October 16, 2024 • 48 mins
The Nation’s Jeet Heer examines Donald Trump’s continued descent into madness. Author Jonathan Alter details his new book American Reckoning: Inside Trump’s Trial and My Own.
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Episode Transcript
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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 Bob Woodward says Trump is far
worse than Richard Nixon, and he would know. We have
such a great show for you today. The Nation's jeet
here talks Donald Trump's continued to send into madness. Then
(00:24):
we'll talk to author Jonathan Alter about his new book
American Reckoning, inside Trump's trial and my own. But first
the news.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
So, Molly, last night, you and I were on stage
doing our file Day of Politics as unusual, our little
tour with Rick Wilson, and we missed out on mister
Trump doing what I would call some demented behavior of us,
swaying back and forth on stage. When I watched this
last night, I literally just kept saying what the fuck
very loudly through my house.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Trump told his supporters to go out and vote on
January fifth. A few much.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I like it then the election, but still a good call.
I think Republicans should definitely go vote on January fifth.
He rambled about the late great Hannibal Lecter, you may
remember him. Then somebody fainted and another person fainted, so
he stood frozen and silent on stage as music played
(01:24):
for thirty seven minutes. Thirty seven minutes.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Listening to the Shrek soundtrack, at points.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
His soundtrack, which included ave Maria a lot of good
stuff in there, but also thirty seven minutes of standing
on stage sort of voguing for the crowd.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I would call it a light sway sachet type thing.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
A sort of be bomp okay, Yes, yes, imagine if
a Democrat, imagine if Joe Biden did that. Yeah, they
would be Molly Hemingway, the whole Federalist crew, the Wall
Street Journal opinion page. They would be screaming from the rooftops.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Well, since he's really losing his mind today, he's at
the Economic Club of Chicago and talking to Bloomberg editor
in chief John Micklethwaite, Which, if I fucked that pronunciation up,
I'll punch in later. What'd you see here? Today?
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Molly Trump is focused on his economic agenda.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I'm sure he is.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Right, which includes whatever. So he has about two moves
when it comes to economy. One is tariff's. He says
that a ten percent tariff, which he has vowed to
impose on all other countries importing the US is insufficient
to bring jobs back to the country. For that outcome,
you need tariffs of fifty percent. So fifty percent tariff
(02:50):
will mean that what are you buying. You're buying a
thing of hangers. Right, your hangars will cost instead of
costing five bucks for ten hangars, it will cost eight
bucks for ten hangars, or seven dollars and fifty cents,
and everything will get more expensive, which will be inflationary.
(03:12):
The moderator the edit entry food, Bloomberg said, tariffs have
another side. You could be plunging America into the biggest
trade war. Trump says, no, all you have to do
is build the plant in the United States and then
you don't have any tariffs.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Huh. Those immigrants that are going to leave.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I want to play his answer on government spending.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
That's tremendous. Will give me an example of something you
will do that will get rid of governments.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
But let me give you an example.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
When I came into government, I was the first example
coming forward. This is going forward because it's the same thing.
When I first sat down, a general came into my
office and he said, sir, it's nice to meet you.
When you please sign this.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
I said, what is it.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
It's a contract for a new air force one which
is actually two planes, not one two Boeing seven forty seven.
And I said, how much is it? Five point seven
billion dollars. It's the hell of an expensive plane. But
there's reasons for that. He said, nope, I'm not signing it.
I said, who negotiated BARACKU, Sai and Obama. I said,
I'm not signing it. Why because he because there's a
(04:21):
lot of fat. He said, I'm not signing. It's got
to have it three on it. Anyway, long story short,
some of you have heard this.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
I got it down.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Too, because first week they cut off four hundred million,
he said, I'll cut I met with the head of Boeing. Wait, Dennis,
I said, Dennis got to have a three. Five point
seven is too much? Five point seven billion? He said,
the most I'll take off is four hundred million dollars.
I said, well, let's not bad for one conversation. So
I got it down. I said, nope, I'm not accepting.
(04:50):
Then he took off two more. Then he took off anyway.
Two months went by, three months went by. I thought
we blew the deal. And I was okay with me.
I didn't care. But we should have a new are
force one when we see these planes from Saudi Arabia,
from different countries brand new, and ours is like thirty
two years old, and it's a very different plane. It's
much smaller plane. Yeah, the whole thing. The United States
(05:13):
should have.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
The best plane, something real same well.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
And also like, so he's going to lessen government spending
by trying to cheat his vendors, right, I mean, that's
that is I'm not sure that's a scalable answer. The
thing that I was the most upset by was that
Trump wants to influence the FED moves. So remember one
(05:39):
of the things that Project twenty twenty five wants to
do is to make the FED, the DOJ, many aspects
of the sort of the non partisan actors in the
federal government to be partisan hacks arm of the Donald
Trump campaign. And that's what's happening here. Trump says he
wants to influence FED move and then he sort of
(06:01):
said he wouldn't order them, but he definitely thinks he's
smarter than the chairman of the FED who he actually installed,
Jerome Palell. And he says, in fact, look, I think
it's the greatest job in government. You show up to
the office once a month and say, let's flip a coin,
and everyone talks about you like you're a god. He added,
(06:22):
I think I'm better than he would be. I think
I'm better than most people would be in the position.
By the way, somebody give me this kind of self
esteem because I never think, oh my god, I'm better
than this person. I mean, like, oh, to be a
mediocre white guy. I don't think I should be allowed
to order it. Oh, okay, well that's nice. But I
(06:44):
think I have the right to put in comments as
to whether or not interest rate should go up or down.
By the way, all he wants is for them to
go down. He also refused to answer whether or not
Google should be broken up. Again. He basically just meandered
and talked about something else. And then when Mikaelwithe asked him,
can you say yes or no? Have you talked to
(07:05):
Vladimir Putin since being president? Trump was like, no, but
if I had, it would have been great, which is
he didn't say no. He said I won't comment on that,
and he said, but I will tell you that if
I did, it's a smart thing. So there you go.
If he did, it's a smart thing. What do you
want to bet he did.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
I'm not betting against that.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
So that's Trump at the Economic Club of Chicago. Though
at least he did talk and not just sway to
the wind, and for that we should all be impressed
that he at least tried to answer some questions. Get
here is a contributor to the nation and the host
(07:50):
of the time of Monsters. Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Jed here always good to be on the program.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
So I am so glad to have you on this podcast,
and I have so many things I want to talk
to you about, the first of which is Donald Trump's
little dance thirty seven minutes of bopping' and Weavin.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
I wanted the woke to use liberals, Wade, I mean,
you're complaining he gives like two hours of advocating fascism
and the mass deportations and spreading horrific conspiracy theories that
could get people killed, and then he gives you something
different where he's just swaying gently to like, you know,
the village people. Yeah, abra ave Maria, yeah, exactly. Why
(08:39):
not celebrate the fact that this is the most benign
Donald Trump we've ever seen. Why not have a president
who's a swaying tree.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
A swaying tree, well.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Moves to the wind. This is like him and his
best i've ever seen. I have followed this guy since
the nineteen eighties. I've never seen such a benign you know,
just sort of smile like Grandpa after you've given him
a lot of worphying.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
So I'm going to give you listeners of full context. Here.
Donald Trump was in South Dakota being interviewed by South
Dakota Governor Christy Nome, who is most famous for killing
her puppy. And again, the Washington Post just absolutely got
it right here. They said Trump sways and bops to
music for thirty nine minutes in bizarre town hall episode.
(09:27):
The scene comes as Vice President Kamala Harris has called
Trump seventy eight unstable and called into question his mental acuity.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Yeah, aget, I want to set up for Donald Trump here. Well,
you wanted to be talking to Christy Nole and like, well,
what about like the best way to kill domestic pets? No, right,
the suthlist was good. It's the Trump favorites. I'm always
in favor of bringing.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Oh, the town hall was in Pennsylvania. I'm sorry the
town hall was in Pennsylvania, but it was with South
Dakota Governor Christine. Thank you Seamus for that fact check.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Yeah yeah, So again I have to say, what more
do you people want? I believe that you know they
were because of the sort of heat waves. I think
that there were some people in the audience who had.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Two different passed out.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah exactly. Trump showing the leadership and command that you
want with someone who's gonna might have his finger on
the nuclear button, said the best thing to do right
now not get overheated with political rhetoric, but like if
we all slay gently, we can create a wind that
will help the people in the audience revive. I have
to say, a masterful performance from the former president.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah exactly. I want to just square the circle here.
He's seventy eight years old. He's the oldest person to
ever run for president. He makes Reagan. I mean Reagan
was like almost a decade younger when he ran, and
until July, he was running against someone who was older
than him, President Biden. And he made his whole case
(11:00):
against President Biden was that President Biden was too old
and too doddering.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
And he sees an opportunity there. You had a campaign
that was all about Joe Biden being too old and
you know, raising these important issues about age, and then
once Biden, like you know, did a huge disservice to
the country by withdrawing in the Trump's no, no, no. We
have to make these issues key to the political campaign.
And I will take the role that Joe Biden had.
(11:27):
I will even go far beyond anything Joe Biden never
did in terms of flaking out, not just at this event,
but at other events, somehow pronouncing words in the strangest
possible ways, meandering and re associating, which my friend's English
professors will tell me is a form of post Wadern
discourse called the weave. Yes, the weave and you know
(11:51):
like which too much of the public is a good
public service on the issue of Yes. In an aging society,
you want to be seeing the doctor. You want to
be getting those cognitive tasks. I say, he's doing us
all a favor.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yes, exactly, he's doing He's reminding us about what it
is that the stakes are. The other thing I want
to talk to you about is so Trump has this
closing message, and it's like authoritarianism. For example, I want
to talk about Aurora. So when Aurora, he said, I'm
(12:25):
going to invoke this act that's a wartime act. It's
called it's a law from the seventeen hundreds. It's the
Alien Enemies Act of seventeen ninety eight. It gives the
president power to detain or deport foreign enemy as could
be broadly applied to target any non citizens. By the way,
that's me, not you, because you live in Canada whereas
(12:46):
we'll soon live. I'm kidding. I will never leave this
country unless I'm deported, which could be possible. He did
this at Aurora. I feel like this should be the
only story.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely no. I think Trump and his people
are basic betting that you know, they can win this
election on anti immigration shysteria, and also being willing to
do far more than any government has in decades. I mean,
there are, you know, in Kenaian American history examples of
pretty horrific anti immigrant action, but I mean Trump wants
(13:17):
to revive that. I think the act that he wants
to revive was pretty specifically one of the foundation stones
for the interrement of Japanese Americans is basically an attack
on the idea of citizenship has come to be in America,
especially after the Civil War, the idea of sort of
birthright citizenship, and the idea that you know, like a
naturalized citizen, someone who's an immigrant gives a citizen, is
(13:37):
a citizen, and you know, like trying to create a
class of provisional citizens, your citizens. You know, as long
as you make Trump happy, and if he doesn't like you,
doesn't like the color of your skin or just what
you right, and will unleash the full force of the
military and police against it. Yeah, I think that. I mean,
there's a couple of interesting things. Is one of which is,
(13:59):
you know, you know, don't hear about inflation that much anymore,
you don't hear. But like a lot of other issues,
this is the one issue. And you know, one could
argue that this has always been the core of trump Ism,
you know, going back to coming down the elevator and
talking about Mexican rapists. But this is what it has
come down to. And you know the issue is, you know,
are there enough Americans who will blame immigrants and CEO
(14:22):
and think that there's enough of a trouble with immigrants
that they're willing to suspend the Constitution. I'm cautiously hopeful
that there aren't enough Americans, but it's much closer than
it should be.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
We have no idea. Yeah. During this town hall, which
is pretty wacky, was on October fourteenth, he told his
supporters to go out and vote. On January fifth, he
talked about the late great Hannibal Lecter, who you and
I know is not real. He acted confused when asked
if they should end the event and play a walk
(14:54):
off song, and then he stood frozen and silent on
stage as music played for thirty plus minutes.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Yeah, I know, I mean, I having the whole music.
I mean it is a very I mean I would
encourage listeners to, like just to watch some of the
clips around. It's very bizarre because you could tell that
the people around him are like kind of puzzled, like, well,
why is he doing this? What's exactly going on? And
it is you know, I mean, people use a very sundowning,
(15:21):
but I think that this is something that's maybe even
a little bit of more extreme. And you can just
see this in Trump's rhetoric, right, you know, tought would
it just be giving a meandering speech and occasion you mentioned,
you know, like, well, you know what if I just
went to the beach and like, you know, just relax there,
or you know, like sometimes I just want to get
in a truck and just like drive. And I think
that the technical term in psychology is, if not quite
(15:45):
suicidal ideation, maybe end bass ideation. Trump is kind of
trying to imagine the end is near. How am I
going to finish it off? How am I going to
get in a good position to see the white light.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
The other thing I'm struck by is like one of
the things that we have so removed ourselves from because
we've been living in this election cycle for what feels
like one hundred years, is that Donald Trump is still
running for president in order to avoid all of his
criminal charges.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Yeah, well no, I mean that's the only reason he's
running for president. I kind of feel at this point
there's something a little bit different. I do kind of
feel if people always said a line, well, it's like
the producers. He doesn't really want it, but.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
He wants to win. I think because he doesn't want
to go to jail.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
I think that's wrong. But he wants to win. But
he wants this time more than even in the past.
He wants to win for like purely utilitary and self
interested reasons, and I'm not sure his heart is in it,
and so he kind of I mean in terms of
what I'm talking about, like these kind of like meandering speeches.
This is something a little bit different than before. Like
(16:49):
I think he's thinking about the end of his life,
the end of the road, much more than he ever has.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
We're all thinking about that our own lives. I mean,
it's been a decade of covering this guy, and we're
all very tired.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Yeah, well he's tired. He's tired too, Like he can't
even pretend anymore to care. And it's like he's like decided,
like you know, like no, I don't want to take questions.
I don't want to talk to this South the Quota
bulhunt for this audience of Pennsylvania hillbillies. I just want
to like, you know, sway in the wind and listen
to the Maria. Yeah, listen to my music, you know,
(17:24):
put on a few show tunes.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
He just loves show tunes.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Yeah. I think, you know, like if you could somehow
arrange the scenario where he gets to, you know, sit
on the beach and listen to Andrew Lloyd Weber until
the white Light comes to get him.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
So let's just talk about last week. I saw the
Apprentice movie, which Trump is very angry about. He truth
quote unquote truth about it.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Well, he gave the best possible review because I actually
think I know the movie is doing, but I actually
think that this will help the movie quite a bit.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Yeah, and I watched the movie, and you know, I
grew up in this city, My parents grew up in
this city. The you know, my grandfather knew Roy Cone
because Roy Cone was involved in the House on American
Activities and putting my grandfather in jail for his political beliefs.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Oh yeah, he was like McCarthy's like second of command.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, as I'm watching this movie, and you know, one
of the things about this movie is Jeremy Strong from
Succession is like an incredible does an incredible character study
of Roy Cohne and Roy Cone is probably one of
the most interesting and evil characters in American political life.
And he touched on all of these things. But also
(18:37):
you had in this movie Roger Stone and it just
was a very it struck me as it reminded me
again There's questions about whether or not how much of
how successful Roy Cone was in making Donald Trump, crafting
Donald Trump into his image, or if Donald Trump was
(18:57):
always like that, but it was still I thought quite interesting.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Oh yeah, I know, I know, actually do think that
Roy Cone is one of the expealitions of who Donald
Trump is. Not to say that, you know, he took
this young, unison, decent man and corrupted him. Yeah, Rather,
I mean Trump already had a rotten in his soul,
but I mean Roy Cohne was the figure who out
in the ropes. And the thing is, people forget this
(19:21):
but Roy Cone, because Roy conn is such a villain,
you know, was so involved with McCarthyism, was a corrupt
lawyer who like basically owned a lot of judges that
was disbarred, and was a self hating gay man who
you know, like such a vicious figure. But he was
also a power in the land. I mean Roy Cohn
in the sort of seventies and eighties, you know, like
(19:43):
at any top New York party would be hanging out,
and he would hang out with people from the liberal
media because he could do people favors, right, like Barbara Walters,
you know, bless her soul was very close to Roy Cone,
and so Roy Cone knew that particular New York power
structure which is all about so her favors and but
also getting the dirt like he was able. He's only
(20:04):
he's like a terrible lawyer in terms of knowing the law,
but he knew the dirt on all the judges and
he knew how to blackmail them, right, And so I
think absolutely, I don't think you can make sense of
Donald from without how to say interestingly enough, I mean
he said, you know, thumbs down from Donald Trump for
the movie. But rogers Stold actually gave me a good
(20:25):
recommendation where he said, you know, I knew Roy Cohen
and you know this movie.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
It really does seem like Roy Kahn.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Oh yeah, yeah, No, no, no, I mean no, And
it's I mean, I think that the movie captures, uh,
you know, like an important part of the story which
I think people outside of New York in particular weren't understand.
There is that New York world. The late novelist Sidney's
Ion described it.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Which is called sid giont.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Yes, Sid which is all about like Markers, It's all
about favors, it's all about the back room deals that
you can do, and that's you know, that's a big
part of Trump's path to power in terms of show business,
but also the relationship with the National A Choir. And
then also you know, like the basic roy Cone code,
which is like you never apologize, never forgive, you always
(21:15):
on the attack, you know. I mean that is the
Trump methodology. So I don't know how much time you
want to do like sort of psychologue, but I mean
that's Trump at his peak. You know, the movie is
the young Trump learning his ropes, but like, you know,
what we saw over the weekend was, you know, this
is the end of the road for the guy, cautiously
(21:37):
opul He doesn't win.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
But I do think the point of like this world
being just sort of a by gone world that he
is sort of the last vestiges of is pretty interesting.
I want you to sort of talk about how Harris
can win this thing.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Okay, the race is a lot tighter than it is,
but I don't want to do too much backseat driving
because I think, right, they've actually been doing a lot
of the right things.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah that's what I think too.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Yeah, I'm a super fan of like touting the Chinese
or Alberta Gonzalez as much.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
As they have ignore should you be that's not for you.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yeah, it's not for me. But also I'm not sure,
like if I'm actually like looking at the numbers, you know,
it seems like there's still she's a little bit lagging
still with young people, people of color, and sort of
white working cost So like I actually think, like you know,
like I think a traditional Democratic campaign of the type
that Joe Biden you know, ran in twenty twenty and
(22:34):
Obama around in twenty twelve are the way to go,
Like you know, do the union halls spend just a
lot of time in those Midwestern states, just shore up
those I mean, this is a little bit of good news,
which is, you know, you look at the early numbers
in Pennsylvania and in Michigan especially like you know, like
Detroit and Flint are like you know, forty percent return
rate much higher than the rest of the state. So yeah,
(22:55):
I mean, like if I think, like locking down the
urban vote, which is like people of color, black voters,
young voters, I think that puts you over the top.
And I think, like for me, that's what I would
concentrate on. I know that they also have hopes of
you know, expending in the suburbs of Philadelphia with this
never Trump stuff. But yeah, I'm looking at them. I
think there's just a lot more you know, votes from
(23:16):
the base than there is, like any more juice to
be squeezed out of that never Trump.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
The big question is can you get the nikky Haley
voters without alienating the people that you need your base,
that you need to juice. And I think that is
the tension that you're explaining, right.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Yeah, I know that is the tension. I mean's partially.
I mean, I'm not so much worried about alien because
I think the people who the Democratic base understands a
problem with Trump. I mean, I just I just think
there in terms of juicing up the numbers of getting
people out there, you know, even though it's country but Obama,
I thought, you know, having Obama out there is good.
I just think that you have to That's where I
would concentrate the energy. And I think, you know, the
(23:55):
one the way to unify this very fragmented coalition is
remind people about Trump, which I think that they're doing
more of. I think that the closing message is about
the dangers of Trump and.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
The good news is Trump is reminding people of Trump
absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
I know Trump is in different ways, both in terms
of the scary Trump who's like calling for basically a
race war against immogrants, and the more benign grandfather Trump,
who's kind of like swaying to music and is like
you're wonder You're like, well, you know, it's this actually
going to be president. I mean, I think both of
those things, because I mean the other aspect is Vance,
who they decided. I mean, I think I thought it
(24:32):
was a mistake to like go benign on Vance and
the vice president because like, if it's Trump, Trump is scary,
and they did a good job early of like Vance
is weird.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
But Advance is really scary too, though.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Yeah yeah, and it won't be I mean, the thing is,
if you have a sundowning Trump as president, it will
be Advance and all these guls from the Aratis Foundation.
So so I actually think, like, yeah, like just reminding
people of all the Project twenty twenty five, how you know,
like weird and freaky Advances and how deal like unstable
Trump is both in his own authoritarian stakes and also
(25:08):
he's like sundowning before our very eyes.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
And also one last thing is that I really think
that what I saw when I was watching that debate,
the ad vice presidential debate, was that if fascism comes
to this country, maybe we escape at this time. But
it did feel like if it comes, it comes wrapped
up in a Harvard Degrae telling you that they're going
(25:32):
to fix Obamacare or not that they're going to end it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
No, absolutely absolutely. I mean I think that these that
sort of slick, sleep ivy league of authoritarianism is always
the end game here with the federalist society authoritarianism. But
those guys can never went on their own. They needed
you know, Trump's genuine popular touch and ability to reach people.
I think actually in that sense, like the additional anti
(25:57):
advancing that they did was very important and was very effective,
and I'm a little bit disappointed that they've you know,
backed away from that, and that is the true price
of this kind of you know, attempt to get the
never trumpet. They decide to go easy on Vans and
the vice presidential debate. You know, you said, the election's
gone on forever, but like if we're living in France
or England or Canada, you know, three weeks is the
(26:18):
election like it's it's the three weeks, the last three
weeks where you really make the sprint and make the case,
and that's when people have to pay attention. So I
don't actually think it's too late for the Harris campaign
to do any of the stuff I talked about.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Thank you, thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Read here always great to talking news.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
awful Trump's second term could be? Well so are we,
which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make
a limited series with the experts on what a disaster
Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right now,
we have just released the final episode of this five
(26:57):
episode series. They're all about by looking up Molly john
Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if you
are more of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber,
you can hit play and put your phone in the
lock screen and it will play back just like a podcast.
All five episodes are online now. We need to educate
(27:18):
Americans on what Trump's second term would or could do
to this country, so please watch it and spread the word.
Jonathan Alter is the author of the substack Old Goats
and his latest book is called American Reckoning, Inside Trump's
Trial and My Own. Welcome to Fast Politics, Jonathan Alter.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
How are you, Mollie.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Great to have you so, Jonathan, you are a legend.
You are longtime just journalist who's done everything written and everywhere,
has been covering this White House, covering the trial, and
now you have a new book I do.
Speaker 5 (28:09):
It's called American Reckoning, Inside Trump's Trial and My Own.
So basically, Molly, as you say, I've been covering politics
for a really long time. This is my twelfth presidential campaign,
and I interviewed nine American presidents. But I started either before, during,
(28:30):
or after their presidencies. But I started having a kind
of a crisis of faith in the common sense of
the half of the American public.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
And so I think when.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
I say my trial, what I mean is the trial
the ordeal that so many of us have gone through
with this wicked man, Donald Trump, and he's shaken some
of my faith. So this is sort of how I
came to this idea of covering the trial. And I
was in the courtroom in Manhattan all twenty three days.
(29:05):
I was one of the only reporters who was there
for the duration of the trial, and I saw this
man from just a few feet away, you know, basically
all the time. You know, sometimes when I'd be sitting
on the aisle, you know, he'd walk past me in
and out of court, I'd be like three inches from him,
over and over and over again. Over the course of
(29:28):
his trial, I witnessed what I think has to be
considered one of the most dramatic moments of the twenty
first century, where a majority or person said guilty, guilty, guilty,
thirty four times. And this was the first ever trial
of the American President. And I wanted to be there
and see it and bear witness to it for very
(29:51):
personal reasons that I explained in the book.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
So tell us some of those personal reasons.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
Well, in twenty twenty three, I had this dream of
about my late father, and the dream was something about
my dad, cigarettes, vodka, and a gun. And I couldn't
really figure out what it was. And then I kind
of puzzled through why was I dreaming about Dad's cigarettes, vodka,
and a gun. And the reason was that he had
(30:19):
told me a story. Died about ten years ago when
he was shot down over Hungary during World War Two.
He was a navigator Bombedier on be twenty four, and
he was under orders to use his revolver to destroy
the Norden bomb site. Vombiteer it's used didn't work very well.
(30:39):
It was a primitive computer and it didn't work in
the cloud, so it didn't really help my dad very
much dropping bombs. But those were his orders. So when
they were shot down and made emergency landing, emptied his revolver,
his gun into the device, came out with his hands up,
and it turned out they were Russian Soviets, and they
(30:59):
spent the night at where they were shot down drinking
vodka with Soviets. They traded their disabled aircraft for partns
of cigarettes and safe passage back in your base. So
that's what the dream was about. But it got me
thinking about my father leaving Purdue University in nineteen forty two,
(31:20):
right after Pearl Harbor and enlisting and going to fight
for democracy. He goes away for more than three years
from home to fight for an idea for democracy, and
you know who else did that? Molly. George H. W.
Bush was the youngest pilot in the Navy, enlisted on
his eighteenth birthday, and when I was covering is a
(31:40):
nineteen eighty eight campaign, and there were a lot of
descriptions of his being shot down in the Pacific, and
at the time he said was asked, what were you
thinking about? And he said, I was thinking about Barbara
and where my next meal would come from, whether I'd
be rescued, which he was by submarine, and I was
thinking about the separation church in State. And we all
(32:02):
snickered at that, And I'm actually ashamed of having snickered
at that, because he really was going to fight for
the Constitution and for democracy. And so I said to myself, Okay,
your father went and risked his life for democracy. What
are you going to do to defend democracy?
Speaker 3 (32:21):
What will you do?
Speaker 5 (32:23):
How can you use your gills? Everybody has a different
role to play. You know, if you're a lawyer, you
needed to go to a battleground state and make sure
that you're there to you know, as a poll watcher
or troubleshooter, to make sure that Republicans are not preventing
people from voting. You know, if you're wealthier, you need
to give money. Everybody's got something that they can do.
(32:43):
And so I was sort of thinking, well, what can
I do I don't have to risk my life to
do it like Dad. And that then took me back
to an interview that I did with Richard Nixon. So
in nineteen eighty eight, I wanted to meet Nixon for
a quote. So I made arrangements for him to come
to new where I was then working in covering politics
(33:04):
and writing a column for twenty years, and Nixon came
in the fall of nineteen eighty eight. I asked him,
how will history remember Ronald Reagan? And he said, well,
you have to distinguish the great history and the historians, because.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
The historians are like you. They're liberal.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
It's you're a conservative, you go into business. If you're
a liberal, you write history or journalists. And in thinking
back on this, I realized that this man who had
been hate watching little boy Nixon had seeing me, had
my number. The only thing I bring is bearing witness,
using whatever I can do as a journalist to bear
(33:42):
witness and make a contribution that way. So that's a
very long winded explanation for why I wanted to cover
the trial. And first I tried to cover the you
know what I call the coup trial and Washington and
Jack Smith case, and then that, of course, was delayed
by the immunity question after I had been credentialed for it.
(34:03):
I got credentialed for Belanie trial in Manhattan through the
Washington Pumply magazine many years ago instarted writing articles for
the New York Times opinion section.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Was there I'm hoping you could explain to our listeners,
for example, in some ways, Trump is his own thing, right,
his own singular threat to American democracy that is in
itself unlike anything we've ever seen. That said, in some ways,
I mean, you can listen to Trump's speeches, not now
(34:35):
because he's so diminished, but in twenty sixteen, and you
could get two or three minutes where if you close
your eyes, you'd hear Richard Nixon right, and even with
Reagan right, make America great again. You know, the aspects
of performative politics, the belief in really in nothing, a
(34:56):
sort of nihilistic quest for power. What do you you think,
as someone who has covered politics for such a long time,
distinguishes Trump and Trumps from say, Newt Gandridge trying to
burn down the entire Congress.
Speaker 5 (35:11):
Well, just to talk about Nixon for a second. So
there are some very clear comparisons. When I was in
the courtroom, you know, I realized that Watergate, a lot
of it was about finding hush money, right and paying
off the Watergate burglars with hush money, and Nixon approved
that cover up.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
And you know the hush.
Speaker 5 (35:30):
Money, well, Prump was basically the same thing. It was
Trump covering up Michael Phone's hush money view. So you know,
there are comparisons like that, and in some ways there
were elements of Watergate that were significantly worse. But Nixon,
even though he liked Trump, believed that politics was essentially
the mobilization of resentments. Nixon, you know, had his own
(35:54):
grievances that he nursed that were in some ways similar
to Trump's. And Nixon arguably committed more war crimes than
so wise he was worse. But when Nixon would play
the Wraith card, for instance, with his Southern strategy, he
and other politicians of the early sixties and seventies, they
(36:16):
used code words or dog whistles. Nixon's famous code word
in nineteen sixty eight was law and order. There's a
big difference between law and order. And they're eating dogs
and pets. You know, the Haitians are coming to get
you right. So Trump's racism is much much more raw, vicious,
(36:41):
and dangerous than anything that ever came out of Richard
Nixon's or George Wallace. Many Trump supporters are the either
elderly former Wallace supporders or the children of Walason. Wallace
ran twice with President nineteen sixty eight since them too,
and he didn't get as far as Trump, so you know,
(37:04):
he never was in serious danger of becoming president. So
we're actually a lot worse off in terms of a
racist demmagou now than we were at the height of
George Wallace. Right, So this is worse. And you talked
about these other you know, Nixon and Reagan.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Not nude gangrage, weaponizing the federal government against itself. But
I get where you're going with this. I want you
to sort of explain though, a little bit about you
were supposed to cover the Jack Smith trial. That trial
did not happen because of MAGA. Judge threw it out, right,
which is like pretty egregious that nothing happened. Then she
(37:46):
just threw it out and that was it.
Speaker 5 (37:48):
Maybe someday that was not the trial that I was
potential to cover. That's the word to try with Eileen Cannon,
and she's a Trump lackey who threw that out. But
if Harris win, Jack Smith can go back and do
what he did in the Washington what I call the
coup trial, the big trial for trying to govern in
(38:08):
the documents case, he can go back and you know,
reindict Trump. If Harris wins. If Harris doesn't win, all
these cases all go away, all of them. By the way,
I thought at the time I wrote the book that
the Georgia and New York cases could possibly survive. But
I've been told by lawyers who would be wise to
getting rid of them to jump wins. But so they
(38:30):
can bring up the monologal documents another way, they can
Reindicke and so this is not an end of the
And tim shut in Washington was the big rial of
some trying to overcurrent the election that you know Jack
Smith is making progress on, and they carved out a
very compelling argument that would get past the Supreme Court
(38:53):
decision on immunity for official Act. And they are basically
going to argue next year if wins the election, and
they have a trial, which in all likelihood is Larry
tribesays in all likelihood there will be this mother of
all constitutional trials next year if Harris wins, because they've
been able to establish in their arguments that I think
(39:16):
even the Supreme Court will likely recognize that Trump was
acting as a candidate when he was telling Brad Rathensberger,
you know, I need eleven thousand, seven hundred rods. He
wasn't acting in his official capacity as president. So that's
what Supreme Court said. They drew this distinction official and unofficial,
and going to be very hard for Trump to argue
(39:38):
that his actions as a candidate were official. It will
mean that some of his conversations with lawyers who worked
in the White House will be carved out of this case,
in the same way that Hope Hicks his testimony from
when she was communication director, who was very incriminating testimony,
will be carved out of Trump's felony conviction in New York.
(40:01):
But there's enough other evidence that he will go down anyway,
and I believe that it will be held uphelding Yal, I mean.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Aren't you sort of horrified at the miscarriage of justice here, Like,
here's a guy who literally tried to overturn the election,
and he has managed to punt or get rid of
all of his cases, and now he is running for
president just like a normal candidate. I mean, doesn't that
strike you as like an incredible failing on the part
(40:31):
of the justice system.
Speaker 5 (40:33):
Yes, broadly speaking, I deal with a lot in American reckoning,
and because when I say, you know, inside Trump's trial,
in my own my own reckoning is with having some
of my illusions about the American people, uh and the
justice system shaken. So I used to like to identify
myself as JFK called himself an idealist without illusions, and
(40:57):
I realized they had more illusions, maybe than I thought.
I think a lot of other people feel the same way.
But when you say that he got away with it,
he did not. In the felony case, He's going to
this election as a convicted felon and he's awaiting sentencing.
On November twenty sixth, and for reasons that related to
the immunity decision, Judge Wan Mshan delayed sentencing, but he
(41:20):
didn't eliminate sentencing. He will be sentenced, and I think
there's a decent chance that he will be sentenced to
short jail time in a country club jail at the
end of November, so you know, he won't start serving
that sentence until his appeals are exhausted, but he will
be sentenced. So the idea that the criminal justice system,
you know, completely failed, I don't think is accurate. And
(41:44):
we saw basic accountability on May thirtieth when that Jerry
Ford person said guilty thirty four times, and this was
a very gratifying moment. It should be seen as a
gratifying moment, and I think it is very much part
of the subtext of this campaign or even the text
of it. So as the Hutchinson, the former Republican governor
(42:07):
of Arkansas, that he cannot vote for Donald Trump because
he's the convicted fela and tom La Harris as the prosecutor,
has framed this election in part as prosecutor versus perp
and that's one of the reasons she's doing well, is
that he is a convicted felon. That very much helps
the Aras campaign.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Do you have something you want to tell us about
in the book that is sort of new that you're
excited about.
Speaker 5 (42:33):
Yeah, there's a lot that's new in the book about
what happened inside that surreal courtroom where the trial wasn't televised,
so people who were not there got only a tiny
bit of just the barest headlines of what it was
actually like inside the courtroom. So there's a lot of
new stuff about that. But then I also have a
section called black Swan Summer, which is about how Nancy
(42:56):
Pelosi maneuvered Joe Biden off the ticket, and as she said,
she will go to her grave without describing exactly what
she and Biden talked about, but I got the outlines
of it and more about it than anybody has so far,
including Bob Woodward with his Tony Blinken story. So basically
what happened was that after the June twenty seventh debate,
(43:21):
at first Alosi thought it was survivable, as she said publicly,
but then she started seeing polls from House members and
their race as House members who were expected to win,
and they were in deep trouble. And what she really
cares about is the House, right, She's an institutional, So
she made a secret visit to the White House to
(43:42):
see her friend of forty years, Joe Biden. Not on
any log the existence of the trip, I revealed for
the first time. She did not show him any of
those polls. She did not say, Joe, it's time to go.
She said, I'm here for you, Joe, hear for you.
I know this is a difficult time. Let's talk. Let's talk.
(44:04):
And then that led to a series of conversations on
the telephone, the upshot of which was, as somebody very
close to Pelosi told me, she can cut off your
head and you won't even know it. And what she
did was she began the process of getting him to
think about it, and then she pressured him on Morning
(44:26):
Joe on July tenth, which when she said that he
hadn't made a decision yet, when he actually had made
a decision, which was strong. That then ignored everybody else
in the Democratic Party that they could start pressuring him,
the donors and everybody else. But she was annoyed at
that moment, even resentful of the men, meaning Clinton, Obama, Jeffreys, Schumer,
(44:51):
and she thought the men were quote m Ia, and
she wondered, why are my the only blow by fingerprints
on the knife.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
This is pretty.
Speaker 5 (45:03):
Dramatic stuff that she pulled off, this feat, this brilliant,
brilliant political feat, until she was joined a week later
by the men who eventually got in gear and showed
Biden the bad polling. Initially she had to launch this
historic effort to get him off the ticket. And then
(45:24):
I also learned from somebody very close to Biden that
COVID was the last straw, that without COVID, he probably
would have toughed it out, run out the clock, and
he would be the nominee right now, head a certain
defeat when he got COVID and he saw that split
screen of Trump and him getting off the airplane coughing,
and he realized that he had to seriously consider whether
(45:46):
it's step down from the ticket.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Jonathan, this is so incredibly important and fascinating. We will
all be just digging in this book. Thank you, thank you,
thank you, thank.
Speaker 5 (45:58):
You, thanks much for having me. Malia, no moment.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Cofecly Jesse Kennon Maley Jung fasts. So I'm going to
shock you here. Seems like the right wing was trying
to smear to Wall. So it's a day ending and
why what do you see here?
Speaker 1 (46:17):
So they had this account which was more recent was
recently known as the ABC quote unquote whistleblower Hoaxter. So
a far right account on acts, the one that had
the handle is called doc net YouTube, which sounds very,
(46:38):
very very legit had a lengthy post over the weekend
that they had received information that Walls had an inappropriate
relationship with the minor. This account had previously blown up
for its claims that ABC had a whistleblower proving that
President Vice President Harris had gotten the questions before the debate. Well,
(46:58):
the proof never materialized. Numerous politicians, including MTG Donald Trump,
jumped on the story. So I'm gonna go with that
this is not true, And in fact, we know it's
not true because, as noted by numerous users, the dates
at the top of the email are inconsistent. Well, some
(47:20):
correctly feature commas, others didn't, indicating that the emails are fabricated. Ironically,
another popular account known as Agent Self FBI first identified
the user errors. So it's just a completely silly made
up thing. An anonymous X account made it up. But
(47:41):
you know X is now a place for fake news,
and the right runs with fake news whether or not.
It's trail.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
That sounds about right.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Yeah, So that in itself is our moment of fuckery.
Doctor net YouTube on X and X's crazy miss Him
from Flooding is our moment of fuckery. That's it for
this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday,
(48:12):
and Saturday to hear the best minds in politics make
sense of all the chaos. If you enjoyed this podcast,
please send it to a friend or an enemy and
keep the conversation going
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 Bob Woodward says Trump is far
worse than Richard Nixon, and he would know. We have
such a great show for you today. The Nation's jeet
here talks Donald Trump's continued to send into madness. Then
(00:24):
we'll talk to author Jonathan Alter about his new book
American Reckoning, inside Trump's trial and my own. But first
the news.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
So, Molly, last night, you and I were on stage
doing our file Day of Politics as unusual, our little
tour with Rick Wilson, and we missed out on mister
Trump doing what I would call some demented behavior of us,
swaying back and forth on stage. When I watched this
last night, I literally just kept saying what the fuck
very loudly through my house.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Trump told his supporters to go out and vote on
January fifth. A few much.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I like it then the election, but still a good call.
I think Republicans should definitely go vote on January fifth.
He rambled about the late great Hannibal Lecter, you may
remember him. Then somebody fainted and another person fainted, so
he stood frozen and silent on stage as music played
(01:24):
for thirty seven minutes. Thirty seven minutes.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Listening to the Shrek soundtrack, at points.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
His soundtrack, which included ave Maria a lot of good
stuff in there, but also thirty seven minutes of standing
on stage sort of voguing for the crowd.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I would call it a light sway sachet type thing.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
A sort of be bomp okay, Yes, yes, imagine if
a Democrat, imagine if Joe Biden did that. Yeah, they
would be Molly Hemingway, the whole Federalist crew, the Wall
Street Journal opinion page. They would be screaming from the rooftops.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Well, since he's really losing his mind today, he's at
the Economic Club of Chicago and talking to Bloomberg editor
in chief John Micklethwaite, Which, if I fucked that pronunciation up,
I'll punch in later. What'd you see here? Today?
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Molly Trump is focused on his economic agenda.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I'm sure he is.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Right, which includes whatever. So he has about two moves
when it comes to economy. One is tariff's. He says
that a ten percent tariff, which he has vowed to
impose on all other countries importing the US is insufficient
to bring jobs back to the country. For that outcome,
you need tariffs of fifty percent. So fifty percent tariff
(02:50):
will mean that what are you buying. You're buying a
thing of hangers. Right, your hangars will cost instead of
costing five bucks for ten hangars, it will cost eight
bucks for ten hangars, or seven dollars and fifty cents,
and everything will get more expensive, which will be inflationary.
(03:12):
The moderator the edit entry food, Bloomberg said, tariffs have
another side. You could be plunging America into the biggest
trade war. Trump says, no, all you have to do
is build the plant in the United States and then
you don't have any tariffs.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Huh. Those immigrants that are going to leave.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I want to play his answer on government spending.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
That's tremendous. Will give me an example of something you
will do that will get rid of governments.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
But let me give you an example.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
When I came into government, I was the first example
coming forward. This is going forward because it's the same thing.
When I first sat down, a general came into my
office and he said, sir, it's nice to meet you.
When you please sign this.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
I said, what is it.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
It's a contract for a new air force one which
is actually two planes, not one two Boeing seven forty seven.
And I said, how much is it? Five point seven
billion dollars. It's the hell of an expensive plane. But
there's reasons for that. He said, nope, I'm not signing it.
I said, who negotiated BARACKU, Sai and Obama. I said,
I'm not signing it. Why because he because there's a
(04:21):
lot of fat. He said, I'm not signing. It's got
to have it three on it. Anyway, long story short,
some of you have heard this.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
I got it down.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Too, because first week they cut off four hundred million,
he said, I'll cut I met with the head of Boeing. Wait, Dennis,
I said, Dennis got to have a three. Five point
seven is too much? Five point seven billion? He said,
the most I'll take off is four hundred million dollars.
I said, well, let's not bad for one conversation. So
I got it down. I said, nope, I'm not accepting.
(04:50):
Then he took off two more. Then he took off anyway.
Two months went by, three months went by. I thought
we blew the deal. And I was okay with me.
I didn't care. But we should have a new are
force one when we see these planes from Saudi Arabia,
from different countries brand new, and ours is like thirty
two years old, and it's a very different plane. It's
much smaller plane. Yeah, the whole thing. The United States
(05:13):
should have.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
The best plane, something real same well.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
And also like, so he's going to lessen government spending
by trying to cheat his vendors, right, I mean, that's
that is I'm not sure that's a scalable answer. The
thing that I was the most upset by was that
Trump wants to influence the FED moves. So remember one
(05:39):
of the things that Project twenty twenty five wants to
do is to make the FED, the DOJ, many aspects
of the sort of the non partisan actors in the
federal government to be partisan hacks arm of the Donald
Trump campaign. And that's what's happening here. Trump says he
wants to influence FED move and then he sort of
(06:01):
said he wouldn't order them, but he definitely thinks he's
smarter than the chairman of the FED who he actually installed,
Jerome Palell. And he says, in fact, look, I think
it's the greatest job in government. You show up to
the office once a month and say, let's flip a coin,
and everyone talks about you like you're a god. He added,
(06:22):
I think I'm better than he would be. I think
I'm better than most people would be in the position.
By the way, somebody give me this kind of self
esteem because I never think, oh my god, I'm better
than this person. I mean, like, oh, to be a
mediocre white guy. I don't think I should be allowed
to order it. Oh, okay, well that's nice. But I
(06:44):
think I have the right to put in comments as
to whether or not interest rate should go up or down.
By the way, all he wants is for them to
go down. He also refused to answer whether or not
Google should be broken up. Again. He basically just meandered
and talked about something else. And then when Mikaelwithe asked him,
can you say yes or no? Have you talked to
(07:05):
Vladimir Putin since being president? Trump was like, no, but
if I had, it would have been great, which is
he didn't say no. He said I won't comment on that,
and he said, but I will tell you that if
I did, it's a smart thing. So there you go.
If he did, it's a smart thing. What do you
want to bet he did.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
I'm not betting against that.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
So that's Trump at the Economic Club of Chicago. Though
at least he did talk and not just sway to
the wind, and for that we should all be impressed
that he at least tried to answer some questions. Get
here is a contributor to the nation and the host
(07:50):
of the time of Monsters. Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Jed here always good to be on the program.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
So I am so glad to have you on this podcast,
and I have so many things I want to talk
to you about, the first of which is Donald Trump's
little dance thirty seven minutes of bopping' and Weavin.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
I wanted the woke to use liberals, Wade, I mean,
you're complaining he gives like two hours of advocating fascism
and the mass deportations and spreading horrific conspiracy theories that
could get people killed, and then he gives you something
different where he's just swaying gently to like, you know,
the village people. Yeah, abra ave Maria, yeah, exactly. Why
(08:39):
not celebrate the fact that this is the most benign
Donald Trump we've ever seen. Why not have a president
who's a swaying tree.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
A swaying tree, well.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Moves to the wind. This is like him and his
best i've ever seen. I have followed this guy since
the nineteen eighties. I've never seen such a benign you know,
just sort of smile like Grandpa after you've given him
a lot of worphying.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
So I'm going to give you listeners of full context. Here.
Donald Trump was in South Dakota being interviewed by South
Dakota Governor Christy Nome, who is most famous for killing
her puppy. And again, the Washington Post just absolutely got
it right here. They said Trump sways and bops to
music for thirty nine minutes in bizarre town hall episode.
(09:27):
The scene comes as Vice President Kamala Harris has called
Trump seventy eight unstable and called into question his mental acuity.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Yeah, aget, I want to set up for Donald Trump here. Well,
you wanted to be talking to Christy Nole and like, well,
what about like the best way to kill domestic pets? No, right,
the suthlist was good. It's the Trump favorites. I'm always
in favor of bringing.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Oh, the town hall was in Pennsylvania. I'm sorry the
town hall was in Pennsylvania, but it was with South
Dakota Governor Christine. Thank you Seamus for that fact check.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Yeah yeah, So again I have to say, what more
do you people want? I believe that you know they
were because of the sort of heat waves. I think
that there were some people in the audience who had.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Two different passed out.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah exactly. Trump showing the leadership and command that you
want with someone who's gonna might have his finger on
the nuclear button, said the best thing to do right
now not get overheated with political rhetoric, but like if
we all slay gently, we can create a wind that
will help the people in the audience revive. I have
to say, a masterful performance from the former president.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah exactly. I want to just square the circle here.
He's seventy eight years old. He's the oldest person to
ever run for president. He makes Reagan. I mean Reagan
was like almost a decade younger when he ran, and
until July, he was running against someone who was older
than him, President Biden. And he made his whole case
(11:00):
against President Biden was that President Biden was too old
and too doddering.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
And he sees an opportunity there. You had a campaign
that was all about Joe Biden being too old and
you know, raising these important issues about age, and then
once Biden, like you know, did a huge disservice to
the country by withdrawing in the Trump's no, no, no. We
have to make these issues key to the political campaign.
And I will take the role that Joe Biden had.
(11:27):
I will even go far beyond anything Joe Biden never
did in terms of flaking out, not just at this event,
but at other events, somehow pronouncing words in the strangest
possible ways, meandering and re associating, which my friend's English
professors will tell me is a form of post Wadern
discourse called the weave. Yes, the weave and you know
(11:51):
like which too much of the public is a good
public service on the issue of Yes. In an aging society,
you want to be seeing the doctor. You want to
be getting those cognitive tasks. I say, he's doing us
all a favor.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yes, exactly, he's doing He's reminding us about what it
is that the stakes are. The other thing I want
to talk to you about is so Trump has this
closing message, and it's like authoritarianism. For example, I want
to talk about Aurora. So when Aurora, he said, I'm
(12:25):
going to invoke this act that's a wartime act. It's
called it's a law from the seventeen hundreds. It's the
Alien Enemies Act of seventeen ninety eight. It gives the
president power to detain or deport foreign enemy as could
be broadly applied to target any non citizens. By the way,
that's me, not you, because you live in Canada whereas
(12:46):
we'll soon live. I'm kidding. I will never leave this
country unless I'm deported, which could be possible. He did
this at Aurora. I feel like this should be the
only story.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely no. I think Trump and his people
are basic betting that you know, they can win this
election on anti immigration shysteria, and also being willing to
do far more than any government has in decades. I mean,
there are, you know, in Kenaian American history examples of
pretty horrific anti immigrant action, but I mean Trump wants
(13:17):
to revive that. I think the act that he wants
to revive was pretty specifically one of the foundation stones
for the interrement of Japanese Americans is basically an attack
on the idea of citizenship has come to be in America,
especially after the Civil War, the idea of sort of
birthright citizenship, and the idea that you know, like a
naturalized citizen, someone who's an immigrant gives a citizen, is
(13:37):
a citizen, and you know, like trying to create a
class of provisional citizens, your citizens. You know, as long
as you make Trump happy, and if he doesn't like you,
doesn't like the color of your skin or just what
you right, and will unleash the full force of the
military and police against it. Yeah, I think that. I mean,
there's a couple of interesting things. Is one of which is,
(13:59):
you know, you know, don't hear about inflation that much anymore,
you don't hear. But like a lot of other issues,
this is the one issue. And you know, one could
argue that this has always been the core of trump Ism,
you know, going back to coming down the elevator and
talking about Mexican rapists. But this is what it has
come down to. And you know the issue is, you know,
are there enough Americans who will blame immigrants and CEO
(14:22):
and think that there's enough of a trouble with immigrants
that they're willing to suspend the Constitution. I'm cautiously hopeful
that there aren't enough Americans, but it's much closer than
it should be.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
We have no idea. Yeah. During this town hall, which
is pretty wacky, was on October fourteenth, he told his
supporters to go out and vote. On January fifth, he
talked about the late great Hannibal Lecter, who you and
I know is not real. He acted confused when asked
if they should end the event and play a walk
(14:54):
off song, and then he stood frozen and silent on
stage as music played for thirty plus minutes.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Yeah, I know, I mean, I having the whole music.
I mean it is a very I mean I would
encourage listeners to, like just to watch some of the
clips around. It's very bizarre because you could tell that
the people around him are like kind of puzzled, like, well,
why is he doing this? What's exactly going on? And
it is you know, I mean, people use a very sundowning,
(15:21):
but I think that this is something that's maybe even
a little bit of more extreme. And you can just
see this in Trump's rhetoric, right, you know, tought would
it just be giving a meandering speech and occasion you mentioned,
you know, like, well, you know what if I just
went to the beach and like, you know, just relax there,
or you know, like sometimes I just want to get
in a truck and just like drive. And I think
that the technical term in psychology is, if not quite
(15:45):
suicidal ideation, maybe end bass ideation. Trump is kind of
trying to imagine the end is near. How am I
going to finish it off? How am I going to
get in a good position to see the white light.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
The other thing I'm struck by is like one of
the things that we have so removed ourselves from because
we've been living in this election cycle for what feels
like one hundred years, is that Donald Trump is still
running for president in order to avoid all of his
criminal charges.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Yeah, well no, I mean that's the only reason he's
running for president. I kind of feel at this point
there's something a little bit different. I do kind of
feel if people always said a line, well, it's like
the producers. He doesn't really want it, but.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
He wants to win. I think because he doesn't want
to go to jail.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
I think that's wrong. But he wants to win. But
he wants this time more than even in the past.
He wants to win for like purely utilitary and self
interested reasons, and I'm not sure his heart is in it,
and so he kind of I mean in terms of
what I'm talking about, like these kind of like meandering speeches.
This is something a little bit different than before. Like
(16:49):
I think he's thinking about the end of his life,
the end of the road, much more than he ever has.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
We're all thinking about that our own lives. I mean,
it's been a decade of covering this guy, and we're
all very tired.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Yeah, well he's tired. He's tired too, Like he can't
even pretend anymore to care. And it's like he's like decided,
like you know, like no, I don't want to take questions.
I don't want to talk to this South the Quota
bulhunt for this audience of Pennsylvania hillbillies. I just want
to like, you know, sway in the wind and listen
to the Maria. Yeah, listen to my music, you know,
(17:24):
put on a few show tunes.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
He just loves show tunes.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Yeah. I think, you know, like if you could somehow
arrange the scenario where he gets to, you know, sit
on the beach and listen to Andrew Lloyd Weber until
the white Light comes to get him.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
So let's just talk about last week. I saw the
Apprentice movie, which Trump is very angry about. He truth
quote unquote truth about it.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Well, he gave the best possible review because I actually
think I know the movie is doing, but I actually
think that this will help the movie quite a bit.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Yeah, and I watched the movie, and you know, I
grew up in this city, My parents grew up in
this city. The you know, my grandfather knew Roy Cone
because Roy Cone was involved in the House on American
Activities and putting my grandfather in jail for his political beliefs.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Oh yeah, he was like McCarthy's like second of command.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, as I'm watching this movie, and you know, one
of the things about this movie is Jeremy Strong from
Succession is like an incredible does an incredible character study
of Roy Cohne and Roy Cone is probably one of
the most interesting and evil characters in American political life.
And he touched on all of these things. But also
(18:37):
you had in this movie Roger Stone and it just
was a very it struck me as it reminded me
again There's questions about whether or not how much of
how successful Roy Cone was in making Donald Trump, crafting
Donald Trump into his image, or if Donald Trump was
(18:57):
always like that, but it was still I thought quite interesting.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Oh yeah, I know, I know, actually do think that
Roy Cone is one of the expealitions of who Donald
Trump is. Not to say that, you know, he took
this young, unison, decent man and corrupted him. Yeah, Rather,
I mean Trump already had a rotten in his soul,
but I mean Roy Cohne was the figure who out
in the ropes. And the thing is, people forget this
(19:21):
but Roy Cone, because Roy conn is such a villain,
you know, was so involved with McCarthyism, was a corrupt
lawyer who like basically owned a lot of judges that
was disbarred, and was a self hating gay man who
you know, like such a vicious figure. But he was
also a power in the land. I mean Roy Cohn
in the sort of seventies and eighties, you know, like
(19:43):
at any top New York party would be hanging out,
and he would hang out with people from the liberal
media because he could do people favors, right, like Barbara Walters,
you know, bless her soul was very close to Roy Cone,
and so Roy Cone knew that particular New York power
structure which is all about so her favors and but
also getting the dirt like he was able. He's only
(20:04):
he's like a terrible lawyer in terms of knowing the law,
but he knew the dirt on all the judges and
he knew how to blackmail them, right, And so I
think absolutely, I don't think you can make sense of
Donald from without how to say interestingly enough, I mean
he said, you know, thumbs down from Donald Trump for
the movie. But rogers Stold actually gave me a good
(20:25):
recommendation where he said, you know, I knew Roy Cohen
and you know this movie.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
It really does seem like Roy Kahn.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Oh yeah, yeah, No, no, no, I mean no, And
it's I mean, I think that the movie captures, uh,
you know, like an important part of the story which
I think people outside of New York in particular weren't understand.
There is that New York world. The late novelist Sidney's
Ion described it.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Which is called sid giont.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Yes, Sid which is all about like Markers, It's all
about favors, it's all about the back room deals that
you can do, and that's you know, that's a big
part of Trump's path to power in terms of show business,
but also the relationship with the National A Choir. And
then also you know, like the basic roy Cone code,
which is like you never apologize, never forgive, you always
(21:15):
on the attack, you know. I mean that is the
Trump methodology. So I don't know how much time you
want to do like sort of psychologue, but I mean
that's Trump at his peak. You know, the movie is
the young Trump learning his ropes, but like, you know,
what we saw over the weekend was, you know, this
is the end of the road for the guy, cautiously
(21:37):
opul He doesn't win.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
But I do think the point of like this world
being just sort of a by gone world that he
is sort of the last vestiges of is pretty interesting.
I want you to sort of talk about how Harris
can win this thing.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Okay, the race is a lot tighter than it is,
but I don't want to do too much backseat driving
because I think, right, they've actually been doing a lot
of the right things.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah that's what I think too.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Yeah, I'm a super fan of like touting the Chinese
or Alberta Gonzalez as much.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
As they have ignore should you be that's not for you.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yeah, it's not for me. But also I'm not sure,
like if I'm actually like looking at the numbers, you know,
it seems like there's still she's a little bit lagging
still with young people, people of color, and sort of
white working cost So like I actually think, like you know,
like I think a traditional Democratic campaign of the type
that Joe Biden you know, ran in twenty twenty and
(22:34):
Obama around in twenty twelve are the way to go,
Like you know, do the union halls spend just a
lot of time in those Midwestern states, just shore up
those I mean, this is a little bit of good news,
which is, you know, you look at the early numbers
in Pennsylvania and in Michigan especially like you know, like
Detroit and Flint are like you know, forty percent return
rate much higher than the rest of the state. So yeah,
(22:55):
I mean, like if I think, like locking down the
urban vote, which is like people of color, black voters,
young voters, I think that puts you over the top.
And I think, like for me, that's what I would
concentrate on. I know that they also have hopes of
you know, expending in the suburbs of Philadelphia with this
never Trump stuff. But yeah, I'm looking at them. I
think there's just a lot more you know, votes from
(23:16):
the base than there is, like any more juice to
be squeezed out of that never Trump.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
The big question is can you get the nikky Haley
voters without alienating the people that you need your base,
that you need to juice. And I think that is
the tension that you're explaining, right.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Yeah, I know that is the tension. I mean's partially.
I mean, I'm not so much worried about alien because
I think the people who the Democratic base understands a
problem with Trump. I mean, I just I just think
there in terms of juicing up the numbers of getting
people out there, you know, even though it's country but Obama,
I thought, you know, having Obama out there is good.
I just think that you have to That's where I
would concentrate the energy. And I think, you know, the
(23:55):
one the way to unify this very fragmented coalition is
remind people about Trump, which I think that they're doing
more of. I think that the closing message is about
the dangers of Trump and.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
The good news is Trump is reminding people of Trump
absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
I know Trump is in different ways, both in terms
of the scary Trump who's like calling for basically a
race war against immogrants, and the more benign grandfather Trump,
who's kind of like swaying to music and is like
you're wonder You're like, well, you know, it's this actually
going to be president. I mean, I think both of
those things, because I mean the other aspect is Vance,
who they decided. I mean, I think I thought it
(24:32):
was a mistake to like go benign on Vance and
the vice president because like, if it's Trump, Trump is scary,
and they did a good job early of like Vance
is weird.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
But Advance is really scary too, though.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Yeah yeah, and it won't be I mean, the thing is,
if you have a sundowning Trump as president, it will
be Advance and all these guls from the Aratis Foundation.
So so I actually think, like, yeah, like just reminding
people of all the Project twenty twenty five, how you know,
like weird and freaky Advances and how deal like unstable
Trump is both in his own authoritarian stakes and also
(25:08):
he's like sundowning before our very eyes.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
And also one last thing is that I really think
that what I saw when I was watching that debate,
the ad vice presidential debate, was that if fascism comes
to this country, maybe we escape at this time. But
it did feel like if it comes, it comes wrapped
up in a Harvard Degrae telling you that they're going
(25:32):
to fix Obamacare or not that they're going to end it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
No, absolutely absolutely. I mean I think that these that
sort of slick, sleep ivy league of authoritarianism is always
the end game here with the federalist society authoritarianism. But
those guys can never went on their own. They needed
you know, Trump's genuine popular touch and ability to reach people.
I think actually in that sense, like the additional anti
(25:57):
advancing that they did was very important and was very effective,
and I'm a little bit disappointed that they've you know,
backed away from that, and that is the true price
of this kind of you know, attempt to get the
never trumpet. They decide to go easy on Vans and
the vice presidential debate. You know, you said, the election's
gone on forever, but like if we're living in France
or England or Canada, you know, three weeks is the
(26:18):
election like it's it's the three weeks, the last three
weeks where you really make the sprint and make the case,
and that's when people have to pay attention. So I
don't actually think it's too late for the Harris campaign
to do any of the stuff I talked about.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Thank you, thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Read here always great to talking news.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
awful Trump's second term could be? Well so are we,
which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make
a limited series with the experts on what a disaster
Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right now,
we have just released the final episode of this five
(26:57):
episode series. They're all about by looking up Molly john
Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if you
are more of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber,
you can hit play and put your phone in the
lock screen and it will play back just like a podcast.
All five episodes are online now. We need to educate
(27:18):
Americans on what Trump's second term would or could do
to this country, so please watch it and spread the word.
Jonathan Alter is the author of the substack Old Goats
and his latest book is called American Reckoning, Inside Trump's
Trial and My Own. Welcome to Fast Politics, Jonathan Alter.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
How are you, Mollie.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Great to have you so, Jonathan, you are a legend.
You are longtime just journalist who's done everything written and everywhere,
has been covering this White House, covering the trial, and
now you have a new book I do.
Speaker 5 (28:09):
It's called American Reckoning, Inside Trump's Trial and My Own.
So basically, Molly, as you say, I've been covering politics
for a really long time. This is my twelfth presidential campaign,
and I interviewed nine American presidents. But I started either before, during,
(28:30):
or after their presidencies. But I started having a kind
of a crisis of faith in the common sense of
the half of the American public.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
And so I think when.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
I say my trial, what I mean is the trial
the ordeal that so many of us have gone through
with this wicked man, Donald Trump, and he's shaken some
of my faith. So this is sort of how I
came to this idea of covering the trial. And I
was in the courtroom in Manhattan all twenty three days.
(29:05):
I was one of the only reporters who was there
for the duration of the trial, and I saw this
man from just a few feet away, you know, basically
all the time. You know, sometimes when I'd be sitting
on the aisle, you know, he'd walk past me in
and out of court, I'd be like three inches from him,
over and over and over again. Over the course of
(29:28):
his trial, I witnessed what I think has to be
considered one of the most dramatic moments of the twenty
first century, where a majority or person said guilty, guilty, guilty,
thirty four times. And this was the first ever trial
of the American President. And I wanted to be there
and see it and bear witness to it for very
(29:51):
personal reasons that I explained in the book.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
So tell us some of those personal reasons.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
Well, in twenty twenty three, I had this dream of
about my late father, and the dream was something about
my dad, cigarettes, vodka, and a gun. And I couldn't
really figure out what it was. And then I kind
of puzzled through why was I dreaming about Dad's cigarettes, vodka,
and a gun. And the reason was that he had
(30:19):
told me a story. Died about ten years ago when
he was shot down over Hungary during World War Two.
He was a navigator Bombedier on be twenty four, and
he was under orders to use his revolver to destroy
the Norden bomb site. Vombiteer it's used didn't work very well.
(30:39):
It was a primitive computer and it didn't work in
the cloud, so it didn't really help my dad very
much dropping bombs. But those were his orders. So when
they were shot down and made emergency landing, emptied his revolver,
his gun into the device, came out with his hands up,
and it turned out they were Russian Soviets, and they
(30:59):
spent the night at where they were shot down drinking
vodka with Soviets. They traded their disabled aircraft for partns
of cigarettes and safe passage back in your base. So
that's what the dream was about. But it got me
thinking about my father leaving Purdue University in nineteen forty two,
(31:20):
right after Pearl Harbor and enlisting and going to fight
for democracy. He goes away for more than three years
from home to fight for an idea for democracy, and
you know who else did that? Molly. George H. W.
Bush was the youngest pilot in the Navy, enlisted on
his eighteenth birthday, and when I was covering is a
(31:40):
nineteen eighty eight campaign, and there were a lot of
descriptions of his being shot down in the Pacific, and
at the time he said was asked, what were you
thinking about? And he said, I was thinking about Barbara
and where my next meal would come from, whether I'd
be rescued, which he was by submarine, and I was
thinking about the separation church in State. And we all
(32:02):
snickered at that, And I'm actually ashamed of having snickered
at that, because he really was going to fight for
the Constitution and for democracy. And so I said to myself, Okay,
your father went and risked his life for democracy. What
are you going to do to defend democracy?
Speaker 3 (32:21):
What will you do?
Speaker 5 (32:23):
How can you use your gills? Everybody has a different
role to play. You know, if you're a lawyer, you
needed to go to a battleground state and make sure
that you're there to you know, as a poll watcher
or troubleshooter, to make sure that Republicans are not preventing
people from voting. You know, if you're wealthier, you need
to give money. Everybody's got something that they can do.
(32:43):
And so I was sort of thinking, well, what can
I do I don't have to risk my life to
do it like Dad. And that then took me back
to an interview that I did with Richard Nixon. So
in nineteen eighty eight, I wanted to meet Nixon for
a quote. So I made arrangements for him to come
to new where I was then working in covering politics
(33:04):
and writing a column for twenty years, and Nixon came
in the fall of nineteen eighty eight. I asked him,
how will history remember Ronald Reagan? And he said, well,
you have to distinguish the great history and the historians, because.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
The historians are like you. They're liberal.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
It's you're a conservative, you go into business. If you're
a liberal, you write history or journalists. And in thinking
back on this, I realized that this man who had
been hate watching little boy Nixon had seeing me, had
my number. The only thing I bring is bearing witness,
using whatever I can do as a journalist to bear
(33:42):
witness and make a contribution that way. So that's a
very long winded explanation for why I wanted to cover
the trial. And first I tried to cover the you
know what I call the coup trial and Washington and
Jack Smith case, and then that, of course, was delayed
by the immunity question after I had been credentialed for it.
(34:03):
I got credentialed for Belanie trial in Manhattan through the
Washington Pumply magazine many years ago instarted writing articles for
the New York Times opinion section.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Was there I'm hoping you could explain to our listeners,
for example, in some ways, Trump is his own thing, right,
his own singular threat to American democracy that is in
itself unlike anything we've ever seen. That said, in some ways,
I mean, you can listen to Trump's speeches, not now
(34:35):
because he's so diminished, but in twenty sixteen, and you
could get two or three minutes where if you close
your eyes, you'd hear Richard Nixon right, and even with
Reagan right, make America great again. You know, the aspects
of performative politics, the belief in really in nothing, a
(34:56):
sort of nihilistic quest for power. What do you you think,
as someone who has covered politics for such a long time,
distinguishes Trump and Trumps from say, Newt Gandridge trying to
burn down the entire Congress.
Speaker 5 (35:11):
Well, just to talk about Nixon for a second. So
there are some very clear comparisons. When I was in
the courtroom, you know, I realized that Watergate, a lot
of it was about finding hush money, right and paying
off the Watergate burglars with hush money, and Nixon approved
that cover up.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
And you know the hush.
Speaker 5 (35:30):
Money, well, Prump was basically the same thing. It was
Trump covering up Michael Phone's hush money view. So you know,
there are comparisons like that, and in some ways there
were elements of Watergate that were significantly worse. But Nixon,
even though he liked Trump, believed that politics was essentially
the mobilization of resentments. Nixon, you know, had his own
(35:54):
grievances that he nursed that were in some ways similar
to Trump's. And Nixon arguably committed more war crimes than
so wise he was worse. But when Nixon would play
the Wraith card, for instance, with his Southern strategy, he
and other politicians of the early sixties and seventies, they
(36:16):
used code words or dog whistles. Nixon's famous code word
in nineteen sixty eight was law and order. There's a
big difference between law and order. And they're eating dogs
and pets. You know, the Haitians are coming to get
you right. So Trump's racism is much much more raw, vicious,
(36:41):
and dangerous than anything that ever came out of Richard
Nixon's or George Wallace. Many Trump supporters are the either
elderly former Wallace supporders or the children of Walason. Wallace
ran twice with President nineteen sixty eight since them too,
and he didn't get as far as Trump, so you know,
(37:04):
he never was in serious danger of becoming president. So
we're actually a lot worse off in terms of a
racist demmagou now than we were at the height of
George Wallace. Right, So this is worse. And you talked
about these other you know, Nixon and Reagan.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Not nude gangrage, weaponizing the federal government against itself. But
I get where you're going with this. I want you
to sort of explain though, a little bit about you
were supposed to cover the Jack Smith trial. That trial
did not happen because of MAGA. Judge threw it out, right,
which is like pretty egregious that nothing happened. Then she
(37:46):
just threw it out and that was it.
Speaker 5 (37:48):
Maybe someday that was not the trial that I was
potential to cover. That's the word to try with Eileen Cannon,
and she's a Trump lackey who threw that out. But
if Harris win, Jack Smith can go back and do
what he did in the Washington what I call the
coup trial, the big trial for trying to govern in
(38:08):
the documents case, he can go back and you know,
reindict Trump. If Harris wins. If Harris doesn't win, all
these cases all go away, all of them. By the way,
I thought at the time I wrote the book that
the Georgia and New York cases could possibly survive. But
I've been told by lawyers who would be wise to
getting rid of them to jump wins. But so they
(38:30):
can bring up the monologal documents another way, they can
Reindicke and so this is not an end of the
And tim shut in Washington was the big rial of
some trying to overcurrent the election that you know Jack
Smith is making progress on, and they carved out a
very compelling argument that would get past the Supreme Court
(38:53):
decision on immunity for official Act. And they are basically
going to argue next year if wins the election, and
they have a trial, which in all likelihood is Larry
tribesays in all likelihood there will be this mother of
all constitutional trials next year if Harris wins, because they've
been able to establish in their arguments that I think
(39:16):
even the Supreme Court will likely recognize that Trump was
acting as a candidate when he was telling Brad Rathensberger,
you know, I need eleven thousand, seven hundred rods. He
wasn't acting in his official capacity as president. So that's
what Supreme Court said. They drew this distinction official and unofficial,
and going to be very hard for Trump to argue
(39:38):
that his actions as a candidate were official. It will
mean that some of his conversations with lawyers who worked
in the White House will be carved out of this case,
in the same way that Hope Hicks his testimony from
when she was communication director, who was very incriminating testimony,
will be carved out of Trump's felony conviction in New York.
(40:01):
But there's enough other evidence that he will go down anyway,
and I believe that it will be held uphelding Yal, I mean.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Aren't you sort of horrified at the miscarriage of justice here, Like,
here's a guy who literally tried to overturn the election,
and he has managed to punt or get rid of
all of his cases, and now he is running for
president just like a normal candidate. I mean, doesn't that
strike you as like an incredible failing on the part
(40:31):
of the justice system.
Speaker 5 (40:33):
Yes, broadly speaking, I deal with a lot in American reckoning,
and because when I say, you know, inside Trump's trial,
in my own my own reckoning is with having some
of my illusions about the American people, uh and the
justice system shaken. So I used to like to identify
myself as JFK called himself an idealist without illusions, and
(40:57):
I realized they had more illusions, maybe than I thought.
I think a lot of other people feel the same way.
But when you say that he got away with it,
he did not. In the felony case, He's going to
this election as a convicted felon and he's awaiting sentencing.
On November twenty sixth, and for reasons that related to
the immunity decision, Judge Wan Mshan delayed sentencing, but he
(41:20):
didn't eliminate sentencing. He will be sentenced, and I think
there's a decent chance that he will be sentenced to
short jail time in a country club jail at the
end of November, so you know, he won't start serving
that sentence until his appeals are exhausted, but he will
be sentenced. So the idea that the criminal justice system,
you know, completely failed, I don't think is accurate. And
(41:44):
we saw basic accountability on May thirtieth when that Jerry
Ford person said guilty thirty four times, and this was
a very gratifying moment. It should be seen as a
gratifying moment, and I think it is very much part
of the subtext of this campaign or even the text
of it. So as the Hutchinson, the former Republican governor
(42:07):
of Arkansas, that he cannot vote for Donald Trump because
he's the convicted fela and tom La Harris as the prosecutor,
has framed this election in part as prosecutor versus perp
and that's one of the reasons she's doing well, is
that he is a convicted felon. That very much helps
the Aras campaign.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Do you have something you want to tell us about
in the book that is sort of new that you're
excited about.
Speaker 5 (42:33):
Yeah, there's a lot that's new in the book about
what happened inside that surreal courtroom where the trial wasn't televised,
so people who were not there got only a tiny
bit of just the barest headlines of what it was
actually like inside the courtroom. So there's a lot of
new stuff about that. But then I also have a
section called black Swan Summer, which is about how Nancy
(42:56):
Pelosi maneuvered Joe Biden off the ticket, and as she said,
she will go to her grave without describing exactly what
she and Biden talked about, but I got the outlines
of it and more about it than anybody has so far,
including Bob Woodward with his Tony Blinken story. So basically
what happened was that after the June twenty seventh debate,
(43:21):
at first Alosi thought it was survivable, as she said publicly,
but then she started seeing polls from House members and
their race as House members who were expected to win,
and they were in deep trouble. And what she really
cares about is the House, right, She's an institutional, So
she made a secret visit to the White House to
(43:42):
see her friend of forty years, Joe Biden. Not on
any log the existence of the trip, I revealed for
the first time. She did not show him any of
those polls. She did not say, Joe, it's time to go.
She said, I'm here for you, Joe, hear for you.
I know this is a difficult time. Let's talk. Let's talk.
(44:04):
And then that led to a series of conversations on
the telephone, the upshot of which was, as somebody very
close to Pelosi told me, she can cut off your
head and you won't even know it. And what she
did was she began the process of getting him to
think about it, and then she pressured him on Morning
(44:26):
Joe on July tenth, which when she said that he
hadn't made a decision yet, when he actually had made
a decision, which was strong. That then ignored everybody else
in the Democratic Party that they could start pressuring him,
the donors and everybody else. But she was annoyed at
that moment, even resentful of the men, meaning Clinton, Obama, Jeffreys, Schumer,
(44:51):
and she thought the men were quote m Ia, and
she wondered, why are my the only blow by fingerprints
on the knife.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
This is pretty.
Speaker 5 (45:03):
Dramatic stuff that she pulled off, this feat, this brilliant,
brilliant political feat, until she was joined a week later
by the men who eventually got in gear and showed
Biden the bad polling. Initially she had to launch this
historic effort to get him off the ticket. And then
(45:24):
I also learned from somebody very close to Biden that
COVID was the last straw, that without COVID, he probably
would have toughed it out, run out the clock, and
he would be the nominee right now, head a certain
defeat when he got COVID and he saw that split
screen of Trump and him getting off the airplane coughing,
and he realized that he had to seriously consider whether
(45:46):
it's step down from the ticket.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Jonathan, this is so incredibly important and fascinating. We will
all be just digging in this book. Thank you, thank you,
thank you, thank.
Speaker 5 (45:58):
You, thanks much for having me. Malia, no moment.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Cofecly Jesse Kennon Maley Jung fasts. So I'm going to
shock you here. Seems like the right wing was trying
to smear to Wall. So it's a day ending and
why what do you see here?
Speaker 1 (46:17):
So they had this account which was more recent was
recently known as the ABC quote unquote whistleblower Hoaxter. So
a far right account on acts, the one that had
the handle is called doc net YouTube, which sounds very,
(46:38):
very very legit had a lengthy post over the weekend
that they had received information that Walls had an inappropriate
relationship with the minor. This account had previously blown up
for its claims that ABC had a whistleblower proving that
President Vice President Harris had gotten the questions before the debate. Well,
(46:58):
the proof never materialized. Numerous politicians, including MTG Donald Trump,
jumped on the story. So I'm gonna go with that
this is not true, And in fact, we know it's
not true because, as noted by numerous users, the dates
at the top of the email are inconsistent. Well, some
(47:20):
correctly feature commas, others didn't, indicating that the emails are fabricated. Ironically,
another popular account known as Agent Self FBI first identified
the user errors. So it's just a completely silly made
up thing. An anonymous X account made it up. But
(47:41):
you know X is now a place for fake news,
and the right runs with fake news whether or not.
It's trail.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
That sounds about right.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Yeah, So that in itself is our moment of fuckery.
Doctor net YouTube on X and X's crazy miss Him
from Flooding is our moment of fuckery. That's it for
this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday,
(48:12):
and Saturday to hear the best minds in politics make
sense of all the chaos. If you enjoyed this podcast,
please send it to a friend or an enemy and
keep the conversation going
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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