What Next - A Tale of Two Weenies
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2026
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With his approval rating dropping to its lowest point yet this term, why are politicians still giving in to Donald Trump? As Senator Bill Cassidy found out, Trump still has enough juice to sink a Republican in a primary.
Guest: Molly Jong Fast, host of the podcast Fast Politics.
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone. There's an F-bomb coming up real quick. Just be warned, the show's a little loose with the language today. |
| 0:15.0 | Over the last few days, I've been struck by this thought. Are Donald Trump's 2020 election lies? |
| 0:22.7 | Winning. |
| 0:27.1 | One story after another got me thinking like this. |
| 0:30.5 | First, on Friday, there was what happened in Colorado, |
| 0:34.6 | where Democratic governor Jared Polis agreed to commute the sentence of Tina Peters, a former county clerk. |
| 0:42.3 | She had been serving a nine-year sentence for letting staff for the My Pillow Guy access her 2020 election data. |
| 0:50.9 | Then, over the weekend, there was news that Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana had lost his bid for re-election. |
| 0:58.5 | Cassidy was one of just a handful of Republican senators who'd voted to impeach Donald Trump after January 6th. |
| 1:06.3 | Finally, on Monday, there was confirmation that President Trump plans to establish a slush fund |
| 1:12.3 | that could allow people like the capital rioters to be compensated for their trouble. |
| 1:19.4 | Even the monetary value of this fund is a troll. |
| 1:22.1 | It's $1.776 billion. |
| 1:25.4 | Get it? |
| 1:26.0 | Like 1776? |
| 1:33.2 | To me, these stories, one after another, they were definitely connected and not in a good way. I called up Molly Jong-Fast from over at Fast Politics to mull it all |
| 1:42.1 | over with me, especially what's going on with Governor Polis and Senator Cassidy. |
| 1:47.6 | Polis has done this with the hope that either Donald Trump will give him federal money |
| 1:51.7 | or he'll be able to run as a maverick or, right? |
| 1:54.4 | You're not doing this because you think Tina Peters is innocent. |
| 1:57.5 | That is definitely not happening. |
| 1:59.0 | And you're not doing it because you think Tina Peters has served her time and is now, you know, that there was some miscarriage of justice. |
... |
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