Jim Acosta & Hugo Lowell

**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 Senator Ted Cruz says, I don't think gas prices are going to impact the midterms.
We have such a great show for you today. The Jim Acosta Show is Jim Acosta, stops by to talk about Trump's latest assaults on justice and the rule of law. Then we'll talk to Wired's own Hugo Lowell about what he sees inside this very chaotic Trump White House. But first, the news.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:35)
Somali big election results last night. I think the most exciting news for you and I, because we care about what we cover so much, is that Josh Turek has really handily won his Senate nomination in the Democratic Party, and Rob Sand, who was uncontested, is going to go against that terrible, terrible candidate in Iowa, and the election is now a toss-up.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (0:55)
These are all people we've had on this podcast, so let us have a moment of like, yay us. Let us celebrate that Josh Turek, who has been on this podcast twice, he is really a great candidate, dragged his wheelchair up steps, just is an extremely good candidate. By the way, that was a Schumer pick, good for Schumer. He is a really good candidate, really gonna, I think, flip that seat, won by a large margin, 120K, 271K. Zach is probably going to be a really great candidate in the future too. He's actually really smart, but he's young, he's really young, and he is just in a different place in his life.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:36)
There's two Senate seats, one with a 90-year-old in it.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (1:40)
Oh, right, that's right. Yes, there's another Senate seat that's up, which has a 90-year-old in it. So maybe Zach will run for that one. But exciting to see a purple state or a state that is a Republican state, but that has a real blue, voted for Obama twice. It's cool to see that there's a real bench there. That's really cool. And also Rob Sand's cruising to the nomination, Rob Sand. And he will, I think, very likely be the governor of Iowa. So that is a big fucking deal for Iowa.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:12)
So let's move on to California. So one of the things that's interesting is a lot of people are counting these chickens before they're hatched.
California always has a Republican in the lead the night after the election. The blue vote in California, which is a very large state, fourth largest economy, takes forever to count. So a lot of people are counting Tom Steyer out. It's a little early to do that. Even when you hear this on Thursday morning, it will still be early because California's vote shifts dramatically. In fact, it's very telling how far Karen Bass is ahead in the Los Angeles because she was actually behind Caruso the last time she ran for election. And it really says a lot that Spencer Pratt was not all it was cracked up to be.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (2:53)
Yeah, again, really important point about how you don't know until you know. And Spencer Pratt got a lot of media. He got a lot of covers of US Magazine. But he ultimately, unlike Donald Trump, who was able to use that media, Spencer Pratt may not have been able to flip the mayorship of Los Angeles. By the way, there was a lot of people who wanted to vote for him, who didn't actually understand that they lived in Santa Monica or in Malibu. So I think it was some confusion there.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:29)
I'll be honest, I lived in Venice for a whole year of my life and I didn't know. Santa Monica and Malibu didn't vote in the Los Angeles election, so I would have been one of them, news to me.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (3:39)
California is learning all about its local government, one candidate at a time. A lot of exciting things though, we can talk about besides Iowa in New Jersey, Minnie Mikey Sherrill, Rebecca Bennett, helicopter pilot won easily.
That's good friend of this podcast and data nerd, extraordinary. Sam Wang did not win his congressional seat, that congressional primary, but we love him anyway.

**SPEAKER_2** (4:07)
We were pretty shocked at how well he did. I have to say, Sam really did fight a great fight and shout out to him for trying to do his civil duty.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (4:15)
Yes, and we love Sam and we'll hope he'll come back on the podcast very, very soon.

**SPEAKER_2** (4:20)
The big upset is Adam Hamillway, who I think has an extraordinary story. He saved Tammy Duckworth's life, but it's a very big upset because he comes from the far left wing of the party and is anticipated to be another member of the squad.