April 9, 2025 • 45 mins
Risk Reversal’s Dan Nathan examines the business reaction to Trump’s insane tariffs.
NBC’s Jon Allen and The Hill’s Amie Parnes detail their new book Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And Beijing has called JD. Van's ignorant
over his Chinese peasant remarks. We have a great show
for you today. Risk Reversal's own Dan Nathan.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Stops by to tell us about.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
The business world's reaction to Trump's insane tariffs.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
They don't like it.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Then we'll talk to John Allen and Amy Parnis about
their new book, Fight Inside the Wildest Battle for the
White House.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
But first the news smile.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
You know who I think of. I want spying on
my data to see if I'm saying things bad and
slack or whatever. Your workplace thing is a guy named
big Boss.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Oh, we're back to big balls. Big balls.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yes, So it turns out the Environmental Protection Agency, though,
by the way, it is so insane that Elon. While
Donald Trump is ruining the capital markets, crashing the gap markets,
Elon is continued taking a chainsaw to the federal government
doge spying on federal workers for anti Trump, anti Musk messages. Shockingly,
(01:11):
the Environmental Protection Agency here are the people who just
want to protect the environment. Supposedly, the DOGE staff are
using AI to spy and communication sent by federal workers
to detect anti Trump or anti Musk language. What are
we doing here? First of all, why do you even care?
(01:34):
Right people say bad things about you? This is one
of the facts of being a famous person. I'm sorry, guys,
like this is what it is.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Man, It's called a workplace in America.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, well not for these two. Reuters cites two anonymous
people with knowledge of the matter. By the way, everyone
in the federal government is now leaking.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Like a fucking SIEV.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Who said this happened to the ep They had been
told so by Trump appointed officials. By the way, I'm
sure this's happening in every branch of the federal government.
If they're doing it at the EPA, they're doing it everywhere.
We have been told they're looking for anti Trump or
anti Musk language.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Before they were.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Just looking for DEI right, anti racism. Now they're looking
for naughty speak. By the way, I'm going to ask you, Jesse,
I don't think that Elon Musk is a free speech absolutist.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well, what we've learned is that thing is facts. Don't
care about your feelings less they're his feelings.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
That's right, baby.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
In true Axio style, we can ask ourselves why it matters.
It matters because it's against law, and it's also I
mean again, it may not be against law, depending on
what kind of waivers or legal machinations you've signed on to,
but it is pretty bad and it certainly undermines the
whole idea that these people care about free speech. Elon Musk,
(02:58):
the billionaire CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, which have
been taking a hammering lightly due to Donald Trump's Tara fiasco,
is leading efforts of DOGE to cut what it identifies
as fraud or waste, though technically a lot of that
fraud is government programs he doesn't like. Trump has long
(03:20):
railed against what he calls the deep state, the federal government,
and anyone who he thinks is not going along with
his agenda. Look, this is just yet another way to
turn the federal government against you, to dehumanize these people.
And by the way, I want to just say this
one more time. The people work in the federal government
(03:41):
are working in the federal government because they believe in
what the federal government is doing. Many many, many of
these people could make a lot more money in the
private sector the way Elon Musk did. But these people
are doing this because they believe in the sort of
good work that the government does. And it is really
(04:01):
disheartening to watch these people cut it up.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Speaking of cutting it up, many people notice that Social
Security is website crashed this week. Guess what caused it?
It was doge And now there's a very very interesting
reaction to this.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
So I know you're going to be shocked again.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
But part of what's happening here is that what Trump
and Elon considered to be fraud, waste, and abuse are
things they don't like. One of the things they don't
like is Social Security because it's expensive and it makes
up a lot of the government spending money that Donald Trump.
I don't know if you know this, but yesterday Donald
Trump said that they're going to up the Pentagon budget
(04:42):
a ton.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Right by trillion dollars, by.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Trillion dollars, and that money needs to come from somewhere,
and they would like it to come from Medicare, Medicaid,
and Social Security.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
So who do we think we'll get some of that
Pentagon budget?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I don't know, certainly not private contractor Elon. So, look,
they want social Security not to work so that people
can't collect it.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
And that's what we're seeing here.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
The website is used by about seventy million Social Security
benefit recipients. By the way, you pay into social Security.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
This is your money. This is not Elon Musk's money.
What to know.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
The website has experienced multiple crashes and errors in recent weeks.
Just like Elon did to X nay Twitter, he is
now doing to Social Security. Earlier this months, some disability
payment recipients received notice on the my Social Security porthole
that they were no longer receiving benefits. The Washing Post
has a really heart wrenching story of a mother with
(05:44):
a disabled son who got an email that she was
not getting his Social Security benefits anymore. There's just a
ton of real hardship here. People are being retraumatized by
Elon Musk. And know this man, this is what he does,
so be prepared, non surprised.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
So also speaking of things that does not surprise me.
The Supreme Court fucking sucks. This ruling they made about
deportations is not good.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yes and no, this is a complicated ruin. They said
that Trump has a little more time on this, right,
they weren't going to get the guy back in the
time that they needed, So in that way, I don't
think it was a total victory for Trump, and I've
I've read a bunch about this. Basically, Barrett sided with
(06:38):
the liberals. They are saying that he can use this
Alien Enemies Act for deportation, but they're saying that these
people are entitled to due process, despite the fact that
they are not in this country legally. Trump world took
this as a big win, but the reality is Trump
World had been saying that people not in this country,
(07:00):
we're not entitled to do process. This decision says they
are entitled to do process. So well, Trump is able
to use the Alien Enemies Act, which is, by the way, bonkers, right,
it's a wartime power. You know, there's no war, so
it's completely bonkers. But at least there is one good thing,
(07:21):
which is it means that these people are entitled to
do process, which we all knew to be true. That
said Sonya, So to my air my one of my
favorite Supreme Court justices wrote a staggering descent. We as
a nation and a court of law should be better
than this. But there are five.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Fox News justices who say otherwise.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Dan Nathan is a c NBC contributor and co host
of the podcast Risk Reversal.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Welcome to Fast Politics, Dan Nathan.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Molly, it's great to be back with you.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Explain to us what is going on with the public markets?
Speaker 5 (07:59):
All right, So we have a situation here where there's
very little guidance coming out of the White House. I
think there's very little clarity about what they're trying to
achieve with their tariff policy.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
There's fears that the.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
Tariff situation right here, if not resolved anytime soon, is
going to cause an economic recession. Markets usually try to
sniff that out ahead of time.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
I think that's what they're doing here.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
And so again you're going to hear this again and again,
and I've heard it on your podcast over the last
couple weeks. We can get talking about this. Public markets
do not like uncertainty. They like a level of clarity,
at least if they can't figure out what the endgame is.
They like to know the rules. And I think right
now the rules aren't particularly clear, and that's why you've
had this swoon lower in stocks, which really started in February.
(08:41):
But I think it was just a little bit of
trepidation that normally happens in the markets when you have
uncertainty about the economy. But then you throw in this
monkey wrench that really could you know, upend the US
economy and thus the global economy, and therefore investors start
discounting future earnings right, which basically causes them to sell stocks.
(09:02):
And that's what we've had over the last couple weeks.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Everyone is going to listen to this on Wednesday, and
so we'll have more volatility, whatever that looks like. But
I'm curious if you could just explain to us sort
of what you think would help the markets at this moment.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
Yeah, one thing that helped yesterday was the notion that,
you know, there might be a push out of the
tariffs that are going into place this week, and I
think the rumor and it was unfounded that there was
going to be a ninety day moratorium basically on these
and giving some time to do these bilateral talks with
first Canada and Mexico and the EU and Japan. And
so that caused a massive rally in the stock market
(09:40):
that had been down fifteen percent in three trading days.
So here we are today, it's Tuesday, on the open.
The market followed through to the upside. So as we
say as traders, we see a sea of green out
there and a lot of stocks that got really over sold,
a rallying, and some of the ones that are meant
to be the hard hit by tariffs. Right, So you've
(10:02):
had this momentum back to the upside. But if nothing materializes,
you know, over the next few days or so, you're
going to see market participants kind of sell stocks again
because they don't again have the clarity. One thing I
want to be really clear about also is that you
know I just mentioned earnings, right, those are the drivers
of stocks for the most part. Every year, every quarter
(10:24):
we see four times that companies report their earnings and
they give guidance going forward about how they think that
those earnings are going to be over the next three
months or so.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
That starts this Friday.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
Some of the biggest banks, JP, Morgan, Wells, Fargo, Morgan Stanley,
They're all going to be reporting earnings, and what these
CEOs have to say about the current environment and then
looking past, let's say the next few months is going
to be really important for market sentiment. And so if
Jamie Diamond, the CEO of the largest bank in the
world on Friday morning, suggests that we don't have a
(10:57):
lot of clarity about how consumers are going to be spending,
how businesses are going to be spending, that's the sort
of thing that could really weigh on the stock market
as we get into this Q one earing season.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
So one of the things that Trump World is pushing
back with is they're saying, well, there are people coming
to the negotiating table. We saw best and say that,
Terasury Secretary Scott Besson. But overnight we saw China go yeah,
but we're not. And in fact, they are sort of
escalating the trade war. And then Trump came back with
more tariffs, which would eat cool some crazy number of
(11:31):
you know, more tariff than the cost of the good
talk us through where that is.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
So, and I think you and I talked about this
a couple of weeks ago, and it was last done.
I mean, I think a lot of folks, at least
in the markets, feel like, you know, the Trump administration
did this ass backwards. Right if you had gone to
our largest trading partners, which are also our largest allies
or most important allies and really behind the scenes struck
some deals that could have been used as a framework
(11:56):
right as you kind of expand out some of this
kind of tariff talk beyond those folks, you could have
then had a united front against China and really try
to get the rest of the world behind you and
the leadership and really kind of focus on, you know,
some of the ills that are kind of you know,
China and they're manufacturing have placed on the rest of
(12:17):
the world, and so that you know, the situation right
here is like as soon as you get.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
A Japan deal or an EU deal, or a Canada.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
Or Mexico, then the biggest target is China. And so again,
the Chinese are sitting back here and yeah, they're not
particularly excited about all the threats from Trump, but they're
looking at, you know, the fraying of relations between the
US and some of their biggest partners, and it goes
beyond just the economic implications. It goes to security and
(12:45):
the like. And you know, before this trade situation got
all dialed up, we were focused on the war in
Ukraine and some other geopolitical situations, and so they're looking
around and saying, you know what our economy is weak.
We're willing to stimulate it right now to kind of
help abate some of the kind of worst case scenarios
as it relates to this trade war. And we're also
going to play a heavy hand back to them because
(13:07):
you know the Chinese, you know that whole notion of face.
They don't like to be embarrassed. So the ratcheting up
of this with China really only makes the stakes that
much higher. And ultimately, if you do get some sort
of deal, it may end up being the sort of
situation that's not particularly palatable to either economy or either country,
and it could weigh on global growth and thus put
(13:29):
the potentially the world in a recession, which will not
be obviously a good thing from an economic standpoint, from
a political standpoint, and then also as you think about
what's going on in markets, which is kind of important
if you just think about the wealth of nations, the
wealth of consumers and the like. The last time we
had a major global recession was the financial crisis, obviously,
(13:50):
and you could think about COVID and you know, financial
assets get absolutely destroyed in those environments.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Trump has a sort of opportunity now to sort of
make some deals and then sort of back down and
save face the way he kind of did with NATO
the first time, right where he sort of renegotiated a
deal that didn't really make any difference. And you know,
he's kind of like been very good at solving problems
that he created, very very good at that. But if
(14:16):
China keeps going with this trend ward, he won't be
able to is that right?
Speaker 5 (14:20):
Well, it really depends that you think about, you know,
the Chinese and their manufacturing infrastructure, and you know when
he looks at the deficit that we have, you know,
we import a lot more than they import from us.
That is really at the crux of kind of the
way he's thinking about this as zero sum game, and
it just isn't that, you know what I mean When
you think about it, China is one of the largest
(14:40):
holders of our debt. When they hold our debt in
dollar terms, they help fund our debt, right, So the
idea that we export more to China, right then they
export to us. Well, when they have that net difference,
they're buying US treasuries because US treasuries are meant to
be the safest risk asset on the planet. Also, more
demand for US dollars, right, which helps US fund our debt.
(15:04):
So if a big part of this trade policy or
these tariffs are basically to help lower our debt and deficit,
you know, it doesn't make a lot of sense that
you're going to, you know, basically deenalize some of the
largest holders of our debt. So you know, it's obviously
pretty complicated. If you're sitting out here and you listen
to Mali and you're a politico and you're trying to
make sense of this, you know, maybe what I'm speaking
(15:26):
to is a little bit of Greek. But when I
think about what I'm hearing from the Trump administration by
supposedly some very smart people like Treasury Secretary Scott Besson,
they're not making a lot of sense. When I hear
Besson go on Meet the Press on Sunday morning and
I listen to what he's trying to articulate to a
bunch of folks that are not staring at markets every day, right,
(15:47):
They're not that in tune with what goes on with
the economy. I don't think it's a particularly calming sort
of commentary that he had. And by the way, I
don't know if you saw this. He looks really nervous
and he wasn't making a whole a lot of sense.
So I think a lot of folks watching this over
the weekend. Maybe they weren't paying attention last week, but
they certainly were paying attention over the weekend. And I
(16:08):
think that when they see their four to one ks
lose value in the speed in which they did, they
start thinking to themselves, wait a minute, we have a
real confidence problem. And when investors lose confidence in the
leaders who are meant to kind of steer the ship,
that's when you get the sort of volatility, at least
the downward volatility that we've seen over the last week
and a half or so.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Some of this stuff Trump Blantz is not actually deliberable.
I'm thinking about the EU. He's very mad at the
EU for any number of reasons. He said that it
was set up to cheat the US. The EU has
a bunch of fees that are not really tariffs, but
that everyone has to pay.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
He is very offended by this.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I mean, doesn't this seem like a situation that would
be theoretically at least impossible to win.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
It would because he's trying to change tax policy in
these countries or this block, right, And that's one of
the things, is like it's one thing if you want
to impose tear it kind of even the playing field
as you think about, you know, you kind of being
disadvantaged in one way, shape or form. And obviously autos
is a big part of this. You know, the Germans
obviously produce a lot of automobiles. And he's pissed off
that we sell so much fewer, right cars into let's say,
(17:15):
the EU than the vice versa.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
But they make better cars.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
It's just that simple, right, And they make different cars
that have different you know, kind of sensibilities as it
relates to you know, size and power and all that
sort of stuff and energy consumption or whatever. So you know,
some of these things are just for him. He's locked
in the eighties and we know this, you know, when
the US was at this economic war over autos with
you know Japan and you know the Japanese. It's the
(17:39):
same sort of situation. He bitches and moans about that
there's no US cars you know on the on the
on the roads in Japan. Well, it's the same sort
of thing. They have different sensibilities, they make better cars.
Their people want to buy those cars. So a lot
of this stuff and I think you just said it,
and you know, he's looking through the lens of kind
of forty years ago. He creates problems, he tries to
(17:59):
create his own solutions so he can kind of, you know,
kind of I don't know, you know, suggest that he
got to win. So yeah, and it's just not working
with global trade. It's just, you know, the more globalization
we have, the more that we depend on each other,
you know, for manufacturing and parts and all this sort
of stuff, the harder it is to kind of put
these sort of economic barriers on because you do have
the potential for the sort of dislocation that the markets
(18:22):
are pricing in right now.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
We have historically always had American guards and they're actually
really good.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
But the problem is a lot of them are enormous.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
So you're not going to be selling Chevy suburbans or
Chevy tahoes too small countries in Europe with tiny cobblestone streets.
It's just not going to happen. And I think that
is also a consideration. I'm curious this is, you know what.
There's also we talk a lot about those sort of
market numbers. But these tariffs, they're not even in effect yet, right,
(18:52):
and they're already making.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Things more expensive. Talk to me about where we're going
to see that. I was reading online that guyde work
where he's one of my favorites, and he was talking
about how surt's are even twenty thirty dollars more already.
Explain to us why trade wars are so inflationary.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, if
Trump is trying to convince US companies to reshore manufacturing, right,
and so if that really is you know, what they're
trying to do, then all of a sudden, you know,
demand here in the US, you know, for the manufacturing
of these factories is going to cause inflation.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Right.
Speaker 5 (19:26):
It's going to hit margins of companies that manufacture this
sort of stuff, So they're going to have to raise prices,
which is going to actually have an effect on demand.
Right when you think about that, So you get in
a situation where you can foresee that the dislocations of
supply chains which we saw during COVID made the price
of goods and services go up, right, So if you're
(19:47):
forcing US companies to bring back manufacturing here, there's no
other way that it's going to raise prices because of
all the costs to kind of reorient that, to retool
factories or build factories, to kind of hire workers here.
They're a lot more expensive here than they are in
Vietnam or China and the like here. So when you
think about all this in the near term, all this
(20:07):
uncertainty causes companies outside the idea of you know, reshoring
manufacturing to kind of slow up some other sort of
expenditures that they have, which is capax you know, outside
of manufacturing or R and D I'm in the like.
And so you get into a situation that we've talked
about for a while. If that slows growth right and
demand is weakened because of weakening economy, then you get
(20:30):
in the stagflationary sort of environment, which again is not
a good situation.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
To be in.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
We haven't been there since kind of the mid to
late seventies or so, and so again, what's different about
this time versus let's say the seventies, is just the
increased globalization, the reliance that we have on all of
these supply chains, whether it's manufacturing of cars here and
parts coming from Mexico or Canada, whether it's housing here
and the reliance on you know, lumber from Canada. I mean,
(20:59):
it's reliance on rare earth materials and electric batteries that
come from China into Tesla cars or other evs here
in the US, right, whether it's our reliance on energy
from those sorts of things. So if you have this
tip for Tad and you go back and forth with
your trading partners ratcheting up the taxes, and make no
mistake about it, these tariffs are on taxes, it's going
(21:23):
to cause inflation. And we know that inflation hurts the
middle class and lower earners here in the US. So
again that's the risk of causing consumer slow down and spending,
corporate slow down and spending based on all of this
demand for reshoring of manufacturing here, which you're going to
take a long time to do. It's going to take three, five,
(21:45):
ten years for a lot of this sort of stuff
to happen. And that's one of the reasons why you
see now the billionaire class. Ken Griffin one of the
richest men here in the US. He runs Citadel, which
is one of the most successful hedge funds. He's out
this morning suggesting that this is a horrible policy. We've
seen this by a bunch of others, Stan Druckemiller, who's
also one of the wealthiest men in the world, also
(22:06):
a hedge funder. This is the sort of stuff that
might actually start to get into the thick skull of
Treasury Secretary Beston, who, by the way, used to work
for drug a Miller.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Right, so a lot of.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
These folks speak his language, but for some reason he's
speaking the language of Trump, which gives you know, I
think it gives a CEO class and consumers less confidence
in the.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Policies explained to us about stagflation, because we've talked about
it a lot.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
It's the nightmare scenario. Just give us two minutes on
what it is and what it does.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
Yeah, and so this goes back to the whole idea
of restoring or just increased costs that are you know,
kind of put on a US consumer. Let's just focus
on the US here because of you know, these teriffs, right,
and then that causes a.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Slowing of growth. Right.
Speaker 5 (22:50):
Two thirds of our GDP of our economy basically is
US consumer spending, which also speaks a little bit too,
why we have these trade deficits. We are addicted to consuming, right,
We also like cheap goods. So if you have a
situation where growth is slowing, unemployment is going higher because
of the tariffs, right, and you have inflation that's sticking
(23:12):
around for a lot of the same reasons, then you
get into the stagflationary environment, which actually hurts consumer spending.
Going back full circle here, and so it's just an
environment that if you're focused on investments, if you're focused
on your four oh one k, it will not be
good for us corporate earnings, which goes back to what
we were just talking about, which should be one of
(23:34):
the major drivers, right of the stock market. And so
stagflation bad for risk assets, bad for employment, bad for
you know, like consumers who are trying to kind of
keep a nest egg here. And so that's one of
the situations where I think a lot of folks are
very worried about protracted trade war causing stagflation at a
(23:54):
time where we're worried about that last year before we
got into this trade war.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
And so that's one of the reasons why I think
a lot.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
Of folks want to see a quick end to this.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Trade war and stagflation is sort of self perpetuating. Right.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Often in the recession, things will get cheaper, but this
is a recession with inflation, so it means everything is
more expensive. Plus the economies in a downturn. Right, that's
the night nurse scenario now.
Speaker 5 (24:19):
And you might see the headline numbers of inflation come
in a little bit, especially as consumers have less buying
power and there's less demand for goods and services. But
you have to think of it now as the cumulative
nature of inflation over the last four years. You also
have to think about the fact that interest rates are
likely to stay high to battle inflation, because the last
(24:40):
thing they want to do is kind of go into
a situation where inflation picks up a great deal at
a time where going back to the growth where growth
is kind of weak. Right, So that's the push and
pull here. And the last thing I'll just say about
this is that in past recessionary environments, what the US
Federal Reserve would do is lower interest rates.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
One thing Trump desperately wants and is trying to transmit.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
He's trying to transmit that he doesn't have control over
the US Federal Reserve, which sets policy as it relates
to interest rates. They don't want to lower interest rates
because they feel like that could stoke inflation once again.
So the Trump administration has kind of backed themselves in
a corner coming out so aggressive on the terrace, because
(25:24):
if they are not able to strike some sort of
deals right at this point, then there's really nothing that
they can do because the Fed is most focused on
really keeping inflation at bay, and they're also really focused
on the jobs market.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
They have a dual mandate.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
It's stable prices, that's as you speak about inflation and
full employment, and they're worried about a recession causing employment
to go basically much lower it Right now, you know,
the unemployment rate is really near lows at four point
two percent or something like that. So the Fed has
a really tricky job and the White House has kind
of backed themselves in a corner. But they've also put
(26:00):
a lot of pressure on Fed shairpal to do something
that he does not want to do.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Yeah, and it's really not up to Trump, it's really
up to the Fed. So we will see more push
and pull, and again I'm interesting to see everybody come
out against this.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
We'll see how it goes. Dan Nathan, thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
Thanks Molly. Great to be back with you.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
John Allen is a senior national political reporter at NBC.
Amy Parnis is a senior correspondent at The Hill, and
they are both the authors of Fight Inside the Wildest
Battle for the White House. Welcome to Fast Politics, Amy and.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
John, Thanks Molly, thank you. Let's talk about this book. Fight.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
First of all, it starts with the debate that basically
changed everything.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
You get into people's heads.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
You have a bunch of sort of different people who
are processing the debate. I know why you started there,
but I also want to know, like, as it was happening,
because all of this just happened, were you guys like, oh,
this is where we're going to start this.
Speaker 6 (27:06):
So interestingly, Molly, when the debate happened, we didn't even
have a book deal. We were not planning to write
a book about this election. We wrote one about the
twenty sixteen election. We were on about the twenty twenty election,
and we were off on a different project and this
debate happens, and we had looked at this election as
kind of I don't want to say.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
Dull, but maybe a little more doll.
Speaker 6 (27:25):
I mean you've got Joe Biden running against Donald Trump
in a rematch, and it.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Just wasn't Yeah, double haters.
Speaker 6 (27:32):
Yeah, that's right. It was the double hater election. Like
who's going to be least aided by the double haters?
And so when the debate happened, we didn't even know
we were going to write. And then, you know, a
week into the Democratic infighting, maybe ten days, the publisher
called an asked us if we would do an election book,
and we were so like, we jumped out it. We
(27:52):
were like, absolutely, because whatever happens from now until November
is going to be the most electric, most intense, most
revealing period of American politics in our entire lives. And
it turned out to be all of that.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Do you think that's true?
Speaker 4 (28:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (28:05):
Why would I say that if I didn't.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
I'm just like thinking through sort of that's a bold statement,
my friend.
Speaker 7 (28:13):
I mean, what election results in a candidate switch to
attempted assassinations? It was intense. We've covered quite a few
of these, John, and this was pretty much the most
intense one.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Let's sort of go through writing this book. It's very
heavily reported, but then told in a sort of novelistic way.
You know, it's funny because it's like the thing that
the right will seize on and they're not wrong to do.
It is just how out of it Biden was. Everything
I've read so far, it doesn't seem like there's a
(28:47):
concerted cover up. It seems like there's a lot of
anxiety about his age. He's definitely sort of back and forth.
But it doesn't I don't quite see like the kind
of nefariousness.
Speaker 6 (28:58):
This is not written as a book about a cover up.
I do think that there's collective neglect. I do think
that there are decisions that put their own interests or
different sets of interests above, you know, either the Democratic
Party's interests or the country's interests. And I think for
most of the people in the Democratic Party they believe
the party's interests are the country's interests. I don't look
at this and say, here was this massive cover up
(29:18):
to sort of pretend there was a president who wasn't
fully there or anything like that. What I do think
is that if you are somebody who gets to the
very top working for President Biden or really working for
any other president, you're not the type of person that
raises your hand and says Hey, wait a second. Guys,
you're not in the position where you're like, hey, wait
a second, maybe what we're doing is wrong here, or
maybe what we're doing here isn't going to work. Powerful
(29:41):
people tend to surround themselves those sick events that and
even close family members become, you know, part of the ride.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
This is the you know.
Speaker 6 (29:48):
One person said to us that Mike Donellan, who is
basically the closest Biden advisor, explained why he was running
for reelection in the first place, and the answer was,
you know, nobody wants to give up the playing the
helicopter in the house. Further, the person that we were
talking to and their own view was not only was
the staff highly invested in trying to keep Biden in offices,
(30:09):
they were the best jobs they were going to ever have,
but that the first lady, Jill Biden, was you know,
doubly so invested in you know, this is the best
thing that's going to be there for her. And frankly,
I think Joe Biden, whether accurate or delusional or whatever,
like I think Joe Biden truly believed he was the
only person who could beat Donald Trump. Like I don't
(30:31):
think that's fake. I think he really believes it. I
think he believed it even after the debate where everyone
in the Democratic Party realized that there was a problem,
and you know, long after I think most of the
Republican Party realized that there was a problem.
Speaker 7 (30:44):
Though he could win even after the election, right, No,
he said that, yeah, yeah, I read that part about
the First Lady had wanted him not to run and
written on her stomach no.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
But there was like a huge changeover Will you explain that.
Speaker 6 (31:01):
Yeah, that was two thousand and four, and so over
twenty years, you know, her huge change that I think
being first Lady was a pretty good deal. And in
two thousand and four she had a variety of sets
of reasons for why she didn't want him to run.
But by twenty twenty four, as they're running for reelection,
it means giving up a lot if he doesn't run.
And by the way, I think one of the interesting
things that you see in this book, and one of
(31:23):
our sources called it the quote unquote original sin, is
that there was no discussion about whether Biden should seek reelection.
It was about Owen when he would announce. You know,
he decided in his mind he was going to run
for reelection. There was no real debate internally within the
inner circle about doing that, and he set his party
and himself on a course that I think, you know,
(31:45):
all of them are disappointed with now, and put himself
in it, I think, a vulnerable position. I mean, anybody
that watched that debate, it's hard not to feel sympathy,
you know, in that moment of him struggling so mightily,
and in other moments that we'd seen before that, but
not in quite such dramatic fashion, And in other moments
that we've seen since that, again not in quite so
(32:05):
dramatic fashion.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
And what I thought was interesting, what you had in there,
was that there was really no love lost between Obama
and Biden.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Will you talk about that.
Speaker 7 (32:14):
It's a very interesting relationship that they have. You know,
they were close when they were partners after the Obama administration,
actually before it ended. He wanted to run for president
but president and Obama at the time preferred Hillary Clinton,
and that caused a lot of tension. Obama's aid sort
of pretty much told Biden at the time that he
(32:36):
shouldn't run, and Biden remembered it and wrote about it
in his book, And you know, so it starts there,
but fast forward to this election. I think President Obama
doesn't think that his former vice president now president is
a good candidate. We report in the book that he
talks to Nancy Pelosi several times to figure out what
(32:56):
to do about him post debate. We also report that
he has his own conversation with Joe Biden where he's
not telling him to leave the race, but he's kind
of prodding and asking him questions and seeing what his
plan is, and the relationship remains pretty divisive. I think
to this day.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
One of the really interesting parts is that George Clooney
is somehow and again you saw that with the op ed,
but he's sort of had this sense that there's something off.
Speaker 7 (33:27):
Yes, So the whole George Clooney thing, really it happens
also around the time that Nancy Pelosi's out there kind
of saying that Biden had a decision to make. George
Clooney comes out with this letter. The Biden campaign knew
about it, and they were trying to kind of put
the cabash on it for a couple of days. They
have Jeffrey Katzenberg reach out and try to kill it,
(33:51):
but it ends up running and that was really one
of the I think it was one of the nails
in the coffin.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Right, there's sort of a group with the George Clooney
Obama crew. It does seem to me like the takeaway
from this is that Democrats were not harsh enough with
their own that they sort of let him keep going
even when they had doubts.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Do you think that's correct?
Speaker 4 (34:18):
Correct?
Speaker 6 (34:18):
But I also think that it's very difficult to get
a sitting president to step aside or to have a
real primary process. You know, the DNC and the White
House work to change the primary calendar to put South
Carolina first so that anybody that was going to try
to beat Biden would have to basically beat him in
his best state starting out out of the gate. I mean,
there were a lot of moves made to protect the president,
(34:40):
which is not and when they say that, I mean
politically protect him, which is not unusual. It's not unusual
for the president's team to find a way for them,
the best way for the to win reelection. I do think,
Molly that like there are these scenes in the backstabbing,
all that stuff. It's very exciting for the news headlines
and for the clips and and we obviously are willing
(35:01):
to talk about all that stuff. I do think what
you get out of this book is you start to
get a sense of which of the leaders in the
Democratic Party, which are the people in the Democratic Party
put their party in their country above their own interests,
and those who let their own interests become more important
than what they thought what collectively the Democratic Party thought,
and by that I mean the voters thought was the
(35:23):
biggest thing here, which was to prevent Donald Trump from
becoming president of the United States.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
And you can.
Speaker 6 (35:28):
See how these jealousies, these ambitions.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
So tell us who those people are.
Speaker 6 (35:33):
One of the things that comes out of this book
is that Nancy Pelosi is probably the person in the
Democratic Party who is best at identifying what the interests
of the party. And again, you know what Democrats believe
were the interests of the country above her own interests.
She didn't want to get in a fight with Joe Biden.
She really likes and cares about Joe Biden. She didn't
want to be seen as being in a cabal to
(35:54):
take him out. She didn't want her fingerprints at the
scene of the crime. And at the same time, she
belie believe that he needed to get out of the race.
She helped that along, and she took on a role
that so many of her colleagues were just unwilling to do.
I mean, you know, you talk to members of Congress.
We would talk to members of converse anonymously and they say, yeah,
Biden's got to get out, But they wouldn't call for
(36:14):
him to get out because they were worried about dividing
the Democrats in their own districts and in their own
states and hurting themselves for reelection. You know, you go
through the various characters. Joe Biden wants to hold on
to power so much so that even when he gets
out of the race three and a half weeks after
a debate performance that I think most people believed should
have been disqualifying. When he gets out of the race,
(36:36):
he pushes Kamala Harris to not run her own race,
to not distance herself for things that aren't working for
his campaign and break apart. He keeps telling her no daylight, kid,
that there can't be any daylight between them. And by
the way, he's still the sitting president of the United States,
So there's any inherent or an implicit threaten that that
if she gets too far away from him, he's gonna
(36:57):
punish her for it, you know, or come out again
InTru in some way. You know, he made her beg
for an immediate endorsement because he wanted to bask in
the glory of his exit and take a victory lap
and talk about how he was like George Washington when
she really needed an immediate endorsement from him to lock
down the delegates to get the nomination, which eventually happened,
but only and we report in detail on this conversation,
(37:20):
two conversations between them on the day that he gets
out where he's basically saying, I'm not going to endorse
you for a while, and she's like, you got to
endorse me now, and eventually he does it. But I
think you can see in that like a with that
set of people, you know, where the loyalties and the
ambitions and and the selflessness. I think that there's there
are rare acts of selflessness in this story. You get
to see that in those people. And I also think
(37:41):
that it's an important lesson for voters to see the
difference between you know, what some of these public officials
are saying, some of these party leaders are saying out
in public and what they are saying behind the scenes,
and the gulf between what the voters need and should
be demanding from their leaders in terms of honesty and
fidelity to parties goals and what is actually going on.
(38:03):
And so as you look forward to twenty twenty eight
and the twenty twenty mid Times, I think there are
just a lot of lessons here for voters in terms
of grassroots donors and activists in terms of what do
they need to be seeing from their candidates. Who's going
to put the interests of the public put the interests
of the party voters first?
Speaker 2 (38:19):
What were the sort of worst hipocrisies you saw?
Speaker 6 (38:23):
I guess the way that I would put it is
that less hipocrisy and more gas lighting.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Okay, so what was the worst case of gas lighting
that you report in the book.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (38:31):
So, by the way, this is reporting in the book,
this isn't our objective analysis. I mean, right after the debate,
the campaign leadership team is meeting with the national finance
team for the campaign in a hotel in Atlanta where
the debate was the next morning, and a campaign leadership
is telling all the donors everything's spine. There was nothing
really wrong with Joe Biden. It was a bad night,
and their donors are like, like, what the fuck are
(38:52):
you talking about? It backfired, like the whole exercise in
you know, you have to repeat our talking points and
believe what we're telling you instead of what you saw
with your own eyes. I mean, it just totally backfired
on the campaign. You know, we talked to people in
the campaign who felt like their leadership, with the leadership
of the campaign was gaslighting the lower level campaign people
(39:13):
about Joe Biden's standing about Kamala Harris is standing. David
Pluff went out and told the country that she was
going to win seven swing states. Kamala Harris believed on
election night, we report on you know, we go into
the Vice President's residence on election night. You know, a
conversation she's having and the feeling she's having as she's
crestfallen because she's shocked. She thought she was in position
(39:34):
to win. Yeah, and then she loses. And I don't
want to spoil the end of the book, but you know,
let's just say that she felt gas lit.
Speaker 7 (39:41):
Too, and so did Tim Walls. By the way, we
also take you inside his hotel room and he's sitting
there and doesn't know what to say. His wife has
to talk because he can't find the words.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
One of the things that I noticed, just from my
own experience of this campaign was that they were pretty
afraid of their own shadow and unwilling to engage with
I mean, you could see this just clearly, like unwilling
to engage in podcasts and social media and just very
(40:12):
sort of locked down. Did you see this? And also
do you think that this is some of why they lost?
Speaker 7 (40:19):
Yeah, And you know, they were criticized by Itt Molly
coming out of the convention. You know a lot of
people thought that they were just running out the clock
at the time and that they didn't have to do
any media interviews. And at the same time, you're seeing
Donald Trump going on various podcasts everything, doing all of it.
And you know, we report in the book that she
does try to go on Rogan's podcasts, but it turns
(40:42):
into this whole you know, like they're negotiating back and
forth and Rogan is coming back and maybe his people
aren't being as forthcoming as they should be. They're negotiating
and it never amounts to anything. She ends up moving
a whole entire rally to Texas so she can be
in the place where Rogan is and that doesn't happen. Meanwhile,
(41:04):
Trump is everywhere, as you said, and he is relying
on his son Baron, which we report in the book.
Baron is giving guidance to him on how to reach
these younger people and it ends up being really successful
for him.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Just tell me one last thing. Do you think that
this consultant class around Harris should be in charge of
other elections for Democrats? Do you think they made good decisions?
Speaker 6 (41:29):
I think that the term consultant class kind of nails
at Molly.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
I'm thinking the precision strategy crew that came in from
Pluff to Cutter.
Speaker 6 (41:38):
Yeah, no, I know, David Pluff and Stephanie Stephanie Kenner dept.
For O'Malley Dillon. You know, look, we say this in
the book about about O'Malley Dillon. It's interesting she chooses
to run this campaign, which most people would not have
done usually if you want a campaign, and she was
a campaign manager for twenty twenty, which I think was
a lot closer than a lot of Democrats wanted to
(41:59):
think about. Out of forty four thousand votes over three
states in the electoral College. Most of them, you know,
were like, I'm going to go off on a high
note and I'm not going to risk losing my second election.
She made a different decision there, and I think that
that was at least in large part due to feeling
some loyalty to the president and thinking she'd be good
at it, right. But yeah, I think they make bad decisions,
and I think they make bad decisions that are just
(42:21):
jaw dropping. And I'll give you an example from the book.
And this is not The reason that this is important
is not necessarily the impact of the episode itself, but
just how it's so emblematic of the problem. The transad
that the Trump campaign ran, which had video of Kamala
Harris endorsing the state of California paying for trans surgery
(42:42):
for illegal immigrants in prison or you know who have
been in prison in California, that ends with the tagline,
Kamala Harris is for they them, President Trump is for you.
That's the most effective political ad I've ever seen. The
first time I saw it, I was like, this is
unbelievably effective. I can't imagine a better set of issues
for them to hammer her on in SOMs of it's
(43:02):
like a perfect blight, three or four issues that are
intertwined there with imprisoned immigrants and transsurgery and the them
versus you, I mean, the whole thing, and an economic
issue because the state's paying for it. But we report
that Bill Clinton saw this ad on the campaign trail
and he called everyone he could find to say, please
respond to this ad. This is killing her. People are
(43:24):
talking to me about it on rope lines. I just
keep hearing about this trans ad. Please respond. And the
answer he got back from the campaign brass and at
this point Harris campaign. But it's the same people that
were running the Biden campaign. The answer they got back
is we tested that ad, and we tested possible responses.
Our data shows us that it's not that effective. It's
(43:46):
not that big of a deal. This way of thinking,
we're like, you're so tied.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
To data that does nothing for you, and that's been wrong.
Speaker 6 (43:55):
I was just going to say, you're making strategic decisions
that are so fundamentally at odds with like what anybody
who knows anything about politics would believe based on incremental
differences in your data.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
So interesting, you guys, I'm sorry we ran along, John Amy,
thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
They're no momental secretly, Jesse Cannon my junk fast. So
we have had Justice Allison Riggs on this podcast many
times because this is a thing that you and I
find very alarming in how a little coverage it gets. Well,
the Supreme Court has gotten involved with her race, which
is the last race to be decided of the twenty
(44:38):
twenty four election, and it is fucking April.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Yeah, so basically, the Republican you are lost, and the
Republicans have decided that if they lose sometimes they just
decide that they're going to not go along with it,
and they're going to demand recan after recann after recant. Now,
Judge Griffin has cea dismissed the ballots cast by sixty
(45:03):
five thousand people. He has argued that a majority of
them were ineligible to vote because they did not supply
certain required identifications.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
This is what Republicans do.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
This is all, by the way, caused by Donald Trump's
twenty twenty election, where he was like, I didn't win
and so it was not fair.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
You will see more of this.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
It is just incredibly fucked up, and that is why
it is our moment of fuckery.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
That's it for.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
This episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday,
and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make
sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast,
please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And Beijing has called JD. Van's ignorant
over his Chinese peasant remarks. We have a great show
for you today. Risk Reversal's own Dan Nathan.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Stops by to tell us about.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
The business world's reaction to Trump's insane tariffs.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
They don't like it.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Then we'll talk to John Allen and Amy Parnis about
their new book, Fight Inside the Wildest Battle for the
White House.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
But first the news smile.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
You know who I think of. I want spying on
my data to see if I'm saying things bad and
slack or whatever. Your workplace thing is a guy named
big Boss.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Oh, we're back to big balls. Big balls.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yes, So it turns out the Environmental Protection Agency, though,
by the way, it is so insane that Elon. While
Donald Trump is ruining the capital markets, crashing the gap markets,
Elon is continued taking a chainsaw to the federal government
doge spying on federal workers for anti Trump, anti Musk messages. Shockingly,
(01:11):
the Environmental Protection Agency here are the people who just
want to protect the environment. Supposedly, the DOGE staff are
using AI to spy and communication sent by federal workers
to detect anti Trump or anti Musk language. What are
we doing here? First of all, why do you even care?
(01:34):
Right people say bad things about you? This is one
of the facts of being a famous person. I'm sorry, guys,
like this is what it is.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Man, It's called a workplace in America.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, well not for these two. Reuters cites two anonymous
people with knowledge of the matter. By the way, everyone
in the federal government is now leaking.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Like a fucking SIEV.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Who said this happened to the ep They had been
told so by Trump appointed officials. By the way, I'm
sure this's happening in every branch of the federal government.
If they're doing it at the EPA, they're doing it everywhere.
We have been told they're looking for anti Trump or
anti Musk language.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Before they were.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Just looking for DEI right, anti racism. Now they're looking
for naughty speak. By the way, I'm going to ask you, Jesse,
I don't think that Elon Musk is a free speech absolutist.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well, what we've learned is that thing is facts. Don't
care about your feelings less they're his feelings.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
That's right, baby.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
In true Axio style, we can ask ourselves why it matters.
It matters because it's against law, and it's also I
mean again, it may not be against law, depending on
what kind of waivers or legal machinations you've signed on to,
but it is pretty bad and it certainly undermines the
whole idea that these people care about free speech. Elon Musk,
(02:58):
the billionaire CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, which have
been taking a hammering lightly due to Donald Trump's Tara fiasco,
is leading efforts of DOGE to cut what it identifies
as fraud or waste, though technically a lot of that
fraud is government programs he doesn't like. Trump has long
(03:20):
railed against what he calls the deep state, the federal government,
and anyone who he thinks is not going along with
his agenda. Look, this is just yet another way to
turn the federal government against you, to dehumanize these people.
And by the way, I want to just say this
one more time. The people work in the federal government
(03:41):
are working in the federal government because they believe in
what the federal government is doing. Many many, many of
these people could make a lot more money in the
private sector the way Elon Musk did. But these people
are doing this because they believe in the sort of
good work that the government does. And it is really
(04:01):
disheartening to watch these people cut it up.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Speaking of cutting it up, many people notice that Social
Security is website crashed this week. Guess what caused it?
It was doge And now there's a very very interesting
reaction to this.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
So I know you're going to be shocked again.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
But part of what's happening here is that what Trump
and Elon considered to be fraud, waste, and abuse are
things they don't like. One of the things they don't
like is Social Security because it's expensive and it makes
up a lot of the government spending money that Donald Trump.
I don't know if you know this, but yesterday Donald
Trump said that they're going to up the Pentagon budget
(04:42):
a ton.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Right by trillion dollars, by.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Trillion dollars, and that money needs to come from somewhere,
and they would like it to come from Medicare, Medicaid,
and Social Security.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
So who do we think we'll get some of that
Pentagon budget?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I don't know, certainly not private contractor Elon. So, look,
they want social Security not to work so that people
can't collect it.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
And that's what we're seeing here.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
The website is used by about seventy million Social Security
benefit recipients. By the way, you pay into social Security.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
This is your money. This is not Elon Musk's money.
What to know.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
The website has experienced multiple crashes and errors in recent weeks.
Just like Elon did to X nay Twitter, he is
now doing to Social Security. Earlier this months, some disability
payment recipients received notice on the my Social Security porthole
that they were no longer receiving benefits. The Washing Post
has a really heart wrenching story of a mother with
(05:44):
a disabled son who got an email that she was
not getting his Social Security benefits anymore. There's just a
ton of real hardship here. People are being retraumatized by
Elon Musk. And know this man, this is what he does,
so be prepared, non surprised.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
So also speaking of things that does not surprise me.
The Supreme Court fucking sucks. This ruling they made about
deportations is not good.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yes and no, this is a complicated ruin. They said
that Trump has a little more time on this, right,
they weren't going to get the guy back in the
time that they needed, So in that way, I don't
think it was a total victory for Trump, and I've
I've read a bunch about this. Basically, Barrett sided with
(06:38):
the liberals. They are saying that he can use this
Alien Enemies Act for deportation, but they're saying that these
people are entitled to due process, despite the fact that
they are not in this country legally. Trump world took
this as a big win, but the reality is Trump
World had been saying that people not in this country,
(07:00):
we're not entitled to do process. This decision says they
are entitled to do process. So well, Trump is able
to use the Alien Enemies Act, which is, by the way, bonkers, right,
it's a wartime power. You know, there's no war, so
it's completely bonkers. But at least there is one good thing,
(07:21):
which is it means that these people are entitled to
do process, which we all knew to be true. That
said Sonya, So to my air my one of my
favorite Supreme Court justices wrote a staggering descent. We as
a nation and a court of law should be better
than this. But there are five.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Fox News justices who say otherwise.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Dan Nathan is a c NBC contributor and co host
of the podcast Risk Reversal.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Welcome to Fast Politics, Dan Nathan.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Molly, it's great to be back with you.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Explain to us what is going on with the public markets?
Speaker 5 (07:59):
All right, So we have a situation here where there's
very little guidance coming out of the White House. I
think there's very little clarity about what they're trying to
achieve with their tariff policy.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
There's fears that the.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
Tariff situation right here, if not resolved anytime soon, is
going to cause an economic recession. Markets usually try to
sniff that out ahead of time.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
I think that's what they're doing here.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
And so again you're going to hear this again and again,
and I've heard it on your podcast over the last
couple weeks. We can get talking about this. Public markets
do not like uncertainty. They like a level of clarity,
at least if they can't figure out what the endgame is.
They like to know the rules. And I think right
now the rules aren't particularly clear, and that's why you've
had this swoon lower in stocks, which really started in February.
(08:41):
But I think it was just a little bit of
trepidation that normally happens in the markets when you have
uncertainty about the economy. But then you throw in this
monkey wrench that really could you know, upend the US
economy and thus the global economy, and therefore investors start
discounting future earnings right, which basically causes them to sell stocks.
(09:02):
And that's what we've had over the last couple weeks.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Everyone is going to listen to this on Wednesday, and
so we'll have more volatility, whatever that looks like. But
I'm curious if you could just explain to us sort
of what you think would help the markets at this moment.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
Yeah, one thing that helped yesterday was the notion that,
you know, there might be a push out of the
tariffs that are going into place this week, and I
think the rumor and it was unfounded that there was
going to be a ninety day moratorium basically on these
and giving some time to do these bilateral talks with
first Canada and Mexico and the EU and Japan. And
so that caused a massive rally in the stock market
(09:40):
that had been down fifteen percent in three trading days.
So here we are today, it's Tuesday, on the open.
The market followed through to the upside. So as we
say as traders, we see a sea of green out
there and a lot of stocks that got really over sold,
a rallying, and some of the ones that are meant
to be the hard hit by tariffs. Right, So you've
(10:02):
had this momentum back to the upside. But if nothing materializes,
you know, over the next few days or so, you're
going to see market participants kind of sell stocks again
because they don't again have the clarity. One thing I
want to be really clear about also is that you
know I just mentioned earnings, right, those are the drivers
of stocks for the most part. Every year, every quarter
(10:24):
we see four times that companies report their earnings and
they give guidance going forward about how they think that
those earnings are going to be over the next three
months or so.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
That starts this Friday.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
Some of the biggest banks, JP, Morgan, Wells, Fargo, Morgan Stanley,
They're all going to be reporting earnings, and what these
CEOs have to say about the current environment and then
looking past, let's say the next few months is going
to be really important for market sentiment. And so if
Jamie Diamond, the CEO of the largest bank in the
world on Friday morning, suggests that we don't have a
(10:57):
lot of clarity about how consumers are going to be spending,
how businesses are going to be spending, that's the sort
of thing that could really weigh on the stock market
as we get into this Q one earing season.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
So one of the things that Trump World is pushing
back with is they're saying, well, there are people coming
to the negotiating table. We saw best and say that,
Terasury Secretary Scott Besson. But overnight we saw China go yeah,
but we're not. And in fact, they are sort of
escalating the trade war. And then Trump came back with
more tariffs, which would eat cool some crazy number of
(11:31):
you know, more tariff than the cost of the good
talk us through where that is.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
So, and I think you and I talked about this
a couple of weeks ago, and it was last done.
I mean, I think a lot of folks, at least
in the markets, feel like, you know, the Trump administration
did this ass backwards. Right if you had gone to
our largest trading partners, which are also our largest allies
or most important allies and really behind the scenes struck
some deals that could have been used as a framework
(11:56):
right as you kind of expand out some of this
kind of tariff talk beyond those folks, you could have
then had a united front against China and really try
to get the rest of the world behind you and
the leadership and really kind of focus on, you know,
some of the ills that are kind of you know,
China and they're manufacturing have placed on the rest of
(12:17):
the world, and so that you know, the situation right
here is like as soon as you get.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
A Japan deal or an EU deal, or a Canada.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
Or Mexico, then the biggest target is China. And so again,
the Chinese are sitting back here and yeah, they're not
particularly excited about all the threats from Trump, but they're
looking at, you know, the fraying of relations between the
US and some of their biggest partners, and it goes
beyond just the economic implications. It goes to security and
(12:45):
the like. And you know, before this trade situation got
all dialed up, we were focused on the war in
Ukraine and some other geopolitical situations, and so they're looking
around and saying, you know what our economy is weak.
We're willing to stimulate it right now to kind of
help abate some of the kind of worst case scenarios
as it relates to this trade war. And we're also
going to play a heavy hand back to them because
(13:07):
you know the Chinese, you know that whole notion of face.
They don't like to be embarrassed. So the ratcheting up
of this with China really only makes the stakes that
much higher. And ultimately, if you do get some sort
of deal, it may end up being the sort of
situation that's not particularly palatable to either economy or either country,
and it could weigh on global growth and thus put
(13:29):
the potentially the world in a recession, which will not
be obviously a good thing from an economic standpoint, from
a political standpoint, and then also as you think about
what's going on in markets, which is kind of important
if you just think about the wealth of nations, the
wealth of consumers and the like. The last time we
had a major global recession was the financial crisis, obviously,
(13:50):
and you could think about COVID and you know, financial
assets get absolutely destroyed in those environments.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Trump has a sort of opportunity now to sort of
make some deals and then sort of back down and
save face the way he kind of did with NATO
the first time, right where he sort of renegotiated a
deal that didn't really make any difference. And you know,
he's kind of like been very good at solving problems
that he created, very very good at that. But if
(14:16):
China keeps going with this trend ward, he won't be
able to is that right?
Speaker 5 (14:20):
Well, it really depends that you think about, you know,
the Chinese and their manufacturing infrastructure, and you know when
he looks at the deficit that we have, you know,
we import a lot more than they import from us.
That is really at the crux of kind of the
way he's thinking about this as zero sum game, and
it just isn't that, you know what I mean When
you think about it, China is one of the largest
(14:40):
holders of our debt. When they hold our debt in
dollar terms, they help fund our debt, right, So the
idea that we export more to China, right then they
export to us. Well, when they have that net difference,
they're buying US treasuries because US treasuries are meant to
be the safest risk asset on the planet. Also, more
demand for US dollars, right, which helps US fund our debt.
(15:04):
So if a big part of this trade policy or
these tariffs are basically to help lower our debt and deficit,
you know, it doesn't make a lot of sense that
you're going to, you know, basically deenalize some of the
largest holders of our debt. So you know, it's obviously
pretty complicated. If you're sitting out here and you listen
to Mali and you're a politico and you're trying to
make sense of this, you know, maybe what I'm speaking
(15:26):
to is a little bit of Greek. But when I
think about what I'm hearing from the Trump administration by
supposedly some very smart people like Treasury Secretary Scott Besson,
they're not making a lot of sense. When I hear
Besson go on Meet the Press on Sunday morning and
I listen to what he's trying to articulate to a
bunch of folks that are not staring at markets every day, right,
(15:47):
They're not that in tune with what goes on with
the economy. I don't think it's a particularly calming sort
of commentary that he had. And by the way, I
don't know if you saw this. He looks really nervous
and he wasn't making a whole a lot of sense.
So I think a lot of folks watching this over
the weekend. Maybe they weren't paying attention last week, but
they certainly were paying attention over the weekend. And I
(16:08):
think that when they see their four to one ks
lose value in the speed in which they did, they
start thinking to themselves, wait a minute, we have a
real confidence problem. And when investors lose confidence in the
leaders who are meant to kind of steer the ship,
that's when you get the sort of volatility, at least
the downward volatility that we've seen over the last week
and a half or so.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Some of this stuff Trump Blantz is not actually deliberable.
I'm thinking about the EU. He's very mad at the
EU for any number of reasons. He said that it
was set up to cheat the US. The EU has
a bunch of fees that are not really tariffs, but
that everyone has to pay.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
He is very offended by this.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I mean, doesn't this seem like a situation that would
be theoretically at least impossible to win.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
It would because he's trying to change tax policy in
these countries or this block, right, And that's one of
the things, is like it's one thing if you want
to impose tear it kind of even the playing field
as you think about, you know, you kind of being
disadvantaged in one way, shape or form. And obviously autos
is a big part of this. You know, the Germans
obviously produce a lot of automobiles. And he's pissed off
that we sell so much fewer, right cars into let's say,
(17:15):
the EU than the vice versa.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
But they make better cars.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
It's just that simple, right, And they make different cars
that have different you know, kind of sensibilities as it
relates to you know, size and power and all that
sort of stuff and energy consumption or whatever. So you know,
some of these things are just for him. He's locked
in the eighties and we know this, you know, when
the US was at this economic war over autos with
you know Japan and you know the Japanese. It's the
(17:39):
same sort of situation. He bitches and moans about that
there's no US cars you know on the on the
on the roads in Japan. Well, it's the same sort
of thing. They have different sensibilities, they make better cars.
Their people want to buy those cars. So a lot
of this stuff and I think you just said it,
and you know, he's looking through the lens of kind
of forty years ago. He creates problems, he tries to
(17:59):
create his own solutions so he can kind of, you know,
kind of I don't know, you know, suggest that he
got to win. So yeah, and it's just not working
with global trade. It's just, you know, the more globalization
we have, the more that we depend on each other,
you know, for manufacturing and parts and all this sort
of stuff, the harder it is to kind of put
these sort of economic barriers on because you do have
the potential for the sort of dislocation that the markets
(18:22):
are pricing in right now.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
We have historically always had American guards and they're actually
really good.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
But the problem is a lot of them are enormous.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
So you're not going to be selling Chevy suburbans or
Chevy tahoes too small countries in Europe with tiny cobblestone streets.
It's just not going to happen. And I think that
is also a consideration. I'm curious this is, you know what.
There's also we talk a lot about those sort of
market numbers. But these tariffs, they're not even in effect yet, right,
(18:52):
and they're already making.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Things more expensive. Talk to me about where we're going
to see that. I was reading online that guyde work
where he's one of my favorites, and he was talking
about how surt's are even twenty thirty dollars more already.
Explain to us why trade wars are so inflationary.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, if
Trump is trying to convince US companies to reshore manufacturing, right,
and so if that really is you know, what they're
trying to do, then all of a sudden, you know,
demand here in the US, you know, for the manufacturing
of these factories is going to cause inflation.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Right.
Speaker 5 (19:26):
It's going to hit margins of companies that manufacture this
sort of stuff, So they're going to have to raise prices,
which is going to actually have an effect on demand.
Right when you think about that, So you get in
a situation where you can foresee that the dislocations of
supply chains which we saw during COVID made the price
of goods and services go up, right, So if you're
(19:47):
forcing US companies to bring back manufacturing here, there's no
other way that it's going to raise prices because of
all the costs to kind of reorient that, to retool
factories or build factories, to kind of hire workers here.
They're a lot more expensive here than they are in
Vietnam or China and the like here. So when you
think about all this in the near term, all this
(20:07):
uncertainty causes companies outside the idea of you know, reshoring
manufacturing to kind of slow up some other sort of
expenditures that they have, which is capax you know, outside
of manufacturing or R and D I'm in the like.
And so you get into a situation that we've talked
about for a while. If that slows growth right and
demand is weakened because of weakening economy, then you get
(20:30):
in the stagflationary sort of environment, which again is not
a good situation.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
To be in.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
We haven't been there since kind of the mid to
late seventies or so, and so again, what's different about
this time versus let's say the seventies, is just the
increased globalization, the reliance that we have on all of
these supply chains, whether it's manufacturing of cars here and
parts coming from Mexico or Canada, whether it's housing here
and the reliance on you know, lumber from Canada. I mean,
(20:59):
it's reliance on rare earth materials and electric batteries that
come from China into Tesla cars or other evs here
in the US, right, whether it's our reliance on energy
from those sorts of things. So if you have this
tip for Tad and you go back and forth with
your trading partners ratcheting up the taxes, and make no
mistake about it, these tariffs are on taxes, it's going
(21:23):
to cause inflation. And we know that inflation hurts the
middle class and lower earners here in the US. So
again that's the risk of causing consumer slow down and spending,
corporate slow down and spending based on all of this
demand for reshoring of manufacturing here, which you're going to
take a long time to do. It's going to take three, five,
(21:45):
ten years for a lot of this sort of stuff
to happen. And that's one of the reasons why you
see now the billionaire class. Ken Griffin one of the
richest men here in the US. He runs Citadel, which
is one of the most successful hedge funds. He's out
this morning suggesting that this is a horrible policy. We've
seen this by a bunch of others, Stan Druckemiller, who's
also one of the wealthiest men in the world, also
(22:06):
a hedge funder. This is the sort of stuff that
might actually start to get into the thick skull of
Treasury Secretary Beston, who, by the way, used to work
for drug a Miller.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Right, so a lot of.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
These folks speak his language, but for some reason he's
speaking the language of Trump, which gives you know, I
think it gives a CEO class and consumers less confidence
in the.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Policies explained to us about stagflation, because we've talked about
it a lot.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
It's the nightmare scenario. Just give us two minutes on
what it is and what it does.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
Yeah, and so this goes back to the whole idea
of restoring or just increased costs that are you know,
kind of put on a US consumer. Let's just focus
on the US here because of you know, these teriffs, right,
and then that causes a.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Slowing of growth. Right.
Speaker 5 (22:50):
Two thirds of our GDP of our economy basically is
US consumer spending, which also speaks a little bit too,
why we have these trade deficits. We are addicted to consuming, right,
We also like cheap goods. So if you have a
situation where growth is slowing, unemployment is going higher because
of the tariffs, right, and you have inflation that's sticking
(23:12):
around for a lot of the same reasons, then you
get into the stagflationary environment, which actually hurts consumer spending.
Going back full circle here, and so it's just an
environment that if you're focused on investments, if you're focused
on your four oh one k, it will not be
good for us corporate earnings, which goes back to what
we were just talking about, which should be one of
(23:34):
the major drivers, right of the stock market. And so
stagflation bad for risk assets, bad for employment, bad for
you know, like consumers who are trying to kind of
keep a nest egg here. And so that's one of
the situations where I think a lot of folks are
very worried about protracted trade war causing stagflation at a
(23:54):
time where we're worried about that last year before we
got into this trade war.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
And so that's one of the reasons why I think
a lot.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
Of folks want to see a quick end to this.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Trade war and stagflation is sort of self perpetuating. Right.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Often in the recession, things will get cheaper, but this
is a recession with inflation, so it means everything is
more expensive. Plus the economies in a downturn. Right, that's
the night nurse scenario now.
Speaker 5 (24:19):
And you might see the headline numbers of inflation come
in a little bit, especially as consumers have less buying
power and there's less demand for goods and services. But
you have to think of it now as the cumulative
nature of inflation over the last four years. You also
have to think about the fact that interest rates are
likely to stay high to battle inflation, because the last
(24:40):
thing they want to do is kind of go into
a situation where inflation picks up a great deal at
a time where going back to the growth where growth
is kind of weak. Right, So that's the push and
pull here. And the last thing I'll just say about
this is that in past recessionary environments, what the US
Federal Reserve would do is lower interest rates.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
One thing Trump desperately wants and is trying to transmit.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
He's trying to transmit that he doesn't have control over
the US Federal Reserve, which sets policy as it relates
to interest rates. They don't want to lower interest rates
because they feel like that could stoke inflation once again.
So the Trump administration has kind of backed themselves in
a corner coming out so aggressive on the terrace, because
(25:24):
if they are not able to strike some sort of
deals right at this point, then there's really nothing that
they can do because the Fed is most focused on
really keeping inflation at bay, and they're also really focused
on the jobs market.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
They have a dual mandate.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
It's stable prices, that's as you speak about inflation and
full employment, and they're worried about a recession causing employment
to go basically much lower it Right now, you know,
the unemployment rate is really near lows at four point
two percent or something like that. So the Fed has
a really tricky job and the White House has kind
of backed themselves in a corner. But they've also put
(26:00):
a lot of pressure on Fed shairpal to do something
that he does not want to do.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Yeah, and it's really not up to Trump, it's really
up to the Fed. So we will see more push
and pull, and again I'm interesting to see everybody come
out against this.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
We'll see how it goes. Dan Nathan, thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
Thanks Molly. Great to be back with you.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
John Allen is a senior national political reporter at NBC.
Amy Parnis is a senior correspondent at The Hill, and
they are both the authors of Fight Inside the Wildest
Battle for the White House. Welcome to Fast Politics, Amy and.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
John, Thanks Molly, thank you. Let's talk about this book. Fight.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
First of all, it starts with the debate that basically
changed everything.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
You get into people's heads.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
You have a bunch of sort of different people who
are processing the debate. I know why you started there,
but I also want to know, like, as it was happening,
because all of this just happened, were you guys like, oh,
this is where we're going to start this.
Speaker 6 (27:06):
So interestingly, Molly, when the debate happened, we didn't even
have a book deal. We were not planning to write
a book about this election. We wrote one about the
twenty sixteen election. We were on about the twenty twenty election,
and we were off on a different project and this
debate happens, and we had looked at this election as
kind of I don't want to say.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
Dull, but maybe a little more doll.
Speaker 6 (27:25):
I mean you've got Joe Biden running against Donald Trump
in a rematch, and it.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Just wasn't Yeah, double haters.
Speaker 6 (27:32):
Yeah, that's right. It was the double hater election. Like
who's going to be least aided by the double haters?
And so when the debate happened, we didn't even know
we were going to write. And then, you know, a
week into the Democratic infighting, maybe ten days, the publisher
called an asked us if we would do an election book,
and we were so like, we jumped out it. We
(27:52):
were like, absolutely, because whatever happens from now until November
is going to be the most electric, most intense, most
revealing period of American politics in our entire lives. And
it turned out to be all of that.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Do you think that's true?
Speaker 4 (28:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (28:05):
Why would I say that if I didn't.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
I'm just like thinking through sort of that's a bold statement,
my friend.
Speaker 7 (28:13):
I mean, what election results in a candidate switch to
attempted assassinations? It was intense. We've covered quite a few
of these, John, and this was pretty much the most
intense one.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Let's sort of go through writing this book. It's very
heavily reported, but then told in a sort of novelistic way.
You know, it's funny because it's like the thing that
the right will seize on and they're not wrong to do.
It is just how out of it Biden was. Everything
I've read so far, it doesn't seem like there's a
(28:47):
concerted cover up. It seems like there's a lot of
anxiety about his age. He's definitely sort of back and forth.
But it doesn't I don't quite see like the kind
of nefariousness.
Speaker 6 (28:58):
This is not written as a book about a cover up.
I do think that there's collective neglect. I do think
that there are decisions that put their own interests or
different sets of interests above, you know, either the Democratic
Party's interests or the country's interests. And I think for
most of the people in the Democratic Party they believe
the party's interests are the country's interests. I don't look
at this and say, here was this massive cover up
(29:18):
to sort of pretend there was a president who wasn't
fully there or anything like that. What I do think
is that if you are somebody who gets to the
very top working for President Biden or really working for
any other president, you're not the type of person that
raises your hand and says Hey, wait a second. Guys,
you're not in the position where you're like, hey, wait
a second, maybe what we're doing is wrong here, or
maybe what we're doing here isn't going to work. Powerful
(29:41):
people tend to surround themselves those sick events that and
even close family members become, you know, part of the ride.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
This is the you know.
Speaker 6 (29:48):
One person said to us that Mike Donellan, who is
basically the closest Biden advisor, explained why he was running
for reelection in the first place, and the answer was,
you know, nobody wants to give up the playing the
helicopter in the house. Further, the person that we were
talking to and their own view was not only was
the staff highly invested in trying to keep Biden in offices,
(30:09):
they were the best jobs they were going to ever have,
but that the first lady, Jill Biden, was you know,
doubly so invested in you know, this is the best
thing that's going to be there for her. And frankly,
I think Joe Biden, whether accurate or delusional or whatever,
like I think Joe Biden truly believed he was the
only person who could beat Donald Trump. Like I don't
(30:31):
think that's fake. I think he really believes it. I
think he believed it even after the debate where everyone
in the Democratic Party realized that there was a problem,
and you know, long after I think most of the
Republican Party realized that there was a problem.
Speaker 7 (30:44):
Though he could win even after the election, right, No,
he said that, yeah, yeah, I read that part about
the First Lady had wanted him not to run and
written on her stomach no.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
But there was like a huge changeover Will you explain that.
Speaker 6 (31:01):
Yeah, that was two thousand and four, and so over
twenty years, you know, her huge change that I think
being first Lady was a pretty good deal. And in
two thousand and four she had a variety of sets
of reasons for why she didn't want him to run.
But by twenty twenty four, as they're running for reelection,
it means giving up a lot if he doesn't run.
And by the way, I think one of the interesting
things that you see in this book, and one of
(31:23):
our sources called it the quote unquote original sin, is
that there was no discussion about whether Biden should seek reelection.
It was about Owen when he would announce. You know,
he decided in his mind he was going to run
for reelection. There was no real debate internally within the
inner circle about doing that, and he set his party
and himself on a course that I think, you know,
(31:45):
all of them are disappointed with now, and put himself
in it, I think, a vulnerable position. I mean, anybody
that watched that debate, it's hard not to feel sympathy,
you know, in that moment of him struggling so mightily,
and in other moments that we'd seen before that, but
not in quite such dramatic fashion, And in other moments
that we've seen since that, again not in quite so
(32:05):
dramatic fashion.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
And what I thought was interesting, what you had in there,
was that there was really no love lost between Obama
and Biden.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Will you talk about that.
Speaker 7 (32:14):
It's a very interesting relationship that they have. You know,
they were close when they were partners after the Obama administration,
actually before it ended. He wanted to run for president
but president and Obama at the time preferred Hillary Clinton,
and that caused a lot of tension. Obama's aid sort
of pretty much told Biden at the time that he
(32:36):
shouldn't run, and Biden remembered it and wrote about it
in his book, And you know, so it starts there,
but fast forward to this election. I think President Obama
doesn't think that his former vice president now president is
a good candidate. We report in the book that he
talks to Nancy Pelosi several times to figure out what
(32:56):
to do about him post debate. We also report that
he has his own conversation with Joe Biden where he's
not telling him to leave the race, but he's kind
of prodding and asking him questions and seeing what his
plan is, and the relationship remains pretty divisive. I think
to this day.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
One of the really interesting parts is that George Clooney
is somehow and again you saw that with the op ed,
but he's sort of had this sense that there's something off.
Speaker 7 (33:27):
Yes, So the whole George Clooney thing, really it happens
also around the time that Nancy Pelosi's out there kind
of saying that Biden had a decision to make. George
Clooney comes out with this letter. The Biden campaign knew
about it, and they were trying to kind of put
the cabash on it for a couple of days. They
have Jeffrey Katzenberg reach out and try to kill it,
(33:51):
but it ends up running and that was really one
of the I think it was one of the nails
in the coffin.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Right, there's sort of a group with the George Clooney
Obama crew. It does seem to me like the takeaway
from this is that Democrats were not harsh enough with
their own that they sort of let him keep going
even when they had doubts.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Do you think that's correct?
Speaker 4 (34:18):
Correct?
Speaker 6 (34:18):
But I also think that it's very difficult to get
a sitting president to step aside or to have a
real primary process. You know, the DNC and the White
House work to change the primary calendar to put South
Carolina first so that anybody that was going to try
to beat Biden would have to basically beat him in
his best state starting out out of the gate. I mean,
there were a lot of moves made to protect the president,
(34:40):
which is not and when they say that, I mean
politically protect him, which is not unusual. It's not unusual
for the president's team to find a way for them,
the best way for the to win reelection. I do think,
Molly that like there are these scenes in the backstabbing,
all that stuff. It's very exciting for the news headlines
and for the clips and and we obviously are willing
(35:01):
to talk about all that stuff. I do think what
you get out of this book is you start to
get a sense of which of the leaders in the
Democratic Party, which are the people in the Democratic Party
put their party in their country above their own interests,
and those who let their own interests become more important
than what they thought what collectively the Democratic Party thought,
and by that I mean the voters thought was the
(35:23):
biggest thing here, which was to prevent Donald Trump from
becoming president of the United States.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
And you can.
Speaker 6 (35:28):
See how these jealousies, these ambitions.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
So tell us who those people are.
Speaker 6 (35:33):
One of the things that comes out of this book
is that Nancy Pelosi is probably the person in the
Democratic Party who is best at identifying what the interests
of the party. And again, you know what Democrats believe
were the interests of the country above her own interests.
She didn't want to get in a fight with Joe Biden.
She really likes and cares about Joe Biden. She didn't
want to be seen as being in a cabal to
(35:54):
take him out. She didn't want her fingerprints at the
scene of the crime. And at the same time, she
belie believe that he needed to get out of the race.
She helped that along, and she took on a role
that so many of her colleagues were just unwilling to do.
I mean, you know, you talk to members of Congress.
We would talk to members of converse anonymously and they say, yeah,
Biden's got to get out, But they wouldn't call for
(36:14):
him to get out because they were worried about dividing
the Democrats in their own districts and in their own
states and hurting themselves for reelection. You know, you go
through the various characters. Joe Biden wants to hold on
to power so much so that even when he gets
out of the race three and a half weeks after
a debate performance that I think most people believed should
have been disqualifying. When he gets out of the race,
(36:36):
he pushes Kamala Harris to not run her own race,
to not distance herself for things that aren't working for
his campaign and break apart. He keeps telling her no daylight, kid,
that there can't be any daylight between them. And by
the way, he's still the sitting president of the United States,
So there's any inherent or an implicit threaten that that
if she gets too far away from him, he's gonna
(36:57):
punish her for it, you know, or come out again
InTru in some way. You know, he made her beg
for an immediate endorsement because he wanted to bask in
the glory of his exit and take a victory lap
and talk about how he was like George Washington when
she really needed an immediate endorsement from him to lock
down the delegates to get the nomination, which eventually happened,
but only and we report in detail on this conversation,
(37:20):
two conversations between them on the day that he gets
out where he's basically saying, I'm not going to endorse
you for a while, and she's like, you got to
endorse me now, and eventually he does it. But I
think you can see in that like a with that
set of people, you know, where the loyalties and the
ambitions and and the selflessness. I think that there's there
are rare acts of selflessness in this story. You get
to see that in those people. And I also think
(37:41):
that it's an important lesson for voters to see the
difference between you know, what some of these public officials
are saying, some of these party leaders are saying out
in public and what they are saying behind the scenes,
and the gulf between what the voters need and should
be demanding from their leaders in terms of honesty and
fidelity to parties goals and what is actually going on.
(38:03):
And so as you look forward to twenty twenty eight
and the twenty twenty mid Times, I think there are
just a lot of lessons here for voters in terms
of grassroots donors and activists in terms of what do
they need to be seeing from their candidates. Who's going
to put the interests of the public put the interests
of the party voters first?
Speaker 2 (38:19):
What were the sort of worst hipocrisies you saw?
Speaker 6 (38:23):
I guess the way that I would put it is
that less hipocrisy and more gas lighting.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Okay, so what was the worst case of gas lighting
that you report in the book.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (38:31):
So, by the way, this is reporting in the book,
this isn't our objective analysis. I mean, right after the debate,
the campaign leadership team is meeting with the national finance
team for the campaign in a hotel in Atlanta where
the debate was the next morning, and a campaign leadership
is telling all the donors everything's spine. There was nothing
really wrong with Joe Biden. It was a bad night,
and their donors are like, like, what the fuck are
(38:52):
you talking about? It backfired, like the whole exercise in
you know, you have to repeat our talking points and
believe what we're telling you instead of what you saw
with your own eyes. I mean, it just totally backfired
on the campaign. You know, we talked to people in
the campaign who felt like their leadership, with the leadership
of the campaign was gaslighting the lower level campaign people
(39:13):
about Joe Biden's standing about Kamala Harris is standing. David
Pluff went out and told the country that she was
going to win seven swing states. Kamala Harris believed on
election night, we report on you know, we go into
the Vice President's residence on election night. You know, a
conversation she's having and the feeling she's having as she's
crestfallen because she's shocked. She thought she was in position
(39:34):
to win. Yeah, and then she loses. And I don't
want to spoil the end of the book, but you know,
let's just say that she felt gas lit.
Speaker 7 (39:41):
Too, and so did Tim Walls. By the way, we
also take you inside his hotel room and he's sitting
there and doesn't know what to say. His wife has
to talk because he can't find the words.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
One of the things that I noticed, just from my
own experience of this campaign was that they were pretty
afraid of their own shadow and unwilling to engage with
I mean, you could see this just clearly, like unwilling
to engage in podcasts and social media and just very
(40:12):
sort of locked down. Did you see this? And also
do you think that this is some of why they lost?
Speaker 7 (40:19):
Yeah, And you know, they were criticized by Itt Molly
coming out of the convention. You know a lot of
people thought that they were just running out the clock
at the time and that they didn't have to do
any media interviews. And at the same time, you're seeing
Donald Trump going on various podcasts everything, doing all of it.
And you know, we report in the book that she
does try to go on Rogan's podcasts, but it turns
(40:42):
into this whole you know, like they're negotiating back and
forth and Rogan is coming back and maybe his people
aren't being as forthcoming as they should be. They're negotiating
and it never amounts to anything. She ends up moving
a whole entire rally to Texas so she can be
in the place where Rogan is and that doesn't happen. Meanwhile,
(41:04):
Trump is everywhere, as you said, and he is relying
on his son Baron, which we report in the book.
Baron is giving guidance to him on how to reach
these younger people and it ends up being really successful
for him.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Just tell me one last thing. Do you think that
this consultant class around Harris should be in charge of
other elections for Democrats? Do you think they made good decisions?
Speaker 6 (41:29):
I think that the term consultant class kind of nails
at Molly.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
I'm thinking the precision strategy crew that came in from
Pluff to Cutter.
Speaker 6 (41:38):
Yeah, no, I know, David Pluff and Stephanie Stephanie Kenner dept.
For O'Malley Dillon. You know, look, we say this in
the book about about O'Malley Dillon. It's interesting she chooses
to run this campaign, which most people would not have
done usually if you want a campaign, and she was
a campaign manager for twenty twenty, which I think was
a lot closer than a lot of Democrats wanted to
(41:59):
think about. Out of forty four thousand votes over three
states in the electoral College. Most of them, you know,
were like, I'm going to go off on a high
note and I'm not going to risk losing my second election.
She made a different decision there, and I think that
that was at least in large part due to feeling
some loyalty to the president and thinking she'd be good
at it, right. But yeah, I think they make bad decisions,
and I think they make bad decisions that are just
(42:21):
jaw dropping. And I'll give you an example from the book.
And this is not The reason that this is important
is not necessarily the impact of the episode itself, but
just how it's so emblematic of the problem. The transad
that the Trump campaign ran, which had video of Kamala
Harris endorsing the state of California paying for trans surgery
(42:42):
for illegal immigrants in prison or you know who have
been in prison in California, that ends with the tagline,
Kamala Harris is for they them, President Trump is for you.
That's the most effective political ad I've ever seen. The
first time I saw it, I was like, this is
unbelievably effective. I can't imagine a better set of issues
for them to hammer her on in SOMs of it's
(43:02):
like a perfect blight, three or four issues that are
intertwined there with imprisoned immigrants and transsurgery and the them
versus you, I mean, the whole thing, and an economic
issue because the state's paying for it. But we report
that Bill Clinton saw this ad on the campaign trail
and he called everyone he could find to say, please
respond to this ad. This is killing her. People are
(43:24):
talking to me about it on rope lines. I just
keep hearing about this trans ad. Please respond. And the
answer he got back from the campaign brass and at
this point Harris campaign. But it's the same people that
were running the Biden campaign. The answer they got back
is we tested that ad, and we tested possible responses.
Our data shows us that it's not that effective. It's
(43:46):
not that big of a deal. This way of thinking,
we're like, you're so tied.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
To data that does nothing for you, and that's been wrong.
Speaker 6 (43:55):
I was just going to say, you're making strategic decisions
that are so fundamentally at odds with like what anybody
who knows anything about politics would believe based on incremental
differences in your data.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
So interesting, you guys, I'm sorry we ran along, John Amy,
thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
They're no momental secretly, Jesse Cannon my junk fast. So
we have had Justice Allison Riggs on this podcast many
times because this is a thing that you and I
find very alarming in how a little coverage it gets. Well,
the Supreme Court has gotten involved with her race, which
is the last race to be decided of the twenty
(44:38):
twenty four election, and it is fucking April.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Yeah, so basically, the Republican you are lost, and the
Republicans have decided that if they lose sometimes they just
decide that they're going to not go along with it,
and they're going to demand recan after recann after recant. Now,
Judge Griffin has cea dismissed the ballots cast by sixty
(45:03):
five thousand people. He has argued that a majority of
them were ineligible to vote because they did not supply
certain required identifications.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
This is what Republicans do.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
This is all, by the way, caused by Donald Trump's
twenty twenty election, where he was like, I didn't win
and so it was not fair.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
You will see more of this.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
It is just incredibly fucked up, and that is why
it is our moment of fuckery.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
That's it for.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
This episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday,
and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make
sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast,
please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!