Hi, I'm Mollie John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy says a government shutdown would be a self defeating for the GOP, but.
Doesn't he know self defeating is kind of their thing.
The Guardians Margaret Sullivan stops by to talk about how the media should cover Trump and.
This twenty twenty four election cycle.
Then we'll talk to The New York Times David Leonhard about Mitt Romney's retirement and what it means for the future of the GOP. But first we have the host of the Enemy's List, fan favorite and my friend the Lincoln Projects, Rick Wilson. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Rick Wilson.
Molli, John Fast, aliy To'll be with you as always.
I almost want to read you the horrendous headline from a reputable newspaper. I'm not even gonna say which one, because I just you know, sometimes newspaper or straight news gets it wrong.
But I'm going to read to you.
And you're gonna explain why this is so. Why we're all going to drive the car off the road. And that's the best case scenario, like in fucking credible Stuff, a straight newspaper says, double blow of inquiry and Sen's indictment create tough stretch for Biden.
Discuss it all proves the case that the universe inevitably devolves towards the New York Times pitchpot. Yeah, even these, I'll look, I'm gonna be really direct about what's underneath it all the desperation for an actual horse race in twenty twenty four. And that's why, for months on end, even though every serious political reporter in this country knew there was not going to be a Democratic challenger that
emerged against Joe Biden. RFK Junior doesn't count, and there was never gonna be a serious Republican challenger to Donald Trump, which I was telling people two years ago, thank you very much. They desperately want the drama, the intrigue, the loud noises, the mutant hellscape of Mad Max, of people racing across the desert in trucks and catching shit on fire. They desperately wanted it, and I get it, Okay, I understand it. That's the default position of the American political
narrative is we want loud noises. The problem with all these things is that we have a set of perverse incentives even inside the non MAGA media, but we have on the Magamedia side a cent of perverse incentives to keep driving people out of their freaking minds by saying, my god, huns a Biden. He may face walk crimes on the Hague. You know, all the crazy shit. It's just part of their economic model, as which as I wish it was different, it's just not. It's crappy, it's horrible,
it's stupid. It is the environment we live in. I don't know how to fix it, obviously, and I wish people could step back for a minute and reset, But I don't see any motivation to do it, do you.
Well, I mean, let's pause for a second and talk about what is really going on here.
Right. This is Steve Bannon flooding. The zone was shit one hundred percent.
Now, whether or not we got there because Trump wanted McCarthy to impeach Biden because he was mad that he had gotten impeached, which is one reason why we might have gotten here, or another way we got here was that McCarthy is weak and in trouble, and it has a one person motion to vacate and is scared of his caucus, so he did the impeachment again as a faustian bargain to avoid shutdown, which, by the way, is not going to work because McCarthy is terrible at this.
Whether we got there this way or that way, the result is still the same, which is that the zone is now completely flooded with shit.
And when you talk to a.
Trump or they're going to say, yeah, our guy was impeached, but your guy was impeached.
All of these things can be true at one time, and you're correctly pointing out, yes, Kevin is doing this because Heaven wants, more than life itself to have this, the fancy office and the security detail and the portrait on the wall, and the title of speaker. And if someone said to him, hey, you have to kill your dog in public, he would do it to home.
No question. He'd be eating that dog.
He would eat that dog live in public. He would skin it, eat it where it's fur for a hat. This guy does not believe in anything other than holding that office. And I spoke to a private equity person. Let's say, well, we're technically real estate, but private equity close enough. A big, big, big Republican donor who literally still makes the argument says, well, I've talked to Kevin. He's just keeping the crazies at Bay. I'm like, in what fucking way is he keeping the crazy at Bay?
Well, he thinks he's creeping in.
What way does he think? Like saying, well, bring the motion, mad fuck you? That changes that. He's doing everything that Matt Gets and Marjorie Taylor Green and Jim Jordan and Bobert and Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar want. He's doing the entire agenda of chaos and bullshit that they crave every day, and so to hold power, he will burn this country to the ground. They know the impeachment will go nowhere. You and I both know the impeachment will.
Go ken Buck, right republic.
Ken ken Buck not exactly a member of the squad.
Right ken Buck from a very very red part of Colorado, who has now already been threatened with a primary challenge for not chatting the fuck up. That guy says there's no proof. I mean, the reality is there's no proof the impeachment. Okay, like you'll expect a bunch of partisan hacks to be partisan hacks. Fine, the federal weapons charges against Hunter Biden is a genuine failing on.
The part of the government. I mean, come on.
Like, obviously the fucking guy does not deserve a FED I mean, it's just ridiculous.
I mean it is so like there are ten times in.
History when a federal weapons charge has been.
Look, as you know, I know more about the federal firearms regulatory structure.
Yes, then probably you should, but that's because you own a small.
Arsenal probably than any other human being.
You know, yes, hopefully.
When Hunter Biden filed his forty four to seventy three, which is a form used under the federal background check system. So, by the way, let's start right there. He wasn't trying to like illegally obtain a gun on the black market. He went to a firearms dealer, filed the federal background check form. Whatever the presumption was about his current legal status is where he went wrong on this. So he made a either deliberate or accidental mistake in the filing.
And let me tell you something, unless you're a hardened career, multi charge, long term felon, you're not going to catch a federal charge on that. You know, what they're gonna do. They've got to rid your nick's form. They're going to come back and go, no, you can't have the gun. That's how it works. Most firearms transactions are done just like that. You fill out a form and it says, have I renounced my American citizenship? Are you currently engaged
in filitia sect to all this stuff? Right? No one gets charged under this, No one. There are hundreds of thousands of these forms every year. And here's the thing, there are millions of them filed every year. The vast majority of gun purchases go through the system. Hunter Biden, for whatever reason, they're now saying, Wow, this is like somebody's who's like filing the serial numbers off of glocks and selling them off out of the back of his car. No,
it's not the same. It is an overreach. I'd like to know what the MAGA explanation is, because I heard that government was weaponized and was totally there stacked in favor of the Bidens, that nothing ever happened to them. I heard that a couple of times. Now I may be wrong, but I'm guessing catching a federal felony charge is not something that most people imagine we be delivered to the Bobolin crime family if the federal government was so in fucking pocket.
It is so shockingly fucked up.
Somebody at DOJ, if you tried to bring this charge as a general rule, somebody would go, the fuck is wrong with you? This is not going to be the highest and best use of federal prosecutorial time and effort. But here we are.
So are you saying the merit Garland Justice Department that refused to prosecute Trump after January sixth, is now making a mistake with its charges against Hunter Biden.
I know you'll find this shocking. Other people will find this shocking too, But a lot of people in the FBI and the DOJ, yes.
It can't be. Don't not true.
I was told that the New York FBI Field office was chock full of liberals and activists who love AOC in America. Exactly.
We're just going to look at solid facts of like the Justice Department fucking around with democratic candidates. I will remind you of the James Coomy October surprise.
Yes, indeed, but of course he's apologized for that.
So yes, we have a track record of the Justice Department not making the best calls around election season. But here we are, and look, Molly, this is part and parcel of a broad Republican strategy at Steve Bannon, then the ship flooding, and to make morally equivalent in the most absurd way, the idea that Joe Biden is somehow corrupt in the head of the Biden crime family, which is like the ends of twenty twenty four. And they
do it because Donald Trump is a goddamn criminal. They do it because Donald Trump is facing ninety one charges in four separate indictments and more to come. Because he's a criminal who persists in criming, because he's a criminal who persists in attempting to retake power in the country. The idea here to make them equivalent, so they could say whoa Trump was indicted and Saul was Biden's son for laptop and.
Out and out right, it's basically the same.
The madness of this should be evident to anybody who draws air into their lungs.
With the exception of the mainstream media, let's talk about where.
We're going to go now.
We will both sides ourselves to fucking death in this country.
Yeah, I want to talk for two seconds about what Republicans have done here very successfully, which is working the rafts.
Right. This is the result of working the rafts.
This is a Justice Department that's worried that it looks too liberal. Talk to us about what it means to work the rafts.
This is the secret weapon of the Republican Party. Not only for the last five or ten years, but this started back in the nineteen sixties during the Johnson administration when a couple of Republicans. Back then they were millionaires, because back then a millionaire meant something. Today they'd be billionaires,
and they are funded by billionaires today. This infrastructure, the Brent Bozell infrastructure, the right wing media, you know, screechers and howlers, claiming that anytime someone reports on something, it displays liberal bias, and you must kill the liberal bias. And so these people work very carefully, very methodically. They're constantly on the phone. They never ever ever stop hauling
and say that's unfair. I may not be as far right as Steve Bannon, but that's unfair that you're treating us like second class citizens, and we have a right. They will use the media's rules, they will use institutional rules. They will use society's rules to absolutely burn the building down. It's like, in fairness, you have to sell me the gasoline to pour throughout this building so I can set
it on fire. And that's what they do, because, believe me, the end state for journalism is not hey buddy, we're all going to play it straight up the middle. The end state for journalism under Steve Bannon is you have to have a license to be a journalist, and you're going to report what we want you to report. They should not think of this as in the future. Ask oh,
it'll be like going back to regular bush. No, it'll be like going into a RAQ and being in the bath party and getting a license to have a newspaper and getting a license to be a reporter. The natural outcome is not the guys you see in DC, guys who used to be like me, Like a lot of
Republican consults in DC. They take reporters out to dinner, they buy them drinks, they do the thing, and it's like, hey, buddy, you know, we're the normal ones, Tory man, We're cool, and they are in service to a movement and a guy who would literally put them in prison camps if he got his way. And that's the fact. Not all the Republicans who are spending the press know that or say that. But listen to what Trump says. He always
tells you what he will do. When he says he'll put his political opponents in prison camps, that's what he'll do.
That's what he means.
Margaret Sullivan is a columnist at The Guardian and author of Newsroom Confidential. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Margaret Sullivan.
Thank you, Mollie.
I enjoy being on your fantastic podcast, and I always enjoyed speaking with you, even if the.
Subject is rather grim.
Sometimes I have friends where I hesitate to emotionally blackmail them to do something with me, but on this case I had to because.
I sent you.
You know, I always send you what strikes me as like a grievous medium malpractice. And today there was a doozy, which was this Washington Post title of how Biden's son is charged with three counts of federal weapons possession and not filling out the form right and he's also being impeached by the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy. Because Kevin McCarthy is quite worried about a government shutdown and
he can't control his caucus. But the sort of headline we saw was just this really gross kind of both sides saying like Biden's gonna have a tough time now.
And I sent it to you and I.
Was like, we got to get Margaret on here. So I feel like this is a nine to one one year.
Margaret, Right, And just to tell you and your listeners exactly what those words were in the posts, double blows of inquiry and Son's indictment create tough stretch for Biden.
So this is a case in which those that is.
True, I mean that is literally true, but it also is misleading and it lacks context. And so my big thing is that if we're going to tell the truth and not be neutral, and I was happy to hear Chris jan amenpor put it so so succinctly this week, be truthful, not neutral, then that kind of headline is not helpful, and it's harmful because it creates a situation that lacks context and is misleading.
Right.
I think that's a really good point. So let's talk about where we are, because like twenty fifteen, that election was shaped by I think three words, but her emails. Right, So the idea was trumpad Trump's he had allegations of sexual misconduct, he had this, he had that, he had tape of him talking about grabbing women, and yet the constant refrain in the mainstream media was about her emails.
Right.
It was this sort of endless effort to equalize Clinton's dubious practices on her emails. It wasn't ideal with Trump's incredible list of things that should have disqualified for him as president. And so this one piece was blown out
of proportion constantly and with very terrible timing. And when Komi started up his investigation again at the FBI and all of Trump's stuff which we knew about, but somehow he was so distracting and so entertaining and so compelling and a ratings machine that these things got equalized.
And then guess what, he got elected.
So your very good piece in the Guardian today talked about this idea that Trump is covered as an entertaining figure and in a kind of jovial way that a democratic challenger is not.
Can you talk about that?
Well, you wrote a great piece in the since we're in a mutual admiration society, or you wrote an important piece in Vanity Fair a couple of weeks ago, or maybe just last week, because we've lost track of time about I think the headline was something like, can bide and ride boring to reelection?
And that's a great question.
I mean, he is boring, and we should all be very grateful that he's boring, because the boringness includes human decency, good governance, having people around him who are experienced and who he listens to, and getting things done in government. If that means boring, then we should all be celebrating boring. Trump is never boring. We have to say that for him. He called himself a ratings machine. He is. He is compelling. That's not a good thing in this case. So you know, that's sort.
Of the en and the aang here.
But it seems like the media has a hard time separating itself from seeing Trump as this constant sort of clickmeister and someone who will keep us entertained at all costs, you know, right over the cliff of democracy into authoritarianism.
Yeah, and it does seem like that, and I understand.
So let's talk about how we got here, because I feel like that is something that I think could be relevant So my question for you is some part of this is conservative pundits and politicians working the refs.
Can you talk about that.
Yeah, when we say working the refs, what we mean is that, so there's the mainstream media. So what we mean by that is sort of the big newspapers or traditional newspaper companies, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and the three broadcast networks and the cable networks that aren't Fox News. Right, Okay, so let's call that is sort of the big journalism, big media and
working the refs. Is that there's a constant barrage of criticism from the right that says, you people are all spouting DNC talking points, you're all doing the work of the DNC, you're in the tank for the Democrats, on and on, and what the media wants to be seen as is nonpartisan and fair, which is a reasonable thing
to want to be seen as. But when the right, whether it's politicians or media figures, or whether it's Tucker Carlson or whether it's Trump, come after the mainstream media and say look at you, you're doing the work of the DNC. The reaction to that that's working the refs you're pushing the refs in this case, the media to move to the right, and so very dutifully the media
does move to the right. And then it's never enough, so you move to the right some more, and the sort of overton window of normalcy keeps moving rightward.
What you get after a while is this both sides.
That is very defensive and it's very scared, and it's not true to the core mission of journalism, right.
And then there is the fundamental problem of click based journalism, which is that there is a real kind of incentive for journalists to write things that we'll get read.
That sounds obvious, but it's actually not.
It's not only things that we'll get read and engaged with, which is a high value, and that's a profit driven thing, but it's also how can we get the biggest audience. So if you're striving for the biggest audience, and again, this is all about revenue, it's all about being successful, it's all you know, The Washington Post is going to supposedly going to lose one hundred million dollars this year, so you know, there are some actual reasons to be
worried about revenue. But I don't think that that should get in the way of doing good journalism. So if you're trying to get the biggest audience, then you want to create the biggest tent, and so you want to bring in It's not just the independence, it's not just the Democrats, it's not just those who are not sure lean left. You want the whole country, you want the right wing. The problem is you're never going to have
those people. They have already voted with their feet and gone to Fox News or Newsmax or Bright Barter or Ben Shapiro or whoever. They're not going to start reading the New York Times every day, So it's kind of pointless. But I do think that everything we saw that happened at CNN under Chris Licht was about this making the tent big and trying to get every viewer that was possible.
I mean, I believe in talking to all parts of the country and trying to communicate with everyone, but not if it means elevating liars and giving people a megaphone to say untrue things.
And we see way too much of that.
Yeah, because the thing is part of the problem is this idea that the right is just very good at messaging too, So you have a lie, and so talk to me about like ways in which we can engage with right wing content that may or may not be truthful and still report it.
Right.
You can't ignore things. Ignoring Trump is not an option. I mean, at least right now.
The sort of easy and cartoonish way to talk about this is the truth sandwich is not to let the person spout the lie and then try to fact check it, but rather to start with what is true, to allow the person to say whatever it is they want to say, and then to fact check it. It's an anti propaganda technique. You're putting the untruth, you're covering it, but you're kind
of putting it in a sandwich of truth. And that is something that can help to keep the misinformation and disinformation from spreading.
And help to kind of contain the lie, right.
And I think that's so important because when we talk about Trump, it's really important in twenty fifteen to realize you got two billion dollars on media, So every time he's tweeted something racist, he got so much repetition of the lie.
It did blur the.
World, right.
And I mean, it's not only the lies that get a lot of coverage. It's also kind of the silly stuff that still you know, compels people like, for example, the mugshot. You know, so when he surrendered in Georgia and there was mugshot and he posed in a particularly supposedly movie star.
He thought he looked like Churchill for Margaret, I am torturing you.
I couldn't see that.
But at any rate, you know, there was a lot of coverage of that because it was like, oh, wow, here's this crazy, weird thing, and we're going to cover the heck out of it and show the mugshot. And you know, the effect of that is to play right into the hands of Trump and others who want this sort of thing. But the thing that I find kind of the most disturbing is, for example, with this Biden impeachment effort. And you know, we should all understand that
there's really no reason to impeach Joe Biden. There's no evidence, there's not even the beginnings of evidence, and yet it's reported as this very straight thing right for the most part, Oh, Kevin McCarthy moves to begin on Biden's impeachment inquiry as if it's some very serious, you know, real thing about high crimes and misdemeanors, when really it's just about McCarthy getting incredibly pressured from the right and facing an ouster
and facing a government shutdown and sort of being desperate. It's not admirable on his part, but that is what's going on. So anytime you have a headline at tweet display type of any kind, or the top of a news show that reports it without that context, you're really doing a disservice.
You're actively misinforming people.
Yeah, and I think that's a really good point. We cannot rely on the normal journalistic tropes of the past.
Yeah.
In my Guardian column today I talked about the big problem and the big solution, and the big problem as I see it, is that the news media, the mainstream media, legitimately wants to be seen as nonpartisan. Okay, that's fine, that's reasonable, But what it means is that they do this both sides stuff all the time, and it's very damaging. And I think we all know what I mean by that, That we're equalizing things that aren't equal, and we're normalizing
things that aren't normal. So that's the big problem, and the big solution, I feel is for newsrooms to remember all day long and to be reminded by their top leaders all day long what their mission is, which is to truthfully inform the public about important matters so that the citizens can go out.
And hold people accountable.
I mean, that's what we're supposed to be about, and that's why we're protected by the First Amendment. And if you do that, you will report with context, you will write the headlines that make sense. You will not do this crazy both sides ism. So I think there is a big problem, and I think there is a big solution.
But the fundamental problem here is that you have one party that no longer believes in democracy. I mean, maybe not every member of that party, maybe not mint Romney, but the fundamental gist of it is like you go to Wisconsin, they're trying to impeach an elected judge because she won't.
Rule the way they want her to.
I mean, there is a fundamental disconnect here between one party you may not like, Democrats, and the other party that has sort of given up on the whole system, right.
I mean, that's the fundamental politics or government problem, But that isn't really the fundamental media problem. Fundamental media problem is to not recognize that and to reflect it in your coverage all the time.
Right, But if you say, well one party no longer believes in democracy, you seem like a democrat.
Well, I don't think that needs to be true.
I mean we could reposition our thinking so that we think in terms of what shouldn't journalists and media companies stand for democracy.
That doesn't seem like a heavy.
Lift to me.
It's just not I mean that's why we exist, so it shouldn't be a heavy lift. So if we look at it through that lens, what is the pro democracy stance candidate, et cetera, what is the anti democracy stance candidate, et cetera, Then you kind of can move away from the sphere of being partisan. I mean, it does, in this case result in finally a political answer. But that's not because we're love democrats or anything like that. It's
really not about that. And I think if you surveyed as many journalists as you could find, they really aren't interested in being pro democrat or anything like that. Their pro story, they're pro conflict, they're pro getting their names on the front page, their pro their careers, those things.
I want to get into this for a second too, though, because a lot of this writing, the problem is not necessarily the writing or the journalist as much as it is even the headline. Can you talk a little bit about how political headlines are born and what is the sort of pressure point there?
Often, I would say, still the case is that reporters and writers don't write their own headlines. They may suggest a headline, they might write it and have it accepted, but in general editors do that, and you know, there's a lot of pressure to have the headline be the thing that's going to get the most engagement. In other words, you know, the most clicks, the most you know, the most attention. Let's put it that way. And it's not really like, oh, are we creating an impression like for example,
and I mean this is this is a beauty? Is when Biden was on his Asia diplomatic mission and you know that headline in the New York Times, he had gone out to reporters, you know, in a gaggle or whatever and said, you know, self deprecatingly and jokingly, good evening.
It is evening, isn't it?
And then he said something about, wow, you know, five days of travel, you know, it's pretty crazy.
Isn't it?
Right?
And so the Times picked up on that thing that was it is evening, isn't it put that in quotes, and the rest of the headline was something like an eighty year old president on a whirlwind trip of Asia, in other words, portraying him because of the combination of the question it is evening, isn't it and his age, portraying him as this doddering guy who didn't know what time.
Of day it was?
Now do people get beyond the headline and read a pretty balanced story.
No, A lot of times they don't.
A lot of times they don't, you know, and I don't know that fixing every headline in the New York Times of the Washington Post, the kinds of things we're talking about, is really going to change the tenor of
the country. But let's get it right, you know, let's at least try to not mislead and to not help those who, if elected, are going to destroy the democracy, which Trump has clearly said, you know, he's already said, I'm going to put my cronies in and we're not going to have these annoying rules that have kept me from overturning the election.
Yeah, part of the problem is that it's more fun to write about fascism.
Well it is for now until you're put out of business because you no longer have a free press.
But I guess for now, maybe it's more fun.
What you're saying is a really good point.
Like the mugshot, the Lewandowski affair, this sort of big, flashy, kind of very much out of our normal political world stuff really does get a lot of attention because it's sort of scandalous and it feels like celebrity gossip and not like policy.
I mean, how many years of this? This started really in earnest in twenty fifteen. It is eight years later, and I really wonder and doubt whether we've learned a single thing.
Well, that is the real worry.
The Biden administration has gotten a lot of things done, and they've taken absolutely the office attacked right. They've become And I was talking to a straight journalist who was saying to me, like they're aggressively boring, Like they work hard to be boring, which works for them, But do you think that is why it's so hard for them?
Like the prescription drug whin and the Japan South Korea summit, even this trip just now where Biden was doing all these meetings in Alaska and did some really important stuff with Asia, and you know, China is ultimately America's biggest problem in the globe. You know, he's in there trying to get stuff going and I think quite a good way.
Do you think that is their problem?
But people will say that they're interested in reading about and hearing about policy and substance. But if they're presented with, you know, an in depth story about the economic efforts and how you know, or some diplomatic mission or Trump's mug shot, They're going to read the mugshot story.
And that maybe is human nature.
So I think that's it makes it really more important that the media do its job and be responsible.
Margaret Sullivan, thank you, thank you, thank you. I owe you. Okay, no you don't, but thanks. It was fun to talk.
David leon Hart is a senior writer at The New York Times. Welcome, welcome to you, Welcome back to Fast Politics.
David, Thank you, Molly.
It's great to be back.
You know, I think about you all the time when I read your newsletter. I feel like you don't write every day, right.
I don't write every day. I maybe write it four times a week.
Yeah, you have an interesting perspective because you have to sort of be an expert on everything.
Well, since no one is actually an expert, or at least I am not, I have the wonderful advantage that because it's a New York Times email, basically at any point I can call up a colleague, I can send a draft to a colleague. I can say, please tell me when I'm getting wrong here, please tell us what we should say. And so it's very nice of you to say that. I feel like what I'm often doing is channeling the expertise of the New York Times, which
you know, it's like what the Daily podcast does. I mean, first of all, it's incredibly fun, right because think about every burns. You might have a question about the news, and it's like, oh, I have a question about the military, I can call Alleen Cooper, Eric Schmidt or you know. It's I know, we're here to talk about the world on my job, but it's a really fun job.
No, And I mean I feel that way doing this podcast, Like I am constantly delighted that I get to have people explain things to me. But you do have this sort of like you are taking in more information than the rest of us. I think about that a lot, because I read a lot. But I always feel very conscious of the bubble, you know, whatever that looks like
again that I'm in. And you know, some stories that don't make it to me, you know, like today my first cousin who has descended into madness with his involvement of the Green Party. There was a profile of him today in the New York Times, and I did not know it until I called my other first cousin. So there are definitely stories that we miss.
Oh yeah, I mean one of the things that I try to say to my colleaguesatise. You know, people at the Times will apologize, I'm so sorry I missed your story. I'll say, there's no way any of us, whether we work here or not, has time to read the entire New York Times. That no one should pretend otherwise. So I know how you feel. I haven't missed a story and my cousin, but I know how you feel.
Let's talk about the military, because there are all of these military appointments that are being held up by Tommy tuber Bell, the sort of clap back from the Republicans and I heard my ground say this on Morning show when I was on it today, was that Chuck Schumer can, in fact just take up every single one and hold the entire Senate hostage for three weeks, voting up and down every military nominee.
Why do you think he doesn't do that?
So, first of all, the Senate has multiple things that it wants to get done, right, and the Democrats are the one in charge, and there's a Democratic president and the Republicans control the House. So if effectively Tuberville is able to turn the Senate into a place that all it's doing is solving this problem that he created, that's sort of a gift, right. I mean, we'd be much better for the president and for the Senate Democrats if
Tubert would stand down. Then if they have to turn over all the Senate's business to him, I think that's the short answer, right.
You know, I'm thinking about like the leadership question in both the Senate and the House. Like Mitch McConnell last week he had this freeze again, there was a lot of discussion about like whether Republicans were going to replace him. Basically, the sort of Faustian bargain they made was that sixty percent of McConnell is better than one hundred you know, or seventy five percent McConnell is still better than one hundred percent of Rick Scott.
Yeah, I think that's something that Democrats, or at least some Democrats, can probably identify with, even if they don't like Mitch McConnell. This is a complicated analogy to make. President Biden appears to be in much better condition than Senator McConnell is, and I'm not suggesting otherwise, but President Biden is also older than a party or a country should ideally want its president to be. And yet I think what many Democrats have realized are, yes, it would
be better if President Biden if we're younger. However, first of all, he by many measures, maybe not the polls, but by many measures, is at a very effective first and second of all, the incumbency has big advantages for a president. And third of all, President Biden gets the electorate in ways that many other nationally prominent Democrats do not. And often this becomes a discussion about Kamala Harris, which in some ways is unfair. It's not just Kamala Harris.
I mean, there is a very reasonable argument that it's not clear that any other in twenty twenty who plausibly could have had the Democratic nomination would have won, would have beaten Trump not close. And so there's this funny thing in which do Democrats wish Joe Biden were younger?
Obviously?
Do Republicans which miss McConnell were younger and healthier? Obviously, But I do think it's not insane if they're deciding that they're better off with him without him. It's not great for the country. I'm now leaving beside the Biden discussion. It's not great for the country to have senators who are as important as McConnell and Feinstein, who are as obviously compromised as both of them.
Does McConnell sort of immunize Democrats a little bit with the age discussion?
I don't think so.
McConnell can't be like Biden's too old to ron right, I mean, like Republican leadership has clearly said McConnell, who has actual medical stuff going on, can stay in his job. Doesn't that sort of make a case that I mean, they obviously would not kick candidate out just for being old. If they're not going to kick a candidate out who is old and also has something going on.
If we were debating this on the merits, it might have more weight. But I just think the thing with age is the fact that Biden's in better shape than McConnell and in a lot better shape. Will not immunize Bid during a campaign where he's not running against McConnell. And so I think it's too much of elip I think a lot of voters don't really care pay that much attention to the Senate, and they pay much more attention to the presidency. And Biden's not running against McConnell.
If Biden we're running against McConnell, then I think basically he would be fine.
So let's talk about like Republican leadership here. It's a pretty interesting and perilous in a lot of ways moment for Republicans.
You have McConnell. Who is this?
I mean, and I say this, it sounds like adoration, but it's really anxiety.
McConnell's a genius, right, he is a genius. He got three Supreme Court seats from guy who should have had won, right. I mean, you can say what you will, but he is the Sun Sui of all of this, and he's just incredibly brilliant at getting stuff done in the Senate. And you have him in whatever state he's in. And then you have McCarthy, who is the sort of.
Not that right, who can't whip votes and has had a lot of trouble and has now started an inquiry into impeachment even though he's really maybe doing it in the hopes of avoiding a government shutdown. I mean, very convoluted stuff. And he's still fighting with Matt Gates even though he did it, and he's cursing and he's saying, like, you know, so, my question for you is, here's this Republican leadership, and then you have Trump who's backstage agitating
for this or that. That's sort of the party, right, I mean, there isn't someone else out there, you know who I'm missing?
No, that's right. I think you were right to be alarmed about the state of the Republican Party and the Republican leadership. I think the Senate Republicans to me, proved to be substantially more functional and even open to compromise than I expected. They came to the table and they passed pretty substantial bipartisan legislation. They shaped that legislation in ways they wanted to. They made it more conservative, as
they should have since they're conservatives. They have been very fish on Ukraine, and they haven't pulled this thing where they said, well, we're against whatever the President of the United States is for.
For Republicans is amazing.
For modern Republicans is really quick striking, and in many ways that's the way. I don't know how to apportion credit among Biden and McConnell and the other people involved, but that to me, I did not expect how much bipartisan legislation and then that, But the Democrats were still able to do a whole bunch of stuff on a party line vote, which is also completely appropriately. But the problem is we're dealing with a house that is extremely radicalized.
Is talking whether they do it or not, they're talking about impeaching Biden really without any evidence. I mean, hunter Biden has done some things wrong, and I think it's legitimate to talk about that and how he's traded on the family name. But this there's no evidence of the kind of corruption that they're talking about with Biden at all.
And if relatives trading on the family name, I mean, perhaps this is my own nepotistic wheelhouse, but I mean that is not illegal. And like as Tony Busby, the lawyer for Ken Paxton says, if you know trading on the influence of your parents is illegal, you know we'd all be in jail.
I think it's legitimate for people, including Republicans to criticize the Bidens, including the President, for the fact that this happened. I think that's completely lee legitimate as a notion of impeaching him for things that Sun did that are sleazy and in some ways illegal, to be clear, but we're not talking about major crimes. Is unlike any other impeachment we've had. And then we didn't even get to Trump, which was in your answer, which clearly is the least functional part of the part.
So let's talk about Mitt Romney because he's decided he's not going to run again, and he has done this book with Mackay Coppins, which has a lot of scoops and that sort of explain to our listeners what you make of.
This of Mitt Romney.
Yeah, and of Mitt Romney's departure, you.
Know, I mean, look, Mitt Romney is such a fascinating character. The ways in which his life has not been identical to his father's, but the ways in which the arc have been so similar is just really striking. And this is just a small footnote. But as you know, Molly, I have a book coming out in next month on
the history of the American economy and George Romney. It's dad is a minor character in the book, and I spent a lot of time reading about him and looking at pictures of him, and I recently was with Romney, Mitt Romney in person, and oh my goodness, the physical resemblance between Mitt Romney today and the Leyden life version of his father is chilling if you've spent a lot
of time looking at photos. But to answer your question more substantively, I mean Mitt Romney, like his father, went and did extremely well in business, a lot richer than his dad did, because inequality is much worse and much higher than it used to be. That's sort of the point of the Romney family in my book. Then he went off and became a moderate governor of a state
just like his dad, Massachusetts. In Massachusetts, Mitt Romney had this incredibly impactful term in which he passed the first version of universal healthcare and a state with Ted Kennedy. It became a model for Obamacare. He then runs for president. That's sort of an unhappy chapter in his career, just as it was for his dad. His dad failed to get the Republican nomination. He's sort of pretned he with
someone he wasn't. I mean, he's more conservative, and he pretended to be as Massachusetts governor, but he's not as conservative as he pretended to be. Already profice and then he had this last act where he becomes sort of the conscience of the Senate. He is deeply, deeply conservative, but he also is an institutionalist. He is principled, and I think, on the one hand, normally I think we should be happy when people are not deciding not to
stay in the Senate into their eighties. But I think he is the kind of person whom we need more of an American politics. He's not really a moderate. He's really conservative, but he believes in working with moderates and with liberals. He's a patriot. Where do you agree with him or not?
Yeah?
My question is more, did he get to the Senate and realize this place is so damaged that you cannot solve America's problems from it? Or is this a sort of bell weather for the death of those sort of last gasps of bipartisan stuff like are we heading towards like Senate it filled with Ted Cruz's or it's terrible to be a senator after being a governor and he just figured why is it worth a look?
I have deep worries about the state of American democracy. If you listen to the things Donald Trump is saying, as he is the leading candidate to be a major party dominee, it's or not to be deeply worried. I genuinely don't know how much broader import to put in Romney's leading the Senate. I mean, he is seventy six. I have not spent a huge amount of time with him. I've interviewing him a few times, but he genuinely seems
to care deeply about his family. And I'll tell you, if I were seventy six, I would rather spend time with my family than with ninety nine other members. And so you know, there could be some of that going as well. I think right now there are vanishingly few people like him in the Senate. I think, strangely for some of the reasons we talked about before, setting aside the issue of who's willing to stand up to Donald Trump,
which is a very very big issue. But setting that aside, I still think the Senate has some of these muscles where it's able to pass bipartisan legislation. I think the worst thing about Romney leaving is he had the courage to stand up to Donald Trump in a way that no other remaining Republican member of Congress had.
Yeah, I mean, they'll get a lot braver if he keeps losing elections. You know, there's like cowardice, but there's also just a calculus that you need the base to win.
Yep.
But of course that's how we can end up in very bad places as a democracy. And it's profoundly cynical.
Yeah, And I mean, and that's how we.
Got here, That's how we got here. And Romney rejected that sentences.
Yeah, it's an interesting to see him go out this way. I mean, good for McKay coppins, but it's interesting. And his total and utter disdain for JD. Vance is a little bit of a bright smack.
I mean, the other thing to think to keep in mind, just from Romney's perspective is I said that his campaign for president was sort of an unhappy moment in his life, then the most unhappy moment is political history. Is that humiliating interview where Trump brings him in and then rejects it.
And so in another way, you could almost think of it as, given all that Romney has accomplished, and given that he really does seem to have multiple interests in his life, in some ways, the question might be why did he even run for the Senate? And the answer is he now has a last chapter that isn't being humiliated by Donald Trump, and isn't losing the presidential election.
He has a last chapter that's different and more positive, and having done that, he can now go off and leave behind the madness of the Senate.
David, thank you so much for joining us. This is really great.
Thank you, Mollie.
It's always fun.
Moment.
Rick Wilson, Madame, what is your moment of fuckery? You want me to go first with my moment of fuckery?
Give me your moment of fuckery first.
My moment of fuckery is Kevin McCarthy, believing that he has done it, has avoided a shut down, only to have Matt Gates immediately say he's.
Gonna remove him, and then to have.
Kevin McCarthy say you fucking try it, and that use of profanities and his rage against my favorite botox user, and I say, this is a botox user myself.
Matt Gates is a my moment of fuckery.
I gotta be honest. That's a solid moment of fuckery. Okay, Matt will betray him. You know, it's like Trump's fucking snake poem he always reads, Matt will bite Kevin McCarthy on the dick when this is over, and it will kill him. The poison will kill him. My monive fuckery is suddenly and this sweeping number of stories that are appearing in the last five or six days across the main stream media and the smart set, all like Biden must go. He is too old, We must replace him now.
None of you fucking people have thought this through weirdly. Okay, let's say Biden is tottering along. He's still apparently in the room, pretty freaking sharp. Maybe he doesn't run across the oval to the helicopter anymore.
But you know what, neither just Trump.
It's the choice right now between old and evil make the right choice. So all this like this, like conventional wisdom coverage right now that everyone's racing to right there, Biden's too old coverage, old versus evil. I'll take old every goddamn time. That's why I don't want to fuckery.
Thank you, Rick.
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.