Ro Khanna, Tim Miller & Hugo Lowell

Did It, The Bulwarks, Tim Miller. Welcome back to Fast Politics. Tim Miller. Hell, yeah, my home away from home. That's right. We like to be your your home away from home. First, I think we should talk about your profile in the the New York Times. Yes, that's what I want to talk about because I love to talk about myself and I yeah, I just adore it. No, So I want to talk about the Colorado Springs new massacre shooting. Talk to me about your writing about it, tell me what and and

the gun laws. Let's talk. Yeah, I mean, so there are two elements to this, right and as a as a gay Colorado this one obviously hit close to home. You know from an emotional standpoint, just I don't know Colorda Springs. I don't know how many time uch time have you spent in conservative town gay bars Molly. I don't out myself here, but not a lot. But I

have spent some time in Colorado Springs. Okay, Yeah, the gay bars in toadtown, like Colorda Springs, they're kind of special in a way, and in some ways they're a little they're kind of dingy, you know, and they aren't as they aren't like the gay bars you see on TV where you know, the shirtless guys are dancing and doing Molly right. It's more like, you know, it's really like a gathering place for people. And I love going

to small town gave bars. I've never been the club Q. I almost want one time, but we got way light went somewhere else. There's a lot of reporting that says that they're sort of the safe havens in these kids out of towns, and this place is like outside of town. I know Calda Springs a bit. It's like not in downtown, it's like in this strip mall. So it's like a lot of other gay bars in Red State, Cardaes and red state. Carda Springs is red town that I've been

to for that reason. You know, it's just like fuck, you know, I mean, this is where these poor people are getting discriminated against enough and having to hear hate speech enough in Colorda Springs, and like this is a place for them to go if you can't be safe there. It's just it's gutting, you know. So there's that kind

of emotional gutting element to it. And the article for the Bulwark that I wrote, I wanted to just try to separate that out as much as possible and just focus on the law breakdown here because it's easy to talk about that, and you can't you don't really know, like does somebody's hate speech lead to this or you know,

it's hard to get inside's brains. But one thing we do know is that like Colorado, who has a great governor, Jared Poulis, signed a red flag law, and that law was meant to take firearms away from people that are dangerous to themselves or others. And and this guy, the shooter we know last year, his mother called the police because he had threatened to bomb her home and he barricaded herself in her home, and we have video of him wearing tactical gear threatening the police who would come

to this house before they arrested him. So if there was ever a use for a red flag law, it would be this guy whose mother was scared of him, who was threatening police, calling them motherfucker's, threatening to bomb them.

And yet the reason why they didn't even petition for to to to review whether this guy should have his guns taken away from him, it was because the fucking sheriff and County Commission in Colorada Springs made El Paso County a sanctuary city to troll the Libs for Second Amendment. A second Amendment sanctuary city Colorda Springs is in El Paso County, right, so el Paso County, Colorado. The County Commission said they would not fund these reviews red flag

laws reviews. The sheriff said he wouldn't file for petition the court for them. So like they have a law in Colorado that is over wellebingly post popular passed by the popular governor, that was supposed to prevent this exact

fucking thing. Like it's the whole point of this law is to preventer this exact thing, not to take guns away from people who like to hunt or whatever, but to take guns away from lunatics like this, he threatened to bomb police, and yet they didn't do anything because there's such fucking zealots and like this isn't even about like and their Republicans obviously, but it's not even know about that, Like most Republicans are for this, you know.

It's like extreme far right zelotry that let this happen. And it's bullshit. And I just despite all my feelings about the gay side of this, like I don't want that to get lost, Like there's a way to stop this, and we got to throw out these fucking politicians that are letting this happen anyway, that's my rants about that, And no, I think that's a good point. And I also think it's owning the Libs and opening the door for violent crime, right, and that's all that's all. Like

the idea can it a sanctuary city? Right, it's like to make fun, you know, because the right demanded that the Libs have sanctuary cities for immigrants and so like we're gonna have a sanctuary city for a R fifteens. It's stupid, you know, even if we got somebody like David French or some really you know conservative person on here whose good faith and just wants to protect people's rights. Yeah, David from right, who's very upset about the guns gone. Yeah,

any of these people like, but even from isn't. But even someone who like likes gun laws, right, this isn't like bad. I was saying, I'm gonna take your A R fifteen's right, which there's an argument for that. This is like a very modest law. That's just like if someone is a lunatic threatening to kill his mother and police, we should make sure he can't have an A R fifteen for a little while. We should like put him in time out and have a judge review it. Who's

against that? That's what I'm saying. This is an a D plus ninety plus percent issue. But these fucking assholes in Colorado Springs refused to enforce the law, and that is why these people are dead. They are responsible. That decision is responsible. And there's all the other stuff. There's the anti gay stuff they drag queen the groomer stuff. There's plenty of other stuff that plays apart here. But like, the people would not enforce this totally reasonable, law responsible,

and they should be throwing the funk out. I agree, and I mean there's no reason why any of these cities should be a sanctuary for guns. The whole fucking country is a sanctuary for guns. I just want to talk about one last thing, which is it does seem to me that the Republican Party is targeting the LGBTQ community in a lot of ways. I mean, does that As someone who was a Republican and this guy you're about to say it was gay, I was like, what happened?

Because there were times when this Republican Party pretended to be pro lgbt But I feel like they've sort of they've sort of tacked almost Yeah, I mean, the black lives sucks, and it's real. I've regrets for my past

time in the in the party over this point. But my self defense, which is not a justification but is just the reality of how how we're thinking about things, was that the gays, we were on the march right, and like the arc of history was bending towards rainbow justice right, and it was like there was some asshole politicians still, but like unbalanced, things were moving the right direction. And we've had this real backlash to that over the

past few years, and that is undeniable. And it's they don't say gay stuff in Florida that in other the states, it's targeting drag queens, is tarting the trans community in particular. Good news is in swing areas in particular, this stuff was just rejected. I mean, Tudor Dixon in Michigan right ran on this and just got absolutely schlund by Gretchen Whitmer and that election in the midterm, So that's nice, right, And Wisconsin people don't like this, but you know they're

still placed like Colina Springs, this is happening. There's still red states that's happening, and it is, and there's still the internet on the internet like these big conservative pizza gate Jack, he sends his tweet that's like, we're just going to ignore the fact that like this guy, this supposed hero who who God loved, this guy who's who was a real hero, Richard Fierre, and he's had a drag queen se a drag show is a straight guy.

What's up. It's just like, first off, fuck you, but second off, this is not just the fringe I went when I was in Arizona for the Circus Pizza Gate. Jack was opened the opening act for Blake Masters and carry Lake. So you know, I mean, both those guys lost. But this stuff is being mainstreamed by these politicians and that is different like that was there was a little while where that wasn't happening, and and and so that

that's that's a real thing, and it sucks. So I want to talk to you about the mid terms because and I'm sorry, it does suck, and like it is horrible, and I know how upsetting it is to me, and I can only imagine how upsetting it is to you. So but I want to talk to you about the mid terms because voters really rejected all of this as certainly swing state voters and voters and being luck in Mississippi, you can elect a jar of peanut butter if it

hasn't our next to a team. But in places where there's any kind of movement, people really rejected Trump as um.

But it doesn't seem like Republicans care well. I think that there are some Republicans in d C that are that are trying, that recognize that this has been a loser for them and that they cost themselves with the extreme positions, particularly democracy and abortion, but it's sort of all wrapped up in you know, the transports and the kitty letter, right, It's just like their vibes were extreme, right, like a democracy an abortion were the two biggest ones.

But just as a general matter, a lot of normal voters just looked at these candidates and we're like, you guys are sucking lunatics, Like I'm just not gonna do it. I'm not voting for you. And the Arizona thing is so prime, right. They have this treasurer candidate running on the same ballot as Carry Lake and like masters, and nobody even knows who the treasure Candida and it literally might as well as been a can of peanut butter, like running for treasure in Arizona. The cann of peanut

butter one by ten points. Carry Lake and clusters lost, I mean right, So it's like that makes you think that if Carry Lake just had said nothing the whole campaign, you might have won because people were sick of the inflation blah blah blah. So that shows and there and there are some Republicans in DC strategist types who see this and recognize it and want to change, but they don't control the base. They're not willing to do enough, right, Like, it's kind of like, oh, we just hope Donald Trump

disappears and that solves all of our problems. And it's like that's not it, right, Like they're not they're not actually doing anything to to address the underlying issue, which is that the voters want this sort of crazy, that they need to speak out against this sort of crazy. I mean, just look at the Colorado thing. I mean, you're getting the normal thoughts and prayers, but nobody's out there.

There's not a single Republican leader that I've seen out there saying we need to repudiate this anti gay rhetoric. You know, we need to focus on reasonable gun laws. They don't want to alienate the base their hostages at this point. But that was not like that. It's not that long ago, right, where like they were both parts of the party. Right, Like, you had people that were still were anti gay and like wanted extreme gun laws.

But at least you have a couple of politicians would be out there saying, you know, maybe this is the moment to like really do these background checks stricter, you know, be a big leaf. It wouldn't be what what everybody would want, it wouldn't be the perfect thing, but they would at least be in reality saying we have we have to push back against the stuff that does not happening. Right now, there's not a lot of signs that they're going to change. I think they're hoping that the big

change is like Donald Trump magically disappears. I mean, that's the thing that is really interesting. I mean, I don't know how interesting this is, but it's certainly. The thing that gets me is most of the intellectuals on the right, even the Trump intellectuals. I know that's an oxymoron, but you know what I mean, even the more intellectual and Trump were all the sort of pro Trump but smart.

That's like five people. But those even those people want Trump out right because they know you can't win elections with this guy. The mainstream hates him. It does seem to me like they are on a collision course to having him again as the nominee. It's super possible. I think that he's about as weak within the party as

he's been in about a half deck aid. But that's still pretty strong, right, I mean, like, you know, he only won of the party to win the primary and sixteen we'll see how many people run, but that's probably his goal number this time. It's not like he has below at approval among Republicans. It's been a small dip, and there's been a dip among the elite Republicans who want to who want to wash their hands with them, but they're not really doing anything to try to stop it. Right.

And the other thing is all of these other candidates right or quote unquote candidates because they have an announced yet, but Mike Pompeio, you know, they're all just weaker versions of Donald Trump, right, I mean Mike pens and and all those people think that they are candidates who should be elected. We could really see exactly what happened in two thousand and fifteen again right wherever they split the vote and Trump has the most loyal group, and so

we wins. That could happen. Here's my thing. Let's just use the other side of the coin, though, to show you how untractable that the issue is. Listen, I'm I'd be happy to be wrong on this because he is such a danger. Yeah yeah, no, same, I'm just I'm saying, we just don't know that could happen for sure, Here's nothing that could happen. Rhonda Santis? Could he can out?

I I do think that there's enough people. I think Trump is about a third of the party, but could drawn to Santa's unite the other two thirds if they clear the field for him. Maybe Okay, but then what happens, right Rhonda Santis isn't running in this primary? Is like an anti Trumper wants to move away from all the all the toxic Trump ship, like he ran an out about reading Art of the Deal to his kid and

building a lego wall. Okay, Like did this electorate in Pennsylvania and Michigan make seem like they want like a mini Trump? Not really? Now? Yeah? I mean he's Trump without the charisma and without the humor and all and with also without just like certain elements of the psychopathy. Right, So like that's how people are counting on. Can we have a Trump that's just not psychotic? Right? But he is still really I mean like that don't say gay stuff. That was a complete base play to try to get

the base excited about discriminate ending against gay people. Yeah, this is the point. He's extreme but not psychotic. Okay, So that's something. It's you know, that will that be enough to win a few people over, Sure, But the Republicans also tried that this time, you know, in a couple of places, right, and we just we we just went over that the Michigan, Wisconsin, you know that they were running on Trump platforms, Pennsylvania, but without his you

know whatever weird twitter feed. And I think that's true about the Santas. There's something to be said for the fact that, right, you know, you don't you're not really worried that the Santis will just like get mad at somebody and press the nuke button, right, or like get people to charge the capital on behalf of him like that. That seems pretty unlikely that there'll be people you know,

waving around to Santis flags, charging the capital, poop the walls. Right, Okay, but on the issues I he's down the line extreme with them, and there's a decent chance he runs a primary, tries to get to his right and tries to attack Trump for like not being not building the wall fast enough for whatever. Jesus. Yeah, that's not good either. Well, thank you for that nightmare of fuel. Sure, you recently interviewed a man who is quite famous and influential. He

have many shirt Steve Bannon. I am curious, first of all, how did this come about? And then I have many other questions. I know Steve a little bit for people that read Why We Did It book plug, I used to pitch him and um, Steve, Okay, So there are two types of mega grifters, all right. There is the Dan Bongino type, who's done as a box of rocks and like maybe believes most of the ship, right, and any of the Bannon type, which is he's fighting a

holy war. Dan Bongino, Yeah, he's smart, right, Bannon knows what he's doing. You know, he's clever and so like Bannon kind of likes to spar with people like me, right, and and because he enjoys that, right, It's not he's not He's not like idiot like some of these other guys. Okay, So I don't mean to compliment Bannon, but that's just to help people understand. I'm not sure that not an abject moron is a compliment. Is that great of a complict? Right?

So for that reason, like we have each other's text, and I heard that he was at the Carry Lake event that I was covering for the circus, and so I texted him and I went backstage and we talked for a couple of minutes and he's just being a fucking, you know, blow hard, buttering me up and just doing the whole bullshit. And I said, okay, well, let's just do this on camera then, Steve, if you want to

do this, and he got the late campaign's permission. We brought the cameras back and I just knew in this in the interview, my whole goal of the interview was the one advantage I have over other people is that I know this guy. He does not He cannot bring himself to just with keep a straight face and tell me that the that the Chinese bamboo got into the ballots, right, Like, he doesn't want me to think he's stupid. He doesn't want me to think he's as stupid as the pillow guy. Right.

What what opened the door for me? This was it on camera? But I said to him, I was like, dude, I watch you on your podcast with my pillow guy and like, I know you don't You're not stupid enough

to believe his ship. And he just starts laughing and I was like, Okay, I've got him down right, And so I just I brought the camera back and I was like, I'm just gonna take this to him and say and over and over, just prove that he is just completely full of shit and that he has responsibility for this insurrection because he continued to perpetrate these lines

despite knowing that their lies. And so I felt like there isn't any point and like arguing with him on the chain of custody of the ballots and dominion and blah blah blah, like why why do that? Like why let him have that? Like why let him even try to get that message out there? And my whole point was just to be like, no, this is bullshit. You know it's bullshit. I know you know it's bullshit, and

I'm gonna show everybody that. And I think that the clip achieved that, I mean, Badden is like really influential in MAGA world. I think maybe waning, we'll see after this election. But look, I mean the other thing that I wanted to get across the interview is why was he there and carry Lake. This is a swing state, it's a two days before the election. She's inviting this lunatic stop the steel. You know, a guy podcast host

to come on stage. It just shows how to touch They were as a campaign of reaching the middle, reaching voters that we're gettable. But he look, he has his numbers are good. If you look at the podcast numbers, you look at his livestream numbers, he has very big. He gets very big ratings. When he brought was brought out on stage at that carry Lake event, big cheers.

These like the rank and file mega voters know who he is, and he, you know, uses his platform well right like he's not afraid to you know, use it to influence people and to put up you know, maga candidates that will you know, suck on his toes, and to trash people that you know aren't good to him, etcetera. So so he wields his power the extent that he has powering doesn't have real power. The Republicans don't run anything. His internal intra party power, he wields it. That's so interesting.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Please come back so we can talk more about all of this anytime. I love fast politics. People checks out the ballard. Can everybody have a great Thanksgiving? It was a good It's been a good month for democracy. Can I just close on that. It's been a guy. Am thankful for that. It's been a really good month for democracy. Funk. All these losers and Steve Bannon, they were a total offer, and so we should. You know, we can enjoy that for a

month before the work starts again. Jesus Crest, it's true. Congressman Rocana represents California's seventeenth district. Welcome to you, Fast Politics. Representative Rocanna, thank you for having me on. We're glad to have you. Maybe you've never been on this one, but I've certainly interviewed you many times before and it's always a delight. So we're in this lame duck. Now, what do you want to see happen? I want to

make sure that the death ceiling is raised. If we don't do that, then the Republicans can really hold the entire US economy hostage. I want to make sure we increase funding for the National Labor Relations That is so important. People who have been seeing the movement explain to our listeners what the National Labor Relations Board is. So basically, it's the organization the federal agency that upholds labor laws and that protects workers rights. To organize. I've been out

there with Starbucks workers. We just wrote a letter with thirty other members to Howard Schultz saying, let the Starbucks workers organized. You know, you can't have Starbucks cutting people's shifts or denying them vacation if they're organizing. And we've been doing that with Maximum workers. Other members have been

doing it for Amazon workers. None of that can happen if there's not a National Labor Relations Board to protect workers against corporate abuses corporate retaliation for organizing, and right now the agency has been basically unfunded and so there's no enforcement, So that really needs funding. It's one of the issues that doesn't get much attention, but is, in

my view, very important. It does seemed to me like one of the things that the Biden administration has done really well and is really the future of the Democratic Party. Is this labor organizing and Democrats finally really embracing workers in the way that they did when my grandfather was involved in politics. You know that, because that is I mean, ultimately, isn't that what Democrats are for? I agree with you.

I think President Biden has spoken up for unions and for workers more than any recent president but more than speaking up, he understands that globalization, that the offshoring of production, that automation, has posed a lot of challenges for the working class in this country. And I think he's oriented the economic policy and his presidency to addressing that and to helping strengthen the working in middle class. So do you think you guys can get those things passed during

the lame duck. The one other thing I'd add is eight to Ukraine. That's going to be critical because who knows what mccartthay or whoever else leading the Republicans would do with that. Uh. And so those three things, in my view, are achievable, and I'm hopeful that we'll get it done in early December. So I want to get back to this idea, you know, I had. I think

this is sort of interesting. I had a pre right that I wrote for Vanny Fair about Republicans taking the House because everyone had said Republicans are going to take the House. And then as Republicans failed limped along desperately trying to take the House, I started think, well, maybe they won't be as bad as this piece predicts because they don't really have a mandate, right they didn't win sixty seats, they didn't win fifty seats, they didn't even

win te you know. I mean, so, I mean, they have this very historically thin majority, but they do seem to be just as crazy as I predicted. Well, you've been right in your prediction. I mean, here's the thing I hate being right about this. They haven't even spent two days trying to understand what their quote unquote mandate would be. They certainly didn't run on investigating Hunter Biden.

I didn't. I didn't see you know, doctor oz or any of these Republican candidates running and saying, oh, like to me so that I can go investigate Hunter Biden. I didn't see j. D. Banns doing that. And yet the first thing that they do is not have a plan on inflation, not have a plan on the economy. It's investigations. So to the extent that they had any quote unquote win in the House, which was a much lower victory than anyone anticipated, they're not even dealing with

what they promised the voters they would deal with. So here we are. But they don't have a mandate. They have a variein majority. All McCarthy want is to hold that gavel, so he will make deals with pretty much anyone. It seems like a hostage scenario almost. Yeah, But Kevin McCarthy is a situation reminds me of the famous quote by Benjamin Disraeli that becoming prime minister was like climbing up a greasy pole and he finally got there, and

now he can barely hold on. And I was joking with someone of the question is the Republican speakers last longer British prime ministers these days? But I think McCarthy is in a very difficult situation because he's gonna have a very slow majority and he's has got people who have their own agenda. We're gonna have a veto power off on it. I think one of the underestimated aspects of the Democratic Caucus is that Progressives in almost every

instance ended up supporting the President and the Speaker's agenda. Now, maybe it took a month longer at times than it would have if everyone was exactly aligned, but there is not a single case of Progressives sinking any important initiative by the President or the Speaker. We were remarkably united as a party and that's just not going to be the case on the Republican side. I mean, Republicans don't have a progressive wing, they just have a what a

Trump wing and not as trump wing right. But I want to get back to this idea of progressives because I did read a really interesting quote from AOC where she talked about how the combination of Ron Clay, who originally a lot of people on the progressive side had anxiety about, and Nancy Pelusi, who originally a lot on

the progressive side had anxiety about. Really the two of them were able to kind of shepherd a lot of legislation through they were I mean, look, Ron Clain has been incredible to work with, and it's not true that he's just bides towards the progressives. He has done outrage to the Hill on behalf from the president. I mean, Ron plains a great secret is that he gets to remember to think he's on their side while he's actually

on the president side. But he's been very effective and people feel hurt, they feel listened to, they feel like they've had employers. And the speaker is has also ultimately pushed for progressive ideals, but she's conveyed that we have to get things done and look, the Progressives come from a governing vision of the party. The question is just that the Progressives want to go a little sort of

the but they want to get something done. So you're not going to have a situation where Progressives are going to say, well, we're going to vote against three hundred billion dollars in climate because really we need one trillion dollars in climate. Could be true that we need one trillion dollars in climate. That's not going to cause Progressives to sink the good. Right, There's been a fair amount of really good deal making, right, I mean, that's what

the job is. Absolutely, it's been dealmaking. It's been getting

the consensus priorities. And then you look at what we've been che I mean, we have the largest investment in climate with three hundred billion dollars, a massive down payment on renewables and energy efficiency, bringing semiconductor chips back, and that was the bill that I helped co author with Senator Schumer, and the largest investment in science, the chips in science sex since the Kennedy years, massive investments in infrastructure, and then of course the American Rescue Plan, which in

and of itself would have been a monumental achievement in getting uh hunt six hundred bucks to every working family, and helping get the stimulus stretch out during the pandemic, and funding schools in ways that they're still benefiting from. So it's a remarkable record of achievement for this president. I'm very proud of having been part of this Congress. I genuinely believe it's a congress that people will look

back in history as being a productive one. You know, I think it's shown that the Democratic Party is capable of governing. I want to talk to you about what is happening now because already Republicans have said they are planning on taking three members of Congress off their committees. I mean as a reciprocity for taking Marjorie Taylor space Lasers Green Offer committee. Can you explain to me how

that helps fight inflation? Well, it doesn't. But it's just catering to their base and McCarthy looking for how he can get votes to get to hundred eighteen votes. And that's what's what's going on. It has nothing to do with the economy, nothing to do with inflation. You can't kick people off because you disagree with them, and that's what they're they're doing. It's one thing if someone is engaged in conspiracy theories and speech that is inciting violence

or racial hatred. But if you just disagree with someone, that would be like saying, well, should we kick someone off the committee because they were defending Donald Trump. I don't think, for example, Kevin Comer or Jim Jordan's, who I sudhelently disagree with, to be kicked off their committees because they want to invest the game Hunter Biden. I think it's a total waste of time of the taxpayer. But that's the democratic argument. You just don't kick people

off because you disagree with what they want to do. Yeah, what happens now with Kevin McCarthy. Do you think he ends up getting to be speaker? And do you think

he can keep this group? I mean, what we realize I feel like since we've seen you know, Nancy Pelosi is stepping out of leadership, is that it's actually incredibly hard and we saw this by the way in the Paul Ryan Congress, that it's actually incredibly hard to get all of these congress people to agree with stuff and it ends up being you know, very tough whipping votes. So do you think this Kevin McCarthy Congress, if it does come to pass, we'll be able to pass legislation.

And I mean, do they even have a legislative agenda? They really don't other than tax cuts, which Liz Trust tried and almost destroyed the British economy, and you can't have cutting taxes for the wealthy during inflation. But they really have no other agenda. I have no idea whether mccarthur is gonna get the votes or not, because you're literally asking me to predict what people like Marginell Grain or some of the Freedom Calucis are gonna do it. Who knows. And then I have no idea how long

he would have to the speakership. I mean, if they allow for basically no confidence vote at any moment, his speakership will constantly be be threatened by an extreme group. So it's interesting to see what they're gonna do. I mean, right now, the only thing that the Republicans can can seem to agree on is what we want to investigate Joe Biden's personal family, and we want to investigate the

binding administration. And my view is that will be a colossal mistake if they do that, it will be similar to the mistakes that the ging rich House made, can

then Bill Clinton in a very easy re election. And nine that is one other question I have is like there's anxiety and I've read there was a really interesting piece in the Washington Post by Plumbline gps us, you know that blog where he talked about this idea that this Republican Party wants to make fake investigations into hunter By Nor these sort of more scurless investigations the same as like the real investigations into Trump's document case, which

is like an open and shot he had documents he took from the White House, and that that false equivalence he could in fact be propagated in the mainstream media. But it's also possible, right that this could really help democrats. I believe that what people want is solving problems. What people want is, how are you helping my kid get a good paint job, get a good education. How are you making sure that she could stay in the town

that she grew up in. How are you making sure that the cost of food and cost of gas is coming down. Here's the reality. When we did investigations against Donald Trump, which were justified for the sake of democracy, and I supported them. I would support them again because his actions were so extreme that was not politically helpful. A lot of times that would actually come at a cost. But what we said is our constitutional responsibility was so

great that we have to do this. That's what democracy demands. What people want is not investigations. What people want is solving their problems. So if what the Republicans are gonna do is frivolous investigations, because there is absolutely no one, even people who are Republicans and voted against Joe Biden, I don't think there is anyone who good conscious things that in Joe Biddens two years, he's done anything that

has violated the Constitution. And if they're gonna subject him to frivolous investigations, hey, that's gonna make Joe Biden more sympathetic, and I think help Biden and and Be it's gonna look like they're totally ignoring people's problems, um right, which I think is important. I also do think that Democrats are not in occult. So I like Hunter Biden. I don't know him particularly well, but I've had him on

the podcast. He's fine, But like if he did a crime, Like, I don't think the Demo it's not like with the Trump family, right, I mean, I don't think he did. But and he doesn't work in the government. And the fact that these people never wanted a Vanka uh investigated

is totally fascinating to me when she actually did. But I mean, I'm just saying, like, I'm not sure that going after Biden's family, even though it's a huge waste of time, you know what, to stick it to democrats is quite is not quite owning the lips if that makes sense. Well, no, it's creating a horrible precedent. I never went after anyone in Trump's family who was not part of the White House. It wasn't my decision to put Jared Pushner in charge of Middle East peace, you know,

event Trump the head of economic policy. If Jared Kushner at Abounka Trump, or let's take a bouncer Trump who said she wants nothing to do with this new presidential campaign, if that, if she had taken that position from day one, I would have said, it's totally not Congress's responsibility to

be going after them. Now, the Justice Department, other agencies line, but why is Congress oversight going after a PA relative that that has nothing to there was nothing to do with the functioning of government, and no want to think you shouldn't be held to the same standard of law as anyone. And that's why we have law enforcement agencies

and and they're doing that now. If there were some allegation that somehow the law enforcement agencies weren't doing their job, that there were being that would be something for Congress investing it. But that's not been the case. We've got this Elon Musk Twitter takeover. He has decided he's going to write the liberal bet. You know. He he's fighting the imaginary oppression that many conservatives do. I mean, is there a government oversight? I mean, it is this enormous

tech company. It is now sort of the plaything of a billionaire. Should this be how it is? I obviously think that there needs to be a separation between capital longer or whoever it is, whether it's Elon Musk, whether it was someone more liberal. And people are making to say visions about media platforms. It would be as if Jeff Bezos was sitting there making decisions about which op ed to publish in the Washington Post or what story

to publish. That'd be a problem with that, and so we need rules of separation from new social media companies. The one thing I will say, though, is some of the reaction to Elon Musk is exactly what he wants. I mean, he's someone who doesn't mind engaging in the fray and I think is enjoying sort of the back and forth, and so I think we ought to be making our points. But the over at the top sort of attacks I think almost feed into the narrative that

he's trying to create. I think that's a really good point. Thank you so much, Rocana, so interesting, Please come back. Thank you always enjoy it. Hugo Lowe is a reporter at The Guardian. Welcome to Fast Politics, Hugo, thanks for having me. I feel like Donald Trump will be a defendant for the rest of his life. I mean that seems a fair assessment, right, I mean, what, what are the cases that are you're covering right now? Look, I think there are two principally dangerous ones for him right now.

That's the mar Lango documents case, which is moving pretty swiftly. Of course, the January six criminal investigations that haven't quite ensnared him. Yet but seemed to be moving inexorably towards him. And you know, I think if you're looking at potential charges against Donald Trump before the election, before the presidential those are the two investigations they're most likely to come out of, at least on the d o J side.

You know, if you talk to Trump lawyers, that will also right about one other investigation, and that's, of course, the Georgia Fulton County investigation into the Georgia Fake ellector scheme. Okay, so let's start with the Documents case, because I mean, from people I've talked to, like one George Conway, that seems like the most open and shot. Where are with with the Documents case? That wasn't they were in court today, right?

Or they are going to be in court today? Yeah, So there is going to be a hearing before the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta today and we're actually recording this before Trump's lawyers argued before a panel that's really unfavorable to him. But this is about the special Mass litigation.

It's not directly to do with the Documents case. And the reason why I think a lot of lawyers think the Documents case is open and shut is because if you look at the search for an affidavit that was used by the FBI to see these documents, they're investigating three crimes. First is the kind of retention of national defense information, the second is obstruction, and the third is

about kind of concealment or removal of government records. And at least for the first potential charge, it's quite clear that Trump had these kind of documents bearing class sticking classification markings in his residence. Like that's what makes this more open and shot than I think any of the other investigations, because the crime is in is him actually

having it, and the FBI caught him actually having. Now, the part that makes it less straightforward is the fact that you know these are intelligence documents, and it does get more difficult with you know, arguments about detastication, whether they're true or not, arguments about the Presidential Records Act. And then finally also the venue, because if the crimes are committed in Florida, the venue would be some district Florida.

Then this goes to trial, or if it were to go to trial and just on bounds, it's difficult to know if a Florida jury would ever convict trunk. I just want to get back to the documents case because there's some question right now that there will be some question between the special Master, right and the documents case. Yeah, Look, these two ended up intersecting because Trump needed a way

to slow down the documents investigation. If you think back to August and the summer um, Trump was kind of at the back end of a number of re aggressive moves by the Department of Justice. You know, he had just been served a grand jury subpoena in May ask him for the documents. You know, his lawyers finally produced some documents at the end of the month, and then his house got searched on August eight, and so he was kind of on the back foot reading a little bit.

And then you know, he was getting hit on Fox News for not doing any sort of legal motion. And so what they settled on doing was to ask for a special Master, and they went, you know, judge shopping. They went and got Judge Cannon, who wasn't who would

have been the automatic choice. Probably they really had to go up to four pers and then Cannon actually gave them this incredible stroke of luck, which was to say, Okay, I'm going to give your special Master, and that tied up the documents in the litigation, and it meant that the Department of Justice couldn't access to them in the investigation. Now,

part of that order got overturned. Back in September, the Eleventh Circle already ruled that the classified documents at least could no longer be part of a special Master review, and they them available once again to the Department of Justice. But right now we've still been litigating thousands of documents that were not classified, and we understand that that has been hindering the criminal investigation. That could end today. Why

could that end today? When Trump's lawyers go before the leven Circuit, They're going to find themselves before the three panel of judges. Two of the judges on this panel previously ruled against Trump back in September, saying the special Master should never have been granted in the first place.

They actually went beyond that ruling, even though this is a very Trump heavy circuit, the Eleventh Circuit, right, I mean, it just goes to show you, I think that people are just generally speaking, were kind of appalled both at the legal decision making surrounding Cannon's appointment of our Special Master and also Trump's legal arguments because they have been very Then can we talk about the special counsel and where that fits into all of this? Yes, So this

investigation is throwing up a lot of specials. You know, your special Master looking at whether there's privileged protections on the documents, and there is this Shall Graham jury in Georgia.

Yes there is, So choose your special right exactly. But the special counsel is a really interesting move by the Attorney General, right, I mean, he said at the press conference at Main Justice in DC that he was appointing a special counsel because he wanted to ensure that the department was effectively protected from appearance of conflict, appearance of political interference because Trump just announced that he's running for president and that Biden is probably going to be the

likely declared presidential candidate as well. But I think, you know, there's a nuance here that people and missed on the surface, which is if they had no intention of charging Trump and they thought the evidence was really thin and that there was no case here, they would have closed this case instead. Because Garland four he might end up charging Trump, and he might end up charging Trump while he's running for president be appointed a special count. But I think

that's a very interesting nuance. Yeah, I want to talk about that more. What does that mean? We had talked about this because there are a lot of people who listen to this podcasts who are who are kind of you know, who may have gotten their hopes up with other special counsels who shall not be named, like John Darham, right, yeah, exactly gender everyone was so, but like one Robert Mueller explain a little bit. And I think you and I talked about this socially that Mueller actually, even though he

didn't charge Trump, he did charge a lot of other people. Yeah, special counsels. In recent years, I've got a lot of criticism because the prosecutions have not done great. Like Mulla didn't get the Trump. That's the main complaint. You know, Durham's Prosecution's kind of ended up going nowhere. Durham's appointment was more partisan, wasn't it then? Moller? Yeah, yeah, I'd say so. I mean the main criticism of Mama, right

was that he didn't get Trump. Right, he couldn't get Trump, but he did get a number of other people, people like Paul Manifold, people like gates on federal crimes pertained of foreign agent registrations under the Phara law. And this was actually pretty novel. You know, we really hadn't seen prosecutions like this from the Partment Justice kind of prior to Mama. It actually spurred the d o J to create,

you know, a bigger team looking at PHARA crimes. And so I think, actually the legacy of Mama, even though this element of Trump and you know, Russia and his campaigns, times the Russia becomes the focus, and rightly so, because that was the biggest fish, Right, It's not like Mama didn't do anything. And actually I think Mama exposed to a large degree how Trump's campaign was working to advance the interests of foreign governments, and I think that actually

was pretty significant. So isn't there Trump organization still on trial? I mean, I mean Trump's on trial and numerous but I mean isn't his family business still I mean, that's that trial is still going, right, Yeah, and he's got another one coming up. Okay, hard to keep track of all this, and it's kind of ridiculous. Look, with the special counsel, I see it as a lot changing and

also at the same time, not a lot changing. What changes is the day to day management of the documents investigation, and key elements of the January six investigation go directly to Jack Smith. I think this is actually a positive move because Jack Smith can dedicate all of his time and resources and he's going to have his own team. He's going to have his own office to look solely

at these cases. Right now, the documents cases being handled or what's being handled by the National Scurity Division and I guess presumably by the you know a little bit by the Depth Attorney General's Office and the Attorney General. And so by putting a dedicated team on this, it actually, I think kind of crystallizes resources on those kind of really important investigations in a way that hasn't been happening

to date. Because the National Sperity Division probably got lots of active cases, this is not the only thing they've been looking and so by kind of centralizing all of the resources and focus, I think you actually get pretty positive synergies that. The other thing about the Special Counsel though, is that it doesn't actually change the investigation very much. They've still done, you know, close the six to ten

months of investigative work through the trial attorneys. They're just going to be put straight under the management of Jack Smith. It's not like, you know, Jack's gonna Jack Smith is going to hire an entire, huge new team that has to relearn all facts or the case you're gonna you know, you're gonna transfer some of this knowledge of path and in any case, you know, these laws are extremely smart. The time to get rid up on a case, especially something in the documents case, which is not that big,

it's probably pretty quick. So I don't think there's significant lay at all. I think really this has been a move to consolidate resources and also make sure that the Department is above reproach when it comes to considering charges. Given Trump has already declared, and I think they are likely to bring charge. Interesting and now we all know

that Trump can still run for president even if he's charged. Look, there's nothing in the constitution that says you can't run the president if you're in jail, right, so that too, which he may try, yes, talk to me about. I mean, will this be a Thanksgiving or we find you know, people where there are warrants for you know, a Christmas where there's warrants for arrests Friday night news dumps. I mean, or do you not see it working out like that? I don't think you will get under the Christmas train

find warrants for Boris Epstein and top Trump officials. God, I think these cases moved very quickly. In the next kind of six months. I don't think you get any sort of kind of discussion about charges, you know, serious discussion, like you're gonna get a prosecution memory inside the department before the end of December. You know that's in part

because the Special Councils still has to come back. He starts to set up his offers, he still has to you know, they have to write a potential prosecution member if they are going to prosecute. They've still got subpoenas that are in balanced because you know they've been issued recently, and they need to get the documents back. They need

to get the testimony from potential witnesses. That are a number of witnesses, people like what no Odor the white the valet that followed Trump from the White House to Laga and then was captured on the White House valley, right, and then you know he was removing boxes from the storage room. It appears that he has been threatened with

charges surrounding making false statements to the FBI. That has really spooked his lawyer and obviously him from what I understand one of my reporting, the Justice Department went back and actually wanted to reinterview him. His lawyer said, no way, not at this point. And so the Department's going to have to figure out if they really want more testimony

from nod how are they going to do that? Right For instance, they have to consider if they're gonna give him immunity like they did Cashpital, which said, Okay, we're not going to prosecute you, and we're not going to prosecute you based on the fruits of the information that you give us, but you know, you do have to testify under oath and give us everything that you have, or they can go down a separate route. And if they really want his testimony and charge no to himself.

And then if he pleads guilty, you know, they can offer him a plea deal and be like, okay, well look, if you cooperate with the investigation, you know we will we will recommend a reduction in your sentence or your penalty or whatever. And so you know, this is among the considerations that the Department has to resolve before it goes forward and making putting together a prosecution memo giving that the Special Counsel and the Special Council to make

his decision and report back to the Attorney General. So I think you're looking at a runway of at least, you know, probably two months. I don't think anything major in terms of going towards the prosecution happens before the end of the year. But I think in the new year, in the spring, you know, things could really accelerate, depending on you know, how the Department moves, you know, the facts of the case, what new evidence they're able to cover,

especially in the documents case. I think January six is a little bit more market Still, the r n C was paying for some of Trump's legal bills, but not all of them. Can you explain that? Yeah. Trump has always been very anemic to paying biggle bills, and I think for a long time he discovered there was a great way to get the RNC to pay for it.

But in kind of in recent months, I think, you know, he has recognized the severity and the seriousness of what is going on over at the Department as they kind of focused their cross hairs on him. And so I think the fact that he personally approved out of the Same America pack paying Chris kais you know, a three million dollar ants fore to kind of work from on his legal team was an indication of how now Trump

is serious about these investigations as well. You know, I certainly think there was an attitude among kind of Trump aids and Trump himself that the January six investigation was not that dangerous to him because he wasn't the one that, you know, for instance, was cornating the Galector scheme. He wasn't the one, you know, messaging the proud Boys and oath keepers actually storm the capital. You know, we don't know yet, but that seems to be the case, at least for a moment. It seems to If he did,

it went through into media. And so Trump has always felt like the January six cases were bad, but potentially not terrible for him. The documents case is a completely different beast, and I think he recognized that that and that is why he has been paying the lawyers out of Save America because he wants kind of personal oversight over them. And I think that's a very interesting shift in his dynamic and the way that he's viewed these cases and the way that he's viewing his potential legal parls.

So interesting. Thank you so much, Hugo. I hope you'll come back. Yeah, I love you. Thank you, Molly junk Fast, Jesse Cannon. It's one of those moments of you just wish you didn't have to talk about it because it's so pathetic. We've been building to this for a long time in this country, which is this sort of far right ship posters have decided that they desperately want a civil war. I think the mid terms showed them that the only way they're going to get their people in

positions of power is by fermenting violence. And so now all of a sudden, we are recording this two days after a terrible nightclub shooting in Colorado Springs, which resulted in five deaths at a place that had drag queens, a bar that had drag queens. And you'll remember that a lot of these far right people are obsessed with drag queens. They think that drag queens somehow they have the connection between drag queens and children, which, by the way,

I've had all these children. I have never ever encountered drag queens at any child activity ever, so I don't know where they're taking their children. And you and I circle around probably some of the most far left progressive people in New York City. We live in a blue city in a blue state. The rest of the country

is working hard to take down the temperature. And then we have Tempoole who has decided that instead of taking down the temperature, he is going to encourage a civil war with a tweet that says, the grooming of children is not stopping again. We have no evidence to support that anyone is being groomed, right, I guess he means the teaching of sex ad people are calling for more violence again. Nobody is calling for more violence. The people who are calling for more violence or him. I do

not think legislators will stop the grooming again. Nobody is grooming, so this is not a true thing. People will not stop calling for violence again. I think that's him he's talking about it's his comment section. Maybe we're all the biggest assholes on the internet. Hang out, right, so you tell me what happens next. Again, we have five people murdered, We have this terrible incident. The rest of the country is offering thoughts and prayers, but not for our right

influencer Tim Poole, who is offering violence and violence. And he's not alone. Matt Walsh, who is the king of the stuff, started blaming the victims of the nightclub today on his show. And this comes after Tucker Carlson weeks ago said that people should take up arms against trans people. So all of these people who are trying to forment violence and trying to hurt people and trying to get and you know they're not They're not going to do

it themselves. They're going to encourage their people to do it. They are all our moment of gray. There are not enough moments for this. And you know now that Twitter is run by a free speech absolutist who believes that all of this is fine. We're going to see more of this and it's absolutely heartbreaking and I wish we weren't having it happen. 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.