Rick Wilson & Michael Tomasky

**Molly Jong-Fast** (0:00)
Hi, I'm Molly JongFast, and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And Donald Trump has announced Prime Minister Keir Starmer will resign before the Prime Minister has said anything. We have such a great show for you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joins us to discuss why Trump is hiding in Camp David. Then we'll talk to New Republic's own Mike Tomasky about his new book, Killing Baby Hitler, but first the news.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:31)
So Molly, we are a national politics podcast. We don't usually wade into foreign policy, but we have to talk the stupidity that our president has wrought with somebody we were all very scared of, as I recall, Prime Minister George Maloney.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (0:46)
Yeah, we make special allowances for Europe because we like Italian food. And also we like Italy because it's fabulous. But I do remember you and I really worried about Maloney.
She is from the very, very far, right? And she was a big friend of Trump's. But actually, believe it or not, since she has gotten into the presidency, the Italian presidency, she has done a few things that have been okay. Like she stayed a staunch ally of Ukraine. A lot of people were worried about her relationship with Putin. And she was a big ally of Donald Trump. Now, when Donald Trump started the Iranian war, he did not tell anyone, including her. And her former minister was actually in Dubai and got stuck there, which is something that allies don't like when that happens. And they basically got into some kind of fight about something. And Trump said it was because she wanted to take a picture with him, which I don't think is true, but maybe it is.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:51)
I saw that this was best described as what the great poet Fred Durst once called the he said, she said bullshit.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (1:56)
Yes. So he said she wanted to take a picture with him. She is still the president of Italy. I mean, and she said, you're lying, which you and I both know Trump never lies. She went to Instagram and said, President Trump, these constant unprovoked attacks are senseless. Which again is true.
As for my popularity, you being my friend certainly has not helped it, nor does it depend on my relationship with you. Remember, Donald Trump, not so popular here, but really, really not popular in Europe. I mean, that is not helping the president of Italy. The Italian press, which can be very rough, is pretty delighted to side with their prime minister, this is so stupid, this is like the reflecting pool. You don't need to pick a fight with Italy.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:50)
Yeah, this is feeling like a drama we should be reading from two people who starred on a season of Love Island more than two world leaders.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (2:57)
Yeah, it's just so fucking stupid, and it's such a great example of like, it's also just like, it's Italy, it has no effect on the states, it's just a sort of like, I mean, it's a small European country, you know, it's wonderful, we love it, but this is like a really dumb, unforced error, and he should be focused on like a million different things that are not this.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:21)
Agreed. So something I hope the Democrats focus on is the DOJ refusing to release these Epstein emails that probably will expose President Trump for having lots of contact with his former best friend, Jeffrey Epstein.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (3:33)
So this is a really important story, which is that this is about Trump's DOJ refusing to say that the slush fund is dead. You'll remember the slush fund, which was this settlement. So Trump got mad that there was a IRS contractor who leaked some of his information. You know, he sued his own government for $10 billion.
Ridiculous. He wasn't going to get $10 billion. He decided that he would take a settlement for 1776 and to give cash to people who stormed the Capitol. Wildly unpopular, something that has united. Donald Trump found his 80-20 issue.
No one likes it. Basically, they backed off of it, but they refused. Todd Blanch, who is trying to become the AG, has backed off of it, but they refused to say they won't do it. And in it, in this story, is this story that the Justice Department is still sitting on millions of Epstein files, which we all know. And some of them could reveal a lot about the president. And so the Department of Justice claims that it's released every document that's required under the Epstein Transparency Act. We all know this is not true. And we know it's not true because they said previously that they had more than six million pages of documents and they've only released about three million. So that means there are three million that are not released. And we know, I mean, we talk to survivors, they all talk about how there's just a lot of stuff that's missing. We know there are these interview forms, there are videos, I mean, it's just enlum stuff. There's financial documents, financial documents maybe can't be released, but there's certainly a lot of stuff that they're sitting on. There's also, most of the emails are from post 2008 What I think is important is that one of the missing accounts, Littlest Jeff, Jesus Christ.