Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And Ella m Hoff has fired back on JD Vance's accusations about Kamala being a child less cat lady. We have such a great show for you today. Sky Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, stops by to talk Project twenty twenty five. Then we'll talk to North Carolina State Supreme Court Justice Alison Riggs about her critical race
in a potential swing state. But first, we have the hosts of the weekend Saturdays and Sundays at eight am on MSNBC, Simone Sanders and Michael Steele. As well. MSNBC will host MSNBC Live Democracy twenty twenty four, an inaugural audience focused event featuring more than a dozen of the most well known MSNBC hosts and more. The day long event will take place on Saturday, September seventh at bam Brooklyn Academy of Music. Tickets are on sale at msnbc
dot com. Backslash Democracy twenty twenty four. Welcome to Fast Politics, Michael Steele and Simone Sanders Townson.
Yy Hey, hey, hey, hey, let's go on, Molly.
I'm excited to have you both because I really like both of you and think you're both hilarious. More importantly and very very smart. But she has been the candidate for four days.
It's crazy. But you know, man, Michael thought about this. I think that this is a legitimate honeymoon period. And if this is the honeymoon period, Hai, right away, there is going to be a turn that happens.
Oh yeah, this has been a remarkable four days.
And frankly, it is a testament to it wouldn't have gone like this and the vice by and the president not have had the good governing relationship, the good working relationship, the actual friendship, because Joe Biden could have thought, I'm getting out of this race and he ain't said nothing else, but he said, I'm getting out of this race.
And also it's her.
And she has been one of the most loyal defenders to the president throughout this entire process and also just continuing to prosecute the case against Trump while everything was unfolding over the last month. So this seamless transition, if you will, is a testament to a lot of work that happened up until this point.
It's also a testament to overcoming what I consider to be incredibly politically stupid play by Democrats who allowed this to even get to the point that it did. The reality for a lot of folks was the writing here, Molly in large measure has been.
On the wall for a while.
And the fact that, and again it goes to something that I don't even think Democrats really appreciate about the man they had in front of them in Joe Biden, is that he, to the most point fixed this. And because as she just said, it could have been a lot more difficult, in fact worse if he just said, Hey, I'm not going anywhere period. I am the current president and I will remain such until January twentieth next year. If I'm not re elected or b I'm standing down, y'all have fun.
See you on the other side. And he didn't.
And the fact that he didn't speaks volumes about how he cares about the outcome and recognizes the historic moment, not in terms of elevating someone like the vice president, but the historic moment for the country as we're about to move into our two hundred and fiftieth year in a couple of years, to know that we could be at that hour in authoritarian state, that we could have sitting in the White House, someone with unfettered power given
to him by an unchained Supreme Court. And I think that a lot of folks lose sight of the found importance that I think history is going to reflect Joe Biden is to this moment and the role that he's played to keeping the ship of state steady. So simone's real important political point. This honeymoon is great, and all the stars are in the eyes and the love is in the air and everybody's holding.
The hands, And that's not how this is going to finish. Necessarily.
You're going to have a lot of hard work ahead of you because the folks on my side are prepared, as we've already seen, to play not just the misogyny card, but the race card. And it's going to be a very very challenging race that it's going to be less about issues and more about Trump doing the maga thing with the poison that they want to spread.
Yeah, for sure, But I'm wondering when we talk about what Biden has done here with the Vice president, which I think is really meaningful and important, is that the people I've talked to in the campaign, because people in the White House don't want to violate Hatch all say that the message from Biden was if you love me, make her president.
And I am not surprised.
Let's just back up and remember, you know, Joe Biden, I remember doing the whole running made search, if you will, doing twenty twenty because I worked on the Biden campaign then I was the advisor to the then candidate Biden, and there are all these people pontificating and speculating about what he was going to do, who he was going to pick. He himself made the commitment that he was going to select a woman as his running mate, but
which woman was the question. And when he settled on then Senator Harris now Vice President Harris, one of the things he said after the fact was the most important thing to me is someone that.
Is ready on day one.
And Joe Biden has never wavered from that. And on top of that, they have a good relationship and they like each other. When he called into the Wilmington champaign headquarters meeting, I guess it was earlier this week, and then the Vice President was speaking and she's like, we just love the bide we love Joe and Jill, and he's like, well, I love you too, kid, I'm watching you. First of all, someone let people know the president is still on the line. But that's quitnes with Joe Biden. Okay,
just jumping in and saying I love you, kid. Like Joe Biden really loves her. He loves his country, but he loves her. And I think he appreciates just the kind of vice president that he has been to her, to him because he knows the job. He himself did it for Barack Obama for eight years. Joe Biden is a good person. And because he's a good person, He's a smart politician, but a good person that values people
in relationship. Of course, he made the case he could just say, oh, it's her and then not do any work on her behalf, but he is going to him. He himself said do the work because he really wants it to be her. And Donald Trumps was on the other side of this. Okay, Authoritarianism is real. Dictator on day one is real. This is not a game.
Yeah.
I think that's a very very important part of all of this for Joe Biden is understanding not just the historic moment of having someone like Kama ready on day one, but also understanding the importance to the country of having someone like her ready on day one, and why the threat coming from the other side is real and important. Would Joe Biden like at this point to be seven years eight years younger, Yeah, would you know things be different if age had not caught up with him even
at eighty one. Absolutely. We know a lot of folks in their eighties who are are very much you know, still yeah, still doing their thing exactly. But that's a very hard realization to come to in politics. We've all seen, and I know Simone has worked with as I have over the years, the politician who just doesn't know when the light has gone out and they're the only one standing on the stage because everyone's left the room, right,
They're still reliving a period that's long gone. And the hardest thing for Joe was coming to that truth, I think, and part of that process over the last four weeks, what I was saying to some of the Democrats that I know was, if you know anything about this man, give him the space to do this on his terms, because the more you try to browbeat him out the door that irish in him stands up, it becomes harder
for him to let go. And I think they finally caught that at the end and let him figure out how he wanted to have this conversation with the country. And I think what we witnessed in his address to the nation from the Old Office was Joe Biden's recognition on his terms and having that conversation with the country on his terms.
And so I appreciate the man for that.
You know, he, for me affirmed all the reasons why I did what I did in twenty twenty by not only saying I was voting for Joe Biden, but publicly endorsing him as the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and as a Republican in this still to this day.
Saying I've voted for Joe Biden.
So in that Oval Office speech, policy, you know, differences aside, all of that aside, he affirmed for me why I took.
That leap of faith in him. And I hope the country saw that and heard that in that speech, why they took that.
He honored that leap of faith that they took, you know, with him in twenty twenty.
Yeah, Joe Biden demonstrated he's the many that cann be trusted. People have been talking about the president as though he is getting on a plane and flying away to his beach house and never commits the man is bill president until January twenty and twenty twenty five. He is just no longer a candidate. And in his Oval Office address when I also heard him say it, I am still
here and I still have work to do. And frankly, there are additional commitments and promises that Joe Biden made the American people that he has not yet made good on. We should all hold him accountable on that because he does still have again January twenty twenty five, until everything is said and done. So I just, you know, I just please people trying to bear Joe Biden a lot of people.
I'm here.
I'm here, and I'll read the poll reports because you know, I'm a nerd, and.
You know, he used to be my job to be like, oh, what they put the poll report? Did they get that in there?
They missed in the color so and reading the poor reports yesterday from the day of the Oval Office address from the folks who were traveling with the Vice president, there was much made about Oh, she didn't stop to speak on the tarmac. She didn't answer this out of question the day of the oble office address that was about Joe Biden, and so she shouldn't have been answering questions and to check with the press on the tarmac.
But she knows that because again he has been in there with Joe Biden for almost four years doing this work.
One of the things I've been really impressed with too, is that to be the person who takes over, there's sometimes there's a sense that that person was angling for it, and you got none of that. You got none of that. You saw that she was his staunchest ally and supporter and so loyal to him, which I think is something that voters will appreciate because we all have had elderly parents and.
We trust black women, I like to say.
But also, let's just you know, right wing conservative media has made this out to be that something is wrong with Joe Biden, that the president is actually thick and he's having a health care crisis and there's been a cover up. And that is also why I think his allal office address was important because it was him direct to camera in prime time that all of the networks took it so that people can see him for themselves,
and the right wing conservative media atta change. I won't even say conservative because it is it's straight up right wing, okay, and it's jam and it ain't even conservative anymore. It hadn't been a sustained attack on both the president and the vice president since before they even took office, and so when the honeymoon period subsided a little bit for demic, they don't need to they don't need to pop up
and pay attention. I don't think the people have been working for the vice president and the vice president herself are new to this phenomenon, because it's been something she's been confronting for a while.
But to be very very clear.
I mean I've already I've been reading articles and I've been listening to some analytical reporters who've been talking about what they perceive as the vice president's policy and what they perceive is how she has operated over the last four years. And I was kind of like, Oh, somebody need to frame these people up planning, because they all got it right.
Are you guys surprised at how much the right has been able to work the refs in the mainstream media and how they've been able to sort of set the conversation. And I'm thinking even back to that debate, where so many of the convers so many of the questions had a right wing framing that I don't even know that the reporters, that the journalists even knew that they were taking the right wing framing.
I'm not surprised by it.
I think there has been for quite some time now, and I just wish the media is just honest about it.
To be honest.
You know New York Times that there's a symbiosis between them and Donald Trump, that they feed off of each other. Donald Trump, little reported but definitely noted by me and others when he finally left Washington and twenty twenty one noted, You're going to miss me because you need me as much as I need you.
And that was a very honest assessment.
Between Trump and the fake news that he loved so much, the fake news that he fed and gave access to and lulled them into thinking that they had some type of special connection and arrangement that nobody else did. And we've seen books written as a consequence of that relationship, and I think it has in many respects sort of lered some of the reporting that we've not just some, but an important part of the report that we've seen.
To your point, Molly, about how these things are framed, the fact that after that debate, Yes, everybody saw what we saw her when we heard god awful debate by Joe Biden, got it.
But did you know that there was someone else on the stage too, and yet that was not covered that the fact that the former president was standing there a line from the very first moment he opened his mouth and reaffirming and layering up again narratives that we all know were debunked and were not true. The election was not stolen.
You were charged and convicted because you committed crimes, not because of anything the Biden Justice Department. Did your dance with the law begained before there was a Biden administration. In fact, a lot of it occurred under your own Justice department. Those points weren't pushed back. Even if Joe Biden didn't have the capacity in those moments to fact check Donald Trump, you would have thought that the moderators would, or at least narratively after the fact, that that would
be part of the storyline. So yeah, there's some real issues in my view that still linger and exist here with the way Trump is covered. And it wasn't until honestly, just a browbeating by the public after the debate that you know, you had out some institutional newspapers and online services actually start reporting on the other half of that debate. It's an ongoing concern and you know it's going to
be important to sort of watch it. But because I think the media is in love as much with Donald Trump as he is with them.
Bold statement, but I think very true. Can you talk to us just for a minute, Simone and then Michael about what it looks like coming out of that convention. Did the Republicans just completely squad under a four days a mainstream media. It strains me that they have, and it delights me.
Well, well did they?
I mean, let's just be honest, Okay, going into that convention after a you know, a very real assassination attempt against the former president on in life, they were riding high with the media narrative. Everyone was being very judicious and deferential. I feel like, and I do mean when I say everyone, I'm panning with broad strug brush on purpose. Most people except not the weekend, honey, But weren't we weren't even on TV that Sunday.
So you deal with that what you will and love what is it that convention? Everybody's talking about this.
He told Donald Trump was gonna have nothing to back up that there was going to be a new tone.
Nothing.
He selects JD. Vans and they're like, yes, the tone is changing again. Where are the facts and the evidence? Where are the receipt you know, as I harken back to the real haz wide of Salt Lake City, you know, timeline receipt and where the evidence? Honey, There was no evidence that's for any of this myth. It was just you know what people in Donald Trump's or what we're saying.
He wouldn't even talk to any actual reporter. It's not like he made himself available, right, But all of a sudden he calling up the Washington Examiner and his favorite, you know, right wing outlet. So I would just think that they did benefit from the median narrative. Everyone played all their things, you know, Eric Trump was making the rounds, do any softball interviews.
It was insane.
And then Thursday night came and Donald Trump got up on that stage. And for fifteen minutes told us a story recounted his version that he said he would never tell again, but I have since heard it multiple times about the assassination attempt. And then boom turned to George trunk Rally the switch flip, and everybody was like, oh my, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, this did Donald tarm he ate ames when y'all don't figure it out.
Michael Thoughts simone nailed it.
I always marveled that it goes back to the point I was just making. You had folks in the media pushing this bs that Donald Trump was going to change. Oh after the assassination. You know, he looked so serene sitting there in the hall, and it looks you know, I'm like, would you guys stop smoking whatever they're selling you please? Do you know who you're talking about? You're being punked. This is all part of the reality TV programming that he has done from the very beginning. There
is nothing about Donald Trump that has changed. And in fact, on our airs, and I think it was during Katie Tur's hour, there was someone who had a conversation with Donald Trump that Sunday after the shooting, and they asked him what's different about Trump? And and and he went only said, well, I asked Trump, you know that this changed the way you look at things? You know, did you have that moment where you realize your you know,
your life flashes before your eyes? And it basically said, Trump was like, no, why would there be any other answer from a narcissist, Why would there be any other answer from a megalomaniac. Why would you expect him to be introspective?
They're not. That's it's just not.
A tool that they have in their box and their you know, makeup of who they are, because no, I mean, this is who I am, So I expect to survive these things, this whole thing about you know, showing images of Donald trumple in his needs, the sort of AI generated images of Donald Trump on his knees saying a prayer.
This is the man who held the Bible upside down for God's sake.
Come on, it'stop that well hold selling his own Bible and will though, what'sn't that it.
Made his own Bible, so you know, tells you what he thinks about God.
All right, I love you both.
I really appreciate you both. I think this is so important. Also everyone should watch the weekend because you guys are amazing, So thank you, thank you.
Yes, thank you.
We appreciate when you come on watch the weekend, and they should buy our ticket. Yeah, not to the weekend, yes, right now, that's free for today, for today, for now, okay, but we are all getting together on September seventh for an MSNBC live event all about democracy Unpacking twenty twenty four obviously has gotten crazy. Who knows what is going to be by September seven, but Michael and I will be there, Alisia will be there. All your favorites from MSNBC, Lawrence, Rachel, Joy,
Focking here, everybody, everybody, Alex, everybody will be there. So I'll get your tickets on Summer seventh in Parson in New York. I think it's in Brooklyn actually, so join us.
Thanks you, guys, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Molly.
Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how awful Trump's second term could be? Well, so are we, which is why we teamed with iHeart to make a limited series with the experts on what a disaster Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right now. The first four episodes, with the final episode coming next week, are available by looking up Molly John Fast Project twenty
twenty five on YouTube. If you are thinking you are more of a podcast person and not a YouTuber, you can hit play when you get to the video, put the phone on lockscreen and it will play back. New episodes are dropping in the next week as well. We need to educate America on what Trump's second term would do to this country. Please watch and help us spread the word. Sky Perriman is the president of Democracy Forward. Welcome too, Fast Politics.
Sky Well. It's good to be here.
So I want to talk to you about all the sort of legal stuff that you guys are working on or whatever you can talk about. First, tell us about your organization.
Great well. Democracy Forward is an organization. We work across the country. We're an organization of lawyers, and we also have policy folks and communicators because sometimes lawyers have to
have people help them communicate. As we know, and we we were started in the wake of the twenty sixteen election when it became clear that we were in an unfortunate new era of American life where the fight for democracy was not just about whether we were going to be able to push forward and tour to more inclusive society, but was actually whether we were going to be able to hang on to some of the hard fought gains given what we saw in the first months of the
last Trump administration. And so our team got together. We went many of us for lawyers in corporate practice or in senior government roles, and we came together to bring cases on behalf of people and communities throughout the country that were being harmed by unlawful and harmful policies in the Trump era. We've evolved our mission. We do a
lot more than that now. What we learned was that the maga extreme trump Ism that we saw in the last administration wasn't really just about one person, but it was also about a highly coordinated, highly funded network of extreme legal organizations that for many years and even decades, have been working to seek to move our country backwards, to take away their right to abortion, to take to make it harder for people to vote, to make it
harder for people to thrive. And so over the past few years we've been expanding our work in order to counter that extremism and to really represent in courts and in communities throughout the country. What we know the vast majority of people in this country want, which is a society where all of us can be included and where we can all thrive.
There's a lot of steps that keeps me up at night, But the newest thing that keeps me up in a night in American democracy is the ways in which the right is trying to make it harder for people to vote in this election cycle and the weird legal challenges they're making about certifying elections. Can you talk to us about that and is there anything that can be done?
Look, I mean, this is when you're a part of an extreme movement that doesn't represent the majority of people, and certainly doesn't represent the vast majority of people, which is what the far right in America is. It's a very small sort of percentage of the population. You have to do things to move your agenda forward, which is why they resort to anti democratic behaviors, to election denihalism, to intimidation, to seeking to deprive people from hope. We
know that these efforts are unlawful. The Supreme Court has said that with respect and rejected some of the basis legal theories. Courts across the country are constantly ruling in favor of voting rights, although there have been major setbacks because of that same far right legal movement. And so I think that we want to just encourage folks to vote, but also to have a plan. And then we know that there are so many lawyers and advocates that will
bring in order to protect our democracy. So like we work on like all kinds of issues, we don't typically do direct voting stuff.
Tell us about some of the stuff you guys do.
One of the things that's incredibly concerning is that we see extremism that maybe people a few years ago thought was research for one person or a particular moment in time.
We're seeing that see in communities across the country. Our team is on the front lines in places like Arkansas having to sue and by the way, we have won so far to keep librarians from being penalized with criminal penalties as a result of laws, very extreme laws that have been passed that Governor of Sarah Huckabee Sanders has signed. We are in court in Alabama having to challenge censorship efforts.
We've had to go to court in Ohio to try to keep the public education system from being taken over by the governor's office against sort of elected the elected state Board of Education. And so I think like one of the things that is important for people to understand in this moment is that the fight for democracy is certainly about the right to vote and the fight for voting, but it is about so much more than that. I
think Dobbs showed that to people. I mean, we are in communities across the country seeking having to represent doctors who just want to provide emergency abortion care to their patients and are being prevented from doing that because of far right ags and because of this coalition of far right organizations, the same ones that are behind Project twenty twenty five, which is getting good attention thanks to you
and many others, but they're behind so many efforts. And so I really think this is a moment and what we see in our work where people have to decide what they are going to do in this moment for our country and for our democracy. And there is work we all need to do to just reject extremism as it appears in our everyday lives.
So let's talk about what that extremism looks like. In the court. So I did a big thing. I talked to Dave Atgers about his book being banned and in South Dakota. What was interesting about that story was it was this sort of astro turf protest, right like, the people of South Dakota don't want these books removed. It's this website, it's this group that is a sort of offshoot of Moms for Liberty. So legally, what are you seeing that's like that?
Well, look, we've seen that actually even in the pandemic. Let me just start with that, because it's the censorship
efforts that you're seeing across the country, this extremism. We thought even in the pandemic, with communities where there were all of a sudden uprisings over people needing, you know, over children wearing masks in school, are making schools safe against COVID nineteen, And what we started finding we represented pediatricians in a lot of these cases, and what we started finding was that these were not sort of organic
movements that were happening across the country. They were, as you just said, these seated movements where special intrist organizations would burrow in a community and seek to polarize people. We see that right now with city ordinances in states like Texas and New Mexico and Ohio and Nebraska, where lawyers and kind of right wing legal and other political figures like Jonathan Mitchell. He's the lawyer that was behind SB eight, the aiding and a betting law on abortion
in Texas. He he represented, you know, he was at the Supreme Court this last term. And you know, what we see is like all of a sudden, communities are starting to consider city ordinances that are incredibly streamed that ban abortion or even ban people from helping their neighbors.
And we started looking at though we requested public records, what we saw was a paper trail in all of these communities with these common actors, right, people that are not from the community, that come into these towns and try to polarize people in order to push an agenda. And so, I mean, we do see that. You see it in the censorship space, We certainly see it in the abortion space. We know we've seen it in the
voting space. And I think that one of the things that's significant about this is when we look at our overall democracy. You and I talked about this, you know, I think when we saw each other, but in twenty twenty one, the United States was added to the list of global backsliding democracies. And I just want to say that, and hopefully, you know, lots of people don't realize that, but in twenty twenty one, after January sixth, the United States was put on a list of global backsliding democracies.
And what we know about democracies that are in backslide are that there are these efforts to polarize people. People are not actually as polarized as you know, we are led to believe, but there are you know, far right efforts in this country and these political efforts to make.
Them seem more polarized exactly.
And the question is why would you do that, Well, if you represent a vision and a view for the country that only a small minority of people believe in,
because you're against everybody that makes up the country. You know, you don't like immigrants, you don't like people of color, you don't like women, you don't like librarians, you don't like teachers, you think the media is out to get you, I mean whatever, you know, vilification of the American identity in many ways, that these are the extreme actors in body. You have to convince people that they're polarized because how are you going to try to get more power than
you really should have? And so that's what that's what we're seeing it. It's really concerning. I followed your work and conversations with folks about it, and what we want people to do is to understand that, like in this moment, we all have a voice, and that's what we do every day as we represent people in courts and in community.
It's making sure that people are making their voices heard, that they you know, this extremism is not what it means to be an American and it's not in line with the vast majority of what the American people believe, right.
I Mean, that's the thing that is so strinking, is none of this is what people want, right. The majority doesn't want to not be able to vote. They don't want to not be able to get books in the library, and they don't want to not be able to have healthcare. Tell me about some of the sort of weirder legal challenges that we are, Like, I mean, I'm sure that the things you're seeing the most of our abortion and but just give me some of the sort of weirder stuff.
Well, there's been a really significant and pretty cataclysmic trend, and some of it reached the Supreme Court this term where we have a lot of these far right legal organizations or more right leaning legal actors really seeking to undermine the way our government can deliver for people. So in this last term, as one example, the Supreme Court, at the invitation of the right wing legal movement, issued a number of decisions that undermine the way the federal
government can do basic things. Why keep our air and water while you stay right?
There are like two enormous decisions I think that the Supreme Court made this semester. They both came on July first, because why wouldn't they. One was the Chevron doctor and can you talk about that? And then the other one is that you know, the president can do whatever he wants and crimes are not crimes if the president doesn't but talk to us about Chevron.
Well, I really want to talk about to both of those same times.
So let me.
I'll start with what you're calling the Chevron decision, and that is what it is for your listeners who haven't been keeping as up with things, although I know most of your listeners do. Chevron deferences is about the gas station, but that was years ago. But this legal principle that lawyers talk about, which is that when Congress passes a law, so Congress passes the law, they use pretty broad language.
Sometimes their language isn't that clear. Sometimes that's intentional, other times it's just Augress is not an expert in everything that it's legislating, and it's trying its best. But when they use language that's not particularly clear, that's the ambiguous.
When the federal agencies, so federal agencies are in our executive branch and in our system of government, right like Congress passes the law and in the executive branch, these federal agencies that are at the heads are appointed by the president, have to go implement those laws and execute
those laws. Those agencies traditionally had been afforded a level of deference from a case Chevron versus EPA, which is why it's called Chevron deference, and had been afforded a level of deference in the way they interpret various statements or words that Congress have said in legislation. We are
about particular subject matter. So one example, you know, the Clean Water Act has had a number of sort of broad sweeping pronouncements but experts on how you have clean water and clean air have to interpret that in order to make sure that we have all the programs that can make sure that our error and water quality is adequate and safe for the American people.
Right.
And so that's been a doctrine for more than for forty years, and even before that, courts were, you know, generally applying those principles. So it goes back even before that. And there has been an effort by the conservative legal movement and the far right legal movement to underline that doctrine in recent years. It's interesting because this was actually a doctrine that Justice and Right and other conservatives used to like.
They liked it because they had Republican administrators and liberal judges, right, I mean, they liked it because it was going in their favor.
Correct. And what we've learned actually is that the application of Chevron deference has actually for many years helped depoliticize or there was evidence filed with the Court breast Off with the Court that studied cases said that in cases where liberal judges would look at more conservative policies or where conservative judges would look at more liberal policies under Chevron deference, often the courts would uphold the policies unless
they were unlawful and out of line. And by the way, anybody thinks that like Chevron deference was giving agencies way too much authority, it's just not at of what I pursued agency my whole career and have won even when Chevron Deference was at play. So if an agency does something that is arbitrary, capricious, or unlawful, it can't do that.
So sort of the nuts and bolts of it is this charm the Supreme Court overturned that doctrine and what it has done essentially replaced seeking to replace the expertise of our civil servants and folks that are at these agents, these implementing policies across the board in highly regulated areas with just the whins of whatever a district court judge
might do. So let's think about something like mifapristo right edication abortion, where you have extremists that file the suit with a judge that they wanted to file a suit
in front of and Amarillo, Texas. There are different principles at play in that case, but you can imagine a scenario where this happens in an agency challenge, and because Chevron deference has been overturned, it becomes easier for sort of extremist organizations to get judges to interpret the law in ways that is more ideological, and so that's a real concern. And so there are massive implications a democracy forward.
We represented two hundred and fifty thousand small businesses in these cases talking to and explain to the court and briefs about how this is actually bad for business. Not having predictability in your regulatory system is actually not a good thing for most business.
Well, all of this is bad for business. This is all like short term sugar rush tax cuts, but it's ultimately going to undermine American markets, American credibility, you know, et cetera, one hundred.
Percent in these cases. And so we think that the
implications should be are going to be quite large. Just in the last three weeks since the Court decided the Lope or Right case, which is the case where they overturn Chevron defference, our team has been tracking every case, all the litigation across the country where parties are referencing that decision, and there's already more than forty cases where people are trying to use that decision to undermine let's say, like title line civil rights protections or worker protections or
environmental protections. And so we definitely think it's a quite devastating decision. But the really interesting thing about what happened this term, Mollie, is if you think about this decision, this overturning of Chevron deference, right, the invitation of the conservative legal movement, the notion that the executive branch has so much power and federal agencies have too much power, and so we have to curtail their power by replacing
their power with individual judges. Wait a second, what the executive branch has too much power? What happened in the immunity decision?
Right?
Exactly? Not like that?
Right.
So it's like the Supreme Court wants to curtail executive power and presidential power when the executive is implementing laws on behalf of people and doing things to help the government deliver for people, whether that's in the healthcare context or the labor contact, or the environmental context. And yet when you have a former president that has committed a number of crimes, including those related to his responsibilities as presidents, they're willing to sort of impose a new legal structure
that is akin to making a president a king. So it's really quite remarkable when we think about the these two cases colliding in the same term and really looking at sort of what the court has done and who it benefits and who it hurts.
It feels like this is a little bit like Raheemi with the gun case, Like they make these broad, broad decisions that are ideologically not necessarily coherent, and then they can't for example, like Bruin, which was this case that basically said New York State couldn't regulate its own guns, which you know, again, this is like a group that pretends to love states rights, but the Texas can regulate abortion, right.
And then you go on to Raheini, which was this seasoned blockbuster can people who do domestic violence have guns? And they're like, whoa, I mean, they put themselves in these positions right exactly.
And it's the same or Eason on the abortion cases that like it's an election year, so they sort of tampered their decisions in some way that all of these cases, whether it's medication abortion or emergency abortion care come back to the court.
Right, and if they can get their guy in there, they're going to do crazy stuff. Thank you, Thank you, Sky. I hope you'll come back.
Well, thank you, Mollie. I'd want to come back anytime.
Justice Alison Riggs is running for reelection in the North Carolina Supreme Court. Welcome to fast politics, Justice.
Riggs, thank you for having me.
Tell us what you do and why it is wildly important.
I am the newest justice on the North Carolina Supreme Court.
I am running to keep my seat and running to flip the court, to change control of the court to people who share our values, who have a commitment to the Constitution, to reproductive freedom, who understand that democracy doesn't defend itself in a post Roe v. Wade world, and with many of the recent decisions we've seen from the US Supreme Court, state supreme courts really are the battlefront for so many any of the issues that we care about, then we need to put up a fight to protect
our rights at the state level.
North Carolina is a state that I greedily feel could be a swing state. Also is a state where there are no various Republican forces trying to cheat when they can't win. So explain to us what the sort of state legislature looks like and what, you know, the sort of stuff you've had to kind of push back against.
Yeah, So, I mean we're a complicated state. A Democratic presidential candidate hasn't won North Carolina since President Obama and then Senator Obama one in.
Two thousand and eight.
But we have regularly elected democratic governors and Democratic attorneys general. We have had Democratic majorities on our state Supreme Court. So North Carolinians are vote splitters. They are folks who care a lot about the specific candidates and ultimately what has sort of historically happened in North Carolina, and we
weren't the only state that this happened in. In the twenty ten elections, really critical elections years that end in zero, because that's when we take our federal census and state legislatures and congressional districts. State legislative districts and congressional districts always get drawn right after a federal census. Participation in the twenty ten election here in North Carolina was sort of off the mark, and Republicans took control of the legislature.
I was a voting rights attorney at the time, so I litigated when they took control of the legislature. In twenty ten, they redrew political districts to elect members of Congress and members of the state legislature that favored Republicans and cemented in one election results in a way that was really resistant to change the changing will of voters. So we have seen a real durable jerrymander in North Carolina.
And you know what that means is is that voters have a hard time having their voices heard and rebuking or holding accountable politicians who don't respect the will of the voters. So you know, when I was a voting rights attorney before I joined the bench, we saw a gerrymander of congressional districts that was so durable that it would have taken a way of election greater than what we saw a post Watergate to even out the playing field. And for your reference, I wasn't alive then, neither was I.
Neither was Jesse.
Luckily for us, this is one of the few things that's older than we are.
Yes, So in all of our lifetimes that kind of election has not happened, right, So very very troubling, anti democratic, and you see that show up in the policies regarding public schools, gun safety. You know, it's so critical that we have when we elect by districts, that we use districts not that favor one party or the other right, but that represent right and let voters hold people accountable. Like that's at the end of the day, that's it, voters.
If you have a functioning democracy, voters can vote you out if you are, you know, hurting their schools or making their kids more unsafe, or making their communities more unsafe. And so things that are resistant to that kind of accountability are troubling to me. I'm running on the Supreme Court. I obviously bring to bear my wealth of experience in
voting rights and a career spent defending the Constitution. But I'm also trying to run a campaign where people understand what state Supreme Court justices do and they understand their power to hold us accountable, because there's I've heard a lot of frustration with folks who don't like what's happening at the US Supreme Court in Washington, d c. Right and feel very defeated that there's nothing that they can do about it, that that court is how it is
until people either die or choose to retire right, there's here in North Carolina. If you don't like what your state Supreme Court is doing, if you are bothered that the state Supreme Court is taking away rights rather than protecting rights, you can vote us out right.
Yeah, And I think that's a really, really, really good point, and really important is that this is a question of accountability. So explain to us, please, what's happening in North Carolina now and what that looks like, and what are you seeing on the ground, and do you see a base that's energized, like, just talk to us about that.
I assure you, this is an exciting time to be living in North Carolina and doing political work. Last year we elected the youngest state party chair of the Democratic Party ever, a young woman named Anderson Clayton, who was at the time twenty five years old, and he brought to bear the vimen vigor that we needed. We needed to believe that this was a fight we could win. We needed to all get get better about talking about
the North Carolina that's worth fighting for. It's not necessarily the North Carolina that we've seen predominantly for the last fourteen years, but there is a North Carolina that is a progressive beacon in the South. That is a state where women who need reproductive health care can come if they need to. That's a North Carolina worth fighting for. A North Carolina that values its rural voters in the Mountain just as much as it's farmers and industrial workers
in the black belt in eastern North Carolina. Those voices matter just as much as the folks in major metropolitan areas like Raleigh and Charlotte. So we have, I think a nude vision of what we are fighting for. We've got an incredible slate of statewide candidates running, a lot of great women, the first black woman to ever serve on this Council of State, I'm the youngest woman to
ever serve on the North Carolina Supreme Court. And after the news that we are likely to have Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, there was energy before that. It is through the roof now and we are willing to knock on every single door to
be that dream swing state. But we actually think that's us Like, we are a state that's changing rapidly, that is politically important nationally, and we recognize that with that comes the need that we need to do a lot of on the groundwork, and.
North Carolinians are ready to do it.
What I think is so interesting about your state is, you know, you have the research triangle, you have academia, you have a lot of different parts to the state. Can you sort of talk to me about how the vice president could win your state?
Yeah, So, you know, I got involved in politics for the first time at the end of twenty twenty two when I was appointed first to the Court of Appeals.
It was before I was even appointed to the Supreme Court.
And typical politics advice was, well, there are eleven we have one hundred counties in North Carolina. The advice, a lot of the advice I heard, was well, if you're going to run statewide as a Democrat, there's really only eleven counties that matter. And so these are where Greensboro and Raleigh and Charlotte are, and so that leaves out eighty nine in heavily black eastern North Carolina, in a lot of the places in central North Carolina where the
textile industries have really collapsed. In western North Carolina. I mean, I am I grew up in West Virginia. I am the daughter of Appalachia, and I know what jd. Vance is selling.
Right.
It isn't the hillbilly experience hillbilly's and I embrace that term for myself and I know my western North Carolinian friends do as well. We help each other. What the Vice President can offer is I think folks in North Carolina that have been left out, that are feeling unseen. I mean, I think she's been to the state seven times already, Like so she's already doing it this year.
I mean this year, before all everything got shook up, she's been doing it being North Carolinians to feel really empowered, engaged, I think just need to feel seen like we matter, that these You're not worthless if you live in a red county but share our values. We want to fight for your vote and represent you. No.
And I think that what I'm struck by is if you're not going to primarily black county, is that's because that vote is disenfranchised, right, I mean that they're having a trouble getting to vote. And I mean if you look at the South, there are majority minority states that are represented by a horrible Republican white you know, I'm thinking of Mississippi as a great example. You know, the Senator there was photographed in a Confederate uniform, and that's
a majority minority state. So there is a question of disenfranchisement that needs to be dealt with.
Right Yeah.
I've been involved in cases litigating under the Voting Rights Act for my entire career. We lost a key part of the fact Section five of that Act in twenty thirteen when the US Supreme Court issued its ruling in
Shelby County Beholder. And since twenty thirteen, it's sort of been more recently in the last couple of years that the political science data has confirmed that absence the protections of Section five, voting discrimination laws that create burdens, particularly on voters of color, to participate in the political process have increased and voter turnout rates have decreased. So there continues to be a making the rules of who participates
in elections political rather than open and inclusive. It has a discriminatory and disenfranchising effect. We've seen it across the South since twenty thirteen. And an additional angle to understand is that when voting becomes harder, when folks sort of get out of the habit because it's become more and more challenging and more and more burdensome. I think there's an apathy that comes along with it that's like, okay, well, turnout in these sort of more rural counties maybe you
know in Texas it's LATINX counties. In eastern North Carolina it's predominantly black counties, Like the turnout is down, and so the typical political incentives are like, well, there's no point in going there because there's just not that many people that are going to vote, and so it just
feeds into the harm creating by disenfranchisement. If we if we look at that data and say, turnout isn't the ultimate question, because we have to ask ourselves, you know, what's been standing in the way of people participating, And we have to keep showing up as statewide candidates, as national candidates telling voters that your voice does matter, we do want to hear from you. We're going to work for your vote and show you that we care and
we're listening and we're here to serve you. And I think that ends up giving people the oaths they need, the technical term, the only thing to fight back against legislatures, particularly in the South, that are not passing voting laws in their best interest and so like, this isn't necessarily like my day job. Now, this is what I did for fifteen years before joining the bench, and so I
understand it. And so that's the background I'm bringing to this campaign is understanding that folks in North Carolina have sperienced setbacks when it comes to expanding our democracy and making it easier and more inclusive to vote and to having every voice matter equally.
So, you know, we have to have that baseline understanding.
I think that's really important. So what are the things in the North Carolina Senate that are coming up for you that are why.
You should be re elected?
You're appointed, but re elected.
Right, right, So the North Carolina Supreme Court right now we have partisan judicial seats and races because the Republican legislature decided to make them part of of course, so we have five Republicans and two Democrats on our state Supreme Court. The state Supreme Court now is a place with increasingly more power under the state constitution because the Federal Supreme Court has sort of quote unquote sent reproductive
justices back to the states. Right Sending them back to the seats means that we're going to see down the road. What we've seen in Arizona and Alabama and Florida and Texas. A review of laws that criminalize miscarriage treatment, a review of laws that are six week abortion bans, review of laws about whether life begins at conception, such that women in the middle of IDF treatments might have their treatments halted and their ability to start their families into because
of activist judges. And so this is the fight of a lifetime. It's not just reproductive freedom. It's about taking back our court before the next round of regular redistricting, putting on the bench people who will enforce the constitution, who believe in a democracy where people can vote out politicians who don't serve their interests. We make decisions about
our environment. When Democrats controlled the Supreme Court, they issued rulings that said homeowners' associations couldn't entirely ban soul panels. And when big energy spilled toxins in our rivers and lakes, they couldn't pass the cost of cleanup entirely off on the consumers. You know, these are the issues that there isn't a topic. I mean, we don't deal with immigration law, we don't deal with bankruptcy. But other than that, there's very little that doesn't land on the desk of North
Carolina Supreme Court justices. And the question now is can North Carolinian voters recognize and take a hold of the power that they have to make sure that all branches of government, including the judiciary, work for the people, not against them.
Can you explain to us what's happening with your governor because you had a normal Democratic governor he's term limited out Roy Cooper, and now you have a governor's race and it's pretty wild, So can you talk to us about that.
Our Attorney General, Josh Stein is a Democrat running to become governor. He is running against the Republican Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, who says the most hateful, most inflammatory things. And I think you know that race is it's stark in terms of seeing you know a man like Josh Stein who's been a public servant his entire life and who cares about North Carolinians and he's thoughtful compared to someone who talks about women not being fit to lead.
And the only reason you might need abortion care is if you couldn't keep your skirt down right, Like things he.
Just he also doesn't think women should vote or the nineteenth Amendment.
He would like to go back to a time before that that was the good old days.
There's a lot of problems with that.
But but what your listeners could understand though that would it would help us, is to spread the word that extremism is on our ballot here in North Carolina, from the top of the ticket all the way down. It's not just the governor's race. It's very important, but it's not just so we have the you know, the presidential race where extremism is a peak on the Republican ticket.
But we have folks like Michelle Morrow running for public instruction superintendent who never sent our kids to public school and talks about public schools as being in doctrination centers. We have my opponent who's running for the Supreme Court, who signed on to an opinion since withdrawn that said
life begins at conception. That's the same extreme legal position that the Alabama Supreme Court that caused IVF and fertility treatment centers to shut down and women who were in mid treatment couldn't finish, and women lost access to the healthcare they needed to build their families. Safely and in peace. So it is up and down the ballot we are facing, you know, a real Everyone always says this is the most important election of your life cycle.
Like, I get it, one really is.
But that song is pretty existential.
Yeah, I think that's really really important and a good point. So thank you so much, Justice Riggs. Tell us what people can do to support you.
So I would really love for folks to visit my website. It is www dot rigs for our Courts dot com.
It's for as f O R.
I'm on Instagram, Facebook, x TikTok with donation links. You can look me up on at blue you know, follow me on social media.
Make a contribution.
Five ten dollars is game changing in a state support race. Let me tell you, those grassroots donors are going to help me get out the word about what I stand for and the fact that women in North Carolina I have, the women and their allies have the chance to take back control of our bodies. Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank.
You so much. Great to join you there a moment, Jesse Caannon Young Fast.
I have to say there's not many people who are more online than you and I, but man jd Vance.
Well, so here's the thing. While Trump is trying to deny that he has anything to do with Project twenty twenty five, jd Vance, his vice presidential pick, wrote the introduction to the Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts book If that is not If that is not a coincidence, I don't know what is. Would also add the jd Vance wrote the introduction to a book by a notorious far right bad.
Actor, Pizzagates spreader Jack Pisopiek, and.
The book is called Unhumans The Secret History of the Communist Revolution and How to Crush Them So Unhumans like, the idea is that people on the left are not human, which, as you know, to humanizing language is one of these scary signs of autocracy. And for that Jdmance, probably the first time, but certainly not the last time, is our moment of fuckery. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
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