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 RFK Junior staged a bike accent that involves a dead bear.
Cub.
What are we doing here? We have such a great show for you today. Pro Publica's Andy Kroll stops by to tell us about the latest shady right wing group coming up the works You've never heard of before, and boy is it's scary. Then we'll talk to former besser Norm Eisen about the impact of presidential debates. But first we have the host of the Enemy's List, the one, the only, the Lincoln Project's own, Rick Wilson.
Welcome to Fast Politics, Rick Wilson, Molly.
John Fast, as always a pleasure to be with you.
I feel like the top line needs to be Joe Biden arranged a prisoner swap that was confirmed minutes before he dropped out of his re election bid.
You know, Molly, this to me is the difference between serious people and trivial people, between serious people and unseerious people. Trump is a fundamentally unseerious person. I think we all know that, and Joe Biden is a fundamentally serious person. The idea that you were going to have this prisoner swap that was kept totally secret, completely on the down low. Nobody was leaking it, nobody's bragging about it, nobody was
talking about it. It was just happening. They just did it under the radar screen, just took care of business. It reminds me that when you have serious people doing serious things, they can really accomplish important stuff. And a person like Trump would never have pulled this deal off. It would have been too much like what's in it for me? What am I getting personally from it? With lads to like me? I want him to like me. Do you think he thinks I'm cute? You know?
I also think he might have gotten the deal done, but god knows what he would have offered and return.
Well, I'll give you all of our spies in Russia. Lad, it's only fair.
You were more and more likely you could take you kraying, right?
Yeah? Well there would always be that, wouldn't it. You know? But look, I mean, Molly, I really believe this was something that it shows you that Joe Biden is going to go down. He may be a one term president, He will be remembered as a great one for a lot of reasons. This aspect of Joe Biden right now, where he gives a damn about his people, he gives a damn about the American people. He gives damn about the people who were counting on him to spring them
from a Russian captivity. I keep coming back this, this is what a president should do. And I also think that it showed some good things about Vice President Harris, not just political for the campaign's sake, but as a leader. She was also involved in this. She was brought into it during the NATO security conference, met with Navalney's widow was very moved by it, became fully engaged in the process. If anyone here thinks this was not a universally good operation,
I have news for him. They are mistaken. Delighted by the way that Joe Biden, Kamala Harris got to share with those families and with America a moment of joy.
Yeah.
It was really incredibly beautiful and just moving. And his speech, Biden's speech, You know, poor Biden has had so many you know, for a person with a stutter to have every fucking thing he says.
You know, God, that's gonna sell it's got us suck.
But that was a really good speech, and it showed that he really is in foll command of what he's doing, and I really was moved by it. I also was like, very happy that you and I have never said that Biden should drop out. Now, even though I'm thrilled with how this has it's been better than I think any of us could ever have dreams. And she is become the incredible orator that I had been saying she was
for the last two years. But I still am grateful for his service, and I'm grateful that he was allowed to.
Come to that decision on his own, and I.
Am grateful that there were three weeks where he was able to really process it and that he didn't drop out right after that debate.
I think the urgency of staying in command of this negotiation is the secret piece of the history. Now, this explains a lot. It wasn't just Joe Biden being a stubborn old coop and saying I'm not laving God dammit. It was Joe Biden with an agenda item that required presidential leadership at a high level, that required attention and focus at a level that only the president was credible
on and the fact that he did this. I cannot express it more fully how impressed I was with how solid the negotiations looks like they were, how carefully it was crafted, how smart the multilateral diplomacy with multiple foreign governments that was required to pull this off. This is not trivial. None of this was easy. And there's no world where Donald Trump gets this steal done. None, none, whatsoever?
No none. I think there's no world where Donald Trump gets his steal done. And I also think this is NATO. This is the power of NATO and two countries working together to solve problems and prevent wars. This is the goal, right, is to prevent wars, strengthen relationships, have these countries talk to each other so things, I mean remember, like so that things like World War one never happen.
Right.
The ideas behind NATO that Trump is very cavalier about and very dismissive of.
And Trump's people, every one of Trump's followers, believe in this sort of anti right.
We can do it about ourselves. Merca, Merca, fuck you.
And you know.
Mitch McConnell gave an interview today to punch Bowl News and he was talking about just how dangerous. And again I am fan of Mitch McConnell, Nora, are you no, I think that's fairy.
I think that's a that would be an accurate statement.
As an understatement maybe, but he was talking about how dangerous the ethos of this project twenty twenty five trumpy view of foreign policy.
Is the ideas behind twenty twenty five. They were not trivial ideas. They were incredibly dangerous ideas. And folks process this When you have a person like Mitch McConnell saying, hey, not so much on this, not a great plan, you
should really pay attention. There is like a weird vestigial part of Mitch McConnell that I heard out in the atmosphere this week, because as Trump has continued to decompensate and get crazier and crazier, McConnell is telling his candidates, now, if you have to back away from him, back away from him, if you have to run away from and run away from him. Now. I know that that is pissed off Trump, and it is off the Trump.
Team, and he's going to get a lot of death threats from that because that they don't like that.
Yeah, oh yeah, they're out. And I was saying, like, you know, we hear one thing about you not being loyal to the president, and you're done. It's over. And I believe them, you know what, they will They will go out. They would rather lose than have Trump feel like his little, tiny, delicate feelings are hurt for even one second.
But the thing is, I mean, I just want for two seconds, and you and I both agree.
By the way, we are going on tour, Yes.
Folks, we're going We're going on tour.
On tour, and we are going to many many places.
We are going to so many damn places. It's absurd and it's going to be fucking fun. So many activities. Yeah, folks, We're going to be going all over the country. I'm excited.
But so just back to actual normal American life for a second. Rass Mutant or as I call them, brass Smutan kind of poll that ended up in my group chat today that I would like to read to you because Rusmuton has blocked me on Twitter.
Let's not put you find a point on it. They're rather trumpy.
Yes, they're rather trumpy.
Twenty twenty four General election Harris forty seven, Trump forty two, and Kennedy six.
That's three thousand registered voters.
You know, Kennedy is dropping off the radar one day at a time. Okay, I mean remember this was a guy who was at twenty percent for a while. Yeah, and now he's at rounding error.
Well the picture of him eating that's not a.
Dog, right, It wasn't a dog. It was actually I mean, it was actually a goat, which makes it much better.
By the way, if you.
Are part of a discourse that involves he was eating it wasn't a dog.
You lose.
Right. Yeah, It's like today's discourse with did Trump take a ten million dollar bride from the Egyptians? If you're debating whether or not you took a ten million dollar bride from the Egyptians, you're already losing the discussion.
But can we have.
Two seconds on the Egyptian's incredible bipartisanship.
Way to go.
Egyptians they bribe both the left.
And the right and the right. Yep, God bless them. They're not shy about it.
Why are the Egyptians trying to bribe all of our politicians.
Because they're bribeable.
That is not a good answer.
I'm aware that is not an answer that you wanted to hear, but that is the answer.
Why Egypt, Like there are so many countries that it would seem.
Like need more from America than Egypt.
Do you think Egypt is the only one?
Right? That's a good point.
Corruption is an equal opportunity to disease, right. And you know, as Robert Menindez just abundantly show. Yeah, and God bless many of the Democrats with a certain high level exception who basically came out and said, this guy's got a fucking go No, we can't have this. If you're debating with people like did you take a ten million dollar bribe? Did you eat a dog? A sign you are not I'm the up end of you're not on the upside of the political argument.
It's really bad.
I have to say, like things have really degraded in this selection cycle. Let's talk about where Trump is right now. He still has Chris la Savida, who is supposedly really good ran swift Boat Veterans, ruined John Kerry's career, so as.
A longtime lib I'm not a fan.
And you have Susie Wiles, who is like kind of incredible Florida political operative.
She's currently spending a lot of her time waging a war with Kelly and Conway.
Explain, and you are in Florida as opposed to me, who is not in Florida.
Thank god, I am the Florida man. All the rumors that you're hearing about unhappiness with Jade Vance have been really pissing Trump off, Okay, like I mean a lot, okay, pissing him off. And Susie Wiles has identified that Kelly and Conway is one of the sources of those rumors.
Oh, and that's why that story leaked.
That's why that story leaked. And if Susie wants to prove me wrong, have at it. Come to Daddy. I know the style, and I know who she's talking to, and I know the way the story got covered was as Susie Wilde special, Chris Losovita is trying to save himself because Trump's mad at him. But Chris Lolsovita is now out bragging I'm the one who killed Project twenty twenty five.
But it's still going.
Yeah, our sources said that was a lie. It's still going. Chris is swinging at defenses. He's mad because We're running an ad right now down in mar A Lago and at Bedminster saying to Trump, Wow, you really think that Chris Losovita and Susie Wilds are doing a good job for you. They helped you pick Jad Evans. He's so embarrassing Donald. They keep making mistakes Donald. That's why, of course Trump is tweeting that the perverts at the failed Lincoln Project are taking me. Yes, I'm you and.
George Conway have been doing these audience of one ads right yep, in order to completely freak out Trump and make him lose his mind and lose and it works. I was peeking out about something and I'm talking to George Conway, and George Conway's like, you know, he's tweeting about me and saying terrible things, and I was like, how does this not freak you out? I'm like, when one person hates me, I believe my life is over.
I know. But for me and for George, we have a certain like political combat sensibility about this guy. I always tell people like the Lincoln Project, Wes, we do these viral ads, we do these anti Trump ads, and they're all fine and good, right, They're exciting people like them gets Trump crazy. But every second he's not attacking Kamala Harris,
he's losing. Every second he's paying attention to me or George or anybody else, he's losing that sense of being out of control, not having the campaign that he wants. We're all building up this matrix of ideas around him in his brain that he can't trust anybody, that he's got to go out and do his own thing, play it his way. For instance, this week at the National Association of Black Journalists, he thought, I'm going to go out, I'll show those colored people, I'll tell how it's going
to be. And sure enough, he completely fucked it up. And he fucked it up in part because all of us were in his brain all week, making him not trust the professionals around him, and so now he's panicked.
There was a scoop from Axios.
Basically, Trump said that the reason he was thirty five minutes late was because the equipment wasn't working on stage, which, of course, because I'm a complete moron and don't assume that everybody is lying, I have believed. But then just now a scoop from Axios yesterday Trump didn't want to be fact Check live at the NABJ refusing to go on stage, a stalemate so prolonged NABJ leaders were prepping a statement to say why.
Trump wouldn't show yep.
As ken Lemon was preparing it, Trump walked on stage.
The idea that it was a technical problem. The minute it came out of Trump's mouth as an answer, Paul just of Trump, I was like, that is a lie, and we all knew it was a lie.
I was sure it was true.
Oh god, No. Trump can't stop himself, Molly. Yeah, his impulse control is zero. He cannot control himself to take the opposite of anything the guy ever says. And this was exactly that it was a complete lie. And the idea that it was technical problems. You know, they they already started, like you could see the look on their face when he said it, because they were like, the fuck is this right?
Right?
Right?
Nothing about Trump should ever be taken seriously. It's just the way it is. The guy is always going to lie because he can't do anything else.
Yeah, this is why autocrats hate journalists so much. Just because this was a lie. This journalist from Axios just went and talked to the people who run the organization, and they were able to explain that that wasn't true. And I think that you really do see why there's so much hostility and animus towards journalists.
Yeah. Look, as Donald Trump has consistently in his entire time in public life, not only while when he ran for office, but well before, nothing for Trump is real unless he makes it so in his head. Nothing for Trump is legitimate unless he makes it up and turns it into a story about him. And this was a really strong case to show that. As much as people have always thought a lot of reporters, particularly oh, Trump is such a brilliant operator. He's so good on his feet.
He manipulates everybody. Honestly, that performance was sad. He was a broken toy on that stage. He had five or six of his little shticky answers he wanted to use, and none of them were working. Harris Faulkner may be an ally of Trump, but he was on that stage embarrassing himself almost from the first moment he walked out. You could see it in his body language, this sort of like hands between the knees bent over. He was not confident, he was not happy, he was not ready
to go in there and answer questions. None of it. The illusion of Trump's keeps getting shattered more and more every day.
Yeah, absolutely true.
Rick Wilson, Molly John Fast, a pleasure as always, and I will see you on the road.
Yes, did you know Bally, John Fast and Rick Wilson are heading out on tour together to bring you a knight of laughs, to bring some lightness to our dark political landscape. Join us on August twenty sixth in San Francisco at the Swedish American Hall, or in la on August twenty seventh at the Region Theater. Then we'll hit the Midwest at the Bavariam in Milwaukee on the twenty first of September, and the twenty second we'll be in
Chicago at City Winery. Then we'll be on the East coast September thirtieth, in Boston at the Armory the first of October and Philly at City Winery, and then DC on the second at the Miracle Theater, with a few more dates to come. If you need to laugh as we get through this election and hopefully never hear from this guy who lives in a golf club again, we
got you covered. Join us along with some surprise guests to help you laugh instead of cry your way through this selection season and get the inside analysis of what's really going on right now. Buy your tickets now by heading to Politics as Unusual dot bio. That's Politics as Unusual dot bio. Andy Kroll is a reporter at Pro public O.
Welcome to Fast Politics, Andy Kroll. I'm Mollie John Fust and I run a kennel.
Happy to be guests here at your beautiful kettle.
Right.
We occasionally interviewed journalists when not running the kennel. Andy, You've done such incredible reporting Leonard Leo all of the Supreme Court craziness. But now you have found yet another Republican secret society discuss.
Yeah, we just can't get enough of the religious right secret donor Shenanigans. Can we glutton for whatever that is?
Yes?
Our latest story of Pro PUBLICA it's a joint effort with myself and Nick Sergey at this website documented. It's about a group called called Zicklag. Zicklag is basically trying to do for evangelical conservative Christians what the Koch Brothers did for, you know, billionaire industrialists who just wanted to get rid of government regulation and defeat Obama. This group Zicklag, which your listeners probably haven't heard of, because we're kind
of the first big story about it. They have brought together all these ultra wealthy Christian families, some of whom folks have probably heard of, the U Line family out of Wisconsin, the hobby Lobby family, and the folks actually who are the Jockey apparel company. So for all you
jockey underwear buyers out there, tune in, I guess. So we've written about this group that is planning to spend more than twelve million dollars at least this year trying to help the Republican sile the Ledger, trying to help the Trump campaign, and they're doing it with this very sort of Christian right, Christian nationalist point of view, where basically they think they want to elect Republicans because this is how you quote take dominion over the seven Mountains
of Influence, which is a Christian sort of ideology. Basically basically how you take dominion over all the big industries that matter at American life. So it's very very modest stuff, as you can tell, but it's an interesting project that they're doing.
So first stop and explain to us about and most seners of this podcast, if you listen to every episode like my dad does, you will know what seventh dominion is the call to have in all of this craziness.
But give us the sort of TLDR on that.
Yeah, and Hi, Molly's dad.
So the Seven Mountain Mandate is this way of thinking for the Christian right about how do you return the country to what they believe is the sort of true Christian origin or Christian identity of the United States of America.
I remember, Christian nationalism at its core is a belief that everything should flow downhill from biblical teachings and quote unquote biblical truth that if the US becomes a less Christian country, it ceases to be a country that the laws, the culture, education, and everything about our everyday lives should flow from a Christian worldview, that is Christian nationalism. Then this Seven Mountain Mandate is this way of trying to take that kind of amorphous ideology and put it into action.
And so the Seven Mountains are these basically stand ins for the things that matter in American culture. So we're talking about arts and media, education, family, religion, government, business, all of the things that shape what American society actually is. They want to in this seven Mountain mandate, get Christians to the top of the mountain, hence the mountain metaphor,
and have Christian ideas, Christian teachings. Biblical truth. Again, this phrase that keeps coming up in our reporting, dictate what education should be and all that.
Can you explain to us what biblical truth means. That's like the truth in the Bible, right and not like the real truth or like no dinosaurs, just.
Moses or what.
Yeah, it's a little hard to do because you have to kind of habit that world view, but basically it is, you know, marriage is between a man and a woman, and the Ten Commandments is a not just a sort of historical artifact in a religious text, but a way to very discreetly shape your life. And yes, you start to get into things of changing how education is taught. You know, talking about evolution versus intelligent design, or you know,
the sort of biblical story of creation. Imagine all of the the stories, all of the lessons of the Bible, but applied pretty explicitly to whatever they applied to in real life. So, for instance, this group Ziglag we got this document that talks about their thirty year vision and it breaks out all the things they want to do
for the different mountains. And so, for instance, in arts and entertainment they think that eighty percent of movies coming out of Hollywood should be g or PG rated, or in education, homeschooling and parochial schools should be the order of the day. You can imagine how this biblical truth in this seven Mountain ideology lays out in all these different ways.
Those are just a few tastes of it.
I'm hoping you could explain the connection between Catholicism in this group and the Supreme Court.
There are interesting connections. There are a few beats here. So this group Zicklag that we're writing about night, encourage all the followers out there to check out our story at Republica. They are Evangelical Christians, but their interests aligned with the conservative Catholics like Leonard Leo and his milieu in a bunch of different ways. So for instance, obviously reproductive rights, the lawyers that helped bring the case that took down Row were on the one hand, products of
the Federal Society pipeline that Leonard Leo helped build. But also, according to the reporting that we've done, the Zicklag provided the Christian group now provided funding, provided sort of strategy, gave the lawyers for groups like Lines Defending Freedom and First Liberty, these Christian legal advocacy groups that have been so influential at the Supreme Court. Likely they gave them a place to come together and raise money and plot their strategy and so on. So there is an overlap here.
They're not the same obviously, but they march in lockstep on issues like reproductive rights, ending reproductive rights at the Court on education.
You know. Another big one was the case.
Out of Colorado that struck down non discrimination laws for LGBTQ people. That also had its roots in both the sort of conservative Catholic legal world and the Ziclag even yo Christian world as well.
They are allies on the.
Big policy issues that are changing America as we speak and affecting millions of people's lives. But they are not one and the same. They're kind of part of the same larger movement.
If you will, can.
You explained to us sort of what this group has planned?
And also again.
You know this is like my stupid naivete but how do all these people sell them. They're so Christian, they're so Catholic, and they're supporting a guy who's a thrice married adulterer who paid off an adult film star. I mean, nobody ever pauses and is like, perhaps this isn't what Jesus wants from us.
Well, having just spent a week at the Republican Convention, I could tell you chapter and verse about that, just real quick, what SIG has planned, and then we'll come back to that. But so I mentioned the big thirty year plan that this Christian group has, but they also believe that none of their long term objectives like making more movies g rated or making sure that all the executives in Hollywood have a biblical focus, these are actual
things in their thirty year vision. None of that they say, can be accomplished if they don't win in twenty twenty four. For them, the quote unquote government mountain is sort of one that looms over all the others in the selection year.
And this group has again this thirteen million dollar though could possibly grow budget very specifically targeting battleground states and counties, try to turn out conservative voters, try to knock more than a million people off the voter roles, and I'm pretty confident in saying that they're probably not trying to knock their own Republican conservative.
Voters off the roles.
The catch here, too, is that this group is a five HO one C three tax exempt charity. Know that sounds wonky, which is wild.
Yeah, that may sound wonky.
Legally to listeners, but this is like what the United Way is in the Boys and Girls Club. These groups cannot get involved in politics. They're absolutely prohibited, that's the language or the irs from getting involved in politics. And yes, this group is doing that. All the tax experts we interviewed in our story, tax experts are they exist to be very circumspects in their conclusions, and for this story,
they were not circumspect. They were very clear that, I, it's not testing the law, it is violating this prohibition. So I thought that that was an important part of our story. Now, how do these people justify supporting Trump means to an end is obviously a big part of it. What's really interesting about zik LAG is that the sort of main spiritual advisor, or one of the main advisors in this group is a guy named Lance Wallnow, if you haven't heard of him. You should definitely read up
on him with a strong cup of coffee. And he is the guy in twenty fifteen who's one of the first evangelical Christians to endorse Donald Trump when no one else would, when the Christian right was like, ah, all the things you just said by you the writ's Mary, you know, adulterer, porn star, like New York billionaire businessman, blah blah blah, Like how could we support this guy?
Sky?
Lance wallnow comes up with this idea that Trump is a quote unquote modern day Cyrus. If you don't know the Cyrus reference, you know Cyrus, I don't know.
What Cyrus is. Please explain. Actually, I really.
Don't want you to explain, but I guess for the sake of those who have to.
Gone no, no, no, it's okay.
I mean, basically, the short answer is that flawed leader who we may not agree with, but who will deliver us to the Promised Land. That is what Cyrus. I mean I'm really summarizing here. Lance Wallow pioneers this idea modern day Cyrus, and it catches fire on the Christian right and it remains a talking point, a touchstone for religious voters in the Republican Party to this day.
I heard it in Milwaukee.
I swear people are talking about him as Cyrus, though now they're talking about him as a sort of living martyr. Of course, because you know, the evil Left or the evil whatever tried to assassinate him and he survived thanks to the hand of God. So that belief in him on the Christian right has just deepened with the assassination attempt. But this guy in Ziglag was one of the earliest people to give that kind of permission structure, to give that language to Christian voters to support Trump.
Yeah, rip Mike Pence, the evangelical who did it too.
Well. This money is it's not that much.
I mean, it's more money than I have, but it's not that much money in the light of like Elon Mush giving him forty billion dollars a week or whatever. Elon Mush always does what he says he's going to, so obviously Trump will.
Get that money.
But is the play here to sort of influence certain to use that money smartly or what's the play here, because that's like Trump's lawyers bills for an app for a weekend.
You know, yeah, totally right, in the context of I mean the big money donors on both sides of the aisle. Thirteen million dollars is not a whole lot of money, but you got to look at how it's being spent. So it's being spent in a very very micro targeted way. And we're talking about not just focusing on battleground states, but battleground county is so Fulton County in the Atlanta area, Mayer Copa, the Phoenix area, in and around Philadelphia. These
are like Clark County, you know, Vegas. These are places where again you know, Joe Biden won these counties and that's the states and thus the presidency in twenty twenty by tens of thousands of votes. So we're not talking about a huge swing one way or the other. A sizeable amount of money, a few million dollars spent in the right way can actually move the needle. And the other part of it is they're spending this money not on billboards or TV ads or YouTube video preview ads
where you know you can click past it. They're spending this money on mobilizing voters where they know are conservative, but you don't maybe vote all that often. These quote unquote low propensity voters, and they're spending in more critically, and.
That's Trump's secret sauce those voters.
Right exactly, getting these people to come out when Blake Masters or whoever else down the ballot can't motivate them. But the other key element here is they're spending some of this money on laying around with and not turning out voters, but knocking people off the roles. All the experts I talked to, strategists, et cetera, the lawyers, a little bit of money can go a very long way in challenging whether people can vote, their registrations, their ability to just be on the roles.
It's cheating. I mean, let's say the truth here. It's cheating.
You're not competing on the playing field of ideas or candidates. You're competing by trying to change the denominator, by trying to remove people, challenge their ability to vote. I mean, this takes you back to the Jim Crow era. But again, it doesn't take a lot of money to have a big enough impact that you can start changing how elections turn out. When you remove tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people from.
The rules, Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, so fuckings Gary, So who runs this group and why.
The group interestingly comes out of Silk Valley. Oh wow, Yeah, it's a couple of sort of like nineties era Silicon Valley investors and VC types who also happened to be pretty you know, devout Christian right people, you know, conservative Christians in their sort of personal religious beliefs, who have just felt that evangelical Christians, in their view, weren't active
enough in politics and needed to be. And then eventually this Ziklag group gets formed because one of these investors, a guy named Ken Eldred, again a Silicon Valley type, he thinks that wealthy Christians aren't pooling their money enough in the way that Democrats are, but even the way that the people the Supreme Court apparently not, because he's doing this around twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen getting this group
off the ground. And there's a recording that we got our hands on for the story of Charlie Kirk, someone who imagine listeners of this podcast will definitely know Turning Point USA. He is at one of these Ziglag events last year, I believe, and he's basically saying to these wealthy Christians in the room. You need to be like George Sorols, or you need to be like luring pow jobs. You need to be like wealthy liberals who are giving
billions and billions of dollars. This is the place, sicklag, this is the place where you're going to do it. And so they want to be the vehicle for those billions and evangelical Christian dollars going into politics. But again also this whole seven Mountain mandate thing.
Wild wild stuff. Can you just give me a minute.
Unlike the Supreme Court and how they feel about all the reporting about Clarence Thomas and all the free trips, et cetera, et cetera.
I think they see this court as the possibly the greatest Supreme Court in their lifetime. This is a court that has ruled in favor of conservative Christian plaintiffs.
Over and over and over again.
It has obviously struck down Row and has ruled in favor of the sports co football coach I think he was, who wanted to prey on the high school field. Ruled in favor of the cake owner and then the website designer Colorado who basically want to have the ability to say, oh, you're a trans person. I'm not going to allow you to patronize my business. I won't make that cake for you,
I won't make that website for you. I think they see this court as a culmination of decades of work on their part, of activism, of kind of intellectual churn, getting the right people in the right place to elevate
them to the court. In fact, ZIKLAG, in its own sort of internal documents, says that it played an instrumental role getting Amy Coney Barrett on the bench, helping elevate her, nominate her, get her through the confirmation, then get her on the court, and so that move, coming right at the end of Trump's presidency, I think was really a
crowding moment for them. If they see the reporting that we've done about Justices Thomas and Alito in the late Antoniscalie, I mean, from what I've seen, what I've heard, you know, they see this reporting as trying to delegitimize the court in some way, or a kind of ad hominem attack on the justices because we somehow disagree with their rulings. None of that, of course, is even remotely true. The
reporting speaks for itself. Justice Thomas, these trips you know, totally like I think this latest Senate report, the value of the trips here totals millions of dollars that he's received over the years from the businessman Harlan Crow and others. So they've kind of reached for straws to try to undermine the reporting. But I honestly don't think any of
that has really sunk in with the larger public. Larger public sees it for what it is, a justice who's supposed to be a disclosing and not indulging in these kind of free goodies instead doing the opposite over a period of decades.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank.
You, thank you, pleasure as always. Thanks.
Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how awful Trump's second term could be? Well, so are we, which is why we teamed with iHeart to make a limited series with the experts on what a disaster Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future right now. The first four episodes, with the final episode coming next week, are available by looking up Molly John Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube. If you are thinking you are
more of a podcast person and not a YouTuber. You can hit play when you get to the video, put the phone on lockscreen and it will play back. New episodes are dropping in the next week as well. We need to educate America on what Trump's second term would do to this country. Please watch and help us spread the word.
Normaisen As a former investador to the Czech Republican for Deputy Council to President Barack Obama.
Welcome Too Fast Politics normalizen.
Molly jog Path. Thanks for having me.
Well, very excited to have you. It's such a weird new.
World that we are in right now, but it does feel like a completely different Democratic Party in three days, for four.
Days or whatever. As you know, my entree from being a run of the mill law firm partner and campaign lawyer every presidential cycle to being invited onto Molly's podcast. My pivot point in my life was when my law school classmate and friend, Barack Obama called me and said, Hey, I'm going to run for president. Are you in?
What'd you say?
What I actually said to him at some point, I don't know if it was the first conversation. I was like, you know, this is kind of a suicide mission because Hillary has sort of locked everything up, but of course I'm in.
Oh wow.
Those conversations blur together a little bit in the early days, so I was all in. I aggravated my Hillary friends. But the reason I was in. Look, I've known the guy since nineteen eighty eight, since our first year at Harvard Law School, and I've loved him since then. I always liked to joke with Baraka. You wanted to hate the guy because he was so smart, so good looking, such a good basketball player, but you couldn't because he
was so terrific. And that energy and excitement is what I have been feeling for the first time since those Obama days. Like I was in des Moines, That's when I met Kamala Harris, going door to door with her family des Moines, the snows of des Moines, Iowa in two thousand and seven, with the step kids. I don't think the kids are.
Dug We're there.
Was Kamala, it was her sister Maya, was her brother in law Tony. Those are the three I remember from Team Kamala at those early like Obama des Moines, like we were totally bedraggled. All of us are going door to door and then we'd have dinner together, and I knew Tony already and Maya. They're like, hey, this is Maya's sister, Kamala. This is two thousand and seven.
So she was attorneys general or she was DA.
No, this was before she was AG. This was when she was a DA. She was the DA in San Francisco. That's the excitement. To answer your question. I know it's only a few days, it's only since Saturday. It's not you know, it's five days. But oh my fucking heavans. It is a surge of excitement. You know. We had a call last night of all the original Obama adopters, like they were in they were helping. After the debate, after Jeane twenty seventh, We're like, oh my god, we're
probably gonna lose it. Just it's like it is the end of the world if Trump wins. It's not a Trump specific thing. I am not a never Trumper. I worked on his transition for God's sakes, right.
But the Supreme Court has laid the groundwork to give Trump even more power.
It was immediately apparent when he said he's gonna take constitutionally forbidden foreign government cash emoguments like it's been clear for years that the guys fraudster, a criminal look crooked thirty four times convicted for what Molly twenty sixteen election tampering and twenty seventeen cover up. Saturday morning, I got up and we were looking at a very high risk of the end of the American experiment of a dictatorship Victor Warbon or the worst dictatorship in America. Dunday morning,
I got up and it was a new ope. I'm a star wars nerd it was a new ope. So I think it's like those Obama That's the feeling I have and the organizing that's happening thousands of people I'm talking to, like everyone I know, is so terrific.
Yeah, the Obama coalition is all in for the vice president.
Yes, we are all in. We were in. I guess all in is a bit much. We were in, and some of us were all in. Some of my Obama friends were doing everything they could for Biden. You know, I have some limitations. I can't formally affiliate with the campaign because of some of the places that I work. But I can write a check.
I can.
You know, there's certain things I can do I'm not hiding, which candidate I support. I've been very outspoken. I can do policy stuff, but I felt a surge like I'm going to do everything in my power that I'm allowed to to every waking minute. It's not just a pro Kommala knowna forever. I love her. I know Doug. I met him.
He's terrific.
Everybody loves Doug.
That's why he's a wonderful second gentleman. It's not just that I know them, it's they are wonderful. They have a lot of energy, they have a lot of youth that they bring to it. But it's that there's all for democracy. We've gotten from age, an age versus autocracy referendum in twenty twenty four, where you know, age was looking like it was going to be the winning issue. Trump is also old, and he's nuts, and he's a dictator. He's a self confessed want to be dictator and a liar.
Like his performance was worse than Biden on June twenty seventh. Everything was a lie, but Age that bucket was winning out over autocracy. Now it's a referendum on freedom versus dictatorship, on dictatorship versus democracy. I think freedom and democracy are going to beat out dictatorship an autocracy, and that's the excitement is about there's hope for America again. I called bullshit on JD Vance when he says, Oh, calling Trump out as an autocrat created the climate of violence for
the shooting. Trump created a climate of violence. And We're not going to be silenced JD You Project twenty twenty five, Accoalt, We're not going to be silenced by you in saying American democracies on the line.
One of the things that I want to ask you about is you are the ethics czar under Barack Obama, and you had a line, and maybe you didn't really say this, but your line was, if it sounds fun, you can't.
Go It's in Barock's book. The exact line is, if it sounds fun, you can't do it. Yeah, and he writes he has a whole section of his book because he's proud of it. And I'm proud of it, and every Obama person is proud of it. And Kamala, by the way, Kamala and Doug have been very good at this. Doug quit his law firm. He's not like Trump. It's not like Trump keeping his businesses. Obama I wouldn't even let as ethics are, I wouldn't even let him have
an investment. He had to just invest in diverse bied mutual funds, right, which is.
What Kamala and Doug him too. They just have mutual funds.
Yeah, what we've seen from Trump and Trump world is so ridiculous. The first thing they did when they got in office was changed that ethics agreement that Obama and I. Obama wrote the thing with me, everybody had decided I'm illegally binding ethics agreement when you came in the Obama administration one page declaration of you know, you won't take gifts, you won't own businesses, such no conflicts. So Obama's very
proud of this. He writes in his book that one of the real accomplishments was eight years no scandals.
Well except for the Tan suit.
The Tan suit that was the worst scandal. Unlike Trump, we didn't have to parton a bunch of White House campaign and finance bundlers who were associated with us. We didn't have any Special Council investigations, we didn't have prosecutions, we didn't have convictions.
But what about impeachments?
There were no impeachments. I mean the contrast between probably the most corrupt president in American history. That's one of the reasons they rate Trump worse and Obama. And now Kamala is a similar person. She's a prosecutor taking on a perpetrator. And that's true in ethics too. I was the impeachment prosecutor. My other nicknames were mister No and the fun sponge, not just the ethics are like, I know a straight shooter when I see one. That's Kamala. There's no issues about this with her.
Yeah, So let's talk about the way that Obama won and how that was different than the way that Hillary Clinton lost.
Was there a campaigning difference too.
In the Obama Hillary campaign. Yeah, yes, but actually people forget this. They don't talk about this. We had a surge of energy. Like I was there with Obama from the very beginning the whole campaign. Molly was a little bullpen of like a small room above the subway shop.
That's how the campaign started, above the subway shop on Capitol Ale, so Senator Obama could get there or it was like four walls like a studio apartment, and there was a long trestle table on each wall with computers, and that was where the pluffs and the axle rods and the early campaign people would sit and work when
we were just starting up the campaign. And then there was a little side room which was actually a storage room, and we had shelves in that storage room of Obama's books and a small table like a small dining table, and that's where Obama candidate. Obama would have his meetings like and I would bring my friends, policy friends, finance friends, whatever to come and sit in the room, and Obama would talk to him, give him a book. And two thousand and seven was after a big surge of energy.
At the beginning of the year was flat. Obama would go to these candidate events and he'd be debating Hillary or speaking after Hillary, and they were not uniform and Hillary was actually after an Obama surge. At the beginning, Hillary was ahead in a critical polling, including in Iowa. Iowa was huge for us. We had to win Iowa. I guess we could have won Iowa or New Hampshire, but Iowa was big, big, big, and if we'd lost Iowa and then lost New Hampshire would have been game over.
We had a meeting in des Moine of the top campaign staff, the finance committee, and a candidate in October I think late in October of two thousand and seven, just a couple months before the Iowa caucus since January two thousand and eight, and the Des Moines Register poll came out that day and Obama was well behind Hillary and that's the definitive poll in Iowa. And he spoke to us, all we had a bunch of meetings and like people were wringing their hands, and Larry David he
wasn't there. But I don't know if I've ever told this story on a podcast because it's such a Larry David herb story. He's like, I thought I was getting chocolate ice cream with Obama Rocky Road with everything in it, and it's vanilla. It's a vanilla campaign. Tell him I saw him right before that Des Moines think. He's like, tell him, he's got to shake things up. This isn't what I signed up for. So we had this meeting and Obama was like, look, guys, he was confident, he
was cool, he took the issue, had on. He talked to us I think Sunday morning of that long weekend, He's like, look, guys, I got this. Here's the plan, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna win Iowa. Here's how. But bu bu bu b and they, you know, we did have a plan. And it was after that that that's when I, you know, we all like basically moved to Iowa. I had a caucus district. I had to get one hundred and twenty people to sign cards, and
I got like one hundred and forty. Like the people were excited, and that one those cards I got of people pledging Obama. They came to the caucus and we had that plan across Iowa. He was right, he did have it. We won, little end cup. Then they immediately moved us all to New Hampshire. New Hampshire was a little hiccup. I'll tell my other Larry David's story from New Hampshire, but the rest was history. After New Hampshire,
we had a plan. Hillary had not really concentrated on the caucuses and the other ways to garner votes, and we did well and we won, and then I helped solid ate A bunch of my friends brought him over from Hillary. So the Larry David story was he came to New Hampshire. He was not in Iowa for caucus night, but he felt badly that he missed out, so he came to New Hampshire and they had all of us finance people with the friends and family. I was there
with the friends and family, the top campaign staff. He had us in a little room to celebrate, to have a party. It actually wasn't that fun. Afterwards, we started getting rumors Brock was going to lose because he wasn't very good in news debate with Hillary. He was a short rant and Larry David at about I don't know nine thirty really before we had final results, but the word was we were going to lose. He like puts on his coat, was talking to him and hanging out a
little bit. He puts on his coat and he's like heading out the door. I'm like, Larry, where are you going? Barrock and Michelle are going to come talk to us, And he's like, I'm going out to buy some nuts, like someone was leaving a party to go get snacks. But of course he went back to his hotel, he packed up, he got on his plane and he left. He didn't want to be there. It was too emotional for him, so Fortunately, the rest of it went a lot better than New Hampshire. There will be ups and
downs with Kamala. We know that not every five days is going to be as great as these first five days. But it's super exciting and I think she's going to win. More importantly, she's not going to be a drag on the ticket. He's going to lift up all the other Democratic candidates. We have a super chance of taking back the House to go with the presidency, and we have a shot. It's a long shot, but we have a shot in the Senate, and all kinds of important state
races are out there as well. He's lifting all those tides and you see it. I was talking to the Wisconsin people. Ben Wickler, Wisconsin Party chair, good friend of mine. He says, it's like rockstar energy like he hadn't seen since Obama. We certainly didn't see it with Biden, and you didn't see it in Biden' That was a vote to save America. That was not like a you know, a generational energetic inflection point.
Thank you, Norm.
I hope you will come back sometime soon anytime.
No moment, fu Rick Wilson isn't our moment. Molly it is our our special time.
Moment, so not I know right, it is our moment of.
It is our moment of fuckery, my moment of fuckery. Molly is well, everybody in America was celebrating watching Evan Gershkowitz and Paul Whalen and the other hostages get off that plane last night.
Unbelievable.
MAGA was doing everything they could to shit on it. Yeah, and it really tells you how low these people are and how how desperate they are to pretend that Donald Trump is something bigger than he is, especially when you saw a good president pull off a complicated deal. These people, like always, they just they just crap on America as much as they possibly can.
I think that's a really important moment of fuckery, especially because these multi country hostage deals are, as you and I both know from all of our work in national security I'm kidding.
And our extensive hostage negotiation efforts.
And my time in the CIA, that these things are very complicated and hard to maneuver. And nobody got killed then everybody got out, and Groshkowitz was known as like kind of a prize hostage.
Oh yeah, oh for sure.
And Putin has killed Prize hostages pretty recently, including Alexander Navolney's. So the fact that he was gotten out is not nothing. And his parents were so happy, and it was just such an incredible moment to shit on.
It is really Grandma, Do you want to know what my moment of fuckery is?
I do.
So my moment of puckery is here. We have Harris who is raising a ton of money and speaking beautifully, and Chris crossing the whole country. One of the things Donald Trump did in twenty sixteen was he went everywhere, and one of the secrets of winning the presidency is going everywhere. So next week, Harris is going to Wisconsin twice, right, two different parts of Wisconsin.
She's just incredible.
I am watching her in awe and delight, and Donald Trump tries to steal the spotlight away from her by pretending he doesn't understand what it means to have a black father and an Indian mother. And that is my moment of fuckery, is him trying to just take a moment away from her and from all of us who are just having a sort of nice moment in American politics, of.
Which they are very very very few.
I'm just going to say, those moments are exceedingly rare in our.
World, exceedingly and we were having this nice moment where we were seeing just the relationship between Biden and Harris has been the kind of relationship I don't know what it's like behind the scenes, but what it's like publicly is the kind of very inspirational relationship between a mentor and a protege, the kind of thing that you hope is happening in companies and state legislatures and around the world.
And Donald Trump yet again took that from us to try to shift the news cycle to a very bad faith attack on her.
He is a bad faith actor at every level. And nothing changes that, nothing, nothing at all. But I don't think the era of good times is over yet. I think she's a happy warrior and I think that's the way she's been running her campaign, and that is good stuff for this country exactly.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening,