Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And President Trump's inauguration is perhaps said to be moved indoors due to very cold temperatures. We have such a great show for you today. The Lincoln Project's own Stuart Stevens stops by to talk about the lessons learned as Biden leaves office. Then we'll talk to Democracy Forward Sky Perryman about how they will push back on the Trump administration.
But first the news, So, Malie, the Supreme Court has ruled unanimously one of the rare things we see that it is legal for the law that was passed banning TikTok to go forward. But there's a lot of gray area here because last night President Biden said he would not uphold the laws. So this now throws it into the lap of mister Donald Trump.
So here's a problem with TikTok, right, And this is what we've heard from the Gang of Eight, is that there is clearly a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes that China is doing.
With our data, and we don't even know the half of it.
Right, There's a reason federal employees are not supposed to have it. There's a reason people in the military are not supposed to have it.
Right. There's clearly a lot here that we're not being told.
And then there is the incredible addictive quality of the algorithm, more addictive than the very addictive Instagram. So there were all sorts of reasons why, and we just have no transparency. It's a company that is owned by the Chinese Communist Party. They say that it's not, but it really is. It's just this is very much bad, bad, bad, But Congress doesn't want to legislate this because they just don't. Right.
They actually did legislate it. They legislated a ban, and what happened was that TikTok got lobbyists and now maybe there won't be a ban. I would also like to add there's an app on the Appstore called red Note, which is also has a Chinese providence, again the nuances of which are not readily apparent, and that charted became
the top app. The fallacy here is you can't ban just one of these apps, right, there's like a lack of transparency here, and banning TikTok, the ideas if you ban TikTok, you will then end up with something TikTok like. I want to add that this band should go through. This is one of the few times that this extremely partisan Supreme Court, all nine of them, were like, shut down the fucking app, and still people on the left and people on the right were like, maybe not.
So do I think TikTok is going to get banned? Absolutely not.
Do I think that we're just going to continue on as business as usual?
Yes?
Is this a national security risk? Absolutely? Are millions and millions of people. I mean, imagine if you allowed CBS to be owned by the Chinese government, That's what this is like. Imagine if ten times no, imagine if a hundred times more people watch CBS and it was owned by the Chinese government.
That's what we have here.
So real dereliction of duty on the part of almost everyone except bafflingly, the Supreme Court.
And the other thing I would say is it's almost like these apps should be controlled by a nonpartisan body and be seen in as a public work. But I'm just going to stop putting my socialist views in here, move on to the next subject.
Socialism quote unquote.
Continue quote unquote socialist. Yes, I know, wanted to make sure free speech stays up. So there's been a lot of bided statements on the way out of office. Burn his last few days, and the first one was on the Equal Rights Amendment. Molly, what are you seeing here as somebody who this is near and dear to their heart.
The Equal Rights Amendment. Look, this is something it was ratified. Basically, it's an interesting thing because it's something my mother fought forward to. The thinking was that it was not so crazy to have equal rights for women in the Constitution. So Phylish Flaughley basically dismantled the er by spending all of this time I'm trying to convince women that it would prevent them from getting child support, and I mean, just you know the kind of misinformation we see broadly
now in America. So I think very smartly. Senator Kirsten Jilibrand was committed to trying to get the Senate Archivist to read the er into the record and thus sort of create a world in which it was part of the Constitution. The Senate Archivist she just wouldn't do it and refused. Instead of pushing her the way a Republican might firing her and hiring someone else who would do it.
They Biden just let her refuse, even though Senator Jili Brand had a really good point, which is it's actually her interpretation of the Constitution is irrelevant, right, but didn't matter, so she refused to read it. So instead Biden decided and instead of forcing her, which is what a lot of Democrats wanted, including what I wanted, he just did this statement that said it's happened, which is very nice
and pretty but meaningless. Susan Glasser from The New Yorker has a really smart take on it, and I think this is correct. Biden ended his tenure with symbolic statements about the er that does nothing for actual women, but seems like a sad metaphor for where his presidency has ended.
Rovers's weight is gone, no national laws to help women in place, Trump and a host of other sexual harassers return to power, And you really do see how so much of what has happened in this twenty twenty four cycle was about backlash to women and how Democrats were just not able to do the necessary things to protect them. And look, I mean, life is long and we'll see
what happens. But it certainly feels like a real It just feels like a moment where again Democrats brought a stuffed animal to a knife fight.
Agreed. So last night Friend of the Show MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell hosted President Biden for an outgoing presidential interview, and one of the things he said that really caught you and i's eye is that how bad the Red States really screwed the handling of their economies during the COVID years, especially with supply chains.
I was watching these hearings today, the Christie Nome Homeland Security hearings, and we saw Republicans like Bernie Marino in the state of Ohio just grandstand and politic and he even he asked Christy Nome if Lake and Riley would still be alive had this is really what he asked, had Alejandro Mayorcas not been Homeland Security Secretary. It could truly craven bit of politicking. Right, would a nursing student have been murdered had there been a different Homeland Security Okay?
But what head But what I think is interesting is that Biden really tries not to do that. Democrats really try not to politicize things. One of the reasons why Trump was able to win. But he did criticize at this moment with Lawrence Red States, and he said Red States really screwed up in terms of the way they handled their economy and the way they handled manufacturing and the way they handled access to supply chains. That's why he ended up investing more in Red States than Blue
states through various measures. Shortly after being asked about his economic response to COVID, what I think is interesting about this is we get back to the California problem.
Right. California, fourth largest.
Economy, pays way more into federal taxes than takes out, is going to need billions and billions of dollars to rebuild after these fires. Already we see Republicans trying to play politics. If Republicans were to lose California, our entire American economy would greater. And so I do think that on behalf of all of us who pay taxes, Republicans, please do not make California furious.
I'll say so, mai one. Speaking of the Lake and Riley Act, Republicans are just downright giddy too. Get to making sure that brown people get deported from this country as much as possible, but ICE, who seem to usually be on that side, are saying whoa, whoa, whoa, buddy, chill out.
So ICE warms that Republicans racist immigration bill is a total bust. By the way, what I think is interesting is we're seeing a lot now of ICE sort of trying I can't figure out who is trying to message to who, but we are seeing some like I saw this in this hearing today, Well, we're just going to deport the criminals. We're not going to deport everyone. We're seeing some of that. I'm very curious to know is that because who is saying let's not deport everyone, and
who is saying let's deport everyone? And how is this being acted out behind the scenes, Because clearly there is some level of anxiety here that Donald Trump is just going to go in and deport everyone and American citizens too. And I think I'm clearly picking that up as an undertone.
So one of the things you have to remember is like ICE agents are people, and if they're on television holding screaming children and you know, deporting people, like we live in a new world where everyone has a camera and everyone has a video, and like during you know historically when we have in this country in turned people, like in World War Two when America in turned Japanese people and took their houses. People didn't have iPhones, so
it wasn't the results were not as immediately tangible. And I think that there's a lot of Anxiet society here, that people and ice are going to be asked to do.
These things, and that the blowback for them is going to be.
Very tough, and rightly so, because I think they are going to be asked to do these things. Stuart Stevens is a legendary campaign manager and the author of the Conspiracy to End America Five Ways My old Party is driving our democracy to autocracy. Welcome back to fast politics, Stuart. Thank you, we needed you before Trump two point zero takes over.
Discuss I have a positive take on this.
Oh please, somebody has to have a positive take.
I believe that the moment they were in, exactly at this moment, is the high order mark of trump Ism. I think it will prove to be like my ancestors and pickets charge, they almost get to the wall, but can't get over the wall. You really have to be careful here about drawing conclusions about this election.
Ooh, say more about that?
Well, yeah, an incumbent president with a forty point approval rate, and all the post World War two elections incumbent party got within two points of the presidential approval. So Harris actually overperformed that and you had a right track under thirty percent. It's a very difficult environment to win an election.
You know. When I was working for Bush in two thousand, we would track the right track, wrong track and moving little movements in it in a race that was as tight as the two thousand race, really made a difference. I mean, in a typical race, you should get if you're an incumbent, you should get ninety percent of the right track, and if you're a challenger you should get eighty five to ninety percent of the wrong track. So that was a good environment for a challenger to beat
an incumbent party now, and that's what happened. I don't think that should be confused with it being an active embrace of trump Ism. I think there are two very different things. I think this is how you end up worshiping volcanoes. There's a drought, the volcano Belch is in, it rains, and the next thing you know, you're worshiping the volcano Guard. They're probably not related. And I just
don't think the country is where compassm is. And we had an election unlike any other we've ever had and combent president gets out in July, vice president comes in. You know, probably we shouldn't try that again.
Yeah, and by the way, that that didn't work when it was done historically either.
Yeah, I still maintain I think the Harri's campaign ran a very good campaign. I also think that it's a mistake to look at all of the field operation that they did and think that that is now no longer beneficial or applicable to campaigns because she lost. To me, that's like saying, Okay, we lost Vietnam. No more helicopters,
right right, right, that's it. I don't think we lost because of the helicopters, and I don't think they lost because of the field And I think she could have gone Joe Rogan hourly and it wouldn't have impacted the election.
I mean, we don't need to talk about this election. It's over, and maybe it's better just not. But I just wonder Trump was forward facing for four years.
You mean talking about the future, not even talking.
About the future, just being on tell like being a celebrity for four years, and you remember that that people were Google searching the day of the election.
Is Joe Biden still in the race?
Like I wonder how much like in this New America, you have to just be out there all day, every day, no matter what.
That's interesting. One of the lessons the Democratic Party to take from this is when you govern, you do have to govern like you represent the whole.
Country, right, which they did well.
When you politic you don't.
Yeah, that I think is the case.
In these hearings. That's not governing politics as a servant of governing. But your first obligation in those hearings as a Democrat is a political obligation. And I don't think that you should worry at all about how it's going to be received. Your message is going to receive by those voters who are deep into Trumpism.
Yeah.
Like the cautiousness that we saw in twenty sixteen, right, I'm not even talking about the candidate. I'm just talking about the cautiousness, the Clinton cautiousness which then we saw in Biden world, which Biden was able to eat out a win with it in twenty twenty, perhaps because of just how unpopular Trump was, But that cautiousness is not
how you win elections. And I think like when you think about sort if you even just look at twenty twenty four and you look at Rubin, who was one of the you know, who was able to win over Trump voters.
He did that by just being ever are all the time.
Yeah, But anyway, it's neither here nor there, or it's not relevant anymore because there are no elections at least until twenty twenty five. But I'm wondering if you could talk to us about Trump is planning a kind of shockun on on Monday and then this weekend. On today, we just saw the mayor of New York go down tomorrow lago.
That's ongoing.
I think the technical term for that is plea bargain.
Yeah, So in my mind there's a real question about what happens next and what that looks like.
Well, I think you're right. I think you will do shocking all and I think that as it begins to take effect, it's not a majority of it's not going to be popular in politics. I mean, I think it's really important that you distinguished if someone says in a poll that they're worried about immigration, they think that the border is a problem, that doesn't mean that that is what consumes them in their life. If you just ask them,
do you think it's a problem, yes. If you ask me if terrorism bad, yes, walk around thinking about terrorism?
No.
And I think that the mandate that Trump is trying to take from that is going to be one that is going to play into their instincts to overreact. And we do have the reality that the economy is really good. And what do they just like about the economy the most, that record stock market or the record low unemployment. So I just don't think that there is a broad mandate for most of the stuff they want to do, if you go back to two thousand and four. So we
want a very narrow election. I mean, if less than half the people who attend to Ohio State home game had changed their votes, we would have lost Ohio and we would have lost the election. We being when I was working for Bush, and what did Bush do? He took that as a mandate and he went out and tried to privatize social Security, and it blew up in his face. There was not a desire to do that. So I don't think that people like the headsets and
the Tulsi and the cash betel. I think the reason Trump nominates these people, I think he knows they're idiots. He nominates them because he wants to see senators humiliate themselves. He wants to assert their subservience through the humiliation of having to say things that are not true. And I felt this so strongly watching my old friend and client, Senator Roger Wicker, now Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, in the headset hearings. I know Roger well. In many
ways we come from the same world. I don't think Roger would hire PDX has to cut his law.
No.
I mean that literally, he wouldn't hire some weird guy with the drinking problem was tattooed up to like be that close to his house and yet here he is now. He doesn't have to do that. And John McCain wouldn't have done it. He would have insisted that Trump appoints someone who was competent, you know, a competent conservative. You know, it's not like you're asking to point Bernie Sanders Secretary of Defense.
No, when you're watching that, because I watched it too. There's like some congeniality and some like Senate congeniality, and then there's a lot of like real weird grandstanding. Like I was watching a hearing today where Bernie Marino blamed the fires on Governor Gavenwsom. Like it's a sort of hodgepodge of the kind of congeniality that the Senate once had, plus like Fox News auditions.
I mean, is that what you're seeing?
Yeah, listen, I think the it's inevitable to watch a hearing and not be frustrated if you are against the person who's being nominated, because there is such an erratic flow of questions and there's no coherent follow through you have each individual senator. It's it's a very tough way to prosecute somewhere. If every three minutes a new proecutter had a step up in front of a jury and take another new tack, the jury would just be confused.
You Know what I would have liked to have seen Democrats do, still would is everyone ask two questions at the beginning of their hearing. You believe that Joe Biden want a free and fair election in twenty and if the equivocator say no, they said, okay, doesn't matter what
else you say doesn't matter. You're disqualified. And do you believe that the criminals who assaulted police officers in January sixth, twenty twenty one should be pardon And if you're equivocated and now you say that's it, you're disqualified.
But who would disqualify that?
You have to say that that disqualifies you from service in this government. And I think it's about framing what is the level here that is acceptable. So if you look at Rubio, there's a level that I disagree with you on public policy in a lot of ways, but I think that you are an acceptable nominee for Secretary of State. You may be a terrible one, you may be a great one, but in keeping with advising consent,
I can, without a heavy contents vote for you. And that should be the same consistent line in all of these The obligation here for Democrats is to just remind people that it doesn't have to be this way, that there is a simple standard here that's not an egregious one. Appoint competent people who aren't going to use these and very important positions to work through their own personal issues. When you go too much into the weeds of well
this discoff is that discollifies. It's easy to lose the big picture that just you are a ridiculous nominee, you are a basthoon, you're a weekend cable show host.
My theory of the case is they should just try to figure out who are the most dangerous and go all in. So, for example, I think about RFK Junior, who obviously would have an enormous effect on the way this country handles another pandemic for example.
Yep, if these nominated people were going to.
Die, So why when Democrats just focus on those candidates.
I'm not sure that they're not doing that. I would focus on Kennedy, Patel, Hegset and Gabbard. Yeah, what's interesting about Kennedy is it's going to accelerate a divide in the country because the people who are going to be most damaged are going to be those who are less informed and lower income, with the exception of the nutty kind of whole foods moms that don't believe in vaccinations, and that's in the same way in the pandemic. It's
the statistic that's provable that's demonstrable. That's true. Those in red states who listened to Fox News died at a higher rate. One of the mortality elements in that disease was do you watch Fox News? I mean that's it's sort of like the points on to a joke. You know, it's really deadly to watch Fox News or something. Yes, it was deathley, it did kill people. Why is Trump doing this? I mean he's a guy who's you know, vaccinated,
everybody in his family's vaccinated. He doesn't believe this kooky stuff. He does it to prove that he can, to make you do it. This is how dictators operate, their need to humiliate those that are serving under him. It's a bad way to run a democracy.
Democrats are in a very tough position. The thing that I was stripped by. I thought the best moments in these hearings were when Democrats were very specific and they said things like Bernie Sanders asking Scott Besson, who is by far not the worst pick in any stretch of the imagination, very quote unquote normal.
You know, worked for George Soros.
This guy is not ideologically maga whatever that means. So question is, and he's gay, and you know, he's got kids. I mean, there's just a number of reasons why he seems like probably one of the less terrifying choices. But when Bernie Sanders asked him, did he believe that you should raise federal minimum wage from seven to twenty five? He said no, And then he sort of couldn't answer
these questions about Medicare Medicaid. Maybe he doesn't know what they are, maybe he had you know, he's read Project twenty twenty five.
I mean, who knows.
But I thought those questions were the most effective because part of what's happening here is that Democrats need to explain to the people what Republicans are about to do, because if they don't, Republicans will blame Democrats. And if we've seen anything in the last four years, it's that that actually works.
Yeah, I agree, And that's the case in the minimum wage, where the majority of the country supports raising the minimum wage. You know, you can have a conversation should it be twelve, should it be fifteen, but it's it's overwhelmingly popular. The same with raising taxes on people who make more than a million dollars a year. You know, all my life, I've looked to polls that asked that question, and I've never seen it lower than eighty percent.
Right.
I have been really struck by the fact that Democrats were able to lose on populism, right, Like Biden enacted all this populist legislation and Republicans were like, we're running a populist They're not.
I go back, and you know, there's this sort of InVogue now for some reason to say that demographics are our destiny. But Trump's support is non college educated white voters, which is the fastest declining group in the country. And I think a lot of these people are supporting Trump driven not by ideology or by choice as much as by race. And I don't think we talk about that enough.
Certainly that is what's going on too. But the fact that Democrats were not able to capture populism when Republicans entire goshtalt is about making sure these tax cuts for billionaires stay in place, that feels like a real like.
It's a classic messaging failure. I don't really understand. Well, you know, I don't understand the Republican Party, so god forbid, I would understand the Democratic Party. But you know, there are moments when I look at the Democratic Party and I remember why as Republicans we won races we shouldn't have won. And it goes to this larger question to framing. I mean what I think had I been on that here, I would have challenged Pete Texas patriotism. I wish for
ben It. I don't think you're a patriot. If you support using military to fire on protesters, you're not. That's not American. You're a disgrace. And I think you have to use that kind of broad framing. Now you look at a nominee like Harris, who I thought ran a very good campaign, But she's not a candidate who is going to emerge just biographically and otherwise as a populist candidate per se. She is going to be seen as something that most people would think was an extraordinary career,
which I think is positive. But it's not like she rose up out of the desert like El sid to claim this Mannle And I think there are a lot of Democratic candidates out there who are governors, particularly who do that better, you know, who aren't from San Francisco. This is the kind of easy labels you could put on someone my carrots, but you know, I thought her speech capturing patriotism was really a roadmap for where Democrats need to go, and I hope because she lost, they don't abandon that.
Stuart Stevens, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Molly. I always listened to the show and always I'm smarter for it. I think.
Sky Perriman is the president of Democracy Forward.
Welcome back to Fast Politics, Sky.
Well, thank you always for having me.
Explain to us what your organization does. Just for those of us who don't remember from the last time you were on.
Democracy Forward is a legal organization and we bring cases and legal challenges against anti democratic actions that harm people and communities across the country. We also do work on policy and public affairs and ensure that people can use their voice in the most effective way in this pivotal moment.
So let's talk about what that looks like.
Right now we're about to go into Trump two point zero.
What does that mean?
Well, for us, it means that our work is scaling and expanding, which, as you know, Molly, we've been doing for the last three years, really bringing in some of the best lawyers in the country, some of the best advocates. Because of the threats to democracy that we see at the state level, the threats to people. We just recently blocked a big law in Arkansas that Sarah ha could
be Sanders signed that would have criminalized librarians. I mean, that is the reality that communities are living in today.
But we know we're going to have a lot of work to do because if the Trump administration this time does what it says it's going to do, what it's already been doing in these last few weeks, we know that there will be a lot of need for legal challenges to protect people's economic well being and keeping costs down and protecting their wages, to protecting the ability of the government to function in a way that is nonpartisan and not sort of ideological with our civil service, to
protecting voting rights, and so much more.
So, let's talk about what that means.
You know, Trump had promised shock and all, So what do we think shock and all looks like? And also we're not going to predict the future because nobody knows, but it does seem to me pretty strange that the mayor of.
New York is in mar Lago and I have to wonder where that goes. And you know, whether or not he signs off on something. You know what that looks like.
Well, look, he's already said he's going to come in and do a shotgun awe of executive orders, And yesterday Politico reported that we at Democracy Forward and alongside lots of partners, are going to be looking at those executive
orders the minute they come in and analyzing them. Your listeners can go to Democracy twenty twenty five dot org, which is an effort that we launched to get real time information on inauguration day and on days throughout the early Trump administration on what is happening with executive orders, what legal challenges are going to be brought and will
be brought to address anything that is unlawful. And so I think that you will see everything from a range of kind of performative executive orders that will declare things to shock in all people, to target communities, to executive orders that will do real things that are problematic for people, whether that is conditioning federal funding on the particular ideology that the Trump administration has a kind of a far right ideology, which they've said that they would maybe seek
to do to declaring or undermining our federal civil servants, who are the people that do the work across the country of our government for the American people doing something to politicize them, to seeking to politicize the military. And then of course we know on immigration that we will see some type of shock and all action, and that doesn't even touch foreign policy and some of the other
areas that we're watching. What we can do. We've seen this play but before the Trump administration loss nearly eighty percent of the time in court the last time we've talked about this before. But looks like they've not learned a lot of their lessons that many of the things they're going to seek to do will have legal problems. We and others are going to be there in court on behalf of people and communities to make sure their rights are protected.
Yeah, for sure.
And I'm wondering what that looks like if we're trying to protect people, for example, if they go in and they just start taking people out, I mean, like, is due process going to still happen? I mean, what's your sort of guess on how you can push back against that kind of stuff.
There's a range of laws that have not actually been rewritten yet by the US Supreme Court that really every administration, you know, Republican Democrat, whoever is in office, has to follow in order to you know, in order to be able to institute policies or agendas, and that Trump administration really often flagrantly disregards those. And so we've had a lot of success, as have our partners, in suing and winning when they disregard the law. That's a real thing.
And I think you've had folks on your show talk about this. But the courts today, in terms of the way the federal judicial landscape looks, the types of judges that are on the court, that believe in the rule of law, that believe that the court's fundamental role is
to protect our rights, not to reverse them. The federal courts look better than they did on the last day of the Trump administration because of President Biden's historic record on appointing federal judges and getting them confirmed that really represent America. So I think the courts are going to
be a real front line. That's only the front line, and it's going to take everybody using their voice, making sure their members of Congress know understanding that this president does not have some broad margins in the United States Congress where he can ram an agenda through unless people let him do that, and that that will be a choice,
and it will be a choice with political consequences. So I think that it's going to take all of those tools to make sure that we're really protecting the American people and their well being in this time.
Jesse and I just did all this stuff about Project twenty twenty five during this summer, and one of the things.
That we were struck by was that a lot.
Of this like and I was listening to Russ Vought nomination hearing this week, and you know, he's one of.
The architects of Project twenty twenty five.
He's going to run the Congressional Budget Office if he gets appointed, which I think is very likely. He does a lot of stuff that's sort of you know, he knows how how Washington works.
He is an insider.
So he breaks a law in ways that or I don't know, if he breaks a lot. He skirts the law in ways that are very clever. And I'm thinking about how they held the Ukraine money.
I'm thinking about it many.
Ways, and which he said, and there are laws he's planning to use this time about ways to sort of control the purse and make and take that away from Congress. I mean, how worried are you about that? And what do you think the legal pushback is for that.
You know, they can try to do these things, But fundamentally, I think that we're going to see in the legal cases are going to show this, the reporting will show this, and people's voices will show this. This is not an administration that's shown that it's committed to the American people. It's not an administration that's actually shown that it's committed
to hard working American people. You're already seeing that with the fact that's seeking to operate some you know, shadows situation having you know, billionaires who you know do not have experience sort of advocating for the common good advising.
We're already just seeing a range of this stuff, and so there are many laws that are implicated at democracy forward, we successfully challenge the federal government's abrupt discontinuation of federal funding to communities across the country that they sought to institute. There's a lot of things on the funding side where I think there are legal remedies that will need to be exercised. And then there's a lot of things they just can't do unless Congress approves it, and I think
there'll be a fight there. They are very shrewd. We understand that, and I think, you know, you saw that in the campaign where they sought to run a whole campaign where they said that they didn't you know, they were disavowing Project twenty twenty five. And then immediately when they're elected they put the architects right in their administration to accelerate it. But I think that and I do
believe this. I think the American people will very soon see this for what it is, and I think the court and our Congress and other forums like that are really going to have, you know, be part of that exposure scene. They're going to have some choices to make. I mean, there are a number of laws and policies that are being challenged right now in court that really
help people in communities. I mean our privacy protections, healthcare privacy protections, labor protections like overtime pay, and other important policies that far right groups have sought to challenge. The Department of Justice has been defending that the Trump administration will not defend it's going to start showing I think to people across the country, really what's at stake in our everyday lives for all of us, And I think that you'll see a real tide shift.
Yeah, I don't know, because I don't know what's going to happen. It just feels like that voters are not connecting with what this administration is going to do.
And you know there's a reason for that, right.
I'm wondering if you could sort of talk to us about what democratic at the state level can do. So like, for example, we're going to see a lot of executive orders.
We don't know what they are, but there are.
Certainly things that Democrats can do, and we've seen democratic attorneys general are sort are prepared for this moment. Will you explain to us a little bit what's happening there?
Well, the attorney generals are already acting. I mean they're already you've already seen them this week. Go seek to intervene in cases where the Department of Justice is defending you know, whether it's the Affordable Care Act or other really important you know, elements of really important policies to make sure that those cases have a strong defense. Because we you know, the Trump administration is coming in and
will be leading the DOJ. And so you're already seeing the attorneys general across the country act in that way. And I think that they have definitely made clear that if this administration, as have we have come in and sign executive orders or take other actions that threaten people's rights that threatened the ability of states to protect their people, but the threatened people's rights overall, that you will see litigation.
And in the last administration, state ags played a critical role in protecting the rights of people across the country. I mean for even people that did not live in the states where those ags were from. They litigated really important cases, as did we, as did other organizations like the ACLU and civil rights organizations and so many. It's going to take everybody, but I do think that you're going to see that this time again.
I'm thinking about the Supreme Court we saw with the Trump sentencing. There is no reason why they should have weighed on the Trump sentence, but you know, they do have this very broad sense in which the president can do whatever we want. Right Well, we'll remember their last decision when it came to presidential immunity.
But I'm wondering there's a theory of the case.
Now and again, we have so little to go on, so little to give us hope, but that this is that, this is why I bring this up. There's a sort of chance, very slim chance that Roberts and Cony Barrett are at least a little bit won't totally represtamp everything Trump wants to do. Do you think that's overly optimistic.
I don't. I think it's overly optimistic. I think it's consistent with what we've seen in the courts for some time. It's consistent with what we've seen just this week. And look, I'm never going to tell you that the courts are
the silver bullet here. I mean, it is going to take everyone in this country that believes in themselves, that believes in their families and their communities and their future, and that is committed to saying we are not going to enable a far right agenda that is not for working people, that is not for our schools, that is not for our communities to pull this country back. You know, you have to if you want to get that agenda three, you're going to have to get it through our democracy.
And that means you're going to have to be able to get it through the courts and get it through Congress, and I think that, you know, we're really you know, you know, I think that that's going to be a big piece of this I certainly don't think the courts are the silver bull here. And of course this Supreme Court, you and I have talked about it a lot. This Supreme Court has reversed the rights of people in many
ways over the last few years. But I do think you will see the Supreme Court and the courts across the country serve as an incredible check on a lot of what this incoming administration is going to seek to do. Because the incoming administration operates unlawfully and is pushing and a way of operating that is not consistent with our laws. And so I think that it's not overly optimistic to
say that there will be some wins. I mean, that's going to happen, but we will also need to make sure that people who are not lawyers, who are not involved in these cases, you know, don't give up hope and really demand of their elected officials and of their community members and of themselves that we are going to ensure that this country is not on accelerating a backslide.
Right, we have seen judges do insane things for Trump though over the last four years.
There's no question that this Supreme Court, that the decisions that we've seen out of the Supreme Court, especially the immunity decision, are really contrary in many instances to the way that our laws have been interpreted for some time. For the very founding principles of our country that was founded to reject and throw off monarchy, I mean, you know,
there's no question about that. And so the fight this time is going to look different in that it's going to require a high degree of collaboration among people that are building cases through the courts, and communities that are affected, and lawmakers at every level. Right, It's really going to require all of us together. And that's not a talking point and it's not a you know, Goldilocks kind of
naive image. This country can do this. I mean, we have done it before in earlier times of our history. But that is the pivotal moment that we're at and the work that we're doing it democracy forward, and the work that we have the privilege of seeing and working with others that are doing in so many organizations and
communities across the country. Is really to make sure that people, the American people have the tools that they need, the legal tools they need, and the other tools they need to meet this moment.
Yeah, and I'm wondering if you can just talk to us for like a little bit. Is it sort of set up for people to be able to protest peacefully? Are you worried that there hasn't been more protesting yet? I mean, where are you with that? Because we did have four years ago a lot of protests.
And it seems like that is not what's happening anymore.
I don't look at the presence or absence of sort of protests in the streets right now as an indication really of anything. I mean, to be candid with you, I think that what we've seen is this is a president that got elected telling people that he didn't know anything about Project twenty twenty five. Pulling consistently has shown, including you know, as he was being elected, that conservatives, liberals, and independents all reject that extreme agenda you now have.
In the early stages of the transition, and throughout the last few weeks a number of announcements that suggest they're going to accelerate a Project twenty twenty five agenda which the majority of the people do not want. We've seen the final voting counts that show that the majority of the voting public did not vote for Donald Trump.
He did win the.
Popular vote, but if you add up everybody that went to the polls and who they voted for, you know, the majority of them did not vote for Donald Trump. The majority voted against them. So I think that really this shows you that this is a moment and that we're in It's not momentary. I think last time people thought that this was he lost the popular vote. They thought this was a fluke. You know, how could this happen?
But we are now seeing this extremism that has really set in across the country because of groups like the Project twenty twenty five, groups that are trying to wield political power. Right, so we're in the middle of it. This is an opposition that we are building and a real path and plan for a better future that includes everyone, not just some people, and not just the privilege, and not just people who are politically loyal. And so I
think that the strategies this time are just different. I think you will see people use their voices and protests in more traditional ways. But I also think you're going to see them in the courts, and I promise to that the communities that we're working with, I think you're going to see them in the courts. I think you're going to see them demanding more of their elected representatives.
I think you're going to see this is about collective power building and really leveraging the power of the American people, their belief in a better future at this time to stop some of this very extreme and radicalized policies that we're hearing about.
Yeah, thank you, thank you, Scot thank you.
No more Thickly Jesse Cannon s my junk fast Minnesota, home to Governor Walls, who you and I have been a fan of. There's fuckery going on there with the State House trying to make sure that Governor Walls can't enact any nice things like school lunches. Again, what are you seeing?
And by the way, this is still happening in North Carolina with Justice Riggs, right. I mean, this is kind of a thing we're seeing everywhere, which is that these Republicans are inspired by Trump's anti democratic rhetoric and by the fact that it won for him.
But we should say. What's really nice is how many people are showing up to fight back against justice. Riggs is starting to work. It seems like the Griffin campaigns backing down because the overwhelming populace is really showing up and that is hope for us.
Yeah, that is good one vote margin for two weeks. The GOP claims that they can with that one vote margin just do whatever the fuck they want.
Of course, I don't think we should be surprised.
By this, but it really is this kind of anti democratic vein in the Republican Party, and luckily Governor Wallas is on it.
Maybe he will come on the podcast next week and talk about it.
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