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Hi, I'm Molly Johnfast and this is Fast Politics.

Where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds.

And Forbes says Donald Trump's wealth has ballooned to $6.5 billion.

He made $1.4 billion over the past year.

Have you?

Because I have not.

We have such a great show for you today.

MSNOW's Ali Vitale steps by to talk about Congress trying to finally reopen DHS.

Then we'll talk to the New York Times shangold marker about Republicans' weird plan

to have a midterm convention and what it all means, but first the news.

My really, really wild house ethics hearing where the committee found somewhat guilty.

This is like never happens and it's a Democrat.

Yes.

Okay, so let's talk about the she's in Florida Democrat.

Sheila Turfless McCormick hyphenated name just like myself.

She has a criminal trial going to.

So here's a question here.

It's an ethics trial and a criminal trial.

She is a member of Congress, pretty new, pretty young.

The church centers on a $5 million government overpayment to her family health care company,

which was funneled through conduits and family members to her 2022 house campaign.

A few things here.

This is one of the sort of very rare times when you have a Democrat facing the kind of allegations that we often see with Republicans.

Now, look, have we seen this happen with Democrats before?

Robert Menendez, right?

We've seen it before for sure.

There is such wide overreaching fraud on the Republican side when it comes to Donald Trump.

It is cabinet of kleptocrats that it's worth realizing that Democrats should be running on fighting fraud and not committing fraud.

And so this is just one member of Congress.

There are, you know, hundreds and more than 400 members of Congress.

So I personally think she should just resign so this can get off the docket.

And they can appoint someone else.

The problem is in Florida, you have this governor or so maybe she stays.

And, you know, DeSantis is not going to put someone else in there who's a Democrat, especially with the numbers being so tight.

So maybe she does need to stay.

But Democrats need to prosecute the case of Trump fraud.

And in this way, it's hard to have her.

And the other problem is there are two things going on here.

There's the ethics and then there's a criminal trial.

And the question is like to having an ethics trial at the same time as a criminal trial.

Like, is that a violation of our civil rights?

So that's where we are.

Fun stuff.

So this is my favorite story.

This is really like the nutrition I get for some of the terrible things we have to put in the show today.

So Rod DeSantis is having lots of trouble with his immigration crackdown.

For example, a bunch of the sheriffs he appointed who are very mega are like not broke.

This is hurting the farmers.

I can't do this anymore.

The story of the New York Times is just delicious and how stupid this policy is.

Yeah. So these are conservative sheriffs.

So these are Trumpy sheriffs.

Okay.

It's a very interesting story because I mean, there are a number of reasons.

A, it's here's the guy saying it's too wide a net.

He says, and we're hurting people who are not the targets of this.

But there's something else interesting happening here.

To prosecutors don't want to prosecute this.

And in this story, it talks about how they have people who are getting picked up and having to be driven around to start the clock.

And then going to prosecutors who are refusing to prosecute.

And in this story, they talk about a man who has a brain tumor who had been in holding for 25 days and had no criminal allegations whatsoever.

And the prosecutor refused to prosecute because he was like, this is just insane.

And so we really are seeing a failure on every level of this policy.

Yeah. And also who could have predicted it every one?

Everyone. But that's like all of this.

Everyone could have predicted all of this.

So a lot of people got very scared that the Republicans were going to try to pass a lot of the Savak through reconciliation this week.

And what we're already seeing is that's going fucking terribly.

Yeah. Good.

This is a story of Trump world yet again, absolutely, you know, trying to do something they can't do luckily.

So this is an amendment that would require voters to show photo identification to cast a ballot.

And it failed to advance in the Senate.

By the way, this whole thing, like federal is not supposed to regulate state when it comes to elections.

That's what our Constitution says, right? That there are elections are state run.

So the idea now that the reason that Trump is trying to get the federal government to regulate elections is because he knows he's going to lose.

The vote came the second week of a marathon debate.

You know, so they're basically in the middle of this talking filibuster about the Savak.

And you know, during this filibuster, Democrats have managed to like have them vote.

They voted a ton of times on reopening the government.

You know, they've gotten Republicans on the record in every which way, which has been I think is good in a way just to show that they don't want to reopen the government that they don't have the best interest of the American people at heart.

All right, now comes the stupidest story I've put in this show in so long.

I could barely move the key strokes.

The US Treasury plans to put Trump's signature on currency.

You know, you're so crabby about this, but it's relevant and important.

I'm sorry to tell you.

It's just it feels so dumb.

Trump wants to have money with his name on it.

And there you have it.

I mean, I could say more.

He also is going to do a commemorative coin, which I'm sure is not like the fake commemorative coins that he sells already, but a real fake commemorative coin that he sells already.

So it's like the grift and it's also aocracy, right?

Like my man wants to be Lincoln.

And why it's important is because there's not something we do with living presidents.

It's not how we've ever done it.

You know, Trump is doing it because he just has no respect for norms.

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We have exciting news over at our YouTube channel. The third episode is out now from our series Project 2029.

Are we imagining where we examine what went wrong with Democrats' approach to policy and how we can correct it and deliver changes for the American people?

The first episodes dove into campaign financial form, antitrust, and regulation. Our newest episode is on how we solidify reproductive rights for women.

We talk to the smartest names in the field. Like abortion every day is Chesica Valendi, the center for reproductive rights, Nancy Northup.

UCLAs, Owen Mary Ziegler, and the Gutmacher Institute's Kelly Badden. Republicans were prepared for when they got the levers of power. Democrats need to be too.

So please head over to YouTube and search Molly John Fast, Project 2029, or go to the Fast Politics YouTube channel page and you'll find it there. Help us spread the word.

Allie Battelli is a senior Capitol Hill reporter and the host of MSNOWs way too early. Allie Battelli, Molly John Fast.

Thank you for coming on. We love you and think you're great. Love you, think you're great.

And also, Congress almost made itself relevant today. Just got it. Congress tried to Congress, TBD if they did it.

It's like the first time they've tried to do it all season. It's nice when we get a revival, like a call back to a past season.

That's right. Congress trying to do it. Revival is never as good as the original though. So we'll still get here.

Exactly. So let's set this up. Homeland Security DHS in a shutdown had been in a shutdown with the exception of the president's super scary paramilitary, which has its own funding, which is funded for billions of dollars forever and ever.

But shutting down Homeland was in the hopes that they could negotiate more stuff for ICE, more guardrails, maybe some identification, lack of masks, body cameras, some of the kind of stuff we technically have in what used to be our country.

So talk us through what actually happened.

If this deal of the Senate passed a bill that would reopen DHS and fund everything except for ICE and border protection.

If that sounds familiar, it's because it is literally the thing that we started 42 days ago with Democrats saying, hey, we will actually vote to keep DHS open if only we pull out these two pieces of it.

And I think that the deals are right exactly. And I think the deal that they came out with tells us two things. The first, and we have to wait and see if the house ultimately passes this.

There are questions about how quickly they can move. There's a rule in the house that you can't vote by suspension, which is basically how you bypass the rules committee and need a two third majority of the chamber to pass something you can't do those kinds of votes on Fridays.

So it kind of bogs down the process and it means that Speaker Johnson has to heard more of his own cats getting them to the table, while also haggling the Democrats.

So at 11 a.m. now on Friday, TBD, how the house or if the house ultimately moves on this.

But the way the Senate did this deal tells us two things. The first is that Republicans are aware that ICE was getting its funding through another mechanism so they can sort of say political face by saying, yeah, we can reopen it without technically funding ICE.

The second thing is the leverage is now sort of gone for any guard rails to be negotiated on. And so while Democrats have clearly made the point that they are not going to fund ICE any further.

A Republican's already did that last summer. There is now no real political push to do guard rails on ICE and border protection for the way that they do immigration enforcement.

I just think like I heard whispers of this back in January after the tragedies on the ground in Minneapolis. And I think that time unfortunately is masking that political wound.

And so I just don't have a ton of confidence. I'd love to be proven wrong that there are going to be new guard rails negotiated.

Right. But I want to talk about sort of what happened. So 41 days of shutdown. Right. We have TSA workers not being paid for 41 days. That's how we got these terrible bottlenecks in the airports.

Now, so earlier this week there was a deal. And Donald Trump said no dice, no deal with Democrats until I get, by the way, I love this until I get my save act so that I can mess with elections and not lose it.

Explain to us what happened on Friday because on or on Thursday because on Thursday he said we're actually good. I'm going to fund it, which is actually not true.

And then he did an executive order. So explain what happened there.

Trump trying to include the save act here is like should be a sweetener, but it actually isn't a sweetener. It just causes more problems for Republicans.

Like every time he comes forward and says, I'm not going to sign any other bill until you send me the save act. Like he's actually the call is coming from inside his own house on this one.

And it's coming from him messing with his colleagues on the Republican side who like yes, there are a large number of them who want to vote for that bill.

But there are also not enough people in the Senate to bypass the 60 vote threshold of the filibuster. He wants them to then blow up the filibuster.

And John Thune is like, Hey, I have a memory longer than a flee. I remember when Democrats held the line and we praised them and we don't want to be on the receiving end of whatever Democrats would do without a filibuster.

Right. So that's the backdrop.

Right.

I tried to come in over the top after scuttling a deal that came together that looked by the way a heck of a ton just like the one that they ended up doing by unanimous consent overnight in the Senate to reopen DHS.

He ended up coming in over the top and saying, OK, I'm just going to executive order payment to TSA agents, which by the way, power of the person is a Congress thing, even though we know that Congress doesn't really Congress anymore.

And it also gives Democrats a pretty simple talking point of, if you were able to do this 41 days ago, why do you let these people suffer for so long?

And by the way, since he's not actually technically able to do that, he's moving money around within DHS, when I've seen them do this before, even though they're not allowed to do it, Congress is not clawing back the power.

So that's kind of where it leaves it. And so we'll see ultimately which thing gets TSA agents paid first, but that's the landscape.

And I also think that's really a case of Trump trying to take credit for something.

Right. Like clearly somebody was like, I mean, I was I'm learning Joe today with Marge and Marge was talking about how she had talked to voters on these lines who blamed Trump. Have you seen that?

I think that what's instructive is that the last shutdown where Republicans were so sure they were not going to get blamed.

Rolling showed they were getting blamed. And in this instance, I think it is the same thing yet again, because a, the polling was already there against immigration over reach, right?

You couple that with the fact that voters as much as some of them are not paying attention to the rules about a suspension on a front like they don't care.

Thank God, I only get paid for that, right? But they do care about being smart enough to know, wait a second, Republicans control not just the White House, but the House and the Senate and the government is in a shutdown.

So why is the majority party with all the numbers and all the power not making it work? And frankly, when the shoes on the other foot, that's where Democrats get blamed.

The party in power always gets smeared because voters are smart enough to know the basic thing is run the government.

If the government's not running them, what's up?

Right. And I think so. So I think that Trump trying to like take credit for this also cuts both ways, because if you could have ended it today, why didn't he end it 41 days ago?

Correct. You know, I think the thing that's so interesting and we were talking about this on my show this morning.

Shout out to way too early. Everyone who wants to be in a morning person, you can come hang out with us.

5 a.m. 5 a.m. But we were talking about this idea that like the issue set right now on affordability, on not having daylight with the White House.

The Republican strategist I had on this morning said the issue set right now is the exact opposite of what Republicans did to Democrats in 2024.

In 2024, Republicans were slamming Democrats on why won't you break with Biden? Why won't you criticize Kamala Harris?

Costs are high. You're not doing anything about it. And now it's exactly the same, but Democrats doing it to Republicans.

Right. And the Republicans, the question they're going to have to answer. And I know that they are grappling with this privately, but private doesn't count because we're in a public environment.

Right.

You're going to have to figure out when their political fortunes matter more than feel to the White House, which is only making their headwinds more aggressive than history told them they were already going to be in this midterm.

I think that's a really good point. And that's what we see, you know, the Biden administration did this thing, which was they said you can break with us, which a lot of White houses have not said.

You know, they said you can criticize, right? Everyone but Kamala Harris.

All right. So tell us exactly that. Tell us what the story was and also what the history is of not being able to break with the White House of power.

Well, look, I mean, like you don't break with the leaders of your party. That's just not really what it is to be in a party apparatus.

There's always different rules, right? I mean, Nancy Pelosi was the best at this. She would tell some of her more vulnerable members when she had to twist their arms to put them in line.

I mean, like she was the velvet hammer on that for a reason. Right. Many of those Democratic members have scars to tell all the times that she twisted them into votes that were problematic for them.

But at the same time, she used to say to them, just win, baby. Do what you got to do to win the race because ultimately the numbers here in Washington are what matters.

That's what midterms are about. And so, yes, White houses are important in that. But typically, presidents don't command as much fealty as Trump does.

And that's where you have to get into grappling with the fact that the Republican party is not showing signs of being a healthy party in that wall for people who was described to a Democratic faith or a Republican faith.

It's hard to see people within the party argue with each other, but it is actually the sign that there is a healthy exchange of ideas.

And then the Republican party right now having any idea that is opposite of what Trump wants you to have is considered disvoial is considered reason to be primaried and is considered to be reason to be cleaned out of the house.

And he's shown that he's willing to do that. And so for these members, whether the White House were to green light this or not, and of course they never would for these members, they have to stay in line.

Even though Trump is not on the ticket and Trump is only providing them problems politically in some of these tougher swaying districts, we're really talking about like 30 seats here.

And if even half of them flip, I mean, that's a bigger majority than Republicans have had in the last two congresses.

Yes. So what they are going to do now, I want you to talk to Congress for a minute. So they'll be this vote. They'll fund DHS.

Then they're going to still need to fund ice, though ice has $10 trillion through the BBB.

They're going to put that will mean that soon we'll have to do another package. So talk us through what that means.

The reconciliation is like my least favorite word because everyone's eyes glaze over, but really it just means whatever party is in power gets to unilaterally put together a group of things that have a budgetary impact.

That's really important and pass it on through. Right. So they did the so-called one big beautiful bill that was through the process of reconciliation.

They're coming back on a reconciliation 2.0 got only knows what the title of this one will be, but there is a lot of consternation among Republicans about getting this second package through in large part because it's expected to include things like $200 billion in supplemental funding for the ongoing Iran war.

A conflict that frankly even top Republicans in the house are starting to get a little bit vocal about they don't feel they're getting clear information from the administration.

They're saying, look, we're not being disloyal. We just aren't getting our questions answered, which frankly is what Democrats have been complaining about from these administration briefings for months now.

So the fact that Republicans are catching up is notable. Yeah, Roger Wicker. Right. Yeah.

Well, Wicker has been like a little more private in the concern. Right.

My Roger is over on the house side is who has been the most vocal of this and he's at the chairman level. So no.

Right. And we face the two others. Yeah.

But so even if you just look at that, right, that $200 billion is fraught from the fact that Republicans didn't get to vote their way into the Iran war.

But now they are going to be asked to vote on funding for it and they're going to be asked to just swallow any concerns that they have about that ongoing conflict.

That's just one piece of it. Right. Once you get into a period of reconciliation, especially in a midterm year, you've got members we're going to be coming out saying, no, wait, I want this.

No, wait, I want this. And when your majorities are as slim as they are, you actually have as a member, you have a singular ability to withhold your vote until you get the thing that you want.

Everyone in the house gets to be, you know, a Senator Joe Manchin or a Senator Kirsten Sinema to put it in terms that the audience might be triggered to understand. Right.

You have a singular power when your vote is so needed. And this is not going to be an easy process, but it is likely to be one that comes on really fast on the hill.

Right. And I think that that is important and relevant because that's also going to be where they try to do some save act stuff. Right. And others, right.

So, yeah. So talk us through that. They're going to save act is this idea that Trump wants to federalize election.

The basically and make it harder to vote. And he's all over the place. And it's bad for democracy, but it's also.

It's very bad for Republicans in a certain way because places like Alaska vote by mail and huge numbers. What do you think he's going to try here?

Because reconciliation, remember, has a top line that is supposed to be budgetary.

It has to hit some kind of budgetary bottom line so you have to connect federal funding to whatever it is you're trying to do.

And this is why the parliamentarian is going to be so important. You're going to hear us congressional reporters a lot saying, well, the parliamentarian ruled this or not this.

So that's going to be impactful. But look, I think the save act, the reason why it's not getting every single republic full-throated we're doing this is because of what you're saying.

Republicans do well with rural voters in rural states. And in rural states, sometimes that means that you cannot get to your polling place or maybe you just don't want to.

And when you look at a state like Alaska, which is so important to bring up because this is one of the key seats that we are looking in the Senate landscape.

I've gone to Alaska. I've covered these contests in the past. Mary Peltola, I covered her first election to Congress.

It was where she beat Sarah Palin. Palin was trying to make a comeback. This was 2022.

Peltola has been out of the house for two years. Huge recruiting opportunity for Chuck Schumer that he was able to succeed with.

And now we're in a position where Dan Sullivan, the Republican, is trying to run for reelection.

And if you're taking away people's ability to participate in that contest, I don't think that helps him.

Yeah.

And this is just one example of why that legislation, like, yes, on its face, voter ID, actually, I think sounds common sense to a lot of people.

But when you start talking about needing your birth certificate to match your other forms of identification.

And you start thinking about something as simple as women getting married and changing their last names.

It's just one immediate example of why that legislation on its face doesn't actually do what Republicans say it does.

Right. And there's also some question. I mean, look, I think it's bad for any number of reasons.

And even just the fact that Trump is trying to mess with elections because he sees the pole laying and we see what Mike Lee is tweeting.

And we see, you know, we see Republicans giving away the game here.

But there's some evidence too that this could actually hurt Republicans.

It's not, it doesn't necessarily cut because remember, Trump had all these low frequency, low propensity voters come out for him.

And those people do not necessarily have passports, etc.

Also, can we just please point out what happened in the cabinet meeting the other day where our friend Liz Landers at PBS said to him,

why did you use a male invalid to vote in the legislative election around Palm Beach?

And he's like, well, I wasn't there. I was in Washington. And she's like, yeah, but like you were in Palm Beach.

So why didn't you just go in first then? And it's just like, well, I'm the president.

And it's like, oh, so can you only vote by male if you're the president?

Like, well, and my favorite part of that whole thing is that not only did he vote by male, but his son voted by male and his wife voted by male is perfectly allowed.

Yeah, wait, no, my favorite part though is that the state senator, the Florida state senator representing his district on Tuesday lost.

Yeah.

And that I think is, and that was a big flip, because that was a, and you know, on our.

And the DLCC, the Democratic Ledge Committee is putting out the statistic and they're right to.

It's a great number. The fact that they have been able to flip 30 legislative seats across the country in the past year.

And Republicans have been able to flip zero.

And I think the thing that we're forced to grapple with is are those singular specific elections, which they might be special elections.

And some special on five news, which which that could be true right special elections can be special, but also when there's 30 of them.

I think that that's more of a pattern that's worth paying attention to and could be a really again added to the list of negative signs for Republicans going into the midterms.

Well, you know, the polling is unbelievably bad.

I mean, he's on the back foot on everything from the economy to inflation to immigration.

I mean, his winning, he has no winning issues anymore.

And those really were his untouchables, right?

I mean, Democrats that I would talk to that I'm sure that you were talking to were sort of like racked with.

Okay, you know, 2024 election cycle that is focused on immigration and affordability and like national security.

And Trump is running away with those issues fair or not.

That's what the minds of the electorate said.

Right. Like Democrats were constantly vexed with how they could get a cohesive message out that would counter that.

And early on in the Trump administration, some of them started saying to me,

like, we just got to let this play out because he is going to overreach.

They are going to overstep and the public is going to say, whoa, we voted for it, but not like that.

And I think that might be the story that we end up telling in mid November after the election.

But ultimately you won't, you won't truly know until you know.

Yeah, we voted for it, but not like that.

Yeah.

Okay, thank you for joining.

Molly, always.

Shane Goldmacher is a national political correspondent for the New York Times.

Welcome, welcome, Shane.

Thanks for having me on.

I wanted you to come on so we could talk about this piece you wrote for the New York Times.

And then we're going to talk about a lot of other stuff because all of the pieces you're writing right now are exactly the nerdiness that I need.

But let's talk about this.

So Trump and the RNC are going or at least as much as any of this will actually happen in Trump.

And there's always a caveat, right?

Because this is a group where who knows?

But they're thinking about having a midterm convention in Dallas, Texas.

Give me everything you want to tell me about this story.

Yeah, I mean, so when we think about conventions,

we think every four years, balloons and presidential nominees and pageantry.

And like Donald Trump loves that stuff, right?

It's a show that he gets to be the MC of.

And he has been enamored with the idea that Republicans should do this this year in a midterm.

And yeah, there's been decades since either party has done a midterm convention.

The Democrats floated the idea last year as well.

They've since said they're not going to do it.

One of the reasons is this is expensive, right?

You got to rent an arena, you got to stage it.

And the parties raise money and use nonprofit groups to fund these every four years.

So this is a big, big investment of money and time.

And yeah, they are all but settled on trying to do it in Dallas this fall.

You know, we reported that that city is where they've picked.

There's a political probably reasons and logistical reasons what arenas work.

But this is going to be, I think, one of the organizing moments of a midterm campaign,

which is often sprawling, right?

You got all these house races and Senate races.

But they're talking about bringing everybody together and trying to nationalize this race and say,

you need to vote Republican to save these Republican majorities that are very, very narrow in the house.

And, you know, bigger, but, you know, increasingly in jeopardy in the Senate.

So why, Texas?

It's a great question.

They are going to have their actual convention in 2028 in Houston.

I think partly it's logistical.

Partly it's, can you find a city with a Republican mayor, a state with a Republican government,

you don't run into logistical problems.

Most of the big cities are governed by Democrats.

And also Texas is an important state this year.

This is the first state that President Trump and the Republicans redistrict it.

They re-drew the house maps to squeeze out as many as five new districts.

And they need to win those seats in order to hold the majority.

And now, not only do we have all these house seats in places where, by the way,

the party's redistricting is looking less certain than it did before,

as Democrats have been made some gains among Latino voters and in some of these special elections.

And you also have a Senate race there.

Republicans are still engaged in a pretty brutal primary, a runoff between John Cornyn,

whose ball but begging for President Trump's endorsement,

and Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, who, in a lot of the public and private services,

is ahead of John Cornyn in the incumbent.

And the Democrats have nominated James Taleriko,

who has approved a fundraising star for the Democratic Party.

He's going to have the resources to be competitive in that state.

And so now you're going to be bringing this convention and this attention to a state

that, you know, it has not been at the top of the electoral calculations for either party for a long time.

But more so than in a long time, it is this year in 2026.

Trump has still not endorsed.

So there's like a pretty bruising runoff going.

I mean, for party stalwarts, Trump would endorse Cornyn,

because Cornyn is less Trump-y,

and then Republicans would rally around him and Paxton would drop out.

But it seems pretty clear from the amount of money spent already in this race,

that Cornyn is really on the back foot,

and that Paxton, who's spent like a very small multiple,

yeah, what Cornyn has spent, has much more momentum.

So even at this moment, I wonder, I mean, why do you think Trump is not endorsed in here?

So let's step back to the first round of this race,

where it was Paxton versus Cornyn,

and it took about $70 million,

which is an enormous sum of money of advertising to get John Cornyn

to very, very narrowly top Ken Paxton.

This is an incumbent senator with $70 million of support,

and he gets like 42% and just barely above Ken Paxton.

So for some, for Cornyn folks, this was a reason for celebration. He beat him, right?

On the other hand, it was totally a sign of his vulnerability,

and the hope had been in the immediate aftermath of this race

that President Trump would endorse him and basically nudge Paxton out of the race.

And that's not what happened right afterwards. Paxton did,

I think a pretty smart, savvy political move. He said,

okay, I will drop out of this race.

If John Cornyn promises to get rid of the filibuster, right?

He's dropping out of the race. If John Cornyn gets rid of the filibuster

and passes President Trump's number one legislative priority to save act,

and it was a way for Paxton to get ahead of making this just about his own personal interest

and make it about President Trump's political interest.

Paxton took no risks at making sure the president would see this gambit,

personally texted it to Donald Trump.

You know, I don't know the exact words of the text,

but it was FYI, you know,

you saw that I'm saying this. And so Cornyn had by all accounts been pretty close

to considering endorsing Cornyn.

I've reported that there was even a draft statement of an endorsement

that was circulating for him to consider.

And now that's on ice, right? He said he wants the save act.

Cornyn has changed his position on the filibuster,

so they are looking at more months of a more negative race between these two guys.

Yeah, there's a world where Paxton is unstoppable.

Where Trump Trump is to endorse Cornyn and Paxton still, you know,

like Paxton has almost out-Trump Trump here.

That's 100% true, and I think this is one of the hold-ups for Donald Trump

and his political team, or some of them,

is they deeply value the power of his endorsement.

And if you endorse somebody and they lose,

your own power is diminished.

And look, you know, Ken Paxton, you said he is out-Trump Trump.

Ken Paxton, like Trump has been impeached.

Ken Paxton, like Trump, has been indicted.

Ken Paxton has been accused of marital infidelity, right?

Not even a cute, I think accused.

I mean...

He's wife is divorcing him with his act of life,

quote-unquote, on biblical grounds.

And so, you know, Trump has seen that Ken Paxton has staying power.

He's seen that he was a loyalist.

Ken Paxton was the guy pushing to overturn this 2020 election,

one of the biggest proponents of the lie that the election was stolen.

And John Corden was the skeptic of that issue at that time.

And so, for Trump, it's not natural that he'd be a Corden guy,

except for the political calculation that most people see Corden

is less vulnerable to losing a red state than Paxton,

who has that whole history.

Right.

I mean, it does feel to me like the idea that that political calculus still works

is kind of, I think, a little nutty.

Okay, there are so many things I want to talk to you about,

and I don't have that much time.

So, I want you to talk next about what's happening in the Iowa Senate race.

So, this is an under the radar race.

You know, if Democrats are talking about what are the four seats they would most like to flip to win the Senate,

this is not in that top four.

This is maybe five, six, seven.

And the Democrats have a primary there between Zach Walls,

who's a state senator, and Josh Turk, who's a state representative.

And a lot of National Democrats see Josh Turk,

and they love his political profile.

And they think this is the kind of candidate who could potentially make this state more competitive.

And what they like about him is that, you know,

he doesn't look like a regular state legislator.

He is in a wheelchair.

He was born with Spina Bifida, and he was a Paralympian twice,

and a gold medalist for the United States men's wheelchair basketball team.

And so, the problem is he has basically raised very little money.

He has $400,000 cash on hand, not enough to wage a real campaign in the state.

And so, what happened this week is an outside national group called Vote Vets,

which typically backs veterans, announced a one week ad buy,

but suggested, all but suggested, there's way more than that,

of $800,000 to lift Josh Turk in the state.

And the hope is, can we get a guy that we see as potentially more electable

because of this personal story?

And Vote Vets is, okay, why are you endorsing and embracing a person who's not a veteran?

And the reason he has Spina Bifida is that his father served in Vietnam

and was exposed agent orange, and that that is apparently the cause of why Josh Turk was been in a wheelchair his whole life.

You know, it's funny because we interviewed Josh Turk, and he's really good.

He's a very compelling speaker.

I remember as someone who interviews a lot of state legislators who are often not really compelling speakers.

I was really impressed by him.

Okay, so let's talk about the Illinois primary for the Senate seat.

We've talked about it quite a lot on this podcast.

It was last week.

It was a big deal.

It meant a lot for the governor, Pritzker, because it was his lieutenant governor,

and it was his pack, and it was this, it was that.

I want you to talk about the sort of APAC of it.

Yeah, beyond the centerpiece in Illinois, there were four house races

where APAC was a major player.

And they spent huge sums of money, and in all but one of them hid where the money was coming from until after the election.

And they had a mixed record.

They won two of those races.

They lost two of those races, but the signature race, the race that drew the most attention,

wound up with the candidate that APAC had not supported.

That they had spent a million dollars plus against.

Then they'd spent four million dollars trying to lift somebody else up.

And then they pivoted at the end to try to snuff out an even more left wing candidate.

And what the race really did show was the limits of their money,

and the limits of their money when voters knew who was spending that money.

And it's going to be really interesting to see how that plays out in the future.

I wrote about the sort of reconsiderations after the fact,

and one of the things that struck me looking at the demographics of the four congressional races they played in,

is APAC was least successful in the most educated districts.

Where they lost is the place where a majority of voters had a college degree.

And those college educated primary voters,

they are more likely to be paying attention to who's paying for their ads,

because they are just more engaged on that type of thing.

And so it'll be interesting to watch in these coming races,

potentially big Senate campaigns, and Michigan, a bunch of house races.

Where does APAC play? How does it play?

In Illinois, they tried to route the money before the election through groups that didn't formally have a tie to them.

And only afterwards, they say, OK, yeah, that was all of our money.

And, you know, there's something about secrecy that voters tend to not to like.

And it's a really hard task, if you're a candidate, to raise the profile of money,

and raise the profile of who's paying for the ads.

But if you're able to do it successfully,

it is the kind of thing that voters don't like.

They don't like outside groups intervening in their races.

And it shows a little bit of the shift on the Democratic Party's position on Israel,

which has been shifting pretty rapidly since the attack on Israel of October 7, 2023.

I want you to pull back and make this make sense in regards to Elon Musk

and the Wisconsin judge race where he came in and people didn't like it.

Is it fair to extrapolate from this that people don't like big money in politics?

Because I don't think that's the message,

but there certainly is a message here that certain causes, like, I mean,

think of all the elections that we've grown up with where there was, you know, a super PAC.

Does this mean more than just what it looks like on the outside?

People always say they don't like big money in politics.

They also say they don't like negative advertising.

You know what people respond to?

Big money spending on negative advertising, right?

So it is true in a vacuum that if you ask a poll of anybody,

do you like this group spending money in this race?

The answer is always overwhelmingly no.

What I think is interesting about what happened in Illinois in a couple of these house races

is that the candidates were able to make the spending such a big issue

that it became part of the race.

And that doesn't always happen.

And that is absolutely what happened with Elon Musk spending in the judge race in Wisconsin.

It was this central argument of the candidates and this came at the moment

where Elon Musk was a peak player in federal politics, right?

He was in the administration.

But if you think back to 2024, Elon Musk was spending tons of money,

setting records for how much money any individual has ever spent in election.

You know, I spent time in Pennsylvania where he had focused his efforts.

In 2024, voters were not bringing up Elon Musk.

They were seeing the ads, but they didn't know who was paying for them

and they didn't care who was paying for them.

And so that's generally the case, right?

My rule of thumb, and I've covered money in politics for years,

is the bigger the race, the less the money matters.

What was interesting to me is that these were not big races.

You know, these were house races.

Where typically big money makes a huge difference

and they were able to offset the money with some messaging.

And that's what's a little bit interesting and intriguing.

And look, you're in New York, I'm in New York.

There's going to be a big race here between Dan Goldman and Brad Lander,

a congressional seat.

And this is another one of those districts, which is a higher income,

higher education district.

We don't know where APAC Super PACs are going to play,

but this is a likely place because there's a pretty big gulf between

Brad Lander and Dan Goldman.

And if they do, how do they play?

And how do voters receive it?

I think that's going to be an interesting test.

And as I mentioned earlier, the Michigan Senate race, too,

is going to be one of those other potential places where

Haley Stevens, a more moderate Democrat, has been a favorite.

They spent a lot of money to help get her to Congress,

hold her coming big, and how will voters respond in Michigan?

Yeah.

I mean, Michigan's a really good example because Haley Stevens,

he is a member of Congress.

She is the least charismatic of the crew.

She has the Schumer nod.

She has, I think, some potential that folks underestimate

to lean into the anti-carisma, right?

Like, Mauer McMoro is, like, absolutely charismatic.

And Abdul Al-Sade is absolutely charismatic.

But you can run it as a candidate who's like, that's not me.

And this is what they've tried to do so far.

You know, we'll see whether it works.

I'm the Michigan manufacturing gal who cares about cars.

And like, it's a challenge, right?

I think that we're seeing a shift in Democratic politics

is what do people value?

And, you know, it's been this truerism, OK, Twitter isn't real life.

And X isn't real life.

And that's absolutely true.

But the gulf between them is shifting.

You still have to be able to do sentences, though.

Yeah, totally.

Which is to say, we've had Mauer in the pod.

And we've had Abdullah in the pod.

And it's stark.

OK, so I actually have two more questions for you.

One is Janet Mills has the blessing of Schumer.

She would be the oldest center freshman ever.

She is running these new ads.

Talk us through this.

Yeah.

So Janet Mills on paper is sort of your perfect Senate candidate.

Two-term governor, a woman, relatively popular with voters,

exactly the kind of person the Democratic Party traditionally

would want to put up against a Susan Collins.

And the party base has really fallen in love with somebody

else altogether, which is Graham Platner,

who is a veteran and, you know, as they repeat over and over

an oyster farmer and has run sort of a progressive campaign

but really an anti-establishment campaign

and is ahead in a lot of the polling.

There was a poll today where he's far ahead.

And so Mills is rolled out, I think now today,

a third in a series of just blistering ads

using some of Graham Platner's past comments on Reddit,

some of which he's apologized for to attack him

over a comment he made about women and rape.

The ads are structured in such way they tell you

there's going to be a whole series of these.

And this is probably the single best opportunity for Democrats

to pick up a Senate race in the country

and they are now faced with a brutal primary for months

before either of them get a chance to take on Susan Collins.

Yeah, I mean, really, absolutely incredible stuff.

My last question for you, Texas had this very

acrimonious Democratic primary.

Have the candidates made peace,

are they doing a rocket and teleregor?

Are they doing a road show?

Is there any sign that that has healed?

That's a great question that I don't really know the answer to.

They have not done a road show.

There has not been any kind of joint kumbaya moments.

It was a little bit brutal at the end

and Crockett was a little bit fliery of saying

she would definitely back telerego.

But there's not been any acrimonious since the primary.

I don't think there's been a together yet

but there's been no continuing on,

basically said she's moving on.

Look, she's a talented politician.

And she has a congressional seat.

It's not like she's gone or anything.

At least for the next few months, right?

She had to leave her seat to run for Senate

but she could certainly run for office again in the future.

Shane, so interesting.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for making the time.

And now no more women will suffer.

Jesse Cannon.

Molly, you know what the people thirsted for

when they elected Mr. Trump?

More cancer?

Well, from out of hide and carcinogens

and just everything, you know.

But that's really what we were all voting for.

It was real like, yes, Mr. Trump.

Injected into my veins.

Yeah.

That was maha, make America cancer again.

Yes.

So a new trove of chemical producers

and U.S. environmental protection agency documents reveal

an elaborate industry operation

that killed strong regulations around formaldehyde,

a highly toxic carcinogen,

widely used in everyday goods from cosmetics

to for an intro to craft supplies.

Did you want cancer lipstick?

Because you got it.

I might start wearing it.

The Trump EPA in late 2025 moved to undo

and replace the regulations.

Because that's what they do.

They want to deregulate.

It's very bad.

It's not good.

And there's not any fucking thing any of us can do

and leads for the day.

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.

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