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 Senate Democrats have asked Clarence Thomas's close personal friend and benefactor, Harlan Crow to list his gifts to the Supreme Court Justices. We have a star studded show today The Daily Shows. Roywood Junior joins us to talk about how you roast the most powerful people in the world. The Washington Post Karen Tumulty tells us
what's next in the debt ceiling showdown. The first we have the Bulwarks Tim Miller, who will be appearing with me in New York at the Peter J. Sharp Theater at Symphony Space on May eighteenth, which is next Thursday, along with Charlie Sykes, Jonathan Last, and Sarah Longwell. Welcome Tim Miller back to Fast Politics. You are my favorite.
Going for the most guest louts. I'm competing. I want to be number one. We're going to look back at the end of the year. We're going to have a ranking. I want to be number one in quality and quantity.
You're going to have to murder Rick Wilson. Okay, money's on Rick, by the way.
Yeah, and I've matched to the death. Yeah, I would also I'd also choose Rick in that you know, there are other areas where maybe I would outshine him a height competition, for example, reaching apples out of a tree, but maybe not enough fight. I love you, Rick, Molly. We're going to see each other next week. We have a live Fast Politics Bulwark show in New York. And I have a big question for you. I know you're supposed to be asking the questions, but where is the
after after party? The champagne room. That's what I want to know.
Where that's right, the after party?
Okay. We are going to invite people in the crowd, the cool people that come to the event. You can get tickets at boorg dot com slash events, and the cool people we will invite and after after party somewhere not your home. There will be a champagne room. We need to I'm trusting you to pick up though this is your neighborhood.
And karaoke maybe karaoke.
Yeah, we'll see a.
Champagne room in karaoke. Tim Miller, I want to talk to you about the death of democracy. It's puttering along Republicans looking for a candidate, seems like they're going to pick someone thoughtful and spiritual. No, I'm just kidding.
Yeah, you know, based in deep ideological roots. You know, someone who cares about policy, you know, who wants to govern for all Americans. Asa Hutchinson. Liz Cheney isn't out in New Hampshire today and I saw her at four percent. So that's pretty good Asa plus Liz, and now we're up. We're up to five. Now we're getting there. We can
round up to ten. No, it's not good the democracy can I just I like to be you know, at least the most in a in a room full of das our anti Trump you know kind of folks either never Trumpers or liberals, there's always a lot of doom casting. I would would like to shed a little bit of light here. I mean, we had a really nice mid terms for saving democracy, right, Maybe not a great mid term for protecting the full faith in credit of the United States, as we might be heading.
Off the dead class.
But see, we did have a good mid term as far as you know, the craziest lunatics loss. I think that there is a grow increasingly growing group of you know, the coalition of the of the normal, of the decent of Democrats who who There's certain people who go over a line, and we've seen that so far. Now there's some concerning things. I mean, nobody wants to fucking play
fire with another coin foot with Donald Trump. And even if you think it's a seventy thirty, you know likelihood that Biden would beat him, which I do, thirty percent is still way way, way too high for like the end of the democratic experiment, you know, and all the other elections we've had before twenty sixteen. You know, neither candidate was proposing the end of the democratic experiment. And that's kind of how I so is a little too high.
But you had some good news in the terms the primary stuff so far, and it's early, but it is you have to say, it's pretty disheartening. I mean to see a morning console pullout this morning with Donald Trump having a forty one point lead. I mean, I've left the Republican Party, but when something really bad happens to your family, even if you've had a falling out for him,
it still makes you sad. And boy, I mean, that's pretty depressing to see that, Like, even after everything we've been through that, that's where things still stand.
I'm right there with you. I think it's pretty interesting. I want to get high on the Bulwark supply that there are decent people who are going to keep our country from sliding into fascism or whatever this is. And I hope it's true. I mean, I do think that it's pretty interesting to watch Trump. I mean, if you could get people together, you would be able to take back this Republican Party. I mean, the problem is I feel like he's got such a hold on the base that it's just untracked.
Yeah. And here's the biggest part of the intractability, and it's it's actually been even more. I was pretty pessimistic about somebody beating Trump in a primary, but I thought it was possible. For this reason is that, like you know, the Bullwark crowd, and like we said, we're about five percent, right, yeah, and many of them and further the reason why, yeah,
thank you. One of the reason why we're five percent and not twelve percent is like half of us left right, Like I'm gone now right, I mean, it's really more like the Dispatch crowd. That's the five percent sticking around holding us. Hope that the you know, great classical liberal white Knight will come back in the future and shape and save everybody. You know, Margaret Thatcher will arise from the dead. But I don't really, you know, see that happening.
And the problem is that there's a group of persuadable folks in the Republican Party that like Trump but do see his flaws, do see that they've lost? Right, there's a cult. There's a cult forty five group that's about a third of the party, give or take. And then there's this big middle of the party that like him but see his flaws. Now I don't to me, that's insane, but these people exists, so we have to assess them as they're there. And I thought that Desantas would have
a good chance with that group. The problem is that you get in this double bind if you're Ron de Santis to try to appeal to people that like Trump but might want to move on, which is, if you attack Trump, then all of a sudden they're like, ooh, he actually might be a list changey sympathizer after all,
and they start to not like him. If you don't attack Trump, then it's like, ooh, this guy's kind of a pussy, like he's not up for the fight, right, Like he can't do it, and so you have to like walk this really fine line of criticizing him but not too hard but seeming strong but not too strong. And it's really challenging line to walk for even a talented politician. It's not that clear that Ron DeSantis is that talented.
Right, this is talented now, I know. I mean, I just want to say one thing about putting fingers, which.
Is I first started as putting fingers, and I was like, where are we putting our fingers?
Molly, okay, putting fingers? Yeah, I live in the South now, put in finger put fingers. One of the things that I was so struck by is like there was a real National Review crowd that was so excited about him, and they were just I mean, because I know because I wrote a piece that said about three months ago, I wrote a piece that said Rondasantis is as bad as Trump. And I've always thought he's actually quite scary because he's pretty good at what he does and pretty smart.
I mean, he's not good at being a retail politician, thank god, but he's very smart and he can get you know, if you're not, like you know, one of the great things about Trump was that he was a complete and abject more on so he would have and he also could not stop getting in his own way, thank god, right, So you know, he's you know, if he had been smart, he could have gotten a lot more scary stuff done.
But you know, this National Review crowd, they were convinced that this was their savior, and they were so they based this on almost no evidence.
Yeah, I think they based on the fact that it is true about Ron DeSantis that floor went from being a pretty swingy state, like a very deep red state while he was there, governing in a pretty far right way.
Right.
So if you are extremely you know, to use mont Romney's very severely conservative, and you want severely conservative policies and you want to win on paper, you looked at him and was were like, oh, Okay, this guy really might be our savior. This guy might be our night and shining armor. Now the problem with that was there are a lot of things happening.
People moved to Florida.
There are a lot of things at play at the same time, right, Like COVID is happening, people are moving, like older people are more moving, more Republican. His opponents are like Tomato Can Charlie Christ and like Andrew Gillum who is like meth and doing meth and by and like, he didn't have the strongest opponents right in those two states. Nothing wrong with buye people. Sorry, that was not a
you know, no assaulted me. If you're bisexual, that's great, but you know, doing meth and being by isn't isn't
probably the best resume for governor of Florida. And so these were his opponents, and so like, there were a lot of things that were just kind of working in his favor that I think that people were assuming, or people were wish casting that there was some Ron Desanta's black magic, when in reality, you know, he just was the beneficiary of a wave, you know that was already moving his direction and he kind of just started to ride it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I think that's absolutely right. You know, there was also a fair amount of wish casting, right yeah.
You know, it'd be like me as a moderate, like being like, oh, I'm from Colorado, Like, oh, Colorado used to be a swing state and now all of a sudden, it's a deep blue state, and that must have been John Hickenlooper's magic, you know, and like the nation is clamoring for centrist you know, capitalist liberalism like John Hickenlooper, and it's like, well, no, actually, just a bunch of liberals moved into Colorado and he happened to be governor, you know, like he's a fine guy, but so pot Yeah,
that's different than you know, saying, okay, he's ready to be the president. And I think that DeSantis, you know that this wish casting was like, you know, DeSantis happened to be in the right place at the right time, and people assumed that meant that he was doing something special.
Yeah, I think that's right. It's pretty interesting to see how stuck this Republican Party is with Trump, and now we're going to see I mean, I don't think at this point we haven't had the primary, as we haven't even had the debates. But it's hard for me to imagine a world where what is happening right now doesn't continue. I mean unless the world clamors for a Chris Christy yet another go at it.
Yeah no, and I'm repetitive on this. I've probably said this in this podcast, but it's worth repeating the craziest part of it. And there's so much crazy stuff about all this, but the craziest part about all this is, like, besides four Republicans in Washington who are like in the cult, everybody just wishes it was Rond de sand It's not just the National Review crowd, it's every Republican in Washington
wishes that was Rond Desanda's or somebody else. And there were ten votes away from doing it, had they just gotten had there had just ten people volunteered to convict him in that impeachment trial. They got seven arty, which was a lot. There'd never been any members of your of the own party in the Senate to convict, you know, a president of their own party in his There were seven. They needed ten more, and then Trump would have been barred from running all of this, you know, we'd be
focused on all this other stuff. And yet they didn't do it. They didn't once again, they all just cowered when they had the opportunity to show a little bit of backbone. And now they're stuck with them. And you know, it really is when you kind of step back and
think about that. I saw a tweet the other day that made me laugh Ma Cob laughing dark laughing about how like, imagine if a black man had spurred a riot at the Capitol building, was on truck, was on trial for rape, you know, and had been indicted for other issues and was investigated for multiple things, and people would be like, yes, we're ready for that person to
be the president. Like never, it's it is just it's mind blowing that he can have a forty one percent lead and a party in the spite, in spite of all. You know, this is different than twenty sixteen. It's not like, oh, let's say a chance on the game show host guy. It's like we've seen it, they've seen it.
I still believe that DeSantis has not rejected the fascism and the party of anything. He embraces it. So you know, I don't know that you're better off the democracy is better off with Iron DeSantis candidacy.
Yeah, I mean we disagreed on this last time. My final quick point on that is just simply, I want you to imagine. I just want you to really quick, I just want you to close your eyes. This is my only rebuttal. I want all our listeners to close our eyes, and I want you to imagine who is in the Oval Office with Donald Trump, and like what that team is going to be. I mean, it is the guy, Yes, it is the scum of the earth,
the F minus list and DeSantis. You know, I think there'd be a lot of problems with the Santas administration, but I mean I think that it would at least be a different caliber of people running the government.
Again, you criticize the my pillow guy, won't someone stand up for stupid people with ridiculous facial hair.
Someone has to If it's not us, who.
So the debt ceiling? Let's talk.
Yeah, let's do it.
As someone who's very cynical, it just feels to me like Republicans in Congress are trying to crash the United States economy to help their guy win in twenty four. But that's certainly not what's going on, right boy.
There's always this question of motive, right, which is are they actually trying to tank the economy because they think it helps them, or do they want to tank the economy because they're anarchists, or do they want to take the economy because they're incompetent? And it's like, you know, maybe a little bit of all right, and so you know, I think that our friend Ben Whittis, I think put this very well. He had a subject post. Let's just check out if you have a checked out his subject.
But it was like the problem that Biden has in this is that we're in this game of chicken over the entire economy. And on Biden's side, it's like, obviously the best case in Republicans folding, right, and that's how you get out of the game of chicken. But the problem is the other guy in the game of chicken
might actually benefit from crashing into you. Right, So's imagine you're in a car, you're going eighty miles an hour, the other person's going eighty miles an hour the other way, and their calculation is I have a better chance of surviving if I just do a head on crash with you, then if I give up, Because if I give up, then when I get back to you know, my team to in the pit crew to stretch his analogy as far as possible, like they're gonna kill me, Like they're
going to scalp me, right, Like I have no choice but to crash this or else my party will scalp me and there'll be someone else speak in the speakership, right, McCarthy knows that he can't you know, fold or else the crazies and the MAGA Caucus will throw him overboard and replace him with Jim Jordan or whoever and so the best. So it's really hard to negotiate with terrorists, right,
And that's the situation that you're in. And so I think that's why we're kind of inevitab heading for some really bad outcome or you know, a very long legal battle, which I think is probably where it ends up with. The Biden administration decides that they can just do this, you know, laterally, and then it's up to you know, the Trump Supreme Court to figure it out.
The Supreme Court to decide if they're going to crash the economy you're not. I mean, that's it seems like in my mind, let's just play this was the situation where reversed and we had a Republican president and a Democratic Congress that was willing to drive the economy of ecliff. You would never see that, But just say theoretical you were the Republican would just go ahead and circumvent them.
You would think, so, yeah, I mean, you would think so, you know, or who knows, Like we're pretty far down a weird metaphor here, Who the hell knows Donald Trump might want to want to put on the suicide vest with them. I definitely don't want to model, you know, I don't think that Democrats should model authoritarian Republican you know, governance when they're making it. So I think that sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, and they're in certain times where I've I felt like Biden and Obama
overstepped on executive order stuff. This might not be one of those occasions. I just you know, I don't I I was kind of always intrigued by the crazy online mint, the coin strategy. I'm open to creative solutions, creative trades here to get around this. But I think the reality is the Republicans aren't going to budge, and you know,
they don't seem to even be trying. On the Next Level podcast of The boll Work, I interviewed Abigail Spamberger about this, and the most interesting thing in that interview, well, we did a lot of fun stuff, but about this topic was McCarthy hasn't even called her. I mean, she's like the great moderate Hope in the Democratic Congress, and she's like one of the most bipartisan people in the
whole Congress. McCarthy hasn't even called her, so like that's like he's not trying to cut a deal here, like he's trying to crash when that's the reality. I don't know that the administration will have any other choice but to try to, you know, figure out how to go solo.
The math is there, right.
The math is there for what for raising the dead selling no.
For a finding? I mean you only need Democrats, Keem Jeffrey only needs five votes, right, Yeah.
But the problem is then McCarthy bring this to the floor, and he never will. Macarthy will never do anything that gets all these Democratic votes. This is what got Bayner in trouble, right, Like we had the votes to solve the Dream Act problem, you know, fifteen years ago, but Bayner wouldn't bring it to the floor because there was a majority of his conference that wouldn't vote for it. So there are the votes there, Sure, you only need all the Democrats plus five, but there's no practical way
you know, to getting there. I do think also just on the optimistic side of this, like the Democrats really can use this, I think as a political winner. You got to remember, like the shutting down of the government and stuff in the Obama era did not accrue to the Republican's benefit. Right, There's a lot of popular stuff in the kind of stupidly named in Fleisch and Reduction Act.
There's a lot of popular particulars in there that, like the Republicans are trying to gut now, that I think really can be used against them, right.
Right, for sure? For sure, Yeah, I think that's right. So let me ask you, I mean, what is the thing that's keeping you up right now?
The main thing that keeps me up at night is just a too late to fix anything about it. Biden health issue. And you know, God love him. I'm as pro Biden as about anybody in the never Trump or Caucus. Maybe not JVL, who's like, you know, kind of bordering into Biden cult territory.
But well, JVL and Biden are basically very similar.
Yeah, right, Catholic, you know, institutionalists. So there's a lot of things I like about Biden. There's some things that I don't love, but I think that he's done a great job. I think he's exceeded my expectations. So it isn't anything about his performance. It's just, you know, God, if we're heading down, I just I feel like we're in this in the horror movie. We're like, you can see what's going to happen, you know, you can see where ghost Face is gonna is gonna sneak in the window.
And it's like Trump ends up winning a primary, he's losing, he's not popular, and we get into fall of next year and something happens, whatever it is. Anyone at any age can have a health event, but obviously the risks are much higher at Biden's age, and you know, we go into a chaos situation, and like that is that's the main thing that keeps me up at night. I just I would feel, actually, especially after the midterms, pretty damn confident about all this if Biden was sixty two.
But he's not. That's just a risk we have to live with. And again, in a different world where Asa Hutchinson was the other candidate, it's kind of like, okay, well whatever, like this isn't this you know, like the light that the fate of democracy is not on the line here, but it is.
Right, Asa Hutchinson isn't going to be overturning democracy. But good point.
So that's what keeps me up at night.
Yeah, that keeps me up at night too. All right, good, we can be anxious together. Thank you. Great.
I love anxiety. Thank you. We'll see you next Thursday, New York City. Baby.
Roy Wood Junior is a stand up comedian and a daily show correspondent Welcome Too Fast Politics, Roy.
Would Junior, Hello, how are you doing.
I'm good. I'm excited to have you. You are one of the few people who has survived White House Correspondence Dinner.
I think we all survive. It's just a matter of the degree of criticism.
No, but you what came out of that really having done an incredible job, And I would say that, you know, more than more than a few people have seen their career go up in flames because of that.
I think there's definitely been comedians that have come out of it with varying degrees of criticism, you know, publicly for what joke you should or shouldn't do, you know, And even I got a little bit of that because of the school shooting joke. So I don't think any comedians immune to it to any degree. But I'm very thankful that most everything we wrote was received with the intention that we had hoped to be. Yeah, you know,
in terms of just the intention of the joke. Okay, well, did you say Kamala does nothing or did you use sexism to point out that that's why that question is even being proposed in the first.
Place, right, I mean, it is not the easiest time to be a comedian, No.
To be a comedian who also wants access to mainstream media and opportunities. Yeah, it's probably some new guardrails that are up. But like the idea that you cannot go do fifty cities right now and sell a thousand seats in each city, or even three hundred and four hundred seats, which is a completely acceptable living, that still remains, that never left. That part of it, I think is still there. Once you find your audience and find the people who
love you, everything else is just extra gravy. And I think the parameters upon which you can now is a terrible analogy. The parameters upon which you can now collect extra gravy as a performer, that's different.
For sure.
You know, you can say the wrong thing and they can get you fired from a TV show or get you pulled off of a late night show, which helps to drive your live ticket sales. So there definitely is a cause and effect to speaking your mind. But you know, it's just just in my experience in the comedians that I know, even the most canceled and most hated of comedians, they never stopped doing forty cities.
Interesting. I wanted to ask you, we both have parents in the business, so to speak. Yes, many call me a Nefo baby, though I think when you're forty four, I'm a nepo oldie. But I wanted to ask you. Your father has this really cool legacy of being a broadcaster and covering a lot of you know, important historic events, and I was hoping you could talk about that.
Yeah, I mean pretty much anywhere black people were getting beat up, he showed up with a tape recorder to tell the story. Like, that's probably the simplest summation of my father's time, you know, within journalism. You know, he at the time was working at WVO INN in Chicago, the Voice of the Negro. He volunteered to go with Chicago based Vietnam platoons to be embedded with you know, they were coming back and telling the stories of how racist it was over there and how they were getting
mistreated by the American militaristic leadership over there. You know, there was you know, the black units were sent in first to be eradicated by the viet Cong and then the white unit would come in and kick ass and clean up. You know, it's saying they would take all the credit. And so you know, my dad was there to cover that. He went to Zimbabwe Rhodije at the time during their civil war, took sniper fire there, took sniper fire in Soweto, covering the riots in South Africa,
and of course the old civil rights movement. Lots of bullets, dog bites flying there. My father was there for that as well. Somewhere in the middle of all of that. He still had a couple of kids, raised her family and also did a jazz show, right, just also jazz music. It wasn't all chaos.
I want to ask you though, growing up in a house like that, and I mean I had similar My grandfather was more involved in civil rights, my mother was more involved in whatever that was. Do you feel a sort of like that this larger mission that your parents had was relevant to you or no?
From the beginning, my father always did news commentary, a weekly news commentary like a black angry Andy Rooney, but about race. You know. He did a weekly news commentary show. He took calls, he talked to the people in the streets. And there are a lot of times, especially during the summer, where I would just sit in a radio station with him. I'm drawing and just doing kid stuff, and he would just be going off about what's going on in this world.
And here's where you need to keep your eyes open. So you know, that type of stuff eventually seeps in. It's inevitable. And then when I got I remember when I got my learners permit when I was fifteen, and my dad made me start driving him everywhere to speaking engagements on the weekend. So I would go with him to churches and community centers just around this, you know, anything three hours or less. We would immediately just I
would just he would be swarm by people. Brotherwood, what you said about that thing?
Man keep doing?
And then I was sitting in the back of the church and just watch my dad just lay fire into America for an hour. And we get back in the car and stop at rallies for a Burger on the way home. I definitely didn't step into that into my thirties though. I went to journalism because I wanted to do sports. I didn't think that I at that side of me in me.
Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean, it's funny because it is to have people like that who are public facing and then you have this completely different private experience of them.
Yeah. Yeah, it definitely is odd in that way. But you know, for who my father was on the microphone, he definitely was that off the microphone in terms of what he believed and what he stood for. You know, traveled a lot, I got a lot of have siblings, so I probably didn't get as much of the full father experience, but I definitely got the full him as a businessman and a journalist experience that I for sure got.
Tell me a little bit about how you sort of set about these White House Correspondents jokes and more. Who did you take with you to write, and how did you decide and what were your sort of in your mind the possible pitfalls.
The only pitfall that I really was thinking about was being misunderstood. I'm okay with somebody not laughing at a joke.
I don't care. That's part of the game. But if you think I meant one thing, and then you take that and you make it seem like I meant the other, how can we change the verbiage of everything so it fits better, you know, like in that regard like That's something that I for sure was very paranoid about, you know, myself and my writers, my head writer Christiana and Bakoway Medina, who's a former Daily Show writers just how we connected.
Christiana and I. We spoke about trying to figure out how to construct the set in a way where it introduces you to me as a performer, gets you to trust me, and then gain the equity to go at the president and the vice president all in six minutes, because I have I was given fifteen. I ended up doing about twenty twenty five, I think. But that first five minutes is so pivotal to the entirety of the performance.
I've to introduced myself. I have to get you to trust me, which means I need you to make me laugh. Then the next two jokes that I do have to also be funny, but strategic and edgy so that we can establish the guardrails. That's why the school shooting joke is so high up in the set. And if you notice there isn't a groner joke after that. There's jokes people may not laugh at, but.
In terms of oh wow, would you do that?
There's no other jokes like that. But I have to give you the groaner just to know I have that in my back pocket if I want to use it.
Can you talk to me a little bit about the vice president. I actually was on Bacari Seller's podcast today and I we were talking about her and just I mean, I've long believed that she is having the experience on a much larger scale than a lot of black women have, and that she's just working twice as hard, and I'm just curious, like she's such a meaningful elected in my mind, and I'm curious, like if that wait on you and just to talk about that a little bit.
Yeah, I mean, so then to the point of being misunderstood, right right, that was a joke that I wanted to make sure that we didn't misstep on because the first thing I have to do, I cannot avoid what people have been saying. People say the president is old. I have to have jokes on that. People say, Kamala doesn't do anything, I have to address that. But rather than just solely make jokes about it, I found it more interesting to continue following the thread like a journalist into why, well,
why do people feel that way? Well, what has she done? Has she done anything? Okay, Well, let's find a joke or two that serves that, and then let's get into what she's done. Make jokes off of the policy, and then why Oh I bet it's because she's a woman and she's black. Oh wow, would you look at there, she's actually done stuff. Well, why are people talking about that stuff? Okay, well, then let's combine that blind spot with the feminism, I mean with the sexism, and then
there's your joke. So then on the other side of that, the hope is that you understand that, Yeah, I made a joke about her not doing nothing, but let's also acknowledge that a lot of why y'all are even posing that question is because she's a woman.
Yeah.
And by the way, mister president, great job on being a vice president.
I mean I also think like that that job is the job where if you're doing it too hard, then everyone's mad at you if you I mean, like you know, your base, your job is understudy. I mean, that's never going to be something that makes people happy.
Yeah, there's going to be people who are going to take that, you know. And there were people that said I attacked her, and then there were a couple of articles that came out that said that I defended her and you know, stood up for the vice president and saying that a lot of it is sexism. You know, some people, you can't Whether you agree with me is separate and apart from whether or not you understood. Everybody understood. Now you can disagree or not agree. I don't care.
I'm not going to get into no back and forth and I'm not going to be doing a bunch of interviews explaining no jokes. If you're that stupid that I just got to leave you out there and stupid land and then with my next comedy special, then I have more time to play the game with a little more nuance.
Talk to me about your show, what you're touring with right now?
Yeah, right now? I mean, you know what's funny about this tour. They're happy to be here tour. What's interesting about it is that I think that a lot of people believe that who don't know my comedy. And here's the double edged sword of it all. Because you don't know my comedy, I have to introduce you to how I see the world within the Correspondence dinner. But within the Correspondence dinner, you have to take shots at people specifically I have to say Tucker Craus and I have
to say Don Lemon. But in my actual stand up, I'm more of an issue driven person than I've ever been a particular person. Like I don't call out people by name on a regular basis. That's not my thing. That's not what I do. I will call out gun control, I will call out women's rights. So you know, I think on tour it'll be a lot more leaning towards that.
But you know, I just have fun talking about the nonsensical and the weird stuff, you know, Like I actually feel bad for Donald Trump, Like this dude doesn't have everybody he's snitched on him. Not a single person has not taken a deal. Right, anybody that's been arrested for dealing with Trump is singing, And that's sad. You're supposed to have at least one friend because people go, oh, Donald Trump, he's he's like a rapper, Not exactly. Rappers have people who don't snitch on them.
I mean, yeah, but Donald Trump is probably going to be the nominee in twenty four.
And I'm sure he'll run a great camp from prison.
Who do you think is vice president is going to be?
I think Tim Scott?
Oh wow?
You know Tim Scott tried to get a police reform bill passed that checked a lot of boxes that were very similar to the George Floyd Policing Act that the Democrats were trying to get through a while, you know,
a few years ago, and it got filibustered. So the issue becomes, though, how do you have a vice president that's backing police reform coupled with a president who we know is going to say we got to get tough on crime, and we got to evict all the all the Mexicans, and we got to deport all the herbs.
And you know, has your life changed since that White House Correspondent? Since you killed it at the White House Correspondent?
I got a DM from a really nice furniture company. If you asked me if I wanted an end table, and it's changed for a Social posts.
Most expensive ending.
It was a really nice end table. But I'm like, I'm not a furniture influencer. That also means I have to show you the rest of my house.
Yeah, that's right, I mean spu con. You know, we once got it when we were doing with this podcast. We sometimes get like the if we do an ad for someone, they'll send us the free staff.
Yeah, like every time then you get something like Okay, yeah, that's nice. I promote that else.
So I want to ask you now, I mean, what's sort of the future for you? Now?
You know for me? You know, we just have to wait and see what happens on the other side of the writer's strike with regards to the Daily Show. But I am if it's two things I definitely had fun doing in the last month. It's guest hosting the Daily Show and doing the correspondent to Dinner, because those were two different opportunities for me to explore the things that I I'm curious about talking about and that was very, very intriguing to me and I had a very good time.
How long do you think this takes?
I do not know, and I'm not even going to remotely try to speculate on that. I just know that no matter what. On the other side of this, we got to have a system where writers are paid fairly, you know, and studios are open about who's watching what and where the money's coming in from, so we can split the pot properly. You know, this isn't about people wanting to bankrupt the studio. They're just tired of living one paycheck away from bankruptcy themselves. And you know, I
think that no matter what. On the other side of it, Late Night is going to change as well, you know, and I think economics are going to change, because if you have to pay more money to the talent, then you're going to want to make your shows more cheaply. So you know, we might be this might be the end of the era I call it the shiny floor shows, right, you know, the shiny floor and then the big band and all of that. You know, But what does political
satire look like? Because there will always be Americans who have a desire to laugh and a desire to make sense of a lot of the bs that's going on in the world. So you know, I want to be somewhere in the chair, you know, quarterback in that.
Yeah, thank you so much for joining us. Oh, thank you. Hi. It's Mollie and I am wildly excited that for the first time, Fast Politics, the show you're listening to right now, is going to have merch for sale over at shop dot fastpoliticspod dot com. You can now buy shirts, hats, hoodies, and toe bags with our incredible designs. We've heard your cries to spread the word about our podcast and get a tow bag with my adorable Leah the Rescue Puppy on it. And now you can grab this merchandise only
at shop dot fastpoliticspod dot com. Thanks for your support. Karen Tumulty is a deputy opinion editor at The Washington Post. Welcome to Fast Politics, Karen. It's so great to be here. We're delighted to have you. I wanted to talk to you about the debt ceiling fiasco. It feels like, I mean, I know this is not the first time Washington has found itself here, but it does seem like the scariest.
Oh, absolutely, because I think it's it's kind of an entirely different mindset in the House of Representatives than we have ever seen before. And the margins for Kevin McCarthy, even if he were a sort of the shrewdest legislative tactician ever, which he isn't, it would be just a lot harder for him. But I mean, there are a lot of people in the House who believe that they were elected to burn the place down.
Yeah, so let's talk about that for a second, because I think that's really important, this idea that they were elected to burn the place down, because I do think that we haven't seen that phenomenon in a while.
And also that these are you know, after we saw that kind of marathon of votes that it took for Kevin McCarthy to become the speaker. I mean, you look at the final holdouts that people he literally owes to speakership are of the again, you know, the we need to use this to get all the leverage we can. And of course, as it's become almost a cliche to have to explain to people, no, this is not the debt ceiling vote is not about controlling spending in the future.
It's just about paying your bills from the past, right.
Yeah. I mean that I think is a real problem, and I mean that seems like a failure of democratic messaging, right, Like Republicans don't do this to Republican presidents. Well, that's for sure.
And also I think it's just kind of ay even as a political issue, it's a fake. My colleague Paul Kane did a terrific piece over the weekend where he looked back at the dead ceiling. Quote, it's not anything that ever comes up against people during election season. This is not a it should not be a hard vote, right.
No, exactly. I mean again, this is not the time you negotiate a budget when you've already spent the money.
Well, the other thing is, there is actually a budget process in Congress that they ceased to follow starting about a decade ago. In fact, has not actually passed a budget resolution since I think twenty sixteen. I mean, they don't even use the processes that they have. They don't pass appropriations bills the way they are supposed to. They just kind of ball it up in a big hair ball at the end. They don't even use the tools that they have had since the early nineteen seventies to
bring spending under control. They just love to have these kind of near death experiences.
So I want to ask you, because I'm thinking of a lot about Nikki Haley's ill fated presidential run. I mean, I guess we can't call it ill fated yet, but it certainly does seem like she's not the things are not you know what I mean? Is she polling even as well as Mike Pence.
It is sort of hard to see what at this point at least what the natural Nicky Haley constituency is. But you know, there may come a time during this campaign season, is during this primary season, where she has a moment.
Right, No, it's true, but I wanted to ask you about this because one of those central things she has focused on is the national debt, which is fascinating because that is something that almost no one else has had any interest in and has really fallen out of fashion on the right and on the left. So I you know, I try not to two sides, but on this one, nobody is pro paying down the debt except Nikki Haley. So I mean, I just it seems so antiquated when
she brings it up. But that is ultimately what these House Republicans, that is their whole argument here, right.
Yeah, And look, this is a real issue. The debt as a percentage of our gross domestic product is huge, and you know, it is something that we are going to need to grapple with if you know, we want to assure the not only the future, but the present, and also if we want there to be room for investments for things like dealing with climate change. And there are, by the way, some pretty obvious things to do about it, starting with somehow bringing in title and spending under control.
But you start talking about that kind of stuff off and you know, everybody were uns.
We could also cut the military. I mean, you know, I'm just saying we're going to do things that make people crazy.
Military spending though right now is as a percentage of economy is a pretty low percentage in historical terms. Plus we've got the fact that you know, we're essentially trying to help Ukraine fight World War one in Europe and facing the prospect of World War three in China.
In China, yeah, no, I mean, it's definitely a real problem. Though. I still, you know, like with so many things, like with medicare, you could fix a lot of those by fixing immigration.
Well, that's true, and that, you know, used to be something that the Republican Party was very much in favor of. I guess I'm showing my age.
Right, I mean, I just wrote a big piece on no fault Divorces comes out I guess today or tomorrow, and in it I talked about how, you know, the person who brought no fault divorces into being, which was a very fast, you know, ultimately a very feminist thing that prevented you know, a huge number of female suicides and caught you know, was very much a good, a good for women, was a certain divorce a named Ronald Reagan.
That is exactly correct, And in fact, I deal with that just a bit in my biography of Nancy Reagan. That in the day when in the late nineteen forties, when Ronald Reagan was getting divorced from Jane Wyman, the grounds that people would cite was something called mental cruelty, and it really always bothered Reagan. I mean justifiably that you know, mental cruelty was you know, part of his record. So that is true.
Yeah, I mean, we see really in the many ways in which the right has moved in a strange way, there's just been such a sea change in the Republican Party in ways that are trump that are things that the differences between w and Reagan. I mean, it's just it's very interesting to say.
Well, it's really part even to define anywhere what conservatism is, because for Donald Trump, that seems like conservatism is and patriotism are more a tone of voice than they are a set of principles.
Do you think that's because Donald Trump was so charismatic And again this is not an endorsement in any way important to mention this, but he had this sort of political charisma that Republican politician hasn't had in a long time. And because he was so undisciplined and ultimately was very nihilistic, that was sort of he sort of abandoned all of the kind of pretensive principle.
Well, I think he was just an incredible brander, right, I think that, you know, one of the most important things to know about Donald Trump was that he actually we trademark the phrase make America Great Again. Six days after the twenty twelve election, Mitt Romney had just surprised
a lot of Republicans by losing. The Republican Party is embarking on this, you know now infamous autopsy where they were saying, oh, you know, in the future, we are just going to have to appeal more to women and to young people and diversity, and there is a guy sitting there on Sith Avenue calling up the Patent and Trademark Office. You can actually look this up and trademarking the phrase make America great again. And he trademarks it even in those block letters that you see on the hats.
I mean, he sort of saw something, He saw an opening in the kind of aggrieved Republican base and a lot of other people that I think nobody else saw.
Yeah, it's pretty incredible and it's funny because right that, make America great again is his phrase?
Well, that's at one point I was interviewing him that it and I pointed out that Reagan had also used make America great again.
And didn't Lindbergh use it to that was America first? Oh, America first? Right? Right's right?
Yeah, Well I pointed out to Trump that Reagan had also used make America great again. He said, yes, that he didn't trademark it.
Jesus. Yeah, well there you go. I mean that is, you know, one of the things as we continue on this, I was watching that deposition video from the Eugene Carol case. When you watch Trump during that deposition, you see a different Trump. You don't see the campaign Trump you see the kind of uh, I want to say, smug and self satisfied Trump that I thought was pretty interesting that you could be deposed for a civil case and to sort of have no remorse and not even pretend to.
That that is also part of his immo. I mean he doesn't have remorse. I mean he just sort of keeps going, and in doing so, he has violated basically everything that we used to think, you know, all the laws of political gravity. But I think you see that a lot. You know, you see that now in a lot of the generation of politicians that trump Ism has spawned. I mean you see the same thing in a Marjorie Taylor Green or Lauren Bobert. It's just like, never apologize, just keep going.
So here's my question, and this is not this is a question and nothing else. Does it work for them?
Well, I think that as long as they are appealing to a hardcore base, if that is all they need, if that is all that it takes, say, to get you elected in Marjorie Taylor Green's district, yeah you can keep going. But the thing about Trump is what he has not done is expand his reach. So you think that as a political model at some point this has to collapse, and it did collapse in twenty twenty.
Again, they won't acknowledge that, but I mean, you.
Know, the Republican Party has only won the popular vote in a presidential election once since nineteen eighty eight.
Yeah, it's interesting, Like, if you think about it, we're likely going to have Trump be the Republican nominee. I mean, unless something happens. We now have seen that indict being indicted is certainly not disqualifying to the Republican base. I think that's a fair thing to say. I mean, don't you Gray, Oh.
Yeah, this has become not a Shae, It's become a stigmata, right exactly.
I mean, so terrifying to think of it as a stigmata. But you're absolutely right. So if that is not disqualifying, then it seems that even the promise of more indictments will not necessarily change the calculus for Donald Trump.
I am one of the you know, and again this has sort of become conventional wisdom, but I think that, you know, the indictment that we have seen thus far, you know, is not the strongest case, right that could be you know, set against him. Potentially the Justice Department could come up with something more serious, but it is not going to matter to his supporters, who are not a majority and not even close to her majority, and you know, is a smaller kernel of the electorate than it has ever been.
Probably, Yeah, I mean the thing that I'm struck by is just how you know, if you were to just take a clear eye and look at Republican performance under Trump, right, you would see that they continue to underperform with Trump as the leader of the party. That twenty sixteen was an anathema, I think that's the right word or whatever it is. You know, something that was completely unexpected, but that since then they've tried to do, you capture that and have been unable.
I think that is true. And so you know what we're seeing though, is they are nonetheless sort of increasing their leverage and their use of the tools within the political system. You look at these state legislatures where you know Republicans and twenty eight state legislatures now have super majorities, meaning they can you know, do whatever they want to override a governor's beach show. And of those twenty eight,
all but nine are Republicans. So you see, you know, they are taking what are in their states and the minority positions on issues like guns and abortion, but they are nonetheless forging ahead.
I was talking to someone yesterday about Antiu Cuomo, who, in one of the worst moments in my career, was focused around my worst pieces I've ever written that I continue to apologize for that at the do you know, years and years later was about him. But I just
want to, you know, with with Andrew Cuomo. You know, here was someone who had a real Republican attitude for fighting dirty and he even he, you know, couldn't get the partisan redistricting the way you know a Republican might have, and it ended up being the reason that Democrats lost the House.
Well, it's also they overreached and the court struck them down. I mean, and you know that is also part of our system that we should be grateful still exists in some place.
Right, I mean, not anywhere where it would, you know, not anywhere read But it is interesting And one of the things I wanted to ask you about is that in Mississippi, a good friend of this podcast, James Carville, who comes on here a lot, it's pretty excited about this governor's race in Mississippi with a candidate called Presley, who was related to the Elvis Presley, and he thinks that there's a world in which Democrats could take back
Mississippi as they did with I mean and Kansas. I mean, does this seem like a pipe dream to you?
I will believe it when I see it. And the one thing I think that is true is that the Democrats are going to have to get a lot more skilled and aggressive at their ground game, at things like voter registration, voter mobilization, you know, the kinds of things that we saw happen in Georgia are going to happen elsewhere. You're going to need more than just a charismatic, appealing candidate.
And I do think that in a lot of places the Democrats have really neglected that they hadn't put the money in, they haven't put other resources in, they haven't paid the kind of attention to that stuff. But if you don't have you know, people registered, and if you don't have assurances that they're actually going to vote, it doesn't matter.
Right, It's certainly true, and I think you're You're totally right. So what is I'm going to ask you the last question here, which is what is the thing that is keeping you up at night.
Oh boy, so many things, honestly, and just afraid of the kind. And again, I mean November of twenty twenty four is a long long way away still, but there are just so many ways for people to get in and mess with the system, and you don't find out about it until it's too late.
Yeah, yeah, all right, that'll keep me up tonight. Thank you, Karen. I hope you'll come back.
I'd love to thank you so much for having me.
No moment Thick Jesse Cannon Eye junk Fast. There are some big news in a trial that you were mentioned in. Yeah, I try to stay out of trials, but somehow you're not doing a good job. We not doing a very good job. Turns out that lawyer ROBERTA. Capwin you may know her from arguing the Defensive Marriage Act. She's a pretty good lawyer, perhaps a better lawyer than Donald Trumps mafia lawyer Joe Takapina. Either way, Egen Carol has won her case against Donald Trump to the tune of five
million dollars. Again, anyone knows. I'm sure that Donald Trump will try desperately to not pay it, but she did it. She wins five million dollars. Congratulations to Egen, Carol, and to ROBERTA. Kaplan. It's not fuckery, it's just great. Congratulations. Guys. 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.