Rick Wilson & Ed Fitzgerald

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Hi, I'm Molly Zhang-Fast, and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And J.D. Vance is now the most unpopular vice president in the history of Poland. That's pretty fun. We have such a great show for you today. The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson joins us to discuss Trump blocking the Straits of Ramos and other strategic blunders. Then we'll talk to Ed Fitzgerald about his run for Ohio's seventh district against Congressman Max Miller. But first the news. Somali, we are seeing inflation. We are seeing gas prices cause it. And Mr. Trump is going to be here to the rescue. Oh, wait, no, he's not. Here he is talking to the money-hunting Maria Bartaromo. And she looks horrified as he says this. Oh, I love a clip. Let's go. They all said we agree. So do you believe the price of oil and gas will be lower before the midterm elections? I hope so. I mean, I think it could be or the same or maybe a little bit higher. But I think it won't be longer. All she wants is for him to say it'll be lower. It's so funny cause her eyes just bug out of her head like, no, you fucking idiot. I was trying to let you lie and you didn't. If you have a little time, go on the internet and search that interview with Maria Bartaromo because it's like a masterclass in him cycling through various anxieties. At one point he's like, you know, the Iranians had nukes. We knew they were going to blow us all up. He goes into a hole like they were going to blow us all up thing, which is something it's clear. His levels of desperation, of anxiety, of, you know, it just isn't a truly insane bit of everything bad. It's absolutely worth listening to. I'm going to admit I was wrong about something on this podcast. What? We never learned from our mistakes here at Fast Politics. Continue. When I see politicians like JB Raskin say Trump needs a head exam, I'm like, I hate this kind of performative nonsense. I don't like it either. Like distractions. When I watched that interview, I was like, all right, I'll put JB Raskin here. This guy's fucking insane. Well, you know, he's 79 years old and like that is old. I mean, you know, there are some 79 year olds who are sharp as a tack. My man is not one of them. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about some real ugliness in our Congress. So as we learned this weekend, that Eric Swalwell has been having a few affairs here and there it seems. At best, he's been having a few. At best, at views. Yeah. Well, at worst, it's something much darker, right? Yes. So it looks like in Congress, the compromises is that there's been a lot of people whose behavior has not been so good. We've had, you know, other Congress people who have, but I think- Tony Gonzalez, who sexually harassed staffers and one of them set themselves on fire and killed herself. I'm gonna need to step on the soapbox here for a minute about Eric. You know, Eric Swalwell one eye have been friendly over the last couple of years. I did not know that he was capable of this kind of thing. And I'm telling you, this all has to be investigated. He needs to step down and these women need to have, be listened to. I have a number of thoughts about this. The biggest thing in my mind is that there are multiple women. The allegations range from the distasteful to the illegal, and they all need to be listened to. I was really heartened to see that Alvin Bragg, who is really, I have to say, I got to talk to him recently. And I just thought this guy is really a good egg. That Alvin Bragg is taking this really seriously and that he's not gonna do partisan hackery, that he is going to, despite the letter next to his name, investigate these allegations. Look, we give up the moral high ground. The minute we dismiss stuff like this, it leads us to a place that none of us wanna be. And there is a lot of these members of Congress are given all sorts of second chances. And this is not that. This is a person who needs to be investigated. This is behavior that is not okay. And I'm really glad to see Democrats taking this very seriously. You can't be the good guys if you enable stuff like this. So what's interesting is it seems there's a compromise in Congress where some people are calling it taking out the trash, where they're gonna vote to expel, it looks like four different members, two Democrats, two Republicans. But what's interesting that you and I were talking about is we immediately looked at their Cook PBI. So for people who don't know, the Cook PBI is about how much a district leans left or right. And the two Dems are over 20 points Cook PBI. So they're very safe Dems seats, but both Republicans in this environment where conservative estimates are D plus 10 swings away. Both of these are swingy Republican favor districts and could go to the Dems. So let's talk about this for a minute. Swabha is in a D plus 20 district. So that is not gonna go to Republicans. Tony Gonzalez, who is a sexual harasser with, by the way, six kids, okay? Jesus. I know, six kids and the staffer kills herself. And there's other staffers. And I mean, it's just, this is like, we have to take these women seriously. Like we are either the society where women count, where their voices matter, or we are lost. So he is in an R plus seven. Then there are the two other people, the Republican is Corey Mills. He's in an R plus five. He is in Florida and he has all sorts of allegations. And then the other one is Sheila Sherfus McCormick. She's in a D plus 22. This is a case where she got by accident, a check for $5 million instead of, I think she was supposed to get a $500,000 check and she just spent the $5 million. It's fraud. I'm sorry guys. Like as much as like it is a little bit hilarious, you can't spend the extra four and a half million dollars. But it was a COVID relief funds, I think. And she's now in the middle of an ethics investigation. I think there's a criminal trial coming. I mean, I get that people want not to be as hard on the people on their team, especially in light of the fact that Donald Trump, the Republicans have opened the door to this kind of like it's not fraud if our God does it. But you don't come back from Donald Trump by letting people steal $5 million. Like that's it. You just can't, you can't do it. And that's why it's both true with Eric and with Cheryl Schrufel as you just can't do this. You gotta go. So look, I hope that they do this in a way that's fair because there are a lot of people who need to be expelled from the house right now. And I think if the next chapter of American democracy involves no longer allowing this kind of sleazy shit, then that's where we are. So I'm glad to see it. Yes, agreed. So, you know, while everyone else in America has gotten the memo that affordability politics, that, you know, no longer allowing workers to be robbed is a way to get popularity, and the Trump administration is hard at work at making sure that doesn't happen. So this is nurses, okay? Nurses. This is not something where it's like a fringe lefty issue. Okay, these are nurses. And as you know, we are in a healthcare crisis. Basically Minnesota, friend of the pod Tim Walls, had this minimum wage floor for nursing home workers. By the way, nursing home workers, like, this is an unsexy job where people do the kind of work that families don't wanna do for themselves. I say this as someone who has a mom in a nursing home, like, I know how important the people who work in nursing homes are. Like, this is, you know, you won't have those people and you have everybody comes to live with you, you know? So this is a big, big, big deal. And it is like really good stuff. It's what the government should fucking be doing is making sure that people who work in nursing homes get money and the Trump administration, because they have to be on the wrong side of every issue. Those fucking guys are against the payment of nursing. But if you wanna do fraud, if you wanna do nursing home fraud there for that. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, that's a big one. You'll probably get a pardon if you do it, or, you know. Yeah, or a cabinet position. Yeah, I was gonna say you can become the senator from Florida if you do the largest Medicaid fraud of all time. Yeah. Okay, speaking of total grifters in Conman, one of my favorite things of Dr. Oz was when his first investigation went after Armenians, because as a guy who votes in Turkey, that's what you do. But what we've now seen is he's had a huge error in his blue state fraud probe. And you'll be shocked to hear that a lot of this was cooked up and totally botched. Yeah, I wonder if Dr. Oz went to go vote for Erdogan this time. Dr. Oz, who could not win for Senate and so instead. By the way, he probably would have been better than, anyway, I don't wanna talk about it. No. No. You know what I'm talking about. I think we all picked up when you were putting down. So Dr. Oz just cited wrong numbers. He said that the New Yorkers who used personal care service was between six and 7% of the state's Medicaid. Enrollees, that is wrong. Now, because it's the Trump administration, not everyone is buying that this was an innocent mistake, of course. So I've seen your public information officer from your department of public health told AP that Oz's false claims about the program where he targeted attempt to obscure the facts. She can just say he's a liar. Again, it goes back to Molly's role of the Trump administration. Never trust their statistics, because it's an administration filled with lying liars who lie. Mission Mission We're gonna block the streets. Here's the problem with this whole thing. Yeah Donald Trump truly believes this is some move like a seven dimensional quantum string theory chess Yeah, when in fact in the all-time in the all-time list of dumb shit Yeah, land war in Asia check already there blocking the streets, which turns off the entire world economy Yeah, that means everything that means they're not making any more semi-conductors in South Korea and Taiwan because we'll be cutting off the helium supply We're not shipping any energy out of the Gulf to Asia to China. China is now like well I guess we'll just send some anti-aircraft systems over to Iran because they clearly need them Yeah, the whole thing is just a it is this is a string of genius moves on Donald Trump's part And I don't know if you read today the Wall Street Journal which has been Killing it on the reporting side because they hired everyone that Jeff Peso is fucked at the Washington Post and So yeah, they had an incredible piece today about how the Trump administration was warned That this was gonna completely fuck up the whole economy. Oh, yeah And it's like at every point we see they're warned. This is a bad idea Sure, they decide to do it anyway because Trump gets tricked by Net yahoo or whatever right or whatever and then they end up being like we didn't know You know, you could have foreseen except for everyone Trump was on Maria Bartiroma's Podcasts I was gonna say podcast television show this one. It's like a podcast only Fox business Yeah, that's professional on Fox business where the elite meet and he was like they were gonna have a nuke Huh, I thought we had obliterated the nukes, but call me crazy I mean, but when when she asked him Molly I mean you I must have played that clip ten times today because when she says well Enter your prices and gas prices to be higher or lower by November in the election He's like, I don't know maybe maybe I hope so but could be it could be the same or it could be higher One of my editors was like dear God. Sometimes we were sometimes he writes the script for us It's long-term pain For no term gain gain I mean that by the way they have like this maga messaging thing where they you saw them on all the Fox Chat, you know be like long short-term pain long-term gain It reminded me you saw this Ashley St. Clair had a video this week Can I just say I was impressed by her? She made a cogent argument about the maga Influencer ecosystem and talked it through I thought in a very I mean that was a concise ten minute briefing Yes, that a lot of people sort of intuitively feel but I thought it was actually well done And it's what we've heard from these other X of Exfluencers the Dom whatever is name is all Dom Luger which is basically if you're a maga influencer just like Charlie Kirk had bot farms These guys get paid for they get paid for endorsements They get as we learned as we learned America's alpha male banana eating Gunther Eagleman, right? Who's got a real name like Joe Smith, right? Gunther Eagleman's like a retweet is three hundred dollars. The price is the price Yeah, Gunther Eagleman this crew is all just getting paid and and I think the secret Which Ashley St. Clair explains in a really smart way. I think Mm-hmm is the baby mama of Elon Mosh What she explains is that the part of the secret of this is just lockstep messaging hundred percent stay on message Stay on message stay on message and if you're confused about it stay on message I mean this is since you are one of the architects of some of this. I love you for it I know you major you major piece with it I made my right you made penance But I would love you to just like do a minute or two on like how you get from Papua can and W to this Sure, look the the Republican Revolution that that was the seed corn of the eventual Tea Party movement Which became the maga started in? 1991 when my old boss George Herbert Walker Bush to be a responsible adult Decided that he and the Senate would make a deal on a tiny marginal bullshit tax increase It essentially was a was so marginal that it made very little difference in the depths a little bit Meaningful but not sweeping number But the political consequence of that was that Pat Buchanan and a group of these incredible Paleo conservative dipshits went out and ran a primary against a seated president was not done at the time That did not happen back in the 90s or the 80s or the 70s. Yeah, it didn't really happen Yeah, so Buchanan loses gets his ass handed to him, of course But then Bush loses the general election you got Ross Perot who comes in also in that sort of space Ross Perot was like the original astroturf though He had guys cheering for him who were just paid to cheer for him Yeah, there was no social media then of course so we grow through the Tea Party still no real social media But there is a bit of online messaging a bit of online organizing through early platforms Somebody reminded me today that that Yahoo groups used to have the all these Tea Party communications channels in them Okay, yeah back in the day when I hadn't thought about Yahoo groups for like a decade But then that grew as social media expanded really blew up on the scene in 2016 race these people are running these organizational chat groups and Twitter in their direct messaging on Telegram Discord other platforms that are not as visible But they follow a rule that was as old as when I got into politics Which is the thing every Republican consultant learns the day you are you get your first campaign one Stay on message To just win if you're confused about rule one consult rule two confuse about rule two consult rule one Stay on message is is the gospel it is the catechism. It is the singular Moment that everybody in the Republican universe believes all the time Democrats could not stay on message if you have them like in On a on a rail car and they were they were told this is the station you just get off at and you say my name is John Smith They will fight about who they are they will fight about everything. Oh, we're gonna get off at a different station We're gonna do this differently. We're gonna take a plane Republicans get on and stay on message the unification of that message ramifies from Fox news to newsmax to Breitbart to oan to to all these influencers online whether they're on rumble or YouTube or twitch or wherever and The superpower they have is they don't really care what the message is there the point scoring system for them is Are they on that message? Are they with the group? Are they in the pack? and so Donald Trump could say tomorrow that you know our next car yet We're going to invade the planet Venus and they will be like it's about time somebody invaded Venus and they'd all say it with Absolute conviction they'd all say with absolute belief that as long as they were the loudest Voice in the room they were going to get a pat on the head or they were going to get monetized for that tweet Or they were going to get rewarded by somebody sending them a Venmo and it works I kind of want to talk about tucker crossens numbers. I don't know if you saw that article two days ago Yeah, so tucker crossen is actually and I was a little bit surprised by this He's going through the same kind of thing that ben Shapiro is going through though probably for different reasons Well, look there was a period right after tucker left fox his numbers are way down The point is right for his numbers are way down It's not only in the polling but in his ratings and it is listeners. There is a moment happening inside maga right now For tucker that is surprising because right after he left fox his numbers with republicans were through the roof He was a kingmaker. He was very popular. He was ratings were amazing He's going to be president. There was a there was a real world where you could see tucker winning a republican presidential primary And I I'm not saying that joking I mean it's a nightmare scenario incredibly, yeah but What has happened now Is not a symptom of of trump But a symptom of the maga base fracturing very quickly And for some of them tucker is now an apostate and an enemy of trump So they're gonna not listen for some of them. He's not going far enough against trump. So they're not gonna listen It's weird and and I think there are some tucker stands out there um who who who like that flavor but He also put himself in a box as this leader of of the anti-war anti-interventionist guy who also Somehow ends up on the side of every, you know or bond in the world Somehow ends up on putin's side on everything and there's just a sort of sense that that He he played out all his cards and ended up with like a pair of twos. Yeah, it's wild Like you think that guy should not affect himself Ben Shapiro by the way folks should remember tucker is not stupid. Yeah. He's not a stupid person No, I mean, that's why he's so dangerous ben Shapiro continues to crater but that I think is A marriage of prosionism anti-semitism ben Shapiro the mark levin. Yes, the mark levin of youtube We gots to go Across the atlantic. Yeah, we do to a country Helmed by victor or bond loved by conservatives worldwide. They sent in JD vans the closer JD vans Um, I would just like to introduce mr. Orban to an exclusive international club. Everything trump touches dies and everything JD vans and everything JD vans touches including the hope gets freaking destroyed. Yes and this this election was a Absolute nuclear smackdown as of the time we're recording this Peter magyar and the tiza party is somewhere very close within one or two seats in parliament to a super majority I think they need 132 and they were at 130 when I saw it last it probably will update obviously Orban has conceded which everyone is kind of shocked about myself included which is good sign by the way that is good Very good. Very good. My very good sign. Very good. Yes. Um, yeah, but you know, this is another thing this The people in the conservative movement steve bannon match lap JD vans peter teal Who were deeply deeply invested in in Hungary did so because they thought Orban was the model for america. You could scale it up He was the champion of illiberal sort of window dressing democracy. It looked like a democracy It still had elections, but they were rigged. It still had courts, but they were all his friends It still had private enterprise, but they were all owned by his family members Um, but they really saw that as the model and think about it If you do that scaling exercise in your mind, it is what they're trying to do in america Oh, no question and Orban had a was a beloved figure in that space And now I believe he'll be joining the shield of america To help christy. No He's gonna that's right. She's he christy. No, by the way under reported story in the daily mail Which is breaking all the news these days. Right crazy. I don't know. I don't know Uh, uh, is that the christy gnome bed jet is now going to the princess? Where she will not be using that bed with her husband discuss I don't think she's used to bed with her husband sometimes in the last 20 years Yeah, I would think like right after you have a kid and your husband gets caught banging porn stars You're like, no, I'm gonna pass on that anymore that uh, the horizontal mambo. No, thank you, sir Yeah, I think that ship has sailed and I mean that that that that presser she did at the end of the week Oh That is that is a dark hole from which no logic emerges yet except I I look at it I've been thinking about it since the day it happened. I look at it now As how do I get out of my prenup? Without more lawyers I mean the milania presser can be one of two things One is she spends all day reading stuff about herself on the internet And she's like they're coming for me And so she thinks that if she does this somehow it helps her right or the other is she really just wants She wants to sink them I really want her to be that little girl on the meme who looks back at the camera the house is burning down behind her I mean that That i'm telling you, you know, I've talked to so many people this weekend who kind of know a lot of stuff And nobody can make any sense out of it. No and I've talked to a lot of people too I did pick up from somebody adjacent to that to the trumpa verse that the person described it to me as It was like a nuclear bomb not a ron style nuclear bomb But a nuclear bomb went off like a real one because they did not know what she was doing She didn't give them a heads up. They knew she was doing something. They thought it was some sort of be best, you know milania The power of the people of the children love love goodly. Yeah Veresh husband for shovel. Yeah Okay, so ormon jadie vance JD vance is now the elan musk of elections. Yes. He's he's basically He's basically the kiss of death for for as trump's electoral ambassador But remember trump put in he was calling over there He was tweeting about how we were going to make hungry's economy expand and explode and be great again. Yeah, and And marco was on the same same ticket as well and all of them I think it's just something good for the world That hungry was in the hands of orbonne peter maggar the guy who won today Started out when he was a young man had a poster of a young victor orbonne in his apartment Yeah, his victor orbonne after the coal war was a pro democratic hero Yeah in eastern europe and unfortunately he slipped into the corruption net That he made for himself wanted to get rich wanted to have power great It shows you that eventually Even the billionaire class in in a small country even the super powerful in a small country Even a crooked court system in a small country like that Cannot sustain and I think it's even harder to sustain over time in america At least I hope so but folks the right wing movement around the world put in a full court press on this They had a lot of american consultants over there who are trump consultants. Yeah A lot of them they have not been uh, they've not been talking much today Which is kind of fascinating because normally they're a bunch of big mouths, but yeah, it is it's a good day It's a good day for democracy a day that victor orbonne loses is a good day for absolutely And a day that jade vans I mean that's the other thing about jade vans And I want to talk about this for a minute because I feel like people are always You know, there are a bunch of doomers on the internet who are like they're just trying to put in jade vans for trump And I'm like you guys that dog don't hunt or don't hunt Even if peter teal Put it all it in shoved everything in the kitty into the middle of the table for jade vans There's a reason why trump sent him to do the two shittiest jobs in government First negotiating with the iranians with nothing to negotiate right and second trying to get victor orbonne a dictator reelected While he goes with marco Who looked absolutely like whacked out of his mind At that at that event last night It's the big shoes the u.s.c. It may be the big shoes the u.s.c. Event Where you know, we're in the middle of a very consequential war and trump has uh, well Let's put this way yesterday. He was golfing then last night. He was at u.s.c. And today he's golfing so we're in great hands with jade right now It is amazing to me like that donald trump. He can look at his numbers which are Have they I don't know is he the lowest he's ever been he's the lowest he's ever been Yeah, cataclysmically low right he can look at his numbers and be like You know w who again I disagree with him a lot of stuff and who has been very quiet when we could use him saying stuff I know I know longer story another day. Yeah, but That he did not golf during golf war. No, he made a real point not to golf because of the up because partially because the optics So like these are optics. You're at a u.s.c. Fight You're not gonna make joe rogan love you. I mean, maybe he can but joe rogan is you know, again So at this u.s.c. Fight there was a moment. He saw all of his maga influencers. He saw joe rogan He saw that horrible guy fury with the stupid hair. He saw what was that about? I didn't even know he was maga But guy fury like making out with andrew tate. Okay, I didn't have enough reasons to not like you But I now I do yeah And uh, you saw all those guys discuss Donald trump is now the guy who was the high school quarterback five years ago And he graduated and he went to community college for a year Then he dropped out now he works at a gas station But every friday night he still takes that corvette or that trans am he circles the parking lot like that was my place, man I loved it. That was when I was at my peak and trump feels like this is like the This could not be a more friendly audience for him But I think that too has come to to to a sort of diminishing returns point and then some Yeah, I think that's right and if you're donald trump, you really want to be hanging out with andrew tate a child sex trafficker unbelievably bad uh rick wilson as always my friend Ed Fitzgerald is a candidate for congress in ohio 7th district welcome welcome ed Hi, molly. Let's talk about ohio because you are running for max miller's congressional seat You have run for office before in ohio and I feel like it's probably like one of the very few moments Where democrats can win in ohio because of the craziness at the white house Is that your calculus and talk us through it? It's a different vibe than I've ever seen before let me put it that way So I've been elected to local office. I was a mayor locally and I was a county executive locally So we can win and especially in northeast ohio and basically democrats do win in the bigger cities Like they do across the country, right? But this is a suburban district and it's a little bit of a rural district, but I've never seen a vibe like this I mean, I mean we've done we've done 22 town halls in the last I think four months and the level of Anger and just confusion about what the country is turning into I've never seen anything like it and so that creates a moment That you wouldn't see in a place like ohio typically the big story that the mainstream media is missing right now Is that as uncomfortable as all of us in tv land are with what's happening the american people are 10 times more furious and scared and so Tell me what it's like in these town halls and also first I want you to tell us the district you're running for is what is the what are the Calculus like how republican is it and then I want to talk about max miller So the district is a district that donald trump won with about 55 percent of the vote and it's the cleveland suburbs It's the west cleveland suburbs and some suburbs that are south of cleveland And then it's three counties that are south of cleveland that are more rural. They're kind of suburban, but they're also kind of rural So that's what that's basically what the district is some parts of the district are kind of high income high education Some of them are much more like what used to be called Reagan democratic areas these are suburbs by the way that all the presidential candidates Whether it was bill clinton or barack obama or george bush used to always go to these suburbs because they can swing One way or the other so that's what the district is the vibe that you get when we've done like I said we've done 22 town halls Max miller hasn't done a town hall in two years. He's one of these people that's hiding out from his Constituents and I can see why because I have talked to these folks and they are pissed off The thing is molly that it's tough to describe in one sentence But I'll do my best to do so is what it is that they're mad about what the way that I describe it is that They have this sense that the richest people in the country have teamed up with the most corrupt people in the country To hijack the government the way that that unfolds in their personal life is a lot of times different Sometimes that means it's higher grocery prices or higher gas prices Sometimes it means because they're being they're getting screwed over on health care But they just know that something is seriously Gone off the rails. I want you to talk about max miller. So max miller is a I don't even know how to explain him He's a person from trump world. He has a long and salacious History with ladies that includes allegations of domestic I mean just talk me through like he's a very galvanizing candidate I think he's one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the entire country when you've been accused credibly by three women Including the daughter of senator bernie marino of abuse. You're in big trouble woke leftist bernie marino go on yes, right and by the way the other woman that went on the record was Melania trump's press secretary So it's not like these were people that maga people could say oh well these were these were crazy liberal activists that are making You know outrageous allegations. So he's just a very troubled guy. Let me put it that way He's a trust fund baby He comes from one of the wealthiest families in cleveland and he was a trump staff person who win the previous republican member congress voted for impeachment He was one of those congressmen his name was anthony gonzalez. He wasn't very nationally prominent But he did vote his conscience and he voted for impeachment Well, they pressured him out and they they plopped max biller in and he's never really developed a rapport with the district And that's only been heightened by the fact that he's just such a a mess And then when he doesn't really campaign much because he's not very good at it But when he does speak out you can see his lack of talent quite honestly So give you a quick example after the miniapolis shootings He immediately made some really disgusting comments that basically blame the victims there in miniapolis Wait, which miniapolis shootings of melissa horton and her husband or the two American citizens who god josh the two american citizens So what he said after that was that anybody that hasn't served in the military or in law enforcement Needs to shut up and not say anything about that because they don't understand the situation and by the way I've been in law enforcement before and that's not how I feel I used to be an special agent with the fbi So look that doesn't give me a special right to talk about when people's human rights are being violated and you know People might think that's just a liberal issue. It's not there are very conservative communities For instance, we have a big ukrainian population in the district. Well, they've been affected by ice And so I just think this guy is completely out of touch. This is not a crazy crazy right wing district at all He only got 51 of the vote by the way in 2024 So I think he should be at the top of the list. I'm not just saying that because I'm running but I guess I have an extra Reason to say that Yeah, I mean I've known about this guy as someone who writes about domestic violence or tries to Make sure to highlight when I see that happen on the left or the right the fact that there were so many women and he kept having You know, I just couldn't that really I was really shocked that there hasn't been any kind of Follow-up there and the fact that it's not an extreme maga district, you know, even though we're seeing today We have Rome, Georgia doing runoff you're campaigning in this district the suburbs of Cleveland. I've been there I'm curious to hear what People tell you are the big concerns because that I think is very useful and important to know Yeah, people do care about the corruption I mean, I talk about corruption a lot because my background wasn't investigating it So I do focus on it a lot the incredible scams that are going on that we find out about on an almost daily basis That really gets under people's skin because when you're struggling to make it and you know that other people are getting rich off the system That really does resonate with people when they talk about things though that How that kind of works out into their daily life the biggest thing that we do hear about is healthcare so max miller was one of the people that voted against Extending the subsidies for the affordable care act that affected about 40,000 people just in this district So that's a huge percentage of people and by the way that hit people harder in the rural areas than it actually did in the suburban areas So we hear about that a lot and everybody has a personal story about that I mean, I do in my family almost everybody has a story about how they're either Underinsured or uninsured or they can't afford the premiums or they can't afford the deductibles And so that really hit people hard So there's about 25,000 people that are scheduled to get kicked off of medicaid And there's about 40,000 who just have their premiums go through the roof. So that's something we hear about a lot and It's one of the reasons I mean i'm for Medicare for all and I find that that issue really resonates with people Not that Medicare is perfect But they know it they understand it and they see that is I'm not just telling them. Hey, I feel your pain that sucks I'm also saying there is a way to get there. We can finally get serious about this in this country I would love to talk about like you're in a state that's like been very republican You have this governor who sort of was able to walk the line now. He's Termed out right so you had charade charades running again Like I'd love you to just talk about the landscape like because I remember going to Ohio in 2016 and getting the sense that this this state was really going to vote for Trump Like I just really like I didn't see any Clinton lawn signs or I saw very few And I thought this is not going to be a democratic win. You can sort of feel it. So tell me what it's like Yeah, I was around in politics for long enough that I kind of saw the whole thing coming I mean I'm old enough that I remember when we had democratic governors in the 80s But we basically the statewide party has with the exception of shared brown has been on a pretty big losing streak since 1990 Now the exception to that was barack obama But I gotta tell you molly that was different because they put so many resources into the state And they had so many volunteers. I mean they had so many young people that were active 2008 was incredible. Although 2004 was also very competitive at the presidential level, but 2008 was incredible You just felt it on the ground And then kind of the air went out of the balloon and you started feeling In 2010 is when it all started to kind of go wrong in the state and you could just feel it on the ground What's happening? And I think it's happening in other states like Iowa is really interesting I think also Iowa you see they're kind of getting Buyers remorse. We've had a republican government for so long in this state Like I said, I mean except for four years Since 1990 every governor has been republican except for four years that people are saying, you know what? We are getting screwed and at what point in time do we need to start holding the people accountable that are actually running this state? So there's just a lot of buyers remark. We did two polls against max miller We were winning in both of them one by two points one by four points And what was surprising was not that the democrats were voting for me. It was how many Republicans and independents were saying, okay, I finally had enough. I just think we're at a tipping point It's funny because I'm thinking about the bernie marino Senate race from the 24 cycle and like it really did from the outside remember I'm not in ohio, but from the outside it certainly seemed as if bernie had been Like crypto had come in and just been like no more share brown Bernie marinos our man and like when you hear him he seems real sleazy Compared to share it right, you know, I'm not friends with him But I I know him a little and like he seems pretty folksy and bernie seems really sleazy Like it seemed like shared might be able to hold on to see you think there's remorse there I mean do people talk to you about that at all? Well 2024 was a really crazy political year here and I'll tell you what first of all your instincts, right? I mean shared brown has had a long long relationship. I mean goes back into the 80s with the voters and He's always been somebody that can the talks like a regular person and bernie marino I don't think has that ability at all But he's owns car dealerships, right? He's a car dealership guy And I don't think people do what his background was But here's the thing over 60 of the ads and if you lived in ohio You saw this over 60 of the ads that bernie marino ran were negative ads against shared brown And it was almost always on one issue. You want to guess what it was trans in sports? Exactly You could not turn on a television here without somebody saying I just can't vote for shared brown again because I don't think that men should be playing on women's basketball teams Insane it was the ultimate distraction Operation and it was I'm telling you it was overwhelming and there's all this bullshit going on where the super packs As you said the crypto industry and so forth they were running the same ads, right? Supposedly these are independent, but that's all bullshit. They clearly are coordinating and it was just absolutely overwhelming The question is when you're living your daily life and you can see that your life did not get better because of all those commercials and you're actually still struggling to make it you don't have gas that's a dollar 50 It's four bucks at what point in time do you say you know what I got conned by this and I think we are getting Some people are going to be conned and they're never going to figure it out But I do think a lot of people have figured it out. Have you had people say to you like we got conned? Yes, absolutely and the other part of a winning an election is that your own base has to be motivated and Our base is I mean look they said listen we we thought think terrible things were going to happen We didn't know it was going to be this terrible. I mean every single day I have a line that I always tell these tell these town halls what we do on my say I used to say I had to check my phone You know the morning of the town hall to make sure it's something crazy now I have to check it five minutes before yeah, and there's just this sense that the country is slipping out of control So I think the combination of buyer's remorse plus a motivated base adds up to max miller taking early retirement Today is a really good example of you know, donald trump threatened to basically just blow up all of iran Not entirely clear why He decided to do that today, but it certainly feels like we are a country Run by a man king who has very little accountability congress out of office for the holiday Because the god had spring break when you're talking to people Do they sort of remember what government looks like that like we've been in this thing for a decade It depends how old they are. Yeah, I'll give you an example. So my kids. I've got four kids. They're they're my youngest is 26 Okay, so my my daughter bridget is 26 She doesn't really you know her last 10 years of her life and all of her adult life as a citizen who can vote Right has all been about this madness. So one thing that I am worried about is we do have young people show up at the town halls But even if you look at no kings day, which we had some great no kings day protests here It still was an older crowd because I think a lot of people that are on the younger side have said This is so f'd up that maybe it can never work again because these are people a lot of times that barely remember brawl bomb I know that makes that sounds crazy But if you're young enough you don't really remember that or that's part of your childhood and all they've seen is this dysfunction And those are the hardest questions to answer. I'll tell you a town hall I mean, look, I don't know when this is going to air but yesterday I saw the president basically Promising war crimes while standing next to the easter bunny. Yeah I it's surreal So you get to a point where you're like, look, I get it while you're why you're so cynical and you don't think that things can work So I I always tell people look, I don't want to over promise I do think democrats are going to take back congress and then we are in for two more crazy years until these assholes are totally out of office Because it's never going to be normal while they're there. That may not be an uplifting message But I'm trying to be straight with people and I tell people one of the reasons I think I'm a good candidate is I've seen a lot of stuff politically. I've done a lot of things in my career I thought I'd seen the worst of the worst Well, these people are the worst of the worst and we're not going to get rid of them just because we have a good election this year We've got to buckle up and get ready for two more crazy years Ed Fitzgerald, when is the primary? primary is on May 5th and actually early voting starts on april 7th. Is it crowded field? It's a crowded field But look a few years ago the democratic party had a scramble to find somebody to run in this district And now there's all kinds of people running, but I think it looks pretty good for us, but we'll see what we'll see what happens All right, we'll come back. Thanks. Appreciate it Rick Wilson hey Molly it always Must be that if there is a moment of fucker a it is somehow tied to trump corruption And if it's trump corruption and it's attacking your enemies it may very well be fancy rich guy Friendly trumps. Yeah So a guy that most of us don't pay a ton of attention to except you and I of course named bill polty inside the administration He is a huge friend of the president. He runs the federal housing finance agency Which is the the group that's been responsible for quote unquote finding These bullshit mortgage fraud accusations against tish james and who god knows who else right? They've all turned out to be nothing burgers But he is an eager trump ask his for the highest degree and now finance committee has found out that polty gave $65,000 to a charity Called one world love llc. Yes, that's right. Here's the thing one world love llc Was built by one of the partners at the banal law group those people banal B in a ll But the way it sounds is is the way it is Michael wolf said I say banal things on television. You know what? Michael wolf has thousands of epsi emails I know and you don't so there you go. There you go. Keep going. Anyway This was during a period of time where they were paying a banal law group trump owed them Jujillions of dollars and this looked like a charitable payment or a charitable deduction But in turns out it was just to pay trump's fucking legal bills These people are so shady and now Since this was a 501 c3 Mr. Polty who apparently is a stickler for the rules because everybody's mortgages have to be examined with a fine-toothed co Miss polty may be entering the finding out territory It's not always the big corruption. I mean 65 000 in trump corruption money is like nothing But I mean it's still the point. It's the point Rick will send molly jong fast. I'll see you next week 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 This is an iHeart podcast guaranteed human