Stuart Stevens & John Cassidy

Hi, I'm Molli John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And Russia has offered political asylum to Elon Musk Perfect gotta love it. We have such a great show for you today. The Lincoln Project's own Stuart Stevens stops by to talk about the Elon and Trump

But first the news, Mally, I'm going to let you and Stewart do the discussion of the girls who are fighting between Elon and the Trump and all that surrounds it, because we have other fish to fry that got buried in the news this week. This one is particularly horrifying. You and I were both wretching as we read this before this question swirl over who's running the CDC? Not a headline you want to read?

This is not good? Okay. First of all, one of the things that's happened in this administration which we should all be thinking about, worrying about, and talking about is that the Trump administration has given up on running the federal government the way it's supposed to be run. And the problem is they're disrupting things that we actually need, like the CDC. Putting RFK Junior in charge of this CDC is basically just giving it up right, and that's

Yeah, as you said, it's really similar, which is that DOSEE fired too many people. They took a chainsaw that was really long to this when they should have been in with a scalpel. And now we're seeing absolutely horrifying issues with this report from the Washington Post.

So Jesse put this in our schedule to talk about. I read it earlier and could not believe what I read me And this is a piece. This's a big expose in the Washington Post. And basically what they did was, at every point they sent these emails and you could see, well it was happening, that this was what was going to happen. But it is I don't want to say gratifying, because all of this is terrible and they're going to be huge consequences that none of us can quite game

Do you mean that essay for the hiring we talked about in the last episode. It makes people not want to work in an environment like that. I can't imagine why they wouldn't want to work with people who did a loyalty essay for Trump.

And it's also I would say, it's like the top line is Elon is done with the federal government, but the federal government has been just traumatized and injured by Elon. And there are so many different parts of the government. I mean, so, we just did a story about there's no one running the CDC right the Center for Disease Control, an extremely important part of the federal government that keeps

Yeah, nice cosplaying there, Speaking of people whose job qualifications seem like cosplay. I would say yesterday was in the top ten funnest days on the Internet. But I was really really sad that something that would have made the day fun no matter what, got buried, which was Howard Blunick testifying in front of Congress and showing what an absolute unqualified person years to be running anything this high up.

Let's listen.

What's the terriffon bananas? Americans, by the way, love bananas. We buy billions of them a year.

I love bananas.

What's the terriffon bananas?

The tariffone bananas would be representative of the countries that produced and what what's that terraff generally ten percent? Correct?

Ten percent? Walmart has already increased the cost of bananas by eight percent.

As untrust who deals with us, that will go to zero as countries do deals right now.

American consumer now and on the businesses with the confus Now, mister Secretary, I believe you know better. I believe you recognize that a trade deficit is not something to fear. I believe you know that predictability, stability is essential for businesses.

I wish you would show that truth to this administration.

And I yeope, back ladies my mind.

Mister Tairman, if I make one quick comment to the end, that'd be okay. I'm sorry, would you mind if I make one quick comment to the representative?

Please? Uh?

There is no uncertainty.

If you build in America and you produce your product in America, there will be no task.

We can't be hung as aling in.

America and pay no tax. You cannot, very very clear.

You cannot fighting build that as in America.

Time with the general Lady has expired.

Wait, you can't build bananas in America.

It is so far this discussion of on shoring things. What it's like, so many these jobs we don't Americans doing, and that was what we worked on for seventy five years. And then there's just things that are not able to be done in our climate.

Speak for yourself. I'm building American bananas right here. Baby, No, this isn't completely insane. And what you don't see, because this is audio and now video, is that he has this enormous qrin on his face. That is absolutely it just.

Is so he thought he killed it.

Yeah, he thinks he killed it. I think that is absolutely he thinks he killed it. And my man, he did not kill it. It's just very annoying, I mean, and also so insane.

We have more incompetent hires that are totally unqualified for their job this time, though it's much more in the comical way of that. We have a twenty two year old former gardener picked to lead the Terrorism Prevention Department of Homeland Security named Thomas Fugate.

Yeah. I mean, and this is you know, this is this story relates to the story about the CDC, relates to the story about everything else they are. They're defenestrating the federal government, and they're going to be consequences. I hope there aren't, but it really seems like they're going to be. And it's just such a incredibly insane moment

Thank you, Molly. I've got to use this as a shout out for your book. It's really extraordinary. It really is an amazing piece of writing.

Well, thank you. I really appreciate that. And you know, Stuart is actually really incredible. You are a boot beautiful writer, and you write tends not to be political, writing tends not to be so lyrical, and you write very lyrically. So I really appreciate that from you. And now we must talk about your mad cap idea, which I love it so much. It's also just super interesting. So talk me through this idea.

The idea of nationalizing Starlink. And yeah, the deeply troubling thing about this is that I seem to agree with Steve mannon, but I'm trying to get over that. Look, I mean this in all seriousness, never if we had one person so deeply embedded into essential related national security industries. Companies Starlink and SpaceX are critical elements of American national

Would take you face value.

Okay, great, right, we're in a national emergency where it war that gives the government the power to nationalize SpaceX and Starlink.

So as a conservative, it's a pretty bold idea. I don't think it's wrong. But so the theory of the case here is that I think Tesla it doesn't. It is sort of a rounding error. But there are two companies that Elon Muss that has had that our owns that are where he is the largest stockholder of SpaceX is actually a private company that he has built through government subsidies and a lot of incentive advising with taxes, and they have made him the richest band in the world.

It's interesting because wearing my conservative hat. You could make a good case that this goes to the efficiency of the marketplace. You had a guy who is extraordinarily gifted, if deeply disturbed. So had this been set up by NASA from the beginning, you would have had security clearances that would have include drug testing, and you wouldn't have an elone muff anywhere near this thing. So that's positive.

I think it's going to be hard to convince people to do that because I think the public markets aren't

Yeah, it's look, it's been used before.

It's always been unpopular with those that are connected to the companies, right understandable, going back to when they nationalized a lot of use of the railroads, uh, going into the US entry into World War One. I think it's like everything in life, you have to balance the good right, And there's really no two companies that are as deeply involved in national security.

You know.

This isn't a case of your nationalizing Tesla to get FOURD to break or to help Toyota and Tesla, which is really the source of most of his wealth. And of course, which is one of the reasons they've had this extraordinary higher technical fight is Trump wants to cut to EV credits and until recently, the only money that Tesla made was from EV credits. They were basically an ev credit company that also made cars. You take that away and the value Tesla's extraordinarily overvalued company.

Right, Yes, for sure it will.

Go down, but that's fine. I mean, Tesla's not necessary to have financial security. I mean, all my neighbors in Santa Monica can make do a print wood will survive. But there ought to be responsible adults connected with the best interest in the United States government that are at this point running starlink and running SpaceX.

Right, pay him a bunch.

Of money, right by it from them.

United States government has a lot of money. You don't have to just seize it. Pay them a lot of money.

That's fine.

So you feel like it's an imminent domain question.

Exactly like imminent domain.

That's a very good it's a very good example, and we use it, and it's controversial, and those that are eminently domained out usually don't worry.

Right.

But I just think that you can't unsee what we've seen in the last forty eight hours.

Right, this is not a person who should be in charge of National Saturday.

I mean you could say, okay, here's a guy. He's jumping up and down behind it. You know, President of the United States. You look at that footage in the Oval Office, and you know, there's not a teenage in America that would walk into their home in that kind of condition and not know that they're going to be busted by their parents. How deeply into drugs do you have to be that you can't restrain yourself the morning of knowing that you're going to have meeting in the

Right. I mean, we don't want to speculate, but there certainly has been reporting in the Wallstreet Journal about a box of pills and this and that.

You also said, did he use this kind of meine? Right, and we can now use Donald Trump as a source, right.

Well, Donald Trump, the two of them did definitely get involved in a lot of pretty insane no name calling. So right now there are a lot of people who want Elan and Trump to sort of take it all down, right, they are de accelerate, d you know whatever, stop fighting. This is a bad situation for people like Mike Johnson. This is a bad situation for people like Anna, Paulina Luna or any member of the House goop who is got to choose between their richest benefactor and their political

I think that what Democrats have to learn to do is to use whatever tools they have available and not to feel that like this is beneath me or that is right. You can't allow yourself to luxury of pretending that the greater good is served by acting like a normal governing party. Right, as Jonathan last that brilliantly pointed out, we don't need opposition party now, we need a dissident movement.

Right, no deep off medicaid.

Today's no, just this fight is terrible country. The bill is terrible too, But today's anniversary of D Day. Yeah, but think about what America was doing then and what the leadership, the sacrifice, and the image that it secured for America's place in the world as a flawed but instrument of greater good compared to this fight between two deeply flawed, horrible human beings who are two of the most powerful people in the world. I mean, it's just

So talk to me about what this looks like now. So Democrats really could and I think they should think about trying to sink this thing with the help of Elon Musk, because Keal and Musks people want it gone. This bill, if it passes, will kick people off Medicaid, it will cut food stamps for poor kids, It will just do everything, and it will extend these ridiculous tax cuts. And it will also open the door to no tax on tips. How that will work, I have no idea talk about that.

Look, I think the Democrats should have a greater ambition than just stopping this bill. They should use what's happened with Musk as one of the instruments to undo and get all these Doze cronies out of government. I mean, just stop and think the guy that we have seen in the last twenty four hours. Would you trust him to hire someone to paint your house?

Now?

No?

And he's what are these people like that he's hired. They try to hide, they try to the big balls in these crowds. They're going to be weird. They're not going to have a sense of any patriotism, and they're dangerous, right we are at this moment. I mean, anybody you know, I think grusde has made this very good point.

Oh this is great.

You got one of these guys has all our personal information in his pocket and the other has the nuclear codes. Right, yes, well this is really great. So I think it just indicates the recklessness and carelessness and lack of any sense of responsibility that has driven this entire Doge effort.

They should try to undo this.

Yeah, it's it's interesting, and in fact, there's really good reporting today from the Washington Post about how DOGE has fired so many people, and there really is quite They're trying to rehire these people that they fired. And I do wonder if there is a question now if you could, I mean, I think it would mean that you would need to appeal to John Thoon. You would mean that you would need to get Trump back on board to try to stop sort of defenestrating the federal government. I'm

Talk to that, yeah, I think also, yes, that's true the Heritage Foundation, of course, but there is a hidden motive here of someone like Trump and someone like Musk. They really don't believe in democracy. They believe in autocracies and the sort of great Man theory of history. So if you have a government that is working, that is functioning, they see that as a reduction of their own ability

Yeah, such a good point, Such a good point.

Don't play this game by different rules, except that this is the game that we're in, and use those rules. Don't be like we were in World War One when hesitant to establish intelligence because gentlemen don't read other gentlemen's mail.

No, right, that was the actual sense of Bidenism. Was bringing a stuff to animal to a knife fight, was refusing to meet these people where they were.

Yeah, I think that there's two ways to look at that. I think that's what you just said is absolutely true. I think also that Biden historically will have to plead guilty to having a greater expectation of what America could rise to than America chose to rise to.

That is really true. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Stuart Stevens.

Thank you.

You're so smart. John Cassidy is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of Capitalism and Its Critics, A History from the Industrial Revolution to AI. So welcome to Fast Politics.

John, thanks very much for inviting me on.

I am excited to talk about this book, but I just want for a minute to talk about the progression. So the last book he wrote was a book about how markets fail, and this book is about capitalism and perhaps how capitalism may have some failings. Is there a connection here between this one and the next.

I'm recovering the sort of economics and finance. You knows since I was in my twenties and I in my sixties now, so we're talking nearly forty years. So if you cover finance and economics, what makes news is always the market failures. My first book about was it was about the Internet boom and bust back in the late nineties.

And then I thought, well, I've done the two individual ones.

Why not go the whole hog and do a book about, you know, the sort of full history of capitalism and its critics. The pitch for this book is that it's not just another boring history of capitalism. It's toiled through the eyes of the critics. So I mean I turned it into a series of mini biographies going all the way back to Adam Smith and the luod Heites up until today.

So it's working great.

Huh.

Well, I mean there's always two sided capitalism, right, I mean, we generally regarded as better than the alternatives. We tried an alternative in the twentieth century state socialism that eventually broke down. I mean, capitalism has delivered a massive economic growth. I mean, I've got a charge in my book showing how if you just look at GDP since the year dot, you know, it's basically a flat line until eighteen hundred, when industrial capitalism comes on and then it takes off,

So you know, it's a two sided story.

I'm a sort of I come from a center left, so I've always been critical of capitalism and thought it can be improved, and I would describe myself as a sort of Canesian social democrat. I think you've got to keep the basics of the system, but you need to manage it. I'm in favor of managed capitalism. That's the argument I make in the book. And in sort of terms of American politics, I guess you'd put me in the sort of Elizabeth Warren Bernie Sanders camp.

There are many people on this podcast who are in that camp too. It feels there is a real bit of post free trade hangover happening right now, and we saw it again. Biden poor at explaining things for any number of reasons. He did. Chips and Sciences was largely about entering manufacturing because of Taiwan and because of any number of other reasons, Tariff's, Trump whatever. But theoretically the

I mean, I think you know you have to You have to go back into history a bit.

Well, that's the problem with covering Trump. Everybody gets caught up in the day to day headlines. I do it myself.

I just wrote about his comments about toys. But you have to step back a bit here. Trump people attribute too much to him. He is a react in a part of a react against globalization and what he uses neoliberalism basically sort of conservative economic policy from the sort of nineties onwards and embrace of sort of unrestricted globalization that produced in the US at least a lot of a lot of job displacement, especially in Red States. Best they joined the China Shock from about when China joined

America First, America First.

That's basically a catchphrase for economic nationalism. The Democrats up until you know, Clinton and Obama were very much in favor of free trade. It was obviously Bill Clinton who signed then After Agreement back in the nineteen nineties. So the party had very much bought into the idea that free trade and globalization was best for America, and there are some strong arguments for it, but they'd sort of ignored and say they ignored the downsides, but they didn't

So that and then at the end of his term.

Biden, when he was back, I think it was at last September or October, he then doubled down on his tariffs of China and raised them.

He remember he raised someone.

I think he raised the tariffs on electric vehicles Chinese electric vehicles two one hundred percent, not as high as Trump one hundred and forty five percent, but you know, pretty high, more targeted. But you know, no way you can describe that as a free trade policy. So I think at this stage the sort of abandonment of the old globalization model is a bi partisan thing. There are few there are people on both sides who are still favorite, but the sort of leadership of both parties have rejected

But that's where we stand out.

I don't think we're going back to the old model of free trade agreements anytime soon.

Right, Trump seems to not like any trade. Now, is he against trade because he's a racist?

Right?

Obviously? I mean I don't think anyone would think even he might agree to that, or is he against free trade because he doesn't understand how trade deficits work.

I think he doesn't really understand.

He doesn't have any real appreciation of sort of free trade and the sort of arguments for it. Going back to Adam Smith and David Ricardo featuring my book, you know, the argument for free trade is if everybody does what they're best at, then everybody can benefit the sort of gains from trade. And if you know you can bring it down to you can bring it down to individuals trade every day. I mean the famous example is, you know, going for a haircut or something. You could cut your

He doesn't he doesn't give you. He or she doesn't give you any money, but you give them money. So we all run trade differences in our daily lives with all the people we deal with. That's what the free market is.

That that's what I could you know, that's the capitalism and I exchange you're based on the sort of gains from trade among individuals. The argument for a free trade among countries is very similar. That if we want to buy avocados, it's probably a good idea to hire them from Mexico, where they buy them from Mexico, where they can make them in bulk more cheaply than we can, and.

We can call them you know, iPhones or whatever. They don't have any and we do.

So it's a very basic Almost any you know, any economist across the spectrum agrees with that. But Trump has just got this idea in his mind. I mean, yeah, I think if I said I used to cover Trump back in the eighties when I worked on the London Times as a sort of Wall Street correspondent, and even back then he was pretty much the same. I mean, there's this famous editorial. You know, used to buy himself editorials in the New York Times, full page ads.

You know.

The famous one was the one against The most famous and notorious one was when he called for sort of death penalty for the.

Yeah for the Central Park.

But another one he took out was about imports, and at the time, the threat to American jobs and industries were seen to come from Japan. Japan was the sort of mini China of its time, you know, Toyota, Nissan Hondo making roads into American car market, and Trump called for basically blanket bands on any imports made very exactly in his saying they were basically cheating, they were stealing

And I don't you can't really talk.

About a bit.

I mean, I'm sure some of his advisors do to some to some extent try to when he you know, when he says, let's put one hundred tariff on somebody, I'm sure somebody says, are we sure about that, mister president, But you know, he says, you're iron, and they just go ahead. I mean, his argument is, you know, it's

And then we'll greect great pills.

And then the next day he said, no, we we're going to replace the tax system.

We don't need income tax anymore. We should switch to just tariffs will make so much.

They those two things can't possibly fit together, because you know, if it's the bargaining shape, you're bargaining away.

The idea is to bargain down the tariffs, and then you wouldn't know.

Yes, I would love it if you could sort of talk about where we are with the trade, because it seems like we are on our way to a trade catastrophe. But maybe I'm wrong. We don't have any deals yet. From what I understand from the ports, from the information on the ports, the ports are seem pretty spare. So how does this how does this play out?

Yeah, we're in a sort of interregnant period of the moment, Molly, I think here whereas the policies have been put into effect, especially the ones on China, but they haven't really hit home yet. Companies order goods in advance, so most of the goods they're using at the moment, or most retailers are selling, you know, they ordered a year ago or six months ago or whatever. So as this sort of several month period of several months where Trump's announced these tariffs.

But I think that maybe was a bit of a flu.

And people think that by the end of May is start of June and it really will be hitting home and the shortages will start to kick in. I mean that's what the retailers I think told Trump down at the White House, head of you know, Home Depot, Walmart, et cetera.

Were in there.

You know.

Trump came out the next day and you know, said, this is not really going to happen. It's going to be here. You know, we're going to make deals.

But now he seems to be changing his turn, and he made this argument last week. You know he's done.

Now he's forced to make arguments that kids don't need all, yes, as many pencils, they can have five pencils instead of five hundred pencils, which is a remarkable argument for a Republican president to make, because arguing against consumerism. For all my life, the arguments against mass consumerism have come from the left. Now Trump is because he's in this political corner, he's forced to sort of make some of those arguments.

Into recession Wall Street. He's not going to do that.

Find someone who has faith in you the way the public markets have faith in Donald Trump.

Well they I think, what the you know, the member the Liberation Day, you know, when he his tariffs and the markets basically collapsed, and when the markets collapsed, and especially the bond market went into a tissy, Trump basically caved, not basically he did cave.

You know, it came out.

He put the you know, he suspended all the ones apart from China for ninety days.

He hinted that, you know, other ones that would be coming down too.

So I think the markets took that as a sign that when push comes to show, they.

Run things, not Trump.

They've had this remarkable comeback when the markets are basically back to where you know, when he was elected. So I think the market is maybe be where we're being too optimistic because I think it's very difficult to predict Trump. He does have this sort of got instinct that what he's doing is right, and I think he would be a huge climb down for him to get rid of all his tariffs. But at the same time, he hates

You know.

We so he announced this threatened this week that he's got about a hundred percent tariffs on more in films.

Yes, those cash cass For a second, what I thought was interesting about that chaos was that he was okay with the market, the public markets creator but it was when the bond market started freaking out. Now what I think happened, and again, who the fuck knows, but it's possible that someone went in and explained to him dollar flight. I am like very interested in dollar flight. I just read a really smart piece in The Economist about it.

Well, it's back up to the Liberation Day fiasco again and the market reaction what really spoop people in the markets and in the White House and in the FED and everywhere.

Basically the stock.

Market went down, but the dollar and bonds went down to Usually when you have a crisis, money floods into the bond market because it's seen as as seen as a safe reserve. The US bonds US treasuries. People switch out of bonds and they buy US treasuries.

They do that all over the world.

So if you're in China or England or Germany or wherever, and you're trying to buy US treasures, you have to buy dollars first to do it, because you could only buy obviously their dollar denominated. So people buy dollars to buy treasuries. That boosts the value of the dollar. So in a crisis, it's always been a case of almost always that the stocks collapse, people freak out. But the bond market bounces and the dollar goes up this time,

We're going to deal with this crisis.

Working for Trump Man that it's not a good job.

So that happened. Then the question is, you know, are we still vulnerable. Okay, he's reversed that, you know, he's

Well, we are in a basically in a cold war with at this point exactly, the unspoken assumption underneath Trump's trade war is that we're the big guy on.

The block where the bully it can really do any damage to us. Things are going to get bad, but will come out best. Now, the fact that we're dependent on foreign financing for the deficit sort of undermines that. So, you know, maybe we're not as strong as we think we are, or maybe as Trump thinks we are. So

We have to do something, and we can see that again. Thank you, thank you, Thank you, John, and we're looking forward to finishing the book.

Thanks very much for having me on.

No moment.

Jesse Cannon, Mali junk Fast.

New Mexico is feeling the wrath of the job course closure. More than four hundred employees and students at Albuquerque and Roswell campuses are impacted. According to the New Mexico Department of Workforce.

Solutions, this is a moment of our grade that comes directly from our friendly or in New Mexico. He just sent me this thing. You know, you have this thing called job Corpse. It's a small organization that helps people get back on their feed. It is really good. It trains kids to get jobs. It is like, these are the things that we need our federal government to be doing. It's not a huge amount of money to keep them going.