VP Kamala Harris, Andrew Ross Sorkin & John Heilemann

squawk Box. But first we have the host of Hell and high Water and the Circus on Showtime, the recounts, John Hilman. Welcome to Fast Politics. John, Hey, it's uh. I like you know, I didn't realize what I decided Molly, that you had a new podcast, and I was excited to do it. I would do anything you ever asked, you know that. But but I thought Fast Politics. So this is gonna be if we're gonna speak fast, we're gonna cover a lot of ground fast. I didn't really

get that. Oh yeah, it's actually also a thing related to Molly's name. Yes, we're really clever. And I like that it took. It tells you how stupid I am or how smart you are that it took me little while to figure that out. I don't think anyone figured it out, but I actually think people should listen to it. I was listening to my podcast when I'm listening to podcasts on one and a half speed, So, oh my god, can you imagine like taking our conversational tempo and amping

it up to like one and a half? Do it? I mean, life is sure? Why you know, if you could listen to it in third e versus forty five, go for it. I'm all for it. So I want to talk to you about two weeks from the mid terms. We're all going to die? Right, well, we asked, Actually, we are all going to die. The other question, the question is when we're gonna die. I would say that I have been told by my one of my primary care positions that I may be a space alien and

and may never die. But other than me, other than me, you were all going to die. Excellent, I was hoping. I don't think we're going to die though necessarily in the calendar year two, not all of us. But the narrative seems to be I mean and again that this is like the mainstream media narrative. Do with this what you will all summer, Democrats are not going to have

a red wave. Democrats are killing it. All of a sudden September comes and the narrative totally ships were in October, I've had, you know, three weeks of newsletters telling me that Democrats are going to get slaughtered and democracy is going to die. What happened, Well, I guess I first, I'd say, the narrative is always capital t capital, and I always wonder like whose narrative is that? Um, there's

some realities here. The first part which was, I mean, the first part was there was going to be a red wave. If you think about the period of time from the Virginia and New Jersey off your elections in November of last year. Two, I would say, the moment that the Supreme Court decided to strike down a Row and did the ruling in Dobbs, that was all Republicans are definitely gonna be definitely gonna have a red wave. Then and then you had a summer where two things happened.

One was the backlash on row slash jobs, and and that energy that got unleashed with a lot of voters who care about choice and care about women's reproductive health and and hate the Supreme Court for being so wildly politicide, which something we could talk about in the more even more vivid form in the context of what Justice Thomas

did yesterday. But um and and the other thing that people ignored, I think at what seemed to be their peril at the time and now seems to have really cost Democrats to some extent, is you know, there was a weird moment there in August where the economy started to get better, and if you look at Joe Biden's approval rating and lay it down next to gas prices,

you'll see an incredibly incredibly consistent correlation. So, you know, the president's approval already matters a lot in intermal elections because the House at least tends to kind of rise and fall with, you know, the national approval of the

the end party. And so the combination of that, what was going on on the on the abortion rights front, and the fact that the economy seemed like it might be headed towards the soft landing that the Biden people have been predicting, and inflation was starting to take down and gas prices and food prices were taking down, led to this surge of optimism in August into Labor Day

that you know, not the Democrats, I don't. I mean I heard some liberals who were like, Democrats are like, you know, they're could be a blue wave, and I'm like, you guys are out of your minds. But the possibility you know, rose to one in four, you know, one in three the Democrats might be able to hold the House, which is, you know, would be great odds against against history.

And people were very confident about the Senate when you saw you know, double digit leads for for for John Pederman in Pennsylvania, and it looked like John Warnock was gonna have an easy time with marciall Walker and Gregian Whittmer was up by double digits in the governor's race Michigan. And then what happened was Molly. What happened was what sometimes happens. The economic improvement turned out to be a lousory. Gas prices started to rise again, inflation started to go

up again. People started like really bracing for a real recession. The Feds started hiking interest rates because inflation was was out of control and again and they felt like they needed to us put the brakes on the economy, which made the recession talk even more pronounced everywhere I go

in the country, which is a lot of places. Because of the circus, people who had stopped asking me, hey, where are you from and what are gas prices there, which is things that you here out in the campaign trail, just among normal people, they started asking again, um in September, like, hey, where are you from? And we're the gas prices there

are gas prices are back off the charts again. You know that happened, and and and I think the question in there's no doubt that the focus on reproductive rights, which is clearly a super important issue and one that has potential political payoff, we saw a lot of these, you know, a lot of voter registration that seemed to be driven by dobbs. You saw some data on that that had filled democratic hearts with a lot of optimism

that didn't go away. And I think that's one of the questions right now right are are this is the polling picking up those new voters, and or are we getting an overly dire picture. You know, as you sit here today, we're back to something more like what you'd expect in the mid term or in the House at least, which is Republicans are probably going to take control of the House. That's always been. The margin is razor thin.

There are more safe Republican seats. I mean, the math is just yes, the bottom line is like, it's just it is. There's a reason historically that you know when a when a new president comes in, and especially when the new president has control of the House and Senate, that the first year mid term is usually a referendum on that in power party. And right now there's not nobody can really argue that. Just forget about why or

whether you think it's rightful or not. The country is not in a psyched place about its economy or its prospects, and people generally, you know, blame the president who's in sitting in the oble office, fairly or unfairly. I always say, you know, presidents get more credit than they deserve when things are going great, and they get more blame than they deserve when things aren't going great. But right now where the more blame than they deserve that when things

are not going great. So you know, people are discing, are unhappy with the state of the country, and they're gonna blame it on Democrats, and so given that the margin and the houses so thick, you know, you can expect Republicans take control. But look, David actual out of righting me the other day that they lost sixty seats at sixty net seats in two thousand ten. We're not going to see that happen, I don't think on November eight. But we're likely to see Republicans take control of the House,

and then we can talk in more detail. I'll shut up and let you ask another question. I think the Senate is exactly where I thought it would be a bunch of really close races that could break, you know, could end up with the Republicans with a one seat majority. We get up with the Democrats by a one seat majority, but that's about it. We're not gonna see. I don't think we're not going to see suddenly Republicans have a four seat majority in the Senate or Democrats have before

seat majority in the Senate. I don't think's going to happen. We're gonna end up with really narrowly divided Senate again one way or the other. And obviously that matters a lot which way it goes. But that's I think we're headed. So I was actually gonna ask you about the Senate because it seems like in August and September we saw Fetterman had a huge lead, we saw Mandela Barnes said an enormous lead. You know, a September of ron and on flooding the Wisconsin air waves with ads about how

Republicans are tough on crime. Again, I have yet to see any Republican policy on crime or anything else. I mean, God forbid, you know Republicans make policy. But now all these races are super tight, even Blake Masters in Arizona.

I'm seeing Poland. I would have said to you, if you'd asked me in in August whether I thought Mandela Barnz is gonna win that race by double digits, I would have said, hey, Molly, um, can you tell me when the last time, other than Mandela Barnes as lieutenant governor? Can you tell me the last time that Wisconsin's elected a statewide black Canada in a hundred years? You would have said, huh, And I can't really think of one. I was that because there has never been one. You know,

my father was from Wisconsin. I actually like Wisconsin a lot, but they don't have a great record in terms of racial diversity in that state. And it was always gonna be an uphill push for for Mandela Barnes, who's who is very liberal on crime, and you're right to Republicans have good crime policies. No, they're ridiculous. And is the crime problem as bad as they claim it is? No, of course it's not. But this is politics and and and a black liberal candidate in a year where crime

is we're Democrats. Republicans have been successful in creating a lot of fear about crime and and a lot of it misplaced and a lot of it distorted with the statistics. You know, that was a guy who was going to have a tough race. And Wisconsin's a purple state. It's not like this is not blue state. So and beating us the last thing. Beating an incumbent in the Senate is hard. I mean, it's it's just not it's it's hard to do always right. The incumbents are entrenched, even

when they're odious, as Ron Johnson clearly is. When they're entrenched and they're well funded, they're hard to be You need a really great candidate who's really well funded, and you can need to get some breaks. And that's one place. I'll tell you another place where the crime issues playing Molly is is uh more than people understand is in the Federman race, where everybody's focused on his health. And I would say that's a reasonable thing. The guy had

a stroke. I mean you should be we should wonder about whether about his health. I think that's a legitimate thing for voters to ask about. But politically, that you think about this, how bad is Dr Oz as a candidate. He's so bad that in the course of the period from May to Labor Day, John Funerman was essentially unable to campaign because he had a stroke, did not do almost any public events or or face to face interviews.

And yet Oz was so bad that Fetterman, by basically campaigning from his basement and doing great stuff on digital, was able to open up that double digit twelve point lead at one point. That's how bad. That's all about the odds badness. And then thirty million dollars in Republican

ads in September, almost all of him on crime. John Federman, who ran the parole board, ran the pardon board, was like, has a record on crime that Republicans have been able to successfully if again, I'd say unfairly but successfully portray as too liberal and out of step with UH with with the mainstream of Pennsylvania voters. Thirty million dollars Republican ads made that made that race. What I think now is, you know, Federman's up a little bit um, but it's

not twelve and and this debate tonight is huge. I mean, we've never seen anything like it, really where the race has been closing for the reasons I just said, And no one knows what you're gonna see tonight. And I don't say that with any prejudice against John Federman, who who's a charismatic, compelling candidate and and certainly was both those things to to a to a huge degree before

he suffered this unfortunate health incident. But a lot of people have a lot of questions and univer seen a candidate on stage who had has had to use close captioning in a live debate. You've never seen a health issue that's been elevated in quite this way. I think his campaign has done a good job of managing expectations about it. They've got a really good job of kind of saying to Pennsylvanians. Yeah, people have health incidents. You like, millions of you have had things that have happened to

your health. And he's recovering, and he's working really hard to recover and he understands you because he's gone through this. He understands you if you seen more empathic than he was before. But it still is the case that you know, in a very in a very evenly divided state, you know, the swing vote, they want to see him get up on stage and feel comfortable and confident that he can

do the job. And you know, so if he clears that bar tonight, I think he could end the race Fetterman, and he might, but other things could happen to miss will A wait and see. But in Georgia, right we had hershell Walker can't do sentences. I know, I know,

I've read commentary that says he won that debate. I'd say, you know, in the standard again, this is one of these things capital T capital and for the narrative, there's also a capital E expectations, capital G. Game herschel Walker can't do sentences is true, and I don't think he's qualified to the United States Senator. I don't think he's

qualified to hold any public office. But but again in politics, you know, the guy who was expected to get up there and and be a mumbling, bumbling fool, and was coming off of all these these mostly devastating scandals, expectations were lowered naturally, not by anybody's effort. You have to spin that one like, you know, the expectations were as

low as could be, and he cleared that bar. And I will say again not to not to upset maybe the likely listeners of the podcast Raphael Warnock, Who's a really smart guy, a really dignified man, a powerful order, obviously qualified to the United States senator and and and all of that, he's still fucked up the simplest thing in the world, Molly, which is Senator wearnock. This was not literally the question, but the implied implicit of this

question was Senator we knock. You know, you became the United States senator largely because of Joe Biden and the stakes in that race between him and Donald Trump, and the way that the Biden campaign rallied turnout in in Georgia. You were able to get into the Senate a run off, you would say, in the sense of your political career to Joe Biden if he runs again twenty four where you support him. That first part was the part that was implicit. The explicit part was if he run four year,

guess him. There's only one answer to that question, Molly, the honest answer, the loyal answer. The true answer is it's up to Joe Biden decide if he wants to run.

But if he runs, of course I'll support him, and he couldn't say it, and it was like one of the great pieces of political malpractice I've seen in a while, Like, you just answer that question, be straight, be a human being, don't be an automaton, don't be a guy with consultants in your head, worried about what the ramifications are going to be up sticking with the guy who brung you.

And then they turned to herschel Walker and asked him the same question, are you gonna support Donald Trump for if he runs four and Walker gave the perfect answer, which was he's my friend, of course I'm gonna stick with him. And then he looked at Warnock and said, you know you're being ridiculous to say you won't stick with the guy you voted with at the time. That was a good answer. The rest of them were barely literate, but that cleared the bar. But that answer, in that

moment was it was good answer. And I will say for for Raphael Warnock, who needs to get very robust black turnout in Georgia if he wants to win this thing outright, I think he's still a little bit ahead. But George's funny state. Remember what happened. You got to win fifty plus one, right, or you have a runoff,

or you have a runoff. And for them, the difference between you know, what they need to get to to put this thing to bed on November eight is they needed to have very robust black turnout and that's what will be the question of the night that night. If they get very robust black turnout, there's also a question of course of what what percentage of that black turnout will go for Soschel Walker, also an African American candidate.

But if they get robust turnout black turnout that night, they think that they can get it done on November eight. If they don't, we're back and run it. We're back in a runoff land again, and in an off your election, you know, a midterm election with no the top of the ticket. No Donald Trump in Georgia, a state that is showing how Republican it still is by by giving

Brian Kemp a double digit lead over Stacey Abrams. It's a very worrying prospect, the notion of a one on one between We're not gonna walker in a runoff election, we're turned out well will plummet And that could be it too. You know, everybody now has focused on these

three races too. We've talked about one in Pennsylvania, one in Georgia, and there there in Nevada, where another pair of capitals, not the narrative, not expectations game, but capital C conventional capital W wisdom in the political classes that Catherine Cortes Massen is gonna lose in Nevada, Federman is gonna win in Pennsylvania, and it's all gonna come down to Georgia. And we might not know the answer on the night of Member eight. We might have to wait

for the runoff for that. So hold your breath, right, that's terrifying. I I don't think I'm emotionally, like like strong enough to withstand another one of these fucking runoffs. But think about this moment what I'm now focused on because I'm you know, freak is the wild card scenarios right where Evan McMuffin a K. McMullen, don't call him that. He's my body. I like mcmuffins, I like the egg McMuffin. I'm a big fan of that. But yes, I like him though, and he's a delight Yes, continue, he's a

delightful He's delightful man. And he knows I'm kidding when I say that, because again, McMuffin is not exactly an invective. I like that. I mean a nice little breakfast sandwich. She doesn't like that cheese eggs. You know, but yet another Trump nickname that has stuck. Continued, Yes, but he

might win, Yeah, he might win. He could and you know, the whole thing could get me, could be turned out, said, you know, there's talk about there's there's now some indications and two of the smartest Democratic strategist I know who have been paying attention to this for months, I really

think that Chuck Grassley could lose in Iowa. So you know, you insane, right, I mean you know things, you know, weird ship happens in midterm elections, and people you don't expect to be vulnerable, turned out to be more vulnerable than you thought, and and maybe that will alleviate all of your anxiety and and the need for all that out of Yeah, I'm sure that I'll do it because I'm very relaxed otherwise. So let's talk about this CRISP.

De Santis debate. I don't even want to talk about it because I'm like, so, I just think Florida is absolutely out of reach for Democrats. But some interesting stuff happened during that debate. I'm with you on this, right, rondes stant is gonna win that that race, and so I I just don't like spend that much time focused on things that that are out of reach at this

point in the election cycle. Just completely yes, irrelevant. But I did think it was interesting when Chris said to De Santis, can you promise that you're going to serve out your term? Charlie. Chris is a in those moments. He's a very practice politician. He's good, he knows how to do these been a lot of big debates before, and I thought, in that moment, for the debate, moment

that's going to get replaced over and over. He knew how to execute on that, and I and he it was he looked strong, he prosecuted it well, and to Santis couldn't have looked worse. He looked like a deer in the headlights. And I actually think from that standpoint, he both He didn't answer, he looked like, you know, he looked shifty, he looked uncomfortable, and then he tried to turn it by robotically reading out some line about you know, pastures and daw, I don't even know what

that was, but he's raid. It's a question, which I

think it's funny. There's a fair number of people in the Republican world who will watch that and say they already think to Santis is running for president, so that's not gonna be news to them that he wouldn't answer, But they will look at the way he handled it and wonder, maybe he doesn't have quite the candidate skills that we thought he had, and that that will that debate will not have done him any good in Republican circles, who are you know, looking around for who is the person?

If it's not Trump, who's the person? And that was not a trumpet performance by De Santis. That was a nervous, uncertain and then robotic and badly executed performance. And so you know, for all of those people in the GOP sweepstakes business, that's the thing that I'll tell you. Who is smiling watching that debate. Carrien Lake, Oh, Carrie Lake, carry Lake, Christie Nome, anybody who's thinking about running in

the Republican primary four who's not Donald Trump. Donald Trump thinks thinks to Santa as a clown and thinks he would crush him anyway. He doesn't really care. I mean, his attitude is, you know, if I'm running, I'm gonna win. And and he thinks he thinks to sant this is a little man with no talent and who was made

by Donald Trump. It's those other people. It's the carry Lakes and Christine Nomes, Mike Pompeo's and and others who want to run, Tom Cotton's who want to run, who are watching De Santis to see how good is this guy really? He's good at given a press conference, he's good at given, you know, standing up and in their view he's good standing up and invoking cultural issues and yakking. But is he good and when he's actually has to go toe to toe with somebody in a real political scrap.

That was not a performance that well that did that, that made people think more of the Santis and in fact, for all those other people, they're like, yeah, I could take this guy. Yeah it's possible. All right, Thanks so much. Sn it goes by so fast? Is that why they called fast politics. Kamala Harris is the Vice President of the United States. Thank you so much for joining us. It's good to be with you. You're in New Mexico. Yes, I'm here at the University in Albuquerque. So I was curious.

New Mexico is a sort of abortion island in an otherwise desert, and I know that they're building more clinics, they're building them on the borders of the state, and I was wondering what you're seeing, and more importantly, what you're thinking about this. Well, one of the things I'm seeing being here in New Mexico is it is a vivid illustration of the importance of who is an elected office. There's a governor here, Michelle Luhan Grisham, who is holding

the line on so many of these issues. And since the Dog's decision did an unthinkable thing, which is to take a constitutional right that had been recognized from the people of America, from the women of America. One of the things they did is they pushed it to the states.

And so when I'm seeing in New Mexico, to your point, is state leadership and the governor and others who are saying, we're going to make sure that our laws not only protect individual rights and privacy and freedom, but also ensure that we do, which is what they're doing, take care of our neighbors. And isn't that at the essence of it all When you when you want to live a good life, it's about taking care of yourself and your neighbors. And they're certainly doing that in New Mexico. So it

seems to me that the stakes are very high. And I'm curious. You were a senator, you are now the vice president. I'm curious to know do you think personally that democracy can survive a second Trump term. Let me just say this, here's how I sincerely think about it. All. Democracy there's a duality to it. On the one hand,

a democracy, when it is intact, it's very strong. There's a strength about democracy in terms of what it does to protect individual rights and freedoms, and and to enforce civil rights and human rights and and and justice right. When a democracy is intact, it is very strong in that way in terms of what it does to protect the rights of its people. On the other hand, and here is the duality, democracy is also extremely fragile. It will only be as strong as the willingness of its

people to fight for it. It is a function of the willingness of the people to fight for it. And so when you ask me about Trump that the real answer is that I believe in the strength of the American people and the willingness and the desire of the American people to fight for their democracy and make sure that we don't have a situation where there's a further erosion of rights, but in fact that there will be picking up of the movements that have been about not

only preserving rights but expanding rights. So that's how I feel. I feel that the people have the power, and I do believe that in our heart as a nation, in the heart of the people, there is a love of our country, and by extention, a love of the supposed upon which our country was founded, which include the principles of freedom and liberty and equality, and justice, which are

all the attributes of acy. But we have these three hundred plus election deniers running this mid term, and I'm wondering what you're feeling is on what we can do as Americans and also what Biden can do to sort of protect and you and you two can do to protect are what has happened in our democracy. Well, well, let's start with making sure that in these mid terms everyone gets out to vote. Because for example, again here I'm here in New Mexico, Michelle Luhan Grisham is a

for election. Make sure you vote for her for re election because she is standing up for people's rights. She's not an election denier. You have people running for office in states around the country. As governor, there are eleven people running for Secretary of State around the country who are election deniers. Vote and vote and make the statement that you want people who actually uphold the truth and

uphold the law and protect freedoms. And I do believe that that is part of the power that we have right now with an election just around the corner. In addition, look if if we gain two more seats in the United States Senate, hold onto the numbers and gained two more sets and ied State Senate. Our President Joe Biden has said he will not let the filibuster get in the way of signing into law the Women's Health Protection Act, which would essentially reinstate the protections of Roe v. Wade. Again,

elections matter. If we gain two more Senate seats in this upcoming election, we can undo these laws that have been proposed and passed that would criminalize healthcare providers for providing reproductive healthcare, that punish women for exercising the right to make decisions about their own body instead of their

government telling them what to do. And the President has said if we elect two more Senators and therefore I have the numbers, he will be able to sign into law the John Willis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which is about reinstating protections around people's right to access the poll and be able to issue their voice through their vote about what they want from their government. So these are

very specific things that can happen. But again to your point about the importance of democracy, and I will say that the fragility of democracy, it will only be as strong as our willingness as the people of this country, as Americans, to fight for it. And one of the ways we do that is by voting. Are you surprised. I mean, I never thought I would see row overturned in my lifetime. I didn't either, to be honest with you,

but it has happened. There's a saying from CREDITF. God Ping which I paraphrase all the time, and I'm going to do it now. He famously said the fight for civil rights, which is the fight for equality and justice and freedom, must be fought and one with each generation. And I think there were two points he was making. One and this is your point. It is the very nature of it all that whatever games we make, they

will not be permanent. We cannot assume they will be permanent, because the second point is it's given that it's not the nature of it to be permanent unless and here's the second point, we fight and we are vigilant to maintain them. We can never sit back and just assume that these rights that we have gained will be forever intact if we are not willing every day to remain vigilant and ensuring that they are attacked. I mean, look

at what happened in the Dotts position. In addition to a woman being allowed to make decisions about her own body and not her government. Clara Thomas of the quite part out loud, they're looking at and at risk could be right to contraception, which has been a right that was long settled. He said, right to to marry the person you love. Dave's next marriage. And when I was General, I thought to ensure that people around our country can marry the person they love and we can undo those

laws that prohibited it. And now Clarence Thomas said the quiet part out law, which that might be at risk. So here's the bottom line. Just know that we cannot take anything for granted. We have to participate in our country. Our country will only be as strong as our willingness to do that. And I will tell you I travel around the world, and as Vice President, I have met a hundred world leaders in person or by phone, president's,

prime minister's, chancellor's king. One of the things we can do is the United States of America is walk in those rooms and talk about the importance of the strength of democracy. And then we can talk about rule of law, human rights, civil rights, and we can talk about why that should be the gold standard for the world. But here's the deal. As a role model of the democracy and as a role model for any one of us.

We know when you're a role model means people watch what you do to see if it matches to what you say. People around the world are watching what's happening in our country. And my fear is that autocrats and dictators can point to what's happening right now and say to their people, you want to talk about why I should give you rights, why you're rights to be recognized.

You want to point to America as an example, We'll look at what's happening in America, which means that things that are happening now in our country have the very real possibility of affecting people around the world. And so I do believe I know who we are as a people, and I do believe that we are willing to fight that love of our country, for our country and its principles. And I would say to everyone, listen here, standards can't

be h this is awful. I give up. I'm not participating because that means you don't understand the nature of it. The nature of it is, it will be awful. If you don't participate. You have to. It's how It's how we it's we do what we do. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm really quite grateful and just really appreciative. Well, I'm glad to do with you. It's good to have this conversation. And thanks for your voice. These are difficult conversations, but they're so important. Yeah, thank you.

Take care calculator. Andrew Ross Sorkin is a New York Times columnist and co anchor of Squawk Box. Welcome to Fast Politics. Andrew Ross Sorkin, thank you for having me. Very excited. How excited are you? Very excited? Let's talk about inflation. I feel like it is the number one every political article centers on this question of inflation. I still don't understand what is Republicans grand plan. I mean, what can a political party do with inflation? Oh goodness,

well that's a that's a heady question. What can a political party do? The answer is probably very little. The truth is, I think you can probably do you some stuff around the margins, and that's probably the best you're gonna do. I think that the governor, if you will, of the inflation story is going to ultimately be the Federal Reserve. Of course, you know, by the way, the Federal Reserve chair. I know we say they're independent actors, and I would argue to some degree they are, but

they are appointed by politicians. So you know, I remember doing the Obama administration. People would say, you know, the economy was going great. They wouldn't give Obama credit. They'd say, oh, it's Ben Bernanke. Well, you know Ben Bernanke would have had that role in unless you know, Obama kept him in that seat. So it's all a little complicated on the On the I think the question you're talking about. The biggest thing that you could actually do is when

you look at inflation today. There was all the supply chain stuff we saw over the last two years as a function of the pandemic, but the biggest, most insidious element of it is actually wage inflation. And it's sort of a very almost like an oxymoron or almost perverse talk about because for so long we wanted our wages and guess what we're now getting them. Higher wages help working people, but they also drive inflation, is what you're saying.

Higher wages help working people, but they drive inflation. So if therefore everything else costs more than your actual wages are going up, you know, it looks good on paper, but in reality, when you show up with the story, it's not really working for you. And that's where we are. So okay, what could you do? You could actually, and this is the perversest part of it, you could lower wages, right or I don't know if you can. At this point, I don't think we're going backwards. It's not like wages

are gonna go down per se. But arguably they're not going to go continue to go up, right, I mean, that's what's the reality of what's going to happen. What that really means is you're going to start to see unemployment go up. And so there's a sort of political perversion of it because here we are. You know, the administration says we want to get inflation down. Well to get inflation down, you want employment to go up. So

which headline sounds worse? Right, I mean that's that's sort of that's not what which headline sound sources what is actually work. You could argue inflation is actually worse, but tell that to the people who don't have jobs. So what happens now, I mean, we're going to have a mid term It seems we don't really know how it's going to go. There certainly is a lot of posturing. I mean, if you were the chair of the Fed, would you keep raising interest rates? I mean, what would

you do? This is a very strange moment because there's a credibility issue for the Federal Reserve, which actually does matter, and right now the Federal Reserve, I think, is on thin ice with the investment community. And you could say, well, why does the investment community really matter? Why should we be listening to investors the bond vigilantes take a look at what just happened across the pond. It's actually a

natural experiment. We're seeing it in real time, which is in the UK, the bondholders, the investors actually effectively said we don't like your politics, we don't like what you're doing here, like this isn't gonna work, and guess what they want. And so I think that you have to be a little bit aware of of that element, which is that the bond sort of investor class, in a very strange way, has a remarkable grip over the United States.

By the way, if you think about who owned some of those bonds, it's not just investors, it's governments, it's it's China, it's countries, and that's why this is also interconnected, right. I mean what happened in the UK, you know where the markets cratered was I think a real kind of I mean it's meant to sort of be a wake up call to that could happen here, right. I hope it doesn't happen here. But in the UK, if I get my numbers right, they're running at like GDP in

terms of what they're paying. I think we're over that, we're in like the hunter. We're maybe right now of GDP. That's a problem, and it's a problem because at some point there's gonna be a lack of confidence. At some point, somebody's gonna say, you know what, these people aren't good for the money. And it's not that, by the way, that the government's got to be able to turn around to pay off all the debt at one time. That's

never gonna happens. Not the issue. It's that there's a path to pay it off, that there's that there's a path that people believe in. Again, it's about confidence, and so yes, if people look at whatever we're doing, if we continue to spend money the way we're spending money. If we continue to have the economic problems we're continuing to have, at some point someone's going to say this doesn't work anymore. Is this like the death of modern monetary theory? I never really understood m m T to

begin with. Well, that's good, because neither did I. I'm kind of the wrong person to ask. I didn't understand that theory. I didn't really think it was. I mean, I guess it was a theory. It was theoretical, and that was about all it was. But I mean it definitely shows. I mean, some of why we're in this inflation is because of trump bonomics, right, keep rates low, will the markets are doing well, to pump up the stock market. I mean, there's a number of reasons we're here,

and you could say that the stimulus. I mean there are many many factors, but all of them include printing more money. We have been printing money and living beyond our means for basically most of my life. Ton I'm forty five years old, and so you know, we could play Trump anovics, you could blame Obama namics. You can

play bushonomics, reagan ornomics. You can go pretty far back to a point where we sort of became disconnected with the reality that was on the ground of what our actual economy was, and we've been juicing it ever since. So does this mean that we will I mean, are we headed towards a two thousand eight kind of that sort of I mean bleak kind of every day like, you know, there would be a sort of sense like maybe the banks won't have money. I mean, do you

think we're heading towards that? I'm less inclined to think that that's the case and more inclined to think that. Look to me, I think this goes one of two ways. Either the world sort of gets its act together. We get some real political leadership, which is sort of hard to believe. I don't really know what would would make that actually happen, But if it were to happen, I think this would be a two or three year kind of situation. And you know, David Solomon was to see

of Goldman. Sachs often tells the story of how, you know, basically, since I think basically since two over the last call it forty plus years, you know, the stock market, the economy, everything has been sort of up into the right. There have been these moments, these blips that have lasted twelve months, eighteen months, twenty four months, where if you held your breath or you close your eyes and then you opened your eyes up two years later like things were better.

The question is whether that's going to happen in this instance, or whether it's gonna look a lot more like what happened between nineteen seventy nine two, which is to say that if you had a dollar in the stock market, you did not have a dollar in nineteen eight you had less you did, And I think we forget that, and I think that is I mean, if you want to be a warrior, that's the thing to worry about.

And people like Larry Sommers has talked about two things actually, and by the way, he's been right about at least one part of it. We'll see whether he's right about the second part. The first part is he's been arguing obviously that inflations is run away and you have to take control of it, and he would argue for higher,

higher rates. The second part is that he has been speculating more recently about this idea of secular stagnation and that and that that we get into this sort of stagnation period and that to me is also a pretty scary period. Yeah, I was about to ask you about stagnation. We stagflation, stagflation, I should say, it's not that Well, what stagnation is a form of stagflation. Yes, we'll explain to our listeners what stagflation is and why it's so

fucking bad. I'm now reading from the Oxford Language Dictionary. Stagflation excellent. Persistent high inflation combined with high unemployment and stagnant demand in a country's economy. Now, just to put that in context, it is possible for inflation in this case to come down but to still be higher than you'd want on a relative basis to where you're at the same time, how high unemployment or not even high unmployed,

but just more unemployment. And you have an economy that is not growing right right now in the States, we have high inflation, but we have very good job numbers bingo right now. And that's why we all debate are we in a recession? Is? How do you describe your recession? What's the technical term? This or that? That's why everyone looks at now says are we It feels like a recession.

It looks like a recession. But is it a recession? Well, it may not be because we're these sort of unique data points around employment for the most part that feel different. So people say, maybe we're not in a recession. However, all that could shift. We'll see. We won't know if we're in a recession until we're already in it. Look, technically, we're not in a recession until what's the name of the group, the National Bureau of Economic Research will define

the recession. They are the sort of arbiters of what is an actual recession, and they won't, you know, usually show their hand for a while, and it'll be interesting to see how they describe it when they do, right, and we won't know. But the larger question I think is if you were Democrats. We don't know how this is going to play out, But what would you do if you were President Biden to sort of figure out a way to stop inflation? I mean, there's just not

so much a president can do. Right, Well, you could deal with this third rail issue known as immigration. That actually is something you could do because that would create more labor, create more labor exactly, and that would probably put pressure on the wages, increasing wages absolutely I mean, you know that that would be something that you could deal with. You could deal with certain tariffs that might take some pressure off at least in the short term.

As I said, there are things that can be done. But again it's I think it's all. It's all for the most part on the margins. It depends on how big you go. We saw what happened to UK. You can't sort of decide you're going with like a Thatcher like approach or Reagan like approach and lowering taxes that actually just creates more demand inflation because it's exactly more

money goes into the economy. So now we tend to think, at least I I'm not gonna try to make you say something partisan, which is one of my favorite things to do to people on this podcast. I tend to think of Republicans as being when Trump was. When he was in office, pretty much the only thing he passed was an enormous tax cut for wealthy people, which was

what ended Liz Tases brief Prime ministership. We're seeing that that is really not a thing that the markets like, I think, but the markets don't like, and I think we should be clear about this. Is the markets don't like when governments put together budget proposals, whether it's how you're taxing people at what level or this it's not something they don't want you to tax people higher or lower.

That's not what they like. They just want to know that the thing works, meaning that there's gonna be enough revenue coming in to pay for the costs. That's what that's the issue in some cases, as we all saw actually during the Trump administration early on, the market actually very much liked lower taxes the market and freak out. In fact, the market rewarded. Yeah, I want to like get into this idea of currency because all of these

economies are interconnected. And while we have problematic inflation eight nine, there are a lot of countries around the world that have much larger inflation. Life is relative, I mean, that's the other I mean, but it's very hard to tell somebody, especially somebody who who lives in the United States, that oh, you know, we suck worse or we suck less, or less,

we suck less. I remember having uh do you interview with Barney Frank and he said, you can never you can never put a bumper sticker that says, you know, I suck less vote for me. It's just it doesn't it doesn't work. It doesn't work. And so yes, if you're a factual human being, you look around and you say, actually, we're doing a lot better than everybody else. That's great. And then people say, well, but you know, I don't see it. So what are you talking about? Why is

it much worse? I mean, uk Brexit, they sanctioned themselves, they made it much harder to trade. But what about other countries? Why is it so much worse? And other countries, Well, let's be honest. This the situation Ukraine is having a real impact on energy costs in Europe, and that's a big, big issue. I think the slowdown in China in terms

of what that economy has experienced is real. Their COVID policy, which has basically restricted so many people, has changed the dynamic of that economy, hopefully not forever, but at least temporarily. So there's a lot of extraneous things that are happening here. Plus, I think going into this crisis or into this pandemic, the US was actually in a very strong place, so we had a lot we were falling from a different

position as opposed to other countries. So now, I mean, you can't fall off the floor, right, that's sort of the issue, right do you think now? You do you think inflation will drive a lot of the vote. It's hard to know because we talked about inflation. It's talked about obviously on television every day. It's in the headlines all the time, and you feel it if you go to shop right right, like you see it in the aisle,

the good news in some ways. You know, for a long time, I'm used to say that you go to a gas station, it was like there was like a billboard up there on every every you know, on the highway, it was like this, you could see the inflation just running away. That's come down. So I think that billboards a little bit less taking up mind share. I don't know. I mean people always vote with their wallet, and the question is, you know, what are they actually feeling and seeing,

and then what are people telling them to feel and see. Interestingly, I think during the Obama administration for a very long time, you know, the economy is actually doing much better than people seem to believe it was. So that's the other component. It's like it's not just what you actually feel, it's what you like, think you feel right, and that is ultimately a big democratic messaging problem, right, Oh, I think it's a for the for the Democrats, it's a huge

messaging problem. If you look at polling, people were polled will say Democrats are better on this, this and this, and Republicans are better on the economy. So we if you look back on all these different presidents, you've seen that Republicans tend to increase the dad and Democrats tend to be, you know, a little bit more conservative, not always, but with the debt, wouldn't that run contrary? It's funny.

I look, I've seen the same numbers you have in over the last forty years, if you were to look at most Republican presidencies versus Democratic presidencies. The truth is that the economy and the questions are you measuring the economy, you measure the stock market, but for the most part has done better under Democrats. That has been the truth of the matter. But at the same time, I think

there's other issues at play. Some of it's about regulation in certain instances, and then I think you're starting to see what happened. I mean, I think this last round of stimulus and I'm not talking about the Inflation Production Act, though I'm sure people could debate that, But I think that people look at sort of how the pandemic played out and how much of that money came into effect and frankly, how much it was was misspent, and that

creates a sort of sense of frustration. By the way, true of what happened under the Trump administration, also true of what happened under the Biden administration. The only distinction that you you could make, and maybe you're gonna say I'm sounding sympathetic to the Trump administration this instances. In the beginning, nobody knew what was actually happening, and nobody knew how long this was going on. You know, later on we had a better sense of it, and we

still kept spending that money. And I think there's there's a there's a fair debate at least to be had about all that. Andrew Ross Sorkin so interesting, Thank you so much. I'm so glad we got to talk about this sort of micro macro. Thank you for having me. I just want to talk more about Kanye Molly, John Fast, Jesse Cannon, that Vetterman debate, Doctor oz He really um, I feel like he said a saying we'll be hearing for years to come. Doctor Oz believes abortion should be

between a woman, her doctors, and local politicians. I want women, doctors, local political leaders, letting the democracy that's always allowed our nation to thrive, to put the best ideas forward so states can decide for themselves. Mr Eights Rights. You know those memes like where it's like, aren't you forgetting to ask somebody you like? This is gonna be a thing

people make fun of for years to come. No one better on your body than a local Republican elected You know what I keep thinking, Remember what everybody was saying, his kid paid staff first, must hate him. I really feel like every time he showed himself in public, he showed that it's probably him making these bad decisions, and they're just not able to save him from it. Because this guy sucks up every time he's on the camera.

I would just say, I don't I don't want local Republican politicians deciding what happens in my UDREUS sounds like a wise, wise thing to want, And I think for that local Republican politician, Dr Oz has our moment of fun. Ray that's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a

friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening. MH.