Hi, I'm Molly john Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And Mike Pence is no longer running for the GOP presidential nomination. We have a very special episode with two different House candidates.
That we want you to meet and get to know.
One is Ron Harris. He is running for Congressman Dean phillips seat. You'll remember Dean Phillips has recently decided.
To primary President Biden.
Then we'll talk to former Arizona State Senator Kirsten Engel, who is running for Arizona's sixth congressional district.
But first we have my friend and.
Yours, the host of the Enemy's List, Every Monday's special guest, the one, the only, Rick Wilson. Welcome back, too, Fast Politics. I mean you shouldn't be welcome. You're here, Rick Wilson, Rick Wilson, Mully.
Jong Fast as always, I'm pleased to join you.
It's a Monday, so it has to be Rick Wilson time. I think we start with talking about everybody's favorite religious zealot, Maga Mike Johnson.
Maga Mike Johnson. That's here in the arena for the kind of thrills and spills you the crowd want to see. And here it's Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. We're weird, going to oppose our religious intolerance on you, the American people. That was my weekend monster truck, Mike Johnson pitch. But there you have, yeah, and so.
There you go.
So first of all, it's been since he was elected Speaker and had to have those eighteen Republicans who won and Biden districts vote for him.
Good luck team.
I mean, they all voted for him, like they found Jim Jordan a bridge too far. But we're more than happy to vote for the guy who believes that women should drive.
He doesn't quite believe that. But Basil, here's the thing.
They were able, the Biden eighteen, the so called problem solvers, all the good guys, the moderates, we're the centrists who are just trying to get through MAGA. All of them said, well, he may be more crazy than Jim Jordan, but he does have magnificent hair and much better suits. And that's it.
And that's it. He's got Warby Parker glasses. He can't possibly be an insane fascist and so that's their excuse, and they will go out by the way and the campaign, well, I've voted against Jim Jordan because I thought Jim Jordan was just too extreme, so instead I voted for and they will pretend that there is some sort of qualitative improvement over Kevin McCarthy, who, as you know, I've had
any number of disagreements with. But look, this was an inevitable moment where the terrorists got what they wanted, and mad Gates and the Terror Caucus got what they wanted. They've now have the first post Trump Speaker of the House. He came in in twenty sixteen. He was shaped as a younger candidate by the post Tea Party culture war movement that led us into MAGA. He is a product of the Trump era. He's in a Republican R plus
four thousand district. He is safe as houses. He has no external political pressure on his life, so he is going to go out there and do what he wants to do. And he represents a part of the Republican movement. To speak the old Republican language. The party used to be divided into three parts, and they balance each other out.
Social Conservatives, foreign policy conservatives and economic liberty conservatives. Now it's Trump conservatives, social conservatives, and conspiracy conservatives and those three legs. Mike Johnson is perfectly at home in all of those things. Remember he signed and wrote the amicus brief that one hundred and twenty six members of Congress center the Supreme Court falsely saying Donald Trump won the twenty twenty election.
He's more conservative than the Trump Supreme Court.
Oh by far. He looks at Cavanaugh says, get that libtard shill off my court. This is a guy who, really, it's not that he believes these things. It's that he has a sense of absolute moral certitude, that he's fighting a fight as a Christian warrior against the foul deviltry of the rest of society.
Your race, creed, and sex are what you do, while homosexuality and cross dressing are things you do. He wrote, this is a free country. We don't give special productions for everybody's bizarre choices.
Bizarre, just bizarre. It's bizarre.
Really.
He called homosexuality inherently unnatural and a dangerous lifestyle that would lead to destroy the entire democratic system.
I will tell you one rule that I have Molly, And this is a rule that has held up so well. And I don't have any evidence that Mike Johnson falls in this category, but it's a rule that has held up so well for me. Anytime you have a Republican elected official who's really into getting into other people's business in their bedroom, in their vagina, who they marry, how they have sex, anytime that happens, there's a one hundred percent chances a goddamn dimp suit in their basement, or
they have some kind of weird thing going on. Used to be a joke in the White House. Is someone so gay? No, he's not conservative enough, right, I'm not exactly right. I tell you that's a real rule of thumb that used to be in Republican administrations, and that idea that somehow or another, that somehow or another, you end up with a guy like Mike Johnson who has no secrets. It would be shocking if he has no secrets.
I was told by an evangelical friend of mine he is a member of this in called the Seven Mountain Movement. I have not had time to dig into it yet, but this guy was a like pretty religious person, pretty evangelic person. He's like, yeah, there are a lot of a lot of a lot and it's the Christian dominionus thing that understand that they believe that the Lord told them to come here and take over the country. But the Constitution has other things to say about that.
Yes, they're basically just giving up the whole church and state.
Oh completely, The church is the state in their minds, right. He actually is a person who says the words, we don't live in a democracy. We live in a biblical republic. No fuck face, we don't. In fact, if you go and read the Constitution or any of the founding documents or the opinions of any of the founders, including Thomas Jefferson, who once said, at some point the belief that Jesus was spontaneously generated will fall like all other myths, so
we shouldn't base our government around it. There's an abundant scholarship that fleeing Europe from religious intolerance in the founding stages of this country fundamentally shaped how our constitution and our early governance was devised. And he says I'm a constitutional originalist, except for the part where he wants a seven foot tall golden baby Jesus in every classroom. Now, I may have paid that part up, but try me.
If you ask him if we should put a statue of golden baby Jesus in every classroom, he'd probably say, well, of course the founders would have appreciated that, especially if he was wearing the late Elvis White jonsure.
All right, so let me ask you, He's not the only person in the house who's great. There's a guy called the Mighty med Gates, and he does.
Not play well with others. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Or I am aware of what you're talking about.
So Chairman of the House Ways and Means says Matt Gates is a foolish liar. Gates responds by outing Jason Smith as a closeted gay man.
Scott Well, when Matt came out and said, oh he lives a lie every day. That flew around some Florida political circles at the speed of light, and I tweeted about it yesterday and I said, Oh, it's better than autoware product asphociation, isn't it. Matt?
Oh what does that mean?
I'll just leave that out there. People can figure that out on their own. The Google machine may have clues for it. But if Matt is worried about bodies being buried and people living wise, right, man, if I may quote the political philosopher Walter White, perhaps his best date would be tread lightly. That's a very ambitious guy. He is flush with power right now. He is the Robespierre
of the Republican Party. He has started the revolution and started the purges of people he believes are politically impure or insufficiently loyal to him or Trump. I would remind Matt that Robespierre the guillotine took rose Pierre's head two at the end of the day.
I want to ask you a question about that from a purely strategic point of view. So Matt Gates hated Kevin, Okay, fine, mad Gates hated.
Tom Emmer's fine.
But what they did here is now they have someone who is new to the house right, only been in that since twenty sixteen, and is new to fundraising, has very little fundraising money, very little fundraising acumen.
Are they really just screwing themselves here?
Well, there's one thing about Kevin that people forget. Kevin. As I've said before, I think even on the show, Kevin could wear normy drag. You could go out to a boardroom or a golf course or somebody's very fine home and say, I just need you to help us out because I got to keep this place running. Man, I don't want the craziest to take over after me the flood. This guy, tell me for one second, I will to tell your audience a little secret about Republican
mega donors. Eighty five percent of them are pro choice. One thousand percent of their wives or spouses are pro choice. They are not extremists, they are not evangelicals. They are not biblical Republicans.
Right. They just want the tax cuts.
They are economically driven, transactionally driven. Give me my tax cuts. Shut the hell up, stay out of my business. Do you regulate my oil field? Okay? They do not care about whether Jesus talks to my Johnson and tells him what to do or not. I can't wait to see this guy go in a room with those people. It's going to be remarkable. Again. I have many, many, many, many,
many thousands of critiques about Kevin McCarthy. But the some bitch could raise money, good at raising money, and he was good at raising money from rich people.
Yeah, so what happens now.
I believe we are in the phase where the Republican Party is in the finding out phase of this sexercise.
We have eighteen vulnerable seats. You have Mitch McConnell, who is not one hundred percent at best. You have Donald Trump, who is spending most of his time in court trying to save his family business. Not to put a flattering spin on this in any way, but Wui is minding the shop.
There's no there there, Molly. There is no one in control of the Republican Party. There is no one out there who has a intellectual framework that they're trying to save the party in the House of Representatives. Look, even McConnell, for all his flagging help, is slipping abilities to control his caucus, is still going to be a formidable obstacle to Mike Johnson. Because Mike Johnson takes pride in the fact that he doesn't know like how to do legislation.
He doesn't understand process, procedure, parliamentary rules, all of the all the mechanical things that come with being one of the leaders of the body.
Mitch McConnell.
Mitch McConnell could be in a coma and you could ask him, how do you pass a CR and I was like, well, we're gonna go put all of those committee at that point. I'm going to talk that a little. Mitch mac Johnson and Spikers Irish. Yeah, and McConnell for again, a guy I can criticize all day long. He has been absolutely stalwart on Ukraine and Israel and on keeping the government open. He's been absolutely like a blast from the distant distant like thirty year ago passed like, he's
been the responsible Republican in the room. And they hate him all you want, but in that enemy of my enemy thing, I'll take it for right now.
It's the best you're going to get from this Republican party.
We should wish Mitch McConnell right now, at least another happy year of good health to hold hold back the tide of these fucking lunatics.
Yeah, I mean that is the big question is like where we have Mike Johnson now has to pass a CR in less than thirty days. He's got to figure out the funding for Ukraine. I thought that Biden was smart to put this all together with Ukraine especial and the southern border whatever that means.
And if he passes that.
Remember, the people who put him in there put him in there to not do government.
That is correct. They put him in there for chaos, opposition, a sort of defiant, ugly, shitty behavioral structure. This is not a guy who has been installed there with a long list of do gooder things to accomplish. They've put him in there because they want the slowdown. They want the shutdown, they want the chaos, they want the investigations, they want all the performative spectacle that he can deliver. I think very easily. We won't have Jim Jordan to
kick around the same way. He's a more slick personality Republicans. That's a common mistake by Democrats is to think, well, he's from a red district in the Deep South, he must be some sort of mouth breather. This guy's smart. Jim Jordan not smart. This guy is actually smart. Don't underestimate your opponent in this game. He's not stupid. That's not a compliment to him, that's a reality. It's the old will read the enemy generals, and he is not stupid.
Don't underestimate him. He will come out by the way, and I will say this, our friends in the Washington media are going to get played. I'm just going to tell you right now. They're going to say, well, he seems normal. Look, that's a perfectly good suit, and that hair is pretty good, and he doesn't scream, and he's not drooling and weird like Jim Jordan, and he's not biting the shrubbery like Mad Gates. He must be kind
of normal. All while he will sit there and say, well, Joe Biden, obviously the computers in Italy change the vote. He's no less insane than Mike Lindell.
Is Mike lindal with normal hair, right.
I mean, as we're in this sort of bizarro world, Republicans now need to what they have, this map that is like the best they will ever.
Have ever ever your So let's talk about that.
Mitch McConnell is not exactly going to be out on the stomp you have In Arizona. Now we have Blake Masters and Carrie Lake, despite being governor, both running for that Senate seed.
My delight at Blake Masters and carry Lake both being on the ballot in Arizona, And I assure you, while I haven't spoken to them about it, the delight of the Biden campaign on that matter. Oh yeah, it's not inconsiderable. This is really good news for the presidential race. It's really good news for the governor's race, for the US Center race. Let the feeding frenzy begin, Let the blood flow, Let a thousand schools be piled upon the mound. This
is going to get awesome. Because, by the way, if you think Carrie Lake and Blake Masters are less insane than they were two years ago, oh, I'll contrare my friends.
So you have that crew.
And then in Pennsylvania you have you may remember him as a Westport, Connecticut resident, Dave McCory.
He'll be back. He's coming back, baby, Dave McCormick. You know what the maagas are screaming out for in Pennsylvania. They won a private equity bro in a sweater vest. That's what the magas, That's what they did. I mean nothing says to the red hat guy in the tight trucker hat and the wife beater t shirt at the Trump rally, my blood brother in the fight for liberty as a multi billionaire married to a Washington socialite who wears a seven and fifty dollars sweater vest.
Who takes his private jet Pennsylvania every week.
Who commutes by private jet from Westport, Connecticut to Pennsylvania every week. Nothing screams out to them, salt of the Earth, man of the people, my brother in the struggle. Like that. Here's the last time I saw Dave McCormick. I saw David Dina earlier this summer. We were all in Aspen.
Ron Harris is a former chief resilience officer for the City of Minneapolis and a candidate for Minnesota's their district.
Welcome, too Fast Politics, Ron.
Harris, excited to be here, Thanks so much for the invitation.
You are running for Congress in Minnesota's third district.
Yes, right now.
It is a safe blue seat, right, relatively safe. Yes, yes, but it has been occupied by Dean Phillips, who is now bafflingly trying to primary President Joe Biden. Give us like a two second TLDR on this.
You know, when I talk to folks, most folks are kind of in a similar space of not really sure why or what the thinking is behind it. And you know, he has his own calculus that he's putting together. The way I think about it is, this is his way of making the point, I guess whereas I view it
a little bit differently. I'm actually here to support the president, the only person that ever beat Donald Trump, which is why we decided to put together campaign so we can focus on the district to make sure that we're getting people excited actually about the ticket coming up. And yes, we know that the president is eighty and that's not going to change, nor will his status as the incumbent
and the nominee going to change. And so let's get people excited and tell the story about all the good work that's happened in the last few years.
And what I think is very interesting is that you have this opportunity. One of the things that I've really tried when I did this podcast is to interview people who when the Democrat who has the seat fucks up, like what happened with Bob Menendez, that that person jumps in the fray, that person does not wait to be anointed. They get in there and they say, like, the only way Democrats win is if they go for those seats and they're not polite and they do this the way it's supposed to be done.
I'm sure you got pressure not to go into this race.
Right, lots of pressure.
A lot of people wanted me to wait and see what Dean would decide to do. A lot of people were actually a little upset with me, like why are you doing this against Dean? And I'm like, well, you
guys are mad at the wrong person. I haven't heard enough conversation about what's going on in the third district, and I know that in order for us to make sure that Minnesota stay is blue, to make sure that we recapture the House, the seat is very important, not only just for winning the seat itself, but to generate this sort of excitement and energy that can happen when you're a positive for looking campaign and supporting of the ticket.
For me, I'm running because I want to make sure that young people and people of color and other folks see themselves in politics. I'll share my story in a little bit, but it was really about It's not about Dean. Really, it's not even about myself. It's about the people there, and I wanted to make sure we got in there and communicated to them.
I find it really infuriating that there's this feeling that these seeds should be saved. Do you know if you're going to do something. I mean, we had Andy Kim on this podcast. Andy Kim is primarying Bob Menendez because he's got a second set of indictments.
Like this idea that you.
Should be polite when somebody does something that's crazy destructive is just madness. So I would love you to tell us a little bit about your story.
Absolutely, and again, I don't think that these seats are coronations by any means. I mean, we're democracy and will compete and make sure that we earn the trust.
Of the voters.
But at least somebody is competing. I mean, otherwise you have no one competing.
That's right, and it's something that I really believe in. Again, I believe in the progress of this past administration, and I also believe that there are a lot of voices there who wants to energize and excite them. Big reason why I'm in this race and why I decided to
run for office. You know, when I was two months old, I was raised by a single mom, and when I was two months old, I actually got an ammonia and she was working a job that didn't have paid sick time or any sort of paid leave, and she had the tough choice between Hey, do I stay at work to make sure we get the money to pay these bills and leave my kid with a caretaker? Or do I stay at home, not work, not get paid, but
take care of my kid. And the first time I got a pneumonia, she left me with a caretaker who didn't take very good care of me, and she got worse and I almost died.
That second time I got in pneumonia, she didn't even question it.
She's like, you know what, I'm going to take care of my own kid if I missed money whatever and ended up getting fired for her job. You know, I grew up in public housing and grew up with assistants and all sorts of things. I had a great childhood, but saw the ways that people slipped through the cracks when it comes to government right, and there are a lot of people who are in those situations who have to face those tough choices. And for me, I'm like that,
that's so much of what shifting my politics. When I went to college freshman year, this was two thousand and eight. When I was a freshman. Just before I got to college, I got into the honors program at Hampton University, which is in HBCU, and as part of RAM, they sent me a book to read and a report to write before I even got into campus. And the book that they sent me was The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama.
And this was, Hey, you're June of two thousand and eight, so we're at the peak or the tail end of the Democratic primary season, and so I got super obsessed. Once I read the book, I finally saw somebody who were asking similar questions that I was asking at the time about identity and my role in the society and really hitching myself to something bigger than me. And so when I got to campus, I just started organizing and knocked the doors and make phone calls and all sorts of stuff.
And I'll never.
Forget the the day of the election, we're watching the results of my room, and I don't think we'd actually pull it off. But I remember when Virginia blew for the Democrats first time at forty four years and it was just an amazing feeling, like, Wow, we were a part of something. We actually did this as students. We organized on our campus, we organized emphases, and then about ten fifteen minutes later, they called deal Brock and I swear you hear a pin drop, for it felt like eternity,
but it was probably just four or five seconds. And then it was like I was at a sporting event. I could hear the entire campus erupt in euphoria, just everybody just cheering and dancing, and I was I remember sprinting to the student center, hugging people, singing, dancing.
It was the evil of.
My nineteenth birthday as well. So I was getting all these happy birthday texts and phone calls. And I say all this to say that experience set me on a trajectory of political participation that I don't think i'll get off of ever again. And that sort of energy it's kept me in politics for fifteen years. What I'm going to do with this campaign is get folks excited like that, to see that political participation is a worthy cause, it's worth your time.
It doesn't have to be boring or whatever folks think that is.
It actually be fine, and you can find yourself in that space the same way that I found myself.
Yeah, and I think what I love about your story is I grew up with a single mom too, and we had a lot of advantages, but constantly, like the decision was are you going to work? Are you going to be with the kids, And you know, if one of the kids is set and it was just me, I was the only child, and just to have to make those decisions and then to have it affect the
long tail of that, it's so hard. And there really are ways in American politics, there are things that the government can do to make life less crushing for mothers and single mothers especial.
Absolutely, and I think we need more people with that story representing us in government to have the experience to be able to speak to those situations and we're really what it felt like. You can read about it, you can hear about it, but to actually experience it has a way of shaping you that I think we could We should see a lot more of that in our politics, to be able to make the connection between political participation
to political outcomes, to policy outcomes to live experiences. There's a very clear through line there, and we have to do a better job of making sure that people know that number one, participating is a worthy again, a worthy
cause and it's worth our time. But also do our jobs, you know, should I get to Congress, do our jobs to make sure that that system then reflects that ambition that we actually prove ourselves right in a sense that when people do show up and participate, good things do happen, and we just have to make sure that people know that and we have to do our jobs to make sure that actually happens.
Yeah, that was such a good point and also really what government should be.
Doing, right, I mean, this is the job. When we watch what's happening in Congress right now? What do you think when you watch that.
I talked to voters and I talked to donors, and that's one of the questions I asked me, like, what are you thinking. You must be a bit delusional to want to run into this mess and I laugh. But at the same time, it is a bit of a mess. And for me, I feel like in the contribute and I think that there are a lot of really great people in Congress right particularly on our side of the aisle, that are really trying to make sure.
That Garrett actually does work for people.
At the end of the day, that's the square focus and I'm instid of the join a group of people who are committed to that. But to answer your question, it concerns me, and it concerns me because the mess that we're seeing in Washington, it trickles throughout other parts of our society. I had this conversation earlier at a conference where people are so turned off by what's going on that they just don't participate. And when good people don't participate, we see what happens.
Maga, Mike, you see what I mean?
We get maga, mic, We get some again is affable or whatever people describe them as, but is not a good choice. And a vote for him is a vote for a nationwide abortion bank. Right, it's supporting an election denier. We can go down the list, and so when people see that, they opt out. As I'm talking to voters now, they're like, I don't know if I'm even going to vote this upcoming election because of how messy it is.
So I'm trying to make the case that, look, we know what the world looks like when we don't participate, what does it look like when we do? How do we make sure that it reflects our desires? And the only way that it can do that is if we participate. But the mess that's going on makes it really difficult to make that case.
We've had such high participation, I do think there's a certain amount of burnout. One of the things that Barack Obama did so wow was that he was able to you know, America is an ideal, right, it's an idea, it's founding principles, and I felt like Obama was able to make that taste to voters in a way that is unusual.
Yeah.
I think part of it was a combination of highlighting the things that we need to fix. You know, here's what's broken, here's what we need to fix. Here's how me, as a relative outsider, can help fix that. But the thing that really drew me to Obama, and this is something that I try to do in other spaces in my life, is sure, let's identify the things that we need to fix, but let's spend a lot more time thinking about the things that we want to build in
service of our aspiration. And I think that that's what he communicated well, was if we build this society, if we can build this coalition, here, the dreams that we can actually aspire and achieve. Here, the ambitions that we can make manifest and make real. Instead of just focusing on all the terrible things that are happening and fixing them. It's how do we build towards a future, build towards the vision that we actually want to strive for.
And it's a hard walk.
It's a hard line to walk because you have to level with people and acknowledge the pain and the fear and the suffering and the challenges that they're experiencing. You can't gloss over that and pretend that, oh, let's just point to the brighter future. We have to acknowledge it, but we also have to say yes, and it can be better. And here's how we can actually do that.
And what he did for me and what he did for millions was helped us believe that the future that we all wanted it is actually possible, so long as we do our part to get there.
Yeah, exactly, And I think that's such an important point. Tell me kind of what your district looks like. You're talking to people, and you're talking to voters. You're probably on the ground talking to more people than a lot of us. So what are they concerned with? What's happening? What does your district look like in Minnesota? Give us like on the ground what you're saying.
Absolutely, so District three is the western suburbs Minneapolis, so it doesn't include Minneapolis, but a lot of the cities to the west. And it's a very diverse district in many different ways, certainly in demographics, but also in terms of you know, culture, ritual, et cetera. Part of the district is very working classed, very diverse in terms of race, income, et cetera. And then you get more west into the district, there's a bit more median net worth, a bit wider.
But the district itself is pretty blue.
Rejected Trump soundly both in twenty sixteen and twenty twenty, has been blue for presidential since O eight, has been blue in the House races since twenty eighteen. And it's a district that is younger, but it's a district that also, I believe is can be a microcosm for where the country is going.
Right.
If you look at the elementary schools and middle schools and high schools, you see incredible diversity coming up and our young people, and I think that's true across the country. That's on the demographics part of it, and then the issues that the folks are really thinking about in the third district, are you know, again, they really do not like the mega agenda. That is something that comes up in almost every conversation that I have, that that is a real fear of that coming back and have people
having to live through that. People are also concerned about schools. Want to make sure that the school public schools are properly funded. Public schools are properly funded, that kids have access to a good education from pre k all the way through through high school, and that they're set up well to do what they want to do next, whether it's college or something else.
I'm going to hear that a lot.
I hear a pride in safety and security, but I also hear a creativity when it comes to that.
You know.
So, yes, there's a lot of folks who are really, you know, we need law enforcement. This is where it starts and ends. And there are folks that are saying, hey, yeah, we definitely need law enforcement, but we also need additional comprehensive perspective on how we keep our people safe from every aspect.
And then, finally, what I'm hearing.
A lot is both fear when it comes to climate change, but excitement about the opportunities that come with the inflation reduction. Act, the new market opportunities and the green economy. People like talking about climate change, but don't like being told what to do, which is a very interesting thing that I'm coming up on.
That's really really interesting.
So I'm going to ask you what sort of a hard question, but I think it's a really good question.
It's actually a Jesse question.
How would the life of a constituent be different, you know, if you were in the majority.
I think what has happened with a hyper focus on the present age, for example, is that it serves to suppress the vote, it serves to suppress activity. It injects a sense of cynicism all out in the current moment, and for me, right through this campaign and ultimately do my leadership, I want to reject that sense of cynicism. I want to articulate and demonstrate the fact that cynicism
is actually a strategy. It's a well worn strategy and in many ways to affect their strategy if you're trying to get people to not believe in what's possible, or try to get people not to participate, and so I think what they would experience differently is some enthusiasm about what we have in front of us recognizing the challenges and being clear right about those things, but also being honest and recognizing that again for us, Joe Biden's the
only person that's ever been Donald Trump, and he's well positioned to do it again. And if Joe Biden meet Donald Trump again, and people's lives will be significantly better than if he would have lose that election. And I don't think primary Joe Biden helps us when that election, I think it actually hurts us, and so my leadership will look differently. I do not want to encourage the mega agenda by hurting the one person who, behind our votes and behind our participation, helped defeat it.
Yeah, that's really important. Thank you so much for joining us.
Molly, thanks for the invitation and theokur to ten with you soon.
Kirsten Engo is a former Arizona State senator who is running for Arizona's sixth congressional district.
Welcome to Fast Politics.
Thank you so much. It's great to be here.
So you are a Arizona State representative running for Congress.
Yes, I actually am not currently in the legislature. I did serve five years and I did run for Congress in twenty twenty one, and I am running for this district again.
So, and you're in Arizona's sixth congressional district. So tell us what your race looks like. People are waking up in this district. There is a tremendous amount of interest in this race for me running again for this district after so narrowly losing it last time.
Right, you lost by five thousand votes, right.
Yes, And you know, people are watching Congress right now. They're watching my opponent. They're seeing that this person who ran as a moderate just siding with the far right on everything from abortion to issues social security and medicare. They're mad, they're disappointed, They're upset with the dysfunction in Congress. They really want somebody in there who is going to work for them, listen to them. Many of them are struggling. Cost of groceries and prescription drugs has gone up. People
are watching their rights being threatened and taken away. Arizona is looking at the potential return of an eighteen hundreds law past. At the time that Arizona was a territory hoopskirts and women didn't even have the right to vote, which makes abortion a crime. People are really really upset about this, and they see my opponent going to Congress to strip away their rights over their own bodies by voting for national abortion restrictions. So I'm a community member,
I'm a mom. You're a law professor too, Yes I am. And you know I worked in the legislature. It's a tough place, the Arizona legislature, but you know I work across the isle on issues of education funding. That's why I ran in the first place, because I was so upset about the Republican legislature and governor's cuts to public school funding, not even being able to fund a field trip at my daughter's school. And worked on things like criminal justice reform, and you know I'm ready to do
that for the district. I had a reputation of somebody who did their damn homework, and I think the people of this district deserve someone who will do their damn homework for them.
You're running in a swing district. You lost by very small margin last time. You have a new Speaker of the House. Right took three weeks for Republican to elect Maga Mic. They've done it. Now, do you think I mean? You are running on the idea that there are no or at least when Democrats run in these swingy districts, it's really important to point out that there really aren't
moderate Republicans anymore. And I think that this speakership you have these eighteen and Biden district Republicans and then people right who don't have the numbers and who have voted for these very severe extremist candidates like Mega Mic.
So talk to me about what this does for your race.
Yes, this speakership ending up with Mike Johnson, he is as you say, Mega, Mike, I love it. That is just so far out of where this district is. And for my opponent to have supported him and before him of voting not once, not twice, but three times for Jim Jordan. I mean, let's real, you know, Mike Johnson is is Jim Jordan with a sport code on. Both of them are rabidly anti abortion. Mike Johnson has co
sponsored three major pieces of legislation banning abortion nationwide. Mike Johnson is the legal architect of Trump's efforts to overturn the election and subvert our democracy. Rabidly anti gay, for banning a marriage, for slashing security, privatized security, raising the age, denies the science of climate change. This is a moderate district. These are Arizonans, are down to earth, independent minded folks,
and they are not extremists. And what we have is an extremist now two spots away from the presidency, two heartbeats away, and that my opponent voted for him is so out of keeping with the priorities of the people in this district.
It is amazing to me that you have these real extremists. I wonder now when you're making this case to the American people, I mean, what are people saying in your district? Does you campaign? What is their temperature? What are they concerned with? What are Arizonians worried about?
They're very, very frustrated as they watch the Republicans just you know, spinning their wheels, you know, wasting weeks.
Yeah, are they upset about that? Does that permeate? Yes?
Absolutely, absolutely. There's real issues that people are dealing with. There's problems that they want Congress to work on. Abortion is top of the mind for people. We are really facing, our young people are facing a national abortion ban. Water, as you know, the Southwest has really been struggling with drought motivated and pushed forward by climate change. And you know, I was talking to a farmer the other day in
the southern part of my district. He is well has gone dry because there's been such overpumping of groundwater, and he's lost twenty thousand hens. He is really down to the bare bones of his farm, and he's looking at Congress and what are they doing? Like nothing, And there's just real, real frustration. And we're looking at potentially a government shutdown. We came within hours of it just a few weeks ago, and now with the Republicans just furthering
away the time, we're up against that again. So are we going to be able to pass a farm bill to help those I don't know. My opponent has been busy doing things like attaching abortion band riders to the agriculture appropriations bill. This is nuts who is trying to solve our problems. It's somebody who's actually taking us down and embroiling us in these culture wars rather than working on real issues that people have. Can you say more
about the importance of the farm bell? Absolutely. I mean, this district is both urban and rural, a lot of rural areas, and farming has been really difficult for a lot of people, especially with the issue of water here. You know, the drought on the Colorado River, the lowering groundwater table as a result of years of neglect and mismanagement here in Arizona over our water issues. And the Farm Bill could do a lot to help our farmers, to build that infrastructure for water to support the farmers
where it's needed. Rather than working on issues like that, as we're seeing, Congress is frittering the time away with these battles over the speaker, resulting in a far right speaker who voted for bills to really slash the funding across the board for things like the farm industry.
And you really feel like your constituents, for your soon to be constituents understand, they really are aware of what's happening with the speakership fight. It's not just some belwet stuff that doesn't permeate. Absolutely. We're all part of one big news cycle. You turn on the news, what do you see is you see this back and forth and the headlines.
So while people may not be following every single change, and this Republican is up for speaker, oh two hours later he's gone and there's another one.
They know that.
Congress is not working on the problems that they have, and they don't see my opponent standing up to his party in order to stand up for them work up problems.
When you are talking to constituents in Arizona, do you think they see this as a fight between democracy and a party that does not believe in democracy or do you think that larger point is largely a democratic thought that just sort of more partisan Democrats have.
People in Arizona are seeing the chaos unfold in Washington, d C. And they're wondering who is working to lower the cost of gas and groceries. Not Juan Siscamani, not my opponent. So yes, they're watching and they're seeing inaction chaos, dysfunction, And I don't think with this far right extremist as a speaker, we're going to see any function returning to Congress.
How do people in your state feel about Carrie like.
Cherry Lake continues to get headlines. I think because she is so far out of the mainstream, she that she won the governorship of our state. So you know, excuse me, I think that's just laughable. So I think Arizona has moved on. They're ready for their lawmakers to get back
to work, and they want Congress to work. They are disappointed and frustrated with my opponent and not standing up to people like Carrie Lake and others like her that are in the US Congress that they're not working to make healthcare more affordable, housing more affordable, to restore their rights over their own bodies, their own future. They're ready for leaders that are willing to roll up their sleeves
and work. So when I was in the Arizona legislature, I got award as a legislator who did her damn homework. And you know that's the type of a member of Congress that I will be as somebody who does her damn homework for the people in this district.
The guy running against is a co sponsor of h R seven. Talk to us about what HR seven is.
So HR seven, it's a bill that's designed to chase women off of their private health care plan and really force private health insurance to drop abortion coverage by making sure that not a single dollar of federal money goes toward any aspect of health insurance. And this is going to have huge impacts upon poor women, on women of color, and it's going to have a big impacts on our women in the military veterans who rely on subsidies for
their health care. But that isn't the only anti abortion right.
He's gone after abortion pills to talk to us about that.
Absolutely, he has voted against medication abortion to make sure that it cannot be sold in pharmacies. This is safe and legal. Mythipristone been available for years legally by the FDA, and he has voted to restricted sale in pharmacies and restrict its ability to be sent through the mail. And for a large district, a district with a lot of people far away from cities and towns.
Parts of this district are very rural, that.
Is really going to restrict this right of reproductive healthcare.
Yeah, and it shows that he's not a moderate.
No, he is certainly not a moderate, and we knew that before he was elected. He cheered the repeal of Roe versus Wade. When the Dobbs decision came down, he's on video running away from voters who asked him about his position on abortion. He didn't want to level with the voters. And now he's gone to Congress to pass national abortion restrictions so that that right is not real. He's now voted three times, well, now make that four for a Speaker of the House who is rapidly anti abortion,
Jim Jordan and now Mike Johnson. So he's been very clear about this and you know that is not where this district is. And you know, I'm a mom of a teenage daughter, and you know this really really hits our young people super, super hard as they see their lawmakers, you know, strip these rights away, their their own rights over their and their own future, their ability to direct their lives. It's really huge for them.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate getting to talk to you. Tell us where people can find you.
People can find me on the web. My website is anglefo Arizona dot com. We are on Facebook, We're on Instagram, We're on Twitter. They can reach out to us. Love to have their support in this election. It couldn't be more important in twenty twenty four. Abortion rights are on ballot, our democracy is on the ballot. We now have a speaker who voted, you know, not to certify the election. This is a critical, critical election in twenty twenty four.
I'm very very proud to be running and would love to have folks.
Support, and you're one of the eighteen people running for seats in Joe Biden's district. And if only five of those people win, Democrats take the House.
That's right.
We only need five seats to take back the House and restore these basic freedoms, and this district absolutely could be one of those seats. The route to a majority for the Democrats runs through this district.
Thank you so much, Thank you.
No Sion.
Kirsten Engel is a former Arizona State senator who is running for Arizona's sixth congressional district.
Jesse Cannon, my junk fast.
There's an account on Twitter called R and C Research that really shows the work that the Republicans put into rigorous thought effort and research. Tell me what you're seeing there.
Republicans got very into becoming keyboard warriors, and they decided they would find everything that they felt would embarrassed Democrats. But it happens to be that some of the things they think embarrassed Democrats are actually quite adorable. And also, for some inexplicable reason, this account hates dogs, So anytime Biden pets a dog, it ends up there, you know. But today they focus their ire on California Democratic Governor
Gavin Newsom, who is playing basketball bafflingly in China. Basically, he knocks over a kid and to make sure the kid is okay, he gives them a big hug and then sort of picks them up. It's some wholesome, wholesome whatever this is. We would like to take this moment to call out the RNC Research account on Twitter.
As our moment of fuck Ray.
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.