Molly Jong-Fast on the 2026 election, SCOTUS and Zohran Mamdani

It's safe to say there's a lot going on these days. Thanks to the Trump administration's ongoing "flood the zone with shit" approach to politics and the speed at which the administration has been trying to dismantle American democracy and consolidate power, we're always frantically trying to keep up with the news.

Because of that, I thought it'd be nice to have a rather wide-ranging conversation with a political thinker I enjoy about some of the many, many things that are happening right now. I chose to talk to Molly Jong-Fast, a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, podcaster and social media extraordinaire. She also recently published a memoir titled "How to Lose Your Mother."

Molly and I discussed the 2026 elections, Democratic messaging, the Supreme Court, Trump's use of the military, Zohran Mamdani and more. Here's a transcript of our conversation.

You're someone who cares about democracy and the country, and obviously a lot of bad stuff is happening. So just to start, how are you feeling? Are you seeing any reasons for hope right now?

Look, I see a lot of reasons for hope. Honestly, it's very hard to cover. A lot of the problems that Biden world had with governing—and I'm thinking about all this strife internationally, the two wars that are going on—a lot of the problems that Biden had are the same problems that Trump has. We're dealing with inflation. Governing is really hard.

Much of what we're seeing here is that there was such an appetite to dismantle the federal government and its many arms—it wasn't useful and didn't do what it said it was going to do. Actually, it is. What we're seeing is just how useful the government is. So I feel this is a particularly horrific moment, but I do feel like we're going to see why legislating matters. We're seeing it already. We're seeing why regulation is important.

The 2008 financial crisis—which I lived through and was beyond horrendous—it was a failure to regulate. It was a failure to pass legislation, and so we're seeing some of that now.

What are your biggest concerns right now? Are there some things you're worried about that you feel like we're not talking about enough?

What should we be talking about? There's so much. I would say look at the South Korea stuff. I don't know if you've been following this, but ICE raided a several billion-dollar South Korean factory that made batteries and other things, and they arrested all of these South Korean nationals. They put them on a plane. That is a huge story.

South Korea is one of our biggest allies. We are, at this moment, in loggerheads with many different parts of the world. We have so many different problems in the rest of the world that—to alienate South Korea, when they're a huge investor in the United States, I think that is going to be a real problem. The South Korean media is pretty pissed.

Clearly ICE is not acting in concert with the Trump government. The fact that ICE is coming to a factory that Donald Trump was touting three months ago seems like a real problem.

One of the big issues people are talking about more and more as it gets closer is the 2026 elections. What are your concerns there? Do you think we're going to have free and fair elections?

I can't predict the future, but I certainly hope so. I hope, I pray. I think there's a lot of evidence to support that. Elections are not federalized for a reason. Unless there's some radical change, I do think that we will be able to hold it off. But look, I think what we need to focus on right now is this redistricting stuff, because it's actually really destructive and bad. It should not be an arms race for seats in the House like that. So that's what I would say first.

I think that would be number one, because it's really important. The other thing is just making sure that our electeds all take the temperature down and focus on not inflaming this anymore. Americans don't like any of this. They don't like the heated rhetoric. The reason why I think a lot of these people folded so quickly to Trump, because they really didn't want conflict.

I think a lot about my grandfather, Howard Fast, who was jailed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. My grandfather ended up being very brave, but he wasn't a particularly brave person. He was just a normal person who had to be brave at that moment. I think we're pretty soft. We have our phones. We're pretty soft.

One of the things people seem to be worried about— and JB Pritzker has mentioned this—is the idea of Trump trying to use the National Guard to intimidate people during elections. Do you worry about that?

Yeah, I worry about everything all the time. I'm Jewish. Yes, I worry about everything. Are you kidding me? All I do is worry, worry, worry.

Pritzker is an excellent communicator. He is an unimpeachable character. His staff—they're some of the best communicators I've been in contact with. Gavin Newsom, love him or hate him—I don't necessarily align with him—he has broken through on the internet in a big way. Garcia got the [Epstein] birthday book released, right?

I've seen for the last eight months, with so many Democrats, so many cases of Democrats flailing and doing stuff wrong. All of a sudden, the last couple weeks we've seen them really figure it out. Robert Garcia is doing an incredible job.

Moskowitz, you know, you may not love him, but he is hilarious and breaking through in a hilarious way. I think that is really important for Democrats right now. I do not believe that we should throw trans people under the bus. I don't believe it's morally correct. That is just completely appalling in every way. I want to see Democrats break through and go on shows that are out of their comfort zone.

I've been doing that, and I did that because I think that Democrats need to be places where their politics don't necessarily align. I think that by only going places where there are people that we agree with, what happens is we only speak to our people. I love our people, but our people are not the hearts and minds that we need to change.

We never got the straight story about whether or not Harris was really offered Joe Rogan. I've heard a number of conflicting stories that maybe she was offered it, maybe she wasn't. Maybe staffers said no. Harris had 100 and whatever days. She did an incredible job for the kind of time she had, and she really was set up with a glass cliff, but all of that being equal, if you don't go on Joe Rogan's show, Joe Rogan's people don't know who you are. If Joe Rogan's people don't know who you are, then there's no reason for them to vote for you.

Speaking of communicators, Zohran Mamdani has obviously broken through in a big way. I think he's done something that others have had trouble with, which is navigating this new media environment where everything's memes and being funny and ironic and weird. Mamdani is doing it in a positive way, whereas Trump does it in a negative way. What do you think people can learn from Mamdani?

I mean, look, yes, he's brilliant. Mamdani has two things going for him, which are really two big things. One is that he is very charismatic. He has that. He has it in a way that like 90 percent of all politicians, Republican or Democrat, don't have.

That's something—having the "it" factor. It's so funny, because I've talked to so many rich New Yorkers who have to admit that they find him very charming. I'll be like, "So have you met him?" And they'll be like, "Yeah." What he's done that's been really smart is he has spoken to every group of fancy New Yorkers there are, and he's made the case for himself. I do think that we're seeing Democratic politicians start to understand that they have to be sales people.

Mamdani definitely comes off like a salesman [laughs]

Yeah, that's the thing. People will say Democrats "have to abandon woke." It's like, no, they don't have to abandon any of their ideology. This is not an ideological issue. You're gonna have to sell people on your ideas. One of the things I watched firsthand with Biden world was that for two years, they didn't do interviews.

You watch Donald Trump, and he's everywhere all the time. Even when he's exhausted or looks really weird, he is everywhere. And the thing is, because he's everywhere all the time saying weird shit, when he says weird shit, people are like, "Oh, he says weird shit." Whereas, Biden came out a couple times. You have to flood the zone. Steve Bannon was correct, but he was wrong about what that meant. You flood the zone, or else they will flood the zone themselves.

Lastly, people on the left are putting a lot of faith in the courts, but then there's the Supreme Court. A lot of courts are really going against Trump, and then the Supreme Court will come in and be like, "We're gonna help him out." How are you feeling about the court situation?

I don't quite get what the play is here for John Roberts. What I don't think they understand is—they keep just sort of giving in to him thinking that next time he won't ask them for stuff that's not doable. I just think they're painting themselves into a kind of corner. Where is this going to go?

I don't know. I don't think they're doing anything good for themselves here. I think they think that they can sort of kick the can on this, but I think what's going to happen is that they're going to find themselves in a situation where they are not going to be able to give him what he wants, and he's going to be furious.

Do you think there should be a litmus test for the 2028 candidates that they should have to talk about expanding the Court? What do you think about that idea?

They obviously have to expand the Court. But I think the litmus test has to be: Are you willing to go everywhere, all the time? Democrats get so obsessed with ideology. Obviously, we can't not do it. You have to expand the Court. Even the most centrist Democrat would say this court is out of control.

This Court itself would say it's out of control. I don't think that's the problem. I think the problem is, and the litmus test should be, are you willing to campaign and go everywhere and kill yourself and do 500 interviews and 57 pool sprays? Are you willing to do your own Twitter and not have consultants make all of the decisions? Or are you scared? Because if you're scared, then there's no place for you on that ticket.