Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And Governor Pritzker says, in any other country, if federal agents fired upon journalists and protesters when unprovoked, what would we call it? If federal agents march down busy streets, harassing civilians and demanding their papers, what would we say? I don't think we'd have any trouble calling
it what it is, authoritarianism. We have such a great show for you today, The Majority Report, Sam Cedar stops by to talk all things government Shutdown. Then we'll talk to the CEO of the Onion, Ben Collins, about how Trump's retribution shut down his new mockumentary Jeffrey Epstein Bad Pedophile. But first the news.
So Moley, the grift is coming from inside the house. A camera woman captured Scott Besen texting exposing the mystery we've all been wondered about. Why the fuck are we giving Argentina all this money?
Why are we giving Argentina all this money?
I think you should read what it's set it in the little text message from the Agriculture Sky Secretary.
So here's the text message She's worried China has outmaneuvered the US by buying up Argentine soybeans at the expense of our farmers, even as the administration plans to bail out Argentina with billions of dollars. What's nice about this administration is that everything is so stupid.
Yeah, So Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rowins was texting and basically saying, this is a real bad, bad, bad idea for our ecotomy.
Yes, and you'll be shocked to hear, but she's right. She is very much right, very very much right. Look how Scott Bessant got photographed, How this text got for I mean, there's just so much stupid to unpack here Scott betch than texting photographs of it. I mean, just all bad and nutty. And also why and again, why are we bailing out Argentina? Why someone explained to me why we're bailing at Argentina.
Because what we've voted for was for these people to be grifting as much as they would like. It's the freedom to grift, is administration.
The freedom to grift, that is correct. So there we are Donald Trump grifting away because he loves freedom, and in this case, the freedom to grift Somalia.
You've explained to listeners before that I have this rule that I don't like to talk about things that are coming up when there's so much things to analyze that have happened. But I've been waiting, like it's Christmas morning for mister Trump and Pete Hegsath to address our military leaders.
Today. It was Christmas of stupid. I got Cole.
All of these top military leaders from around the world, from places like Taiwan, you know, wherever they were stationed. Pete hegg Seth brought everyone back to Quantico, Virginia, and he made this speech that covered a lot of stupid, preparing for war and preparing to win, unrelenting and uncompromising in that pursuit. Not because we want war, No one here wants war, but because we love peace. Like real nineteen eighty four stuff, Got a war so that you
can have peace. Got his strength so you can be weak.
Don't forget the war on woke, Molly.
He spent a lot of time complaining about woke. He spent a lot of time complaining about people being fat.
Ironically, there was somebody there on stage with him.
He cursed well, and then Donald Trump got up there. I mean, what I think is interesting is like, clearly hag Seth wanted to make a political speech. Remember there is a low key succession war going on behind the scenes, and it's like RFK Junior versus Pete hegg Seth versus JD. Van's Like, this is happening because as you know, the more exhausted Donald Trump is as he reads the teleprompter, the more that that crew is all fighting behind the scenes.
So super interesting to watch heg sas decide that he's going to get this speech and then Donald Trump to come in and be like, and I'm speaking too, because remember that was never the plan until pretty recently.
Yeah, but what has been the plan for quite a while is this deploying military members to train in the streets thing. I think this is the more worrisome statement, even if it was poorly worded or something that gets defeated a lot, because it really shows that they're talking about this all the time, and it's not good.
Right, I mean, this is this thing of trying to get the troops in cities. It's not good. It breaks the law that passe Commentita's Act says that you can't just send troops willing Nelly.
It's all bad.
It's all bad, it's all scary, it's all worrying, it's all not what we do in this country, Somali.
We had a lot of fun drops from the Epstein files last week.
Three different ones, and soon we're going to have the great Jason Leopold on to talk about all of this data that they are all of his information about Epstein that they are dropping. There is a ton of information about Epstein. And what's interesting to me is you have the House Oversight Committee that has been really well run by the Great Robert Garcia, friend of the show, friend of mine also, who's done a really good job being
out there getting the information. He got, the birthday book he got, you know, he's subpoenaed stuff, he's gotten it. You Know what's interesting is sometimes when Democrats are doing really well, you don't see it because you just see the information and you don't necessarily understand how you got it. But Robert Garcia is the head of Oversight and he has really done an excellent job, and he took over
for Jerry Connelly. As you know, this is some thing that's gotten got me very upset because I felt that Jerry Connolly was not the right person for the job. So now there is a new candidate that has won in Arizona. Her father was the member of Congress before he died. She has run, she has won. Her name is Adelita Grihava. She's a Democrat from Arizona. She will be the two hundred and eighteen signature on the Epstein Files discharge petition once she's sworn in. You know who
doesn't want to swear her in? Mike Johnson. Mike Johnson doesn't want to swear in because Mike Johnson doesn't want to release the Epstein files. And Representative Catherine Clark, also friend of the show, the number two Democrat in the House.
She's going to come out swinging, which I think is really the right thing in this Any delay in swearing and representative elect necessarily deprives her constituents of representation and calls into question if the motives behind the delay is to further upoid the release of the Epstein files, which why else would why else would Mike Johnson do this? Why else? What would the other reason he would do for not doing this?
There's no other reason Aside from that, they play dirty, which is what I wish there would be even a little bit of effort on Hakeeman Schumer's side would be just give me twenty five percent of the energy that they give.
Please.
Yeah, but it's good that she was out there, and it's good that she was talking about it, and it is for sure, for sure the right thing. But yes, that is true. Sam Cedar is the host of The Majority Report. Sam Cedar, Welcome to Fast.
Politics, Molly, thank you for having me.
Governments get a shut down. Everything's going great.
I am of the opinion that the government has been more or less inoperative for months, short of its fascist wing that they have deployed to Chicago, in LA and the city coming to you Tennessee.
You know, look, there's been.
A lot of ice activity in New York as well, in the Bronx and bedsty and we're just going to get more of that. But in the meantime the other government functions. In fact, this week there's one hundred and fifty four thousand government employees who took the buyout, which is the highest number I think ever on record for a year. They have not been working for months. We've been paying them, they've not been working for months. I mean,
so government shutdowns are bad as a political matter. I think the American public is going to be aware of what is happening in a way that they haven't been aware until now. And part of that is a failure of political leadership from the Democrats too, in my estimation, democratic leadership, I.
Should say, yeah, you know, like I spend a lot of time thinking about how different it was in twenty sixteen than it is now, Like how in twenty sixteen there was a feeling that this is not who we are, and in twenty twenty four there's a feeling this is exactly who we are, right Like.
Yeah, I mean I think that feeling is also a function of like where you and I might sit in society. I mean I had conversations I remember, explicitly, you know, having conversations with black people, brown people who are like not surprised at all, this is exactly who we are. But yes, I think that there was a much bigger
surprise element. The other big factor, frankly, was the courts did not have two hundred and fifty Trump appointees in twenty sixteen, and Russell Vote had not had four years to figure out how to do this in a way that would would be more expedient, and then I would say there was far greater unity now the Republican Party, you know, the last vestiges of what the Republican Party were killed off, so there was no pretending anymore.
And they were in Bolden.
Because they were let back in. So all those things are different. It's a very different environment, I think. On the Democratic side, I think there is also a different environment because there is a I think, at least amongst like people, not so much necessarily the political class, awareness of their political late leaders failing to meet the moment. I really do think that's out there. I mean, you see it in the polling. Democrats are a poll worse than Republicans, you know, even.
Though it's all slightly better but still not well.
Okay, I mean slightly better. I mean, I think these people are still going to vote for Democrats largely, but the dissatisfaction with Democrats between the dissatisfaction Democrats in twenty sixteen and Democrats now, it's more Democrats who are dissatisfied with the Democratic Party, and that I think is is much more pronounced.
I mean, there are a number of really bad things happening at once. But it does feel as if there's also a sort of tea party movement in the Democratic Party.
Yeah, but if you're saying that there is an insurgency and there's a grassroots like a sort of dissatisfaction, I think that's absolutely true. I think it's necessarily different because of the way that the Democratic Party has viewed its base and populism versus the way that Republicans did. So it's it's, you know, it's gonna be a struggle. It played out in the Harris campaign, I think too, and I think it's you know, it's pretty clear who won
that argument. And I think a lot of what we're seeing now is the tide is turning and it's going to play out. It's gonna get you know, like, look to me if you want to see how this really plays out in.
My mind, Graham Platner, and if Mills jumps in at Mills.
Yeah, if Mills jumps in and she will as the as Chuck Schumer and Christian Gillier Joe Brand's candidate, You're going to see it play out there. And I think that's going to be really an important primary.
Do you think she jumps in, because my sense is that at seventy nine, running for the Senate is kind of I mean, she said she doesn't want to.
Has she I read as like as recently as a week ago that she was leaning towards it.
Okay, so I mean maybe she does. But what I had read lost.
Do I think she wants it?
I imagine she probably wants to retire, But I think she's also getting a lot of pressure from, like I say, the Senate Campaign Committee and Chuck Schumer. I absolutely think it's a huge mistake to run somebody who's going to be seventy nine when they.
Turn into the governorship.
But this is where I think that that dynamic is playing out, where you have Schumer and Jillibrand pushing someone in a desperate attempt to I think, I mean, I don't know what. I don't know how someone a rational person thinks this is a good idea, particularly in this environment, particularly when we lost the last election because we had a candidate who you know, originally was you know, too
old and would not concede that notion. Where we've had we are waiting on releasing the Epstein files to seat a Democrat because we lost three Democrats to death in the past nine months where we watched Dianne Feinstein, and by Diane Feinstein, really we have to say, like her staff essentially keep her in office all the things that we saw in terms of the Supreme Court and whatnot. I don't know if it would have made a difference we had somebody who was sort of you know, aware
of her surroundings at that time. But I mean to not see the abject fallacy of perceiving a candidate to be strong at age seventy nine as they enter into the office, I think is just insane.
It's repeating a mistake the party has recently made. There are just a bunch of different sort of arguments for and against the shutdown, which is we are which by the time people listen to this will be either about to go into it or have just gone into it. There's an argument to be made. I mean, the base, the Democratic base definitely wants a shutdown, and Jeffreys Camp has wanted a shutdown since March, right, I mean, they were for a shutdown in March. So there is an argument.
And it was Schumer who caved in March because of the threats of you know that it will mean more power for the Trump administration. So there's an arguments.
Sensibly right right, public argument was yes, right.
But again so there is an argument to be made that shutting down the government actually elevates the fight about healthcare. But again it's a dangerous gambal because Trump is already saying that it's about healthcare for illegals, and what is true and not true in this post truth world doesn't necessarily matter if enough people believe it. So do you think it's good, do you think it's bad? And where do you come down on.
I think they should have done this. In March, Donald Trump put out a video after Chuck Schumer had come out and said, I think the President has finally heard us. Which it's very nice of Chuck Schumer to say that Donald Trump is a reasonable person and know he is listening, and remind everybody how they were locked out of the White House and only we're allowed in at Trump's behest. I mean, it is horrible, horrible politics. It's in my estimation.
But moments after, not moments an hour after Chuck Schumer said that, Donald Trump posted an AI version of Chuck Schumer and Hakim Jeffries. Jakim Jeffries was in a sombrero with a you know, a cartoonish mustache. There was Mexican music playing, and Chuck Schimer was saying yes.
And not to put too fine a point on it.
And Chuck Schumer was ai generated saying, you know, everybody hates us, and we want illegals to come in the country because they're going to ultimately vote for us. My point being that we didn't need a government shutdown, We didn't need to give a trumpet an excuse he went
and did that. That is the new reality to operate at this moment because you are afraid of how the Trump administration is going to lie about you, or the Republicans in the House are going to rely a lie about you, and to operate in such a way that, like, if we power enough then maybe they won't notice we're
here is absurd. The reason why Chuck Schumer is doing this, the reason why Chuck Schumer would not want to shut down the government is because there is a belief in democratic leadership that if we don't do anything, if we just make people think that we don't exist, then the midterms will be exclusively a referendum on Trump, and that's what we need to win, and it is it could work, certainly,
like in a secular cycle environment, it should work. There are headwinds in so far as like there's going to be redistricting.
It didn't work in twenty twenty four.
It did not work in twenty twenty four, not at all. And if you're relying on people to be aware of what Donald Trump is doing and why it's bad, you nibble around the edges, like you make the issue not extending Obamacare like.
Really is that? Like is that really that some total of like is that even now?
That may be part of it, but like the idea that the Democrats don't have to take a position on anything is a total fallacy. It is like the the vacuum that they leave allows the Republicans to run roughshot over them. And the it is astonishing to me that like, Okay, Donald Trump is completely lying about you. The JD Vance is out there, He's completely lying about what you're even holding out for. How do you walk up to those
microphones in that press conference right right? Just as a political matter, the only time that you are guaranteed to have the news cover what you say broadly speaking, is when you walk out of that meeting with the president, and so you get up there and you don't say, well, we're we're about extensions on Obamacare and recision and pocket recision. Nobody knows what that means. I mean, you and I know what that means. But we do this professionally. You
get up there and you go. Donald Trump has been cutting services for people illegally. Donald Trump wants to raise your insurance rates. We want to stop that, and we're not going to sign on to this unless he agrees to it. Donald Trump is destroying farmers with tariffs.
We want to stop that.
You and I know that has nothing to do with the budget, but you could restore Congress's ability to shut down the tariffs. And you know what they're lying, Wake up and smell the effing coffee. It is example after example after example of the failure of democratic leadership to understand this moment. They may win by pretending they don't exist. I don't know where they go from there. Frankly, it's probably you know, I mean, we saw what happens when
you do that. I mean, that's what Kama Harris ran on, like no change, But I think that's leaving a lot up to chance. Frankly, you need to have a message, and I cannot tell you what the Democratic message is because they have explicitly avoided having one. No, I mean you can read you can read Carvel from February. Don't do anything is what he said, and they are following that to a t.
So it was a really good piece in the New York Times opinion section yesterday about the idea that there's a class war coming to the Democratic Party that I'm not sure did you read that piece.
I haven't read that piece, but I that would not surprise me.
The story about how you either run as populous or you basically give up. I mean, that's essentially what that. There is a populist lane, and it's available. Almost nothing else is available.
Really, what I mean, what else you tell me, like even like even as a like Kama Harris ran as, I am republican friendly at least you know Cheney style republicanism, which it didn't work.
That did not work.
No, there are not a lot of white women who loveless Cheney who have decided they're going to vote for Democrats.
It's it's even worse than that. What they did is they basically said, Donald Trump is not part of the establishment, right because we have the establisher right here. We are the Republicans and the Democrats. He's somewhere out he's like a third party.
And that made him a little more like that's great. I mean, Donald trumple's running on as a change candidate and as an outsider. And Kamala Harris went around the country and said he's an outsider and he's going to bring change and we're not.
But as a I mean, what is the other option?
I mean, first of all, aside from the fact that we desperately need that, because if you look at like all the economic indicators, and this is why I think the Biden administration got caught up the economic industry indicators on you know, like top line paper. I think things
are going to start to look worse soon. But the reason why they're maintaining is because we have such incredible wealth and equality in this country that literally twenty percent of the people are scaffolding all of these economic numbers. And it does not tell us the story. These economic indicators do not tell us the story that they used to tell us thirty years ago or forty years ago.
Because we have such incredible wealth inequality. Now that a concentrated group of people can support what looks like good economic indications while eighty percent of the population suffers. You need to address this. We need a popular economic populism without a doubt. What fascinates me about the only thing that's attempted to rival it is this sort of like amorphous abundance agenda, which is, you know, backed by open AI people. They've done the hundred wait.
Wait, wait wait, I want you to do this because Jesse is obsessed with this. I think it needs a little more of an explainer. So there's a lane in the Democratic Party that's populism, and that's Mondnnie, that's AOC, that's Bernie, that's people who actually breaks her. And then there's this other Murphy.
We should say, like Murphy's trying to get into this, Yes, Murphy, you know, I think like even Van Holland is starting to get there.
I mean, look, that's where it's that's where it's going. It's so right, like.
It has to in our house. We don't say van who, we say van Holland, right, right, But I want you to talk about this sort of highly astro turf abundance agenda.
There was a real concern that, you know, and I had my problems with the Biden administration, particularly in the context of Gaza and Israel. As it turns out, probably the majority of the country did too. But be that as it may, the Biden administ administration was full of people who were pro labor and full of people who were anti concentrations of wealth that manifested itself in the you know, anti trust and whatnot.
It's like Lena Khan.
Lena Khan, Jonathan Canter at the DOJ others, you know, sort of like Warrenites and sand to Rights. In many respects, in those two areas there was a Kamala Harris represented an opportunity for people who don't like those agendas to you know who whose business is a function of weakening labor standards or concentrate of wealth i e. Big tech, largely gig economy.
You know.
Her brother in law famously was like one of the council.
For uber Tony.
She had I can't remember her name now, woman who worked with her on her debate prep was literally representing Google in the anti trust site that the US government was bringing.
So lots of sense corporations are people too.
Corporations are people too. Mark Cuban's coming in as a spokesperson say we're gonna get rid of this anti trust stuff, but they had no sort of like movement behind it. And simultaneously, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson were compiling essays that they'd written over the years, some of which, as her clients, were largely about local housing regulations to build more housing. Derek's were He had a big piece about why grants weren't given to scientists.
And they needed to stitch it together.
And if you've read the book, which I have, the idea that the anti tax movement that spurred that inhibited government research can be tied together with local housing projects or environmental policies that inhibited growth supposedly is a big stretch, but they needed to do it for the book, and I think they thought like, Okay, this is going to be sort of like, you know, biting around the margins of a second Biden term. But Harris came in. It gave an opportunity for these people to come in and
maybe get a hold of this administration. The tech people wanted to promote the book. They put one hundred and twenty million dollars behind an abundance thing. You can google it. They decided to do it. I think it was like a couple months ago. It was like a you know, under the abundance rubric, and I think it became an attempt to create a counter movement. But there's no constituency
for this movement. And the idea that like we need to get rid of housing regulations for public housing that is too precious about asthma, you know, filters when housing is built near a highway to you know, prevent asthma. I mean, I'm sure there are housing regulations in San Francisco that could use reform, But to make this a broad movement, that's been the only sort of pushback, and
it's unclear, you know. And Ezra just I think got sort of taken apart a little bit by Todd and Hasey Coats this week about saying that we should have candidates that are anti abortion, which is also sort of like a retread, like you can start with progressive populism, you know, some type of economic populism, and then within the context of like more red conservatively socialized states, you can allow for some latitude for these people, but there
needs to be a fundamental why does the Democratic Party exist? The only space for them to do that, it seems to me, is to follow like an FDR for freedoms type of variant, which is, you know, people should have the freedom to live their lives without fear of a health crisis bankrupting them. And people should be able to support themselves with a high, you know, quality job and
not feel like captured by their employers. And we should not have huge amounts of concentrated wealth, which breeds concentrated power. We've seen this, like we just saw four people basically financed Donald Trump's campaign.
So I don't know what the opposite.
I don't know what the alternative is to an economic populism, but it is really things are not going to go back to the way they were. Donald Trump has already eviscerated huge swaths of our government functions, and we're going to have to have a fundamental change in our politics, both as a political matter to get elected in.
My opinion, and as a.
Policy matter slash political matter to get re elected. There's going to have to there's going to have to be real delivering of an economic justice essentially where the other eighty percent of the country gets to participate in what the twenty percent is participating.
In now, Sam Cedar, thank you, Thank.
You, Molly.
Ben Collins is the editor of The Onion and their new movie Jeffrey Epstein Bad Pedophile, is out on October third. Welcome to Fast Politics, Ben Collins.
Thank you for having me, Molly. It's been a very nice time since the last seen him.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Have gotten progressively better in America since I last seenis hurtainly?
Is that true? I don't think that is true. That's that patented onion sarcasm. So you're on to talk about something, but I want, you know, first explain to us what you do and how you do it, because I think our listener's going to be super psyched. So tell us what you do.
Yeah, I'm gonna see you of the Onion. I make sure The Onion still exists, which is a very difficult task considering what it is. We try to find the sentence that kind of everybody's thinking about on a day day basis but can't say out loud for either because they're afraid to say it or because they don't have the vocabulary for it. Certainly there's a lot of people afraid to say it right now, so like business is
booming to that effect. We're very proud to expand into a different realm this week, and I will talk to you about that if possible.
Yeah, But I mean it is very cool that you guys save The Onion from bankruptcy, created this amazing thing that now millions of people read right, millions of people.
Yeah, The Onion in terms of scope and scale is larger than it's ever been. We have we're growing one hundred percent something year over year in terms of social media perssons and stuff. And now we have a physical newspaper again that fifty seven thousand people get mail.
Yeah.
Yeah, So I'm fucking believable someone who all I want is for there to be a real, like thriving media. This is pretty amazing. But now not just satisfied with being one of the very few media outlets that is still alive, you guys have branched out, so talk to me about this.
Yeah.
This week we are releasing a documentary called Jeffrey Epstein, Bad Pedophile tell us More. Yeah, I personally don't think he's good Jeffrey Epstein, but some people can disagree. Wala, do you want to go on a limb here?
No?
Okay, good, I think.
Now tell us why you decided to make this movie.
Yeah. So there's a big hairy deal about this whole thing and how it came about and why it's in weird independent theaters all throughout the country right now. So about now, about eight weeks ago, the staff was sitting around and they were talking about how they wanted to something weird and big, big and different about Jeffrey Epstein. This is around the time that Trump started having super dodgy about it and like start realize that there's something
going on there. There was that probably wasn't gonna go away. So we do let to turn a screw here at the onion when we see the opportunity and this to do it. What we decided to do was put O and n our wonderful flagship YouTube series Union News Network on Hiatus fer Met and have him go whole hog on one specific topic, which is Jeffrey Epstein. So within a couple of days they came up with a script that was unbelievable, incredibly funny, and we're like, just go
at it. Do what you gotta do by whatever you got to buy, they bought, I believe. I remember most alarming. One day I walked in and there was a chainsaw with fake blood all over it. So that's the kind of thing that is in this that is in this documentary. So it's really good, it's really funny, and anyone we showed it to I was like, what can we do?
How can we help?
So we had a national theater chain that was about to air this all throughout the country on October second, which is Thursday, and then Charlie Kirkott shot, which is horrible and a horrific thing to happen. But the immediate reaction of that distributor was, oh, is Donald Trump in this? And by the way, I never actually the pr team around that theater never actually watched the movie. They just asked, is Donald Trump in it? And we're like, yeah, Donald
Trumps in it. But I can't explain this to you. He's in the nineteen ninety five Chicago Bulls in this movie. I can't explain The studio wait, what, yeah, I know you'll see and they said, okay, well we're pulling it. So they pulled the distribution for this thing. So we went from having national distribution for this movie to none because Jeffrey Epstein is friends with Donald Trump, who was
friends with Charlie Kirk. And I just think if we're in a situation in this country where if you can't make fun of the world's biggest pedophile because he was friends with a guy who was friends with the guy, then we have gone further off the deep band in terms of speech problems. Then you would anticipate then the Jimmy Kimmel stuff happened as well, like that was this is all precursor to that. Nowhere near that level. Obviously, nobody made a phone call from the FCC to be like,
don't air this thing. We still decided, like, you know what, We're not gonna can this thing. We're gonna get back on the horse. And we called every independent theater we knew, and within a few days and we told people, if you want to air this thing in your theater, you
can just have it for free. And within a few days we were in I think we're now up to like thirty or forty, maybe fifty, I don't know how many, but we're in many more theaters than we were before, and independent theaters all throughout the country are airing this thing on Thursday night. Most of them are sold outs. We're airing this one from like Droplin, Missouri, to Prince Edward Island, you know, to Manhattan and LA and in Chicago.
It's an event, and I'm very proud of everybody for stepping up, Like indie theaters, indie media throughout the world right now is stepping up when everybody else is really failing.
So why do you think that satire matters? Because we've seen, like we're in this moment where there's been you know, basically a takeover of everything in a way that is kind of shocking. Kimmel was I think meaningful because it showed that people don't want their their freedom of expression taken away, you know. But there are very few sort of lights in the darkness, and I'm thinking about like South Park is another one. Why do you think this
this is happening? And why do you think that you're surviving?
First of all, I think it's happening because of a bunch of billionaires decided it needed to happen. The guy who just took over the did the whole CBS takeover the Ellison family, which just took over CBS fired Stephen Colbert is going to replace it with Barry Weis's fun little anti woke situation. It is also attempting to buy Warner Brothers and is buying TikTok right, one guy.
The richest guy in the world for the second richest guy in the world.
Yeah, the Ellison family, they're all friends and family with Donald Trump. Right. They also own Oracle, which drives and funnels a lot of money to a lot of people in the tech world on the software as a service and business and business side. There so one side, and then you've you know, obviously of the Murdocks. The Murdocks and the are now going to be the second largest
far rights owners of major media companies. There's really not be on the other side, and the people could be on the other side are just making deals because we're in it, by the way, separately, by the way, we are in an AI bubble. And this is like YouTube yesterday. YouTube kind of deal instead of fighting a very easy to win lawsuit with the with the administration, they kind of deal because they're going to need to be in line when the AI bailouts happen in a few months.
Maybe you know, if we're lucky, maybe a few years so because the AI bubble is holding up the United States colomy present. So this moment, yeah, all of these things, you know, this is all out in the open. These this is always George Carlin once said, it's all one big club, and you ain't in it. The good news is independent people and people with hearts and oolts who don't want to be a part of this thing can
still fight back. But you have your podcast. That's why a lot of people out in the world are thriving independent media right now. That's why Jimmy Kimble, who I know to be a very good person who does everything you can to get up and coming comedians onto his shows and supports people who don't have any sort of runway into that industry. He supports those people. That's why
he stood up. It's because he's he has value. And by the way, I just want to make it clear, when you stand up against this guy, it's not just good for the soul, it's not just good for the country. It's good for the bottom line. I wish more people understood this. Yeah, people won't like this shit, what is going on right now. People don't fucking like it. They don't want to be a part of it. And when you stand up to this guy, when you stand for
this administration, people come to you. Jimmy Jimmy kmble of the second high rated show of all time, and this is when he started twenty years ago, Ratings across the board were like ten times what they are now. He's going to be the late night show that survived because of this. We saw this as well here at the Onion.
We had a crossroads moment after the election where we could have, you know, made slice of life jokes all day long about how sandwiches taste funny or whatever, or we could actually, you know, stand up for what this place is. We've written things of the Supreme Court in favor of the first Amount. In the past, we've done all this stuff in fairs of the first Amount, because that's what we are principled about speech. So we didn't take a step back here and say we're not going
to fight. We took a step back here and said we're the only people left, so we may as well give it a shot.
Yeah, that only people laugh, so we might as well give it a shot. I've had that dot like so many times. Yeah, you know, like, haven't you had that thought constantly?
We're standing on the rubble of what our immediate ecosystem used to be, and the only people who don't see it that way are the people who own the rubble. Those people are buying dead platforms, they're buying remnants, and the real influence comes with what's next. I'm not like giving Democrats advice here, I'm just saying, don't fight the last war. The last war's there is a wide open lane into the future to build something on top of
this rubble. You know, we've done this for the last year, and we've had a lot of success in building a We're like Painfleteers. We built a newspaper in twenty four in twenty twenty five that is enormous. We're going to be the We are the I think number eleven or twelve based news paper in the United States right now. It's because people want to support this. People want to support people fighting back and saying funny stuff, joking around and being on the right side here.
People want news. And since almost all the newspapers are gone because they were rolled up by private equity shops, like people actually want what we do.
Yes, there's no question. We are in an environment where, just as in the future there will be like water wars, we are in an information where the best information you can get, the best way to protect your family from all this stuff unfortunately costs money now, which is really really right. I wish somebody would create this publication. But if you were to have a kid right now, you
would be absolutely bombarded with complete fucking bullshit. You would tell your kid, you would tell the parent not to have tail in all for some fucking reason, you would not get your kid vaccinated because you're trusting the government and now and all that is wrong in what elites do in those moments. They are getting their kids vaccinated, they're taking time, but they have better access information because they can pay for it. So now we're kind of
all in this mode. Have to do what we can to give that information that only the elites get, the only the really rich people get while they lie in public, and give them the real information at the at the lower level. And that's what independent media can and should do here. And we have to do a service to people.
I think you're thinking about like RFK who got his kids vacs and ate it but is anti vax right.
Yeah, I'm thinking of all of them, got them cut their kids back, their anti vacus exact. They don't, they don't believe it. They're just selling you stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah, it is kind of amazing that we got here. I mean, I feel like you and I have been doing this for such a long time, Like I knew you at NBC. It does feel like, you know, we are like in the dystopia in a way that I never thought we would be.
I think about this all the time, almost every night we go to bed. Kat and I talked to talk about this all time. Kat, my girlfriends. Kata would zale the lady. You got fucking power bombed by ice a couple of weeks ago. It's horrible for Congress, right for Congress, and you should go. But we talked about all the Times's just like why is it us? Why is it because I'm incumbent on us? Like I'm the joky funny guy, right, so kind of is she? And so kind of are you?
Yeah?
No, all, but we're like the last people who were just like no, I just refuse to accept that this is how I'm going to live for the rest of my life is under the thumb of this shit. I don't want to be that. I want to go home and hang on my fucking cat and I want to yeah, like watch basketball and go to a concert once every two weeks. That's what I wanted. But we have to do this because otherwise you don't have the castball, you don't have the cat, you don't have a concert.
It sucks.
Why is it just us ball?
Well, it's funny because it's like, you know, my grandpa was called him from McCarthy in the House of Non American Activities and refuse to name names. He never struck me as like such a brave guy. I mean I knew him like twenty years later when he was like grand standing in front of people and like this was like the thing he had done, which was like had faded from memory, but it happened. This is the only choice. There's no other choices. I wish there.
Were, so I when I was I grew up in a house of the guy who was in Antifa. Sure there was a guy. It was a despots who went out there and the first thing he did was like, get to ban the study of gender. We have to put trans people out of their misery. We have to kill all the gay people. And then he started going after people based on their religious persuasion, what they looked like. So I were rounding people off the street, people with masks on and fatigues in the middle of the street
used to take him out. And my grandfather was called to service in Antifa, which is called the United States Government right to the to the Western Front, and he ran a pow camp of Nazis and he didn't talk about it. I grew up in a house with my grandparents and my parents and we did all the money,
and he didn't really talk about it. Then he went back home and he worked at a shoe factory and then he retired, and my grandmother was a teacher's aid, and neither of them talked about it because it's fucking horrible. And I remember I had to ask him for a school project about that stevent He's like, I'm not going to talk about it. And many, many many years later, a couple of years ago, Thanksgiving twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen something,
somebody found a bunch of parapherne earlia. They found like maps and all these things, and they found out who's pretty decorated war veteran, and we just didn't know until well after he did it, because when you go into these moments, you are entering such a difficult time that no matter when you're on the other side of it, all that matters is that you survived. I only knew him as like an incredibly kind hearted guy who like
used to bring me bowling and stuff. And we were about to enter this time that we don't talk about.
We're in it.
We're in All I can say is that, and I could, right, yeah, that's all we can do.
It's real dark, and you know, and we don't know how it's gonna go. We don't know that it's gonna I mean, this country, this is who we are, and we've gotten through things like this before and we'll get through it again. But it's it's real dark.
And I don't know how to bring people out of it other than just just like make fun of them.
And we see this with like, you know, the way in which Governor Newsom's Twitter has done really well because he's able to show the absurdity of this situation. I think that is what is missing from a lot of this is and that's what the Onion does so well is and that's what Southburk does was show the absurdity of the situation, because when you're in it, you don't see it.
Yeah, I hope you guys get to go see this movie. Well, it'll be a wider release at some point. But like, we've normalized so much of this that even you know the premise of Jeffrey Epstein, this guy was the world's foremost human trafficker and he was potentially the best friend of the President of the United States who's doing an authorit tarrent take over the United States. And the way we talk about it as it's as if it's just like, you know, another media story, which is a clearly bananas.
What this does, I will say this is the documentary is like, second by second the funniest thing I've seen, like in since like Airplane and I really really mean that.
In the joke, eggs and bits like work independently, but at the end you leave it feeling like I'm easy because of the end of this day, I'm not going to give away like the way we treat this, We treated this like every other weird little scandal that happened, and what it is is actually an incredible indictment of wealth and power and how all the world's worst people coalesce around each other to cover up their stuff. That's
what this documentary is about. But we are look, it's it's also it's funny by the way, you should watch it. But like, look, we have the tools that we have. I hope everybody understands their role in this moment. Everybody's got tools. Everybody can. Everybody can talk to your neighbor and be like, look, don't you see what's happening here? And everybody does that.
Ben Collins, thank you, Thank you.
Molly a moment.
Jesse Cannon I junk fast.
So a handful of states are going to end their nutrition education programs after Trump's cuts.
This is like the stuff of low lifes do.
It's the only thing that comes to mind is that when you're going to say your poor, your child, we're no longer going to support you having nutrition. It's really the lowest of the will.
Yeah, but you know what, this is what they're doing. They don't want to do this. You know, they're cutting snap, They're cutting all of these medicaid. You know, this is what the BBB did, was cut all these programs. That's what these Republicans signed off on. And that's what we're going to see is just cuts and cuts and cuts. You know, here we are. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense
of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.