September 20, 2024 • 57 mins
Former Senator Al Franken details Trump's terrible political instincts. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker examines his progressive governing despite being very, very rich. Nebraska independent candidate for the Senate Dan Osborn details his run.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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 Mark Robinson says he will not
drop out of the North Carolina governor's race, and every
Democrat says, thank you, Mark Robinson. We have such a
great show for you. Today, Illinois Governor JB. Pritzker stops
(00:22):
by to talk to us about his progressive governing despite
being very, very rich. Then we'll talk to Nebraska independent
candidate for Senate, the one the only, Dan Osborne, about
his run. But first we have the former senator and
a host of the Al Franken podcast, your friend of mine,
the one the Only Al Franken. Welcome back, my friend,
(00:46):
Al Franken.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Thank you, my friend.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
We're friends. Listen. I cannot believe that House Republicans are
eleven days from a government shutdown. I mean we are
about like pole are going to be voting, or they
are voting. I think some states have already started voting.
But Republicans have betrayed all conventional wisdom and have decided
(01:12):
that this is the play.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah. I can't believe the Senate will go along with that,
but the House they supposed could do it. Either House
can do it, right.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, I mean it's so funny because it's like it
is preposterous and ridiculous. Basically, they had a cr that
had in it the Save Act, which prevents non citizens
from voting in federal elections. By the way, non citizens
cannot vote.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Cannot vote anyway.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
So fine, fine, right, why not? But he can't pass it.
One of my favorite things about Mike Johnson is that
he said, well, we're just going to take it up
anyway because we may be able to pass it. And
I was listening to one of those inside the podcast
by you know, Congressional Reporting Organization, and they were talking
about how actually they have never seen anyone be a
(01:58):
Speaker of the House and up bills. They were pretty
sure we're going to face right like Pelosi.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
She never did that, right, I mean, you.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Just wouldn't do that.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, you make account and if you're going to lose,
you don't put it up. But he's done it routinely,
hasn't he?
Speaker 1 (02:15):
So is this a new error of institutionalized in competence?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
I guess. So this speaks to the importance of electing
Democratic House members. Yeah, I got one fifteenth District of
New York. Josh Riley, who was my judiciary council is
running and against a guy named Mellinary. We need to
be Mollinary.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah. So this is a really good segue into what's
happening right now because for Democrats to control the House
of Representatives, that road runs right through Long.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Island, Long Island, and upstate New York. Yeah, in California.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
And that is why Donald Trump went to Long Island
last night to have a rally.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
See, he's selfless. He's selfless because he knows he can't
win New York and yet he wanted to help the
House members. What a guy.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
One of the things that I was struck by with
this Long Island rally was that picketing outside of the
Long Island rally were a group with a sign. They
were a group that has been routinely targeted by Trump.
They are Haitian Americans, and the sign said we don't
eat pets, but we do vote.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
That's very pointed.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, what could they be referring.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
To Springfield, which I accidentally call Simpsons, Ohio every once
in a while, but Springfield, Ohio. You know, it's interesting.
I have a story about a town in Minnesota that
kind of parallels Springfield a little bit.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yes, let's hear it.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
It's Wilmer, Minnesota, which is the county seat of Candy
Yohigh County. It's like in the south central part of
the state. Minnesota is the number one producer of turkeys,
and Wilmer is the county seat of Candy Yoha County,
and they have a Jeneo packing plant there, so they've
attracted a lot of immigrants over the years. About I
don't know, thirty percent of the town is Hispanic and
(04:09):
about fifteen percent is Somali. And one of their high
school juniors, Muna Abdulahi, became one of our pages a
Senate pages when I was in the Senate and we
picked her. My office picked her. And I remember seeing
her the first time when a new class came in
and she was wearing a key job and I said,
you look like a Minnesotan and she I don't think
(04:31):
she laughed her that she smiled. But I got to
know Muna as she is a fabulous woman. And then
a year later she was one of the commencement speakers.
Was chosen to be one of the commencement speakers. So
I said I'd introduce her, and I went to Wilmer
and it was the most beautiful ceremony I'd ever seen,
including my wedding, which wasn't much of it. We just
(04:54):
went to Firk's office, so I wasn't much anyway. So
so there were I looked at. They had every name
of every graduate and there were two hundred and thirty
six of them, and about fifteen percent were of German
or Norwegian extraction, about thirty percent Hispanic, and about fifteen
(05:16):
percent Somali. And then they started pumping circumstances and their
caps and gowns, and it was led by Muna because
her last name is Abdulahi, so she was first alphabet.
And they go down the center aisle and she's holding
hands with one of the Carlson twins. I think Mary Carlson,
who goes so when they get to the fund, she
goes off. Carlson goes to the left on the lah
(05:37):
he goes to the right. It was very beautiful. All
the kids hold held hands. These are this community is
just totally together. They had three class speakers. One was
the valedictorian, who was a girl who came from Peru.
Her family came from Peru, and one was Tate Hofland,
(05:58):
the class president, who was had Norwegian and half German,
and another was was Muna. And when Muna got up
to she she gave this speech and got this standio based.
So then they were canning out to the ployas and
they said, okay, everybody, nobody stand or nobody applaud because
we got a whole class to get through, so we
(06:20):
don't want So Muna was first because she was her alphabetically,
so Muna Aduwahi and they all started cheering, and the
parents and family were in the bleachers and they started
stomping on the bleachers from Muna, and they did this
for every frigging kid. This town was sewed together, and
the town worked because of the immigration, because the Geneo
(06:44):
factory brought the Hispanic population there and brought this the
Somali population there. And Springfield is a different kind of town.
It is an agricultural town. But Muna, so I went.
I went to an election day that year. It was sixteen,
and I saw her on the campus. I saw moving
(07:05):
at the University of Minnesota. I was going to speak
at the Democratic headquarters on campus and came up to
me and told me her sister had been elected Homecoming Queen.
That's America, you know. Yeah, I'm sorry. That story always
kind of breaks me up.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
It is, and I mean, there was a great opinion
piece in the Washington Post yesterday from Edwig Donticot, who
is an incredible Haitian American writer and a friend of
my mother's who went to Barnard and has won many
prizes and is really a rock star in the business.
(07:43):
And she talked about how what it was like growing
up as a Haitian immigrant in America and how her
teachers used to keep the Haitian kids late so they
didn't get beat up when they left school, and you know,
just the kind of you know, they endured all the
violence in Haiti and then they come to this country
and Republicans and some other people are just terrible to them,
(08:07):
and it just really hurt my heart because my great
grandparents came to this country and had the same experience.
And now we're in twenty twenty four and we have
to continue to live like this.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, we're almost all immigrants except for American Indians.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
And enslaved, you know, brought over to slaves.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Yeah, my grandparents came over and Jews when we first
came over, we're rejuiced against. But according to the mayor
and everybody, this town was working. Yeah, until this happened,
until jd Vance spread a rumor that he knew wasn't true.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
The mayor, the governor Dwine and also shut it down.
And you'll remember Dwine ran twenty points ahead of jd
Vance in Ohio. So it makes a lot of sense.
But yeah, it's just a terrible thing to have to
watch this happen just because Donald Trump wants to change
the conversation from his terrible debate performance and his anemic.
(09:02):
You know, his ideas of a plan was it ideas
of a plan for.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Healthcare, which will come out two weeks.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, two weeks. So it is kind of amazing. But
I want to go back to this Republican's inability to
govern because one of the things the Senate is doing,
and I think Trick Schumer has been smart about this,
is that they are again. Yesterday they did this IVF
codifying IVF Bill and Tom Cotton. Again Republicans voted against it.
(09:33):
Tom Cotton went on CNN Caitln Collins told her that
he was absolutely not going to vote for it because
he doesn't you know, doesn't want to codify IVF.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
He believes that a fertilized egg is a human being
frozen for a live's egg.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Wow, But I can't believe that fifty of them or
what was it, forty nine of them? Believe that forty
nine US senators A lot.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Of them didn't show up. I think there's some amount
show up for that vote.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
I know Van Vance didn't show up.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Mister IVF did not show up. Yeah, I don't know
who else didn't show up.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Well, Trump says he wants to pay for everyone's IVF
if insurance or the government doesn't pay for it. I mean,
he wants the government to pay for it.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
That's right, a government free IVF for every man, woman
and child.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
So how come he didn't tell his centators vote the
right way?
Speaker 1 (10:23):
It's ironic, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Because it's iroqnic Yess.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
It's almost as if the guy is completely full of shit. No,
but I mean, this is the point in the election
cycle where Trump is basically saying anything he can to
get elected.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, in including all kinds of stuff about immigrants and
also threatening election officials that he'll put them in jail
after he wins.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
And yeah, they don't do the right thing.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
It's so bizarre if that works. But I suppose if
he's on immigration, he feels like he's winning on that ground.
I don't know why he didn't tell his guys or
his senators to vote for the IVF. But he's puzzling
to me in one way and puzzling in another way,
which is nothing He does really surprise me.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Yeah, one of the things that I think is interesting
is like he's just redoing the playbook again and again.
So you know, like one of the things he was
talking about yesterday, he was saying, what do you have
to lose? That's something he said in twenty sixteen, right,
I mean he even said, now he's saying that he's
going to lower people's insurance. I don't know how he
would do that. He's say, it's lead the guy doesn't
(11:33):
believe in climate change is going to address the reason
that insurance is so high.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Oh, I see, it's insurance on your house which is
near body of water.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Right. But then and he's even said, I mean, he's
just sort of throwing stuff out there to see. He
said he would undo the salt deduction. So you'll remember
that one of the things that Republicans did in this
massive tax cut was maked so that you couldn't aduct
state and local taxes. The reason that did this was
because they wanted to punish states that had high state
(12:03):
taxes like.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
New York and California and blue states. Blue states states.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Where they spend money on education and social programs, and
so the idea here and states who's vote.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
They can't lose anyway, right, they're not because all those
states with eye taxation are blue states and they are
BLEU anyway. So yeah, really nifty way of punishing blue states.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
But if blue states were smart, they would be like, wow,
these Republicans did this to us. Perhaps we shouldn't give
them the Congress.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Yes, well, we're all paying a lot of attention to
the presidential race.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
But the House.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
The House is so important. It's you know, the House.
It's going to be hard for us to hold the Senate.
It's possible. Tester has to win, and I think if
he wins, I think we hold it. Yeah, but the House,
and you've covered the House great with their record, it
seems like we should be able to flip this, but
that doesn't always follow.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah, I mean in twenty two, really what happened was
a very rich businessman focused on those five House seats
in New York. A guy called Ronald Lauder, who was
a good friend of Trump's, has a lot of money,
just poured money into those congressional seats and was able
(13:22):
to flip them. And really he elected people who pretended
to be moderate. So I'm thinking about Mike Lawler with
the bdi's.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
I remember that was Lee Zelden ran for governor right,
and he poured a lot of money into his race too. Yeah,
it's funny when when Tim Walls was picked, I was
on CNN and Zelden was for some reason one of
the questioners. They said, Danny's say, I mean, isn't it
so that because he didn't pick Shapiro or she didn't
I'm sorry, Yeah, Dona didn't pick Shapiro. That does that
(13:53):
mean that she's Annie Semittic.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
I mean, it's such a like CNN moment you have, like,
what are the most far right members of the Republican
Party who just happens to be from Long Island but
his best he's with Don Junior and You're like, is
she anti Semitic?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
I mean, and I should have answered maybe something different,
but I basically said, you know, there's all kinds of
reasons that you pick her vice president, like do you
like him or do you have a connection with Walls
has been a great bit.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah. But also the other thing is she's married to
a Jew. Like you to marry a Jew if you're
anti Semitic, that's just how it works.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I don't know, my wife is anti Semitic.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Sometimes my husband is Jewish. So but I mean, it is,
you know, so insane. I mean, I have to say,
like this anti Semitic thing. I mean, you and I
are both Jewish. We have there's a long history of
Jews voting for Democrats and because Democrats have good ideas.
But it just is crazy to me to watch Donald
(14:59):
Trum make this dumb, really kind of disgusting play for Jews,
saying that somehow he is not an anti semit despite
the fact that he aligns with far right nationalists on
almost everything.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah, he kind of well, you know, he kind of
has it both ways. So he's you know, then Yahoo's
biggest supporter now, I guess, although they'll say he has
problems with nen Yahoo, but well it's he is doubling
down on getting Jewish voters, and I don't know why
Jews would vote for him. I think that Biden has
(15:37):
shown that he has tried to support Israel all the
way through. I think Michigan is the one state that
where that might be and put big issue.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yeah, it's just interesting to watch this kind of craven
ploy and he'll just do whatever today actually or tomorrow,
Trump is going to do something with Mary and Adelson
about about stopping anti Semitism. Guy who had dinner with
Nick Fuentes, m with know Holocaust denial Nick Fuentas.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Yeah, yeah, consistency, it was not his strong point.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
My favorite moment is he hates smoking, but he started
taking money from tobacco companies.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Oh of course he may hate smoking, but you like
smoking money.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
It's true. He certainly does like smoking money. And a
lot of that money is going, well, we don't know
where it's going, but I would assume a lot of
it's going to lawyers.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Is this like the cigarette pack because they have a pack.
I don't know, I read the nicotine pack.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
It's big oil. You'll remember he also is steeing a
lot of money from big oil.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Oh. He reached directly out to them and directly said,
give me a billion dollars with it a billion.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, a billion dollars, and I'll save you billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
And yeah, I'll save you more than a billion.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Dollars right in regulation.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
That's the lay to run. That's very effective, canfecting.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
The thing about Trump that I appreciate is that he
really is the quid pro quo thing is kind of
his metie. Well, yes, got to drop a fancy word
in there, but it is true.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Well, quid pro quo. So you went from Latin, the
metier is French. I take it.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Yeah, okay, quid pro yo. I mean that's what Trump does.
It's quid pro quo and you got impeached for it once.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah. Well, threatening not to withhold aid is being attacked
by Russia.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
I have one last question for you. You know, Mitch McConnell,
or have known him a little as much as anyone
under No, Mitch, you think he regrets not letting the
Republicans find him guilty and preventing Trump from running again.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I think he does. I don't know if he feels
guilty now.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I don't think he feels guilty. I'm not I'm not
going to go that far, but I think he regrets it.
Just from an electoral standpoint, I.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Think he does. I mean, they had a chance to
end this endate finally. Of course, if they had convicted him,
then he wouldn't have been able to run and we've
been a whole different world right now.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, so interesting.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
And that was a terrible, terrible speech because there's no doubt.
But you know, President, it's responsible whatever this, you know.
And then he did that butt yeah and turned and
said he can be tried and you know, tried and
by the courts. He didn't know about the immunity clause
(18:36):
or the immunity judgment. Yeah, boy boy, the court is
covering his ass and.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
He really hard. I shouldn't laugh because the Supreme.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Court is Oh I love your laugh. That's one of
my favorite things about you.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Oh, thank you. But the Supreme Court is set it
up to be just a complete an auto chateau on
every measure.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Well, I hope this doesn't somehow get the Spring Court.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, that's I think a lot of anxiety for those
people who believe in small d democracy.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Well, if they you know if they don't certify the state,
you know, the local boards are refusing to certify that,
we could have chaos. Yeah, and there's one scenario where
it goes to the courts.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us, Al Frank
and I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
I absolutely will. Thank you for having me so often.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
We have even more tour dates for you. Did you
know the Lincoln projects Rick Wills that have past politics,
boleijug Fast are heading out on tour to bring you
a night of laughs for our dark political landscape. Join
us on August twenty sixth at San Francisco at the
Swedish American Hall, or in la on August twenty seventh
at the Region Theater. Then we're headed to the Midwest.
We'll be at the Bavariam in Milwaukee on the twenty
(19:53):
first of September, and on the twenty second, we'll be
in Chicago at City Winery. Then we're going to hit
the East coast. On September thirtieth, we'll be in Boston
at Arts at the Armory. On the first of October,
we'll be in affiliate City Winery, and then DC on
the second at the Miracle Theater. And today we just
announced that we'll be in New York on the fourteenth
of October at Citywinery. If you need the laugh as
we get through this election and hopefully never hear from
(20:15):
a guy who lives in a golf club again, we
got you covered. Join us in our surprise guests to
help you laugh instead of cry your way through this
election season and give you the inside analysis of what's
really going on right now. Buy your tickets now by
heading to Politics as Unusual dot bio. That's Politics as
Unusual dot bio.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
JB. Pritzker is a liberal hero and the governor of Illinois.
So welcome to Fast Politics. Governor Pritzker, Molly, great to
be with you, very excited to have you. I'm sure
you know this, but somehow you have become an icon
of the left.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
Well you say that with some surprise.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Well, in my mind as someone who's covered democratic politics,
well you know, there was a certain kind of hostility
towards people who came from enormous wealth, and you saw
that with Bloomberg. But for some reason you have become
a sort of icon of like leftist politics. And it's
just I think it's policy related. But what do you
(21:18):
think it is.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Yeah, No, I think that's right. I mean, I you know,
when I ran for governor in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen,
you can imagine that, you know, nobody was looking for
at that moment, when we had a billionaire governor, Republican
governor of Illinois who was failing, and we had we
had a supposedly billionaire president, Donald Trump, who was failing,
(21:42):
and you know, and so you can imagine that we're
running into democratic primary, people are like, do we really
want to have, you know, a wealthy guy as our representative,
our nominee. And so I spent you know, a year
on the campaign trail answering that question and talking to
people about what I had done in my life and
what I leave And you know, I'm a pragmatic progressive
(22:02):
for lack of a better term, but you know, I'm
a progressive, and you know, and I think there were
people I won the primary. There were six people in
the primary. I got forty five percent of the vote,
and I think people there were still doubters even going
into the general election. They pulled the lever for me,
you know, in the November election in twenty eighteen. But
I think some thought, well, I don't know if this
(22:23):
guy's really what I'm looking for. So I knew that
I had to prove to people who I am by
actually effectuating the policies that I was advocating. And that meant,
you know, things like, well, the very first bill that
I pushed through and signed was raising the minimum wage
from eight dollars to twenty five cents to fifteen dollars.
You know, we passed a massive infrastructure bill. I stood
(22:47):
up for workers' rights. In fact, my first day on
the job, I signed a series of executive orders to
protect workers. And then don't forget that we were, you know,
battling Donald Trump in many ways, and so, you know,
standing up for you know, Donald Trump and pulled the
country out of the Crick Parish Climate Accords.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
And yeah, so.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
We in Illinois and I pledged as governor that in Illinois,
we're going to live by those Parish climate accords. And
so we joined the US Climate Alliance, and then I
helped to pass the probably the most comprehensive climate action
bill in the country. So yeah, I mean I had
to prove So that's the long winded answer to your
short question. I had to prove who I really am,
(23:31):
and I think I've consistently done that.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yeah, I mean it's an underwritten story because nobody writes
about policy, because why would they. But we are seeing
a number of democratic governor's past policy, you know, like,
for example, the case against Governor Walls was that he
was too progressive, but he had passed a lot of
the same policy that you had, and a lot of
the same policy that Josh Shapiro had, Right, I mean,
(23:55):
these are these sort of bold democratic policy positions which
shouldn't be so bold.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
I'll be a little braggadocious and say I did it
before all of them, and they didn't have to be clear,
at least in actually in all three of those states,
they didn't have a democratic legislature to work with, so
you know, they wanted to get it done. But I
have to say I helped all three of those people
running for governor when they ran, and also in the
(24:23):
case of Whitmer and Walls when they ran for reelection
as well as helped to win the legislatures in their
states so that they could effectuate these things too. And
so we have this great camaraderie and cadre of democratic
governors including Andy Basher, who really has it tough in
Kentucky and do'f at Tony Evers people leave him out.
(24:45):
But anyway, Yeah, so I think we have this great
cadre of politicians who have lived up to their word
and fought hard to get things done and have made
real change here in the center of the country.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
I think of free breakfasts for school kids read lunches,
that kind of you know, feeding hungry children as one
of these policies too. Where is that sort of part
of the policy portfolio too?
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Well, of course, I mean, you know, one of the
early policies that I've pushed, you know, universal childcare, universal preschool,
and of course feeding school breakfast. You know, that is
perhaps even more important than school lunch, I might add,
just because so many kids come to school hungry and
for the first half of the day before they even
(25:30):
get to lunch, you know, they're sitting in class, their
stomachs are grumbling. You know, the science has proven that
it's hard for them to learn. Their brains aren't really
active if they're not nourished. And by the way, these
are not liberal policy, you know, I really believe these
are not liberal. These are just common sense policies, and
it's the result of science that we know that. You know,
(25:50):
the earlier you can, you know, provide childhood development programs,
the better off these kids are. That most of the
brain development that occurs for every child starts, you know,
the most of it occurs before they reach the age
of six. And so if you don't nourish that, if
you don't assist in that and help parents, by the way,
(26:13):
not just in preschool, but before that, you know, you're
going to have kids whose lives, you know, in trauma,
are going to lead to underdevelopment of their brains. And
of course development occurs of your brain till you're in
your early twenties and then you know, now, of course
I'm at an age where my brain is deteriorating.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Who among us you were sort of in this vetted
group for vice president? I have heard smarter podcasters. Then
I push the people who were in that group to
sort of talk about it. What was your feeling about that,
and would you have wanted to do it, and sort
of you know, did you want that?
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Well, I think they asked all of us at the
very front end, you know, we'd like to consider you
and put you through this process is it's something you'd
be willing to do. And so I don't think there
was anybody that was being vetted that it hadn't said
yes to that first question. But then you know that
the process itself is you know, even though in that
normal year where we're not switching out nominees, you know,
(27:18):
in the middle of the summer. I've talked to Tammy Duckworth,
who was considered in twenty twenty for Joe Biden's running mate,
and Senator Duckworth here from Illinois. You know, it told me,
you know, it was a three four five month process,
and she had every question you could imagine, and she said,
you got to expect that, well, this was more like
(27:39):
a ten day process, and so you know it was
some days we're hours and hours of you know, sitting
and talking to this committee of folks who were helping
the vice president get through the group of us. And
I didn't talk to any of the others during the process,
but I can say, at least for me, it was
(28:00):
you know, the hardest part was it involves your family,
and so you know, you're going to your spouse and
your children. In my case, they're young adult children in
college and saying like, you know, hey, can you hand
me the keys to your social media? And you can imagine,
you know, the reaction that you get. It's even if
(28:20):
you have nothing in there that would be problematic. You
can imagine my son and daughter kind of saying like, well,
that's a real invasion of my desrocracy. You know, I'm
not the one who's being vetted. It's you. So anyway,
but they were, you know, they were absolutely cooperative and
willing and cheering me on. But yeah, so the process
was ruling in it for ten days. I can't imagine
(28:42):
what three or four months would be like. I mean,
it was flattering, you know, because I kind of figured, well,
at some point, you know, in the ten days, they're
going to call me and say, listen, you know, thanks
but no thanks or or thanks, but we've got our
top two and you're not one of them. To be honest,
I mean, this thing for me went all the way through,
you know, the Sunday before the announcement, which was a
(29:03):
day when on television they were saying, you know, well
we think it's probably you know, either Tim Walls or
Josh Shapiro, and you know, and yet they were still
asking me questions and vetting me. So anyway, I was
honored to be part of it. And honestly, I you know,
it is so important that we win that I wanted to,
you know, do anything, and I still believe, you know,
(29:25):
I will do anything that it takes to campaign for
and to help Vice President Kamla Heris become Madam president.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
There was something that happened this summer. There was so
much anxiety on the part of Democrats and on the
part of all people who believe in small d democracy
about this ticket changeover. But it really has gone as
well as anything could ever go, right.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
I can't remember. I mean, I of course, you know,
when Barack Obama was running, and it was the summer
of twenty oh eight, I guess I felt about the
same way, which was we can win. And you know,
John McCain of course was the opposition at the time.
But the polls didn't show that Barack Obama was going
to you know, run away with it or or have
(30:12):
an easy time. And so I feel very much like
this was like that, except for one other thing, which is,
you know, Kamala Harris had not gone through the whole
process of the primaries, so I think there were people
who felt like they didn't know her as well. You know,
going through primaries is awful. Having been through a couple,
(30:32):
you know, when you're kind of fighting your friends, but
you're out there in the public and people are seeing
all your warts and all your you know, the things
you have to offer. So for Kamala Harris, I think
that and for all of us, you know, it was
like it was a bit of a surprise to put
her forward, not that she wasn't the right person, it
was just like, you know, we all thought we were
going to fight a battle for Joe Biden, and now
(30:53):
we're in a battle for Kamala Harris. But I have
to say, the excitement level, oh my goodness, the electricity.
And I I hate to put it on my children
as the example, but no, but it's good. They're nineteen
and twenty one, and you know they're Democrat and they
you know, they would say to me, you know, every
time we'd have the news on and they'd see Joe Biden,
they look at me and say, you know, I know
(31:16):
we have to be Donald Trump, but Joe Biden's just
too old. And yeah, and I would say, but he
stands for all the things you care about, and even
if you think he's old, you know, he's got a
lot of experience.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
And so on.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
And they just keep looking at me and saying, yeah,
it's hard to get excited about that. And so, you know,
and I was all in, you know, for for Joe
Biden's So when it became Coambla Harris, I mean like,
not twenty four forty eight hours later, you know, my
children are like, you know, let's go, you know, you know,
they're ready to knock on doors. No.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
I mean, I have a twenty year old who's in college,
and I was like, you have to get everybody to
vote and make sure that people vote. And he goes
to a very small kind of niche place. I don't
even want to say where because I'm so paranoid, but
he was like, I'm having real trouble getting people at
all interested in this candidate.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
Both my kids are in swing states in college. Yeah,
and you know, Illinois. They're they were registered in Illinois
because you know, because you know, that's where they turned eighteen,
but they have both said they're reregistering because now they
live in those states most of the year in college.
So I didn't. They've you know, joined the local canvassing effort.
(32:28):
But both of them are on campus, you know, talking
to their friends about voting for Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Yeah. I also think Tim Walls has been really good
at speaking to younger people too. Okay, so here's my question.
You have this family of service too, because your sister
served in the Obama administration. We are right now in
a news cycle filled with a lot of very wealthy
people who have decided that the capital gains tax is
(32:58):
the most important issue. You that keeping these tax cuts.
I mean, you know a lot of the reason why
people are voting for Trump is because these Trump tax
cuts expire in twenty twenty five. So can you speak
to sort of why it's just absolutely ethically, you know,
morally appalling to just vote for a tax cut, and
(33:21):
sort of more generally, why Democrats are actually good for
the economy.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
More broadly, it's morally appalling in my view that they're
good people, good people that are leaning towards or have
decided to vote for Donald Trump. Yes, there are moments
when I feel like, how on earth can you possibly
but you know, they have justified it in their own
minds that you know he's a terrible person, but the policies.
And let me also add that you you thank you
(33:47):
for mentioning that I have a family of service. My
father was a cryptoanalyst in the Navy in Tokyo or
actually in Yakoska, Japan, listening to Soviet submarine transmiss My
mother was an activist in the sixties and seventies for
reproductive rights at LGBTQ.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Right.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
So yeah, we were a family that you know, believes
in public service. So I think the reason it is
morally repugnant to me the idea of Donald Trump becoming
president again, and as a governor who had to serve
at the time when Donald Trump was president, and especially
when we needed the federal government to step up and
(34:27):
protect the people of our state. I mean, he acted
in exactly the opposite ways you would hope and expect
the federal government to. And when I think about it,
in my entire life, you know, I now have greater
appreciation for people like Bob Dole and Jackie and you know,
and the many p Howard Baker and and you know,
even George H. W. Bush, because I now, you know,
(34:51):
have a greater appreciation for their dedication to just some
basic principles of you know, patriotic ideas about what it
is to stand up for, you know, the integrity the
future of our nation and its institutions. I never in
my life imagined that we would have somebody at the
top of the Republican ticket who I would oppose on
(35:14):
anything other than policy ground. To me, this is about
care and you know their moral compass. That's who Donald
Trump and JD.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Vance.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
You know, I think it's so befitting that.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Donald Trump picked JD.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
Vance, who is just like a mini and and who
just like Donald Trump in his life. In Jade Vance's life,
he has simply blown with the wind where whatever got
him ahead. That's where it was. Remember, Donald Trump at
one point in his life was a Democrat. At at
one point in his life, he was pro choice. That's
not a forgiving statement. That's the point out. You never
(35:47):
know from one day to the next, when he tells
you where he stands on something, where he actually stands,
and that I think is again evidence of a lack
of a moral compass. So I'm appalled by it all.
And that's one of the reasons that I fought so
hard against him in twenty sixteen. You know, I was
there on election night in twenty sixteen, and I remember
(36:10):
my wife and I, you know, after seeing all these
people leave, you know, the Javit Center, saying out loud,
you know, well, I don't want anything to do with
politics anymore if Donald Trump can become the president. And
my wife and I had exactly the opposite thought, which is,
now we need to do twice as much because it's
even more dangerous than ever. So, you know, in sixteen
(36:31):
and twenty and now here at twenty four, I mean
it's you know, I'm on the road doing everything I
can to make sure that Donald Trump loses and more
importantly that this terrific ticket of you know, Kamala Harris
and Tim Walls. I'm gonna say one more thing about
Tim Walls. I've gotten to know him as a governor,
as a fellow Midwestern governor, and you know, of course
he's the head of the DGA, but he is a
(36:52):
guy with a big heart, just a genuinely good person.
And when you contrast that with the other ticket, you know,
Kambala Harris, Tim Wallas just represents so much of what
I think we should look for in public service.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Yeah, So true, you don't have a term limit, so
you could just be governor of Illinois forever and ever.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Do you want me to make news here? Is that
what you're yes? Yes, yeah, thank you for pointing that out.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
I'm sure you've never thought of that.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
I have joked.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
That that my wife is my term limits, but not
to put all that on her. She's been such a
great partner. Yeah. I mean, I love the job I have,
and I've said that so many times when people have
asked me, you know what, you are you going to
run for president someday or planning to you know, do
you want to be in somebody's cabinet? You know, I
really do love the job in the and the big
(37:44):
improvements we've made here in Illinois, and and the job
ahead because you know, there's so much more to do.
So I don't know whether I'll run for re election,
but I have pointed out to people the fact that
Illinois is a blue state in everybody's minds. You ought
to step back and remember that democratic governor has served
eight years. If I simply finished the term i'm in,
(38:04):
I will be the longest serving Democratic governor at the
history of Illinois. So you know, that's for a variety
of reasons. Sometimes it's you know, illness and death. Sometimes
you know when they've gone to prison. I hope neither
one of those happens to me, but you know, it
still would be an accomplishment simply to finish two terms
and have I think a solid record of accomplishment here.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Thank you, Governor Pritzgar, 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 up 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, we have
(38:45):
just released the final episode of this five episode series.
They're all available by looking up Molly Jong Fast Project
twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if you are more
of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber, you
can hit play and put your phone in the lock
screen and it will play back just like the podcast.
(39:05):
All five episodes are online now. We need to educate
Americans on what Trump's second term would or could do
to this country, so please watch it and spread the word.
Dan Osborne is an independent candidate for Senate in Nebraska.
Welcome to Fast Politics, Dan.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Osborne, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I'm so excited to have you. So this is like
a super interesting Senate race, and it came to my
notice like about a month ago. And then there was
this incredible pull you guys just had which showed you
at a dead heat with the pretty unpopular woman you're
running against. Talk to me about why you decided to
(39:48):
run for Senate in the state of Nebraska.
Speaker 5 (39:51):
Well, I haven't always been a political person. It really
wasn't until corporate greed came knocking on my door a
few years ago. I was a present cident BCTGM Local
fifty G the spell out that's Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and
Grain Millers Union. I was in what we land under
the grain miller category. But during COVID, as essential workers,
(40:13):
we were all working seven days a week, twelve hours
a day. There's four manufacturing plants under the umbrella of
our master contract, but as essential workers, we were working
those hours. At one point in time, fifty percent of
our workforce was forced quarantine and or sick. But we
made them record profits. You know, we still kept the
plants running. At one hundred percent capacity. They went from
(40:34):
nineteen billion dollars to twenty one billion dollars. The CEO
gave himself a two million dollar raise, the board enriched themselves,
the stockholders enriched themselves, and our contract expired that year.
We figured, you know, it's going to be a no brainer,
would get a little sliver of the pipe. But instead,
the first day negotiations, Kellogg set across the table from
us and they said, we're going to go after your
(40:55):
health insurance. We're going to go after your cost of
living wage adjustment, which was our own only form a
wage increases designed to keep us even with inflation, and
we know how that's gone. And then they're going to
implement a permanent two tier wage system with no path
for a lower tier employee to make it to the
upper tier. So effectively, eventually everybody's going to be on
the lower tier. So for me as president, that was
(41:16):
mycrap moment. There hadn't been a strike in Nebraska since
nineteen seventy two, so I had to learn what that meant.
So I did my due diligence leading up to October fifth, midnight,
you know, setting up picketing schedules and every drumming up
early support, so we could not come to an agreement.
It's still my belief today that Kellogg's had no intention
of coming to an agreement. So we shut down four
(41:36):
North American plants and we walked off the job to
reserve our wages and benefits. Certainly one of the hardest
things I've had to do, take five hundred of my
friends and their families out into the great unknown, not
knowing if we're going to have a job at the
end of it. But we all felt we were on
the right side of history. So, you know, I was
able to get Republican congressmans out to the picket line,
Republican mayor and was able to get him to draft
(41:57):
a letter or excuse me, Governor, to this CEO, Steve Khlane,
imploring him to get our people back to work. So
just a few of the things I did during that
time to put pressure on Calloggs, you know, and we're
on strike for seventy seven days, and I remember walking
back into my manufacturing plan just feeling an enormous sense
of pride what we were able to accomplish five hundred
jobs in Nebraska and fifteen hundred around the country, and
(42:19):
that's why I'm doing this today. I want to continue
to be a voice for working people because what it
taught me is if we band together around common causes
and issues, we can make a change, a real good change,
positive change in everyday people's lives.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
You're not a Democrat, You're running as an independent. Explain
to us that decision.
Speaker 5 (42:36):
Well, I've always been a registered independent since the beginning
when I when I registered to vote. I just have
an independent spirit. And I know it's handicapped me voting
in primaries and things like that, but you know, George
Washington and the framers of the Constitution warned us of
the two factions, which is the two parties, and what
it could lead to. And I think we're finding ourselves
there today in the form of also, well, corporations to me,
(42:59):
are you know, in geting the money out of influencing elections,
corporate money ending citizens united? So those things are extremely
important to me because until well, I'll preface that with
we're being different. We're not taking any corporate money. I
don't want to be beholden to a corporation. I want
to be beholden to the people in Nebraska again, like
the founding fathers intended it to be a government buying
(43:21):
for the people, not a government for corporations.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
In one percent, explain to us a little bit about
what your state looks like. It's a red state, but
explain to us sort of what the path is.
Speaker 5 (43:34):
It is a red state. But you know, there is
no Democrat in my race, so it's making it very interesting.
But most people I go out to, my broad stroke
message is, you know, getting the corporations out of our politics.
I tell everybody. Robin Williams, a comedian, said it best
when he said, our politicians should be wearing Nascar jackets
with patches of their sponsors so we know how they're
(43:55):
going to vote. And Senator Fisher, we actually made up
a Nascar jacket for her with all patches that I
take with me to the debates because she refuses to debate,
so we hold them anyway when we just have her
jacket there. But it's resonating with everybody. It doesn't matter
whether you're a Republican or Democrat. I think Nebraska's got
a pretty big independent spirit. You know, we boast having
(44:16):
a nonpartisan unicameral for our state legislature so people are
used to independence. There's over three hundred thousand registered independence
in Nebraska. It's the fastest growing demographic of young people
registering to vote. So where we're at, people are just
you know, they're becoming fed up.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Yeah, explain to us what your opponent. She said she
was only going to run two terms. This is her
third term. She used to had a lot of promises
that she hasn't been able to fulfill or chosen not
to write.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (44:46):
Correct, Yeah, she signed a pledge to run for twos.
You know, she's bad on rail Nebraska is a huge
railroad state. We have the biggest rail yard in the
world in North Platte, Nebraska. We just had another derailment,
our fifth the railment in just over two months. She
consistently votes against the Rail Safety Act, and she actually
headed the Transportation committee that allowed railroads to police their
(45:09):
own safety right.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
Never a good sign.
Speaker 5 (45:12):
Yeah, and they actually have a certain level of death
as acceptable in their safety programs. So it's four of
her top eleven donors are Class one railroads. So you
know she takes their money and consistently votes against the workers.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
She also said she wasn't going to run for reelection,
but has changed her mind, right right, Explain that to us.
Speaker 5 (45:33):
Well, you know, I would put it to again, going
back to the founding fathers, the framers of the Constitution.
It was this government was meant to come from your
farms and your factories. Do a term or two and
go back. These days, you know, we have people going
into their nineties, they've done their whole career. Dev Fisher's
been in politics longer than my campaign manager has been alive.
(45:53):
People are seeing that. People are frustrated with it, especially
the fact that you know, her whole is based off
of a lie. That's certainly something that gets brought up
a lot when I'm doing town halls. I've done over
one hundred and thirty publicly advertised town halls since twenty seventeen.
She hasn't done one since twenty seventeen. People are seeing
(46:14):
that as well. I think she feels like she doesn't
have to.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Are you connecting with people? And how is it going
through this state? I mean, I feel like the city
is different than the rest of the state, right, I
mean what does the state look like?
Speaker 5 (46:26):
Yeah, so, Omaha and Lincoln make up about half the
population and the other half spread Oh, Wow spread out
through the rest of the state, so I was concerned
how people were going to receive me as I traveled
to the Panhandle and the western part of the state.
But I'm pleasantly surprised because I relate to them on
a level that you know, I've worked in a factory
for twenty years. I know what it's like to put
(46:48):
in eight, twelve, sixteen hour days and come home and
your feet hurt, your hands hurt, your back hurts, everything hurts.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
And a lot of these.
Speaker 5 (46:56):
People in Nebraska are just just like me. They're just
hard work people that don't want to get taxed to
death and want some affordable groceries, maybe put some money
aside for their kids's college things like that. So it's
been nice. And you know, and again, I've always worked
sixty seventy hours a week, so I've never got out
to see my state in the capacity that I'm doing.
(47:17):
So now I've never got to go to the state
Fair or this thing called Wayne Chicken Days and all
the things throughout throughout the state. I've really fell in
love with it and the people in it. It's been great.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
It's interesting to me, Like one of the things Democrats
have had a really hard time with is connecting with
voters who you know, work in factories or work with
their hands. The AD has been a group that used
to reliably vote Democratic, and Trump has made real inroads
with that group of white voters. And it seems counterintuitive
(47:53):
because a lot of it is, you know, Trump wants
to take away your healthcare, wants to lower taxes for billionaires,
and somehow people are voting for that. What do you
think the secret is to like explaining to people just
what Democrats have to offer to them.
Speaker 5 (48:07):
I don't get into much about Republican democrat when I'm
out at my events. We just focus on issues and policies.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
But a lot of the Republican policies aren't so good
for working people.
Speaker 5 (48:19):
My public town hall events, we talk about policies, and
what I'm finding is we agree as a people on
ninety percent if not more, on issues and policies. Sometimes
we don't always agree on necessarily how to get there,
but it's definitely been given me out for the future.
We are not as divide as media would lead us
(48:41):
to believe, at least That's what I'm seeing on the ground.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Yeah, No, definitely true. Talk to me about when you
talk to people on the ground there, what are they
most concerned with?
Speaker 5 (48:51):
I'd say top three in the economy slash inflation. Second
would be border border security as well as you know,
having some meaning immigration reform. And the third and that's interesting,
you know, you think why Nebraska would care about that.
It's a huge meat packing state, so we have to
have a lot of immigrants working in those meat packing facilities.
(49:12):
And then the third, you know, the thirds probably I
suppose a toss up individual liberties. Protecting individual liberties is
important to people. Real people certainly don't like government mandates.
And then anywhere else, depending on the room, you know, education, healthcare,
things like that fall in line.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
On the ground. Do you hear people remembering what Trump
was like or do you think they still feel like
he's an outsider? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (49:37):
I think I think people remember for the most part,
and there's people whose main concern for whatever that reason,
on the border, they tend to lean towards Trump or
his outward stance. I suppose on securing the border. There's
plenty of farmers who especially Soy being farmers who are
(49:57):
still hurting from the Trump tariffs, right, you know, they
see the danger in tariffs. I tend not to dive
too much into the top of the ticket. I'm certainly
focused on my race. You know, I'm going to have
to work with whoever gets elected as president. So you know,
Nebraska's probably going to come in sixty to fifty eight percent,
sixty percent for Trump again, I would assume like they
(50:19):
did last time, and everybody has their own reasons.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Yeah. Though, that's a really good point about the tariffs
and the soybean farmers, because what percentage of your state
is so you have me packing, I mean, the big
businesses in the state are wide.
Speaker 5 (50:36):
Yeah, it's mostly agriculture related. And then if you get
into Omaha and Lincoln, you have a lot of manufacturing
there as well. So yeah, i'd say agriculture manufacturing.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Yeah, and soybing. A lot of these farmers were affected
by tariffs, and then they were given financial help from
the government, but a lot of farmers don't like that, right.
Speaker 5 (51:00):
Farmers do not like that because it's you know, it
cuts into their bottom line and going out. And that's
what I talk to farmers every day, and we talk
about how both parties seemingly are kicking the can down
the road on court shoes and the farm bill. The
farm bell is going to expire again on September thirtieth,
(51:20):
and if we can't come to an agreement on the
farm bill, the farmers are going to continue to suffer.
You know, bushel prices are going to remain stagnant. And
you know, we have to keep our farmers profitable. That
goes with teachers and nursing too. If we can't keep
these people profitable, they're not going to do it anymore,
plain and simple, and probably around two or less than
two percent of our population in this country feeds the
(51:42):
rest of us. So we got to make it profitable.
We have to keep it sustainable with the environment. We
have to keep it sustainable with the crops and the
meats as far as being safe to eat, and they're
the third thing about being sustainable is they have to
be profitable. And so we have to update our crop insurance.
And I think we need update our crop insurance to
help benefit smaller family farms because that's starting to go
(52:04):
away too. It's favoring the corporate farmer. We've got a
lot of work to do and we can't keep playing
politics with things like this is dangerous.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
Yeah, I also think that the fact that the farm
bell is really bad, that that has not been addressed,
that they've been waiting around on that. Do people make
the connection when you're out there talking to farmers between
climate change and farming.
Speaker 5 (52:26):
You know, we sit on the Oglalla Aquifer here in
this state, a huge aquifer of fresh water, and studies
are indicating that it's lowering the amount of water. So
that's alarming to say the least. I think at the
end of the day, whether you know a farmer wants
to put solar or wind on his farm or not,
(52:47):
they all agree we need to be we need to
be pursuing everything to eventually get off of fossil fuels.
And obviously it can't happen immediately, but the end result
of climate change is going to be droughts. And if
you're having drought and you can't can wattery, then you
can't grow stuff, you can't feed livestock, and that's starvation.
(53:08):
So it's it's pretty important. I think most everybody you know,
unless they don't believe in it, sees the value of
trying to do anything we can to get ahead of it.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
If you're a farmer, you must believe in it right
because it's happening or not necessarily.
Speaker 5 (53:22):
Not necessarily, it depends, it goes. I try to talk
to everybody as consumers of media. It's difficult. It's difficult
to be a consumer of media. For example, I was
in North Platte, Nebraska when President Trump got convicted of
thirty nine counts. I actually crossed a time zone that
morning or that day before, so I actually had an
extra hour before i'd get to an event. So I
(53:44):
watched thirty minutes of Fox News on it and then
I watched thirty minutes of either MSNBC or CNN, can't
remember which. But the thirty minutes I was watching a
Fox News, I was like, man, this guy's getting a
raw deal. They're after him. I switched to the next
news channel and I was like, man, this guy's guilty,
you know, But where's the truth?
Speaker 1 (54:02):
Lie?
Speaker 5 (54:03):
Is he getting headhunted or or is he guilty?
Speaker 4 (54:06):
You know?
Speaker 5 (54:06):
And so you have to find news sources and you know,
podcasts like this where people are speaking freely and not
paid for by Murdoch or somebody else, and find the truth.
But it's difficult. And then you throw in, you know,
you throw in social media people are irresponsible. They'll see
something they don't even click open it, and they won't
even read it or fact check it, and they'll just
repost it.
Speaker 1 (54:27):
It's kind of scary, yeah, I mean, I also think
that the more people can just see stuff that is
real people talking, like c Span, where they can just
listen to the actual people talking, the better off they
are at making decisions. You were also in the army
and the navy.
Speaker 5 (54:45):
YEP Nebraska Army National Guard than.
Speaker 1 (54:48):
The Navy arm services are having trouble recruiting thoughts.
Speaker 5 (54:51):
That's twofold. Seventy two percent of our military age males
are unfit to serve. And that goes back to what
we feed ourselves. My wife and I did this food
trading deal, you know where you trade food with other countries,
and we traded food. I remember with Australia one time,
and we got the packaging from Australia and there.
Speaker 4 (55:12):
Is no there.
Speaker 5 (55:12):
Mac and cheese was like macaroni and cheese, nothing fake
or you know, colored. And so what we're feeding our
population is certainly partly to blame. And secondly, you know,
ultimately it's a business. You have to pay people, and
you have to pay them a fair wage, otherwise they're
not going to want.
Speaker 2 (55:32):
To do it.
Speaker 5 (55:33):
Same with you have one soldier on food stamps, you're
doing it wrong. We have to figure out how to
better pay our airmen and sailors and soldiers.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
Yeah, agreed, agreed, agreed, Thank you so much, thank you,
thank you, Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 6 (55:50):
No moment, Jesse Canon, you know by you mentioned at
the top of the show, this guy bark rothtson. I
like to think of Mark Robinson as the greatest gift
to Democrats aside from Trump's setup picks. But the second
greatest gift to Democrats is JD Vance.
Speaker 2 (56:11):
JD.
Speaker 1 (56:12):
I don't care if they're here legally or not. Vance
just wants you to know that even if you have
a greeden card, he and Donald Trump may decide to
deport you. Look, man, there are a couple of really
bad Donald Trump picks. Bernie Marino in the great state
of Ohio. We got in Pennsylvania McCormick running again and
(56:37):
losing or at least polling like he's losing. We just
have a lot. And then Mark Robinson in North Carolina,
who has an OPO file. The size of the iliad
was more to come and so these incredible candidates showing
us that trump Ism doesn't scale. That is our moment
of fuck Ray. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
(57:00):
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.
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 Mark Robinson says he will not
drop out of the North Carolina governor's race, and every
Democrat says, thank you, Mark Robinson. We have such a
great show for you. Today, Illinois Governor JB. Pritzker stops
(00:22):
by to talk to us about his progressive governing despite
being very, very rich. Then we'll talk to Nebraska independent
candidate for Senate, the one the only, Dan Osborne, about
his run. But first we have the former senator and
a host of the Al Franken podcast, your friend of mine,
the one the Only Al Franken. Welcome back, my friend,
(00:46):
Al Franken.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Thank you, my friend.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
We're friends. Listen. I cannot believe that House Republicans are
eleven days from a government shutdown. I mean we are
about like pole are going to be voting, or they
are voting. I think some states have already started voting.
But Republicans have betrayed all conventional wisdom and have decided
(01:12):
that this is the play.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah. I can't believe the Senate will go along with that,
but the House they supposed could do it. Either House
can do it, right.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, I mean it's so funny because it's like it
is preposterous and ridiculous. Basically, they had a cr that
had in it the Save Act, which prevents non citizens
from voting in federal elections. By the way, non citizens
cannot vote.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Cannot vote anyway.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
So fine, fine, right, why not? But he can't pass it.
One of my favorite things about Mike Johnson is that
he said, well, we're just going to take it up
anyway because we may be able to pass it. And
I was listening to one of those inside the podcast
by you know, Congressional Reporting Organization, and they were talking
about how actually they have never seen anyone be a
(01:58):
Speaker of the House and up bills. They were pretty
sure we're going to face right like Pelosi.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
She never did that, right, I mean, you.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Just wouldn't do that.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, you make account and if you're going to lose,
you don't put it up. But he's done it routinely,
hasn't he?
Speaker 1 (02:15):
So is this a new error of institutionalized in competence?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
I guess. So this speaks to the importance of electing
Democratic House members. Yeah, I got one fifteenth District of
New York. Josh Riley, who was my judiciary council is
running and against a guy named Mellinary. We need to
be Mollinary.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah. So this is a really good segue into what's
happening right now because for Democrats to control the House
of Representatives, that road runs right through Long.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Island, Long Island, and upstate New York. Yeah, in California.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
And that is why Donald Trump went to Long Island
last night to have a rally.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
See, he's selfless. He's selfless because he knows he can't
win New York and yet he wanted to help the
House members. What a guy.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
One of the things that I was struck by with
this Long Island rally was that picketing outside of the
Long Island rally were a group with a sign. They
were a group that has been routinely targeted by Trump.
They are Haitian Americans, and the sign said we don't
eat pets, but we do vote.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
That's very pointed.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, what could they be referring.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
To Springfield, which I accidentally call Simpsons, Ohio every once
in a while, but Springfield, Ohio. You know, it's interesting.
I have a story about a town in Minnesota that
kind of parallels Springfield a little bit.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yes, let's hear it.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
It's Wilmer, Minnesota, which is the county seat of Candy
Yohigh County. It's like in the south central part of
the state. Minnesota is the number one producer of turkeys,
and Wilmer is the county seat of Candy Yoha County,
and they have a Jeneo packing plant there, so they've
attracted a lot of immigrants over the years. About I
don't know, thirty percent of the town is Hispanic and
(04:09):
about fifteen percent is Somali. And one of their high
school juniors, Muna Abdulahi, became one of our pages a
Senate pages when I was in the Senate and we
picked her. My office picked her. And I remember seeing
her the first time when a new class came in
and she was wearing a key job and I said,
you look like a Minnesotan and she I don't think
(04:31):
she laughed her that she smiled. But I got to
know Muna as she is a fabulous woman. And then
a year later she was one of the commencement speakers.
Was chosen to be one of the commencement speakers. So
I said I'd introduce her, and I went to Wilmer
and it was the most beautiful ceremony I'd ever seen,
including my wedding, which wasn't much of it. We just
(04:54):
went to Firk's office, so I wasn't much anyway. So
so there were I looked at. They had every name
of every graduate and there were two hundred and thirty
six of them, and about fifteen percent were of German
or Norwegian extraction, about thirty percent Hispanic, and about fifteen
(05:16):
percent Somali. And then they started pumping circumstances and their
caps and gowns, and it was led by Muna because
her last name is Abdulahi, so she was first alphabet.
And they go down the center aisle and she's holding
hands with one of the Carlson twins. I think Mary Carlson,
who goes so when they get to the fund, she
goes off. Carlson goes to the left on the lah
(05:37):
he goes to the right. It was very beautiful. All
the kids hold held hands. These are this community is
just totally together. They had three class speakers. One was
the valedictorian, who was a girl who came from Peru.
Her family came from Peru, and one was Tate Hofland,
(05:58):
the class president, who was had Norwegian and half German,
and another was was Muna. And when Muna got up
to she she gave this speech and got this standio based.
So then they were canning out to the ployas and
they said, okay, everybody, nobody stand or nobody applaud because
we got a whole class to get through, so we
(06:20):
don't want So Muna was first because she was her alphabetically,
so Muna Aduwahi and they all started cheering, and the
parents and family were in the bleachers and they started
stomping on the bleachers from Muna, and they did this
for every frigging kid. This town was sewed together, and
the town worked because of the immigration, because the Geneo
(06:44):
factory brought the Hispanic population there and brought this the
Somali population there. And Springfield is a different kind of town.
It is an agricultural town. But Muna, so I went.
I went to an election day that year. It was sixteen,
and I saw her on the campus. I saw moving
(07:05):
at the University of Minnesota. I was going to speak
at the Democratic headquarters on campus and came up to
me and told me her sister had been elected Homecoming Queen.
That's America, you know. Yeah, I'm sorry. That story always
kind of breaks me up.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
It is, and I mean, there was a great opinion
piece in the Washington Post yesterday from Edwig Donticot, who
is an incredible Haitian American writer and a friend of
my mother's who went to Barnard and has won many
prizes and is really a rock star in the business.
(07:43):
And she talked about how what it was like growing
up as a Haitian immigrant in America and how her
teachers used to keep the Haitian kids late so they
didn't get beat up when they left school, and you know,
just the kind of you know, they endured all the
violence in Haiti and then they come to this country
and Republicans and some other people are just terrible to them,
(08:07):
and it just really hurt my heart because my great
grandparents came to this country and had the same experience.
And now we're in twenty twenty four and we have
to continue to live like this.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, we're almost all immigrants except for American Indians.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
And enslaved, you know, brought over to slaves.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Yeah, my grandparents came over and Jews when we first
came over, we're rejuiced against. But according to the mayor
and everybody, this town was working. Yeah, until this happened,
until jd Vance spread a rumor that he knew wasn't true.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
The mayor, the governor Dwine and also shut it down.
And you'll remember Dwine ran twenty points ahead of jd
Vance in Ohio. So it makes a lot of sense.
But yeah, it's just a terrible thing to have to
watch this happen just because Donald Trump wants to change
the conversation from his terrible debate performance and his anemic.
(09:02):
You know, his ideas of a plan was it ideas
of a plan for.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Healthcare, which will come out two weeks.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, two weeks. So it is kind of amazing. But
I want to go back to this Republican's inability to
govern because one of the things the Senate is doing,
and I think Trick Schumer has been smart about this,
is that they are again. Yesterday they did this IVF
codifying IVF Bill and Tom Cotton. Again Republicans voted against it.
(09:33):
Tom Cotton went on CNN Caitln Collins told her that
he was absolutely not going to vote for it because
he doesn't you know, doesn't want to codify IVF.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
He believes that a fertilized egg is a human being
frozen for a live's egg.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Wow, But I can't believe that fifty of them or
what was it, forty nine of them? Believe that forty
nine US senators A lot.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Of them didn't show up. I think there's some amount
show up for that vote.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
I know Van Vance didn't show up.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Mister IVF did not show up. Yeah, I don't know
who else didn't show up.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Well, Trump says he wants to pay for everyone's IVF
if insurance or the government doesn't pay for it. I mean,
he wants the government to pay for it.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
That's right, a government free IVF for every man, woman
and child.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
So how come he didn't tell his centators vote the
right way?
Speaker 1 (10:23):
It's ironic, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Because it's iroqnic Yess.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
It's almost as if the guy is completely full of shit. No,
but I mean, this is the point in the election
cycle where Trump is basically saying anything he can to
get elected.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, in including all kinds of stuff about immigrants and
also threatening election officials that he'll put them in jail
after he wins.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
And yeah, they don't do the right thing.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
It's so bizarre if that works. But I suppose if
he's on immigration, he feels like he's winning on that ground.
I don't know why he didn't tell his guys or
his senators to vote for the IVF. But he's puzzling
to me in one way and puzzling in another way,
which is nothing He does really surprise me.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Yeah, one of the things that I think is interesting
is like he's just redoing the playbook again and again.
So you know, like one of the things he was
talking about yesterday, he was saying, what do you have
to lose? That's something he said in twenty sixteen, right,
I mean he even said, now he's saying that he's
going to lower people's insurance. I don't know how he
would do that. He's say, it's lead the guy doesn't
(11:33):
believe in climate change is going to address the reason
that insurance is so high.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Oh, I see, it's insurance on your house which is
near body of water.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Right. But then and he's even said, I mean, he's
just sort of throwing stuff out there to see. He
said he would undo the salt deduction. So you'll remember
that one of the things that Republicans did in this
massive tax cut was maked so that you couldn't aduct
state and local taxes. The reason that did this was
because they wanted to punish states that had high state
(12:03):
taxes like.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
New York and California and blue states. Blue states states.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Where they spend money on education and social programs, and
so the idea here and states who's vote.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
They can't lose anyway, right, they're not because all those
states with eye taxation are blue states and they are
BLEU anyway. So yeah, really nifty way of punishing blue states.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
But if blue states were smart, they would be like, wow,
these Republicans did this to us. Perhaps we shouldn't give
them the Congress.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Yes, well, we're all paying a lot of attention to
the presidential race.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
But the House.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
The House is so important. It's you know, the House.
It's going to be hard for us to hold the Senate.
It's possible. Tester has to win, and I think if
he wins, I think we hold it. Yeah, but the House,
and you've covered the House great with their record, it
seems like we should be able to flip this, but
that doesn't always follow.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah, I mean in twenty two, really what happened was
a very rich businessman focused on those five House seats
in New York. A guy called Ronald Lauder, who was
a good friend of Trump's, has a lot of money,
just poured money into those congressional seats and was able
(13:22):
to flip them. And really he elected people who pretended
to be moderate. So I'm thinking about Mike Lawler with
the bdi's.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
I remember that was Lee Zelden ran for governor right,
and he poured a lot of money into his race too. Yeah,
it's funny when when Tim Walls was picked, I was
on CNN and Zelden was for some reason one of
the questioners. They said, Danny's say, I mean, isn't it
so that because he didn't pick Shapiro or she didn't
I'm sorry, Yeah, Dona didn't pick Shapiro. That does that
(13:53):
mean that she's Annie Semittic.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
I mean, it's such a like CNN moment you have, like,
what are the most far right members of the Republican
Party who just happens to be from Long Island but
his best he's with Don Junior and You're like, is
she anti Semitic?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
I mean, and I should have answered maybe something different,
but I basically said, you know, there's all kinds of
reasons that you pick her vice president, like do you
like him or do you have a connection with Walls
has been a great bit.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah. But also the other thing is she's married to
a Jew. Like you to marry a Jew if you're
anti Semitic, that's just how it works.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I don't know, my wife is anti Semitic.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Sometimes my husband is Jewish. So but I mean, it is,
you know, so insane. I mean, I have to say,
like this anti Semitic thing. I mean, you and I
are both Jewish. We have there's a long history of
Jews voting for Democrats and because Democrats have good ideas.
But it just is crazy to me to watch Donald
(14:59):
Trum make this dumb, really kind of disgusting play for Jews,
saying that somehow he is not an anti semit despite
the fact that he aligns with far right nationalists on
almost everything.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah, he kind of well, you know, he kind of
has it both ways. So he's you know, then Yahoo's
biggest supporter now, I guess, although they'll say he has
problems with nen Yahoo, but well it's he is doubling
down on getting Jewish voters, and I don't know why
Jews would vote for him. I think that Biden has
(15:37):
shown that he has tried to support Israel all the
way through. I think Michigan is the one state that
where that might be and put big issue.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yeah, it's just interesting to watch this kind of craven
ploy and he'll just do whatever today actually or tomorrow,
Trump is going to do something with Mary and Adelson
about about stopping anti Semitism. Guy who had dinner with
Nick Fuentes, m with know Holocaust denial Nick Fuentas.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Yeah, yeah, consistency, it was not his strong point.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
My favorite moment is he hates smoking, but he started
taking money from tobacco companies.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Oh of course he may hate smoking, but you like
smoking money.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
It's true. He certainly does like smoking money. And a
lot of that money is going, well, we don't know
where it's going, but I would assume a lot of
it's going to lawyers.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Is this like the cigarette pack because they have a pack.
I don't know, I read the nicotine pack.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
It's big oil. You'll remember he also is steeing a
lot of money from big oil.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Oh. He reached directly out to them and directly said,
give me a billion dollars with it a billion.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, a billion dollars, and I'll save you billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
And yeah, I'll save you more than a billion.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Dollars right in regulation.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
That's the lay to run. That's very effective, canfecting.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
The thing about Trump that I appreciate is that he
really is the quid pro quo thing is kind of
his metie. Well, yes, got to drop a fancy word
in there, but it is true.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Well, quid pro quo. So you went from Latin, the
metier is French. I take it.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Yeah, okay, quid pro yo. I mean that's what Trump does.
It's quid pro quo and you got impeached for it once.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah. Well, threatening not to withhold aid is being attacked
by Russia.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
I have one last question for you. You know, Mitch McConnell,
or have known him a little as much as anyone
under No, Mitch, you think he regrets not letting the
Republicans find him guilty and preventing Trump from running again.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I think he does. I don't know if he feels
guilty now.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I don't think he feels guilty. I'm not I'm not
going to go that far, but I think he regrets it.
Just from an electoral standpoint, I.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Think he does. I mean, they had a chance to
end this endate finally. Of course, if they had convicted him,
then he wouldn't have been able to run and we've
been a whole different world right now.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, so interesting.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
And that was a terrible, terrible speech because there's no doubt.
But you know, President, it's responsible whatever this, you know.
And then he did that butt yeah and turned and
said he can be tried and you know, tried and
by the courts. He didn't know about the immunity clause
(18:36):
or the immunity judgment. Yeah, boy boy, the court is
covering his ass and.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
He really hard. I shouldn't laugh because the Supreme.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Court is Oh I love your laugh. That's one of
my favorite things about you.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Oh, thank you. But the Supreme Court is set it
up to be just a complete an auto chateau on
every measure.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Well, I hope this doesn't somehow get the Spring Court.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, that's I think a lot of anxiety for those
people who believe in small d democracy.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Well, if they you know if they don't certify the state,
you know, the local boards are refusing to certify that,
we could have chaos. Yeah, and there's one scenario where
it goes to the courts.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us, Al Frank
and I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
I absolutely will. Thank you for having me so often.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
We have even more tour dates for you. Did you
know the Lincoln projects Rick Wills that have past politics,
boleijug Fast are heading out on tour to bring you
a night of laughs for our dark political landscape. Join
us on August twenty sixth at San Francisco at the
Swedish American Hall, or in la on August twenty seventh
at the Region Theater. Then we're headed to the Midwest.
We'll be at the Bavariam in Milwaukee on the twenty
(19:53):
first of September, and on the twenty second, we'll be
in Chicago at City Winery. Then we're going to hit
the East coast. On September thirtieth, we'll be in Boston
at Arts at the Armory. On the first of October,
we'll be in affiliate City Winery, and then DC on
the second at the Miracle Theater. And today we just
announced that we'll be in New York on the fourteenth
of October at Citywinery. If you need the laugh as
we get through this election and hopefully never hear from
(20:15):
a guy who lives in a golf club again, we
got you covered. Join us in our surprise guests to
help you laugh instead of cry your way through this
election season and give you the inside analysis of what's
really going on right now. Buy your tickets now by
heading to Politics as Unusual dot bio. That's Politics as
Unusual dot bio.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
JB. Pritzker is a liberal hero and the governor of Illinois.
So welcome to Fast Politics. Governor Pritzker, Molly, great to
be with you, very excited to have you. I'm sure
you know this, but somehow you have become an icon
of the left.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
Well you say that with some surprise.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Well, in my mind as someone who's covered democratic politics,
well you know, there was a certain kind of hostility
towards people who came from enormous wealth, and you saw
that with Bloomberg. But for some reason you have become
a sort of icon of like leftist politics. And it's
just I think it's policy related. But what do you
(21:18):
think it is.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Yeah, No, I think that's right. I mean, I you know,
when I ran for governor in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen,
you can imagine that, you know, nobody was looking for
at that moment, when we had a billionaire governor, Republican
governor of Illinois who was failing, and we had we
had a supposedly billionaire president, Donald Trump, who was failing,
(21:42):
and you know, and so you can imagine that we're
running into democratic primary, people are like, do we really
want to have, you know, a wealthy guy as our representative,
our nominee. And so I spent you know, a year
on the campaign trail answering that question and talking to
people about what I had done in my life and
what I leave And you know, I'm a pragmatic progressive
(22:02):
for lack of a better term, but you know, I'm
a progressive, and you know, and I think there were
people I won the primary. There were six people in
the primary. I got forty five percent of the vote,
and I think people there were still doubters even going
into the general election. They pulled the lever for me,
you know, in the November election in twenty eighteen. But
I think some thought, well, I don't know if this
(22:23):
guy's really what I'm looking for. So I knew that
I had to prove to people who I am by
actually effectuating the policies that I was advocating. And that meant,
you know, things like, well, the very first bill that
I pushed through and signed was raising the minimum wage
from eight dollars to twenty five cents to fifteen dollars.
You know, we passed a massive infrastructure bill. I stood
(22:47):
up for workers' rights. In fact, my first day on
the job, I signed a series of executive orders to
protect workers. And then don't forget that we were, you know,
battling Donald Trump in many ways, and so, you know,
standing up for you know, Donald Trump and pulled the
country out of the Crick Parish Climate Accords.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
And yeah, so.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
We in Illinois and I pledged as governor that in Illinois,
we're going to live by those Parish climate accords. And
so we joined the US Climate Alliance, and then I
helped to pass the probably the most comprehensive climate action
bill in the country. So yeah, I mean I had
to prove So that's the long winded answer to your
short question. I had to prove who I really am,
(23:31):
and I think I've consistently done that.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yeah, I mean it's an underwritten story because nobody writes
about policy, because why would they. But we are seeing
a number of democratic governor's past policy, you know, like,
for example, the case against Governor Walls was that he
was too progressive, but he had passed a lot of
the same policy that you had, and a lot of
the same policy that Josh Shapiro had, Right, I mean,
(23:55):
these are these sort of bold democratic policy positions which
shouldn't be so bold.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
I'll be a little braggadocious and say I did it
before all of them, and they didn't have to be clear,
at least in actually in all three of those states,
they didn't have a democratic legislature to work with, so
you know, they wanted to get it done. But I
have to say I helped all three of those people
running for governor when they ran, and also in the
(24:23):
case of Whitmer and Walls when they ran for reelection
as well as helped to win the legislatures in their
states so that they could effectuate these things too. And
so we have this great camaraderie and cadre of democratic
governors including Andy Basher, who really has it tough in
Kentucky and do'f at Tony Evers people leave him out.
(24:45):
But anyway, Yeah, so I think we have this great
cadre of politicians who have lived up to their word
and fought hard to get things done and have made
real change here in the center of the country.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
I think of free breakfasts for school kids read lunches,
that kind of you know, feeding hungry children as one
of these policies too. Where is that sort of part
of the policy portfolio too?
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Well, of course, I mean, you know, one of the
early policies that I've pushed, you know, universal childcare, universal preschool,
and of course feeding school breakfast. You know, that is
perhaps even more important than school lunch, I might add,
just because so many kids come to school hungry and
for the first half of the day before they even
(25:30):
get to lunch, you know, they're sitting in class, their
stomachs are grumbling. You know, the science has proven that
it's hard for them to learn. Their brains aren't really
active if they're not nourished. And by the way, these
are not liberal policy, you know, I really believe these
are not liberal. These are just common sense policies, and
it's the result of science that we know that. You know,
(25:50):
the earlier you can, you know, provide childhood development programs,
the better off these kids are. That most of the
brain development that occurs for every child starts, you know,
the most of it occurs before they reach the age
of six. And so if you don't nourish that, if
you don't assist in that and help parents, by the way,
(26:13):
not just in preschool, but before that, you know, you're
going to have kids whose lives, you know, in trauma,
are going to lead to underdevelopment of their brains. And
of course development occurs of your brain till you're in
your early twenties and then you know, now, of course
I'm at an age where my brain is deteriorating.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Who among us you were sort of in this vetted
group for vice president? I have heard smarter podcasters. Then
I push the people who were in that group to
sort of talk about it. What was your feeling about that,
and would you have wanted to do it, and sort
of you know, did you want that?
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Well, I think they asked all of us at the
very front end, you know, we'd like to consider you
and put you through this process is it's something you'd
be willing to do. And so I don't think there
was anybody that was being vetted that it hadn't said
yes to that first question. But then you know that
the process itself is you know, even though in that
normal year where we're not switching out nominees, you know,
(27:18):
in the middle of the summer. I've talked to Tammy Duckworth,
who was considered in twenty twenty for Joe Biden's running mate,
and Senator Duckworth here from Illinois. You know, it told me,
you know, it was a three four five month process,
and she had every question you could imagine, and she said,
you got to expect that, well, this was more like
(27:39):
a ten day process, and so you know it was
some days we're hours and hours of you know, sitting
and talking to this committee of folks who were helping
the vice president get through the group of us. And
I didn't talk to any of the others during the process,
but I can say, at least for me, it was
(28:00):
you know, the hardest part was it involves your family,
and so you know, you're going to your spouse and
your children. In my case, they're young adult children in
college and saying like, you know, hey, can you hand
me the keys to your social media? And you can imagine,
you know, the reaction that you get. It's even if
(28:20):
you have nothing in there that would be problematic. You
can imagine my son and daughter kind of saying like, well,
that's a real invasion of my desrocracy. You know, I'm
not the one who's being vetted. It's you. So anyway,
but they were, you know, they were absolutely cooperative and
willing and cheering me on. But yeah, so the process
was ruling in it for ten days. I can't imagine
(28:42):
what three or four months would be like. I mean,
it was flattering, you know, because I kind of figured, well,
at some point, you know, in the ten days, they're
going to call me and say, listen, you know, thanks
but no thanks or or thanks, but we've got our
top two and you're not one of them. To be honest,
I mean, this thing for me went all the way through,
you know, the Sunday before the announcement, which was a
(29:03):
day when on television they were saying, you know, well
we think it's probably you know, either Tim Walls or
Josh Shapiro, and you know, and yet they were still
asking me questions and vetting me. So anyway, I was
honored to be part of it. And honestly, I you know,
it is so important that we win that I wanted to,
you know, do anything, and I still believe, you know,
(29:25):
I will do anything that it takes to campaign for
and to help Vice President Kamla Heris become Madam president.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
There was something that happened this summer. There was so
much anxiety on the part of Democrats and on the
part of all people who believe in small d democracy
about this ticket changeover. But it really has gone as
well as anything could ever go, right.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
I can't remember. I mean, I of course, you know,
when Barack Obama was running, and it was the summer
of twenty oh eight, I guess I felt about the
same way, which was we can win. And you know,
John McCain of course was the opposition at the time.
But the polls didn't show that Barack Obama was going
to you know, run away with it or or have
(30:12):
an easy time. And so I feel very much like
this was like that, except for one other thing, which is,
you know, Kamala Harris had not gone through the whole
process of the primaries, so I think there were people
who felt like they didn't know her as well. You know,
going through primaries is awful. Having been through a couple,
(30:32):
you know, when you're kind of fighting your friends, but
you're out there in the public and people are seeing
all your warts and all your you know, the things
you have to offer. So for Kamala Harris, I think
that and for all of us, you know, it was
like it was a bit of a surprise to put
her forward, not that she wasn't the right person, it
was just like, you know, we all thought we were
going to fight a battle for Joe Biden, and now
(30:53):
we're in a battle for Kamala Harris. But I have
to say, the excitement level, oh my goodness, the electricity.
And I I hate to put it on my children
as the example, but no, but it's good. They're nineteen
and twenty one, and you know they're Democrat and they
you know, they would say to me, you know, every
time we'd have the news on and they'd see Joe Biden,
they look at me and say, you know, I know
(31:16):
we have to be Donald Trump, but Joe Biden's just
too old. And yeah, and I would say, but he
stands for all the things you care about, and even
if you think he's old, you know, he's got a
lot of experience.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
And so on.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
And they just keep looking at me and saying, yeah,
it's hard to get excited about that. And so, you know,
and I was all in, you know, for for Joe
Biden's So when it became Coambla Harris, I mean like,
not twenty four forty eight hours later, you know, my
children are like, you know, let's go, you know, you know,
they're ready to knock on doors. No.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
I mean, I have a twenty year old who's in college,
and I was like, you have to get everybody to
vote and make sure that people vote. And he goes
to a very small kind of niche place. I don't
even want to say where because I'm so paranoid, but
he was like, I'm having real trouble getting people at
all interested in this candidate.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
Both my kids are in swing states in college. Yeah,
and you know, Illinois. They're they were registered in Illinois
because you know, because you know, that's where they turned eighteen,
but they have both said they're reregistering because now they
live in those states most of the year in college.
So I didn't. They've you know, joined the local canvassing effort.
(32:28):
But both of them are on campus, you know, talking
to their friends about voting for Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Yeah. I also think Tim Walls has been really good
at speaking to younger people too. Okay, so here's my question.
You have this family of service too, because your sister
served in the Obama administration. We are right now in
a news cycle filled with a lot of very wealthy
people who have decided that the capital gains tax is
(32:58):
the most important issue. You that keeping these tax cuts.
I mean, you know a lot of the reason why
people are voting for Trump is because these Trump tax
cuts expire in twenty twenty five. So can you speak
to sort of why it's just absolutely ethically, you know,
morally appalling to just vote for a tax cut, and
(33:21):
sort of more generally, why Democrats are actually good for
the economy.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
More broadly, it's morally appalling in my view that they're
good people, good people that are leaning towards or have
decided to vote for Donald Trump. Yes, there are moments
when I feel like, how on earth can you possibly
but you know, they have justified it in their own
minds that you know he's a terrible person, but the policies.
And let me also add that you you thank you
(33:47):
for mentioning that I have a family of service. My
father was a cryptoanalyst in the Navy in Tokyo or
actually in Yakoska, Japan, listening to Soviet submarine transmiss My
mother was an activist in the sixties and seventies for
reproductive rights at LGBTQ.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Right.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
So yeah, we were a family that you know, believes
in public service. So I think the reason it is
morally repugnant to me the idea of Donald Trump becoming
president again, and as a governor who had to serve
at the time when Donald Trump was president, and especially
when we needed the federal government to step up and
(34:27):
protect the people of our state. I mean, he acted
in exactly the opposite ways you would hope and expect
the federal government to. And when I think about it,
in my entire life, you know, I now have greater
appreciation for people like Bob Dole and Jackie and you know,
and the many p Howard Baker and and you know,
even George H. W. Bush, because I now, you know,
(34:51):
have a greater appreciation for their dedication to just some
basic principles of you know, patriotic ideas about what it
is to stand up for, you know, the integrity the
future of our nation and its institutions. I never in
my life imagined that we would have somebody at the
top of the Republican ticket who I would oppose on
(35:14):
anything other than policy ground. To me, this is about
care and you know their moral compass. That's who Donald
Trump and JD.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Vance.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
You know, I think it's so befitting that.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Donald Trump picked JD.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
Vance, who is just like a mini and and who
just like Donald Trump in his life. In Jade Vance's life,
he has simply blown with the wind where whatever got
him ahead. That's where it was. Remember, Donald Trump at
one point in his life was a Democrat. At at
one point in his life, he was pro choice. That's
not a forgiving statement. That's the point out. You never
(35:47):
know from one day to the next, when he tells
you where he stands on something, where he actually stands,
and that I think is again evidence of a lack
of a moral compass. So I'm appalled by it all.
And that's one of the reasons that I fought so
hard against him in twenty sixteen. You know, I was
there on election night in twenty sixteen, and I remember
(36:10):
my wife and I, you know, after seeing all these
people leave, you know, the Javit Center, saying out loud,
you know, well, I don't want anything to do with
politics anymore if Donald Trump can become the president. And
my wife and I had exactly the opposite thought, which is,
now we need to do twice as much because it's
even more dangerous than ever. So, you know, in sixteen
(36:31):
and twenty and now here at twenty four, I mean
it's you know, I'm on the road doing everything I
can to make sure that Donald Trump loses and more
importantly that this terrific ticket of you know, Kamala Harris
and Tim Walls. I'm gonna say one more thing about
Tim Walls. I've gotten to know him as a governor,
as a fellow Midwestern governor, and you know, of course
he's the head of the DGA, but he is a
(36:52):
guy with a big heart, just a genuinely good person.
And when you contrast that with the other ticket, you know,
Kambala Harris, Tim Wallas just represents so much of what
I think we should look for in public service.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Yeah, So true, you don't have a term limit, so
you could just be governor of Illinois forever and ever.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Do you want me to make news here? Is that
what you're yes? Yes, yeah, thank you for pointing that out.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
I'm sure you've never thought of that.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
I have joked.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
That that my wife is my term limits, but not
to put all that on her. She's been such a
great partner. Yeah. I mean, I love the job I have,
and I've said that so many times when people have
asked me, you know what, you are you going to
run for president someday or planning to you know, do
you want to be in somebody's cabinet? You know, I
really do love the job in the and the big
(37:44):
improvements we've made here in Illinois, and and the job
ahead because you know, there's so much more to do.
So I don't know whether I'll run for re election,
but I have pointed out to people the fact that
Illinois is a blue state in everybody's minds. You ought
to step back and remember that democratic governor has served
eight years. If I simply finished the term i'm in,
(38:04):
I will be the longest serving Democratic governor at the
history of Illinois. So you know, that's for a variety
of reasons. Sometimes it's you know, illness and death. Sometimes
you know when they've gone to prison. I hope neither
one of those happens to me, but you know, it
still would be an accomplishment simply to finish two terms
and have I think a solid record of accomplishment here.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Thank you, Governor Pritzgar, 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 up 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, we have
(38:45):
just released the final episode of this five episode series.
They're all available by looking up Molly Jong Fast Project
twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if you are more
of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber, you
can hit play and put your phone in the lock
screen and it will play back just like the podcast.
(39:05):
All five episodes are online now. We need to educate
Americans on what Trump's second term would or could do
to this country, so please watch it and spread the word.
Dan Osborne is an independent candidate for Senate in Nebraska.
Welcome to Fast Politics, Dan.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Osborne, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I'm so excited to have you. So this is like
a super interesting Senate race, and it came to my
notice like about a month ago. And then there was
this incredible pull you guys just had which showed you
at a dead heat with the pretty unpopular woman you're
running against. Talk to me about why you decided to
(39:48):
run for Senate in the state of Nebraska.
Speaker 5 (39:51):
Well, I haven't always been a political person. It really
wasn't until corporate greed came knocking on my door a
few years ago. I was a present cident BCTGM Local
fifty G the spell out that's Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and
Grain Millers Union. I was in what we land under
the grain miller category. But during COVID, as essential workers,
(40:13):
we were all working seven days a week, twelve hours
a day. There's four manufacturing plants under the umbrella of
our master contract, but as essential workers, we were working
those hours. At one point in time, fifty percent of
our workforce was forced quarantine and or sick. But we
made them record profits. You know, we still kept the
plants running. At one hundred percent capacity. They went from
(40:34):
nineteen billion dollars to twenty one billion dollars. The CEO
gave himself a two million dollar raise, the board enriched themselves,
the stockholders enriched themselves, and our contract expired that year.
We figured, you know, it's going to be a no brainer,
would get a little sliver of the pipe. But instead,
the first day negotiations, Kellogg set across the table from
us and they said, we're going to go after your
(40:55):
health insurance. We're going to go after your cost of
living wage adjustment, which was our own only form a
wage increases designed to keep us even with inflation, and
we know how that's gone. And then they're going to
implement a permanent two tier wage system with no path
for a lower tier employee to make it to the
upper tier. So effectively, eventually everybody's going to be on
the lower tier. So for me as president, that was
(41:16):
mycrap moment. There hadn't been a strike in Nebraska since
nineteen seventy two, so I had to learn what that meant.
So I did my due diligence leading up to October fifth, midnight,
you know, setting up picketing schedules and every drumming up
early support, so we could not come to an agreement.
It's still my belief today that Kellogg's had no intention
of coming to an agreement. So we shut down four
(41:36):
North American plants and we walked off the job to
reserve our wages and benefits. Certainly one of the hardest
things I've had to do, take five hundred of my
friends and their families out into the great unknown, not
knowing if we're going to have a job at the
end of it. But we all felt we were on
the right side of history. So, you know, I was
able to get Republican congressmans out to the picket line,
Republican mayor and was able to get him to draft
(41:57):
a letter or excuse me, Governor, to this CEO, Steve Khlane,
imploring him to get our people back to work. So
just a few of the things I did during that
time to put pressure on Calloggs, you know, and we're
on strike for seventy seven days, and I remember walking
back into my manufacturing plan just feeling an enormous sense
of pride what we were able to accomplish five hundred
jobs in Nebraska and fifteen hundred around the country, and
(42:19):
that's why I'm doing this today. I want to continue
to be a voice for working people because what it
taught me is if we band together around common causes
and issues, we can make a change, a real good change,
positive change in everyday people's lives.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
You're not a Democrat, You're running as an independent. Explain
to us that decision.
Speaker 5 (42:36):
Well, I've always been a registered independent since the beginning
when I when I registered to vote. I just have
an independent spirit. And I know it's handicapped me voting
in primaries and things like that, but you know, George
Washington and the framers of the Constitution warned us of
the two factions, which is the two parties, and what
it could lead to. And I think we're finding ourselves
there today in the form of also, well, corporations to me,
(42:59):
are you know, in geting the money out of influencing elections,
corporate money ending citizens united? So those things are extremely
important to me because until well, I'll preface that with
we're being different. We're not taking any corporate money. I
don't want to be beholden to a corporation. I want
to be beholden to the people in Nebraska again, like
the founding fathers intended it to be a government buying
(43:21):
for the people, not a government for corporations.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
In one percent, explain to us a little bit about
what your state looks like. It's a red state, but
explain to us sort of what the path is.
Speaker 5 (43:34):
It is a red state. But you know, there is
no Democrat in my race, so it's making it very interesting.
But most people I go out to, my broad stroke
message is, you know, getting the corporations out of our politics.
I tell everybody. Robin Williams, a comedian, said it best
when he said, our politicians should be wearing Nascar jackets
with patches of their sponsors so we know how they're
(43:55):
going to vote. And Senator Fisher, we actually made up
a Nascar jacket for her with all patches that I
take with me to the debates because she refuses to debate,
so we hold them anyway when we just have her
jacket there. But it's resonating with everybody. It doesn't matter
whether you're a Republican or Democrat. I think Nebraska's got
a pretty big independent spirit. You know, we boast having
(44:16):
a nonpartisan unicameral for our state legislature so people are
used to independence. There's over three hundred thousand registered independence
in Nebraska. It's the fastest growing demographic of young people
registering to vote. So where we're at, people are just
you know, they're becoming fed up.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Yeah, explain to us what your opponent. She said she
was only going to run two terms. This is her
third term. She used to had a lot of promises
that she hasn't been able to fulfill or chosen not
to write.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (44:46):
Correct, Yeah, she signed a pledge to run for twos.
You know, she's bad on rail Nebraska is a huge
railroad state. We have the biggest rail yard in the
world in North Platte, Nebraska. We just had another derailment,
our fifth the railment in just over two months. She
consistently votes against the Rail Safety Act, and she actually
headed the Transportation committee that allowed railroads to police their
(45:09):
own safety right.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
Never a good sign.
Speaker 5 (45:12):
Yeah, and they actually have a certain level of death
as acceptable in their safety programs. So it's four of
her top eleven donors are Class one railroads. So you
know she takes their money and consistently votes against the workers.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
She also said she wasn't going to run for reelection,
but has changed her mind, right right, Explain that to us.
Speaker 5 (45:33):
Well, you know, I would put it to again, going
back to the founding fathers, the framers of the Constitution.
It was this government was meant to come from your
farms and your factories. Do a term or two and
go back. These days, you know, we have people going
into their nineties, they've done their whole career. Dev Fisher's
been in politics longer than my campaign manager has been alive.
(45:53):
People are seeing that. People are frustrated with it, especially
the fact that you know, her whole is based off
of a lie. That's certainly something that gets brought up
a lot when I'm doing town halls. I've done over
one hundred and thirty publicly advertised town halls since twenty seventeen.
She hasn't done one since twenty seventeen. People are seeing
(46:14):
that as well. I think she feels like she doesn't
have to.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Are you connecting with people? And how is it going
through this state? I mean, I feel like the city
is different than the rest of the state, right, I
mean what does the state look like?
Speaker 5 (46:26):
Yeah, so, Omaha and Lincoln make up about half the
population and the other half spread Oh, Wow spread out
through the rest of the state, so I was concerned
how people were going to receive me as I traveled
to the Panhandle and the western part of the state.
But I'm pleasantly surprised because I relate to them on
a level that you know, I've worked in a factory
for twenty years. I know what it's like to put
(46:48):
in eight, twelve, sixteen hour days and come home and
your feet hurt, your hands hurt, your back hurts, everything hurts.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
And a lot of these.
Speaker 5 (46:56):
People in Nebraska are just just like me. They're just
hard work people that don't want to get taxed to
death and want some affordable groceries, maybe put some money
aside for their kids's college things like that. So it's
been nice. And you know, and again, I've always worked
sixty seventy hours a week, so I've never got out
to see my state in the capacity that I'm doing.
(47:17):
So now I've never got to go to the state
Fair or this thing called Wayne Chicken Days and all
the things throughout throughout the state. I've really fell in
love with it and the people in it. It's been great.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
It's interesting to me, Like one of the things Democrats
have had a really hard time with is connecting with
voters who you know, work in factories or work with
their hands. The AD has been a group that used
to reliably vote Democratic, and Trump has made real inroads
with that group of white voters. And it seems counterintuitive
(47:53):
because a lot of it is, you know, Trump wants
to take away your healthcare, wants to lower taxes for billionaires,
and somehow people are voting for that. What do you
think the secret is to like explaining to people just
what Democrats have to offer to them.
Speaker 5 (48:07):
I don't get into much about Republican democrat when I'm
out at my events. We just focus on issues and policies.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
But a lot of the Republican policies aren't so good
for working people.
Speaker 5 (48:19):
My public town hall events, we talk about policies, and
what I'm finding is we agree as a people on
ninety percent if not more, on issues and policies. Sometimes
we don't always agree on necessarily how to get there,
but it's definitely been given me out for the future.
We are not as divide as media would lead us
(48:41):
to believe, at least That's what I'm seeing on the ground.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Yeah, No, definitely true. Talk to me about when you
talk to people on the ground there, what are they
most concerned with?
Speaker 5 (48:51):
I'd say top three in the economy slash inflation. Second
would be border border security as well as you know,
having some meaning immigration reform. And the third and that's interesting,
you know, you think why Nebraska would care about that.
It's a huge meat packing state, so we have to
have a lot of immigrants working in those meat packing facilities.
(49:12):
And then the third, you know, the thirds probably I
suppose a toss up individual liberties. Protecting individual liberties is
important to people. Real people certainly don't like government mandates.
And then anywhere else, depending on the room, you know, education, healthcare,
things like that fall in line.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
On the ground. Do you hear people remembering what Trump
was like or do you think they still feel like
he's an outsider? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (49:37):
I think I think people remember for the most part,
and there's people whose main concern for whatever that reason,
on the border, they tend to lean towards Trump or
his outward stance. I suppose on securing the border. There's
plenty of farmers who especially Soy being farmers who are
(49:57):
still hurting from the Trump tariffs, right, you know, they
see the danger in tariffs. I tend not to dive
too much into the top of the ticket. I'm certainly
focused on my race. You know, I'm going to have
to work with whoever gets elected as president. So you know,
Nebraska's probably going to come in sixty to fifty eight percent,
sixty percent for Trump again, I would assume like they
(50:19):
did last time, and everybody has their own reasons.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Yeah. Though, that's a really good point about the tariffs
and the soybean farmers, because what percentage of your state
is so you have me packing, I mean, the big
businesses in the state are wide.
Speaker 5 (50:36):
Yeah, it's mostly agriculture related. And then if you get
into Omaha and Lincoln, you have a lot of manufacturing
there as well. So yeah, i'd say agriculture manufacturing.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Yeah, and soybing. A lot of these farmers were affected
by tariffs, and then they were given financial help from
the government, but a lot of farmers don't like that, right.
Speaker 5 (51:00):
Farmers do not like that because it's you know, it
cuts into their bottom line and going out. And that's
what I talk to farmers every day, and we talk
about how both parties seemingly are kicking the can down
the road on court shoes and the farm bill. The
farm bell is going to expire again on September thirtieth,
(51:20):
and if we can't come to an agreement on the
farm bill, the farmers are going to continue to suffer.
You know, bushel prices are going to remain stagnant. And
you know, we have to keep our farmers profitable. That
goes with teachers and nursing too. If we can't keep
these people profitable, they're not going to do it anymore,
plain and simple, and probably around two or less than
two percent of our population in this country feeds the
(51:42):
rest of us. So we got to make it profitable.
We have to keep it sustainable with the environment. We
have to keep it sustainable with the crops and the
meats as far as being safe to eat, and they're
the third thing about being sustainable is they have to
be profitable. And so we have to update our crop insurance.
And I think we need update our crop insurance to
help benefit smaller family farms because that's starting to go
(52:04):
away too. It's favoring the corporate farmer. We've got a
lot of work to do and we can't keep playing
politics with things like this is dangerous.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
Yeah, I also think that the fact that the farm
bell is really bad, that that has not been addressed,
that they've been waiting around on that. Do people make
the connection when you're out there talking to farmers between
climate change and farming.
Speaker 5 (52:26):
You know, we sit on the Oglalla Aquifer here in
this state, a huge aquifer of fresh water, and studies
are indicating that it's lowering the amount of water. So
that's alarming to say the least. I think at the
end of the day, whether you know a farmer wants
to put solar or wind on his farm or not,
(52:47):
they all agree we need to be we need to
be pursuing everything to eventually get off of fossil fuels.
And obviously it can't happen immediately, but the end result
of climate change is going to be droughts. And if
you're having drought and you can't can wattery, then you
can't grow stuff, you can't feed livestock, and that's starvation.
(53:08):
So it's it's pretty important. I think most everybody you know,
unless they don't believe in it, sees the value of
trying to do anything we can to get ahead of it.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
If you're a farmer, you must believe in it right
because it's happening or not necessarily.
Speaker 5 (53:22):
Not necessarily, it depends, it goes. I try to talk
to everybody as consumers of media. It's difficult. It's difficult
to be a consumer of media. For example, I was
in North Platte, Nebraska when President Trump got convicted of
thirty nine counts. I actually crossed a time zone that
morning or that day before, so I actually had an
extra hour before i'd get to an event. So I
(53:44):
watched thirty minutes of Fox News on it and then
I watched thirty minutes of either MSNBC or CNN, can't
remember which. But the thirty minutes I was watching a
Fox News, I was like, man, this guy's getting a
raw deal. They're after him. I switched to the next
news channel and I was like, man, this guy's guilty,
you know, But where's the truth?
Speaker 1 (54:02):
Lie?
Speaker 5 (54:03):
Is he getting headhunted or or is he guilty?
Speaker 4 (54:06):
You know?
Speaker 5 (54:06):
And so you have to find news sources and you know,
podcasts like this where people are speaking freely and not
paid for by Murdoch or somebody else, and find the truth.
But it's difficult. And then you throw in, you know,
you throw in social media people are irresponsible. They'll see
something they don't even click open it, and they won't
even read it or fact check it, and they'll just
repost it.
Speaker 1 (54:27):
It's kind of scary, yeah, I mean, I also think
that the more people can just see stuff that is
real people talking, like c Span, where they can just
listen to the actual people talking, the better off they
are at making decisions. You were also in the army
and the navy.
Speaker 5 (54:45):
YEP Nebraska Army National Guard than.
Speaker 1 (54:48):
The Navy arm services are having trouble recruiting thoughts.
Speaker 5 (54:51):
That's twofold. Seventy two percent of our military age males
are unfit to serve. And that goes back to what
we feed ourselves. My wife and I did this food
trading deal, you know where you trade food with other countries,
and we traded food. I remember with Australia one time,
and we got the packaging from Australia and there.
Speaker 4 (55:12):
Is no there.
Speaker 5 (55:12):
Mac and cheese was like macaroni and cheese, nothing fake
or you know, colored. And so what we're feeding our
population is certainly partly to blame. And secondly, you know,
ultimately it's a business. You have to pay people, and
you have to pay them a fair wage, otherwise they're
not going to want.
Speaker 2 (55:32):
To do it.
Speaker 5 (55:33):
Same with you have one soldier on food stamps, you're
doing it wrong. We have to figure out how to
better pay our airmen and sailors and soldiers.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
Yeah, agreed, agreed, agreed, Thank you so much, thank you,
thank you, Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 6 (55:50):
No moment, Jesse Canon, you know by you mentioned at
the top of the show, this guy bark rothtson. I
like to think of Mark Robinson as the greatest gift
to Democrats aside from Trump's setup picks. But the second
greatest gift to Democrats is JD Vance.
Speaker 2 (56:11):
JD.
Speaker 1 (56:12):
I don't care if they're here legally or not. Vance
just wants you to know that even if you have
a greeden card, he and Donald Trump may decide to
deport you. Look, man, there are a couple of really
bad Donald Trump picks. Bernie Marino in the great state
of Ohio. We got in Pennsylvania McCormick running again and
(56:37):
losing or at least polling like he's losing. We just
have a lot. And then Mark Robinson in North Carolina,
who has an OPO file. The size of the iliad
was more to come and so these incredible candidates showing
us that trump Ism doesn't scale. That is our moment
of fuck Ray. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
(57:00):
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.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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