Jim Acosta & Amanda Litman

**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 Darlene Graham Nordone, the sister of late Senator Lindsey Graham, will finish out Lindsey Graham's term. We have such a great show for you, The Jim Acosta Show's Jim Acosta steps by to talk about Trump continuing his ill-advised war against Iran. Then we'll talk to Run for Something's own Amanda Litman about how Democrats can and do recruit better candidates and don't make mistakes like what happened in Maine. But first, the news.

**Jesse Cannon** (0:42)
Molly, the American people are getting a huge economic stimulus. And by that, I mean $81 billion in return tariffs.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (0:50)
Yeah. OK, so here's what's happened. Donald Trump put on tariffs.
They were the one thing that this very magga Supreme Court said, no go. I mean, basically everything else, they're like, you want to be a dad kid? OK, you want to fire people at? Well, you got it. You want to tariff the American people? Not so fast. And here we are now.
The US has paid out $81 billion in tariff refunds so far this fiscal year. Treasury Department's official says the spike was almost entirely because of the Supreme Court decision, with most of the refunds happening in May and June. Trump has pitched the tariffs as a fix all for the economy. But you know what happened? You know who turned out to be right? Who? Everyone who said the tariffs are inflationary and expensive, and they made everything more expensive. Even the Supreme Court, which is filled with some of the worst bag of sycophants, even they were like, you can't do it.

**Jesse Cannon** (1:57)
So in other fun news, we're now all avoiding eating lettuce because we have this Trump diarrhea thing going on that RFK and the CDC stopped monitoring parasites about, which are causing explosive diarrhea across the country, the headlines all over every news site today.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (2:14)
We call it Trumparia.

**Jesse Cannon** (2:17)
I like this branding.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (2:18)
Because Trumparia, it is both caused by Trump and also not good for you. There you go. Trumparia, it's explosive. It's because the CDC stopped monitoring parasites. That's why. Thank you, Elon Musk. You know, when you stop regulating the water, when you stop looking for parasites, parasites go.
This was under the watchful eye of Health Secretary and complete quack, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. because he pushed out critical federal scientists and researchers. Do you know why he did that?

**Jesse Cannon** (2:57)
Oh, I think it's because he is an insane person who believes things that any quack says, he believes those things to be the truth because contrarianism is the thing that eats your brain just like a worm does.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (3:09)
Yeah. And it's not even contrarianist. He is also making money on this, right?

**Jesse Cannon** (3:14)
Yes. Yes. Yes. That's a great point.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (3:16)
The Children's Health Defense Fund makes money on all sorts of anti-vax conspiracies and vaccine injuries. This ain't like just being contrarian like Nick Gillespie.
This is also about being a genuinely bad guy. Now, that said, a little breaking news from this podcast. One of my new hobbies is responding to RFK Jr.'s threat account.

**Jesse Cannon** (3:45)
I've noticed this. I mean, it's been going on for a week or two, huh?

**Molly Jong-Fast** (3:48)
Yes. Well, I was told to get hobbies, and we've been on vacation. And during our vacation, I needed something to do. And so instead of doing something that many people might consider to be productive, I have been trolling RFK Jr. When he resigns, I will have to get another hobby.

**Jesse Cannon** (4:09)
Well, I guess this is better than sawing off raccoon penises for some unknown reason.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (4:13)
Or the cutting off the head of a whale.

**Jesse Cannon** (4:16)
Yes. Yes. This is true. You're having healthy hobbies. I'm proud of you.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (4:19)
Yes. Thank you. I have to go check if he's posted.

**Jesse Cannon** (4:24)
Okay. Before you go, we need to talk about this new verisite poll, which I think is a very interesting thing. So one of the things that I think about are sovereign wealth funds.
I had a friend recently who was telling me about his country is one of all the benefits he sees from it. And one of the things we just saw in this verisite poll is that the public supports overwhelmingly aggressive AI regulation and public stock transfers, where we would set up a sovereign wealth fund so we would all live better off the things that AI is robbing from us.