Fast Politics with Molly Jong-FastThe Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson examines J.D. Vance and discussions of his relationship with home furniture. Former Mayor Michael Tubbs details his run for lieutenant governor of California. The Shadow Docket author Stephen Vladeck examines the further erosion of trust in the Supreme Court.
Hi, I'm Mollie john Fast and this is Fast Politics. Well, we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds, and.
Donald Trump has said people won't have to vote again in four years if he's elected. We have such a great show for you today for Mayor Michael Tubbs stops by to talk to us about his run for a lieutenant governor of California. Then we'll talk to the Shadow Docket author Steven Vladick. We'll tell us about the further erosion of trust in the Supreme Court. But first we have the host of the Enemy's List, the Lincoln Project Zone, Rick Wilson.
Welcome back, too, Fast Politics, Rick Wilson.
Mollie john Fast, can.
You explain the JD Van's couch sex thing?
So, first off, I want to start out with two basic rules of politics. Rule Number one is, as everyone's probably heard this rule, if you're explaining, you're losing. And the second rule harks back to Lyndon Baines Johnson in one of his first congressional races, where he one time leaned over to somebody at an event and he goes, you know, my opponent as fuck pig, and they're like what. And they get in the car after this event and his campaign manager goes, lind and you can't say that he fucked a pig. You don't know he fucked a pig. And then he goes, I don't think he did fuck a pig, but I want to see him deny it.
Now.
That is where Advance is right now. And here's why this story is funny because JD. Vance. I have no knowledge or evidence the Jdvans fucked a couch, but I look at JD. Vance and I think a lot of other Americans do too and go, that's a guy that could fuck a couch. He's just fucking weird. Okay, that's why it took off. Because he's a weirdo, because he's strange. And look, you add on top of the unbelievable shit he says about women and all that stuff is just rolling out. Every day there's some new piece of video or whatever, and you realize two big things. One, this motherfucker is out of touch in a profound, fundamental way with what has happened in this country. Sends his boss stack the court in overturned Row and the Dobbs decision. And the second thing that he's so out of touch about and this is the one that truly gets me. He's obsessed about this sort of white replacement myth. Bullshit, we have to breed our way out of our problem. So, you know, people who don't have children should pay more in taxes, people who have more and children shouldn't have the same rights to have their voices heard in the political process as people with children. It's a longer discussion than this call. There's this entire new right philosophical orientation about again, it all stems from this like white racial replacement theory panic. But here's my point, JD. Vance is a choice that was made, and the buyer's regret you're hearing about Jade Vance is because it was a choice that was made when the Trump campaign was ride and high, when they thought their world was a crisp, clean, nothing but net play right to the White House. Okay, they really thought they had it in the bag, and it turns out they didn't. It turns out at the minute you took Joe Biden out of the equation, the entire predicate of the Trump campaign turned into garbage. And so their panic right now is coming in three forms. One JD. Vance Is. I mean, there are actively people talking about replacing him now. Now I don't think it's likely.
How would that even work? I mean, can you even do that?
Who knows? I mean, is it possible. I suppose it's possible. But this is like Tara incognitive for us. Right, the last time a VP candidate was replacing a hot swap was Musky and it didn't work out.
Wait, who's Musky?
Edwin Muski? And in nineteen seventy.
Two, wait, why was he replace.
He was replaced because Muski went out and admitted he'd had electroshock therapy.
Oh yeah, that'll do it.
Here's the thing they're talking about replacing Vans. They're nervous now. Trump is out like swinging at every pitch that's out there. None of this feels right to them. They're all in a bad spot. And Trump is now making phone calls it and he's calling Kelly Anne, He's calling Sean Hannity, Chris Ruddy, Corny Lewandowski, all these dipshits. Right, He's on the phone at night now and he's like, do you think Christis is your due to good job?
Right? He's starting to doubt the whole thing.
Uh, huh.
You know who else is back? Who else is circling now like a shark jeering. These guys are in a world of shit and they don't even know it yet, and it is absolutely glorious. I'm eating this up with a giant spoon right now.
Yeah. I mean, what I think is interesting about this is like, the message here is don't let Don Junior a pick.
You're of VP right and a bunch of techno brologarcs right, which by the way, I didn't make that word up, but I fucking wish I had. God damn, it's a.
Good So Trump was shot. Terrible. Violence is never good. Terrible, terrible moment. Right afterwards, a lot of these right wingers who had wanted to say Trump came out. So you had the All In podcast bros are part of the PayPal mafia, and you had a couple of other people like Bill Ackman. You had all those tech bros come out and Mark Andreasen and they were all like, this is it. We're going full in on tech oligarchy. We are going to destroy the country because we hate freedom and.
Women, because we're butt hurt about women wanting the vote or whatever the whatever. Their bit is. I mean, here's the thing, you know, and this is another part of it that Jade Vance is. Another reason he's a weirdo. Is there's this whole like neo monarchist movement in the tech bro world, that whole like Curtis, Jarvin, jd Vance, Peter Thiel. They all believe that democracy is a thing of the past and it makes America week and so they want to replace it with some other kind of neo feudalism of some kind. So look, they know, they know they screwed up. They never been messed up with things. They know they know he's not working out. They're very nervous about it.
And he wrote the introduction for Kevin Roberts Foundation right his book. So if you're wondering if jd Vance has anything to do with Project twenty twenty five, check out the introduction of Kevin Roberts book.
And also and also by the way, I mean, I want to say this to look back on the couch story. Again, we don't have any evidence jd. Vans fucked a couch. We really don't. There's no evidence of it. His propensity to flip over on his tummy end.
A writer, but Molly but Molly, the.
Most important news story is not the couch. The most important news story is the dolphin porn.
All right, out of you.
I feel like I opened the door.
You did, and you fucking did everything. I'm like a vampire. May I come in the house? Say no, sinny.
Woman, I should have said now, that's that's that sort is my T shirt's going to say, I just threw.
A quote from Lost Boys and I'm sorry.
Yeah, no, that's all right, I'll be okay. So let's just talk about these polls. She is now catching up with him in the polls. In the swings day polls, she is already two points ahead in a national poll. As we know the way the electoral college works, she's got to be more than two points ahead for her to win the presidency because the electoral college is really helps Republicans. So explain to us. You are a campaign guy. I know you're working on a lot of campaigns right now, Explain to us how you do this. Now, if you're gen O'Malley Dylan, what do you do right?
If you're jene o' melli Dillon, you have a bigger map than you had last week. Okay, you have a better map than you had last week.
Because she has a lot more upside than Biden.
She is a lot more upside. And one of the things that was deeply concerning in Biden world was that there was a sense that there was a lack of enthusiasm for the ticket that is now one hundred percent turned on its head. Now you've got enthusiasm for the ticket across the board. You have money flowing in at a rate that no one could have imagined it would flow in, and you have a world that looks a lot better and a lot more productive as a candidate. So she can go into places now like Georgia and North Carolina and Nevada. And look, you got to pull out of Michigan today with Trump with black voters at zero zero zero buck Kiss, Now, look, I may have been a philosophy major, but the last time I checked, and pulling zero is a bad place.
I mean the other thing. And again, I don't want to speak badly of Biden, because I felt that this needed to happen organically and that the party needed to get there, and the three weeks between the debate and when he dropped out really gave them the moment to do it and his hand off to the vice as an end has been incredible, and it's just been a kind of brilliantly done and whether intentional or not intentional, it's been really better than could be scripted. So here's the question for you. Now that she is the nominee, she really can campaign in a way. He did not have the energy to discuss that.
One hundred percent. In fact, she can also campaign in a way Donald Trump doesn't have the energy. Yes, let's be real here, Molly. Donald Trump likes his leisure. Donald Trump likes to sit his his rotund ass in a golf cart for at least twelve hours a day. This is not a man who is dedicated, shall we say, to fitness and effort. I think she'll run Trump ragged. I think she'll run him ragged. This is a guy who he doesn't want to do this. He doesn't like any of this stuff, you know, especially now that he's saying, I can't do the rallies anymore.
Right, we can't do the outdoor rallies right because of the Secret Service. And he can't do the indoor rallies because he doesn't want to pay for it, right, because that's money that could go to legal bills.
He liked going to like a state fair ground where the grounds fee was twenty five hundred bucks as opposed to an auditorium where it's one hundred grand or seventy five grand or whatever whatever the number is. Right. He hates the idea he has to go out and like spend money or take time to do things. You know, none of this is difficult to explain. Trump is cheap. He's lazy, and being cheap and lazy in a campaign are you can be one or the other, but you can't be both. And I think Harris is going to go out. I think she's just going to exhaust him. And especially because today, you know, you see Trump now walking back on doing a debate. You see Trump pretending that he's not going to do the debate because bruck HUSINU to Obama.
I love that he got Hussein out of there, like you know he's.
I said to Stephen Chunk, I was like, you know, calling hi Hussein and three dollars and sixty five cents gets you up? Can spice latte?
Yeah?
You know that's just not an effective attack anymore.
For any number of reasons, Yes, for so many reasons.
Yeah, but at the end of the day moment, I think we're going to be in a position where the polls are going to continue to shift away from Trump. And look as I also, you know, I'm a realist, you know me. I'm always willing to watch watch my friends of the Democratic Party do what they do and fuck it up. Please don't. But here's the part that I think is impressive. She has this cultural connection to gen Z. And as much as Republicans always said liberal holy would they would cut off their arms to get somebody better than Kid Rock, Hulk Hogan and Lee Greenwood on their celebrity team. Yeah, they would kill their mothers to do something with people who weren't fifth tier, quasi ex celebrities. And none of those things are going to change. So her connection to the culture is very strong. That counts for a lot. It's going to turn up younger voters, going to turn up gen Z. All of that really matters here. It really it will have a real, meaningful, measurable impact African American voters, Indian American voters, Pacific and Asian voters. They are all looking at her as someone who is breaking a barrier, who is representative of them, and in a weird way. I mean, Hillary was going to break the glass sealing, et cetera. But this has a kind of strangely broader appeal to more Americans who aren't just like sort of the more elite East coast of CELA Corridor influencers, if that makes sense.
I also think that Hillary had a And again I'm not going to malign Hillary.
No, no, I mean that just clinically, honestly, no.
But she had the Clinton baggage. Oh and Harris does not have that. She was da, she was ag she was the second female black senator ever, she was vice president and Clinton really was senator and then she was secretaries date. Harris is a totally different kind of candidate, has had a totally different history. One of the things we saw with Clinton was that Trump World used Bill Clinton's problems with women to tar Hillary. And whether or not it worked, you know, his goal was to flood the zone with shit, right, just as we've heard from Steve Bannon. Hey, rip, where is Steve Bannon?
Steve Bannon is currently in the punishment block of the Federal Correctional Institution at Danbury, Connecticut. He is there because they he's not allowed to receive tentacal porn in that prison, and yet somebody keeps sending him tentacle porn. I don't know, I know what's going on.
Just talk me through the down ballot races now, I mean, how does this change the calculus for down ballot races?
Yeah, look, Molly, I think there will be a change in some of the down ballot stuff. It's going to take another week for it to what I call, you know, what we call sugaring out. It's gonna settle down a little more. But here's the thing. There's been a drop off in maga enthusiasm.
Right Are they gonna be okay?
I hope not.
Will someone check on Frank Lattz.
Oh, fuck Jesus Christ, all the folks in the maga world right now, who really, really, really really really thought everything was in the bag. Even before Joe Biden had the terrible debate from Hell, Republican statewide candidates were running behind the Democrats in almost every one of the swing states, and there was a little bit of head scratching in McConnell world, like what, I don't hog quality funding their own campaigns to overcome the fact that Donald Trump's reputation stinks like shit when you.
Pick people for money, you know, the whole idea that they write.
We've got a Democratic field that was already pulling between three and seven points ahead depending on the state of the candidates, of the of the of the state wide type candidates. You've got a bunch of Republicans who are trumpelike, knockoffs, boring, not particularly great at the work, and those folks are It's not over. I don't want to I don't want to over overstate the case, but they should have been in a much better position. And now that Biden is out, they're going to be looking at at the drop offs in some of these demographic groups they had hope to win. Let me tell you pro choice Republican women, which are a thing as you and I've talked about many, many times. They're now like they've got somebody that's like, Okay, she's fucking around. I can trust her. You know, because if Dave McCormick goes to pro choice Republican women and says I'll take care of it, don't worry about me, He'll do it in a whisper at best, he can't actually do it, and So the secret of all this is going to be that the demographic co works they need to win are going to start being either looser around Trump or actually moving to Harris. Either one is a bad scenario because as we've seen their fault, they're all pacing behind Donald Trump. Well, that a good news. That is a very difficult situation for them to find themselves in. In fact, I heard this on Sunday Nights last week that Trump was angry that he had picked up from a candidate, a statewide candidate, that McConnell's people are telling us, you know, if Trump goes crazy, we may have to back away from him.
Oh that's amazing.
He was not happy. I guess what they will. And then he'll get mad, and then his people will say they're protruding, true, and they won't come out. I mean down Bau a drop off. It's many a slip between the cup and the lip. And we have a long, long, long, long, long, long, long long long way to go. But there's a chance here that Trump's instability and insanity combined with a competent Harris campaign, which we will have a competent Harris campaign, there's a real possibility that we run the table and actually get the Senate back. These guys are in deep trouble right now.
Well, and they also have really, really shitty Senate candidates. I mean, they just picked rich guys that they thought would somehow so that Trump could spend the money on legal will. Elon Musk abandoned Donald Trump.
He already has. Look the only thing that mattered from Elon was the promise of forty five million dollars a month. And right now Elon's probably should prepare himself for all the MAGA voters who suddenly became like Tesla fans to burn their vehicles in the street. You know, he could say woke mindvirus all he wants at this point, but it will be perceived correctly that he renemned on a promise to Donald Trump. They won't like it.
So true, so true, Rick Wilson, thank you, Mulla.
John Fast, That's always a delight.
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Michael Tubbs is the former mayor of Stockton, California, is running through lieutenant governor in California.
Welcome back to Fast Politics, Michael Thobbs.
I missed you, Thanks for having me, Thanks.
For coming on. So tell us about what you're up to.
I am excited to share with you and your listeners. So I'm going to be ready for the lieutenant governor of California in twenty twenty six.
So explain to us how that works. The governor is up for reelection and you're primary the lieutenant governor.
Or.
How does this work?
No, No, it's a completely open seat. So the current lieutenant governor and Lenny Queenilckez, she's termed out, so she's ready for governor. Our beloved governor Gavin Newsom turned out, he'll be surrogating and making sure that making sure that we have a democracy. I'm moving forward. So it's the open seat. It's second highest office in California, acting governor when the governor's out. But also really I call it the caretaker of the future. Still the uc C Issue and Community College Board, it's still on the State Lands Commission. And you also have this bully pulpit to talk about the issues that I that I care about. That then California's care about, which is A how do you make sure California is affordable? B how do you make make sure that we're able to house people? Know how many people who are homeless? And see, how do you make sure we embrace technology, we embraced entrepreneurship, we embraced unions, and we also have light size regulations so that we don't continue to have stratifying an equality.
You were the mayor of Stockton. Talk to us about minimum basic income and what you did in Stockton and how it worked.
Yeah, so I can't believe it's been that long. But seven years ago when I was mayor, of Stock. Then I announced that I would do the first municipal guaranteed basic income program. Now when we gave five hundred dollars a month, no strings attached to one hundred twenty five people, and for folks listening, that might seem like dub people been doing that the past couple of years, but we were the first, And in doing so, I created a group called Mayors for a Guaranteed Income and Councils for a Guaranteed Income. But now we had over o one hundred and fifty mayors, sixty pilots, and every week it seems like another city is coming out with research that shows what we proved in stocked and that a small amount of money a basic income is hundred dollars or one thousand dollars, doesn't make people stop working. It actually allows people to move from paradigmic school to have work. It allows people to say, it allows people to take care of their kids. It has all positive impacts and it reduces all the negative things we complained about. Just since Denver they announced maybe the Guaranteed Income program where they gave one thousand dollars a month to folks experiencing homelessness and what they found is that when folks were giving money, they were able to afford hoursand they were able to ed take shelters, they were able to reduce homelessness. So incredibly proud of that work. I think the child tax credit stimulus checks all those things we had during the pandemic and have now become like national policies that people talk about really started and seated in stopped in California when I was mayor.
Explain to us why minimum basic income works.
A minimum basic income or a guarantee basic income works because we live in a society where where money is what's needed to have a ship of time and to have agency. So if someone has five hundred dollars or one thousand dollars, that's enough between eviction and that for people who are dealing with lives and rents. And as we've seen in research that the average cost that leads to someone being evicted is not three hundred thousand dollars, it's three hundred dollars. So it guarantee basically income acts as an almost an economic shock absorber. Can we know times are so volatile, we know guaranteed income works because time is money. Literally, so if you're working a part of time job, you don't have paid time off. So what happens when you're sick? What happens if your child sick, Either you make a decision and send the child a school sick or you stay home with the child. But then you lose that money. But a guarantee income allows you to still have some income coming in, so even though you lose your hourly money, you still have a little bit to deal with the shocks of life. And that's really why it works. It just allows people to have a foundation so that no matter what happens and the craziness of life, that the bottom doesn't fall out underneath people, because people at least have a bottom. And what we've seen is people have used that money to start businesses. I've used that money to take time after part time work to apply for a full time job and get it. I've used that money to take care of health issues, to buy glasses, to get racist, to get dentures. How to use that money to pay off credit card, then how to use that money to put deposit down on an apartment. And it just shows how we're far too many people in our community. The issue is in character the issue isn't intelligent If that wages haven't kept up with inflation, it's just started. Wealth continues to strives by. It's just start focusing a little bit of money, just so small amount to serve out the springboard to real opportunity.
Just give us like a two second. I want you to talk, because it is out there about the sort of the campaign against you and how you came back from it.
Yeah, two seconds. I'm haters gonna hate. No, no, no, in all seriousness, I think we're going to see it against that vice president, et cetera. But I was the first black may of start that, I was the youngest mayor of a big city ever. That folks use social media just to spread lies about me. They said I was a bug, I was a liar, that was unqualified, and I stole money, just all the racist tropes we have. I did some black people, and they exped people that every single day for three years, and for far too many people in my community they succumbed to it. And I think what I was able to bounce back because I learned that a you have to have a very sophisticated social media presence. You have to respond to lives in real time. You have to have a counter narrative and b we just continue to do the work. So even after I lost re election, I started starting as a special advisor to Governor knew some focus on the issues I had of unstocked the economic mobility better than marriage for Guaranteed INCOLND which went for one Marria to two hundred and fifteen Marriors started in poverty in California. I've got up and down the state, meeting with communities, working all the legislation like baby bonds and hope accounts and childd Satan's accounts, a summer youth job. So I think the work continued even with the tempery setback. And now I'm fired up to be back in the or we know again.
Yeah, and they're lucky to have you. Can you talk to us about what the challenges California is facing right now and how you would address them.
Well, California for is so interesting to me because it were a golden state. I'm from Stockton, I'm from South Stockton. I grew up in poverty. My dad's still in jail. So I've also experienced in non golden parts of the state, and I think as there's a cast on between rhetoric and results oftentimes, So when we talk about the issues of California, whereas state that values opportunity and inclusion and diversity, but a lot of people are leaving the state because I can't afford it, That young people can't afford to buy house, That we don't have enough afford of our housing, which expends our homelessances, that black folks only make up six percent of the state, but thirty percent of folks around the house. It's those types of addictions that really motivate me to run because I do think given the values of our communities, given the ways democrats hold power, that we'll be able to show that government could work, I think oftentimes, and the perceptions that we just want to throw money at problems. And when I came to Stuff and we were bankrupt, I'd spent eight years helping us redown from that. So I'm very adamant that money alone isn't enough. We have to make sure we know how the money is being spent and that the money is being spent well, and if it's not, we have to course correct. But to do what it works, we have to use data to guide our decision making. And I also think that California is at a pylow juncture in just in terms of the investments we make that I live in La Now, I love it. I love the Bay Area, went to school there. But the future in California in many respects will rest on how well we invest in the central value where I'm from, the stock Dens and Fresnos, the Mercedes, the Baker's fields. So I think we have to do a better job there, and then we still have to be a beacon of freedom. But I love the fact that California is a state where folks know that with this extreme product in twenty five agenda that's already being implemented in many states, that folks could come to California for reproductive healthcare and healthcare generally can come to California and Nbay or be trands like folks can come to California and really experience freedom, And I just think they have to marry that with real economic dignity for everyone. So folks are here but are able to afford to be here, able to afford housing here, So we don't have as many people homeless, and we don't have as many young people Philly like the California and dreams out of reach.
Can you explain to us besides how expensive it is, how is climate change a California.
Yeah, I think California has really led the way in terms of being smart and thinking about climate change, but thinking about it as an existential crisis. Of course, fossil is an economic development driver, so that was mayor of Stoff. Then we did our work in terms of preparing for the green economy and spinning out how we train our folks to be the folks that work on electric cars, that that are part of this new ecosystem that's going to be built through the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, and I think elect to continue to do so. There's a huge opportunity in CALIFORNI Oh, yeah, there is. There's Lithium Valley, which is in a very poor community that fits upon some of the most valuing lifthium in the world, and thinking about how do we extract that lithium in a way that's randular friendly, but how do you also make sure the community benefits from the wealth they sit on. So that's the question I think in California we need to continue to think about climate as as not just the excidential crisis it is, but to convince people, particularly folks and communities that defend on fossil fuels, that no economic freedom is also tied into sort of this new technology that this green economy. So I think we'll continue to lead the way and continue to think about ways to link folks, particularly folks who are usually left behind, to the jobs that this green economy transition will create.
Explain to us what it means to have Kamala Harris as our nomine and what your role will be here.
Oh my gosh. What it means to everyone is that we have a real fighting chance to feat Maga extreme father than twenty five Handmaidian's tail, Like, we actually have a real shot. We have someone who has been an attorney general, a district attorney, a US Senator, and a vice president. I know there's no one else in this country with that resume in terms of those positions. Like she's unique, She's Beyonce says, she's one of one. And I'm excited about the enthusiasm that's been shown for a candidacy. We have someone who's going to be full throated and her support of freedoms and fundamental freedoms, including reproductive freedom, including the rights to gain abortion. We have someone, like she says, who has prosecuted sex perals, who has prosecuted frauds, who has prosecuted shooters, who has prosecuted scammers, like that's her whole career and no one behold, that's literally who she's running again. So I mean, it's not what it's come out for us, but I'm excited. And then not to mention that she'll be our first woman president, like what, Like, I think it's right, it's a huge opportunity. So I'm excited, and I think my job, everyone's job, is to be not just cheerleaders, but footsoldiers to correct the record because, like I said earlier, because she looks different than any of the president we've had, because she's had this different experiences than any other president we've had, she wants to get attacked mercilessly yea, barely and falsely, so we have to correct the falsehood. It's like, no, she did not just no one that can sleep away to be a vice president senator. It's the most ridiculous argument of her I'm like, how what, But.
Let's talk about this for a second, because QOP house leader urges members please stop making race comments about Harris Discuss.
Well, they can't help themselves, right when the head your party is a racist, what can you do? And they can't attack her record, so they have to go. And I think that's what the contrast of this racist so important, because she'll appear to our better angels, like we believe in law and morder, like no one's the law, we believe in freedom. They're gonna appeal to like these racist, evil demons out under our country for so long they want to pull us backwards to a time where being black, or being women, or being Asian was this qualifying for leadership. But that's not the day we're in anymore. So, I mean the GOP could say that thing, but in the next day you have I'm the vice president giving the speech saying she's done nothing but collect the government check for twenty years, trying to dog whistle the welfare queen tropes. I mean, they'll they'll say it, and I think one day the GOP could get there. But I think it's very clear this is a party that's incredibly racist, not just against black people, but against Muslim people, against immigrants, of all times, like they is not there are a party on once to take us back to a time where if you weren't a Christian, straight white men, you did not matter, you had no rights, and this country wasn't for you. And I think we're all in the agreements saying we're not going back there. We don't want to go there. That's dystopia, that's a I can and that's not the country we are or are going to be in the future. Right.
No, And I think that it's really incredible that Republicans made a decision when they ran with Trump that they were going to embrace the racist part of their base. That was the decision. They decided that there were enough racists to get Donald Trump elected. So now they are running against a black woman, and that is where we are, right, I mean, is that sort of what happened? Yeah?
And I love the contrast because I'm just someone I like things to be very clear, and in this case, it's very clear, like what type of country do we want to be? In the contrast that we started, I forgot to mention that Donald Trump is literally the oldest presidential nominee we've ever had. Someone who confuses Nazy Lowci with Nikki Haley and doesn't know the vice president's last name. Like this is so ridiculous and so grotesque the contrast that I get it will go to show who we are. And I just not just optimist. I've spent so much time with folks, so I think the vast majority of folks seeing Donald Trump for who he is, as c. J. D. Vash for who they are, and understand that they work for no one but themselves and Elon Musk and Peter Field.
I mean, it's just an incredible time to be alive, right, I mean, you got, you know, the idea that they are saying that our vice president slept her way to the top when Donald Trump had to pay off a porn star and a playmate because he had an affair with the porn star right after his third wife had delivered his fifth child. Right, so we're going to bring a promiscuity here as an issue. It's pretty incredible. And I don't know that that is the play. But more importantly, and I think it's so important and interesting, is that you do have as vice president who has been a sex crimes prosecutor.
Yeah.
Right, hard to imagine a more perfect person to take on Donald Trump.
And I think I was reflect when you were speaking about Like when I was mayor of Stockton, I had three Republicans on my city council and the vast majority of them where like Trump is Ibhorn, it's not what we stand for. So I think even like most good Republicans see like we don't want a sex criminal. He was just in the Epstein files and there.
Are numerous pictures of him with Epstein.
This is not like a regular bad person. This person represents the worst of like excess in our society, like the worst of what we could be. And he's just at the rally when he was praising authoritatian leaders as strong, be able to get things done, like this is bad news and nothing to played with. And I think Molly would get you from me is that we've seen this before. We saw this in twenty sixteen to twenty twenty and I was a mayor then. I remember having the hustle with other marriage or in COVID that the kids trust what was coming out of the federal government where we were like we were literally trying to procure our own supplies. Yeah, like it was wild times. I remember having to talk to like immigrant communities and going to the mosque and going to the Catholic churches because by my immigrant community, my Muslim community were terrified about what his election meant for them. I remember talking to gay kids and then the Transdell people my first month was mayor, because they were terrified about what would have like. I just remember the reign of terror and not to mention the economy always collapsing, the two twenty dollars and tax cuts to the rich, and that was the best we would get from him. Because now he's unhinged. Now he's like the loss of them fighting me. Now the Supreme Court has said he could do whatever he wants, so I shuddered to think what giving him the keys to the whitouse again would mean for our country. So I'm fleishing it and talking a lot, but I'm just past it.
Are black men as excited as black women and all women.
I was on the call, yes, said the black men for Harris.
Callus, yes, please talk about that, four five thousand of us, And we were adding it that we were at least.
For the match where our sisters raised because we are all in for Vice President Harris, because we we all not not because you're the woman's because as the leader, but then also as a black woman, we know sort of we're going to be where we were, whether for our grandmas, our moms, our aunties, our wives, our partners. So we are fired up and I think I've been excited, Joe. I was talking to my good friend Shannon Wats today about how white women are organizing for Vice President Harris because I know in twenty sixteen fifty three percent but for Trump, and I'm sure that number will be reversed to the extreme with Vice President Harris, and I'm looking forward to that. To your point about all communities organized around Kamal heiras, but do not believe the lies. Not believed Tim Scott are and Ben Carson and Byron Daniels maybe the two other black people up against they have Cannie Olans, black folks, black men. We support Vice President Harris not because she's black, but because our policies speak to improving our experiences, and the fact that she's black is added. Plus I think most people almost supported her for those reasons as well.
Thank you, Thank you, Michael Tubbs. You are great. I hope you'll come back, and I.
Hope you win anytime. Michael Tubbs FORCA dot Com for this all.
Yes, Dubbs.
Stephen Vladdock is a CNN contributor and author of The Shadow.
Dott Welcome to Fast Politics. Welcome back, Steven, Thank you, thanks for having me. I was excited to have you because I feel like you've sort of been on to the nefariousness of the Supreme Court for a long time, and you wrote a book about the Shadow Docket, which was this sort of thing they were doing to pull the wool over the American people's eyes even before they became so radicalized. I mean, is that a fair assessment? And if not, tell me why. I mean, I think it's it's fair.
I think it's it's a little bit sort of a cynical view of my view, But you know, I mean, I've been trying for a long time before trying to persuade everyone that there's something rotten in Denmark, I've at least been trying to change how we talk about the Court because I think we are so conditioned to viewing the Court as just the sum of its big decisions, and the reality is it is a lot more than that. And the more that we talk about the Court as an institution, the more we look at it holistically, I actually get the more trouble we see, and the more that we can actually find problems that are not just Dobbs bad Bruin bad, and that are more about, you know, the sort of the shift in institutional relationships right between the Court and every other institution in government.
And no place is that shift more apparent than Chevron, don't you agree?
Yeah?
I would say Chevron and the whole suite of administrative law cases the Court headed down this term. I mean, I think you know what folks should understand about these cases is they reflect for better or for worse? I would say for worse, but certainly, just as a matter of fact, a massive transfer of power away from executive branch agencies, away from Congress and to courts, and to courts who are now going to have much more power to decide for themselves what agency actions are appropriate in which ones aren't. Much more power after the Ohio versus EPA decision to decide whether the agency you know, dotted the eyes and frosts the t's in just the right way. It really is all about power all the way down.
Explain to us about Ohio versus EPI.
So this was actually, I think the administrative law case that got the least attention out of the court this term.
So, and it's an important case, which is why I want to talk about it.
So, the buy An administration and basically had put out these ozone pollution regulations. And the idea is that, you know, the EPA regulates ozone pollution in upwind states on the theory that downwind states can't do it themselves. If unit state then receives a lot of pollution from another state, that's why we need the federal government. And so a bunch of states and a bunch of companies had challenged the so called good neighbor ozone pollution rule, and before the lower courts could even resolve that challenge, the states and the challengers went to the Supreme Court for a form of emergency relief. And what the court did in Why versus EPA is they branded that relief molly based on a remarkably creative, you might even say disingenuous reading of exactly how the EPA went about adopting on this rule. What's really striking about this case is Justice Barrett actually wrote the descent on behalf of herself and the three Democratic appointees, and her descent is just a brutal takedown of Justice Gorsuch's majority opinion because Grossive basically holds the EPA to a standard that's impossible to meet, says they didn't do things that they did, and just sort of nit picks his way all the way home in a way that's going to push agencies in the future. I think to be even more wary about these kinds of rules, because if courts can strike them down based on this kind of invented rationale, you know why bother so.
Explain that to us a little bit. The EPA case in the descent of Amy Cony Barrett, who is I want to say, like the one Trump pick who has been again, this has largely been true in oral arguments, though the EPA case is a good example of her. She's largely been. You can tell she's not buying this incredible hypocrisy the way the other two guys are just sort of falling in line except when it comes to Native Americans and corsage. But what is the sort of fake reason for this case and how does it run contrary to the others that they decide sure hypocritical.
The argument that the challengers had brought was that, you know, the agency basically couldn't adopt a national rule until it gave the states a chance to adopt their own rules. That's not what the Supreme Court focused on. The Supreme Court because that argument was such transparent nonsense. The Supreme Court focused on the idea that when the EPA engaged in what's called notice and comment rulemaking, and this is a pretty standard practice when an agency says, hey, public, we're considering a rule that's going to do this. We are inviting your feedback so that we can make sure we've accounted for all of the things that perhaps we haven't thought about in formulating this rule. That's the typical sort of noise and comment process. And the basic gist of the majority opinion is that the EPA didn't do a good enough job of responding to the thousands of public comments that it received about the proposed good Neighbor rule. And only part of why that's such nonsense, as Justice Barrett point out in her dessentate, is one, the EPA actually did a pretty good job of responding to the public comments. But two, I mean in the posture of this case where it hadn't even gone through the lower courts yet, where there hasn't been fact binding you know, for the Supreme Court to sort of jump over and say, we are in the best position to decide exactly whether the DPA brushed its teeth correctly. You know, bespeaks a kind of judicial second guessum of agencies that goes way beyond the demise of Chevron, that goes way beyond how agencies interpret statutes and really gets all the way into the nitty gritty of everyday agency bureaucracy and agency processes. That really opens the door, molly to a new generation of challenges. I don't like what this agency did, so I'm going to find one technical, you know box they didn't check correctly as a way of throwing out the whole thing.
Yeah, that's really part of the situation here. So because I think of Chevron and the immunity decision to be more and again, you know, they came out on July first, large so that the Supreme Court wouldn't have to deal with any push back, right, you know, they do this before they go on vacation, because why not. But they are largely even though they're not about the same thing. Right, Chevron is about trying to dismantle federal agencies. Community is about Donald Trump getting away with it. They are ultimately sort of tied. And I'm hoping you could talk about these two decisions, which are both earth chattering, explained to us what they both are, and sort of explain it feels like they're laying the groundwork for something.
Yeah, I mean, I think they're both basically molly about the same idea, which is, you know, sort of who's going to have the last say about the way the law ought to be in this country, And they both end up in the same place, which is the courts. So, you know, the Trump Community case, I mean, it's been portrayed in a lot of circles as this massive affirmation of executive power, right sort of given the president more and more power to act with impunity. And I think that's true to a degree. But there are so many questions that the Trump Community decision raises about where the relevant lines are, you know, exactly which powers that the president has are, in the words of the Supreme Court, conclusive and preclusive, so his core powers, like where does that stop? You know, where's the line between official acts and unofficial acts? And you know, Molly, those are questions that are ultimately going to have to be answered by courts. You know, it's not hard to imagine that course might answer those questions differently dependent upon how much they like or dislike the current president. I think that's the same thing about the Chevron case. You know, when the court says, ultimately it's going to be up to the courts and not the agency to decide what is the best interpretation of an ambiguous statute, right, that's not necessarily fatal to what the agency is doing. It's just giving them the courts of veto. And so it's basically saying, you know, the courts will decide if they like a policy, just like the courts will decide if they think a president has crossed the line. It's just everything is about, you know, the court doing what it wants when it wants, and had been the ultimate power to decide what everybody else in our system is allowed to do.
It's such a weird moment. Well, I know it's not Supreme Court talk, but I would love to talk about the a Leen Cannon weareness. Can you talk about that sure.
I mean, so, you know, the headline here is that Judge Cannon throughout the classified Documents prosecution in Florida on the ground that Jack Smith had not been properly appointed by Attorney General Garland. And the problem, well, there are many problems with this argument. The big problem with this argument is that there are decades of precedent to the contrary where courts have considered similar challenges to how special councils and special prosecutors in the Dustice Department are appointed. Courts have rejected those challenges. Most recently, the DC Circuit, you know, the very powerful appeals court in Washington, rejected a very similar challenge to the appointment of ben special counsel Robert Muller in twenty nineteen. It really is, malli a very very strained reading of the relevant statutes, and it's just a completely preposterous reading of the precedents. You know, the idea that the Attorney General doesn't have the power to appoint inferior prosecutors is rather belied by the one hundred and fifty four years that we've had a Justice Department. And you know, I think part of the problem here is that the argument sounds sort of superficially plausible to folks who were already inclined to believe that everything Jack Smith does is illegitimate. But if you actually peel away the layers and look at the relevant statutes and look at the constitutional law on the subject, you know, it's pretty clear that this appointment was perfectly kosher. We're back in the space of really sort of right wing Trump appointed judges handled down rulings that really just sort of smack of a judge who decided what they wanted the outcome to be first, and then figured out how to rationalize a second right.
And that is in this same vein as the Trump Supreme Court. Right, you have results you want, and you will twist a lot to get at them.
I mean, I think that that is, unfortunately a charge that can be leveled against. Yes, a lot of what the Supreme Court does. I wouldn't say everagething.
No, they had a few weirdly not terrible decisions, but.
Yes, I mean, I think you know, the whole sort of what is supposed to separate judges from politicians in our system is the idea that judges are following ostensibly neutral legal principles and that those neutral principles are going to lead them to results that sometimes are actually inconsistent with their political preferences. And you know, this gets to me at what one is I think really the biggest indictment of both of the big Trump decisions from the Supreme Court this term, not just the immunitficase, but also the Colorado ballot access case, where you have justices who purport to be staunch originalists, you know, who say that like, we believe that this is the one true way to interpret the Constitution, because we believe that this is the only objective method through which you can really sort of obtain a particular or singular, you know, quote true unquote result. And you know what you have in book the Colorado case and in the Troubamility case is judges who purport to be originalists doing profoundly unriginalist things where originalism is nowhere to be found, where the discussions are very consequentialist in their approaches. And Molly, that's weird for people like me because I am a bit of a consequentialist, Like I have less trouble with the idea that the Court should be thinking about the consequences of its decisions. But these are justices historically who have taken exactly the opposite approach, and so it looks and smacks like hypocrisy.
Yeah, smacks like it does certainly seem very hypocritical a lot of what they're doing. Can you explain a little bit about this textualism argument, just for the people who are not one hundred cases deep in this cluster book, Explain to us what originalism is. Is it different than textualism. I've heard them both used to describe the same thing. And also just what to pivot is from conservatives in previous Supreme courts.
Sure, I mean so. Textualism is basically the idea that all things being equal, when the text of a statute or the text of the constitution is clear, that's the answer. And there's there's no matter how strong the policy arguments might be for a different result, no matter how strong the contextual arguments might be, you go with the text. Originalism is slightly different, right. Originals is the idea that one of the ways of resolving what unclear text means is to look at how it was understood at the time the test was adopted. So, you know, Molly, the Constitution says the president has to be at least thirty five years old. That text is clear, right, No one seriously argues that that's thirty five adjusted for life expectancies, right, versus constution says the IFM prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, well what makes punishment cruel and unusual? And originalists would say we should look at how those words were understood at the time that the Constitution was adopted, or at the time that that lianguage in particular was agreed to. So in the Eighth Amendment context at seventeen ninety one in the you know, in the Colorado ballot case, that means looking at when seption three of the fourteenth Amendment was adopted in eighteen sixty eight. And you know, if you actually look at the context of the history, at the discussions around section three in the eighteen sixties, it's pretty clear that folks understood that it could apply to people running for the presidency, That both understood that states could decide for themselves who could could not run for office. And you know, the Supreme Court in saying, actually that's not true. States can't do that, Molly didn't actually try to argue that that's because of what the original understanding requires. The court sort of ran away from the original understanding. And you know, I have no problem with the Court taking a more pluralistic approach to the Constitution in the abstract. The problem comes from when you have a cohort of justices who insist that they're not doing it, Matt, and who rely upon what they claim originalism demands in cases like Bruin about guns or in the administraty of law cases and say, I was thinking about Bruin.
That was what I was thinking about, right, Can you just explain the whole point of Bruin? Was that? Just explain that the sort of one line on Bruin the gun's case.
Yeah.
So Bruin is the twenty twenty two decision where the Court said that in order for a gun control law to pass constitutional scrutiny to survive a Second Amendment challenge, the government that wrote that law has to find some analog to that restriction that was on the books at the time the Second Amendment was adopted in seventeen ninety one, or at least at the time that it was applied to the States in eighteen sixty eight. And so this has led, as you know, Molly, to this crazy effort to basically try to analogize, you know, laws that for example, prohibit gun possession by those subjects of domestic violence restraining orders to you know, a period where domestic violence wasn't a legal category at all.
What happened with Bruin was that they, excuse my friend, fucked themselves. And so when he came down, which was people commit to best ballence? Should they have guns? Perhaps they should? They had to clean up on Aisle Supreme Court, right, yeah, And I think the problem that cuts across all of this is you cannot in one breath say we have to hand down this massively.
Controversial rule because originalism forces us to, and then in the other breath say, oh, but we only apply originalism sometimes, right, right now. That's the real disconnect here is having justices who purport to be bound to follow the originalist result in all cases selectively decide and when to follow the originalist result. And then there's the sort of the secondary point that they can't even all agree on what originalism is because.
When you're making stuff up, it's hard to follow.
Right, That's exactly right. And so you know, for people like me, listen, I mean that huge constitional law. I would never try to tell my students that the original understanding of a provision is irrelevant. Right, The question is should it be dispositive? And you know, I think the problem is that it's really really unpersuasive to have the position that it's dispositive in one set of cases and not in another without a very very coherent explanation for what that line.
Is right exactly. When you're making shit up, you should be consistent, or.
At least you should be consistent about when you get to make it.
Up right exactly. But I'm wondering if you can talk about where you see this Supreme Court going next year.
I think it really depends on the election. I mean, hat, I know that's such a trite answer in our current circumstances.
As a constitutional law professor, you must feel like this is insane because that is not what the Supreme Court is supposed to be at all.
Right, Well, and it's worth putting the court in context. I mean, one of my real goals, as we said at the top, was it's to change how we talk about the court. I mean, the Court decided only fifty nine cases this term, that's actually way down. Historically, the Court has not been decided this few cases since eighteen sixty four. It just feels like the Court is constantly you know, in our lives because the cases the justices are picking to decide are all these massive, high profile, socially or politically or culturally divisive disputes versus the more technical, mundane stuff that historically it has been where the court builds its credibility. So you know, what happens next year? I mean, I think in a world in which you have if it is Vice President Harris, who is the president next year, I think it's probably more of the same with in prison calls to reform the court, as the Court continues to stand, you know, athwart the sort of the democratic political agenda, you know, Molly. In a world in which Trump wins, I mean, I think folks have not quite prepared themselves for the specter of a second Trump term where the Court is actually pushing a back against him and he's ignoring it.
Right, That will be crazy if that happens. I mean, I could see that happening, but it will be crazy.
I mean we had a flashpoint for this. I mean, so in January in a case that got very little attention, there was this five four Supreme Court ruling that allows the Biden administration to keep removing razor wire that Greg Abbott had placed along the US Mexico border and Molly. Within like twelve hours of that ruling, Chip Roy is on national television telling Abbot to defy the court. You know, folks are so critical of the court right now for reasons I think are mostly understandable that I think they haven't stealed themselves for the possibility that the story of a second Trump term is going to be Trump's, you know, resistance to the court, even as I think the Court would be inclined to push back against at least some of the more excessive things he might do. So two very very different futures depending upon what happens this November insanity.
Thank you, Thank you, Steve, and I hope you will come back.
I love it, always great to talk to you.
No moment full.
My moment of fuckory is Today FBI Director Ray testified on Trump's injury from the assassination attempt. There's some question as to whether or not it's a bullet or shrapnel.
I am totally unsurprised by that, Molly, And look, I have taken to referring to this not as an assassination attempt, but as an attempted murder, because this kid was a broken brained, sorry, sick little guy. And I mean that in the most sympathetic way to people with profound mental illnesses, which he clearly had. This was not motivated by wokeness or by George Soros. My favorite fuckery this week, Molly, is Trump chicken shitting out on the debates because Trump is now like, we don't know if she will even be the nominee. I'm like, no, bitch, she won't be the nominee. And they're pretending like there's some uncertainty here, and there's no uncertainty here, folks. There's no uncertainty here at all. She's going to be the nominee. And Donald Trump and Stephen Chung and Jason Miller and all these other idiots can tweet all they want. It doesn't change the fact that Donald Trump is hiding like a little bitch. He's running away. What that's it? You got my chicken noise? Now you've heard heard it.
Thank you, Rick Wilson, Thanks Molly.
I'll talk to you soon.
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.
