Jason Selvig & Shannon Bird

**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 Representative Sheila Sherffles McCormick has resigned from Congress. We have such a great show for you today, The Good Liars. Jason Selvig stops by to talk about Tucker Carlson apologizing for his support of Trump, well, sort of. Then we'll talk to former Colorado State Representative Shannon Bird about her run for Colorado's 8th Congressional District. But first, the news.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:33)
So Molly, last night, recent guest of the podcast, New York Times, Teddy Schleifer, tweeted, The Republican National Committee entered April with 117 million on hand. The Democratic National Committee entered April with negative 4.4 million on hand, inclusive of debts. And let's just say this caused a meltdown of epic proportions among people who debate these things online.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (0:55)
So welcome to the Ken Martin Must Resign Discourse. Ken Martin is the head of the DNC. This job, because he was the Minnesota state chair, and the DNC is voted on by state party chairs.
So they all knew him, and they were like, this is our guy. He ran against a guy called Ben Wickler, who has been on this pod. If you listen to this pod, you know who Ben Wickler is. He is very beloved by both the donor class, which is the people you need to give you money in order to raise the money that the DNC needs, and also by people who, like us, who just are in democratic world. But the people who vote for the DNC chair are state party chairs, just like Ken Martin. Ken Martin has had this job for about a year and a half. He has really flailed at it. Every time he's given a public statement, it's been either something that's alienated people or created a controversy, or he's just had a very tough time of it. And sometimes he'll give quotes that say things like, I never wanted this job anyway. He is uniquely not the man for this moment. The question is, when does he resign and how can we speed this up? And the answer is, I don't know. He has said, I've heard from people in inside world who've said that he's just going to stay until the midterms are over. But you know, the reality is like no one is entitled to these jobs. It's not the Supreme Court. The guy's a disaster. He's not raising money.
People are pretty horrified by how it's going. And so, like, he should resign and Democrats keep doing this thing where like, well, we're nice guys, so we're not going to expect our people to do their jobs. But it's hard to find anyone who doesn't think Ken Martin's a complete disaster. Defend Ken Martin. Go.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:58)
I'm going to make an observation that one of the things I get very disappointed with our side of the party with is that a lot of the time that the defenses are aiming with goals that are way below what our goals should be. And our goals should be not just winning but converting and a very solid convincing of people that our ideas are right. And it feels like both Ken Martin and his apologists are always saying, well, what can you do?

**Molly Jong-Fast** (3:25)
Yeah. I mean, people make excuses for people. That's how it goes. But Ken Martin has really one job, which is to raise money for the DNC. And so the fact that they have negative $4.4 million means that he's not raising money for the DNC. You know, you have more of an ideological problem with him. I don't think his job is ideological. I think his job is cash-raisey.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:49)
That's not true. What did I say that was ideological?

**Molly Jong-Fast** (3:52)
No, but I know he's very center-y. I mean, I know you don't love that about him. And I don't necessarily love that about him, but it's an extremely cut and dry situation. Whereas if you can't raise the money, you shouldn't have the job.

**SPEAKER_2** (4:05)
To defend my position on him.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (4:07)
Yes. Go.

**SPEAKER_2** (4:09)
When Randy Weingarten, David Hogg and all these people end up out in a normal position that is not contentious, I think it says it's not like Randy Weingarten is to the left of Marx. And I found that very disturbing. And I generally, as somebody who's been under very badly ruled organizations throughout his career in media, tend to be a little alarmed when you see behavior like that.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (4:33)
Yeah, I mean, definitely he is not popular with any number of people that is for sure true.