Charlie Sykes & Dave Weigel

Molly Jong-Fast (0:00)

Hello, and welcome to Fast Politics. I'm Molly Jong-Fast, and we have such a great show for you today.

Later in the show, we'll talk to Semafor's Dave Weigel about the trends he's seeing in the midterms. But first, we have the author of How The Right Lost Its Mind, To The Contraries, Charlie Sykes is here with us to talk about Donald Trump's very low approval rating. Welcome, welcome, Charlie Sykes.

Charlie Sykes (0:26)

Hey, it is good to be back.

Molly Jong-Fast (0:28)

I just want to get $1,000 gas, fill up my car with very expensive gas and buy some super expensive eggs, and buy things that used to, the $4 package of garbage bags which now costs, whatever, $8 because they're tariffs.

Charlie Sykes (0:48)

Shockingly, selling out the country and Ukraine to Vladimir Putin for a mess of potage and diesel didn't move the needle that much, did it? So, here you have 3.6% inflation rate right before the election.

Promises made, promises kept.

Molly Jong-Fast (1:05)

Promises made. Yeah. Well, promises made to fly. I mean, the Putin stuff, like, we're going to just buy oil and gas from Putin. It's like, the whole world has worked really hard, with the exception of the Houthis and the Chinese, to not buy oil and gas from Putin, and Donald Trump is like, now we buy oil and gas from Putin.

Charlie Sykes (1:27)

Yeah. I mean, there's a little bit of flop sweat desperation jumping off that, right? That he knows he's got a problem with it. So by the way, can we connect the dots with the Kimberly Guilfoyle story?

Because in effect, this was-

Molly Jong-Fast (1:39)

We've been talking for two minutes, so let's talk about it. Listen, I come from the same pundit knee, like it's just a story that the Daily Mail loves it and so do we.

Charlie Sykes (1:49)

Of course we do. Even the Wall Street Journal loves it. Do you remember the honey please text message to the Trump donor, pay off my $100,000 Amex bill?

Dave Weigel (2:00)

Eric Deters.

Charlie Sykes (2:02)

I heard somebody say, how did Kimberly Guilfoyle think she was going to get away with this? To which I think the answer is, wait, why would she not think she's going to get away with this? Because in effect, isn't that what Donald Trump just did? Didn't he just write a honey pleased Vladimir Putin, can you bail me out on the diesel thing? Can you release 300,000 tons of diesel, which by the way, I think comes to about three-quarters of what we use as a country in one day.

Molly Jong-Fast (2:29)

I also think there's so much corruption happening in this administration.

We have Don and Eric both doing a lot of companies, they're involved in cash, they're involved in polymarket, they're involved in all sorts of self-dealing. We have the people negotiating peace in the Middle East, Jared Kushner, also taking money from those very same countries.

Charlie Sykes (2:57)

All in broad daylight. Again, here's Kimberly Guilfoyle thinking, I'm basically a made-maga woman, right?

I was almost a trumping fool before Don Jr. dumped me. And so, her behavior is completely consistent with that world, that ethos, etc. I mean, keep in mind that she was dumped by a guy who then got married to his new girlfriend at a wedding paid for by a Russian oligarch. And that's like a story that just sort of passed, and I just kind of like forgot that every given day, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are selling out American interest for some Saudi money or some Russian money. And it's like, I'm not saying poor Kimberly, but people are going, well, it was pretty outrageous that she was trying to shake people down for business deals and like, where did she get that idea?

Molly Jong-Fast (3:52)

It is really interesting. I'm really glad you brought that up because it's this idea that a lot of these women have tried to do the stuff the men do and they get in trouble. Because look at like, it Christy Noem is, right? Is she not just doing the Cash Patel program, right? Sporting events, dating, a lot of snorkeling around monuments.

Charlie Sykes (4:18)

I've forgotten about that one.

Molly Jong-Fast (4:20)

Right.

Aren't these basically the same thing, but Christy Bondi also in confidence? Is she so different than Whiskey Pete? And then we have Lori Chavez de Riemer running the agency badly, but is that so different than anyone else?

Charlie Sykes (4:37)

Well, there does seem to be a pattern here. Who has actually been fired from this administration? I mean, it's Pam Bondi. Pam Bondi, Tulsi Gabbard, Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Labor.