Rep. Dan Goldman gives us an on-the-ground report of the chaos in the Republican-led Congress. Senator Mark Kelly talks to us about the implications of passing aid for Ukraine. MSNBC Daily editor James Downie examines Trump’s debilitating mental state as he stands trial.
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. We are now two hundred days from the twenty twenty four election, Emir two hundred days.
We have such a great show for you.
Today, Senator Mark Kelly talks to us about what's happening in Arizona and the implications.
Of passing AID for Ukraine.
Then we'll talk to Congressman Dan Goldman about the drama in the House of Representatives. But first we have MSNBC Daily Editor James Downie.
Welcome back to Fast Politics. Jim.
Great to be here, as always.
Yesterday when you listen to this on Friday.
In the United States House of Representatives, I'm just going to read you one little bit of where they are, because I feel that our listeners need to glean this information firsthand. But basically, from what I understand, House Freedom Caucus members, you know them, the best of the brightest, and I mean that only ironically are signing up to take shifts to guard the House floor in order to prevent resolutions they consider unsavory. Imagine what they consider unsavory. This is from Olivia, Beaver's at Politico that they consider unsavory from slipping through that could.
Curb their power.
Per to our sources, this Floor Action Response Team Fart Floor Action Response Team fart okay aims to guard against a voice vote or unanimous consent vote where action could be stealthily taken against them and their members. Resolutions to strip Massy Norman Roy from Rules Committee.
There's a fart Joe.
Huh, there is. I'm glad you brought it up because I was worried about standards.
There are no standards here.
I find it's easier to let the host bring the fart jokes than to just drop in with them to start off. It's remarkable what's happening there. This came at the same time that a number of reporters mentioned that Johnson was basically surrounded by Freedom Caucus types and at some point a non Freedom Caucus member Derek van Orton.
Who's famous for screaming at interns.
Yes, that is correct, famous for Yes, he got in trouble for screaming atsentate pages. Yes last year. And I think at this point we can say has a bit of an issue with his temper. Nah No, but he I guess decided to butt in and apparently called Matt Gates tubby. So things are going extremely well.
That is terrible, because my man Gates do us so much to look beautiful.
I'm sure that really heard.
Yeah, I mean there's a reason why you have so many I mean we saw with Mike Gallagher, with with the number of other Republicans who are heading for the exits because basically the house is so dysfunctional. I think you were right. That was Van Orden.
The thing that's so interesting about Van Orden and his just insanity here is that I don't even think. I mean, while Mike Johnson has a lot of problems, he's quite svelt and adorable.
And he's made a remarkable change as well in terms of his position on Ukraine eate. I mean, it's interesting considering that he was against it for so long, and yet it seems like since he's moved into leadership, and whether it's because of.
Somebody's explained to him, clearly.
Somebody sat him down and explained to him, hey, here's here's the stakes, here's what's going to happen if we don't pass the eight. He seems to have changed his mind and he today was quoting Rold Reagan talking about peace through strength, and he seems to have really changed his view. And obviously the Freedom Caucus does not take kindly to losing their leverage to just keep Congress a laughing stock. It's incredible.
What I thought was interesting was somebody said to me earlier in the week, Oh, the Democrats are going to save Johnson if he votes for AID and Nana. So I was like, well, obviously that's what's going to happen. So I texted a friend of mine who's a member of Congress, and I said, are you guys going to save Johnson if he votes for AID? And he said, we will only save Johnson if he wants to be saved, and right now it does not look like he wants to be saved.
I think it's difficult for Johnson because the moment he gets saved by Democrats, it legitimizes the current talking point on the far right. I mean, among these Freedom caucas types that he's already acting as the Democrat speaker. It's difficult right now for him to say the least. I mean, it's, you know, a problem largely if his own making to some degree of Kevin McCarthy's making to some degree of Republicans falling short in the mid terms and Democrats of farming in the midterms. That not to the degree that the Democrats kept the House, but that they kept such a narrow margin so that these freedom caucas types have this kind of leverage. If Kevin McCarthy had done what he promised to do, the Republicans would have twenty or thirty se to play with rather than well, a never shrinking amount right now. One, Yeah, there was another congressman today and just announced his retirement. I believe the number is up to getting to the mid twenties now. So now I don't think that person's retiring early, but you never know. You get another retirement, and who knows what kind of chaos could break out in terms of the speakership.
If you get another retirement, then it's even right.
Yeah, assuming it happens before the next special election to fill.
Right, and some of those seats can't be filled right. Oh No, here's another I'm seeing that the Breitbart reporter says Tubby was directly directed at Matt Gates.
Well, there's conflicting sources. In regardless, I think it's clear that chaos reigns.
Yeah, I mean, just such an insane way to run a caucus, and you don't think about how much like Nancy Pelosi, some people liked her, some people didn't like her, but she was wildly effective. And you didn't really get to see how wildly effective she was until Democrats lost.
The House, and now you have really a.
Group where they just cannot you really see this as actually kind of a hard job.
Absolutely. I think since Pelosi became speaker, there have been four different Republicans I believe as speaker of you know, like sort of as speaker themselves. You've had Bayner, You've had Ryan McCarthy and now Johnson and sort of decreasing abilities and even from Bayer, like Bayner struggled with. Bayner had to call off votes just before they came to a vote in the House because he didn't have the numbers.
Yeah, but at least he didn't lose them.
At least he didn't lose them. I was I'd say that, you know, the ones who've come after him have been even less effective. But as you said, I mean from the work up we go, you go back to, for example, the Affordable Care Act. You know what Pelosi did there to keep Democrats in line, to keep some very vulnerable Democrats. A lot of them ended up losing their seats in subsequent elections because of that vote, but she kept them in line and passed both that and a lot of legislation. I think that, as you said, that skill is absolutely remarkable. And when you write the summary of Nancy Pelosi's career, I think it's her vote counting skills that are right at the top of her abilities.
Yeah, and it didn't need I mean, you really see how much you don't need to fuck up. Like what he's doing every time is sort of being like, well, it's in the lap of the gods. Like that's a crazy way to run a caucus. It turns out that Jesus doesn't web votes.
It turns out his prayers haven't been necessarily answered.
Right, Like, if I were him, I might think about becoming an atheist or maybe changing religions. It's something where they're better at vote counting. Talk to me about like this trial. When this trial started, there were so many people who were like, this is bad, you shouldn't do this. There's no reason to try him. Somebody told me they were like, you know, presidents do stuff like this. I was like, presidents do stuff like paying off an adult film star when their lawyer takes a home at what he loan, which is technically a campaign contribution.
And then I mean, just talk us through.
I mean, what you think about this, because the pictures coming out of this trial have been a guy who can barely stay awake, and I mean he seems kind of slow and also kind of unhinged. I don't see how this visual helps him with voters.
I don't really see either. I think a lot of it will be determined by the outcome of the case, which we just can't simply know at the moment. But I think in terms of bringing the case, I think that people who have worked in the Manhattan DA's office, you know, who are no longer there, but who have worked in that office, have made the case in other places that this sort of crime is prosecuted. And we talk a lot about nobody being above the law, and that should apply to the president. I think one of the reasons we consistently get in trouble and it feels like Donald Trump is consistently avoids accountability, is that whether it be other politicians or banks, or the Supreme Court. People are reluctant to hold him to the same standard that they would hold people who are not Donald Trump, and it makes it all the more important that a case like this be prosecuted, even if it does feel grungy to some people or it feels smaller potatoes than the January sixth related cases. That's fine, that's a fair feeling to have, but that doesn't mean that you don't also prosecute in this circumstance. As well as for Trump's behavior, I think, yeah, anybody who's I mean, you have you know, you've been watching him for years. On the surface, like thirty seconds of watching him at a rally in twenty twenty four or twenty sixteen, they might seem the same for briefly, but the longer you watch, the more you see that this is just a guy who's you know, as he talks about sleepy Joe, he's old, He loses the plot, he gets bored more easily, he drifts off more easily.
He confuses Nancy Putlosi with Nikki Hali.
From the work go, there was a lot of eyebrow raising, slash terrifying rhetoric at his rallies, but there wasn't the same amount of straight up confusion that we see right now. And that Let's be real, if Joe Biden made these kinds of errors, or if Joe Biden had, you know, had closed his eyes briefly during some public appearance, it would be all over a lot of media outlets. It'd be the front page story. But because it's Trump, we have a different standard.
Trump has just held to a completely different standard than everyone else.
There's no argument. I mean, you get back to even something as recent as the you know, right now we're talking about the Manhattan the criminal case, but you talk about the civil case for example, and the amount of second chances that he's been given to come up with this bond. He gets his bond or disc he has this auto loan billionaire come in and give them.
A bond that may actually be sketchy.
Right, the bond that may be sketchy. That's still being challenged. That's going to be determined in a hearing next week.
And also, but.
Even if it isn't, even if it's declared valid, the guy who provided the bond was on the record is saying, well, we probably should have charged him a higher fee, like I mean, this is just he just gets second chance after second chance, and I think that that is why it so often feels like he's not gonna face consequences.
Yeah, you know, there's a lot of anxiety I feel like everywhere that Trump will be president again and that it's sort of an inevitability. I don't think that, But I would love you to just sort of talk us through why actually incumbency is a huge advantage and what you sort of what you think.
Yeah, I think that this far out you look at the polls, is Biden winning.
No.
But I think that there was a narrative there for maybe about particularly six weeks or two months to start the year, that oh, Trump's winning, et cetera. I think that was always overstated at the time. I think it's just actually inaccurate now for the president in terms of the incumbency. I mean, I think that Biden being the president certainly gives him an advantage in breaking into coverage because Trump's always going to suck up so much coverage, and even more so with his criminal trials, because I mean the criminal trials, I'm like, you know, there was criticism, I think quite valo criticism for example of carrying Trump's rallies live back in twenty sixteen, which, like political rallies, is not unprecedent. A criminal trial of a president is unprecedent, right right, as a former president and by being president, can break through that can be announcing legislation, can be announcing initiatives that can try and cut through it and appeal to certain voters. The polls have started to move in Biden's direction as more voters have, particularly the Democratic side, have started to pay more attention because there wasn't a contested primary on the Democratic side. Really, there were some attempts by some kas that just didn't catch on.
There wasn't a real left primary, which is unusual.
Yeah, I think now that voters are starting to tune in and starting to come to terms sort of grips with a Trump Biden rematch, that the polls are started to move a little bit in Biden's direction, And I think we'll see what particularly as Biden brings his money advantage to bear, I think we'll see to movement. But it's going to be a close election, I think, quite right to the end.
Unfortunately, I vacillate between thinking that and I've had a lot of smart people on here have said that, and then I vacillate between thinking like, there's also a possibility that, like the unprecedented nature of this creates an unprecedented scenario. I mean, it's hard to imagine Trump changing hearts and minds. One of the things yesterday that was lost in the news cycleon I think think it really was lost in the new cycle because Republicans are so good at office scating. They had yet another failed impeachment with the first time in one hundred years they tried to impeach a cabinet secretary, and again my Arcis was not impeached on high crimes and misdemeanors. He was impeached on not pleasing the GOP bass Can you talk.
About that absolutely? As you said, the movement to impeach majorcists, which had been in the works, you know, on the House side for pretty much since I think the first day of Biden's presidency, that basically came and went in a day. The articles were introduced in the Senate, where they were delivered to the Sun on Tuesday. The Senate held a vote on Wednesday and decided, as you said, that they noted that these charges as you said, first of all, this is only the second cabinet secretary ever to be impeached. The first one was impeached on bribery grounds. The presidential impeachments have been on abuse of office, not policy disagreements. So you have Republicans complaining Democrats moved to dismiss the articles, to basically table them, and to say that what you are accusing Secretary of my Erkus of is not an impeachable offense. And you have Republicans out there saying, even some who expressed skepticism about the charge against my york As, people like Senator Mitt Romney who still voted, they wanted to have a debate and they were The Republicans are arguing, oh, this is unprecedented. How could you This creates a terrible president for future impeachments because parties can just dismiss them. I mean, first of all, I would argue it's a more terrible president for Donald Trump to have not faced but not been convicted for January six. But let's set that aside for a second. But the fact is that the charges in this were entirely unprecedented. In arguing that this was an impeachable offense, I don't think anybody's happy with the current immigration system. I think that's pretty clear. But we all know that Democrats and a few center Republicans struck a deal that frankly was way too lopsided anyway towards conservative as I mean, Conservatives got basically everything they wanted, Democrats got very little of what they wanted. That was the deal, and at Donald Trump's beha, Republicans killed it because they don't actually want to fix what's going on the board. You know, Fox News wants a t for b role, Donald Trump wants to campaign on. That's what they want to talk about, especially now that they've you know, they're not talking about the economy and inflation as much anymore. They aren't talking about crime rates as much anymore because I don't know, if you saw the reports earlier this week that homicides are down and way down in cities around the country. You know, they're losing a lot of their main talking points against Biden. That was going to be the triumph after all that anti woke stuff didn't work in the midterms and then again twenty twenty three, there was going to be the economy, immigration, and crime. And they've already lost big chunks of two of those three, so they just want to keep the immigration as a talking point.
Yeah, that's true. Thank you so much, Jim. I hope you'll come back.
I'd always love to be here.
Spring is here, and I bet you are trying to look fashionable, So why not pick up some fashionable all new Fast Politics merchandise. We just opened a news store with all new designed just for you. Get t shirts, hoodies, hats, and toe bags. To grab some head to fastpolitics dot com. Mark Kelly is the senior Senator from the state of Arizona. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Senator Mark Kelly. Thank you so excited to have you more in Arizona. And I mean so you must have known that there was insanity in your state house, but now the rest of the country knows.
Well.
I wouldn't characterize it as it's like that this whole issue and where we are with this law from eighteen sixty four is not who we are as a state.
It's the fringe.
It's a fringe number of people in the state House, the state Senate, it's a Supreme Court that surprised us. To be honest, I don't think many people were expecting. Surprised us with this decision to bring back this one hundred and sixty year old draconian law. Now, obviously women are scared of this, and the stakes are very high. The legislature so far has failed to fix this. They need to keep trying because it is putting the lives of women at risk.
So what I'm so struck by with is the Democrats in the state legislature, despite the fact that this could really help them electorally, are working really hard to try to overturn this law, and the Republicans are refusing to budge. And in fact, we've seen video offs the floor of Republicans hooting themselves and clapping as they continue to really sign their electoral defeat warrant for November.
I mean, I'm so struck by Trump would.
Not allow the border bill to get passed because he wanted to run on it, And here are Democrats really trying to do the right thing for women.
Well, I think it's issue after issue, whether it's border security. We worked on a bipartisan proposal and we're really close to getting it pass in the Senate, and unfortunately, my Republican colleagues ran away from it because they thought this would help Donald Trump. He didn't want to do it, and he needed it for the political purposes, so they wanted to continue to have the problem instead the solution, which we have to live with this problem every single day in Arizona, and I'm going to continue to fight to fix this same issue here, you know, sort of similar Democrats in the State House the state Senate want to fix this because it is a problem that needs to be addressed. We can't have women's lives at risk because of a law that was passed before Arizona was a state in eighteen sixty. More So, I think I've seen this story before where myself and my Democratic colleagues have been on the side of let's try to solve the problem, and unfortunately, in many cases, my Republican colleagues have been more about the politics.
It's not like Republicans have a super majority in the state House. They just have a few more votes. But they have really stuck on this really extreme position. Why do you think that is.
Well, I think some of them really believe this is what our states should look like. Unfortunately, and they do feel it's appropriate to criminalize doctors for doing their jobs. I don't think that represents most of Arizona. I think that's a few fringe figures in the state House in the state Senate. But when you're talking about a very slim majority one or two seats, a couple individuals really have an outsized impact.
So right now in the Senate you have this foreign surveillance. It's come through the House. Now you guys are looking at it. Is that what's next on the agenda? And can you talk us through it a little bit?
Vote is open right now on reauthorization of IZA for a couple of years or taking the house build There were some changes, there's some additional protections, there were some concerns.
We've made some changes to it.
We'll have an opportunity to vote on it, and I think we'll have the votes to get it passed. It is a very important piece of legislation that keeps us safe. If we don't get this done here this week and it expires a lot of the intelligence that agencies rely on to make decisions about our own national security, we won't have access to that anymore. So it's important we get this pass and I think it's going to pass Today. We have our first vote on it going on right now. I'm going to leave the studio here and go to the Florida vote.
The other thing that the House is practically in fisticuffs over is these foreign aid packages, whatever they look like.
Ami, are you optimistic?
David Frum said this the other day when I was with him on a show and we were talking, and he said, and I don't even realized this, that Republicans have never authorized any extra aid for Ukraine since they took over the half.
I mean as a group, yes, I'd say that that's true. The legislation we passed about ten weeks ago in the Senate that included Ukraine aid for the Western Pacific, which is along with China and Israel and you humanitarianate. That piece of legislation went over there to the Speaker's desk. It's been sitting there. The easiest way to do this is for him to bring that to the floor, because it does have bipartisan support, it would get publican votes. He can send it to the President. He's made this other decision to break it up into pieces helps his Republican members to not have to vote on something that includes Ukraine aid when they don't want to do this. They'll pass that with mostly Democrats and some Republicans. Then they will put it all back together. So it's like taking the jigsaw puzzle, break into the part, voting on the pieces, and then putting the pieces back together, sending it over here, and then we could pass it as one piece of legislation. That's the current plan. You're right, there are a lot of Republicans in the House that unfortunately are missing the big picture here on Ukraine. Some of them, unfortunately, are starting to use some of Russia's talking points on this. I think they're unclear where the former president and is on aid to Ukraine. He is very specific about it. That gives them some level of apprehension. The bottom line here is if we don't give Ukraine the ammunition they need to be successful, they will lose. When they lose, I'm convinced that Vladimir Putin will set his sights ultimately on another target, and if that's a NATO country, then we will be involved in direct combat operations with Russia, and we don't want that.
Michael McCall, Republican in the House who I'm sure you now and said that he had seen members of his parties spout in Russian propaganda.
That struck me.
And there was another Republican too who said that, and I'm wondering what you think about that. And also are huge shops that this problem is so bad that Republicans are breaking ranks to talk about it.
I've seen even some of my colleagues in the Senate news phrases that you know clearly is you know earlier, you know came from somebody in Russia. I've seen that, and that's disappointing, and I'm not sure they necessarily know that where it came from. My hope is as we continue to debate, you know, these issues, they would see that, you know, the right thing to do for the future of our own country is to support Ukraine. And by the way, as we give Ukraine the security assistance it needs, which is largely munitions. It's artillery shells, I Mars rounds, Patriot you know rounds, and other equipment, it allows us to replenish our own munition stores with news new equipment. So it's a positive thing for for us too. And not all Republicans, I mean, especially in the Senate, I mean my Senate Republican colleagues feel as strongly about many of them, most of them as supporting Ukraine as I do, and I mean they're very frustrated frustrated as well about what's going on in the House. Our hope here is the House figures out how to do what they're currently planning on doing, which is breaking us up, voting on the pieces, putting it back together, sending it over to us, and we can get this done, this knocked off here in the next couple of days or early next week.
I mean, what I think is so interesting about this scorna is it's Taiwan, it's Ukraine, and it's also Israel.
There's another piece of this that includes REPO, which is you know, the way we could, if it passed, take the frozen Russian assets that are here, oh yeah, in Europe. We could use that to provide Ukraine with munitions or for a rebuilding effort. There's also the TikTok bill that passes is part of this. There's a fentanyl provision. There are a couple other things that may or may not. The negotiation is still going on. What there would be that would be a separate piece of legislation that would have all those specific items, and then there would be another thing for Israel, another one for Ukraine, another one for into pay Com, which is Taiwan.
I mean, you have a national security background besides being a cool astronaut. Do you you think the TikTok ban? I mean, do you think that happens, and do you think it's necessary?
Well, if they pass it in the House and they send it over as one big piece of legislation with it in there, we could be in a situation where it would be hard for us to amend it and send it back over because of the challenges the speaker is having in getting the votes and the process he's having to take to you know, my wife's wife. He said, tell me, you don't want to see how the sausage is made. This is the making of the sausage. So I think we could wind up in a situation where we have to vote on it.
It's a tough issue.
I mean, you're balancing the rights of Americans to get their information where they want to get it from the First Amendment rights issue. We also have to understand, especially for a lot of young people, they get their new they get most of their relevant, you know, important information, they get it from TikTok. Would we allow a Chinese company to come to the United States and buy let's say, one hundred TV stations or one hundred million. The answer is no, we would not allow that. Where I sit on the Intelligence Committee, we talk about this issue a lot. I do have concerns about the Chinese government using this platform at some point to attempt to manipulate the American public. That's a real threat. So we're continuing to discuss it. It's kind of interesting. I've been asking a lot of young people about this, teenagers, you know, high school kids, kids in college about TikTok, if they use it, how they would feel if it couldn't be sold and it was shut down in the United States. It's pretty interesting. Even among a lot of folks that use it and use it routinely, most of them, I would say upwards of eighty percent do not have a huge problem with their being changes and possibly even at being unavailable. That surprised me.
That is really spressed here. You could also force the sale, right, well.
That's what the legislation that the House had passed said. You know how it would have to be sold in six months.
That if it was a.
Sold then it would not be available on app stores, and so we made the use what they're planning on sending over to us.
I think it extends that to a year, and there's some other changes in it.
You know, when you think about what a big deal it is to have China control the flow of information to everyone under the age of thirty, I mean that's a pretty big deal. It is a concern, yes, yeah, TikTok people have started lobbying.
Yeah, I mean, and we've gotten a lot of calls about it. And you know they did on TikTok ask a huge number of people to reach out to us to lobby for it.
And by the way, I don't think it's available in China and India. Bandit.
It's a different algorithm that makes people smarter and less insane, right, I Mean what is so interesting to me is like we've had so little back regulation when you think about Facebook, like there's so much opportunity for regulation.
Are you surprised we haven't had more?
Congress should have acted on legislation on social media a decade a but go, and it's something we talk about a lot here. We're trying to do something productive on it. I mean, there are a lot of issues, especially with young people with teenagers around the amount of time they spend on social media about how they I mean psychological issues on how people are affected in Congress, like on other things, Congress has failed on this issue.
Do you think that there can be greater regulation now for technology?
Is there an appetite in Condre There is?
I mean, and it's something you know that.
I mean, we discuss it a lot, and there are bills that are moving forward often, this legislation takes a lot longer than I would hope. It's a long process, especially in the Senate. I mean the rules of the Senate that make things just take a long time. If NASA had the rules of the United States Senate, the rocket ship would never leave the launch beat.
This is like a very bad map for Democrats the Senate out But these Kuboky candidates seem really bad. I mean, are you hopeful and if so, you know, I know our listeners would love to know sort of what races you're watching that you're sort of the most hopeful about or.
That you feel needs to bord We've got great candidates running for reelection and for open seats like in Arizona, in Michigan. You know, Lissa slock In in Michigan, Ruben Diego and Arizona are experienced, are smart now the right background. Rubens a marine, Alyssa Slockins a former CIA agent.
These are you know, currently open seats.
You talk about Texas, we have an opportunity Florida, Texas. Colin alrhtt is running against Ted Cruz. These civil rights attorney, Member of the House former I think he was a linebacker for the Tennessee Titans. Great guy, They're working really hard. Then you look at the Democrats that are running for reelection, John Tester and Montana, Jackie Rosen in Nevada, Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, Sheared Brown in Ohio, Bob Casey in Pennsylvania. Very effective legislators, great leaders who've worked really, really hard with a lot of grassroots support, and a lot of them happen to be running against just ury wealthy opponents that were recruited because they have a big bank roll.
Yeah, no, it's so interesting. Thank you so much, Senator.
Well you're welcome. Thank you for inviting me on your ship.
Congressman Dan Goleman represents New York's tenth district.
Welcome to fast politics. Congressman Goldman, thanks so much for havingy Mollik.
Great to be with you.
A lot of excitement, and by excitement, i'm me. And what even is happening in Congress right now?
Well, we are seeing a clash of two wings of the Republican Party. The one wing is the one controlled by Trump and the Maga Republicans, who really don't want to govern, do not want to do anything that would help the American people, do not really believe in democracy, and they're therefore pretty content with supporting Vladimir Putin. I call this the Putin wing of the Republican Party.
So let's just.
Talk for a second about what's happening right now with the supplemental that needs to get through the House. The last reporting I read involved these kind of Freedom Caucus people setting up a group with the acronym fart.
Yeah, you know, it's pretty appropriate. It appears that they wouldn't think about what the acronym is, or maybe they did. It's appropriate either way. There's a civil war that's more or less than resolved in the republic Can Party that Donald Trump has won and the Maga Republicans have won, and it is anti democratic, it is isolationists, and it is really designed to uproot, up end, and overturn all of our democratic values and institutions. That has been the thread that has kept the Speaker from actually putting Ukraine eight on the floor, even though probably three hundred of the four hundred and thirty five members of the House support Ukraine eight, and he does finally, with the benefit of the highest level of intelligence briefings that he gets as part of the Gang of Eight, understands the dire need that Ukraine has for our assistance and what the impact would be if Ukraine doesn't get that aid and if Vladimir Putin were to be able to conquer Ukraine, and then unquestionably he would continue on his march to take over Poland, yeah, or any of the former Soviet states.
Basically, right now there's machinations about Republicans trying to get rid of the motion to vacate to protect Johnson or now.
My understanding is the latest information is that they will not change the rules. But what the Speaker has done is because the rules allow for one person like Marjorie Taylor Green to completely grind Congress to a halt because of this motion to vacate there's outsized influence for each individual member, especially in the Republican Party. And the Speaker appears to be moving forward with this supplemental and it is almost identical to the Senate Eate. There may be an additional fourth bill that adds in some other pieces of legislation in addition to the Senate ad, but none that seemed to be especially controversial. And he finally decided that he was going to do the right thing by Ukraine, by democracy, by the United States, rather than cater to the extremeist wing of his party. And he seems willing to take the consequences, whatever they may be. And I have to say that I did not expect this from him, and I have to applaud him or bucking the arsonists on the right and doing what is the right thing in putting this bill on the floor.
But you have to wonder what he must have seen in those intelligence briefings that changed his mind. Right, Like, remember he was like number five or six in Republican leadership. I mean, the guy was barely sort of on the radar when he was so trumpy. I mean, someone must have showed him something that convinced him.
Right, Well, we've all gotten some level of classified briefings, not with the detail and level that he would receive, and it is very parent without getting into any classified information, that Ukraine is on the brink right now and they're out of ammunition, they're out of materiel, they're out of military equipment, and they cannot withstand Russia if they do not get some urgently and immediately. And I think what listening to him, what really does seem to have finally gotten through, is that he realizes that this would be the beginning of Vladimir Putin's march, not the end of it. And so sixty billion dollars now in military support, eighty percent of which by the way, goes to US companies defense companies to restore and restock are arsenal. So it is also beneficial for the economy, putting aside whatever you may think about the defense industrial complex. But he realized is that this would be the beginning and the next thing that would happen is that Putin would invade another country, probably a NATO country, that would then require US to send troops. And so a sixty billion dollar investment right now that could prevent American troops from going there and hundreds of billions of dollars spent on a future war is a smart investment, and that seems to finally have resonated with him.
So let's talk about what's happening in New York, because you know this New York DA's office, they are zipping through picking a jury. I want you to talk about what your take is. I mean, you have seen so many of these cases. What do you think about what you're seeing here? And also how it's affecting Trump.
I've always eagerly awaited Donald Trump being in a courtroom because he has no control in a courtroom. Politics and partisanship do not matter. Misinformation, disinformation and outright lies are not accepted and not permit. And the rules are the rules that apply to everyone, including him, and he generally is someone who believes the rules don't apply to him, which is part of the reason why he has for indictments against him. And so, you know, seeing him or hearing about him sitting there watching the jury selection, falling asleep, I guess he's too old to be president, falling asleep at his own criminal trial. All of the pomp and circumstances and bluster and press conferences and all the partisanship and all the politicization that he brings to everything that he does goes out the window. When you get into a court of law, the facts will matter, the evidence will matter, and the law will matter, and that's it. It will be very interesting to see. I was incredibly disheartened to read that at least one juror perhaps there are others, begged off of the jury because of fear for his or her own safety. And I will tell you I've done a number of trials as a prosecutor. I picked a lot of juries.
I did a double murder racketeering trial against the boss of the Genevez crime family and two other associates of the genevie'z crime family, one of whom ultimately killed Whitey Bulger in jail.
And I never have heard of a.
Juror genuinely fearing for his or her safety. It can happen. But the notion that Donald Trump would invoke such fear because of his incitement of violence, because of what he did on January sixth, because of the domestic violent extremists who he uses as his threatth is a reflection of something really rotten. When you start hearing about members in the Senate, as Mitt Romney said, who changed their vote because they're worried about their own safety. You start to realize that this person is a danger far beyond just to our democracy, to our norms, but is actually a danger to individual safety. And that was really disheartening to read.
What I'm struck by when we read the reporting out of this courtroom is that there's just a lot of kind of mafia like tactics that Trump uses, right, a lot of intimidation stuff and trying to find out if.
These jurors are biased.
I loved when Trump was like, we should move this trial to staten Holland what I'm struck by is just that he has to like sit there for so many hours, and that he's never just had to sit somewhere, and he can't play with his phone, I mean, and that I think is probably why he keeps falling asleep right now.
That means seventy seven years old, I don't know, but yeah, That's sort of the point. Is that this persona that Donald Trump has created that started with the Apprentice and worked his way all way up to the presidency, and now he has this maga cult that listens to its every word, even though he lies right, left and center, all of that is gone. He is defendant Donald Trump, and that's all that he is. And he's sitting there at a table in the courtroom, just like every other defendant does, going through the same process that every other defendant does. And I actually think that is incredibly important. It is incredibly important for the American people to see that our rule of law, our criminal justice system, applies equally to every single person in this country, regardless of whether you are a former president or not. And he has the same rules, the same laws, the same procedures as anyone else does. And that is the foundation of our country. And I think it's really really important that the American people watch that happening. Thank you, Congressman, No problem, take care, no moment.
Jesse Cannon, Molly jung Fest. I once read a history of the mob in New York at every hour of the day, scenes from it just flashed through my head during this Trump trial.
So Fox News hosts Jesse Waters, I mean, they're just doing everything they can to try to intimidate these jurors into getting Trump off. He broadcasted extensive biographical details about jural Number two, her neighborhood, her occupation, education, marital and familial status, and what industry her fiance works in. He concluded by saying, I'm not cho sure about juror number two. By the way, this is such an insane way for a television host to act.
I mean, this is one.
Of the most insane things I've seen that Fox do, and it is insane even for Fox. Jesse Waters is our moment of fuck Ray. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.