April 21, 2025 • 42 mins
The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson parses what the court’s rebuke of Trump’s agenda means for America.The New York Times’ Theodore Schleifer examines America’s oligarchs and how the country is reacting to their overreaches.
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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 a poll of three hundred and
twenty nine CEOs from Chief Executive magazine says seventy percent
of CEOs disapprove of Trump's tariffs. The other thirty percent
(00:20):
are just drunk. We have such a great show for
you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joins us
to figure out what the court's rebuke of trump Ism
and the Trump agenda means for America. Then we'll talk
to the New York Times Theodore Schleifer about America's oligarchs
and how the public is reacting to their overreaches.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
But first, my happy Eastern let me tell you something.
Our president. He has sent a joyful, positive message to
America on this glorious holiday.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
One of the things that we will look back on,
perhaps not so fondly, is that Trump.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
To send an Easter message.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
That is one of his He likes an Easter message,
a Christmas message, any holiday he likes to mark with
an insane tweet. This one is from truth quote unquote,
Happy Easter to all, including the radical left, lunatics who
are fighting and scheming so hard to bring murderers, drug
(01:22):
lords and dangerous, dangerous prisoners, the mentally insane and well
known members of MS thirteen gang and wife beaters.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Oh that's bad.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Now back into the country anyway. Happy Easter to the
weak and ineffective judges and law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
My favorite part is he mentions that he won the
twenty twenty election. He did not, and I wish you
with great love, comma, sincerity, and affection a very happy Easter.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
I almost feel like he's going through the motions like
he doesn't even believe in it anymore.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
See see, I have a different opinion. I miss the
haters of the losers. I want that most shit back
in there.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Instead of the haters and the losers, he's moved on
to radical left lunatics.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Yes, that is true. That is the two point zero
version of this.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
All and right, that's haters and the losers.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
I hate what he calls me out like that.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, he hates when he But you know, the thing
that is the one thing that's interesting about this is
it's clearly obsessed with the autopen.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
This is this thing.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
He was obsessed with that, and I'm sure he uses
the autopen too.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
That's what he did the January sixth Pardons with right.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Well, it's a lot of writing, but he get very
offended that by and used an autopen.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
You know, it's just the greatest hits.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
My man has like a goldfish brain where everything goes
round and round and around.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, so Bali, I don't know how much you saw yesterday,
but man, the people were out in the streets again
for the second time this month. We got caught in
traffic trying to go cross town with it, but we
love to see how many people.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Were out there.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeah, another huge swath of protests, the no Kings protests,
protests across the country marching against Trump and musque. There
were tons of protests. It's the two hundred and fiftieth
anniversary of the start of the American Revolution. And if
you don't see the irony there, that's pretty rich. It's
(03:22):
the fifty to fifty one protests. The idea here is
fifty protests in fifty states, but one movement. And this
is two weeks after the April fifth hands off protest,
in which hundreds of thousands of Americans marched in fourteen
hundred cities.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Look, people don't like this.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
They don't like a president who's stripping away the social
safety net.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Nobody wants that.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
This is Project twenty twenty five, reminding you, guys, this
is the stuff he's enacting. When voters found out about
this in July, they didn't like it. And so here
we are. This is what's happening. Nobody likes it. Voters
don't like it. There's no reason why you should be
living through it.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
And here we are.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, so, Molly, you'll be shocked to hear President Trump
is responded to this poll, and he is truth. The
businessman who criticized tariffs are bad at business?
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Oh wow, is this new? Did this just come in
while we're doing this?
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yes, yes, the businessman who criticized tariffs are bad at business,
but really bad at politics. They don't understand or realize
that I have the greatest friend that American capitalism has
ever had.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Big exclamation point.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Well you know who else doesn't understand that the.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Markets we have quantitative truth that they don't right.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
The markets don't like it either, So I mean the CEOs.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
And the markets and the bond markets and and.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
And you know futures.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yes, yes, yeah, there's quite a lot of people who
also don't understand that he is the greatest friend capitalism
has ever had. And there's a reason for that because
he's not right. Crony capitalism is not the same as capitalism.
Donald Trump bankrupted at casino. This guy is not good
for business. And this is never a bus this way.
(05:07):
You know, there's a reason that Russia is such a tiny,
tiny economy, and it's because it's a kleptocracy. And thank
god America's big enough, so hopefully we won't get there.
But this is absolutely nice of him though to you know,
it's interesting the CEOs really gets them right, because that's like,
you know that those are the people he wants to
(05:27):
be friends with, those are.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
The people whose Jetsy wants to ride on.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
So, Senator Chris fit Holland has been doing a lot
of press to get attention on Kilmar Aubrigo Garcia and
his visit to El Salvador. And one of the things
he's bringing attention to is the theater that they put
on down there in El Salvador.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I'm glad that they're talking about this, so you'll remember
Maryland Senator Chris van Holland went down to see a
Brago Garcia to see if he was okay, make sure
he was alive. Some people thought he might not be alive,
and you know, they weren't going to let him see him,
and then they decided to let him see him. But
what I think here is important is that he realized
(06:07):
that they were sort of being set up. So this
is something we've seen a lot of authoritarian countries do
where they set it up to look bad. So Holland
said that they had wanted him to meet this man
by the pool.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
To make it look like they were in paradise.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
They had brought them drinks, these drinks that looked like
tropical drinks, and one of the drinks that had a
little bit more liquid the guy who was in jail.
They made it his drink had a little less liquid,
so it looked like you've been drinking. This is all
the kind of stuff that we see, you know, in
the authoritarian playbook, right, make it look bad, make it
(06:45):
look like he's not in jail, that this is all lie.
I think at some point the president of al Salvaro
realized it was looking really bad to have this person
who had been absconded from America from the streets of
Maryland in one of their prisons and was not able
to communicate. I do think that this case has broken through.
People don't like it. They don't feel that it makes
(07:09):
any sense. I think that a lot.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Of voters feel like, if you can abscond one person,
you can abscond with anyone. And that's Look, this is
a test run so that they can do it with
American citizens, and the fact that it's getting this much
pushback means that it's not working, means that they're less
likely to do it to any of us. So it's
(07:33):
good news that there's pushback. It's important that we keep
pushing back. Everything matters. Don't give up, like these protests matter.
People are seeing these protests and knowing that Trump has
to do back down a little bit. And maybe he
doesn't back down exactly the way you want him to,
but every single protest matters. The reason that he wasn't
(07:56):
able to really destroy the country the first time was
because he met all this resist Since that has to
happen this time too. I'm sorry, I know we're all exhausted,
but that's what has.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
To happen Somali.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
There is a big, big rebuke of Trump is with
the Supreme Court this week, but it was not a
nine to zero decision like earlier in the week.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
There was descent, and Alito has thoughts.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Justice Alito, but first of all, they didn't let him
finish his descent before they published, which I think is
kind of amazing.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
It's pretty funny, Like you.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Know, Roberts is like, fuck you man, excuse my friend.
I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Justice Samuel Alito descended the Supreme Court decision on Saturday
to block the Trump administration from deporting a gang of
Venezuela and migrants accused of being gang members under rarely
invoked eighteenth century wartime law, which one would need a
war to a note invoked, by the way, like War
of eighteen twelve, World War one, World War two, not
(08:49):
right now, because there's no war going on. Calling the
courts order, so Alito is like just trying to defend Trump.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
He's all alone, he says.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
He calls the order hasty and prematurely granted, because it's
better just to do the order after the migrants are deported,
so that you can never get them back. In his
five page descent, released on Saturday, shortly before midnight, just
as Alito.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Joined by guests. Just guess who joined him, The one,
the only.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Clarence Thomas brod thatation intervene. It was not quote necessarily appropriate,
because after all, it's not like it's taking the right
to choose away from women or something.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
So Arizona, while we have seen it trend blue, this
legislature still often comes up with really psychotic shit. And
thankfully they have Governor Katie Hobbs there to save the
day with a Veto.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
For Katie Hobbs, I mean, that job's got to suck, right,
I mean.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
She worked really hard to get it.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Yeah, and you just have to have the craziest before
in the world. There. Here's what's going on here, Arizona.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Governor Veto's bill requiring local officials to help with federal
immigration efforts.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
It's naughty. It's you know, She's right. I mean, they're.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Really trying hard to like put together this like fake
police force of people in plain and clothes who can
like do policing like a little militia, little Trump militia.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
And every time they do this is bad. It's bad
for American democracy. It's bad. It's bad. It's bad. It's bad. No, no, no,
stop doing this. Not good new no yet. That is
all I have to say. It's good for Katie Hobbs.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
The News. Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln
Project and the host of the Enemy's List.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Hello, Rick Wilson, Lily Drug Fast.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
How are you today?
Speaker 1 (10:47):
I am good because you know I tell me because
this Supreme Court decided.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Seven to.
Speaker 5 (10:58):
At one in the morning.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Yeah, talk us through what exactly happened here.
Speaker 5 (11:03):
So we've been edging closer and closer mally to this
constitutional crisis of will Trump ignore the courts when they
give a direct, clear, unequivocal court order that is within
their purview. Will he ignore that order and trigger the
big crisis? And we've been getting closer and closer to that.
But over the weekend, at one in the morning on
(11:24):
Saturday morning, the Court said stop, no more deportations until
we review this case. You're allowed to appeal this, but
basically the way they wrote it said you can appeal it.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Good luck.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
I think we're in a moment right now where the
court to save its own reputation in the future and
to save its own ability to exercise its inherent constitutional powers.
Finally had to say, Okay, this is enough. That'll do pig.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
I think it's meaningful.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Clearly, what happened behind the scenes is that Justice Roberts
got this zero opinion earlier in the week, right, is
that even if you're not in this country legally, you
are still entitled to do process.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
I mean, there's just so much you can see. There's
just a ton of.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Roberts behind the scenes here being like, look, look, because
you don't get decisions like I'm thinking about historically, decisions
that we have had come out of this court that
are seven too. I'm sure that people write to me
and give me a lot of them, but it tends
to be that you've seen a lot of four or
fives right where Amy Cony and Robert side with liberals.
(12:36):
But to see just the two Fox News hosts on
their own on an island, I think is meaningful.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
I think the degree to which Roberts has slowly I
don't want to give him credit for this, but I'm
going to. I think he has slowly and carefully constructed
a functional narrow majority because I think Bear and Gorsich,
although appointed by Trump and although frequently wrong on a
(13:04):
lot of decisions. I don't think either one of them
has the same stretch of almost anarchic trump Ism that
Alito and Thomas display every single every single day. I
don't think either one of those I don't think Gorsich
and Barrett want to be remembered as the people who
(13:25):
ended the constitutional order.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Right, this is how we got here.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Right, they didn't have to give him broad sweeping presidential
king immunity.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
No, they didn't have to. And it was a wrong decision.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Yeah, that was not good.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
That did not accrue well to either the court or
the country. But it's better right late than right never.
In this case, the Court has laid down a marker.
Will Trump obey it? I don't know, but I think
the Court is terrified of what Trump is doing, of
ignoring orders from all the lower courts. They didn't want
to be the ones who had had to lay the
(13:59):
hand hammer down, but you know, here we are. If
they had not given Trump to get out of jail
free cart before, we'd be in a different spot. But
they did, and now they're having to make difficult decisions
because of what they've done in the past. That's you
know that happens to us. All, yeah, we fuck up.
We have to deal with it.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yes, And also I would say more broadly, this has
been yet another week of Trump World really kind of
crashing into the guardrails. So again, Monday of last week,
Trump went to work with Harvard. Now Mike Schmid at
the Times has a story that says, actually, it was
(14:41):
an accident.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
They didn't mean to send the letter.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Right.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Oh my dog ate my homework.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
So again it's Trump world. So maybe it was an accident.
Maybe it was an accident. Who the fuck knows, It
doesn't matter. What's meaningful is the fact that they're saying
that they might not have meant to do it, like
they know it's on part popular and they know they're
fucking themselves up. And then Abrego Garcia, where they thought
that al Salvador case would be good for them. You
(15:08):
keep seeing there like he's a gangbanger. They brought out
the mother of a girl who was murdered by someone
else who just happens to also be from a South
American country as proof that this guy who's wrong like
you Tainan, is somehow guilty. And they just can't make
this narrative stick. And they thought that this narrative. And
it's funny because you saw and I think it's meaningful.
(15:31):
You saw Governor Gavin Newsom saying, like, don't burn capital
on this. But the truth is this has really translated
like it was on the cover of the New York Times,
like people actually do not And you saw that press conference.
People don't like knowing that there are people being disappeared
from this country without due process.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
I think we are right now in a very dangerous position,
given Trump's desire to fundamentally reshaped American politically the landscape.
He's looking for a big win on immigration because everything
else has gone in the crapper, everything else has gone
completely wrong for him. The more he flails around trying
(16:11):
to find a way to get a win and to
bring his numbers back up from where they are, the
worse it seems to be getting. I mean, you've got
the Pentagon falling apart. Who could have foreseen that Pete
Hexath would have brought in a bunch of morons who
leaked to the press all the time. You know, the
economic team is infighting and trying to screw each other.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
So that's two different members of Hexa's team have now
been marched out three.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
Three three as of today. As of Saturday, excuse me,
the Chief of Staff was also on the out, so
it's his leadership is just about what you would expect
from a Fox News host with a drinking problem. We
have a really fundamental need at the White House right
now to get a win, to get some kind of
(16:54):
sexy distraction thrown out there that will stop the bleeding,
and I don't know that it's out there for them today.
I think Albriga Garcia, as many times as they say, oh,
he's a gang banger, he's a criminal, he's this, he's that,
none of them have yet sufficiently proven that case with
evidence from a court.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Right. Well, I also think like they thought this was
a winner for them because they thought, and you heard
them transmit this, right They kept saying, well, you know,
if Democrats want to go to bat for this guy,
who's clearly you know this or that terrorists, right, and like,
clearly that is not working because when you saw Chuck Grassley,
(17:34):
you know, and when you see people this stuff breaking
through in the middle of the country, obviously people are
not saying like this is not us. They understand that
once you start getting rid of due process for one group,
you get rid of it for all the other groups.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
Right once the machine of violating anyone's rights kicks into
high gear, that machine will start violating everyone's rights. It's
a historical pattern, that is indle. I think there are
a lot of people in Trump's world who the Stephen
Miller types and weirdly like the Carolyn levittypes. There's no
policy power, but she's certainly gaining perceptional power in Trump's
(18:11):
universe because of her willingness to go out there and
do what she's going to do. But right now we're
about to see a big conflict Molly, because Pete Hexeth
and Christy Nome have said they're going to officially say
from their organizations they don't want to do the Insurrection Act.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Which is good, which is very very good for any
number of reasons.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
I think that's a headfake. I think Steven Miller could
talk Trump into this in five minutes.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I think we got to stay sort of in the
hola hoop of the sort of most recent stuff and
not get so excited about all the coods and woods
because Donald Trump could and would and probably will do
a lot of shit. But right now there were so
many wins this week, and another win I want to
talk to you about is the tariffs. So this week
(18:55):
the Wall Street Journal, Miss Josh Dossey had a piece
that was unfucking believable. Unbelievable, right, unbelievable except for anyone
who's lived through Trump one point zero, in which case
is totally believable.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
But so basically the whole net event is.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
The tariffs were completely the idea of one Peter Navarro,
and he was crashing the markets and hanging out with
Trump and convincing Trump that crashing the markets was good.
And then when they saw Peter Navarro's schedule, Scott Besson
and the wonderful and completely insane and not wonderful in
any stretch of the imagination, Howard Lutnik went in together
(19:35):
and got Trump to tweet that he was going to
take off the.
Speaker 5 (19:38):
Taps, which the market loved, because that's what Besson and
Lutnik understand better than Navarro, and Trump loved because then
he could say, see were the winning at winners, who
ever won?
Speaker 6 (19:48):
Right?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
It feels like peak Trump, right, Like we definitely saw
stories like this.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
We've all seen this particular Trump show, Molly right, for years.
He's got a very bad case of last man in
the room syndrome. Whoever's with him last can convince him
of almost anything. And I think what we saw with
this was there was a part of Trump that wanted
to be convinced.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
By the way.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
Oh yeah, his radar for things that hurt him is
pretty acute. I think we can agree, Yeah, And he
had to understand at some level, as long as Navarro
wasn't up in his ear at that very minute, that
this was a bad, bad outcome for him and for
his party. I mean, we're looking now at the main
parts of Trump's coalition, White working class voters are going
(20:32):
to take this right in the throat, and he knows that. Now.
Trump is not a smart man, but as we always say,
he has that fairal cunning about what he's got to
do to survive, and the idea that he is going
to let this thing go and continue to grind on
and to hurt him like it's been no chance.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yeah, I think he still could let it go on
because I think if there's one thing we know about Trump,
it's that he's not organized. He likes taruffs see him
going either way on this because the truth is he's
completely insane, unpredictable and insane. But what I think is
important here is that that story doesn't get out unless
(21:11):
some people are not leaking it, which means, right, these
big leaked stories are the reason why Trump is not
going to succeed.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
I mean, there are a number of reasons why Trump.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
I think will ultimately not succeed this and one of
them is because we're not going to be cowards and
go move to Toronto. We are not going to obey
in advance like some people who moved to Toronto who
will not be mentioned on this podcast. It will never
be guests on this podcast again. But we will not
do that because we are here to fight with you
guys peacefully and smartly. And so that's one of the
(21:43):
reasons why Trump won't win. But another reason why is
because the incompetence and then also people covering their asses
like Scott Bessen saw. I think you got to assume
Latinik too. They saw the writing on the wall, they saw,
you know, their friends think they're fucking morons now.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
I mean, these guys are definitely looking at a lifetime
of purgatory inside the financial community after this. They're not
going to be welcomed back around the table. They're not
going to have open arms from Jamie Diamond and Raydiel
and all those other people. They're not going to be
back in big deals ever. Again, maybe that doesn't matter
to them, but their reputations are now absolutely train wrecked
(22:22):
by this madness on Tariff's And again it goes back
to even Trump. Even Trump has a certain degree of
understanding when something's hurting him. And yeah, you know what,
he could probably have talked himself into, Oh, I'll lose
two or three points on my faves, on my approvals,
but now he's lost between twelve and fifteen points on
his approvals.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
He's as unpopular as he's ever been now.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
Right, he has never been less popular, except for that
one small period after January.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Sixth, right, and when he did insurrection. You may remember
when he did insurrection.
Speaker 5 (22:56):
When he tried to overthrow the United States, that little thing.
And I think, Molly, we're right now looking at at
a very bad few weeks for Trump because the damage
has already done that Chinese are absolutely owning him.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
So let's talk about the big problems right now for Trump.
Because here's what I say. He's alive, dude, No China
trade war. He's trying to pass.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
These tax cuts not going to happen at this point.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Right There's some incredible reporting about Trump. There's no way
this will ever happen, about Trump saying that maybe he's
not going to do the tax cuts for very rich
people and instead do the tax cuts on tips.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Ha ha ha ha hilarious.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
Yeah, Trump has a very very meaningful problem, and a
lot of his working class base are not people who
are making their money on tips. I mean, right now,
there's a big part of Trump's bace. Somebody was explaining
this to me today. When you take the combined effect
of tariffs on manufacturing, on trucking, on port workers, on
(24:05):
all the things that go into the blue collar supply chain,
Trump could not have screwed those people more effectively if
he tried. And the people that are going to be
truly angry, they're not just the waitresses earning tips or
the waiters earning tips or whatever demo that is. There
are many more people who have been harmed vastly more
by tariffs than would ever benefit from this tax on
(24:27):
tips garbage.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah. Yeah, but I also think, like you have China,
you have the tariffs, you have trying to pass this thing,
and then you also have another thing that happened this week,
which I want to do two menison Lisa Murkowski saying
that people are scared. But yeah, you know, we can
be cynical, we can be whatever. But that was meaningful.
(24:51):
Tell me why it's meaningful.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
Murkowski is better than Susan Collins, which is sort of
damning with faint praise.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
I know there are so few people who are doing
anything right.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
Yeah, the honest answer spoken aloud has long been what
holds Trump's power in place. They are afraid of retaliation,
and they're afraid of retaliation, be it political, be it physical.
They are terrified at the retaliation by Trump's base against them,
by Trump's operatives against them. And at some point, if
(25:24):
no one ever spoke out, it would continue indefinitely. But
she spoke out, and you've got to give her some
props for that. You've got to give her some praise
for that.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
I know you're very not wanting to, but I'll give
her some praise.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
No, No, I am going to give her some praise.
She did the right thing. And you know what, as
I always say, better right thing. Late than right thing.
Never she could easily take the next step and say,
you know what, I'm not a part of that caucus anymore.
I'm going to caucus with Angus King. We're going to
be a couple of independents. And every time you guys
want my vote, you have to come to me and
you have to work with me. You have to give
(25:57):
me a hearing on what I need and want. That
power that she could have is quite enormous, but you
have to take it. You can't You're not going to
get somebody's going to give it to you.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
You have to take that power, Rick Wilson.
Speaker 5 (26:11):
It always goes so quickly when we talk.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Theodore Schleiffer is in your Time's Reporter, covering billionaires and
their impact on the world.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Welcome to Fast Politics, Steady.
Speaker 6 (26:23):
Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
You have been reporting out some of the most very
organized keeping track of what is happening. And I feel
like you started the story of tech bros And money,
and all of a sudden, this story of tech bros
and money intersected with the story of the federal government.
And now the federal government is made up of a
(26:46):
lot or at least the people running the federal government,
whether or not they're appointed or congressionally approved or now
there's a huge swath of bros in there working away.
Speaker 6 (26:58):
Yeah, I mean, I mean people who I sort of
think of as not prominent Silicon Valley personalities have become
more prominent Washington personalities, where they're bigger than in politics
never were in technology. A lot of attention gets paid
by everybody to Elon Musk, but like I have been
fascinated by all the other kind of homies he's brought
with him who are ending up in positions are pretty
(27:20):
David Sacks, Yeah, I mean, I mean David Sack is
a good example. I mean he's somebody like, yes, he
was famous.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
He was never famous, he wanted to be famous.
Speaker 6 (27:29):
He was Silicon Valley famous. But now you know, people
around the globe track his tweets for the latest public
markets news. It's remarkable just to see the amount of
power that these people have taken, and it's something that
I did not anticipate, frankly, even though I was covering it.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Let's start with Elon. What's happening?
Speaker 1 (27:45):
The Wall Street Journal this week had this monster expose
where he has all these women that he meets on X.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
And he dms them and then he sends them Sperman.
They have children. I think that's the net that story, right.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
It's a highly abridged version of the you know, three
or four thousand words story, but I.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Mean, ultimately, that's what happened to this conservative influencer quote
unquote conservative quote unquote influencer, and that's what's happened to
other women, right.
Speaker 6 (28:18):
Yeah, I mean the story sort of looks at, you know,
the unusual ways in which you know Elon has cultivated
these women. I was fascinated just about it as a
business story. It sort of like looking at like Jared Virtuell,
who is a well known character in my world, who
runs Musk's family office, you know, has to manage these
relationships and payouts and secrecy. And I've done no reporting
(28:39):
myself on that front, but it was remarkable to me
just to like think about what that job must be
must be, Like Molly, I mean, if you were the
wealth manager or the family office had for the biggest
richest person in the world, Like a lot of that
job is typically asset management, right.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
It should be running a family office, but it is
paying off all of the children he had.
Speaker 6 (28:59):
Presumably, well, you know, you get you're signed up for
i mean virtual as registered websites that are meant to
be Elon jokes before over the years, and is also
like he's involved with everything that that musk is doing.
I mean, Gired's been spot in DC since the inauguration,
and part of the job apparently is kind of dealing
with baby mamas and keeping every with everyone happy. And
I would I would be fascinating to know Jared's reaction
(29:21):
to that story, because it looked like, just as a reader,
it was basically all his texts to actually Saint Claara
were basically just leaked by her.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Presumably, Yeah, who could have seen that coming? Certainly not me?
What is that? Why would you leak all this stuff?
You know?
Speaker 1 (29:38):
The thing that I thought was a little bit interesting
in that story was that the baby mama numbers there
are some people in there who speculated so much higher
than what we know.
Speaker 6 (29:48):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know how you'd ever ever
totally know. I mean, obviously secrecy is a key part
of this, you know, Elon is presumably I mean, the
Journal report is doing this with lots of women, so
it's a hard thing to determine journalists. That's why, Molly,
you need that word at least, or that term at
least before you describe any kind of the of the
Musk progeny, because is it fourteen or is it at
(30:09):
least fourteen? Because that's ahead, I can allow you to
cover everything from fifteen to fifteen thousand.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
At any number.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
So let's talk about where Elon is explaining to us
sort of he paid for this presidency and he's still there, right.
Speaker 6 (30:24):
Yeah, though, I mean, we weird. The Times reported something
today that I thought was pretty interesting about how Musk
and Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary who Elon originally wanted
not to get that job, have had sort of this
falling out this week over kind of who exactly was
going to be the acting head of the IRS, and
Musk and Vescent were fighting with one another, and Trump
sided with Bessent ultimately, and the guy that Elon wanted
(30:46):
in there was push out. There's always these questions about
where's the limit here. It's always been speculation, and there
have been It's not as Elon has gotten everything he's wanted,
but you know, an another l for him this week.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
I mean, the autocracy is bad, but the tear seem
to have been the thing that have gotten a lot
of people upset. The tariffs have cost Elon billions of dollars?
Is there any do you see any daylight from that
between him and Trump?
Speaker 6 (31:13):
So it was interesting that Musk was so public about
his position that he thought the tariffs should not be
put into place. You know, we haven't only seen Elon
respond to this kind of modifyed tyreff regime. Right, Trump
is put in places in ninety day pause for most
of them, and Musk is not weighed in on that,
(31:33):
right like I mean, he was unhappy with the kind
of the most raconian version of this, and maybe in
ninety days he'll again be unhappy with that traconian version.
But what if we get into some place where we see,
you know, some targeted tariffs on some countries. You know,
it's of course impossible to ignore the complex of interest
here that Elon has, you know, particularly on China. More,
Testil has a time of business and he is uniquely
(31:54):
or not not uniquely, because he's not the only person
in the world, but he's certainly the only person in
the Trump administration who could be just so dependent on.
You know, they're not being a trede war between the
US and China. We'll see where he is in three months,
if he's happy with the end result.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
When it's one hundred and thirty days, I mean, I
know the law is not so interesting to these people,
but when it is one hundred and thirty days, there
will be a question of whether or not. You know,
he's meant to have a cabinet appointment. Obviously I don't
know that that happens. But are you I mean, do
you get the sense that he's ever going to move on,
(32:28):
that there's any kind of real tension between him and Trump.
We've seen some reporting on that though, you know that sort.
Speaker 6 (32:36):
Of it can be overstated at times. Yeah, I mean
Trump likes having him around, you know, Musk likes being there.
You know, there's this law which theoretically limits special government
employees like Elon Musk two one hundred and thirty days
in a calendar year. They'll all say, like, people play
games of that all the time. What does it really
mean to work in the White House? What doesn't really
mean to be working for the government, you know, in
(32:57):
this age of you.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Know, working for anywhere?
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Low?
Speaker 6 (33:00):
Yeah, I mean Democrats played games with this too. I
mean Anita Dunne was was a special government employee for
the buy An administration.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
And she's so much like him too.
Speaker 6 (33:07):
Could you see a world where Elon is like not
working for Trump the other two hundred and thirty days
of the year, but like, you know, he's talking to
Trump every single day. But you know, sometimes there's some
physical geography questions here, you know. I saw on a
story recently about David Sachs, there was some reporting that
well Sacks is going to be who's also a special
government employee, that the Hill only be in California every
(33:29):
other week, so therefore it's away for him to get
around one hundred and thirty day thing.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
There's gonna be a lot of games with that.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
So you don't think there's any world in which they
follow any of that.
Speaker 5 (33:39):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (33:40):
I just I just think there's a lot you know,
there's a lot of holes in that Swiss cheese there,
and I think there's a lot of people who can get.
Speaker 5 (33:46):
Around it cleverly.
Speaker 6 (33:47):
And then that's a time warn tradition, and I'm sure
Elon would at least explore it, right, I mean, at
least explore if there's a way to kind of maintain
his status as a special government employee while staying involved.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Don't as this wall of receipts they took down so
likely because of some of the very good reporting from
you and also from David Fhrenholm that they took down
like one of the big savings because it wasn't it
never happened, or it was sort of thought of happening.
(34:20):
You know, it was a Schrodinger's contract. So we're seeing
they're really not saving much money. In fact, there's an
argument to be made. It's sort of the opposite. Talk
to me about that.
Speaker 6 (34:31):
Yeah, the wall over seats, we love it. Yeah, I mean,
I mean I should say thank you for that, But
I feel like Farenhold has been kind of owning that
for us. I mean, essentially, at least as a reporter.
I'm like kind of surprised when something's posted there that
is accurate, that feels like news to me. I think
people are wise enough to know now that you know,
any claim that Musk makes about anything requires, you know,
(34:53):
some skepticism. But you know, they've called this the most
transparent government project ever, the most transparent administration ever. You know,
they certainly talk a lot.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
No evidence to support that, but yeah, it's continued.
Speaker 6 (35:05):
They certainly talk a lot. And and you know the
wall over seats. You know, I'm glad it's there. I
rather have it there than not there, Right, but.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
A lot has been had to have been taken off
the wall.
Speaker 6 (35:14):
Yeah, what does that mean? What does that mean to you?
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Taken off the wall because it was wrong?
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (35:19):
Like, what what do you think is going on there?
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (35:22):
What do I think's going on with the wall of seats?
Speaker 1 (35:24):
I think that some of it's wrong and some of
it is just trying to get away with whatever you
can get away with. But my question is if it's
hard to make the case that he's saving the government money.
He's wildly unpopular, right, Like his polling is terrible, right,
even like from Wisconsin, that Wisconsin Supreme Court race, we
saw that only five percent of cold people said that
(35:49):
they were more likely to vote for a candidate because
Mosque was involved. Must poured you know, one hundred million
dollars into that race. So he's not popular. Here's like
thirty million, thirty million, but there was all together one
hundred million into that. Sorry, but he's not popular. And
he's also not necessarily cutting the spending. Right, those numbers
(36:10):
just keep going down and down. So how does the
administration spin him sell him?
Speaker 6 (36:16):
Well, I think politically what we're getting at is, you know,
Trump and I did a story with my colleagues about this,
right for Wisconsin. You know, Trump is to some extent
comfortable with Musk is a little bit of a heat shield.
Right that basically he's a way for you know, Democrats
being mad at him and protest him, and then you know,
theoretically he can be discarded, but at the time of
Trump's choosing. But I guess I find myself a little
(36:38):
bit more contrarian here. And this is based on the
reporting that we've done. Like, I do not think Trump
is tired of Elan being around. I think he's politically useful.
I think Trump sees Elon, as he says publicly, as
a saber rattler in a way to kind of shake
up the system, and Trump likes that. I do think
there are risks with that approach, just say nothing of policy,
but on politics for Trump, you know, especially on so security,
(37:00):
which is something that Trump does not want to disrupt
in any significant way, at least benefits. But you know,
I find a lot of the reporting that or or
speculation that you know, Elon's gonna go on any day now,
is it a bit overstated?
Speaker 3 (37:12):
It's been going on forever or so.
Speaker 6 (37:14):
Right, that's been going on since day one?
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Right, But what about like all of these other MAGA personalities,
for example, like Sax is the cryptosar whatever that means.
Speaker 6 (37:24):
And AI crypto and AI.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
Oh excellent, lucky ass. What does sas do? And does
Sacks annoy people?
Speaker 1 (37:30):
I mean, these are very wealthy people, not used to
getting along with others. Now they are working in the
federal government. Like, how is this working?
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (37:39):
I haven't done any reporting on kind of whether Sacks
is grading on people.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
Is Elon grading on people?
Speaker 6 (37:45):
I think he's great on some staff. I think on
others he's not. You know, Sax is an interesting character.
I mean, he he It's been funny to me to watch,
not that Twitter is everything, but like Sax's job is
crypto and AIS are, but yet he has seems to
have enormous amounts of free range just comment on anything,
you know, like in a way that you know you'd
forget he's the White House staffer or White House are like, like, typically,
(38:08):
you know, I think we're forgetting because we're in Trump
Land and we're forgetting kind of how nuts the stuff is.
But like typically, you know, if you are the crypto
and ai Zar, right, you just talk about the issues
you're an expert in and like on Twitter, like Sacks
like here's my opinion on Ukraine, right right, right, what
she was doing before he was in the government. But
like there seems to be no inhibition that I'm doing that.
(38:29):
Like also to you know, he's still on the All
In podcast regularly. Is that cleared by anybody or is
that just kind of.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Like Ted Cruz, I mean that's yeah, why not?
Speaker 6 (38:38):
Yeah? But I just have wondered, like what exactly his
job is and isn't And like people have glory lines
to the gig they do, but like Sacks seems to
just be sickly continuing to being influencer at the same
time he is, you know, having this kind of government
bureaucratic policy job right.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
No, now for sure, and that's true with quite a
lot of people in this administration.
Speaker 6 (39:02):
Right well, definitely they've started using this kind of special
government employee status. I mean to do a lot of
stuff that enable that it gives you, you know, free reign.
The counter argument to that, Molly would be like, it's
not as if like she's a random TRENP official. It's
not as if like Sergio Gore right, who's the head
of the White House Personnel Office, It's not as if
he's like tweeting every day like here are my personal
(39:23):
opinions about you know, like issue X.
Speaker 4 (39:25):
Right.
Speaker 6 (39:25):
I mean, typically you are a staff member, you work
for the president, and you don't have this media profile
that unless maybe if you're a cabinet member right where
you go on TV and you talk about your personal
opinions sort of I feel like Sachs and then some
of the tech people have been able to maintain their
roles as like content makers and tastemakers and influencers at
(39:48):
the same time they have these kind of policy jobs.
And we're three or four months in they've been getting
away with it. So there seems to be totally no issue.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
But here's the question that I don't understand, right, is
that I don't get if if they're running, they're like
known to be whatever policy billionaire geniuses, and Trump is
doing these terms which are super unpopular and making people
(40:16):
just normal Joe's think that he's bad at finance. How
do they continue going this way?
Speaker 6 (40:25):
You mean, if like people think that these smart guys
aren't that smart, what's what's going on here?
Speaker 4 (40:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (40:30):
I mean people have survived in jobs and not being
smart for a very long time, and you.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
For just long enough.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
So good on America, right, thank you, Teddy?
Speaker 6 (40:44):
You bet no moment, Rick Wilson, Yes, Molly.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
What is your moment of fuck? Gray?
Speaker 5 (40:55):
My moa went a fuckery this week is the very
existence of Pamela Joe. That's j O Bondi. I can't
with that name, but Bondi has been out this week
front End Center as loud as she can, screaming that
Abrigo Garcia is a thug, a monster, a terrorist, a criminal,
(41:15):
a gangbanger, a thief, a wife abuser, and she fucking
knows better, She absolutely knows better. But she's playing this
for Fox, and she's playing this for Steven Miller, and
she's playing this for clicks.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Doesn't want to get fired by Trump.
Speaker 5 (41:29):
Well, I find it as the person who is the
Attorney General of the United States, her behavior is such
an affront to that position that you know, if she
had a brain and moral she resigned, but she works
for the Trump administration, so she doesn't. But I just
find it. I find it deeply shitty that she has
no compunction whatsoever about telling this lie at scale every day.
(41:54):
I find it offensive. I find that I find it disturbing,
And yes, you know what she is going to all
always play this role. She's obedient, she is compliant. She's
exactly what Trump wants in that regard, but it is
not what the country wants, and it is not if
you're the Attorney General of the United States of America,
what you should be doing. She's on my fucking list,
Let's put it that way.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
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.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
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 a poll of three hundred and
twenty nine CEOs from Chief Executive magazine says seventy percent
of CEOs disapprove of Trump's tariffs. The other thirty percent
(00:20):
are just drunk. We have such a great show for
you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joins us
to figure out what the court's rebuke of trump Ism
and the Trump agenda means for America. Then we'll talk
to the New York Times Theodore Schleifer about America's oligarchs
and how the public is reacting to their overreaches.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
But first, my happy Eastern let me tell you something.
Our president. He has sent a joyful, positive message to
America on this glorious holiday.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
One of the things that we will look back on,
perhaps not so fondly, is that Trump.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
To send an Easter message.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
That is one of his He likes an Easter message,
a Christmas message, any holiday he likes to mark with
an insane tweet. This one is from truth quote unquote,
Happy Easter to all, including the radical left, lunatics who
are fighting and scheming so hard to bring murderers, drug
(01:22):
lords and dangerous, dangerous prisoners, the mentally insane and well
known members of MS thirteen gang and wife beaters.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Oh that's bad.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Now back into the country anyway. Happy Easter to the
weak and ineffective judges and law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
My favorite part is he mentions that he won the
twenty twenty election. He did not, and I wish you
with great love, comma, sincerity, and affection a very happy Easter.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
I almost feel like he's going through the motions like
he doesn't even believe in it anymore.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
See see, I have a different opinion. I miss the
haters of the losers. I want that most shit back
in there.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Instead of the haters and the losers, he's moved on
to radical left lunatics.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Yes, that is true. That is the two point zero
version of this.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
All and right, that's haters and the losers.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
I hate what he calls me out like that.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, he hates when he But you know, the thing
that is the one thing that's interesting about this is
it's clearly obsessed with the autopen.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
This is this thing.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
He was obsessed with that, and I'm sure he uses
the autopen too.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
That's what he did the January sixth Pardons with right.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Well, it's a lot of writing, but he get very
offended that by and used an autopen.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
You know, it's just the greatest hits.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
My man has like a goldfish brain where everything goes
round and round and around.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, so Bali, I don't know how much you saw yesterday,
but man, the people were out in the streets again
for the second time this month. We got caught in
traffic trying to go cross town with it, but we
love to see how many people.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Were out there.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeah, another huge swath of protests, the no Kings protests,
protests across the country marching against Trump and musque. There
were tons of protests. It's the two hundred and fiftieth
anniversary of the start of the American Revolution. And if
you don't see the irony there, that's pretty rich. It's
(03:22):
the fifty to fifty one protests. The idea here is
fifty protests in fifty states, but one movement. And this
is two weeks after the April fifth hands off protest,
in which hundreds of thousands of Americans marched in fourteen
hundred cities.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Look, people don't like this.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
They don't like a president who's stripping away the social
safety net.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Nobody wants that.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
This is Project twenty twenty five, reminding you, guys, this
is the stuff he's enacting. When voters found out about
this in July, they didn't like it. And so here
we are. This is what's happening. Nobody likes it. Voters
don't like it. There's no reason why you should be
living through it.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
And here we are.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, so, Molly, you'll be shocked to hear President Trump
is responded to this poll, and he is truth. The
businessman who criticized tariffs are bad at business?
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Oh wow, is this new? Did this just come in
while we're doing this?
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yes, yes, the businessman who criticized tariffs are bad at business,
but really bad at politics. They don't understand or realize
that I have the greatest friend that American capitalism has
ever had.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Big exclamation point.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Well you know who else doesn't understand that the.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Markets we have quantitative truth that they don't right.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
The markets don't like it either, So I mean the CEOs.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
And the markets and the bond markets and and.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
And you know futures.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yes, yes, yeah, there's quite a lot of people who
also don't understand that he is the greatest friend capitalism
has ever had. And there's a reason for that because
he's not right. Crony capitalism is not the same as capitalism.
Donald Trump bankrupted at casino. This guy is not good
for business. And this is never a bus this way.
(05:07):
You know, there's a reason that Russia is such a tiny,
tiny economy, and it's because it's a kleptocracy. And thank
god America's big enough, so hopefully we won't get there.
But this is absolutely nice of him though to you know,
it's interesting the CEOs really gets them right, because that's like,
you know that those are the people he wants to
(05:27):
be friends with, those are.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
The people whose Jetsy wants to ride on.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
So, Senator Chris fit Holland has been doing a lot
of press to get attention on Kilmar Aubrigo Garcia and
his visit to El Salvador. And one of the things
he's bringing attention to is the theater that they put
on down there in El Salvador.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I'm glad that they're talking about this, so you'll remember
Maryland Senator Chris van Holland went down to see a
Brago Garcia to see if he was okay, make sure
he was alive. Some people thought he might not be alive,
and you know, they weren't going to let him see him,
and then they decided to let him see him. But
what I think here is important is that he realized
(06:07):
that they were sort of being set up. So this
is something we've seen a lot of authoritarian countries do
where they set it up to look bad. So Holland
said that they had wanted him to meet this man
by the pool.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
To make it look like they were in paradise.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
They had brought them drinks, these drinks that looked like
tropical drinks, and one of the drinks that had a
little bit more liquid the guy who was in jail.
They made it his drink had a little less liquid,
so it looked like you've been drinking. This is all
the kind of stuff that we see, you know, in
the authoritarian playbook, right, make it look bad, make it
(06:45):
look like he's not in jail, that this is all lie.
I think at some point the president of al Salvaro
realized it was looking really bad to have this person
who had been absconded from America from the streets of
Maryland in one of their prisons and was not able
to communicate. I do think that this case has broken through.
People don't like it. They don't feel that it makes
(07:09):
any sense. I think that a lot.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Of voters feel like, if you can abscond one person,
you can abscond with anyone. And that's Look, this is
a test run so that they can do it with
American citizens, and the fact that it's getting this much
pushback means that it's not working, means that they're less
likely to do it to any of us. So it's
(07:33):
good news that there's pushback. It's important that we keep
pushing back. Everything matters. Don't give up, like these protests matter.
People are seeing these protests and knowing that Trump has
to do back down a little bit. And maybe he
doesn't back down exactly the way you want him to,
but every single protest matters. The reason that he wasn't
(07:56):
able to really destroy the country the first time was
because he met all this resist Since that has to
happen this time too. I'm sorry, I know we're all exhausted,
but that's what has.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
To happen Somali.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
There is a big, big rebuke of Trump is with
the Supreme Court this week, but it was not a
nine to zero decision like earlier in the week.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
There was descent, and Alito has thoughts.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Justice Alito, but first of all, they didn't let him
finish his descent before they published, which I think is
kind of amazing.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
It's pretty funny, Like you.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Know, Roberts is like, fuck you man, excuse my friend.
I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Justice Samuel Alito descended the Supreme Court decision on Saturday
to block the Trump administration from deporting a gang of
Venezuela and migrants accused of being gang members under rarely
invoked eighteenth century wartime law, which one would need a
war to a note invoked, by the way, like War
of eighteen twelve, World War one, World War two, not
(08:49):
right now, because there's no war going on. Calling the
courts order, so Alito is like just trying to defend Trump.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
He's all alone, he says.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
He calls the order hasty and prematurely granted, because it's
better just to do the order after the migrants are deported,
so that you can never get them back. In his
five page descent, released on Saturday, shortly before midnight, just
as Alito.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Joined by guests. Just guess who joined him, The one,
the only.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Clarence Thomas brod thatation intervene. It was not quote necessarily appropriate,
because after all, it's not like it's taking the right
to choose away from women or something.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
So Arizona, while we have seen it trend blue, this
legislature still often comes up with really psychotic shit. And
thankfully they have Governor Katie Hobbs there to save the
day with a Veto.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
For Katie Hobbs, I mean, that job's got to suck, right,
I mean.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
She worked really hard to get it.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Yeah, and you just have to have the craziest before
in the world. There. Here's what's going on here, Arizona.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Governor Veto's bill requiring local officials to help with federal
immigration efforts.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
It's naughty. It's you know, She's right. I mean, they're.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Really trying hard to like put together this like fake
police force of people in plain and clothes who can
like do policing like a little militia, little Trump militia.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
And every time they do this is bad. It's bad
for American democracy. It's bad. It's bad. It's bad. It's bad. No, no, no,
stop doing this. Not good new no yet. That is
all I have to say. It's good for Katie Hobbs.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
The News. Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln
Project and the host of the Enemy's List.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Hello, Rick Wilson, Lily Drug Fast.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
How are you today?
Speaker 1 (10:47):
I am good because you know I tell me because
this Supreme Court decided.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Seven to.
Speaker 5 (10:58):
At one in the morning.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Yeah, talk us through what exactly happened here.
Speaker 5 (11:03):
So we've been edging closer and closer mally to this
constitutional crisis of will Trump ignore the courts when they
give a direct, clear, unequivocal court order that is within
their purview. Will he ignore that order and trigger the
big crisis? And we've been getting closer and closer to that.
But over the weekend, at one in the morning on
(11:24):
Saturday morning, the Court said stop, no more deportations until
we review this case. You're allowed to appeal this, but
basically the way they wrote it said you can appeal it.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Good luck.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
I think we're in a moment right now where the
court to save its own reputation in the future and
to save its own ability to exercise its inherent constitutional powers.
Finally had to say, Okay, this is enough. That'll do pig.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
I think it's meaningful.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Clearly, what happened behind the scenes is that Justice Roberts
got this zero opinion earlier in the week, right, is
that even if you're not in this country legally, you
are still entitled to do process.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
I mean, there's just so much you can see. There's
just a ton of.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Roberts behind the scenes here being like, look, look, because
you don't get decisions like I'm thinking about historically, decisions
that we have had come out of this court that
are seven too. I'm sure that people write to me
and give me a lot of them, but it tends
to be that you've seen a lot of four or
fives right where Amy Cony and Robert side with liberals.
(12:36):
But to see just the two Fox News hosts on
their own on an island, I think is meaningful.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
I think the degree to which Roberts has slowly I
don't want to give him credit for this, but I'm
going to. I think he has slowly and carefully constructed
a functional narrow majority because I think Bear and Gorsich,
although appointed by Trump and although frequently wrong on a
(13:04):
lot of decisions. I don't think either one of them
has the same stretch of almost anarchic trump Ism that
Alito and Thomas display every single every single day. I
don't think either one of those I don't think Gorsich
and Barrett want to be remembered as the people who
(13:25):
ended the constitutional order.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Right, this is how we got here.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Right, they didn't have to give him broad sweeping presidential
king immunity.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
No, they didn't have to. And it was a wrong decision.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Yeah, that was not good.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
That did not accrue well to either the court or
the country. But it's better right late than right never.
In this case, the Court has laid down a marker.
Will Trump obey it? I don't know, but I think
the Court is terrified of what Trump is doing, of
ignoring orders from all the lower courts. They didn't want
to be the ones who had had to lay the
(13:59):
hand hammer down, but you know, here we are. If
they had not given Trump to get out of jail
free cart before, we'd be in a different spot. But
they did, and now they're having to make difficult decisions
because of what they've done in the past. That's you
know that happens to us. All, yeah, we fuck up.
We have to deal with it.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yes, And also I would say more broadly, this has
been yet another week of Trump World really kind of
crashing into the guardrails. So again, Monday of last week,
Trump went to work with Harvard. Now Mike Schmid at
the Times has a story that says, actually, it was
(14:41):
an accident.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
They didn't mean to send the letter.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Right.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Oh my dog ate my homework.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
So again it's Trump world. So maybe it was an accident.
Maybe it was an accident. Who the fuck knows, It
doesn't matter. What's meaningful is the fact that they're saying
that they might not have meant to do it, like
they know it's on part popular and they know they're
fucking themselves up. And then Abrego Garcia, where they thought
that al Salvador case would be good for them. You
(15:08):
keep seeing there like he's a gangbanger. They brought out
the mother of a girl who was murdered by someone
else who just happens to also be from a South
American country as proof that this guy who's wrong like
you Tainan, is somehow guilty. And they just can't make
this narrative stick. And they thought that this narrative. And
it's funny because you saw and I think it's meaningful.
(15:31):
You saw Governor Gavin Newsom saying, like, don't burn capital
on this. But the truth is this has really translated
like it was on the cover of the New York Times,
like people actually do not And you saw that press conference.
People don't like knowing that there are people being disappeared
from this country without due process.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
I think we are right now in a very dangerous position,
given Trump's desire to fundamentally reshaped American politically the landscape.
He's looking for a big win on immigration because everything
else has gone in the crapper, everything else has gone
completely wrong for him. The more he flails around trying
(16:11):
to find a way to get a win and to
bring his numbers back up from where they are, the
worse it seems to be getting. I mean, you've got
the Pentagon falling apart. Who could have foreseen that Pete
Hexath would have brought in a bunch of morons who
leaked to the press all the time. You know, the
economic team is infighting and trying to screw each other.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
So that's two different members of Hexa's team have now
been marched out three.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
Three three as of today. As of Saturday, excuse me,
the Chief of Staff was also on the out, so
it's his leadership is just about what you would expect
from a Fox News host with a drinking problem. We
have a really fundamental need at the White House right
now to get a win, to get some kind of
(16:54):
sexy distraction thrown out there that will stop the bleeding,
and I don't know that it's out there for them today.
I think Albriga Garcia, as many times as they say, oh,
he's a gang banger, he's a criminal, he's this, he's that,
none of them have yet sufficiently proven that case with
evidence from a court.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Right. Well, I also think like they thought this was
a winner for them because they thought, and you heard
them transmit this, right They kept saying, well, you know,
if Democrats want to go to bat for this guy,
who's clearly you know this or that terrorists, right, and like,
clearly that is not working because when you saw Chuck Grassley,
(17:34):
you know, and when you see people this stuff breaking
through in the middle of the country, obviously people are
not saying like this is not us. They understand that
once you start getting rid of due process for one group,
you get rid of it for all the other groups.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
Right once the machine of violating anyone's rights kicks into
high gear, that machine will start violating everyone's rights. It's
a historical pattern, that is indle. I think there are
a lot of people in Trump's world who the Stephen
Miller types and weirdly like the Carolyn levittypes. There's no
policy power, but she's certainly gaining perceptional power in Trump's
(18:11):
universe because of her willingness to go out there and
do what she's going to do. But right now we're
about to see a big conflict Molly, because Pete Hexeth
and Christy Nome have said they're going to officially say
from their organizations they don't want to do the Insurrection Act.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Which is good, which is very very good for any
number of reasons.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
I think that's a headfake. I think Steven Miller could
talk Trump into this in five minutes.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I think we got to stay sort of in the
hola hoop of the sort of most recent stuff and
not get so excited about all the coods and woods
because Donald Trump could and would and probably will do
a lot of shit. But right now there were so
many wins this week, and another win I want to
talk to you about is the tariffs. So this week
(18:55):
the Wall Street Journal, Miss Josh Dossey had a piece
that was unfucking believable. Unbelievable, right, unbelievable except for anyone
who's lived through Trump one point zero, in which case
is totally believable.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
But so basically the whole net event is.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
The tariffs were completely the idea of one Peter Navarro,
and he was crashing the markets and hanging out with
Trump and convincing Trump that crashing the markets was good.
And then when they saw Peter Navarro's schedule, Scott Besson
and the wonderful and completely insane and not wonderful in
any stretch of the imagination, Howard Lutnik went in together
(19:35):
and got Trump to tweet that he was going to
take off the.
Speaker 5 (19:38):
Taps, which the market loved, because that's what Besson and
Lutnik understand better than Navarro, and Trump loved because then
he could say, see were the winning at winners, who
ever won?
Speaker 6 (19:48):
Right?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
It feels like peak Trump, right, Like we definitely saw
stories like this.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
We've all seen this particular Trump show, Molly right, for years.
He's got a very bad case of last man in
the room syndrome. Whoever's with him last can convince him
of almost anything. And I think what we saw with
this was there was a part of Trump that wanted
to be convinced.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
By the way.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
Oh yeah, his radar for things that hurt him is
pretty acute. I think we can agree, Yeah, And he
had to understand at some level, as long as Navarro
wasn't up in his ear at that very minute, that
this was a bad, bad outcome for him and for
his party. I mean, we're looking now at the main
parts of Trump's coalition, White working class voters are going
(20:32):
to take this right in the throat, and he knows that. Now.
Trump is not a smart man, but as we always say,
he has that fairal cunning about what he's got to
do to survive, and the idea that he is going
to let this thing go and continue to grind on
and to hurt him like it's been no chance.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yeah, I think he still could let it go on
because I think if there's one thing we know about Trump,
it's that he's not organized. He likes taruffs see him
going either way on this because the truth is he's
completely insane, unpredictable and insane. But what I think is
important here is that that story doesn't get out unless
(21:11):
some people are not leaking it, which means, right, these
big leaked stories are the reason why Trump is not
going to succeed.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
I mean, there are a number of reasons why Trump.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
I think will ultimately not succeed this and one of
them is because we're not going to be cowards and
go move to Toronto. We are not going to obey
in advance like some people who moved to Toronto who
will not be mentioned on this podcast. It will never
be guests on this podcast again. But we will not
do that because we are here to fight with you
guys peacefully and smartly. And so that's one of the
(21:43):
reasons why Trump won't win. But another reason why is
because the incompetence and then also people covering their asses
like Scott Bessen saw. I think you got to assume
Latinik too. They saw the writing on the wall, they saw,
you know, their friends think they're fucking morons now.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
I mean, these guys are definitely looking at a lifetime
of purgatory inside the financial community after this. They're not
going to be welcomed back around the table. They're not
going to have open arms from Jamie Diamond and Raydiel
and all those other people. They're not going to be
back in big deals ever. Again, maybe that doesn't matter
to them, but their reputations are now absolutely train wrecked
(22:22):
by this madness on Tariff's And again it goes back
to even Trump. Even Trump has a certain degree of
understanding when something's hurting him. And yeah, you know what,
he could probably have talked himself into, Oh, I'll lose
two or three points on my faves, on my approvals,
but now he's lost between twelve and fifteen points on
his approvals.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
He's as unpopular as he's ever been now.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
Right, he has never been less popular, except for that
one small period after January.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Sixth, right, and when he did insurrection. You may remember
when he did insurrection.
Speaker 5 (22:56):
When he tried to overthrow the United States, that little thing.
And I think, Molly, we're right now looking at at
a very bad few weeks for Trump because the damage
has already done that Chinese are absolutely owning him.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
So let's talk about the big problems right now for Trump.
Because here's what I say. He's alive, dude, No China
trade war. He's trying to pass.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
These tax cuts not going to happen at this point.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Right There's some incredible reporting about Trump. There's no way
this will ever happen, about Trump saying that maybe he's
not going to do the tax cuts for very rich
people and instead do the tax cuts on tips.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Ha ha ha ha hilarious.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
Yeah, Trump has a very very meaningful problem, and a
lot of his working class base are not people who
are making their money on tips. I mean, right now,
there's a big part of Trump's bace. Somebody was explaining
this to me today. When you take the combined effect
of tariffs on manufacturing, on trucking, on port workers, on
(24:05):
all the things that go into the blue collar supply chain,
Trump could not have screwed those people more effectively if
he tried. And the people that are going to be
truly angry, they're not just the waitresses earning tips or
the waiters earning tips or whatever demo that is. There
are many more people who have been harmed vastly more
by tariffs than would ever benefit from this tax on
(24:27):
tips garbage.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah. Yeah, but I also think, like you have China,
you have the tariffs, you have trying to pass this thing,
and then you also have another thing that happened this week,
which I want to do two menison Lisa Murkowski saying
that people are scared. But yeah, you know, we can
be cynical, we can be whatever. But that was meaningful.
(24:51):
Tell me why it's meaningful.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
Murkowski is better than Susan Collins, which is sort of
damning with faint praise.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
I know there are so few people who are doing
anything right.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
Yeah, the honest answer spoken aloud has long been what
holds Trump's power in place. They are afraid of retaliation,
and they're afraid of retaliation, be it political, be it physical.
They are terrified at the retaliation by Trump's base against them,
by Trump's operatives against them. And at some point, if
(25:24):
no one ever spoke out, it would continue indefinitely. But
she spoke out, and you've got to give her some
props for that. You've got to give her some praise
for that.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
I know you're very not wanting to, but I'll give
her some praise.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
No, No, I am going to give her some praise.
She did the right thing. And you know what, as
I always say, better right thing. Late than right thing.
Never she could easily take the next step and say,
you know what, I'm not a part of that caucus anymore.
I'm going to caucus with Angus King. We're going to
be a couple of independents. And every time you guys
want my vote, you have to come to me and
you have to work with me. You have to give
(25:57):
me a hearing on what I need and want. That
power that she could have is quite enormous, but you
have to take it. You can't You're not going to
get somebody's going to give it to you.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
You have to take that power, Rick Wilson.
Speaker 5 (26:11):
It always goes so quickly when we talk.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Theodore Schleiffer is in your Time's Reporter, covering billionaires and
their impact on the world.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Welcome to Fast Politics, Steady.
Speaker 6 (26:23):
Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
You have been reporting out some of the most very
organized keeping track of what is happening. And I feel
like you started the story of tech bros And money,
and all of a sudden, this story of tech bros
and money intersected with the story of the federal government.
And now the federal government is made up of a
(26:46):
lot or at least the people running the federal government,
whether or not they're appointed or congressionally approved or now
there's a huge swath of bros in there working away.
Speaker 6 (26:58):
Yeah, I mean, I mean people who I sort of
think of as not prominent Silicon Valley personalities have become
more prominent Washington personalities, where they're bigger than in politics
never were in technology. A lot of attention gets paid
by everybody to Elon Musk, but like I have been
fascinated by all the other kind of homies he's brought
with him who are ending up in positions are pretty
(27:20):
David Sacks, Yeah, I mean, I mean David Sack is
a good example. I mean he's somebody like, yes, he
was famous.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
He was never famous, he wanted to be famous.
Speaker 6 (27:29):
He was Silicon Valley famous. But now you know, people
around the globe track his tweets for the latest public
markets news. It's remarkable just to see the amount of
power that these people have taken, and it's something that
I did not anticipate, frankly, even though I was covering it.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Let's start with Elon. What's happening?
Speaker 1 (27:45):
The Wall Street Journal this week had this monster expose
where he has all these women that he meets on X.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
And he dms them and then he sends them Sperman.
They have children. I think that's the net that story, right.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
It's a highly abridged version of the you know, three
or four thousand words story, but I.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Mean, ultimately, that's what happened to this conservative influencer quote
unquote conservative quote unquote influencer, and that's what's happened to
other women, right.
Speaker 6 (28:18):
Yeah, I mean the story sort of looks at, you know,
the unusual ways in which you know Elon has cultivated
these women. I was fascinated just about it as a
business story. It sort of like looking at like Jared Virtuell,
who is a well known character in my world, who
runs Musk's family office, you know, has to manage these
relationships and payouts and secrecy. And I've done no reporting
(28:39):
myself on that front, but it was remarkable to me
just to like think about what that job must be
must be, Like Molly, I mean, if you were the
wealth manager or the family office had for the biggest
richest person in the world, Like a lot of that
job is typically asset management, right.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
It should be running a family office, but it is
paying off all of the children he had.
Speaker 6 (28:59):
Presumably, well, you know, you get you're signed up for
i mean virtual as registered websites that are meant to
be Elon jokes before over the years, and is also
like he's involved with everything that that musk is doing.
I mean, Gired's been spot in DC since the inauguration,
and part of the job apparently is kind of dealing
with baby mamas and keeping every with everyone happy. And
I would I would be fascinating to know Jared's reaction
(29:21):
to that story, because it looked like, just as a reader,
it was basically all his texts to actually Saint Claara
were basically just leaked by her.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Presumably, Yeah, who could have seen that coming? Certainly not me?
What is that? Why would you leak all this stuff?
You know?
Speaker 1 (29:38):
The thing that I thought was a little bit interesting
in that story was that the baby mama numbers there
are some people in there who speculated so much higher
than what we know.
Speaker 6 (29:48):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know how you'd ever ever
totally know. I mean, obviously secrecy is a key part
of this, you know, Elon is presumably I mean, the
Journal report is doing this with lots of women, so
it's a hard thing to determine journalists. That's why, Molly,
you need that word at least, or that term at
least before you describe any kind of the of the
Musk progeny, because is it fourteen or is it at
(30:09):
least fourteen? Because that's ahead, I can allow you to
cover everything from fifteen to fifteen thousand.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
At any number.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
So let's talk about where Elon is explaining to us
sort of he paid for this presidency and he's still there, right.
Speaker 6 (30:24):
Yeah, though, I mean, we weird. The Times reported something
today that I thought was pretty interesting about how Musk
and Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary who Elon originally wanted
not to get that job, have had sort of this
falling out this week over kind of who exactly was
going to be the acting head of the IRS, and
Musk and Vescent were fighting with one another, and Trump
sided with Bessent ultimately, and the guy that Elon wanted
(30:46):
in there was push out. There's always these questions about
where's the limit here. It's always been speculation, and there
have been It's not as Elon has gotten everything he's wanted,
but you know, an another l for him this week.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
I mean, the autocracy is bad, but the tear seem
to have been the thing that have gotten a lot
of people upset. The tariffs have cost Elon billions of dollars?
Is there any do you see any daylight from that
between him and Trump?
Speaker 6 (31:13):
So it was interesting that Musk was so public about
his position that he thought the tariffs should not be
put into place. You know, we haven't only seen Elon
respond to this kind of modifyed tyreff regime. Right, Trump
is put in places in ninety day pause for most
of them, and Musk is not weighed in on that,
(31:33):
right like I mean, he was unhappy with the kind
of the most raconian version of this, and maybe in
ninety days he'll again be unhappy with that traconian version.
But what if we get into some place where we see,
you know, some targeted tariffs on some countries. You know,
it's of course impossible to ignore the complex of interest
here that Elon has, you know, particularly on China. More,
Testil has a time of business and he is uniquely
(31:54):
or not not uniquely, because he's not the only person
in the world, but he's certainly the only person in
the Trump administration who could be just so dependent on.
You know, they're not being a trede war between the
US and China. We'll see where he is in three months,
if he's happy with the end result.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
When it's one hundred and thirty days, I mean, I
know the law is not so interesting to these people,
but when it is one hundred and thirty days, there
will be a question of whether or not. You know,
he's meant to have a cabinet appointment. Obviously I don't
know that that happens. But are you I mean, do
you get the sense that he's ever going to move on,
(32:28):
that there's any kind of real tension between him and Trump.
We've seen some reporting on that though, you know that sort.
Speaker 6 (32:36):
Of it can be overstated at times. Yeah, I mean
Trump likes having him around, you know, Musk likes being there.
You know, there's this law which theoretically limits special government
employees like Elon Musk two one hundred and thirty days
in a calendar year. They'll all say, like, people play
games of that all the time. What does it really
mean to work in the White House? What doesn't really
mean to be working for the government, you know, in
(32:57):
this age of you.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Know, working for anywhere?
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Low?
Speaker 6 (33:00):
Yeah, I mean Democrats played games with this too. I
mean Anita Dunne was was a special government employee for
the buy An administration.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
And she's so much like him too.
Speaker 6 (33:07):
Could you see a world where Elon is like not
working for Trump the other two hundred and thirty days
of the year, but like, you know, he's talking to
Trump every single day. But you know, sometimes there's some
physical geography questions here, you know. I saw on a
story recently about David Sachs, there was some reporting that
well Sacks is going to be who's also a special
government employee, that the Hill only be in California every
(33:29):
other week, so therefore it's away for him to get
around one hundred and thirty day thing.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
There's gonna be a lot of games with that.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
So you don't think there's any world in which they
follow any of that.
Speaker 5 (33:39):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (33:40):
I just I just think there's a lot you know,
there's a lot of holes in that Swiss cheese there,
and I think there's a lot of people who can get.
Speaker 5 (33:46):
Around it cleverly.
Speaker 6 (33:47):
And then that's a time warn tradition, and I'm sure
Elon would at least explore it, right, I mean, at
least explore if there's a way to kind of maintain
his status as a special government employee while staying involved.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Don't as this wall of receipts they took down so
likely because of some of the very good reporting from
you and also from David Fhrenholm that they took down
like one of the big savings because it wasn't it
never happened, or it was sort of thought of happening.
(34:20):
You know, it was a Schrodinger's contract. So we're seeing
they're really not saving much money. In fact, there's an
argument to be made. It's sort of the opposite. Talk
to me about that.
Speaker 6 (34:31):
Yeah, the wall over seats, we love it. Yeah, I mean,
I mean I should say thank you for that, But
I feel like Farenhold has been kind of owning that
for us. I mean, essentially, at least as a reporter.
I'm like kind of surprised when something's posted there that
is accurate, that feels like news to me. I think
people are wise enough to know now that you know,
any claim that Musk makes about anything requires, you know,
(34:53):
some skepticism. But you know, they've called this the most
transparent government project ever, the most transparent administration ever. You know,
they certainly talk a lot.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
No evidence to support that, but yeah, it's continued.
Speaker 6 (35:05):
They certainly talk a lot. And and you know the
wall over seats. You know, I'm glad it's there. I
rather have it there than not there, Right, but.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
A lot has been had to have been taken off
the wall.
Speaker 6 (35:14):
Yeah, what does that mean? What does that mean to you?
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Taken off the wall because it was wrong?
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (35:19):
Like, what what do you think is going on there?
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (35:22):
What do I think's going on with the wall of seats?
Speaker 1 (35:24):
I think that some of it's wrong and some of
it is just trying to get away with whatever you
can get away with. But my question is if it's
hard to make the case that he's saving the government money.
He's wildly unpopular, right, Like his polling is terrible, right,
even like from Wisconsin, that Wisconsin Supreme Court race, we
saw that only five percent of cold people said that
(35:49):
they were more likely to vote for a candidate because
Mosque was involved. Must poured you know, one hundred million
dollars into that race. So he's not popular. Here's like
thirty million, thirty million, but there was all together one
hundred million into that. Sorry, but he's not popular. And
he's also not necessarily cutting the spending. Right, those numbers
(36:10):
just keep going down and down. So how does the
administration spin him sell him?
Speaker 6 (36:16):
Well, I think politically what we're getting at is, you know,
Trump and I did a story with my colleagues about this,
right for Wisconsin. You know, Trump is to some extent
comfortable with Musk is a little bit of a heat shield.
Right that basically he's a way for you know, Democrats
being mad at him and protest him, and then you know,
theoretically he can be discarded, but at the time of
Trump's choosing. But I guess I find myself a little
(36:38):
bit more contrarian here. And this is based on the
reporting that we've done. Like, I do not think Trump
is tired of Elan being around. I think he's politically useful.
I think Trump sees Elon, as he says publicly, as
a saber rattler in a way to kind of shake
up the system, and Trump likes that. I do think
there are risks with that approach, just say nothing of policy,
but on politics for Trump, you know, especially on so security,
(37:00):
which is something that Trump does not want to disrupt
in any significant way, at least benefits. But you know,
I find a lot of the reporting that or or
speculation that you know, Elon's gonna go on any day now,
is it a bit overstated?
Speaker 3 (37:12):
It's been going on forever or so.
Speaker 6 (37:14):
Right, that's been going on since day one?
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Right, But what about like all of these other MAGA personalities,
for example, like Sax is the cryptosar whatever that means.
Speaker 6 (37:24):
And AI crypto and AI.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
Oh excellent, lucky ass. What does sas do? And does
Sacks annoy people?
Speaker 1 (37:30):
I mean, these are very wealthy people, not used to
getting along with others. Now they are working in the
federal government. Like, how is this working?
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (37:39):
I haven't done any reporting on kind of whether Sacks
is grading on people.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
Is Elon grading on people?
Speaker 6 (37:45):
I think he's great on some staff. I think on
others he's not. You know, Sax is an interesting character.
I mean, he he It's been funny to me to watch,
not that Twitter is everything, but like Sax's job is
crypto and AIS are, but yet he has seems to
have enormous amounts of free range just comment on anything,
you know, like in a way that you know you'd
forget he's the White House staffer or White House are like, like, typically,
(38:08):
you know, I think we're forgetting because we're in Trump
Land and we're forgetting kind of how nuts the stuff is.
But like typically, you know, if you are the crypto
and ai Zar, right, you just talk about the issues
you're an expert in and like on Twitter, like Sacks
like here's my opinion on Ukraine, right right, right, what
she was doing before he was in the government. But
like there seems to be no inhibition that I'm doing that.
(38:29):
Like also to you know, he's still on the All
In podcast regularly. Is that cleared by anybody or is
that just kind of.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Like Ted Cruz, I mean that's yeah, why not?
Speaker 6 (38:38):
Yeah? But I just have wondered, like what exactly his
job is and isn't And like people have glory lines
to the gig they do, but like Sacks seems to
just be sickly continuing to being influencer at the same
time he is, you know, having this kind of government
bureaucratic policy job right.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
No, now for sure, and that's true with quite a
lot of people in this administration.
Speaker 6 (39:02):
Right well, definitely they've started using this kind of special
government employee status. I mean to do a lot of
stuff that enable that it gives you, you know, free reign.
The counter argument to that, Molly would be like, it's
not as if like she's a random TRENP official. It's
not as if like Sergio Gore right, who's the head
of the White House Personnel Office, It's not as if
he's like tweeting every day like here are my personal
(39:23):
opinions about you know, like issue X.
Speaker 4 (39:25):
Right.
Speaker 6 (39:25):
I mean, typically you are a staff member, you work
for the president, and you don't have this media profile
that unless maybe if you're a cabinet member right where
you go on TV and you talk about your personal
opinions sort of I feel like Sachs and then some
of the tech people have been able to maintain their
roles as like content makers and tastemakers and influencers at
(39:48):
the same time they have these kind of policy jobs.
And we're three or four months in they've been getting
away with it. So there seems to be totally no issue.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
But here's the question that I don't understand, right, is
that I don't get if if they're running, they're like
known to be whatever policy billionaire geniuses, and Trump is
doing these terms which are super unpopular and making people
(40:16):
just normal Joe's think that he's bad at finance. How
do they continue going this way?
Speaker 6 (40:25):
You mean, if like people think that these smart guys
aren't that smart, what's what's going on here?
Speaker 4 (40:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (40:30):
I mean people have survived in jobs and not being
smart for a very long time, and you.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
For just long enough.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
So good on America, right, thank you, Teddy?
Speaker 6 (40:44):
You bet no moment, Rick Wilson, Yes, Molly.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
What is your moment of fuck? Gray?
Speaker 5 (40:55):
My moa went a fuckery this week is the very
existence of Pamela Joe. That's j O Bondi. I can't
with that name, but Bondi has been out this week
front End Center as loud as she can, screaming that
Abrigo Garcia is a thug, a monster, a terrorist, a criminal,
(41:15):
a gangbanger, a thief, a wife abuser, and she fucking
knows better, She absolutely knows better. But she's playing this
for Fox, and she's playing this for Steven Miller, and
she's playing this for clicks.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Doesn't want to get fired by Trump.
Speaker 5 (41:29):
Well, I find it as the person who is the
Attorney General of the United States, her behavior is such
an affront to that position that you know, if she
had a brain and moral she resigned, but she works
for the Trump administration, so she doesn't. But I just
find it. I find it deeply shitty that she has
no compunction whatsoever about telling this lie at scale every day.
(41:54):
I find it offensive. I find that I find it disturbing,
And yes, you know what she is going to all
always play this role. She's obedient, she is compliant. She's
exactly what Trump wants in that regard, but it is
not what the country wants, and it is not if
you're the Attorney General of the United States of America,
what you should be doing. She's on my fucking list,
Let's put it that way.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
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.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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