Charlie Sykes & Rep. Jared Moskowitz

**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 President Trump warned Judge Alito that he could end up like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and die on the bench if he doesn't do what's right for the country. Wow.
Donald Trump having a day. We have such a great show for you today. To The Contrary's own Charlie Sykes. And then we'll stop by to talk about JD Vance's presidential aspiration just slowly disappearing. Then we'll talk to Congressman Jared Moskowitz about former AG Bondi refusing to show up to congressional hearings. But first the news.

**Charlie Sykes** (0:45)
So Molly, one of the things that usually fuels the economy in this time of year and fuels summer vacations, big purchases is tax refunds. You know what's not going so well because they've defunded the IRS? Tax refunds.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (0:57)
Yeah. Okay, so here's what's going on.
Donald Trump, I think he had one good idea. And that was no tax on tips. Reason it's a good idea is because a lot of people who make less money tend to be reliant on tips. And so it's a good way, it's a good progressive taxation. Of course, or at least it seems, again, I don't want to give Donald Trump too much credit because who knows like if hedge fund managers are saying that their compensation is tips.

**Charlie Sykes** (1:27)
Yeah, that's what that's what the giveaway was. Is that Goldman Sachs lobbied for this?

**Molly Jong-Fast** (1:31)
Right, exactly. So this will all come out in the wash as to whether or not this was brilliant, progressive legislation or Donald Trump doing crazy cronyism. So let's stay tuned on what this is. But I think the point of it is that they have defunded the IRS. And so it's much slower to get stuff back from them. Everything's taking a lot longer. And a lot of people thought that this one big beautiful bill would mean that they would get a lot more money back. And that bump, it's not what they said it would be. I know you're going to be shocked to hear that the Trump administration may have been misleading its supporters.
It's very unusual because this administration almost never does that except all the time. And so here we are.

**Charlie Sykes** (2:24)
Color me shocked.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (2:26)
Color me shocked. Known to be such good actors and not complete career criminals.

**Charlie Sykes** (2:33)
Yeah, never doing opportunism. Okay.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (2:35)
Never.

**Charlie Sykes** (2:36)
Interestingly, one of the things we don't see often enough, I think, and I think you'll agree with me, is Democrats going on the offensive against things Trump's about to do. We often see very late reactions to things. But we now have the Democrats seeking to bar presidents from collecting settlement money from the government.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (2:54)
Yeah, this is smart. This is like, it's funny, because I'm thinking about how I fought with a certain congressman's office about why they hadn't done the War Powers vote before Donald Trump took us to war. And they were like, we're doing it next week. And I was like, but this is actually a good one because it's clear that Donald Trump wants to sue the government and get a big payout from the government, which is, I would like to say, completely insane, especially because he's making like $10 trillion a day from profiting off the presidency every roadway, but he is suing the government for $10 billion because of the leak of his tax records to news outlets. By the way, when you read this, the reporting on this, there were like a bunch of other people who had their tax records leaked to the IRS and they, you know, settled for a little bit of money or maybe a tiny bit of restitution. Here's my man, $10 billion.
So this is a Ron Wyden special. I'm a big Ron Wyden fan because he spends a lot of time doing really kind of like nerdy in the weeds. I mean, this isn't so in the weeds, but trying to be smart about what legislation they try to pass before it happens. So before they are set with having to pay Donald Trump $10 billion for the inconvenience of having his taxes leaked, which is, I would like to say, a complete and utter fiasco. Yeah.

**Charlie Sykes** (4:37)
Oh, we should also give credit out. Elizabeth Warren is a big part of this, who also I think is very proactive with things.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (4:42)
Yes. But Elizabeth Warren is known for this.

**Charlie Sykes** (4:46)
Yeah. Rod White enacts much more in the background, doing very smart, proactive things, just as his letter to the DNI was earlier this year.