Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And Donald Trump says, I'm allowed to do whatever I want with classified info. I'm shocked we have such an interesting show. Today, Senator Bob Casey talks to us about his run for reelection in this critical
swing state of Pennsylvania. Then we'll talk to New York Times columnist and close personal friend of mine, Lydia Paul Green, about her travel to Chad and how she covers the story that haunt us. But first we have the Good Liars Jason Selgvig, who has a live show on the fifteenth of September in Brooklyn. Welcome to Fast Politics.
Jason, thanks for having me appreciate it.
You are a good liar. You are one of the two good liars. Are you a good liar? Does everyone ask you that? That's annoying? Never mind, don't answer that.
I don't know. I don't know.
Maybe I am a good liar. We came up with a name about ten years ago, and it's there and so it's got to stay. So yes, I am a good liar. Technically, I don't know. If I am a good liar technically though.
As someone who has the name of my mother's second husband who I never met, I can speak to what it's like to have a name that nobody realized would haunt you forever.
Yeah. I like the name of the Good Liars to be honest, But yeah, it kind of changed. We've changed kind of what we've done over the last couple of years. You know, in twenty sixteen, we were exclusively pranking presidential candidates. That was what we did for our movie Undecided. We've kind of moved from where we started, which was like basically acting like we were investment bankers at Occupy Wall Street was the first thing to Rob and I did together.
That's perfect.
Yeah, we had a movement called Occupy Occupy Wall Street. We thought we were doing a sketch, but investment bankers thought it was real and came down in actually protested with us as we were making fun of them to their face. So it's kind of evolved over time, and now you're seeing more of these interviews that we've done. We're still doing some prank sons of politicians. So nobody should feel too safe in these primaries.
I don't think let me ask you, who do you think is the most prankable politician right now?
Ooh, that's a good question. That's a good question of avik Ramaswami is he's very smooth.
Hitting the head by truth, Yeah.
By true. And that was I saw that video. You posted that video yesterday getting hit in the head with truth. It's just beautiful symbolism, beautiful symbolism truth.
I would say that if you have a setup as a politician that looks like something that comes from veep right, you can pretty much guarantee that what will happen is something that would happen on veep right.
You could almost hear the viep music playing underneath it as it happened. I think he's funny though, I mean, he's just it's so funny that he wants to raise the voting age to twenty five. I mean, it's not funny, it's like scary. But he like did that Eminem impression or like a performance.
And then Eminem was like stop.
Right, but he did it, and it like the performance was like he was really committed to it and it kind of felt like a high school talent show when he was doing it. And it's funny that he wants to raise the voting age when he's actually acting like an eighteen year old right now.
Yeah, his whole energy is this like and I say, this is the mother of one debate kid and one model u N kid, Like the worst of high school debate is the vague.
Right, He's got the smarminess to him too, And it's funny. We talked to We went to the debate in Milwaukee, and it was very hot. It was very hot. There was one hundred and fifteen feet index. That's really has nothing to do with what I'm about to talk about.
But as in middle aged too, I really do want to know about the weather, and also what you ate and where you stayed. Continue.
Okay, well I'll get to my meals and lodging in a second. But we talked to one of his supporters. I talked to this guy who was in like a it was like a colonial revel lutionary war style marching band that was like for him. And I talked to this guy and we found it like talking to Trump supporters, that sometimes they kind of sound like Trump a little bit, and this guy kind of sounded like Ramaswami, like he sounded like he like was kind of sticking his nose
up at me. And I asked him about raising the voting age to eighteen. I made the point that like people you know believe they are sixty believe JFK. Junior is currently the vice president, Like that doesn't mean you're informed. And he said there are low like low information voting happens, and some eighteen year olds you know, are not informed. But I was very informed when I was eighteen. He had to like throw in that. He was, like, I am the exception of the rule because I am very smart,
just like my candidate. It was interesting to see them body of the candidate.
That is amazing. What I think a lot of us are interested in is who was there and who were they excited about.
The biggest crowd of people were for Trump. There was like a group of like forty to sixty people that were kind of standing outside and they didn't move, you know, they didn't go inside. They were just Trump spores that made the trek there to support Donald Trump. But they they were there, you know, not only to support Trump, but to make fun of Ron DeSantis, which I thought was kind of It was kind of nice to find some common ground because they were making fun of him, and some of that was kind.
Of funny for those who have somehow managed to blank this from their brains.
And good for you. If that's good for you, I wish I was you.
Yeah, me too. Trump was not there.
He was not there. Not only was he not there, he ran counter programming to the people on the day. He showed such a lack of respect for the people on the debate stage that he ran counter programming to the debate. His own interview with Tucker Carlson on Twitter on Twitter on X excuse me, it's X. Let's get it right. Let's get it right.
Really, what am I doing?
They were the Trump supporters there making fun of Ronda Santis. But you know, we kind of expected that there would be kind of groups of people holding signs for their man or woman running for president, but we really didn't see a lot of support for the other candidates. Outward support. There were a couple of Rondastanti's shirts, some Nicky Haley stuff, but I literally I don't think de rometer. I saw or talked to one person who was like, I'm so excited about Mike Pence.
I mean, it's like a statement that you say that sounds like.
You're being iron No, but it literally literally not one person. So it was it was interesting because it really did feel like it was the B Team debate because it was. And I was just shocked that people were still even the people that were four other candidates that we talked to, they still were like, well, I still would support Donald Trump if he was the nominee. And it's just he's just the lack of respect he's showing for all these
candidates running counter programming. His whole game is just making fun of everybody, and they're still like, he would be my guy. Nicky Haley doesn't make it, he'd he'd be my guy. If Rondo Santis didn't make it, he'd be my guy.
What I like about Trump is that there are people on the right who are now making the case that the indicts, because they help him with his base who live on earth too, that they will somehow help him with swing voters.
Yeah. I look, I don't want to make any predictions. I've it's so wrong about stuff so wrong at twenty sixteen. I don't know. Maybe maybe who knows, because you talk to talk to some people, you know, we talk to people at Trump arow is who basically get their news from Donald Trump, not from news sources like actually from Donald Trump his social media and all that stuff.
Well, and also Newsmax right.
And Newsmax and uh Oa n which has kind of fallen off, I think, but Newsmax is a big one now.
And the Epoch Times.
Yes, yes, and what is it right side right Side broadcasting.
Broadcasting Epoch Times though is fascinating because uh owned by a Chinese cult. Jason, my next question for you, is it the stupidest time to be alive?
Yes? Well, yes, yeah, it must be. It must be me. It definitely feels that way. You know, we were at January sixth, We were there. What happened that day, the culination of just a guy, not a being able to admit that he lost an election and just breaking him psychologically, and it ended with like the storming of the US capital. And now here we are, you know, three almost three
years later, and he is the leading candidate president. That doesn't get much stupider than that, in my opinion, like that is just the stupidest end result and the fact that he's like neck and neck with Biden in these polls. I just don't. I don't get it. There's part of it. I just want to pull my hair out thinking about it, like why is this happening? How is this happening in the US. To answer your question, yes, this has to
be the stupidest timeline. We must have gotten off of reality at some point, like there was like something happened, there was like a glitch in the matrix or something, and we've gone on this path that is just like whatever the dumbest thing that could possibly happen happens. And yes, so this is the stupidest timeline.
So let's just do two seconds here. Speaking of stupid we are here talking about what's happening right now. Trump has said he's allowed to do whatever he wants is classified info. He's extremely excited to testify in the federal government's case against him.
Okay, you think that's actually gonna happen. You think he's actually going to testify. I don't think that's going to happen. He also said he was going to show all the voter fraud on that Monday. He was going to show it all weeks.
Yeah, two weeks.
Also, he was gonna have a healthcare plan.
I don't know it's better than Obamacare. It's happening right now.
I don't want to, like, I don't really don't want to, you know, put my food in my mouth here. But I think maybe he might be lying. I don't know. I mean, there's no history of him lying about everything ever, so I don't know. I don't think his lawyers are going to be like, you're not getting on the stamp.
They'd be like, we we don't want to get murdered. Day three on the Ken Paxton impeachment trial. I mean, this is must see TV discuss.
I think it's interesting that everyone kind of came together in Texas to like compeach it. It's just you've got Marjorie Taylor Green sticking up for him, which is just I don't know if you want someone to endorse you like I think. She tweeted about it last week. Two days later, she was on Alex Jones show. Literally, okay, back to the dumbest timeline. Yes, this is the dumbest timeline.
Do you see the video of Alex Jones mad at Trump about the vaccines? No, right, I'll find that it's something to you, But I mean it does seem like Alex Jones is very much in this political milieu right now. We have the sort of thought leaders of the Republican Party Alex Jones, Marjorie Taylor Green, Ken Paxton.
This is another figure where it's you'd think, if the Republican Party had any decency, like the fact that he's said that the Sandy Hook bass shooting was fake, there were actors, you'd think that's it.
Did you just say the sentence, if the Republican Party had any decency, you enjoy two thousand and three.
That's funny because I was watching the RFK documentary, not Junior money. The RFK documentary is on Netflix, came out years ago, and I just watched it because you.
Know, Junior is actually going to be the vice president.
No, that's JFK Junior. Sorry, I hate fact check. You here JFK Junior, And he's not going to be the vice president. He is currently the vice president and the president right now. According to my sources. These are my sources, that is is actually JFK Senior. I'm not even kidding, like this sounds like I'm like making something up, but this is something we have heard from multiple people. The JFK Senior who would be I think one hundred.
I think.
I asked the guy, it's like, would he be like one hundred and five right now? And he was like one hundred and three, and I was like, I'm so all right, I got it.
Mess that up. The people who think Biden is too old to run are quite happy with their real president who was one hundred and three years old and also dead.
Right, currently dead, currently dead JFK. And it's not like it's like there's a question. This isn't like, you know, like JFK senior or junior, excuse me. They're like, well, maybe the plane didn't crash. He knew about it, so he escaped it and all this stuff like there's a video of like some pretty gruesome stuff like brains and stuff, like we know that this happened.
Oliver Stone made movies about it, so we know it's true.
That's true. You know. I tried to watch that recently and I couldn't believe that this was like the movie that everyone loved so much years ago.
Are you younger than we are?
I was born in the eighties. That's all. I'll say. That's all.
I'll say. That's not good, all right, We're never having you back.
Thanks, because we should.
That's all right. Anyone younger than us is out.
This is like a little bit sounding like a Republican presidential candidate and how baby, Yeah, it's a little odd only fascist and we're raising the guesting age.
But I have to say, like here we are watching this, I truly believe that we're in a moment where the mainstream media and again, like I don't want to be one of those people who talks about the mainstream media and doesn't admit to be a member of it. I am a member of it. I write for mainstream media organizations. I go on. But it does seem like we're in a moment where the mainstream media is so incredibly despondent about having to do twenty nineteen again.
Just like it's a rerun and we're like the last thing people want to do is is live again.
This yeah, yea yeah, I mean, do you think that's right? Do you see that?
I mean, are you excited for this election?
I'm resigned to reality, and I you know, look what I love it for Republicans to be like, you know, didn't you say something hilarious about Republicans choosing decency? You know, maybe we shouldn't nominate this guy who has been impeached twice and has all the indictments. Perhaps he might not be the big winner we think he is. But I just can't imagine that happens.
It's like they've lost control of the train, really, because it's the people for better or worse in democracy. The people are behind him solidly. What can you do? Lots of mainstream Republicans tried in twenty sixteen. You remember Mitt Romney's speech, and other people were speaking up like, this is not where we want the party to go. This is where the party is. It is the Trump Party. There isn't a Republican party. It's not the same. It's
definitely not. You know, you hear Mike Pence saying, you gave a good, big speech in New Hampshire. I want to go back a big speech meeting, like no one talked about it. It happened two days ago, but it was like supposed to be his big speech. You want to go back to the Reagan Republicans. But those people don't exist anymore. I don't think like there might be it might be those, you know, the middle class suburban
voters that swing an election. Maybe that resonates with them, maybe, but definitely not enough to like derail the Trump train that is out of control has literally no one is controlling again but Donald Trump.
And it's yeah, Jason, we might let you come back. Really, I mean, I don't know, no, Okay, fine.
Bob Casey is the senior Senator from Pennsylvania. Welcome to Fast Politics, Senator Casey Polly.
Great to be with you. Thank you.
It's such a weird political moment. I feel like I don't even know where to begin. You're running for reelection. Let's talk a little bit about that.
Yeah, we're in a race that we began in April, but we're awaiting an opponent.
Your dad was governor and your mom just passed. Yeah, you come from a family that is deep Pennsylvania. Talk about that, and I'm sorry about your mom.
Oh thanks. No, just first and foremost parents. They had eight children. I'm number four in that list, and we
were really blessed by their constant love and support. And I don't know how they did it, because my father was a public official and a politician running for office, stay wide office numerous times over the course of the mid sixties, really into the mid eighties and beyond, and my mother somehow was able to hold our family together and do all the important jobs that you hope a parent would be able to do, to raise a family,
to participate in the work that her husband's doing. Ultimately, she had to become more of a public face when he was elected, but we were blessed by her love and she died at ninety one. I hope I'm half the parent and half the spouse that she was.
True. I'm glad I don't have to raise eight children while my husband is a campaigning that sounds really bad. I have to say there's too many. I mean I say this as the mother of three. Eight is too many. So let's talk about labor. You had to tweet the labor fees should be deductible. Let's talk about I think, like one of the quiet underreported stories of the Biden administration, and this is true in Pennsylvania too, democratic politics is trying to get unions back into a place where they
really have negotiating power. Let's talk about that.
Yeah.
First, I think if you look at where we are today in our political culture, a good bit of the anger and frustration that people have has its origins not just in the political divisions generally, but we have forty years of the tax code being rigged for big corporations and very wealthy Americans. Plus over that same time period, a precipitous decline in the number of Americans who are part of the labor union, and because of that, the
economic power of workers and families has declined significantly. So you're going to have any at the end of that forty or so years, you go back even further, I think, but you're going to have a lot of economic trauma that people are experiencing, and that's created a lot of divisions. So one of the ways not just to lift up workers in their families, but to breach some of the
divides in society is to get more people unionized. When you're part of a union where you can bargain collectively for wages and benefits, you're more likely to have a good wage, good healthcare, and a pension of some kind. So the pro Act is kind of the I think the test for any public official, are you in favor of passing the Protecting the Right to Organize Act or not? I and so many of our Democratic colleagues are been co sponsors for years, and Republicans are unilaterally unanimously opposed
to that. One of the parts of our tax code that a lot of people don't realize is if a union or if a corporation spends money to bust a union, guess what, they receive a tax benefit from that. And so one of the things I'm trying to do with legislation is to end that tax benefit to corporations. We'll get a tax break for busting unions.
Right exactly, I want to talk to you about China. I don't even know where to begin with this. Conservatives are at you about China. They're mad at Biden about China. They're also mad that the Biden administration is working to build chips A semiconductor factories in the United States so that they're not as relying on China. Can China be the boogeyman for all things?
Look, there's no question when you look at recent history, especially under a new leader President she for relevably new. They've taken China's taken as a nation, taken a turn in a different direction. He's an autocrat, and he's not good to his own people, but he's also leading an effort to kind of crush any kind of economic competition, including ours. So I always say, and I think it's true. I think the evidence is overwhelming. When China cheats on
the world stage, Pennsylvania workers lose jobs. They've been cheating as the Communist government for years, but they also have been stealing our technology, and often the rise of China has been fueled by decisions and actions taken by Corporate America. So my effort and actually work with John Corner Texas is no, he's no liberal.
Democrat, but he's certainly not.
He gives you a sense of the scope of the problem that when Corporate America is out making investments in China, including investments that involve our security military technology, there's almost no constraints on them, some limited constraints by export controls. So we introduced a bill to have that have a review of that outbound investment. We finally got a version of that past this summer and it passed ninety one to six, despite the unilateral opposition of the US Chamber
of Commerce in Corporate America. So that what we're trying to do is to say, look, US corporation, if you're going to send our military technology, the benefits of our innovation to China and benefit President she and his regime. The federal government needs to be notified about that so we can make an assessment whether or not our national security is underminable. That's why I got ninety one votes, even though Corporate America held it up for more than a year and a half.
Republicans seem like they have some real problems as a party in their leadership right. Their leader is basically Donald Trump. Mitch McConnell is really the brains behind the organization, though they're furious with Mitch McConnell and he's been plagued with health problems. Is this an opportunity for Democrats?
Certainly.
I think I'd much rather be our party in this difficult divide we have in the country than be on their side, because Molly, I think you hit the nail on the head. I think it's not simply that you have a group of extremists in the corner and the rest of the party leadership is somehow rational and not extreme. I think it's become at the national level, a member
of Congress level and leadership level and extreme party. I think it was extreme even before he shut up, So it's not just Maga Republicans, it's leaders in Congress that accommodate that mega part of their party. So in essence, it's as you said, it's pretty much the Trump Party, and that makes it very difficult for them to work with this. Now, every once in a while we can break through that I did with John Corner and China it passed a bill with build Cassidy on to protect
workers who are pregnant in the workforce. But it is exceedingly difficult to get through that extremism that we're seeing all across their party at the political level.
This Chips Act explain to us what it does to protect workers in Pennsylvania and how that works.
In particular, what we're trying to do there is to say if the United States has lost its edge as it has in a very substantial way on producing semiconductors, which everything we use, our smartphones, our refrigerators, every appliance, automobiles, everything we use needs those chips we used to produce in nineteen ninety. We're producing more than a third of the semiconductors in the world today will only produced twelve
produce about twelve percent. So to regain our edge, we have to invest in research, and that means the federal government investing in private sector companies that can produce these chips, and we run ahead of China or any other country that would be competing with us. So it's a critically important piece of legislation to reach gain our edge and something as fundamental as a semiconductor, just like we have to do in a whole series of other parts of
our manufacturing economy. And a lot of corporate CEOs are finally recognizing that what President Biden did and Democrats did on a whole host difference, not just on the Chips bill, is leading to a manufacturing renaissance in the country. But you even have some Republicans who have supported some of these bills like chips starting to run away from it
because they're getting getting eat from the right. But I'm hoping that because we have them in place right now, whether it's chips or the Inflation Reduction Act to invest in a clean energy economy, we're going to be able to make the stride to give Americans more control of our over economic future and more control over our climate future as well.
It does seem to me that clean energy is getting cheaper and cheaper and cheaper, and Republicans are pushing pretty hard to try to undermine that by incentivizing drilling and coal. You see, in state like Texas is a red state. Their grid barely survived and it was able to survive this summer largely by green energy. What can Democrats do to help this green revolution? It's happening anyway, It seems like I think.
First and foremost one of the leading priorities has to be to protect the Inflation Reduction Act. The Republicans, as you know, want to wipe it out completely. So they want to wipe out all of the tax credits for that clean energy economy helping us combat climate change, reducing carbon emissions, you know, forty by thirty forty percent reduction
by twenty thirty. They want to wipe out by getting rid of the Glacier Reduction Act, get rid of all the power that was granted to medicare, to negotiate the cost of prescription drugs, and to lower the cost of bents on for seniors, so many other benefits from the bill. So we have to stop them from doing that. But I think we also have to make sure that voters
know before election day in twenty twenty four. What this means for their communities isn't simply that we're trying to create and it's already happening at clean energy economy, but it's also creating lots of jobs. I mean, I can stand up and say as a candidate for reelection that just the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Bill, just those two bills alone are going to lead to the creation of fifty thousand jobs in Pennsylvania each and every
year for the next decade. It's a job benefit, an economic boost for communities as we're investing in clean energy economy in the future. So I think articulating as forcefully as we can what these benefits mean to communities, but also making sure we're stopping the corporate extremists from wiping out the legislation. And look, for me, it's pretty simple.
The same crowd that tried to stop my bill to prevent our technology from going to China, the same crowd that's opposing me in the selection, is the same corporate crowd trying to wipe out the Inflationial Reduction Act. And so if you want to stop them, I'd ask your listeners to go to Bobcasey dot com and help us.
Can you talk to me about this Special Committee on Age.
Yes, it's been a committee that's been around for decades, but because it's not an authorizing committee, doesn't often get a lot of attention. But it gives us a chance, and I'm been the chair and then before that, the leading Democrat for years to put a spotlight on big issues that relate to seniors. And I've also used it as a platform to focus on Americans who have a disability as well. Because those Americans, sixty one million of them,
don't get a lot of attention. It's allowed us to put a spotlight on issues that affect seniors and their families. For example, in the grip of the opioid and substance use disorder crisis, which is still with us obviously, but was most prominent in the news just a couple of years ago, we were able to focus on grand families. These heroic grandparents are raising grandchildren. In fact, I even met a woman from my faith Lewis her name was it from my home county, who was a great grandmother
raising a young child. So it's a committee that allows us to put a spotlight on those issues on arsenal issues, on issues that relate to how seniors get to become the targets for scam artists and purveyors or fraud to rip them west. So it's a great committee and we're lucky to have the chance to be able to put us potlight on those issues relate to seniors.
Senator Tuberville has held up all of these appointments in the military and made it so that there are now various members of military leadership missing. Tell me what you think, Well.
It's at outrage. You don't have to be a military leader of the Marine Corps, of the Army or any other branch of our military to know that it is not only an outrage, but it's an abuse of a
Senate rule or tradition. And I think it focuses our attention again on the need for reform in the Senate, not only that we need to get rid of the so called filibuster role, but I call it the sixty vote rule because that's the effectively you need sixty votes to pass virtually anything, and that rule has been abused by Republicans for years, stopping us from passing voting rights
legislation or legislation reduced gun violence. So I think we should also reform the rule about holds that one senator can put a hold on one nomination or, in the case of Senator Tuberville, hundreds and hundreds of nominations and promotions and actions that we could take to lift up our men and women who serve in the military. So
it should be a clarion call. Not just to force Senator Tourville to cancel a hold into stuff is extreme behavior in the Senate, but to reform these damn rules that are getting in the way of progress and preventing us from making progress to the American people.
Thank you so much, Senator. I hope you'll come back.
Molly, thank you. I honored to be on with you today.
Lydia Poegreen is a New York Times columnist and host of the podcast Matter of Opinion. Welcome to Fast Politics, Lydia Poegreen.
Oh, it's so great to be back.
Mollie. Well, it's great to have you. I'm so excited. You are an opinion columnist at the New York Times. You have written a lot of really gut wrenching reporting from places around the world that need to be seen. Talk to me about how you've decided to go to these places and what the experience has been like and where has affected you the most. This is not so usual for an opinion columnist to use this platform in this way.
Yeah, I mean, thank you Mollie for being such an enthusiastic reader of my work. I know a lot of people would rather not think about some of the terrible things that are happening in the world.
I mean.
One of the wonderful things about opinion columnists at the New York Times, and it's really truly like the greatest job in all of journalism, I think selfishly, is that, you know, there's just a ton of support for kind of going out into the world and figuring out what's happening. Of course, there are a lot of great columnists who write sort of based on their interests and their you know, kind of the ideas that they have in their heads.
What I find is like I have to sort of go out into the world pretty frequently in order to figure out what I think about things. It's very hard for me, maybe because I'm I mean, look, I'm opinionated about a lot of things like diet coke versus PEPSI you know what's the best Indigo Girls song? Like, I have very strong opinions about these matters.
Diet coke and also Galileo.
Yeah right, going, wow, Okay, that's for separate podcast. We'll be talking about your Indigo Girls choice. I mean truly that there's no wrong answers because they're the best. Okay, good, but yes, you're correct on dietzodas diet coke is really the only one word I prefer. The tiny can. I don't know about you, but I just love those little eaty bitty cans that they have now as you drink one, and it's small enough that it never gets warm or ghost flat.
Right, The tiny cans are very fancy.
Yeah, they're very fancy.
So I think, like, because I'm a person who doesn't necessarily have a lot of fixed opinions about things, it's just really important for me to kind of go out into the world and see what's happening. And I particularly like to go to places that are that are difficult, you know, and that that maybe don't get visited quite as often, you know. So to my last big reporting trip, I went to Eastern Chad. Chad is a big country in central Africa and it borders Sudan. In particular, it
borders the Darfur region of Sudan. And as your listeners, I'm sure know, there's been a huge conflict that's been going on in Sudan for months now.
There was a coup.
There are two military leaders who are kind of battling it out. It's been very hard to report from within Sudan. But what we were seeing was that there were a lot of people who were fleeing over the border from the Darfur region of Sudan to eastern Chad. And so I thought, I really need to go and see for myself what's happening there. And this is like a really remote and difficult place to reach.
Yeah, how did you get there?
Yeah, I was just going to say it.
Just always fascinated with how people got there.
I love rude talk.
Yeah.
The fastest way to get to Chad, it turns out, from New York City is actually to fly to Paris, and then from Paris to Enjemino, which is the capital of Chad, and then from there you have to try and figure out how to get on one of these kind of un charter flights that take aid workers out to the border, which is a very kind of remote region of Chad. And you know, this is a sort of dry, dusty part of the world called the Sahel. That was the beginning of the rainy season when I
was going. And when those rains come in, it's you know, I mean, obviously we've been dealing with our.
Own issues with rain in the United States.
And flooding and things like that, but it is an incredibly difficult journey to sort of move things around in that part of the world. And so you have hundreds of thousands of people who are crossing the border of Trum Sudan with literally the clothes on their back, and they're going to settle and set up kind of like makeshift shelters for themselves, fleeing horrific violence, you know, rape and want and killing and burning down houses and things
like that. And they're coming with almost nothing, and they're setting up these tents made out of sticks and leaves and whatever bits of plastic that they can find, and there is a desperate race on to try and get humanitarian supplies to these people and getting to eastern Chad. Even if you have access to an airplane, that's fine, But when you talk about bringing huge amounts of food,
of tents of cooking materials and things like that. You have to take these these roads that are really just kind of dusty tracks through dry scrub, and then the rains come and these huge, huge, huge rivers form that are usually dry riverbeds, and so I'd hired a kind of a four wheel drive jep type of thing, and then there was a security car that was following me, which was also a pickup truck, and you know, we were able to get through these flooded riverbeds, but you
would see these trucks that were laden with stuff that was like literally to help people survive and not starve to death that would just get bogged down in these river beds. And I just thought, my god, these poor people, like how are they going to survive this rainy season. They've left their crops behind, they've left their lives behind, They're traumatized, and so yeah, I mean, of course, I'm
going I'm going to go to these places. I'm going to talk to these people, and I'm going to try and tell their stories.
You highlight these people and their harold. What can we do to help them?
That's a very big question. I think a very good one.
I mean, I think the first thing that these people need is act us to just the basic materials to help them survive, and the humanitarian appeals to provide the basics of survival to these folks are like woefully and underfunded, and people there's a lot of fatigue, right, people are like, oh, you know, we're supporting people in Ukraine, or you know, we're worried about the folks in Maui who've been burnt out of their homes, and so there's so much terrible
stuff going on in the world, but those humanitarian.
Appeals are you know, woefully, woefully underfunded.
The big thing that the people of Sudan need is peace, right, I mean, they need an end to this terrible conflict. So I think putting pressure on the combatants to lace on their arms.
So who are the combatants? Just I think, I know, but again, it would be really helpful for the people who are listening here just to hear like who are the combatants and why is this war going on?
Yeah, it's a fascinating story, and you know, Sudan has been in some turmoil for some time. Basically, you have the head of the official army, the Sudanese armed forces
and a General Borhan who's in charge of that. And there was another armed group that was at the center of the big genocide that had happened in Dark four and had been happening for about twenty years that was then absorbed into the military, and that was sort of a rival paramilitary group that is led by a general who goes by the nom de guerre Hemiti, and the two of them were essentially, you know, kind of uneasy rivals, and they together decided that they were going to topple
the civilian government and then a fight broke out between the two of them. So you have these like armed guys who are essentially like engaging in urban warfare in the streets of Khartum, the capital of Sudan. Huge amounts of people have been killed, people are desperate.
To get out.
At the same time, this is an incredibly complicated global conflict because you have Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the Russians, the Chinese you know there, and then of course the United States and others, and you know, they're all these different players that are trying to kind of
influence it. So it is i think one of the messiest and most complicated situations on a very messy and complicated global chessboard right now, and for ordinary people, the best thing you can do is to support the humanitarian effort, because obviously helping the people who are struggling through this is the you know, sort of most immediate need. But gosh, you know, I would love to see the United States step up and take a more muscular role in trying
to find a diplomatic settlement to this conflict. I think a lot of people just look at the difficulties of the world and just sort of throw up their hands and say, there's nothing we can do about it. But you know, my work is really driven by a strong sense that, you know, we're we're all in this together, and that we have to take care of one another.
And you know, we have we have all these conversations about the quote unquote migrant crisis, why are there so many people trying to get to Europe or trying to get to the United States, And you know, look around the world and see what's happening and having some sort of kind of humanitarian commitment I think is absolutely essential to creating a world in which people can live in the places that they want to be.
And I mean, I also think with the crisis again, I don't even want to call it a crisis, because it's not a crisis. These are people who are suffering, whose countries have been made uninhabitable by the oil and gas we in America have used, and are now scrambling to find a place they can grow their crops. People
that we need for our economy. I mean, this is like one of these situations where like, we desperately need people for our economy, they desperately want to come here, and yet Republicans ideologically don't like them.
So yeah, to me, this is one of the defining moral issues of our time. I mean, I think you're very right to point to the environmental degradation that rich countries have kind of rieked on the rest of the world. But I think there's even another thing that never really gets talked about, which is we talk about migrants as being sort of you know, we I mean, I certainly don't, but there's this language about, you know, we're being invaded and these people are are coming to like take over
our territory, you know. But like, let's back up and think about you know what the history of the world is, and the history of the world is one of Europeans invading the world and settling the territory and exterminating the indigenous people who lived there. And so you know, if you are an Indian person who goes to the United Kingdom, you're doing a version of what the kind of second born sons of English nobles who weren't going to inherit
any property did in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. You know, you're going to find your fortune at the place where there's a fortune to be made. And so I think there is this kind of global reparations thing that needs to happen with thinking about people moving around the world, because people have always moved around the world. This is not a new phenomenon. And it used to be that, you know, it was white Europeans who moved around the world in order to find a place to make a
better life for themselves. And now that the shoes on the other foot were like whoa, WHOA hold up a minute, you know, can't have that well.
And I also think, I mean it is this, you know, if we're going to talk about moral imperative here, we have people coming in this country who you know, are trying to escape climate change that we cost and also violence and drug trade, drugs that we buy in our country, all made possible, right, they are trying to flee the effects of living so close to America basically, I mean, there are other issues a place, for sure, but it
is pretty interesting that this is where we are. And so what's happening right now is that we have this very tight labor market. So we're seeing Republican governors in Red states past legislation making it easier for them to employ children children. We con they will let these children who cross the border by themselves work in the factory is because they don't have to pay them as much. I mean, talk about moral crisis.
Yeah, and I know, I know you've had my colleague on the newsroom side, Hannah Dryer on and she's done just some incredible reporting. And you know, the idea of children, regardless of their citizenship's testus, doing dangerous work in slaughter houses in factory I mean, this is like stuff from Upton Sinclair, you know, like this is it's yeah, I mean these are Dickenzie and exactly, I think that there
is this kind of bizarre kind of hypocritical. We must protect children vibe going on in quote unquote red states what, in fact, what people really want is just to treat children like property and exploit them for their own ends and their own uses, and that is incredibly tragic.
Oh yeah, let's talk about your podcast and what it looks like and what it is and what you're doing with it.
Oh yeah, thanks, thanks for asking, Mollie. Now, I also am a podcaster like you. I mean, I have a little bit less experience, but you know, but you.
Also ran I think an important data point here is that you also ran a podcasting companies. You have experienced from a lot of different angles a podcast I do.
It's true, and I really enjoyed that experience.
Besides, after you were the editor in chief of the Huffna Post, you have not just been hanging out.
I have sort of a strange and variegated resume. I've done a lot of different things. It turns out my first love has always been reporting and writing, so it's great to be back doing it. So I have a podcast. It's called a Matter of Opinion. We refer to it as MOO for short. I'm hoping that'll catch on and it's a conversational podcast that I do with my colleagues, Michelle Coddle, who's a brilliant and member of the editorial
board at the New York Times. My fellow columnist Ross Douthitt, who I think is one of the smartest and most engaging voices on the right. I often don't agree with him, but I always appreciate his intelligence and thoughtfulness and care.
Husband Matt Greenfield, is not a fan, but we appreciate it hearing many different, many different perspectives. Yes.
And then rounding out the quartet is Carlos Lozada, who is a pretty new addition to The New York Times. He joined about a year ago. He was a long time book critic at The Washington Post and also wrote long en you know, writes long essays about books.
Yes, really, he's.
Truly a genius, really smart, reads and reads and reads and writes these like, you know, fascinating and brilliant essays about big ideas and topics that are sort of adjacent to the news but kind of reach back much further. I highly highly recommend his work, and so you know, and it's not one of these like we're going to
argue and slug it out from different ideological perspectives. I think all of us have pretty heterodox views, and even Ross, who's sort of, you know, an out conservative, has a lot of interesting and heterodox perspectives, and so it's really great.
It's a fun listen.
It's a fun group of people, you know, just trying to come to grips with this crazy time in which we're living. And we cover a lot of different subjects, not just politics, although of course we are coming into a presidential election year, so we are all stuck talking about it NonStop.
I can hear the sort of sadness in your voice. It's funny because I feel like I would do a show where I like screamed at Ben Shapiro for an hour, Like I feel like I could do it. I was thinking about it, and I was like, you know, we're always like, well, we don't at each other. But then
sometimes I'll go on these like far right news. I went on gb News and I was like, you know, I could just sit here for forty minutes and argue with you, like I'm fine with that, and yeah, I mean I don't know that hearts and minds get changed by that, But I don't mind watching it. I mean, maybe people don't like to watch it.
Well, I mean it is.
Interesting, right, because I do think that, like, I have a visceral dislike of kind of like conversation as blood sport, where it's like just for the entertainment value of like seeing people demolish one another. And there have been like Hannity and Calms, and it's like, I mean, poor poor Culms was like so overmatched by Sean Hannity. These classic kind of battles, you know, whether it's you know, Gore Vidal versus William F.
Buckley or William F.
Buckley and James Baldwin, the Bloody town Hall conversation with Dorman Mahler and all the things. You know, these are iconic moments in our culture, and they're iconic for a reason. So I think that there is something about this idea of like, you know, real passionate argument. And I think that that's not necessarily what we're trying to do with the show, because we're I think, you know, we're all kind of a little bit all over the map in
terms of our politics. But I do think that kind of passionate discussion about things that really matter rather than you know, what often substitutes for that is a kind of play by play of like the sport or the style, you know, So it's either you're talking about the outfits or the tactics or And I think that as long as the conversation is happening on the level of substance,
and that's important. The other thing that I do really enjoy and I think you and I were talking about this when we had lunch the other day, but is you know, really seeing someone just like wipe the floor with an opponent on a substantive matter. You know, Like, I'm no fan of Nikki Haley. I think she's actually a huge hypocrite. And my colleague Frank Bruney wrote a great piece recently just sort of like taking her apart because everyone.
Was like, oh, she did so great in the debate.
But all of that being said, I mean, how fun was it to watch her just like dismantle vivek Ramaswami. You know, every middle aged woman that I know was like watching that and just being like, uh huh, we know that little twerp.
You know that guy at the.
Office that you know who just is so smug and so sure of himself and just talks out his ass and she just like clean his clocket and that's always nice to.
See, Lydia. Thank you for joining us.
Always a pleasure.
Mollie Jesse Cannon, my junk Fast, fresh off of getting fully embarrassed by MSNBC's Meddi Hassan Vivek has been embarrassed again.
I'm so shocked the vic and rhymes with cake or fake. He's standing in front of a sign that says truth and it falls over and hits him in the head. If that isn't on the nose, I don't know what is. And so for everyone's favorite climate denier, the truth hurts. That's it for this EPA Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep
the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.