Jason Selvig & Max Tani

**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 CNN forecaster Harry Enten says, Trump's the only president to ever hit 80% disapproval on gas prices. We have such a great show for you today, The Good Liars own Jason Selvig stops by to talk about Trump turning America into Las Vegas. Then we'll talk to Semafor's Max Tani about the influencer shaping voter disinformation. But first the news.

**Jesse Cannon** (0:35)
So Molly, Trump's slush fund, it's seeming like it's melting and going from slush to nothing.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (0:43)
Yeah, so here's what's happening. Trump and really Todd Blanch had two really nutty ideas that they were going to extract from their government for Donald Trump. One was the slush fund that was going to be 1776, so $1.776 billion for Trump's friends and colleagues who had done crimes basically. Well, so now that's gone. There's another part of it which Donald Trump, I think thinks he's going to get, which is like a shield against ever being audited. I have a lot of questions about that. But the point of these stories is not that Trump fails. That is certainly a point of it. The real point here is that if you push back on this stuff, Trump won't do it.
It shows how lame and how weak and how cowardly everyone has been up until now. Because it's pretty easy to get Donald Trump to talk to. Just ask the Iranians. They've been doing it on the regular.
So Republicans, there is this caucus called the Yolo Caucus. We know them well. Cornyn, Cassidy, a whole crew of Republicans, Tillis, and Yolo Caucus, push back. Donald Trump will talk out, push back. That is what you must do.

**Jesse Cannon** (2:04)
Yeah. Speaking of backing out, looks like no more Bill Poulty for DNI, and we now have Jay Clayton.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (2:11)
Yeah. We are in taco times here.

**Jesse Cannon** (2:15)
I'm glad to hear that. I'm hungry.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (2:16)
That was really funny. You know it's funny because no one is laughing. I'm just kidding. We love Jesse and I sound like death.
Look, here's what happened. Donald Trump put Bill Poulty in the job. There is no world in which Bill Poulty should have that job, and here's what happened. Even Donald Trump talk out. He said, okay, no Bill Poulty. Now he has this guy, Jay Clayton. Now, is Jay Clayton better? Well, he's not completely inappropriate. Does he have a national security background? No, he does not. Has he spread lies about elections on television? Yes, yes, he has. So let's not for a minute think that this is some brilliant hire that changes the calculus of everything. No, it does not. Is it a little better? Yes, it's a little better.
Bill Poulty was famous for his ability to take things that weren't really crimes and try to elevate them. It was a great example of to my enemies, the law, to my friends, everything and to my enemies, the law. He went after Trump's enemies, and he went after anyone who had tried to take Trump out legally and with mortgage fraud allegations that were neither fraud, nor they were this very narrow read on mortgages. But now, here's the situation. Trump wants to put Poulty in there until his new guy gets in. The house is out of session. They all went home yesterday. The Senate is in today and then back a few days before July 4th. I mean, look, for most of us, it's June, but for the House and the Senate, they spend a lot of time in the summer or not in the office. So I think that it's going to be tough to get them in there. This is a much less insane choice and a lot of members are celebrating. But the reality is, we have to be vigilant because even if this choice isn't as insane, doesn't mean that Donald Trump won't pressure him to do truly insane things.

**Jesse Cannon** (4:21)
Also, this choice doesn't make the qualifications of a traditional D&I.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (4:26)
Certainly not.

**Jesse Cannon** (4:27)
We've now lowered the bar because Trump degrades every bar. There's like, yeah, I guess sure, it's not as bad as the other thing he did.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (4:34)
Yeah. I would also say Trump has tried to really destroy the D&I and make it something that doesn't really exist anymore anyway. In Trump world, they call it, do not invite D&I.
He has really degraded that position, but still, yes, Trump has yet again, and again, even sane people act in an insane way when confronted with Donald Trump.