Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds, and a United States court has reinstated Anti Trust Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter.

We have such a great show for you today.

John Fugel Sang stops by to talk to us about his new book, Separation of Church and Hate, A sane person's guide to taking back the Bible from fundamentalists, fascists, and flock fleecing frauds.

Then we'll talk to Rolling Stone's own Nicki McCann Ramirez about Trump's use of the military as a force.

But first we have the news of the day.

Somali.

Last night, I got out of a really fun concert and I see text that say, are we going to war with Venezuela?

What's with the strike?

What are you seeing?

I don't understand what the plan here is, but it seems as if Trump world wants to go to war with Venezuela.

Why.

I don't know.

Cartels distraction, Trump saw a movie about it.

We do have to make sure no one notices that people are talking about Epstein again.

Epstein files axios is Marco Pudo reports that Maduro lives under the US government's fifty million dollar bounty.

Trump has a kinetic strike in Steid, a deadly kinetic strike targeted I don't know, you know, narco terrorists whatever.

I mean.

Trump has clearly seen something on television.

This is all distraction.

Just ignore it.

I mean, it's bad because it's bad, because it's insane.

But this is all distraction, y yep.

And we'll see what's to come, since they say there's a lot more of it to come.

I mean, they want to go to war with drug they've sort of figured out they've now are underwater on almost everything, right, They're underwater on immigration, they're underwater on the economy.

So they're trying to find things that they are not underwater on.

And they've decided that crime and drugs are the two things that.

Are not underwater on.

So they're deciding that they're going to go to war with these drug cartels.

And actually Trump wanted to do this in his first term, but there were some smart people around him who didn't let him.

And since, if you know, since this is now his second term, he's going to do.

All of that stuff.

So there we are.

So in the last episode, we talked about that RFK juniors, HHS and CDC is in serious turmoil, and we can now see that evidenced in that one thousand HHS workers demand him to resign.

And I wish the Democratic leadership had this much gumption.

Yeah, So why hakem does not say that RFK needs to resign tomorrow is baffling to me.

I don't get it.

I want to call them up and yell at them.

It's just I actually probably will, but it's just baffling to me.

Obviously, RFK needs to resign.

Obviously, Obviously anyone with a brain Bernie wrote a piece in New York Times about this, obviously has got to resign.

He's a He is a quack.

He's wounding all of these medical trials, all of this medical research.

As a country, all of the progress that we have somehow made, is being undermined by a crack who swims in sewage in Rock Creek Park.

He thinks that you called him a crack because instead of a cuck, but the.

Shoe shoe kind of fits.

He's a crack who swims in Rock Creek Park in jeans, and I won't take it back.

So, speaking of the fuckery that he's unleashed because he's weak in the CDC so much.

There's now this thing called the West Coast Health Alliance.

Yeah, so West Coast Health Alliance is California, Oregon, and Washington State.

And here's what's going to happen.

I mean, be a psychic here.

You You have said, by the way, that that asking people to predict the future.

This is one of the brilliant things Jesse has said to me.

It says, never in an interview ask people to predict the future, because it's not good podcasting.

And also nobody knows.

But I'm going to do break your rule and predict the future.

And here's what I'm going to tell you.

If states get nothing from the federal government, they won't want to engage with it.

So if you are a state like California or New York or Massachusetts where you pay a ton of money to the federal government and you have to beg for FEMA, here's what's gonna happen.

Sooner or later, you're gonna say, you, maybe we won't pay all that money to the federal government.

And I don't understand.

I don't think Trump understands that these services have a price tag and if you're not getting it, then why do it?

Then why pay it?

And this is the first step of that.

Oregon, California, Washington.

By the way, I don't want to freak anyone out here, but I kind of do.

This is what secession looks like.

California, Oregon, and Washington start doing things.

New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Meane start doing things.

You start seeing states of people who are like minded.

And by the way, you end up with a country where Alabama and Mississippi and look, there are a lot of people who live in Alabama and Mississippi who did not vote for this, who do not vote at all, who are disenfranchised, and who will suffer.

But like, you can see a world where those red states end up alone.

And we're not so far from that.

Yeah, I see.

I don't think this is predicting the future.

I think this is analyzing what's already starting to happen.

Yeah, we're not there yet, but I could see it happening.

Yeah, it will make sense that when you pull federal funding from things, that states are going to have to figure out how they maneuver their budgets into it, and one of the easy levers seems to be not paying into the federal government what they don't have to, especially since the Blue states on the Red states mostly so Malli Big big news.

The Republicans are basically saying you're going to be outcasts from the party if you vote to release all of the Epstein files.

There's big press conferences with Epstein victims and some Republicans.

You're just it is a fancy way to say that Jesse and I have something terrible to say right now, and we want you to prepare yourselves as listeners and not think that we are the worst people in the world.

But I listened to that whole press conference an hour and a half, and I'm going to say something terrible, and probably I will rue the day I said this.

But Marjorie Taylor Green made a lot of sense in that press conference, you.

Know, whether it was her usual performative bullshit or not.

Nancy Mace walked out seemingly distraught of the Epstein cover up meeting for the GOP.

I mean, down is up today.

I probably am going to regret saying anything nice about Marjorie Tellygreen, But every word she said that I heard in that press conference sounded pretty sane.

I don't know what it means.

I don't know if maybe I have a brain worm, but she basically was like, you know you, if these women are afraid to say the names, I will say them on the house floor.

And you know what, it's funny.

I mean, again, I am no fan of Marjorie Taylor Green, but it got me thinking about this idea of what it means to have privilege and to use it to help people.

Because Marjorie Taylor Green has done a lot of crazy shit, and really she's definitely bordering on anti Semitism for her anti Israel stuff is not she's not getting there the way we are.

Do you think she stepped over the border a few times personally?

Yeah, I mean, she's not getting to like her qualms about Israel the way we are.

But that said, I do think that she did do this thing, which is something that I think.

She came from a wealthy family and she has a lot of privilege, and so one of the things you see here is that she's actually using her privilege for the Epstein client.

So, for example, during that they're hearing these women said they don't want to say the names because they don't want to get sued.

And Marjorie Taylor Green says, you know what, just give me the list and I will go on the house floor and say every name.

And it's funny because it's like it gives me.

It makes me think of like that's something I might do as someone who also grew up with a lot of privilege, and it's something that we all need to do.

If we see ice trying to pick up people in our neighborhood, we have this opportunity because we have privilege to stand up for people, to videotape these ICE people to make sure that we stand up for our neighbors.

That is absolutely the same thing that we need to be doing.

Agreed.

But we need to backtrack to one thing.

This brain worm you might have.

Have you eaten any roadkill from the side of the road recently?

Wait?

Yeah.

John Fugel Sang is a host on Serious XM and the author of Separation of Church and Hate, A Sane Person's Guide to taking back the Bible from fundamentalists, fascists, and flock fleecing frauds.

John fugel Sang talk to me about this book.

Thank you for having me.

My book is called Separation of Church and Hate, A sane Person's Guide to taking back the Bible from fundamentalists, fascists, and flock fleecing frauds.

I am the child of an ex nun and an ex Franciscan brother, and I wrote this book for anybody of any religion, or any atheist or any agnostic, or anybody who's ever going to have to deal with a right wing Christian, nationalist or fundamentalist extremist in their family and their job and their school, in their social media feed, or in their government.

And it's a guide to what Christianity started out trying to be, what it turned into, why it's still worth saving, and why if you're arguing with a right wing Christian, even if you're an atheist, chances are on most of the issues that divide us, Jesus is on your side.

The right wing doesn't know the Bible, they don't read it, and they're counting on you not reading it.

So it's a helpful guide to really kind of thump Bible thumpers with the Bible because they're full of crap and all you need is a few facts.

So one of the things I have been really impressed by whenever we talk, is that you really you know a lot of stuff, but you really know a lot about the Bible, and I want and you you know and what's in it, and that is not most people don't, even people who pretend to don't.

I don't pretend to, So it doesn't matter.

But tell me a little bit about your upbringing and clearly there was some Bible study going on there.

Oh well a little bit.

Yeah.

My mother grew up in the segregated South, and she entered the Convents right out of high school.

They put her through nursing school and then sent her off to Malawi, Africa, to work first with lepers and then in a hospital in the jungle.

But before they sent her to Africa, they briefly assigned her to Holy Family Hospital in Brooklyn, New York.

My father was a Franciscan brother.

He entered the Brothers right out of high school.

He wore the brown robes and the rope belt and talked history to Catholic boys, and I like to say he dressed like the Lost Jedi of Flatbush.

My father, the Brother, met my mother the sister when he entered the hospital with tuberculosis fell madly in love with the nurse caring for him with a Southern accent that he knew he could never have and had promised his God he would never want.

They became best friends.

He was pentals while she was in Africa and would send her long, innocent letters about what was going on with civil rights and Vietnam.

Eventually she left, he talked her into going on a date.

Two months later.

They were married on a little southern Army base, and they tried to raise us on the isle of long to be progressive, free thinking Catholics.

Which is why I do stand up, because I can't afford the therapy I need.

Like millions, I was raised in this Christianity that was supposed to be about what the Jewish carpenter talked about, love and service to others, servant leadership, turning the other cheek, and the other teachings of Jesus, like welcome the stranger.

Individuals and nations have to take care of the poor.

Individuals and nation have to take care of the sick, and be kind to prisoners, don't execute people, pay your damn taxes.

A whole bunch of stuff.

You don't see the right wing fighting to have printed on a classroom or a courtroom wall.

And like millions, I grew up to find that this religion of peace and empathy was seemingly hijacked by a mean, little, overwhelmingly white, tax free click that was seeking to push their right wing version of the Bible into every level of our society.

But it was a very narrow version that has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus.

And as I got older, I realized, my God, some of the best Christians I know were Jesus, and some of the most godless Heathens I know are loud Christians.

And I got really tired say my parents' religion used for hate as a cloaking device.

It's always been a history of the religion, and I can go back two thousand years.

How it's always been the toxic Christians versus the people who follow Jesus and their allies.

But for our generation, it was Jerry Fallwell, it was Pat Robertson, it was Jimmy Swagger.

It was abortion.

When abortion was made the law of the land in seventy three, the most controversial thing was how not controversial it was the evangelicals didn't care that was a Catholic thing.

Jerry Folwell never mentioned abortion in a sermon until five years after Roe v.

Wade.

They hadn't realized they could weaponize it and market it and get votes and money off of it.

And now for two generations, forty five years, we've seen in America the systemic grooming of Christians to vote against everything Jesus ever talked about, all to criminalize abortion, which Jesus never talked about.

It is the greatest racket in religion and politics in our lifetime, and they pulled it off.

Yeah, it's totally interesting, and I wonder if you talk about why, you sort of what the moment was that you think that Christianity kind of lost the thread.

I guess it would be probably when Saul became Paul and his old friends were still killing all of Jesus's Jewish friends, and Paul's version took over because all the Apostles got bumped off.

And then, but I mean, inn in modern times, you know, I would It's always been there, right, I mean, we had slavery which was propped up by Christianity, and it was Jesus followers like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass and the Quakers who fought back slavery, I mean segregation.

One hundred years of apartheid was completely reinforced by Christianity, and it was a Baptist preacher from Atlanta named King and his many allies, not all of them were Christian, many of whom were Jews and non believers, who pushed back.

I mean, we've seen how many of our peers have talked their parents and grandparents out of so much homophobia in the last twenty years, which really was a big thing for me when I was in my early twenties.

I guess in my teens, I realized the death penalty was bullshit and the death penalty was against everything Jesus talked about.

He literally overturns eye for an eye in his first public gig.

He commands you to forgive seven times seven.

He stops an execution and says only the sinless can execute.

I was eighteen, and I'm like, how could you call yourself Christian?

It get off on prisoners being murdered by the government, But the gay issue was really big for me.

When I was old enough to actually stop listening to priests and read the Bible and realize that homophobia is an insult and a rejection of everything the character of Jesus taught.

Nobody follows Leviticus.

They say, shall not lie with a man like a man, that's an abomination.

Well, okay, but that's for the anything but Jesus Christians.

That's from the instructions God gave the Israelites when they had gotten out of Egypt and were trying to keep their numbers up in the desert for forty years.

God's like, no sex on your period, no incests, no guys with guys.

It's all about keep making babies.

It's not about be cruel to the gay kid or the transcript class.

Leviticus twenty ten commands us to stone adulterers to death.

I don't see too many Maga folks bringing rocks to mar A Lago, so they can't really use it.

The character of Jesus commands them to treat gay people the way they would treat him, and I go deep in the book Molly about how Jesus I will argue with pro gay He says in Matthew nineteen that gay men are born that way, and the Roman centurion with the sixth slave.

When you look at the original Greek translation, it wasn't a slave, it was his teen lover.

They weren't in Greek as pais beloved boy.

When you look at that story Ernest borgnine played in the movie, I mean this occupying general, the Centurions are the ones who killed Jesus says, please come to my house to heal a common slave.

When I was a kid, I was like, why would a Roman general and the occupying four seek out a local Jewish mystic faith healer to come to his house and heal a common slave.

When I got older and I read, Oh, beloved boy, we know how the Romans like to have fun and leave their wives at home, it all made perfect sense.

It shows why the Apostles weren't really thrilled about all this, and it shows again the whole thing about Jesus is you're not allowed to ht anybody.

You can't hate the leopard, the prostitute, the despised farts like the Samaritans, not even the Romans who are conquering us.

You can't hate that.

You can resist it, but you can't hate him.

And I don't see any of this in modern American Christianity.

On my Serious X show every night, I have Maga friend's call, and I always ask him, and you please tell me one actual teaching of Jesus that Donald Trump, or the Republican Party or the MAGA movement have fought for in the last thirty years.

And Molly, if you do this, you'll find out how little these people know.

This Bible they wave around like a prop.

The number one thing they say is abortion.

I point out, Bible's not against abortion.

In Exodus twenty one, God asserts a fetus's property and a woman's life has more value.

Then they'll say immigration.

I'm like, nope, God commands you to welcome the stranger.

Jesus says, we'll be judged by how we welcome the stranger.

These people are trying to use their version of the Bible to completely rewire our government, and our economy and our education system.

And they haven't read the damn thing.

This as a guide for everybody to take their camouflage away.

So let's talk this through for a second.

You do this serious show, you talk to a lot of people.

It's three hours of live radio every fucking night.

Yeah, a lot of time.

As someone who has done three hour chunks of things, it takes forever.

You have a lot of callers too.

You talk to a lot of people, you talk to a lot of politicians, you go to a lot of places.

So I'm wondering what your take is right now because you are sort of on the ground in a way that maybe I'm not.

So what are you seeing?

Are you seeing Trump regret?

Yes?

No, doubling down?

I mean, what are you seeing?

What with the people who call in?

What are you hearing?

The independents are having regret, The magas are it's a cult, and they consume news that doesn't give them conflicting information.

I mean, I still ask these guys where was Barack Obama born?

And they don't know that Trump admitted in September of twenty sixteen he was weren't here?

They keep them in a real bubble.

We talked about this on MSNBC the other night.

One of the things that I've begun thinking about and talking with conservatives and liberals about on the air is the left keeps saying one of the non millionaire is going to wake up?

When's the maga cult of these hard working men going to realize that this guy's a fraud.

I mean, in Germany they had to see Berlin and rubble before they could accept the furor had been a con man.

But I've begun to think it's we're looking at the wrong edge.

It's not about the working people.

When are the oligarchs going to be done with this guy?

It's starting to see like they are.

They got their massive tax cut, they got their deregulation, they can pollute all they want, they got their crypto loophole.

And look at how Murdoch is cutting him loose.

In the pages of the journal.

He publishes the Depstein birthday card.

Trump sues him for twenty two billion dollars and Murdoch laughs in his face and publishes the next day that Pam Bondi said he was in the Epstein files last May.

I think the owners of this country, our landlords, are done with this guy, and it's it's like a Bond villain hitting a delete asset button.

They know that they can get the same results with less embarrassment from JD.

Vanser, one of the Bush kids.

So I'm actually looking at that angle for it.

But his health is poor.

It has been poor all along.

What we're witnessing now is this really pathetic attempt at fascism.

That makes me so grateful that our fascists in this century have been so shitty stupid.

Yeah, yeah, I mean it's scary, shady, it's scary, but they're bad at it.

I mean, I think that the thing that has really connected, at least right now is this incredible incompetence, just unbelievable, spectacular and competence.

And he hasn't got the popularity either.

He's never cracked fifty percent.

All the media cheerleading about mandate, the majority of people who showed up to vote three elections in a row voted against him.

And the folks who showed up to vote in twenty two and eighteen with mister Trump not on the ballot, those folks didn't show up and they know what's happening, and that's where they're trying to cheat.

Fifteen months early in bloody Texas, they're trying to sheat it just reeks of desperation.

I mean, maybe with the judge cutting down the tariffs, the irony of that is that could say the GOP in the midterms.

Yeah, I don't know that.

I mean, I think the registrict if something saves them, it'll be the redistricting, which is.

It will be cheating, but yeah, it is.

I don't know that.

But I just wonder if they are going to be able to even if, say the tariffs are knocked down tomorrow the Supreme Courts is not constitutional, which is possible because the tariff case is funded by the remaining Koch brothers.

So you could see a world where they are is in the tank for that crew as they are for Trump.

But I don't think the prices go down, so I don't know, so I think that will be a real problem.

I wonder if you could talk about, you know, it's been so long that Trump has controlled the Republican Party that they are now ideologically almost the complete opposite of what they were correct twenty fifteen.

I wonder what you say.

I think sort of how you think like what happens after Trump?

Yeah, I think it goes back to something like it was before, but with a meaner, more divided party because they're never going to have a guy with the riz that Donald Trump had.

They don't have anybody, anybody in that party right now who has the charisma to get folks who don't vote to show up to vote.

There's people who came down from the mountains in from the woods and out from the swamps because mister Trump from the TV was on the ballot.

JD.

Evans does not have that mojo, and my god, Pritzker was I mean, Andy Basheer would body slam Jdvans.

He's going to be very, very fun, and mag's going to hate him.

The tech bros love him, but they'll turn on him as well.

So I don't know what's going to happen with these Republicans.

I mean, twenty years ago, they hated us for warning them about Bush and Cheney.

Twenty years ago, they hated us for saying, hey, these economic plans are really bad and the wars really stupid.

And then we were proven right about everything, and they hated us even more.

But the worst part of it was Bush and Cheney went back to Texas to be the national ghouls, and all their enforcers and winged monkeys and henchmen stayed in the Congress.

I mean, the people who enabled trump Ism are going to still have jobs when Trump is long gone.

But you know, when we were kids, people still defended Nixon.

Remember their old guys would be like, ah, Nixon wasn't bad, he just got caught.

Yeah, and you know, twenty years ago they were fiercely defending Bush chaning they don't defend bush Cheney anymore.

No nobody defends Nixon anymore.

In ten years, you'll see magas denying they ever voted for this guy after sixteen.

But part of why.

They don't defend bush Cheney is because Donald Trump ran against them.

He gave him permission structure.

Yes, he told them everything we had told them, but when he said it, they accepted it and believed it, and then they ated Bush.

So right now Democrats have this popularity problem with the brand.

I sort of feel the way you feel about this, Like I still think people will vote for them.

I still think this is much ado about nothing, But I wonder, like, for example, a grand Platner from Maine, who I interviewed and thought was very smart.

He has done a lot of you know, he knows he's in a very purple state.

He's very working class guy, or at least he's running as that.

And he talked about all his MAGA friends and how you know, sort of the things they're disappointed with, the things that they filed.

Trump had promised them that he hadn't delivered, and he is really talking sort of running against corruption and not as a Democrat.

We saw this work in I mean work I think is a relative term, but certainly saw some of this with Dan Osborne and Nebraska.

Because he didn't win, so it didn't work, but he did, you know, he sort of ran as anti establishment.

Trump won on that even though it wasn't it was bullshit.

Do you think there's a lane for that?

Do you think it alienates traditional Democrats?

Do you think?

I mean no, I think Democrats are going to have to be a big ten no matter what I mean.

There's so much diversity in that party, from anti abortion rights Texans to fucking Rastafarians.

You don't need a second party.

You have so much ideological diversity within the Democrats.

And again I don't really care about the popularity because Congress's popularity is not great.

Trump's popularity is not great.

But on the issues, on the issues, the majority of us overwhelmingly support taxing the wealthy at a higher rate.

We still tax married couples who make four fifty k a year the same rate as an individual.

It makes a billion.

You know, people support taxing the point zero one percent differently than the one percent paid family leaf good God, when is one of these two parties going to pick up this issue that everybody wants.

Medicare covering vision, hearing in dental, decriminalizing weed, not putting women in jail, not having the government for citizens to be pregnant against their will.

These are all really popular policies.

They're really popular with young people.

You know, we'll see if the Democrats can make it about policy or if they're going to still refuse to endorse the overwhelming winner of their own mayoral primality and mayor primary in New York.

I don't know they know how to drop the ball, but on the issues they can do it because the majority of independence and Liberals and a lot of Republicans are on their side, and they're not going to have a cult anymore.

Donald Trump can't run in twenty twenty six.

He's not going to be as big a factor.

He may be finally the toxic thing he should be.

But to your point about these law and order Republicans, I just want to mention every single one of them believes that beating cops for a lie is acceptable, and I don't know why Democrats are afraid to say that.

Yeah, And I mean I think the framing that this is about crime.

It's clearly that he realizes he can't run on the economy.

He stole from fucking Vets with his fraud online university.

Marco Rubio is the only person to ever call him out for that.

In the Senate, Democrats don't want to touch it, you know.

I mean, you've got a criminal right there, You've got thirty four felony convictions, You've got it all on tape.

You've got to grab them by the pussy.

These Democrats are springing spreadsheets to a knife fight.

And we've talked about this, Molly.

The ones who are willing to take a punch, the ones who are willing to put their body in the movement, the ones who are going to go there and give a fight.

They're the ones who are going to lead in the fundraising.

And if that's what matters the most, is the fund raising, I mean, you're going to see it.

That's going to help what newsome learning to read the room after those disastrous podcasts.

Yeah he did.

That's the way it's going to go.

Why do you think Jeffries is having such a hard time.

I think it's a good question.

I think he's seen his wishy washy, and that's the worst thing Democrats can have.

Bill Clinton famously said Americans would rather vote for someone strong and wrong than weak and right.

And I like Jeffries a lot as a writer of poetry.

I think he's very clever, he's very compassionate.

But we got to see the fight, you know, and when the whole party is seen, is wishy washy over mom, Donnie.

Republicans smell that, you know, take a sigh, and even if they don't agree with you, they'll respect you for sticking to your guns, especially when you're trying to get young people and men to come over to the party.

Look what's going out of the New York and how they're blowing it off.

Why do you think they don't want to endorse, you know why because they're terrified of how racist they think this country is.

And the reality is.

And I said this on CNN a couple of weeks ago, But if you look at his policies, bringing it back to my books, Zorah and Mondani's policies of expanded housing and food for the hungry and care for mothers with children, it is so much closer to the teachings of Christ than all these so called Christians smearing the man for being Muslim.

And if Democrats could take that message and just punch back on it and say, e plurbasunem bitches, we're all here.

I mean, yeah, they'd lose some voters, but they gained the respect of other people and nobody would call them wishy washy or week they want to see fighters.

Pritzker gets it, and I pray that leader Jeffries gets it because I think he could have a great career.

I don't know, we'll see John.

Thank you for joining us, Molly, you're the best.

It's a pleasure to be on your show, and thanks for inspiring me so much.

Nicki McCann Ramirez is a reporter at Rolling Stone.

Welcome to Fastpolity.

It's Nikki.

Oh my god, thank you so much for having me again her on weekend television together.

It was great.

I was a fill in host for a woman who's own attorney leave and I was like, Nikki is so great and she can talk about anything.

Let's just talk to her about stuff.

I love talking to you every time we chat.

It's a good time.

First, I think we should talk about Epstein.

Absolutely.

I am still like somewhat surprised by that press conference where Marjorie Taylor Green and Thomas Massey.

Thomas Massey, I understand his psychology because he's like a real Freedom Caucus guy, right, He's a guy who doesn't give a fuck.

Like the Freedoms.

Guys pretend to not give a fuck, but at the end of the day, they absolutely just want Trump to love them.

But like Tomas Massey, he doesn't care.

Like he's just out there.

He's a kid who no one sits with at lunch.

You know, he doesn't want you to sit with him at lunch.

He doesn't care.

But Marjorie Taylor Green, like what is happening?

So I think one of the things that I try to tell people when I talk about the Epstein situation and why it's because so fraught for Republicans is because, to me, obviously a crime was committed, convictions have taken place, But the Epstein case is also the closest sort of like polite societies, like the universe, that is grounded in actual reality and like facts on the ground, legitimate events can get to QAnon in the sense that very early on in the Trump era, obviously the MAGA movement the Republican Party built up this like massive mythology around Tromp as this like anti pedophile warrior of the right who was going to come in and like purge the deep state of these gross pedophilic, child obsessed criminals who are running the government.

And QAnon was.

Conspiratorial and weird and you know, adjacent to things like Pizza Gate and was.

Not grounded in reality.

But the Epstein case, which I think you know, the federal one at least six years out now, it's easy to forget that that took place during the first Trump term, and that that case very much was sort of the real world embodiment of a lot of the fears that sort of grounded QAnon and conspiracies like the like at this idea that like powerful men and politicians and you know, royals can do heinous things and get away with it, and that the idea that like Epstein and death kind of got away with it.

That is still the debacle we're dealing with.

And the reason people like Marjory Taylor Green are coming into the role on this almost like in a weird way, allying with Democrats and survivors on this issue is again, we have to remember Marjorie Taylor Green was a conspiracy theorist.

Jewish space lasers and QAnon.

Yeah, when she first came into Congress, she was one of the fringiest I think what she was elected in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen.

When she came in, she was on the list of like the most insane MAGA candidates, the fringiest candidates, the most extreme.

She was completely out of pocket.

And now people like Marjorie Green have become mainstream Republicans, but to the extent that there are people who were motivated by sort of core beliefs like the foundational almost like theological, deified principles of the MAGA movement, of Trump being sort of this like messianic transformational figure who would really transform politics away from you know, the qwanon the QAnon conspiracies.

Green was one of those true believers.

And I think there is still within Republicans this tug of war of like, Okay, how much do I hate the Democrats and how much is what the Trump administration is doing sort of like running counter to the principles that even got me involved in politics, if that makes sense.

Yeah, as much as any of this makes sense, But I also think the reason that this Jeffrey Epstein's story continues to so connect with the base is because it really is a product of this idea that the system is rigged against you.

Yeah, one percent, and Trump ran for president on the idea that the system was rigged.

And that's what this is, right, This is like which people getting away with it?

Yeah?

And I think then the problem Republicans and Democrats also to a very similar extent running too is like which rich people are allowed to get away with it?

I think we talked about it when we were talking about like Alex Costa over the weekend, and the fact that the first people that Republicans in Congress subpoenad to talk about this case in the Oversight Committee were the Clintons and fucking James Comy, right.

Which, by the way, again, if Bill Clinton is in those files like a lot of past Yeah, Like I like Hillary, She's very nice, but you know, like people, if they did crimes, they should go to fucking jail.

And I have no love for James Coby, like honestly that fucking guy, Like I'd be delighted if they locked him up.

Yeah, But also just like like I also do not have any love for James Comy, But what does James Comy have to do with the Epstein case?

Nothing but nothing.

I do think what is interesting about is James Commy's daughter has quite a lot to do with the Epstein case, but she got fired as opposed to like she would be someone I would like to hear testify Maureen Komy because she worked on it.

The other thing that and that's like the obfuscation is so blinding.

You know, they release all these documents and the Ebstein influencers Phase one in their binders, it's the same material.

But the other thing that I think is so incredible about the story is you had all these people who were going to sign on to the discharge position and they used this material that they already had seen as an excuse not to.

Yeah, and I think, well the survivors talked about in a bit today during the press conference.

It's just you have all of this material that even they haven't seen, Like there's stuff in these files that survivors say, this could help me with my case, it could help me get closer, Like documents that were seized from like Epstein's residences, at Epstein's Ela, they say like the US government has all this information that could help me plug the holes in my own story actually make the case against the people who abuse me, who are like still alive and out there.

And instead of actually reaching out to the survivors and talking to them and figuring out like what they're comfortable releasing, how they're comfortable handling these documents, and where they would like things to go, what they would like to see happen, the administration is once again turning it into a political side show.

And I do think we have to differentiate a little bit here between sort of like the actions of the White House the actions of Congressional Republicans and so the sort of like, oh, we're gonna call in people for subpoenas, we're going to make people like sit down and testify, and then the people like Massy and Green who are weirdly enough doing that survivor outreach and actually trying to like bring them into the fold.

And I think it's important just for a minute to go through the Oversight Committee.

So the chairs of the Oversight Committee, James Comer is the Republican chair, and then the ranking member is Robert Garcia.

Now I want to just do a minute on oversight.

It used to be the AOC wanted to be of the ranking on oversight.

The Democratic leadership said, no, We're going to make Jerry Connolly the ranking on oversight because he's a fighter.

He died of throw cancer, which he was being treated for during the time in one of the many, many embarrassing moments in Democratic leadership, and many other octogenarians ran for it, but Robert Garcia got it.

Robert Garcia is like in his thirties or forties, and he has really done a good job in fat And I want and we talked about this this weekend, but I want to just note it again the fact that we saw again Jasmine Crockett say this is because of Robert Garcia and not necessarily because of Hakeem.

She didn't quite say.

That, but it seems very clear to me that this is being dealt with quite well by Garcia, and that he is a usual and leadership in a way that I think is Worth's noted.

And I think despite this.

Being like and I hate reducing this down to politics because like as you and I.

Have talked about, hugely political, I mean this, it's hugely Guys in this case.

Are probably being driven on politics.

Okay, so like the central people here should be the survivors and the victims who are and they're after and they're not.

But this is in this second Trump administration, one of the rare instances where Republicans, the Republican Party, the White House are very clearly on the back foot and do not know how to manage this crisis.

And it hasn't been the Democratic leadership.

You're hockey, Jeffrey's your truck, Schumer's who are really leading the messaging sort of war to keep this in the press at attention.

It's been people like Rocana, people like Garcia, It's like Jasmine Crockett.

And it's incredibly frustrating as someone who writes and covers the to feel like the in there for Democrats is so easy, and we're still seeing leadership drop the ball just unbelievably.

Yeah, and I'm glad the press conference happened.

I think it was probably, in my view, like a month a month and a half too late.

I think that press conference should have probably happened for Max.

I think it will have an impact, but for maximum impact before Republicans just cut the spring session short and left further summer recess a week ahead of time to try and get this to blow over, which obviously it hasn't.

But I think if Democrats were a little more on the ball, all they would have pulled in the survivors before you know, Todd Blanche went to talk to Glaine Maxwell, right.

Right, No, no, and the bad that Todd Blanche.

I mean, I think it's worth realizing Todd Blanche going to talk to Glaine Maxwell, Glaine Maxwell then being moved to a cushier, less secure prison camp.

The thing I want.

To talk about with this case is that it still seems like even though the White House figured out that if they just sent I mean, this is amazing, if they just made Mike Johnson send everyone home, then it would go away.

A month and a half later, it has not gone away, and they have no plan.

As far as I can tell, to deal with that.

In what end of July when they left for the August recess, if you would have told the administration, hey, like Pambondi, Cash Battel, and Alex Costa are all being well, not Alex Cossack.

You've all did it voluntarily.

But you know, Cashpatel and Panbondi are being suboenaed or like called to testify before oversight.

We're releasing all these documents.

Hey, members of your own party and Democrats are hosting a joint press conference with survivors on the steps of the Capitol.

One of your biggest allies, Marjorie Taylor Green, will be there and she will be speaking.

Nancy Vace, who I consider, you know, a performative, white man, performative on the worst thing.

Yeah, white bag of performative in that way that I don't ever find her sincere you know, leaving the meeting with survivors saying she had like a panic attack, hysterical.

The administration I think would.

Have probably called it fake news and like revoked your press pass to the briefing.

This is, in my view, a repetition of the exact mistakes that were made by alex Acosta in the two thousand and nine case by the White House, where instead of centering the victims hearing what they have to say.

Because, like I said, so much of the conversation around the Epstein case is driven by this like maga belief that Donald Trump is the hero of the story, that he's supposed to be the hero of the story, that goes after these people and the White House.

All they really.

Need to do to make this go away is sit down with the victims and the survivors and say like, Okay, this is what we have.

What are you comfortable releasing?

How do we pursue this?

The DOJ was talking this up for months, but the problem is that they do not feel that they can risk doing that without exposing Trump himself.

So instead they're trying to find a work around where they can sort of min max the fuck you they can give to Democrats out of this with like while at the same time providing the least pause exposure to Trump, which is not possible.

And that's exactly kind of like what alex Acosta did when he gave Epstein the sweetheart deal in two thousand and nine.

It's like he's blamed everyone, and I think if you go to the core of why this case got so messed up, you have to start with Alex Cossa.

But he, I think in twenty nineteen, said that the reason he made that deal was because you needed to send Epstein to prison, Like you just needed to get him into prison, and it didn't really matter how you got there.

He just needed to be put behind bars.

But what he ended up doing was just sending him to like a one year's summer worker leads program where he got to do whatever.

He wanted, where he then raped other women.

Yeah, and then went back to reoffending.

And that's sort of exactly what the administration is doing right now.

While sort of playing foot seat with Gallaine Maxwell like, oh, we'll interview you about Trump and you'll say all the things you like about him, and you might perjure yourself again, but that'll get us off the hook.

That's not how this works.

It's just an incredibly stupid moment.

And I think that why I wanted to talk about this a little more is it does speak to the problem this administration has with be incompetent.

So we've seen over the last seven months.

I actually read an opinion piece in the New York Times today about how like Trump had wrecked all of the federal government and now here was time to see if he could build back better.

And it's like wrecking things is really easy, like even Elon can do it.

But like with so many things that we're seeing now, it's like, will they be able to build something?

And the answer is, I think pretty clear.

Now, just like with this, I have.

An interview coming out next week with Mike Duncan, the podcaster of Like History of Rome and the Revolutions podcast.

Love him, great dude.

The interview's about a lot of things, but.

At one point he's talked about this before his like great Idiot theory of history, which is sort of the opposite of the great man theory of history, that it's not just like, you know, the men who build things, it's the idiots who come in and just take a wrecking ball of shit.

And it's exactly what you're saying.

It is much easier to destroy things than it is to build them.

And if you just look at Trump's cabinet, look at the people who are in charge of these administrations, these are not people who are accomplished in a like governmental policy sense.

There are people who are accomplished in a I was on Fox News.

A lot sense, right.

As someone who has hosted weekend television, now, I can tell you I am not not ready to lead the dd Oh not not you me either, not yet.

But I do think that is a good point.

So now there are going to be hearings.

Now, there's going to be you know, I talk to the office of one of the Democrats involved in this today and they told me that they think they're going to have the boats.

So now this discharge petition will go to the Senate, right, I mean, this is where this goes and then the president, and I mean at some point somebody is going to take the blame for not releasing these documents.

So I think the thing we need to remember here is, regardless of what happens with this discharged petition, which I have also heard, they're like two votes awaited from getting it passed, it is correct when they say you cannot unseal a lot of these documents without the approval of like a judge, which is a completely separate process.

So where I think all.

This goes back to is fundamentally, like the person who's going to end up with the hot potato is going to be the Trump administration and the DJ because Congress, at the end of the day, can.

Only do so much.

They can maybe unredact some stuff, they can maybe make some stuff public, the real goods that victims and survivors are asking to see cannot be provided to them unless their risk cooperation from both like Congress, the Department of justice, and you know a.

Judge who if they come in.

And say, we would like this stuff unsealed, agrees to do so if the Trump administration was able to use its head and ally itself with this cohort of survivors, alli its help, with the coalition of people who is saying, we would like to get to the pottom of this and actually work on providing all those like levers of power that the Justice Department has which they are currently using to like persecure Trump's political enemies rather than do actual, like productive stuff.

For the American people.

If they gave that to the survivors, that would advance the situation significantly.

I don't think they're going to do that.

So at the end of the day, what you're going to get is survivors were once again saying, hey, the Trump administration made all these public promises about how they were going to be transparent about the Epstein files, about how they were going to like bring justice to us, and they once again dropped the ball.

Because to be clear, this is the second time we are doing this.

Right and again this is like one of these things where it fractures the base, it fractures Trump's space the base that Donald Trump needs, the die hards, the people who will not leave him those people.

The other thing I want to talk about for a minute is Robert Mahler because in that subpoenal list was Robert Mahler, and this caused Robert Mahler's children to come forward and say that Robert Mueller has Parkinson's.

Perhaps not the way we wanted to learn about Robert Mahler, who was responsible for huge investigation, which I mean, I just think that is something worth thinking about for a minute.

In relation to Epstein.

What were just I mean, like, there was no transparency about Moller, and now we get transparency because he gets subpoenaed in the Epstein stuff.

Yeah, and I think that that again is a tactic Republicans have been using for a very long time now.

Like I look at the list of people they.

Subpoenaed, and my just gut reaction when I first saw it was these are not serious people who are interested in doing a serious investigation.

Robert Mueller, you put him on that.

I'm trying to think what Mueller, if anything had to do with the Epstein cares yesh.

Thing not I mean Mahller, you know, it's they put, well, he was the head of the FBI, I guess, but the point I mean, they're just it's just insane.

No, it's because Trump is mad at Maler.

Well, of course he's mad at him.

But if you kind of rewind back to that one press conference in the Oval Office where he was complaining about like, why are we still talking about Epstein?

I think from him saying why are we talking about Epstein, that he jumped into his usual list of complaints, and what the immediate thing he jumped through was, oh, why do we care about Epstein?

There's all these worse things that have happened, like the Texas floods, whatever else was happening on and then the Mueller investigation into me, and again, the White House for more than like almost two months now at this point, has just been consistently trying to pivot this Epstein debacle into how is Trump the victim?

Oh?

The Obamas were like targeting him, Oh, the Miller investigation, Oh no, no, no, we have this new information on the Clintons and it just hasn't worked.

But what that's a penalist indicated to me is just a reaffirmation that Congress is still taking it it's marching orders from the priorities of the Trump administration.

And the priority isn't the Epstein case.

It's revenge on the people.

The president is mad at Nikki.

I hope you'll come back, Oh anytime.

No moment sickly.

Jesse Cannon Molly So, a friend of the show sent me this article, and I gotta say, this might be the most disturbing moment of uckery I've seen in a minute.

You remember our old friend Klelia Mitchell.

Ah, Cleida Mitchell.

Who could forget Kleida Mitchell.

You know you don't want to see her name next to the words election integrity post at the US Department of Homeland Security, But yet she's getting that.

You remind the listeners of Kleida Mitchell's presence.

Kleida Mitchell not to be confused with Kleitas.

No, the scariest worst people are in this administration.

You're welcome, Yeah, But particularly what I'm worried about is these two people are severe election deniers who do not live in reality and.

Will do insane, insane things to fix elections.

Yes, correct, that's not good.

It's all bad.

I think we should all agree.

It's all very very very bad.

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.