Molly Jong-Fast on Kamala's Launch and Trump's Crash

hey folks thanks for coming back and joining us again on the Lincoln project podcast I'm your host Rick Wilson when you hear this episode it will be 91 days until the election holy mackerel it's going fast so with that I want to welcome my good friend Molly Jong fast uh to the podcast and here we go your task will not be an easy one your enemy is well trained well equipped and battle hearted there is not a liberal America and a conservative America there is the United States of America good night and good luck hey folks welcome back to the Lincoln project podcast I am your host today Rick Wilson I am delighted to be joined by my bestie my dear friend Molly Jong fast we are here to talk today about the amazing Harris campaign kickoff the VP sweep stakes and some surprising news that she and I will be sharing with you a little later on in the show so let's start Molly and thank you for coming on as always I know with your busy schedule of of being on TV from something like four in the morning until two in the morning um it's it's it's sometimes a lift because I know you are the hardest working woman in show business so what I wanted to ask you about first off I think you and I both share the sort of big optimistic view that KLA Harris has had a pretty good launch so I what I think is interesting is some political person was like when she had announced and things really fell into place that Sunday you know she an later Biden endorsed so it was like there was very little daylight then everyone else in the party went full almost immediately Obama was the last hold that it was like three days he's always been famous for endorsing a little later so it's not out of character a lot of people including Donald Trump were tweeting that perhaps this showed some kind of daylight but it clearly didn't because this is clearly how it at the end of the day right and um so and then they posted a video together it was very sort of harmonious I think what I was told is like the first three days matter the most I'm not sure that's oh it is okay generally but the I think the first week has been just incredible like the kind of energy and I think some of it was pent up right people were mad and then you could see it in the polls right you would see people would say they were mad at him but then you would look at the down ball polls and you would see the Democrats were still really winning y so it made me wonder how much of that was like a protest where mad at him but those people might theoretically come home or not leave the top of the ticket blank but it doesn't matter because as soon as the vice president jumped into the race all of a sudden it completely changed the landscape it it really I mean I I none of us frankly have ever seen a swap like this a hot swap like this where all of a sudden the world what flipped on its axis in one day and everything changed in one day I mean you went from having the poll out this morning from having four and 10 Democrats were happy with Joe Biden as their choice and now 8.5% or eight point eight eight and a half out of 10 Democrats are happy with Harris as their choice it really it really sort of shocked me how quickly the consolidation happened inside the party I mean yeah it was amazing and I also think she has this thing which is really good because we only have 99 days left in this endless election cycle 97 by the time people see this 97 whatever we don't have you know that what is what happens is she is famous but she doesn't have the same incumbent baggage that Biden does so it happens to be that she sort of has the best of both worlds I'm reminded of you'll remember that Donald Trump also had a really short election cycle right there was he was not going to be the candidate he was not going to be the candidate and all of a sudden he was the candidate in August and the election was in November versus Hillary Clinton who had been the candidate for about 25 years right and and and I think you're right that one of the points you just made I think is really interesting the Republicans have tried really really hard to hang Joe Biden's negatives onto Harris and thus far 10 days in it is not having any traction they're really not being able to stick things to her that people were unhappy about in the Biden Administration one of the things that was interesting I think about the Biden campaign is that it's actually very good like they did a very good job and so for example things like passing you know setting it up so that there was a border Bell that's theoretically the admin and not the campaign but it was set up for the campaign right that was like a sheerly you know that was clearly like with an eye towards making Donald Trump kill it and today we're recording this on on Wednesday folks today we saw Harris's first ad about the Border come out and it is incredibly aggressive it is right up on Trump's face it is like nope I'm for more border patrol agents I'm for a strong border you're not Donald I mean I thought I I I think you're right that reflects this synchrony in the campaign from from the from the Biden era all the way to right now yes I agree and I think that what's interesting is you can do that dar it's fine sorry a kid want to do something of course because God forbid I'm not doing anything I'm just hanging out here um but but uh what I think is interesting about that is she the campaign what was really focused but they had a problem which is they had an 81-year-old candidate and while he is I mean I think we all owe him an enormous debt of gratitude for his incredible work yep he was old and so he couldn't you know crisscross around the country the way a 59 year-old can and that's just the facts and the mechanics of living on this planet so I do think that was good ultimately they were set up and then they got this candidate with a lot of energy you could see the moment the air went out of Donald Trump's campaign and it wasn't actually when Biden announced it was at the RNC he picks Vance and there's muttering even among people at the RNC among the faithful like I don't know if this guy's the right choice I don't know this Vance you know has now become the worst vice presidential pick ever I mean right for all that Dan Quail was an F up in the campaign they still won despite it um and so you've got this guy who is like a boat anchor around on Trump now and as As Trump has every passing day since Vance was named as the VP nominee the story gets worse what is your take on like I I I don't think they can dump him but man I am hearing no no end of trump complaining about oh I can't believe they talk me into this guy well I think it's I mean he would clearly there was a deregulatory factor right remember Trump ran on deregulation and every when he was president be like I'm cutting regulation which so that was something to appeal to like billionaire Tech Bros and now we are in this cycle that you know will'll decide AI regulation which could be really one of the biggest Boons or bains to American economy so I think he saw real in with these very rich Silicon Valley guys because a lot of them are complete nihilists have this very dystopian view of the future that involves and you know they don't necessarily believe in democracy some of these people they believe in a sort of authoritarian monar they some of them believe in a monarchy oh oh listen that whole Peter teal Curtis yarvin JD Vance axis of the like democracy is a is a dead ideology and we need monarchy to return and of course as in all things with monarchies they're like well we we'd be the royalty right we'd be the the Kings and the Dukes and the princes right and it's also I also think so I think he he got lulled into that also there's a lot of money and remember as much as Trump needs to raise he needs to raise two or three multiples more y because he has these ongoing legal fights and while he's won some of them the the reason he's won is because he's been able to just shell out Millions sp1 million dollar right so and you so I think he really does have a sort of endless and then there are also people on the you know we don't really know what the accounting looks like but it's hard to imagine that this is going to be Beyond reproach though I I yeah you got unlikely right you've got to you've got to imagine there's a skim for the Trump you know I mean even even the sort of very best run campaigns have dicey expenditures so the fact that this is not you know so so I think there's a possib we just have to see the filings but it certainly could be open to whatever and then the other thing I think is is um you know he really doesn't have in 2016 Trump was a was so energetic I mean he would do five rallies a day absolutely he'd fly from City to city and bang these things out over and over again and now hours I think by the time he's done with the hand job dance now he's kind of exhausted he seems not as he's not he's he doesn't have the same kind of of zeal and physical uh you know so I think it's a real problem for him I also just don't I don't understand what the case for him is right so like in in 2016 I you had he was going to bring back your coal jobs if you're a coal miner nobody has said that to you right because it's so expensive nobody's bringing back coal but in 2016 he said I'm going to bring back your Co jobs so you could say this guy is going to bring but now he already was President so he's going to make America great again again again and and and and the the the manufacturing boom happened under Joe Biden right and it's happening and E right it's right it's happening under Joe Biden and even as you look at even as you look at like what the predicates of the campaign were I think they shot themselves in the ass on Project 2025 I mean this cleanup yesterday or try attempted clean up it's it's like nothing says Donald Trump has nothing to do with project 2025 like firing the guy who runs project 2025 I mean it it was insane how dumb the entire scam was from the beginning but I mean he's not going to escape that and Vance isn't going to help him Escape that either because he's as wrapped into that world as possible yes I mean that for sure and also I mean he wrote the introduction to the Heritage foundation's president book which're is coming out in the fall talk about bad timing right we have nothing to do with anything the Heritage Foundation does except my vice president did write the introduction to his book right and and out of the 141 people that are involved in the production of project 2025 86 of them are former Trump Administration officials or current Trump allies back and and then and you know one of the pillars is training people to work in the Trump admin I mean they're not training people for the Harris admin no right the Harris Administration is not like we're going and I mean the other thing that I think is so important about this is the stuff is so crazy it's like we're going to get rid of the Department of Education like the Department of Education if you were in a red state with low state taxes like the State of Florida the Department of Education gets a ton of money from federal education so that Federal money is not going to go to Florida so you're going to have to raise state taxes or just say public education we Tred yeah it is look it is everything in Project 2025 that that got focus group tested and AD tested and and message tested I mean we did some ourselves and it was radioactive waste but the most important person did it was Tony fabrisio Donald Trump's poster who took out who who they did from I know they did a national survey on it I know they did several swing state focus groups on it and they came back that it was absolutely killing him the minute people heard anything about it they were like oh no no hard pass but yeah but we got a little far field on that because I want to go back to JD Vance for a second I think the biggest unlock that Harris has as a candidate is the culture and that that she has this connection to entertainment to Hollywood to music all these things that Trump you know has Lee Greenwood and Kid Rock and and 80s wrestlers right I think the weird part about this is that people have under underscored that for a long time since Obama and now it's like the mockery evance has become this kind like cultural super machine just absolutely wrecking this guy every day um and and I want to talk about that a little bit and then I want to talk about the the big rally the vice president had last night in Atlanta um because I think that says a lot about where we're going what I think is interesting about the RNC which we both watched all of that was that it they went they doubl down on this idea that they didn't need Women Voters that they really could just get their sort of radicalized Voters out there and that that would in fact deliver for them the Electoral College which if you're if you have a wildly unpopular Republican who can't turn out a Democrat if you have if you're running against Biden and Biden isn't going to turn out a lot of the base maybe you can win with those numbers but if you have a high turnout election and you have Democrats really turning out voters the sort of Obama voters then I think you have made a very stupid calculus yeah so that was what we saw we saw like Lee Greenwood we saw hul kogan we saw the these kind of hyper masculine displays of masculinity there was shirt ripping there were you know and it with the idea was you don't you know women are nice Supporting Actresses look this is the girlfriend of the husband of the wife of the this of the W right these are wives and girlfriends and people we sleep with but they're not really the mean right or they're just they're just uh anatom objects and not people who control you know who should have jobs I mean some there are some people Sarah Sanders I mean there are some women who have government jobs but largely they were Supporting Actresses and then the stars were these hyper masculine manly men so I think the thinking there was that this would be enough to get him over the finish line but I think now that there's a new candidate who can crisscross the country G gets young voters people of color excited putting Georgia back on the map now I think he's I don't know how you put that Genie back in the bottle I I don't either I don't know how you fix it for Trump or for Vance at this point right because what we saw last night in in Atlanta was a bigger rally than Trump's been able to have for years she had 11,000 people stacked to the rafters in Atlanta right for an were 20,000 people showed up right yeah 20,000 people there but 11,000 in the hall right Trump always says there's 50,000 people watching on screens it's never true folks the average Trump rally is a couple hundred people at a state Fairground that's right right right and a big Trump Ry is a couple thousand people she packed that place to the walls last night Megan the stallion opened for her she put on stallion Megan the stallion the salion sorry sorry um um she put on a terrific show the light the picture was great the lighting was great she looked phenomenal she looked presidential um and and the whole thing told me she could go do that same event in 100 other cities she could stack that Arena just like that in in in North Carolina tomorrow right she could go do that all over the country the thing that I feel like I would always say on television I feel like people would always get mad at me for it but she has become an Obama level orator yes she did not start there no and most people don't start there right I don't think that Obama was an Obama level orator until he was and so she has become a very good speaker and so she's very powerful so all these attacks on her from Trump about laughing nobody gives a zero are given by the way I'll tell you the secret of why she got good because she had to go and do a lot of the usual vice presidential stuff and they started tight in Her speech down from 50 minutes to 22 minutes yeah she has a cad that speech last night was 21 minutes and 8 seconds or something like that she has a Cadence now subtracting for for a plus she has a Cadence now that works for her and it and it flows from her naturally or organically she's not trying to follow a bunch of White House talking points to conform she now is talking because she's the candidate she's the principal and I I watched last night and I was like he's yeah and I'm going to add something very boring here yeah it's not boring but I think it's a little controversial and I don't want to degrade Hillary Clinton because she had a lot she was running on Bill's baggage it was just a totally different thing the clintons were an obsession on the right yeah but one of the things when you would listen to Hillary give a speech and I don't think she does this so much anymore she did it in 2016 was you felt like she was trying to speak in that way that men sometimes speak yes she was like yelling she was just felt loud but not comfortable whereas Harris feels she is just uniquely herself but she sounds like an Obama level orator and you that you can't fake nobody nobody would have called that based on 2020 because as I wrote one time the the funny thing about her was in 2020 there were plenty of days she would go out and be like a 125 batter decent fine right then she'd hit a grand slam home run and you're like why can't she flip that switch all the time and now she can you never really had that feeling with Hillary I think you're right though Hillary was trying to emulate that sort of masculine rhetorical projection style right and and and I think it never worked for her because don't know that it works for anyone because right because it it's also something that has its has its probably its Zenith back in the Ragan era yeah that is a different style than we than we than we have these days um but so go ahe I one last thing Her speech Harris's speech in 2020 her first speech when she announced her campaign right was the speech where we knew that she could do it right well if you look back on that is a really good speech and what happened I think is she just had to do so much work and so many speeches and so much sort of talking to people that she got really good at it which you and I both know is how you get good at that right people people ask us like how do you stand and talk all the time on because we do it all the time it's practice so Molly that is a perfect segue to let our friends and families and audiences know that you and I are going on the road that's I sent the tour thing to my husband he's like that's a lot of dates and I was like yeah so because Molly and I aren't busy enough that's right as it is already we are gonna be on the road um throughout uh the end of August and up until the beginning of October we have got tour dates in Los Angeles San Francisco Milwaukee Chicago Boston Philadelphia Washington DC and some and some other venues to follow uh that we will be announcing a little bit later but it's the same show you and I did a couple months ago in New York at the City Winery we so we sold it out people loved it they loved you know and and folks basically it's Molly and I having this kind of conversation about what's going on in the world people people got a chance to engage with us with Q&A from the audience and we had some special guests come in we'll be doing that in a lot of these cities as we travel around the country it's going to be a lot of fun we will post information about it shortly on all of our socials you won't be able to escape it because we are who we are um but M I'm super excited about this I'm really I'm really jazzed about this I think we're gonna have fun I mean we'll definitely have lots of local talent so people in different cities that's not completely set up yet but I think it'll be very fabulous and um I think that it'll be fun for us and we want to hear from you guys too we do a lot of audience weirdness because I love an audience weirdness oh we we we had so much fun with with with talking to folks uh in the Q&A and then after we know we do we do the usual you know interaction with people that that you know it it it's great for us to hear what people out in the world are saying and thinking and so we're super excited about this it's going to be a lot of fun um because of course as once again it's not it's because neither of us just have enough to do we're just not busy enough so we had to do something additional with our schedules anyway well Molly thank you for coming on today my friend I appreciate you as always I will see you very soon having me of course fun and uh and and folks thank you for listening to the Lincoln project podcast today since we are all uh servants to the algorithm I would love it if you could like subscribe follow on Apple podcast do all the things that the that the algorithmic gods want us to do I'd appreciate it it'll help us spread the word spread the message get out there in this Pro democracy fight folks less than 100 days to go let's go kick their ass hey folks if you're interested in this tour that Molly and I are doing you can find out more at beacons Politics as unusual that's beacons B A n.p Politics as unusual that'll have the schedule uh that'll have links to the the the promos and the ticket stuff and I hope you'll join us [Music] good night and good luck