Rick Wilson & Gal Beckerman

**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 a new NBC poll has Trump's approval at an all-time low of 37%.
We have such a great show for you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joins us to discuss Trump getting thrown out of his own situation room. Who could have seen it? Then we'll talk to the Atlantic's Gal Beckerman about his new book, How to Be a Dissident. But first, the news.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:28)
So, Molly, many people heard the Strait of Hormuz is reopening on Friday. Now, not so much. So now, we have Energy Secretary Chris Wright, one of the many people who likes to go on a Sunday show and really fuck things up, saying that gas may stay above $3 into 2027 Great stuff. Love it.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (0:48)
So here's the story. Chris Wright on CNN, it was a pretty fascinating interview.
It's worth watching because these guys cannot defend it. They're trying so hard to defend, defend, defend. Here's what it is. The Arap war has driven up prices as we were told. None of this is a surprise in any which way, and Wright is just trying to defend it. He's adding the gas will go down. He doesn't fucking know. He's adding that the straits will be open. This is all this weird market manipulation stuff that they want to do, and just don't trust them. None of this is real. This is what they do. This is where it is, and none of us should be surprised. So here we are.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:32)
Yeah. So I opened my phone, and I thought to myself, why the fuck am I seeing Joe Rogan with the president?

**Molly Jong-Fast** (1:40)
On a Saturday.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:41)
Yes. And I was quite taken aback. As usual, Joe Rogan was looking very strange. But I found out it's actually for something that I very much support personally, which is that Mr. Trump is now going to allow the FDA to do trials for experimental therapies of psychedelics for things like depression and getting people off drugs, which I've seen lots of my friends have great success with.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (2:03)
Okay. So Trump is not doing this because he cares about psychedelics getting people on drugs.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:09)
Really?

**Molly Jong-Fast** (2:09)
I think that's the top line here. He's doing this because Joe Rogan is really mad at him and has been saying that he doesn't support him on his podcast to 80 million people. And so Donald Trump is desperately trying to win him back. And so he's decided psychedelics are the way, which I think all of this should say quite a lot about Trump, quite a lot about how we got here, quite a lot about Joe Rogan. Like if we ever had a window into this. So they all came in on Saturday.
And I think that it's just a really good example of how this administration operates. And it's just kind of, I don't know, you know, Trump is just desperately trying to get his numbers up. He will do anything. And if it means occasionally doing something that we like, I mean, I don't like it because I'm sober. So I don't like any drugs. But I know somebody is going to be mad at me for saying that I don't like drugs.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:06)
I'll be honest with you. I don't think you should classify this as all drugs, because things like ibogaine or chemicals are just going to become prescriptions. So I wouldn't personally say that.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (3:14)
I'm not going to weigh in on this. I don't know enough. But it is fascinating to watch Donald Trump just go along with something that is very ideologically on the left. But he's got, you know, he's just trying to keep Joe Rogan. And so here we are.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:30)
Yeah, I don't see any chance of this being really what people vote on when gas is $3 and above all through the rest of the year. And that's going to make inflation go insane.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (3:39)
That's right. And that's where we are.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:41)
As usual, razor sharp focus on affordability.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (3:45)
Correct.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:46)
So Prime Minister Carney up in Canada, I think had a very telling quote. He said the US ties have become a weakness. We saw a report this week that Las Vegas is in a panic because most of their tourism comes from Canadians and they're not coming here anymore.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (4:00)
Yeah, we lost Canada. Mark Carney is amazing. I am so jealous that they get to have someone smart. Canada is, they have put, they've done elbows up. They are just done with us. We need them for tourism. We need them for trade and we're losing them. And it's just, it's such a dumb, dumb, unforced error. And you know, Donald Trump is dumb. I mean, he's dumb and he's bad at being president. And so here we go.