January 11, 2025 • 41 mins
The Nation’s Jeet Heer explores why Trump is so eager to annex Canada. Senator Tammy Duckworth details her Article II responsibilities in confirming Trump’s cabinet.
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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 over seventeen hundred doctors have signed
a letter urging the Senate to reject RFK Junior as
Health Secretary. How is it only seventeen thousand? We have
such a great show for you today, The Nation's jet
(00:23):
here gets to the bottom of why Trump is so
excited about annexing Canada. Then we'll talk to Senator Tammy Dunckworth.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
But first the news Somali.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
The Supreme Court shocked everyone last night and let the
sentencing go ahead with Donald Trump. And the sentencing has happened.
What are you seeing here?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Let us rephrase this.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
The Supreme Court proved to not be complete partisan hacks.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
This is the shock was so Trump.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
He had a call earlier this week, perhaps completely unrelated
but likely not, with his good friend Justice Alito, And
who knows Alito said it. It was about recommending a
clerk for the Trump two point zero admin. Maybe perhaps
(01:15):
the appearance of impropriety is certainly appearing anyway, So then
Trump went to his good friends, said I shouldn't be
sentenced for this fraud stuff because I'm president or will
be president.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
And ergo I am God king.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
And you will be completely shocked to find out that
there are five justices who do not think Trump should
be king, and this is perhaps very good news for
American democracy. You will be very unsurprised to hear that
Thomas Alito, who have complete brainworms and our maga to
(01:57):
the core, and Gorsich, who who is just a complete
disaster except when it comes to Native Americans, which somehow
is one thing. And Justice keg stand three white men,
and Justice Thomas who is not white, all believe that
Donald Trump should be God king. On the other side,
(02:19):
we have the three liberal justices, Justice Amy, who actually
we have heard in oral arguments is quite smart though
she was put on the court to overturn row, which
she did for Trump. And Justice Roberts, who is theoretically
the chief Justice, though he's behaved in a very kind
(02:40):
of non chief ye way, those guys said, no, Donald
Trump can still be sentenced. We are not going to
step in. We are not going to do everything he wants. Now, look,
this is insane. Okay, we need to take a moment here.
I think I've been pretty calm about the coming Trump admin.
You know when we talk about how to protect the norms,
(03:03):
and this is not normal. This is not normal, even
a little right, not normal at all to have a
president call up the Supreme Court. Or maybe he was
talking about something totally different with Alito, but there certainly is.
It really feels like impropriety, and it's not normal to
go to the Supreme Court and say, please just fix
(03:26):
this for me. They're not supposed to be fixers. They
are supposed to be beyond politics. They are supposed to
be the arbiters of the Constitution, and so watching this
is pretty insane. So we can be grateful that there
are five still, say in Supreme Court justices, but we
should also realize that the even being here is so
(03:48):
beyond the norms, is so not how any of this
is supposed to work. We should be screaming from the rooftops.
There are I have said, I say again and again.
Trump is not going to annex Canada. That's just a distraction.
And a lot of this stuff is just a distraction.
Sending Junior to Greenland, distraction, distraction, distraction. I'm calling up
the Supreme Court because you want them to do something
(04:08):
for you. This is fucking bad, and this is the
kind of stuff that we all need to be talking
about and writing about and thinking about.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
And again, there is no ethics.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Code for the Supreme Court, so they can get away
with doing whatever they want. And this is how we
got here, and it's just wrong and bad and Jesus Christ,
so that I think I have, that's as soap boxy
as I'm going to get.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Well, well, let's do a little celebrating and some good news.
Then in that case, Joe Biden first president ever to
have job growth in every month of his presidency since
they started measuring it. And this job support, we'll be
shocked to say it's doing pretty well.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, they chose not to re elect him, but the
economy he's leaving is a gift, a gift to a
guy who is planning to put tariffs on everything.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
But the funny thing is Pop, Fox News Night and
Day is preparing everyone for that. The economy is going
to take. It's because Joe Biden has given Trump a
ticking time. Bob is what they.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Say, right, I mean, Rupert Murdoch sees what's going on here.
He sees the writing on the wall and so he
is trying to run a little bit of interference for
his buddy. Yeah, job growth, great economy, and then Joe
Biden cannot get reelected. You know, It's enough to make
a person very, very very depressed.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
It really is something so in other horrifying Supreme Court news,
because we can't find two stories in a row that
are good. Jimmie Raskin did reprimend Samuel Alito for that
call with Trump? What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Look again, protecting norms and institutions sometimes means avoiding the
appearance of impropriety, even if this wasn't improper, though I
really do believe.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Also, I just want to point out.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
That Alito had this clerk fourteen years before now, so
he's had this cork, had had many other jobs after Aledo.
And the question is why was it so important for
Donald Trump to talk to Alito about this clerk when
he was you know, his fIF you know, his fifth
most recent employer. And so even if it wasn't improper,
(06:13):
no one knows what was said on the call, But
even if it wasn't, the appearance of impropriety is absolutely
just a norms crusher in every way. And look, you know,
a lot of politics. What we saw in Trump one
point zero is that a lot of politics was Trump
was able to crash through these guardrails because a lot
of American politics was just a certain level of gentility
(06:37):
that kept things in place and what allowed for some
level of It's not real corruption per se, but there
were guardrails just for the fact that these politicians had
to interact with each other, and those guardrails were really
blown through by Trump. So we really need to make
(07:00):
get clear that the Supreme Court is a redline and
that Donald Trump should not be able to bully them
into doing what he wants and being a rubber stamp
on him, though we know they will be to a
certain extent.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Well, there are guardrails and then there are laws, and
mister Trump broke some of them. There is now about
a week and a half left for Jack Smith to
get the details of that out to the world in
a report. What are you seeing here with what's going
on with the Federal Appeals Court?
Speaker 1 (07:30):
The Federal appeals courts, and on Thursday would not block
the Justice Department from releasing the report by Special Counsel
Jack Smith. Again, this is the last possible moment for
sleepy Merrit Garland, my buddy, sleepy Republican. By the way,
poor went out for all the Republicans who did not
do shit, right.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Merrick Garland.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
What about our friend head of the FBI, Chris Ray,
another Republican who did not do shit? All these people
who just were like, if we close our eyes real tight,
Donald Trump will go away.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Good work, everybody, good work.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
I'm going to do a standing ovation, which you standing
up did not do.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Both sections of mister Smith's two volume report remained for
the moment under an injunction put in place this week
by a lower court judge in the state of Florida.
You know who that judge is, the one.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Who's about to replace Alito or Thomas, whichever retires first.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, or to replace Amy if cat Turd has his way.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Yes, yes, well, we know that we have to always
save a space like it's Elijah at the political table
for cat turd.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yep, exactly, cat tired the Pat Buchanan of America, of
America of the twenty twenties, Cat tired or went out
for poor cat turd, very mad at Justice.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Amy for not taking care of his guy, Donald J. Trump.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
By the way, I just want to point out what
this whole sentence in fiasco.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
He was sentenced to nothing.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yes, like I mean, yes, now he's a fallon congratulations.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
But I know a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
I don't know a lot of people, but I know
a few people have gone to jail, and I think
if they were just fealons and didn't have to go
to jail, like generally, the jail part is the worst part. Again,
I am not a prison consultant, but my sense is
if you don't have to go to jail, that's a win.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Jed Here is a contributor to the nation and the
host of the Time of Monsters.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Jed Here always great to join the program.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
I am so you know why I wanted to have
you on. Besides the fact that we often have you
on and think you're very, very smart.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
It's because of the fact that I'm soon to become
an American after Donald alex Is the Canada and we
become the fifty first state head al I'll let you
know of Washington, DC and Puerto Rico. I welcome our
American liberators. Although I will also say, like the last
(10:10):
time Canada in the United States Thought Award. The White
House did burn down.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
So we're mateen twelve.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Yeah, that's right, that's it's all.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
I think you know, like where the whole New Territory.
We're not in counses anymore, isn't.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
There's like a debunked story about one of the first
ladies saving a painting.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Dolly Madison. I think, yes, that's right, that's right. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah,
I know that that did not happen. But she was
rewarded with chocolate ice cream named in her on her
behalf because she saved painting from the Canadian hordes. But
it's not true, rude, it's not true.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
No, yes, it's both stupid and also didn't happen.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, like so much of American history, but we are
making our own stupid American history right here.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
So let's talk about what the fuck is going on.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Trump has decided that he is going to annex Canada.
Not really, but really, but also, can I just ask,
aren't you guys all like pretty liberal up there?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (11:10):
I mean I think that the polling does show that
if the American election were held in Canada, Kamala Harris
would have gotten something like seventy percent of the votue.
In some ways, if Canada we're annexed, it would change
American politic Their leaked It depends on jerrymandering the Electoral College.
Who does. But I don't think it's in the interest
of the United States Republican Party necessarily to do this, right.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I mean, I think that ultimately, like you'd probably be
better off adding Puerto Rico because at least Puerto Rico
has some conservatives. But again, what I think, and again,
we are going to have four years to try to
figure this out, and we did it so magically last time.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
What do you think Donald Trump is doing here?
Speaker 1 (11:53):
I will end up saying this sentenced ten thousand times
because basically Donald Trump has made the world his interpreter.
You remember when he was on the campaign trail and
he said bacon and everyone had to explain that he
meant the price of bacon, right, that they were all
this shorthand, but his people understood, but that if you
weren't completely read in on the machinations, you wouldn't. But basically,
(12:14):
what I think is happening here is that he's doing
this Nixonian thing of I'm the craziest guy in the room.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Do you think that's correct?
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Yeah, sure, sur sure. I think there's a couple of
things that are going on. I mean, I do actually
think this is not a serious proposal. It is the
sort of very typical Trumpian let's throw crap against the wall,
and you know, and also a little bit of a
distraction as well. I think the and it says I
don't think there's any serious plans to take over.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
Yeah, But having said that, I mean, I think both
Trump and I think, interestingly Elon Moss are very interested
in using the presidency to reshape not just America but
the world and American aligances with the world. And Musk
much more of course, rightly is basically trying to abilies
Europe and to push the far right in Europe, including
(13:04):
in Germany, where you know, like I don't think the
history of promoting fire right governments in Germany has been
a happy one. And he's, like, I mean, Musk, he's
also trying to like overthrow the government of England. He's
called for Prince Charles to call for an election. There's
a couple of things going on here. Like we know
that Trump and Musk do not like NATO, and they
(13:25):
don't like what they call globalism, and what they mean
like globalism is basically the system that was set up
by Franklin Roosevelt and its successors in World War two,
sort of like an international system of alliances where the
United States has collective security with other nations and has
things like NATO and also has trade agreements. And this
was you know, like one could argue that there was
(13:46):
a form of American im perialism, but it's also like
an attempt to work within the nations of other countries
to have some sort of system in place. And there's
always been a critique on the right that this system
of the liberal international order, the system of alliances, is
bad for the United States. It doesn't give the US
the room come maneuver, and it ties America to these
(14:07):
like diabolical governments in Europe that will exploit America. And
that was the critique of the right going back decades.
This was like, actually what Herbert Hoover thought, this is
what Charles Lindberg thought, this is what Robert Taff taught.
People forget this, but I mean, the Republican Party was
in the forties was against NATO, like Robert Taff had
this sort of critique of NATO that I'm articulating, And
(14:30):
there have always been figures on the right that haven't
wanted that, and what they wanted instead.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Right, it's this America Last phenomenon, Right, we both read
that book.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Quit yeah, So, and what they
wanted was what they call in America First policy, which
is sometimes mislabeled by the media as isolationism, but it
was actually basically a policy of hemispheric domination. The idea
is that the United States should leave Europe to the Europeans,
it should concentrate on dominating the Western hemisphere, and then
(15:02):
also using if it's going to expand, expand into Asia,
because the Pacific is America's lake. Now, this all sort
of fell by the wayside during the Cold War, when
with Eisenhower and Nixon and Reagan you basically had Republicans
who bought into the liberal international order, the idea of
working with NATO and work with alliances. But there'll always
been people on the right who have not thought that way,
(15:25):
who have like wanted to return to the foreign policy
of Charles Lindberg and Robert Taft. And I'll just remind
people Charles Lindberg's foreign policy was like, let's let Hitler
be overlord of Europe. He will protect us from the
communist right.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
So one person who thought that way was Pat Buchanan,
who I think is a very important yes.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Yes, yes, And this is this John Dance book When
the Clock Broke, So yeah, so talk to us about
this because he makes a direct parallel from David Duke
to Pat Buchanan to early chomp is so discuss.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
So I think this essential precondition was the sort of
waning of the Cold War in the nineteen eighties and
the Soviet Union not no longer being seen as a
communist threat, and there were a lot of people on
the right who are thinking, well, okay, you know, like
we're not fighting the Soviets anymore, then, like why do
we need NATO and also why don't we like return
(16:21):
to the foreign policy of Robert Taft? And then these
people were called paleo conservatives, and I think the most
most of them are very obscure kind of intellectuals. But
the one person people will know why we is Pat Buchanan.
I mean, there's two parts of this. One is we're
not fighting communism abroad. So we should focus on the
main enemy, which is liberalism at home, and we should
(16:42):
have a culture war at home. We should take the
ideas of David Duke about race and like try to
use them as our own. The second component of this
is like, yeah, returning to a Robert Taft foreign policy.
So in nineteen ninety, Pat Buchanan wrote a column where
he said American the American dream annexing most of Canada.
And Buchanan said, like, well, you know, Canada, they're having
(17:04):
this problem with coveect separatism. This could be an opportunity
for the United States. We should invite like parts of Canada.
He mentioned the maritime provinces, the western provinces of Verda
and Saskatchewan, and then North Northern Territories. And he added
in this column we should also buy Greenland from Denmark.
And also Pat Buchanan had a long standing belief that
(17:27):
it was a mistake to have handed over the Panama
Canal to the people of Panama and that the United
State should take it over. So so in nineteen ninety
Pad buy Cannon is basically saying, you know exactly what
Trump is saying. Now He's not alone. A lot of
these other paleo conservatives think along this line, and some
of our very bizarre creatures. One is Peter Brimlow, who's
(17:47):
most known now for a racist website called v Dare.
Another is this guy Craig Shoemaker, who Pat Buchannan quoted
and cited as an authority and who was the head
of something called the American Expansionist Party.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Oh Jesus Christ, great, should I.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Just wanted it's a little digression, but it's actually very
interesting to get a set to where these guys are
coming from. So this guy basically started off as a
gay rights activist of the sixties, but ran into problems
because he had views of women that other gay rights
people didn't like. Like he basically said, we should be
a Menzoni space. I don't want to have like this
(18:25):
whole gay lesbian by translating, you know, like no women,
no girls. He also was like a virulent racist who
basically said black people are and I am quoting here
the enemy who should be exterminated. We're pretty crazy crack
blaw people. So I think one of the things with
the Trump era, and I think, you know, like Musk
(18:46):
is also part of this is that like these kind
of crazy fringe ideas that have hovered up the wings
of the Republican Party. They've decided, let's take them up
again and let's mainstream them. And they're partially able to
do that because the old Republican elite has been discredited
and so therefore they need to juice things up. I mean,
what basically happened was, you know, the Cold War won
(19:09):
down the presidency of George W. Bush attempted to revive
a kind of a right wing internationalism in the form
of the Global War on Terror. But that was a
disaster that totally discredited the sort of intervention is swinging
the Republican Party, and that created a vacuum. And into
that vacuum step Donald Trump, who was able to leverage
(19:29):
a his celebrity and b the fact that he realized
that there were all these string components of the Republican
coalition that you could energize and get worked out by,
you know, bringing back the ideas of Pabri Canon and
Craig Shoemaker. You know that these so basically like, now
how serious it is as policy? As I said, I
(19:52):
don't foresee like actually buying Greveland or taking over Canada
but I do actually think that it's well, we've already
seen it. It's it's how did this reptive effect? I
mean Justin Trudeau stepped down, and I mean he's been
unpopular for a long time. I think there are a
lot of people in his own party, like you know,
like as with Joe Biden, who have wanted him to
step down for a while and make up for another leader.
(20:12):
But what happened was he got into a dispute with
his finance mister Christia Freeland, and in her letter resignation,
Freelance said these very important that like you know, Canada
is facing a crisis with Trump pretning carepors. We need
like a leadership that can unite the country. I no
longer feel like you can provide that leadership. That was like,
(20:33):
it's not the ultimate cause, which I think is you know,
it's unpopularity due to COVID and inflation, you know, as
was Joe Biden, as everyone with everyone, But I think
it was the precipitating cause that like the Canadian elite
is very very scared of what's happening. This is this
is up truely just of like so he said, Canadians
are liberal, Well we have conservators here, but I'll tell you,
(20:54):
like quite conservative Canadians, you know, don't want to like
lose their country and join the United State. And there
are people like the Globe and Meal is kind of
like a business newspaper. One of their more conservative columnists
Andrew Coin, who's a real sort of emblem of sort
of you know, like the sort of like old wasp
elite in Canada. His father would have been headed the
(21:16):
governor of the Bank of Canada. Andrew Coin has basically said,
you know, Canada can no longer rely on the United
States as a reliable ally. We have to have like
a new foreign policy, perhaps like deepen our ties with Europe,
deep in our ties with the last in American countries,
try to have some sort of counterweight that that is
a kind of like thinking that's happening even among conservative Canadians.
(21:37):
I think that the same thinking is happening in Europe.
I think we're already seeing a lot of people in Europe.
I mean, they're the EUS protesting against Trump's the plans
to anna Greenland, and I think that they are serious
people in Europe who are thinking, you know, like we've
relied on America for our protection for like seventy years.
(21:58):
What if they're going to keep electing I was like, drop,
who are gonna, like, you know, have people like Elon
Musk or literally destabilizing our societies who are promoting I
cannot begin to explain like the people that Elon Musk
are promoting, people like Tommy Douglass and the AfD. This
would be like someone from outside of America. So let's
say someone being like.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Make David Duke your president.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. It would be like like, as
of powerful people in Europe, we're certainly saying we want
America to elect David Duke. It's an incredibly destabilizing thing.
So there are people inside the European elite who are
now explicitly thinking, well, you know, why don't we leverage
culture ties with China. Why don't we like, you know,
open up trade ties with your China. China can offer us,
(22:40):
you know, five g they can offer us cheap electric cars.
President g is a tyrant. He's bad for his own people,
but he's far away from us and he doesn't want
to interpere in our domestic politics. I think that's a
very serious conversation that's happening in Europe, and it's happening
in Canada. Like, I don't think Canada would necessarily, although
I think the other interesting thing is that the Chinese
(23:02):
are very aware of all this. The government of China
has just basically announced to Canada that, you know, guys,
if you want, like, you know, closer trading ties with US,
you like, if you want to sell your product products
if you can't, if you have to care for and
you can't sell your products of America, we're here, You're
We'll be happy to find No. No, I don't think
(23:23):
for a variety of reasons, I don't think the Canadian
elite is going to go for closer ties with China.
But I think the smart play for Canada, as for Europe,
is like closer integration with each other and with Latin America.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah, because they're the only people who are normal anymore. Honestly,
with Africa, it's destabilizing, and the goal is to have
it be destabilizing. And there's a larger question here about
whether tech the tech bros want to see America succeed
or want to destabilize America so that they can make
more money. It's not entirely clear that those two things
(23:58):
are aligned in any way.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
I mean the thing is like money has no loyalty,
money has no patriotis on at resultant like Elon Musk,
I mean he wins both ways, both like a kind
of more destabilized Europe and a more details America. I
mean he gets us regulation so he can do what
he wants with his companies, but also like a stronger
China is not bad for the Elon muss right, right.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Right, exactly. And I think that's a real question.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
And Elon Musk has lots of deals with China and
is very conflicted. So let's talk about what we're seeing here.
We've got Trump is coming, We're trying to sort of
figure out. You know, I feel like we're in the
calm before the storm here. So here's my question for you,
which I actually start we started talking about. Is like
(24:44):
the bombastic language that Trump is using. If you look
back on four years of Trump, it tended to be
he wanted people to think he was crazy and then
would sort of back down. But Trump is much older,
his rhetoric has continued to be quite a explosive. What
is your take on where the people who want the
(25:04):
sort of normal, what the people who want.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
A sort of normal democratic order should be doing.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
I think the main thing is to be much more
oppositional than they have been. I think that there has
been a kind of instinct to say, I, once seeing
what we're seeing this in the immigration vote, you know,
well Trump won like you know, a plurality of the vote,
a sort of decisively the eleccoral college, we should like
try to, you know, get along. I think that's just
like the wrong thing to do, especially since he's doing
(25:33):
all these crazy things. And I think like the people
who are hoping that he's like like this all just
rhetoric that you know, ultimately the more stable advisors will
come along. I mean, I think it's not just Trump
is older, but also he has a cattery of people
around him who are like not the sort of you know,
Rex Tillerson Maddest type people he had in the first term,
(25:56):
who are like real hardcore idologues. And I think Musk
is the wildcard here, right because like in the first term,
Trump had Steve Bannon, but I think the revoking establishment
was very cagey and very quick to kind of push
Brandon out of there, and you know, like leverage Bannon's
own bad tendencies against them. But I mean, I think
it's much harder to get rid of Ela Musk, that is,
(26:18):
to get rid of Steve Bannon. I mean, Musk has like,
you know, he's the richest man in the world. He
has a huge media outlet. So I think that the unstable,
radical element of Trumpism has a much like stronger power
than now than before. And to my mind that that
actually argues for like, you know, the real strategy of resistance,
(26:39):
which I don't think that we're seeing right now. And
I actually think in the long term, I think the
smarter play is to stake out like a position like
of like you know, like opposition, because I think a
lot of this stuff is going to come crashing down
on Trump's head sooner rather than later. And I think
that what the democratic is smart politics, is not in
(27:00):
fact smart politics. I think they think that, you know,
they can triangulate.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
But I think there's anxiety that maybe he'll be normal
this time, which all of us want, but history shows
us that that is not how it's going to go.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Yeah. No, I just I don't see him normalizing anytime soon.
And I think the one one has to prepare for
quite a radical Trump administration. And it could well be,
though I think that real political opposition will have to
come from outside the Democratic Party, like in terms of
like social movements.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yes, and that's a real question. Thank you, thank you,
thank you. Jeete. I hope you won't come back.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
You can't give me away. I'm going to be a
fellow American anytime now.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Senator Tammy Duckworth is the junior senator from the state
of Illinois.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Welcome to Fast Politics. Senator Tammy Duckworth.
Speaker 5 (27:52):
Thank you, it's good to be on. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
I'm delighted to have you. So let's talk about what
is going on on your article to responsibility and these
hearings that are coming up.
Speaker 5 (28:05):
Yeah, I mean, my job is to make sure that
the people who are nominated to the various positions within
the president's administration are actually qualified and capable of doing
their jobs. And I've had quite a few meetings, and
you know, I've met with Senator Rubio who's been nominated
to be Secretary of State. I've met with Hamasman Collins
(28:26):
who today I met with him, he's nominated to be
Secretive Veterans Affairs. I might have had very good conversations
with them where I've been able to ask them their
questions of their vision, with experience they have, how they're
kind of running the department. And then my next person
is going to be mister Pete Hesath, who is nominated
to be Secretary of Defense, but he is avoiding meeting
(28:47):
with me and all that the other senate them, so
I've not been able to ask in questions about his
qualifications for the job, which makes it really hard for
me to do my job.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
What do you think that is? I mean, why do
you think that he's doing that? Because sooner or later
he's going to have to sit and do hearings that
are going to be public. I mean, this is the
thing I don't understand. So can you talk us through that?
Speaker 5 (29:12):
Sure? So at the hearing, each senator has seven minutes
to ask questions. I certainly have more questions for him
than the seven minutes. And usually most nominees will come
and meet with the senators, especially those who sit on
the committee. You have a pretty thorough, in depth conversation
and to establish a relationship because we're going to be
working with these people for the next four years, right,
(29:34):
and so to make sure that we understand where they
want to take the department, what their emphasis are going
to be, and I can express to him the things
that I'm concerned about. And usually it's a pretty collegial
process because it is about the well being of the
United States of America. It is about making sure that
our country remains safe and strong, especially when it comes
to the Department of Defense. But he's only met with Republicans,
(29:56):
and he's only going to make himself available to meet
with me after I'm going probably after I'm going to
be asked to vote for him. So I'm only going
to get some minutes to ask him questions. And you know,
he's a TV personality. He'll stall and not answer questions,
and then we won't get answers to our questions, and
then I'm going to be asked to vote for him.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
So there are a lot of people who are pretty
cynical at this moment on the left and the right
about Trump getting his nominations through. Pete Hagg said, he
has no history managing an organization, especially one with three
million plus people. Do you think that you know they
have enough Republicans to get these people through?
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Do you think there.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Are Republicans you are in the setting, but in the
Senate a while, and you know a lot of these
people really, well, are there any Republicans where you have
faith that they will take their article to responsibilities?
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Seriously?
Speaker 5 (30:48):
If you asked me that question a couple of weeks ago,
my answer would have been yes. But unfortunately, what I
see now is that some of my Republican colleagues who
have spoken out about their concerns to miss a hexseth
immediately came under just a huge onslaught of attacks from
Resident Trump along with other you know, leaders in the
(31:12):
Maga Republican wing, to the point where now they have
walked back some of their concerns. So I worry that
they will bow to the pressure. I hope they won't
realize wn't happen yet, but we'll see, We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
So you really think they're just I mean, because we've
all had our time in the barrel in Maga world.
So you really think these people, even though they have security,
even though you know, we've seen people like Mitt Romney,
Mitch McConnell, we know what happens. Like, you really think
they can't stand up to Trump.
Speaker 5 (31:45):
Well, they could, but they probably won't be Senators very long.
I mean, Romney could not get re elected in Utah,
which is why he retired. So I guess it depends
on whether my colleagues choose country over self. I hope
they choose country.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
But what I saw in the last weeks was that
Murkowski did complain about the mag of movement on Jony Earnst, Like,
do you think that that is because there's some sense
that she may do the right thing, or do you
think that that is just talk.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
I hope that she should do the right thing, but
we won't know until then. The best that I can
do is do my job and ask mis the hex
seth questions that show whether or not he's qualified to
do the job, and make it clear that if you
vote for this guy, you're voting for someone who is
absolutely unqualified to do this job.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
So I read reporting today that a bunch of Republicans
do not feel that Tolsey Gabbert is actually not going
to make it through. Do you think there's a certain
sacrificial lamb math here, or do you think that some
of these Republicans do have a spawn.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
I hope that my Republican colleagues she used to put
the national security of the United States of America above
their own personal loyalty to President Trump. None of us
swore an oath to the President of the United States.
We saw an earth of defender constitution, and so I
hope that maybe you know, more of them will step
up and say, we can't get somebody who met with
(33:10):
and was essentially a talking point for Bashar Assad to
be Director of National Intelligence. We don't think that somebody
who has never commanded a unit larger than leading an
infantry platoon should be in charge of three million personnel.
I hope that my colleagues would do the right thing,
but I won't know until the votes are cast.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
So we'll see.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
The person who keeps me up at night is cash Battal.
Does Cash Battel's hearing go after the other cabinet secretaries?
And is there any sense in which there's kind of
a more of a fullsome conversation about him as an
FBI like a bunch of these nominees seem like very unusual, strange, inappropriate,
(33:53):
but he seems like a whole other level.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
He keeps me up at night as well to think
that this is the position that he's been nominated, and frankly,
if the likes of cash Bertel or Trolsa Gabbert are confirmed,
I don't think our allies will work with us. I mean,
if I were our allies, I would immediately cut off
all intelligence sharing with the United States because I wouldn't
trust it would be true rule of law in the
(34:16):
United States and true guarding of intelligence information in the
United States with the two of them in charge. And frankly,
that will put many assets in deep jeopardy and could
result in god forbid that the death of our troops
who are going to have to be in harm's way
because we're not going to receive information that could keep
our troops safe overseas.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Yeah, I think that's a real worry. That seems like
a nonpartisan worry. I mean, I know it's not a
trumpest worry because Trump has appointed her. But you must
see Republicans who can relate to this.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
I know that they can relate to it, But whether
or not they will act on that is, you know,
not something that I can predict. Were this, you know,
six years ago, when you had folks around like Amid Ronney,
or if you had John McCain, if you had some
other folks. Yeah, but those folks are all gone.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, but there are still.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
I mean, you don't have faith in like Collins and Murkowski.
Speaker 5 (35:13):
And Collin's voted for Kavanaugh.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
So talk to me about Senate Democrats and what you
guys are doing to sort of try to sort of
hold the line on some of Trump's scarier policies.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
Well, we are united in our effort to stop these
policies that we feel will be harmful to the United States.
We are going to do everything we can to stop
these policies that are harmful to working Americans. We're going
to make sure that when they try to pay for
their billionaire tax cuts by cutting Medicare and mediciate, that
we're going to do everything we can to make sure
(35:48):
the American people know what they're doing and to slow
them down and try to stop them. And with the
case of Missa Hexseeth, the best thing we can do
is at this hearing to ask questions that Americans can
look at it and say, oh, you know what, that
wasn't partisan, that actually was something that makes sense.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
You know what do you mean?
Speaker 5 (36:06):
He has never led an organization larger than forty people,
So so really speak to whether or not these people
can do their jobs. From the fact that Tozy Gabbert
was called a Russian asset by state controlled media in
Russia should worry people.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah, I mean agreed. And it's also a real question
about sort of how the government works. Trump has a
lot We know that there are a lot of executive
orders coming down the pike. We don't totally know what
they are, but there's a lot of them are pretty dystopian.
What can you guys do in the United States Senate
to come up the works?
Speaker 5 (36:44):
I mean, there's a lot of procedural things that we
can do. And part of it is also just shining
a light on what is happening. Because when you shine
a strong enough light and there's enough pushback, you do win.
I mean, they tried to end the Affordable Care at
the last time around, and we were able to stop
that from happening because we rallied the American people. The
Republicans said that the Packed Act was too expensive, and
(37:05):
we shined a light on that and rallied Americans around,
and so that shame Republicans to voting to support the
Packed Act. So that our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans can
actually get the care that they need that they've been
injured in their service of this country. So the best
thing we can do is to be as open and
shine as strong a light as possible on these tactics
(37:27):
of theirs.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Because what I'm struck by is like when you think
about the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court we know is
heavily trumpy, but we did see with this immunity decision
that five to four they said, like the.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
President is not a king.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Now they've done a lot of other very trumpy things
that struck me as a little bit surprising, and perhaps,
I mean, of course this is norms crushing all of it,
but I just am curious.
Speaker 5 (37:52):
Well, yes, they have a lifetime appointment senators.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Right, but senators have long I mean long terms, and
people like Tillis, I mean Tillis is in a swing state,
Collins is in a blue state. I mean, the calculus
of getting re elected. You think that's largely what's happening.
Speaker 5 (38:08):
Oh, I think so again. I bring up Mitt Romie,
a former Republican presidential candidate from Utah, could not win
in a primary to be re elected and has left. Right,
that's the consequence of standing up to Donald Trump. That
is a consequence of putting country above Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Right, yeah, no, it's worth thinking about. Thank you, thank you,
No mo pftly Jesse.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Cannon by Jung Fast. You know, one of the things
that we've been using as a tool to sleep well
at night is that these people make big claims and
they can't do it. You know, we now have the
Golf of egg prices, I mean, I'm sorry, the Gulf
of America. And then we had that Elon Musk was
going to cut the government by at least two jillion dollars.
(38:57):
It's looking like that ain't going to happen.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah, so you'll be shocked to find out that Doge
is just not is anyone somebody who was going to
cut the federal government by at least.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Two trillion dollars. But you know, here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
He's very busy interfering with all of the other things. Look,
you know, interfering with the German election, interfering with the
British election, making fun of Trudeau. Listen, Donald Trump is
putting Elon Musk in this weird fake government position. Elon
Musk is getting all of his very rich friends. They're
(39:33):
going to fix the federal government. No one has ever
thought of this before. Let me just point out that,
like we're watching in real time, Elon discover how the
federal government works. It does a lot of stuff besides
give him tax incentives that made him the richest man
in the world who knew Well, see, you know, I
actually think he's going to try to cut a lot
(39:53):
of stuff, and I don't think that it's going to work.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
But he's already hedging.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
And he says he was asked by Mark Penn, famous
liberal Mark Penn, who writes pieces for The New York
Times about what liberals should do.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
One might say, the king of concern trolling.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Right, this famous liberal Mark Penn, who is most famous
for trying to use no labels to stymy democratic legislation.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
I thought he was most famous for giving Hillary Quinton
the advice that helped her lose to Barack Obama.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Yes, he's also famous for that, Mark Penn. That's right.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
That Mark Penn was sitting with Elon because he's such
a liberal, and Elon wants to give interviews to liberals
so clearly, and he was interviewing him, and Elon said
what all of us thought which is I think we'll
try for two trillion. I think that's the best case outcome.
Must responded, but I do think you kind of have
(40:51):
to have some overage. I think if we try for
two trillion, we'll get to one trillion, all right, So
that is about half of what he's saying.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
And if you're just making up numbers, why the fuck not.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
This is vindicating for budget specialists and also for people
who have half a brain who have been deeply skeptical
about Musk's claim from the jump about any of this. Look,
everyone likes the hollowed out carcass that is Twitter. It
works really well for the nine people who are still
on there. He's going to do that. He's going to
(41:24):
hope he's going to try to do that to the
federal government, and let's hope he can.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
I know that Doze is named after a dog, and
I think we have a sleeping dog that's going to lie.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going Thanks for listening,
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And over seventeen hundred doctors have signed
a letter urging the Senate to reject RFK Junior as
Health Secretary. How is it only seventeen thousand? We have
such a great show for you today, The Nation's jet
(00:23):
here gets to the bottom of why Trump is so
excited about annexing Canada. Then we'll talk to Senator Tammy Dunckworth.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
But first the news Somali.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
The Supreme Court shocked everyone last night and let the
sentencing go ahead with Donald Trump. And the sentencing has happened.
What are you seeing here?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Let us rephrase this.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
The Supreme Court proved to not be complete partisan hacks.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
This is the shock was so Trump.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
He had a call earlier this week, perhaps completely unrelated
but likely not, with his good friend Justice Alito, And
who knows Alito said it. It was about recommending a
clerk for the Trump two point zero admin. Maybe perhaps
(01:15):
the appearance of impropriety is certainly appearing anyway, So then
Trump went to his good friends, said I shouldn't be
sentenced for this fraud stuff because I'm president or will
be president.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
And ergo I am God king.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
And you will be completely shocked to find out that
there are five justices who do not think Trump should
be king, and this is perhaps very good news for
American democracy. You will be very unsurprised to hear that
Thomas Alito, who have complete brainworms and our maga to
(01:57):
the core, and Gorsich, who who is just a complete
disaster except when it comes to Native Americans, which somehow
is one thing. And Justice keg stand three white men,
and Justice Thomas who is not white, all believe that
Donald Trump should be God king. On the other side,
(02:19):
we have the three liberal justices, Justice Amy, who actually
we have heard in oral arguments is quite smart though
she was put on the court to overturn row, which
she did for Trump. And Justice Roberts, who is theoretically
the chief Justice, though he's behaved in a very kind
(02:40):
of non chief ye way, those guys said, no, Donald
Trump can still be sentenced. We are not going to
step in. We are not going to do everything he wants. Now, look,
this is insane. Okay, we need to take a moment here.
I think I've been pretty calm about the coming Trump admin.
You know when we talk about how to protect the norms,
(03:03):
and this is not normal. This is not normal, even
a little right, not normal at all to have a
president call up the Supreme Court. Or maybe he was
talking about something totally different with Alito, but there certainly is.
It really feels like impropriety, and it's not normal to
go to the Supreme Court and say, please just fix
(03:26):
this for me. They're not supposed to be fixers. They
are supposed to be beyond politics. They are supposed to
be the arbiters of the Constitution, and so watching this
is pretty insane. So we can be grateful that there
are five still, say in Supreme Court justices, but we
should also realize that the even being here is so
(03:48):
beyond the norms, is so not how any of this
is supposed to work. We should be screaming from the rooftops.
There are I have said, I say again and again.
Trump is not going to annex Canada. That's just a distraction.
And a lot of this stuff is just a distraction.
Sending Junior to Greenland, distraction, distraction, distraction. I'm calling up
the Supreme Court because you want them to do something
(04:08):
for you. This is fucking bad, and this is the
kind of stuff that we all need to be talking
about and writing about and thinking about.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
And again, there is no ethics.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Code for the Supreme Court, so they can get away
with doing whatever they want. And this is how we
got here, and it's just wrong and bad and Jesus Christ,
so that I think I have, that's as soap boxy
as I'm going to get.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Well, well, let's do a little celebrating and some good news.
Then in that case, Joe Biden first president ever to
have job growth in every month of his presidency since
they started measuring it. And this job support, we'll be
shocked to say it's doing pretty well.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, they chose not to re elect him, but the
economy he's leaving is a gift, a gift to a
guy who is planning to put tariffs on everything.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
But the funny thing is Pop, Fox News Night and
Day is preparing everyone for that. The economy is going
to take. It's because Joe Biden has given Trump a
ticking time. Bob is what they.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Say, right, I mean, Rupert Murdoch sees what's going on here.
He sees the writing on the wall and so he
is trying to run a little bit of interference for
his buddy. Yeah, job growth, great economy, and then Joe
Biden cannot get reelected. You know, It's enough to make
a person very, very very depressed.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
It really is something so in other horrifying Supreme Court news,
because we can't find two stories in a row that
are good. Jimmie Raskin did reprimend Samuel Alito for that
call with Trump? What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Look again, protecting norms and institutions sometimes means avoiding the
appearance of impropriety, even if this wasn't improper, though I
really do believe.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Also, I just want to point out.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
That Alito had this clerk fourteen years before now, so
he's had this cork, had had many other jobs after Aledo.
And the question is why was it so important for
Donald Trump to talk to Alito about this clerk when
he was you know, his fIF you know, his fifth
most recent employer. And so even if it wasn't improper,
(06:13):
no one knows what was said on the call, But
even if it wasn't, the appearance of impropriety is absolutely
just a norms crusher in every way. And look, you know,
a lot of politics. What we saw in Trump one
point zero is that a lot of politics was Trump
was able to crash through these guardrails because a lot
of American politics was just a certain level of gentility
(06:37):
that kept things in place and what allowed for some
level of It's not real corruption per se, but there
were guardrails just for the fact that these politicians had
to interact with each other, and those guardrails were really
blown through by Trump. So we really need to make
(07:00):
get clear that the Supreme Court is a redline and
that Donald Trump should not be able to bully them
into doing what he wants and being a rubber stamp
on him, though we know they will be to a
certain extent.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Well, there are guardrails and then there are laws, and
mister Trump broke some of them. There is now about
a week and a half left for Jack Smith to
get the details of that out to the world in
a report. What are you seeing here with what's going
on with the Federal Appeals Court?
Speaker 1 (07:30):
The Federal appeals courts, and on Thursday would not block
the Justice Department from releasing the report by Special Counsel
Jack Smith. Again, this is the last possible moment for
sleepy Merrit Garland, my buddy, sleepy Republican. By the way,
poor went out for all the Republicans who did not
do shit, right.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Merrick Garland.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
What about our friend head of the FBI, Chris Ray,
another Republican who did not do shit? All these people
who just were like, if we close our eyes real tight,
Donald Trump will go away.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Good work, everybody, good work.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
I'm going to do a standing ovation, which you standing
up did not do.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Both sections of mister Smith's two volume report remained for
the moment under an injunction put in place this week
by a lower court judge in the state of Florida.
You know who that judge is, the one.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Who's about to replace Alito or Thomas, whichever retires first.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, or to replace Amy if cat Turd has his way.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Yes, yes, well, we know that we have to always
save a space like it's Elijah at the political table
for cat turd.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yep, exactly, cat tired the Pat Buchanan of America, of
America of the twenty twenties, Cat tired or went out
for poor cat turd, very mad at Justice.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Amy for not taking care of his guy, Donald J. Trump.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
By the way, I just want to point out what
this whole sentence in fiasco.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
He was sentenced to nothing.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yes, like I mean, yes, now he's a fallon congratulations.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
But I know a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
I don't know a lot of people, but I know
a few people have gone to jail, and I think
if they were just fealons and didn't have to go
to jail, like generally, the jail part is the worst part. Again,
I am not a prison consultant, but my sense is
if you don't have to go to jail, that's a win.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Jed Here is a contributor to the nation and the
host of the Time of Monsters.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Jed Here always great to join the program.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
I am so you know why I wanted to have
you on. Besides the fact that we often have you
on and think you're very, very smart.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
It's because of the fact that I'm soon to become
an American after Donald alex Is the Canada and we
become the fifty first state head al I'll let you
know of Washington, DC and Puerto Rico. I welcome our
American liberators. Although I will also say, like the last
(10:10):
time Canada in the United States Thought Award. The White
House did burn down.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
So we're mateen twelve.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Yeah, that's right, that's it's all.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
I think you know, like where the whole New Territory.
We're not in counses anymore, isn't.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
There's like a debunked story about one of the first
ladies saving a painting.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Dolly Madison. I think, yes, that's right, that's right. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah,
I know that that did not happen. But she was
rewarded with chocolate ice cream named in her on her
behalf because she saved painting from the Canadian hordes. But
it's not true, rude, it's not true.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
No, yes, it's both stupid and also didn't happen.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, like so much of American history, but we are
making our own stupid American history right here.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
So let's talk about what the fuck is going on.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Trump has decided that he is going to annex Canada.
Not really, but really, but also, can I just ask,
aren't you guys all like pretty liberal up there?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (11:10):
I mean I think that the polling does show that
if the American election were held in Canada, Kamala Harris
would have gotten something like seventy percent of the votue.
In some ways, if Canada we're annexed, it would change
American politic Their leaked It depends on jerrymandering the Electoral College.
Who does. But I don't think it's in the interest
of the United States Republican Party necessarily to do this, right.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I mean, I think that ultimately, like you'd probably be
better off adding Puerto Rico because at least Puerto Rico
has some conservatives. But again, what I think, and again,
we are going to have four years to try to
figure this out, and we did it so magically last time.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
What do you think Donald Trump is doing here?
Speaker 1 (11:53):
I will end up saying this sentenced ten thousand times
because basically Donald Trump has made the world his interpreter.
You remember when he was on the campaign trail and
he said bacon and everyone had to explain that he
meant the price of bacon, right, that they were all
this shorthand, but his people understood, but that if you
weren't completely read in on the machinations, you wouldn't. But basically,
(12:14):
what I think is happening here is that he's doing
this Nixonian thing of I'm the craziest guy in the room.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Do you think that's correct?
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Yeah, sure, sur sure. I think there's a couple of
things that are going on. I mean, I do actually
think this is not a serious proposal. It is the
sort of very typical Trumpian let's throw crap against the wall,
and you know, and also a little bit of a
distraction as well. I think the and it says I
don't think there's any serious plans to take over.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
Yeah, But having said that, I mean, I think both
Trump and I think, interestingly Elon Moss are very interested
in using the presidency to reshape not just America but
the world and American aligances with the world. And Musk
much more of course, rightly is basically trying to abilies
Europe and to push the far right in Europe, including
(13:04):
in Germany, where you know, like I don't think the
history of promoting fire right governments in Germany has been
a happy one. And he's, like, I mean, Musk, he's
also trying to like overthrow the government of England. He's
called for Prince Charles to call for an election. There's
a couple of things going on here. Like we know
that Trump and Musk do not like NATO, and they
(13:25):
don't like what they call globalism, and what they mean
like globalism is basically the system that was set up
by Franklin Roosevelt and its successors in World War two,
sort of like an international system of alliances where the
United States has collective security with other nations and has
things like NATO and also has trade agreements. And this
was you know, like one could argue that there was
(13:46):
a form of American im perialism, but it's also like
an attempt to work within the nations of other countries
to have some sort of system in place. And there's
always been a critique on the right that this system
of the liberal international order, the system of alliances, is
bad for the United States. It doesn't give the US
the room come maneuver, and it ties America to these
(14:07):
like diabolical governments in Europe that will exploit America. And
that was the critique of the right going back decades.
This was like, actually what Herbert Hoover thought, this is
what Charles Lindberg thought, this is what Robert Taff taught.
People forget this, but I mean, the Republican Party was
in the forties was against NATO, like Robert Taff had
this sort of critique of NATO that I'm articulating, And
(14:30):
there have always been figures on the right that haven't
wanted that, and what they wanted instead.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Right, it's this America Last phenomenon, Right, we both read
that book.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Quit yeah, So, and what they
wanted was what they call in America First policy, which
is sometimes mislabeled by the media as isolationism, but it
was actually basically a policy of hemispheric domination. The idea
is that the United States should leave Europe to the Europeans,
it should concentrate on dominating the Western hemisphere, and then
(15:02):
also using if it's going to expand, expand into Asia,
because the Pacific is America's lake. Now, this all sort
of fell by the wayside during the Cold War, when
with Eisenhower and Nixon and Reagan you basically had Republicans
who bought into the liberal international order, the idea of
working with NATO and work with alliances. But there'll always
been people on the right who have not thought that way,
(15:25):
who have like wanted to return to the foreign policy
of Charles Lindberg and Robert Taft. And I'll just remind
people Charles Lindberg's foreign policy was like, let's let Hitler
be overlord of Europe. He will protect us from the
communist right.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
So one person who thought that way was Pat Buchanan,
who I think is a very important yes.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Yes, yes, And this is this John Dance book When
the Clock Broke, So yeah, so talk to us about
this because he makes a direct parallel from David Duke
to Pat Buchanan to early chomp is so discuss.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
So I think this essential precondition was the sort of
waning of the Cold War in the nineteen eighties and
the Soviet Union not no longer being seen as a
communist threat, and there were a lot of people on
the right who are thinking, well, okay, you know, like
we're not fighting the Soviets anymore, then, like why do
we need NATO and also why don't we like return
(16:21):
to the foreign policy of Robert Taft? And then these
people were called paleo conservatives, and I think the most
most of them are very obscure kind of intellectuals. But
the one person people will know why we is Pat Buchanan.
I mean, there's two parts of this. One is we're
not fighting communism abroad. So we should focus on the
main enemy, which is liberalism at home, and we should
(16:42):
have a culture war at home. We should take the
ideas of David Duke about race and like try to
use them as our own. The second component of this
is like, yeah, returning to a Robert Taft foreign policy.
So in nineteen ninety, Pat Buchanan wrote a column where
he said American the American dream annexing most of Canada.
And Buchanan said, like, well, you know, Canada, they're having
(17:04):
this problem with coveect separatism. This could be an opportunity
for the United States. We should invite like parts of Canada.
He mentioned the maritime provinces, the western provinces of Verda
and Saskatchewan, and then North Northern Territories. And he added
in this column we should also buy Greenland from Denmark.
And also Pat Buchanan had a long standing belief that
(17:27):
it was a mistake to have handed over the Panama
Canal to the people of Panama and that the United
State should take it over. So so in nineteen ninety
Pad buy Cannon is basically saying, you know exactly what
Trump is saying. Now He's not alone. A lot of
these other paleo conservatives think along this line, and some
of our very bizarre creatures. One is Peter Brimlow, who's
(17:47):
most known now for a racist website called v Dare.
Another is this guy Craig Shoemaker, who Pat Buchannan quoted
and cited as an authority and who was the head
of something called the American Expansionist Party.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Oh Jesus Christ, great, should I.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Just wanted it's a little digression, but it's actually very
interesting to get a set to where these guys are
coming from. So this guy basically started off as a
gay rights activist of the sixties, but ran into problems
because he had views of women that other gay rights
people didn't like. Like he basically said, we should be
a Menzoni space. I don't want to have like this
(18:25):
whole gay lesbian by translating, you know, like no women,
no girls. He also was like a virulent racist who
basically said black people are and I am quoting here
the enemy who should be exterminated. We're pretty crazy crack
blaw people. So I think one of the things with
the Trump era, and I think, you know, like Musk
(18:46):
is also part of this is that like these kind
of crazy fringe ideas that have hovered up the wings
of the Republican Party. They've decided, let's take them up
again and let's mainstream them. And they're partially able to
do that because the old Republican elite has been discredited
and so therefore they need to juice things up. I mean,
what basically happened was, you know, the Cold War won
(19:09):
down the presidency of George W. Bush attempted to revive
a kind of a right wing internationalism in the form
of the Global War on Terror. But that was a
disaster that totally discredited the sort of intervention is swinging
the Republican Party, and that created a vacuum. And into
that vacuum step Donald Trump, who was able to leverage
(19:29):
a his celebrity and b the fact that he realized
that there were all these string components of the Republican
coalition that you could energize and get worked out by,
you know, bringing back the ideas of Pabri Canon and
Craig Shoemaker. You know that these so basically like, now
how serious it is as policy? As I said, I
(19:52):
don't foresee like actually buying Greveland or taking over Canada
but I do actually think that it's well, we've already
seen it. It's it's how did this reptive effect? I
mean Justin Trudeau stepped down, and I mean he's been
unpopular for a long time. I think there are a
lot of people in his own party, like you know,
like as with Joe Biden, who have wanted him to
step down for a while and make up for another leader.
(20:12):
But what happened was he got into a dispute with
his finance mister Christia Freeland, and in her letter resignation,
Freelance said these very important that like you know, Canada
is facing a crisis with Trump pretning carepors. We need
like a leadership that can unite the country. I no
longer feel like you can provide that leadership. That was like,
(20:33):
it's not the ultimate cause, which I think is you know,
it's unpopularity due to COVID and inflation, you know, as
was Joe Biden, as everyone with everyone, But I think
it was the precipitating cause that like the Canadian elite
is very very scared of what's happening. This is this
is up truely just of like so he said, Canadians
are liberal, Well we have conservators here, but I'll tell you,
(20:54):
like quite conservative Canadians, you know, don't want to like
lose their country and join the United State. And there
are people like the Globe and Meal is kind of
like a business newspaper. One of their more conservative columnists
Andrew Coin, who's a real sort of emblem of sort
of you know, like the sort of like old wasp
elite in Canada. His father would have been headed the
(21:16):
governor of the Bank of Canada. Andrew Coin has basically said,
you know, Canada can no longer rely on the United
States as a reliable ally. We have to have like
a new foreign policy, perhaps like deepen our ties with Europe,
deep in our ties with the last in American countries,
try to have some sort of counterweight that that is
a kind of like thinking that's happening even among conservative Canadians.
(21:37):
I think that the same thinking is happening in Europe.
I think we're already seeing a lot of people in Europe.
I mean, they're the EUS protesting against Trump's the plans
to anna Greenland, and I think that they are serious
people in Europe who are thinking, you know, like we've
relied on America for our protection for like seventy years.
(21:58):
What if they're going to keep electing I was like, drop,
who are gonna, like, you know, have people like Elon
Musk or literally destabilizing our societies who are promoting I
cannot begin to explain like the people that Elon Musk
are promoting, people like Tommy Douglass and the AfD. This
would be like someone from outside of America. So let's
say someone being like.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Make David Duke your president.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. It would be like like, as
of powerful people in Europe, we're certainly saying we want
America to elect David Duke. It's an incredibly destabilizing thing.
So there are people inside the European elite who are
now explicitly thinking, well, you know, why don't we leverage
culture ties with China. Why don't we like, you know,
open up trade ties with your China. China can offer us,
(22:40):
you know, five g they can offer us cheap electric cars.
President g is a tyrant. He's bad for his own people,
but he's far away from us and he doesn't want
to interpere in our domestic politics. I think that's a
very serious conversation that's happening in Europe, and it's happening
in Canada. Like, I don't think Canada would necessarily, although
I think the other interesting thing is that the Chinese
(23:02):
are very aware of all this. The government of China
has just basically announced to Canada that, you know, guys,
if you want, like, you know, closer trading ties with US,
you like, if you want to sell your product products
if you can't, if you have to care for and
you can't sell your products of America, we're here, You're
We'll be happy to find No. No, I don't think
(23:23):
for a variety of reasons, I don't think the Canadian
elite is going to go for closer ties with China.
But I think the smart play for Canada, as for Europe,
is like closer integration with each other and with Latin America.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah, because they're the only people who are normal anymore. Honestly,
with Africa, it's destabilizing, and the goal is to have
it be destabilizing. And there's a larger question here about
whether tech the tech bros want to see America succeed
or want to destabilize America so that they can make
more money. It's not entirely clear that those two things
(23:58):
are aligned in any way.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
I mean the thing is like money has no loyalty,
money has no patriotis on at resultant like Elon Musk,
I mean he wins both ways, both like a kind
of more destabilized Europe and a more details America. I
mean he gets us regulation so he can do what
he wants with his companies, but also like a stronger
China is not bad for the Elon muss right, right.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Right, exactly. And I think that's a real question.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
And Elon Musk has lots of deals with China and
is very conflicted. So let's talk about what we're seeing here.
We've got Trump is coming, We're trying to sort of
figure out. You know, I feel like we're in the
calm before the storm here. So here's my question for you,
which I actually start we started talking about. Is like
(24:44):
the bombastic language that Trump is using. If you look
back on four years of Trump, it tended to be
he wanted people to think he was crazy and then
would sort of back down. But Trump is much older,
his rhetoric has continued to be quite a explosive. What
is your take on where the people who want the
(25:04):
sort of normal, what the people who want.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
A sort of normal democratic order should be doing.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
I think the main thing is to be much more
oppositional than they have been. I think that there has
been a kind of instinct to say, I, once seeing
what we're seeing this in the immigration vote, you know,
well Trump won like you know, a plurality of the vote,
a sort of decisively the eleccoral college, we should like
try to, you know, get along. I think that's just
like the wrong thing to do, especially since he's doing
(25:33):
all these crazy things. And I think like the people
who are hoping that he's like like this all just
rhetoric that you know, ultimately the more stable advisors will
come along. I mean, I think it's not just Trump
is older, but also he has a cattery of people
around him who are like not the sort of you know,
Rex Tillerson Maddest type people he had in the first term,
(25:56):
who are like real hardcore idologues. And I think Musk
is the wildcard here, right because like in the first term,
Trump had Steve Bannon, but I think the revoking establishment
was very cagey and very quick to kind of push
Brandon out of there, and you know, like leverage Bannon's
own bad tendencies against them. But I mean, I think
it's much harder to get rid of Ela Musk, that is,
(26:18):
to get rid of Steve Bannon. I mean, Musk has like,
you know, he's the richest man in the world. He
has a huge media outlet. So I think that the unstable,
radical element of Trumpism has a much like stronger power
than now than before. And to my mind that that
actually argues for like, you know, the real strategy of resistance,
(26:39):
which I don't think that we're seeing right now. And
I actually think in the long term, I think the
smarter play is to stake out like a position like
of like you know, like opposition, because I think a
lot of this stuff is going to come crashing down
on Trump's head sooner rather than later. And I think
that what the democratic is smart politics, is not in
(27:00):
fact smart politics. I think they think that, you know,
they can triangulate.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
But I think there's anxiety that maybe he'll be normal
this time, which all of us want, but history shows
us that that is not how it's going to go.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Yeah. No, I just I don't see him normalizing anytime soon.
And I think the one one has to prepare for
quite a radical Trump administration. And it could well be,
though I think that real political opposition will have to
come from outside the Democratic Party, like in terms of
like social movements.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yes, and that's a real question. Thank you, thank you,
thank you. Jeete. I hope you won't come back.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
You can't give me away. I'm going to be a
fellow American anytime now.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Senator Tammy Duckworth is the junior senator from the state
of Illinois.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Welcome to Fast Politics. Senator Tammy Duckworth.
Speaker 5 (27:52):
Thank you, it's good to be on. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
I'm delighted to have you. So let's talk about what
is going on on your article to responsibility and these
hearings that are coming up.
Speaker 5 (28:05):
Yeah, I mean, my job is to make sure that
the people who are nominated to the various positions within
the president's administration are actually qualified and capable of doing
their jobs. And I've had quite a few meetings, and
you know, I've met with Senator Rubio who's been nominated
to be Secretary of State. I've met with Hamasman Collins
(28:26):
who today I met with him, he's nominated to be
Secretive Veterans Affairs. I might have had very good conversations
with them where I've been able to ask them their
questions of their vision, with experience they have, how they're
kind of running the department. And then my next person
is going to be mister Pete Hesath, who is nominated
to be Secretary of Defense, but he is avoiding meeting
(28:47):
with me and all that the other senate them, so
I've not been able to ask in questions about his
qualifications for the job, which makes it really hard for
me to do my job.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
What do you think that is? I mean, why do
you think that he's doing that? Because sooner or later
he's going to have to sit and do hearings that
are going to be public. I mean, this is the
thing I don't understand. So can you talk us through that?
Speaker 5 (29:12):
Sure? So at the hearing, each senator has seven minutes
to ask questions. I certainly have more questions for him
than the seven minutes. And usually most nominees will come
and meet with the senators, especially those who sit on
the committee. You have a pretty thorough, in depth conversation
and to establish a relationship because we're going to be
working with these people for the next four years, right,
(29:34):
and so to make sure that we understand where they
want to take the department, what their emphasis are going
to be, and I can express to him the things
that I'm concerned about. And usually it's a pretty collegial
process because it is about the well being of the
United States of America. It is about making sure that
our country remains safe and strong, especially when it comes
to the Department of Defense. But he's only met with Republicans,
(29:56):
and he's only going to make himself available to meet
with me after I'm going probably after I'm going to
be asked to vote for him. So I'm only going
to get some minutes to ask him questions. And you know,
he's a TV personality. He'll stall and not answer questions,
and then we won't get answers to our questions, and
then I'm going to be asked to vote for him.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
So there are a lot of people who are pretty
cynical at this moment on the left and the right
about Trump getting his nominations through. Pete Hagg said, he
has no history managing an organization, especially one with three
million plus people. Do you think that you know they
have enough Republicans to get these people through?
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Do you think there.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Are Republicans you are in the setting, but in the
Senate a while, and you know a lot of these
people really, well, are there any Republicans where you have
faith that they will take their article to responsibilities?
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Seriously?
Speaker 5 (30:48):
If you asked me that question a couple of weeks ago,
my answer would have been yes. But unfortunately, what I
see now is that some of my Republican colleagues who
have spoken out about their concerns to miss a hexseth
immediately came under just a huge onslaught of attacks from
Resident Trump along with other you know, leaders in the
(31:12):
Maga Republican wing, to the point where now they have
walked back some of their concerns. So I worry that
they will bow to the pressure. I hope they won't
realize wn't happen yet, but we'll see, We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
So you really think they're just I mean, because we've
all had our time in the barrel in Maga world.
So you really think these people, even though they have security,
even though you know, we've seen people like Mitt Romney,
Mitch McConnell, we know what happens. Like, you really think
they can't stand up to Trump.
Speaker 5 (31:45):
Well, they could, but they probably won't be Senators very long.
I mean, Romney could not get re elected in Utah,
which is why he retired. So I guess it depends
on whether my colleagues choose country over self. I hope
they choose country.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
But what I saw in the last weeks was that
Murkowski did complain about the mag of movement on Jony Earnst, Like,
do you think that that is because there's some sense
that she may do the right thing, or do you
think that that is just talk.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
I hope that she should do the right thing, but
we won't know until then. The best that I can
do is do my job and ask mis the hex
seth questions that show whether or not he's qualified to
do the job, and make it clear that if you
vote for this guy, you're voting for someone who is
absolutely unqualified to do this job.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
So I read reporting today that a bunch of Republicans
do not feel that Tolsey Gabbert is actually not going
to make it through. Do you think there's a certain
sacrificial lamb math here, or do you think that some
of these Republicans do have a spawn.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
I hope that my Republican colleagues she used to put
the national security of the United States of America above
their own personal loyalty to President Trump. None of us
swore an oath to the President of the United States.
We saw an earth of defender constitution, and so I
hope that maybe you know, more of them will step
up and say, we can't get somebody who met with
(33:10):
and was essentially a talking point for Bashar Assad to
be Director of National Intelligence. We don't think that somebody
who has never commanded a unit larger than leading an
infantry platoon should be in charge of three million personnel.
I hope that my colleagues would do the right thing,
but I won't know until the votes are cast.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
So we'll see.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
The person who keeps me up at night is cash Battal.
Does Cash Battel's hearing go after the other cabinet secretaries?
And is there any sense in which there's kind of
a more of a fullsome conversation about him as an
FBI like a bunch of these nominees seem like very unusual, strange, inappropriate,
(33:53):
but he seems like a whole other level.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
He keeps me up at night as well to think
that this is the position that he's been nominated, and frankly,
if the likes of cash Bertel or Trolsa Gabbert are confirmed,
I don't think our allies will work with us. I mean,
if I were our allies, I would immediately cut off
all intelligence sharing with the United States because I wouldn't
trust it would be true rule of law in the
(34:16):
United States and true guarding of intelligence information in the
United States with the two of them in charge. And frankly,
that will put many assets in deep jeopardy and could
result in god forbid that the death of our troops
who are going to have to be in harm's way
because we're not going to receive information that could keep
our troops safe overseas.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Yeah, I think that's a real worry. That seems like
a nonpartisan worry. I mean, I know it's not a
trumpest worry because Trump has appointed her. But you must
see Republicans who can relate to this.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
I know that they can relate to it, But whether
or not they will act on that is, you know,
not something that I can predict. Were this, you know,
six years ago, when you had folks around like Amid Ronney,
or if you had John McCain, if you had some
other folks. Yeah, but those folks are all gone.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, but there are still.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
I mean, you don't have faith in like Collins and Murkowski.
Speaker 5 (35:13):
And Collin's voted for Kavanaugh.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
So talk to me about Senate Democrats and what you
guys are doing to sort of try to sort of
hold the line on some of Trump's scarier policies.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
Well, we are united in our effort to stop these
policies that we feel will be harmful to the United States.
We are going to do everything we can to stop
these policies that are harmful to working Americans. We're going
to make sure that when they try to pay for
their billionaire tax cuts by cutting Medicare and mediciate, that
we're going to do everything we can to make sure
(35:48):
the American people know what they're doing and to slow
them down and try to stop them. And with the
case of Missa Hexseeth, the best thing we can do
is at this hearing to ask questions that Americans can
look at it and say, oh, you know what, that
wasn't partisan, that actually was something that makes sense.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
You know what do you mean?
Speaker 5 (36:06):
He has never led an organization larger than forty people,
So so really speak to whether or not these people
can do their jobs. From the fact that Tozy Gabbert
was called a Russian asset by state controlled media in
Russia should worry people.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah, I mean agreed. And it's also a real question
about sort of how the government works. Trump has a
lot We know that there are a lot of executive
orders coming down the pike. We don't totally know what
they are, but there's a lot of them are pretty dystopian.
What can you guys do in the United States Senate
to come up the works?
Speaker 5 (36:44):
I mean, there's a lot of procedural things that we
can do. And part of it is also just shining
a light on what is happening. Because when you shine
a strong enough light and there's enough pushback, you do win.
I mean, they tried to end the Affordable Care at
the last time around, and we were able to stop
that from happening because we rallied the American people. The
Republicans said that the Packed Act was too expensive, and
(37:05):
we shined a light on that and rallied Americans around,
and so that shame Republicans to voting to support the
Packed Act. So that our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans can
actually get the care that they need that they've been
injured in their service of this country. So the best
thing we can do is to be as open and
shine as strong a light as possible on these tactics
(37:27):
of theirs.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Because what I'm struck by is like when you think
about the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court we know is
heavily trumpy, but we did see with this immunity decision
that five to four they said, like the.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
President is not a king.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Now they've done a lot of other very trumpy things
that struck me as a little bit surprising, and perhaps,
I mean, of course this is norms crushing all of it,
but I just am curious.
Speaker 5 (37:52):
Well, yes, they have a lifetime appointment senators.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Right, but senators have long I mean long terms, and
people like Tillis, I mean Tillis is in a swing state,
Collins is in a blue state. I mean, the calculus
of getting re elected. You think that's largely what's happening.
Speaker 5 (38:08):
Oh, I think so again. I bring up Mitt Romie,
a former Republican presidential candidate from Utah, could not win
in a primary to be re elected and has left. Right,
that's the consequence of standing up to Donald Trump. That
is a consequence of putting country above Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Right, yeah, no, it's worth thinking about. Thank you, thank you,
No mo pftly Jesse.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Cannon by Jung Fast. You know, one of the things
that we've been using as a tool to sleep well
at night is that these people make big claims and
they can't do it. You know, we now have the
Golf of egg prices, I mean, I'm sorry, the Gulf
of America. And then we had that Elon Musk was
going to cut the government by at least two jillion dollars.
(38:57):
It's looking like that ain't going to happen.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah, so you'll be shocked to find out that Doge
is just not is anyone somebody who was going to
cut the federal government by at least.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Two trillion dollars. But you know, here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
He's very busy interfering with all of the other things. Look,
you know, interfering with the German election, interfering with the
British election, making fun of Trudeau. Listen, Donald Trump is
putting Elon Musk in this weird fake government position. Elon
Musk is getting all of his very rich friends. They're
(39:33):
going to fix the federal government. No one has ever
thought of this before. Let me just point out that,
like we're watching in real time, Elon discover how the
federal government works. It does a lot of stuff besides
give him tax incentives that made him the richest man
in the world who knew Well, see, you know, I
actually think he's going to try to cut a lot
(39:53):
of stuff, and I don't think that it's going to work.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
But he's already hedging.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
And he says he was asked by Mark Penn, famous
liberal Mark Penn, who writes pieces for The New York
Times about what liberals should do.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
One might say, the king of concern trolling.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Right, this famous liberal Mark Penn, who is most famous
for trying to use no labels to stymy democratic legislation.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
I thought he was most famous for giving Hillary Quinton
the advice that helped her lose to Barack Obama.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Yes, he's also famous for that, Mark Penn. That's right.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
That Mark Penn was sitting with Elon because he's such
a liberal, and Elon wants to give interviews to liberals
so clearly, and he was interviewing him, and Elon said
what all of us thought which is I think we'll
try for two trillion. I think that's the best case outcome.
Must responded, but I do think you kind of have
(40:51):
to have some overage. I think if we try for
two trillion, we'll get to one trillion, all right, So
that is about half of what he's saying.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
And if you're just making up numbers, why the fuck not.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
This is vindicating for budget specialists and also for people
who have half a brain who have been deeply skeptical
about Musk's claim from the jump about any of this. Look,
everyone likes the hollowed out carcass that is Twitter. It
works really well for the nine people who are still
on there. He's going to do that. He's going to
(41:24):
hope he's going to try to do that to the
federal government, and let's hope he can.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
I know that Doze is named after a dog, and
I think we have a sleeping dog that's going to lie.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going Thanks for listening,
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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