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 seventy seven percent of Americans blame Trump for gas prices. We have such a great show for you today. The Majority Reports Sam Seedar stops by to talk President Trump's rapidly deteriorating health. Then we'll talk to talking Feds Harry Littman about his productions for the retirement of Justices Thomas and Alito. But first the news.
So, Molly, Trump has suffered a huge legal loss when he tried to ban asylum seekers.
This is like exactly what we know about Trump. He loses in the courts, and he's always losing in the courts, and here he is more losing in the courts. So US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled to one that Trump could not deport immigrants under summary removal procedures of his own making. So basically, he makes a reason to get rid of people and then he
does it. That's not going to fly here. So barring foreign individuals who are physically present in the United States from applying to asylum if they've made the statutory showing that they are eligible for being considered to receive asylum. So basically this is all illegal. And this is the larger problem with Trump, isn't writ large besides the fact that it's a moral and a lot is that it's also illegal. And that's where we are today, is that Trump has yet again lost in the courts because none
of this is legal. And so here we are another day that ends and why another loss in the courts for Trump world unsurprising, but there'll be more.
So then when he's not losing in courts, we have the DOJ being not even able to cook up these charges. He tried to Trump up on Jeroan Powell.
Yeah, cook the books. So Donald Trump really mad at Jerome Powell because he wouldn't lower interest rates, so he decided to cook up an investigation into him.
Jerome Pal.
I mean, the stupidest part of this whole story, and there are many stupid parts, so I don't want you to just focus on one stupid part. But the stupidest part here is that Jerome pal was appointed by Trump the first time. So like, this is not some like woke leftist, this is a Republican guy, and Trump has cooked up this idea, probably likely with the help of his buddy Bill Pulti, that he mismanaged the renovation of
the FED. There's no evidence to support it. And so what happened here is that Tom Tillis, who was not running again and so he has become like all Republican senators who are not running again, brave in the eleventh hour. He's the Liz Cheney of the Senate. That guy was like, you know what, You're not going to get handsome Kevin. Remember handsome Kevin.
I don't stop thinking about it, especially after those flattering, flattering remarks during his congressional hearing.
Miss right.
This is a call back to friend of the podcast, Justin Wolfers, who had a there was handsome Kevin and smiling Kevin Kevin Walsh versus Kevin Hassett. So Kevin Walsh Trump wants him to be the FED chair. And what we had here was that Tom Tillis said, you're not going to get your FED chair passed until you drop this dumb investigation of Jerome pal By the way, I want to point out my favorite part of this whole thing is that the person involved in the investigation into
Jerome Powell one box of wine. Judge Box of Wine. You'll remember her from earlier seasons.
Bolly, how could she have botched this?
There's no way.
She's so good at everything she does, meeting drinking.
Yes, well again, we have many Fox News hosts in this administration, all of whom are a complete disaster. But Judge Box of Wine is a perennial favorite for us because she's an alcoholic and we love to make fun of alcoholism. We'll be doing it later at the show, that's right.
One of the things, though, I think is always so funny, is like with the Trump administration is going after these people. They're going look at the Biden crime family, all these things that you know, Like a thing I like to remind people is that before Joe Biden was vice president, he was literally the poorest senator and that this whole crime family thing. You know, Barisma fifty thousand dollars. Then we have Eric Trump bragging about twenty four million dollar
Pentagon deal that his company just landed. But no, nothing to see here in this family.
Never.
I hate corruption, whether it have a D or an R in front of it, and voters hate it, by the way, but it's important to remember that as much as like, Eric Trump is really dumb, and so he ends up in situations like this. And so let's take a minute to pour one out for our friend Eric Trump. He's on Fox Business with Maria Bartaroma. The money honey, I mean, this is like an incredible quip. If you
can find it, you should because it's amazing. And basically he goes on to talk about how great the robots are and she congratulates him as if like State TV is congratulating the sign of the monarch. And you know what's so inconvenient for Trump world is that we have been a democracy for a long time and so we Americans are not really used to like the kleptocrats the way that this crew is spinning it. And so it just feels very very very sleazy and very very wrong. And that's because it is.
Yeah, so as promised as kash Pttel has launched a lawsuit against the Atlantic for reporting that he really hits the bottle, like very rare reports have ever shown. What we've now found with this is a little streisand effect. Sure enough, there is arrest records, people innundating the Atlantic with stories of how drunky is. I saw on TikTok someone showing him drinking twelve beers in a matter of
two hours at a hockey game. I don't know if it was real, but I don't even know how someone does that.
So cash Battel has sued the Atlantic. This is the way Trump world does that. They'll sue, you know, Trump is the model for this. You sue reporting you don't like, you sue. But here's the problem with all of that is that in order for this to go, that will be discovery. Discovery will be a bitch, as they say, it will involve lots of investigations, a lot of emails, a lot of text messages. And what we'll see, undoubtedly is that everybody in the FBI. You remember, cash Battel
has decimated the FBI. He's fired numerous people who were you know, lifelong career, military career, FBI, people who have really given their lives the FBI and who have worked hard and you know, have done important work. And what we're going to see is that when you fire every one, people start leaking about you. And do we think cash Battel is a drinker? Yeah? I don't think that story
gets written unless he's a drinker. I think that if this lawsuit goes forward, I think it'll probably get dismissed. But if it does go forward, I think it is going to be very embarrassing for the FBI and for cash Battel. I mean, the name that trends has been trending about him at least was on X, which I think is pretty great, is Jay Edgar Boozer.
Yes, a member of the liquor cabinet, as they're saying.
Yes. Sam Cedar is the host of The Majority Report. Sam Cedar, Hi, Molly, Hi, thank you for coming on the podcast.
My pleasure as always.
You know, it's funny because it's like we're eighteen months into this train wreck of a president of a second term, and it's finally hit a moment where my man has that sort of has hit the has hit a number of number where Eva Alex Jones has decided to break with him.
Yes, we're in like George W. Bush at his lowest EBB territory. And frankly, I think there's probably like thirty to thirty five percent of Americans who are never going to abandon any Republican president. Ever, I should say, yeah, thirty to thirty five yeah, percent of Americans who will not abandon a Republican president. He doesn't seem to care
in many respects. I think, you know, that's because, like I think, he has made just so much money, there has been so much corruption and graft, and I continue to believe that as much as his stupidity and his inability to do anything other than the last person tells him with iron, I am quite convinced there has to be a monetary renuneration for him in some way about this. I don't know, you know, I don't know what that would be, but it just seems to me be the case.
But yes, he's losing support.
I mean, the biggest thing I think, I mean, if I was him, is I'd be very worried about losing the Senate.
Yes, because it's one thing.
It's not like he has an agenda, and they'll be doing investigations and they're just gonna, like any investigation, you'll start with the small fish fish to get to the big fish. But if the Democrats take the Senate, it's hard to imagine him not being impeached and thrown out of office. I don't know if he cares at that point. Maybe he's like, listen, I just made four billion dollars over the course of a year.
I want to go spend some of it.
You know.
It's funny because it comes back to this idea. So Donald Trump has this unitary executive theory, which means he's the most powerful president ever because he's also installed a Speaker of the House who is merely a sick of fan. But the point of what you're saying, that he's governing like a monarch, that is absolutely correct. And it's funny because earlier on in his earlier on in the in his first year, everyone was like, holy shit, he's governing
like a monarch. Because he's not. He's going to cancel all the elections and do everything he can to stay in power. I think since his polls have really just degraded to such a point that even Tucker Carlson, who again is not a spiritual leader, is not a liberal, do not welcome him into any tent. But that even these people are saying they have to get distance from
him in order not to alienate their base. There really is a sense in which, like he is not governing like a monarch, he's governing like someone who doesn't understand that he's losing.
Yeah, but I mean I think I don't know, like what does losing mean to him?
Do you know what I mean?
Like what Like I think losing to him means going to jail or not having more money. And it seems to me that like he's pretty confident that he's not going to go to jail because they've basically like eliminated almost all the mechanisms in which he could go to jail, even after he's you know, been president. I mean any you know, I'm sure they're shredding files somewhere in the bowels of the Justice Department, and the guy has just made I think I don't think we'll ever.
Know exactly how much.
I think it's just an extraordinary amount of money that we can't even really sort of wrap our heads around. And I think it's all been bribery through you know, his his crypto and kickbacks from from foreign countries, and I just and so I don't I don't know. I think that's probably why. And then you know, I would imagine there's also a certain amountestinility.
I mean, you know, you get to be his age.
I mean, I think at one point you're like, I've basically I made it to the point where I can coast now.
Right, seventy nine years old he is, you know, when he came into office, he was this time the oldest person to ever be put in the presidency, the oldest ever. So as old as Biden was, this guy's actually older. And he did spend all of Biden's terms saying that Biden was too old to be president. We can have a question, we can have a conversation about that, for sure, but it is, you know, Donald Trump is not old in a vacuum. He is old in a world that he created.
Yeah, and I think what we have is probably like the portfolio that he interested himself in. You know, it's clear somebody has said I mean I think just today or yesterday, Ice said that they were going to cut back on their most extreme tactics, right. I mean, there are elements who are who feel like, oh, the Republican Party has to have some type of future, we have to mitigate something.
In some areas, it's like we don't want to.
And I don't know who that is. I don't know if it's Susie Wiles or if it's.
You know, JD.
Vance is in there. I mean he you know, he wants a political future. We saw that also with you know what's happening with the CDC now, despite the fact that there's according to the Lancet, I think they came out with a report this week saying that the CDC was just decimated. Yeah, they are eighty percent short on staff. And they also just reportedly quashed a report that said that the COVID vaccine cut the number in half of
people who would go to the er. Yeah for COVID, but they've they have enough personnel to just make sure they don't publish that. And there is some awareness that we've got to pull back on some of these more extreme things at least for the time being.
And I think we should talk about Maha because this week RFK Junior did a number of insane hearings. So he's he's talking to the House, he's talking the Senate about cutting the funding for HSS. He's got, you know, because that money needs to go to our more with the ron or wildly unpopular war with the Iranians, which was never explained to anyone but has ended up with the straits of Hermos blocked and Donald Trump is like, I don't today. He was like, I don't care about
this straits. We don't get anything from them. And I was like, when you don't understand how dynamic pricing works, when you don't understand when something is fungible. But I want to like go back to this idea. There was a coalition, like Donald Trump was able to make some inroads with women voters because women love RFK Junior, not women who have foreseene. But no, I'm just kidding, but why do women love Why? How did this happen?
And you know years ago.
There, I mean, I'm thinking, like ten years ago, I remember doing an interview with somebody who was talking about this sort of like crossover between sort of the the sort of new age and right wing circles. Yeah, and and I think that's where it started. And I think like there was some type of overlap between sort of conspiracy and sort of like new age you know health for like well beat wellness, it was the wellness uh community.
And I did a radio show with Bobby Kennedy for several years after Air America with him and a one
of the biggest trial attorneys in the country. And you know, I still go to conferences with tort lawyers, and there is this strain of like you have a lot of anti corporate fighters who were fighting corporations and they you know, they see discovery and a lot of time these things are settlements, and so this stuff doesn't necessarily get public, and they see a lot of you know, horrific things in terms of like corporate malfeasance and people willing to
sell products they know are harming people, and it is hard for some not to be conspiracy minded about it. And so you know, you see this crossover there, and I think, you know, there's a lot of that with Mah. And I think COVID was very difficult obviously for people, both not necessarily the vaccine per se, but just.
I mean the experience of it.
There was the whole country was in trauma, and so I think like the skepticism of vaccines was attractive to people. And you know, sometimes like the way I would express this in terms of like the efficacy of mentioning a problem that plays on people's anxieties. Everybody, you know, mothers are concerned about their children, their fathers too. As a society,
we're very nervous about our children. And I just remember how Barack Obama won Iowa in two thousand and eight when nobody gave him a chance and he started talking about social security and he said, so scaredy is in jeopardy. Now, social scarity was not in jeopardy, but he triggered the anxieties of older people, people our age, my age, you know, like, is social scarity gonna be?
There?
Can I get more? Et cetera, et cetera. And all you have to do is bring up social Security. You don't really even have to, like, you know, and just remind people of their anxieties. And you know, Bill Clinton's I feel your pain. You know, if somebody feels like at the very least their anxiety is being articulated, that's all it takes. And then, you know, you can go
down a rabbit hole. And the problem they're running into with maha, as it were, to the extent that that's a thing, but it's certainly some cohort of people, is that there is a the Trump administration doesn't really give a shit you And if there's money to be made by you know, immunizing, yeah, immunizing roundup from or from monsanto from or bear from any uh, you know, potential liability,
They're going to go for it. That runs contrary to Kennedy's whole ethos to the extent that, like his anti vax stuff has now been seen as a liability in the White House. That seems to be turning as well. And you know what we're watching with Kennedy at this point is I mean, he was, it was on display yesterday. It was fascinating when he was trying to justify Donald
Trump's math. You know, he said, when the if the price goes up, you know, if it's one hundred dollars and it goes up to six hundred dollars, that's a six hundred percent increase. Now this is not really even the point, but that's actually a five hundred percent increase, right. But nevertheless, and he says, so if it's at six hundred, it goes down to one hundred, that's a six hundred percent.
Now. Of course, what.
I found fascinating about this, on a couple of different levels was one, if you want to know how Bobby Kennedy lies and manipulates studies, sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Like that's a perfect example, because I think like even those of us who are like barely math literally understand that you one hundred percent of a thing, you can't reduce that more than one hundred percent.
You can multiract more.
Than one hundred percent, but you can't reduce it more than one hundred percent.
I am no mass geness, but even I and.
So A, it was a great window into how he thinks and manipulates and where he's willing to go in terms of presenting his argument right.
And then the other thing was, here's a guy who.
You know when we saw this on display in the hearings this week, like the Monsanto stuff, you know, out.
The window Mercury. Yeah, and for him like Mercury.
You know, he was on Mercury twenty two years ago when he and Rolling Stone about the vaccines.
I mean, that's it.
And the idea that you know, the Trump administration allowing more mercury in the air, I mean, I can tell you it is a deep, deep obsession with mercury. And having to sort of like cover and deflect during these hearings about that and then getting in front of Donald Trump and trying to essentially like he has an audience of one now. And it shows how even from the perspective, which I totally disagree with in terms of like, you know, his conspiracy theories and what I think he genuinely believes.
I think, you know, there's a you know, we could speculate. Yeah, and I should say full disclosure, I have not talked to him quite some time.
Probably.
Yes, I'm frankly disgusted by his behavior beyond you know, the typical amount that I'm disgusted by everyone in the in the Trump administration, but to watch how much he is going to genuflect the Donald Trump. He has an audience, have won, and I think people, you know, he has sold out even those completely perverse and I think and warped principles that he had. He has gone full mercenary now. And I think that's I think they're for people who were one issue voters, like Maha people.
I think that they're done.
They see Kennedy, you know, from their perspective, he you know, the White Knight, went into the City of Sin and he's now like become a swamp creature.
To mix many metaphors.
I like it. A fifth of all Trump voters, now, this is the statistic guy. So did I believe that Trump should be impeached. Really like that they've so flipped that they are.
Now that seems high to me.
It does seem high. Wait, let me find it.
But I mean, look, there was there, there was.
A cohort of people who voted for him because they wanted a an unnamed change to the system. And I think for part of that cohort it has been immigration has appalled them. The immigration policies have appalled them. They didn't realize they were they were they were were going to be a target, or just like how vicious it would be, or that their friend would be a target, or their parents or they're you know. And I think for another course, like inflation's not down, wages are not up,
gas is now super expensive. I think they're like, what the hell, You're just like the rest of them.
So I actually am right, believe it or not. She Elliott Morris, who's been on this podcast, one out of every five twenty twenty four Trump voters supports impeaching the president. Wow, that's our new paull at strengthen numbers. It's crazy, But you know, these are voters. They were low A lot of them were low information voters, low frequency voters. They saw Joe Rogan. They saw something, you know, they saw a quick bit of he's going to make things less expensive.
Some of them hadn't vote. The younger voters have the highest level of Trump or Mores, and you know, they were like, this isn't what we wanted.
Yeah, I mean he ran as a change agent, and he was helped with that mission by I would argue Kamala Harris by going around with Republicans and saying.
He's outside. He's the outsider, right, I mean that that was a problem.
So you think Liz Cheney did not get the base excited.
It's not a question of getting the base excided. I mean obviously she didn't, and she Yeah, there was a net. There was a cost associated with that, but from their perspective, they thought there would be a plus. And all they were doing was reinforcing the narrative that Trump was trying to run on again, which is I'm an outsider, I'm
a change agent. I'm going to come in there and they're going, ah, but you are an outsider, and we're look at Will Well, here's the entire political establishment, you know, finding up against you. They were literally reinforcing what he was trying to run, which is I'm going to bring change.
I'm not like in it was. It was a disaster.
And so I think a lot of people were just like, particularly younger people, I don't know, you know, like if you're twenty five, were you really paying that much attention to what the president was doing from sixteen to twenty.
You know what I mean?
Like, no, you weren't.
And you know, even if your third were you paying that much attention? Maybe probably not? And here comes a change agent?
You know you want change?
That's it.
So Sam, this is something I'm curious about because I'm writing about it. Like one of the things that struck me that Harris had problems with was she was very uncomfortable running against billionaires and she was very uncomfortable with that kind of populous language that even Donald Trump, despite having the richest cabinet and despite being quite rich, was able to embrace. Do you think that was toxic?
I don't.
I mean, I don't know, you know, like you know, who knows what's inside you know, anybody's head.
But I think that, like.
She had a history of moving around ideologically, so I think like she you know, I don't think anybody would ever have accused her of being an ideologue, and I think it was a function of like, who are the people around her doing debate prep with someone who is moonlighting because during the day they were serving as chief counsel for Google against the US government with their antitrusting. Her brother in law was the top advisor, was counsel
for Uber. And they're going to bring in people who are like minded, and there's an you know, they they consider themselves non ideological, but at the end of the day, they have a very corporate money centered ideology and and that is the way that they think. The corporate mentality was, you know, lay low, don't offend these donors. You know these people who are you know, Tim Walls is they're weird. Was one of the single most effective political messaging.
I've ever seen.
I've been doing it for twenty years, and they shut it down, and they shut it down.
It was one of the most effective things I've ever seen. It was brilliant.
I don't know if he meant it, you know how, but it was.
It was brilliant.
And they shut that down because I think they were like, they wanted a constituency that looked like them, and uh, you.
Know, you don't say you know, you know, you don't.
Say weird, that's nice, that's just not appropriate in a political thing. And then you know, and then their hostility towards antitrust, I mean they and in frankly, you know, the Gaza stuff.
Now, I wish.
If the Democrats had only thought to do like an autopsy, not like a little lot, but to actually do an autopsy and to find out what I mean, Look, we all know they're sitting on this autopsy because we.
Make all the consultants look terrible.
It makes the consultants look terrible. But it also is about Gaza. I mean, look's not kid. There were reporting that Harris canvassers were basically told when they were coming back with like, we're getting a lot of Gaza responses, Like, we're no longer recording that, yeah, tell us the other responses. We're just not that's just no longer an option. They managed to alienate a lot of core constituencies probably voted for Harris, but they didn't go out and encourage other people to vote for her.
Right, And that's the thing. Staying home is just as problematic or not getting other people out there. And that's why she lost those swing states, Sam Cedar, Will you come back?
Of course.
Harry Littman is a former US attorney and the host of the podcast Talking Feds.
Hey everyone, it is our latest Molly Harry mashup, in which metical commentator and author Extraordinary Molly Jong Fast hits me with legal questions and I with turn fire with queries about politics.
Molly. Always great to see you and to chat with you. Who starts your call?
So I'm going to ask you a question about the Supreme Court. Trump super mad about the tariffs, having some complaints about the tariffs. I'd love you to talk to us about what you think about the Supreme Court. There's like a whole docket of stuff that's going to you know, we're just about hitting Supreme Court season. I want you to tell us what you're looking at, what you're watching, what you're waiting for.
Okay, yeah, glad to do it. You're right.
The Court, unlike other institutions, they finish up, you know, at the end of the school year, rise and leave, get rid of everything one way or another.
And that'll be at the end of June.
And by the way, everyone will be watching close that day because that's the traditional time to announce retirements, and all eyes will be on Thomas and Alito.
Yeah. First, I just want to mention on the Twitter thing. He couldn't have been more.
Like apoplectic and disparaging, and yet he never even made an attempt at a legal point. It was just this must be bad for America because I wanted it. Two big cases everyone's sold their breath for. When you and that last week they released something on Friday, people were wondering, will this be the day? The first thing everyone's waiting for, And it was argued, I think in the very first
hearing time in last October is the voting rights. So you probably remember there's this what many people consider the most important piece of civil.
Rights legislation, if not legislation.
Period, that passed in the sixties, and it had two really important engines. Section five, which the Court has already done away with, and that gave the DOJ a opportunity to sort of push back against changes that certain states
who had a history of discrimination made. There's also Section two, and that's been held anyway to be a test that if you put into play anything that is racially has biased, it can be challenged on that basis, and there's I think like twenty actual districts around the country, maybe more Molly where the people who are there are so called majority minority districts are because of that very section and courts having held you got to do better here or you're diluting the minority vote.
That very section.
Now there's indication the Court might want to strike down is unconstitutional, and.
That would be seismic for the overall map.
But and I think they will strike it down, but I don't think it'll be in time to change things for the midterms, maybe for twenty eight. And then finally everyone's waiting for the birthright citizenship case. I think the administrators are going to lose that one. It's just completely outlandish, and the reports will go out around the land. Oh see, the Supreme Court isn't so bad, but those will be well overstated.
Then, no, court, you couldn't write an.
Opinion upholding this completely countertextual interpretation in the fourteenth Amendment.
So it will continue to be the case.
I think that anyone born here, whoever their parents are, will be an American citizen.
And you know that's a pretty American idea.
The Voting Rights Act dies but it's not in time for this mid term election, will be time for twenty twenty eight.
I think that's right. And even twenty twenty eight, they got to draw new maps. You only draw new maps after censuses. Of course, that hasn't stopped them now this term. We just had the big result in Virginia yesterday, which you know is more in your valley wick than mine. But so far that whole effort by DRS seems to be at best to kind of stale me.
So I think it'd be weird even to try in the middle.
But certainly for the next census that's going to matter, and we'll see if Congress responds at all. They could reintroduce it, but especially if the opinion is like, oh, this is unconstitutional Congress.
Okay.
I love talking to you know.
It makes me think about there's all the big questions swirling around. I just talked to Rick Wilson, but it really puts me in mind of things that are every time I think of that.
Ah, that's interesting. I got to asked Molly, and here's my start.
Been a pretty humillion a couple of weeks for the Vice President of the United States, JD.
Vance Trump seems maybe to be setting him.
To take the blame in Aroan, even as sources close to him why to the media, the MVP never wanted the war.
He drew this as you pointed out.
Damn paltry crowd at the kind of right wing event he used to start at. Are his political fortunes well and truly fallen? Would you say, or is there third act? I guess you'd have to call it because his first act was anti Trump.
Is there a third act for him in the offing?
Well, you'll remember what happened to Donald Trump's first vice president one, Mike Pence. First of all, even when you're not the second fiddle for a complete narcissistic sociopath, it's a bad job. Even when you're just the vice president for a normal president, it's not a good job unless you're Dick Cheney. But I think in this case, I think Vance has a number of problems. One is he has this humiliation. He's been tasked with bringing peace to
the Middle East, the Iranians. I think what Donald Trump has done with Iran is really kicked at Hornet's nest. You know, Trump has really been trying to de escalate the war in Iran. But the problem is that the Iranians are ideological in a way that I don't think Trump quite understands, and so he's not able to sort of back this train up. And I think it's a really tough job for Vance. But I think there's another tension here, which is that Trump is a lame duck.
He's seventy nine, he pulls terribly and he's not running for reelection again. But he knows that the minute he chooses his successor, his power gets diminished even further. And so the power he has to play JD Van's against Marco is sort of one of the last cards he has left. And so I think it is very unlikely that Donald Trump will make JD the heir of parent. I think he'll do as much as possible to keep
that question running for as long as possible. The other thing is that Jadvance is saddled with a really unpopular president who has made gas prices higher. And you know, it's so funny because it's like, there's so many reasons not to support Trump. His anti democratic stance is racism, is sexism, is misogyny. But ultimately, the thing that seems like it's really doing it as the gas prices.
Yeah, but that's really super interesting analysis. It's a very FASTI and fastree. And if I can say, because you're right, if that's writing wants to play him off against each other, that also suggests he doesn't kick Vance to the curb for a while.
It works much better for him to have JD. Vance and Marco fighting over his love. And one of the things we saw was that the wife of Charlie Kirk, Erica Kirk, she endorsed Jadie Vance really early from turning point, and you could see like what it did was she lost her power that way. That's a mistake. You will, Nancie Trump, make your turn bring it so yesterday, I think in bat Shittery we had Todd Blanche up there and remember you know this is on the heels of
the Bondie departure, which I think is relevant. Todd Blanch up there with Cash Fatteu indicting the Southern Poverty Law Center meaningful for any number of reasons, one of which is that they are the group that hunted the KKK. They have you know, been around forever. They have this cooked up case that they paid informant and somehow that is wire fraud. Isn't that what the FBI does? And also right, and also what the fuck go?
Yeah, my two responds to that that's what the FBI does, and to what the fuck? It is a deeply intellectually dishonest case. So, first of all, the wire fraud, the fraud here is supposed to be, and it's got to be all these a lot of specifics against the donors. The theory of the case is that you to the donors and said, please give us your money. We're working to ferret out extremism. We have a great track record, including with the KKK, And a very important way to
do it is the way law enforcement always does it. Infiltry, get a confidential informant, pay them money.
That's the whole big.
Risk in their life for you.
Yeah, exactly.
So, besides the sort of overall hypocrisy of it, it was sort of revoltingly political and dishonest in a way that others haven't been so far.
Because you know, anyone who.
Heard it, you scratch your wait what oh, it turns out that all this time we thought they were good guys, they actually were pro extremists. And then you take a step back and understand the just deeply bs theory of the case, and Plants stood up and said, all this time, and the indictment says they've actually been promoting extremism. And it's exactly as you say, Mollie, that if that's true, then the FBI forever has been promoting the mob, promoting
drug cartels, because it's the exact same way. Now they're trying very technically to say, well, maybe they defrauded donors.
I don't think that's going anywhere.
And then there are secondary things about they pay them. You can't you're not going to pay confidential informants where they check this as SCPC and supposing money laundering. But the basic idea they can try this technically, but the basic idea is just designed, it seems to me to mislead the American people, is for the headline, and a headline that they.
Know is it's confusing because it seems like it can't be.
And then when you look just one level deeper, you know it's just a total I think the legal term would be bullshit case and it's really this is blanche you know, really trying to do BONDI one worse.
But the notion this is the Department of Justice.
They're to enforce the laws, you know, truth, justice, without fear or favor. And it's just a political hit, that's all it is.
I don't think it'll last.
But and you notice they didn't indict any people, just the organization itself.
But even if somehow they can make.
In the Middle District of Alabama, a very pro Trump part of the world, make little things stick, it's really important to understand the whole effort is just deeply dishonest and political.
When they were talking about Cash Battel, who was screaming at a journalist when they asked him about the Atlantic reporting of his drunkenness, he said, well, a grand jury has indicted, so we know it's true and we know they did it. Just explain why that's not. That's not how any of this works.
Well, we're where what people always used to say about grand juries, and especially the Middle District of Alabama is they can and you know, willn dydah Ham sandwich of and of course the administration has been serving up different kinds of sandwiches that grand juries have rejected.
But yes, it's child's play.
And in my whole career, Molly I've only heard or been involved once in a case where the grand jury refused charges.
It wasn't even my case.
It's exceedingly rare, except yeah, for the grand jury to say no. They typically sit there and say, you know, and rubber stamp. That's a problem. People noticed it, which has made it all the more striking, the skein of failures by the Trump administration. But that is again, anyone with any sophistication knowledge knows that's the best you got.
The grand jury said, that's that's another part of the whole fiction here, and again the most of the grand jury would have said has been persuaded in some technical way.
The grand jury has not.
Accused the spccre of actually supporting extremism. That is just a you know, total deceptive is a kind way to put what's really a bullshit charge. All right, So this, well you talked about Patel and man oh Man, he comes right out of the box with that defamation suit against the Atlantic for all those allegations.
We'll see where that goes and why he's doing it.
Also this week, Glori Chevez diremer Is, the Labor Secretary, has gone in the wake of some really Toddry allegations. My basic question you, Molly, is first, why does this administration produce such you know, outlandish scandals, really nasty stuff month after months? And is everyone in your sort of estimation is the American public so used to scandal now that there's no real political price to be made from this kind of conduct that you know, normally used to make people kind of gasp.
Well, remember, up until a few weeks ago, Donald Trump refused to fire people, and you just moved them around. So I do you think scandal's matter? He did that because scandal's matter because he knew how bad the optics were. So that is number one. Number two is I have a couple of thoughts about these women. So we have three women who have been fired from this administration, Lori Shabas Dreamer, Pam Bondi, and Christine Nom. Shavez Dreamer and
Christine Nom have two very similar situations. Shabaz Dreamer has the father and husband who were both really problematic. The father probably is alleged to have harassed people in her orbit who worked for this government, treating government employees like you know, all three of them in the Shabaz Dreamer case treated government employees as if they were personal staff.
With Nome, you had a similar situation, right. We have Corey Leuwandowski treating her government job like in ATM, and you have allegations there too, and.
Both of them have a daughter resigne to them, right or thanks side right?
No, but you don't get fired for adulter a at least not in the Trump administration. And I think also more importantly the adulter ay blew up for her during the hearing, which I thought was actually really interesting was that she kept being asked this question of whether or not she was having sex with Corey and she wouldn't answer it, maybe because Corey would have been mad at her for not doing it, Maybe because she didn't want to lie in her oath because she knew there was
enough evidence to show that it was. Like either way, it's informative when you think about when you're going to interview other members of this cabinet, because there are going to be endless I mean endless interviews with members of this cabinet any which way. So I just thought there were a lot of similarities between Dreamer and Nome which I think are worth noting. Ronnie is a little bit
of a different story. But I would say what I think is relevant here is that there are a lot of bad cabinet members trump World, from Cash Battel to Lutnik Meg.
Junior, yeah there where we're going, Yeah, who are.
Bad at their jobs and who are probably going to get fired. But I think it's noeworthy that the women have such a hard time hanging on. I don't necessarily think it's because they're worse. I think it's because the women of Maga have to twist themselves into such a pretzel to exist in Maga that there's just a lot more that can go wrong. And that's why you see, you know, you see these men sort of ruining their careers.
You see just all sorts of second order effects that you might not be able to game out.
Got it, Okay, bring it on.
Yeah. My question for you is about the sort of Trump World's criminality, Like, for example, Christy Noom, now she's gone. There's all sorts of fraud questions, right the two hundred and twenty million dollars for the horseback riding movies. You know, they're just different smoking guns with a lot of these cabinet members. If you're trying to go after what Christinome has done. Where would you start? What's the legal like,
is that a federal crime? I mean, obviously the Trump DOJ is not going to prosecute this, but you don't want to miss the term limits. So can states prosecute this?
Like?
Could California prosecute this? And if so, what would it look like to try to start investigation into Christynome because obviously there's been a lot of really fraudulent spending.
Yeah, so three quick points.
First of all, I mean, the administration's been like a crime wave, including Trump himself. You think about the emolument's class stuff, You think about the part and stuff which would play as a quid pro quoll.
We've somehow forgotten about.
It because DOJ is going nowhere and impeachment hasn't been on the table. But the two impeachments were righteous, each of them in the first term. But we have one after the other after the other. That's point one. Point two where would you start federal crimes?
DOJ? Oops? Point three? Can states do it? Because they won't do anything.
Although I do want to point out there's going to be a big, big kind of internal debate if the Democrats win the presidency in twenty eight about whether to force criminal accountability for what has been a really both damaging and brazen wave of crimes, or whether you know, there'll be some voices saying yeah, yeah, yeah, but we don't want to bog down our new power in that.
But it's also the case balling increasingly. There's a lot of critics who said this that a federal crime could be a state crimes.
State crimes are the default.
You know, there are ninety five percent of all criminal prosecutions in the country.
Now.
Of course, taking them on will be stepping on a hornet's nest. We already see Minnesota doing it with an assault by a nice agent. I think you're going to see charges that against the killers of Alex Preddi and Renee Good. But it's the case that New York's a very good example. It has a statute, it's a state statute. But pretty much you, as with the Feds, you step foot in there and you do a fraud.
People can go after.
And I think it becomes a political question more than a sort of law school exam question.
Does Letitia James.
Think, man, oh man, I've gotten beat up and I'll hold back. Do you know particular ags in particular jurisdiction, think I've got what I need to go forward.
In general, we haven't seen very much of this, and.
You would typically expect first that these would sound in impeachment and second in federal court. And I just want to point out, had Bondie, say, been the subject of a criminal referral before she quit, I don't see how this administration, even this administration, would have gotten out of
some kind of special counsel. So if there is a special counsel for certain high level violations, you might see it would be a civil war in the DOJ and the White House, and Trump would do everything that Nixon tried to do to squelch it and more.
But that's also on the table.
To me, it's basically a political question whether the Dems are going to want to go that way. And you know this better than I, but I detect a real kind of critical debate within the party over it.
Follow up.
I'm sorry to do this, but I have like legal questions.
That's what that's why we're here.
Who sets up a special counsel? Is that only the president? Or can other people do it?
It's the Attorney general who finds under the regulations, and there's no way around it. You could have a conflict of interest. But we just saw we've seen Todd Blant stand up and I'm sorry, say things that aren't true razenly. So could they stick it out and say no special Maybe all of these we found, to our chagrin, ultimately turn on political pressure. That and legal questions that the
Supreme Court have settled in Trump's favor. But in theory, the AG says conflict trying to priminoid prosecute the Attorney General or the Labor secretary or the Secretary of Defense. I gotta do for appearances, I need a special counsel. Of course, if you cared about appearances, you wouldn't be doing these completely raw, nasty, unjust reprisal prosecutions in the.
First place, for sure.
For sure, the broad.
Question on my mind these days.
Everything seems to be stacking up in DEM's favor for the midterms, But apart from their opposition to Trump, in many ways they don't seen so unified.
Will that be enough to bring it home?
What do the Dems need to do to stick the landing in the midterms.
I think the House Democrats will win the House. I don't know what they do in Florida, but I think Democrats will win the House. I mean, I think they need to run anti Trump, which they will obviously very easy to do that. I think focusing on fraud, which is something that Trump wanted to do. He has One of the many things that JD. Van's his tasked with doing is a anti fraud remember, an anti fraud thing, which is completely ironic because Trump is engaging in all
sorts of fraud. So I would run on fraud if I were Democrats. The Senate is the thing I'm watching the most closely. Alaska. A Democratic senator from Alaska would be a big fucking deal. Iowa, Texas, I don't know. I don't want to get involved in Texas. It's too scary, but Iowa has all these empty open seats, and that seems like a real I don't know, Maybe they flip the governors, maybe they flip the Senate seat. You know, that's a jony earned seat. I could see that happening.
There's just a lot of drama, Like the main Senate is a lot of drama. You know. The Platiner. I think Platner is going to be the candidate, But I don't know what happens with the platin Er Susan Collins matchup. I think that like Michigan, which seems like it should be a very easy one, is gotten so ugly in
this three way runoff. And Michigan is a state that's very divided, that has a lot of Muslims, a lot of Jews, and you know, you have these three different, wildly different candidates, and that's a very late primary that doesn't happen until August, so I think that could all work against Democrats. So those are the things I'm watching and a little bit worried about if I were to worry, which I always do.
Mollie, it's always a blast to be with ESCA next time, Thank.
You, Harry. No moment in second Jesse Cannon.
So, Mollie, you know, one of the things with conservatism is we're always trying to bring back the past. And you know the past that they try to bring back is very selective. But they've brought a new thing into the canon of the conservative past they're trying to bring back. Are you ready for it?
Yes?
Firing squads.
The Department of Justice announce Friday that it will resurrect federal firing squads as part of its effort to implement Donald Trump's Day one executive order to remamp capital punishment. I hate capital punishment same. Do you know why I hate it? Tell me because it's terrible. It's killing people, and it is so terrible. But it's also very stupid, it's expensive, it is a really circuitous way to punish people.
It's just so terrible. And like with everything in Trump world, when they've figured out something terrible, they want to make it even worse. So this would be a way to make capital punishment even worse than lethal injection. Just awful, awful stuff. Should be a shame, should be afraid the worst.
Yeah, I dated someone who is involved with a lot of the pro bono defenses of some of people that people would be very shocked that they defended that word facing capital punishment, and you learn that it costs double the amount to do this that it does to keep someone in jail for life, which is a lot thing a lot of people don't risk. There's no good argument for capital punishment when we get so many prosecutions wrong
in this country all the time. This goes to that thing that like some people are saying, Oh, it's the cruelty is the point. But this goes to the stupidity is the point.
Yeah, it's so stupid, it's so gratuitous. It doesn't make any sense, it doesn't do anything. I mean, it's just more on it. I mean, like so much in Trump world. It's just the worst. It's violent, it's horrible. 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.