Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Sam Brodey & Michael Weiss

Daily Beast congressional reporter Sam Brody. Welcome to Fast Politics, Sam Brodi, thank you, Thank you. Great to be back. What the fund is happening in Congress? This is the kind of thing they ask on NPR all the time, What the funk? But I want to talk about a photo that I saw yesterday, Representative Corey Mills from Florida, of course, passing out grenades to House members. It has a little elephant on it. What the fund is happening? Man, It's it's not a live grenade, so it's really it's

really fine. No. I saw that and it was like, there's a metaphor here somewhere, and maybe when it comes to the debt limit later on, we'll look back on this grenade moment as as something you know, symbolically pointed. I think the grenade thing is actually such a perfect encapsulation of how the House Republican conference has changed. And I want to maybe take a beat to fill in folks about this guy, Corey Mills, who was just elected

to a Republican House seat in central Florida. He's part of this new crop of members who kind of came on my radar last year as the elections and primaries were happening, like folks who were sort of going to join the expanded like Marjorie Taylor Green wing of the Republican Party. So you mean complete lunatives, Yeah, I mean, like for example, So this guy, his sort of back story I think is super interesting in terms of like the kind of person now that's elected to Congress from

the Republican Party. His claim to fame is that he runs a business that manufactures police munitions specifically yeah, well tear gas, tear gas, rubber bullets, things like that. And this is something that he ran on like in his primary, and he did an ad where he like you know, basically ran footage of like Black Lives Matter protesters and pressed getting tear gas, and he was like, you know, this was supposed to be a reason to vote for him.

And he had this joke about if you and the media don't like it, like I'll make you cry in a different way. And it's like cuts to people being tear gas. So that's this guy's background. He was elected to Congress. He seems great because nothing funnier than using violence against people protesting. Yeah, then yeah, then tear gassing people.

It's it's super funny. And I think in the past, or even maybe now, you had members who kind of lead the role of like the Republican culture warrior, but didn't come from that, and they had boring jobs before being elected to Congress, like being a lawyer, a state lawmaker, or a dentist. And now you have people like like Quarry Mills who are like, no, his job was to make to your gas um And now he's in Congress.

He sounds like a great, great candidate. I'm sure he's not going to default on the dead and cause American credit to plummet and ruin our economy. So I want to ask you who else is in this MAGA crew? Yeah, it's an expanded crew. And I think the McCarthy vote actually changed the way that I thought about this. So there there was a set of like Courty Most for example, comes in and he was a reliable supporter of Kevin McCarthy,

vote for kevincarthy on on every ballot. And then there were there were people in the more I think, like obvious Auntie McCarthy camp in this kind of new crop of of MAGA representatives. So Anna Paulina loon U also from Florida. That's going to be recurring being here is Florida. But because he Luna like a true MAGA influencer before she got to Congress, and she right turn us a

type right precisely voted against McCarthy. This guy Andy Ogules, who is from Tennessee and also I mean he was like a county executive but also used like really I mean crazy rhetoric around January six and has put out there that the Dobbs decision meant that Congress needed to take action, you know, restricting gay marriage like stuff like that. He also was anti McCarthy. But there is kind of interesting stuff like this guy Eli Crane from Arizona freshman

not really on anyone's radar at all. Like super Conservative actually flipped the district that was held by a Democrat and he came out of nowhere and voted against McCarthy every single ballot. Why that is something that people on the Hill have have tried to figure out. And the weird thing is McCarthy like spent believe to elect this guy. His pack spent almost a million dollars to help him win, and then he gets to Congress and you know, is

making life very difficult for Kevin McCarthy. The best answer that anyone has really seemed to come up with was that he sort of promised his constituents that he would support new leadership in Washington and he actually stuck to that instead of a lot of people who say that and then get to Washington and go, Okay, well I'm just gonna I'm just gonna do whatever. And so the dude just decided to, yeah, make his first move, really pissing off the leader of his party. So interesting place.

We'll see, We'll see what happens for him. What's interesting in my mind is that a lot of these people piste off McCarthy, didn't vote for him, and then we have a situation where McCarthy made of these committees are

actually Freedom Caucus guys. He rewarded them for voting against him exactly he did, you know, there was there was a lot of kind of speculation about, like we're are people like Matt Gates or others asking for like specific committee assignments like I want the gabble on this subcommittee, which is like essentially amounting to blackmail, like I'm not going to vote for you until you give me like this shiny thing that I want as for myself as

opposed to like broader rules changes. But it's really remarkable now that we see the committee assignments what McCarthy gave up. He clearly gave up a lot, and clearly he did in fact do that, but he also gave people like Negates never voted for him. Mcate's only ever voted present at the end. I mean, everybody got everything they wanted except the people who told the line and did what McCarthy asked. Yeah, status quot for them, and the people

who held out. I mean, if you're trying to rein in this group, I don't know how anyone who saw what happened with McCarthy now goes we'll all be rewarded for telling the line. We'll see how the Congress plays out. But I mean, you look at the Rules Committee, which is an insanely powerful committee on the Hill. They are

the gatekeepers to what gets on the floor. You put Tom Massey on that, You put Tom Masthy on that, on that committee, I mean you have you have three Freedom Caucus members now at the table, three Freedom Caucus members and Tom Massey, who is I want to just explain this for the people who are like, you know, my dad, who was very politically knowledgeable but doesn't maybe know who Tom Massey is. He is a libertarian and

he's been known as sort of Mr No. He votes no on basically every bill, right he even didn't he vote no on disaster relief for his own state in order to sort of prove a point. Oh yeah, he's voted on Yeah, he's voted no on every disaster lea thing. The House passed by a vote of four one this week, a resolution expressing solidarity with the protesters in Iran. So, I mean that guy's in the Rules Committee. I mean, how does that work? Explain to me? Because doesn't rules

set everything up for the whole Congress basic. I mean, so obviously the committees can can endvance legislation, but it's up to rules to decide how and when and in what form they get to the floor. I mean, it's insanely influential, and it has long had a reputation as the collection of members who are closest to the leadership.

It is the Leadership Committee. They're the literal gatekeepers for what gets onto the floor, and a lot of the times Rules can be sort of a venue for fights that may play out in the broader Congress about various bills. And it's this like freewheeling committee and they don't really have rules on time limit for speaking. They just kind of do their thing and and debate and do whatever.

And so the idea behind for the Freedom Conx people getting more of their people on this committee was that they could essentially exercise something close to a veto power on bills before they even get to the floor. Now, the McCarthy people say, well, we put all these guys on the committee, which means, know, we'll keep the fighting limited to that committee. If it gets out of rules, it means it can pass in the in the broader

in the broader Congress. But I think that's a really sunny way to view this when you put a guy on that committee who votes no literally on everything, and Matthew has said, oh, you know, I know that people are gonna have different views on bills than me, and I'm not gonna hold everything up. But it's uncharted territory. It really is. I don't know how this helps McCarthy. I mean, it almost feels like McCarthy is setting himself up. I wanted to ask this question to you because I

feel like this is important. One of the things you could love or you could hate Nancy Pelosi, but it feels like Nancy Pelosi is really like Kevin McCarthy has shown why Nancy Pelosi in a million different ways, like this is not the same at all. But there were Democrats who were I mean, Democratic Party is a big ten party with a lot of people with a lot of different ideas. But there were Democratic Congress people who had very different ideas than Nancy Pelosi in many many ways.

But those people were not able to hold up a leadership vote. And you know, the people who crossed her were punished. That's right, and it's so hard to compare because McCarthy, at least for now, has proven himself to be a relatively weak leader, and we're comparing him to Nancy Pelosi, who's probably just in terms of like raw power, the strongest and most effective congressional leader of modern times. I mean, she the top fundraiser. I mean, she controlled

the campaign apparatus. It was understood that if you crossed her, it was not going to end up well for you, and that enabled Democrats to, at various points the first time she was Speaker and the second time to get a ton of stuff done because she could keep everyone together. But I also think it's important to note, like this

kind of stuff piste Democrats off all the time. I mean, I cannot tell you the amount of grumbling that I heard from Democrats over the Pelosi Here's who Like, we're obviously admiring of her and her abilities and her ability to with votes and get stuff done, but like the legislative process was so isolated in her hands basically, and they felt that they even committee chairs were like, I'm

basically irrelevant, you know. And occasionally this blew up over the past couple of years where chairs would you know, just totally vent to the media about how how little power they felt they had, and so you know, McCarthy is gonna try something different, and to be honest with you, like some of these changes that he's made. This is gonna get super nerdy, but I do think it's kind of interesting. For the first time ever in the last six years, I believe the House is doing open amendments.

That means, like anybody can file an amendment and get to vote on it. This is not really super good for McCarthy because Democrats can file amendments on bills and give themselves influence on what happens on the floor. This is not something that Nancy closely allowed. She did not allow it for a reason. But McCarthy made this move because his members are clamoring for it. It could help Democrats, but he's like, all right, I'm gonna have to roll

with this idea of making the House more decentralized. It may sound good right now, it may make everyone feel kind of happy, but it's gonna be a real test to see if they can do much of anything in any time with these changes. I mean, it's just sort of ridiculous. Now, talk to me about those California Senate race. The California Sentate race is gonna be It's gonna be crazy. Uh, I mean, who's in already? So Adam Schiff and Katie Porter are in officially. I imagine these folks will be

very familiar to your listeners. Yes, potentially getting into. Likely getting in is Barbara Lee, who is a longtime congresswoman from Oakland and Berkeley up in the Bay Area, and she's told colleagues that she's getting in, and I understand it's kind of all all but a formality that she's going to get in. It's just a question of timing. I think those are going to be the heavy hitters from the field. Rocana had been mentioned as a candidate. The Cars, also from the Bay Area. Yeah, he's been

on this podcast a bunch of times. I since it. He probably is not going to do it. He's kind of said publicly that he was going to wait on what Barbarly did, and if she runs, I think it's unlikely that he runs. Those are three really heavy hitters. Barbaraly is not as widely known, but she's like an institution in Congress. She was the lone person to vote against the a U m F authorizing like the War on Terror after nine eleven. I mean, she's you know,

she's as progressive as they come. So like these candidates aren't going to be that different. It's really vibes, you know, what they choose to focus on, what their brands are. I want to ask you one question explained to me,

Diefy is still toying with running again. No, there's been reporting out there about people sometimes go up to Dify and ask her stuff in the halls, and she'll give the answer that she gives, and oftentimes her staff comes into play queen up or whatever and clarify whatever it is that she she just said. No, I don't think anyone is realistically entertaining the idea that that she runs again.

I mean, it's just not going to happen. I do think what is happening is that she feels that, you know, she has earned the right to go out on her own terms, and she's an institution, she's a legend in politics, and you know that she doesn't want to feel rushed in making the announcement. Yet people are not waiting for her, obviously to make that call. But I don't think anyone is seriously like, oh, you know, she she might run again, and she's you know, it was reported that she she

said she might make the decision next year. But I think it's worth noting that the filing deadline for this race is this year. It's December, so we will know what other Senate races are you watching? Well, I think the California thing, just to make one point, is like, obviously this is gonna be a Democratic seat, but it's going to suck a lot of Democratic money, it's going to produce a progressive Democrat. And so there's a lot of other states where I mean, you know, the Democratic

map in is terrible, it's absolutely terrible. Their defending seats in West Virginia, Montana, Ohio, and then also trying to win in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania. These are these are difficult states to win. So Democrats did win in Arizona and Pennsylvania, that's correct, and I think they would be favored to win these states again. But these are hard These are hard states. They're just always difficult states, right, But you're gonna need a Donald Trump to help with candidate picking.

That's the secret to democratic success. Right. Well, so here's I guess a couple of just a few brief points to make about I think something to watch as we kind of get into the who starts to run phase

of the of the campaigns. The new chair of the Republican Senate campaign, arm Steve Gaines from Montana, is basically he's not explicitly said this, but their goal is to prevent a rerun of two where Washington Republicans saw these candidates emerge out of Republican primaries like wake masters, you know, who are not going to win. But they were like, the voters decide this is great, and of course this

happen to be the people that Trump liked. Now they are not ruling out meddling in some of these primaries to produce candidates that are going to stand a chance of winning. Good luck to them. This is going to be The question is, like the Republican establishment and operative class is eager to apply the lessons from two? Are voters in the Republican Party going to apply the lessons from No? The RNC is having a bit of a leadership fight. Explained to our listeners what's happening there? Because

it is fucked up. It is really crazy, and I think it's been remarked that for a post that is increasingly unimportant in politics, Yeah, and largely superficial, largely superficial. And I was going to say ceremonial, largely ceremonial. Yeah, I mean it is. It's it's less and less and less important now. And Rono McDaniel is is probably going to and I don't want to say that she's you know, but she's she's tagged as the free Yet it's become this kind of weird airing of various grievances and kind

of a proxy war. Again, not so, it's it is truly a ViBe's race, right, a proxy war of De Santis versus Trump. But one of the candidates is pro Trump and is being supported by De Santis, right exactly.

That's what makes it so weird and honestly makes it a little instructive, is how the dynamics could go should Trump in De Santis be competing with each other, and there's all these like cross wires of loyalties, and I think De Santis backing Dylan is probably a reflection of him wanting to differentiate himself from Trump a little bit. But these people all come from the same sort of bucket, right.

I mean, Dylan is saying that there needs to be a change in leadership, and this is a leadership that has not brought wins for for the Republican Party. Yet they continue to kind of center around Donald Trump, who is the reason that Republicans are one of the big reasons that Republicans did so poorly inwo I think the key thing is is that there isn't an actual discussion that seems to be happening about what this race is about and what the Republican Party needs to be doing better.

They just think that they need to be winning more, which is of course sure, but there there doesn't seem to be a real discussion about how they're going to do that, and instead, you know, they're flinging up oh each other, and you know, Mike Lindell is involved for some reason that no one really knows. Always happy to saint Michael Lindell involved in something. It's a fillow fight. So Sam Brodie, thanks so much. I hope you'll come back, Yes, anytime, anytime.

Tammy Baldwin is a junior senator from Wisconsin. Welcome to Fast Politics, Senator Tammy Baldwin. I'm delighted to join you. Well, I'm delighted to have you, and I was thinking the first thing I wanted to ask you was like, just do a victory lap for codifying same sex marriage. Please. Absolutely. You know, I had so many journalists coming up to me during the course of those negotiations saying, do you

really think you could do this? I mean, this would be unheard of just less than a decade ago, and I'm like, I really feel like this is within our reach. But what I will say is since it passed, since the President signed it into law, the responses I've gotten from people impacted, almost to a one, people who well up with tears and talk about what this means to them,

and you know, the running the whole gamut. From a young person who said, this is the first time I've ever felt seen by the federal government, and another who is a dear friend who had some really scary health news that he shared with me, and he said, you know, I hope I'm gonna I hope I'm going to overcome this, but just knowing that if I don't, my husband is going to be able to inherit stuff that, yeah, you really is how important this is? It was a big deal,

so victory lap. Yeah. I mean, really it's funny because it's like, when it was going on, I thought, this is nice, but it's not. They're never gonna be able to do it, you know. I just thought because and I wanted to ask you this question, which was Democrats were unable. And I don't even want to say democrats because I actually don't think ROW is a democratic as you. I actually think it's like same sex marriage, that it's like a just see people issue, but didn't even get

close to being codified, that's right. I'm very involved in that. Also. I'm the co lead on the Women's Health Protection Act, which codifies ROW and takes the additional necessary stuff of telling states they can't undermine it so that it's you know,

hollow and meaningless. What was happening even before the Supreme Court had overturned it, there were so many states that had really so restricted the access to abortion care and reproductive rights that that in essence, it didn't really exist for so many But in any event, I do think since there are now nearly or a little over a million same sex married couples, I don't know how many hundreds of thousands or millions of interracial couples there are.

But you know, this came up at a moment where I can't imagine that I have any colleagues who don't know a neighbor of fellow church goer, a person on their staff, somebody you know at their grocery store who's married to a same sex partner or in an interracial marriage. And so it has that capacity of changing hearts and minds. And while I would have liked to have seen a few more Republican hearts and minds changed in the final total, to have a dozen, you know got the job done.

I wanted to ask you, do you think that there's a chance that there will be a moment to be able to codify ROW or do that ship sailed? Oh? I certainly do, But if you're talking about, you know, in the near term, I think that's very unlikely. I reflect oftentimes of how long the opposition to ROW worked to organize, to comment it from every angle, to try to reverse it, and it took nearly fifty years. But

at this juncture they have succeeded. I don't think it's going to take fifty years to restore comprehensive reproductive rights in America. That said, it's certainly not going to happen overnight. And I think about it in sort of two different ways. One is my hail from the state of Wisconsin. Wisconsin has the oldest criminal abortion statute in the country. It was passed one year after we became a state in eighteen forty nine. Yeah, no women in the legislature. In fact,

women couldn't even vote. You know, we're talking about a state strategy as well as talking about a national strategy, and we have to implement it. We only have fifty one Democrats in the Senate, and we know currently that two of them are unwilling to reform the filibuster, so we don't get there this to your term, but you know,

we pick up some seats. Who knows you hail from the state of Wisconsin, a state that we on this podcast have talked a lot about, especially because your governor got re elected by it's a very tight state Wisconsin. I'm not telling you anything that you don't you're not very aware of, but your your governor got re elected by four points. Your other senator is Ron and On. I mean, how how strange it is? People ask me a lot this same electorate arguably has um interesting outcomes.

I mean, look also at the presidential race, Trump narrowly one Wisconsin and Biden narrowly one Wisconsin, and who knows what's going to happen in We are a closely divided state, and that means on the electoral front, you know, it's about turning out the vote. Do you have something you'd like to tell me? I am widely expected to run. I've got to get that announcement on the calendar soon because every then interview I do, it's like, well, this isn't how we plan to roll it out, all right,

widely expected as a good line. I wanted to ask you about a legislation you're doing now in Wisconsin and this goes to Row. I mean, this goes to Row Hospitals. This goes to like really a thing that Americans are struggling with, which is our healthcare costs, and you are working on an expansion legislation. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yes, So, probably the most critical and crucial time we've faced to remove any obstacle to

getting healthcare coverage has been during a pandemic. We actually took some really bold actions to significantly assist people who we're purchasing their health insurance through the Obamacare, through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, So those were it's additional assistance, and so far we've managed to have that assistance last for the next two years. However, I believe that this

should always be a goal. Obviously during UH deadly pandemic it's really super important, but it's super important every day for people to have access to affordable, high quality healthcare. And so one of the things I'm doing with colleagues is introducing legislation that will make the supplement to help people pay for their premiums permanent. That will really help.

We've seen just a significant increase, you know, in the millions among people who have secured healthcare in recent years, and of course there's so much more we have to do. We're just preparing our hearing agenda for the Help Committee that I sit on, what does HELP stand for Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. I've been a member of that committee since I joined the Senate, and um a lot more that we can do to bring down costs. And by the way, let's also do another victory lab While we're

talking about successes. Last year, in the Inflation Reduction Act for the first time, Medicare is going to be negotiating with the big pharmaceutical companies to bring down prescription drug costs. And if you're a senior on Medicare, there's a cap on insulin. If that on insulin, Uh, you will pay no more than thirty five dollars out of pocket for insulin. Vaccines. Many many vaccines will now be free without any sort

of co pay for people who are on Medicare. So just uh, We've had some real breakthroughs in but more needs to be done. I mean, I feel like insulin is like one of the great scandals of our time is that we have people in this country dying because they can't afford to get their insulin. Originally, this administration really wanted and there was a big push for this idea of having thirty five insulin for everyone. I mean, does that seem anyway in the cards or now? I

think it still could be. We came very close, but we didn't have enough support from Republicans insane in order to get it done. There was a vote in the Senate on whether to extend it beyond the Medicare program. You know, Nearly a third of Americans are pre diabetic or diabetic, and that's a lot of people who will fly on insulin at some point in their lives. Insulin has been around for over a hundred years. It's not like the recipe changes, and it's not like the ingredients

have become more costly. It's like EpiPens exactly because they can't. No one can follow the dollars. You know, show me the money, show me where it goes. If you double the price of an upping pen or of insulin, whose pocket does that go into. We don't even know the answers to those questions. It's just so opaque. So, yes, we have more we can do, and I think, especially given with insulin in particular the numbers of families impacted by it, we need to leverage their voices to get

my Republican colleagues working on this. So we do have a couple of Republicans. Susan Collins worked hard to try to get an insulin bill, working closely with a number of Democrats. But we need more of them. Yeah, I mean, it seems like there's so many ways in much to help working people that Republicans are not interested in. But they still manage to get those votes. Yeah. Well, it's easier to block things in Congress than it is to

pass them. And so especially in the United States Senate, it can't run for a Senate as I have and not be a hopeful person. You know, you got to believe that this process can work. You know, we just talked about a number of Mouthstone victories last year. I mean, one of the things with the Obama administration that was a complaint was that as much as they did a lot of incredible stuff and Obama is amazing, obviously that

he had some trouble working with the Senate. And there's a sort of quiet way in which the Biden administration has actually passed a ton of legislation. Absolutely, And you know, obviously both President Obama and President Biden were former senators, but when he was Senator, Biden really was somebody who understood every facet of how it works and how to move things through and had hallmark legislation that he was responsible for. So I do think that rubs off in

the administration. Do you have any faith that the Chips Act, which is like the I'm one of the few people who's interested in the Chips Act. So everyone has to bear with me here, um, but that the Chips Act could bring back manufacturing to the United States in a way that we haven't seen a government pushed towards that, and that that could affect your state. Oh absolutely, And I was really proud to work on putting together the

Chips and Science Act. I think the really key areas in which it can bring jobs back to a state like Wisconsin has to do with the supply chain piece of it. We make things in Wisconsin. Still, we're one of the leads states in manufacturing. Have nearly twenty percent of our workforce is engaged in manufacturing. That's again that makes us one of the leads in the country. And yet we have been affected by the supply chain issues.

Where we might produce say agricultural equipment, but the microship, the control panel is produced overseas, and so you see you'll actually go to a company in Wisconsin like Coon, where you'll see the farm impotence the outside the factory ready to go accept they don't have a control panel in them. And we see that across the board. So when we use the Commerce Department to start identifying, well, where are those gaps and it's not just microchips. There's

other supply chain issues. And then you start looking with our deep knowledge of who makes what in Wisconsin and across the country, it's like, well, maybe you could make that component and grow your business, add to your list of products, and fill in some of those gaps that

we have in our supply chain. You know, I know, and some of our larger manufacturers in Wisconsin, they have suppliers, hundreds of suppliers throughout the state, but you know, they could have just a handful that are from overseas and it can stop up the whole works. So that's one way in which I think the Chips and Science Act

is really going to help us bring back jobs. The other thing is something that I've worked on for years and seeing more and more success, is just saying, if we're going to spend taxpayer dollars to to make something, to buy something, let's make sure that those dollars are men to the US on us products and workers. And it just seems like a no brainer to me. And so I think the more we do in that regard,

the more we'll see good paying jobs come back. The infrastructure built we got strong by American language in that So we're not going to be using rebar that was sourced out of the country in our infrastructure project. We're gonna be making it here and employing more people. Tommy Baldwin. I really appreciate you joining us. This was great. Thank

you so much. Thank you. I know you, our dear listeners are very busy and you don't have time to sort through the hundreds of pieces of pundentry each week. And this is why every week I put together a newsletter of my five favorite articles on politics. If you enjoy the podcast, you will love having this in your inbox every Friday. So sign up at Fast Politics pod dot com and click the tab to join our mailing list. That's Fast Politics pod dot m Michael Weiss is a

senior correspondent at Yahoo News. Welcome too, Fast Politics, Michael Weiss, Thanks for having me back, Molly. He explained to us, what the hell is happening in the war in Ukraine. They're getting tanks. I mean that's kind of the top line, isn't it. Um, Yeah, no, look it's uh Jesus. The last month has been quite insane, even by Ukraine war standards.

Just trying to dig into the whole will they won't they the German fandango about supplying their own model Leopard two's or allowing other third party countries of which they're over a dozen in Europe to supply Leopard twos to Ukraine. If I had to sort of summarize the situation, it was we did a bit of a drug deal with

the Germans. They kind of conditioned they're releasing of the Leopards on our sending Abram's tanks to Ukraine, which is something we didn't want to do for a variety of reasons, most of them logistical, nothing really anymore to do with Putin and his phantom redlines. That argument seems to be greatly diminished in this White House, much to my delight. But yeah, look, basically Schultz said, you first, perhaps he

thought America wouldn't do it. And if that's the case, well Biden called his bluff, and now we're sending Abrams tanks and this number that that's getting bandied about thirty one. I'm hearing from sources on the inside that actually, by the time Abrams get to Ukraine, you can expect that figure to grow, perhaps even exponentially, So it's not going to be just thirty one tanks from US. It's going to be more than that. And there's you know, recovery vehicles,

which are like tow trucks for these tanks. I mean, these are massive, massive pieces of armor, and they require a lot of upkeep and maintenance, which is the reason guys like Mark Hurtling are were very skeptical and in fact resistant to the idea of sending them. Leopard two's more in abundance in Europe, easier to repair and maintain. I mean to give you one example the Spanish today, and this is a so Shilists led Spanish government, which

is kind of remarkable. They've announced they're going to send I think upwards of fifty Leopard twos to Ukraine. And the problem with the Spanish tanks is that they've been sitting in warehouses and they've kind of fallen apart, so they need to be refurbished. But the Spanish seems to think they can do that in a matter of weeks

or months. To the bottom line, I mean, by the end of March, Ukraine will have its first fleet of Western tanks, which is necessary for combined arms maneuver, which is necessary for any major counter offensive, particularly one that they're going to try and undertake in the south, which is largely steps, and you're gonna need heavy armor if you want to push the Russians back from areas like that. So the next item on the agenda from Ukraine is

going to be fighter jets of sixteens. They're they're gunning for an no pun intended. So here's my question. One of my kids is very into military, and so he has been explaining to me the problems with this scenario. Yeah, and this is good because this is really one of

the places I'm the weakest. But he explained to me that part that some of the problem here is that now Ukraine has like a lot of different kinds of tanks and that you then have to train people to do these are not like driving escalade, they're like driving a real machine, and that you have to train people to drive these different tanks, and also that the mechanism for taking care of these weapons is complicated. So can

you talk to us about that problem? Yeah, I mean to put it in kind of the simplest terms possible. You know, the Ukrainians are very well trained and very kind of comfortable with Soviet era Russian made tanks and what they've been getting in abundance thus far is exactly that. You know, T seventy two's Morocco has sent a bunch

of these tanks, believe it or not. Other countries, former Warsaw Pact nations poland Slovakia have sent the polls have been I think first among equals and ending heavy armor from that period. But you know, there really is no comparison between these old Soviet relics and modern NATO standard tanks. So your son is right, Um, we're sending Challenger twos which is the British model, Leopard two's which is the German model, and Abrams. I think it's it's the more

advanced model of the Abrams. I have to double check. My my brain is very fatigued after the last two weeks. So yeah, driving one is not like driving the other. Right there, they're they're fundamentally different platforms and you know all of the stuff that goes into keeping them operational. One of the excuses the Biden administration was coming up with um for why they didn't want to send the Abrams is that they kept saying, oh, it runs on

jet fuel, even jet fuel the same fuel as everything. Well, I mean, the ABRAMS actually is a multi fuel turbine engine, so it can run on not just jet fuel but diesel. But it doesn't get very good mileage to the gallant, right, so it's it's a gas guzzler essentially. That that's the real argument to inst And you know, you could say, well, the Americans wield these devices pretty well in in conventional war.

Why can't the Ukrainis I mean, yeah, but the Americans it took about ten years to become completely comfortable with this new model of armor. So I mean, look, the good news is this, if the last eleven months has taught us anything in terms of security, assistance and military absorption rates, the Ukrainians are fast learners because this is an existential struggle for their very survival and the survival

of their nation state. They don't look at this as something leisurely or they don't look at this is something that they can take their sweet time with. So if you if you've read some of the reporting that's been done on, for instance, how they trained up on high mars or self propelled, how it serves from Western NATO countries. If it's meant to take say eight weeks, they get it done in five. They don't take lunch breaks, they don't sleep, they just want to learn because they're so

eager to take the fight to the Russians. So that's not to say that we still don't face heavy challenges. And there's going to be a time delay between the announcement of these things and seeing the you know, blasting away in Herson or Donnettes. But I think people will be pleasantly surprised by how quickly the Ukrainians adapt because again, this is this is just precedent for them. But yeah, no, it's a big deal, and and the other the other

side of this. Look, I mean, I don't claim any particular expertise in the vagaries of German politics, but but one thing I do know is that all of Schultz was not a guy who a foresaw this war coming be wanted to be a leader in European arms dealing or arms donating to Ukraine. His famous speech in the Bundestag on February, three days after Putin's invasion, was known as the Zeiten Vendor speech, where he said, Okay, we're

entering a new phase of European history. Russia has shown itself to be this aggressive REVENTI just imperialist power that's going to park literally park tanks on European soil. We must increase our defense spending. Germany must get a house in order. And this is a very kind of robust, almost militaristic speech, very unusual for an heir to these

Social Democratic Party in Germany. But he was making this speech with the assumption that Ukraine was going to fall and that Russian hegemony would would inch that much closer to Germany's own borders. Right, he was taken by surprise by the ferocity of Ukrainian resistance, and I think perhaps also taken by surprise, given America's priors in the last twenty years when it comes to warfare, both indirect and direct, that President Biden would be as bullish and as invested

in Ukraine's victory as he was. So the real kind of unsung story of Germany in this war, I mean, well, there are several, but to my mind is if you look at just the calculus of what Germany has sent in terms of material, heavy equipment, and I mean, you know, air defense systems, self propelled howitzer's, light arms, you name it, compared to what they were going to send as of

the beginning of the war, five thousand helmets. Remember that it arguably eclipses even what the United Kingdom has sent Ukraine. It is so staggering the numbers. The problem is the Germans don't want to take credit for it, and all of st and so disastrous in his public diplomacy that hardly anybody even within Germany knows this. So the Tank

issue was, this was this big sticking point. And you know what's ironic is given Schultz's ideological background, I mean as a as a teenager in the eighties growing up in in West Germany, I mean, he was he was very anti American. He was he was almost a fellow traveler in the Soviet Union, took several trips to East Germany. According to the Stasi files on him and his retinue, was advocating that the Soviets park nuclear weapons aimed at the United States in Europe. I mean it was. He

was very much pro Moscow. And I think for him to say, well, I'm not doing anything till the Americans do it first, I read this kind of amusingly, as you know, a guy whose entire political career was premised on less of of America in Europe is now deciding in order to kind of save his own skin with respect to Germany's electorate and to to not be seen to be antagonizing putin As as a you know, the uber hall of European politics is basically crawling under back

under the American security umbrella and asking for more American leadership, if not American hegemony. Um So, I find that very

funny and very ironic, but I'll take it. And from the Ukrainian perspective, the importance about Abrams, even beyond the military capability, which is formidable and these are good tanks, probably the best in the world, it's that this bespeaks a very long term investment in Ukraine, not just in terms of a defensive capability kicking the Russians out and and you know, creating a sovereign, independent Ukraine, which by the way, includes occupied Crimea, includes the occupied territories of

the Don boss As fifteen. But it's an investment in Ukraine's post war future. This is a country that, I mean, unless things go horribly wrong for it in the coming year, really is going to be an integral part of Europe. Will will eventually join the European Union. And now you're hearing people such as Henry Kissinger even come out and say, well, it certainly makes sense for them to join NATO after

this is all done. So, I mean, this is an extraordinary one from where we found ourselves as of January. And that's why they think we'll get fighter jets next. I mean, F sixteens have been on they've been on the table in terms of negotiating with the Americans for quite a while. And to be honest with you, I would class them at at slightly higher level than rumor that Ukrainian pilots or have already begun to be trained

on these airframes. And again, this is a very long term investment because F sixteens are not going to be in play in the next six months. They would be probably arriving if they got them within the next We're talking years, I think, So, you know, I mean, look, we we're building Ukraine and modernized army and doing it for free. I mean, because they're in extremity, they're not

paying for this stuff. And that's okay. I mean, because at the end of this, they're going to be one of the most militarily seasoned and equipped and formidable arm ME is in Europe, and that's just a good American investment in terms of international transatlantic security. Right, Okay, So I love you. I just want to know does this go on forever? I mean when does this ever? And I would be a fool if I sat here and said, right, so, as of April of two thousand and twenty three, the

war will be over? Right, I don't know. I mean, nobody knows in war. So all I can say is the metrics that you would want to use to sort of make any kind of tentative forecast suggests that Ukraine has a very good chance and Ukraine has a very good chance now of also pushing into Crimea, which had been not in consideration as of even a few months ago.

You read the New York Time story that the US is now decided to take the gloves off and to allow Ukraine, which is I read as giving them the intelligence and also giving them a military capability to to punish the Russians in Crimea. You know, the real question is how long does Putin have and how long does he does he want to play this out? And from what I understand and where my reporting has taken me.

He's shrugging his shoulders if he knows how badly his his his army is is performing in the battlefield, or he's being misled as to what it's doing. He just doesn't care. He's he's not driven by considerations of you know, Russian fatalities, at least not yet. A good friend of mine, who just wrote a book on on this war and even the sort of lead up to it, has gone to Moscow several times since a year ago and tells me, you know, the mood in Moscow is one of utter

indifference and obliviousness. Nobody really realizes or cares that there's a war going on. So until he feels that this thing is threatening his hold on power, and even then we don't know what he's what he might calculate he's just going to pour more manpower into it. Now that the real question is does he have all the concomitants for war, the hardware, the ammunition, the military industrial complex. Can it sustain this in the long term. Well, you're

beginning to hear from American officials. I mean, Wendy Sherman came out what was it last week and said, we don't see Putin being able to do another mass mobilization. I just interviewed with an Estonian colleague of mine, a very good Estonian military analyst, who have been relying on since the start of this thing, and who's got it, frankly more or less right on every occasion, who says he does not foresee enough pressure on Putin to do

to undertake another mass mobilization. And he also said, which is interesting, that in everybody in the in the US is now trying to anticipate the next big Russian counter offensive. What they don't take into account is that the Russians and the Kremlin probably sees what is taking place now as a massive counter offensive. So all the energy, all of the raw meat, frankly thrown into places like bach Mut and prior to that solidar, that's for them a

big push. So it's it's it's interesting. We have we have different assessments depending on whom you query, but you know, I can tell you this, the Ukrainians have no flagging resolve or morale. They think they can win, and by when they think they can push Russia even beyond February twenty four borders um, they think that they can absolute

retake CRIMEA. They think they can push them out of the l D and R. And I mean, look, I can also tell you that people who are paid to go to places and collect information otherwise known as intelligence, including from our country, are very very optimistic in a way that they had not been up until almost quite recently. I'd say, so take take that as you will. You know, again, the US and assessment was Kiva's toast in seventy two hours. Now it's Sevastopol might be toast for the Russians before

the end of this thing. I'm going to push back here for two seconds. And when does this end? We don't know. I mean again, you know, a Putin can can continue to fight a war or a special military operation, which he is only belatedly characterized I think once as a quote unquote war almost indefinitely. But again, you can.

You can be in a state of war by just you know, calling up eighteen year olds, giving them, you know, ill fitting out day uniforms, giving them rusty carbine rifles with no ammunition, sending them to the battlefield and say go go take this town or city. That's a state of war, but it's not one that's sustainable or one

that you can win. So the real question is when does Putin feel he has been defeated and when does he feel he can either withdraw and claim some kind of victory, which you know, if you if you listen to Timothy Snyder, who's a very good historian of modern Europe and also understands, I think the Russian mindset on a lot of these issues. He wrote an essay several

months ago about, you know, Putin's virtual reality dictatorship. The mass population in Russia believes what they see on television, right, they're not reading opposition independent newspapers, which now don't exist in the country, have to go to places like Latvia and Lithuania and Poland. They believe what the TV tells them. And if Putin instructs his talking heads, his his you know, operatic propagandists on state television to basically say, okay, it's over.

We've we've degraded the Ukrainian military capability to a point where it's now neutralized, it poses no threat to US. We humiliated NATO. I mean, they just make stuff up all the time, right, it's it's this isn't this would not be a new script for them, the people would probably shrug their soldiers and carry on. I mean, they're already doing that, even with three hundred thousand plus mobiics being sent to the front. And by the way, the

mobilization that that was undertaken a few months ago. And this kind of tells you the kind of regime that that Putin is running. That wasn't really targeting ethnic Russians, right, that was targeting the ethnic minority populations in Russia, the people in the regions boats, the Chechens of the Dagistanis and so on. So he's sending non Russians to go fight a war for Holy Mother Russian. So this is a very colonialist enterprise, and usually militaristic and aggressive and

chauvinistic colonial enterprises collapse under their own weight. And in this case, I mean, we don't have an empire here

that we're dealing with. We have a country who's I think GDP even before the war, was smaller than that of the state of California, and whose military, which is meant to be this bright, shiny new phenomenon that had been built up over the last several years, I mean, is a busted flush missiles that don't hit their mark missiles that are now being intercepted at a rate of what as of yesterday, you know, this bombardment of cruise missiles and Kiev and other regions. I think they shot

down forty seven out of fifty five of them. That's that's good. And they're getting better all the time, the Ukrainians, thanks to the platforms that we're providing them. So when you say when does it end, I don't have an answer for you, but I can tell you that the current trajectory should suggests it's not going to end the way Russia wants. And the other interesting data point here is, you know, and I heard this ad nauseum at the start of this thing, several cliches, Oh, a danger A

cornered putin is a dangerous putin. He's like a rat. You know, he's gonna he's gonna show his teeth and all that. Well, now you're hearing from US officials again. This was quote in the New York Times. Toria Nowland said this several weeks ago, and it kind of flew under the radar. They don't think that the nuclear threat is nearly as acute as it was several months ago.

And according to Newland. Houghton was persuaded that if if he were to resort to w M D in any fashion, tactical or whatever, it would be the end for him because he would lose China and he would lose India, the two countries that he has to rely on. It with China strategically, but also economically with India. That's good news, which is why every time I see World War three trending on Twitter, every time world War tree is has has trended, I mean, we're up to World War like

eighty nine by now, right. Sending tanks to Ukraine is not going to start another World War. And to be honest with you, I mean I'm not going to offer my own opinion on this. I'll just tell you I'm hearing from people who have access to information that I do not. They think that sending F sixteens to Ukraine won't even cause a major hiccup in terms of kinetic

response from the Russian side. There's a reason, for instance, they're putting pants here air defenses him on top of the Ministry of Defense in Moscow and other tall buildings they're preparing. Thank you so much for joining us. Michael Weiss Molly John Fast Jesse Cannon. I hear Mr Trump's doing some campaign and what do you see in there? A weekend of Donald J. Trump praying over fast food restaurants.

That was his hair looked sojestic. We've yes, that's sorry, looked majestic by that, I'd be not at all majestic. As our moment of we're going to say, take Donald Trump today, but I actually want to be serious for a minute. He does stupid stuff. He appeals to people who are not intellectuals. Maybe, but um, he needs to be taken deadly seriously. And because you know, even though it seems like Trump is poison when it comes to

Swing States, He's still a real danger. And if he gets I guess it would be considered to be reelected, he will end American democracy as we know it. Also will have to deal with more Don Jr. Which I personally cannot take. So I don't know if the cartels can take keeping up that supply either. You said it, I didn't. But our moment of frugery is Donald Trump. Don't take him literally, take him seriously because he's terrifying.

That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds and 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.