when these people go to the gas pomp, they are starting like so again to
this idea you don't get. You know, it's not going to be one day that they all turn, but like you're definitely like if using the huge number of truckers sixty plus percentage of truckers voted for Trump, diesel is as expensive as it has ever been, right, diesel is breaking records and there are a number of reasons for that, but the biggest is because Donald Trump decided to go into Iran, so to bomb the Iranians. So yeah, and
close the straits and diesel. So I do think that, like if you're a trucker who is, people are are smart enough that they understand that four weeks ago or five weeks ago. And by the way, Trump today, I'm true social did this war is not nearly as long. You talk about that, go I knieve.
Donald Donald making the analogy and somehow trying to convince people that either the war is over or that other wars are much longer, and why not give me more time?
He's disciplination I'm having.
Right. And as you and I talked about before, there are things in the world that you just can't spend, even if you're the biggest Trump fan in the universe. You stit there at that gas pump, and there's no way that the gas that is six bucks that you can say to yourself, I just paid two bucks for gas. You can't say that it's not real, yea. And the
pain of the economic stuff. With global oil supplies now reaching a record low, we've only got about three weeks or so before we start having big energy shortages around the world because of all. Yes, and here in America as well.
And what I think is pretty interesting is that you can tell that Trump gets that, and you can tell that he is like, I want to end the war now, because you're starting to see he's starting to say, well, it's over. We got a one we got this one page piece agreement. By the way, just because our leader can't read doesn't mean they can't read. Like they could give him five pages. You know, they could give the arrangement.
Somebody I could summarize. Somebody could summarize it for Trump in one page. But most diplomatic agreements in the world have some complexity and some depth and some granularity to them. And this idea, there's a one page agreement. For me, once again, that smelled like Trump trying to pump the stock market rather than sealing a real deal that memorializes America's defeat against Iran.
But when we were talking before, I was thinking so much about, like how we've had these moments in American democracy where you and I and people on television, all of us have said, you know, this is about American democracy.
American democracy is important because of debat deat debt, and people will be like, yeah, I guess, but we didn't like the woman candidate, or no, I guess, but like people don't actually vote on democracy, or at least they don't in the way and they don't vote enough like they might vote in the midterms on it, but they're not going to defeat Trump on it now, especially.
Now with the economic economic pressure being so high on everybody.
But now that Donald Trump has just completely failed to deliver, he basically has done the opposite of everything he ran. Yeah, I do think people are I mean, like the polling is gonzo, like it is literally like the strongly talk us through the polling because you are and look, I.
Want to say so many Democrats really quickly. I know everybody's kind of depressed about the redistricting stuff. Nothing has changed about the polling environment in the country right. A lot of these things that they've done are going to help them a little, but they have a problem that is so much bigger that you can't redistrict your way out of.
And it could hurt them, right because if you were an R.
Plus four now you're in an R plus two or two. Yeah. So I think one of the biggest things to consider right now is his numbers on economic performance are at record lows. They are where Biden's numbers were in the worst when we had ten percent inflation. They are really, really, really catastrophic. But one thing we're watching that's emerging in more and more polling when you're asking people, is your vote in favor of the Republicans, in favor of the
Democrats or to put a check on Trump? In Washington, that number of people checking Trump's behavior they want someone to slam on the brakes on Trump. I think that is it should for Republicans be the most concerning number because none of them have done the smart thing and gotten away from Trump. Mike Lawler, who was one of the most endangered Republicans in the country ten days ago,
is like, oh, we need the ball room. Well, and this is that message is not working for the average Americans paying five bucks plus for gas.
And I think this is a real problem for Republicans. Which is so what happened last week. Donald Trump ran in ill in Indiana against all So there were people who refused to redistrict and Donald Trump basically ran there. He primaried all of them and many of them lost. So the idea here now is that Donald Trump has the party in Lockstead. But here is the problem. Donald Trump has control over the primary base. Right the Republican base, but he doesn't have he can't grow the party enough.
So if you're running for if you're Mike Lawler and you're running for reelection, you have to hit yourself to Trump. You have to do ballroom with Trump while still trying to win in a purple district.
Right. And I think the problem right now for most Republicans, most Republicans are so tightly bound up to Donald Trump. They've epoxied themselves to Donald Trump. They're glued to him, and that stuff doesn't go away in the age of the Internet. It's always going to be there. Mike Lawler could tomorrow go out and say I think we should peach Donald Trump, and I'll still have a clip of him saying, we got to build a ballroom for Donald Trump. Right,
And they're afraid. You know, as you pointed out in Indiana, you saw Trump's ability in a Republican primary to blow people out, to go in there and blow people up and get rid of people he doesn't want. Well, these guys all live in that sense of constant fear of Trump and of his and I think I think as primary season ends, you might see a few of them running for Daylight it's been so long of them doing this, I don't know how they get away.
But if you are running for Daylight, say you're making the calculus that you are Michae Lawler, because he's a good example, because he's in in a D district, right and which is only going to get more is only more democratic now, so that he's an ability. He is in a districts at Harrisonon. If you're Mike Lawler, you're thinking, well, this president has terrible this president has terrible numbers, so I have to run against him. But if I run against him at all, MAGA won't come out for me.
It's a terrible conundrum. And I really feel for them right now. Yeah, my heart breaks for them right now.
And I mean you must see that everywhere, right, you must see Republicans trying to be cause if you Trump is not a candidate, where like with Biden, Biden would say, you know, if you have to run against me, it's okay, right, or remember Nancy Pelosi, if you need to break with me to keep the seat, it's okay.
In twenty eighteen, Nancy Pelosi went out and explicitly said to the Democratic congressional candidates, Hey, if you're not. If you're not, if they're hanging too much stuff from DC on you, you can say, hey, I'm not going to be like one of those Democrats. I'm an independent Democrat from this district. And no one know well, I won't say no one. But people were in on the trick.
People were in on the strategy. They were like, okay, you know, even more progressive groups were like, Okay, we got to get this person over the line so we can get a majority. So we're not going to go out and nuke them if they don't say exactly the right thing on you know, every single issue, and they're running in Missouri or Kentucky or whatever.
So and in twenty eighteen, Democrats flipped three congressional seats in the state of Iowa.
YEP.
At Iowa this year, we had this guy, by the way, Rob Sam he is going to be president.
He's got the gift, Molly, He's got the gift. My colleague Joe Trippy called me about a month ago when he was out there and he said, are you paying attention to this guy yet? I'm like, I've heard the name, I don't know, And so I watched them clips and he gets better every interview. He's frighteningly good. And you know what, I also think, And I'm not one of those like dreamy eyed people who like get swept up in the talent.
You you really aren't.
I'm really not. Yeah, but he has the talent. And there's a thing in politics that if you've got the gift, Yeah, it transcends party stuff. Because you walked into a sat with the room with Barack Obama and you came away and you felt inspired. You sat room with George Bush, you felt like he was your best friend. You sat in the room with Bill Clinton, you felt like he understood your heart and Regan, you felt like you could do anything when you walked out that door. And this guy has that gift.
And we after the interview, I said, Jesse, this guy is going to be president.
I'm moving to Iowa.
I mean, the guy is so good. But he also more importantly than that, he's six three.
Listen, it matters.
After we interviewed him, I said, so you're going to run for president next and he said, I am just running for governor of Iowa, which is the only okay answer.
It's a perfectly good answer, right, And.
Then I said, how tall are you? And I said, because he also looked very young, so I was like, old are you?
And we are reaching a point right now where democratic young democratic leaders are coming up. They're going to replace the septuagenarian class who have in many ways been so traumatized the Republicans for so long that they don't fight the right way, and they don't speak American, as David Cousinin always said, and speaking American is what you see Rob stand doing. And I look, I think Iowa. I think there's motion in Nebraska which makes me feel like
I'm picking crazy pills. Nebraska, Yep, da Osborne, I think Dan you know is Ricketts is like a like a sock puppet Republican And there's like, aside from the check book, there's no there there, Big chook. Vivek is flailing. Amy Acton is doing very well in Ohio. They're moving up
did she and David Pepper are moving up fast. There is something going on with Democrats who have learned to talk about the economy again and center the lives of ordinary people, Republicans and Democrats and nonpartisan voters on the economic crisis they all feel, and the economic pain they're all terrified of right, well, shit, let's keep doing more because it seems to be working.
And one of the things that I saw so AOC spoke at the Politics Institute in Chicago, interviewed by not some crazy lefty right, and he talked about David and we're talking about David. And by the way, David also was with the pope recently, so let's all be he's not running until he is the pope. But he was talking to AOC, and AOC did the thing. I actually thought this was interesting. I wondered if she had stolen from Mondami so Zorin. So she said, he was asking
her a question. Oh, he was asking you a question about running for president.
And she said, I want to change the country.
Yeah, I want something more than running for president. I want to change the country. And that made me think, like, because that's the kind of answer we see from Zorin, right, Like, what do you think about you know, I can't think about that right now because I'm laser focused on affordability. I'm thinking about fast free buses, right. I wondered about that, Listen.
I am a big believer in being on message. Yeah, and that doing well means, you know, doing good while you're in your first job means you can do well in the next one and when you're running for the next one. And so look, when you see AOC who's a gifted politician, who's a gifted speaker, gifted communicator, say that that's very sweeping, But it still feels kind of like me, not you. Right, I don't think that's irreparable
in any way whatsoever. But I think that you've seen a lot of these other candidates in the last year, Virginia, New Jersey everywhere else who are talking about you, not me, like I think it's important, she did.
I mean, I think the problem for her is the problem for all female politicians, though, which is she gets her celebrity ends up eclipsing her in a certain way. So in that answer, she did talk about single payer that she said what she her legacy would be single payer, which in a moment when when millions of people are getting kicked off Obamacare because Republicans refused to renew the.
Tax Obamacare being what I call just the tip socialist health care, right, it's not exactly like a uh not exactly like a Nordic socialist health care plan, certainly not, but i It fascinates me in some ways that that Republicans don't get that could be a real knife in their own guts because their people rely on it more at per capita in a lot of these big red states than Democratic voters do, which is madness when you
think about it. They are cutting their self, cutting off their nose despite their own face, and it's not covered even even with a coope.
Rick Wilson, even the coope.
I'll see you next absolutely.
Rob sand is the Iowa state auditor and a candidate for a governor in Iowa. Welcome, Welcome, Rob sand Sand, Rob Sand, Rob Sand It's right behind you. Sorry going.
You can call me anything, model ages. Don't call me late for dinner, all right, that's right.
How many cycles have you been the only Democrat elected state wide?
That's a good question, just one actually, which goes to an important point. Iowans, I should say, split their ticket a lot more than people would expect. When I won in twenty eighteen, I had company with the attorney general
and a treasurer, who are both Democrats in Iowa. So that's three of our six state wide offices, and those guys lost just by a point in twenty twenty two, which means that most of the state actually voted fifty to fifty three Democrats three Republicans for state wide office.
So that's so interesting. So right now I would love you to like explain to our listeners what is happening in Iowa.
Here's a fact that I think will make anybody want to keep listening. We have more registered Republican donors to our campaign in all of twenty twenty five than any of the Republicans writing for governor. And I think that's for a lot of different reasons. Number One, they know me, They've voted for me twice. They see me as a reasonable person who's trying to do public service, not politics. Number Two, they've seen what ten years of one party
control has done to our state. I always understand the importance of rotating the crops. Sometimes when you've been doing one thing for too long, you need to change it up. And you know, basically, we're at a point where for the last three years we've averaged forty eight for income growth, we're number one for cancer growth. And the folks in the Capitol building in Des Moines literally passed a lot to make it harder for me. As the state auditor
to find misspent tax money. This is people who are not doing a good job and also actively doing bad. But I think the other piece of this that I is really about our message is it's the idea that you know, like it says behind me here, I want to be a governor. For all our campaign slogan is
not bluer or redder, but truer and better. And I talk a lot about how our two choice political system is failing us and how I think we need to have more options on the ballot and how we need to come together to do that, and that's really resonating with a lot of people across the political spectrum.
Okay, so you are the state auditor right now, you got it. I need you to explain to us because state auditor could be ag chair in Florida. Right, So explain does what the state orditor does in Iowa and what number that is in elected offices?
Two words taxpayers watch dog.
So we oughtit state government every year, at least nowadays as much as they allow it since they passed that new law. We aughdit cities, counties and school districts. We do public corruption investigations, which was what led me there. I was the state's chief public corruption prosecutor for seven years before I ran.
And we also do efficiency promotion.
We started a program called in my First Term, which is all about helping save tax pair dollars.
Now, Jim Reynolds, who was the governor before you, I think one of the really interesting things about Iowa. And by the way, you are not the only Iowa politician we have had on this podcast, because we have had twice a Senate candidate because there's this very messy Democratic Senate primary, which we're not going to even talk about because it's not where we're going with this. But Kimral's is not running for reelection. She did two terms. She's not turned out.
She's not turned out, and she has the unique distinction of nine quarters in a row as the least popular governor in America. So she's not turned out well. But I think she saw a tough race ahead, and she saw that I was likely to run and decided that maybe she didn't want to work that hard. Maybe she knew she was going to do it all along, But the scuttle but was that she was going to run again until very suddenly she wasn't who knows. You know, you'd have to ask her at the end of the day.
She doesn't share her thoughts with me on these things.
But we all we also have John E. Arnest who decided not to run too.
Indeed, yeah, two open seats. That hasn't happened since nineteen seventy eight. So we have space for a lot of realignment in Iowa right now.
One of the things that I think is the most interesting thing about Iowa is that there are four congressional seats, and during the twenty eighteen midterm, which was one of those midterms where people realize what a disaster Trump was, Republicans lost three seats. So I'd love you talk about that congressional race just for a minute, you know.
I think the thing to keep in mind is, so we got four seats in twenty eighteen, we won three of them. We can do that again here. I think that people are ready for change, and they understand that we are just in a place where Iowans are frustrated and it's been ten years of one party control in Iowa. I think people understand power crops and absolute power crops absolutely, And then you look around and I think we've got
a great collection of candidates running for Congress. In all of these discs, people that can connect with Iowans, they understand the state pretty well. And and again there are people who I think at their heart they want to they want to try to do good work and make things work better, not just you know, wave a blue flag or a red flag.
So I think of the planks of your candidacy. One of the big ones is cancer. I have a husband who has met a stat of cancer. He has neuroendocrine cancer. So it's very slow moving, but it's obviously a big thing. And we're seeing a lot of cancer from the groundwater,
from the you know, they're just coming from everywhere. And in a state like Iowa, where you're doing so much farming, i'd love you to talk about why cancer became such a plank and how you how you talk about it when you're running for office.
I think it's pretty straightforward. We're number one for cancer growth. It's really captured the imagination of a lot of Iolands. And I think that we're in a real struggle right now to make sure that we're acting to do something about it. Our legislature last year and the governor allocated a million dollars to cancer research.
That's really, honestly.
An amount of money that a politician will spend to buy a talking point when they say that they want to do something. Nebraska. I've been talking about Nebraska. They've put over twenty million into cancer research.
And I'm in Iowan.
I think we want to beat Nebraska, and so I think that's the table stakes. We should be wanting to put in at least that much to make sure that we're healthy in the state of Iowa. Some of this is smoking, we do smoke at a higher rate. Some of this is alcohol consumption. We do drink at higher rate. We also have a tremendous amount of radon, which is the second leading cause of lung cancer in America.
And then we've also got a water quality problem. It is contributing it to some degree.
That's a little bit harder to figure out exactly how much, but certainly that's a piece of it.
Okay, So talk to me about this other plank, which is the sort of corruption and people wasting their taxpayer dollars.
Oh sure, sure, sure, I mean, look, Molly, in my first term, we uncovered a record amount of misspent money. We got reelected and the answer to that in the legislature was to change the law to make it harder for us to find misspent money. This was kind of a scandal in the auditing world nationally. Every single auditor that weighed in on this that does government audits said this is a terrible low it's going to increase waste
and abuse of tax dollars in Iowa. In fact, David Walker, who was George W. Bush's Comptroller General for most of his presidency, wrote the Iowa legislature two letters pointing out that this was a terrible idea, and they signed it into law anyways, and they've used it since then to block audit an audit of the Board of Parole, and multiple times to slow down and block an audit of the school vouchers program that has next to no accountability
in the state of Iowa. And then in addition to that, just recently they didn't want us to look at what was going on at the Board of Educational Examiners related to Ian Roberts, who he may recall he was the superintendent of the Moines Public Schools and his immigration status in Iowa. So it's basically just become a way for them to hiden from us in order to hide from the public what's actually going on in our state and what's going on with people's tax dollars.
Why do you think that's tolerated.
Well, I don't know that it is.
I think that's part of the reason that we've got an eight point lead in this race according to multiple polsters. And I think it's part of the reason that we have these all these Republicans who have donated to our campaign for governor.
It really is frustrating for people.
But I also think it's a little bit harder for local news to break through these days. I mean, I struggle to find the coverage of what's going on in I and well compared to what's going on nationally, And so when people are able to do that, it's good, but it just takes a little bit longer for that stuff to break through these days.
Have you thought about incentivizing local news tax incentives? I mean, you're going to be governor theoretically, at least, because that's a problem with corruption, right You're running against corruption, You're running against misspending tax dollars. But if there is no one who is like it's not shouldn't necessarily be the job of legislators to find the corruption. Shouldn't it be the job of journalists to root that out and expose it?
It should, and I think that local news coverage is incredibly important. You know, you make another point, a good point there about legislators. I mean, the Iowa legislature has refused to do oversight in Iowa of state government. They have basically called in just mailed in their job. They've done about the amount of time per year of oversight of state government as the amount of time that you and I are going to spend talking today, Molly.
They'll haul in a.
School board if they don't like some book that's in the library or some teacher that's in the classroom, But they refuse to do oversight of state government because it's been run for ten years by the same folks and they've decided that they're not worried about accountability in our broken two choice political system, and so they're just going to do whatever they want for them and their friends.
You sort of run away from the democratic label to some extent, which is I don't necessarily think is a bad thing. But like what we've seen, and we covered this a lot, was that in some states, you actually have a disadvantage when you have a D next to your name.
You know.
I think a lot of this, to me comes down to just a central confusion that I've had ever since I was a teenager. Why do we have to be Democrats and Republicans? Why can't I be the state auditor who is now running to be the governor. I don't think that we should have two private clubs that run our democracy. I don't think that a lot of these people that are in these private clubs are actually focused on solving problems for people. I think they're focused on
a massing power for themselves. This isn't the criticism of either party individually. It's a criticism of the system. And I think that it is a real problem. And I think that most people know it. They feel it, They see it every day, and they experience it emotionally when they walk into the ballot booth and they go, well, I'm not excited about that one, but geez, that one's scary. I mean, they've figured it out right. It's like, solving problems is hard. Iowa has a water quality crisis, we
have a mental health care crisis. Solving those things is really complicated. But you can just get re elected if you demonize your opponent, and if enough people are not willing to consider the only other option on the ballot, then you're good to go.
Right. That is true, and it is a real problem. So when I read that piece in the Times just now, you were talking about like some of the stuff you're running on doesn't sound very fun, but people like it, right, No, because the truth is, you know, Trump ran for office on like you know, I'm going to hurt the people you don't like and make things cheaper which were not possible, but we're appealing. When you were in that bar, I
don't drink. I'm sober since I was nineteen, so but you were like, you know, alcohol does, so I just am curious, like what's his secret there? Like how do you do that?
Lollie.
I think we're having a lot of fun in this campaign. I had a friend of mine actually who texted me afterwards after one of our town halls and was like, that was actually funnier than some of the stand up that we went to last weekend.
Like, I like making jokes.
Not all of them land the right way, but for those that do, like, I want people to feel good, and I want them to know that politics can be a place where we come together and get excited about working together to make things better.
And I think a lot of the stuff that we're.
Running on, we have a lot of real problems, but I think approaching the problems that we face in our life with a sense of humor makes dealing with them a little bit easier. And I think that's part of what brings people out. And again, part of the reason that we're seeing strong support in the polls, part of the reason we've seen the Cook Report move this race to a toss up, whereas the day before I got in, they had it ranked as solid Republican.
And again, part of the.
Reason that we had sixty five thousand people donate, we raised two and a half times the previous fundraising record for the off year last year, it's because I'm out there being myself.
I'm running as myself.
I'm making jokes, I'm sharing pictures of my dog, I'm talking about the burrito that I had for lunch and how, oh my goodness, it's the size of Iowa's budget deficit. We don't have to just be automatons that talk political talk. All the time, we can be human beings. I think a lot of people see in this campaign and it resonates for them and it makes them think that maybe we can have a little bit of fun while we go ahead and address serious problems.
I wonder, well, you could talk about the state House, like how is the state House structured? So if you're a Democrat and you see, like if you get in there and you have this sweeping anti corruption message and you want to sort of undo some of the crazy, you know whatever. Here's a good example. In Arizona, they had a state law that incentivized data centers. It gave a tax incentive to data centers, which is a wildly insane thing to do. Like, how is the state legislature structured?
As governor, will they take away power from you? Because I saw reporting that they're sort of trying to.
The Republicans have got a one seat supermajority in the state House and they have a not a super majority in the state Senate. So this is if this is a year where we're winning the governor's race, we expect that anything that I need to veto, that veto is going to stand. And the pledge that I've made is pretty straightforward. I'm going to be working with a Republican legislature. There's no two ways about that. I'm going to veto
every culture war bill. We need to be focused on improving water quality, improving our education system, fixing our failing economy, you know, address seeing the issues that impact every Iowan. And so what I want the legislature to do is sit down with me and with other stakeholders across the state and actually put together good bills that can get bipartisan support to do those things.
Yeah, I'd love you to talk for a minute or two just about like when you talk to iolands, what's happening with them? What are the things that are making them upside.
I think that iolands are right now.
They're just they're so frustrated, and I think for a lot of people, they look around and they recognize that things are not great here right now. Like I said, forty eighth for personal income growth over the last three years, that's rough. And so the affordability crisis is hitting Iowa, but it's hitting us harder because affordability is a two piece equation. It's how much money is in your pocket and then what's the thing cost, and so when you
have as much money in your pocket, it's harder. And I say to folks, if it seems like your friends in other states are doing better, it's because they are right.
So that hurts here.
But then again you go to you know, so they pass a lot to make it harder for us to find misspent tax dollars.
MOLLI.
There was a bill in the legislature this year that would make it so that airports in Iowa have to serve alcohol for at least an hour before every flight takes off. There was a bill in the legislature this year, Molly that would make it so that a dirty body of water can't be added to the impaired waters list for e. Coal I unless you say which species of
animal contributed that the equal eye to the water. I mean, there's all this stuff that's just not only pointless, but taking the state backwards, and Iowas are really angry about it. But again I go to this, it's not enough. I don't think it's enough. I'm sick of the politics. That is, well, the other guy stinks, vote for me.
That's not enough.
I really want us to take the next step in Iowa's proud political tradition of putting guardrails up around politicians and making sure that their power is channeled to serve the people.
We were the first.
State to create a nonpartisan redistricting commission. We're the first state to create a merit based judicial selection system. I want us to move away from having special legal privileges for the Democratic and Republican parties. I want us to have more options on the ballot so Iowans can more easily hold elected officials accountable. And if we do those things, I think it's going to help push elected officials to actually be focused on real problems. I always think of
the Lord's Prayer. My faith is an incredibly important motivator to me. In the Lord's Prayer, we say, lead us not into temptation. But we have this system that tells elected officials and candidates, hey, you know, solving problems is hard, but you can probably get re elected if you can just convince everybody that their only other option is worse. That's not good enough. And it's a big piece of what's led us to where we are today.
Change that. I think we're going to get better results out of our political system and see things get refocused on public service rather than partisanship.
From sand thank you so much for joining.
Hey, happy to be here, Thanks for having me, Ellie.
No moment, what is your moment?
My momentifuckery is that Donald Trump is such a pathetic child he had to use the the reflecting pool as a go kart track for his official motorcade the other day while they're painting it with some paint that isn't working a bid contract.
The whole thing, right, the.
Whole thing is so trump Ism in every way. Something that was beloved by America has to be polluted and left up by this guy on a no bid contract to a friend of his who.
Did Trump.
The job. I mean, it's like wraps everything up in a.
Bow and has done other pools from our a lago different Trump branded properties. And also it's painted like the it's painted like a blue that you have never seen in nature.
Correct, it is a blue maybe found on like tropical fish somewhere on a reef that none of us are been into. But otherwise it is just one more thing where he's trying to put his stamp on something that was dignified and proper, and people viewed it as a symbol of the country for one hundred years, and now he wants to cheapen it up. I mean, I'm not gonna be surprised if he doesn't put like spotlights and gold leaf all over the Lincoln Memorial before this is over.
The Las vegasization.
Yes, we have a Trump star somewhere on the mall. I should not give him ideas.
No, do not. Thank you, Rick Wilson.
We'll see you next time.
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.