April 16, 2025 • 40 mins
Evil Geniuses author Kurt Andersen examines Trump crossing new lines of lawlessness.
Documentarian Alex Gibney details his latest documentary, The Dark Money Game, which explores the money that influences our politics.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds, and tourism cutbacks stand to cost the
United States approximately ninety billion dollars. We have such a
great show for you today. Evil Genius' author Kurt Anderson
(00:23):
stops by to talk about Trump crossing the lines of lawlessness.
Then we'll talk to documentarian Alex Gibney about his latest documentary,
The Dark Money Game, a documentary about how dark money
influences our politics. But first the news Smiley.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Many people are saying that now we're in the lawless groupicon,
that we've really really really stepped in it with Trump
giving the middle finger to the Supreme Court and saying
that this is a foreign affair that they don't have oversight.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
So this is again like one of the parlor games
we play now, is are we in a constitutional crisis?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I like to call it as shorten your's constitutional crisis.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
That's all right, both in and out, alive and dead.
Even having to ask that question, I think is a
pretty good sign that you're in a lot of trouble.
What we have here is like a semantic argument that
we see the Trump administration doing, which is exploiting the
law as much as possible. So they have been told
to bring Garcia back to the United States, but they
(01:34):
hadn't been quite clearly told how and sort of the timetable.
So they're kind of obfuscating and trying not to do
everything that they should be doing. And you know, this
is a great example of this administration's lawlessness. But I
think it is worse looking at this and realizing that
the reason why Trump keeps losing in the courts is
(01:57):
because the stuff they want to do is not lawful.
And so when you're a Harvard University or your MIT,
or you're one of these many universities it's being targeted
by the Trump administration, you can remind yourself that Trump
will lose in court because this is actually unlawful, and
(02:18):
so you don't have to go along with this, right
you can push back against these unlawful requests, and that's
what you need to do. And we're going to see
Trump is going to try to do this more and
people are going to have to stand up to things
that are unlawful in a peaceful and calm way. And
(02:38):
that's what Harvard did today. And that's what MIT did,
and that's what all of our universities are going to do,
because if there's one lesson that we can learn from
Columbia University, it is the lesson that trump Ism is
very much not legal, and very much that if you
acquiesce to them even a little bit, they will not
(03:00):
be satisfied. In fact, that they will just decide that
they want more, and so don't comply, don't obey, peacefully
and smartly pushback.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, and our lotmakers should be doing much more than that,
And it seems that some of them are discussing going
tell Salvador to really push back on this because this
is just such an egregious step over the line.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah. I mean, it's good that they're doing that, and
I'm glad to see Democrats finally doing the kind of
stuff that we've been wanting them to do, the kind
of pushback that needs to happen. Senator Chris van Holland,
who is by the way, pretty I would say straight
not mister woke by any start of the imagination. Right,
(03:48):
He's a Maryland Democratic Senator. He says that he's going
to go if Garcia is not returned by midweek. The
Senator will travel to Salvador. I just want to bring
up something which I think is actually quite important. These
things that Trump is doing are not popular, and I'm
(04:10):
going to read you a little bit of polling which
I think is actually quite important. So here's a poll
from Quinnipiac and it says more Americans now disapprove of
Trump on immigration than it's fifty percent to forty five percent.
Majority of Americans now disapprove of Trump on deportations fifty
(04:33):
three to forty two. So here's the deal. This is
not popular, right, This is not popular, This is not okay.
This is voters more than three to one see Trump's
tariffs hurting US economy in the short term but less
parish on the long term. This is real. Right on
the short term, seventy two percent of voters think the
(04:56):
tariffs will hurt the US economy. That's because it will. Well,
only twenty two percent think the TIFFs will help you
as economy. This is a president who's doing really unpopular
things that people do not want and do not like.
And that is why it's so important. It is so
incredibly important to push back on all of this because
(05:20):
nobody wants it yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
And speaking of them pushing the limits, we now have
a report that a US born attorney says she was
told to immediately self deport from the DHS.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah. They send out these like very dogey and also
quite dodgy form emails to everybody who was like, you know,
an immigration lawyer, or I mean this woman had her
grandparents were born in this country. I mean, this is
the other thing, and this is really important to remember.
These people are incompetent. They are sending form emails telling
(05:56):
people to self deport people who are American citizens for
many generations. These people are incompetent. Do not I mean,
don't be scared. They are very, very, very bad at
what they do. Thank god.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
She was born in Newton, works in Boston and has
no idea how she ended up on the government's list.
Was told she had seven days to leave the US.
According to the email, do not attempt to remain in
the United States. The federal government will find you. I've
been here my whole life, she told the Boston station.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah, I think I have an idea how she got
on that list. It's called AI is not very accurate
and makes mistakes all the time.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
I don't know. AI says that I have chronic illnesses,
so I think.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
That's kind of a good good So my good news
for you and I who've been calling for this for
many years. Hakim Jeffries, this is our Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, I can't. I can't control myself. I'm so excited
about tho.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Hakeem Jeffries backstock trading ban. After sure Marjorie Taylor Green
buys the market tip.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah, I mean, who the fuck knows if Marjorie Taylor
Green is insider trading, but you know who is in trading?
A lot of other people Like this is sketchy as hell.
This is so bad. I don't want it. I don't
like it. Stop it, stop it, stop it right now. Honestly,
it is enough with the members of Congress should not
(07:23):
trade stocks. If you want to trade stocks, then don't
go work in Congress. Like period paragraph. There is no
absolutely no reason that this should happen. Absolutely nothing about
this is klosher. Yes, yes, ban it. Way to go, Jeffries.
And by the way, when we have normal elections and
(07:44):
Democrats win back the House, the first thing that needs
to happen, literally, the first thing that needs to happen
is there needs to be anti corruption. Lots of different
anti corruption initiatives past, and one of the most important
ones I think will be that members of Congress can
(08:04):
no longer trade stocks. This is not okay, this is
not what the job is. You are not supposed to
be a day trader on the side. No, no, no,
no more members trading stocks. That is over.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
And the American people need to realize this is why
we get such shitty people's This is why their get
rich schemes and why they think they should do it.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Well, it's partially, I think, because it's a low key
grift and it opens the door to all other grifts. Right,
this is why those stupid things that Trump World used
to always laugh at, which they still do, like the
Hatch Act where you're not right, the hatchet you know
people really well. We can't talk about the campaign because
(08:47):
the Hatch Act and they may seem old fashioned, but
they're what keeps us from being a kleptocracy. And so
if Democrats win back the House, which I think they will,
this has to be job one. Nobody wants. People don't
want their representatives making money off of them.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I try out a theme for you for getting the
hatchet to the head if you disobey the Hatch Act.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yeah, that is that's not going to do it. But
that is not going to do it. Kurt Anderson is
the author of Evil Geniuses and the co creator of
Command Zine. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Kurt Anderson.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Always a pleasure, even as it gets more and more nightmarish,
or especially.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Perhaps it's so interesting because it's like Trump one point zero.
It's the difference between VEEP and a housive cards, right,
there's still a lot of VP incompetence, right, like Trump
bumbling his way into a trade war with China which
we can't possibly win it all, like nope. But there
are also other ways in which it is much much scary.
(10:00):
And I'm thinking about.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
House of Cards edging toward Man in the High Castle.
If we're sticking with top analogies. Yeah, no, it's it's
awful and it's interesting. I've been talking to people in
the last days, of course, about this, and people who
were you know, not Mogans, but like you know, centrist,
even right leaning in a couple of cases, who said,
like I really didn't believe it was going to be
(10:25):
this bad, and all the liberals were right, which is
something I guess, you know, I mean, better late than never,
I suppose, But yes, it is horrible.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
And edging toward the it's really scary.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Well, and the disobeying the judiciary, which is the only
thing we got right now, you know, getting closer and
closer to disobeying Well. Has disobeyed and ignored several now
district court orders and has done nothing to obey last
week's Supreme Court order. So yeah, it's been getting very
quickly too, as bad as a guess.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
But there are bright spots, for example, and we're going
to talk about a thread you did three days ago
in which you listed the hero firms suing the Trump
administration Wilmer Hale, Perkins, Cole, Sussman, Godfrey, Generin Block and
the coward firms capitulating to autocracy Kirknells, Latham, Scatt, and Simpson, Thatcher,
(11:22):
Paul Weiss. I don't think these people realize just how
unpopular trump Ism is.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Well, they're not politicians in that sense, and so they
probably do. It's worse than that in other cases, and
I know people at some of those firms, and I've
talked to them. In the cases of people I spoke
to who fought on the side in their firms of
not caving and not capitulating and not giving up on
the rule of law. And they're despairing and depressed. And
(11:49):
I don't think how unpopular he is, and he's getting
more so by the minute. Has been in there, thinking
they panic because these firms in which the corporate partners.
You can oversimplify, but it's pretty simple.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
It seems it's a business.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Well, it's a business. And the litigators who are and
consider themselves in BUI large r people who care about
things other than how many millions or tens of millions
of dollars in some cases they make. And the litigators
were at these firms that I know about, fighting the
good fight and lost. So that's it. And the argument
was simply, okay, you corporate partners at the top make
(12:25):
by the way, this shock me as much as twenty
five million dollars a year. Oh yeah, and so a
lawyer really, I mean my dad was a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
I mean, come back, they need another beach house or.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Several more wives or whatever it is. Yeah, but it
was really, wait, okay, this is going to last forever
unless you capitulate and make it last longer. But you know,
your personal income won't go down from twenty five million
to nineteen for a few years. What are you thinking?
That was the argument, and they said, no, no, all
we care about is money. It was it was that.
(13:00):
It was that, and that's you know. I mean, in
my Pollyanna guy from Midwest way, I've continued to be
like surprised, and this surprised me, aknew as the Republicans
in Congress were surprising me starting eight years ago. Like really,
And in that case, basically, it's not that good of
a job that they're worried about losing. It's purely about money.
But again I wonder with them, with the senior partners
(13:23):
and law firms. I mean, do they just think, Okay,
this will end one way or the other and sure
I will go back to normal. Whatever they think? What
are they thinking of the endgame? The legacy of not
just their firms, which are in the case of Paul
White's probably already besmirched permanently, but just themselves and their
children and their grandchildren. What do you do in the war, daddy?
(13:43):
All that stuff? I just I don't get it.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
And you know, it's funny because it's like we are
so from the same moment in American history of my
grandfather held his head up on like he went to
jail for three months, but then he could go anywhere.
And so many of the people who behaved cowardly during
the McCarthy redhunt did not. You don't have to be
(14:10):
brave to do what's right. You can feel scared and
do it anyway.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Well, and that is brave. But yes, exactly right. And
you have standing via your grandfather and unlike say Ki
Abrego Garcia accused of being a member of a gang
falsely and sent off to prison. I mean, you know
your grandfather was what he was, a communist and just
didn't go along with didn't put up with it. I
do take hope in small acts and large acts in
(14:38):
some cases of doing the right thing, which comes across
in these last three months as bravery. As Harvard did
the other day.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
For instance, Harvard has learned a really good lesson from Colombia,
which is you cannot give up. You cannot because they
will never be enough for them. Say more about what
you're thinking here?
Speaker 3 (14:56):
What you say, well, no, exactly, I mean that's the thing.
I mean, we think you're going to make a deal
and do this and let him half run your university,
or maybe now in his next negotiator renegotiation run it.
You think this is going to do it, it's not.
If you're cooperating with this illegal set of obeying the
federal government's demands, it's not going to stop. It's going
(15:17):
to keep going. But the Republican Commerce are not going
to something, and says, hey, wait, they agreed to your deal.
We got to put a stop to this. The courts will.
And then again that's why I get back to that.
I thought for eight years this will be the bulwark,
and they were eight years ago, right, and have more
than not been. But once he says, no, you know,
Supreme Court, federal judiciary, I'm not going to obey you.
(15:37):
I don't have to.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
This is a war.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Whatever he says, whatever, nonsense, whatever, meretricious, bullshit he says.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
What.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Then even a month or two ago, I was saying, oh,
it's not going to get to that so quickly. Well,
here we are on the verge.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Here we are. One of the things that I want
to talk to you about is that I actually think
the tariffs, which are such a great example of how
Trump is both bompy and impetuous, two things you really
don't want in a president. I Completely unchecked, an unfettered
president is a really good opportunity for pushback because it
(16:14):
is something that is getting even some of his staunchest allies.
Not the Maga crowd, because that crowd is not ever
coming back, but even some of his staunchest allies don't
like this.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Oh well, first of all, I mean the supporters, the
farmer here, the small business person there. I think at
this point already most of US Americans know somebody whose
life is suddenly well, how's this going to work out?
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (16:38):
I can't get these hangars that are on the boat
right now from China. I mean that's a literal one.
In my case, there's the people, many of whom voted
for them. But then there's yeah, they're rich guys in
the Wall Street guys and the CEOs who, in their
amral to quasi moral way capitulated quickly and said no,
And we love them because it's going to be great,
(16:59):
and we're gonna get rid of regulation, and the taxes
are going to get stay alone, all that, all that stuff,
which has been of course the worst Republican bargain, Faustian
bargain for years and years, which is will take Trump
and just as we will will take you know, the
Southern strategy of racism fifty years ago, because you know
they're more on our side. For economics, well, you know,
(17:20):
the tariff seems to have gotten them to a place
where wait, no, this is crazy, this is nuts and
so wildly. You know, you talk about Veep, it's so
beyond that, it's three stooges. It's crude and changing their
minds or his mind every day. And you realize, I
mean as we knew, but you realize even more how
in Trump won the adults in the room, all of
(17:43):
whom ended up calling him an idiot and more terrible
and all that they have and do, they were saving
him from himself and then saving America a little bit.
I mean again, I don't want to stay there. And
there were heroes and John Kelly, thank good. I'm not
saying that, but we do see the evidence of when
you have total Pam Bondy JD Vance types as your minions,
(18:04):
you know you're just going to do whatever nutty thing
you get in your mind to do.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
I think that's really true, and I think it's a
really important point. I wonder about this idea of Americans
obsession with fantasy. Right, we elected a reality television host
once because we believed whatever, something happened, and then the
second time we had amnesia again. And I think we're
(18:32):
seeing a lot of people sort of waking up. But
how does this fit into your broader thesis about a
country that is obsessed with fantasy and.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Not just obsessed with in some benign ways and more
and more, And that was the point of my book.
Fantacy Land is in terrible ways where it gets into
this realm, the public sphere. Fine, have your Disneylands, play
your video games all day, all that that, whatever. Have
your in myndview crazy religion, fine, whatever, But when you
start having this whole alternative set of facts, as I
(19:06):
was arguing this book nine years ago, eight years ago,
it becomes really problematic. And when you have you know,
if we had to make a list of the five
most culpable enablers of this horrible, horrible, nightmarish place we've
gotten to and are getting to, it is, of course
Fox News, who enabled it and had the power more
than once to drive it back and push it back.
(19:29):
But here we are by far the largest audience you know,
news channel in the United States of America, most of
the time presenting a mostly false narrative of what is
going on. The free press was supposed to be like
the gatekeeper, which was the press for all of its
flaws forever. We never had well, we never had a
(19:51):
party as crazy as the Trump Republicans have become, but
we've never had a giant media entity pushing it on
several million people a day who watch it and beyond.
So that's the problem. And you know, and again that's
the thing that is hard to imagine, how that whenever
we reached end of this, and we will reach, it's
(20:11):
hard to imagine. As I've said to people who asked
me about the fantasy thing, like, well, how can we
stop this? I said, we can stop it from getting worse.
But I don't think we turned back. But as I
talked about in fancy Land in that context about the
what led to two thousand and eight and to you know,
the meltdown and financial panic and worldwide great recession, then
(20:32):
was the good thing a good thing, A great thing
about free market economics is that it's based on reality.
I mean, it's based on momentary fantasies of this mean
stock is going to do this or this this crazy
meme stock like say Donald Trump media is going to
do this. But sooner or later, in that case, this
house of cards of credit default swaps and the mortgage
(20:54):
bubble collapsed. In this case, the tariffs are already not
only making it impossible for small businesses and large businesses
to decide what they're going to do next, which is
a fast path to recession and paralysis economically, it's so incompetent. It's,
as I said the other day, it's well fascism famously
in Germany was oh, well, at least he made the
(21:16):
trains run on time. Well, no, he's derailed the trains
as well, you know. I mean, so you can't spin
and fantasize about the reality of economics when they start
hitting big people, small people, all kinds of people, you know.
And that's the hopeful thing is when it comes to
things that don't really affect people's lives, they can ignore
(21:37):
them and buy them and go about their business. But again,
I think of the warnings and fears about all kinds
of things that Trump was doing. But until the ROV
Wade happened and Dobbs in twenty twenty two, and suddenly people,
women especially, we're saying, my god, what an important premise
of my life is? Though Overturn has always saw that,
because suddenly it was all kinds of people feeling affected,
(22:00):
same thing here or a different thing here, and anything
here is as we all know from in my case
listening to way too many remedial economic podcasts the last
two weeks. So I now understand what tariffs are. It's
beyond the tariffs and the madness and economic problems they caused,
the larger thing of like, well, no one's going to
trust us. No one is going to trust us. Every
(22:22):
economy and every economic system and the global economic system
are based on basic trust. And this is how it works. Oh,
there's ups and downs and black swans and blah blah blah.
But it's just hard to see in the most charitable,
you know, right leaning or right his view possible, how
this not only doesn't end well, but how it ends well,
(22:44):
but how it doesn't damage unfortunately. And this is a
hobbyhorse of mind, is what damage can be fixed as
soon as he's gone, and what damage takes a year?
What damage takes five years, ten, you know, a lot
of it's longer, and whether it's economic trust or whether
it's science. I've talked to neuroscientists friend of mine about
(23:04):
can this just be fixed as soon as we get
sanity back? She said, no, really, because things are if
for the next year, two three years, people are going
to Canada, not in doing this, not going into the
It's a longer term damage than just what he's doing
until you know he's gone.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, exactly, And I think that's really the most pertinent point.
Thank you, thank you, Thank you. Kurt Anderson.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
My pleasure, I guess that's my pleasure, but it is
always my pleasure to talk to you, so thank you.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Alex Gibney is a legendary documentary producer and director of
films like Going Clear, Zero Days, and his latest The
Dark Money Game, which is out now. Welcome Alex Gibney
to Fast Politics.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
Thanks Molly, good to be here.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I'm so glad to have you with this movie. I mean,
I'm always glad to have you because you're so small
and you're constantly sort of investigating all the stuff that
I think about and freak out about. But this is
such an important topic, especially where we are right now.
So explain to me about this movie, why you decided
to do it, and how you got here.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
I mean, I kind of got here for two reasons.
One is I was kind of enraged over the Dobbs decision,
and at the same time, I had also just finished
a couple of films called The Crime of the Century
about the opioid crisis, the conclusion of which was that
unless we do something about money and politics, none of
our worst problems are ever going to change. And so
it really motivated me to get into it. And as
(24:37):
my co conspirator, I had turned to a longtime friend,
Jane Mayer, who had written the book Dark Money. And
while this doesn't follow the book, you know, there are
a few things you might recognize from it, it's very
much inspired by it. And so as a result, I
leaned in because I do feel like this is topic A.
Unless we solve this problem, we're not going to solve
anything else.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
My first question was going to be about Chain, who
is brilliant and amazing and also who has basically, I mean,
she does a lot of different work, but it feels
to me like Dark Money is kind of her through
line and all her work. I first interviewed you about COVID, right,
but the Trump presidency really is a story of dark
(25:18):
money's success. And I wonder if you could sort of
tie these two things together, Dobbs and also Trump's ongoing presidency,
because all of these have been enabled by this conservative
win at the courts.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Right.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
So this series that I've done, it's two films. Really.
One is called Ohio Confidential and one is called Wealth
of the Wicked. Ohio Confidential is about how money and
politics works now and how basically corruption has become virtually legalized.
And then Both of the Wicked is how we got here,
and that really focuses on the corruption of the Supreme Court.
(25:53):
And that's how Dobbs gets into it, because one of
the things I learned about Dobbs was how much money
was involved in terms of trying to pack the court.
And also the other odd thing about the story that
we tell in Wealth of the Wicked is this unholy
alliance between very wealthy, very conservative business types who wanted
(26:14):
to rip apart the regulatory state that was erected not
only going back to Roosevelt, but also you know, in
the wake of the corruption of the Nixon administration. They
wanted to figure out how to rip it apart. But
it turned out that their prescriptions, like allowing companies to
pollute freely, hiding the connections to cancer that cigarette makers
(26:36):
clearly had, trying to bust unions, all of those things
weren't terribly popular. Question was, how do you mind a
vein of deep emotional fervor that gets you some popular support,
and that turned out to be the anti abortion movement
and evangelical Christians. So joining forces together is the way
(26:57):
that these big time conservative capitalists would fund the anti
abortion movement and help propel their progress through the courts.
And at the same time, these evangelicals, while you know,
if you think about Christianity, you don't automatically think like
Jesus didn't think about how to enable the rich and
(27:17):
amiserate the poor. It was just the opposite. But nevertheless,
in this context, they were so exercised over the idea
of abortion as murder that they joined forces with these
very conservative business people in order to try to see
if they could corrupt the court. And that's the story
we tell.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
And I think that it very much worked. I mean,
Dobbs did a really great example of how they got there,
And I mean, I just wonder once they got Dobbs,
was that enough. Was there a moment where they were like,
we've done it or.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
Now no, now they would turn to all of the
economic regulations that they wanted this, and not only that,
but also to maybe the crowning achievement, if you can
call it an achievement, was their decision to basically give
total immunity to the president of the United States. And
once you do that, you're fundamentally undermining the rule of law,
(28:10):
because if we're not all equal under the law, and
if you have the person the Coppo D two D
copy who's able to run the presidency like a mob
boss and only reward loyalty rather than good policy, then
we've reached a very perilous moment. So it was just
the beginning. And one of the things we talk about too,
is that it all kind of started with the Supreme
(28:31):
Court decision which helped both things, which was Citizens United.
That's the decision that allows money to flood in to
the political system. And then Citizens United is coupled with
that allowed money to flow into super packs and they
were supposed to be allegedly independent of the candidate, which
(28:52):
was always an invitation to corruption. Gives an indication to
those soto voce conversations that people have. They're not written
down on email there, you know, just somebody from the
candidates camp and somebody from the superpack. Oh, of course
it's corrupt. But coupled with the increasing use of five
oh one c fours, which are nonprofit organizations that can
(29:15):
literally shield people from seeing the contributions that are coming
into them. And so you use five oh one c
fours to fund super packs and suddenly you have no sunlight.
That's the story we tell in the Ohio segment because
you at a utility company called First Energy, which dumped
sixty million dollars into a five oh one C four
(29:38):
for the personal use of the person who ultimately became
Speaker of the Ohio House, Larry Householder, and he used
that to enhance his political ambitions, and the quid pro
quo was that then he would jam through a bill
in the Ohio legislature that would give First Energy one
point three billion dollars, so great return on investment. But nobody,
(30:01):
you know, because it was a five oh one C four,
nobody really knew that the money was coming from First Energy,
so it took a long time to figure that out,
became the source of a criminal investigation and was only
discovered by accident, which is why we know about it.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
There's a lot to despair about when it comes to
Supreme Court.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
We have these two very fox new zy justices Alito
and Thomas, who basically, as far as I can tell,
they're basically like elderly versions of Tucker Carlson. You can
pretty much get them to rubbers damp anything Donald Trump
wants to do. Gorsich and Kavanaugh sa same with the
(30:39):
exception that Gorsich likes Native Americans. Okay, But then you
have Justice Amy, who is a little bit of a
wild card. Putting in these Supreme Court justice it has
been such a win for him, and they have been
so empowered, and they have acted in such lockstep with
the exception of Justice Barrett. Do you see push back
(31:00):
there at all? And again, I'm not saying she's great.
I'm just saying there used to be a thing where
Supreme Court justices, when they would get on the court,
they would become a slightly less partisan. The only time
we've seen this now has been with Amy Connie Barrett.
The other ones are just partisan hacks all the way through.
Have you seen pushback to that? And also do you
(31:21):
think that sort of the powers that be that are
funding this whole organization have sort of feelings about that.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
I don't know yet. I mean, she has pushed back
on a couple of things. Just yesterday she pushed back.
She was the fourth vote in descent on you know,
this extra judicial attempts by the Trump administration. But so
I don't know. I mean, you know, she falls in
line to the profile in the sense that she's so
a Catholic. Like that's the other mind boggling thing in
(31:49):
terms of a kind of conservative Catholicism that all of these,
many of these justices seem to share. And even Gorsuch,
who I believe is episcopalian now was raised athletic I.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Believe, yeah, the only one.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
So I don't know, I will see. I mean, it
has been eliminating, and some of her descents, I must say,
have also been kind of excoriating. You know, there's been
a certain bite to her descents. In some cases she
seems to be saying, like, you know, have you guys
left the reservation here that is the rule of law reservation.
(32:23):
She seems to have a tether to that.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Still, it's very very strange and interesting. Part of I
think some of how we got here was that there
was a real allergy towards some of the anti corruption
laws post Nixon, and instead of implementing them, they weren't implemented.
In fact, more of them were taken apart. If we
(32:45):
ever do get normal life back and we have Democrats
in charge, since you've studied this so much and you
understand it so well, what would you say are the
things that, if you're rebuilding this demand or se you
want to be focused on.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
I think Congress has to get its act together and
focus on legislation which design anti corruption laws in a
rigorous way. But it's very hard to imagine that as
long as they're beholden to sponsors or contributors, funders whose
interests lie in just the opposite. They want quid pro
(33:23):
quoth so long as it's for them, So that I
think it is the trick. You know. One of the
decisions we look at very briefly in Wealth of the
Wicked is the decision related to an Indiana mayor who
awarded a purchase of garbage trucks to the Peterbilt Company,
and after he awarded it, the Peterbilt company sent him,
(33:46):
you know, a kickback. Right after he was convicted of bribery.
The Supreme Court overturned it because, in their wisdom, it
was not a kickback. Oh no, haven't. It was a gratuity.
And just like you would hip a waiter. We can't
have waiters going to prison because they're being tipped. But no,
it was an obvious kickback. The essence of their decision,
(34:08):
I think, was to say, when it comes to business,
they should have latitude to bribe because that's how you
get stuff done, which is mind boggling to me, but
I think that's kind of where we've ended up. So
I think, to me, the hope is that people see
and understand this is bribery, pure and simple, and I
(34:28):
think most on a gut level don't think it's appropriate
for people to bribe for their personal advantage at the
expense of the rest of us. And once we begin
to see it that way, we can demand at the
state level and ultimately in the federal level, that some
of this be cleaned up, because otherwise, you know, all
sorts of backroom deals are going to be made at
our expense and for the profit of a few.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
That case is an incredible case because they ultimately say
it wasn't goods for services because it happened after At
least in my mind, it really proves that the corruption
was not limited to Trump, that there's an entire ecosystem
outside of him, this sort of Leonard Leo crew that
Trump is a natural extension of that.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
That's right. I mean, he's kind of their figurehead. He's
the guy that delivers the votes. The ideological infrastructure or
superstructure is the federal Society and people like Lenard Leo
and others, and also very wealthy businessmen people you know,
like the Koch brothers and others that Jane Mayers does
such a good job of describing, because what they want
(35:34):
is a world where there are no rules and restrictions
on corporate behavior. And it's interesting. You know, there's an
interesting figure in Wealth of the Wicked, the one we
do about the corruption of the Supreme Court, a guy
named Bob Schenk who was an evangelical minister's very radical.
You know, he was one of those guys who would
show up with aborted fetuses at rallies, and very vicious
(35:56):
had a change of heart completely on that issue. But
in so doing he was able to talk to us
about how they would corrupt the justices. Sort of in
the back room. They would send they called faith based
missionaries in to see the justices. They were very wealthy
businessmen who were also religious, and they would hang with
(36:17):
the justices, and they would take them on expensive trips,
and lo and behold, the justices seemed to start becoming
hypnotized by their work to such an extent that they
then their decisions then begin to represent this long continuum
of an attempt to destroy the regulatory state.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
I see that with Thomas, right, Thomas has been on
all these trips, He's been given wine, his mother's house
has been turned into a museum. I mean, just the
sort of level of corruption there is kind of staggering.
I want to ask you about something that I think
is quite interesting, that feels relevant. So Leo and the
(36:57):
surviving Koch brother have now fun a case that is
an anti tariff case that will go to the Supreme Court.
It's hard to pick a side on this one, right,
but that is going to challenge Trump's constitutional authority to
enact tariffs to talk to me, well, I don't.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Know how to say it. I mean, it is it's
coming from exactly the opposite end of the political spectrum
that you would expect. But the one thing I think
big business leaders were shot by in this Trump presidency
was this kind of tariff nuttiness. I mean, I'm not
opposed to you know, targeted tariffs myself, but this tariff nuttiness,
and so it's bad for business. Ultimately, that's why we
(37:40):
call it, you know, the dark money game. Ultimately, all
of this stuff is just about money. You know, once
you decide that all you care about is money and
nothing else matters, well then you just go where the
money is. You follow the money, and so that Leonard Leo.
I mean, in a way, I'm on their side in
this particular instance, but I'm suspect of their motives because
(38:01):
I think their motives is like, these taiffs are bad
for business.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
But it seems like that crew has a lot more
sway with the justices and Trump does.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
Hard to know, I mean, the justices seem to be
giving so much deference to Trump and his executive power
and none of this I don't think would be happening
without that horrific decision giving him absolunity.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Yeah, Alex, give me always a delight and a pleasure.
And you know, I'm just a fan so.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
Well, Molly, I'm a fan of yours too, So great
to talk.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Thanks Alex. There no Moscly, Jesse Cannon, Molly.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
We have been talking about this for so many months.
We've had Justice Allison Riggs on this podcast numerous times,
and the fuckery keeps getting worse in her race that
is still undecided and it is April.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah, I mean it should be decided for her. And
now what's happening is that basically this is conservatives in
North Carolina trying to rig it for him. And this
is why everything matters. Right. A federal court should have
heeded the advice of Justice Anton Scalia in the two
(39:19):
thousand Bush biku Or case about not following a questionable
redo a vote totals to be announced before there's a
ruling on the legality of the redo. The judges orders
in North Carolina could well lead people to believe the
Supreme Court election was stolen. No matter what happens, and
by the way, Justice Riggs won, this is like this
(39:39):
guy is a very sore loser, and now he's trying
to throw out votes from different places.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Mostly military votes, which that's cute.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Yeah it is. I mean, these people are serving our country,
risking their lives, and the Republicans want to throw out
their votes. I don't get it. They do not get it.
I really hate school.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Yeah really, he seems like your type of guy.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
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 tourism cutbacks stand to cost the
United States approximately ninety billion dollars. We have such a
great show for you today. Evil Genius' author Kurt Anderson
(00:23):
stops by to talk about Trump crossing the lines of lawlessness.
Then we'll talk to documentarian Alex Gibney about his latest documentary,
The Dark Money Game, a documentary about how dark money
influences our politics. But first the news Smiley.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Many people are saying that now we're in the lawless groupicon,
that we've really really really stepped in it with Trump
giving the middle finger to the Supreme Court and saying
that this is a foreign affair that they don't have oversight.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
So this is again like one of the parlor games
we play now, is are we in a constitutional crisis?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I like to call it as shorten your's constitutional crisis.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
That's all right, both in and out, alive and dead.
Even having to ask that question, I think is a
pretty good sign that you're in a lot of trouble.
What we have here is like a semantic argument that
we see the Trump administration doing, which is exploiting the
law as much as possible. So they have been told
to bring Garcia back to the United States, but they
(01:34):
hadn't been quite clearly told how and sort of the timetable.
So they're kind of obfuscating and trying not to do
everything that they should be doing. And you know, this
is a great example of this administration's lawlessness. But I
think it is worse looking at this and realizing that
the reason why Trump keeps losing in the courts is
(01:57):
because the stuff they want to do is not lawful.
And so when you're a Harvard University or your MIT,
or you're one of these many universities it's being targeted
by the Trump administration, you can remind yourself that Trump
will lose in court because this is actually unlawful, and
(02:18):
so you don't have to go along with this, right
you can push back against these unlawful requests, and that's
what you need to do. And we're going to see
Trump is going to try to do this more and
people are going to have to stand up to things
that are unlawful in a peaceful and calm way. And
(02:38):
that's what Harvard did today. And that's what MIT did,
and that's what all of our universities are going to do,
because if there's one lesson that we can learn from
Columbia University, it is the lesson that trump Ism is
very much not legal, and very much that if you
acquiesce to them even a little bit, they will not
(03:00):
be satisfied. In fact, that they will just decide that
they want more, and so don't comply, don't obey, peacefully
and smartly pushback.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, and our lotmakers should be doing much more than that,
And it seems that some of them are discussing going
tell Salvador to really push back on this because this
is just such an egregious step over the line.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah. I mean, it's good that they're doing that, and
I'm glad to see Democrats finally doing the kind of
stuff that we've been wanting them to do, the kind
of pushback that needs to happen. Senator Chris van Holland,
who is by the way, pretty I would say straight
not mister woke by any start of the imagination. Right,
(03:48):
He's a Maryland Democratic Senator. He says that he's going
to go if Garcia is not returned by midweek. The
Senator will travel to Salvador. I just want to bring
up something which I think is actually quite important. These
things that Trump is doing are not popular, and I'm
(04:10):
going to read you a little bit of polling which
I think is actually quite important. So here's a poll
from Quinnipiac and it says more Americans now disapprove of
Trump on immigration than it's fifty percent to forty five percent.
Majority of Americans now disapprove of Trump on deportations fifty
(04:33):
three to forty two. So here's the deal. This is
not popular, right, This is not popular, This is not okay.
This is voters more than three to one see Trump's
tariffs hurting US economy in the short term but less
parish on the long term. This is real. Right on
the short term, seventy two percent of voters think the
(04:56):
tariffs will hurt the US economy. That's because it will. Well,
only twenty two percent think the TIFFs will help you
as economy. This is a president who's doing really unpopular
things that people do not want and do not like.
And that is why it's so important. It is so
incredibly important to push back on all of this because
(05:20):
nobody wants it yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
And speaking of them pushing the limits, we now have
a report that a US born attorney says she was
told to immediately self deport from the DHS.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah. They send out these like very dogey and also
quite dodgy form emails to everybody who was like, you know,
an immigration lawyer, or I mean this woman had her
grandparents were born in this country. I mean, this is
the other thing, and this is really important to remember.
These people are incompetent. They are sending form emails telling
(05:56):
people to self deport people who are American citizens for
many generations. These people are incompetent. Do not I mean,
don't be scared. They are very, very, very bad at
what they do. Thank god.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
She was born in Newton, works in Boston and has
no idea how she ended up on the government's list.
Was told she had seven days to leave the US.
According to the email, do not attempt to remain in
the United States. The federal government will find you. I've
been here my whole life, she told the Boston station.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah, I think I have an idea how she got
on that list. It's called AI is not very accurate
and makes mistakes all the time.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
I don't know. AI says that I have chronic illnesses,
so I think.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
That's kind of a good good So my good news
for you and I who've been calling for this for
many years. Hakim Jeffries, this is our Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, I can't. I can't control myself. I'm so excited
about tho.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Hakeem Jeffries backstock trading ban. After sure Marjorie Taylor Green
buys the market tip.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah, I mean, who the fuck knows if Marjorie Taylor
Green is insider trading, but you know who is in trading?
A lot of other people Like this is sketchy as hell.
This is so bad. I don't want it. I don't
like it. Stop it, stop it, stop it right now. Honestly,
it is enough with the members of Congress should not
(07:23):
trade stocks. If you want to trade stocks, then don't
go work in Congress. Like period paragraph. There is no
absolutely no reason that this should happen. Absolutely nothing about
this is klosher. Yes, yes, ban it. Way to go, Jeffries.
And by the way, when we have normal elections and
(07:44):
Democrats win back the House, the first thing that needs
to happen, literally, the first thing that needs to happen
is there needs to be anti corruption. Lots of different
anti corruption initiatives past, and one of the most important
ones I think will be that members of Congress can
(08:04):
no longer trade stocks. This is not okay, this is
not what the job is. You are not supposed to
be a day trader on the side. No, no, no,
no more members trading stocks. That is over.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
And the American people need to realize this is why
we get such shitty people's This is why their get
rich schemes and why they think they should do it.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Well, it's partially, I think, because it's a low key
grift and it opens the door to all other grifts. Right,
this is why those stupid things that Trump World used
to always laugh at, which they still do, like the
Hatch Act where you're not right, the hatchet you know
people really well. We can't talk about the campaign because
(08:47):
the Hatch Act and they may seem old fashioned, but
they're what keeps us from being a kleptocracy. And so
if Democrats win back the House, which I think they will,
this has to be job one. Nobody wants. People don't
want their representatives making money off of them.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I try out a theme for you for getting the
hatchet to the head if you disobey the Hatch Act.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yeah, that is that's not going to do it. But
that is not going to do it. Kurt Anderson is
the author of Evil Geniuses and the co creator of
Command Zine. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Kurt Anderson.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Always a pleasure, even as it gets more and more nightmarish,
or especially.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Perhaps it's so interesting because it's like Trump one point zero.
It's the difference between VEEP and a housive cards, right,
there's still a lot of VP incompetence, right, like Trump
bumbling his way into a trade war with China which
we can't possibly win it all, like nope. But there
are also other ways in which it is much much scary.
(10:00):
And I'm thinking about.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
House of Cards edging toward Man in the High Castle.
If we're sticking with top analogies. Yeah, no, it's it's
awful and it's interesting. I've been talking to people in
the last days, of course, about this, and people who
were you know, not Mogans, but like you know, centrist,
even right leaning in a couple of cases, who said,
like I really didn't believe it was going to be
(10:25):
this bad, and all the liberals were right, which is
something I guess, you know, I mean, better late than never,
I suppose, But yes, it is horrible.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
And edging toward the it's really scary.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Well, and the disobeying the judiciary, which is the only
thing we got right now, you know, getting closer and
closer to disobeying Well. Has disobeyed and ignored several now
district court orders and has done nothing to obey last
week's Supreme Court order. So yeah, it's been getting very
quickly too, as bad as a guess.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
But there are bright spots, for example, and we're going
to talk about a thread you did three days ago
in which you listed the hero firms suing the Trump
administration Wilmer Hale, Perkins, Cole, Sussman, Godfrey, Generin Block and
the coward firms capitulating to autocracy Kirknells, Latham, Scatt, and Simpson, Thatcher,
(11:22):
Paul Weiss. I don't think these people realize just how
unpopular trump Ism is.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Well, they're not politicians in that sense, and so they
probably do. It's worse than that in other cases, and
I know people at some of those firms, and I've
talked to them. In the cases of people I spoke
to who fought on the side in their firms of
not caving and not capitulating and not giving up on
the rule of law. And they're despairing and depressed. And
(11:49):
I don't think how unpopular he is, and he's getting
more so by the minute. Has been in there, thinking
they panic because these firms in which the corporate partners.
You can oversimplify, but it's pretty simple.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
It seems it's a business.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Well, it's a business. And the litigators who are and
consider themselves in BUI large r people who care about
things other than how many millions or tens of millions
of dollars in some cases they make. And the litigators
were at these firms that I know about, fighting the
good fight and lost. So that's it. And the argument
was simply, okay, you corporate partners at the top make
(12:25):
by the way, this shock me as much as twenty
five million dollars a year. Oh yeah, and so a
lawyer really, I mean my dad was a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
I mean, come back, they need another beach house or.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Several more wives or whatever it is. Yeah, but it
was really, wait, okay, this is going to last forever
unless you capitulate and make it last longer. But you know,
your personal income won't go down from twenty five million
to nineteen for a few years. What are you thinking?
That was the argument, and they said, no, no, all
we care about is money. It was it was that.
(13:00):
It was that, and that's you know. I mean, in
my Pollyanna guy from Midwest way, I've continued to be
like surprised, and this surprised me, aknew as the Republicans
in Congress were surprising me starting eight years ago. Like really,
And in that case, basically, it's not that good of
a job that they're worried about losing. It's purely about money.
But again I wonder with them, with the senior partners
(13:23):
and law firms. I mean, do they just think, Okay,
this will end one way or the other and sure
I will go back to normal. Whatever they think? What
are they thinking of the endgame? The legacy of not
just their firms, which are in the case of Paul
White's probably already besmirched permanently, but just themselves and their
children and their grandchildren. What do you do in the war, daddy?
(13:43):
All that stuff? I just I don't get it.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
And you know, it's funny because it's like we are
so from the same moment in American history of my
grandfather held his head up on like he went to
jail for three months, but then he could go anywhere.
And so many of the people who behaved cowardly during
the McCarthy redhunt did not. You don't have to be
(14:10):
brave to do what's right. You can feel scared and
do it anyway.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Well, and that is brave. But yes, exactly right. And
you have standing via your grandfather and unlike say Ki
Abrego Garcia accused of being a member of a gang
falsely and sent off to prison. I mean, you know
your grandfather was what he was, a communist and just
didn't go along with didn't put up with it. I
do take hope in small acts and large acts in
(14:38):
some cases of doing the right thing, which comes across
in these last three months as bravery. As Harvard did
the other day.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
For instance, Harvard has learned a really good lesson from Colombia,
which is you cannot give up. You cannot because they
will never be enough for them. Say more about what
you're thinking here?
Speaker 3 (14:56):
What you say, well, no, exactly, I mean that's the thing.
I mean, we think you're going to make a deal
and do this and let him half run your university,
or maybe now in his next negotiator renegotiation run it.
You think this is going to do it, it's not.
If you're cooperating with this illegal set of obeying the
federal government's demands, it's not going to stop. It's going
(15:17):
to keep going. But the Republican Commerce are not going
to something, and says, hey, wait, they agreed to your deal.
We got to put a stop to this. The courts will.
And then again that's why I get back to that.
I thought for eight years this will be the bulwark,
and they were eight years ago, right, and have more
than not been. But once he says, no, you know,
Supreme Court, federal judiciary, I'm not going to obey you.
(15:37):
I don't have to.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
This is a war.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Whatever he says, whatever, nonsense, whatever, meretricious, bullshit he says.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
What.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Then even a month or two ago, I was saying, oh,
it's not going to get to that so quickly. Well,
here we are on the verge.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Here we are. One of the things that I want
to talk to you about is that I actually think
the tariffs, which are such a great example of how
Trump is both bompy and impetuous, two things you really
don't want in a president. I Completely unchecked, an unfettered
president is a really good opportunity for pushback because it
(16:14):
is something that is getting even some of his staunchest allies.
Not the Maga crowd, because that crowd is not ever
coming back, but even some of his staunchest allies don't
like this.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Oh well, first of all, I mean the supporters, the
farmer here, the small business person there. I think at
this point already most of US Americans know somebody whose
life is suddenly well, how's this going to work out?
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (16:38):
I can't get these hangars that are on the boat
right now from China. I mean that's a literal one.
In my case, there's the people, many of whom voted
for them. But then there's yeah, they're rich guys in
the Wall Street guys and the CEOs who, in their
amral to quasi moral way capitulated quickly and said no,
And we love them because it's going to be great,
(16:59):
and we're gonna get rid of regulation, and the taxes
are going to get stay alone, all that, all that stuff,
which has been of course the worst Republican bargain, Faustian
bargain for years and years, which is will take Trump
and just as we will will take you know, the
Southern strategy of racism fifty years ago, because you know
they're more on our side. For economics, well, you know,
(17:20):
the tariff seems to have gotten them to a place
where wait, no, this is crazy, this is nuts and
so wildly. You know, you talk about Veep, it's so
beyond that, it's three stooges. It's crude and changing their
minds or his mind every day. And you realize, I
mean as we knew, but you realize even more how
in Trump won the adults in the room, all of
(17:43):
whom ended up calling him an idiot and more terrible
and all that they have and do, they were saving
him from himself and then saving America a little bit.
I mean again, I don't want to stay there. And
there were heroes and John Kelly, thank good. I'm not
saying that, but we do see the evidence of when
you have total Pam Bondy JD Vance types as your minions,
(18:04):
you know you're just going to do whatever nutty thing
you get in your mind to do.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
I think that's really true, and I think it's a
really important point. I wonder about this idea of Americans
obsession with fantasy. Right, we elected a reality television host
once because we believed whatever, something happened, and then the
second time we had amnesia again. And I think we're
(18:32):
seeing a lot of people sort of waking up. But
how does this fit into your broader thesis about a
country that is obsessed with fantasy and.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Not just obsessed with in some benign ways and more
and more, And that was the point of my book.
Fantacy Land is in terrible ways where it gets into
this realm, the public sphere. Fine, have your Disneylands, play
your video games all day, all that that, whatever. Have
your in myndview crazy religion, fine, whatever, But when you
start having this whole alternative set of facts, as I
(19:06):
was arguing this book nine years ago, eight years ago,
it becomes really problematic. And when you have you know,
if we had to make a list of the five
most culpable enablers of this horrible, horrible, nightmarish place we've
gotten to and are getting to, it is, of course
Fox News, who enabled it and had the power more
than once to drive it back and push it back.
(19:29):
But here we are by far the largest audience you know,
news channel in the United States of America, most of
the time presenting a mostly false narrative of what is
going on. The free press was supposed to be like
the gatekeeper, which was the press for all of its
flaws forever. We never had well, we never had a
(19:51):
party as crazy as the Trump Republicans have become, but
we've never had a giant media entity pushing it on
several million people a day who watch it and beyond.
So that's the problem. And you know, and again that's
the thing that is hard to imagine, how that whenever
we reached end of this, and we will reach, it's
(20:11):
hard to imagine. As I've said to people who asked
me about the fantasy thing, like, well, how can we
stop this? I said, we can stop it from getting worse.
But I don't think we turned back. But as I
talked about in fancy Land in that context about the
what led to two thousand and eight and to you know,
the meltdown and financial panic and worldwide great recession, then
(20:32):
was the good thing a good thing, A great thing
about free market economics is that it's based on reality.
I mean, it's based on momentary fantasies of this mean
stock is going to do this or this this crazy
meme stock like say Donald Trump media is going to
do this. But sooner or later, in that case, this
house of cards of credit default swaps and the mortgage
(20:54):
bubble collapsed. In this case, the tariffs are already not
only making it impossible for small businesses and large businesses
to decide what they're going to do next, which is
a fast path to recession and paralysis economically, it's so incompetent. It's,
as I said the other day, it's well fascism famously
in Germany was oh, well, at least he made the
(21:16):
trains run on time. Well, no, he's derailed the trains
as well, you know. I mean, so you can't spin
and fantasize about the reality of economics when they start
hitting big people, small people, all kinds of people, you know.
And that's the hopeful thing is when it comes to
things that don't really affect people's lives, they can ignore
(21:37):
them and buy them and go about their business. But again,
I think of the warnings and fears about all kinds
of things that Trump was doing. But until the ROV
Wade happened and Dobbs in twenty twenty two, and suddenly people,
women especially, we're saying, my god, what an important premise
of my life is? Though Overturn has always saw that,
because suddenly it was all kinds of people feeling affected,
(22:00):
same thing here or a different thing here, and anything
here is as we all know from in my case
listening to way too many remedial economic podcasts the last
two weeks. So I now understand what tariffs are. It's
beyond the tariffs and the madness and economic problems they caused,
the larger thing of like, well, no one's going to
trust us. No one is going to trust us. Every
(22:22):
economy and every economic system and the global economic system
are based on basic trust. And this is how it works. Oh,
there's ups and downs and black swans and blah blah blah.
But it's just hard to see in the most charitable,
you know, right leaning or right his view possible, how
this not only doesn't end well, but how it ends well,
(22:44):
but how it doesn't damage unfortunately. And this is a
hobbyhorse of mind, is what damage can be fixed as
soon as he's gone, and what damage takes a year?
What damage takes five years, ten, you know, a lot
of it's longer, and whether it's economic trust or whether
it's science. I've talked to neuroscientists friend of mine about
(23:04):
can this just be fixed as soon as we get
sanity back? She said, no, really, because things are if
for the next year, two three years, people are going
to Canada, not in doing this, not going into the
It's a longer term damage than just what he's doing
until you know he's gone.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, exactly, And I think that's really the most pertinent point.
Thank you, thank you, Thank you. Kurt Anderson.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
My pleasure, I guess that's my pleasure, but it is
always my pleasure to talk to you, so thank you.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Alex Gibney is a legendary documentary producer and director of
films like Going Clear, Zero Days, and his latest The
Dark Money Game, which is out now. Welcome Alex Gibney
to Fast Politics.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
Thanks Molly, good to be here.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I'm so glad to have you with this movie. I mean,
I'm always glad to have you because you're so small
and you're constantly sort of investigating all the stuff that
I think about and freak out about. But this is
such an important topic, especially where we are right now.
So explain to me about this movie, why you decided
to do it, and how you got here.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
I mean, I kind of got here for two reasons.
One is I was kind of enraged over the Dobbs decision,
and at the same time, I had also just finished
a couple of films called The Crime of the Century
about the opioid crisis, the conclusion of which was that
unless we do something about money and politics, none of
our worst problems are ever going to change. And so
it really motivated me to get into it. And as
(24:37):
my co conspirator, I had turned to a longtime friend,
Jane Mayer, who had written the book Dark Money. And
while this doesn't follow the book, you know, there are
a few things you might recognize from it, it's very
much inspired by it. And so as a result, I
leaned in because I do feel like this is topic A.
Unless we solve this problem, we're not going to solve
anything else.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
My first question was going to be about Chain, who
is brilliant and amazing and also who has basically, I mean,
she does a lot of different work, but it feels
to me like Dark Money is kind of her through
line and all her work. I first interviewed you about COVID, right,
but the Trump presidency really is a story of dark
(25:18):
money's success. And I wonder if you could sort of
tie these two things together, Dobbs and also Trump's ongoing presidency,
because all of these have been enabled by this conservative
win at the courts.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Right.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
So this series that I've done, it's two films. Really.
One is called Ohio Confidential and one is called Wealth
of the Wicked. Ohio Confidential is about how money and
politics works now and how basically corruption has become virtually legalized.
And then Both of the Wicked is how we got here,
and that really focuses on the corruption of the Supreme Court.
(25:53):
And that's how Dobbs gets into it, because one of
the things I learned about Dobbs was how much money
was involved in terms of trying to pack the court.
And also the other odd thing about the story that
we tell in Wealth of the Wicked is this unholy
alliance between very wealthy, very conservative business types who wanted
(26:14):
to rip apart the regulatory state that was erected not
only going back to Roosevelt, but also you know, in
the wake of the corruption of the Nixon administration. They
wanted to figure out how to rip it apart. But
it turned out that their prescriptions, like allowing companies to
pollute freely, hiding the connections to cancer that cigarette makers
(26:36):
clearly had, trying to bust unions, all of those things
weren't terribly popular. Question was, how do you mind a
vein of deep emotional fervor that gets you some popular support,
and that turned out to be the anti abortion movement
and evangelical Christians. So joining forces together is the way
(26:57):
that these big time conservative capitalists would fund the anti
abortion movement and help propel their progress through the courts.
And at the same time, these evangelicals, while you know,
if you think about Christianity, you don't automatically think like
Jesus didn't think about how to enable the rich and
(27:17):
amiserate the poor. It was just the opposite. But nevertheless,
in this context, they were so exercised over the idea
of abortion as murder that they joined forces with these
very conservative business people in order to try to see
if they could corrupt the court. And that's the story
we tell.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
And I think that it very much worked. I mean,
Dobbs did a really great example of how they got there,
And I mean, I just wonder once they got Dobbs,
was that enough. Was there a moment where they were like,
we've done it or.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
Now no, now they would turn to all of the
economic regulations that they wanted this, and not only that,
but also to maybe the crowning achievement, if you can
call it an achievement, was their decision to basically give
total immunity to the president of the United States. And
once you do that, you're fundamentally undermining the rule of law,
(28:10):
because if we're not all equal under the law, and
if you have the person the Coppo D two D
copy who's able to run the presidency like a mob
boss and only reward loyalty rather than good policy, then
we've reached a very perilous moment. So it was just
the beginning. And one of the things we talk about too,
is that it all kind of started with the Supreme
(28:31):
Court decision which helped both things, which was Citizens United.
That's the decision that allows money to flood in to
the political system. And then Citizens United is coupled with
that allowed money to flow into super packs and they
were supposed to be allegedly independent of the candidate, which
(28:52):
was always an invitation to corruption. Gives an indication to
those soto voce conversations that people have. They're not written
down on email there, you know, just somebody from the
candidates camp and somebody from the superpack. Oh, of course
it's corrupt. But coupled with the increasing use of five
oh one c fours, which are nonprofit organizations that can
(29:15):
literally shield people from seeing the contributions that are coming
into them. And so you use five oh one c
fours to fund super packs and suddenly you have no sunlight.
That's the story we tell in the Ohio segment because
you at a utility company called First Energy, which dumped
sixty million dollars into a five oh one C four
(29:38):
for the personal use of the person who ultimately became
Speaker of the Ohio House, Larry Householder, and he used
that to enhance his political ambitions, and the quid pro
quo was that then he would jam through a bill
in the Ohio legislature that would give First Energy one
point three billion dollars, so great return on investment. But nobody,
(30:01):
you know, because it was a five oh one C four,
nobody really knew that the money was coming from First Energy,
so it took a long time to figure that out,
became the source of a criminal investigation and was only
discovered by accident, which is why we know about it.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
There's a lot to despair about when it comes to
Supreme Court.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
We have these two very fox new zy justices Alito
and Thomas, who basically, as far as I can tell,
they're basically like elderly versions of Tucker Carlson. You can
pretty much get them to rubbers damp anything Donald Trump
wants to do. Gorsich and Kavanaugh sa same with the
(30:39):
exception that Gorsich likes Native Americans. Okay, But then you
have Justice Amy, who is a little bit of a
wild card. Putting in these Supreme Court justice it has
been such a win for him, and they have been
so empowered, and they have acted in such lockstep with
the exception of Justice Barrett. Do you see push back
(31:00):
there at all? And again, I'm not saying she's great.
I'm just saying there used to be a thing where
Supreme Court justices, when they would get on the court,
they would become a slightly less partisan. The only time
we've seen this now has been with Amy Connie Barrett.
The other ones are just partisan hacks all the way through.
Have you seen pushback to that? And also do you
(31:21):
think that sort of the powers that be that are
funding this whole organization have sort of feelings about that.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
I don't know yet. I mean, she has pushed back
on a couple of things. Just yesterday she pushed back.
She was the fourth vote in descent on you know,
this extra judicial attempts by the Trump administration. But so
I don't know. I mean, you know, she falls in
line to the profile in the sense that she's so
a Catholic. Like that's the other mind boggling thing in
(31:49):
terms of a kind of conservative Catholicism that all of these,
many of these justices seem to share. And even Gorsuch,
who I believe is episcopalian now was raised athletic I.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Believe, yeah, the only one.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
So I don't know, I will see. I mean, it
has been eliminating, and some of her descents, I must say,
have also been kind of excoriating. You know, there's been
a certain bite to her descents. In some cases she
seems to be saying, like, you know, have you guys
left the reservation here that is the rule of law reservation.
(32:23):
She seems to have a tether to that.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Still, it's very very strange and interesting. Part of I
think some of how we got here was that there
was a real allergy towards some of the anti corruption
laws post Nixon, and instead of implementing them, they weren't implemented.
In fact, more of them were taken apart. If we
(32:45):
ever do get normal life back and we have Democrats
in charge, since you've studied this so much and you
understand it so well, what would you say are the
things that, if you're rebuilding this demand or se you
want to be focused on.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
I think Congress has to get its act together and
focus on legislation which design anti corruption laws in a
rigorous way. But it's very hard to imagine that as
long as they're beholden to sponsors or contributors, funders whose
interests lie in just the opposite. They want quid pro
(33:23):
quoth so long as it's for them, So that I
think it is the trick. You know. One of the
decisions we look at very briefly in Wealth of the
Wicked is the decision related to an Indiana mayor who
awarded a purchase of garbage trucks to the Peterbilt Company,
and after he awarded it, the Peterbilt company sent him,
(33:46):
you know, a kickback. Right after he was convicted of bribery.
The Supreme Court overturned it because, in their wisdom, it
was not a kickback. Oh no, haven't. It was a gratuity.
And just like you would hip a waiter. We can't
have waiters going to prison because they're being tipped. But no,
it was an obvious kickback. The essence of their decision,
(34:08):
I think, was to say, when it comes to business,
they should have latitude to bribe because that's how you
get stuff done, which is mind boggling to me, but
I think that's kind of where we've ended up. So
I think, to me, the hope is that people see
and understand this is bribery, pure and simple, and I
(34:28):
think most on a gut level don't think it's appropriate
for people to bribe for their personal advantage at the
expense of the rest of us. And once we begin
to see it that way, we can demand at the
state level and ultimately in the federal level, that some
of this be cleaned up, because otherwise, you know, all
sorts of backroom deals are going to be made at
our expense and for the profit of a few.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
That case is an incredible case because they ultimately say
it wasn't goods for services because it happened after At
least in my mind, it really proves that the corruption
was not limited to Trump, that there's an entire ecosystem
outside of him, this sort of Leonard Leo crew that
Trump is a natural extension of that.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
That's right. I mean, he's kind of their figurehead. He's
the guy that delivers the votes. The ideological infrastructure or
superstructure is the federal Society and people like Lenard Leo
and others, and also very wealthy businessmen people you know,
like the Koch brothers and others that Jane Mayers does
such a good job of describing, because what they want
(35:34):
is a world where there are no rules and restrictions
on corporate behavior. And it's interesting. You know, there's an
interesting figure in Wealth of the Wicked, the one we
do about the corruption of the Supreme Court, a guy
named Bob Schenk who was an evangelical minister's very radical.
You know, he was one of those guys who would
show up with aborted fetuses at rallies, and very vicious
(35:56):
had a change of heart completely on that issue. But
in so doing he was able to talk to us
about how they would corrupt the justices. Sort of in
the back room. They would send they called faith based
missionaries in to see the justices. They were very wealthy
businessmen who were also religious, and they would hang with
(36:17):
the justices, and they would take them on expensive trips,
and lo and behold, the justices seemed to start becoming
hypnotized by their work to such an extent that they
then their decisions then begin to represent this long continuum
of an attempt to destroy the regulatory state.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
I see that with Thomas, right, Thomas has been on
all these trips, He's been given wine, his mother's house
has been turned into a museum. I mean, just the
sort of level of corruption there is kind of staggering.
I want to ask you about something that I think
is quite interesting, that feels relevant. So Leo and the
(36:57):
surviving Koch brother have now fun a case that is
an anti tariff case that will go to the Supreme Court.
It's hard to pick a side on this one, right,
but that is going to challenge Trump's constitutional authority to
enact tariffs to talk to me, well, I don't.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Know how to say it. I mean, it is it's
coming from exactly the opposite end of the political spectrum
that you would expect. But the one thing I think
big business leaders were shot by in this Trump presidency
was this kind of tariff nuttiness. I mean, I'm not
opposed to you know, targeted tariffs myself, but this tariff nuttiness,
and so it's bad for business. Ultimately, that's why we
(37:40):
call it, you know, the dark money game. Ultimately, all
of this stuff is just about money. You know, once
you decide that all you care about is money and
nothing else matters, well then you just go where the
money is. You follow the money, and so that Leonard Leo.
I mean, in a way, I'm on their side in
this particular instance, but I'm suspect of their motives because
(38:01):
I think their motives is like, these taiffs are bad
for business.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
But it seems like that crew has a lot more
sway with the justices and Trump does.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
Hard to know, I mean, the justices seem to be
giving so much deference to Trump and his executive power
and none of this I don't think would be happening
without that horrific decision giving him absolunity.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Yeah, Alex, give me always a delight and a pleasure.
And you know, I'm just a fan so.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
Well, Molly, I'm a fan of yours too, So great
to talk.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Thanks Alex. There no Moscly, Jesse Cannon, Molly.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
We have been talking about this for so many months.
We've had Justice Allison Riggs on this podcast numerous times,
and the fuckery keeps getting worse in her race that
is still undecided and it is April.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah, I mean it should be decided for her. And
now what's happening is that basically this is conservatives in
North Carolina trying to rig it for him. And this
is why everything matters. Right. A federal court should have
heeded the advice of Justice Anton Scalia in the two
(39:19):
thousand Bush biku Or case about not following a questionable
redo a vote totals to be announced before there's a
ruling on the legality of the redo. The judges orders
in North Carolina could well lead people to believe the
Supreme Court election was stolen. No matter what happens, and
by the way, Justice Riggs won, this is like this
(39:39):
guy is a very sore loser, and now he's trying
to throw out votes from different places.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Mostly military votes, which that's cute.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Yeah it is. I mean, these people are serving our country,
risking their lives, and the Republicans want to throw out
their votes. I don't get it. They do not get it.
I really hate school.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Yeah really, he seems like your type of guy.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
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
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!