Ashley St. Clair & Dr. Bradley Onishi

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 Americans have spent over 100 billion more on gas, thanks to Trump's war of choice in Iran. We have such a good show for you today. Political commentator, Ashley St. Clair, talks about Elon Musk's plans for civil war. Then we'll talk to author, Bradley Onishi, about his new book, American Caesar, How Theocrats and Tech Lords are turning America into a monopoly. But first, the news.

SPEAKER_2 (0:39)

So Molly, it's looking like these fed rates and the tariffs are really, really, really hitting Republicans hard. We've been covering how much this has screwed up the economy, but we got a lot of quotes and punch bowl from people that seem a little shook by all the stupid decisions inside the White House.

Molly Jong-Fast (0:58)

Yeah. So you'll be shocked to know that this administration has caused a lot of problems for us. There's this thing they do in this administration where they create problems that turn out to be their own fault. Then they sometimes fix them and sometimes make them worse. So what's happened right now is that we have a high inflation and a bond market that's freaking out. We also have, I mean, there's a really good article in The New York Times about this. We also have some real problems with the rest of the world not trusting us. So the Netherlands is taking its gold back.

We've seen a bunch of moves like that. So that means that we're in a position right now where the dollar, it's not as powerful as it once was.

Because our allies don't trust us, because our president is a mad king, our dollar is going to be that we have less value in the world and that is going to make things even more expensive. It's going to cost more to service our debt than it already does. That's really scary. So now we're at a moment and then there's also this other problem which is that we have gas prices are about $4.36 per gallon. That's the national average. Diesel has hit a record of $6.26.

And it's probably going to get more costly. And when that happens, that means that everything else gets more expensive because diesel is used for shipping everything and making everything and heating everything. It's just it's going to be inflationary across the board. So then you have these Republicans who are we're like about 45 plus or minus days from midterms. And you have Republicans like Susan Collins, who has pulled it out of her hat before and very well may again. But she is running for reelection in state. Like Maine, where people use a lot of heating oil. Remember, we had the candidate for Maine too on the congressional candidate. And he talked about heating oil and how that is like a major concern. These people cannot afford to eat their homes. And Maine, even though it's only September, Maine gets very cold. So that's where we are here, is tariffs, Trump's trade war, Trump's real war, Trump's all of it has made life more expensive. And then you have John Thune, who is trying to help his candidates win by telling them that they can break on the Canada trade war, which by the way is so fucking stupid. So here we are and we have Sununu running in New Hampshire. He's pulling really well. He's a Republican, but he's running in a very difficult environment. And then the other thing is all of this drama around Marshall Marshall, who is a doctor who sent his patients who did not pay their bills to jail, right? He was doing such a high level of such aggressive level collections that actually 81 of his patients end up in jail. And so he's being booed and he's running for re-election against actually a very talented candidate. And Kansas, I don't know that Democrats can flip Kansas. But what doesn't help Republicans is that Donald Trump has threatened to ban these bombardier aircrafts and they are made in Kansas because it's a Canadian company. So it's just like Donald Trump is making life a lot harder for Republicans, which we both agree is a good thing.

SPEAKER_2 (4:25)

Yeah. So Speaker of the House Mike Johnson continues his embarrassing run as the most inept, just laughably bad at his job, Speaker of the House, as he has to cancel votes to avoid the embarrassment after Thomas Massey snuck in an impeachment for Pete Hegseth, among other crazy votes.

Molly Jong-Fast (4:45)

Yeah. So look, there is going to be some kind of impeachment towards Pete Hegseth. And here's why. Between the bombing, the boats in the Caribbean, those boats that maybe are drugs and maybe are fishermen, that already, there's no way any of that's legal. We're not at war. I mean, that's just totally war crime stuff. Or I guess it's not war crime. It's just murder. So that stuff, there's no way that's legal. And I think that's going to be the basis. But there's all sorts of stuff that Hegseth is doing that is completely insane. And my guess is, if Democrats flip the House and the Senate, you need the House to vote on impeachment, but you need 60 senators to remove. Say they get to 52 or 53 It's unlikely, but it's not impossible. Even if, say they get to 54, could you find six Republican senators who would go along with it? Maybe. It's not impossible. Look, we are used to things being, Republicans being spineless and Democrats being incompetent. But there are some really competent Democrats that are waiting in the wings, people like Chris Murphy, Jason Crow, and they're around.