Evan McMorris-Santoro & Adam Jentleson

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 has made more trades since his inauguration than all of Congress combined. We have such a great show for you today. The Washington Sun's Evan McMorris-Santoro stops by to talk about the death of Trump's mail-in balloting. Then we'll talk to the Searchlight Institute's own Adam Jentleson about his new book, Supermajority, How Democrats Can Build Lasting Power. But first, the news.

Jesse Cannon (0:37)

So, Molly, I don't know about you, but most of the weddings I've been to, they're usually paid for by somebody in the family of the bride or the groom. Just most of them.

Molly Jong-Fast (0:47)

Not Don Jr.'s second wedding. I'm sorry to tell you that Don Jr.'s second wedding turns out was paid for by a Russian oligarch. This is the kind of thing, by the way, that when it came out from ProPublica, I wrote to the journalist who wrote it, and I was like, I bet you there's more to this story. Like, this is the tale of a story. Like, you don't pay for two days of parties unless there's more. First of all, a few thoughts on this. Donald Trump did not go. So the question is why didn't Donald Trump senior go, right? But really, so he must have known that there were sketchy Russian oligarchs involved. And the whole thing is nuts. The best part is when Don Jr.'s second wife said, I just want everyone to know this is fake news. They paid for after the wedding party. Like, and even like the defense of it. We saw Anna Paulina Luna try to defend this on CNN. And she, you know, she was like, well, it's totally different than Hunter Biden. And the truth is, like, Hunter Biden's meme coin, bad. Donald Trump's wedding paid for by a Russian oligarch also bad. Like, both things can be bad. Bad and bad, both bad. Here's the line from ranking member Garcia, who we talk to all the time in this podcast. Oversey Dems are investigating the numerous ways in which the Trump family have sought to enrich themselves on the basis of proximity to Donald Trump. And this guy, Umar, is a big friend of Putin's, has traveled with Putin. He's an oligarch. This thing is just the beginning. I bet you this is the first story and that there are going to be a lot of other stories related to this. And this is totally unsurprising. And, you know, they admitted it. And then they were like, this is fake news. Like, if it's fake news, then it should be fake. Not you shouldn't admit it. It's so incredibly unsurprising. It's kind of amazing.

Jesse Cannon (2:35)

Can I tell you my theory on why Trump didn't attend the wedding?

Molly Jong-Fast (2:38)

Tell me.

Jesse Cannon (2:39)

This is definitely accurate. He read Patrick Raddenkief's London Folly because he's a very big reader. And he saw what happens when you hang out with Russian oligarchs.

Molly Jong-Fast (2:48)

Yeah, that's what happened. That's reading.

Jesse Cannon (2:50)

That's wrong.

Okay. All kidding aside, Jared Kushner, another member of the Trump family, he's making bank off the Iran negotiations. I can't believe this family is enriching themselves in these ways.

Molly Jong-Fast (3:02)

Yeah, you'll be shocked to know, and by shocked, I mean not at all shocked, to know that Jared Kushner is enriching himself from the negotiation. So here's the story. This is a Dexter Filkins story from The New Yorker, and it's really a good story, and it's a really important story.

Not only is there the fact that Jared is enriching himself, but there's also just this incredible thing that they don't know what they're doing. So we got into this war because Kushner and Witkoff, or as we call them, Rosencrantz and Guildenstein, they were negotiating this, but they didn't know any of the specifics because they don't know anything about nukes. So they didn't have any way to know, because they don't know anything, what was really happening. So they decided that the Iranians were trying to get out of the deal when in fact it's possible that the Iranians were offering something better than what Obama got with the Iran nuclear deal. Anyway, the point is they were like, no, we're going to war. And you just have to wonder how much like Kushner is really tight with Netanyahu is like his family's close with him. And Netanyahu really wanted more and continues to want more. And I just think it's pretty interesting that we're in this moment. And Kushner was really the wrong person to negotiate this peace treaty.