George Conway & Ezra Levin

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 106 lawmakers have signed a petition to release more of the Epstein files. We have such a great show for you today. Psycho Politics' Owen George Conway stops by to talk Trump's delusional idea to put himself on the ballot in the midterms. Then we'll talk to Indivisible's Ezra Levin about their next rally, No Kings Vote Early.

But first, the news.

Jesse Cannon (0:33)

So Molly, are you shocked that Corey Lewandowski is running around making side deals and trying to do something that is not by the books?

Molly Jong-Fast (0:43)

Yeah. So there was reporting today in the Wall Street Journal. It is the world's most unsurprising reporting ever. And it is one of these things where it just was the kind of thing you sort of suspected was happening.

And it's sort of amazing because clearly what happened was, this is what the reporting says. And if you like look at this story, why it's important to look at stories like this is because you kind of know who's talking to the journalists here. So basically, Corey Lewandowski went to the Qataris and he had a proposal, okay? And then he went to the UAE and he had a proposal. And both of the proposals were like, I'm going to help you. I'm going to help you back channel through Homeland Security. Now, I want to read you a line that really stuck out to me in this Wall Street Journal reporting.

Some of the foreigners were taken aback and confused as to why they would need Lewandowski's help when they already had a traditional relationship with top administration officials.

And again, this is the fundamental problem that this administration has, right? Which is, they want to go from normal democracy to banana republic. And you can't just do that, right? These people are like, we're used to dealing with America like a normal country. And Corey's like, no, no, you don't understand. This is mob wives. Like, this administration is mob wives. And so what we have here is a very, very, very much what you thought you were going to see, which is Corey Lewandowski trying to make deals with different countries. And the country is basically turning around and being like, what the fuck? And so my sense when I read this story was that there's more here that we're going to see. And that there were things that they couldn't get past lawyers yet that are coming. And my guess is that there's in this story, there's another character whose name is White House, and he brings White House with him to different things. And my guess is there's more to this story because in this story, there's part of it is about how Lewandowski tries to get them to buy these two icebreakers. I bet you this is the first of many, many, many Lewandowski stories. And my guess is that this is not going to end well for anyone involved.

Jesse Cannon (3:16)

Yeah.

Molly Jong-Fast (3:17)

Was that your take when you read it?

Jesse Cannon (3:18)

My big take is when people like this go, oh, this is too much. It's really telling you how far you cross the line. Yeah, like when they revised this deal downwards and like, it's a mess.

Molly Jong-Fast (3:31)

The fact that this is coming out now and there's no, you know, oversight hasn't taken the gavel. Like, this is already out there and the Bahrain is involved. The Bahraini is the, the Emirati is the UAE. I think there's more coming.

Jesse Cannon (3:47)

Well, in other news, this is behind closed doors corruption. We have the right in open air corruption where the Trump administration just tries to get rid of every regulation that ever protected a consumer and anybody who's not connected to this White House from raking in cash. And now the SEC wants to end pay to play for private equity.

Molly Jong-Fast (4:06)

So this is a rule that was put in place to stop private equity funds from bribing public officials. So I want to pause for a minute. The Trump administration is seeking to rescind a rule that would make it so that a private equity fund can't bribe an official. By the way, I love the way that Republicans are going after this. They're saying that it's free speech to be able to bribe people. And so basically, they're using the same, this is they're using the playbook from Citizens United, right? Money is speech. And actually, it's funny because I once did this event with Scott Jennings, this paid speech where he was like, I tend to believe that money is speech and that's why Citizens United was rightly decided. And I was like, huh? But that makes sense. This is this insane idea that somehow by bribe, if you can't bribe people, it's violation of your free speech.