Rick Wilson, Marc Elias & Ben Wikler

of the most important races in the country. But first we have the host of the Enemy's List, the one, the only the Lincoln Projects, Rick Wilson. Welcome back, too, Fast Politics. Rick Wilson, are you this morning? We're all a little bleary eyed though I've been up for five hours, so I want to talk to you about the alien invasion and the spy balloons. They're gonna be mad if they're aliens, and we've been shooting him down right, you know.

As as as Stuart Stevens, who was a man of great wisdom, tweeted the other day he said, you know what this probably is is some billionaire from another galaxy who bought an expensive faceship to feel important. Now he's going to be off. I'm not such an aviation nerd that I had the live stream of the Salt Lake City Northern Sector fifteen and Montana tuned in last night. Well, that wasn't me. I wasn't listening to the fighter planes

chase whatever the funk they were chasing in Alaska. I mean, look, the funny part of it is I came into my professional career before politics as like the last generation of young Cold Warriors, right, and no one wanted to admit it, I think for the last three or four years. But the Cold War is really really back. I mean it's yeah,

but during the Cold War we didn't have two different enemies. Yeah, we did until the reproachment between the US and China during Nick's and we faced both the Red Chinese as they said, and the Soviets. Actually we've got more than two enemies now, We've got a whole passle of them. But the Oukams Razor answer to this is these are some kind of intelligence platform, likely as the first what

was from the Chinese. I think we will have a lot of confusion as to what they are and what they look like until we start, you know, getting Hiras photographs and whacking a few more home out of the sky. This is a cold war moment where it's better that we relieve the tensions between our nations in low intensity things like this, then in high intensity things like in China's case, you know, a direct shooting war over Taiwan. I'm no military expert, but that seems bad. Yeah, that

would be extremely sporty and not great. It would not go well for anybody. It's one of those things where, yeah, the Chinese might win, they might take Taiwan, but several million people have probably dying in the process. Not a fun outcome. But you know, look, my my, that's the Okams razor explanation. The other explanation is, you know they're here and they're piste off. Wait that's aliens or the Chinese the aliens. I mean, that's the other explanation. Okay,

I'm hoping they're here. They're piste off. They're all gonna look like Donald Trump, and they're gonna come from a planet with nothing but lowering casinos and golf courses. Yeah, I'm excited. Why did you treat that ambassador with such school I'm excited because this has gotten even stupider. I am your huckleberry for getting stupids right, for getting stupider. So we have three balloons, all three shot down to shutdown very quickly, one shutdown after a couple of days.

I want to talk to you about the Republican response to the balloon shooting down. Summarize it for you. Yes, oh my god, why isn't Joe Biden shooting down in the balloon? Shot down the balloon? How explaatory and dangerous? Right? That's it. Basically, I was talking to a Democratic official the other day. They were a little you know, it's like we did the right thing, and this was the right thing, and defend Democratic defense official, we did the right thing, this was done by the book the D

O D head point. And we can't make these happy. Why which of them can I go talk to still to make sense with them? I said, look, behind closed doors, there are probably a half a dozen of them in the Senate that get it and are reasonable people and and aren't just gonna be assholes for the purpose of being assholes. The rest of them are locked in this performative horseship kabuki cycle where absolutely everything is the worst, the end, the doom, the apocalypse, and it's all Joe

Biden's fault. And when then Joe Biden does the thing that either a they said they wanted be they claimed Trump would have done, or see that generically speaking, any responsible president would do. And when it turns out he's had these longer considered strategic discussions on how to handle these problems because he's not stupid. He doesn't deal with

everything from a place of emotion. They get incredibly upset because the cognitive dissonance there were required to maintain in their lives at all times requires them to treat you know, Joe Biden as the as was said the other day, he's either a senile daughtering old man or he's an international criminal, communist mastermind, right, all right, And there's not a lot of room in between the two. I want

to quote Mike Turner, Republican of Ohio. This is today to Jake Tapper, the Biden administration does seem somewhat trigger happy, although this is certainly preferable to the permissive environment that they showed when the Chinese by balloon was coming over some of our most sensitive sites. So you damned if you do, damned if you don't. Of course you are that's the game they play. Remember, it's important for people to realize the game we're actually in is not the

old normative politics of the past. The game we're actually in is how can every single day be filled up with a message cycle on the Republican machine from Fox all the way down to the bottom feeder weirdo crazies on Twitter and social media? How can it all be filled up every day with a message of crisis, panic, chaos, danger, division. Joe Biden is leaving us open to the dangers of trans tiva sharia law. That's TM bitches. I invented trans tiva.

And this leads me to my next question for you, which is this poll that Abby Phillips put up this morning. It's a Washington Post pole. This is the Weaponization Committee, which was Tucker Carlson's idea, a new church committee where Republicans could strike back against uh, you know, and really Benghazi Biden. And here is the poll, okay, from the first week of or actually before it even started. What do Americans think about the House Committee on Weaponization of Government,

which is about Trump space. I think it's a legitimate investigation. Fifty six percent attempt to score political points the MAGA base, which is the driver of everything inside the Republican Party. Okay, there are no moderates who are going to stand up and p bold. There are no more list Cheneys or Adam Kinzinger's. They're gone. They're all dead. Politically speaking, they're over. It's done. The American people get to see Jim Jordan

in his weird, sweaty no jacket mentally deficient. I mean, the guy looks like somebody who was raised on mold, lead paint and plastic bottle of vodka, you know, from the womb. He's stupid. They see him being stupid. They see Comber I mean and by the way, just as quick aside, Okay, was there some fucking meeting inside the caucus were like, you know, we need somebody who's dumber than Jim Jordan's but also really lacks any kind of charisma, humor,

warmth or engagement. But but he has to be really stupid, he has to be a stupid person. So who did they pick? Comber? Yeah? Comber is doing the media rounds. Yeah, he makes Jim Jordan's look like he's a Nobel Prize winner and string he's so terrible on television here's the reality of all of it. We live in our bubble of Washington, New York media, the politics bubble tallahassee. Yeah and then yeah, we'll believe me. Every fucking report in

America is about to start getting an apartment here. Every political consultant on the Republican side from Washington. You cannot now go out to a restaurant in this town without seeing some Republican from Washington who I've known for twenty or thirty years, and they act really uncomfortable because you know what I do every time I go up like a Labrador retriever, like, hey man, it's so good to see you up because there this town is full of

like snitches. Now right to the same people are like I had one guy literally literally like I go up to this table at this restaurant in the night, I'm like, hey, buddy, how are you because I know there's in the santis people in the same restaurant. It's like, she looks like I've killed this fucking dog. So well, it's good you're having a good time. But put more about the apocalypse.

What is nice to know that there's a lot of Florida funckery, But I want to ask you, what we're seeing now is a Republican Party that's extremely mad and Mitch McConnell. We're seeing a lot of like Rick Scott v. Mitch McConnell. And even in my mind, I think Rick Scott gets crushed by Mitch McConnell. I don't think you come from Mitch McConnell unless you're sure you have a kill shot. Excuse my obviously metaphorical metaphor. There is a

thing about politicians from Florida. And Rick Scott and Rhonda Santis were both inheritors of this mighty political machine. Okay, and Rick Scott had all of his own money, But this mighty political machine that elects these guys over and over again, it makes it. All of this old money that he got from me from stealing for medicare is which he now wants to sunset, which which is like a prank movie starring Voldemort as a heist. I'll tell you what going to do. Are going to see all

the old people's money, eat marcute food, Grandma. But that system that elected both of these guys made their lives feel and Marco also, they made their lives feel easy. It made their political lives feel easy, and they conflate easy electoral wins with being good at internal politics. Rick Scott as the personality of a komodo dragon. Vaguely interesting to watch on a nature documentary, But you don't want to be near that bacteria infected giant killing machine. He's

not a great guy to be around. He's not a warm or engaging person. He doesn't fit in with the club. He's not one of the guys. Now he says, that's okay. He likes that. He's sort of about it. I'm an outsider. No, he would desperately like to go to the prom. He would desperately like to be one of the cool kids. He would desperately like to sit at the right lunch table.

Right Meanwhile, the cool kids here are Mitch McConnell. So this is not But yes, I know it's it's it's the club you don't want to be in, right, right, right, But Mitch McConnell. And I wrote this in my second book. Washington is littered with the bodies of people in the Republican Party who thought they were gonna fuck Mitch McConnell. And you don't have to like him, and you don't have to to think he's a good person, to recognize he has game, to recognize that as a Senate Minority leader,

he arguably has more power than Chuck Schumer. Well, I'm not going to completely go along with that, but yes, the difference will someday break the spell of inertia with that guy. We're going to agree to disagree here, but I do think that we are seeing Republicans. I mean, Mitch McConnell got Donald Trump three Supreme Court seats, two of which he didn't have any claim to correct. I listen, listen, Mitch McConnell is extraordinarily good at politics. Okay, absolutely extraordinarily

good at it. Again, you don't have to like you. And this is this is like the curse of being an ex Republican. If I praise the game the guy plays, I will get emails people. Now he's good at what he does. Miss McConnell is a dark force in our politics at this point because he let Donald Trump off the hook over and over again, and for the one fucking time he could have used the superpowers for good, not for evil, he chose not to. Oh, no question.

And I also think ultimately he thought Donald Trump that the leopard wouldn't eat his face, and the leopard is in fact coming for his face. Oh listen, the leopard now has eight or nine seats, okay, and those eight or nine seats in which he now has complete control that the maga's now have complete control over. It's a

growing number, not a shrinking number. Listen. After when the monster of the Tea Party, which I was a part of building, sorry, got loose and put up people like Richard Murdoch, a lot of adults in the room that included guys like me in the consulting world, and guys like the Coke team, and a whole bunch of other people, and most importantly Mitch McConnell, there was a vowel we are never having these goddamn crazies to over the party again.

We are never letting them put their fucking crazy candidates on the ballot again, because we could have won a sweeping majority in but the crazies were in charge. So if you were, if you were the then equivalent of a maga, if you were a Tea Party lunatic, somebody was going to come to your house and hold a pillow over your face politically speaking, until you stopped twitching. It happened, a lot happened all over the country. That was a McConnell operation. There was a desire to get

rid of the factory. Well this year McConnell did not get his choices for you, and so the the the NRSC and the combined campaigns spent half a billion dollars. Now part of that was Rick Scott fucked it up and spent a hundred seventy five of the building out his own political lists and operations on their budget. Scott, who could have seen it coming over institution, used it for his own benefit, corrupted it and spent all the money. Who could have seen it? I just don't it's so unprecedented.

How did this happen? Yeah, unbelievable. But Scott and McConnell are now in open warfare. And when Mitch mcculloughy that, I said, well, I've fund it. Hard to believe he could even be reelected in his own state. It was a large snow vault paper in the country. Yeah, that was Mitch McConnell equiped what I'm saying. I will give you two options. There's a luger on the table, there's one bullet in it. You make the right you make

the right choice for your family. You know, that's Mitch McConnell. Like, that is a clear signal that Scott now, Rick Scott has half a billion dollars of his own money, which, by the way, if you want to talk about like where the fun did income in and quality happened in this country, the guy has not had any kind of business at all since he was thrown out of h

c A in the early two thousand. Okay, when he ran for governor of Florida, he was worth about a hundred and seventy five million dollars and Conservatives is now and he's very clever about how they put it in trust for his kids and his wife all the ship. I talked to someone recently said they believe Rick Scott is worth five hundred and seventy five million dollars. So he can die. He can dump another hundred mill into his campaign and not break a sweat. Yeah, or someone

else's which is probably more his choice. One of the things that I think is a really important data point which I haven't seen so much reporting on, is that while Kevin McCarthy elevated the people who did not make him. Speaker Mitch McConnell actually punished the people who came at him. And Josh Holly has been downgraded and kicked off a committee, while Matt Gates has been elevated, And I want you to talk about that for a minute. Look, Kevin McCarthy has made a deal. And the deal is with the

proverbial devil. What is the fundamental of all Mustapha lan deals. The devil always fucks you in the end. That's the typical arch type of the whole low key trickster devil character. They always break their word, they always break the deal. Kevin every day is like, Nope, that leopard is not going to eat my face as you as your analogy just wasn a minute ago. They are so excited to eat his face. They're gonna eat his face over the

debt ceiling, the funny party season. He's wedged. He's got these these handful of moderates that we're pressuring at Lincoln to like say that you won't crash the economy, and they're like hammona halmona hammana. But the Gates people, part of the deal behind closed doors was we will never vote for a debt ceiling increase without massive Social Security and benefits cuts. So McCarthy he really wants to be

speaker for longer than the next fourteen months. He really does, but it's very difficult to see how he gets there because he has made a deal with the crazies. It also says something about the House caucus that for the most part the whole show, Remember he was Donald Trump's candidate, and everybody that was in his caucus for Donald Trump's people, and all those two hundred plus people that were with him from the beginning were always Donald Trump's people because

they wanted Donald Trump to be happy. Because Donald Trump runs the republic Party base to this minute, to this very second. And man, I have some new polling on that scar which it would scare the ship out of Republicans if they read it. Yeah, tell us about the new polling. One more thing, McConnell understands how to punish and reward. Okay, his problem is McConnell is not good at the outside game of social media politics and of

the entertainment industrial complex of the Republican Party. That's a continuing story. Both of them made those choices based on bad predicates. I saw some polling on Friday briefing. I wasn't on Friday, and Donald Trump has the suicide vest On and he's sitting in a car loaded with explosives and it's parked in the middle of a minefield. And if he decides that he's piste off and says I've been treated very badly, do not vote, we run to sanctimonious and he loses, he wouldn't even have to run

as an independent. He wouldn't even have to put John Jr. On the ballot, which, by the way, is how they'll get out of the sore loser laws in most states. Wait, what if Trump loses in the primary. A lot of states don't let you run in a primary and then file it as an independent. Twenty two of them don't let you do that. The trick they're gonna do is they'll just put Don Jr. On the ballot in those states to draw off just enough Republican votes to kill it,

to kill the party. He will not allow Rhonda Santis or any other Republican to become president of the United States. And he has then from the numbers I've just seen it. We'll be talking more about these soon. He has and even if it's even if I'm off by a factor of five, the number of Republicans who will either stay home, leave the party right Trump in vote for another third party candidate if Trump doesn't have the nomination, it's astounding.

And this was a an enormous national survey, enormous, deep, academically rigorous. It's not some you know, fly by night brand new polling firm. It really illustrated to me why everybody who's like, what are you still talking about Trump? It's the Santisis party. No, no, no, bless your hearts, it is not. It is Donald Trump's party, and it is still Donald From's party at a level that people haven't even contemplated. The Santas is very fat and happy

right now. Metaphorically speaking, he's never happy, but with this belief that that the billionaire class and that the elite conservative media National Review, well and also Fox News and Rupert Rupert's got a hard on for him right now will stick with him, and they will, and that they have enough influence now inside the base to make it impossible for Trump to win. It's exactly inverted. The MAGA base now is losing faith in Fox News because now

they don't really care. They're like, I'm on Twitter, I'm on oh a n I'm on Telegram. That base is moving, That media bubble is falling into a different iteration than it wasn't sixteen. And as much as National Review wants to be the tiger beat of of the Republican Party and treat Rhonda Santa's like he's Shaun Cassidy in nineteen seventy seven, and they squee about on him and every article, it's like, you know, the bull leadership of FRONTA Santa squis shown today because he got up and took a

crap this morning. I mean, they can't stop. Those people are so distant from the base. Now the base is becoming. I knew in sixteen during a lot of focus grouping that it was more alien than the than the establishment understood. I knew by twenty and we could all see it by twenty that it was this new conspiracy world and this alternate facts universe that was created over time by Trump. But now it I mean, speaking of alien invasions. They

have language. There's been linguistic drift inside who the Republicans are. They speak a different vernacular than the rest of the country. In the world does now they believe things that are not true because they're not prompted by the things that used to drive American politics. Rick Wilson, thank you for joining us. As always, I'm a ray of fucking sunshine, I know, but here we are. Mark Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket. Welcome too fast politics. Mark, thank

you for having me. We're very excited to have you. And I tried to have anyone who has like a legion of far right haters. Then you got the right guy, like the demonization and how much they hate you, And I have that too. I mean I don't have it on the same scale, unfortunately for me, but you know, I have people at come over to me at Seapack and yell at me for some real or imagined slight And so I feel your pain explained to me. How you got a little bit about how you got to

be the great demon to the right. It's a question I asked myself all the time, because there's really nothing about my background or early legal career that would have predicted it. I was, you know, I grew up in a Jewish household in New York, went to college and Upstate New York, went to do law school, came to Washington,

d C. Was at a big law firm. Yeah, I was representing Democrats and voting rights and and all of that, But there was a sense in DC for most of my career that the fights between the parties would be on policies, but fundamentally both parties were committed to democracy.

So I think I became demonized because after sixteen it became clear that the bipartisan consensus that I thought existed around you know, basic principles like we don't ban books, you know, we don't we don't elect authoritarian crazy people, and we believe in democracy. I thought that was bipartisan, and all of a sudden I realized that the people on the other side didn't. And now that led them

to focus a lot of their energy against me. And there's people like you because we're just continuing to say the same things we've always said, and they have become part of a cult like organization. Yeah. No, I mean

it is completely interesting. But you had been fighting for voting rights and then you sort of kicked it up a notch a couple of years ago and went on your own and started really being focused on these statewide cases and so I want to get into that because one of the reasons I think you've been so demonized is you are very effective. Yeah. So we started my team and I started focusing on the mechanics of voting

and litigating a lot of lawsuits. You know, people right now I think that we're in the slow period of the election cycle, and I remind them we're litigating forty voting cases in seventeen states. We have two cases that were waiting on the U Supreme courture rule on and all of that is the product of trumps um. You know. Donald Trump decided that he was going to attack voting, an attack voting rights, and attack access to the ballot, and I felt like it was important that I do

everything I could to prevent that. Yeah. A noble and also very important job. Yeah. I grew up in a household that was immigrant and pro democratic, and there was a sense that we owed to this country to protect voting rights, minority rights, the rights of freedom and democracy. And so it never occurred to me to do anything other than that. And as the country took a very dangerous term a turn rather under Donald Trump, I became more and more committed to those fights because someone has

to take those fights on. Yeah, So I want to ask you, and I think I relate to this a lot. I mean in my own obviously I'm not nearly as effective as you are, but I relate to this feeling that if I don't do this, no one else well right, which is something that we have really seen a lot of people have that kind of feeling after Trump is um. So I want to ask you what states are things going great in? That's the first question. So I wrote a piece recently for Democracy Docket about the five things

that every Democratic controlled trifecta state. There seventeen states that Democrats control everything the five laws they need to pass. So there are certainly states that are doing better. You know, California has comparatively better voting laws. There are states that have made dramatic improvements in their voting laws. You know,

Michigan made dramatic improvements in its voting laws. But I am quick to point out that there is more that every state can do, and every state ought to be looking for ways to improve access to voting in their states and to strengthen our democracy so that the next time we have an authority hurry and candidate on the right, which unfortunately is likely not more than a couple of years away, or less than a couple is likely less than a couple of years away. They are hardened against it.

So I don't want to be a Debbie downer and just say they are all bad, but they all can stand to be improved. And Democrats right now have a historic opportunity to do that, and they need to take it, and they need to go big, and they need to make those changes where they can, and then we need to fight as hard as we can in every other state to ensure that voting rights and democracy or protective.

So what states are you really worried about? So I continue to be very worried about Georgia, even though you know, we've had a couple of good elections like Goes in Georgia, because Georgia has really instituted not just a legal system of challenging voter eligibility, but a culture now of it. And thousand Georgians were challenged, which is really an extraordinary number. It's larger than any mass challenge since the Voting Rights Act.

And in we saw a hundred thousand Georgians challenge Republicans and their allies are mounting these mass challenges to prevent tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of Georgians from being able to vote. So Georgia is high on my list.

I continue to be very worried about Texas, which has some of the worst voting rules in the in the country, and Florida, which has had pretty good voting rules, but which right now has an authoritarian leader who has undermined voting in the passage of already one anti voting bill, undermined the redistricting process and contravention of the state constitution, and is now in the book banning phase of authoritarian I would say those are the states I'm principally focused on,

But I'm also worried about Ohio. Ohio just passed a series of restricted voting laws that you know, made the I D laws tighter, made drop boxes harder to to be used, shortened periods of time for people to request and return mail in ballot. So I wish I could say it's just a handful of states, but pretty much any place Republicans control the legislative incumbernatorial process we are worried about and focused on. Yeah, that seems like a

really important data point I'd love to focus on. Like Wisconsin is a great example because they have this Supreme Court election in April. Tony I versus a Democrat is in his second term, but he has been unable to change the voting rights there because of the state legislature. I was shocked here that it's one of the hardest. It's like, you know, number forty seven or forty eight artist states to vote in Wisconsin has an upcoming state

Supreme Court election. Wisconsin. The state Supreme Court there is an interesting court in that you have three very progressive justices,

you have four very servative justices. There is one of those conservative justice whose seat is up for election now, and if that were to flip to a progressive justice, you would see I suspect I don't know, but I would suspect you would see a much much more favorable landscape for voting because a lot of the problems in Wisconsin have come at the hands of the Wisconsin legislature, but also the state Supreme Court there that takes an anti voting cast to many of its decisions. In this arena.

We just saw in North Carolina how much this can matter. You went from a four three Democratic court to now a five to Republican court, and already those five justices have granted rehearing in two voting in democracy cases that were decided just last year. So you know, I hope everyone in Wisconsin participates in that election. Yeah. The thing I wanted to ask you where I'm going with this is there are a number of red states that have

blue governors, and I'm thinking of Kentucky. Well, Michigan is now purple, but there are a bunch of these Louisiana, a bunch of these states where democratic governors have come in but they haven't been able to fix the voting situation. Can we talk about that? Is that because of these state legislatures. So I think it's been hard for Democrats to fix the voting situations unless they control all three

pieces of the process. And that's really unfortunate. And you can see that with Governor Eavers in Wisconsin, probably more most dramatically. But one of the phenomena of the current era we're in is that there are no pro voting Republicans. So if Republicans control a legislative body by just one vote, all the efforts to improve voting will fail. All of them. And so look at Pennsylvania now, where you now have

a democratic govern er and a Democratic state House. I still think it's going to be impossible to get for Governor Shapiro to fix the problems in Pennsylvania because as long as they control one chamber, they're going to block it. And that is a problem you know from state to state. In North Carolina, Roy Cooper very good Democratic governor on voting, but the state legislature there just is so hostile to it that there's not a lot that can be accomplished. Unbelievable.

How worried are you about this sort of higher up situation like the Supreme Court is very trumpy? I mean, how worried are you about the other courts and things getting kicked up there? Yeah, so, look, we have the Supreme Court we have. I'm not going to try to sugarcoat that, but I always point out to folks that very few cases go to the U. S. Supreme Court. You know, the Supreme Court here is between seventy and ninety cases a year. There are hundreds of thousands of

cases decided every year. There are are more than ten thousand that are where Supreme Court reviews sought and they don't hear a lot of these cases. And everyone always says to me, but aren't the aren't the federal courts really bad? And I keep saying, well, there are a heck of a lot better now than they work two years ago. Right, President Biden is appointing really good judges. Now, are the courts still more conservative than I wish they were? On voting rights? Yes, but let me give you one

ray of sort of potential hope. So we my law firm alias law Groups, sued Alabama for violating the Voting Rights Act and there were districting and the three judge panel agreed that Alabama had broken the Voting Rights Act. Two of those judges have been appointed by Donald Trump. One had been appointed initially by Ronald Reagan. Now that case is now before the Supreme Court, which kind of goes to your macro point. But we we have to

keep fighting. We can't just let the other side wants us to look and say all is lost, and we have to just keep fighting and picking our battles. And if you look at the with lost record, we've actually

done pretty well in court in the last few years. Well, I mean, it goes to this idea that Democrats tend for such a long time, Democrats didn't do these small important fights, you know, at the state legislature, and they were so focused on the big picture that Republicans picked up things that you know, I mean, it's like this idea that there are you know that Democrats had uncontested

elections in certain places. So I do think when Democrats fight, especially when they're fighting for things like the right to vote, ultimately, I mean, the country was founded on this sort of Yeah. Look, one of the reasons you asked me early on why Republicans have demonized me. One of the reasons why they've demonized me is I am a Democrat, and I fight hard. I fight hard, and I don't stop fighting. I will fight for democracy, and I will fight for the right

to vote. Even when the odds are long, We'll keep fighting. And I think that we as Democrats need to realize that the first order of the agenda for every Republican governor and every Republican legislature is to curtail democracy. It's too banned books, it's it's restrict voting rights. It's to do things to undermine our democratic government. And I wish frankly Molly that when Democrats had power, their first order on their agenda was to expand democracy, was to strengthen

institutions of our voting system. But you know, there are so many things competing for the priorities of those governors and legislatures that I think, you know, I always say Republicans have one thing they want to get done, and Democrats have fifty things they want to get done. I want to ask you about one of the suggestions in your pieces to limit the number of partisan pol watchers. Can you just go in for a minute on that

and explain to us. Sure. So, there are a number of aspects of the American voting system which are sort of relics of a different era, and one of them was the idea that, you know, you would have representatives of the parties at the polls who would watch the voting process. And there were a lot of reasons why historically that may have been appropriate or not appropriate. But what we've seen is the Republicans weaponize every aspect of the voting an election process to try to undermine it.

And one of the ways they do that is by using the ability to put people in the polls to harass voters and harass election officials. And so you know, we need to make sure first and foremost that people who show up to vote are not being intimidated, they're

not being harassed, they're not being photographed. There are not people in body armor outside the drop boxes with guns asking them questions, right, and so you know, I I what I say is that we need to be clear that someone who is watching the polls is only allowed to watch. They're not allowed to talk, they're not allowed to comment, they're not allowed to threaten, and that they can have to do it from a safe distance so that people and election officials don't feel threatened by their presence.

So that's one of the five things that I think every democratic controlled state could enact today. Yeah, I mean you could see why Republicans are not going to be into that. Yeah, but again, you know, let's start with the seventeen states where Democrats control the process right exactly. This is so interesting. I just want to ask you one quick question is what are you watching right now?

What's like on the horizon, So on the voting horizon specifically, you know, state legislatures and meet people don't realize oftentimes that you know, Congress meets every year, in theory every month of every year. State legislatures oftentimes meet only part year, and they almost always meet this time of year. So

we're watching a number of states potentially restrict voting. You know, Idaho is likely going to enact a law that removes state issued college ideas from the acceptable form of iding. We already saw Ohio pass a omnibus voter suppression law that we're already suing. We see bad voting bills moving their way through states like Florida, states like Georgia, states in the Deep South. So we're watching all of those

to see which of those become law. And as I always say, if a state is going to pass a restriction on voting that violates constitution or law, they're going to get suit. And that's my continued message to them today. That's a good message. Thank you so much. I hope you'll come back anytime. I'd love to. I know you, our dear listeners are very busy and you don't have time to sort through the hundreds of pieces of pundentry each week. This is why every week I put together

a newsletter of my five favorite articles on politics. If you enjoy the podcast. You will love having this in your inbox every Friday, So sign up at Fast Politics pod dot com and click the tab to join our mailing list. That's fast politics pod dot com. Ben Wickler is the state chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Welcome to Fast Politics, Ben, So great to be back with you.

I wanted to have you on because a couple of weeks ago we had Al Franken on, and Al Franken was saying that there's a really big, big election coming up right now that and it's sort of counterintuitive because you think, like, oh, the big election is the run up to twenty four, but no, you in the great state of Wisconsin have a big election coming up. Can you explain to us what's going on. Wisconsin is a bluish right purple state. I say bluish because Democrats have

won fourteen in the last seventeen statewide elections here. But we have the policies of a bright red state in the Deep South, because we have an incredibly right wing state legislature that is elected based on the most gerrymandered

maps in the country. And all of that is happening because we have a state Supreme Court that is dominated by a four three conservative majority, and those things in combination mean that Wisconsin is one of the hardest states to cast a ballot, were rated forty seven fifty and ease of voting were the second hardest state to register to vote in the country. We're right to work state. It's hard to organize a union. All these different laws

are tilted against Democrats. And that has been the state of affairs for about twelve years since since the Scott Walker in the right wing swept into power. But on April four everything could change because in our four three conservative majority Supreme Court, the right wing chief Justice is retiring and so there's an open seat for a ten year term that will determine the balance of power on

our state Supreme Court. And if a progressive candidate wins that race, we could have a state Supreme Court that rules are gerrymandered maps unconstitutional, and demands new maps that are actually fair. It could strike down we have one of the most extreme abortion bands in American history, was passed in thee There's no exception for rape or incest

with the life of the health of the mother. If two doctors agree that the mother's life is imperiled, then you could get a legal abortion, but it is so bad, like you can't finish getting trained as an O, B G y N in Wisconsin because it's not clear if this law from before the invention of modern medicine applies to abortions as standard care for miscarriages or a topic

pregnancies people are people are getting having the bleeding for days. Well, the hospitals try to figure out whether they're going to be have doctors sent to jail if they provide basic routine care for people. And this law is going to come before the state Supreme Court and determine that. This is our Kansas subortion referendum. Essentially, we don't have a value addition of mechanism, so abortion voting rights, like our state Supring Court over and over has figured out how

to roll back voting freedoms. That could change if we win a majority, and the maps and all of that could take effect before. So this is the election in the state that's been the tipping point state in both of the last two presidential races, the only state where four the last six presidential races has come down to less than one percentage point. This race will determine the playing field whether it's slanted to the right or fair.

And even before the next presidential race, and Wisconsin most likely tipping points state in the electoral College, we have Tammy Baldwin up for re election in the Senate, which could determine the Senate majority. And in a state again, Republicans have six of our eight congressional seats, so if we get fair maps, we could win two House seats, which would take a big chunk out of Kevin McCarthy's micro House majority. It's all all happening here and it

all comes up this April four. That is completely crazy. How do you run an election a Supreme Court election? Because that is sort of counter intuitive for it it is I mean, frankly, the right has figured out a long time ago that these are really really important races. But exactly as you say, I think, you know, we have this idea of a judiciary that's not just going

to be carrying water for the Republican Party. But the Republican Party is totally intertwined with the Federalist society, with these right wing lawyer networks, so they've been pouring money into these races, and on our side sometimes we do this time has to be all hands on deck, all the way through the state party in Wisconsin, or it's in our constitution to be neutral when there's two progressives running.

There's two progressives in the primary, which is February twenty one, but the second that's over, we'll have one progressive candidate and one conservative candidate. It's officially a nonpartisan race. So on the ballot it doesn't say d are next to

the candidate's names. What that means is that the campaign and the party and grassroots groups have to educate people about which candidate has which values so that when they walk in, when they see the names of the candidates, they know that Dan Kelly and Jennifer Doro, the true right wing candidates, would probably uphold the nine abortion man and stomp on their voting rights and everything else, and to not vote for them, but for one of whichever

the progressive candidate is either either Janet pro to say it's or Everett Mitchell. What that means is that we're going from kind of zero to sixty on name recognition. We have to educate voters that there is an election. These are the stakes, these are the candidates, these are the issues. But it also means like normally, these races are way lower turnout, like half or even a third of the turnout of the November election with partisan candidates.

It means that in this kind of environment, every time you are a volunteering make a phone call or talk to a member of your family or a friend, or donate a few bucks to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, which would always encourage UM, those donations go much further because you're essentially taking people who are died in the Democrats and just making sure that they know that this election counts as much as their elections did last fall, or as they will in You don't have to convince

someone to share your values. These people share your values. They just don't know this election is happening. And that means that the impact of actually doing campaign work in this kind of environment is vastly higher. Yeah. No, I mean it sounds like it isn't it sort of cheaper too, because this is so off season. If that makes no sense,

It's exactly right. These elections, I mean, this will probably be the most expensive judicial race in in U. S history, which sounds impressive until you find out that the last most inpressive judicial race was fifteen million dollars, and like the November elections last year, where billions of dollars, like individual states would have several hundred millions of dollars poured into races like our Senate race or the governors race in Wisconsin. This is a this is bargain basement politics

with you know, super deluxe, five star political impact. I want to just talk to you a minute about some of the lessons from Wisconsin. Like a lot of pundon said, and you never said this, and you know you are on the ground in Wisconsin, which I find very helpful. A lot of pundon said that Mandela Barnes was too lefty and that he wasn't gonna win because he was

too lefty. I don't know where that came from, but I heard a lot of pundon saying that he barely lost and if polls had been more accurate, he would have been able. I mean, Ron Johnson really could have been defeated had there been more accurate polling towards money. I mean, do you think that's true? Am I crazy? I think you're right. And this is part of what's so frustrating is that it's exactly the punditry that you're

describing that led to the loss. And what I mean by that is people came out of the gate and we're like, uh, like, you know, the prioritize Wisconsin. And so in the in the part of the campaign right after the primary, when Mandela became the nominee, Republican superbacks came in that the you line, the biggest Republican donors in the country. They poured millions in the Diane Hendrix.

Between those two right wing billionaires, they put in twenty nine million dollars in independent expenditures, and the funding gap between the two sides was twenty six million dollars favoring Republicans. So these two families alone, who by the way, had hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks that from

Ron Johnson. So they putting all this money. But if there had been like a few million dollars and ads in September from more than we had from from progressive groups like we wouldn't have Mandela wouldn't have fallen behind in that period when people were overwhelmingly seeing attack ads and not seeing a defense and CounterPunch, and when so Mandela during that time was doing this very intensive fundraising and by kind of early mid October had the funds

to go back on offense, and like independent groups came in as well, and that got us to about even in terms of Republican versus Democratic ads. And he would people saw his message and the GOP's message. He gained

a point a week and ended one point down. If that man had come in two weeks earlier, he would have won by two points and saw it and had ed Or if he had more money as Democrats did who won across the country, if there had been a flood of money at the end the way that you know there was for like Sarah Gideon and right Sarah Gideon, and that's just exactly right, that could have taken a resulted in a victory too. In a funny way, Mandela kind of proves the case that he could have won.

Like he came closer than any other Democrat did in the country to flipping an incumbent Republican seat. He did better than rust Sfengel did in twenty sixteen or twenty Like he had a powerhouse campaign. It just didn't have enough money, and it didn't have enough money because Pundon said, he doesn't have a chance, And I mean that was a message I kept hearing, he's too lefty, he's black. I don't know again that that Wisconsin isn't going to

elect someone who's black, even though he had one. I mean, I think that's really racist, honestly, and I always I think he won a very type primary, like the man had proven that he could win, and then somehow the pundent class decided that he couldn't. There was there was this kind of you know, spug national fad of being like, oh the polls. At first, the polls were saying Democrats were going to do great, and then it became, oh,

the polls must be overstating the case for Democrats. And then these right wing garbage polls came flooding in saying Democrats we're gonna lose in a red wave landslide. And a lot of people started freaking out about states where Democrats won by a bunch of points, you know what I mean, Like, yeah, like Washington State is a really good example. Yeah, like keep your eye on the ball man in Wisconsin. When you have a fully funded campaign on both sides, both sides started and then it's like,

are you going to actually do everything? You need to do to push it over the finish line. The we are internal polls on election day it said we were like, we're gonna lose by one point and we did. And yeah, that period where people were saying, oh, I know you're theocratic state chair. You have to say mandeloquo wins like no, no, no, like we really good winness race. Right. I want to ask you one other really annoying thing. But you are

a state chair who's really good at your job. That happens for sure, but usually in the media we tend to focus more on the state chairs that are not so good at their jobs. I mean, I live in New York, so our state chair is terrible and needs to resign tomorrow. So I want to ask you, what do you think the sort of secret to being a good state chair is? And I should say there are

some dynamite state chairs. Lura Barnes in Michigan, who I learned from all the time Michigan is incredible, yes, and heard of the secret, Like you look at the fact they have a traffic to now that came about because Lavora was doing this work to win Supreme Court races years ago. And like you know, supporting these statewide ballot initiatives. We don't have about initiative process and Wisconsinent in Michigan

they do. They used it to the hilt. These downbout like election judges, all this stuff that created the recipe where you get to blow out success two in one way, that's the key first DAI party chairs is like you have to figure out all the dominoes that have to fall to get to the point where you have the wins that you need and then not skip those local

elections that wind up having huge downstream consequences. That's one piece, and other pieces having the elected officials, either you're in a state where there or not state wide Democrats, so the party can actually kind of do this without meeting their support or have alignment from the Democrats. Elect the Democrats in your state that you're actually gonna build a power base at the state party that can do work independent of the let's say governor's campaign or Senate campaigns.

And we're Lavoora and I are both lucky to have that with our elect the Democrats in our states. They want a strong party, but in some places the state party chair is kind of chosen by the governor and their job is to, you know, not make the governor look bad as opposed to figure out how to win every possible election you mean, like in a state that I might live in. But yeah, so that is a good point though, that you focus on winning every single election.

I was at this thing last night and I actually got to meet Maxwell Frost, who is a friend of this podcast and also a twenty five year old congressman from Florida, and we were talking about that there's going to be a state chair election in Florida and that Democratic Party has had a very tough time, So I just was curious sort of about the kind of you know, the macin nations there and how it works. So every state has different procedures for choosing their chair. I had

to run a campaign with I had a campaign manager. Yeah, I remember that, Elliott. It was like a big whole thing. Other places it's like the state Central Committee, which is big or small depending on the state makes the choice. But if there is a Democratic powerhouse politician in the state, usually people who are on those committees don't want to

be on the wrong side of that person. It's not always true, but like you kind of have to line up the big stakeholders, and then in some ways, like you know, if you're not facing a wall of opposition like that, you want to I think the second big thing is state chairs should be organizers at heart, and I tend to think it's good for like the dificial also to be organized as at heart. But you want to be thinking not just about like how you look in the media or what your position on something is

going to be. You want to think how do I motivate and mobilize and organize other people to all come around this common goal to do this thing that has to happen, because that's fundamentally the work of the party

is building alignment across this big, messy democratic coalition. It's not just like for the party to issue a statement when something happens in the news, and so much work goes in on the back end to like ensuring that there are candidates running for X, Y and Z offices and making sure that like there's a strategy for what the grassroots group should do versus what the party can uniquely do. Well, all of that work has to proceed

the moment when people actually go to the polls. Sort of the Biden plan, which I actually think is quite smart now, is that he's going around after this State of the Union address and sort of bragging about the infrastructure and the Inflation Reduction Act and bringing these blue collar I mean, I think the phrase blue collars is not the right phrase and nor should we use it. But you know, these jobs that you can work without a college degree. Do you think that will speak to

wisconsinan's or do you think they don't. It's just like some of these people just are never gonna, you know, go along with Biden and just too mad Wisconsin as an electorate that's overwhelmingly folks without a college education and lovingly white folks without a college education, although you know, the working classes multiracial here and everywhere else. President Biden's message it comes from his gut, you know what I mean. It's not just like a focus group pulled us a thing.

It's it's something that is quart of who he is and it is perfect for the state. He came to Madison, first, Madison, Wisconsin, or outside of Madison, DeForest, a laborers training facility. I was there yesterday and he spoke. I was. I was in a folding chair right next to a kind of concrete hole in the or that is used in training to teach people how to replace sewer lines toward the facility before, like, this is where the actual work gets

done there. You know, there were earth movie equipment and and you know all the stuff that people actually use in the shot for the TV cameras. And there were workers who were very packed the place, people in hard hats and reflective vests, and the work that they do is going to be empowered and supported. The person introduced him explain how her life had been transformed by the Laborers Union because she was able to figure out how to have a family supporting job without having a college degree.

That is, it's both great policy and it's great politics. And the best message always not only demonstrates what your values are and makes a contrast with the other side, it also speaks to the personal story of the person delivering the message. And this same does for like who Biden is and what he's fought for his whole life his I've never seen him give a speech where he doesn't talk about how a job is more than just a paycheck. It's about dignity, pride, and so forth. And

that resonated so much in that room yesterday. In Madison into Forest. I hope that he criss crosses the country with that message because it it connects like directly to people's hearts and the kinds of conversations they have when they're not talking about politics, and that that's the test you I was on to meet. Yeah, such a good point, you know. After that State of the Union address, my feeling is I think he's better at this than he

was twenty years ago. It's interesting, like there's a reason why he's why he's President of the United States, and you know, there's a reason why Brack Obama picked him as vice president. Why you got elected over and over and over and over. Starting very young, and I do

feel like he's grown. I've found it really impressive. And part of what's interesting to me is if you look at, you know, these polls that like have dooming gloom, they often reflect a caricature of President Biden that has been intentionally crafted by right wing media, and when people see him give a speech, it just rips those caricatures to shreds. He's not the person that you see on Fox News, like they're selectively editing the worst moments for somebody who

grew up working to overcome a stutter. This is like he can give a speech, he can connect to a human level with the people, one after another. I mean, he was on his feet for hours when he was in Wisconsin yesterday. Sometimes, you know, I feel like Republicans have created these low expectations for him to soar over I like, I'm feeling it's true, Ben, this was so great. I hope you will come back because Wisconsin is where it's all happening. Thank you. I'm sorry to tell you.

We wake up every day and living it. If anyone who's listening right now wants to be involved, go to with stems dot org slash donate or with stems dot org slash volunteer. Honestly, like, spend a few hours calling Democrats in Wisconsin about this election and you will get so fired up because people do care so much, and a lot of people lack the most basic knowledge about this. We will train volunteers. You don't have to have any prior experience. You don't need to know anything about this race.

If you've listened this far on the podcast, you're now an expert and you can make a giant, giant difference with with dollars and with time. Thank you, Ben Mirick Wilson. Yes, we brought the band back together for the moment of gray. What is your moment of My moment of this week is Elon Musk turning off vital parts of Starlink, the satellite system for Ukraine. Oh Jesus. They are desperately trying to fend off a gigantic Russian human wave attack that's

coming in the coming days and weeks. And this week Starlink unilaterally decided a program by that's being paid for by the U. S Department of Defense, Thank you very much. They decided to shut it off and not allow the Ukrainians to use it for drones gathering intelligence. This is going to give the Russians a massive advantage on the battlefield. This is going to give the Russians a massive advantage

in combat operations. And once again, this is a company that is that is wholly controlled by one guy who is now listening not to his advisors, his attorneys, his even the shareholders at Tesla. He's listening to Pizza Jack and Mike Sernovich and all the rest of this mouth breathing weirdo nat pop goon group. And he controls a piece of technology that has been able to save the Ukrainian people from a genocidal Vladimir Putin, and now he's switching off key elements of it. That, to me is

my moment of fuckory. I wish I had a more lighthearted moment of for you. And I know I get a lot of people like, how dare you assign the government would interfere with a private company. Our tax dollars are paying for this. I'm a big old free market guy and everything, but SpaceX does a lot of business with the government, and you know what, I'm an I'm an old hand at this. I've been around defense contractors my whole professional career, working in the defense parman and

then for some defense contractors. There's a lot of give and taken in the real world. You know, folks didn't mind when Donald Trump wanted to tell companies how to run things. I think that somebody I would get on the phone with Glynn shot while at SpaceX, the CEO SpaceX, and of startling you know what, you know, we might have to review some of these things because I'm really concerned that our corporate cultures aren't matching up right now, So don't worry about your launch. We will, We'll get

your permit eventually. I mean, we've got to look at other competitors in the market. It's a crowded field. And again, as a free market guy, I hate that kind of ship. But as someone who's watching a guy who is very obviously under the influence of this very dangerous clack of all right, neo Nazi, ideological crazy people. This is their dream. Their dream was never Donald Trump. Their dream was an actual person with billions of dollars, and they've got it.

If I've been having a fun moment of the R I p James O'Keeffe, but you know, yeah you and I'll take that from my moment of great James O'Keeffe. She's being benched by Project Veritas, the organization he started for not completely clear, right, I mean, some level of

staff abuse, but probably there's more than that. He'll be shocked to other staff abuse on the right and a lot of these organizations, Molly including but in in O'Keefe's case, it's particularly delicious because of course he's a dick to his staff. He may have some other things that haven't come out yet, but they're publicly facing complaint was that O'Keefe is spending their money doing musical theater. Yes, amazing, James O'Keefe rolls across the plane. Thank you. Rick Wilson,

you're very welcome. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to your the best minds and 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.