Andy Levy & Chris Murphy

**Molly Jong-Fast** (0:00)
Hi, I'm Molly Jong-Fast, and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And a Gallup poll says that more than three in foreign Americans, 77%, say the signers of the Declaration of Independence would be quite disappointed by the United States. We see you today.
We have such a great show for you today. As the world churns, Andy Levy stops by to talk about the elections. Then we'll talk to Senator Chris Murphy about his new book, The Crisis of the Common Good, The Fight for Meaning and Connection in a Broken America. But first, the news.

**Jesse Cannon** (0:41)
Molly, as we keep talking about Trump in that laser focus of affordability, so he's making sure to not sign the housing bill and instead he wants Congress to pass his save act instead and he's holding it hostage.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (0:57)
I don't even understand what's happening here. Like I have read this and I understand that it's bad for congressional Republicans and Senate Republicans and everything.

**Jesse Cannon** (1:07)
Apparently a few of them are fuming.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (1:09)
It's just so incredibly stupid. Basically, this is the one piece of bipartisan legislation that any of these people are ever going to pass, probably in the rest of this Congress. I absolutely do not understand why Trump has decided that this is the moment to try to pass the Save America Act. Here's the deal. The Save America Act can only pass if they decide to nuke the filibuster. Donald Trump is super unpopular and his polling is terrible and he's flailing. So he would need Mike Johnson and John Thune.
He really would need John Thune and John Thune has no appetite to nuke the filibuster even when Donald Trump is polling well. So the idea here that Donald Trump, who's polling, he's like plumbing the depths of bad polling, is somehow going to convince John Thune, who's like a real person who's been in the Senate for a long time and has real relationships in the Senate, not like a Bernie Moreno who just got there and has no idea which way is up. He's going to put, that guy is going to break the filibuster, thus giving Democrats a free pass to do whatever they want. If they break the filibuster, you're going to see, you know, I mean, just you could end up seeing like, you know, a single payer. I mean, the entire free childcare, the entire wish list for all of us. So let me tell you what's not going to happen here. John Thune is not going to break the filibuster to pass the SAVE Act, which, by the way, half the stuff isn't even legal. So this is just a dumb thing for Trump to do. And it was like his one legislative win.

**Jesse Cannon** (2:56)
Yes, but you know, baby needs to throw his pits.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (2:59)
Well, I also think part of it is Donald Trump knows he's losing, right? He sees that he's losing. He sees the polling. And every time he sees the polling, he starts freaking out because he knows he's going to get impeached again. And so he always is like, we just need to pass the SAVE Act, which I think that he does think that if he could pass the SAVE Act, he would, Republicans would win elections, which may or may not be true, but there's no mechanism to pass the SAVE Act.

**Jesse Cannon** (3:25)
That is correct.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (3:27)
A House Republican who was not named said, what a shit show, crazy, crazy, crazy. He texted NBC News, a once in a generation housing bill falls victim to nuts.

**Jesse Cannon** (3:42)
Pretty good. So following up on this amazing, amazing focus on affordability, he's now ordered the DOJ to target oil companies over high gas prices.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (3:52)
Yeah, it's called socialism. It's called socialism. Socialism, socialism. Trump loves socialism now. Okay, so here's what's happened. Donald Trump went to war with Iran, probably because Netanyahu goaded him into it, and now he is mad at oil companies for higher gas prices. Who brought the gas prices up, Jesse?

**Jesse Cannon** (4:20)
That would be Mr. Trump when he started a war with Iran.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (4:22)
Yeah, so now he's mad. By the way, this is a guy who ran for president and told oil companies that he was going to make them so much money. Remember that?

**Jesse Cannon** (4:33)
He asked them for a bunch of money and then told them that.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (4:35)
But then he said, I'm going to make you so much money. Okay, you don't get to tell them they get to charge everyone whatever they want. They're going to make them so much money. And then you're like, oh, now you're not allowed to charge what you want to charge. So look, this is all Donald Trump freaking out about his poll numbers. He's hearing that people are mad about affordability, a made up word that Democrats made up. Remember that? It's made up.