Justin Wolfers & Steven Mazie

**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 81% of young Americans say the economy is bad. We have such a great show for you today. Platypus Economics, Justin Wolfers, comes on to update us on Trump's economy. Then we'll talk to the economist, Steve Mazie, about our Supreme Court's terrible, terrible instincts. But first, the news.

**Jesse Cannon** (0:29)
So, Molly, we have a deluge of votes that came through our congressional body yesterday. I'm gonna shock you. They're not good.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (0:36)
Well, last night, the Senate worked late. They were up late passing votes and also not. They had a Votorama, and there was a lot of stuff that went down. Some went through, some did not. But they did pass the ICE and Border Patrol funding. The irony here is ICE and Border Patrol already so funded, they have so much money in the billions, but Murkowski voted no, Bennett did not vote, and otherwise on party lines, 5247
There were a series of Democratic amendments that were put on there to make Republicans have to vote against what might help them win in 2028, and this I think is important. Bill Cassidy had to defeat a Democratic proposal targeting the Anti-Weaponization Fund. Now, the Anti-Weaponization Fund is Donald Trump's slush fund for giving money to his people. Are they a private militia? Well, the anxiety is that they would become that with the $1776 billion that they would get for doing things Trump wanted. And so Democrats, and I think this is this smart, you know, Chuck Schumer has had a few wins recently, and we should give them to him. Jesse, are you OK? And one of them is that he's trying to outlaw this. And I think that he's right to, like, if we've seen one thing about this admin, it's that you cannot take them at their word.

**Jesse Cannon** (2:19)
That is correct. But yeah, I'll keep staying silent on Chuck Schumer.
So, next we have in this Delusio Votes, Senator Cassidy is trying very hard to kill Trump's slush fund.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (2:31)
Yeah. And look, there is a thing called the Yolo Caucus. It is Cassidy, Cornyn from Texas, Tillis. Those are three Republicans who would be running for re-election if Donald Trump hadn't gotten mad at them.
That's the truth. And he primaried two of them, and he created a world where the third just could not run in North Carolina. So this is, I think, important because it is a 53-47 Senate. And you have three senators who are no longer on Team Trump, which means you could have a 50-50 Senate. And then you have people like Mitch McConnell, who has voted against Trump any number of times, Lisa Murkowski, who can do whatever the fuck she wants.
And of course, Susan Collins, who would be in a normal election fighting for her political life, but because she's caught a break, she still, you know, she has an election coming up.

**Jesse Cannon** (3:43)
She caught a terrible, terrible poll today. But still, that was up to date just two days ago. And it's not looking good for her. So the Trump administration had a Second Amendment tsunami.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (3:56)
This administration hates regulation. Why do they hate regulation? Because they just don't want the government to exist at all. I mean, it's a larger gestalt of not wanting the government to exist at all. So they are undertaking a broadest fire on deregulation in years. Why would you do this?
Why already? America is awash with guns. Mexico gets their guns from us. Canada gets their guns from us. The rest of the world, we're like arms dealers to the world. And the admin would like to make it easier to get guns here. So basically, they're going to modernize regulations, which means just end them.
And again, like, this is so, so, so short-sighted. And, you know, I mean, I don't understand why they think we need this, but I guess that it's going to be more guns, it's going to be more gun violence, it's going to be more of this just complete disaster scenario. And it's like, you know, when they're legislating, they're doing either trying to end regulation or trying to take stuff away from poor mothers.

**Jesse Cannon** (5:12)
Yeah, they really like that. So the other big vote is the House GOP with the help of four dems voted to take food aid from millions of women and kids.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (5:23)
Yeah.
So this is like one of the things that this is the legacy of Elon Musk, who's about to become a trillionaire. My man does not like giving money to poor women, 213 to 210, four Democrats. You should, by the way, primary the hell out of those Democrats. Vince Gonzalez from Texas, Adam Gray from California, Marie Gustin Clamp Perez, and Don Davis from North Carolina.