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 Donald Trump has sent out an open invitation to primary Congressman Ship Roy despite the fact that the filing deadline was in November. We have such a great show today, Congressman and senecndidate Colin Allred stops FID to talk about Greg Abbott's horrifying aggression towards Kecox.
Then we will talk to Congressman Jim Hines from the great state of Connecticut about Speaker of the House Mike Johnson's incompetent rain over Congress. But first we have legendary campaign manager and author of the Conspiracy to and America Five Ways my old Party is driving our democracy to autocracy, the Lincoln Project, Stuart Stevens. Welcome back to Fast Politics. Stuart Staves say for.
Asking me to the party.
You're such a talented writer, but also you are so incredibly sharp. All right, That's that's it. That's enough nice stuff.
I'm going to say to you, well, thank you, Molly.
Let's top campaign here, because you know what the fuck is going on? What the fuck is going on? Republican primary campaign.
Is that over Yes, there is I think a question that people will ask, you know, in years to come, was there a Republican primary. You know what's fascinating when you look at these numbers, say, go to the real clear politics average. Trump is performing like an incumbent president would perform if he was being or she was being challenged in a primary. He's not operating like a normal candidate in a multi candidate field. A year ago, he
was operating like that. I mean, there was a Yahoo News poll first week of January that had DeSantis and Trump basically tied. Desantus is one point bond. He's now somewhere in the sixties and Desantus has dropped to twelve and falling. So somewhere along the line, Republican voters decided that Trump was the incumbent and sort of tuned out to the primary. And I don't think there's any question Trump's going to win. Usually there's a bump in the.
Road along the way.
But when I look at these state numbers, Iowa, in Hampshire, South Carolina, I think it looks like Trump is going to win all three.
Do you think that the fundamental problem with these Republican candidates, was that they refuse to take on Trump because they were scared of members. Is there more? Is it more complicated?
I think the fundamental problem for these candidates is that Donald Trump is giving Republican voters the most undistilled version of what they want. Certainly, if you look at DeSantis, he's sort of the Margarine Trump's butter. And why Margarine, I mean they like the butter. Nikki Haley, you know, it's fascinating. If you lead these numbers, you could say she's improved her standing. She was at three percent in like the Mama poll about five months ago. Now she's
a twelve percent. The problem is, as she goes up in the polls, her favorables ratio to her unfavorables has shifted. She was like forty points favorable to the good. She's now like ten points. So what's happening is she's coalescing the non maga element of the primary. She's not seen as a maga candidate, and there's a ceiling to that. So I just think it's a case where Trump is giving Republican voters what they want in the most fun, vivid, powerful way.
So let's talk about blood and soil. Is that what Republican voters want?
I think the Republican Party has become predominant lee a white grievance party, and the essence of that is racism. And what Trump has done, I think is not made people more racist. I think he has made it more socially acceptable to be racist. There's a normalization going on here that is extraordinarily troubling and dangerous. As many yourself included have rightly noted, it's just staggering to think about it. Alu. So, when I was coming up from the Republican Party, the
icon was ron Arago, right, So think about this. Ronald Reagan announced in front of the Statue of Liberty his last speech in office was an ode to immigrants. He signed a bill that made everyone in the country before nineteen eighty three legal. You can go on to you Tube if you want your mind blown, and you can find still a clip from a debate in the primary in nineteen eighty with George Bush in which they are arguing who is more liberal on immigration.
It's a world that doesn't exist anymore, right.
It's a different universe. And certainly you know, when I was working for Bush, people don't really know this because it didn't really matter. But the actual first commercial that we ever aired in the Bush primary campaign or presidential campaign was running from the nomination and nineteen ninety nine was in Iowa on Hispanic cable television because we thought that it was important to send the signal that this campaign was going to be different and there was going
to be an extraordinary effort to attract Hispanic voters. Now, there's not many Hispanic voters who participate in the Iowa primary Iowa Caulkish on the Republican's eye any probably not in a difference, but we just thought it was it meant something to us. I mean, I can remember going
to Iowa and doing this. We had a little press conference saying I mainly remember because I was caught in the snowstorm with Mark Melman and he kept talking on a cell phone and someone in the back seat reached it and grabbed it and threw it out the window at which point, at which point Mark didn't really miss a beat and just pulled out another phone and kept talking.
Wait, he had a second cell phone.
He had a second cell phone. It was a great moment. Yeah, but that was how important we thought that it was we failed certainly with African American voters. We acknowledged it was a failure. And I think that's not unimportant. You know, I remember that same Kin Milman went before the NAACP in two thousand and five and apologized for the Southern strategy. That's the difference now of what has happened in this moment is, you know, we've had plenty of hate movements
in America. We've had candidates of hate. You know, George Wallace got unlike Ross Perow when he ran into an independent, he actually got one electoral college vats, but they haven't been endorsed by major party. You know, Father Coughlin never won the republic nomination. Now that's happened, and it's a
legitimization of it. You know, when Chris Christie goes out as he's done the last day or so and attacked Nicki Haley for being silent on this, what he's really doing, Nikki haleyus is really a sort of stand in for the party at large because the party is silent on it. And you know, to me, it goes back to that moment in twenty fifteen, almost exactly to this day. I think it was December sixteenth where Trump came out for a Muslim band, which is a religious test? What is
a religious test? I mean if I show up at JFK and say, well, you know I was a Muslim, but now I'm a Quaker, what are they going to do? Ask me? Like trivia questions about William Tanny what it's a religious test? And once the party accepts that as they did, it truly is a straight line to where we are now.
So that blood and soil rad is that just you know, he knows that he's never going to win the medal, but he's got to get like, you know, people who don't vote out there to vote, and this is the way he thinks he's going to do it? Or is there something I'm missing here?
You know, it's a fascinating question because you know, in the Romney campaign in twenty twelve, you could look at poles and see that there was a percentage of low frequency white voters who couldn't have cared less about what we were talking about, a smaller, smarter government, or Russia or the capital gains tax. I mean, they're gonna they cared more about like who was finishing first in like
you know, an Indian polo league. But you could see that if you went out there in the wave the bloody shirt on immigration or race or any of those sort of grievance issues related to race, that this would appeal to him. Now, I think people have a much better sense of who Mit Romney is now, and you know, you know if you're going to the Mitt Romney's officers suggested that you would have walked out without a job.
But I would have bet you at the time that whatever you've gained at those low frequency voters, you would have lost a greater number of college educated voters, which is exactly the question you're asking here, which was happening
in sixteen right up until the Coming Letter. Once the Colly letter came out, he won just enough of those and then in twenty those same voters, which are the voters that the Lincoln Project was focused on in his focus zone, these gown salts Republicans, some moderate Democrats, they went back to Boden, which makes sense. Usually the last to join a campaign at the first to leave, which makes sense. You have the most doubts, you can be the most easily persuaded to leave, and that's going to
be a key factor. Is Boden going to be able to hold these voters? I don't know why we don't talk about this enough, but you know, you have to ask yourself how many Boden twenty voters are there who are likely to be Trump twenty four voters. I don't think there's many.
No, I don't think so either. I think the question is more like, is it going to suppress the turnout? And we don't know yet.
We don't. I worked in campaigns and people would ask me, are you worried about I would just stop them there and say, yes, whatever, you're worried.
About anything everything, Rather turn outity exactly I have worried about.
But I find it's extraordinary statistic and twenty Biden's best group by age was under twenty five voters. He won them by eleven points. There are a lot more of those voters entering the marketplace than there were before, and there's a lot more of older voters leaving the marketplace, which are more Trump voters. They are typically more Republican voters. I need a lot of ways Trump performed as a
normal Republican candidate. The only economic group that he won in twenty was those who make over one hundred thousand dollars a year.
That's a very.
Republican number, and I think that there has been a conspirac ceo silence with the donor class that would once a Republican elected. They don't like Trump. I think they don't like Trump more for reasons of class and his crudeness. You know, they really don't want to president. The news is in public about having sex with his daughter. But if that's what it takes to get, you know, other things that they want, Okay, fine whatever, I'm not going to invite into the House. One ding this primary has
given us is a market test. I mean, you have Chris Christie out there offering a very different view of the party with direct criticism of Trump. And that's why I think it's important to Christie stay in. I see all this, Christie should get out. I think it's really important to stay in because at the end of the day, you need to be able to look at this and say, these voters had an alternative, how many took it? And I worked for Chris Christie in both these races. I
love the guy. I was disappointed, to say the least did he endorse Trump, but you know, he's not going to be the Revogan nominee. You'll get, at the end of the day, close to what Bill Well got former got Massachusetts when he primaried Trump and twenty which people have even forgotten happened, and he ended up with like twelve percent.
So there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen with the Biden administration, with Biden's reelect, because there's a lot riding on it right, a lot like this could be the do you want to have elections anymore? Election? Yes, which seems very likely. You have run a lot of campaigns, many have won, some have lost. What do you think Joe Biden needs to be doing.
I am a great admirer of the Biden campaign. I think that what they did in twenty is underappreciated. You know, not to get too far in the weeds, but after Watergate, we went to federal funding of presidential general elections, which meant that each candidate got the exact same amount of money if they voluntarily opted into the system and agreed not to raise or spend more money. And you know, it's around eighty million dollars. You literally got it after
you gave your acceptance speech. And walked off the stage. There was someone there from the Treasury Department that had a chip, and we would always go like, well, can you wire this? No, we do chicks. We do chips, which is why we started having conventions later and later, because you're going to get the same amount of money and you have a more compact amount of time to spend it in. So Barack Obama two thousand and eight opted out of that system. McCain stayed in it, so
you had one candidate in the system. Barack Obama spent about three hundred and seventy million in the general McCain spent eighty million. Then Romney was the first time both candidates had been out of the federal funding system that allowed them to raise unlimited money, and they both spent over a billion dollars. So it's fair to ask who was the last incumbent president who was not in the federal funding system which did level the playing field because
both candidates had the same amount of money. Carter lost under that system, Bush lost under that sist But when both candidates had unlimited money that they could raise, who was the last incumba president to lose? And the answer to Herbert Hoover and he had a bad year. So say what you will about Donald Trump, it was an incumbent president with the ability to raise unlimited money in the bod campaign became the first campaign to beat somebody
like that's Interbret Hoove. Yeah, and I think that's pretty damn impressive. They reinvented the convention with their virtual convention.
I want you to come along with me on something I'm obsessed with. You're going to play along with me here? What if poles are all wrong?
Well, I think the polls are all wrong in the sense that if you're looking at them as predictive, I mean, I think basically these poles are asking would you like a different alternative? And who in the world is going to say noted that? I you know, when's the last time they sold cars with Look, nothing's changed since last year. It's just as good. It's always new. We're addicted to
new news, the most powerful word in advertising. My prediction is Biden's going to win by larger margin than he gave in twenty and it's going to be an easier can't that Yeah?
I think that too. We might both be wrong, but luckily we will if we're both wrong. We'll make Jesse pull this episode. Jesse note this episode, so then we're both wrong.
We can pull this when we're applying for asylum.
Right when we're applying for I'll bring this with me.
I agree the recordity.
Thank you, Jes. You for sure when.
We're trying to get into Portugal, we will, Stuart Stevens and I will be like, we were not right.
You must understand, Molly Donvich. It's a huge audience, so we went out and said this.
Stuh, one of them will feel bad for us. Stuart Stevens, you are the best. I really appreciate you. I hope you'll come back.
Thank you. I'm like the crazy uncle of Thanksgiving dinner. Don't don't invite me if you don't want me to come, because I will.
Congressman Colin Alred represents Texas's thirty second district and is a candidate for the United States Senate in the Great State of Texas. He is running against Ted Cruz, who no one likes. Welcome back to fast politics, Colin.
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.
You running against Ted Cruz for the Senate, Great State of Texas. Shit's going down. In Texas. Yeah, talk to me about the Kate Cox case. She was nineteen weeks pregnant when she filed. She just had all of the things that Republicans claimed would work for an exception in the state of Texas, an abortion exception, except none of those things worked.
Yeah, that's right. Well, it's an incredibly tragic story, really, and it's one that you know, for me is I guess personal. You know, my wife and I have a four or two year old. We have a lot of friends who have young children. We can all imagine a scenario where, you know, mother or two has a wanted third pregnancy that has something go terribly wrong, and her
doctor says that she needs a medically necessary abortion. She's had to go to the emergency four times, and she's had to petition her state for the right to get access to care close to home, probably so that she can be near her one in three year old. And instead of having an attorney general in a state that actually tries to help her through this crisis, as she's forced to flee the state. It's tragic for us as a state because it hammers hold it. This is what
a total ban on abortion looks like. Is that it sweeps in stories like this, and the impact for us is going to be have so many ripple effects if we can't do something about it. The good news is we can at the federal level. We can restore Roe v. Wade through legislation. Texas is not going to change the state government is not going to repeal their or change their abortion law. The Supreme Court made that clear. But we can at the federal level restore the same rights
that we've had for the last fifty years. If we can have a Senate that's going to do it, I've got to to pass it in the House. When I'm in the Senate, we'll get it done.
But you could see a world where a normal senator goes in there and tells Ken paxt to shut the fuck up, excuse my French. The story with Ken Paxson is his power is completely unchecked at the state level.
It is, but also he's politically allies with Ted Cruz. They are in this effort together to push these extreme policies and to push our state into this extreme place. Cruz supported him recently in his impeachment hearings when he should have been removed by the state Senate. I think the State House, on a bipartisan basis, led by Republicans, brought forward a number of incredibly troubling charges. The state Senate decided basically along for political reasons, to keep him,
and now he feels empowered. This is this kind of a cabal of extremist leadership that has put our state in this incredibly warped reality where women in our state have fewer rights where you have counties and cities. Today Amarello City Council is sitting down to decide whether or not to ban travel through Amarillo if it's for access to an abortion, if counties that have already ban that, and saying that you know you can't travel through our county if you're going to try and use it for
access to abortion. So when you combine this total ban with these laws, you start to turn Texas women into prisoners in their own state. And I can tell you this, Molly, Texas, that's not who Texans are. We are we want to be left alone. We have a long history of that of being kind of leave me alone state. I let me chase, you know, my version of the American dream,
and get out of my way. But this extreme situation that we're in is that the result of decades of folks like Ted Cruz have been pushing for this, and that's why we have to beat him in the next election.
What do you say about people who you know are like, he doesn't have a shot.
Well, it's just not true. Yeah, I understand that, you know, sort of the skepticism. I guess you could say. Number one, As a state, we are incredibly diverse, dynamic. We've been growing so rapidly. We are in a place where we're ready for to get rid of some of these extreme
politicians like Ted Cruz. But also just our recent elections have shown that we're right basically in the same position as Arizona and Georgia Ward before they got breakthroughs now it happened at Our challenge in Texas has been that we had over nine million textams that didn't vote in the last selection. You know, as a voting rights lawyer before I came to Congress, that's something that's always been
near and dear to my heart. It is difficult to vote in our sabe, but that's not the only reason that the number is where it is. It's also that too many folks have decided that it's nothing that can change in their lives. We're not going to be a part of make our voice heard in this democracy. And we have to make sure in the selection that we empower those folks to make sure that they understand that I'll be a senator for them too and for our state. We really are at a tipping point if we can
continue down this extreme path. I'm already hearing from business leaders, from university leaders who are concerned that's harder for us as a state to recruit and retain top talent when folks feel like they're going to have fewer rights, or when they feel like if they have a complication in their pregnancy that the Texas Supreme Court is going to tell them that there's nothing they can do.
You also are losing doctors. Will you talk about that a little bit?
Well, this is a real problem for us. We already have serious issues around maternal mortality and internal health. We have huge health deserts in parts of our say, with a number of rural hospitals that have been closing in recent years because of our extremely high uninsured rate. We
have the heist and insured rate in the country. We are already seeing that this is going to have an impact on particularly obgyns who may choose to practice somewhere else or to not bring their practice to Texas, or do not study medicine in Texas, and the long term impacts for us could be incredibly impactful. And we have to make sure that we go back to this Saturday we've had for the last fifty years because my wife and I have had two babies in Sexus in the
last five years. Robi who delivered in both of our boys. You know, she's a friend and feels like part of the family in some ways. You know, these are deeply personal decisions that doctors need to be making in consultation with their the women who are actually going to be doing this. And you know, I can't imagine if at one of our appointments if the doctor had come in and said, you know, there's a problem with the baby, but there's a problem with the pregnancy, but there's nothing
I can do to help you. You're going have to go somewhere else and maybe find someone else to care for you. That would have been so difficult to deal with when you're already dealing with so many other things going through a pregnancy, especially if you're already a parent,
and it's just heartbreaking. And this is what the reality is that we're facing now in Texas is that there are lots of physicians who are looking at our state or here now, or who maybe you're training in our excellent medical schools like at eut Southwestern in my area or Bail or Baylor, who are deciding whether or not this is where they want to be, whether or not they want to have the potential liability of a felony, prison time, civil penalties if they do what they think is necessary.
Texas is such a big state, it's not so easy just to leave. I mean, New Mexico has abortion. But also there is some question about whether or not I mean SBA does have a bounty system in it right.
Well, we have a total abortion ban that was a trigger band that went in place, and then the bounty that you're referring to is civil penalties that basically any person can bring litigation against anyone who aids in a bets or is a part of someone getting access to an abortion and it's created effectively bounty on Texas women.
And when you combine that with the criminal penalties that have been put in place, that the Attorney General was threatening the hospitals involved in Kate Cox's situation with then you create an overlapping system of both criminal and civil penalties that would basically let us to have abortion band in all cases, almost no exceptions for rape, incest, the extremely narrow exception of the life of the mother, which the Texas Supreme Court just said apparently didn't apply to
Kate even though she had to go to the emergency room four times and her doctor said this was medically necessary for her to do. And it's created an atmosphere of fear. It's created an atmosphere in which Texas women are honestly targets in our state, and which activists may try and find someone to make an example of. And it's deeply un American. It is such government overreach. It's almost like blows your mind even think about that. It's
reality in the state of Texas right now. You have politicians and lawyers, not doctors, determining what's the best path way forward for women's health and their fellow Texans can use the civil law to basically target them if they do somehow get access to the care that they need. With huge finds and so you turn the state into a state of informants potentially, and we've seen that before in history and other countries, but never really in our country.
We have to have a response to it, and the only response that we can have that I can see is that at the federal level, because as I said, our state is not going to change this law. We have to restore ro vway through legislation. We've passed it in the House, and in my time in the House, we couldn't get it through the Senate when I beat
ted Cruz, and I'm in the United States Senate. We will restore row and go back to the statard that we've had for the last fifty years, and that will supersede what's going on in Texas.
Here you are, in Texas. You have a governor who has such a complicated relationship with the law right and then he gets away with it. Do you think he is involved on from us?
Well? I think that they are embolden at the moment. But I also think that they've overreached dramatically and that they have sown the seeds of their own downfall. This is not who Texas is. I'm a four generation Texan. I was born and raised in Dallas by a single mother. I went to Baylor. I was captain the football team there. My family's from Brownsville. My mom and my aunt and uncle went to school at ut University of Texas in Austin. I think I know who we are, and this is
not who we are. We're not a state where we believe that you should have your neighbors telling you what you can and can't do with your body, or that politicians know better than your doctor does. And I think we're going to respond to this, but we have to do it as a state, and we need anyone out there who thinks that this is not who we are as Americans as well to get involved. And I ask you to go to Colin Allread dot com and help us make sure that we can beat ted Cruz. He
is the most vulnerable Republican senator in the country. We can and should beat them here and we will.
You guys, registering voters, I mean, I feel like that's such a crucial part of this.
Yeah, you know, I think that this is an ongoing project for us in Texas and it's part of our campaign. It's part of a number of efforts to register voters yes, but we have a lot of voters who are registered to aren't turning out. We have to help them overcome those kind of initial hurdles. And I was in my
voting rights practice in Texas. I would often come across people who wanted to vote, but who just it just seemed kind of daunting because so many overlapping laws that make it seem like if you do something wrong that you might get caught up in the criminal justice system. And you're already trying to avoid that because if some man of the other things going on in your life and so you decide just, you know what, I'm just not going to vote, like honestly, I just don't want
to deal with the whole problem. It's that voter who we can help and who our volunteers can help, and who honestly, the resources that our campaign is going to pull together can help, because it's that voter who wants to be involved in in their democracy but just needs a little bit of help that we can we can get out in this election, and it's already a close election.
Our margin is going to come from folks who you are Republicans, but who say, you know, I'm Republican, but I'm not that kind of Republican and this is not who I am. I certainly was elected by folks like that in Dallas. That's up the seat that have been held for twenty two years by a Republican congressman who
was thought to be unbeatable. A lot of George W. Bush voters voted for me, but also for those folks who, as I said, who just need a little bit of help to overcome what seems like a daunting system that's not set up for them. And that's our project in Texas, not only in this election but over the coming decades. But we can do it here, and when we have this breakthrough, I think it will lead to many others.
Such an important point is there a chance to get abortion on the ballot here? I mean, you know, when you're going from district to district, what are you seeing? I mean, what are Texans telling you?
Number One, Unfortunately, we can't have a ballid initiative directly in Texas, so only the legislature can do that, and that's not going to be lots yeah in this election. Yeah, but you know, as I said, that's why it's so important that we win here in this center race. Because
I do believe that we'll have pro choice majority. And what I mean by that is I include folks like Susan Collins and Lisa Rokowski who say that you know their pro choice well, you know, let's give them some more votes in the Senate for to restore the system that we had for the last half century. And at the federal level, we can in this kind of balkanization of rights that's going on in our country right now.
We're in some states you have many fewer rights, especially if you're a woman, than you do in others, based on whatever the legislature in that state says. That's what we have to do, I think, is to go back to the center that we had before the Supreme Court, you know, a returned a row and set off this cycle of you know, really cruelty in states like Texas.
And so that's the message. We have to make sure folks understand that this is the direct way to do this, that this is the direct way for us to restore
reproductive rights in Texas and across the country. It's for us to have a pority of folks in the kigrists who will vote to really just go back to what was basically the Americans that is quote for the last half century, and to end this kind of competition that somebody states are having to see who could be the most cruel, who can go the farthest, And that will help Texans, it will help Americans all across the country or in states that are pursuing this.
Such a good point. Do you think that voters are tired of Republicans fighting with each other because we're seeing so much of that in the Texas State House, but also with Trump trying to primary Chip Roy.
Yeah, I mean, I think this has become an ongoing this theme in Texas, you know, kind of the saga
of Republicans fighting each other in many ways. It kind of came to a head with the impeachment of the attorney general, who was impeached on completely defensible and you know, I think incredibly solid grounds impeachments that were led by Republicans, a bout the Republican attorney general about his abuse of power, about his abuse of the public trust, and because of political reasons, the state Senate decide not to do the right thing. And I think Texans are tired of being embarrassed.
I think they're tired of being embarrassed by these extreme politicians who are making us look like a state that is as extreme as they are at the national level, and we're not. But also, you know, this is a state of thirty million people, with four of the largest metro areas and the fastest growing metro areas in the country in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston Metro, San Antonio, and Austin.
One of the fastest growing, biggest cities in the country, drawing in the biggest companies in the world, and that you know, trying to recruit and bring in the top talent from around the world to stay here and to help us grow our economy here. And this is a
direct threat to all of that. When you are one of those companies, whether you're if you're match dot com, which is headquartered in Dallas and was in my district, and you're trying to bring in the top programmers and coders from around the world so that you can continue to lead the way in like you know, basically the
online you know space. It's harder to do that when you have a law like this in place, and so this has so many other ripple effects from you know, yes, Kate Conx and her family also to the OBGS at Baylor, where my wife and I delivered our two boys out to you know, the biggest companies you know in our country basically that are now saying, well, always Texas the
right place for us to be. How are we going to continue to have the workforce and the talent that we need to our university system, which is one of the best in the country. The eut system is a crown jewel here in our state, and a lot of professors are looking to leave. We've had articles written about how, you know, anonymous surveys have shown them many of them are considering leaving. You know, this has so many ripple effects, so we have to have a response as a state
of who we actually are. And our problem is that our electorate hasn't always been what our state is, and that's what we have to try and address.
Thank you so much, Colin. I hope you'll come back.
Yeah, thank you, Mali. Thanks for covering it for folks out there. Please go to Colin Allread dot com and get involved with US.
Congressman Jim Has represents Connecticut's fourth congressional district. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Congressman Jim Mind.
Thanks for having me.
So you guys are out, the Senate is in. There is supposedly a border security Ukraine, Taiwan Israel aid package being negotiated in the Senate, but it's probably not being I mean, is this disarray.
Yeah, I mean it's worth unpacking all of that stuff. Right. Israel aid would get done very easily as a standalone. I mean, the only reason they got hiccuped in the House was because the speaker, being too cute by half, decided that he would pair the fifteen billion aid package to Israel with that money coming from President Biden's initiative to fund the IRS to go after tax chiefs, so the Israel piece would sail on the other extreme half.
The Republicans in the House don't want to continue to assist Ukraine, so they have a whole bunch of protextual objections and their total pretext, which is, oh, we want to audit this stuff, we want to know what the strategy is. That's all baloney. They're cow twing to Donald Trump, at least most of them are, and therefore they've paired it. You know, the possibility of Ukraine aid with the single hardest thing that the Congress could try to do, which
is immigration policy. I know whereof I speak right, because we haven't passed an immigration bill in decades.
Yeah, you are in Congress, you have been in the House for a long time. I think of you as sort of someone who knows what's going on. You have this speaker. He is was, you know, number four or five in leadership. He got this job after nine years in the House, like he had a lot of goodwill for about a week. How do you solve a problem like the Freedom Caucus.
I think I know the answer to that question. The problem is it's never been tried, right. So Bayner goes down, Paul Ryan goes down, Kevin McCarthy goes down, and Nowson is facing exactly the same pressures, which is the Freedom Caucus want everything done their way and they want the outcomes their way. We saw this last week, and when they don't get that, it's the classic my way or the highway. So I think I know the answer to your question. And I'm super intrigued that Kevin McCarthy never
sort of went down this path. And the reason I think I know what the answer the question is because look at the National Defense Authorization Act that we passed last week massive bill funding the Pentagon and lots of other stuff. And look at the budget deals that got done, they continue your resolutions. They all get done with more Democratic votes than with Republican votes in a Republican majority Congress. And so the answer to your question, Molly, is that
you build a structure that isolates the Freedom Caucus. You know, you do a deal with Hakeem Jefferies and just do it up front instead of waiting for the vote to come up. And you say, look, I need forty or fifty of your guys to protect me from a motion to vacate, which is really easy to do. And we're going to negotiate these bills so that the inevitable outcome is sort of dealt with upfront, which is lots of
Democrats will help me isolate the Freedom Caucus. And what that results in, Molly, I think is a functional bipartisan Congress in which the speaker lasts to the end of the Congress, not to beyond, but to the end of the Congress.
Yeah, the defense bill was really interesting. I mean, were you guys able to get the transit bill pass?
No?
So does that run out on December thirty, first.
Yeah, the Senate's working away at it now, and I forget the exact sequence.
Won't that have to come up to the House.
So I think that's right. Yeah, I mean we did pass the bills. I honestly, I've sort of forgotten the sequence here. We did pass a bill gosh months ago now, and I think the Senate's working out so I think we'll be okay there. Look, they're the issue FAA, right, the Freedom Caucus, they don't weigh in.
Well, they would if they could. I mean, don't you think the fundamental problem here with the Freedom Caucus is that they want desperately to end the federal government, and so any kind of legislation is infuriating to them.
Exactly.
They have a vision of the federal government that is sort of an eighteen forty vision, you know, guard the borders, collects and customs fees, and that's it. And it's part of the Republican Party problem, writ Lar inasmuch as today's Republican Party has an ideology and it doesn't really right. It's whatever Trump wants. We know that because in the last you know, Republican convention to nominate Trump, they said, you know, whatever he wants we're not doing a platform.
The problem that they face is inasmuch as American Republicans have an ideology, it's deeply unpopular, right, I mean, case in point, they spent fifty years trying to reverse Roe v. Wade because they had to put it back in the question of abortion. What they thought was this massively controversial question, we need to put it back in the hands of the people. Well, look at what happens when you put it back in the hands.
Of the people.
Ohio and Kansas, two of the red estates on the planet, past constitutional amendments, you know, allowing for abortion. And I don't even need to get into the policy of you know,
cutting the taxes of the enormously wealthy. You know, they they want deeply, deeply unpopular things, which is why more and more they're getting away from a democracy that listens to the voices of people in favor of deeply non majoritarian, not to say undemocratic things like the United States Senate, like the Supreme Court, you know, like legislatures overwriting you know, the votes of the people, et cetera.
Right, there's a headline today in Politico about how what they're doing now is trying to keep abortion off the ballot because they know that that is a thing that galvanizes voters, just like Karl Rove did with gay marriage in two thousand and three. This is sort of a they know what they're into is unpopular. So I'm curious now we're you're in the house. You have have a vibes based impeachment going. Let's talk about this vibes based impeachment.
There's no incident right the ideas. There's sort of a vague feeling that they are mad about Hunter Biden's Carlan. What is happening with impeachment.
Well, it's one more example of a syndrome. And I mentioned this before, which is Donald Trump controlling the puppet strings. Donald Trump said there will be an impeachment, so lo and behold, there will be an impeachment. Donald Trump said, cut Ukraine off, and so low and behold. They're doing everything they can to cut Ukraine off. And I see this dynamic every day, Molly, and it's fascinating. It takes
me back to a line from the West Wing. I think it was where some French revolutionary says to another French revolutionary, we must go see where the people are going. So that we may lead them. And Republicans in Congress today are hostage to their MAGA base because Donald Trump goes on Oan or Fox News and says Ukraine is
a corrupt country full of Nazis. Don't fund them, and reasonable and unreasonable Republicans go back to their districts and face people who say with, you know, the utter fantasies of Donald Trump. And instead of being leaders, instead of saying what John McCain said when that woman in the debates said Barack Obama is a Muslim and John McCain said, no, man, he's you know, he's not, He's a good man. Not one Republican will do that in the face of Donald
Trump today. And so what happens is they sort of urge it along. They urge along the lies like maybe that twenty twenty election was subject to all sorts of irregularities, and then they come back to DC and have the gall to say, my constituents have concerned. That should be the bumper sticker motto of House Republicans. My constituents have concerned. Of course they do, because you don't tell them that they're you know, that they are in a fever dream
fantasy about the twenty twenty election. You know, you name it right.
So there are eighteen Republicans who are in Biden districts, many from New York because New York Democratic Party absolutely shit the bed during the twenty twenty two election cycle and fucked up and lost five seeds. And that happening in California too. So there are these sixteen Republicans who really are not in safe seats. They have all had to vote to impeach Biden to start an impeachment inquiry
on vibes. Do you think that this wins Democrats back the House or do you think that we're just so in the post truth world that nobody ever knows.
You hit the dynamic on the head there. You know, those eighteen Republicans in Biden districts who have been forced to go along with the Freedom Caucus. They're in a very tenuous position. And again they had this whole song and dance about how, oh well, this is just an impeachment inquiry. This just gives us the powers to get the subpoenas that we need to get at the facts. And you're absolutely right. Before remember when we when Donald
Trump first got impeached before the impeachment inquiry began. We had the transcript of a phone call in which Donald Trump tells the president Zelenski, give me dirt on Biden.
Or I will not send you eight.
I mean, right out of a mafia movie. Right. We add that, We add that, and of course, you know, unless you are a high priest in the cult of Donald Trump, you know what many Republican House members and even more senators are saying, which is, you've encovered no evidence yet.
Right. When you think about the idea of an impeachment, you had times where was the offense impeachable? Impeachable? Was the question? Right? Like with Clinton? Is lying about Saxon? Impeachable offense? Right? And and the answer was, if you're a nut Gangridge, yes, except when it's actually new cankereage, in which case it's now. But he was never president.
But this is a case in which there is no offense, right, So it's a question of can you and teach someone just because the former president told you to exactly?
And again that's the underlying dynamic, and we all get confused. Sixty court cases turned back when the Trump people and Giuliani tried to overturn the election in court. You know, without exception, courts laughed them out of court. Zero evidence for Joe Biden, you know, having in any corrupt way been involved with Hunter Biden. But those facts don't matter. It's liturgical, right, It's liturgical in MAGA that Biden is the head of a massive crime family that makes the
Sopranos look like a priesthood. Whatever Donald Trump says. And you and I both know that ninety five percent of what Donald Trump says is made up out of whole cloth. But that becomes liturgical truth. And so most Republicans in the House, because that magabase, though it is percentage wise small, is how you lose a primary. They need to bow and cow tew and shuffle and oh well, my constituents have concerns, etc.
Because I listened to the c SPAN podcast, I've become one of the more boring people on this earth. But I did hear Mike Johnson saying, when he was trying to convince other Republicans to vote for this insanity, that it was their constitutional duty to open this impeachment inquiry. Did you hear this? And what do you think about this idea of sort of using then of confusing other Republicans about what the Constitution says as a possible play for Mike Johnson.
It's all, you know, rationalization, right, I mean, two hundred and forty years of history, we've never had an impeachment inquiry, you know, opened with absolutely no evidence. And by the way, I mean, shoot, it was all of what five years ago that Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the House, was under immense pressure to start an impeachment inquiry for Donald Trump on Russia, remember.
That, right, And she really didn't want to do it.
I had plenty of constituents who were lighting me up and saying, you know, Russia, Russia, Russia, and of course the Muller investigation is going on, there's a congression event, and Nancy Pelosi said, hell no, hell.
No, because of Clinton, right, because of the Clinton impeachment and how badly it did for Republicans or another reason.
No, I think Nancy Pelosi realized that, you know that weaponizing impeachment, you know that is to say, starting one with no evidence and Muller's out there gathering evidence was a bad place to go. It was only when the quote perfect phone call of incredible extortion came out that Pelosi pulled the trigger.
Yeah, I remember watching that because it was five years ago, though it feels like fifty, thinking to myself, like, she has so much anxiety about starting this impeachment. One of the things that Nancy Pelos, who was famous for, was trying to protect her vulnerable Democrats, right, the people like those Sixteenublicans who are you know exactly?
I watched her do it again and again and again.
You know, Nancy.
Pelosi really understood how you built and expanded a majority. The Republicans have been throwing their eighteen most vulnerable members under the bus again and again and again.
So I'm wondering as we're in this, do you think that the George Santos uzzerally surprised that Republicans kicked George Santos out of the House at the last minute leadership decided to vote to keep him. That was sort of incredible. What do you think about that? And were you surprised that they ultimately did it and that that leadership then seized defeat from the jaws of victory because I feel like at the last minute they were like, oh my god.
Math, Yeah, I think that's what happened. And by the way, the first time before the Ethics report came out, I voted against expelling George Santos because though I'd read the press and though it was pretty clear this was a slimy guy, there had been no process whatsoever, no reports,
no investigation. And then, of course the famous fifty six page report from the Ethics Committee comes out, replete with spending of campaign funds on OnlyFans and botox and lie after lie after lie by the way written by a Republican chairman.
And stealing money from Max Miller's.
Mom, and nowhere, nowhere, nowhere does it say that a member must be convicted of a crime. We're an Article one authority. We decide, and that was obviously enough process. But you hit the nail on the head. Mike Johnson, as some of his more operationally inclined people were like, oh my gosh, our majority is going down to three and down to two, you know, so so yeah, they.
Tried to keep them incredible. So so what do you think now we got the Swazi election, Santos's seat is now going into a special that's New York eleven. Then we're gonna go. So that could mean their majority would be down by another.
One, right, Yeah, Frankly, it doesn't matter if it's a three seat majory, a four seat or a seven seat majority. I mean, you know, think of who populates the margin there, right, Bobart, Bob Good, Paul Ghosts.
Are you know?
I mean these are this is the Star Wars canteena of the far right, and so it doesn't really matter who you know whether. Now, by the way, dare I say if somehow the majority somebody does a surprise retirement it gets down to one person. Now you start thinking about, you know, Arlen Spector who changed parties and flipped control of the Senate, or Jim Jefferts back in the day, right. I mean, I'm not even gonna tease that because I
don't think it's very likely. But yeah, when you're down to a one person majority, it's no more manageable for them than a ten person majority. But it gets intriguing.
It does get intriguing, and I mean there is some West wing fanfit about a Republican going over to the other side, though it seems very unlikely in this world of hyperpartisanship. Thank you so much, Jim. I hope you'll come back.
Absolutely, Thank you for having me.
No mo.
Jesse Cannon my junk fast.
I hear you're really excited about polls, because I know you love polls so much.
One thousand people answering their fucking phones does not necessarily tell you how the rest of the country feels. But even more annoying than that, we have these slate of New York Times polls. They come out. There was one that showed Trump ahead and all the swing districts all right. Again, based on that was two three hundred people talked to on the phone. This poll actually showed by up forty seven to forty five would look likely voters, and they
buried that headline. So I'm going to say this real slow polls are not real. They are called pseudo events because they are like press conferences, things created by campaigns and politicians and pundits to give something to talk to, and they give you a false sense of knowing what's happening. Certainly people are mad at Biden. Certainly the economy is bad, Certainly the vibes are bad. But I'm not going to start freaking out about these insane pouls that are posted
in such a way. So, yes, guess why this is bad for Biden. Throw out all the polls, make sure to vote. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds in politics make 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.