Sen. Al Franken, Rep. Maxwell Frost & Dahlia Lithwick

and what he's seeing in the protests in Tennessee. But first we have former Senator Al Franken. Welcome back to Fast Politics. Out Franco, thank you for having me back. I am delighted to have you back. I feel like you were a favorite guest of the podcast. Immedia h really, okay, I'll take it. I'll take it. I want to talk to you just about what's going on in the world. But I do think it is quite cool that you hosted the Daily Showed. It was a great being back

in a regular television spot. Or would you prefer to be in the Senate? I prefer to be in the Senate frankly and regret resigning, and it tears me up all the time. You're not the only person who feels out. Yeah, well, I know, it's just funny because I have grandchildren in New York, so I have a place on the Upper West Side and I can't walk around the Upper West Side without anyone who knows the Upper West Side of manhad and knows why. That's kind of funny. It happens everywhere,

but three or four people a block. Okay, anyway, so let's see what we're talking about the Daily Show, because I do think you're a versatile person who can be both abundon and a senator, which is not many people. Yeah, just you and Ted Cruz just kidding. Well, I mean it's funny, is it. Ted considers himself funny and he is not. And every once in a while he would come up to me and say, I've a joke for my stump speech, and I think my crowd will love it. Can I run it by you? And I'd go like, okay,

and sure, and he'd starts this joke. And this is twenty sixteen, He's running for president. Hillary's on the other side, of course, and he starts this joke. I'm going long setup and I go, oh, okay, the punchline is gonna be Hillary's phone. I got then more more setup, more setup, finally Hillary's phone and I go, Okay, your crowd will laugh at that, But I have to tell you I knew what the punchline was about a third of the way through the setup. Okay, you tell me a joke.

He'd get mad at me. I'm sorry, but I am without words because that is what I would assume hanging out what Ted Cruise would be like. It was amazing. He's so unlikable in so many ways that it's just kind of amazing. And he's very smart, but not smart enough to understand how he comes off and what's wrong with him. Yeah, it's true, very odd. It's very odd.

So speaking of Republicans not understanding how they come off to the rest of the world, Tennessee State House, they expel the two black people, but not the white person, the white woman. Yes, so I think that puts a lie to the sexism thing. Well, I don't know what it does, but pretty incredible stuff, right, No, it was, it's such a lie. It was about They compared it

to January sixth, of course. And this was just kind of a little protest about not taking up guns in schools, in schools while all these kids are there in the balconies. And after three kids died, three teachers died, and god, it was ugly. And that's the Republican Party. Now. If you look right now this past week in Wisconsin, they

have an election. Aside the balance of finally of the Supreme Court, there are a lot of stakes there in a whole bunch of things, redistricting of course, abortion of course, and the Democrat or the Progressive wins very handily, like by a lot ten points. Yeah, and this is the definition of a purple state. But this is in big part about abortion, but also this is the most gerrymandered state.

You remember that twenty ten was a census year, and so in twenty ten there was a big vote for Republicans because of all the lying about the Affordable Care Act. We had passed the Affordable Care Act in the Senate House, and they lied about it, death panels, etc. Etc. And also no one knew what was in the act, really didn't understand it, and it took four years really to

get the thing up. We had four years of being battered on that thing, and especially that year, and they picked up all these seats and jerrymandered the crap out of the state right to the point where I think I have this right. Ben Wickler is the chairman of the Democratic Party and a very good friend of mine. I think he said it's like, if the vote is fifty fifty, they have only a ten percent chance of getting the majority. That's done wrong. It's worth it. It's

an amazingly gerrymandered state. And I should add that statistic right at my fingers, but I don't. But it was Jerrymanderden eleven and this court will be able to address that. And also abortion is on that. Yeah. I mean, it is just kind of incredible. And Republicans are talking about impeaching huh there, I think a couple. I'm not sure if it's as bad as is what's happening in Tennessee. Yeah,

what's happened in ten Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting though, because you do see this collision between this base that is ready to just do crazy shit and the leadership, which is starting to be like, maybe people don't like our message. Yeah, but boy, doesn't leadership take a long time? To get that message. And sometimes the leadership are the

problem too. Yeah. I mean, if you look now at the House in Washington, McCarthy, either he played that as stupidly as you could play at the vote to be speaker, or these awful, awful, awful people played it as brilliantly as you could play it, or it just accidentally happened this way. But he is beholden to every one of them. One person can bring it up right and new vote, and so he is. Brings me to the debt limit.

That's the thing I'm most scared about. Yeah. I went through that in eleven, and we went to more than the eleventh hour and it hurt. We got our bonds downgraded. And the dollar is the fault currency of the world, and if we go over the cliff on this, it could cause a worldwide recession. Yeah, and we did. They downgraded the America and did yeah. Yeah, which is like kind of an incredible thing to think about, that that

could happen. That's right. They downgraded it in eleven after that, and because we came so close to the edge, and these guys are crazier than the Republicans that were there in eleven. Yeah, Oh, definitely. I feel like these guys make the Tea Party look like just lovely gentlemen. But I am curious to know. I mean, if you think about all these Republicans that won in these swingy districts, do you think there's a world in which any of those guys go and make a deal or you think

they're just too scared of primary challenges. I don't know you'd think so, because I think there's more than four or five of them, right, No, But I mean they have a five seat majority, I understand, but that's what I'm saying. I think they're more than four or five of these moderates that are saying Republicans who they're saying they probably won in fairly purple districts, and so I think they'd be screwed if they don't save the country.

So I don't know how that body works, especially that group there, but they sure hope they come together and that McCarthy works it out so that I couldn't help it. These guys, that's what they're doing, and we got to come up with a compromise. Yeah, it does certainly seem like Republicans have gotten themselves into a situation here that they can't. There doesn't seem like an easy way out

for them. No, but this is why we have to change that, because in eleven we bargained with them, right, and we got the sequester, and right, this is eleven, we're still in the Great Recession, and the last thing you needed to do was to spend less money, and that's what happened. So this is all kind of part of Republicans plan was let's slow down at this recovery, Yeah, so that we can win in twelve and McConnell and they all did that, so they backed us into a

corner and we can't do that this time. We can say, nope, we're just not negotiating on this. If you want to negotiate on a package to bring things down, you've got to do it, but not tied to this. Yeah, and I don't know what they'll do, so we'll see. Yeah. I mean, it just seems really kind of epically bad. Biden has continually overperformed in all these elections. But this polling that came out yesterday not super great. I mean,

does it even matter? What do you I didn't see the polling is the top line was and again this is a question. That is what you ask this question. Everyone always says no, they don't deserve it, but basically only sort of Americans. Again, I hate even saying this because I feel like poles are various sort of I don't even know what they are. At this point, about

a third think that he deserves to be reelected. Well, he's going to be running against somebody, right, we see how many people believe they need another term if it's Trump, and that I think would be below that, but it could be somebody else, and we shall see, and we'll see how things are at that moment. But again, we outperform this last mid term better than he did anyway, or his side better than anybody except Bush after nine

to eleven. So in the wake of nine to eleven, of course Bush did well and FDR in thirty four after saving the country, perceiving to have saved the country from the depression. Other than those two, our party performed the best it has historically. So everyone was predicting this red tiede and it didn't happen. So this is too far out, Yeah yeah, yeah, So what are you looking at right now? What are sort of your thoughts of

where we are right now? My thoughts are that the Republican Party is becoming a party that does not believe in democracy. And you're seeing that in all these cases. In Wisconsin, attempt to recall someone elected yesterday, that's unusual, Tennessee voting out members for nothing. In Georgia, there's state legislators who want to pass something where legislature can get rid of DA's Yeah, and so Fannie willis being I guess the one they were. It seems very slanted, doesn't it. Yeah.

And in North Carolina there was just a flip of a Democrat who comes from pretty democratic area and has been a Democrat forever to give the North Carolina state legislative Republicans a Vito proof majority, and evidently she got a bigger office and some other committee chairmanship or something, has gotten an abortion herself, Yeah, and has pledged to protect abortion rights. So North Carolina now is the only Southeastern state that allows abortions. So that's a pretty important

thing to keep an eye on. But I just it feels like the Republican Party just is way out of the ordinary in terms of respecting democracy and how they go about getting power. Yeah, I have to say, I think it's kind of shocking. I was hoping you could talk a little bit about this ProPublica reporting. I feel like this is not Son Thomas. Yeah, well, we kind of knew this stuff was happening. Sheldon Whitehouse has been talking about this forever. Didn't we know that they were

paying for your hunting lodge? I mean, didn't Scalia die at a hunting loge? A book? Yes? Yeah, I mean it's like, so, oh, it doesn't matter whether a donor is a multi billionaire or just a simple billionaire. I mean, what does that make And does it matter that it was a free stay at Alige for ten days and they had flock law or it was only eight days and they just ate the pheasant that the help clean

the simple man. I mean, I'm not quite sure what the differences other than they changed the rules so he had to come clean. He had to report this, so I know there's other reasons for him to resign, including being the only vote to try to block his wife's tweets seemed pretty bad. So I'm not sure about this one.

I think we kind of this was going on. I don't know if we knew the price tag in the scope and yeah, how many and that he doesn't like to fly commercial and that he perhaps doesn't vacation does the fly commercial if they have a choice. It's just most people don't have a choice, and he seems like he does. He does. That's right, congratulations Squared Stamas. I don't know does she go hunting? I doubt if she

was plotting something? Who is she talking to? Didn't she isn't there the latest tweet to meadows that has some nutcase shit in it. Yes, I have to say she is my favorite unhinged spouse. Like when we go through a history, I mean everything you go in there is just completely beyond the pale. But I think that Jenny Thomas will win the title of most unhinged Supreme Court spouse. Yeah,

I don't know the other ones. Well, there you go. Yeah, I think Robert's spouse em and only makes a lot of money recruiting lawyers or big firms to clerk or I mean, it's kind of ugly, isn't it. It doesn't seem like they're beyond politics now, it doesn't seem right. Well, this is a feminist thing. Supreme Court wives should be able to have a business funneling lawyers to firms will because argue in front of her husband. Yeah, powerful people

have powerful friends. Is that what she said or something like that? Are very accomplished people are very accomplished friends. Al Franken, just you're just as a light. I hope you will come back maybe. Darlia Lithwick is a senior editor at Slate and the author of Lady Justice, Women Law, and the Battle to Save America. Welcome back to Fast Politics. My personal hero and the person I wanted to talk to most at this moment, Dahlia him Molly. I saw

this ruling and I wrote to Jesse. I was in an AA meeting last night, and I wrote to Jesse right because it was nighttime, and I was like, what the fuck? And then I said, we have to talk to Dahlia. I was getting in an uber to go to wait for it, Depeche Mode with my two teenage sons of my husband, and I spent the entire concert reading the opinion and sobbing silently as my boys jumped up and down delightedly beside me. So they sure do know how to wreck a weekend down there in Amarilla.

I mean, they really do. So, I mean, will you just remind our listeners a little bit about how the anti choice crew really strategically went to this judge and set this whole thing up. Yeah, I mean this is part of a new phenomenon. We always used to have sort of venue shopping, which is you'd file your lawsuit in a place where you were more likely than not to pull the kinds of judges you wanted. This is a brand new iteration of that, Molly, it's judge shopping.

So in this particular jurisdiction in Amarillo, Texas, your chance of drawing this one judge as the thing. It's like a vending machine, like you put in your quarter, you get a Snicker's bar every time. And so this case, which has nothing to do whatsoever with Amarillo, Texas, gets filed there because the folks who are seeking to end medication abortion nationwide know that this is a lifelong person

who's worked in the trenches alongside them. He's going to not just be the Snickers bar they want, He's also going to give them precisely what they want. And so that's it. This case has no connection to AMROLLA beyond that. So I want to ask you a little more about this. So we knew this ruling was coming. He had made machinations to that effect, but he had said he was going to wait right wait for his order to be he you mean, which part do we ask? He was sort of waiting around to do it. We sort of

knew this was coming. We had this long four hour hearing where he pretended to do all this chin stroking about how complicated this was, and it was just especially now if you read the opinion he wrote, which I suspect he wrote like in law school or when he was actually working for one of these groups, there was

no thought put into this. In other words, he was not open to arguments on both sides, all of the kabuki around, Oh, this is really tricky, and I have serious issues with declaiming for the first time that I can withdraw FDA approval like that was just all a bunch of bunk, because this really is. I mean, one of the things that's depressing about the opinion, Molly, in addition to the fact that it's ridiculous, is that it's

just not even original ridiculousness. It's cutting and pasting from radical, rapid religious pro life groups, pre existing ridiculous like be creative, dude, do one line in this that is, you know, interesting and novel, but it's just hackneed stuff about you know, all these debunked stuff about maternal suicide. Everything that he

says is debunked. And I think maybe the other thing that's really striking about this and maybe hasn't gotten quite enough attention, is he goes way farther than Justice Alito would go even in Dabbs, to kind of lay the scenes for fetal personhood right to say, there's this astonishing footnote where he says jurists use the word quote fetus

to inaccurately identify unborn humans. And he goes on to say throughout the thing that he's going to use unborn human or unborn child, which is all playing the groundwork for the kind of thing even Sam Alito wasn't brave enough to do in Dubs, which is to suggest that this is human life, it starts at conception, and that

even states that allow abortion are participating in murder. Wow. Yeah, I have a question for you about saying I read yesterday and I can't remember where I read it, but the sort of thesis was there are federal judges and there are Trump judges. Do you think these Trump judges are just sort of operating, you know, that they're not bound by the same conventions that normal quote unquote politicians were,

normal quote unquote jurists were. Yeah, I think that that's happening around the country that we're seeing Trump judges and judge Becausemark is by no means the only one who are really outside the bounds of the kinds of norms that say a Bush judge or you know, even a Reagan judge is at least somewhat bound by notions of you know, what the rule of law means, what precedent means, you know, caring at least somewhat that the integrity and

the reputational interests of the courts are protected. And then you just get Trump judges who are not all of them, but many of them seemingly raised in like underground labs to break shit and that's just what we have. And so there's no regard for you know, in this case, this guy has no authority. There is absolutely no authority for one Loan District Court judge to counterman twenty three

years of FDA approved. This is the same judge, by the way, who gave himself the authority to Micromani President Biden's policies in Mexico international law. So I think there is a difference, and part of it is, I guess I would just say a self reinforcing loop, because these guys are not just breaking things, they're also auditioning for

higher courts. And what they know is if they wave their arms around in the air and say, no, I'm the craziest of them all, it's a sure rocket to be at a circuit court and someday, if they're lucky, to be on the Supreme Court. So this is entirely lawless, but it's also freakishly rewarded in the way that Fedsock

promotes these people. Right, it's such an interesting phenomenon. It does strike me that it is a similar phenomenon of what you're seeing with the Marjorie Taylor grains, right, like these the zalad As Republicans who are being rewarded for being as crazy as possible. Right, that's George Santos, Right, you just you crime. It's not just failing up. You

like crime up. Like, the more crime they find, the more they lavish, you know, plot it's on you, and it's so weird and it's also, you know, it's kind of antithetical to the way even like I'm thinking of like Justice Scalia. In fact, this is like probably a good segue to Clarence Thomas. But even Justice Scalia was

capable of shame. Right when antonin Scalia goes like duck hunting with Dick Cheney a party to a suit in front of him, at least Justice Scalia has the good grace to like try to defend himself and be sort of sheepish and say, like, dude, I know this looks bad, but let me explain why we weren't in the same

duck blind. So it's okay, But Clarence Thomas is like this whole new flavor of like, oh hell yeah, I took a half a million dollars worth of like lavish vacations and yacht rides and plane rides to Indonesia, and I do it again. And that's what's different, is the utter lack of shame. That is what I want to talk to you about. Because so we had this blockbuster reporting from pro publica leftist rag. Pro Publica iSight, Oh that was Byron York saying it's a leftist rag if

the truth is leftist. Then Pro Publica is leftist with this reporting basically, I mean, I think, like the most evocative moment and the whole thing is they got the photos from Instagram, so it's not like people who were hiding this. Right, But Clarence Thomas has a billionaire friend. He vacations with him to the tune of half a million dollars a year. He hasn't been documenting any of this. But again, there aren't larger ethics rules for these justices. Right,

There are ethics rules. There are canons of ethics and statutes that apply to every Article three federal judge. The problem is the Supreme Court doesn't by them to itself, that the nine justices on the Court have persuaded themselves in the country that their own excellent awesomeness is such that And I think the word that John Roberts used, I love this. We consult the rules, you know, like the way you consult a map or you know, YELP. So they consult them and then they apply them to themselves,

and then they there's no way to enforce them. And the other thing that I think is so important, it's one of the reasons I was like to talk to you about this story is there's a kind of everything all at once vibe here because that photograph of Harlan Crowe, right, sit sit with that awesome knives out name he and Clarence Thomas, and what Leonard Leo right, the head of the Federal Society, right, you'll remember him from season one.

You may remember him from I bought the Federal Judiciary and they got a billion dollars to do it again. And like Mark Poletta, right, who is working in the Trump ad registration but insists that he's reimbursed his travel. And these guys are sitting around and we're to believe a that they don't discuss. Kate says, I guess they're

just discussing season one. But then more like unbelievably that this is all like totally fine, this is normal, and that we should just agree to this, because Clarence Thomas tells us it's fine. And also he tells us in a statement on Friday, which he never explained. So the fact that he tried to even justify this is so funny. And he's like, oh yeah, dude, when I came on the court, I asked some people and they said it

was fine. Right. So here's a textualist who says you have to read every word of the statute so that it is plain meaning, is manifestly true. And he's like, yeah, no, I don't read the statutes. I just asked some people and they said I could fly around on jets. And it's just so snot out your nose funny that they have constructed this world in which Clarence Thomas, right, is sitting on the court when Citizens United opens this bigot for dark money, Right, that's dark money that goes to

Jenny Thomas. He's sitting on the court when it decides Shelby County, right, that does away with the Voting Rights Act, that does away with you any check on partisan jerrymandering in the root showcase. So Clarence Thomas is literally being paid to construct the America we live in now. And that's the america that can throw legislators from Tennessee out of the House because it's a jerrymanderis supermajority, like he

built this, he built this. Yeah, it's unfucking believable. I want to talk about this Washington d judge who issued a dueling injunction prohibiting the FDA from pulling metha preston off the market. I mean, I think what it does. My colleague Mark Joseph Stern put up an amazing piece Friday night. It essentially sets up a constitutional crisis because Judge because Mark's order right, says you have one week at which point we have to pull a drug from

the market. It's done right, there's no methopristone left. And then you have a dueling injunction from this judge in Washington State who says, actually, I'm going to compel the FDA to keep allowing methopristone in the seventeen states and the districts. So with eighteen jurisdictions that had brought this separate suit in Washington, So now you have essentially got a situation where the FBDA is being ordered to do

two things that cannot both be done right. They either need to suspend the drug nationwide or they need to preserve access to the drug in these eighteen jurisdictions that have prevailed in Washington State, and they can't do them. And so immediately you have a situation where we don't know what they're going to do. There's really good thinking on whether you even can compel the FDA to do anything. It's actually no authority for a judge. There's if the FDA is going to withdraw a drug, it has to

go by its own regulations and processes. So it's not even clear that this could happen. But we really are in a situation now where say this rockets up to the Fifth Circuit, that's the jurisdiction that controls appeals from Texas, it rockets up to the Ninth Circuit, right, that's the jurisdiction that's going to have to look at a Washington State decision. And then what happens you have to conflicting

appellate court opinions. So there's this other crazy problem which is in addition to the FDA not knowing what the hell it's meant to do. Next week, we have the problem of the Supreme Court is about to enter its last month of oral argument. The term's over it, So what are they going to do. Are they going to from vacation whatever? Are they going to list it for next fall? Are they going to do this on their like emergency chef ato docket the way they did SBA?

You remember they did the Vigilante Bill they're like, oh, it's two in the morning. I guess we'll write some sentences. So, like, there's no good option for the Supreme Court to resolve this. And this is in some sense, like very seriously the kind of definition of a constitutional crisis where you have dueling entities that have authority over something and they're both

pushing you to do different things. Could be right, Yeah, right, So when you now, I want to add another wrinkle to this constitutional crisis, Senator Ron Widen, There's no way this decision has a basis and law. It is instead rooted in conservatives dangerous and undemocratic takeover of our country's institutions. So the FDA, doctors and pharmacies can and must go about their jobs like nothing has changed and keep methophist

one available to the women across America. If they don't, the consequences of banning the most common method of abortion every single state will be devastating. And we're seeing this again, and we're also seeing democratic governors say that they're just gonna that these Republicans can go fuck themselves. I mean, does this add a wrinkle? It strikes me that this adds a wrinkle. Yeah, it's exactly the same problem. Governor Jay Insley and Washington State did the same thing earlier

this week. He knew that judge because Mark's ruling was coming, so he just announced that Washington State had purchased thirty thousand doses of mithipress stone as an insurance policy. And he's just and then he stockpiled another ten thousand doses and they went through the Department of Corrections in their state and was like, stop me, come get me. And so this starts to feel right, This starts to feel

like massive presistance. It starts to feel yeah. And the other thing, you know, AOC said this, I think on TV on Friday night. Again, you cannot force the FDA. There's no jurisdiction for one sitting district court judge in Amarilla to force the FDA to withdraw du There's just no mechanism to do it. And so I think that this kind of ignore ignore ignore strategy both signals what feels like lawlessness. That's what you're asking me, Molly, like,

are people going to just nullify this? That's kind of scary. But there's a way in which if he actually doesn't have the jurisdiction or the authority to do this, then what the hell are you going to do to comply? And so it's another you're exactly right that it sort of sends us down this nihilist path of we all choose our own legal ending. Right, it does seem like a larger problem of like what are we going to

live in fifty different countries? Right? And also, I know you and I talked about this after Dobs, but this other problem where the uncertainty is the point, right, Like the big winner post SBA, post Dobs. In so many of these contexts, the big winner is uncertainty. Because when you have doctors, for instance, we're hearing like fleeing Texas, right, I can't be a gynecologist in Texas. You're seeing hospitals closing around the country, clinics that don't know what to do.

That's all just the fruit of I don't know what the law is and I can't take a chance then I'm going to go to jail or that I'm going to face hundreds and thousands of dollars of fines, and so part of the I don't want to say beauty because it's a horror show, but the elegance of what

they are doing. Post abs is just sowing the seeds of nobody knows what the law is because everybody gets to do what they want, and the people who suffer in moments when uncertainty prevails and nobody knows how to protect themselves, and that caregivers don't know what the law is, and you know, uber drivers don't know, and kids don't

know if they can drive someone across state lines. Right, what prevails is this total massive doubt, and that means the most vulnerable people are the ones who suffer most. And those are the stories we're seeing, right, And that's what they've always wanted. I just want to ask you

one last question. I don't want to be hopeful, because the Supreme Court does truly suck, but they refuse to rule on the trans athlete band out of West Virginia and the three trumpy justices said they weren't going to way in I mean, and the descent was, of course, the two worst members of the court, Thomas and Alito. Did that make you a little bit hopeful that there they know they're over their skis. I spent Friday night in that with depeche Mode, admittedly bringing in my ears

in that like liminal space. Hold me, Justice Kavanaugh, Hold me, Justice Barrett, like you keep telling me you're moderates, right. Justice Kavanaugh was so so so sanctimonious in his Dub's concurrence where he was like, oh, wow, you know this is really tricky, and I'm certainly not saying that people can't cross state lines, and far be it from me

to say that, you know, we could criminalize. So I suppose now we're in this completely tragic moment where we are relying on the shame response of Amy Coney, Barrett

and Brett Kavanaugh. And so what you're asking me is this unanswerable question about whether they're prepared to do now what they wouldn't do in Dobbs, which is say the quiet parts loud, which is say yes, we want to make abortion illegal from conception around the country, and if we have to use the eighteen seventy three Comstock Act, will do it. I don't know. I literally don't know what the answer is in a very creepy way, and I'm going to say something that's going to freak you out.

What scares me about this moment we're in is that the more we anger. Clarence Thomas and the more we anger Brett Kavanaugh, the more we say things like wow, his concurrence in Dobbs was full crap, the more likely we are to get a bad outcome. Right, it's real abuser stuff, abuser exactly. And we're in this classic abuser moment where I guess my answer to your question has

to be yes, Molly. I am certain that in the fullness of time and their infinite wisdom, Amy Cooney, Barrett and Brett Kavana are going to realize that they don't want people to die on tables of sepsis because of their ruling. But do I believe that? But how long does that take? Who knows? It's very weird. And this is the problem with like, you know, unchecked infinite power.

To get back to Clarence Thomas, like, if we really really want a good result in these medication abortion cases, I think what we're supposed to do is say that they're awesome and turn a blind eye to their misconduct. All of this is a loser for Republicans, right, Like people hate it. People hate the idea that you can arrest a grandmother for taking her granddaughter to get an abortion, Like this is not popular, Like those swing steady voters don't like the handman's tail stuff. They may not be

pro choice, but they don't like whatever this is. I mean, do you think that these guys, these three trumpy justices have sort of been like, we don't want to completely screw over the Republican Party, or you think they just don't care. I mean, I think this is back to my slightly dispiriting everything everywhere, all at once answer, which is, I think if you look at what happened in Tennessee this week, which is, we don't care how people vote.

This is not about vote suppression. This is about stripping power of duly elected people with authority to act right. And I think this is where Cheryl and Eiffel wrote this kind of chilling piece for us at Slate a few weeks ago, saying, when they say we're going to make it impossible for the Wisconsin Supreme Court duly elected to rule on voting or abortion, When they say we and Georgia are going to make it impossible for Fannie Willis duly elected to bring this, what they're doing is

saying this is way beyond vote suppression. This is way beyond jerrymandering. This is actually stripping democratically elected folks of their power. And the reason it's relevant to this conversation is that I deeply, deeply believe that even if sixty seventy eighty percent of voters hate these anti abortion moves and want, for instance, you know, rape exceptions, and want doctors to make the decisions and not hospital boards, it

almost doesn't matter if you can suppress their votes. And what we are seeing, I think is a really existential and I don't use that word lightly, foot race between pro democracy right students who want gun control and people who hate dabs and people who are fighting for one person, one vote, fighting radical jerrymanders on the one hand, and then you're seeing this vote suppression that's happening on such a large scale that it's not even vote suppression anymore.

It's democracy suppression. And what scares me is that I think the Supreme Court, because you know, I just rattled off those cases since United Shelby County rucho, they're in the vote suppression business, Molly, that's how they do it, right. No, it's true. Thank you so much for joining us on a weekend. I appreciate you. If I were a better person I'd sing us out with some grim voicing depeche Mode, but I'm not that person. Thank you for having me.

Thank you, you're amazing. Congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost represents Florida's tenth congressional district. Welcome back to Fast Politica, Congressman Maxwell Frost, thank you so much for having me on. We're delighted to have you back. I want to talk to you about this movement of young legislators are just it's just

exploding around you. Yeah, I mean, you know, young legislators, young activists, organizers, I mean, you know, you see what's going on in Tennessee, r Now, that's which is okay, Yeah, which is both incredibly sad, but also when you see with the response to just the horrible things going on in terms of guns and violence, and then obviously these three lawmakers that may be expelled, I think they're the vote is this morning. I think it's happening right now.

Most people know. But just can you explain how you got into politics because I feel like it dovetails so nicely with what's happening right now. Yeah. So I got involved in politics because of gun violence. It was the Sandy Hook shooting that really put me into action. It was my call to action. After seeing what had happened, I went to DC. I was fifteen years old. I went to the memorial that was going on. I had

found someone online named Sarah Clements. She was a leader with the Junior Newtown Action Alliance and her mother was actually a teacher at Sandy Hook. Her mother survived the shooting, but her mom was a teacher there, and so I connected with Sarah and I just kind of set her message on Facebook and said, hey, you know, I'd love to be involved, and she sent me a Google form

for the trip. I applied, my parents signed a waiver, and I went over a fifteen years old and really being there with the students and the families who had lost loved ones and lost their children in the shooting, it really changed everything. And the moment for me was I was sitting across from Matthew Soto, who lost his sister Vicky in the shooting, and just seeing as someone who's sixteen with the demeanor of someone who's sixty talking about his sister was murdered for just going to school

that morning. I Juan straight to my Howatl room. I was crying and called my mom, my mom to teacher of thirty seven years and I, you know, said I want to fight for a world or no one has to feel that way. And you know you get him for want the reason you feel. You find up there's a lot of problems, but that's where I firstly dedicated myself being a part of this fight, ed And it grows and changes as you get into it because you find out about all the different issues and how they're connected.

But gun violence is really the issue that put me to action. So right now here you are, are you the youngest man of Congress ever? Now? No, so, I mean in the eighteen hundreds and the book exactly, so in the eighteen hundreds, you know, there's like twenty one year old members of Congress and stuff, so not ever, but I am the youngest right now. And I do believe one of your favorite people was actually maybe a month or two younger than me when he was elected.

Who's that? Madison? Oh? Yes, thank you very nice. So I wanted to ask you so mean, I wanted to ask you here you are in Congress now, we had you on this podcast right after you got elected. You have probably had a pretty steep learning curve. Tell us what has really surprised you about Congress. Honestly, I would

say there's two things. Number one is just how partisan the operation of Congresses, because I feel like a lot of times we would attribute how partisan Congress is just like people, you know, the media and people you know the wild person from one side and the wild person on the other side, and put them on the TV,

and you know, that's all part of it. But really, I mean when you go to Congress itself, for instance, you go to orientation, you're only with your people from the other side for the morning when you are in class that you're trying to listen and you know, figure out how to be a member of Congress, so you're not really talking much. And then after lunch you are completely separated by party for the rest of the day.

And that's every day in orientation. And then once you get in the Congress, you're so busy and anytime you're with you know, other members, you're on the floor, you're sitting on separate sides of the aisle. You have different you know cloak rooms, which the cloakroom is like the kind of like a break room that's there for when we're voting, and you really have to go out of the way for that kind of bipartisanship. And so it's just interesting and it was a little surprising to me.

The other thing, as I say, is I'm still getting used to the schedule and the pace. And what I mean that is I've always worked pretty long hours working on campaigns, and even as a candidate. Right Like, as a candidate, I was working twelve to sixteen hours a day.

But the difference now is I'm just working the same hours, but it's like twenty minute increments of completely different subjects, and you're using a lot of a lot more brain power because on a campaign, you're just thinking about winning, knocking doors or raising money. In office, you're thinking about a million different priorities. And so I joke around that on the campaign, I'd come home and I'd be exhausted, and now I come home and I'm exhausted and my head.

Do you have any hopes that there can be a sort of bipartisan I mean, you're gonna we're gonna hit the debt ceiling and there's gonna have to be something bipartisan happening. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's unfortunate that Republican leadership wants to use the debt ceiling to kind of negotiate on the budget, especially because I don't think people fully understand that, I mean, the US hitting the debt,

stealing and defaulting on our debt. You know that that doesn't sound worse than the government shutdown, but it's actually much worse than a government shutdown. Right. But we're looking at way because we can help educate our constituents and kind of what's going on as we get close to this, because it will be serious, like people will see serious cuts to you know, things like Social Security, etc. To

keep that in mind. So we'll see what happens. I mean, like you know, the Freedom concuss came out and said there will be no discussion less it involves major cuts. And obviously we're not. You know, we can't have like twenty percent cuts across the board. We can't have you know, the numbers of twenty twenty numbers for the budget. It's just like it won't work and people are gonna feel it at home, and so we'll have to see where

it goes. But yeah, I mean, it's gonna have to be done a bipartisan way because we need to have the approval from the House of Representatives. Well, and also, I mean they're the worst bad faith actors going exactly number one. I mean, someone argue that we should the debt sealing shouldn't even exist. I'm one of those people.

It's really just a political tool. So we have this kind of near explosion every year that causes unneeded anxiety and gives people an opportunity to kind of hold the whole country hostage to what what do you want to cut snap? You know, like, well they would like to cat snap. So yeah, yeah, why do you think I want to get into this idea for a second. So you have all these people who voted for Trump, non college educated whites who would actually benefit from and often

are on SNAP or on Obamacare. And I mean I think, like my favorite discourse was that, you know, the people who after they elected Trump were like, well, I'm on ACA, so you know, I'm on I'm not on Obamacare. I'm

on the other thing, which is Obamacare. I mean, do you I mean, why do you think Democrats have so much trouble appealing to those people when they are basically all they want to do is help those people I've been talking a lot about this difference between politics and policy, and I think a good case study for it is in Florida. Yeah, or if you look at Florida and look at our ballot initiatives, over seventy percent of our voters said yes to medical marijuana, voting rights for people's

previous felonies, and a fifteen dollars minimum wage. And if you look at the polling, most Flurians want to cloddify the right to an abortion, are not for permit less carry, and what adult use of marijuana. So it's interesting because in terms of policy, you are actually a pretty progressive state. But then when you introduce politics, then things look a little different. And that's why someone like the Santas can

win with the twenty point margin vast November. But you know, but we have a good chance of palling the passing these progressive ballot initiatives because his policy versus politics. You know. It's also why anytime rounda Santas speak, he's never talking about policy because he knows it's very his policy is unpopular. He's talking about woke and you know, whatever the hell that is, And that's kind of what he focuses because that's the bread and butter, the politics of all of it.

So it's very interesting to kind of break it down like that, and I think you can break it down like that in the national scale. You know, our policies that we have as Democrats and progressives. It's the most popular thing. It is the most popular policy, but it seems like sometimes we have trouble connecting that policy at people's day to day life and telling the story of policy.

The other thing is we oftentimes are obsessed with giving people something to vote against and not giving people something to vote for. I mean, if you look at what happened in Florida, Republicans would set up the trap where they're like, you're a socialist, communist, even from the police, whatever, and they say that about you. Whether you're a moderate or progressive, don't matter if you're a Democrat, they say

it about you. And then Democrats in Florida spent, you know, would spend their media budget saying no, I'm not and I'm just not sure no I'm not is a winning message. And so I think we should just really focus in on what we're fighting for, what it means, how it can work for people and not be afraid of those kind of north star bold solutions that yeah, I might not pass next year, but it excites people to think about the future that's possible. We just got to be

honest with Yeah. I mean that's the thing that I'm so struck by. And when you talk about these ballot initiatives, ballot initiatives do incredibly well. I mean, they do so well that conservatives want to make the bar for them sixty percent and not fifty percent because they know, you know that the people are much more liberal than politically than their ideas. I mean, yeah, that, I mean, it's

just such an interesting and important thing. And I want to talk to you about the elections this week because there were too you know, in the minutes that we're not eating up by Trump getting indicted there the Republican Front ran are getting indicted. There were two huge wins for progressives. Talk to me about Chicago. I'm curious what your take on that is. Yeah, I mean, very very

exciting what happened in Chicago. I think you have your classic progressive or The interesting thing is, I think a lot of times we want to boil the sound to progressive versus moderate, because that maybe that's what we're used to or whatever. But I think it's much more than that. I mean, obviously you haven't progressive and you have someone who's more who's more of a moderate in the race. But a lot of this, I'm just not convinced that most voters walk into a voting booth and go who's

the progressive, who's the moderate. I mean, I think there's a group of people who do that, like you know, maybe the people who are very politically involved, but I think most working people go and think about who have I heard from, who said things that I believe in, Who's inspired me, Who's spoken to what I'm going through,

that sort of thing. And I think what we saw as you know, someone like Mary, like Brandon Johnson, who comes from union, who comes from labor, who is progressive, and who was talking about a better Chicago for everyone, and it was building that vision with everyone along the campaign trail. And I think that type of campaign is so engaging, and that type of campaign brings people together from different walks of life that you want that to be the future of your city or of wherever you live.

The campaign itself is like a canvas where you can paint the future of whatever place you're running for. And so if you have an exciting campaign that talks about a bold future, that talks about policies that people actually believe in, then people will will take that energy and bring it to the voting booth. I think you saw a Brandon Johnson, who you know I tweeted about this. A big topic of discussion in this in that race was crime. Nobody likes crime. You know, no one wants

to crime. Let me just say that straight up. Everyone has different ideas on how we deal with it. But you know, our country has had a kind of tough on crime mentality for a long time, and nothing's really gotten better in terms of crime. And I think we have groups of people who are saying, well, look, we have being tough on crime, why don't we just be smart on crime? And that doesn't mean there's no accountability for crime. It means let's also look at the root

causes that push people to commit a crime. How do we be how do we have preventative measures not reactionary ones. It's the same conversation with gun violence, because people want to talk about, you know, ending gun violence, and it's like, well, yeah, let's talk about what we do after like a group of fricking school kids get mowed down by an AAR fifteen. Sure, but I'm more interested in talking about how we make sure that those kids are alive and that never happened.

So I just don't know, And this is something within the Democratic Party. Two, why Democrats have a hard time using the same logic for all crime. And it's like, what are the preventative measures? That's gun control or gun violence prevention, universal background checks, those are preventative measures. So it's, you know, it's kind of a you know, a debate

of I guess, ideology and policy. But like, let's apply that same line of thinking that most Democrats are for gun violence prevention measures, Let's do the same thing with crime and let's see if we can fix it. So either way, very interesting, but very exciting, very exciting fantasy. Judge Janet, Yeah, I want to ask you about Judge Janet too, But first I want to talk to you. You know, I'm looking at this bill that you did with Chris Murphy. Can you just give us like the

TLDR on that. Yeah, So this is the first bill that I've introduced. It is called the Office of Gun Violence Prevention active twenty twenty three. It's quite a literal title for the bill because what it does is it creates a Federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention. And did you know there is no one office in the federal government that works on the violence every single day. It's actually split between multiple different departments and agencies that have

different functions on this issue. It's the leading cause of death for children and has the least amount of money dollars and effort in terms of research and data aggregations exactly. So that's why most of the data we see on gun violence that actually doesn't really come from the government. It comes from every town for so brave here these different organizations, which is great, but we need to put some sweat equity on the line here in getting this data.

And then also you know, this office would provide recommendations on how they feel like we could stop gun violence and work with municipal governments, county wide governments, Congress, etc. And so I hope that this can get bipartisan support because it's not gun policy. It's not a policy on guns,

it's an office to help us be informed on it. Now, I'll I understand that there probably will be some people who don't want the office because they understand that from an objective point of view, when you look at what's going on, the recommendations that might come out of it might not be in line with your politics. But I mean, we need, we need to save lives. And so that's the bill. We're really excited about it. We introduced it with Senator Chris Murphy, so it lives in both the

House and the Senate. I saw you come up in the Washington Examiner, which is a gop APO dump shop basically, and it was like, I mean, Washington Examiner, Washington Free Beacon basically the same, you know, Okay in my mind anyway, I'm sure I'll get you know, but yes, basically, and it was like Republicans failed to appeal to Generation Z or whatever you guys are. Why do you think Republicans

can't organically appeal to young people? I think it's because just young people, and I don't want to say every younger, but right, the vast majority of young people in this country are just not online with their politics at all. I mean, what was it six It was sixty or seventy percent of Gen Z voted for Democrats in this past mid term. That's a lot. And also studies are showing that as we're getting older, we're not getting more conservative like other generations have. And so I think it

shows a like a generational shift in our politics. Even young conservatives hold more progressive ideology than their parents do. It's really interesting, I think, and I think we part of it is the fact that, you know, what separates Generation Z from millennials and any other generation is that we've been completely immersed in this advanced technology since birth. So for many millennials, kind of this technology we have now came along and maybe like later teen years or

like you know, maybe when you're in middle school. For Gen Z, it's like since the day you were born, this has been around. And there's a lot of these people. I didn't have a phone until much later, but a lot of folks have phones like as soon as they are able to walk or talk, you know, And so it's wild. I'll be walking around and see you, like a little toddler with an iPhone better than mine. I'm like, oh,

but either way. So but because of that, you know, we're open to all this information since a very young age, and that includes a lot of a trauma are. You go in a room with people from different generations and you ask, tell me moment defining moments for your generation, no matter what your ideology is. You'll hear the moon landing and postline eleven and the Country came together in etc. And you ask a member of Generation Z, and you're going to hear Parkland and George Floyd and Brianna Taylor

like death, death and death. And I think that trauma, that pool of trauma builds up in someone and builds up in a generation, and they're kind of defined by it, and they demand a better world. They demand a world where black people aren't being you know, killed on the streets that are unarmed, and where you know, we aren't being shot in our schools, and where people have healthcare, and you know, we're just kind of like it's very basic,

you know. And I think a lot of young people are just confused on why these things aren't already here. And obviously there's a lot of reasons, but we want to be part of the solution. And I think that's really exciting. That's why I'm actually even though things can seem pretty gloomy, even though yesterday or not yesa Tuesday was a good day for campaigns. You know, you're in a state like Florida, things can seem pretty down, but I think time is on our side. Yeah, what's happening

in Florida right now with the Democratic Party. I mean, how much time do you have? You know? I think so. I mean there's a lot, right, I mean, I can't you can't talk about what's going on in Florida without bringing up Governor round Santus because he really brings something to the table that I think just Florida has never seen before, and I think it's important. I mean, look at what's going on the Floorda state legislature. This is like, I think this is possibly the worst session that the

Florida legislature has had in modern history. The bills that are coming out of them are all championed by the governor. We just passed a permitless carry bill, which allows people to carry any gun any place and any person anywhere, so you don't have to get a permit. There's a new bill that might pass that it makes it a felony to harbor a undocumented person, and that what they mean by that is you can't drive an undocumented person. You can't have them over at your house or it's

a felony. I mean, it's some of the most disgusting, you know. And then not to mention all the attacks, there's a new one that just came up too, that makes a Pride parade illegal if anyone, if anyone there is dressed in drag. It's horrible. And I think with the Democratic Party, I mean I kind of explained before, you know, we have a shift of kind of a different tactics and style of politics. And I think the GOP has moved quickly into this kind of aggressive style

of politics. So I would argue they've always had that, but like even more aggressive. And I think Democrats are still trying to figure out, like are we still in this era of like back room by partisan deals or like going you know, being on TV and completely you know, lying about the other side, which is what we see Republicans do all the time. And I'm not saying we need to go on TV and lie, but we need

to be aggressive truth tellers. And I think there's a lot of Democrats who are hesitant to get into that type of politics. That's why when I started defining what Rond de Santis is as a fascist like I on a tongue. But I received some calls and text furn people were saying like, hey, Max, with that, and I don't think it's helpful to us and Florida and this and that, And I'm just like, what do you want to do? Do you want to lay down and let

him step on us? Because then the next election cycle, people see the bootmark on your face, and I'm not going to do that. And so either way, I think there's kind of a push and pull there. But we have a new party chair and Nicki Freed, and you know, she's been out there and being aggressive and but you know, beyond the party chair, it's also the elected and the organizers, and so we just have a lot of infrastructure work to do here in Florida, and it's gonna take time,

you know. I mean, we're not gonna flit Florida in one year or two years. But I think that the margin that we saw, that twenty point margin, I think that we can more than cut that in half this sex cycle, and I think we can be I think we can get back to being a real background state just here in the next couple of cycles. Maxwell Frost congressman.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for having me on Molly Junk Fast Jesse Cannon, what would you like a presumptive Republican nominee to not be truthing about? My top of my list might be world War three. I think that when you are Donald Trump and the thing most people are worried about you doing is causing World War three, perhaps it might be better not to all caps tweet about world War three and just that too. Like you just wrote world War three,

world War three. Case you're wondering, I mean civil War right up there with World War three. But like this is this is not good. What's interesting about this is that Donald Trump's truth no longer store the conversation and he says crazy stuff like this and it doesn't make a ripple, which is good. But it's also bad because he is the Republican front runner for president in twenty twenty four. And that is why world War three all apps is our moment of Fuckeray. That's it for this

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