Fast Politics with Molly Jong-FastThe Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein examines the odds of Trump’s unpopular policies leading to his midterm demise. Author Jason Stanley details what he sees beneath the veil of Trump’s authoritarian moves. Plus, we have a bonus from our YouTube channel where Molly debates Democratic strategist James Carville on how Democrats should fight against MAGA’s agenda.
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 President Trump has revoked Biden's children's Secret Service production. We have a great show for you today, the Atlantics. Ron Brownstein stops by to talk about how Trump's unpopular policies could lead to a poor midterms Republicans. Then we'll talk to author and academic Jason Stanley about what he sees under the veil of Trump's authoritarian moves. Plus, we have a bonus from our YouTube channel where I Fight Fight Fight with Democratic strategist James Carvell on how Democrats fight and win.
But first the news, Somalie, there's some friends of the show that have taken over the FBI. One's name is Bingo von Bongo Dan Maongino, and the other's name is Cash Patel. It sounds like things are going over in those parts. According to the New York.
Times, Yeah, you know worth reading this piece in the New York Times. With the arrival of Bongino, there was an article yesterday or this morning about how Cash Battel has been spending a lot of time at the FBI going to fights in Las Vegas. He plans to split half his time between Las Vegas and Virginia. He is definitely spending a lot of time just sort of enjoying government work as an opportunity to, you know, not have to hustle so hard. Again, what is interesting about that piece in the Times is that it talks about this quote that the former head of the FBI used to use, which was, are you a workhorse or are you a show horse? It certainly seems as if mister Patel is more on the show horse side of the leisure there.
That's sounds right to me. So I hate to discuss something that's so slippery slope, but it really seems like this is one of those cases where a slippery slope argument is very pertinent, which is that Elon Musk's Doze just keeps on inching a little bit further than they should every single week. And now they've seized an independent nonprofit.
So the US Institute of Peace is not a federal agency or located in a federal building, but for whatever reason, Doge used the police to take it over. Police in private security to forcedly take over the US Institute of Peace. It's an independent nonprofit founded by Congress, It has a president and its board was fired last week by the Trump administration. The Appociated Press reported that DOGE workers on Monday had law enforcement escort them into the USIP, which is not located in a federal building, after being denied access. DOJ came into the building. Again, this is a wild story for any number of reasons, the illegality, the strangeness, and also why they're so set on getting into every bit of the federal government. DOAGE came into the building. They're inside the building, they're bringing the FBI, and they've brought a bunch of DC police. A USIP lawyer, Sophie Lindhall the New York Times. She said, what happened today is an illegal takeover by elements of the executive brands of a private nonprofit. You can't do that. It's very clear their desire part of the administration to dismantle a lot of what we call foreign assistance. But again sort of baffling as to why if it's not, if this is not government fraud, waste and abuse, then what are we doing here. The privately operated USIP works to maintain US diplomacy abroad, and as staff was doing all they could to emphasize that before the DoD break in. I can't imagine how our work could align more perfectly with the goals he has outlined keeping us out of four wars, which saves money, ultimately resolving conflicts before they drag us into these kind of conflicts. Mooset noted, Musk seems to disagree. Yeah, correct, fun stuff. The party never ends in Dogtown, Sabaia. The other night, one of Trump's late night truths, he decided that Biden using an auto pen for pardons means they're void, so that the January sixth committee can be prosecuted by him. I have bad news for all of the January sixth people. He pardoned that the autopen was also used there. So I'm really excited about this new precedent that I'm sure is going to be held to both sides. So Kinsinger, as a response to this, said, stop pretending like you're tough. Trump declared Sunday that many of Piden's pardons, which were just talking about we're autopend and therefore not valid. Again, this is so flimsy. Kinseger was told Jake Tapper, first of all, I'm trying to figure out what he's trying to distract from, because that's what all this is always a distraction to get people's attention. Sounds like Kenzinger knows what's going on here, and then he said or maybe he feels like he hasn't gotten enough attention. But look, Jake, it's like, bring it on, and he's right. The Oversight Project, a branch of the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, cast out on social media this month over the validity of documents that it claimed Biden had signed electronically. This is completely silly and totally nutty. While many conservatives argue that Biden's partons are invaluable, are invalid if an autopen was used, Obama used autopens, Trump used auto pens. Very stupid and makes no sense. Of course they'll try it.
So in good news, the Trump Anddministration, for once, is actually obeying a judge and is moving to reinstate twenty four thousand federal workers after judges orders.
Yeah, elon mush It turns out what you do at Twitter, you can't just do that in the federal government. Trump administration has taken a step to reinstate thousands of probationary workers by the way, the whole idea of firing all these probationary workers. You can be in a probationary period when you've just been elevated, when you've just had a promotion. Like the whole idea that somehow being in a probationary period would make you someone who should be fired is a fallacy. And you know this was done in such a slapshot way. No one is saying you shouldn't cut fraud, waste and abuse. We're just saying that what Elon says is fraud, waste, and abuse is just things he doesn't like. So that is I think an important data point here. I think a lot of the people will come back, a lot of them are needed. And again, this is just cleaning up a mass that Trump World created itself, and we'll see more of that over the coming years.
All right.
Ron Brownstein is a senior political analyst for CNN and a senior editor at The Atlantic. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Ron Brownstein, a.
Molly good to be here.
I just think of you as like very smart and also sort of you know what the framework is supposed to look like, so you can tell me how fucked up we are. Right now.
Well, look, I think from you know, we're looking at a policy and legal point of view, we are at the outer edge of the challenges to the rule of law that people anticipated under Trump. You know, maybe we're beyond the outer edge.
With the seemingly.
Open defiance of a federal court order on these deportations, the detaining of a graduate student with a green card because of what he said, the targeting of law firms, the pardoning of the viol on January sixth rioters, half a dozen other things we could list. The challenge to the rule of law as we have understood it, I think is pretty sustained and serious and deep. But the likelihood is that that's not where the political fate of the Trump administration is going to be settled. You know, it's going to be I think, on the same kitchen table concerns that got him elected. And as I wrote last week, while the economy was his most consistent and probably his greatest first term strength, in his second term, it is looking very quickly to be his most conspicuous political vulnerability.
So let's talk about that. Because in Trump one point zero, he did the tax cut, he juiced the economy, and then he did the tariffs right, so it was very juiced up economy tariffs Trump two point zero. He doesn't seem to care about the dow anymore, right, I mean all the sort of guardrails that we remember from Trump one point zero, mad about the daw grown up in the in the White House, saying you can't just do willie nilly tariff's all that's over.
Right, you.
No, It's really interesting. I wrote a piece in the Fall I Guess Winner after the election saying that, as you just noted, almost all of the constraints that limited Trump in his first term would not be there in his second term. He doesn't have those voices from other parts of the party inside the administration telling him, eh, maybe you shouldn't do this. He doesn't have McConnell and Ryan, who are much more skeptical of him than Thune and Johnson. He doesn't have the Supreme Court that existed then in twenty seventeen, and I wrote that this would not be an unmitigated blessing for him or the Republican Party because Trump, unbound, you know, goes to extremes that the country may not want to follow. And after I wrote that, a very senior official from an earlier Democratic administration called me up and to say, you know, I agree with everything you said, except you missed one thing that was still going to constrain Trump. The Dow, the stock market.
Well we all thought that because of Trump one point. Now yeah, yeah.
So now I think, you know, as on the legal front, on the economic front, you are getting more of Trump unfiltered, which is not an unmitigated blessing, as I said, for him or for the Republican Party. You know, Trump has always talked about tariffs out of both sides of his mouth, but I think one of them is what he really believes he and particularly as defenders, you know, like the Treasury Secretary in the Commerce secretary, I will say the tariff threats are a brilliant negotiating tool. They how we break other countries to our will on whatever we're worried about. But you know, most of the time Trump also says tariffs are good in themselves, right, that will lead to this reshoring of American manufacturing might and he doesn't present them at all, And they will raise so much revenue that you can cut taxes on rich people even more, even though they are regressive.
As we talk about.
I think the latter is what he really believes. He keeps threatening these giant tariffs and then pulling back when the other countries give him even the best Garis fig Leaf to do so, and all the people in his administration where leary of tarots go. You know, he stepped back from the brink again, but sooner or later he is going to jump over the brink, because that is what he really wants to do deep down. I don't think Trump views tariffs as a negotiating tactic. I think he views them as a good in themselves. He wants to impose them and in ways we can discuss I think is by the way, I think I notice one thing before, jentlemen. His promotion of tariffs has oddly placed him in the same position on the economy as Joe Biden, where he is basically arguing that his agenda will lead to a lot of domestic investment and a lot more manufacturing jobs. But I think that like Biden, Trump is faded to discover a very hard lesson jobs are not in antidote to prices when people are learned about their cost of living.
Right, No, and I agree, and I see the same thing, the exact same thing you're talking about with Chips and Science. Right. Trump is obviously speaking to this thing which Biden did too, which is the middle of the country wants its jobs back. It wants its jobs from the nineteen seventies and the nineteen fifties back. And so while Biden had Chips and Science, which brought some jobs back, but again, you know, it's a real uphill climb to bring back manufacturing of the sort that we have not had in this country in fifty years. Right, I mean, that's what we're talking about doing. That is the goal.
As they used to say on CBS, Let's go to the videotape. Right, So Biden says, Okay, I'm going to bring back manufacturing with these subsidies under the Chips Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, any infrastructure bill to promote more domestic manufacturing. It worked to a large extent. He got over one trillion dollars of private sector investment, and over his four years from January of twenty twenty one to December of twenty twenty four, I happened to have this right here. He freased the total number of manufacturing jobs from twelve point one million to about twelve point eight million. At the same time, he added about a million more construction jobs to build all of these plants that Intel was opening in Ohio. Our car companies were opening in North Carolina, on Alabama and Georgia mostly read right to work states. But that's a good issue.
So now here.
Comes Trump and says, I don't want to do any of those subsidies. But basically I have a different means towards the same end. I'm going to put up these big tariff walls, and I'm going to encourage companies to build new factories in the US, and I'm going to restore manufacturing jobs. So Joe Biden, as I said, I think was pretty darn successful at promoting these core blue collar jobs of manufacturing construction. One point six million more jobs combined in those two fields when he was done than when he started. And guess what he found out in twenty twenty four, It did not matter to the vast majority of Americans who don't work in construction or manufacturing.
At best.
There are twenty million people who work in construction and manufacturing. A lot more people buy eggs every week, hey for gas every week, And I think the bitter lesson for Biden and Harris, and Harris recognized this was that jobs is not an antidote to.
Prices, as I said.
And I think Trump is rumbling down the same track where you know, if you look at polling, Americans overwhelmingly say that prices are the principal metric by which they're judging the health of the economy, not jobs. Even if you build more manufacturing plants in the Midwest, not that many people will ever work in them, as I said, twenty million, right. And then you know we have in polling somewhere around sixty percent of the country saying they do not believe Trump is focused on the biggest problems facing the nation. And as I wrote, his economic approval rating is now in many polls lower than it was in any point in his first top term, his disapproval rating higher than any point it was in his first term. And maybe most significantly, you know, if you look at CNBC Gallop CNN, never did his economic rating come in below his overall appropriating his economic rating, and his first one was always a floor pushing him up. Now routinely Gallup, CNN, NBC, Quinnipiac his economic approprating is below his overall appropriating. It is a headwind pushing him down, not you know, a sturdying force pushing him up.
So here we are right, we have Frump, unbound and unfettered. Right, he does not care about the markets, he doesn't care about the grown ups. He doesn't care. And then we have his approval rating. You know, he came in as much of a mandate as this guy has ever had. Finally, a Republican have won the popular vote. Congratulations to all who celebrate. And now here we are already just cratering his approval. The things that he has been popular for. He could solve the economy that's over. You got Vance being booed when he goes to hear music. You've got people protesting in the streets. It does not feel like the admin really cares. It seems like they are just as committed as ever. A going full doge creating.
Ring might be a little strong. I think crediting is strong. I think it's dipping. He's a little higher in most poles than where he was at this point in the first term, but lower than any other newly elected president. And the trajectory is clearly tore down. The number among Independence is quite bad consistently. I mean, and we're looking I tweeted maybe what three weeks ago that there were seven or eight poles in a row where his approbating among independence was at least ten points underwater. I mean, now we're looking at twenty five and thirty in NBC and CNN. So there is definitely anxiety, right.
And you invested a Trump going out saying no, we might have a recession, which is unprecedented for a president for any number of reasons, because you don't want a recession, and you don't want people saying we're going to have a recession. And when your people go out and say that, it tends to create a recession. It tends to be a self fulfilling prophecy.
Yeah.
Well, also the just the share uncertainty on the tariffs, and you know, and I said, eventually he's going to run through the play class window. He's not going to stop every time he's he's he is going to run through this window and impose significant tariffs and potentially slow down, you know, the economy substantially. But what I'm saying is, you know, in some ways Trump, unless he is serious about trying to undo the Constitution, in which case it wouldn't be a real election anyway. Trump is not going to face the voters again. What's more remarkable is that Republicans in Congress, who are going to face the voters in twenty six, you know, are showing no hesitation. Maybe a little on Doge here and there, but they are basically still running down this track and even toward what I think will be the defining political battle of twenty twenty five, which will be the effort to extend the tax cuts and tying that directly to cuts in federal spending, particularly on medicaid. As I've written, the Republicans haven't directly tied tax cuts and spending cuts since ninety five ninety six. Each of the subsequent tax cuts, the Bush ones and one and O three, the Trump tax cut in seventeen, that was sugar only, Molly. They only did the tax cuts, They kept the spending cuts years away. In fact, under Bush, they didn't push for them until Obama came into office. This is a replication instead of the Gingrich strategy in ninety five ninety six, where they're in one bill they are likely to say, Okay, we're going to cut taxes primarily for the rich, and we're going to cut programs primarily for the middle and working class Medicaid, ACA subs, and these other things like that. That's how Bill Clinton turned around his presidency by basically making that argument that Republicans were cutting programs that benefit you to fund tax cuts for their rich friends. We'll see, you know, right now, Republicans look thard their steaming toward you know, recreating that. We'll see if they kind of jump off the boat before it hits the falls and maybe try to dodge actually doing the cuts. But it's the congressional Republicans who will face the consequences here. And you know, while the Democratic image is very weak, I think it is weaker than at any point since before Bill Clinton. And that is a real issue for twenty twenty eight. It's probably not as big an issue for twenty twenty six, right.
Because you're running again something. That's what Tim Miller said to me the other day.
The critical variable of modern midterm elections is the president's appropriating. Over ninety percent of people who disapproved of Trump voted for Democrats in twenty eighteen. Nearly ninety percent of people who approved of him voted for Democrats in the House. In twenty eighteen, the ninety percent ratio held in virtually every major Senate race. If Trump's disapproval rating is at the fifty three level that CNN had last week, if that's what it is on election day in twenty twenty six, the odds are overwhelming that Democrats will take back the House. You know, the Republican image among voters in twenty fourteen and twenty ten wasn't really much better than Democrats. Now roughly thirty percent viewed them positively. In twenty ten and twenty fourteen, it didn't matter because people were casting a vote against the income and President. Tom Davis run the NRCC likes to say that in the midterm, voters usually now vote to put a check on the president, not to give him a blank check. And I still think that will be the controlling variable. I mean, not that the Democratic image problems are relevant. They are for twenty twenty eight especially, and they will probably hurt the party in purple areas that they're trying to contest in twenty twenty six, But overall, the key variable for Democrats is how popular Trump is and how effectively they can mobilize what is already there, which is public resistance to a lot of the things that he's doing.
So here's what I would say, and I think that's right. But my question is this, So Doade seems to be doing the thing that is the third rail in American politics saying we're going to cut all of this federal government staff, right, and they're saying to their base it's ways for ourn abuse, but they're really saying, we're just going to cut it because it's expensive and we want to have tax cuts for our rich friends. So what you're saying is that there's no historical precedent for doing this right. Every time there's been tax cuts, it's never been like, we are cutting federal services to give tax cuts to wealthy people.
Yeah, they did it in ninety five ninety six, they did. They tied it together the Gingrich Revolution. They passed the Reconciliation Bill that had large tax cuts and large cuts in spending, particularly block granting medicaid. That's how Clinton turned around his presence. I mean, he basically are you old enough to remember M two e two?
Yes?
M two e two was Clinton's mantra. It was Medicare medicaid, the environment, and education, and we are going to protect M to E two against the Republicans and their desire to cut them for their tax cuts. After the ninety four midterm, Clinton tried a lot of things to rebuild his standing with the public, and none of them worked. In the fall of ninety five, his approval was still way under fifty. Then he got into a fight with Gingrich over M two E two versus tax cuts, and his approval rating went back over fifty percent. He went past Dole in the polls. I mean, he never looked back. He won a pretty decisive reelection.
Because voters hate having their stuff taken.
Away and they don't like tax cuts for the rich. And when you put the two together, you know, it's like they used to say it, like it goes together like whiskey and second all that.
But does everyone know what second all is?
No, I don't think so, you know, second.
All to and all they were I'm actually too young to have done them, but they were like first generation Baally and so powerful that they were taking off the market.
Yeah, sadly, there you go. I mean, but that like, so, you know, tax cuts for wealthy people are not popular on their own spending. Cuts in programs that benefit the middle class, particularly healthcare programs, are not popular. Here's what I think is the risk, long term risk for Trump. Right now, voters believe he is largely slighting the problem, ignoring the problem that they elected him above all to solve inflation. The risk is that down the road they will view him as not so much ignoring inflation as compounding it. If the tariffs go into place, That's one prong. The other is if he pursues this budget fight that allows Democrats to say he is raising your healthcare costs to give tax cuts to his rich buddies and himself and to Elon, and he's imposing tarrifsts on you. Then you have a situation where not only do you swing voters think Trump kind of took his eye off the ball. They think he is actively, you know, making worse the problem they elected him to solve. And I think that would be a pretty dangerous place for Republicans to go into twenty six. You know, there are a lot of you know, look, the country's more polarized and locked in than it used to be. There are a lot of people who are deeply invested side of this fundamental cultural cold war civil war that we are living through. But the last ten percent of voters I think, are not really that invested in those issues. One lesson this election taught me is there are more people who are voting on current conditions than you might think given the polarization. And you know, we talk about how these are people who don't follow a lot of political news, but I'll tell you what, they are experts in their own lives, and if they don't feel their lives are getting better by twenty six, they are going to vote in a way that reflects that if they vote at all.
You're talking about these voters who like the woman in the Washington Post who heard that Trump was going to make IVF free and decided to vote for him and then lost their job. What percentage of the voter public do you think that.
Is a lot of the people who vote in presidential years and don't vote in the midterm would fall into that. I've talked to you about this before. You know, if you look at a variety of measures in exitpoles and the vote cast, is Trump to extreme? Is the authoritarian? Does he lacked the character to be president? Do you agree with mass deportation. Somewhere between fifteen and twenty percent of his voters gave him negative answers on all of those things and voted for him anyway because they thought he was he would be better for the economy. So that takes you to about ten percent of the electorate probably.
Since that fifteen million people, Yeah, roughly, that seems like a crazy high number.
I mean.
The thing that I was struck by when you're talking about this, which I have been wanting to talk about, but I feel like I have not had the opening, is this idea that there were people Trump got out who left the bottom of the ticket blank, people who didn't necessarily like him but still believed he'd be better for the economy. And if you think about this with sort of a low turnout, like if you look at twenty twenty, right had about twenty million less voters in twenty four, would you say, no?
I think it was No, It wasn't that many. I don't remember exactly, it was like five or seven.
So you really do see that there's like a there's that percentage that didn't turn out right, like Harris. Harris had gotten eighty one million, she would have won, right if she had gotten what Biden got in twenty twenty, she would have won.
One thing that David Shore argues that the Democratic data analyst and I think others have argued, is that the people who didn't turn out were very similar to the people who switched the Trump I mean, they were kind of lower income, lower from MEA. Voters were really unhappy with what they got out of the Biden administration. So they're not turning out was another reflection of the same dynamic that moved those other voters of Trump. And it's not clear at all if they did turn out, they would have stuck with the Democrats because they were the people who they lost on performance. The way I phrased it before is the shocking thing about this election was how normal it was. I mean, voters who were dissatisfied with the status quo voted for the opposition party candidate in the normal hydraulics of American politics, even though Trump is anything but a normal candidate. You know, sixty percent of the voters plus disapproved of Biden's performance, and eighty percent plus of those disapprovers voted for Trump. Seventy percent of people said the economy was in fair or poor shape, and seventy percent of those people voted for Trump. I mean, that's that's his vote. That's it. And all the reasons why Trump is not a normal candidate of which we are being reminded, you know, didn't matter as much to the last incremental voters as the thought that life was more affordable when he was president, and therefore they thought it would be more affordable again. Meanwhile, economists were warning all the way through that his second term agenda was more likely to accelerate than you know, control inflation. And now I think he faces that risk, you know, I mean, I think a lot of the things he is doing to disrupt government and to threaten the rule of law, you know, are going to matter to the people who turn out. Kind of people who turn out in twenty twenty six, no doubt about it. It's more college educated than overall. I think his numbers will decline among college white men and college white women Republican numbers in twenty six. But when you get back to twenty eight and this added pool of voters who just aren't that invested in that because they're really worried about just you know, keeping shoes on the kids' feat I think he's going to be judged on whether he delivered a better economy, you know, and right now people don't see that. They don't even see him trying. Really, you know, it's kind of a double whammy. And I said, the triple whammy would be if they think his agenda is actually making it worse.
Ron Brownstean, thank you, thank you. Jason Stanley is a professor at Yale University as well as the author of a recent hit history, How Fascist Rewrite the Past to Control the Future. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Chasing Stanley.
Great to be in conversation with you, Powis Molly.
Academic institutions under attack, Let's talk about it. Colombia is number one because the New York Post covers it. Right, It's like, clearly the Trump administration has learned about Colombia.
No, I don't think that's right. I think Tim Snyder, in a recent substock post, said that Colombia is number one, and this is going to be you know, this is intentionally ironic. Colombia is number one because it's located in New York City. It's most identified with cosmopolitan, leftist Jews. Twenty percent of its student population is Jewish. So you're taking down the most Jewish identified university in the country in the name supposedly of protecting Jewish students and faculty. The level of hypocrisy is amazing.
I think it's because it gets the most coverage in the New York Post. I'll tell you why. Then, You're Post owned by Rupert Murnock. Local newspaper covered the Columbia stuff a lot, partially because they knew it was like a really good issue for them, right. I am not convinced that actually the Judaism plays I mean, obviously Judaism plays a huge role here in the macro, but I'm not sure in the micro it does.
We're not disagreeing. I'm thinking it's an anti Semitic attack, and I think that's one thing to focus on. They're imitating Victor Bond's treatment of Central European University. They're showing Krussia University because they can. The pests are totally irrelevant. They just gave people an excuse. Notice that always says illegal protests. He doesn't say protests about what. So he knows that universities are where the democracy protests will occur. The just protests were anti war protests, so anti war protests. One of the largest identity groups in the protests at Yale were Jewish students, So you know this has nothing to do with Jewish students are protecting Jewish students and faculty. There's Jewish students and Jewish faculty on both sides. So it's just an excuse to crack down on universities. As JD. Vance said, the professors are the enemy, and it's juiced on by the mainstream media. The New York Times has spent a decade attacking universities for having too little free speech. You should allow racists, and now too much free speech. You can't allow criticism of Israel. So the New York Times, which is the media, has been attacking universities, and the Atlantic has been attacking universities. These two democratic institutions, the media and the universities should be allied. But the media has been just dupes for fascism, and so they've paved the road for what we see. In a sense, I'm like, why should I stand up for the media given what they've been doing to universities. So say more, well, the media completely handed Trump a bomb. Trump wants to destroy universities, every authoritarian wants to destroy universities. There are no liberal arts colleges in authoritarian countries, so one of the first things you do is attack the universities. The media has been creating a fake narrative about you know, anti black racists not allowed free speech, and then you know, and then turned around and was like, Okay, there's too much criticism of Israel, and all of this just handed fascism a weapon. And in moments you need democratic in institutions to ally with each other. The media is such a toxic enemy of universities at this point that it's a very difficult. We can't trust them. They've normalized this idea that universities are filled with dangerous pro Palestinian Marxists or what have you. And so it's a tricky time for democracy because at this time where all of our institutions are being attacked, the media has for ten years been part of this republican campaign against the universities.
So let's talk about this so you feel and again, I know those think pieces, and I know all of those Connor Freed or whatever his name is, writes.
Them, evens all a lot of conservative white people like during those pieces Basically, the theory of the case is that college professors are too liberal and their liberalism.
Is oppressive students, right, that's the idea, is that these students are being oppressed by these very liberal academic institutions, very liberal professors, and that this liberalism creates an atmosphere that is unsafe for conservatives.
Yes, that's the line. And then you know, so there's not enough free speech for conservatives, but at the same time, last year, suddenly, oh, there's too much free speech for people critical of Israel. So there's a kind of incoherence there. But if you so, first of all, the university is filled with anti woke white men. To give you an idea about how conservative the university is as an institution, my department hired its first black tenured faculty member last year. He started in twenty twenty four. So it's true we have one black faculty member, and that's a radical threat to Western civilization according to this lack But it's just an absurdity, and the evidence for it things like, oh, there are very few Trumphos in the academy. Well, guess what. The physics department is very few Trump supporters, The math department is very few Trump supporters. You're going to have to do affirmative action across STEM to get to ten percent of Trump supporters in engineering schools, maths department's physics department, maybe twenty percent. You know whatever. I'm not show the numbers, but they're tying their minuscule so has nothing to do with the humanities. The thing is is that this line and I said this, there's an Atlantic piece by Connor Friedsdorff.
I think all he writes about our college campuses exactly. And actually you sent me a piece he wrote where he was like, the reason I write about college campuses is go So.
The piece I sent you was in twenty nineteen, and he was responding to a tweet of mine saying, look, every fascist and far right authoritarian country in the world attacks universities for being too critical to left wing, too critical of the country. This right wing propaganda campaign paid for by.
The code playing into Yeah, playing into and what do you say?
He responded and said, oh, you.
Know, indignantly, very angry.
Yeah.
And also it was twenty nineteen, and in twenty nineteen people regarded me and my warnings about this as unhinged. They're like, of course, this isn't authoritarianism. Of course, there's no authoritarian attack on the university. So it was also meant to be kind of making fun of me, that piece. It was meant to be like, But now we see the authoritarian attack that the media, and it's not just Connor Friedsdorffer, it's Jonathan Hait and Greg Lukianoff and you know it's The Atlantic published all these concerned pieces and with Friedstofer and the New York Times and so they published tons and tons not just from the conservative columnists, but they invited other people to write about it. Just concern trolling that set up the universities. And now we have another. So Trump is always saying, echoing this exact campaign run by the mainstream media. He's always saying he's going to bring free speech to campus, right by a rest protester. So's it's tapping into that. It shows you that we've had a decade long right wing attack on universities that was sane, washed, as they say in the New York Times. And now now it's this delicate moment when you know the media is being attacked, and the media is going to be attacked, and the universities are going to be attacked. But why should we trust the media?
You and I are like, why should we trust the media? That's hey, that's me. One of the things as we talk about this that I wonder out loud is instead of talking about how bad everything is, and look, we'll agree to disagree on notitorial pages. Do I think that these editorials about the institutions of higher ed being filled with liberals are stupid? Yes? Do I agree with them? No? Do I think there are waste of time? Yes? Do I think that they may have opened the thought leadership door? Perhaps? Do I think that they are? Like? How powerful do I think they are? You know that crew? Again, there's a reason they go to war with the elites.
Right, the cultural elites. The literature on elites in sociology dates back a century or more, and a very central point in the literature on elites is there's different kinds of elites university professors and teachers and K through twelve teachers. Because they're also attacking them viciously, even harder.
Right, right, right?
They're not elites in the financial certainly not. I mean, the vast majority of professors are making you know, somewhere between twenty five K and sixty K no in an immense amount grading, you know, and that's just going to get worse. And words, it's a working class job except for a choice few. So these are not elites.
It's the illuminatis, right.
The illuminati. You know, you can hear ju in the background, right, it is the leftist Marxist which like hilarious because I am surrounded in the university. Thing about this campaign, the campaign against universities, is that you had a lot of college professors buying into it too, because for note, just because they're kind of center left or just centrists. That's the value party of university.
We've talked about this. We're talking about how do you protect universities from this authoritarian administration.
Yeah, so one thing to see, they've jumped on anti semitism. So one thing I'm trying to do in my communications is emphasized that when you attack universities, and it's the point Tim Snyder made in his piece. Tim Snyder said he's a historian and he's not aware ever of universities and free speech being attacked to benefit Jews. Those attacks are usually to attack Jewish people, and of course the university is one of the most Jewish institutions in America in life. We are devastating universities in the name of protecting Jewish people.
Right crazy. But so here's the question. If you wanted to create a ecosystem where you could protect the universities, wouldn't the first thing to set up a world where all these universities negotiate together, where you say, an attack on Columbia is the same as an attack on Yale is the same as an attack on Harvard. So talk me through how that would work.
Molly, brilliant placing you in command of that. The fear is palpable in universities. America the greatest university system in the world and will not be true in a few years. Everyone in the world who can afford it sends their kids to American universities if they can get in. That's not going to happen anymore. You can't have universities teach patriotic education because that won't attract the world. Why should someone from jermy comment and learn some ridiculous story about the United States. That's the greatest country in history. So we have to work together. Unfortunately, each university president, especially the new university presidents, they've been told by boards to dock their hats so other universities get hit and they don't get noticed. That is implicitly what they're saying, Molly, Now, so the strategy has to be to work together. Unfortunately, if you are university presidents saying, well, we're hoping to escape relatively unscathed by keeping our heads down and letting other universities get hit, that's the opposite of working together, and.
That ultimately is the problem. If we look at Columbia and sort of what's happened to them, they have acquiesced on each point, and Trump world has just kept going right.
Cap Man, the philosopher cap Man at Cornell, has a piece where she talks about domestic abuse in the attack on universities. She's saying that it's it's the same you know, you think you can placate your domestic abuser, but you cannot. It's the same logic going on. I said recently to a friend of mine, I said, wow, they're like holding billions of dollars of federal funding against us unless we do what they say. And she looked at me like I was an idiot and said, no, they're holding billions of dollars. They're gonna slash billions of dollars no matter what you say. They don't air at all. And so Columbia's administration is now an international embarrassment and will go down in history as for its cowardice.
But here's a question about Colombia. So what has happened now is they've they've lost four hundred million dollars in grants, right, so far A lot of these grants are for the medical school, right, I mean this is not even you know they have a big teaching hospital. It's pediatric cancer, it's autoimmune diseases, it's this, it's that it has nothing to do with woke anything, right, anything, nothing, And it's a lot of medicine stuff. Then we have other kind of forays into We don't know what the connection is between the university and what happened to Muhammad Khalil, right, Right do we know? We don't really know. We know he was the negotiator with the faculty. We know that ice showed up at his house. We know that he is now in a detention center in Louisiana, still not charged with anything.
Well, how can you charge him with anything? If they can charge Khalil with something, they can charge any of us because he is he is a green card, he is the same rights. So if they charge him with something, they can charge any of us.
I mean the question with Khalil is when does this end?
Right?
I mean, this is all opening the door to extra law full a new paradigm in American life that we go back to the red scare right where you can arrest people for thought crimes and bad opinions. I mean, that's what we're opening the door to.
Here, opening the door. The door's already open. This is going to be worse than the McCarthy era, probably already. You know where it's. I know your grandfather, Howard Fast was a hero of that era, and so you know you have a particular legacy and a role to play at this time, Molly, given your personal history. I spoke to the Michigan Faculty Senate on Friday with Isaac Camola, or the Assembly of the Senate University of Michigan, when it was out in an arbor's but he asked me and Isaac Camola and I to come speak. Isaac Camola is at Trinity College. He's a scholar, among other things of higher education, and his talk was about the relationship between the current moment and the McCarthy era, so a sort of deep dive into that, and he was pointing out similarities and differences. One difference he pointed out is that it's not this attack is not associated with one person what we've had. So back then you could humiliate McCarthy, Joseph McCarthy, and then you could gain action against the red scale, but now it's the right wing. The Kochs and other foundations started funding this attack on the universities in twenty fifteen, really with a lot of funding. That's when you started to see all these concerned all this concern trolling in the media. And so we've had ten years of that attack. We don't have people understanding and valuing what universities do like other countries would kill for Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia Michigan. And you know, we have the greatest universities in the world, and they produce an immense amount for the United States. And also they're symbols of our greatness. What else do we have that is as great is our universities.
I want to pause here for sent because I spend a lot of time interviewing Clay Risen from the New York Times, who just wrote a book about McCarthy, which my grandfather is documented in. We have been having this conversation for the last week actually about whether or not this is worse than McCarthy is. It's stupid conversation because it is is what it is, right, But we both have gotten very stuck on this idea. Is it worse than McCarthyism? Is it?
That's what a lot of people are talking about.
My hottest take is that actually it's still better than McCarthy because I know here's why. Because during McCarthyism, you didn't really have a free press. You had network television, but it was still really controlled by the government, and they could still say standard says, you can't put this on the air. There was a lot more government control of media. And now even though people don't read, you have infinite you know, areas for context.
But Molly, I already pre responded to you. What I said is the media has already saine washed the attack on the universities, and Times in the past had already stocked their opinion pages with the people who've done this sain washing. So who've done nothing but be dupes for fascism. So you know, the media is already committed to the line that the excuse is that the Trump regime is using to dismantle the universities. They're the ones who gave them the free speech thing and the anti Semitism thing, also McCarthyism, although it was directed against Jews of course. Right now I think is the worst time for American Jews in our history, not because of anti war protests and criticisms of Israel, but because we're being set off split.
Yeah, well we're also being split.
Well, it's not being split. Jews are always split, We're always split. It's we have never been this salient in American life. And the history books will look back and say, good, hook down. Never good to be this ailiate, to be responsible for the takedown of the American university systems. What are the history books going to say, we're being used?
Jason Stanley, you and I are going to talk more about this on the phone. Yes, my body so good. Appreciate you, thank.
You, I so appreciate you. Molly.
And now we have a special clip from our YouTube channel where I Fight Fight Fight with James Carvell about how Democrats can fight back against the mega agenda. Hello, friend, Now, so let's talk about you and I have a disagreement. So let's what I mean. I don't know that we disagree as much as we think we disagree.
Right, it's always generally that's the question that sometimes you fight over something and you stop and you think, wait a minute, it's not that big of a disagreement.
But let's but let's talk us through. You wrote a piece for the New York Times opinion page. It's now three weeks ago? Is it three weeks ago or three years ago?
Right?
Tell me what your thesis was.
My thesis is this that there's genuine anger in the party. Yeah, genuine frustration is genuine, and everybody wants to do something and do something. Now, clearly I want to do something. I want to stop this insanity. Is the best and most effective I can. But you gotta let events come to you, and they're coming to you fast.
Okay.
I mean the Schumer thinks everybody's and then when you kind of read what his thinking was, you can disagree with it, but it's not insane, right.
I think he made the wrong choice, but he did not have great choices.
Right, What we know is we have there's one objective and we know this and that is winning the election. And anything that you can do to increase your chances of winning the election is exactly what you do. There's no other principle in politics. You can't destroy these people anymore, and they're destroying himself right. And for the action now caucus, my question is what action that we want to do? Goddamn it we want Okay, what are we going to do? Well?
This is the big question.
So if you're like I am. I spoke to the House Democratic Caucus yesterday. There are times Comperence and Gold mag and they're talking about the split between the younger Democrats who want more aggressive things and the older Democrats does not abide by shut learn other people that are advising strategic patients. I guess let's just call it that to give it a word. And I think it's not so much young and old. People that live in districts that are twenty six percent Democratic have a different world viewed and people that live in a district that is two percent of representative district, that's two percent in favoring And if we're about winning the election, then we have to play to the plus or minus four cook PVI. We have to play to that people in states where we have elections coming up that we went. We can't play to a district that's you know, Central Los Angeles that we couldn't lose if we tried.
Okay, so I'm going to read you something from the chief of staff of my future husband. No, I'm just kidding. Governor of Illinois JB. Pritzker, his chief of staff. The fight going on in the Democratic Right Party right now is not between hard left left and moderate. It's between those who want to fight and those who want to cave and team fight stretches across all the ideological aspects of the party. Misread this at your own peril.
True or false, it's abundantly false.
Oh oh interesting.
Tell me why do you want to win or you don't want to win? The question is not do we fight or do we not fight? The question is do we win or not win? JB. Pritsker can't lose an election in Illinois. He would have a different view if it was Michigan, a different view if if it was made. You'd have a different view if it was North Carolina. When George Washington when the British landed at Long Island. You know what George Washington did, He would treating to Trenton. And you know what happened at Trenton treated the valley forge and ended up in Trenton and ended up went into war. So to the people who say we want to fight, great fight, How you don't have the votes. You can't pass gas. That's the consequence of losing an election. All right, get over it, dude. You're in a state that we can't lose. So you can send that out in all of the Democratic donors on the North side of Chicago.
Yeah, you're right, God damn it, you're right.
You know, tired of each goddamn fuzzy sitting around you don't know whether to you know, want to ask the scratch they watch?
We got to go out and get them.
How what right?
If you were Mitch McConnell and you were in this situation, what would you do? It's a thought experiment.
I say this jokingly. If I were miss McConnell, I was shot myself a long time ago, you know, right, But but but now there, if.
You were Mitch McConnell, you would have an opportunity.
What would you do again to the do something caucus?
Do what?
Well, then that's my question for you. What would Mitch McConnell do.
I don't know.
I mean, he's compromised himself on so many different occasions. He he did not go through with the peatment of Trump, which would have prevented Trump from running again right time and time. You know, he had to stand down for his caucus. I'm sure that Trump people don't care what mich Cone does whatever he wants.
Right, No, but my but the thought experiment here is, say you were you had the sheer cravenness of a Mitch McConnell, and you were in the leadership of the Democratic Party.
What would you do?
I mean, because we know that if these situations were reversed, Mitch McConnell would be gumming up the works like you can't believe it. I mean, think about Tommy Tuberville when he prevented all of those.
Do you think that that helped the Republicans? Well, that was Tommy Tulville, who Now we're going to take our cute from a guy who's got a fifty two IQ.
All right, seems generous, But I'm just saying, coming up the works. There's ways to do it.
How do you come them up?
Give me a way that you come up the work so we have that.
You come up the works, you do a talking filibuster for twenty four hours, and you make it so everybody can't go on vacation. To hear more of this conversation, please go over to YouTube and search for Molly Jong Fast Fast Politics, No Moment, Jesse.
Mai. So I've decided I'm going to send you a shocker here that you may not have seen for a moment of fuckery. The listeners may remember this woman on the right named Valentina Gomez, who once ran for Missouri secretary of State and has now decided to move to another state and run against Texas's Congressman Dan Crudshaw. And she's been trying to get some attention. But I think that this is actually the funniest campaign out of the year.
Let's hear exus.
It's time you find out what district I chose to represent you in Congress. I've taken down pedophiles, criminals, corrupt politicians, and now I'm coming for the Joe Biden of the Republican Party and when you got me into Congress, I will become the greatest stock traitor of all time. And the best thing about it is that I will be sharing every single one of my traits on XO so you can get rich with me, and also to piss off every member of Congress that makes money from privileged information.
They've been ticked tik.
Let's see how fast the Bank Congressional stock Trading or puts her limits Texas thirty first Congressional District.
Buckle up, because this time I'm.
Coming with a warchest of cash and crypto.
Oh Jesus, She's coming with a word chest of cash and crypto.
She ends the video with a picture of her with her automatic weapon and a cyber truck.
Oh yeah, I was hoping excellent, as one does.
You and I have pressured a lot of politicians that we don't think this stock trading should come through. Much like when I wanted an atheist president and I got Donald Trump. This is not the way I want this to happen.
If her congressional run means that there is a congressional stock trading ban, I'll take it. If there's one thing I want in this world, If there's one present that you could give me for Christmas. It is a congressional stock trade.
Van in mine. I'm not going to stay on air.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
