America Is Fraying from Within — with Molly Jong-Fast

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Episode 369.

369 is the area code covering northwestern California.

In 1969, humans landed on the moon for the first time.

Shushu!

I was in astronaut training, and on the first day, I vomited like there was no tomorrow, and I asked the instructor if this was normal and he responded not during the written exam

go go go

all right welcome to the 369th episode of the prop gpod i'm home in london i'm actually alone in london it's like 50 degrees out and gray and I'm all alone, just me and the dogs.

And I don't know.

Kind of depressing.

Kind of depressing.

I have been working out, working out, taking edibles, going out, seeing people in town, meeting some people.

See above, I'm alone and bored.

May work out, hit the erg, the rowing machine.

By the way, I think the best exercise, if you want to get 12 minutes of exercise, is to do two or three thousand meters on an erg.

That is just a full body workout.

Anyways, things are good.

Back in London.

Excited to be here.

Just a quick plug: doing our pivot live tour coming up.

We're pretty much, we're sold out in toronto or toronto as they call it and san francisco uh i think we're almost sold out in new york uh seven cities chicago dc

boston

chicago dc boston new york toronto uh san francisco los angeles so if you are interested please reserve a ticket now um Talk about exciting.

We're going for $300 on StubHub in Toronto.

Granted, it's Canadian money, so that's like $11 U.S.

But still, we have a secondary market in the Pivot live tour.

I am doing my book tour.

I'm going to be doing a live interview with Ben Stiller on my upcoming book notes on becoming a man, which is available now on Amazon for pre-order on November, I guess, the 4th or the 5th.

And then I'll be on Bill Maher doing a big book tour.

I'll be on Bill Maher the 14th of November, which I'm super excited about.

Always have a good time there.

That's a ways off.

Before then, Halloween.

Daddy's coming in hot for Halloween.

That's my Christmas, my Hanukkah.

That is a religious hot, that's a reckoning of good things for me.

Everything's coming together for me on Halloween.

Anyways, very excited to dress up.

I'm going to go as Deadpool again after the fire.

My assistant wanted me to go as Larry David, but I just can't do it.

I'm still too vain to go as Larry David.

Anyways, it's great to be back in London, but very much looking forward to getting back to New York.

And with that, let's get on with our conversation with Molly Jong Fast.

Molly, where does this podcast find you?

I am in New York in my office.

Nice.

So let's bust into it.

I'd love to get your take on the peace deal, how you think it came together, any thoughts on concerns around it, credit Trump deserves or doesn't deserve with the administration for it.

What are your thoughts?

I'm not super involved in foreign policy for any number of reasons, mostly because it's not where

I have any expertise, but as an American Jew.

It doesn't stop us, Molly.

Well, but as an American Jew, I can certainly talk about the tension that I have felt for the last two years as an American Jew and how tough it's been, you know, going to synagogue and feeling a real,

it's really a fraught moment for American Jews.

So I appreciate that you want to stay in your own lane.

Let's talk, you're a New York resident, now?

Yes, yes.

Okay, so as a New York resident and a Jew, give us your sense of the male race, your thoughts on it, and how it might impact national politics.

It's funny because I always, you know, with the last cycle with Eric Adams, there was this feeling that nobody was interested in New York City politics at all.

And it was really, you know, we wouldn't cover it because we covered it a little bit on my podcast, and we would see that it was like no one was interested in it.

People on the left door and it, nobody was interested.

They just didn't care.

And largely because that's it's a relatively unsexy job.

It's a managerial job.

I think that we've seen some really good mayors who have been more on the managerial side and less on the ideological side.

I'm thinking of like Bloomberg

versus mayors on the ideological side who have not been such good

mayors.

And that makes me think of like de Blasio.

So mayors on the ideological side tend not to do as well as mayors on the sort of management side because the city is an enormous city filled with a lot of moving parts.

That said,

What I think is really important about the Mondami situation is that he is wildly popular.

And you have Democrats, and we talk about this all the time, trying to figure out a lane, a way in which to connect with populism.

And here is this candidate who has done it,

but the insiders in the party don't like him and won't endorse him.

And again, I find that to be a very interesting moment that we're in.

It feels as if,

and I'm not a New York resident, and I'm to a certain extent how you feel about Israel.

I feel a little bit about, or the peace plan, how I feel about the mayoral race.

And that is, I'm not a resident.

I don't vote.

I think these things have less impact on

global politics than people would like to believe.

I agree with you.

It's a managerial position.

Keep the streets clean, pick up the trash, make sure the tunnels, you know, the subway's working.

But this just does feel different.

And I don't know about you, but I got kind of caught up in Mom Dami Dami fever.

I love the fact that he weaponized social media platforms.

I'm a huge believer, and we need

the political establishment, it needs to shed its skin and bring in some fresh ideas and fresh people.

You know, I got caught up in some of this fever.

And at the same time, the guy keeps using the term genocide to describe what's happening in the Middle East, which I think is cloud cover for continued anti-Semitism, as I do not believe in any way it qualifies as a genocide.

So it's like, I, I, and I don't know if this is representative of how people in New York feel, but I'm just so hot and cold on the guy.

And ultimately, I, I really do find, have trouble with his chosen vocabulary.

Um, but at the same time, I just think it's such a shame that this type of, and some of his, some of his proposals around rent-freeze, uh, you know, government-controlled

or government-sponsored stores, it just feels like, okay, the kid has no understanding of basic economics, but I appreciate he's trying to do different things.

And do a lot of New Yorkers feel

as I think what you're saying is that is just incredibly conflicted over this guy?

So wealthy people don't like him.

Very wealthy people don't like him.

And there are a number of reasons for that, and he's not for them.

I think that the grocery stores, we, again, the rent freeze, that is, I think, undoable.

And there's research to show that actually freezing the rent, it doesn't have the result result you want.

It doesn't work.

Right.

The free buses come from Bloomberg.

So that I'm not so worried about.

I think people really don't like him and they say that he's anti-Semitic.

Now, I don't necessarily like, I think what's happening in Gaza is ethnic cleansing.

I am a Jew.

I don't think of myself as anti-Semitic.

I know people on the right feel that criticizing Israel is akin to anti-Semitism.

Personally, I feel

like I would like to see everyone stop killing each other in the Middle East.

We all agree on that.

Yeah.

And so I don't, you know, when, so I don't feel, I mean, I often, I have a lot of friends who are wealthy and who are absolutely apoplectic about Mondami.

And so I always say to them, explain to me why.

What am I missing here?

And they'll say things like, he's anti-Semitic.

And And I'll say, well, explain to me what that looks like.

And I can't get, I guess the genocide answer is the closest to it.

Though we have seen like other Jews, rabbis, you know, other people involved.

One of my cousins

was involved in this flotilla, like who do consider it to be a genocide.

I think of it as ethnic cleansing because I think that it's not, it doesn't fit the actual, it doesn't fit the definition of a genocide.

But the reality is, like, as a Jew,

I don't think that we're watching Netanyahu try to stay in power.

We know that's what's going on behind the scenes.

So I don't, you know, and while he's doing that, he is, he's increasing anti-Semitism in the world by, you know, creating this.

this untenable situation in Palestine.

So in my mind, the sooner all of this is over, the better for everyone.

Aaron Ross Powell, oh, I couldn't agree with you more, but I'll just for shits and giggles channel how I think some people in New York are their concerns.

One,

you know, the definition of a genocide, these words have meaning, right?

Fratricide, kill your brother, patricide, your father, homicide, a murder.

Genocide is the purposeful extermination of a group of people based on their ethnicity, their nationality, or their religion.

It doesn't logically make sense to me that Israel is celebrating in the streets over a purported genocide of 3%

and that people trying to enact genocide don't drop leaflets, leave voicemails, and Hamas is basically acknowledged that genocide

is not the objective of Israel and as a result is embedding civilians in military targets.

And if they generally believed that Israel was trying to effect a genocide, they wouldn't do that because that would be a two-for-one.

So I think as a Jew, I worry that when anyone continues to describe the situation in the Middle East as a genocide, that they're creating cloud cover for continued anti-Semitism.

Because if I or anyone else is a supporter of Israel, as I am,

and I definitely have problems with Netanyahu, but if I support Israel's actions, then I'm a supporter of genocide.

And I believe that if I'm, you know, if that logic holds, that that creates cloud cover for action, discrimination, or violence against people like myself in the U.S.

And so I think that type of language, especially coming from a guy who is using terms like globalizing into FADA, and I want to acknowledge he's backed off of that, which I see as nothing but a call to rise open violence against Jews, that these statements are somewhat troubling.

On the economic side, the notion of raising taxes in New York, I understand it theoretically.

I believe we do need to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations.

The issue is, and I haven't seen a study here, maybe you've seen it, is that at some point, wealthy people who are the most mobile people in the world leave and you end up with a smaller tax base.

We saw that in London.

I'm in London today.

We have this non-DOM thing where basically we said to people who came here, basically avoiding taxes, enough already.

You need to pay your fair share.

And they said, fine, I'm out.

I'm moving to Milan and Dubai.

And the UK Treasury is now lower than it was pre kind of non-DOM.

And I think the fear, and I don't know if you've seen any data to counteracts this, that if at some point

the wealthy will leave Manhattan.

And I haven't seen any evidence that they have done the right studies to say that, in fact, they could raise taxes.

Any thought on the economics around the taxation?

I just want to get back to the globalize the Intifada line because, you know,

Senator Gillibrand said that he had said it, but I actually think that he didn't, that there's no, that she was wrong and apologized to him for that.

So I don't think he actually did say that.

And in fact,

he said,

I'm just going to read to you,

that he would not use the phrase globalize the antifada, and he discouraged others from doing it.

So I just want to, you know, because we're talking about words.

And again, I do not think it's a genocide, though.

The fact that we are even having this conversation is not good.

What I would say about taxing rich people,

rich people don't like it.

They often threaten to move.

I certainly know a lot of my rich friends are very agitated about this.

Now, I think it's very, we live in a country where, and you don't live in this country, but I live in this country where 10%

of

Americans control 67.5% of the wealth.

That's according to the St.

Louis Fed.

So that makes me think that, and I don't like paying taxes either.

You know, I don't,

it's not that fun.

But I do think that you can only

go so far in the Gilded Age before the American people are like, I mean, I think, and I think we're seeing this a little bit with Trump, right?

Trump ran as a populist.

He said, I'm going to make things cheaper for you and take care of you and help you and make coal great again.

And, you know, you can't make coal great again.

I mean, you saw those coal miners with

the lungs have come to D.C.

to protest Trump.

So I think that there's only so much wealth that people can accumulate without eventually normal people pushing back.

And that's why you have the situation, I think, that you have with the United Healthcare executive where you had somebody murdered.

and Americans cheering.

And you couldn't, I mean, I don't know if you saw that moment where that late night host was like, you got to stop cheering about a guy being murdered.

And they were booing him.

And it was really an example of like, this is a road we're going down.

And the second order of effects, the second order of effects, we don't know what they are.

Yeah.

And just to acknowledge the point, when 26, the 26 wealthiest families are worth more than the bottom half of America.

And you have people worth more than the GDP of Latin American nations.

I mean, we've seen the cycle before, right?

The top 1% create regulatory capture, weaponize government, overrun it, and aggregate more and more wealth.

And at some point, I mean, Europe has an excuse for why

they haven't recognized prosperity.

They're not growing.

The U.S.

has no excuse because

we have created a ton of shareholder value.

It's just somewhat of the way William Gibson described the future.

It's not evenly distributed, right?

I don't know much about you, but I know you make a very good living.

I make a very good living.

Most Americans would qualify us as being wealthy.

And I recognize that my taxes,

I think in many ways, are too low.

I don't understand why you tax labor and sweat at a higher rate than taxing capital.

That makes no fucking sense to me that

young people who make their money through sweat and rent don't get tax deductions.

I make my money through buying and selling stocks and investments, and I own real estate, and those are the two biggest tax deductions.

So I absolutely understand and empathize with the fact there needs to be a transfer of wealth back from the top 1% of corporations to the middle class.

I guess what I'm trying to understand is

what is the best way to do that?

Because what I have seen, I mean, for example, in New Jersey, I don't remember this, David Tepper, who ran Appaloosa Capital,

the treasurer of New Jersey, and they have to balance their budget, called an emergency meeting on a Sunday night because he found out that Tepper had moved to Florida and it was going to blow a $200 million hole in their budget.

And I just wonder, it strikes me that

someone needs to do a study to say at what point do corporations and wealthy people leave?

Because I agree with you.

When you live in New York, I would bet you're paying close to 50% taxes.

And what I would argue is that it's worth it.

More than that, 52.

I would argue it's worth it because even more than that.

By the way, for those of you who can't see Molly, she's pointing up.

But I would say that we make that choice just as people make the choice to live in California Because California, in my view,

I've lived in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York.

I left New York because it was too expensive for me, but no one has a birthright to live in New York and taxes that high.

I would argue that.

But you live in London, though.

I mean, that's not.

Yeah, but that's after I got wealthy.

Okay, I'm just saying.

I left New York about 15 years ago because, quite frankly, I just couldn't afford it at the time.

But the argument is, and I think I'm talking your book now, is that

the wealthy are the the most mobile people in the world, and yet they choose to live in San Francisco and New York because it's worth it.

I think those two places are singular.

The question is, at what point might the straw break the camel's back?

I know a lot.

I know some people moved to Florida and some people moved to Texas in order not to pay taxes.

It's morally disgusting,

right?

Why do you say I believe it's morally disgusting?

Because it is, I know a very wealthy man who

had some big event, liquidity event, and moved to Texas because he didn't want to pay taxes.

It's morally disgusting because that money is our contract.

As wealthy people, we make a contract.

I'm obviously not very wealthy, but

in this grand scheme of things, to give back.

I mean, like, think about Aggie Gund, who I just wrote about.

This is a woman.

I'm going to read you a quote from her because I think it's so,

it's something that for whatever reason, the billionaires of today are not so interested in, but I think it's like so important.

So she says,

it could be because I feel guilty about having so much more than most people.

If I can have it, others should be able to enjoy it too.

And that's why she gave her art collection to museums.

I mean, we have the social contract is

that we, if we have more, we are in a position.

I mean, the giving pledge, you know, there are many, I mean, right now, our our government is run by wealthy people who are in it to win it.

And by win it, I mean get as much wealth as possible.

Yeah, monetize in the White House.

Right.

And then just

hurt people and not pay taxes and do whatever.

But, you know, for the, but, and that's a choice for them, a moral choice.

But they're historically, I mean, even Bill Gates, you know, if you look at the giving pledge, there are a lot of people on that pledge who signed on, a lot of the richest people in the world.

So I think,

you know,

we can look at this, like even Alice Walden, you know, there are, there are great philanthropists.

They tend to be women.

I don't think there's a lot there.

I don't think there's any acknowledging that Mackenzie Bezos gets divorced and immediately starts giving away half her wealth.

I mean, it's just,

there is something about

whenever you decide that the genders might exhibit certain behavior more prone to certain genders, unless you're complimenting women, you're considered a misogynist.

So let me stay in my lane and say that I have found, generally speaking, I don't know if it's a nurturing or maternal feeling, but whenever I see these billionaire couples break up, typically the first thing

the woman in the relationship does is start spending a shit ton of money without a demand for recognition or showing up and telling people how to operate their college.

They just

define the word give.

And I agree with you that wealthy people, even the robber barons, left money.

Something I can't stand about this current tech cohort is they don't seem to be nearly as focused on the Commonwealth, that they're the first to shitpost the America, despite the fact that

you weren't going to build a rocket company or an EV company in Cape Town or even in Toronto.

It had to happen here.

And yet you're the first person to shit post America.

I find it so incredibly disappointing that the most blessed among us financially seem to be the first to really criticize America and want to avoid taxes.

In terms of tax avoidance, I think there's a fix here, and that is if Jeff Bezos aggregates $140 billion in Washington state using the public school system, the investments in technology, and if he were to get sick, the hospital systems use the roads, that all that wealth aggregated in Washington should be taxed, regardless of when he monetizes it.

Right now, he can claim that he wants to spend more time with his father.

Isn't that adorable?

And move to Palm Beach and then all of a sudden start to sell his Amazon stock, right?

So

I'm totally down with the notion that we should tax income based on where it's aggregated, not on where it's recognized.

Where I think we might have a little bit of a difference of opinion, though, is I do believe it's healthy for states to compete against each other.

I think of them as products.

And as someone who moved to Florida in 2010 because it was less expensive, and for a lot of reasons, I couldn't afford New York.

The thing that tipped me over was $58,000 to go to a to send my kid to school to play with blocks.

I just couldn't, I couldn't figure out a way to have two kids and live in New York at that time.

But at the same time, I think it's good that there's low-tax states competing with the higher-tax states.

I feel like it kind of keeps them honest.

We'll be right back after a quick break.

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I'd love to pivot to the shutdown and

get your thoughts on what,

according to Polymarkets, I think they're estimating this may be the longest shutdown in history.

Shutdown question mark.

Your thoughts, Molly.

So I was really worried about the shutdown.

I thought Democrats had a much lower appetite for pain than Republicans because they want the government to work.

And we all know that this Trump administration is working loosely from the project, it's actually not that loosely, but from the Project 2025 framework, which is a growth of the executive, a kind of unitary executive theory, and a federal government that operates as arms of the executive branch.

So, you know, it's that Grover Norquest make the government so small you can drown it in a bathtub thing.

And so I was really worried.

And I actually, you know, I was like, do you guys know what you're doing here?

Because

it seemed to me like Russ Vaughn was ready to do the riffs, right?

To fire people, to lay people off.

And what I think is pretty interesting about what's happened is that

I think that this shutdown has actually been pretty, has worked.

I mean, look, everybody loses in a shutdown, but the shutdown has become about health care.

and about the Obamacare subsidies expiring.

Obamacare subsidies expiring was what Democrats wanted people to focus on.

So, in that way, I actually think that this has been, and I was really worried because I felt like Donald Trump is extremely good at messaging.

Part of that is because he is talking all the time.

You'll see, like, if you watch him, he does, he will interface with the media two, three, four, five times a day.

It's very unusual that he doesn't talk to the media.

In fact, there was just that one couple long weekend where he didn't talk to the media and he had was wearing a hat and something was off, you know, remember that?

But mostly he is like, and the, and the thing that I really felt was the biggest failure of the Biden administration, or certainly, you know, you don't not get, you don't not get re-elected in that moment.

I think the biggest failure was that they refused to interact.

with the media and they refused to just, you know, like just give him Twitter, give him something, get him out there.

And so, but so I was worried about the shutdown, but what I think has been so interesting is that Trump is even saying the shutdown is about health care.

And that is kind of, I mean, not probably not what his people want him to say, but kind of miraculous.

Yeah, the data supports what you're saying.

According to a recent poll, 41% of Americans blame Republicans for the shutdown versus 30% who blame Democrats.

I don't know about you, Ma.

I mean,

we come at issues through a different lens, but I would loosely describe both of us as progressives.

Are you comfortable describing yourself as a progressive?

I would say I'm a progressive.

I mean, I think of myself as like

I want things to work,

but I'm on the liberal side.

I know you well enough to know that I think most people would probably describe you as a progressive if they had to put a label on it.

But, anyways, I don't know about you.

Doesn't it feel strange and alien right now to be winning?

I feel like on this issue, I got to give it to Leader Jeffries and Senator Schumer.

It was pointed.

It was focused, focusing on health care, not making a laundry list of demands.

And I think they're winning.

I mean, I think that the base was so furious that they weren't going, they didn't really have much of a choice.

And a good example is that Schumer in March

said he was going to shut down the government.

Jeffries was all for it.

And Schumer

couldn't, he punted.

He couldn't.

He was too scared.

And so I think this this has been good one of the the best stuff they've done is when they've really pushed back and look this is uh I think what's so hard about this moment in my mind because I think about this a lot is that in 2016 we had this huge media

we had a huge mainstream media or at least compared to now huge and we had people pushing back we had billionaires, you know, like Jeff Bezos saying like, I will protect American democracy.

And this time, it's just been so disheartening to watch these people just roll over in the most craven way.

And it's been hard, but I do think the base is angrier and Democrats have less.

Like in 2016, they had a huge amount, the base had a huge amount of faith in leadership.

And this time, the base is really angry at leadership.

And so leadership has had to work a lot harder, which I don't think is necessarily bad.

Yeah, but

it feels as if they really, I got to give it to them because I've been critical of Leader Jeffreys and Senator Schumer that I think they've been shockingly strategic and focused here.

And

I feel as if every day this goes on,

that they're leaking more and more advantage to the U.S.

How do you think America is responding?

to troops in U.S.

cities?

And do you think, what do you think that says about, do you think that seeds advantage to one side or the other?

Because

I'm of two minds, and that is I'm horrified by it.

But what David Fromm said, I thought was really cogent.

He said, if liberals won't enforce borders, fascists will.

And I feel as if the algorithm of American politics today, right now, is Democrats well-intentioned take an idea too far or ignore a problem, whether it's crime in the city or a transgender woman participating in women's sports.

And the Republicans come in under the cloud cover of that

irrational policies with something incredibly coarse and cruel.

Your thoughts on

troops being mobilized in cities?

I think it's really

shocking,

often illegal, right?

Like it's illegal in California.

Trump has seen that he's underwater, right?

He's underwater with everything from the economy to even immigration.

So he said that now, and there's a reason he's not saying I'm sending these troops in because

of immigration, because he sees that ICE has made even immigration unpopular.

Now, legal immigration is as popular as it's ever been because of Donald Trump.

So he said it's about crime now because he thinks that that is the one, that's the one place where he's not as underwater in the polling.

But, you know, the reality is you could say it's about anything because it's not about anything, right?

It's about about sending troops into cities.

But why?

So the question is, this is not about crime.

So what is it about?

And I think it's about intimidation.

Now, I interviewed this last week on my podcast.

I interviewed the Attorney General for the state of New Mexico.

His name is Raul Torres, and he's very smart.

And I actually, I interviewed him.

before the election and we talked and he said he didn't think Harris was going to win and he could see that Latino voters were a real problem for her.

And

he's very tied in with Latino voters.

And so I said to him, you know, New Mexico is a blue state, but

low state taxes, very poor, bad public schools, and a lot of guns and crime.

So I said, why is Donald Trump not sending the military into New Mexico?

And he said, because no one would notice.

And so it's really important to see where he, you know, he's sending it to Pritzker because he's mad at Pritzker because he had some kind of, you know, family.

I mean, I think part of it is he's, he's mad at Pritzker because the Pritzkers are this like billionaire,

philanthropic family, but also Pritzker is a challenge to Trump, right?

He challenges Trumpism.

He sends them into California because he hates Newsom.

He doesn't send them into state, you know,

maybe he may, I think he may have sent them into

Memphis, right?

But it was, you know, that was sort of to show that he didn't just send them into blue state.

So what I'm talking about is like, clearly, this is really about like fighting against blue state governors.

And I think when you think about Kevin Stitt from Oklahoma, the governor of Oklahoma had a

really good point, which was like federalized guards from different states

invading other states.

We are like, this is not how any of this is supposed to work.

And it is really like fraying federalism big time.

So, you know, and if you're a blue state, I mean, and this is just a, I think, a real question, and is like, and I actually asked Chris Murphy about this recently.

Like, if you're a blue state, even if you're Connecticut and you're paying more federal taxes than you're taking out, and Donald Trump is like, I know you need this this FEMA money, but I don't want to give it to you because you voted for Harris.

Like, when, at what point does the calculus become like, why are we paying federal taxes to be invaded?

I mean, Kevin State had this thing.

Like, if the Illinois Guard is going into my state, like, my people would be furious.

So, I think that

I don't think this is about crime.

And I do think this is about like, you know, this is, this is like America, this is the stuff that really undermines the unitedness of the states in ways that are, and again, we talked about this before, like the second order effects of this, I think, cannot, we don't really know how this plays out.

Like it, it's really opening the door to bad stuff that we have never seen in our lifetime.

Well, I think of

what is it?

Socialism is the quest for equality, liberalism for liberty.

But fascism, the juice of fascism is trying to convince people that the enemy enemy is within, right?

I don't like to compare anyone to Adolf Hitler, so I'll say the Third Reich didn't start with camps.

It started with paper, and that is, it tried to convince Germans that it was other Germans that were the problem.

And so

when you try to gin up

this hatred or this anger at other Americans and say that they're the enemy, it's not Putin pouring, it's not Russian soldiers pouring over the border in Ukraine or income inequality or climate change.

It's your neighbor who doesn't share your political values.

And I don't use this word lightly.

It just feels, quite frankly, it feels like the juice for fascism.

Yeah, I'm a little more optimistic because I don't, I think of this as more like, and maybe this is because I spent a lot of time when I was a kid in Italy in the 80s.

I think he's like, and again,

he definitely has authoritarian, you know, he's making authoritarian moves.

So I'm not saying the guy's not dangerous, but it feels a lot like Berluscone.

You know, he's doing, he's making money anyway.

I thought you were going to say Mussolini.

Berlusconi.

Yeah, you're right.

That is lighter.

It has a sort of Mussolini, Berlusconi-ish.

There's a silliness to it.

You know,

there's a kleptocracy.

There's a kind of crony capitalism.

Look,

it's profound.

It's bad.

It's scary.

It's dangerous.

And there are people in this administration who, you know, if it's Russ Vought or it's Stephen Miller, who are cosplaying some stuff that is real dark that we may not be able to get out of.

That said, I do think the heart and soul and the genuine gestalt of Trumpism is closer to a sort of Mussolini-Berlusconi Italian sort of hilarious autocracy.

And I mean hilarious in a very pejorative way.

I don't mean it in a

delightful way.

I mean it in a, you know, that it is a kind of,

it's part of why Trump got elected is because people find him hilarious in a terrifying way.

And also because he made people feel he cared about them.

You're a political commentator.

If you were advising the Democratic Party right now, what advice would you be giving them around messaging and specific programs and actions?

So the smartest person I think is the chief of staff to Governor Pritzker.

Her name is Anna.

She's very, very smart.

And she has a sort of, she said something which I think about a lot.

And I think it reflects where the base is right now, which is it's not left versus center.

It's fight versus cave.

Democrats want to see their electeds protect them at all costs.

These people are scared, right?

They're scared of Trump.

They're scared they're going to lose their stuff,

which they will.

I mean, like the Obamacare premiums, that will mean a lot of people will lose health care.

The Medicare cuts will mean a lot of rural hospitals will close.

So I think they want to see their electeds just out there constantly pushing for them not to lose their stuff.

And again, they are going to lose stuff.

And that is, I think, really important.

It's like one of the things when you would talk to people in this 2024 cycle is you'd say, Donald Trump wants to do this or do that.

And they would say, well, he didn't do it last time.

And that was because Democrats were successful at stopping him.

I mean, you'll remember like like that Obamacare repeal.

Like it got all the way to John McCain with the thumbs down.

And so I do think like they need to narrate the fight.

And because there's so little mainstream media, that means that you're going to have Chris Murphy doing videos 24-7.

And they have to do that because there are no,

nobody will know about it if you don't tell them.

And that was, I think, ultimately the thing that really unraveled the Biden administration more than anything.

We'll be right back.

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We're back with more from Molly John Fast.

So I want to shift gears because we're actually quite similar in terms of the way we approach our professional lives.

You're on MSNBC as a political commentator.

You're an author, a journalist,

but at the same time, you've written a really powerful book about your mother, who, by the way, played a big role in my childhood.

I remember my mom, I didn't know what a book party was.

The first book party I would ever been to was my mom had a bunch of her friends over.

My mom was a single mother to talk about this book, Fear of Flying.

It was just this cultural moment.

But you've written this book that's captured a lot of attention and has sold really well.

At the same time, so you talk about your personal life, which I do a lot.

And then you also have a career in media.

You're a political commentator.

I'm curious how you read the tea leaves in terms of the media ecosystem, what you see going on out there, how things are shifting, and how you're trying to foot

your own capital, your own human capital to take advantage of shifts in the sands, if you will.

What do you think is going on out there?

And how do you manage your own career to foot to those shifts?

Everything's gotten really, really small.

We talked about this from 2016.

If you think about like there were so many online magazines and newspapers, and there was so much.

Now everything is much, much smaller and much more siloed.

And that the silo is the most interesting thing.

And when you talk to people about things that are happening, there's always sort of a moment where you're like, but will this get out of the silo?

Will this get out of our silo into

the rest of the world or the lower information voters?

And that was, you know, it's funny because in 2024, I would be like, oh, the sneakers, that's so stupid.

Oh, the going to McDonald's, that's so stupid.

The NFTs, the Bitcoin.

But actually, that was all brilliant, right?

It turns out that was all, you know, that McDonald's, that photo of him working at McDonald's got everywhere.

It was like going on Joe Rogan.

It was like the kind of stuff that we didn't think mattered because, you know, or at least I didn't think mattered because I came from the before times.

So for me, you know, I just went to the New York Times and I'm a contributing opinion writer there, which is awesome because they're amazing.

And also because it's like really fun to write stuff that everybody reads.

You know, that's a place where people, they still have millions and millions of people who read that newspaper.

The like heartbreak of my life is the Washington Post.

Like I just, I loved that newspaper so much.

And to watch Jeff Bezos

sort of ignore it is really, in my mind, really dark.

There are, I think, a lot of opportunities because

everything has become so decentralized.

So you're going to have, I think YouTube will ultimately pick up the cable Slack and people be able to watch anything they want on YouTube.

And that is exciting.

You know, it's funny because my grandfather was jailed during the House on American activities, the Blacklist.

Really?

Yeah, Howard Faux, Hewitt Spartacus.

And so I always think about him because

it gets, I think about the times in which America has, things have gone wrong for this country and how we survive it.

And one of the things during the House of

American activities was there were very few media organizations and they were all deeply controlled by the government, right?

There was, there were censors on network television.

There were editors, you know, it was just you didn't, you weren't free the way we are now.

Now, that said, everybody watched CBS News.

Like everybody,

you know, you had a captive audience in a way you don't now.

And maybe I'm just too optimistic, but I actually think we will see more media organizations because people want that.

And now there's just so little of it that I think ultimately it will expand to fill.

So speaking of independent media or and also dying media, what do you think of

the free press and

Barry Weiss's what looks like elevated role in

CBS News.

So I think I have a little bit of a contrarian take here,

which is that I think it's like the glass cliff to end all glass cliffs.

I think, first of all, it's important to stop and look at how we got to this moment with CBS News, which is Sherry Redstone wanted to sell this company.

She decided to sell it to Paramount, right?

She bent the knee.

She bent the knee.

Right.

And that's what I wanted to get to because I think you don't get to Kimmel without Sherry Redstone.

You don't get to like, because Kimmel.

Do you feel that was the first thing,

not Iger

caving on Stephanopoulos?

You think it was Sherry that started the

caving on Stephanopoulos.

I think, but Redstone, she really did it.

Like, also, she canceled Colbert.

That wasn't even, you know, it was like complying in advance.

There were a couple things that happened all at the same time.

By the way, I also believe that those academics who moved to Canada, the do not imply, do not obey an advance guy who now lives in Canada, all of that is how you get here.

Right.

That's all how you get here.

When you're quoting a book where the author is on television talking about bravery and he's moved to Canada, like that is how we get here.

So I do think, and and that's Timothy Schneider.

I mean, I do think he's been on the pod.

Yeah.

Yeah.

By the way, he claims he moved for family reasons.

Yeah, I'm sure.

I'm sure.

And he, look, you know,

he's been on my podcast, but the truth is, if you're going to be that, you, if you're going to move to Canada, don't be the guy telling Americans to be brave.

You know, don't, because it undermines,

it's complying in advance.

I think, uh,

I think that there were many things things that got us here.

Sherry Redstone bending the knee,

canceling Colbert, putting an omniseman in CBS, paying out that

frivolous lawsuit, which was a bullshit lawsuit.

Iger, I mean, there were a bunch of things.

But anyway, so my feeling about

Barry Weiss, and I don't really know her, and I know a lot of very wealthy people love the free press because, you know, it's Zionist

and it reflects a lot of the feelings of very wealthy people.

And, you know, that good for her, man.

But I actually think it's a really a tough job because you see that these network show, these network channels are really declining in revenue.

And this is not like a great opportunity.

This is a, this is thought of, you know, the news side is sort of thought of as

more of a problem than, you know, more of a bane than a boon.

And I think it's going to be very tough for her.

And, you know, she's in there to basically make things cheaper.

And I've seen, I just keep seeing women being put up for jobs that look a lot like Glasscliffs.

And I think about Harris the same way.

So you think in some ways she's been a little bit set up to fail?

And there are so many people who want her to fail.

And then you have this whole organization of people who are leaking, who can't leave because there aren't really good media jobs, but who are furious.

And she's been, I mean, I've met her a few times socially, and she seems perfectly nice, but there are a lot of people who are super furious with her for any number of reasons.

And she's not necessarily, I mean, this is, she's not a traditional hire in any which way.

And she's being put in this news organization in a way that I think it's hard to imagine that anyone could do what's asked of them in this position.

I always make these predictions about business, and I think I'm better than your average bear at them.

And I think I'm much worse than your average person at making political predictions.

I never would have guessed that it wasn't a secret police force that's mass going into neighborhoods and terrorizing people, some who've been here 10, 20, 30 years taking care of our elderly and serving us food and building our homes, that that wasn't the red line.

It was Jimmy Kimmel was the red line.

And never would have guessed that.

And at the same time in the media, media, there's been so much attention on the free press and CBS, which, quite frankly, I think it's totally irrelevant.

I think CBS means almost nothing anymore.

I just think it's much ado about nothing.

I think the media is obsessed with itself.

Meanwhile, and I want to get your take on this, Trump is dividing up for his political donors,

a media company that has more influence over tomorrow's business, civic, and nonprofit leaders, TikTok.

I mean, I think that literally has a hundred times the relevance of the free press and CBS.

I think we're literally arguing over a taco stand in Mars.

And meanwhile, you have

TikTok is about to be divvied up and given to Republican donors, which is socialism, cronyism, and in my opinion, really dangerous.

Any thoughts on TikTok and what's happening with quote-unquote the, I don't know what you call the privatization, socialization, or the carving up of TikTok.

I think predicting the future is so hard, and I've been wrong about so many things.

I, you know, is why I try as hard as possible not to do it because it's so hard.

But

I think that

it is, imagine if a Democrat were like slicing up companies and

like,

like, I'm going to take a share of Intel, you know,

where Malia and Sasha are in Qatar because they want to build a building.

I mean, can you even imagine?

Can you even imagine them going to the Middle East and demanding golf courses?

Look,

TikTok is such a fascinating problem because here it is.

It's an algorithm that is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

Now will be controlled by Trump's friends and boosters.

No, it's a huge deal.

And it's shocking.

And it is like the case for why,

you know,

there was a member of the Senate who

was complaining to me about how there's no tech regulation.

There's no fact checking on the internet.

And I was like,

that's your fault.

I was like, that's your fault.

Like, that is your fault.

Like, you could have regulated that.

And so,

you know, you don't get to TikTok without both parties being wildly irresponsible when it comes to regulation.

So just as we wrap up here,

I think a lot of people would look at your career and what you're doing and think, I want to be Molly John Fast.

I think you have a very interesting profile.

You're doing interesting work.

You're having an impact.

Like what is working for you in terms of mediums, in terms of, you know, you do books, you're on social, you're on a traditional cable news network.

Like what has worked better than you would have expected?

What has not lived up to the expectations in terms of the time and the commitment?

Like, what is your strategy in terms of how you allocate your own human capital?

And what advice would you have for younger authors and journalists who think,

I'd like to be Molly John Fast someday?

A good question and also a horrifying premise.

I would say

the best thing I've done is writing, just writing, like writing, and really,

you know, writing for everywhere and growing my skill by repetition, like doing raps.

I try to focus mostly on doing raps and less on like what, I mean, obviously I can look at it from a

30,000 foot view and see what's worked.

But like when I'm in it, I try to just focus on repetition and not

what happened and not what, you know, that kind of thing.

But so what I would say is the things that have worked the best for me are

writing a book was good.

I had to wait until I had something to say.

And I had to make sure it was really good.

So that was,

so I couldn't just like write a book just because I needed the money, which, you know, I is how I historically might have done it.

You know, it all sort of works together.

But the thing that has been the most, you know, for me is that I always say, and I say this this to, I have a lot of children and I always say this to them, it's like trying

is the most important thing.

Like nothing else matters but trying.

And the best thing about my career is I got really used to rejection in a way that has been amazing.

So like, for example, when I was writing at this one place and I just could tell it was not working.

And so I went to the editor of the New Yorker and I said, do you want to hire me?

And he said, no.

He said, but you should go to Vatry Fair.

And I went to Vari Fair for three years.

And then, you know, and then I got this offer from the Times.

And so like, I've had, I've learned a lot from rejection, from just

trying things out and seeing what works and doesn't work.

And being very, you know, the thing I always say.

to my kids and is really true is like you just push on the doors and if the door opens great and if the door you know i mean really push don't like fake push like push on the door.

But if it doesn't open, don't start banging your head on the door and knocking yourself out.

Just go to the next door, you know?

Yeah, absolutely.

I love that.

And

I coach a lot of young men and around professional and romantic opportunities.

I'm like, the only way to get to yes is with a lot of no's.

Yeah, exactly.

The better the yes, that means the more no's that came before it.

And also, I think like the getting your ego out of it is really important.

Like I write, sometimes I write really well, sometimes less well, but you know, I don't, I can accept rejection and not be like, it's because I suck.

And that's really, really helpful.

So, this will be the last question.

You've written a book about your relationship with your mother.

You have kids.

What one or two pieces of advice would you have for people with respect to, you can go up or down, the relationship with their parents or the relationship with their kids in terms of what you have learned?

So, I mean, the reason I wrote this book was because I wanted people to put the oxygen mask on themselves first.

Like, I felt that it was so important to not, and I, and I think because I'm a person who like tortures myself, I think it's really important

not to

just like be able to put the oxygen mask on yourself first.

So, I would say that has been the big sort of

moment.

And then I would also just, you know, I, just to sort of,

you know, I mean, at the risk of repeating myself, to try.

You know, the trying is extremely important.

Put your own moxygen mask on first and push on doors really hard.

Molly John Fast is a journalist, author, political commentator, and host of the Fast Politics Podcast and a close friend.

I live vicariously through you with George Hahn.

You guys look like you get into so much trouble together.

He loves you, and he's always like, when he's always like, when Scott comes.

So we all have to go together to something.

I like that.

Molly, appreciate your time today.

Thank you for having me.

How's a rubber of happiness?

So, I'm going through the college application process with my son.

My first observation is: I don't know what middle-class households do.

We have a lot of resources, and it is so complicated, so extensive.

I just don't know.

I was raised by a single mother.

I barely remember.

I think I typed up my application.

I think my mom proofed it.

And I didn't get into UCLA.

I was going to go to Cal State Northridge, where I probably would have dropped out of college because it was a commuter school and I just lacked the discipline and the maturity.

Got in off the waiting list.

I was 17 when I showed up at UCLA, way too young to go to college.

Actually, one of my roommates and my friend Mike Brooke was 16.

Believe that, he was 16.

Freshman orientation to UCLA.

Anyways, got my shit together, but I'm going through this process right now.

And just a few observations.

I never thought of myself as a control freak, but I feel like I understand education.

I feel as if I understand what these admissions directors are probably looking for.

And I've really had to hold back.

He wants to do this himself, which I really appreciate, but I have really had to hold back and not provide too much advice.

And there's this weird transition where your job is to

show them, instruct them, guide them, cajole them, mentor them as a parent.

And then there's this pivot or this transition, and it's hard to get used to where you're just letting them do their own thing and recognize the victory and the consequences.

And I'm finding that difficult.

I want to be more involved.

My son is taking more of this on his own, which is a great thing, but

it's sort of difficult for me.

And I was wondering why, well, okay.

I practice this in my business every day.

I love giving people rope.

As soon as they show any reasonable competence, I let them run with something, one, because I'm lazy and B, I recognize how to scale a company.

Why am I having so much trouble?

Or why am I so reluctant to kind of hand over the reins to my very competent 18-year-old?

And I think it's the following.

I think it's

you spend your whole life trying to train your boys not to need you.

And then when they don't, it's devastating.

It's sad over the medium term, but in the short term, it's frustrating.

It's like, well, I'm really smart.

You don't want to know what I think?

Or listen to me.

I know what I'm doing.

Or just ego and pride.

You want your kids to follow your lead and ask for your advice.

I'm not sure my sons have ever asked for my advice.

My 15-year-old, I lay down with him at night and sometimes read with him.

He'll ask me a bunch of questions, but I think that's mostly a stall tactic because he doesn't like to go to bed.

He's like me as a night person.

But I think some of that disappointment comes from, or that heartache comes from,

this is kind of it.

This is,

you know,

the victory is he no longer needs me.

And the devastating sadness is he no longer needs me.

And just coming to that recognition that your kids have their own views and sometimes their views are better than yours.

In some, it's just, it's the greatest victory ever, but it's so, it's, God, it's so fucking sad.

It's so like,

I used to love when they were little, like, I just knew what to do, or at least I thought I did.

And I knew how to, I knew what was right and what was wrong.

And I knew they would listen to me and I knew they would defer to me because I was, I was strong, I was smart, I was a provider.

And now I feel my oldest, at least, not so much pulling away, but kind of

flying away.

Like he's got his own wings now.

He's doing his own things.

And

I can't lie about it while at the same time I'm proud of him.

It is just, it is really difficult.

I'm having a tough time adjusting to it.

So what's the lesson here?

I don't have an inspiring lesson other to say that if you're a dad, and you're feeling this sense of like, you're feeling bereft,

you're feeling sad.

I think some of that is maybe our victory, that maybe we have, in fact, trained these young men to go out and do their thing.

So I'm trying to

feel that,

or

the neosporn for the sadness I'm feeling right now, the

missing him already,

is that maybe, you know, hopefully,

you know, maybe I've done my job.

This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez.

Our assistant producer is Laura Janaire.

Drew Burrows is our technical director.

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