Fast Politics with Molly Jong-FastDomestic Policy Advisor to President Biden Neera Tanden examines the Republicans' war on reproductive rights. NBC national affairs correspondent John Heilemann lays out President Biden’s reelection odds. Historian Thomas Zimmer details his deep dive into The Heritage Foundation's plan for their Project 2025.
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 the RNC now makes staffers answer if the twenty twenty election was stolen.
They have to make sure you'll lie about that. We have such an interesting show for you today.
Domestic policy advisor to President Biden you're Atandent stops by to talk to us about the Republican war on reproductive rights and health more generally. Then we'll talk to historian Thomas Zimmer about his deep dive into the Heritage Foundation and their plan for Project twenty twenty five.
It's actually fascinating and terrifying.
But first we have NBC National Affairs correspondent John Heilman.
Welcome back to Fast Politics. John, Thank you.
Hey, Molly, you were like on Morning Joe And you know, I like nothing. I like better when I'm in Los Angeles and I wake up at three am to watch the six am hour of Morning Joe Live, because I Yeah, that's the kind of psychopath I am.
So let's talk about the vibe shift in American politics. I mean, there certainly is a lot of anxiety about RFK Junior and Nicole Shanahan. But it's not clear that he can get you know, he still has had trouble getting on the ballots. He's almost completely funded by a Republican I mean, it seems like there's a vibe, a larger vibe shift in this world's longest general election.
Yes, no, I mean, what do you what do you feel here?
Moly. One of the one of the advantages, one of the few advantages to being in my age, my rapidly encroaching decrepitude and senility, is that I've like kind of I've done on some of these races before, and so like the momentary vibe shift is like, not is not really one of my it's one of my moral enemies. People overstated the degree to which Joe Biden was dead and toast and Donald Trump's gonna kill Joe Biden and people now, especially in the liberal media, Well, we'll seize on a couple of poles and claim and the combination of a series of things. He did really well at the State of the Union. There are a couple of poles to show there's been a State of the Union bounce. Trump is obviously having all the problems he's having, although those are ongoing, and people will now say there's a bit of a bibe shift and we all think that Biden's bouncing back. My view, you may not ever want to have you back on the podcast again because I'll say the same, which is the race is going to be really close, and it's going to be really close. Vibe shifts don't take place within the margin of era, but polling shifts do. It's always been a margin of ARA race. It's still a margin of air race. It's going to be a margin of era race until election day. And there are six seven maybe five, sorry, tween five and seven states that will determine the outcome. The numbers of votes that will determine the outcome is tiny, so small things that will happen much closer to election day. You can't be determinative. And the thing about r FK is that the third party problem is a real problem for Biden, and some of these people are going to get on tickets. It looks like that they may the Biden people that may be fortunate in that no labels doesn't seem like it's going to be able to put a candidate on the ballot, which would have been bad for them. The RFK thing is a bit of a conundrum. The Trump people think that RFK is the only one of the potential third party candidates who could hurt Trump because of the fact that it's not just a Republican donor. But you know, he connects to a lot of these anti Backs people, and those are Trump people, So you know, he's obviously going to take some votes away from both of them because he's a Kennedy on one side and he's also anti Backs on the other side. He's a wild card. But I thought for a year and continue to think that the race is a margin of arra race that's going to be really, really close, and I don't think anything's going to change my view about that. When someone starts pulling consistently ahead or behind of the other person outside the margin of error incredible polls. We can have a conversation about bibe ships. I mean, I'm not dissing the question. I'm just saying no, no. I think I think that people who thought Biden was dead overstated the case. And I think people who think that somehow Biden is going to cruise to reelection are out of their minds. I think the reality is it's going to be really hard fought, and that he is perfectly capable to winning the race. Joe Biden is and I would even I continue to say that I make him a slight favorite in winning the race, but I would have said that three weeks ago or three months ago just as much. And I do think the state of the Union is really if you really think about vibe shifts in terms of people, just the Democratic bed wedding reducing in volume and volume reach, and maybe it's cooling a bit. It's not quite as warm the bed wedding. You know, they're like everything's chilled, they're chilling a little bit. Is the state of the Union is the key element of that. It's like to see Biden get over to perform like that and then to see a little bit of movement, and the numbers has reduced a very bunch of very nervous nellies. They're a little bit nervous now. So that's yes, there's a little bit of a vibe shift, but again I think the underlying data suggests super close. Biden probably the slight favorite, but Trump could win. And I think that everybody's just fixed that of their brains right now. That's really the underlying dynamics of the race are like that and are going to be like that probably until November.
Yeah, I mean, that's not a bad way to think about any presidential campaign or race.
So when you look at a poll and the poll has a margin of error in it, right, and you see the margin of error says margin of era three points. That means the margin of era applies to both people's numbers. So if you want to know what the margin of error is, you multiply it by two. It's really six. What that means is like bo Biden could be up forty two to thirty seven over Donald Trump, or fifty two to forty seven in a three percent margin of aar race, and that's still within the margin of era because the three points applies to Biden could be up three or down three from what the number is that they have for him, and Trump could be up three or down three. So in a three point margin of era race, you know, you could be up by five and you're still within the margin of era. You can be down by five and you're still within the margin of era. And people think that that like look at that number and think, oh, it's if it's beyond the three but the lead is bigger than three points. It's outside the march of era. That's not true. It's got to be out more than six. So like I it's the margin of these poles. You haven't learned anything. It's really, I mean, it's helpful to remember because you people make the mistake on television all the time, the poles. It's one of the things that should reinforce People's another thing that a lot of people feel in their gut over the leap of the last couple cycles. In particular, the poles have been proven wrong in a variety of ways, over in twenty sixteen, in twenty twenty, in a lot of the midterm polling, it's like everybody should be looking more at directions and trend lines of polls, and that the precise number, Oh, Joe Biden's up by one. Joe Biden is never up by one. Donald Trump is never up by one. That's always within the margin of ear It's meaningless if you start to see trend lines that show consistently in high quality polls that one side is that the gap is widening, when you're actually that's what you should be paying attention to and I always just say that only just reinforce the notion to go to the top point. Hey, guys, gonna be a close race, and there's going to be some ups and downs, and there's going to be some moments when people think Biden is just dead, and there's going to be some moments people think Trump is just dead. And I think if all things of you know, unless somebody gets hit by a bus or there's a Martian invasion, the reality is that, like this is going to be really close race until November.
It is a good point, though, that Biden has many points in mid terms. I mean I wrote a piece in the Washington Post that said he should drop out. I mean, he has been declared dead many many times, Like that's sort of his favorite thing.
Yes, I mean, look, people, you know, famously Broughck Obama told him he couldn't beat Donald Trump in twenty sixteen and he to let Hillary Clinton take the reins and that you know how that worked out. You know, people said he couldn't win the Democratic nomination in twenty twenty because the party was too progressive and Bernie and Elizabeth Warren now had driven the party to the left, and he could never ever win the Democratic nomination, and then you know, he got crushed an Aisle, We got crushed in New Hampshire. He was definitely dead after those two things.
Yeah, that's when I wrote that story.
He goes on and sweeps the race, right. People said he couldn't beat Trump from the basement, and then he beats Trump and twenty twenty, you know, people said that he couldn't get anything done. I had to bipartisan way on Capitol Hill, and then he gets the efrastructure bill pass. People said the Democrats are going to get crushed in the twenty twenty two midterms, and that didn't happen. If you did a thought bubble over Biden's head whenever he hears anyone say we should throw this to an open convention, like if James Carvill, who I love and respect. But when James Carvill or Ezra Kleiner, someone says, hey, open convention, get Biden out of there. What Biden thinks is, you're the same people who said I couldn't win the nomination, couldn't beat Trump, couldn't succeed in Congress, couldn't have a decent mid term in twenty twenty two. Fuck you, like you all have been naysaying me for years, and I've proven you wrong time and time again. Now on the other side of that, that static analysis from Biden's point of view, because he is older. Go back and watch Biden's announcement speech in twenty twenty in May of twenty nineteen, and compared to how he speaks now he's older. You know, he's not as robust, he's not as full of energy, he's not as clear, he's not as you know a lot of things. So he has gotten older. He's not as good at candidate as he was in twenty twenty. That's not some huge shot at Biden. You know, a lot of candidates in that age group at view four years later are going to be worse. But it's not a perfect rapust to the point that, you know, people are worried about Biden's performance to say, hey, I won. You guys were doubters before, and I proved you wrong. What you have to do is you have to keep proving it now. And that's why the State of the Union was important, because that's not telling people you guys doubted me before and you were wrong. That's showing people that you can still have the energy, have the clarity, have the force, have the fight in you that you can take Donald trumpot if you can show them day after day, that's the thing that we'll back off people from their bed wedding. And again, I think that's why that there's a moment here where people are feeling a little less suicidal than they were two months ago. It's because that combo of Trump is you know, the money thing and all the stuff we know. We can tell about Trump all day long, but the Biden a little bit of a Biden, you know, the first time you've seen upward movement and is pulling in a long time, and then this very vivid performance is like white people and I think people are you know, I mean, in the end, I really care that much about democratic bed wedders because I don't think that they really determined who wins the race in the end. But it is the case that a lot of people that you and I run into in the green room at morning, Joe, are a little calmer than they were a couple months ago.
You know, one of the things I think of you as doing is like you go to.
Everywhere, right go to Iowa.
You know, You're like a person who goes to like the important political places. Well also Los Angeles, which is not very important politically.
I usually hit about thirty states a year, so it's like I, you know, one way or the other end. And sometimes it's more, you know, it's a primary season. I'll be in place like Iowa and South Carolina in New Hampshire. But I travel a lot, and not just back and forth from LA to New York. I end up getting to a lot of places for various reasons, and so I end up talking to a lot of people who are I don't want to say, like I'm out like David Broder knocking on doors and talking to quote average voters. I'm not like sitting in Manhattan most of the time or in DC.
I feel that so.
I get to at least, you know, whether it's small business. I mean I give speeches and stuff, but you know, so it's whether it's a you know, a pharmaceutical company board or something in Arizona. People like, oh, you know kind of oh, you're on the speaking circuit. But the truth is, if you go and talk to the board of a pharma company or a healthcare company or a real estate management company in Florida, you know, you're meeting. You know lots of people who are they're not the coastal elites, and they're not in the Sella corridor class, and they think about politics from the standpoint of what my taxes look like, what are interest rates look like? What are my employees telling me all the time? And you get a little bit of a sense, a little bit better sense of like what the mood of the country is. When you go around, no matter how unscientific it is, you kind of get some sense of a kind of ambient sense of where people's heads are at. And usually it kind of comports with the pulling and I would and the broad sense, and I'd say that, you know, to answer the question that I think you're going to ask, you can't gauge like the week to week movements of like anything. It's but you can get a sense. And I just would say that, like my overwhelming sense of for the last year has been liberal, moderate, conservative, everyone has been. If I had to write a book about this campaign, it would be is this really the best we can do?
You know?
That's what you hear from people, And I hear from Democrats all the time, not I'm not this is not an anti Biden thing. You know Democrats who say, I know Joe Biden is better than Donald Trump. I'm going to vote for Joe Biden. I know he's on democracy side and Donald Trump is a fascist. And I know that there's no I'm not no false equivalency here. As a citizen, I look at these two octagenarians and say, is this really the best America? Is this really the two best people who could competing for the presidency? And again, I hear that from liberals as much as I hear it from moderates and conservatives. People are just a little bit like, huh, okay, if this is the choice, I know what I'm gonna do. But I'm not like, oh, yeah, this is I'm really psyched about this. I mean, on either side. Frankly, it's the Trump people. You're that from a lot of Republicans too, They're out psyche de Metrump.
I actually have Republican friends people always shocked by this, who were like, you know, very in Trump world, who are like hesitantly just going to go along with it this time because you can't not right. But here's my question for you, Like this was originally that's very bad. Senate map for Democrats. I talked to, you know, someone in Florida. I was talking about how they think they're probably going to be able to get abortion on the ballot. In Florida, they got a million signatures one hundred thousand Republicans on that there's a theory of the case, or at least there's some sort of green shoots of hope that these bottom up candidates might move the ticket along.
I mean, am I wish casting.
A little bit a little bit, but I don't think I mean, not necessarily a lot. I mean, here's one way of thinking about what we've seen in American politics post Dobbs in this Biden era in general, has been you know, Democrats underperforming in polling and overperforming on election day. And one of the things that people who are serious in the business point to and say is that you know, and that's not a trivial thing. I mean, some you know that there's something going on there, and what's going on there has been that you know, these these issues. And I sometimes get yelled at by women for saying, you know that we didn't know how much of a real voting issued abortion would be until Dobbs came along. It was all a hypothetical.
You know.
They were like, we knew women would do this or that, and I'm like, hey, guys, you know anything. What you did was you believed, you thought things, you hoped for things, but you didn't know, and none of us knew because you'd never seen a fundamental individual liberty stripped away by the court in the history of the country. So it's like, we give this. The history of the country has been a progressive expansion of rights taking one away. Anyone who said they knew how salient and motivating an issue that would be new is wrong because there was no precedent for it. As it turns out, it's a really big deal, at least on the basis of what we've seen so far in terms of turned out. It's part of the explanation of the not just beyond all the polls are rolling all the time, there's also the theres the this juncture between where Democrats have been in polling and where they've been on election day has been that the power of Dobbs, and I would say more broadly, the power of the series of issues that Dobbs is at the center of that have allowed Democrats to paint Republicans accurately, I would say as out of touch extremists. That's one of the issues. And now there's a p number of issues that go into that picture of the Republican Party headed by Donald Trump as being extreme and out of touch with the center of America. But Dobbs is the core of that. And Democrats have successfully done that and they're going to try to do it again. And you're pointing to an example in Florida where people have it's not that they want to make abortion the only issue on the ballot, but they understand that it's like the lynchpin issue itself is very important, but it's also connected to this other picture, which is this party is too extreme on a p number on a variety of issues. And so look, I think the Senate map, you'd be insane or really heavily wishcasting to be like all is well, you know, you'd be like that that dog and the burning building meme. You know it's sycom. I mean, it's like it's it's not that the map is still the map. It's still a really tough map, and that outside the margin of normalcy, there's not a world where Democrats like are picking up seats in the Senate. If the demer Routs hold the Senate, it will be a very powerful thing. The map is very bad and that there's very few pick up opportunities. That's just the reality. But it may be maybe not unreasonable to hope that the Democrats can put together enough holds that they can maintain control of the Senate and or maybe you know, end up at fifty to fifty again and it Biden wins that again get you control of the Senate. It's not the likeliest outcome, but it's not an impossible outcome, and if it turns out to be possible, it will be because of this larger trend, which is that this issue set is motivating people against Republicans and for Democrats in a way that's really unprecedented, like I think I've never really quite seen before, and all the time of Parro politics, it's just really been amazing to watch the way that that abortion and then the larger set of issues have motivated people in a country that a lot of people have over many years of thought is like basically issues don't really move people. Turns this one really does, and that collection of them and maybe that will work to Democrats paper.
Again, John, thank you so much. That was super important. Thank you.
Near Tandon is a domestic policy advisor to President Biden.
Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Near. Great to be with you.
I'm so happy to have you.
I feel like there's so much going on in this White House, and like I was listening, you know, I'm like a big c Span person, so I actually get to hear what the President says and right, because that's the only place you get to hear it. And also the first lady talking about this can that all this amazing cancer stuff they're doing with these people who can help you navigate the system, and just very very cool stuff. So I'm hoping you could talk to us first about what's happening in this admin when it comes to healthcare.
Great.
I can't think of anything I would like to do more. I've been working in hardcare a long time. This is my third administration, my third Democratic administration, of course, and I've been working on hardcore in in each administration. I started off on the administration obviously, work in the bombed administration and on the Affordable Care Act. But I think people lose sight of is how historic the action of the President is taken are. Because we have the lowest rate of uninsurance ever, we've been able to do things that you know, advocate the best for, like you know we're advocated for for decades, like given power for Medicare to negotiate drug prices that actually get drug prices down, and also do historic protections. We just put out a new rule to eliminate junk insurance. These are the short term plans where you think you have insurance and it's when you need it, it's really no insurance there.
Like Liberty Health Systems, the company fun Seapack Right Liberty Hell to Share exactly Yes, which turned out to be a fraud. Shockingly, the company that funded Seapack a couple times anyway gone Yes.
Shockingly.
When Trump was president, he created he did a rule takes Spangen Endurance. I have no idea whether that's connected to any particular funder at.
All, but that's the thing. The difference is pretty start.
So when it comes to expanding coverage, lowering costs, you know, really trying to create protections for.
People and a healthcare for them.
The President has been laveser focused and you know, he really understands what it means for people. He really thinks through the anxiety people have in their healthcare. So of lemme goes back to his own experience when he's been taking care of a loved one and how anxiety producing it can be. So you know, I mean, it really is a nord star for him as he started this conversating. And I think it is hard to break through on some of these issues them tips, because it isn't you know sometimes when you have they historic numbers of people covered in the affortable correct twenty one million people, and I was starting to semitstrate that was twelve million people. You know, it just didn't break through because it's not a conflict or a fight. It's a good thing that's happening. So I appreciate any opportunity to talk about it.
It must be like very gratifying though if you think about I mean, for example, Obamacare is wildly popular and it wasn't always and I was thinking about, you know, there was so much strong and dram about that policy, the idea that you were going to be able to get healthcare, and then Trump desperately wanted to get rid of it and had to plan for a perfect healthcare that everyone was going to love in two weeks, and he will get rid of it if he can get back into office.
We know that to be true.
But what's happened since Obamacare, since the Obama had been is that it's become actually really a way of life for a lot of Americans. I mean, is it gratifying to watch how popular it's become.
I thought the day would come.
I mean, there were many years that there wasn't popular and we had to defend it. And I remember when Trump came into office and there were even some groups who thought we should, you know, we might just have to cave on allowing Obamacare to go.
And you know, I just thought that was crazy.
And I also think that the fight over Obamacare has also made clear millions of people, you know, what's really at stake. And the fact that forty five million people now have coveraged because of Obamacare, twenty one million in the exchanges, you know, close to twenty five million in the medicaid program, it really means like millions.
And millions of people reliant on the healthcare coverage.
The fact that now we're forty states have done Medicaid expansion, that it's become much less contention had strong support in the public. I mean, I find that gratifying, but I also think it's the basic fact that everything they said about it, you know, is going to create death panels or kill a private insurance was all crazy and wrong. And it is an important service, and affordability has been a key point. It is hugely popular on now it's growing. We got five million people in the last year alone signed up for exchange coverage, a three point four million routina or one point seven million Black Americans, And so you know, it's hugely popular, is having a particular impact and prevading insurance picking music color. But I also think I've lived through a lot of these fikes, and the Republican Party had an ideological objection. Medicare and Medigaid and Obama pair is front and center. And that's why, you know, last week the republic Cretiqummittee put forward to plan and it's like so radical, it's hard to believe.
It's a cover a four point five brillion.
Dollar cut to the ACA, HILD, the health insurance program, Medicaid programs four point five trillion over ten years. It invistiates all of these programs. They voucherize Medicare, and that's eighty percent of the House Republican Congress married to Trump, who's already tried to get rid of it, and like fot.
Tooth and nail.
And that's why I think we have to be really conscious that. You know, if you think it's crazy that they would try to rip away health in terms for forty five million people, that's what they do. This is an ideological fight. And so you know, that's why I was really practice the President take them on Tuesday and really lay out the contracts in North Carolina and just drive be really clear about what's with stake, because what they kind of rely on is their plans are so crazy people don't take it seriously. And when we don't take them seriously, that is when things get scary. So that is why it's really important and over the next several months for it's to really being very clear about the difference.
Rooms.
Yeah, I love that Republican Study Committee because it's like all the crazy stuff you would expect to find in an oppo file.
They just put their names to it. You know, they're like, yeah, we wanted got the federal.
That's the point.
It's not like they feel ashamed that's like what they would.
Like to do to America.
It's like, yeah, I think it's like good that they put it out because people can received. It's all in black and white, you know, basically transforming the Medicare program into a boucher program where people like have to tay more for coverage.
You know, that's that's right there.
I mean, my favorite one is the Heritage Foundation being like, why is an IVF better regulated? Like, you guys don't want to regulate anything but IVY.
That's the one place.
You regulate anything other than women's body that is okay to regulate.
Yeah, IVY.
Suddenly IVF is the thing they're the most worried about it. So that Medicaid expansion is a huge deal and we don't cover it so much because in some states you have red states with blue governors desperately trying to get it past state legislators and attention does not serve. But it's going. I mean, this is happening in a lot of states. Does that mean more hospitals? Does that mean more coverage? I mean, can you give us just a little like explainer about what that looks like on the ground in a red state where they've done the expansion.
Well, I'm not going to give you a red state because it's very much a purple state. We were just in North Carolina, which had a Republican legislature and has a Republican legislature that had not done Medicaid expansion or had not done Medicaid expansion for years in your years, Geverrendor Cooper bought the long, hard fight to convince them to do the Medicaid expansion. They passed it. It will it's covering four hundred thousand people now in Medicaid and will cover six hundred thousand. Just got implemented a few months ago, but ultimately we'll cover six hundred thousand people.
And I'll just give you a great example of what it means.
The President was introduced by a woman who was in the Medicaid It was in the gap of coverage, so she didn't qualify for the date Medicaid program, but didn't make enough for the Affordable Care Act exchanges. So that's what was so crazy about this policy. If you were slightly higher income, you to get into the exchanges because those were federal. If a state hadn't done medicating stage and people there were people had no coverage. There was that group of people who had no coverage, which is so insane because you.
Know, she told the story which is she's slightly.
Blind and she hurt her hand and she had to go to the hospital. She had an accident and she had to go to the hospital. She really needed emergency care. She was really worried about it. She didn't didn't have health insurance. It happened in December and she just got covered by Medicaid, so she was able to go to the hospital and not worry about coverage, and she may not have gotten to the hospital.
So it's just that kind of basic anxiety that people have.
When they don't have health insurance that you know, if they get sick bay Cake coverage. But also what's really important about it is, you know, eventually why business groups supported it in North Carolina is that it really funds your rural hospitals. Rural hospitals disproportionately rely on Medicaid. In fact, in states that have expanded Medicaid, they've had much fewer rural hospital closing and states that haven't expanded Medicaid, you know, like Exis, they had a lot more ural hospital clothing and what that also means is that people just can't get the coverage they need in their community, and it's just such a counter productive, ridiculous posture.
So I'm so glad we're now at forty states.
But if you really think about we think about it, just these governors who have not been the coverage and have not done a Medicaid expansion are literally just do things and not provide coverage to people out of fight. I mean, the reimbursement rate is like ninety five percent, close to one hundred percent at for a new state.
It's really crazy.
But you know, I also think we have now a good date of example of states where you know they're doing the right thing. Virginia several years ago, now North Carolina. We're getting more and more coverage in more and.
More, yeah, which is amazing.
And again this was a problem rural hospitals were unable. I'm thinking about this Louisiana report that released last week, which had talked about just how there's healthcare deserts. There's hospital deserts, and then there's also maternal fetal health deserts, and then there's also because of Republicans overturning Roe V. Wade and Trump's super trumpefied Supreme Court. You don't have obgyns in some of these red states, or you have been many fewer than you need. Is there any way the federal government can help these women?
So far, there's some data that we've gotten that ten percent of OB when in red states where you know, ROW has been overturned and there's where there is no right abortion orders of man we see. You know, that's a pretty significant decline of access to OBS.
Like, the challenge on ROW is that it is really hard.
To undo, you know, when we have a constitutional right that's been there for thirty years and is undone. There are a limited stepth that the federal government can take in terms of just providing access to healthcare.
You know, we have actually increased investments into maternal health.
You know, we have a whole strategy around maternal mortality which is really focused on trying to give support to hospitals, lower resource hospitals, hospitals and horror communities and really focused on trying to get them the resources for prenatal care.
But the challenge with OB's is that.
You know, we can't bring me people work in states they don't want to and so.
Right, it is really hard. It's a really hard problem.
I mean, when you basically vilify doctors and you know, potentially criminalized you know, basically, where you have an abortion band, you are criminalizing doctors who would provide the care that is the target. You know, obviously OB's are going to feel unwultimary states. And the President has heard from a number of doctors who just have left practic He's actually heard from doctors who's left practice in states because they're scared of because they look at women they want to provide care to and can't because of these abortion bands.
So you know that's hard.
Yeah, and that's what is.
You know, I've heard so many stories from ob is about what it's like and even like you know this story they don't want to tell you. In Tennessee, I heard a story of a woman or they didn't want to tell her you having a miscarriage. My doctor friend was saying, well, her numbers had gone down, down, down till we knew that the pregnancy was not holding.
And they didn't want to.
Tell her the patient because they didn't want to do a DNC. And I mean, that is no way to practice.
A Madison I mean the fact that people know about care, doctors know of here a patient needs and tell them they need to get thicker in order to get the care because of the law in a state. It's just a crazy but it also really speaks to the basication here, which is these laws fundamentally believe women's dignity should take a second like take you know, should take a sort of a second seat. You know, fundamentally these laws are really about controlling women.
And I think that's that's the fight we're in. It is insane, but it's also you know, that's the fight we're in.
And we need to elect more people who think differently and will pass a national law to protect row.
That is, that is what is in front of us.
And you know it's not my place to talk about politics, but in this selection, you know, I'm I mean, that's the choice that we have. We can allow this to happen, or we can in bite to change it.
Craziness near Tandeon, Thank you so much. I hope you'll come back.
I would love to always great to be with you.
Thomas Zimmer is a historian at George Washington University and author of The Substack Democracy Americana. Welcome to Fast Politics. Thomas Zimmer, you're a historian at Georgetown. Not bad, but you wrote about something that Jesse and I are obsessed with, which is Project twenty twenty five.
Right.
I think we actually agree on this idea that this is this sort of mainstreaming of anti democracy may actually be its most dangerous facet. So give our readers first what Project twenty twenty five is, and then let's go from there.
What would the past two months detailed plans have emerged on the right for what they want to do upon getting back to power. There's different factions on the right. They're preparing separate plans. There's also rivalries between them. But Project twenty twenty five I think stands out among all these different factions at different plans. It was launched in April twenty twenty two under the leadership of the Heritage Foundation, and it really unites much of the conservative movement, conservative think tank machine, the activist lobbying groups behind the goal of installing a much more effective, much more ruthless right wing regime. If you zoom out then to try to understand what is this Project twenty twenty five, I think it's best described as the American Rights Declaration of war on the idea of a multiracial, pluralistic, diverse society. It's a plan to execute what amounts to a comprehensive authoritarian takeover of American government, and then a plan to use government as a tool to impose a really extreme, a radical reactionary agenda and vision for society on the entire country against the will of the majority of Americans. And it's really is of this idea of a white Christian patriarchal order, and everybody has to idea to that. So again it's this this, this comprehensive plan to take over government and then and then use it as a tool to impose that on society.
Let's talk about what that looks like. Give us some very concrete, kind of examples of things that it wants to do.
I think it's important to note that there's so broadly speaking, it envisions a vast expansion of presidential power over the executive branch of government. So that's the first thing they want to do. And then they want to dismantal certain parts of government, certain parts of the administrative state and federal agencies, while simultaneously mobilizing and weaponizing other parts. I think it's really important to keep them together at the same time because they talk a lot about, oh, we want to dismantle the state, and you know, to some extent that's true. For instance, they say our Department of Education that needs to be abolished, like straight up abolished, it needs to go, or like the EPA, they want to delate a lot of stuff. So this is sort of the stuff that you would know from a conservative legal movement, like get out of you with all these regulations and everything that goes against moneyed interests. So that needs to go. But at the same time, this is not a small government libertarian kind of vision because they also identify everything that can be used. So basically, everything that is a tool for government to create a thera a more egalitarian society needs to go. But everything that can be used as a tool to impose the sort of reactionary white Christian patriarchal order on society, all that needs to be mobilized and weaponized. So for instance, the Department of Health and Human Services, right for them, that's not about public health, that's entirely about imposing sort of a white Christian reactionary understanding of oh there's a man and woman and marriages just between a man and a woman and whatever like of course, like total abortion ban, and that's how they want to use that or the CDC for instance, which generally they hate. But also they want to create this sort of massive data bank at the CDC where every information about every abortion in the entire country is of centrally located at this one place. So this is not a small government libertarian vision, not at all. It's a vision of sort of weaponizing and then mobilizing the coersive powers of the state against their enemies.
Yeah.
No, no, they're total liars. They want to use the government to get what they want. But this project twenty twenty five comes from the Heritage Foundation. So talk to us about the sort of Heritage Foundation and what part they play in those Yeah.
So this is really important because I think some people still think, oh, yeah, so Trump Trump is crazy, right, and Maga is crazy, and this is of the crazy right wing fringe. But this is as establishment as it gets. This is not the fringe. The Heritage Foundation was established in nineteen seventy three during the Nixon administration, when stills of the Conservatives had had this sense that just Nixon wasn't enough. They needed a more conservatives of these all these institutions to counter what they perceived as of liberal hegemony. So they created all these think tanks, and Heritage has always been the most important, the most influential conservative think tank, the one that is closest to power, that has closest to the center of the Republican Party. It was associated with Reaganism, and it associated itself with of Reaganism. But in recent years it took a decided least of Trumpy in turn, and the guy who's currently in charge, Kevin Roberts, who became the president of the Courritage Fundation in late twenty twenty one, is varies of instrumental in taking the Heritage Foundation in a much more openly radical, open lyaset of pro Trumpist direction. And so now they openly say our mission is to institutionalize Trumpism, by which they mean not like containing it or taming it, but making it more effective, right, making it more efficient. And so what you have here they basically they brought all these conservative institutions organizations together, like I think as of right now, over one hundred conservative institutions are listed as part of their advisory board. Project twenty twenty five's advisory board, and everyone, like everyone you can think of is it's like who is who of some of reactionary organizations and institutions in America. So they brought them all together unite them behind this project. And so what this really tells us is it was an interesting Here was an interview with Kevin Roberts and Indwork Times in December where he said something like this is not the fringe, this is heritage. And he's right, this is not the fringe. This is as conservative establishment as it gets. So this should tell us something about where the center the power center of American conservatism, how much that has radicalized, how much that has moved to the right. And that is why I think this is so instructive to look at Project twenty twenty five.
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And it's so interesting because they have a real plan for things. So tell me what else you have found where you're like, this is horrifying.
I'll say, maybe so one more of detailed thing and then one big picture thing. So the more detailed thing is, like I said, this is a plan to dismantle some point of government and then weaponize and mobilize other parts of government as sort of a tool.
Right.
But all of this only works if you have the manpower to like to the right kind of personnel, the right kinds of people, to put into these institutions of government, into these federal departments, into these federal agencies, into these federal commissions. They didn't have that in twenty seventeen. And they know exactly that they didn't have that in twenty seventeen, right, they didn't have the people, right, so they had to rely on Remember all that the adults in the room and all that nonsense, but that was actually it wasn't true in the White House, but it was true in across the agencies in the federal government, all these sort of career diplomats or bureaucrats or experts. Right, So this time they want to get rid of all of these people. Underlying all this is this fever dream of a great urge of government officials. They want to come in. They want to fire and replace up to fifty thousand federal employees by implementing something that they call it's called Schedule F. It's basically idea of stripping civil service actions of like fifty thousand people in order to make them virable, right and then replace them with what they themselves call quote conservative warriors. This is explicitly what they're looking for, sore right now, they're engaged in this massive vetting operation where they're looking for they're using an online questionnaire thing to find these of true ideological believers and put them in place everywhere. And again, this is a completely different thing, completely different animal compared to twenty seventeen. This is not just going to be Trump two, is not just going to be more of the same of Trump one. Not that the first Trump presidency wasn't awful, but this is going to be a completely different animal. And this is partly why they, like no one understands better than these people that they were not ready in twenty seventeen. They didn't have plans, they didn't understand government. The people who Trump brought in had no idea what they were doing. And so this time they understand, we need to be ready, we need to have the plans ready, and we need to have the people to put in place to sort of implement those plans. And I mean again, like this is as comprehensive as it gets. This should tell everyone next time they will be ready.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Over the past few years, I've found one of the more frustrating things in American politics is if you try to describe to people who may not be paying it all that much attention to American politics. By the way, this is not the criticism is just not everyone gets paid to do this, right.
No, No, I get it, man, Yeah, no, I get paid to do this. But yes, I agree, there's a lot of news fatigue, especially after trump Ism.
Absolutely I get that right. People need to like people need to live their lives and they have stuff to deal with. That's okay. But then what makes it frustrating is when you describe to people, again who don't pay all that much attention to American politics, how much the American right has radicalized and how radical these plans are. You got looked at like you have fallen off the deep end, that this is just some lefty crazy conspiracy right, right, So it can be really difficult to convey to people. No, look, this is what they are saying. So in this respect, I think Project twenty twenty five is actually tremendously helpful. I'm almost grateful to them for writing this down because like the right wing leaders who are behind these projects, they could not possibly be clear about the reactionary vision they want to impose on the country. They are telling us that they do not accept this egalitarian, pluralistic idea of a society in which the individual's status is no longer determined by race, gender, religion, and well, and they feel justified in taking like really radical extreme measures to prevent that society from ever becoming a reality, because they believe they are defending quote unquote real America in service of this higher purpose, the purpose of entrenching the quote unquote natural order and divine will. And these are the kind of categories in which they think right, in which they justify what they are doing. I tell people, look, if you don't want to believe me, fair enough, some lefty liberal professor who would trust me, fine, okay, just read what they have to say. And I always tell people, look, okay, So they're putting out this sort of nine hundred and twenty page policy agenda report, which I don't expect people to read, but in that thing, and they have it on their website. You can just google Project twenty twenty five, and they have this nine hundred and twenty page report on as a PDF document on the website and you go to it, and in it the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, he wrote the foreword to it. He's calling it a promise to America. So basically his promise to America. I'm going to call it a threat, but whatever he calls it, his promise to America. Right, it's just like fifteen sixteen pages, I think, is what it is. And I just want everyone to just just read this, just those few pages. It is so open, is there's nothing in between the lines. There's no you don't have to like translate or read between the lines. It is so open, it is so aggressive. It is sort of this visceral disdain for anything in anyone who deviates from this sort of white Christian patriarchal understanding of what society should look like. It could not possibly be clearer than that. And so I think again, if you read this and you come away from this thinking, yeah, I like this kind of stuff, okay, whatever, like we probably can be friends, but.
You're probably not listening to this podcast.
Exactly Like I wouldn't expect that. But then at least you know fair enough, you know what's up. But again, if you read this at least you get a sense of what the stakes are in November, because, in a very concrete sense, this is what's on the ballot in November. This isn't really about Trump versus Biden. It's more again, this is basically a referendum on whether or not the attempt to make America into a kind of democratic, pluralistic, multiracial society to keep going on that path, whether or not that should be continued or maybe completely abolished. Right, So this is a thumbs up or down kind of vote on some democratic self government and the Civil Rights Order. I just don't see how that could be any clearer than when you read these of fifteen six pages that the Heritage Foundation's president were down there. And again, in that sense, I'm I'm honestly kind of grateful for them for just writing it down and telling the world, also telling it this is our promise to America. And then I think America should decide do we like this or not?
Right?
No, I agree, obviously on the left, we're all completely horrified. But one of the things about trump Ism is there's almost no pushback. You know, Trump says the crazy and like, with very few exceptions, I mean, Mitch McConnell, who we know hates him, already endorsed him. So like, I mean, is this just where the Republican Party is now? If Democrats were enacting a bold but insane and anti democratic legislation, I think there'd be some pushback.
Yeah, no, I agree. So there are different factions on the right, and not everyone wants Project twenty twenty five in charge. Right, So Trump's campaign they are working on their own sort of set of plans. They call it Agenda forty seven. There other there's the America America First Policy Institute, like overts of Trump administration alumni coming together, like they are working on their own plans, and these different factions they're buying for power. They they don't necessarily all like each other, so that that stuff is definitely going on. But on substance, right, there is no disagreement about any of this kind of stuff. That's also why I find it very misleading when people sort of say, oh, these plans don't matter, Like ultimately Trump is going to be Trump, and Trump doesn't care about any of this kind of stuff, and he's not the kind of guy to implement, you know, a comprehensive policy agenda. Look, I agree, Trump's not going to sit down and read nine hundred and twenty pages of policy, but he'll.
Put the judges in that they that they tell him to.
It's even more than that, I get it right. So in some sense he is not exactly an ideal vessel for the kinds of ambitious, comprehensive plans that they have here because he's erratic, he's lazy, he is volatile, and he's not sitting down to like dive into this kind of stuff yet. Right, he is sort of he's animated by his spirit of vengefulness and grievance, and he is extreme. He isn't restrained by norms, and that is precisely why the right united behind him in the first place in twenty sixteen. They didn't want a conquote normal Republican. They wanted someone who would take the gloves of someone who would be willing to do whatever it takes in their sort of understanding of where America is. So they wanted someone who would certainly not reject Project twenty twenty five because he thought it was going to be too extreme, or because he had qualms about questions of legality and precedent and all that. It takes a truly radical president in the White House to implement plans like these, because they are pretty radical, right, and that is Trump, That is Trump. If you compare these plans to what Trump himself says what he wants to do, you know, in his sort of rambling speeches and rallies and all that kind of stuff, the general thrust of Project twenty twenty five is entirely in line with what Trump wants to do with power, right, Urge these centers from government, place them with loyalists, expand presidential power, and make the executive into a tool for whatever the regime wants to do. Look, it doesn't take much sophisticated analysis to explain why such plans would appeal to Trump. He wants power, he wants impunity, he wants the ability to plunder.
Is an autocrat, yeah, right, And.
He will certainly not sit down again and read through the nine hundred and twenty pages of this sort of policy agenda report Project twenty twenty They will not no, no, But Donald Trump, as someone with aggressively autocratic instincts and sensibilities, We'll look at this and think, oh yeah, I kind of like this, right, like giving me all this power and like purging my enemies from the states and punishing my enemies, and he likes all that kind of stuff. The idea that there will be some sort of internal friction that will sort of make this fail, I find that not plausible at all. This this will work really well with what Trump wants to do.
Exactly if Trump gets re elected. This is where we go. Thank you, Thomas. I hope you'll come.
Back absolutely anytime, any time. They're no more perfectly Jesse Cannon I drunk fast.
We know the Republicans don't believe in democracy, but then they sometimes do really really hilarious things to show us some great examples of this. What are you see in here?
Kentucky has a Democratic governor named Andy Buschers.
He just won reelection.
And one of the things, I mean, this is like so unbelievable. You know, you have this Republican state legislature and then a democratic governor. So they were real worried about their two senators, but only one of them, and so they made it so now the governor doesn't get to replace a senator if they die. You know why they did this right because Mitch MCCONNALLD is about to give up leadership, is extremely old, has been having some health issues. It's just such a craven power grab and it's also set up, you know, in just a totally disgusting and for that, that is our.
Moment of fuck Ray.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.
