The Daily Beast Podcast is as wildly exciting, energizing, and entertaining as the topics it covers. Hosted by Joanna Coles, Chief Content Officer of the Daily Beast, every episode brings you more of the people, politics, and pop culture coverage you need straight from the Daily Beast newsroom. Amazing conversations have included Amber Ruffin, Tiffany Haddish, Mika Brzezinski, Don Lemon, John Oliver and more!
New episodes every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.
If you’re not already a subscriber to The Daily Beast, it’s easy! Just go to thedailybeast.com to sign up.
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Why Young Men Who Elected Trump Are Turning on Him
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Tragic Real Reason Behind Bezos’ Gaudy Wedding
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How Trump Will Cheat to Stay in Power
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How Trump Will Torture Tulsi Gabbard for Iran Leak
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Unhinged Truth About Trump’s Iran F-Bomb: Wolff
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Why Hegseth and Tulsi Make Trump More Dangerous
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What Trump Really Thinks About Tucker and Tulsi
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Secrets of Trump’s Tarnished Gilded Age
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MAGA Civil War? Trump Can’t Find Iran on the Map!
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Why Trump 'Reamed Out' Hegseth For Parade Fiasco
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Trump Is Most 'Impotent' President In A Lifetime
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Paranoid Trump's Vile Racial Slur for Cuffed Sen.
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The Sinister Source of Trump's Autocracy Playbook
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This Is How We Beat Musk And Miller’s Cruel Plans
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Elon Was Right: Trump is Compromised and Knows It
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Why Musk Just Made Trump Really Paranoid about JD
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Why Trump Ignored Musk's Drug Spiral: Prof G
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Wolff: Bannon is Tearing off Musk's Face for Trump
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Why Elon Threw The Epstein Bomb at Trump
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The Real Story Behind Elon And Trump
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This Trump Lackey Knows He Isn't Telling the Truth
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This is What Trump is Really Planning for America
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The Truth About Barron Trump, Harvard and Melania
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Why Trump Trashes The Media That Made Him Famous
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The Fat Shot Changed My Life, Cured My Depression
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James Carville: Why Trump’s Smokescreen Will Fail
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Why Trump Will Destroy Every Member of His Cabinet
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Trump’s Not in Charge. This Is Who Really Is.
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Why Everything We Knew About Raising Kids Is Wrong
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Michael Wolff: The Truth about Trump and Melania
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How I Sleep Better by Switching off the Trump Show
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The Man Who Coined The Insult Trump Hates Most
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Why Prince Harry Says King’s Aides ‘Want Me Dead’
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The Daily Beast Podcast
The Daily Beast Podcast is as wildly exciting, energizing, and entertaining as the topics it covers. Hosted by Joanna Coles, Chief Content Officer of the Daily Beast, every episode brings you more of the people, politics, and pop culture coverage you need straight from the Daily Beast newsroom. Amazing conversations have included Amber Ruffin, Tiffany Haddish, Mika Brzezinski, Don Lemon, John Oliver and more!
New episodes every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.
If you’re not already a subscriber to The Daily Beast, it’s easy! Just go to thedailybeast.com to sign up.
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Stephen Miller Rolls Out MAGA’s Indoctrination Plan for Kids
On the final episode of The New Abnormal, hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie react to President Donald Trump’s chaotic first 100 days of his second term as White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller rolls out MAGA’s indoctrination plan to protect children from “communists.” Levy quipped, “Is woke losing its power as a pejorative? Did they have to bring back communists like it's the 1950s or 1980s?”
Thank you all so much for listening for the last 5 years. Please stay tuned to this feed for what The Daily Beast has next.
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There’s One Looming Reason Why Trump Fired Waltz Not Hegseth
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The Simple Signs That Show Trump’s ‘Dam Is Breaking’
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Time to Pull the Plug on Trump’s White House Press Pool
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Why CEOs Are Now Willing to Call ‘Bulls***’ to Trump’s Face
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Pope Francis’ Criticism of Vance and Trump Was a ‘Breath of Fresh Air
The New Abnormal hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie reflect on Pope
Francis’ death at 88 and why the late pontiff was such a “breath of fresh air” in the current
climate. Then, Garrett Graff, publisher of Doomsday Scenario, joins the podcast to discuss his
latest piece on how the Trump administration’s defiance of the courts impacts the rule of law.
Plus, ProPublica reporter Alec MacGillis stops by to talk about what a halt of data collection at
the government means for climate change and more.
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RFK Jr. Takes Action on His Most Dangerous Beliefs Yet
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Karoline Leavitt’s Cross Necklace Is for Display Purposes Only
On this episode of The New Abnormal, co-hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy are convinced that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s signature cross necklace is for display purposes only. “She violates the ninth commandment about not bearing false witness,” Levy said. Plus, MSNBC analyst and author Eddie Glaude, Jr., discusses how racism became America’s blindspot. Then legal scholar Andy Craig delves into how the Trump administration’s refusal to return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia challenges the foundations of U.S law.
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This Is the Exact Moment America Stopped Being a ‘Nation of Laws’
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Trump Suffers Another ‘They’re Eating the Dogs’ Moment
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Trump’s Budget ‘Heist’ Is Robin Hood for Billionaires
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Spare Us the Crocodile Tears, Bill Ackman
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Lauren Boebert’s ‘Stone’ Gaffe Proves She’s Dumb as Rocks
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Trump Did The One Thing That Could Unravel His MAGA Base
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There’s Only One Acceptable Response to Trump’s Talk of a Third Term
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Why Trump Thinks Jan 6ers Deserve Taxpayer Dollars
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Fox News Is Really Struggling to Spin the Signal Chat Leak
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The Trump Administration Has Proven Its Strategy Works
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Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Reporter Beau Suggests Bonkers Kyle Rittenhouse Plan to Protect Tesla
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Musk’s Echo Chamber Is So Deep He Thinks People Like Him
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‘Waste of Space’ Chuck Schumer Needs to Resign
The New Abnormal hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie think it’s time for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to resign after his shocking submission to House Republicans last week. Plus, deputy director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project Esha Bhandari stops by to break down Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil’s controversial arrest by ICE. Then a research director at Media Matters Kayla Gogarty joins the show to discuss her latest study into right-wing media infiltrating streaming platforms and podcasts.
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MAGA OG Nick Fuentes Takes a Surprising Left Turn as a Trump Truther
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Trump Is Playing Russian Roulette
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Trump’s Latest Move Officially Brings Autocracy to the U.S.
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Republicans Used to Love Outsourcing, Now Blame Unions
As President Donald Trump’s flip-flopping on tariffs roils the stock market, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick took to CNBC earlier this week to blame the outsourcing of American manufacturing on labor unions. Plus! TNA spoke with The New York Times’s David Enrich about Murder the Truth, a new book about New York Times Company v. Sullivan, a landmark Supreme Court ruling that guaranteed freedom of the press and has come under attack from oligarchs seeking to silence the media.
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Where Are the White People Standing Up to Trump?
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Dems Completely Dropped the Ball During Trump’s Speech
The New Abnormal hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie react to President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night—and flame the Democrats for failing to stage a cohesive protest of Trump’s speech.
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Marco Rubio Needs Body Language Work to Stay in Trumpworld
The New Abnormal hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie tear into President Donald Trump’s “toddler tantrum” in the Oval Office. Then, journalist Erin Reed talks about the Trump administration’s attacks on trans rights from federal erasure to military purges and immigration bans. Plus, Brooke Shuman and Eric Vasquez dive into a video they co produced for More Perfect Union detailing how Elon Musk’s Texas playbook explains the moves of the Department of Government Efficiency.
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Elon Musk's DOGE Mistakes Will Cost Lives
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Trump’s $5M ‘Gold Cards’ Have Russia Written All Over Them
On the latest episode of The New Abnormal, Trump is poised to recreate Russia’s oligarch system by putting a $5 million price tag on U.S. citizenship with his “gold card” visas. Plus! Mike Masnick, founder and editor of Techdirt, breaks down how Elon Musk's latest DOGE move mirrors his Twitter takeover. Then incoming Center for American Progress president Neera Tanden discusses how Democrats can turn the tables on Trump’s agenda.
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The Hidden Pattern Behind Trump’s Military Purge
The New Abnormal hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie are not surprised by the path the Trump administration has seemingly taken to overhaul the U.S. military, noting that an obvious pattern seems to be at play. Then, Elie Mystal, justice correspondent at The Nation and host of the Contempt of Court podcast, joins the show to discuss the legalities of President Donald Trump’s recent moves. Plus, journalist and New Republic contributing editor Meredith Shiner, stops by to dissect the Democratic Party’s current state of leadership.
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Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker Slays ‘King’ Trump in Rousing Speech
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Trump Is More Like a Court Jester Than a King
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Trump Knows He Can Do Whatever He Wants
The New Abnormal hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie discuss how the
guardrails that were supposed to keep President Donald Trump in check are all gone now—and
the Democrats don’t know what to do about it. Plus, Virginia Kase Solomón of the pro-
democracy watchdog group Common Cause joins the show to talk about how they’ve been
fighting back against Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Then, Wired senior
politics editor Leah Feiger dives into the magazine’s exclusive reporting on all things DOGE.
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Image of Trump’s Oval Office Humiliation Will Define His Presidency
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Dems Need More Viral ‘D*** Pic’ Moments If They Want to Stop Musk
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The Super Bowl Halftime Show Was Tailor Made to Trigger MAGA
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MTG’s ‘Sickening’ L.A. Wildfire Attack Comes Back to Bite Her
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Right-Wing Group's Unbelievable New Tactic to Tackle DEI
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Trump May Tank U.S. Economy Faster Than Any Other President
The New Abnormal hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie are not confident
about Trump’s economy. Then, ProPublica investigative reporter, Mica Rosenberg, joins us to
break down a recent piece, “ICE Enforcement Official Tapped to Lead Unaccompanied Migrant
Children Office, Triggering Alarms.” Then journalist and author, Eoin Higgins is here to tell us
about his new book, “Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on
the Left.”
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FBI Director Nominee Kash Patel Sets Off Alarms During His Confirmation
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GOP Doubles Down on Trump’s DEI Blame Game Amid D.C. Crash Tragedy
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It Took Trump One Week to Turn on U.S. Allies
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Rev. Mariann Budde Rattles Trump With Plea for ‘Mercy’
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Billionaire Trump Sets Out a Tip Jar Like an Underpaid Barista
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Don’t Be Fooled by Trump’s Long List of Executive Orders
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Fire Team Snuffs Out Musk’s Disinformation Dumpster Fire
Billionaire CEO, DOGE co-director and “first buddy” Elon Musk’s surprise visit to California’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood didn’t seem to go as planned. Musk attempted to affirm an incendiary rumor about the area’s wildfires spreading because the city had a shortage of water, but a fire commander threw cold water on the claim. “You hear him go from his normal, ‘Oh, I’m so bright. I’m asking questions.’ To timid and realizing that he is a fucking jack—,” said The New Abnormal co-host Andy Levy. Plus! Author Bennett Parten joins the podcast to discuss his new book, Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman's March and the Story of America's Largest Emancipation.
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RFK Jr.'s Nomination Is in 'Serious Peril': Dem Leader
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Trump Secretly Loves Steve Bannon and Elon Musk’s MAGA Civil War
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Zuck’s Secret Trump Rendezvous Before Big Policy Change
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MAGA Leaders Use L.A. Fires to Push More Flaming ‘Bulls**t’
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Elon Musk Reveals His Next Step On The Path To World Domination
The New Abnormal co-hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie share their apprehension at the increasing scope of Elon Musk’s political ambitions. Then, MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner joins the program to discuss the state of law and order in America (hint: It’s not doing so hot). Plus! Chris Geidner, the deputy editor for legal affairs at Grid and author of the Law Dork newsletter, catches us up on a number of big legal stories that happened over the holidays.
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Cancel Culture and the Eroding of America’s Institutions
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Do Yourself a Favor and Watch This Underrated Movie About Donald Trump
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Historian Rick Perlstein Shares Why He Refused to Go on Steve Bannon’s Podcast
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Uncertainty Looms as Trump’s Inauguration Day Approaches
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The Most Absurd Conservative Controversies of 2024
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Who’s the Worst Politician of 2024? Hard to Argue Against Donald Trump
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Maye Musk’s Secrets to Having (and Affording) More Babies
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Elon Musk Is the Billionaire Grinch That Ruined Christmas
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Why Trump’s Niece Is Even More Afraid for His Second Term
Donald Trump is more powerful than ever, warns Mary Trump on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. Then, NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik joins the program to discuss the Voice of America and what Trump’s selection of Kari Lake to head up the organization could mean for the media network.
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Nancy Mace Completes Her MAGA ‘Monster’ Transformation
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Trump’s ‘Time’ Honor Threatens to Blow Up Musk Friendship
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Trump Is Using Classic Mob Boss Tactics to Carry Out His Wishes
Donald Trump is already up to his old
tricks, according to co-hosts Andy
Levy and Danielle Moodie on the
latest episode of The New Abnormal.
Then, Melissa Murray, professor of
law at NYU Law School, joins the
program to break down Donald
Trump’s recent statements on ending
birthright citizenship. Plus! Adam
Serwer, staff writer at The Atlantic,
joins us to talk about his new article,
“Trump Fans Are Suffering From Tony
Soprano Syndrome.”
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GOP Leaders Flip-Flop as Pete Hegseth Faces the Guillotine
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A Broken U.S. Healthcare System Doesn’t Make Murder OK
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Pete Hegseth’s Drinking Could Cause a Rift With Teetotaler Trump
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Republicans Launch Anti-Trans Assault as Democrats Flounder
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The Left Will Never Have Its Own Version of Joe Rogan
Can the left replicate the success of Joe Rogan’s podcast with one of their own? The New Abnormal co-hosts discuss. Plus! Jeb Lund and David J. Roth, the co-hosts of the It's Christmastown podcast, battle it out once again to determine who is the most Thanksgiving American. Then, author and historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat joins the show to discuss the shift in Trump’s regime and the narrative that is being presented from him and his followers.
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Richard Curtis vs. Hugh Grant; Inside Menendez Bros
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Trump’s Election Win Proves There Are No Rules Anymore
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Rep. Jasmine Crockett Flames GOP for Crying DEI ‘Oppression’
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Nancy Mace Is Rapidly Becoming One Of The Worst People in the Country
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Mika Defends Mar-a-Lago Visit, Musk-Trump Road Trip
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Don’t Overlook How Bad This Lesser-Known Trump Nominee Is
A look at Brendan Carr, Trump’s pick for chair of the Federal Communications Commission, and the way he has incorrectly been pitched as a “free speech advocate.” Then, Lucy Dean Stockton, an editor and reporter at The Lever, joins the program to discuss the very specific way Trump could erase many of President Joe Biden’s recent regulatory wins. Plus! a conversation with Jared Holt, a senior research analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, about the growing threats of hate, extremism and misinformation online.
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Armed Forces Would Experience ‘Mass Exodus’ Under Hegseth
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All of Trump’s Cabinet Picks Have These Things in Common
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Adam Grant Disses Musk and Mar-a-Lago Madness
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Trump Isn’t Going to Help Make the Cost of Eggs Any Cheaper
A week after the U.S. presidential election, The New Abnormal co-hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie reflect on what Kamala Harris could have changed in her campaign strategy. Plus! Dean Obeidallah, host of the The Dean Obeidallah Show on Sirius XM Radio is here to talk about his recent piece posted to their substack.
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Trump’s Likely AG: ‘We’re Going to Put Kids in Cages’
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Sam Bee on Biden's Big Fail, John Avlon on His Own
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The Hard Truth About Why Harris Was the Wrong Choice for America
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People May Finally Be Getting Tired of Trump’s Shenanigans
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Left-Wing Scared of Loomer Getting White House Job: Bannon
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Donald Trump Could Be Elon Musk’s Ultimate Cash Cow
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How The Trump-Musk Bromance Ends: Michael Wolff
Journalist and author Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles and Samantha Bee on this week’s episode to offer insight into the jockeying egos on Donald’s Trump “manic” campaign—and that MSG rally. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker calls in from the Harris trail, and Daily Beast Special Correspondent Harry Lambert recaps party animal Jeff Bezos’ social calendar amid much turmoil at his newspaper, The Washington Post.
Have a question or comment for us? Send us an email: beastpod@thedailybeast.com
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Trump’s Nazi Rally at MSG Perfectly Reflected ‘Republican Values’
Jay Willis, the editor-in-chief of
nonprofit legal journalism outlet Balls & Strikes, joins the program to discuss why Elon Musk has gone all in on Trump. Plus! A conversation with Phoebe Petrovic, an investigative reporter with the nonprofit outlet Wisconsin Watch, about her latest piece: “The genesis of Christian nationalism: How the religious right came to influence the 2024 election.”
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Conservatives Still Want Trump to Be Their ‘Big Strong Daddy’
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Does Trump Not Know That Hitler’s Generals Tried to Kill Him?
The New Abnormal’s Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy are baffled. Donald Trump meets the definition of a fascist, would govern like a dictator if allowed to, and seemingly has no understanding of the concept of rule of law. So why are so many Americans still intent on voting for him? Also on the pod this week: Geoffrey Fowler, a Washington Post journalist, who talks about Meta’s covert operation to shadowban political content. Plus! Denny Carter, the founder of the Bad Faith Times, who has an astute comparison to draw between an NFL quarterback and this year’s presidential election.
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James Carville on Kamala and Trump on Joe Rogan
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Where Is Merrick Garland Amidst All This Elon Musk Nonsense?
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Trump Shows Complete Inability to Answer a Simple Question
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Trump Should Be in a Doctor’s Office, Not on the Campaign Trail
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John Oliver and Sam Bee's Lessons from Jon Stewart
On this week’s The Daily Beast Podcast, guest John Oliver and co-host Samantha Bee take a trip down late-night TV memory lane, sharing fun times and lessons learned from their time as correspondents on ‘The Daily Show.’ Joanna Coles and Sam dive deep into the Beast’s exclusive story of the consultant making serious bank on Trump’s campaign payroll, and obsess over Kanye West’s sexploits as well as other, unrelated sex toys.
Subscribe here https://episodes.fm/1767675909
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Donald Trump Is the One Man Who Created All This Chaos
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Trump Says Women Love Him Because He Makes Them Feel ‘Safe’
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The One Time We Should Have Believed Marjorie Taylor Greene
This week on The New Abnormal, when we should have taken Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene seriously. Plus! Semafor’s National political reporter, Dave Weigel, expands on the Republican party’s fresh new hell. Then, author Jonathan Metzl joins the show to talk about the MAGA mentality, and how we got here.
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The Daily Beast Podcast On Melania's New Book
This week, Joanna Coles and Samantha Bee talk all things Melania and share the latest scoop on Silicon Valley with Jessica Lessin, CEO of The Information. Sam shares her experiences with menopause and Joanna talks celeb sightings at opening night of the new Robert Downey Jr. play on Broadway.
Subscribe here https://episodes.fm/1767675909
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Trump’s Troubles With Women Are Just Beginning
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Melania Trump: ‘What Does My Body My Choice Really Mean?’
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Merrick Garland Is the Reason We’re in This Trump Mess
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The Daily Beast Podcast's VP Debate Recap w/ Pod Save America
The New Abnormal listeners, please enjoy the newest episode of The Daily Beast's new podcast! The Daily Beast Podcast is as wildly exciting, energizing, and entertaining as the topics it covers. Bringing their sharp wit and insights to each episode, co-hosts Joanna Coles (Chief Creative & Content Officer of The Daily Beast) and celebrated comedian and political commentator Samantha Bee will navigate the latest in politics, pop culture, and everything in between.
Subscribe here https://episodes.fm/1767675909
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Tim Walz Failed in One Big Way: He Was too Nice
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz failed to meet the moment at Tuesday’s vice presidential debate in New York City in one big way, according to the hosts of The New Abnormal.
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Some Americans Are Already Living in Trump’s ‘Purge’
This week on The New Abnormal, why Trump’s version of horror film “The Purge” has been happening for decades. Plus! The Stanford Constitutional Law Center's Matthew Seligman joins us to discuss election law, disputed presidential elections, and why JD Vance's comments on such things might be extremely dangerous. Then, Edith Olmsted, associate writer for the New Republic, is here to tell us all about her recent piece, “Trump’s Idiot Son Feels ‘Totally Vindicated’ Over J.D. Vance Pick.”
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MTG’s Boyfriend Wants People Racially Profiled While Voting
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Don’t Be Fooled by Trump’s Latest Golf Admission
The New Abnormal co-host Andy Levy isn’t so sure that Trump will actually follow through on his promise to quit golfing. Then, a conversation with the Daily Beast’s Chief Creative & Content Officer Joanna Coles and Emmy-winning comedian Samantha Bee about The Daily Beast Podcast, a new way to discover and engage with the day’s most interesting stories. Plus! Editor at The Bulwark Jonathan V. Last joins the program to discuss his most recent piece, “Stop the Steal Part 2 Is Coming,” and Trump’s efforts to take back the White House—whether he wins in November or not.
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The First Episode of The Daily Beast Podcast! w/ Kara Swisher
The New Abnormal listeners, please enjoy the first episode of The Daily Beast's new podcast! The Daily Beast Podcast is as wildly exciting, energizing, and entertaining as the topics it covers. Bringing their sharp wit and insights to each episode, co-hosts Joanna Coles (Chief Creative & Content Officer of The Daily Beast) and celebrated comedian and political commentator Samantha Bee will navigate the latest in politics, pop culture, and everything in between.
Subscribe here https://episodes.fm/1767675909
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The Real Reason Mark Robinson's Staff Quit in Droves
This week on The New Abnormal, hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy react
to North Carolina gubernatorial campaign of Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and his
pornography bombshell. Plus! Blake Chastain, host of the Powers and Principalities podcast
and writer of the Post-Evangelical Post newsletter is here to tell us all about his new book and
the rise in power of white evangelical Christians inside the Republican party. Then, activist and
recovering addict Ryan Hampton joins us to tell us all about his new book, “Fentanyl Nation:
Toxic Politics and America's Failed War on Drugs.”
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The Daily Beast Podcast Trailer
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Trump: Project 2025 Will Lay ‘Groundwork’ for Second Term
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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine Needs to ‘Grow a Pair’ and Stand Up to Trump
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How Is JD Vance So Bad at All of This?
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Why JD Vance’s Latest Immigration Claim Is Just Plain Wrong
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The Simple Keywords That Are Setting Trump Off
This week on The New Abnormal, hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy reflect
on Trump’s disaster of a debate performance. Plus! Founder and author of The Present Age
newsletter Parker Molloy joins us to talk about the media’s efforts to “sanewash” Donald Trump
and why people might not be falling for it. Then, we talk to The New York Times tech reporters
Kate Conger and Ryan Mac about their upcoming book, “Character Limit: How Elon Musk
Destroyed Twitter.”
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Harris Came Prepared to Get Under Trump's Skin at Debate
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I Went to Moms For Liberty’s 2024 Summit and It Was Dire
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MAGA Turns on Trump for Admitting He’s an Election ‘Loser’
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Goldman Sachs Shatters Myth That Republicans Are Better for the Economy
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Trump Has Completely Forgotten His Relationship With Mike Pence
This week on The New Abnormal, hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy take issue with Trump’s latest comments surrounding Kamala Harris and Mike Pence. Plus! Journalist, historian and author Rick Perlstein joins us to tell us all about his recent piece for the American Prospect. Then, Dr. Jamil Zaki is here to tell us about their new book, “Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness.”
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JD Vance Epically Fails to Understand How Inflation Works
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Donald Trump’s Greasy Grifters Will Do Anything for a Photo Op
The New Abnormal co-host Danielle Moodie was appalled at reports this week alleging a “physical altercation” between a Trump employee and Arlington National Cemetery official.
Then, David Sirota, the founder and editor-in-chief of The Lever, joins the pod to talk about their new 10-part investigative podcast series Master Plan, which chronicles exactly how corporate forces and politicians worked to legalize corruption in the United States, putting in place a plan to turn our democracy into a kleptocracy. Plus! A conversation with journalist Tiffany Cross, who kicks it off with a discussion on what it means that Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz are finally, finally sitting down for a major interview with a mainstream media outlet.
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It’s Clear Trump Has No Idea How to Play Defense
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Rudy Giuliani: Steve Bannon Is Being ‘Tortured’ in Prison
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All Those Republicans Were at the DNC for a Reason
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Fox News Can’t Stand the Energy at This Year’s DNC
This week on The New Abnormal, hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy break down Fox News’ response to the Democratic National Convention. Plus! Jonathan Metzl, the author of “What We’ve Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms,” joins us to break down Kamala Harris’ gun policy and why Tim Walz might be the X-factor needed to make it happen. Then Denny Carter, founder of Bad Faith Times, is here to break down his recent piece and why Harris needs to keep ignoring the mainstream media’s pressure.
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JD Vance Thinks Suburban Woman Don’t Care About Abortion
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JD Vance Is the New Sarah Palin
This week on The New Abnormal, Chief Creative and Content Officer of the Daily Beast Joanna Coles stops by to talk about JD Vance and the weird ways that men are hijacking a woman’s moment in this election season. Plus! Anat Shenker-Osorio, host of the political podcast Words to Win By, joins the show to discuss how Democrat’s messaging has changed since the arrival of Kamala Harris.
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Trump Just Lost One of His Major Talking Points
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Donald Trump Admits Supporting Electric Cars Because of Elon Musk’s Endorsement
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I Read Project 2025 Head Kevin Roberts’ Book—and Was Terrified by It
Madeline Peltz, the deputy director of rapid response at liberal watchdog group Media Matters joins The New Abnormal to talk about Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts’ new book—which includes a forward from Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance. Plus! A discussion with Meredith McGraw, a national correspondent at Politico, about her new book, Trump in Exile, which chronicles the former president’s retreat to Mar-a-Lago after his defeat in 2020.
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Kamala Has Picked a Winning Strategy With ‘Weird’
This week on The New Abnormal, why one word has taken such a toll on Trump. Then, Andrew Lawrence, Media Matters for America’s deputy director of rapid response, joins the show to explain why the word “weird” is working for Democrats. Plus! Asawin Suebsaeng, a Rolling Stone senior politics reporter, delves into Donald Trump’s involvement with Project 2025.
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Project 2025’s Plan for the DOJ May Be the Scariest Part
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Tech Bros Love Trump Because They Have No Other Friends
This week on The New Abnormal, Ed Zitron, CEO of EZPR and the host of tech podcast, “Better Offline,” explains why all these Northern California tech bros are ride or die for Donald Trump. Then, Dr. Regina Davis Moss, the president & CEO of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda and the In Our Own Voice Action Fund, talks about the devastating effect on Black women of right-wing attempts to overthrow women’s bodily.
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Why Biden Needs to End the So-Called ‘War on Terror’
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Why J.D. Vance Is Giving Serious Jeb Bush Vibes
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Bob Menendez’ Diet Might be Worse Than His Crimes
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Bill Ackman and Laura Loomer, for the Love of God, Please Shut Up
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No Time for Discussion: VP Harris Is Now Top of the Ticket
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Comedian Says Vance Told Him Trump Was a Threat to U.S.
The liberal redneck, Trae Crowder, says he spent time with J.D. Vance in 2016 “pounding beers” and lamenting how bad President Trump would be for America. Plus! Jennifer Berkshire, host of the podcast, Have You Heard, joins The New Abnormal to talk about her book, The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual.
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Trump’s RNC Speech Was Good for a Solid 10-Minutes
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This Is the Most Extreme Presidential Ticket in American History
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Why Project 2025 Is Much Scarier Than Biden Being Re-Elected
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If Dems Lose These States in November, They’re Screwed
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Dems Should at Least TRY Gaslighting Their Way Out of Biden’s Age Crisis
With their current presidential candidate facing a crisis of confidence, Democratic politicians and liberal media figures have been casting about blindly for an alternative. It’s a fool’s errand, The New Abnormal co-hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy agree. Then, CNN correspondent Elle Reeve shares some of the findings from her new book: Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics. Plus! A conversation with Samhita Mukhopadhyay about her recent book, The Myth of Making It: A Workplace Reckoning.
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Why the MAGA Cult Votes for Trump and Against Its Interest
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Happy Birthday USA. Sorry for What the GOP Is Doing to You
Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie, co hosts of The New Abnormal, reflect on the past year in American history—and the craziest figures in American politics. Then, Defector editor David Roth and journalist Jeb Lund, the co-hosts of their own podcast called It’s Christmas Town, join the program for a special Fourth of July quiz show segment. Plus! A conversation with author Suzette Mullen about her new memoir, “The Only Way Through Is Out,” which chronicles her experience coming out as a lesbian late in life.
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Who’s on Top as Trump’s Veepstakes Reaches Its Zenith?
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Trump Had His Own Brain Freeze Moment Like Biden This Week
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Jake Tapper and Dana Bash’s Debate Performance Was an Embarrassment
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Trump’s Mental Acuity Has Declined Noticeably in the Last Four Years
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MAGA Rapper Sinks to New Low After ‘Ratchet’ Rant
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Why SCOTUS’ Delay on Trump Immunity Call May Spell Trouble
“The most frustrating thing to me about this is the fact that Donald Trump’s attorneys walked into the Supreme Court–I know that this sounds like the beginning of a joke, it is, but it’s not funny–and said basically that if Donald Trump as president decided that he wanted to get Team SEAL 6 to go ahead and kill his political opponent he could do that and unless he was found to be impeached by the House and by the Senate, then he’s not liable for the crimes that he commits. It shouldn’t have taken hours of deliberation to make a decision here,” Moodie said. “It’s a case that never should have been heard at all. It should have just been dismissed out of hand and they could have just simply written ‘no’ and that would’ve been the end of that. Or ‘no, this is stupid. Stop bothering us with this crap,’” Levy said.
Plus! CNN commentator S.E. Cupp talks to The New Abnormal about her new show on Fox TV called Battleground and why Democrats need to stop trying to replace Joe Biden this close to the election. MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner also joins the podcast to talk about all the Trumpworld co-stars currently in jail or on trial.
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Stop Inviting Trump Toadies Like Kellyanne Conway on Cable News Shows
Kellyanne Conway’s Fox News appearance over the weekend angered The
New Abnormal co-hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie greatly. Then, Stasha Rhodes, the
executive director of United for Democracy, joins the program to discuss the push to
counter a well-funded, far-right influence campaign on the Supreme Court. Plus! A
conversation with New Republic staff writer and author Melissa Gira Grant about
conservative efforts to ban the abortion drug Mifepristone.
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Trump Reveals the Biggest Threat Facing the U.S.
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The Most Surprising Thing About SCOTUS’ Abortion Pill Ruling
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This Lawsuit Could Roll Back 50 Years of Progress for Women and People of Color
Atlanta-based civil rights attorney Kianna Chennault joins The New Abnormal to discuss the importance of fighting for diversity initiatives in the face of far-right pushback. Plus! A conversation with The New York Times’ global economy reporter Peter Goodman about his new book, “How the World Ran Out of Everything,” which unpacks the COVID-era global supply chain crisis that clogged the global economy for months on end.
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MAGA’s Scared Senseless That Hunter Biden Will Be Acquitted
Right-wing pundits are already worried that Hunter Biden will beat a conviction in his gun trial, and they’re resorting to the same old tricks to rile up supporters. Plus! Danielle Moodie talks to Deepa Iyer, creator of the Social Change Map and author of the book, Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection.
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There's Some Weird Sh*t Going On With Trump's VP List
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Is Biden the White Moderate MLK Jr. Warned Us About?
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Should We Fear MAGA Riots if Trump Is Locked Up?
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Trump Verdict Is What Accountability Is Supposed to Look Like
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John Roberts May Be the Worst Chief Justice in Supreme Court History
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Trump’s Cronies Are Prepared if He Loses Hush Money Case
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The Sad Reality About Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s Flag Revelations
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Nobody Is Buying Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s Excuses
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GOP’s ‘Project 2025’ Plan May See the Rise of Dictator Trump
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SCOTUS Silently Grinds Democracy Into Powder as Trump Distracts America
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The Women of Trumpworld May Have Blown Their Shot at VP
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Tucker Carlson Thinks Alex Jones Is a Supernatural Prophet
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Trump’s Ties to Big Oil Just Got Even More Terrifying
This week on The New Abnormal, co-hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie are shocked about what Trump said at a recent meeting with big oil executives. Plus! Legal expert Chris Geidner talks Trump’s latest legal woes. Also, Tara McGowan, the founder and publisher of Courier, joins the show to talk about modern media and the journalism business.
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The Moment a Republican Says This, Tune Them Out
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Fuentes: ‘I Totally See Myself Accidentally Killing My Wife’
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Trump’s Latest Interview With Time Magazine Is Also His Scariest to Date
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What We Are Seeing on College Campuses Is Truly Disturbing
This week on The New Abnormal, co hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie discuss the overblown response to pro Palestine protests on college campuses. Plus! The Nation's justice correspondent, Elie Mystal, joins the show to talk about the many problems with the U.S. Supreme Court. Then, Democratic candidate for Congress in Florida's 13th congressional district, Whitney Fox, shares why she’s joining the fight.
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MAGA Host Alex Stein Can’t Stop Talking to Lara Trump About Anal Sex
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Trump’s Campaign Shifts Strategy for Its Part-Time Candidate
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Trump's Hush-Money Judge Has Already Made Some Good Rulings
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Trump Isn’t a Style Icon. That Title Belongs to This Pair
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NYC Judge Needs to Treat Trump Like the Mafia Boss He Is
The New Abnormal co-hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy have some advice for the judge handling former President Donald Trump’s New York City hush-money trial: Treat it exactly the same as a high-profile mob case. Then, a conversation with Medhi Hasan about his new media venture, Zeteo, which launched on Monday. Plus! Jonathan V. Last, an editor at The Bulwark, joins the program to talk about his recent presidential rankings.
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GOP Is Throwing Out ‘Catastrophic’ Candidates to Democracy
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The Dirty Little Gun Secret Behind MAGA World’s Migrant Hysteria
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The Wild Backstory Behind Trumpworld’s Newest Toadie
This week, The New Abnormal
introduces you to a relatively new face in the pantheon of Trumpworld toadies:
Steven Cheung, Trump’s principal spokesperson and de facto enforcer. Plus, a conversation with New Republic staff writer Melissa Gira Grant about a largely forgotten 1873 law, called the Comstock Act, that could be used to outlaw virtually all abortions across America.
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Trump's Abortion Stance Is Likely to Change Come November
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Why These Two Republicans Are Trump’s Most Likely VP Picks
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Trump Wants to Jail His Opponents and Nobody Seems to Care
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The Right-Wing’s Spooky New Acronym DEI Betrays an Old Prejudice
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A Visual History of U.S. Racism Articulates What Words Can’t
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Hitler’s Rise to Power Holds Lessons for the 2024 Election
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Chuck Todd Gave NBC the Hardest Read on Television
This week on The New Abnormal, co-hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie discuss Chudd Todd’s searing criticism of NBC. Then, Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD, joins us to talk about her organization’s efforts to counter the anti-LGBTQ+ messaging many right-wing politicians have leaned into. Plus! The former editor at the Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun-Times, Mark Jacob, will tell us all about a piece he recently wrote about how journalists in the media in general seem bored covering the upcoming election.
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Fox News Buried Its Own Mike Pence Story to Benefit Trump
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The Looming Standoff in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Case
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Trump’s Coming for Your Granny’s Health Care
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Donald Trump’s Latest Clinton Conspiracy About BleachBit and Hillary’s Emails Is a Total Trip
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Donald Trump’s Huge Debts Make Him Even More Dangerous
NewsNation contributor Kurt Bardella joins The New Abnormal to discuss the state of the 2024 presidential election—and the complete failure of American journalism to adapt to Republicans’ strategy of spewing falsehoods. Plus, a conversation with Josh Kovensky, an investigative reporter at Talking Points Memo, about the Society for American Civic Renewal—a men’s only secret society of prominent far-right Christians.
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The Real Reason Why Trump Is Trashing Kimmel and the Oscars
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Katie Britt Should Have Known the SOTU Response Was a Trap
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Trump Is Set to Hit a ‘Financial Brick Wall’ Within Weeks
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Trump’s SCOTUS Win Shows Why We Need Federally Run Elections
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How Unions Could Help Democrats Turn Red States Blue
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Whoever Fills Mitch McConnell’s Shoes Will Be Even Worse
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There Is Some Good News About Trump’s South Carolina Primary Win
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Charlie Kirk Wants Coca-Cola to Sponsor Televised Executions
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Wake Up! Republicans Really Are Trying to Ban Contraception
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The $364 Million Judgment in Trump’s NYC Fraud Case Did Not Go Far Enough
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The ‘Sinister’ Crusade That Has Team Trump Outing LGBTQ Kids
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It’s Time to Look at Trump’s Jan. 6 Plans in a New Light
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Nikki Haley’s Jenga Tower of Anti-Trump Positions Is About to Crash Down
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Guardian Angels' Thug Tactics Get Exposed in Times Square
The Guardian Angels have been meting out vigilante justice on New York City streets since 1979. Last week the red-bereted crime fighters appeared on Fox News when their leader, Curtis Sliwa, a recent GOP mayoral candidate, was interviewed by Sean Hannity about the “migrant crisis” in New York. While the interview was in progress, the Angels violently detained a man in Times Square that Sliwa told Hannity was a migrant shoplifter. Later Levy talks to Laurie Kilmartin, a stand-up comedian who wrote for Conan O'Brien for 11 years, has written two books, and now has a new comedy special Cis Woke Grief Slut available for purchase online.
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Supreme Court Justices Are ‘in the Bag’ for Donald Trump
This week on The New Abnormal, co-hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie discuss the horrifying Supreme Court hearing today that weighed whether Donald Trump will be allowed on the ballot in Colorado. Then, Jay Willis, the editor-in-chief of Balls & Strikes, joins us to weigh in on the case. Plus! Katherine Stewart, author of “The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism,” talks to us about how the role faith is playing in the 2024 election.
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Republicans Should Love The Senate’s Latest Immigration Bill
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Why Donald Trump Won’t Let His Famous Dead Uncle John Rest in Peace
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Author of Shocking Post-Roe Rape Study Details ‘Truly Horrifying’ Numbers
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This Week Could Be Even Worse for Donald Trump Than Last Week
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This Bill Would Ban Single People From Sending Sexy Selfies
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Joe Biden Can—and Should—Take Over the Texas National Guard
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No One Can Be More Disappointed in Ron DeSantis Than His Wife Casey
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We Need an Interpreter to Work Out Trump’s ‘Debanking’ Rant
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Listen Closely: Trump Wants to Be a ‘Messiah’ Figure for Evangelicals
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Trump’s New Slogan Sums Him Up Perfectly
On The New Abnormal, hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy
discuss the problem with Trump’s newest slogan. Then, Frankie Miranda, the president and
CEO of the Hispanic Federation, tells us about the importance of the Latinx vote. Plus! We talk
to the New Republic’s Timothy Noah, who explains the wild ride that started with billionaire Bill
Ackman’s vicious Twitter campaign against then-Harvard President Claudine Gay, and then
snowballed.
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My Time Inside MAGA World Showed Me All Its Secrets
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Christie Has One Move Left That May Save Us From Trump
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Media Exhaustion May Be All Trump Needs to Squeak Out a Win in 2024
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A Supreme Court With Common Sense Would Disqualify Trump
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Why Biden Is Likely to Bridge Polling Gap Against Trump
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The Far Right Will Only Get Louder and More Powerful in 2024
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Student’s Epic Takedown of Bridget Ziegler Is Perfection
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The Absolute Dumbest Conservative Controversies of 2023
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Trump’s ‘Aspirational Fascism’ Casts a Shadow Over 2024
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Nick Fuentes’ ‘Death Penalty’ Call Is Beyond Extreme
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How ‘The Daily Show’ Host Search Became Such a Disaster
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Moms for Liberty Wants to Usher in an American Caste System
Moms for Liberty may have lost a few battles, but they’re still winning the culture war, Tamara Gilkes Borr, a U.S. policy correspondent at The Economist, says on this week’s episode of The New Abnormal. Daily Beast political reporter Jake Lahut also joins the podcast to discuss his latest piece, “Donald Trump Is Blowing Up the Myth of the New Hampshire Primary.”
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Trump Is Hawking This Season’s Most Petty Gift for Christmas
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Has Social Media Brainwashed You to Think the Economy’s Bad?
John Burn-Murdoch, a columnist and the chief data reporter for the Financial Times, joins The New Abnormal this week to unpack why people feel so bad about what is an objectively strong economy. Then, the newly appointed president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, Heather Williams, talks about the party’s plan to win down-ballot races.
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Elon Musk Isn’t Coming Back From the Far-Right Fever Swamps
The hosts talk with Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) about his new bill, “End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act of 2023”—and why America needs a paradigm shift in the way it thinks about housing. Plus! A conversation with senior Rolling Stone political reporter Asawin Suebsaeng about his recent investigation titled, “Inside Trump’s Plot to Corrupt the 2024 Election With ‘Garbage’ Data.”
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The Thing That Will Be the Final ‘Death Knell’ for Musk’s X
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No One Is Shedding a Tear for Kevin McCarthy
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DeSantis’ Retreat Shows Moms for Liberty’s Influence Is Waning
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Newsom Demolished DeSantis Using the One Thing Republicans Hate
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The Vast Majority of American Voters Should Never See a Poll
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The Media is Ignoring Trump’s Advanced Age at Our Peril
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Jan. 6 Officer Says U.S. Must Be Saved From Trump’s Return
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Why Eric Is Most Likely Trump’s Second Favorite Child
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Elon Musk Has Become the Very Thing He Hates Most
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How This Iconic Black Model Changed the Fashion Industry
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Why GOP Won’t Stop Tuberville’s Military Nominees Tantrum
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Trump’s Recent Rhetoric Is Just as Scary as It Seems
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The Rebels Who First Fought Big Tech Were on to Something
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Biden’s Meeting With Xi Could Thaw ‘Deep Freeze’ With China
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Team Trump Isn’t Even Trying to Keep Its Wildest Plans Secret
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Why No One Cared About the War in Afghanistan Until We Lost
Marine combat photographer Miles Lagoze tells The New Abnormal why Americans were more concerned about the optics of exiting Afghanistan than the mission itself.
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Why Libs of TikTok Is a Ticking Time Bomb
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What If We Tried Treating Donald Trump Like Everyone Else?
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Why This Election Is the Most Crucial Since the Civil War
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MAGA Mike Johnson Is Shameless in More Ways Than One
This week on The New Abnormal, Semafor’s Washington Bureau Chief Benjy
Sarlin tells us the who, what, and why that is the Republican Speaker of the House, Rep. Mike
Johnson. Then, MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner breaks down all the latest developments
in the many legal troubles of Donald Trump.
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The Case for Arnold Schwarzenegger Being Speaker of the House
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How the Pentagon Changed the Plot of ‘Top Gun’
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The Republican Party Is Self-Destructing Before Our Very Eyes
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Trump’s Lawyers Aren’t Even Trying to Win His NY Fraud Case
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Trump Is Going Even Further Down the QAnon Rabbit Hole
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GOP Hits the Bottom of the Barrel to Dredge Up New Speaker
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Violence-Ready’ Militia Group Says Jan. 6’ers are Idiots
On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, extremism and violent terrorism researcher Alexander Ritzman describes the new, male only movement infiltrating America–and their thoughts on Jan. 6. Plus! NBC News Justice reporter Ryan Reilly provides an in-depth look into the civilian sleuths who have been invaluable in identifying many of the culprits of Jan. 6.
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How the God Complex of 4 Billionaires Could Destroy Society
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The Theme of Trump’s Existence Summed Up in Three Words
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Don’t Feel Bad for Kevin McCarthy—He Dug His Own Grave
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Youngkin’s White House Dream May Push Virginia Further Right
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Eric Swalwell Says Kevin McCarthy’s MAGA Team Is a Bunch of Creeps
On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell talks to us about Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert’s latest shocking rant and how he contends with some of the louder members of the Republican Party on the House Judiciary Committee. Plus! The Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last tells us about the contrast in Democratic and Republican responses to Sen. Bob Menendez’s recent indictment for corruption.
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Right-Wingers in Congress Won’t Win Their Wacky Shutdown Fight
On this episode of The New Abnormal: Why Joe Biden is right to let Republicans shoot themselves in the foot during yet another idiotic shutdown fight. Plus! A look at Trump’s weekend of manic posting on Truth Social.
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Not Crazy or a Nazi? Liberal Org Wants you for School Board
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In Georgia, Donald Trump May Have Just Met His Match in Battle
On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner talks about Donald Trump’s latest legal challenges. Then a talk with Freedom of the Press Foundation executive director Trevor Timm about how the U.S. trying Julian Assange under the Espionage Act may prove to be a regrettable decision if Trump is elected president again.
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Far-Right Anti-Science Conspiracies Are Literally Killing Us
Dr. Peter Hotez joins The New Abnormal this week to discuss his new book, “The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science”—and why anti-vaccine conspiracies are so dangerous. Plus! An interview with labor reporter and author Kim Kelly about the United Auto Workers strike.
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GOP Keeps Embarrassing Itself Trying to Justify Biden Inquiry
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Lauren Boebert Proves the One Thing She Needs is Class
On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie delve deep into the lack of class shown by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) this week. Then, author Mike Rothschild is here to tell us all about his new book. Plus! Jeffrey Lewis, a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies on the Non-Proliferation and Terrorism Studies, joins us to share the reason we’re all still here.
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Middle America Gives Trump the Finger at Iowa Football Game
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U.S. Leaders Ignored Warning Signs That Musk Would Help Putin
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How Elon Musk Can Change the World With One Flick of a Switch
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Trump Contemplates Jailing Opponents Amid Legal Trouble
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Why Castrated Mad Hatter Murdered Lincoln’s Killer
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It’s Grotesque to Keep Putting Mitch McConnell Out There
On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, hosts Andy and Levy and Danielle Moodie discuss the ramifications of Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s latest freeze. Plus! National opinion columnist for the “Philadelphia Enquirer,” Will Bunch, talks to us about his recent article surrounding the state of journalism. Then, The Daily Beast’s politics reporter Zachary Petrizzo stops by to let us in on what’s happening with G O P fundraising.
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Comparing Trump to Tupac and MLK is Offensive and Wrong
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Controversial Climate Solution May Cool Earth, but at What Cost?
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Vivek Ramaswamy Filled the Void Left by Trump at Republican Debate
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This Constitutional Clause Could Ruin Trump’s 2024 Plans
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Why the Tucker Carlson Biography Sales Are So Pathetic
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Mary Trump’s Horror Prediction if a Republican Wins 2024
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This Is the Only Thing That Will Shut Trump Up
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Should DeSantis Do Mushrooms to Become a Cooler Candidate?
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Ohio Is a Sign That Republicans Should Be Worried
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Trump Has No Reason to Believe He Will Face Consequences
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YouTube’s Alt-Right Propaganda Is Gonna Get People ‘Killed’
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This Will Be the Least Memorable Republican Debater for 2024
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Ayn Rand Would Have Loathed Elon Musk’s Support of Trump
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The Country Music Establishment Doesn’t Care If It’s Racist
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That Mitch McConnell Video Is F*cking Scary and Terrifying
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This Is the Only Way Trump Will Lose His Base’s Support
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Trump Unlocked a Whole New Level of Bullshitting in Iowa
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Trump, an ‘Authoritarian,’ Could Actually Win the Presidency
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Mediocre White Men Love Trump. Nobody Likes DeSantis.
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Nick Fuentes Admits His Dream Wife Is 16 Years Old
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Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Judge Aileen Cannon Faces Her Moment of Truth
On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, former federal prosecutor and host of “Justice Matters” Glenn Kirschner talks about all the legal turmoil involving Donald Trump, Jack Smith, and Judge Aileen Cannon. Then, Washington Post national columnist Philip Bump joins us to tell us who exactly is House Oversight Committee chair James Comer’s star informant, Gal Luft.
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How RFK Jr. Supporters Are Trying to Spin The Anti-Vax Thing
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How Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Trying to Become Trump’s VP
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Moms for Liberty Loves DeSantis—but They’ll Never Vote for Him
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Ben Franklin Was Probably As Annoying As Jordan Peterson
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How Obama’s Presidency Kicked Off Today’s White Violence
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We’ll Be Talking About Justice Jackson Dissents for Decades
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There’s a Reason We’re Seeing Videos of RFK Jr. Shirtless
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Michael Ian Black Has Never Heard Trump Be Funny
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First States to Enact Abortion Bans Have One Thing in Common
On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, Mini Timmaraju, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, talks about where we stand one year after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Then, Vice’s Anna Merlan weighs in on RFK Jr. and all the misinformation he’s spreading.
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What to Expect Next After Texas AG Ken Paxton’s Impeachment
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Why SCOTUS’ Shock Voting Rights Call May Be Window Dressing
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What Happens to Docs Case if Donald Trump Wins 2024 U.S. Presidency?
On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, CNN Legal Analyst Elie Hoig joins the show to talk about Donald Trump's recent legal jeopardy and just how much trouble he is in. Then, Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick discusses the legal maneuvers we may see around the former president’s indictment.
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Trump Mar-A-Lago Judge Should Have Recused Herself Yesterday
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Governor Kristi Noem Is Sad She Can’t Shop at Target
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Trump’s New Indictment Is Truly Making America Great Again
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Matt Gaetz Doesn’t Want You to Know He Wears Unisex Blazers
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This Marjorie Taylor Greene Wish Could Start a Civil War
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The Longer They Wait to Indict Donald Trump, the Harder It Gets
On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy wonder what’s taking special counsel Jack Smith so long. Plus! The Daily Beast politics reporter Jake Lahut talks about the self-help guru who won't get help: Marianne Williamson.
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Pride Organizer Says Gay Floridians Are Leaving in Droves
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How Gerald Ford’s Big Mouth Helped Uncover Insane CIA Abuses
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Ron DeSantis Is So Clearly the Beta to Donald Trump’s Alpha
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How Trump Could Benefit from Pushing a Debt Default
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Abe Lincoln Wasn’t the Kind of Christian You Think He Was
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The 29-Year-Old Long Islander Coming for George Santos’ Seat
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How Chasten Buttigieg Gets Revenge Against Right Wing Bigots
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George Santos Is the ‘Inventing Anna’ of Congress
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Donald Trump’s Actions to Young Staff Was’'Open Secret:’ Ex-Adviser
On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, Alyssa Farah Griffin, co-host of “The View” and former Trump White House director of Strategic Communication, talks about her experience firsthand in the orb of Trump sexual harassment. Plus! The Daily Beast reporter Kelly Weill joins the podcast to talk about the Texas Allen Mall shooter and how the right wing is trying to whitewash his reputation.
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Florida’s House Republicans Are Even Worse Behind the Scenes
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How Tucker Carlson Wanted to ‘Save the GOP’ Live On Air
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Dear Tucker Carlson, This Is How White Men Really Fight
On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, hosts Andly Levy and Danielle Moodie react to Tucker Carlson’s racist texts. Plus! AI expert stops by to talk about the future AI holds. Then, Techdirt editor Mike Masnick discusses the showdown between PornHub and Utah.
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TN Rep Gloria Johnson Rips Apart Huge Pro-Gun ‘Argument’
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If Only Ted Cruz Cared About This Constituent Who Almost Died
Texas woman Amanda Zurawski ripped into Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, her state Senators, and other Republicans at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last Wednesday, verbally holding them to account for their role in the abortion policies in the state that almost killed her. Hosts of The New Abnormal politics podcast, Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie, got to unpack her testimony in this bonus episode of the show, and they had a lot to say, too. The hosts also listen to more clips and make fun of other Republicans, including Sen. Ron Johnson who they listen to making the most idiotic case for climate change that they’ve ever heard. Plus! Cindy Cohn, the Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, chats with Andy about whether or not individual states can really ban TikTok, if a ban would actually protect against China getting Americans’ information, and one particular piece of legislation that could turn the private conversations you have online into not-so-private ones.
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These Are the Five States Competing to Be the Biggest Trans Haters
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This May Have Been Tucker Carlson’s Biggest Mistake
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Inside Trumpworld Hero Ali Alexander’s Teen Sexting Scandal
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Rupert Murdoch Is Still a Billionaire. He Won.
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Clarence Thomas Is a ‘Grifting Faucet You Can’t Turn Off’
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MAGA ‘Loser’ Wants It to Be Illegal for Women to Own Dogs
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Tucker Carlson Laid Down to Donald Trump During Humiliating Fox Interview
On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, Tucker Carlson’s humiliating Trump turnaround,. Plus! Rolling Stone culture writer Miles Klee talks to us about the myth that when corporations go woke, they go broke and Daily Beast politics reporter Ursula Perano talks to us about Montana Republicans' big plan.
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Michael Flynn’s Boomer Moment Got a Trump Prayer Call Hacked
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Trump and This Murdering KKK Cannibal Have a Lot in Common
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What Prosecutors Need to Prove to Nail Trump With a Felony
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The Worst Thing That Can Happen If Trump Beats These Charges
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Betsy DeVos Is Still Making Moves to Destroy Public Schools
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You Don’t Get More Reality TV Trash Than Donald Trump’s Indictment
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What Ron DeSantis Is Counting On to Beat Trump
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What Trump Learned About Manipulation From Pal Vince McMahon
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Did Anyone Other Than Trump Say He Was Going to be Indicted?
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Trump’s Arrest for Stormy Case Is ‘Beginning of the Fall’
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The Truth about Those ‘Classified’ Biden and Trump Docs
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What Conservative Author Bethany Mandel’s Viral Flub Taught Us About ‘Woke’
On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan talk to us about this week’s viral moment surrounding conservative “woke” critic, Bethany Mandel. Plus, New York Times bestselling author and policy advocate Heather McGee talks about the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and how we got here.
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How the Silicon Valley Bank Implosion Leads Back to Trump
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), a congressman representing New York’s 10th district and former lead counsel during Trump impeachment hearings, spells out the link between Trump and the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank—and what frustrates him the most when it comes to the GOP attacks on Hunter Biden. Also on the podcast: Dan Primack, business editor at Axios, breaks down the Silicon Valley bank collapse from a logistical standpoint, including the biggest difference between this SVB situation and the 2008 bank bailout. Plus! Primark shares a Taylor Swift analogy that’ll help you understand what makes bank runs unavoidable.
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Kimberly Guilfoyle Is Just Another ‘Grifting Ass Republican’
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Tucker Carlson Went Too Far and Even Republicans Know it
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Capitol Police Officers Could Be the Key to Nailing Trump
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The Time Jimmy Carter Played White Supremacists for Fools
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The One Word Fox News Channel Needs to Drop
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Tucker Carlson Thinks Ohio Train Tracks Are Anti-White
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Hannity, ‘National Divorce’ Backer, Forgets He’s a New Yorker
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Man Who Lost Narrow Race to Lauren Boebert Plots Redemption Run
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This ‘Terrifying’ Court Case Could Change Abortion Access - Again
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Inside QAnon’s Rise and How Trump Became It’s God Emperor
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The DOJ Is Coming for Donald Trump Quicker Than Ever
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‘Anti-Woke’ Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy May Be The Next Big Right-Wing Star
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How Twitter Hearing Turned into a Dumpster Fire for GOP
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America Has Never Seen a House Speaker With a Limper Gavel
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The Greatest Threat the United States Faces Is Coming From Within
On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, David Rothkopf, CEO of the Rothkopf Group and the host of the podcast Deep State Radio talks Trump and Putin. Then, a look at China’s spy balloon and the ensuing hysteria with Spencer Ackerman.
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The Mob Boss Tactic Trump Uses to Keep People From Flipping
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The One Lie That Will Get George Santos in the End
On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, The Daily Beast politics editor Matt Fuller talks to us about what could bring down George Santos, then Judd Legum, who writes the Popular Information Newsletter, tells us what’s going on with Ron DeSantis in the schools.
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How Trump Fulfilled Barr’s Bloodthirsty Death Penalty Dreams
Donald Trump and his former Attorney General Bill Barr were, and still are, out for blood, literally. In this episode of The New Abnormal podcast Rolling Stone reporter Asawin “Swin” Suebsaeng talks with co-host Andy Levy about what a bloodlusty Bill Barr told him and his co-writer about his and Trump’s record-setting death row killing spree in his final months in office, and what we can expect from Trump on capital punishment should he become president again in 2024. Also on this episode: Khalil Gibran Muhammad, professor of history, race and public policy at Harvard Kennedy School and co-host of the Pushkin podcast Some of My Best Friends Are…, tells co-host Danielle Moodie the one thing that needs to happen to stop police brutality, and murder, happening once and for all, and it comes down to this group of people. For better or worse. Plus! Andy and Danielle share their thoughts on Fox News’ “disgusting” coverage of the Tyre Nichols murder and Danielle explains why the race of murderous cops really doesn’t matter.
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Trump Should Not Trust a VP Marjorie Taylor Greene
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Nothing Has Changed Since Sandy Hook and That’s a Damn Shame
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The Real Reason McCarthy Put Santos on the Science Committee
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There Is Nothing Independent About Kyrsten Sinema
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The 87-Page Document That Should Have Sunk George Santos
On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, Robert Zimmerman, who lost in the general election to George Santos, describes exactly what happened. Then, Frederick Ingram, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers, talks about why Rhon DeSantis is trying to get African studies out of AP classes. Then, Frederick Ingram, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation's second-largest teachers' union, discusses Florida’s ban on an AP African American Studies class.
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Buttigieg Could’ve Improved Airline Issues And Just…Didn’t
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Two Reasons Vince McMahon Would Sell WWE to the Saudis
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Why Lachlan Murdoch Is Even Scarier Than His Father Rupert
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One Theory for Why Bolsonaro Is In Florida
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George Santos’ Sketchiness Isn’t Ending Any Time Soon
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Kevin McCarthy Is Proof You Don’t Negotiate With Terrorists
Kevin McCarthy is being held hostage. Sorta. Kurt Bardella, a Los Angeles Times columnist and former House Oversights Committee staffer on the Republican side, joins this episode of TNA to chat with Danielle Moodie all about the GOP Speaker of the House shit show happening right now, starting with a big question from Danielle: How the hell did we get here? Bardella has some ideas, including very colorful language to describe the “bunch of ass clowns” leading this charge. Plus, Rep. Mondaire Jones also joins the pod to discuss the so-called “Never Kevin-ers” like Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert—and the real reason he thinks that Republicans are embarrassed by George Santos.
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2023 Will Finally Be the Year of Accountability for Donald Trump
This week, The New Abnormal is joined by Mary Trump, the author and podcast host who, yes, also happens to be a family member of the twice-impeached ex-commander-in-chief. She’s been sounding the alarm on the dangers of Donald Trump’s actions for years now—and cautions close watchers of the former president’s legal troubles to not get ahead of themselves when it comes to the cases currently brewing. “Although there is some sense of poetic justice that we seem to have reached, you could call it a tipping point—and I said this a long time ago—it's going to be, and I mean this figuratively of course, death by a thousand lashes,’ Mary Trump said. “So even though it looks bad on paper and isn't really having much of an impact—well, I'm sure it's having a lot of an impact on his mood—but it's not having any impact on his ability to roam free in the world.”
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Proof that Republicans Know Exactly How Racist They Are
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Why It’s ‘Fine’ If Brett Kavanaugh and Matt Gaetz Hang Out
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The Most Absurd Republican Temper Tantrums This Year
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Your Fav Comedians Want You to Shut Up About Cancel Culture
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The Year Elon Musk and Dave Chappelle Almost Killed Comedy
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Watching the Last Jan. 6 Hearing Was Utterly ‘Heartbreaking’
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If a Recession Is Coming, We Have a Few Months
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Mark Meadows' 2,300 Juicy Election Texts Revealed
The investigative reporter sifting through the unbelievable treasure trove of texts that the January 6th committee obtained from former White House chief of staff Mark Meadow’s phone has detailed what he found inside the 2,319 messages. “There’s just a ton of different people in there,” Hunter Walker, reporter for Talking Points Memo, told host Andy Levy on this week’s episode of political podcast, The New Abnormal. Next up on the podcast, Layshia Clarendon, who is the first openly non-binary player in the WNBA, describes what was going through her mind when she heard that Brittney Griner (BG) was arrested in Russia and taken into custody. “It was like the ground underneath me just fell,” Clarendon tells podcast co-host Danielle Moodie.
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Kyrsten Sinema’s Ex-Friend Has Proof She’s ‘Calculated’
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Laura Ingraham Is Mad at Everyone But Hershel Walker
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This School Board Member Can’t Stomach Ron DeSantis’ ‘Insanity’
Ron DeSantis’ war on public education is going national. At least that’s the fear of Jennifer Jenkins, a member of the Brevard County School Board, one of several Florida school boards that have undergone a rightward shift. The county’s highly accomplished superintendent, Mark Mullins, was essentially pushed out this month after candidates backed by the conservative group Moms for Liberty won election. Also in his episode, Daniel Nichanian, editor-in-chief of Bolts magazine, which focuses on local government and local elections, reveals just how good this past election was for Democrats. And co-host Danielle Moodie breaks down Sen. Raphael Warnock’s victory over scandal-scarred Herschel Walker in the Georgia Senate election. You can listen for yourself, but let’s just say she thinks “the force” was with him.
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Kanye’s ‘Presidential Campaign’ Is A Complete Mess
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Pulse Shooting Survivor Tells How to Make Anti-LGBT Pols Pay
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This Group Gets Unlimited Sick Leave While You Don’t
A group of senators with unlimited sick leave voted down a measure on Thursday which would have given rail workers just seven paid days of sick leave—, a fair rise considering where they currently stand: at zero. It’s a “horrific” decision, according to host Andy Levy on this week’s episode of political podcast, The New Abnormal. “My feeling is this is not a win,” said podcast co-host Danielle Moodie. “I don’t know who this is a win for. We all just went through the heights of a global health pandemic. People lost their jobs, people needed to take off because guess what? We needed to quarantine. So the fact that even after going through this for over three years, that members of Congress could vote to deny people access to sick days, it’s draconian, it’s disgusting.” Also on the podcast, Latosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter and is founder of Southern Black Girls Consortium tells Moodie about the Georgia runoff race as it finally nears an end. Then, Daily Beast political reporter, Roger Sollenberger, talks to Levy about his story surrounding Republican megadonors Dick and Elizabeth Uihlein.
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Steve Bannon Is Just Jealous He's Been Replaced by Trump
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20 Questions With Danielle Moodie & Andy Levy
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What You Don’t Know About the FBI Director Who Targeted MLK
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Merrick Garland Is Just Helping Trump Run Out the Clock
Merrick Garland is wasting our time. That’s the sentiment of New Abnormal co-host Andy Levy and the show’s brand new permanent co-host, Danielle Moodie. This is Danielle’s first show as official host and she wasted absolutely no time going in on Republicans, Trump, and even Merrick Garland. The two also talk about Garland’s new appointment and their frustrations with the lack of action on gun control on the heels of another shooting, this time against more LGBTQ people in Colorado. Then Maxwell Frost, who will be the first Gen Z member of Congress, joined the podcast and shares his “morbid” but real take on gun violence in this country, what almost made his quit his campaign, and how he truly feels about his state’s governor “dictator” Ron DeSantis. Plus! Ryan Cooper, the managing editor of the American Prospect, tells Andy why Trump running for president again is the “worst case scenario” for Republicans.
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‘Modern Family’ Producer: Dave Chapelle Is ‘Thin-Skinned One’
In this bonus episode of The New Abnormal podcast, co-host Andy Levy talks to Modern Family producer Danny Zucker, who weighs in on the Dave Chapelle SNL monologue that used the same anti-semitic tropes as Kanye West. They also discuss the time that he harassed Donald Trump on Twitter, why he wants to “rage” at Dems, and why the writer’s made Luke’s character “weirdly libertarian.” Plus! A touching story about how the show made a conservative dad less of a bigot.
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The Devious Reason Trump Announced His 2024 Run Now
Donald Trump’s 2024 announcement may have felt like a flop, but dig deeper and you’ll find the most interesting part. Jose Pagliery, political investigations reporter at The Daily Beast, tells The New Abnormal host Andy Levy that there is no way to look at this announcement “as anything other than an attempt to mar any prosecution as a political persecution of him.” It “could be viewed as him trying to seek further cover so that if he does get indicted for one of the many things that he’s being investigated for right now, he could just say, ‘oh, look at this, they just indicted me because I announced, they were just trying to stop me from winning for you in 2024.’” Speaking of Trump, also on the podcast, former Missouri Secretary of State and the host of the podcast Majority 54, Jason Kander, explains that Trump could be his worst enemy, becoming overexposed in American culture. Also on the podcast, Kat Abughazaleh, who covers Tucker Carlson for Media Matters for America, describes how Carlson has been relatively quiet since Trump’s announcement.
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The Cuomo Crony Helping Republicans Win in New York
No one really likes New York State Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs, Lindsey Boylan tells host Andy Levy on this episode of The New Abnormal podcast. Boylan was one of the first people to publicly accuse former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment. Now, she feels equally emboldened to call out Jacobs, a remnant of the Cuomo administration, first on TikTok, and now to Andy. According to Boylan, Jacobs is to blame for solidly Democratic parts of New York turning red. Mainly because of his hatred for progressives. Plus! Andy chats midterm fallout with columnist Jeb Lund and both clock all of the lies, sad and hilarious, that Elon Musk has Tweeted (and deleted) on the app. And David Weigel, who covers politics at news site Semafor, explains how Fox News essentially screwed over midterm Republicans and the LGBTQ issue Republicans won’t touch these days.
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Conan Sidekick Andy Richter Is Totally Team Cancel Culture
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Why Trump Would Easily Crush DeSantis in Battle Today
If former President Donald Trump were to go against popular Florida Governor Ron DeSantis today in the race for 2024, Trump would still knock DeSantis out despite the far-right Gov.’s rise in popularity in important states over the last year. That’s according to CNN political commentator and New York Daily News columnist S.E. Cupp, who joins host Andy Levy on this week’s episode of political podcast, The New Abnormal. Elsewhere on this-post election-themed podcast, guest host Sam Brodey, the Daily Beast’s congressional correspondent, reflects on how we underestimated what Democrats were working with regarding what really resonated with voters. Elsewhere on this-post election-themed podcast, guest host Sam Brodey, the Daily Beast’s congressional correspondent, reflects on how we underestimated what Democrats were working with regarding what really resonated with voters. Ari Berman, Mother Jones National Voting Rights correspondent and author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, echoes those thoughts, reminding us that “this was the first time in US history that a constitutional right had been given and taken away.”
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This Is When Trump’s Staffers Realized He Was Out of Control
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Patton Oswalt Thinks We’re About to Hit a ‘Dangerous’ Point
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Joe Biden and the Democrats Fail to Fight Days Before Midterm Battle Begins
President Biden’s Wednesday speech at Union Station in D.C. where he warned of the perils facing US democracy ahead of next week’s Midterms just wasn’t forceful enough, according to host Andy Levy on this week’s episode of political podcast, The New Abnormal. In his speech, Biden made reference to the hammer attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul last week, warning the country faces escalating threats of political violence. He also criticized Donald Trump over the former president’s refusal “to accept the results of the 2020 election.” But it wasn’t enough, according to Levy and guest host Josie Duffy Rice, who writes about prisons and prosecution at The Unnamed. Also on the podcast, Mike Isaac, a technology correspondent for The New York Times discusses whether Twitter can survive under Elon Musk’s ownership. Then, Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters, discusses how Republicans twisted the story of Paul Pelosi’s hammer attack from a crime story to a national conspiracy; that the violent assault was the result of some sort of gay lover’s spat or falling out.
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Why It’s Totally Possible for Jon Stewart to Be President
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Comedian Tim Heidecker Thinks Joe Rogan’s Show Is ‘Boring’
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Michael Cohen: Trump’s Too Scared of Losing to Run in 2024
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How Tucker Carlson Is Making MAGA World Turn on Each Other
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Iranian Protestors Are Dying ‘Final Destination’ Style
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Marjorie Taylor Greene Is the Brawler the MAGA Base Wants
Marjorie Taylor Greene “came out of nowhere” to become one of the Republican Party’s most influential powerhouses, journalist and author Robert Draper, who writes for the New York Times Magazine, tells host Andy Levy in this week’s episode of The New Abnormal. “Republicans kind of wanted to kick her to the curb immediately,” Draper, author of the new book Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost its Mind, said. Then, professor at the University of Florida Michael McDonald, who specializes in American elections and is the author of a new book, From Pandemic to Insurrection: Voting in the 2020 US Presidential Election, says Trump’s refusal to accept that he lost the 2020 election has dramatically altered American politics. Also on the podcast, guest co-host Maura Quint, Tax March co-founder and member of Americans for Tax Fairness, reveals what America could learn from Liz Truss.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene Isn’t Joking. She’s Pushing ‘War’.
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Comic’s Comic Andy Kindler: ‘Manipulative’ Louis C.K. Got What He Deserved
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‘Not a Prayer in Hell’ Trump Will Appear at Jan. 6 Committee
The odds of Donald Trump actually showing up to testify under oath at the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attacks are not great, according to Andy Levy on this week’s episode of political podcast The New Abnormal. “Less than zero,” says cohost Kali Holloway, a columnist at The Daily Beast and The Nation. “I think that the panel’s probably aware that he’s not gonna show up, but I think this is the kind of thing that they have to do just to sort of, for lack of a better phrase, show they mean business.” Matt Fuller, senior politics editor at The Daily Beast echoes concerns Trump won’t show up.“He probably won’t do anything with [the subpoena], and I can’t imagine he’s going to sit down for the January 6th committee,” he said. “It could be a court fight, but more likely than not, it’ll just be a nothing burger.” Also on the podcast, Justin Baragona, media reporter at The Daily Beast, reveals how Fox News management and Tucker Carlson are very interested in finding out who leaked the deleted Kanye West interview footage to Vice. “They definitely want to know who it is and, and there will be repercussions, is what I would assume,” Baragona said.
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What It Will Take to Make AOC the Next Bernie Sanders
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Tucker Carlson Is Obsessed with Smearing Trans People
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A Fascinating Detail in the Herschel Walker Saga
The Daily Beast reporter who broke the story of Herschel Walker paying for a girlfriend’s abortion has provided behind-the-scenes details and thoughts on the case. Politics reporter Roger Sollenberger pointed to the key detail in the cobweb of Walker stories to host Andy Levy on this week’s episode of political podcast The New Abnormal: the woman behind the allegations. Speaking of the potential political ramifications for Walker, guest podcast host Josie Duffy Rice, who writes about prisons and prosecution at The Unnamed, told Levy that while the abortion bombshell could swing the vote, it is unlikely to make Republicans switch. Then, Mark Joseph Stern, senior writer at Slate Magazine who covers court and law, describes how the Supreme Court is blowing up Law School too. “The court has become, in many ways, corrupted by the political process and so just delivers these decisions that fall perfectly in line with the platform,” he says.
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What Trump Hates the Most About Mitch McConnell
Trump can hold a grudge, Daily Beast reporter Corbin Bolies tells Andy Levy on this episode of The New Abnormal podcast, and he’s not wrong. “Donald Trump knows how to hold a grudge and he will, and we've seen that continue throughout the last year and a half, because Donald Trump has consistently attacked Mitch McConnell,” Bolies says, discussing the most recent verbal harassment levied at the former Majority Leader’s wife, Elaine Chao, in the form of blatantly racist name-calling on his Truth Social platform. Also on this episode: Hannah Gais, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, joins this episode to co-host with Andy, touching upon the intense violent threats against Dems and Marjorie Taylor Green’s try-hard effort to get Republicans to think the threats are for them. Plus! Daily Beast far-right reporter and Fever Dreams podcast co-host Kelly Weill breaks down a huge schism happening within the libertarian party, including how the old Libertarians totally over these new Libertarians’ toxicity. Like, beyond Trumpy toxic.
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The Scariest Part of the Proud Boys Isn’t The Violence
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Is Tucker Carlson a True Believer?
Is Tucker Carlson really a true believer in the MAGA world? Has he taken a dive too deep in the Republican rabbit hole? Or is this all just a performance for the ratings? For the money? For the clout? It’s a vexing question, according to host Andy Levy on this week’s episode of political podcast The New Abnormal. “We’ve had many conversations about the performative aspect of this and trying to figure out who we think are true believers,” Levy says to guest, the author and CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp. Also on the podcast, Levy talks to guest podcast host Maura Quint, co-founder of Tax March and the campaign director for Americans for Tax Fairness, about a recent Gallup poll finding that trust in the Supreme Court is at a record low. Then Levy tells Daily Beast politics reporter Zachary Petrizzo that the only surprising part of that New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman’s new Trump book was that Trump aides were apparently taken aback by his crude, transphobic behavior.
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Everyone Should Be ‘Terrified’ of What’s Happening In Europe
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Election Officials Have the Same Worst Fear for The Midterms
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The Only Two People Holding Trump Accountable Are Not Men
New Abnormal hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy reveal who is really taking on Trump and talk to politics reporter Asawin Suebsaeng for the scoop on Dr. Oz’s latest fight. Despite continued allegations of fraud and obstruction of justice claims against Donald Trump, somehow, there are still only two people continuing to call the former president out—and neither on is a man. Also on the podcast, Matt Fuller, senior politics editor at The Daily Beast, explains how Democrats have something to push voters to the polls: abortion. “That’s the big animating factor for Democrats,” Fuller says.
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How Mike Lindell Got Boxed In at the Hardee’s Drive-Thru
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was going through a Hardee’s drive-thru after ordering a burger and chocolate shake when he was approached by the FBI. That’s according to Daily Beast politics reporter Zachary Petrizzo, who has more details of the FBI’s seizure of Lindell’s phone while he was at a Hardee’s restaurant last week. “I had heard from Mike that he ended up ordering a Swiss burger with a chocolate shake,” Petrizzo tells hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy on this episode of political podcast The New Abnormal. Also on the podcast, Iuliia Mendel, former press secretary to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and author of the new book The Fight of Our Lives, discusses what it was like meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time.
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How Online Trolls Left Justine Bateman Feeling ‘Messed Up’
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The Bad Part of Being a Lawyer in Trump World
As his legal woes pile up, it’s no secret that former President Donald Trump has employed more than a handful of lawyers in his time. David Enrich, a business investigations editor at The New York Times and author of the new book, Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice, tells hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy on this episode of The New Abnormal that it’s certainly a pattern. Also on the podcast, G. Elliot Morris, data-driven journalist and author of the book, Strength in Numbers: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them, describes the “pretty complex” world of polling and sampling.
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Trump Is Like the Kid at Disney World Who Refuses to Go Home
Just when you thought Donald Trump couldn’t get any worse, new revelations prove Trump was even worse than we thought, according to hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy on this episode of The New Abnormal. Also on the podcast, Michael Tomasky, editor of The New Republic as well as Democracy Journal and author of the new book, The Middle Out: The Rise of Progressive Economics and a Return to Shared Prosperity, talks about how the Democrats can shape their message around progressive politics to win. (Tomasky is also a former special correspondent and editor at the Daily Beast.) Then, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) talks about her reelection bid and her wacky opponent, Adam Laxalt.
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Trump Perfected It, But GOP Has Long Courted The Crazy Vote
Donald Trump often gets credit for his Rumpelstiltskin-like ability to spin the most demented parts of the American psyche into political gold. But in his new book, American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How The Republican Party Went Crazy, David Corn traces the lineage of the GOP’s love of lunatics all the way back to the 1950s and says Trump is just the latest in a long line of morally bankrupt politicians willing to use the chaotic crazy generated by the darkest parts of society to fuel their ambitions. “Far Right extremism, including paranoia, racism, tribalism, conspiracy theories, … what we’ve seen under Donald Trump is nothing new. It might be the culmination, it’s not an aberration,” Corn said. Corn, a veteran journalist, author and Washington bureau chief of Mother Jones, joined the political podcast The New Abnormal to explain just how American brains became so broken.
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Britain in ‘Real Trouble’ After Queen Elizabeth’s Death
Queen Elizabeth is an important cultural mascot in a way that Americans can’t understand and her death will have more implications for Great Britain and the world than simply who will take over the monarchy.
That’s according to Ian Dunt, columnist at the ‘i’ newspaper and host of the podcasts, Oh God, What Now? and Origin Story, who tells hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy on this episode of political podcast The New Abnormal that the country faces multiple crises as it deals with the queen’s death. Also on the podcast Douglas Rushkoff, author of the new book, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, describes his experience talking to some very rich people about the “event.”
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Why Trump Refused To Make Giuliani His Secretary of State
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A Deep Dive Into The Way Trump Talks—and Why It Works
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George Conway: ‘Any Fair Jury’ Would Convict Trump Now
In this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy discuss Trump’s legal jeopardy with George Conway and whether he will ever be sent to prison, and then check in to discuss the infamous Mar-a-Lago carpet documents. The ultimate question remains, according to Jong-Fast; will Trump ever go to jail? “I can’t guarantee it, but there’s a reasonable likelihood of it,” Washington Post contributing columnist George Conway told Jong-Fast. Then, Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) , who represents Virginia's seventh congressional district and who is a former CIA case officer, delves into the image of Mar-a-Lago carpet documents. “I can’t make predictions on what comes next, but certainly as a former Intel officer, I can say that if anyone I ever worked with had a collection of documents like this at their home, there’s no question of what would've happened to them.”
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Lindsey Graham Just Made a Subtle Terroristic Threat NBD
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Ron DeSantis Going Full Trump Won’t Work
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This Group’s Vote Will Ultimately Decide the Midterms
The upcoming midterms will depend on the voices and votes of those in the suburbs, according to hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy on this episode of The New Abnormal. After a key win for Democrats in New York’s 19th Congressional District, where Pat Ryan defeated Republican Marc Molinaro in Tuesday’s special election, Levy says that despite the bad news for the party, the Dems still need the suburban vote to get them across the line. Then, Dahlia Lithwick, who writes about the courts and the law for Slate and hosts the podcast Amicus, talks former President Donald Trump’s little dust-up with the National Archives. This week, Politico revealed that the Archives had recovered more than 700 pages of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago in January and that federal investigators were concerned “by Trump’s resistance to sharing them with the FBI.” Also, Max Fisher, who writes The Interpreter column for The New York Times and is the author of The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World, discusses how social media “is distorting you in ways that you are probably not quite aware of.”
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Does Dr. Oz’s Team Hate Him or Are They Bad at Their Jobs?
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Afghanistan Vet Elliot Ackerman: Why We Should Bring the Draft Back
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Liz Cheney Running for President Is Absurd
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A Theory for Why Trump Kept Those Classified Documents
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Blame Newt Gingrich for Today’s Lying MAGA Republicans
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The One Sentence Republicans Need to Stop Using
As former President Donald Trump endured one of his worst weeks yet, Republicans have been on our TV screens taking aim at everyone else—but themselves. On this episode of The New Abnormal, hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy talk Trump and the sentence Republicans need to stop repeating. Then, Tim O’Brien, senior executive editor of opinion at Bloomberg, joins the show and reveals what he finds most compelling in the “ridiculous sideshow” that’s emerged in the wake of the search: “which is that he’s being unfairly targeted and that this is political. Also, Dr. Iman Alsaden, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood Great Plains, talks about what it’s like in post-Roe America.
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Schumer: Manchin Didn’t Want to Be Reason the Globe Burns
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Kal Penn Got ‘Schooled’ by Barack Obama and ‘Weirded Out’ Michelle
Actor and former White House adviser Kal Penn recalls the moment he spectacularly failed to outsmart the former president and how he was humiliated in front of the first lady.
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The ‘Pissed Off’ Kansas Women Who Told Abortion Foes to Shove It
On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, Levy, along with host Molly Jong-Fast, discuss the conservative state’s rejection of the anti-abortion measure after nearly 60 per cent of voters dismissed the move. Then, Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of Media Matters, debunks a study by Nielsen media research claiming that the top rated news show among Democrats between 25 and 54 is Tucker Carlson. The study says that in total debut viewership, Fox news grabs 42% of Democrats. Also, The Daily Beast’s congressional reporter Sam Brodey discusses how the Senate and Congressional map is changing to a more optimistic map for Dems.
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Marine Senate Candidate Lucas Kunce Thinks Republicans Are ‘Enemy’ of People
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How Ken Auletta Helped Ronan Farrow Nail Harvey Weinstein
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Should Democrats Bother Going on Fox News?
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What Makes DeSantis Scarier Than Trump
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Inside the Maternal Morbidity Crisis Facing Black Women
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The REALLY Shocking Moment From the Jan. 6 Hearing
The news from Thursday night’s Jan. 6 committee hearing that really struck Molly Jong-Fast was that instead of trying to stop the violence, Trump wanted to call senators and pressure them to throw out the election results or delay the certification. And of course he talked to Rudy Giuliani.“Rudy's always the first call you make because you gotta get the bad ideas from someone,” says co-host Andy Levy.
“I would not let Rudy Giuliani pick a pair of shoelaces for me. And this, the president of the United States, is turning to him for advice on elections.” Also on the show NBC's senior reporter Jon Allen & Mark Lobovitch on his new book Thank You For Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission.
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Republicans Now Have an ‘Incentive to Be Terrible’
After four years of Donald Trump and the ultimate hangover that ensued, has the Republican Party learned from its mistakes? Far from it, Molly Jong-Fast says on this episode of The New Abnormal podcast. “Trump definitely did something in the Republican Party. Right?” Molly asks. “They were always bad. They would do terrible things, but they would pretend not to be terrible. And now there’s like an incentive to be terrible. Like the people who are terrible actually raise the most money.” Still, Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones, who represents New York’s 17th District, says that while he faces an uphill battle against the Republicans and despite the disappointments of recent events, including the repeal of Roe v. Wade, there is hope on the horizon. Then, Tim Miller, MSNBC analyst and the author of Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell, reflects on what he learned about the Republican Party.
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This 80s Song Helped Gabby Giffords Speak After Getting Shot
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Just Imagine What It’s Like to Be Anywhere Near Trump Right Now
It's been a big week in politics with revelations galore from the Jan. 6 House committee. Former President Donald Trump's attempts at stopping the peaceful transfer of power has been the talk of the town and this week's admissions at the committee are a "pretty big deal", notes Molly Jong-Fast on this episode of The New Abnormal podcast. But it's not all bad news. Speaking with Jong-Fast, former presidential candidate and independent candidate for the Utah Senate, Evan McMullin, reveals that he is seeing "a weakening in Trump support across the country". Then, Mary Trump, host of the Mary Trump show and the author of Too Much and Never Enough, revealed she found the revelations surrounding the "vast web of people" covering for her Uncle...."at times difficult to process".
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The One Thing That’ll Actually Get Steve Bannon To Testify
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Jason Kander’s First VA Psych Visit Was Both Sad & Hilarious
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The Moment Gretchen Carlson Knew She Needed to Expose Ailes
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Why U.S. Should Brace For a Rise in Green Fascism
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Jerry Stahl Was Mistaken for ‘Kramer’ While at Auschwitz
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GOP Knows It’s ‘Hanging On by a Thread’ in a Post-Roe World
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Nancy Pelosi Is Gonna Need to Do Better than a Poem
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This David Duchovny Theory on Aliens Makes a Lot of Sense
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This Is How to Impeach a Supreme Court Justice
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Which (Alleged) Crime Did Matt Gaetz Want a Pardon For?
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Biden Told ‘Be Bold’ In Order to ‘Save the Republic’
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Katy Tur’s Relationship With Keith Olbermann ‘Haunted’ Her
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Trump Lied, and Pence Could Have Died
The New Abnormal hosts recorded late, after the Jan. 6 committee's latest blockbuster hearing, where, co-host Andy Levy says, “We found out today that the mob in the capital came within 40 feet of [Vice President Pence] at one point while they were transporting him to the secure location. That sounds pretty terrifying considering, we have to remember, this is the mob that was chanting “Hang Mike Pence.’”
Later, co-host Molly Jong Fast says,”I feel like the top line is when did the president know and what did he know it? He knew it, and he still tried to do it.” Indeed, says senior NBC News politics reporter and co-author of Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency, “I think that it may be a mistake to look at anything that happened as particularly accidental. I'm always sort of torn a little bit when I talk to voters who are kind of like Jan. 6 deniers, because I think most of them aren't denying that Trump was trying to hold power. I think they're denying that it was bad.”
Plus, Daily Beast and New York Magazine contributing writer Jay Michaelson breaks down the Ginni Thomas-John Eastman mess: “If this is not an impeachable offense for a Supreme court justice if what we've come out in evidence is true” then what would be? “This is the most impeachable offense I've ever seen in my entire life. I mean, this is not a gray area case. This is unbelievable.… John Eastman, one of the somewhat more crazy lawyers who tried to overturn the 2020 election said at one point that there seems to be a heated fight underway among the justices. And that's interesting. I don't know how he actually knew that, but now it seems that he knew that from actually being in touch with Ginni Thomas, the wife of one of the justices,” Clarence Thomas, “who is also a well-known conservative activist.” And, “if true, disclosing secret, confidential, and to put it mildly, highly sensitive deliberations of the Supreme Court justices to somebody who he knows—his wife—is closely involved with the effort to overturn the election. And it's fine that they have separate careers and they have separate lives. That's fine. But you know, Molly, if I disclose this to you, we don't have to be married for me to realize that that would probably be a problem, right? That disclosing to somebody with a close degree of not just interest but actual active participation in this effort, which is overturning an election, right, which is trying to mount some sort of a coup. So even if this was some boring insurance transaction that we were involved in, this would be a massive violation of judicial ethics. And the fact that it took place in the context of Jan. 6 is beyond shocking.”
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Jared Knows Jail Is Real. Do Ivanka and the Failsons?
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What James Patterson Remembers from Dinner With the Clintons
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Liz Cheney Is Ready to Follow Donald Trump to the Gates of Hell
The Jan. 6 hearing was everything it had to be, The New Abnormal co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy agreed—and Republicans knew it. Liz Cheney, said Molly, in a conversation recorded just after the prime-time hearing ended, “is an extremely good speaker you can tell will follow Donald J. Trump to the gates of Hell.” So as the damning case was laid out, the MAGA set did their best to pretend it simply wasn’t happening. Plus: Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer talks about “why Democrats keep losing the messaging war,” his new book Battling the Big Lie: How Fox, Facebook and the MAGA Media Are Destroying America and the “decades-long billionaire funded plan to build up an alternate information bubble,” and Ian Bremmer, author of The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats – and Our Response – Will Change the World explains that there are four now: the pandemic, global climate change, “the proliferation of disruptive and dangerous technologies, and now you have the Russians invading Ukraine and a war in Europe.”
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Donald Trump Is No Longer the Kingmaker He Thinks He Still Is
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Parkland Dad Fred Guttenberg on the Day His Life ‘Shattered’
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Time for Democrats to Stop Triangulating and Go Hard or Go Home
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Republicans Are Getting Really ‘Sick’ of Trump’s ‘Bitching’
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George Carlin’s Daughter Says He’d ‘Roll Eyes’ at Far Right
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Gov. Abbott Is Bullsh*tting About Mental Health Reform
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Kellyanne ‘Glorifies Trump’ but Skewers Jared and Her Hubby
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The German Billionaires With a Grotesque Anti-Semitic History
Nazi Billionaires author David de Jong joins this bonus episode The New Abnormal to discuss the findings from his book, including the ugly, anti-semitic history of German oligarchs, including the family who owns the German car brand BMW. Plus, co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy discuss Kevin McCarthy’s latest witch hunt that somehow involves Nancy Pelosi and Peloton and roast George W. Bush and Justice Clarence Thomas for being really bad at telling jokes.
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Is the Supreme Court About to Turn New York Into the Wild West?
It’s another week chock full of Republican fuckery, and The New Abnormal is all over it, including a tough interview with Bryan Jones the Republican trying to take down creepy Matt Gaetz in Florida’s first Congressional District, and starting with a conversation between co-hosts Molly Jong Fast and Andy Levy about how Republicans seem more interested in capitalizing on the baby formula shortage to score points against Biden than they are in fixing it and, you know, making sure babies can get fed. Then Jay Willis, the editor in chief of Balls and Strikes warns Molly that the looming Roe reversal its just the start, and that “a lot of the backlash to this opinion has also dealt with not only the disastrous consequences for women, folks who may become pregnant but also for its really unnerving hints about where the Court could go in the future. Roe is not enough for Samuel Alito, who’s got all kinds of accumulated culture war grievances to air.”
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Stefanik’s Replacement Theory Talk Led to a Day of Infamy
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Trump Is Wrong About Everything Except Mitch McConnell
Hosts Andy Levy and Molly Jong-Fast listen to audio clips of unhinged Republicans, including one of Donald Trump crapping on Mitch McConnell’s popularity, and they agreed with him, sorta. Plus! Molly and Andy ask important questions about Dinesh D’Souza’s election-fraud conspiracy film, “2000 Mules,” and Karen Elson, model and fashion activist, tells Molly about her work to unionize models in the fashion industry and the hazards they do face at work.
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What If Elon Musk’s Twitter Grab Is All ‘a Big Fugazi’?
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Elon Musk Wants to Run Twitter So He Can Have Friends
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That Time a House Democrat Called Pelosi a ‘Terrible Person’
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Where the Right Will Strike Next After Its Big Abortion Win
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Pour One Out for Jared Kushner’s Ghostwriter
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Senator Smeared as ‘Groomer’ Has Message for Suburban Moms w/ Sen. Mallory McMorrow
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Here's What the Hell Joe Manchin Is Doing
nathan Kott, who worked for Joe Manchin for seven-and-a-half years, joins The New Abnormal, and co-host Molly Jong-Fast gets right to the point: "Are you surprised by what you're seeing right now" from the West Virginia Senator?"No," says Kott. "He's the exact same person he's always been. It's just he's getting more attention in the last year than I think he had before." Plus, Molly and co-host Andy Levy run through even more Republican fuckery, starting with Trump's fear of fruit. "If you're that worried about tomatoes, I guess you just assume that everything is very dangerous and you might as well give everyone guns' jokes Molly.
Finally, Marc Caputo of NBC explains what's happening in the great state of Florida, where "conservatives are a lot more Trumpy "now. "In 2016 when Donald Trump won people thought it was a fluke. And then in 2018, when Ron DeSantis won by less than half a point, they're like, 'okay, Andrew Gillum, his gubernatorial opponent was a flawed opponent. And then in 2020, Donald Trump won so big here by a bigger margin than Obama did in 2008 and that kind of got conservatives or Republicans to realize, 'there is nothing to fear from Democrats anymore in Florida, let's keep pushing the envelope.' And so that's where we are. We're in some serious envelope pushing."
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Ivanka Got Real Quiet Real Fast in the Group Text After Nov. 6
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Sen. Schatz Says Yelling at Hawley Was Like Yelling at ‘My Brothers’
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The MAGA Goon Squad Dug Themselves a Deep Hole After Jan. 6
In another jam-packed week of GOP fuckery, The New Abnormal co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy looks at look at the party’s profiles in cowardice, starting with the new revelations about House Minority “Leader” Kevin McCarthy cozying back up to Donald Trump and then shifting to Ron DeSantis’ anti-Disney jihad and what Molly calls the party’s new brand of “unpopular populism.”
No one is crying for Disney or its special tax status, says Andy, but it’s still nuts that “the government of Florida is now basically telling businesses, ‘just shut up and don't take any, you know, even the most milquetoast of stands” or we’re going to punish you even if you’re a company that brings the state billions in revenue a year. Then the Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger comes in to break down his recent reporting on the Maga Goon Squad’s new money woes, as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Madison Cawthorn, and Matt Gaetz collectively spent $275,000 more than they took in the first quarter of 2022. Plus, Gisele Barreto Fetterman, the second lady of Pennsylvania whose husband, John, is now running for the Senate, and the founder of the Free Story in Braddock, “actually the first free store in the country,” tells Molly how that came from “this idea that some of us have so much and some have so little and there's so much excess, and how can we bring all those worlds together to do good. I really believe in mutual aid and having people connect who maybe would otherwise think they don't have anything in common and the free store was a place where all of that could happen.”
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A Breakdown of That Tucker Carlson Testicle Video
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Putin’s Hunted Me Down All Over the World
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Jr. Was Up to His Ears in the Plot to Steal Daddy the Election
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What Trump’s Alleged Crimes and Costco Have in Common w/ Rep. Eric Swalwell
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The Dirty Little Secrets of Trump’s Pandemic Aid
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Trump Keeps Losing but the GOP Just Can’t Quit Him
It’s “a sea of performative moronics” ahead of the mid-terms, says New Abnormal Molly Jong-Fast, and we’re all drowning in it. Just look at “the cruelty, the stupidity and the racism” coming out of Texas right now, where Gov. Greg Abbott seems more interested in getting booked on Fox News than getting anything done. Then Jan. 6 committee member Jamie Raskin joins the pod to explain how Republicans transitioned from the party of Lincoln to the party of Trump, “a minority party, a shrinking minority party” that nonetheless “wants to get rid of Liz Cheney, who represents pretty big parts of the conservative Republican establishment. They want to get rid of Adam Kinzinger and Mitt Romney and so on because they don't follow the leader in the way that they're supposed to.”
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Ted Cruz Knew Exactly What He Was Doing Caping for Trump
You know who’s telling on themselves? The American conservatives cheering about Putin pal and proto-fascist Viktor Orban’s big re-election win in Hungary. “It’s a pretty good litmus test,” says The New Abnormal co-host Molly Jong. “If you are celebrating that, you're probably a bad guy, like the people who are still support Putin.” Speaking of people telling on themselves, Washington Post investigative reporter Michael Kranish joins the pod to run down his reporting on MAGA mutts Madison Cawthorn, Mo Brooks and the inimitably awful Ted Cruz, who somehow managed to escape much scrutiny for months into his pivotal role in pushing Trump’s big lie, and doing everything he could to stop Joe Biden from taking office. Plus, Press Run founder and editor Eric Boehlert explains to Molly why “the coverage of the Biden economy is unlike anything I’ve ever seen” as the press coverage “reeks of both sides.”
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Scientific Proof Hannity Can Make Republicans More Liberal
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There Might Be a Stupid Explanation for the 7-Hour Gap in Trump’s Phone Logs
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Did Big Lie Booster Mark Meadows Commit Voter Fraud?
Charles Bethea of the New Yorker joins to break down his reporting on all that, and to break down his recent scoop about the very unlikely ballot cast in 2020 by former Trump Chief of Staff and still Big Lie enthusiast Mark Meadows:
“He had recently sold in 2020 his and his wife’s house in the state, and as the election neared I think he wanted to vote in North Carolina, partly because he was thinking about and talking about running for Senate and you want to have a record of voting in the state where you run and he didn't own a property. So it looks like he did something that's still sort of inexplicable, but, and he hasn't given us a reason–” Plus New Lines Magazine editor and Daily Beast contributing editor rejoins the pod to explain what’s happening in Ukraine now, and why this refugee crisis has electrified the West in a way that the Syrian refugee crisis never quite did — including when Putin militarily intervened there.
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Trump Asked Kid Rock About North Korea and There Is No Bottom
Kid Rock of all damn people is boasting about how Donald Trump would call him up after Sarah Palin introduced him and Ted Nugest to the president, and ask things like “What do you think we could do about North Korea?” “I’m like, What? I don't think I'm qualified to answer this.” Then again, it could always be worse with this set. As Molly asks, “Do you think Kid Rock is stupider than Junior?” And, notes Andy, at least Kid Rock “was self-aware enough to know that he shouldn't be talking, giving advice about North Korea.” Plus, Florida Agriculture Commissioner and gubernatorial candidate Nikki Fried — who went to high school with Judge Jackson — joins to explain how she won office in a red state and her bid to become its first female governor. She says the party needs to “follow my lead” to win again in the Sunshine State:
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This Isn’t a Confirmation Hearing for Cruz—It’s a Clout Check
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Josh Hawley Is On Verge of Being ‘Senator from QAnon’
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Putin Will ‘Torture’ His Own People Before Stepping Down
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Zelensky’s Videos Are Giving Ukraine a ‘Fighting Chance’
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Putin’s Own Soldiers Are Refusing to Fight in Ukraine
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Sister of Black Mom Shot by Secret Service: It’s a Cover Up
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Putin’s Paranoid, Isolated and Trying to Bluff His Way Through
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How Zelensky Went from Jackie Mason to Winston Churchill
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‘We Came Back to Show the Truth About This Russian Invasion’
On this bonus episode of the New Abnormal, Kyiv-based film producer Egor Olesov— an executive producer at FilmUA, one of the largest film studios in Ukraine, where we worked extensively with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his acting career — calls in from Lviv. Olesov—in a conversation also joined by John Wynn, a Vietnamese-American filmmaker who worked with Egor on the film The Rising Hawk, which was shot in Ukraine in 2019 and 2019—tells host Molly Jong-Fast that “We came back and right now we are doing what we can do as much as possible to support our people, to defend our country and to show to the world the truth about this crazy Russian invasion in Ukraine. It’s like horror dream. It's a really crazy situation. It's a big war in the center of the Europe.” Plus Andrew Rice, New York Magazine Contributing Editor and the author of the Year That Broke America, explains how “I came to the conclusion that the seeds of the future were sewn in 2000 in the election between Bush and Gore (as) all the things that we now see coming to fruition in distressing form in our society were sort of just starting to come into being at that time and in one place, in Florida. which I call the unlikely crucible of the future” — one where “at the time the recount was going on, the 9/11 pilots were training in Florida, sort of serenely flying above it”—just after Trump ran for the reform party nomination that year in his first presidential campaign and “all these stories I sort of brought together in the book tell this sort of ribald, picaresque and ultimately sort of tragic story of how America took a wrong turn.”
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Why We Feel So Connected to Zelensky w/ Margaret Brennan
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Navalny Pal on What’s Next for Putin If He Wins—or Loses
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Ex-Prosecutor Says She Can Prove Trump Committed Two Crimes
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Putin Really ‘Turns On’ Tucker Carlson and Co. w/ Charlie Sykes
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Mitch McConnell Is a ‘Spigot for Dark Money’ w/ Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse
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What Made ‘Abolish the Police’ Activists Change Course
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The ‘Clown Car’ of Reasons That Trump Could Go Down
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Truckers Resurrect Bananas Theory About Trudeau’s Real Dad
Truckers part of the so-called “Freedom Convoy” have co-opted a conspiracy theory about Justin Trudeau’s biological father, which Canadian author and frequent New Abnormal guest Jeet Heer tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast all about on Tuesday’s episode. Plus, Molly and co-host Andy Levy run down the “terrifying” political candidates who billionaire Peter Thiel is backing and Imani Perry, author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, makes the case that the South should be a source of inspiration.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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The Time Trump Thought Palin Was ‘Hot’ and Stole Her Vibe
The first thing Donald Trump noticed about Sarah Palin was her looks according to New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters, the author of Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted. That’s not all that caught his attention, though, and Peters fills co-host Molly Jong-Fast in on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal. Plus, Peters tells Molly about the time he interviewed the former president in Mar-a-Lago a few weeks after the Jan. 6 insurrection and he weighs in on whether he thinks Trump will run again in 2024.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Marjorie Taylor Greene Is on a Hot Streak of Stunning Stupidity
The TNA crew considers who in the GOP is really a moron and who’s just playing one. Plus, former Rep. Max Rose previews his rematch with Trump-loving Nicole Malliotakis, and the Beast’s Zachary Petrizzo explains what it means to be in “Facebook jail.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Ilhan Omar Breaks Down Congress’ ‘High School’ Cliques
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How a Wall Street ‘Villian’ Set the Stage for Endless Global Chaos
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Jeff Zucker’s Out, and CNN’s Stars Are Pissed
There were rumors just a year ago that Jeff Zucker was going to run for mayor of New York, and now the chief who was “in some ways the voice to the network” and “the guru for a lot of the top anchors” is out.
Daily Beast media editor Andrew Kirell breaks it all down with The New Abnormal crew, as co-host (and former CNN guy) Andy Levy says “pretty much everyone knew that the two of them were in a relationship for a long time. I mean, I knew it and I couldn't have been lower on the totem pole at CNN. I heard people talk, nobody seemed upset by it, particularly, but it was just like, it was just known. It wasn't even an open secret cuz it really wasn't even a secret.” Then co-host Molly Jong-Fast talks with New York Magazine's David Wallace-Wells of New York Magazine about the biq questions: whether or not the virus is endemic already or still a pandemic, and if the environment has already passed a point of no return. Plus, the gang rips into conservative cuckold Jerry Falwell, and former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander explains what it is that the coasts don’t get about politics in the middle of the country, and why the key to winning there isn’t about being in the political middle.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Joe Rogan: Moron or.... Moron?
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Garry Kasparov on What Will Take Putin Down
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Fox News Is Literally Killing Its Viewers
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George Conway Still Has Faith Mark Meadows Will Go Down
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The Only Thing That Will Save OAN from Extinction w/ Angelo Carusone
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Family Cuts Off Alleged Area Sex Criminal Prince Andrew w/ Ian Dunt
“He’s essentially persona non grata in the royal family, and you know, the royal family survives because – it may look like this sort of a constitutional structure made entirely of cobwebs, but in fact it's got a really kind of canny PR operation behind it,” says Dunt. “And they know when to cut their losses. It’s a family, kind of, but it's not a family like any other kind of family. And when you got a bad (one) in there, you are gonna cut your losses and that's pretty much what they've done. ”The no-longer royal highness may not have regular people money worries, says Dunt, but “maybe more of a struggle is the complete reputational collapse that he's experienced over this period. And that goes quite deep. I mean, it's more, even than the moral outrage, it's also that he is now a very regular figure of mockery. If you saw the interview where he said that he was incapable of physically sweating, that has never gone away. Pretty much anytime anyone in conversation mentions the subject of sweat… that is the joke that will follow.” Plus, Dunt tells Americans what Boris Johnson’s friends call him (it isn’t Boris), co-host Andy Levy considers the civil case against the Trumps and lets the world know that, just like Letitia James, he won’t be running for governor of New York, and New York Times reporter Peter S. Goodman discusses his new book, Davos Man, about how billionaires devoured the world.
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Preet Bharara: It’s ‘Odd’ Garland Hasn’t Grilled Trump & Co.
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Watergate Reporter Carl Bernstein Has a Fox News Theory
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Joe Rogan Is Mainstreaming Right-Wing Misinformation
The “Joe Rogan” experience is off the cuff, unedited, and very often entirely off the rails. Alex Patterson of Media Matters says the podcast is “a bastion of toxic masculinity… that leads listeners further down rightwing rabbit holes,” and notes that Rogan’s “dedicated listeners are mostly young men… listening to all three hours and taking in completely unfounded conspiracy theories without any of the fact-checking that would come for a more traditional journalistic enterprise.” Plus, Samuel Woolley, the author of The Reality Game: How the Next Wave of Technology Will Break the Truth and the director of the Propaganda Lab at the University of Austin’s Center for Media Engagement, explains why “the right is a lot better than the left at leveraging the internet and leveraging both organic engagement and inorganic engagement to megaphone out their content,” including by using networked propaganda, where “what begins on social media as a quote unquote organic phenomenon, which is oftentimes not organic, then ends up on cable news, then back on social media and so on and so forth until it's really unclear where it came from.”
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Bannon and the Right Have a Scary New Tactic to Take Over Politics
Co-hosts Andy Levy and Molly Jong-Fast parse out whether Jim Jordan is telling the truth about his Jan. 6 knowledge, Jared Holt, a fellow at AtlanticCouncil’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, explains two big tactics far-right kingpins like Steve Bannon are using to take over democracy and Nandini Jammi and Claire Atkin of Check My Ads join the pod to explain how to play a role in bankrupting people like Charlie Kirk, Dan Bongino and other notorious disinfo machines.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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The Decision Trump Made That May Destroy NYC Someday
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Can Somebody Please Check on Ron DeSantis? w/ John Heilemann
Watching Florida’s governor offer a long-awaited update on his state’s coronavirus response this week, Molly Jong-Fast noticed something disturbing. “He’s really struggling to breathe,” she says on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. Also on the show John Heilemann of Showtime’s The Circus, The Recount, and the podcast Hell and High Water talks about Jan. 6 and the moment the GOP decided to choose Trumpism over democracy. Finally, Rep. Jake Auchincloss, who represents Massachusetts’ 4th District, explains why he declared on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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The Likely Reason Trump Won’t Denounce the Vaccine
Co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy discuss some new nicknames for the former first daughter, including Ivanka “I Tried” Trump, as well as the reason Trump won’t ever diss the vaccines. Plus, vaccine expert Dr. Peter Hotez tries to answer Molly’s COVID-19 questions, including what the CDC was thinking when it made that 5-day rule and if Omicron will go away and The Nation columnist Jeet Heer confirms that Canadians are in fact prepping for America to become a fascist state.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Student Loans Were Created to Punish Poor People
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Will Liz Cheney or Mitch McConnell Save America from Russia?
Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic writer and author Twilight of Democracy makes the case for Liz Cheney or Mitch McConnell being the white knights of democracy, Siva Vaidhyanathan, host of the Democracy in Danger podcast, tries to help Molly Jong-Fast figure out why the right thinks other countries’ questionable governing style is the golden standard for the U.S., and finally, Frank Vogl, author of The Enablers How the West Supports Kleptocrats and Corruption, leaves us with two big questions: Is Putin hiding his dirty money in art or real estate? And will congress’ new kleptocrat caucus stop corruption in its tracks?
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Ron Johnson’s Opponent Wants Inside Traders Out of Congress
Is Ron Johnson the worst Senator? That’s what The New Abnormal co-host Molly Jong-Fast wants to know. Naturally, she asks Mandela Barnes, the Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin and Johnson’s opponent in next year’s Senate election, who shares his plan of attack if he wins the seat. Then co-founder of Run for Something Amanda Litman reveals the GOP’s plan to take over politics for good and Obama’s former Education Secretary John King talks about the two biggest ways Republicans fuck over our education system.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy Answer 20 Hilariously Stupid Questions
Andy Levy has officially joined The Daily Beast podcast family as the new co-host for The New Abnormal, alongside Twitter sweetheart Molly Jong-Fast. We know that he likes to chat politics (duh) and that he used to work for Fox and actually liked Tucker Carlson back then (true story, but he doesn’t anymore.) But we wanted our listeners to get to know the guy gracing their favorite podcast even more. So in this post-Christmas bonus episode of TNA, Molly and producer Jesse Cannon ask Andy 20 random, interesting, and stupid questions, and his answers did not disappoint.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Was This ‘Succession’ Line About Fascism The Best Yet?
The Last Laugh podcast host Matt Wilstein joins The New Abnormal co-host Molly Jong-Fast and producer Jesse Cannon in a crossover episode to talk about some of the best political comedy performances this year—from tidbits about SNL’s Biden and Trump actors to the best scene in this season of ‘Succession.’
For more great political comedy, listen to The Daily Beast's The Last Laugh podcast.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Pfizer’s 5-Day COVID Pills Will Turn This Pandemic Around w/Dr. Eric Topol
Dr. Eric Topol tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast how big of a game-changer Pfizer’s upcoming COVID pill pack could be, if Omicron will be the dominant strain, and how we’ll know this pandemic is over. Plus! Co-host Andy Levy explains why he thinks Nancy Pelosi needs to go and Daily Beast media reporter Zach Petrizzo shares reporting about Turning Point USA’s Arizona festival, aka the new CPAC.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Why Ending Cash Bail Won’t Increase Crime
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Gavin Newsom Trolled the Supreme Court’s Crazy Conservatives w/ Kurt Anderson
Molly and Andy talk about what Gavin Newsom is hoping to accomplish, past lulz, by using Texas’s crazy anti-abortion vigilante law as the basis for his own law targeting guns in California, former Spy editor Kurt Andersen looks at how “America has always had a weakness for exciting falsehoods and conspiracy theories,” and New Yorker writer looks back on “the last few years of this Democratic crisis in the United States as a rolling series of the impossible not only becoming possible but happening.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Ben Shapiro and His Sister Are Secret Boomers
Hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy discuss a new conspiracy theory—Ben Shapiro and his little sister may be secret boomers— as well as the Republican pundit exodus from Fox News to CNN, and why Ted Cruz is content as a dumb podcaster. Then, Molly has heart-wrenching interviews with two Planned Parenthood abortion providers who describe what’s happening with patients in Texas and surrounding state
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Is Tucker Carlson Pandering to ‘Stupid’ Americans for Russia?
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It Sure Looks Like Mike Pence Saved Democracy in America w/ Rep. Ritchie Torres
It sure looks like Pence, on the advice of Dan Quayle, tuned out to be the nutjob we needed somehow. Plus Rep. Ritchie Torres and WaPo writer Greg Sargent join Molly and Andy.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Zephyr Teachout on When Cuomo’s BFF Tried to Intimidate Her
The New Abnormal has a new co-host: political commentator Andy Levy! He joins Molly Jong-Fast in his first hosted episode of The New Abnormal to talk about a new Cuomo TV pitch for director Ryan Murphy and the only thing Kevin McCarthy is good at. Plus! New York DA candidate (and former Andrew Cuomo opponent) Zephyr Teachout recounts the ways that she experienced the “scary” part of Cuomo’s leadership style and WaPo’s Dana Milbank explains that very depressing media report about Biden vs Trump coverage.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Amy Coney Barrett Basically Thinks Women Are Incubators
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The CIA’s Slipshod Path to Torturing Its ‘Forever Prisoner’ w/ Alex Gibney
Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance breaks down the Supreme Court’s bad intentions on abortion, filmmaker Alex Gibney talks about the jaw-dropping reckless of the CIA’s torture program and NPR’s Tim Mak explains WTF happened to the NRA.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Why There Might Not Be an Omicron Booster w/ James Carville
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Why Did This Black Child Go Missing and No One Noticed?
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How This Attorney General Beat Trump 40 Times in Court
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The Time Trump Practically Begged for a Dinner Invite w/ Jon Karl
Reporter Jon Karl, ABC’s News Chief and Washington correspondent, as well as the author of the book Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, has quite a few tales from both Mar-a-Lago and the White House, but one stands out to New Abnormal host Molly Jong-Fast: the time Trump practically begged for an invite to the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner. He dishes on that story, and others, in this episode along with Danielle Moodie, host of the podcast WokeAF and Democracyish, who does not hold back when asked about the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict and Daily Beast reporter Matt Fuller, who breaks down what’s in, and what the Senate will likely slash, from the Build Back Better Act.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Why Hasn’t Biden Reversed Trump’s Tariffs to Fix Inflation?
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Pam and Tommy Would Have Broken the Internet w/ Nick Offerman
Nick Offerman talks with Molly about what playing Ron Swanson taught him about libertarianism, and about Pam and Tommy’s sex tape and what things were like before the internet. Plus, The Intercept’s Ken Klipperstein explains how the murder of Jamal Khashoggi helps account for rising gas prices now, and the Washington Post’s Dan Diamond breaks down what we’re just learning now about how the Trump administration tampered with the CDC.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Mary Trump: If Donald Runs Again, This Will Be the Reason
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Huma Abedin Lived in ‘Anger & Bitterness’ Over Weiner Affair
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Why Crypto Bros Want Biden to Fuck Up the Economy
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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There's More Lauren Boeberts Coming—Unless Dems Do This w/ Brian Klass
Brian Klaas, author of Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us, tells Molly Jong-Fast how to prevent Lauren Boeberts of the world from turning the country into a full-fledged totalitarian regime, Recount’s Slade Sohmer joins the podcast and roasts Sen. Ted Cruz—and Sen. John Kennedy—real good and Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego leaves Molly speechless after he shares war stories from his book They Called Us Lucky.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Texas’ AG Used This Insane Reason to Keep Abortion Illegal
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Glenn Youngkin Is Donald Trump Dressed Up as Jeb Bush w/ Lawrence Lessig
Eric Boehlert talking with Molly Jong-Fast about how the press, and the Dems, are needlessly freaking out as “everything has to be a churning drama” now. Plus, Lawrence Lessig says “I don’t like to gloat”—but things are “a thousand times worse” than he warned that they could get a decade ago, and HEATED writer explains why the Glasgow climate summit “should’ve been covered like insurrection”—and why “it’s super-not.” Maybe when we’re all in our boats they’ll start connecting the dots?
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Charles Booker, a 'Black Guy from the Hood,' Wants Rand Paul's Seat
In this election day episode of The New Abnormal, Rand Paul challenger and former Kentucky Congressman Charles Booker explains why the senator’s exit is long overdue, and why he’s the one to take his seat. Plus, The Nation columnist Jeet Heer breaks down America’s anti-vaccine sentiment compared to other countries and Sam Wang, who is part of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project team, explains the Virginia governor race and how likely it is for former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe to defeat Trump-backed Republican Glenn Youngkin.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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UNLOCKED: How WSJ Reporter Jeff Horwitz Got the Facebook Whistleblower to Talk
Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz, who published what’s now known as the Facebook Files, thanks to Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, tells Molly how he was able to get her to share those documents with him—and what he thinks Facebook’s next move is.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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How WSJ Reporter Jeff Horwitz Got the Facebook Whistleblower to Talk
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Tucker Carlson Is Doing It for the Fish Sticks w/ Adam Schiff
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The Harshest Punishment Paul Gosar Could Get for Jan. 6 w/ Hunter Walker
Paul Gosar has been basically caught red-handed when it comes to Jan. 6 meddling. So what’s next? Reporter Hunter Walker, who authored the bombshell report about Gosar promising rioters “pardons,” came on the podcast to talk about how he got his big scoops and the worst thing that could happen to Gosar. Plus, David Pepper, author of “Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake Up Call from Behind the Lines” tells Molly how Republicans in state houses (like his home state of Ohio) are all slowly burning our democracy to the ground. But not if we do this first.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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‘The Americans’ Creator: Being in the CIA Made Me Empathize with the KGB
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Secret Corruption ‘Waivers’ and Other Tales from Trump’s Former Ethics Director
Walter Shaub, former director of the United States Office of Government Ethics under the Obama and Trump administration shares “the most horrifying ethical lapse” of the Trump admin that he witnessed—and why he’s annoyed at Biden. Plus, Esquire’s politics blog editor Charles P. Pierce joins to discuss the Ronald Reagan administration’s economic ignorance and how the “the conservative media octopus” made people so anti-vax that they’re actually unAmerican.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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How Marjorie Taylor Greene ‘Basically Bought’ Her House Seat w/ Adam Serwer
Army veteran Marcus Flowers is running against Marjorie Taylor Greene as a Democrat in Georgia’s 14th district and tells Molly Jong-Fast why he chose to run against the MAGA maniac and the reason death threats from QAnoners don’t scare him. Plus, David Drucker, senior political correspondent at Vanity Fair and author of the forthcoming book In Trump's Shadow, reveals dirt on Tom Cotton (that makes him look good?) and the author of The Cruelty is the Point, Adam Serwer, answers an important question: Would Ron DeSantis be a crappier president than Trump?
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Inside the Fight Against Trump’s ‘Music Man’
This week on The New Abnormal, our bonus episode takes you inside the fight against two men producer Jesse Cannon calls “the GOP’s worst congressmen.”
Cannon and host Molly Jong-Fast interview Charles Graham, who is running as a Democratic challenger in North Carolina’s ninth congressional district against Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC), and Matthew Diemer, who is running against Max Miller in Ohio’s sixteenth district.
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This Is Not Kyrsten Sinema Just Pissing Off the Left w/ Adam Jentelson
On the latest episode of The New Abnormal, Molly sits down with Adam Jentleson to talk about the wayward Arizona senator. Jentleson, former deputy chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and author of Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy, says Sinema gallivanting off to Europe for fundraising and Boston for the marathon instead of legislating isn’t just her “pissing off the left.” Also on the episode, Ryan Busse, a former firearms executive and author of Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry That Radicalized America, talks about how the NRA and the firearms industry developed the kind of modern radicalization that we now see in our politics and HuffPost senior justice reporter Ryan J. Reilly, who talks about how he got started in his extensive reporting on the foot soldiers of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and where the investigations are headed.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Carville: Either Dems Hold On or Kiss Democracy’s Ass Goodbye
James Carville talks with Molly Jong-Fast about how to stop the GOP before they “come back in power in 2024 (and) you can kiss this democracy’s ass goodbye.” Plus Alec Ross talks about the Raging 2020s and Ryan Hampton rips apart the Sackler’s great deal in the Purdue settlement: “this whole thing was a set up from day one” in which “victims were sidelined every step of the way.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Fiona Hill: Putin Used His KGB Training to Manipulate Trump
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How Fox News Made Every Moment of the Last 25 Years Worse
Over at Fox News, they’re marking a very important milestone.
“It’s a big day for them,” says Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of Media Matters for America. “They’re very very proud of themselves. They’re very excited.” Yes, it’s been 25 years since Fox News came on the air—25 years of “refracting the absolute most absurd and destructive and deadly disinformation and misinformation from the right wing fever swamps,” Carusone tells co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Jesse Cannon on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. Also on the episode, Farah Stockman, member of the New York Times editorial board and author of American Made: What Happens to People When Work Disappears, talks about following the lives of three workers after they lost their factory jobs. Finally, Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson offers her reaction to a federal judge’s pause on the Texas abortion ban.
Come to The New Abnormal Election Eve Party https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-new-abnormals-nyc-election-eve-party-tickets-177538832427 or visit caveat.nyc
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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The Secret Meeting Between Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, the Trumps and Kushners
Author Max Chavkin, whose latest book Contrarian is all about Peter Thiel, tells Molly Jong-Fast alleged details from the 2019 meeting that the billionaire had with Mark Zuckerberg, the Trumps and the Kushners that people don’t know. Plus, Congressman Mondaire Jones has some words for Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin and historian Dr. Timothy Snyder explains how we’re “slow-rolling” into a civil war.
Come to The New Abnormal Election Eve Party https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-new-abnormals-nyc-election-eve-party-tickets-177538832427 or visit caveat.nyc
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Why's Matt Gaetz and Co. Pushing ‘White Replacement Theory’ So Hard?
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Nancy Pelosi Brought a Teddy Bear to a Knife Fight w/ Dr. Peter Hotez
J.D. Durkin tells talks to Molly Jong-Fast about how Democrats brought a stuffed animal to a knife fight, Dr. Peter Hotez joins to break down why MRNA vaccines won’t say save the world, and what might, and Leonid Volkov, chief of staff to imprisoned Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, explains why Russia was never a democracy.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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How Long Until Ben Shapiro Becomes CEO of Facebook? w/ Kevin Roose
New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose explains why Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook just can’t seem to let its high-performing conservative talking heads go, NBC News Reporter John Allen breaks down President Biden’s infrastructure plan for normal people, and USC law professor Franita Tolson retells how she avoided a Ted Cruz “gotcha” moment.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Stop Being A White Savior and Join a School Board ft. Phoebe Robinson
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These Are Mary Trump’s Favorite Parts of Donald’s $100M Suit
Mary Trump explains to Molly Jong-Fast why she just might send Donald flowers to thank him for suing her. Crooked Media’s Brian Beutler looks at what Dems can do to deal with the Trumpy Supreme Court. And linguist George Lakoff breaks down how the party’s “false theory of reason and communication” holds it back.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Breitbart Wants Its Followers to Get Vaxxed to Own the Libs w/Rep. Ro Khanna
Jeet Heer tells Molly Jong-Fast about a candidate from the Canadian presidential race whose big issue was dairy control management. Will Sommer and Swin Suebsaeng, Daily Beast reporters and hosts of the Fever Dreams podcast, discuss the ways that outlets like Fox News and Breitbart are approaching vaccinations with their stubborn audiences. And Congressman Ro Khanna from California joins to discuss the state’s recall results and gets cornered by Molly about Dianne Feinstein.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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How the Texas Abortion Ban Is an Attack on Men
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Could There Be a Non-Vaccine COVID Cure?
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, author of ‘Uncontrolled Spread’ and a member of Pfizer’s Board of Directors, updates Molly Jong-Fast on the status of “COVID pills” and child-approved vaccinations in the works, Eric Boehlert, founder and editor of press run.media, calls out the media’s obsession with Trump's voters and not Biden’s, and The 19th editor Emily Ramshaw paints a grim picture of the “abortion tourism” set to ramp up in states around Texas.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Will Kellyanne Conway Have a Come to Jesus Moment?
Lee Papa, author of The Rude Pundit, discusses with Molly Jong-Fast the chances of Kellyanne Conway joining George W. Bush as a resistance hero, Washington Post’s national health reporter Dan Diamond sheds light on the big COVID booster debate happening amongst top health leaders, and Mike Duncan, host of The Revolutions podcast, tells us why our current state of U.S. politics looks a lot like Ancient Rome, minus a Newt-icus Gingri-ticus.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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You Don’t Know Everything About Muhammad Ali Just Yet
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Here’s Why Joe Manchin Is Always Dumping on Other Democrats
What the hell is Joe Manchin doing?! Max Rose, who served in Afghanistan and won a term in Congress as a Democrat representing a red district in Staten Island and Brooklyn, explains where Manchin is coming from given that “there’s not another Democrat who could win that seat”—and without it Mitch McConnell is running the Senate. Then Molly has a great talk with American Crime Story: Impeachment producer Sarah Burgess about “a really profound story about power dynamics and what emotions can lead us to,” whether anything’s really changed since what boiled down to “an incredibly uncomfortable story about basically a sexual coercion” with Paula Jones, and looks back on “the cheap attacks on (Monica Lewinsky) from older women who are quote unquote feminist that were just beyond the pale.” And finally, Molly talks with Arizona Secretary of State and candidate for governor Katie Hobbs about Arizona’s insane cyber ninja election audit.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Why Biden Should Send ‘Abortion Trucks’ to Texas
Elie Mystal, Editor-at-Large at The Nation, has a wild, but potentially effective idea to help women impacted by the new Texas abortion law—if President Biden can make it happen. And Congressman Ruben Gallego defends Biden’s decision to pull out of Afghanistan (and the idea that Madison Cawthorne is too dumb to lead a GOP revolution.) And then Elizabeth Shackleford talks her own experience pulling out of a war-torn country.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Tom Nichols: Democracy is Dying Because Americans Are Narcissists
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George Conway Feels Bad for What Happened to Monica Lewinsky
But the lawyer doesn’t regret his role in the Clinton impeachment saga. Also on the latest New Abnormal, whether Texas spells the end of Roe, where Georgia is headed, and more. Later in the episode, Washington Post reporter Craig Whitlock, author of The Afghanistan Papers, talks about American officials’ doublespeak on Afghanistan over 20 years. He also shares with Molly his take on how Michael Flynn went from respected, level-headed three-star general to QAnon crank. Finally, Georgia state Sen. Jen Jordan, who’s running for attorney general, talks about how gerrymandering is likely to produce more Marjorie Taylor Greenes, whether how Texas’ abortion ban will inspire Republicans to replicate it in Georgia.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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The Nonexistent Afghanistan Plan That Might’ve Saved Biden’s Ass w/ Tim Miller
MSNBC political analyst Tim Miller joins Molly Jong-Fast on this episode of The New Abnormal to discuss Biden’s weird, new callousness with Afghanistan and Matt Gaetz’ troll-y brother-in-law. Plus, Dr. Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont and former head of the DNC, has some strong words for the judge who is making people take horse medicine.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Soledad O’Brien on Fox News’ ‘Stupid Blonde’ Spouting Vax Nonsense
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Everyone’s Against Forever Wars Until They Actually End w/ Toure
“What is your Afghanistan hot take? Go.”“My number one hot take is that I don’t like occupation. I don’t feel like we should be permanently defending ‘democracy’ in any given country. If they are not ready for democracy or to be run in the way that we want them to, we cannot use military power to force them to have a democracy,” said Touré, one of this week’s guests on The New Abnormal, former MSNBC host, current host of an eponymous podcast, Toure Show and author of I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon. Hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Jesse Cannon are also joined by Jonathan Allen, a senior political reporter for NBC, and Noga Tarnopolsky, a Daily Beast contributor based in Jerusalem. In their regular “F**k That Guy” segment, the hosts raise their middle fingers to one Kristi Noem and South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Jeet Heer: It Shouldn’t Shock You That Afghanistan Collapsed So Quickly
“The fact that everything collapsed so quickly to me vindicates Biden’s decision,” Jeet Heer says on this week’s second episode of The New Abnormal. “If you read the Afghanistan Papers, none of what’s happening is shocking. One of the big things that comes out of [the story] is the weakness of the Afghan government, which is really a pumpkin government,” he tells Molly Jong-Fast and Jesse Cannon. “Like it’s like a bunch of guys with a phony-baloney jobs and offices and big sacks of money.” Then they are joined by supermodel Carré Otis, who earlier this month filed a lawsuit accusing former Elite Model Management executive Gerald Marie of sexually assaulting her multiple times in the 1980s. Also joining the podcast is The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, who in large part agreed with Heer. “This is kind of a real disastrous mess, but I think it probably was inevitable given all the failures that have led up to this point,” Sargent says. “And there’s probably no neat and tidy way to do this. And in the end that, you know, it had to be done. That would be where a good chunk of mainstream Americans ends up landing.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Afghan Women Say The Taliban Are Shooting People in the Night and Filming It
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Why Uncle Don Is ‘Incapable’ of Convincing the Unvaxxed w/ Mary Trump
The coronavirus pandemic, a fraught election, an attempted insurrection, more of the coronavirus pandemic...the United States is suffering from the mental version of long COVID, says Mary Trump.
The psychologist and niece of former president Donald Trump joins The New Abnormal this week. Margaret Sullivan, media critic for The Washington Post, joins to discuss shortcomings in coverage of U.S. military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and the ensuing Taliban takeover. Jong-Fast also interviews Jason Kander, the former Missouri Secretary of State and a former U.S. Army intelligence officer deployed to Afghanistan. They talk about the disaster unfolding in Kabul and beyond.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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The U.S. Is Giving the Rest of the World Abandonment Issues
In this episode of The New Abnormal, former war correspondent, staff writer at the New Yorker and CNN global affairs analyst Susan Glasser explains how the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan is everyone’s damn fault, even Biden’s. Plus, Texas Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia rips into Gov. Greg Abbot and then Adam Harris, author of The State Must Provide, breaks down “racism hush money” that some states with HBCUs are getting from the federal government.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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UNLOCKED: Biden’s Ex-COVID Czar: Ron DeSantis Wants You to Drown in COVID
We’re enduring our current crush of COVID-19 cases in large part thanks to Republican governors like Texas’ Greg Abbott and Florida’s Ron DeSantis, who has instituted statewide bans on vaccine and mask mandates as the state’s healthcare system is being crushed under a new surge of cases, according to Andy Slavitt, the former head of coronavirus response in Joe Biden’s White House.
Slavitt said of DeSantis, “He’s saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to throw you in the water. I’m going to tell you, Hey, feel free to swim. You have the freedom to swim, but I’m going to bind your hands or put a gag in your mouth. I’m going to cover your eyes. I’m going to tie your ankles, but go ahead and swim.’”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Biden’s Ex-COVID Czar: Ron DeSantis Wants You to Drown in COVID
We’re enduring our current crush of COVID-19 cases in large part thanks to Republican governors like Texas’ Greg Abbott and Florida’s Ron DeSantis, who has instituted statewide bans on vaccine and mask mandates as the state’s healthcare system is being crushed under a new surge of cases, according to Andy Slavitt, the former head of coronavirus response in Joe Biden’s White House.
Slavitt said of DeSantis, “He’s saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to throw you in the water. I’m going to tell you, Hey, feel free to swim. You have the freedom to swim, but I’m going to bind your hands or put a gag in your mouth. I’m going to cover your eyes. I’m going to tie your ankles, but go ahead and swim.’”
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Why Vaccinated People Are Not Taking Delta Seriously Enough w/ Dr. Eric Topol
The American public is being misled about the coronavirus vaccines, and it needs to stop now. That’s what Dr. Eric Topol, head of the Scripps Institute, tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast on the sobering latest episode of The New Abnormal. Fully vaccinated folks are walking around thinking they’re 95 percent protected from the virus, but with the Delta variant raging across the country, that number is actually more like 50 percent, Topol says.Next on the show, Daily Beast contributing editor Spencer Ackerman joins co-host Jesse Cannon to talk about his amazing new book, Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump. All the explanations for Donald Trump becoming president “seem to just sort of gloss over the fact that for the past 20 years, this country has been continuously at war,” Ackerman tells Jesse. That enemy was never precisely defined, though it ultimately was radical Islam or even Islam itself— ”which opened the door for a really broad series of authoritarian possibilities." Finally, Jesse gifts Molly a very special early birthday present—a special message from a certain former mayor and cigar fan.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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NJ Gov. Phil Murphy Has Two Thoughts on Andrew Cuomo and That’s It
New Jersey governor Phil Murphy shares his thoughts on the sexual harassment allegations and report against fellow Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) and whether he foresees another COVID lockdown. Plus, Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and author of the new expanded edition of Endgame: Inside the Impeachments of Donald J. Trump dunks on Republican colleague Mo Brooks and Atlantic writer Anna Applebaum, author of Twilight of Democracy, explains how Hungary’s horrible Trump-y prime minister paved the way for Tucker Carlson.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Jared Kushner Is Likely Why Trump Made Governors’ Lives Hell During Early COVID
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The Perfect Storm Battering Ron DeSantis in Florida w/ Nikki Fried & Ian Dunt
“We are in a crisis and this governor is raising money off of anti-Fauci merch and going to other states to do fundraisers,” Florida Agricultural Commissioner Nikki Fried says of Ron DeSantis. Also in the episode, Ian Dunt—editor-at-large of Politics.co.uk, host of the Oh God, What Now? podcast, author of How to Be a Liberal—talks about Boris Johnson’s COVID fiasco in Britain, where he hosted a reopening celebration just as the Delta variant spiked. Dunt goes deep on the Tory government’s creeping authoritarianism and the U.K.’s new Fox News-on-the-cheap, GB News. Finally, Molly and co-host Jesse Cannon are joined by veteran New York Democratic guru Hank Sheinkopf, who explains why there’ll be even more chaos if Gov. Andrew Cuomo is removed from office over his harassment allegations—and whether AG Tish James can succeed him as governor.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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GOP’s Anti-Vaxx Disinfo ‘Is What Authoritarian Regimes Do’ w/ Dr Peter Hotez & James Carville
Dr. Peter Hotez has been battling vaccine disinformation for years. But he was still shocked to see United States senators like Ron Johnson peddling anti-vaxxer agitprop. “Historically, this is what the authoritarian regimes do,” Hotez tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. The anti-vaccine anti science aggression has extended to the individual scientists,” he adds. “They did this in China [where scientists who tried to raise the alarm about COVID were brutally repressed] … and this is what's going on right now by elected members of the United States Congress. And we've got to do something about it.” Plus: NBC’s Jon Allen talks about how the realtors’ lobby is pushing to kill the eviction moratorium. And James Carville practically salivates at the thought of Val Demmings running against “slippery little prick” Marco Rubio.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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The Worst Things Bill Barr Did as AG
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We Need a Pro-Abortion Constitutional Amendment
In this episode of The New Abnormal, Kathryn Kolbert and Julie F. Kay, authors of CONTROLLING WOMEN: What We Must Do Now to Save Reproductive Freedom, tell Molly-Jong-Fast not to trust John Roberts and why Roe isn’t enough to protect abortion rights in this country—something much bigger is.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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El Chapo’s Arrest Made the Drug War Worse w/ Noah Hurowiz
In this episode of The New Abnormal, Noah Hurowitz, author of El Chapo: The Untold Story of the World's Most Infamous Drug Lord, tells Molly Jong-Fast how Chapo was found naked, the reason he and his wife had matching jackets during his trial, and why he believes the Kingpin isn’t as evil as people assume.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Julie K. Brown Doesn’t Believe Jeffrey Epstein Killed Himself
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What if Tucker Carlson Told the World He’d Been Vaccinated? w/ Oliver Darcy
Imagine if Fox News host Tucker Carlson went from “just asking questions” about the COVID-19 vaccine in primetime every night to showing a photo of himself taking the shot and telling his viewers to do the same.
Would we be “looking at a very different country right now?” co-host Molly Jong-Fast asks on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. Next on the show, David Wallace-Wells, a writer at New York magazine and the author of The Uninhabitable, Earth joins Molly to share his insight on the Delta variant and the extreme climate events we’ve been seeing recently. Finally, on the episode, Media Matters’ Angelo Carusone decodes the mystery of conservative pundit Ben Shapiro’s “genius” weaponization of Facebook. It all comes down to three things, Carusone says money (Shapiro’s spent an eye-popping $11 MILLION this year so far), content, and some good old-fashioned cheating.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Trump Author: Even His Allies Thought He’d Lost It
Did Donald Trump REALLY defend Hitler at a World War memorial? On the latest episode of The New Abnormal, a look at the latest post-presidency books. One of the most outrageous claims from the deluge of new Trump books hitting the shelves this month is that the then-president lavished praise on Adolf Hitler at a memorial for World War One. Michael Bender, the author of Frankly, We Did Win This Election says on the latest episode of The New Abnormal that the Hitler incident was just one shocking example of people in Trump’s orbit belatedly coming to realize how dangerous the president was.
The next guest, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, says he’s feeling pretty let down by the offerings in the latest string of Trump books.
“Most of these people don’t have information firsthand,” he says. “They’re getting it from somebody else. And a lot of it is the same reconstituted bullshit that we’ve heard before, but just by somebody else.”
However, he adds: “I think that the books are still important. I think it’s just another example of how this orange crusted bloviated asshole took advantage of this country, especially the Justice Department.”
Cohen cautions people to take a look at who is trying to mend their tarnished reputations through the books now that the Trump years are over, saying: “I think it’s very disingenuous when they come out afterward and it’s, you know, through a book.” Finally, Peter Sagal host of NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me joins the crew to "call-in" with a hot take.
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If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Bill O’Reilly Accuser Andrea Mackris: I Want People to ‘Understand the Terror’ of Forced NDAs
On this special episode of The New Abnormal host Molly Jong-Fast and The Daily Beast's Diana Falzone talk to Bill O’Reilly accuser Andrea Mackris about the forces that protected the Fox News host from her sexual harassment accusations for 17 years, her "forced" NDA and why she doesn't care about the financial consequences of breaching it.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Susan Orlean on the Weird World of Show Dogs and New Jersey’s Tiger Queen
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The Desperate Laundering of the Trump Reputations w/ Michael Wolff
“There has been no detail that has come out that has been different than the four years we saw him do in office,” Slade Sohmer, editor in chief of The Recount, says on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. But no one knows image rehabilitation better than Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner—in fact, they’ve been doing it for years, Sohmer says. “‘Sources close to Jared and Ivanka say’ was the most used phrase in print of the Trump administration,” he adds. Next guest Michael Wolff, the author of the new book Landslide, his third about Trump, says it’s clear that some Trumpworld figures are trying to redeem themselves in the new Trump books. “I don't think that anybody is pleased,” he says of their post-Trump prospects. “I don't think anyone finds themselves where they would otherwise have hoped they would be after working in a senior job in the White House.” Last on the show is Sen. Jeff Merkley, who breaks down the chances for the massive infrastructure bill, whether the filibuster will survive, and more.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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The Trump Org’s Implosion Starts with a Divorce
Daily Beast political investigations reporter Jose Pagliery explains how the divorce of Jennifer Weisselberg and Barry Weisselberg was the match that lit the Trump Organization on fire and why Trump is in more trouble than we think. Plus! Bloomberg opinion columnist Robert A. George tells Molly Jong-Fast how Sen. Ron DeSantis’ COVID response set up mind traps for progressives and Heather Cox Richardson, historian and host of the podcast Now and Then, shares what the TV show Lost and QAnon have in common.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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UNLOCKED: Are We Just Going to Ignore That Exxon Video?
A lobbyist for a giant oil company admitted in a video that the industry spreads disinfo to stop efforts to combat climate change and no one really talked about it. Molly Jong-Fast had Emily Atkin, climate reporter and author of the daily climate newsletter, HEATED, come on this bonus episode The New Abnormal to find out why: “The fuckery is immense.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Are We Just Going to Ignore That Exxon Video?
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Trump Is Liable for Ashli Babbit’s Death
Substacker and The Nation columnist Jeet Heer explains with no hesitation why Capitol insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt’s death is on Trump, Rep. Cori Bush (MO-D) sends a clear message to Majorie Taylor Green and gets real about defunding the police and Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action reveals a gun crime stat that would freak out conservatives.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Ivanka Just Might Flip on Her Dad, Mary Trump Says
The Trump Organization is now feeling the heat, with its CFO under indictment for grand larceny. Prosecutors are clearing to get that money man, Allen Weisselberg, to flip on his boss. But one interested observer says there may be another member of the Trump crew who’s even more likely to turn on the Don: his daughter, Ivanka. Both Ivanka and Weisselberg benefitted from a similar perk, if that indictment by Manhattan prosecutors and reporting from the New York Times are to be believed. Both were officers of the Trump Organization and simultaneously were consultants for the company, too. It’s an arrangement that appears designed to shield all parties involved from paying taxes—and could open Ivanka up to tax fraud charges, just like her dad’s CFO. “She's much less likely to stay loyal than Allen Weisselberg,” says Mary Trump, the member of the family who has famously turned on the clan. Next up, Brian Beutler, editor-in-chief of Crooked Media, shares his big idea for getting a new voting rights bill passed in the Senate—without Republican votes. And climate specialist David Roberts explains how the hell part of the Gulf of Mexico caught on fire.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Eric Adams Is The Kind of Democrat That Liberals Ignore w/ David Shorr
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No Republicans Fears the Wrath of Kevin McCarthy w/ Andy Levy
So House Majority Kevin McCarthy says he’ll strip committee assignments from any Republican who deigns to serve on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Jan. 6 select commission. The New Abnormal co-host Molly Jong-Fast wants to know: Can he actually do that? Not by himself, says NBC News reporter Jonathan Allen. “In order for Kevin McCarthy to make good on this threat, Nancy Pelosi would have to allow a House floor vote on whether to take Liz Cheney off of her committees, as punishment for joining Pelosi’s select committee on Jan. 6.” Also on the show, comedian Andy Levy joins Molly and co-host Jesse Cannon to talk about Meghan McCain’s exit from The View—“a victory for passive-aggressive hairstylists”—and where she’ll go next. Finally on the episode, lawyer Daniel Goldman, who served as general counsel for former President Trump’s impeachment trial, weighs in on the new charges for Trump Organization CFO Allen Weiselberg and what it means for Trump and the rule of law.
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Jared Kushner Really Did Make the Pandemic Worse
Washington Post reporters Yasmine Abutaleb and Damien Paletta join to discuss all the juicy and terrifying details from their book, Nightmare Scenario, which recounts how the Trump administration responded during COVID. Plus! Dr. Peter Hotez goes over the effectiveness of the vaccines against the variants and Reason’s Editor at Large Nick Gillespie tries to explain why Trump is the right’s God and Biden is the enemy of drug lovers, including himself.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Fox News Has Critical Race Theory All Wrong w/ Kevin M. Kruse
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Mehdi Hasan Thinks Republicans Couldn’t Define Critical Race Theory ‘If Their Lives Depended on It’
Would you be willing to be arrested for something if you didn’t know what it was? Would you vote against it? Would you stake your party’s chances in the 2022 midterms on it? This week in Loudoun County, Virginia, a furious man was arrested for trespassing following a raucous school board meeting that erupted into protests against critical race theory and a policy on transgender students. “These people are willing to get arrested, to protest something that isn’t being taught to their kids and that they couldn’t define if their lives depended on it,” Medhi Hasan tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast and producer Jesse Cannon on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. Then, The Washington Post’s economics reporter Jeff Stein joins the episode to talk about the new bipartisan infrastructure bill that actually looks like it just might pass.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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The Sneaky Way the Supreme Court Will End Abortion Rights w/ Elie Mystal
Not if, but when. “By this time next year, we will be talking about which way the Supreme Court chose to functionally end abortion rights in which states. That's going to be the conversation a year from now,” Elie Mystal, The Nation’s justice correspondent, tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest edition of The New Abnormal. “That is just what's going to happen.”But here’s the thing. The Court’s conservative majority won’t come out and say that’s what they’re doing. They’ll be sneaky about it. Then, Anne Nelson joins the show to talk about her book Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right. And Andrew Zimmern talks about how he and his fellow star chefs helped convince Washington to rescue the restaurant business when the pandemic threatened to end it.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Brian Stelter: Watching Fox News’ Propaganda Can Make Liberals Smarter
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The Man Who Was Trump Before Trump
The president’s adviser is falling all over himself to kiss his boss’ ass. “Mr. President, we’re all so proud to work for you. You’re saving the world!” It sounds like something you could imagine Jared Kushner would say to Donald Trump. But the groveler in question is none other than Henry Kissinger, and the occupant of the White House is Richard Nixon. Yes, Trump is a descendent of Nixon’s, says former Spy magazine editor and Studio 360 host Kurt Andersen, whose new podcast is called Nixon at War. Also on the episode, New Yorker writer Susan Glasser joins Molly and co-host Jesse Cannon to dissect President Biden’s trip to Europe and summit with Vladimir Putin, and whether Democrats’ hopes for their Senate majority were all foolishness. Finally, on the episode, hilarious viral phenomenon Crackhead Barney and Drew Rosenthal join Jesse and Molly to break down their approach to MAGA rallies, how she was committed to a psych ward in Staten Island, why they think they’re going to get beat up one day, why they want to interview Thomas Markle, and how the Proud Boys greeted them.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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These Trump DOJ Subpoena Revelations Are Like Watergate on Crack
Attorney General Merrick Garland has been busy lately. In this episode of The New Abnormal, Molly Jong-Fast chats with FBI agent Peter Strzok about “Watergate on crack” aka these Trump DOJ subpoenas. Plus! Journalist Francesca Fiorentini takes on America’s hypocrisy and Sen. Alex Padilla (CA-D) drops the mic about the immigration debate.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Please Don’t Listen to Jim Jordan For COVID Vaccine Advice
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We’re All Just Living Under the Tyranny of Joe Manchin w/ Andy Slavitt, Rep. Ritchie Torres & Jason Kander
“Everything’s a question mark, because we no longer live in a democracy. We live under the tyranny of Joe Manchin,” says Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) of the current state of Congress. The congressman, who represents “America’s most impoverished district,” New York’s 15th, joins Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal to talk about why making President Biden’s child tax credit permanent could be his administration’s greatest legacy. But it all rests in the hands of a single—tyrannical—senator. Also on the show, Andy Slavitt, Biden’s outgoing coronavirus adviser and author of the new book Preventable, says it would be “healthy for us to try to hold to account not just the president, but ourselves, each other” after 600,000 COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. Former Missouri secretary of state and Majority 54 podcast host Jason Kander also goes in-depth with Molly—who asks how Democrats can possibly take back red states “if we can’t get people like you to run? No pressure.” Tune in for his response and what we can learn from Georgia.
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What if This Is Just the Tip of Trumpworld’s Iceberg of Crazy?
It was unhinged, even by Trumpworld standards. In the dying days of the Donald’s administration, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows asked the Justice Department to investigate a bizarre conspiracy theory, that an Italian defense contractor somehow swung the election to Joe Biden. Emails between Meadows and the DOJ were uncovered over the weekend. And there’s likely to be more to come. This is only “tip of the iceberg of all the crazy stuff that went on this winter,” George Conway tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “These guys were doing some wild, wild stuff. And it wasn't just the campaign and the kooky campaign hangers-on, and the lawyers who were working on the campaign, like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. This stuff was going on in the White House.” Plus! Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel talks about the militia movement, which has become so alarmingly potent in her state. And Dallas high school valedictorian Paxton Smith describes the reaction to her instantly-viral speech against Texas’ new anti-abortion law.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Why I Can’t Stand Rich People with Liberal Lawn Signs
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What the F*ck Is Wrong With Joe Manchin?
What does Joe Manchin want? That’s what Molly Jong-Fast, co-host of The New Abnormal, wants to know—along with “what the fuck is wrong” with him. Because of the West Virginia senator, Democrats can’t say they have the majority in the Senate. “Unfortunately, that’s the way they have to look at it,” she says. “It’s totally screwy. We are in this weird conundrum of our own Democratic making. End the filibuster to push through top Democratic legislative priorities? Forget about it, because Manchin doesn’t want to do it. The Daily Beast’s congressional reporter, Sam Brodey, joins the podcast’s latest episode to offer insight on what makes the senator tick—and what might possibly move him on the all-important filibuster. Also on the show, comedian Andy Levy laments the passing of Donald Trump’s blog and says the former commander in chief was undone by the “media he hates so much,” with reporters tweeting about his posts and thereby robbing him of vital traffic. Later in the episode, writer Sasha Issenberg talks about how same-sex marriage was “the dominant culture war issue for a long period of time. And now I think we look back at it as the most significant civil rights breakthrough of this millennium.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Does the MyPillow Guy Think He’s a Governor?
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UNLOCKED: Will Biden Ever Get Off His Ass to Save Democracy?
It’s “the most serious threat to the core underlying principles of American democracy since at least the Civil War.” And Joe Biden is barely doing a thing to stop it. “We are seeing a threat to the integrity of the 2022 and 2024 elections—and the ability of Americans to cast a vote—that is unfolding across multiple dimensions,” The Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “Amid all of this, you've heard very, very little from Biden presenting this as a threat to democracy.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Will Biden Ever Get Off His Ass to Save Democracy?
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Trump Jr.-Bongino 2024??
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Ex-GOP Rep: My Party Was ‘Beamed Up by Aliens’
Former Republican Congressman and NSA official Denver Riggleman has wrote a book about BigFoot and studied terrorist groups. But his party’s fascination with QAnon? That perplexes him the most. He tells Molly Jong-Fast all about it in this episode of The New Abnormal. Then, Jacobin writer Luke Savage also joins to discuss Mitch McConnell’s fart-like legislating style and Zachary Karabell, author of Inside Money, explains why breaking up big tech companies may be more trouble than it’s worth.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Rep. Swalwell: GOP Is Turning Their Back on Cops
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Michael Cohen Went Down First—But This Trump Crony Should Be Next
Tim O'Brien, a senior columnist at Bloomberg, tells TNA host Molly Jong-Fast that there is one person who could actually get Trump behind bars. Plus! The GOP has no idea how to talk about Jan. 6, the new Texas abortion ban involves suing people and Andy Levy joins to explain why Andrew Giuliani is the most pointless failson of all the failsons (even Don Jr.)
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Republicans Are Trying to Steal Your Vote, and Dems Are Snoozing Through It
Republicans all over the country are pushing hard and pushing fast to make sure as few people vote as possible. In 11 states, they’ve already passed laws restricting voting rights, and more laws are coming. It’s not just a response to the Trumpist lie that the 2020 election was rigged. It’s basically an extension of the Capitol riots, argues Mother Jones’ Ari Berman—a way to “accomplish the aims of the insurrection through ‘legal, legislative’ means.” Plus! The Nation’s Jeet Heer talks UFOs. And New York City mayoral candidate Kathryn Garcia details her vision for “a more livable city.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Trump Came This Close to Making the Opioid Crisis More Hellish
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Violent Insurrection: It’s the New Camping!
Those Trump supporters inside the Capitol on Jan. 6? The guy who made off with the lectern, the woman who stole Nancy Pelosi’s laptop? They weren’t actually rioting. “Look, I am not here to tour shame,” humorist and former Fox News personality Andy Levy tells Molly. Next, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) comes on the show to talk about what’s happening on the border and how his state’s wacky election audit is going. Finally, economist Marshall Steinbaum joins Molly and co-host Jesse Cannon to talk about inflation, unemployment benefits, and why we shouldn’t worry about raising corporate taxes.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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FEVER DREAMS: How ‘Wannabe’ Instagram Models Kneecapped Matt Gaetz
If the federal investigation into Matt Gaetz does indeed end up spelling the MAGA congressman’s downfall, it’ll be partly because of a group of wannabe Instagram influencers.
On this week’s episode of The Daily Beast’s Fever Dreams podcast, hosts Will Sommer and Asawin Suebsaeng welcome fellow Beast reporters Jose Pagliery and Roger Sollenberger, the duo that’s been breaking story after story on the Gaetz scandal in recent weeks. The pair reveal new details on the Gaetz saga that haven’t been publicly released before, including additional passages from the confession letter secretly written by disgraced Gaetz wingman Joel Greenberg, and sent to Trump associate and longtime GOP ratfucker Roger Stone.
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Josh Hawley Is Basically Making Meth For MAGA Nation
In this episode of The New Abnormal, Bulwark Editor-In-Chief Charlie Sykes tells Molly Jong-Fast why Josh Hawley and his fellow GOPers have major Breaking Bad vibes when it comes to supplying the Trump base with BS and the two surmise what is going on in McCarthy’s goldfish brain. Plus! TNA’s favorite vaccine disinfo buster Dr. Eric Topol shares the next big COVID vax move that could change the game and Democratic pollster John Anzalone makes the case that Biden is America’s new Marvel hero.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Jeff Garlin on Playing Harvey Weinstein: It’s Not Funny Being Compared to a Rapist
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Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Want to Fix Facebook
We might not have learned much from the Facebook Oversight Board’s punt this week on former President Donald Trump, but we did learn something: How utterly disingenuous Facebook has been on enforcement of its rules on hate speech.The social media giant, it turns out, never did have a strong system in place to deal with people like Trump. For years, New York Times writer Kara Swisher tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. Also in the show, New Yorker staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe talks about his new book, Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Family. Finally, the economist and editor of The Black Agenda Anna Gifty explains why if we center economic policies on Black women, then “everybody inevitably benefits.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Rudy Giuliani Is in ‘Deep Shit’
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Donald Trump Jr.’s Inauguration ‘Fuckery’
There are dozens of legal cases against the Trumps, but perhaps the most fascinating is one in the District of Columbia that has attracted little public attention according to Mother Jones’ D.C. bureau chief, David Corn, who joins the latest New Abnormal to break down an under-the-radar Trump legal case and what’s in store for Rudy Giuliani. Plus, the road ahead for voting rights with LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter and Southern Black Girls and Women’s Consortium.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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TEASER: Will Rudy Giuliani Actually Be Held Accountable for His Alleged Criming?
Feds raided Rudy Giuliani’s New York City apartment on Wednesday in regards to his dealings in Ukraine, but the question many folks have, including The New Abnormal listeners, is whether he will actually be held accountable for his alleged criminal activity? In this bonus episode of The New Abnormal LIVE, Molly Jong-Fast and Jesse Cannon spoke with Daily Beast White House reporter Scott Bixby and Daily Beast politics editor, Matt Fuller, about the former Trump crony, the chances of Ron DeSantis or Trump running for president in 2024 and why liberals are drinking the John Boehner Kool-Aid.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Will Rudy Giuliani Actually Be Held Accountable for His Alleged Criming?
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Has Wall Street Completely Lost Its Mind?
Fast-falling apps, valued at billions of dollars. Governments printing up untold trillions in debt, just so they can buy it up themselves. Bitcoin knock-offs, soaring. Literal shell companies, all the rage. Has Wall Street (and the whole damn financial sector) lost its collective marbles?
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Howard Dean: The Republicans Are Now a Neo-Fascist Party
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UNLOCKED: The New Abnormal Has Turned One And Is Celebrating 20 Million Listens
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Andrew Yang Will Shit-Talk Florida to Get Rich New Yorkers Back Home
Andrew Yang will do whatever it takes to get the New York City economy going again if he’s elected mayor. And by anything, we mean he will shit-talk Florida to get as many rich New Yorkers as he can to come home from the Sunshine State, he tells Molly Jong-Fast in this episode of The New Abnormal. Plus, Toure, host of the podcasts Democracy-ish and Toure Show, tells Molly why the current police system is more about making money than it is about protecting the people.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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TEASER: Mika Brzezinski: I Was An ‘Idiot’ Signing My First Morning Joe Contract
Mika Brzezinski’s firing from CBS in 2006 was a total surprise. In this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, she tells host Molly Jong-Fast about how it all went down, why there should be a '70 Over 70' list for women, and her biggest regret from her first “Morning Joe” contract with MSNBC—especially after finding out what Joe Scarborough did with his.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Mika Brzezinski: I Was An ‘Idiot’ Signing My First Morning Joe Contract
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Hunter Biden on Burisma, Don Jr., and Cooking Crack!
On a special edition of our hit podcast The New Abnormal, the president’s son opens up to Molly Jong-Fast about … well, about a lot. Why the Trumps continue to go after him so hard. Why his wife won’t let him have a laptop. How easy it is to cook crack cocaine. How hard it is to live in fear of a relapse.
But Hunter Biden also gave some hard-to-swallow answers about the emails he traded with the bigwigs at energy companies in China and Ukraine—answers that could come back to haunt him. It’s all part of an absolutely gripping episode that you absolutely have to hear.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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What Mika Brzezinski Did When She Read Trump’s ‘Bleeding Facelift’ Tweet
Trump’s tweet about Mika Brzezinski “bleeding badly from a face-lift” originated from a conversation between her and the former first couple in their bedroom. Really. In this episode of The New Abnormal, the Morning Joe co-host gives her hilarious retelling of the events that led up to this infamous tweet, and exactly how she responded when she found out about it: “I'm talking to Melania about it, woman to woman, then Donald came up and said, you know, Melania has had no work done. She's perfect. I'm like, ‘that's great.’” Then! The National’s Elie Mystal breaks down the Derek Chauvin trial and why it’s unlike any other cop murder trial he’s ever seen. Plus! Why are Matt Gaetz’s Republican enablers just as skeezy?
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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TEASER: Rep. Grace Meng: How I’m Able to Work with GOP Racists
Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY)’s tearful rebuke against Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) during a House hearing on violence and discrimination against Asian Americans was semi-unplanned. She had a speech ready to go, but when Roy went on an anti-China and lynchings rant instead, she just lost it. “I had to cut out excerpts of my prepared speech, which I'm sure my staff got upset about, but I just had to say it. I had to respond to what he was saying and the disturbing way in which he said it,” she tells Molly Jong-Fast in this bonus members-only episode of The New Abnormal. “I was just so sick of the Republican party from the very top levels of leadership constantly using these [racist] terms, which literally helped embolden people to commit acts of hatred against the community.” Molly can’t help but wonder, out loud, how Rep. Meng can work with these people day in and day out. To that, she lets Molly in on a not-so-secret-secret: “The things that they say on social media is sometimes different from what they're doing,” she says, referencing the GOP members who didn’t vote for the American Rescue Plan Act, but tried to take credit for it among their constituents. There were even 164 Republicans who didn’t even vote for an anti-hate bill that just said they stand against Asian racism. But Meng isn’t surprised by that, especially after Jan. 6. “You had these members who literally talk about law and order on their conservative outlets. And then were literally blowing past, yelling at and shoving Capitol police officers because they didn't want to go through the metal detectors. It’s just a complete lack of respect for the very institution that they brag about respecting.” Molly compared it to the Trump era. “The whole Trump administration, it went from the Muslim ban to the wall with Mexico, and now they were like, you know what? This virus is from Asia. And it's like, they only have one speed. And it's racism.” Plus! Congresswoman Meng convinces producer Jesse Cannon that 16-year-olds should get the right to vote and addresses one of Molly’s favorite questions: How can Dems get better at messaging?
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Rep. Grace Meng: How I’m Able to Work with GOP Racists
Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY)’s tearful rebuke against Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) during a House hearing on violence and discrimination against Asian Americans was semi-unplanned. She had a speech ready to go, but when Roy went on an anti-China and lynchings rant instead, she just lost it. “I had to cut out excerpts of my prepared speech, which I'm sure my staff got upset about, but I just had to say it. I had to respond to what he was saying and the disturbing way in which he said it,” she tells Molly Jong-Fast in this bonus members-only episode of The New Abnormal. “I was just so sick of the Republican party from the very top levels of leadership constantly using these [racist] terms, which literally helped embolden people to commit acts of hatred against the community.” Molly can’t help but wonder, out loud, how Rep. Meng can work with these people day in and day out. To that, she lets Molly in on a not-so-secret-secret: “The things that they say on social media is sometimes different from what they're doing,” she says, referencing the GOP members who didn’t vote for the American Rescue Plan Act, but tried to take credit for it among their constituents. There were even 164 Republicans who didn’t even vote for an anti-hate bill that just said they stand against Asian racism. But Meng isn’t surprised by that, especially after Jan. 6. “You had these members who literally talk about law and order on their conservative outlets. And then were literally blowing past, yelling at and shoving Capitol police officers because they didn't want to go through the metal detectors. It’s just a complete lack of respect for the very institution that they brag about respecting.” Molly compared it to the Trump era. “The whole Trump administration, it went from the Muslim ban to the wall with Mexico, and now they were like, you know what? This virus is from Asia. And it's like, they only have one speed. And it's racism.” Plus! Congresswoman Meng convinces producer Jesse Cannon that 16-year-olds should get the right to vote and addresses one of Molly’s favorite questions: How can Dems get better at messaging?
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Why Matt Gaetz Was Left Twisting in the Wind
Every day, sometimes multiple times a day, come eye-popping new details in the Matt Gaetz scandal. But perhaps the worst thing of all for the Florida Republican, who is accused of underage sex trafficking, may be that Donald Trump thinks he’s useless.
Yes, the congressman spent years sucking up to the former president—and even said he’d give up his job to defend him. But Trump has only managed to offer a tepid 24 words of support since the scandal broke, and George Conway has a theory about why.
Joining co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Jesse Cannon on the latest episode of The New Abnormal, the lawyer and Washington Post contributing columnist says, “The fact that he doesn't stick up for [Gaetz’] conduct here tells you that he has no use for the guy. And why should he?
All Gaetz’ sucking up to Trump, Conway says, is now “in the past. That doesn't get you points with Donald Trump. Now it's what you can do for a malignant narcissist.”
It’s pretty clear now that Gaetz is now toast—and of no further use to Trump or the rest of his party, which will spend this weekend at a big RNC meeting in Palm Beach “paying homage to the orange criminal form,” as Conway puts it.
The party now faces a conundrum, he says, stuck between trying to rebuild and at the same time glorify Trump. It’s a losing strategy, says Conway, that will peel off yet more centrist voters and bring more of “the kinds of candidates that drive Mitch McConnell crazy, you know, the Todd Akins of the world,” and more like Gaetz.
Also on the show, Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run for Something, which helps Democratic candidates run for office, talks about how the pandemic and the racial justice movement have inspired more people to run than hatred of Trump.
Finally, 8chan founder Frederick Brennan talks to Molly and Jesse about how he knows that Ron and Jim Watkins are behind QAnon today, in an excerpt of an interview that will run in full on the new Daily Beast podcast Fever Dreams.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to http://newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Why Republicans Can’t Seem To Lay a Glove on Biden
That new documentary on QAnon ended with something of a bang, with one likely suspect seeming to half-confess that he was ‘Q,’ the oracle of the violent conspiracy movement. But there may not be even a single ‘Q,’ explains Will Sommer, one of the people featured throughout the documentary and the co-host of The Daily Beast’s new hit podcast, FEVER DREAMS.
“There was kind of like this group surrounding the original Q,” Sommer, who’s writing a book on QAnon, tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “There's not even one solid Q in the beginning. I mean, Q does not use the name. All these posts that are attributed initially to Q do not use the Q name. So you get into this fight over the canon, of who is Q who's not Q.”
Speaking of delusional movements, the Republican party is at a bit of a loss these days. They can’t seem to figure out how to get in the way of Joe Biden’s agenda—or even to throw an effective counterpunch against the guy.
“The Republicans don't how to push back. The most effective pushback of Biden's whole infrastructure relief plan has been from [Obama’s former national economic council chief] Larry Summers,” James Carville, the veteran Democratic strategist, tells Jong-Fast. “Intellectually, they just they've lost their footing.”
Carville adds, “I think the most significant 24 hours in American politics was from 8:00 PM eastern on the 5th of January to 8:00 PM eastern on the sixth. And that time you had the two Georgia wins and you had the insurrection and those events taken in tandem have been very, very underappreciated by contemporary commentators. They were just a different party on the night of January the 6th. Everything changed in a 24-hour period. And, you know, they’re still off balance.”
“And while they are balancing, I think the Biden people have just stayed focused and running as much through as they possibly can. But [the Republicans] don't have a coherent pushback. It's all CBS: cancel culture, the border, and senility. That's all they do,” Carville adds.
“They just completely reinvented a coalition and their messaging overnight has gone from an Episcopalian, Presbyterian, white party [to] rural and non-college... They don't want to talk about free trade or anything like that,” he continues. “And Biden is not just a polarizing figure. I mean, you can't gin it up. I mean, Obama, for obvious reasons he could get them all ginned up. They try to get a charge out of Biden, but it just doesn't work that well… They'll get it back. But right now they're having a hard time.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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UNLOCKED: DNC Chair Jamie Harrison: The Democratic Brand Is Broken
Democrats are in control of the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives for the first time in a decade. But to the new chair of the Democratic National Committee, it’s clear that the party’s brand is broken in a large swath of America.
“I think what we have to do as a party is battle the damage to the Democratic brand,” Harrison, the former senate candidate, tells Molly Jong-Fast in the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “I experienced it on my own race, Lindsey [Graham] and his crew of dark money effectively labeled me as somebody who believed in defunding the police. My grandfather on my stepfather's side was in the Detroit police department for 40 years. So I don't believe in that. But they were able to do it because the Democratic brand had been so tarnished in South Carolina that people would believe anything. If they said, ‘Jamie kicked a puppy the other day,’ they would have believed it.”
“It's not even just with Republicans, the Democrat brand with some of the folks who are core at the base of our party is not the greatest,” Harrison continues. “And so I want to spend a lot of time, energy, and effort understanding why the brand is where it is, what it is and how, and what we can do in order to improve it.”
Especially in rural and red-state America, Harrison says: “We have to take credit and claim the things that we will have gotten done over the course of this next two years. We're going to do a lot for rural America. The American Rescue Plan has so much in there for rural communities across this country. And it will have a huge benefit, this infrastructure plan, when we get this done. The broadband component in it alone, will totally transform rural America.”
“Those communities are also just as diverse as urban communities. We also need to make sure that we're listening to them,” he adds. “And then, in the end, we’ve got to deliver and I believe we can do those things. Not only will we grow our base, but I think we also persuade a few other folks to take a look at us.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Gaetz Keeps Digging Deeper Holes for Himself
The New Abnormal’s least favorite Florida congressman, Matt Gaetz, is in hot water over mounting allegations that he’s been involved with underage women and taking them across state lines. To discuss the burgeoning scandal, co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Jesse Cannon brought on The Nation’s national affairs correspondent, Jeet Heer, who says he isn’t the least bit surprised.
“It’s the ones you always suspect the most,” he says.
Noting Gaetz’s strange appearance on the Tucker Carlson show, where he tried to get Carlson hitched to his sinking ship, Heer says he sees a connection with what other people in the alt-right swamp engage in. “Occasionally you see racists try to implicate the person they’re talking with, like, ‘You think this as well. You also don’t like those people right?’... To normalize this behavior. That’s basically what he’s doing: ‘Oh yeah, you remember the dinner that we were at with your wife? And wasn’t there some sort of really sleazy scandal involving you?”
To Heer, Gaetz describing his dinner with a young date along with Tucker Carlson and his wife is reminiscent of the Woody Allen movie Manhattan. “In the movie, Woody is dating a 17-year-old [Mariel Hemingway]... and they go out to these dinners with their adult friends who are middle-aged.” The imagery is hard to unsee.
For more strange twists in the Matt Gaetz story, Molly and Jesse brought on Daily Beast senior politics editor Matt Fuller, who says he’s been hearing rumors of Gaetz’s bad behavior for over three years.
“Let’s just say he has a proclivity for younger women. He certainly has been open to dating college-aged women, congressional staffers, maybe some interns from Turning Point USA. He’s a man about town,” Fuller says.
The crew agrees that you’re not in a good place when reporters are having to pin you down on the language you’re using around accused pedophilia.
“It’s been very odd to hear exactly how he phrases these answers on a lot of this, because he always says, ‘I haven't had any inappropriate relationships with underage women.’ And it’s been unclear if he’s saying underage women, like, with an age of consent, or…? We don’t know what he’s talking about.”
Also on the show, Molly sits down with one of the foremost warriors in the fight against the “anti-science movement,” vaccine scientist Dr. Peter Hotez, who talks soberly about what we have ahead of us in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Plus, getting so high you end up flying from Kentucky to Kenya, how you troll Joseph Goebbels, and podcasting with the Original Gangster Villain—that’s all on the latest The New Abnormal.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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FEVER DREAMS: Why QAnon Is So Bummed to See the Suez Ship Go Free
Did you know that everyone’s favorite Suez-Canal-blocking ship is now the subject of a QAnon conspiracy? The Daily Beast’s Asawin Suebsaeng and Will Sommer lay out why the adrenochrome set is convinced that the stuck ship’s cargo is full of trafficked children on the latest episode of our Fever Dreams podcast (Hint: it has to do with Hillary Clinton’s secret service code name—you guessed it, EVERGREEN.)
Speaking of Hillary conspiracies, Suebsaeng and Sommer discuss why the right just can’t seem to come up with a good Joe Biden conspiracy to smear the new president; Trump’s base seems more interested in reverting to their old hatreds of Clinton and Barack Obama. (As Suebsaeng points out, Biden quite simply is not Black or a woman, and so doesn’t inspire the same level of vitriol from the hardcore racist, misogynistic Trumpites.)
Meanwhile, there’s a tug-of-war going on between those in the Trump administration who want the former president to receive “credit” for the COVID vaccine drive and the rightwing anti-government, anti-vaxx diehards who refuse to believe that their Emperor God actually wants them to get the shot. The tussle is crystallized in Trump’s former HHS staffer Michael Caputo, a “really brash, incredibly Trumpy longtime Republican operative” who has taken it upon himself to prosthelytize about the vaccine in biker bars among the “MAGA Sons of Anarchy”—and who’s running into a lot of resistance.
Keep an eye out for the interview with The Daily Beast’s own Kelly Weill, who walks our hosts through the crazy cast of lawyers and faux-lawyers who have sprung up to defend the Capitol Rioters and anti-masker businesses—one of them quotes from Lord of the Rings, another has never actually passed the bar because he thinks it’s a British conspiracy.
And most importantly, we learn about Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes’ supervillain origin story, how Texas National Guard troops faced a hostage situation with Pizzagate overtones, and how Will Sommer is singlehandedly responsible for bringing the phrase “soy boy” out of the Internet swamp into the national spotlight.
Listen to Fever Dreams on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.
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The Right Way to Fight Georgia’s Voter-Suppression Law
Goldie Taylor has been working in and around Georgia politics for decades. So she knows first-hand the kind of stunt Republicans are trying to pull with this new voter-suppression law.
“What [Gov.] Brian Kemp will tell you, what other state GOP office holders will tell you, is that they've done this to restore confidence in the ballot. Poppycock. They have done it to keep people who don't look like them, church like them, live like them, away from the voting booth,” Taylor tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest edition of The New Abnormal.
Taylor knows a lot of her out-of-state friends are outraged, too. But their calls to boycott Georgia over this law? They’re just wrong, she says.
“Sometimes being an ally means shutting up,” Taylor continues. “As soon as this began to happen, we heard people, especially people in Hollywood say, ‘Oh, we're going to boycott Georgia until they stop this.’ Right. And both me and Dr. Bernice King stood up and immediately said, ‘No, you want to put the very people that you aim to help out of work in the middle of a pandemic. You're going to make it so that they can't recover in an effort to pay back a governor who won't feel it.’”
“Sometimes you have to take on a whole state or a whole county or a whole country. I do believe in that,” she added. “In this case, that's not what the leverage lies. In this case, the leverage lies in the direct contributions, the financial pipeline that greases the pockets of state house Republicans. Dry it up.
“How do you dry it up? You target their donors, big corporations: Coca-Cola, UPS, Home Depot, AT&T—all these companies who have huge footprints here in Georgia, who are pouring money into our state house. You put pressure on them specifically. But what you don't do is tell Major League baseball to take a game out of the city, because who gets hurt? The people who are selling the popcorn, who parked the cars. People who scan your tickets. The people who can least likely afford it.”
Then! Punchbowl News co-founder Jake Sherman discusses why even people on the left need to take Jim Jordan seriously. And Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall talks about why “Washington is a town that is really wired for Republican governance.”
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FEVER DREAMS: What It’s Like When MAGA Nation Wants to Kill You for Your Movie
Take one self-proclaimed satanism expert. Add in a pinch of dumpster-diving. Throw in a chicken-coop fire, and (of course) pillow magnate and Donald Trump pal Mike Lindell. And you’ve got the recipe that Trump 2020 deadenders are currently leading in the great state of Arizona to try to, somehow, overturn the election there.
“It could be like a Coen brothers movie. It has that atmosphere,” Daily Beast political reporter Will Sommer tells his colleague and co-host Asawin Suebsaeng on the premiere episode of Fever Dreams, The Beast’s new podcast. “You have these kind of vigilante groups of people who connect on Facebook and say, well, let's go to the board of elections—and then they dive into the dumpster and see what they can find…Or there was a fire at a chicken farm owned by or connected to this guy who's opposed to the recount, and they said, well, he probably put the ballots in there and set the fire! And then they go out to the farm and they smell the air and they say: This smells like burnt ballot to me!”
Fever Dreams takes you inside the right’s push to retake power, from the conspiracy-slingers to the MAGA acolytes to the straight-up grifters. Thought the Trump era was crazy? Wait ’til you hear what comes next.
To start, there’s the slew of Republican efforts to not only to keep challenging the 2020 presidential contest, but to also execute further election and voter crackdowns across the country.
“What’s going on is that Republicans need some shred of voter-fraud evidence that they can then use to impose more voting restrictions,” Will adds. “But what they’re doing here in Arizona…[the recount effort involves] this satanism guy, who maybe does not have the most credibility, or they were looking to hire this very pro-Trump outfit that’s been laughed out of other state recounts.
To help further unpack how the Trump era was just one long, aggravating, and monumentally blood-drenched Coen brothers movie that we were all forced to live through, Swin and Will welcomed Ike Barinholtz, the comedian and star of such films as Blockers and the Neighbors franchise, as well as in TV series Bless the Harts, Eastbound and Down, and The Mindy Project.
The whole Trump presidency “really was Burn After Reading,” Ike contends. But “if you want to learn how the insides of the [Trump] White House work, you have to watch Step Brothers. It will all make sense.”
Ike also opens up about what it was like to co-star in the 2020 satire The Hunt, just as then-President Trump was busy issuing, in Swin’s words, a “cultural fatwa”—via tweet—on the movie. “No one loves ‘cancel culture’ more than the Republicans. It’s their favorite thing, they love it, they thrive on it,” he says. “The worst possible thing is for Donald Trump to tweet about you. Just, it changes your life in a terrible, terrible way…I was super nervous that he was going to tweet about it. And then he tweeted about it!”
As a result, he and others working on the movie were, naturally, inundated with threats of retribution and violence...
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TEASER: How Ted Cruz and the GOP Are Using the Border as a Prop
GOP Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn led a tour for themselves and others in their party at the border on Friday, but according to Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, who took over Beto O’Rourke’s former 16th district in Texas, it’s all “political theater.” They want to “use the border as a prop, do a whole lot of complaining and finger pointing. But these are the same people who've been in the Senate for a number of years when their party had control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives, [and] they did not solve this problem,” she tells The New Abnormal co-host Molly Jong-Fast and producer Jesse Cannon. That’s not to say that Biden has all the answers, he doesn’t. But she does feel like it’s finally time we get to the root of the immgration debate in our country. “[Constituents] don't want us to be the problem,” she adds. “They want us to solve problems.” But how? It’s two fold, she explains. First, we need to have real sit-down conversations and policies in place in regards to the countries in the Southern Hemisphere to hold them accountable (“These countries are turning a blind eye in many respects to the awful human trafficking, criminal organizations and networks that have existed for a long time.”) And, it’s going to take Americans getting real with themselves. We’ love the ideal of the immigrant more than the actual immigrants themselves. “Why are Americans so afraid of immigrants?” Escobar asks. “We need to instill some compassion into the hearts of Americans.” Plus! She and Molly discuss why Latino voters, in Texas specifically, can be pro-Republican and pro-ICE. It seems irrational but there’s a reason.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Rep. Adam Kinzinger: ‘All We Do Is Call the Other Side Douchebags’
What’s our wildly divisive political climate doing to today’s 20-year-olds, who will be our political leaders of the future?
That’s what Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) asks co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Jesse Cannon on the latest episode of The New Abnormal.
In the past, Kinzinger says, Americans could look to Ronald Reagan and Democratic leader Tip O’Neill having a beer together, despite their differences. Today, Kinzinger says, we’re not seeing similar examples: “All we do is go on Twitter and TV and call the other side douchebags.” It doesn’t bode well for us getting back to normal politics, he warns.
Still, says Kinzinger—the first sitting GOP congressman to accept an invitation to come on The New Abnormal—former President Donald Trump’s influence on the Republican Party does seem to be waning.
Twitter’s decision to ban Trump, which Kinzinger fully supports, is a big part of that, he says. “He can put out crazy press releases calling Rove a RINO like he’s doing, but… it’s taken a lot of his influence away.”
“I think we’re going to survive this,” the Illinois lawmaker says of the future of the party. “But it’s certainly going to be an epic battle. It’s probably gonna be an epic battle that needs to happen.”
Kinzinger also explains why he thinks the Democrats’ For the People Act is a bad bill, why Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene needs to be called out for dehumanizing transgender people, and why he thinks Trump is the real RINO.
Also on the show, MSNBC host Ali Velshi talks to Molly and Jesse about criss-crossing the country this year and somehow managing not to get COVID, and whether the media can get back to normal now that Trump is out of office and not sucking up all the oxygen.
Finally, author and editor Ronald Brownstein talks about his new book, Rock Me on the Water, and what the cultural and political atmosphere of the early 1970s have in common with the present moment.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Getting a Presidential Pet Is a Great Distraction From Scandal
When we think of presidential pets, we think of their cute moments and endless photo-ops on the White House lawn—but the reality is you sometimes need to acquire a pet to distract from a scandal.
So it was in the 1990s, CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Mo Rocca explains on the latest episode of The New Abnormal, when the Clintons adopted Buddy the dog.
“The Clintons had Socks,” Rocca tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast. “And then in the depths of the Lewinsky affair, when Clinton was in real turmoil, Dick Morris advised him to get a dog. This is totally true. And because dogs were more popular, they got a chocolate lab, Buddy. Labrador retrievers were at that point the No. 1 breed in America for 17 years running. And so the cat was given, I believe, to [Clinton personal secretary] Betty Currie. I mean the cat, it was like, ‘Exit, stage right.’”
Rocca also explains why he enjoys writing his popular podcast Mobituaries: “In general, I deal with dead people because they don’t have publicists, so they’re a lot easier to deal with.”
Molly and co-host Jesse Cannon are then joined by civil rights activist and host of Pod Save the People DeRay Mckesson, who tells them that police violence is actually getting worse, not better, despite increased public scrutiny.
“Police actually killed more people in suburban communities in almost all our communities combined,” Mckesson says, adding that the public perception of what is happening in legislative changes to policing is not reflected in the actual practices of policing. “New York City has never banned strangleholds. So when [Eric] Garner gets killed, the police immediately say, ‘We didn’t choke him.’ They’re like, ‘We strangled him.’ But that’s essentially their argument right there: ‘We did not use the “banned” technique.’”
The conversation then turns to school reopenings amid the pandemic, with Molly and Jesse joined by Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, who is none too happy about New York City mayoral frontrunner Andrew Yang leading educational policy.
“I think that people are very, very intrigued by the universal basic income proposal that he’s made,” Weingarten says. “...And what Yang is raising by basically undermining the public schools at the same time as he has lifted up privatization charters and yeshivas is actually walking away from the common good and the public good of what a city needs to run.”
And then for the people’s favorite New Abnormal segment, “Fuck That Guy,” Molly aims her ire at New York Times best-selling author turned aspiring Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance, who is trying to up his chances of getting that seat by firing off tweets flirting with white nationalist tropes.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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TEASER: Trump Isn’t the Only Person Whose COVID Response Cost Lives
Since the spread of COVID-19 launched a global pandemic in 2020, over half a million Americans have been killed by the virus. And experts agree that the death and infection rates have been much worse in the West—mainly the United States and Europe—than many other places in the East. In other words, while other countries like China, Cambodia and New Zealand were able to tempur the spread, the U.S. had its ass handed back to it. There are a lot of reasons for this, says David Wallace-Wells, New York magazine writer and author of How the West Lost COVID. Factors like population age and geographic location played a role in these places’ ability to control the virus, but ultimately, one of the most “catastrophic” factors that played into the death roll, is something we very much had control over. And that is how our leaders responded and our collective culture, on both a federal and local level. “I think the toll of the disease really throughout all of Europe and all of the Americas shows you just how devastating cultural and political inaction is,” he said. “South Korea looked at what was happening in January. And they said, ‘Holy, this is really bad. Like if China is locking down an entire city of 10 or 11 million people for a period of months, like this must be really scary and we should get our act together in response.’ And in the West, we just didn't.” Host Molly Jong-Fast is adamant that having a person who wasn’t inept in office, aka someone other than Trump, would have made a huge difference in saving lives. Wallace-Wells agrees. He also thinks even the Democratic leaders and bipartisan health officials dropped the ball, too, though, at least in the beginning. “Gavin Newsom, Andrew Cuomo, and even Anthony Fauci, all of them were sort of saying to some degree the same thing, which was, ‘we don't want to disrupt things too dramatically unless we need to,” and that cost lives. “Our wealth, our medical capacity, our cultural capacity was gonna prevent us from being vulnerable in the way that these other countries elsewhere in the world were vulnerable,” he added. It’s also a scary indicator of Americans’ lack of ability to take immediate action if it’s uncomfortable for future crises, like climate change Molly points out. But there is some good news: “I think the cultural lesson of this pandemic is [that] we under reacted and it's likely that we're going to be much more aggressive in the future.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Trump Isn’t the Only Person Whose COVID Response Cost Lives
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How Trump Turned Asians Into a Target
It didn’t have to be this way.
The coronavirus pandemic didn’t have to become politicized—or racialized. But last March, President Donald Trump “decided to call coronavirus, which has no ethnicity or zip code or nationality, the China virus,” says Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali on the 100th episode of The New Abnormal.
“There was no reason to make coronavirus a racist thing,” co-host Molly Jong-Fast adds.
Now, not only are people of Chinese descent coming under attack across the U.S., but other Asians—because “bigots aren’t nuanced,” adds Ali, who wrote about the wave of anti-Asian hate for the Beast before the Atlanta massage parlor murders.
“As a Muslim, as a son of Pakistani immigrants, we’ve been through this for the past 20 years,” he tells Jong-Fast. “And I realized that that story in America is the original story that gets a remake, and sometimes the villain just gets changed, right? So right now it’s Chinese or the Chinese, whoever looks Chinese. It’s been Muslims. It’s always African-Americans, it’s Latinos. We’re all the invaders.”
“It’s a society-wide problem,” he says, “that requires a society-wide solution.”
After Ali tells Jong-Fast why we’ve got to nuke the filibuster, she welcomes freshman Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) on the podcast to talk about the pandemic and how the vaccine campaign is going.
“The United States is probably in the best position, except maybe for Israel, throughout the world, in terms of vaccinating its population,” Auchincloss says.
Still, he cautions: “Not to be a Debbie Downer, but this problem of cold storage is very much still with us. If you look at countries near the Equator, we are nowhere near herd immunity. And indeed we’re looking at late 2022, early 2023 to hit that tipping point. And there the cold storage supply chain is very much an issue.”
The U.S. needs to develop a Marshall Plan for vaccines, he says, because “we’re in a race right now between vaccinations and variants, and it doesn’t help the United States if we win it domestically and lose it internationally.”
Lastly, Jong-Fast brings on Evan McMullin, former 2016 presidential candidate and former CIA officer, to talk about how the GOP is changing.
The last five years, he says, were not an “anomaly” for the party. “We were headed towards that for decades,” he says. “And I don’t see us getting past the last five years immediately either. I think there is that opportunity, but you know, it, it will take time.”
McMullin says he’s still a registered Republican but is not sure how long he’ll stay that way, given the “current direction” of the party.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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WTF Is Wrong With Kyrsten Sinema?
It’s bad enough Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat, turned down the minimum wage hike with that oh-so-cute thumbs down. Now she’s threatening to derail the whole Democratic agenda, insisting on archaic Senate rules that give Mitch McConnell and the Republicans outsized power.
“I think is a lot of people feel that this groovy, bisexual Senator should be voting in a groovy way and not like a terrifying conservative,” Molly Jong-Fast says on the latest episode of The New Abnormal.
“Do you see a world in which Democrats can get her on board for filibuster reform?” she asks Senate veteran Adam Jentleson.
“I definitely think that,” Jentleson answers. “I think she's miscalculated a little bit. I don't think she can afford to be out as far to the right as she is right now. Even [centrist West Virginia Sen. Joe] Manchin has started to shift a little bit. And so she's kind of out on a limb.”
“Joe Manchin can say, I am the only Democrat who can hold this sea, it's me or a Republican… and that's valid,” Jentleson adds. “He's generally a pretty reliable vote for most of the things we want to pass. He can be very frustrating, but it's literally him or a Republican… Sinema cannot say that she's the only Democrat who can hold that seat. There are other credible Democrats who could run in a primary and win the general election.”
Sinema’s fellow Democrat, Sen. Mark Kelly, is up for reelection in just two years. “For him to win, he needs to accomplish a lot of things. He needs to be able to go to voters and say, here's what we did,” Jentleson adds. “And so I don't think that Sinema can, can tell Mark Kelly to go jump off a bridge... It's just untenable to say, ‘I'm going to stand in the way of all the things that Democrats want to do because of my love for the filibuster’ in a purple state. I don't think this is a long-term sustainable position.”
Then, former Stockton, California mayor Michael Tubbs talks about his push for universal basic income. And The Daily Beast’s Diana Falzone takes us inside Fox News, as staffers there lose their minds in the face of a challenge from an even crazier conservative network. “They’ve dug in their heels. And now they're going to give the viewers what they want, which is this red meat of cancel culture of Dr. Seuss of Mr. Potato Head,” she tells Jong-Fast. “Things will get even more, as the staffers say at Fox news, ‘Foxifized,’ which is the war on Christmas, the war on men. There’s always a war going on.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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TEASER: Jelani Cobb: Jan. 6 Was the Beginning of GOP’s Mess, Not Ending
It’s not hard to see that the Republican party was the Party of Trump during the four years he was president. But what kind of party are they now? Honestly, it’s hard to tell. “When you looked at the platform for the 2020 election, they didn't create one,” says New Yorker writer and professor Jelani Cobb. There is one thing about today’s GOP, however, that is very clear: “They've doubled and tripled down on a type of politics that is very appealing to disgruntled white people or white identity politics.” If history repeats itself, as it often does, this tactic will bite them in their behinds. In this episode of The New Abnormal, Jelani chats with Molly Jong-Fast about the major similarities he sees between the current state of the GOP and parties of the past that no longer exist. Oof. “The Republican party [are] the modern version of the Whigs,” he explains. “They broke apart over debates about the expansion of slavery, and they could not figure out where they stood on these fundamental questions. They were incoherent internally. And so what was notable to me was the extent to which all those dynamics are present within the current Republican party.” And capitalizing on “white desperation,” is one of the ways it’s trying to remain in power, he adds. This explains the Jan. 6 riots and there’s some bad news: “It might be reasonable to look at January 6th as the onset of a particular kind of political violence rather than the culmination of something that's already concluded,” he says. Then! Molly asks Jelani about the Voting Rights Act and its fate, and he shares a history nugget that many people might not know about (Abraham Lincoln basically gave Black people the right to vote to offset white supremacists in the South, which he saw as a “direct threat to American democracy.”) History strikes again. “A lot more is at stake than we generally acknowledge,” says Jelani.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Jelani Cobb: Jan. 6 Was the Beginning of GOP’s Mess, Not Ending
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Damn Right Republicans Are Scared of the Voting Rights Bills
Republicans are terrified—with good reason.
Utah Sen. Mike Lee went viral this week when he sputtered earlier that one of the new voting rights bills making its way through the House was “written in hell by the devil himself.” And Lee’s GOP colleagues didn’t exactly knock the notion down.
“They should be scared of it,” Rep. Eric Swawell, the California Democrat, tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest edition of The New Abnormal. “What we saw this past election in Georgia and Arizona —states that have historically made it harder for African-Americans and Latinos to vote—was that when you expand access to the polls, Democrats can win. And so I'm sure it was not comfortable for Georgians and Arizona leaders to certify the results for Joe Biden and [Sens.] Mark Kelly, [Raphael] Warnock and [Jon] Ossoff.”
“But instead of doing the right thing and standing on the integrity [of the election], they're learning the wrong lesson,” Swalwell adds. “What they're doing now is they're going back and saying, ‘Well, we don't ever want to do that again. We don't ever want to certify a Democratic victory. So let's just change the rules... Let's get rid of early voting. Let's get rid of Sunday voting, which benefits the faith-based communities of Georgia. Let's make it a misdemeanor if you pass out food or water to a long line.... And that way we can protect ourselves from another Democratic victory.’”
“If we do not pass HR1 and HR4—the two voting rights bills—you will see this institutionalized across the country, and the results will be devastating,” he continues. “HR1 gets rid of the dirty maps of redistricting, gerrymandering, and the dirty money. It strips down to the studs as much as you can legislatively the Citizens United ruling. HR4, The John Lewis Civil Rights act really puts back in place what's called pre-clearance—requiring approval from the courts before you can move polling places or purge voter rolls. And so if there was ever a reason to break the filibuster, which was put in place to block voting rights, it would be to advance both voting rights. It's almost a perfect completion of the circle.”
Then, Justice Democrats spokesperson Walid Shahid talks about how President Biden can avoid the traps that snagged Obama. And Carl Zimmer—a top science reporter for the New York Times and author of Life’s Edge: the Search for What It Means To Be Alive—joins Jong-Fast to discuss the pandemic, and the botched response that we are only now beginning to counteract.
“People knew this was coming for 20, 30 years, and yet we didn't prepare well enough,” he says. “If you look at countries like Nigeria or Senegal, and look at their case rate, their death rate, and all the rest, they have done incredibly well. And, and I was recently listening to a Nigerian disease specialist, talk about why this is. And one reason is that they'd been through Ebola and been through other outbreaks. They know what a virus can do when it goes berserk. And so they coordinated very early lockdowns and everyone was on board and they had good, consistent public health messaging. They didn't have a lot of money, they didn't have a lot of resources, but they were coordinated and effective. And I think we could learn a lot from them. And we should also look to ourselves and say, ‘well, why did we in the United States that makes such a spectacular mess of it.’”
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Florida’s Top Dem: Ron DeSantis Hid His COVID
While Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis may have been the runner-up to former President Donald Trump in the recent CPAC straw poll, his chances of ever becoming president himself are not good, according to Florida’s top Democrat.
“You know, he went MIA for three weeks in November claiming that he was working on some statewide plan. My take is that he probably had COVID and didn’t want to tell people when the vaccines first came to our state,” Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services Nikki Fried tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal.
Fried also spills the tea on DeSantis’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic and his real boss—Trump. “A lot of it was, he [DeSantis] was getting his nod from President Trump and wasn’t able to do anything without President Trump’s approval, and the same thing is happening here, because now President Trump is a resident. So I’m sure that [DeSantis] is consistently calling the president and I’m sure the president’s wealthy friends in the state of Florida are asking for the vaccines, and so they’re getting it delivered to them.“
But Fried isn’t done truth-telling about DeSantis and how his vaccine rollout will burn down his presidential aspirations, after he allowed non-residents to claim coveted doses for themselves while Floridians went without. “He allowed for out-of-state people to come into the state. So we heard, you know, big donors and people on the boards of hospitals and nursing homes were flying into our state,” she tells Molly.
Also in the episode, Peter Segal of NPR’s beloved quiz show Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me! joins Molly to talk about the emotional life of politics and everything that isn’t on Twitter. Sagal feels passionately that when the aliens come down to Earth, they are going to not see much of a difference between left and right wing cable television rhetoric.
“Differences that are obvious to us would not be to a Martian,” he says. “Looking at a camera and explaining to us very seriously and very sincerely why another group of people are terrible... They’re trying to get the audience to feel the same way about the opposite group of people, to feel indignant, to feel angry, to feel righteously upset about how awful these people are to feed that fuel. And what that says to me is that we’re more alike than we thought.”
And then the crew brings on David Shor, who says his job is to “get Democrats elected” but his formal title is head of data science at Open Labs.
Shor tells us how Democrats can win elections and the big problem with the 2020 election.
“One of the big stories of this election is that those non-white conservatives started to vote more like white conservatives, that we started to see this ideological polarization that’s happened over the last four years,” he says. “This has been a long-term trend, 2018 was worse than 2016. I think it’s something that a lot of people ignored, that there were a lot of races where Democrats did substantially worse than [Hillary] Clinton among non-white voters, and it was impactful. The reason we lost the Florida Senate race, or the Georgia gubernatorial race, if we had done as well among non-white voters as Clinton did, we wouldn’t have lost those races. And in the same way, going to 2020, I think, you know, 2020 was worse than 2018. And if you look at some survey data, you get some hints as to why. We ended up asking after the election, we did a large post-election survey of Latinos and asked a battery of issue questions just to try to get at what was motivating some of these voters who switched over. I think the single largest predictor was attitudes toward crime, attitudes toward public safety, attitudes toward policing.”
All of that plus Kyrsten Sinema’s Marie Antoinette imitation and the secret to getting that sought-after “NPR voice” on the latest The New Abnormal.
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TEASER: Mayoral Candidate Maya Wiley: I Won’t Take Bullying from NYPD
It’s safe to say that the people of New York City are ready for a new mayor, and certainly one who isn’t Bill deBlasio. Sure, he gave the city universal pre-K but had some faux paus over the years, most recently in 2020, when he was accused of antisemitism for a tweet addressed to the Hasidic Jewish community over social distancing rules during COVID and also (this one was big) for not standing up to the NYPD for harassing citizens during the George Floyd riots this summer. One of the many candidates stepping up to take his place is Maya Wiley, an activist, professor and veteran of City Hall, who says she will handle things much differently if she becomes the next mayor of New York City. To start, she doesn’t think there should have ever been a curfew during the protests, she tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast, producer Jesse Cannon and Beast editor Harry Siegel in this members-only episode of the New Abnormal. (“You can not have a control and containment model of policing that sees who are, who are expressing first amendment rights as the enemy.”) She also made it clear that she won’t bow down to bullying from police unions like many believe deBlasio did. “[The NYPD] works for us. You're public servants,” she says. “We're going to put the public back in public safety. And what I mean by that is civilian oversight are the rules of the road. Of the priorities of policing, we are going to right-size it, because it does not make any sense to have police doing functions that other experts should be doing like mental health crisis response.” When it comes to the city’s economy, she plans to take a Depression-era approach: investing in “communities that have been hard hit by COVID.” Plus! Molly asks her about Cuomo’s allegations (“There has never been any change worth fighting for where you didn't have someone who was difficult to work with.)
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Mayoral Candidate Maya Wiley: I Won’t Take Bullying from NYPD
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Biden Was Asked to Refinance His House After Iowa Fail
This is just how dire things got for the Biden campaign in early 2020. Plus, just how much damage Trump did by hiding his COVID vaccine, and Colorado’s voting model.
How did Joe Biden manage to eke out a presidential win after washing up in fourth place in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire?
Co-host Molly Jong-Fast still wants to know. “I’ve spent much of the week talking about being wrong about Cuomo, but I would like to take a minute to talk about being wrong about Biden,” she tells NBC News’ Jonathan Allen, co-author of the new book Lucky: How Biden Barely Won the Presidency, on the latest episode of The New Abnormal.
While Jong-Fast and others were writing Biden’s political obituary in February 2020, his staffers were suggesting the former vice president refinance his house to put money into his dying campaign, Allen says.
“It's not the most unheard of thing for a candidate to do it,” he says, but “a presidential candidate doesn't do that. And the subtext of going to him to tell him that is that it might be time to just wrap up the campaign. To Joe Biden's everlasting credit, he believed in himself.”
Allen talks about how Biden’s key endorsement from South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn came about—and another key to his win, the coronavirus pandemic.
“COVID hits and Biden is taken off the trail and he is able to be scripted know for his entire career, been disciplined and reporters love him because they'll talk, but he's on disciplined. And now his campaign has the ability to control his message and choose when he talks and how he talks to who he talks to. Um, and he's able to make those discretionary decisions along with his advisors. And meanwhile, Trump is on the stage at the white house, telling people to inject disinfectant, to combat COVID.”
Allen also talks about whether Biden will be able to unify the country and get any Republican votes to get legislation passed. “I think that there are things on which a Biden will be able to get votes from model Republicans. Um, it sort of independent thinking Republicans, you know, the converse is some of these bills are going to be incredibly difficult for them to vote against. I mean, think about voting against the COVID relief bill that's already made, you know, an entire campaign's worth of ads for an opponent. Marco Rubio is going to vote against this COVID relief bill, and he's going to have a democratic opponent next time. There's several that are thinking about getting in, including Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy from Florida.”
Also in the episode, Jong-Fast is joined by Eric Topol, cardiologist scientist and author and the founder and director of the Scripps research transitional Institute, who talks about how the vaccinations are going and how hard the U.K. variant will hit.
The U.K. variant, he says, will hit hard in Florida, California, and Texas, but he’s not so worried about the South African and Brazilian variants, which “ don't seem to be nearly as infectious.”
How are vaccines going? The U.K., he says “can go much faster since they're not giving the second doses right now. We've actually been pushing for that in the US to get ready for this variant that we're going to be hit with there that you gave variant, but there isn't receptivity at the white house, uh, yet, or we're Tony Fauci. We think that just for a month to go with the one dose, uh, you know, and then get these, all these people get their second dose a little bit delayed would be really advantageous, but we haven't had success in pushing for that.”
HE also says it’s a travesty Trump's decision to cover up the fact that he was vaccinated.
“We have politicization of the vaccine of vaccines. We have a remarkable global gap...
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‘They Might as Well Have Torn Up the Constitution’
For years, a central goal of the conservative movement was to install right-wing judges. A Republican president delivered, big time. And these Trumpists are still pissed.
Which tells you one thing. For the authoritarian wing of the Republican party, this was never about interpreting the American legal code. It was always about raw political power.
“It's not about the rule of law. It's not about getting good qualified judges. It's about results- oriented litigation,” former U.S. Attorney for Alabama Joyce Vance tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest edition of The New Abnormal. “They want judges who will vote to save the election for a president who has clearly lost it. And that's just out of bounds. It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or a Republican. The notion that the courts could be used to steal an election is really the epitome of being anti-democratic. It's ludicrous. It's ridiculous. It just shows you that these folks are off the rails. They might as well have stood on a stage at CPAC and torn up the Constitution.”
Vance adds, “We should immediately begin to identify what's being done here as anti-democratic. I don't believe that that's where my Republican friends in Alabama are. Many of them are good people who have different principled views than I have on policy issues. They believe in the Constitution and the rule of law. And they're horrified by what they're seeing.”
Because the Trumpists aren’t just looking for judges that overturn elections they don’t like. They don’t want anyone outside of their crowd to be able to vote, period. “These efforts to suppress the vote previously have been relegated to dark corners of political operatives. It's now actually the platform of the Republican party to make it hard for people to vote, because they're afraid that they might not vote Republican. They should be expending half the energy they're expending on voter suppression on trying to win voters over, on creating policies that are appealing to the population,” Vance says. “This is a sickness in the American political dialogue.”
Vance also looks at the mushrooming scandals around Andrew Cuomo, and the mounting legal cases for Trump. Then, Olivia Troye, who worked for Trump and Mike Pence during the early days of the pandemic, talks about their botched response to COVID. “It turns out nobody in the White House cared about spreading the virus,” she says. And the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel, fresh from CPAC, talks about how even straight-laced Republicans are now espousing the Big Lie.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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TEASER: Getting ‘Canceled’ Is the Only Thing Conservatives Have Left
The theme this year, stupidly enough, is ‘America Uncanceled.’ But the only real way to get any kinda cred at the 2021 Conversative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, to make a stink about how you’ve totally been canceled.
One easy way? Refuse to wear a mask, even though the host city and the hotel both require it. “We’ve seen these conservative influencers who, it seems, are deliberately getting kicked out of CPAC by not wearing a mask,” The Daily Beast’s Will Sommer tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “Because for them, CPAC is sort of just the place to see and be seen. They don't really care if they get kicked out. I mean, they don't want to hurt their brand by wearing a mask. And so we've seen a lot of these guys [showcase] the video of the ceremonial ouster from CPAC.”
“They're really against being canceled, but it actually seems like the culture of conservatives now—the merit badge is, you got canceled. Like, Marjorie Taylor Greeene is a celebrity now, because she got canceled,” adds producer Jesse Cannon.
But there’s a reason the CPAC posse is coalescing around cancelation. It’s because they can’t agree on much else. “The thing that I was really struck by, Jong-Fast says, “was that they're so light on policy… There's no nuts and bolts stuff.”
“The only policy discussion you hear at CPAC is when some lobbyist is clearly trying to plant something,” Sommer replies. “Theoretically, CPAC is supposed to be a bring[ing] together of the factions of the conservative movement. But this year I think everyone is so shell-shocked from 2020, they can't acknowledge that they lost. Because that would mean acknowledging that Trump lost. And everyone's just so terrified of Trump.”
The only thing left to fill the space is the performative resistance.
“So, apparently, to get this hotel, [the CPAC organizers] had to promise that people would wear masks,” Sommer says. “But at the same time you're inviting the people who are least willing to wear masks, to celebrate often how much they hate masks. So you have speakers like Ted Cruz saying how dumb it is to wear masks.”
Sommer adds, “So then occasionally in CPAC you have to have the organizers stand up and say, ‘we all love property rights, right?’ ‘Yeah!’ And they're like, ‘well, what about the right to have people a mask on your property?’ And everyone goes, ‘boooooo!!!’”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Getting ‘Canceled’ Is the Only Thing Conservatives Have Left
The theme this year, stupidly enough, is ‘America Uncanceled.’ But the only real way to get any kinda cred at the 2021 Conversative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, to make a stink about how you’ve totally been canceled.
One easy way? Refuse to wear a mask, even though the host city and the hotel both require it. “We’ve seen these conservative influencers who, it seems, are deliberately getting kicked out of CPAC by not wearing a mask,” The Daily Beast’s Will Sommer tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “Because for them, CPAC is sort of just the place to see and be seen. They don't really care if they get kicked out. I mean, they don't want to hurt their brand by wearing a mask. And so we've seen a lot of these guys [showcase] the video of the ceremonial ouster from CPAC.”
“They're really against being canceled, but it actually seems like the culture of conservatives now—the merit badge is, you got canceled. Like, Marjorie Taylor Greeene is a celebrity now, because she got canceled,” adds producer Jesse Cannon.
But there’s a reason the CPAC posse is coalescing around cancelation. It’s because they can’t agree on much else. “The thing that I was really struck by, Jong-Fast says, “was that they're so light on policy… There's no nuts and bolts stuff.”
“The only policy discussion you hear at CPAC is when some lobbyist is clearly trying to plant something,” Sommer replies. “Theoretically, CPAC is supposed to be a bring[ing] together of the factions of the conservative movement. But this year I think everyone is so shell-shocked from 2020, they can't acknowledge that they lost. Because that would mean acknowledging that Trump lost. And everyone's just so terrified of Trump.”
The only thing left to fill the space is the performative resistance.
“So, apparently, to get this hotel, [the CPAC organizers] had to promise that people would wear masks,” Sommer says. “But at the same time you're inviting the people who are least willing to wear masks, to celebrate often how much they hate masks. So you have speakers like Ted Cruz saying how dumb it is to wear masks.”
Sommer adds, “So then occasionally in CPAC you have to have the organizers stand up and say, ‘we all love property rights, right?’ ‘Yeah!’ And they're like, ‘well, what about the right to have people a mask on your property?’ And everyone goes, ‘boooooo!!!’”
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Mary Trump: Here’s How We Send Donald to Jail
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office finally got its hands on Donald Trump’s taxes and it’s only a matter of time before it becomes clear why he spent so much time trying to keep them hidden away. In this episode of The New Abnormal, Mary Trump joins as Molly Jong-Fast’s co-host to talk about the development, a topic that she knows a lot about. (Quick recap: She helped with the New York TImes’ investigation into Trump taxes.) But these taxes are different than the taxes Mary had been involved with, she says. “The taxes I gave them are old and from my grandfather's company. So I think [the new taxes] will be really helpful in establishing patterns where such patterns actually exist,” she explains. But there’s one problem. She doesn’t think Trump is really sweating it down in Mar-a-Lago, mainly because he’s gotten away with so much shit for so long. What makes this time any different? “If he goes down because of his taxes, Al Capone style, I'm all for it,” she says. “And if it's bad enough, which it's going to be, I think his ability to stay out of jail decreases significantly.” It’s not impossible, and there is one thing she says we can keep doing to make it happen. Then! there’s still the Republicans’ MAGA Problem. “It's almost like they have Stockholm syndrome [from Trump] that they gave to themselves,” Molly says, and Mary piles on: “They are an anti-democratic party and they will do anything, including embracing counter-majoritarian tactics, to maintain their power, no matter how illegitimately.” Even if it goes against their voters’ own interest, or well-being. (“Self-interest in the name of being superior,” says Mary.) Then! Rep. Sylvia Rodriguez (D-TX) joins Molly, producer Jesse Cannon and Daily Beast congressional reporter Sam Brodey to share what the situation currently looks like in Texas, how AOC spent a few days visiting her and helping out and why running off to Cancun was never even a thought in her mind—but recruiting Sen. Ted Cruz to volunteer at the food bank with her is. (“His neighborhood is slightly different than mine, and they have a lot of access to resources and it would be helpful.”) Plus, Rep. Val Dennings (D-FL) shares what being in the Capitol during the riots was like from a former law enforcement officer perspective and faces Molly’s very blunt question. Is she going to run for Senate?
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just us discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Blaire Erskine Exposes MAGA Insanity
Atlanta-based comedian Blaire Erskine has blown up on Twitter over the past year with videos that not only roast Trump-loving conservatives but have also managed to fool a large number of prominent liberals. With characters like Tiffany Trump’s best friend, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s daughter and Ted Cruz’s spokesperson, Blaire rides a fine line between parody and reality and nails it every time. In this episode, we talk about how she honed this new craft during the pandemic, why 90% of the hate she gets comes from the left and a lot more.
Twitter: @blaireerskine and @mattwilstein | Instagram: @blaire.erskine and @lastlaughpod
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Orange Is the New Orange: Trump Just Might Go to Jail
For years, he’s gotten away with it. He lied. He cheated. He treated the government like a get-rich-quick-scheme and his most ardent followers like marks.
But now, Donald Trump could be facing serious criminal charges. The kind of charges that might lead to the former president going to jail.
The Supreme Court turned down Trump’s final appeal, and that means his accounting firm has to turn over his tax records and business documents to Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance ASAP. “Trump's lawyers will always come up with something, but there should be no reason why the grand jury won't get these financial records tomorrow,” Daily Beast legal analyst Jay Michaelson tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest edition of The New Abnormal.
“Basically, what we all know happened was: Trump inflated the value of his business when it suited him, which is in order to get on the Forbes list [of richest people] and also to get loans from Deutsche Bank. And then he deflated his worth in order to save on taxes. So that's illegal... Not only is that insurance fraud and bank fraud, but that could affect those loans,” Michaelson adds.
“Will he go to jail for, like, the rest of his life? Probably no. Is it possible that this would lead to criminal charges that would carry jail time? I would say that's pretty likely, and we could have a grand jury indictment fairly soon,” Michaelson continues. “A lot of these kinds of white collar crimes are settled, and they're settled out for large financial settlements. In this case, I'm not sure that Cy Vance is interested in settling with Donald Trump—even if Donald Trump could afford the fines that he would have to pay, which I don't think he can.”
To which Jong-Fast asks, “Can he borrow it from Jared?”
“Unfortunately, he's not the financial wizard that he makes himself out to be.”
“Wait. But Jared made $200 trillion.”
“Don't fall for it. I mean, he's cute, but he's not really that smart.”
Also on a packed episode of The New Abnormal: Tommy ‘Quentin Quarantino’ Marcus talks about all the cash he raised for Planned Parenthood—in Rush Limbaugh’s name. ‘How to Be a Liberal’ author Ian Dunt tells us how post-Trump Americans should see still-Boris Brits like him: “So what you should do is look at us like we were like someone you used to date that is still taking heroin. ‘I'm so glad I left that behind,’ because that's where we are.”
Finally, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Mark Warner about how the fight against the far-right needs to be taken international. “We're going to do a deep dive on this anti-government extremism—and particularly some of these groups, their ties to right-wing groups in Europe, oftentimes amplified by Russia,” he says. “I know the threat is real. I know it's not just in this country.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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TRAILER: Dem Impeachment Manager: Here’s Why We Didn’t Call Witnesses During Trump’s Trial
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Dem Impeachment Manager: Here’s Why We Didn’t Call Witnesses During Trump’s Trial
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The Vaccines Are More Effective Than You Think
Andy Slavitt was shocked when he joined the Biden administration.
“I was under the impression coming in—as many, many Americans were—that there were big stockpiles of vaccines waiting to go out the door that were produced over the course of the last year. It's been much, much less the case than I think we'd been led to believe,” the White House senior adviser for COVID response tells Molly Jong-Fast and Jesse Cannon on the latest episode of The New Abnormal.
It was one of a host of shortcomings the Biden team found, Slavitt says: “Not enough vaccines, not enough vaccinators, not enough places for people to get vaccines.”
“So when we got here January 20th, one of the things we learned as an only 46% of the vaccines delivered to states had actually made its way into people's arms. Now you'd never expect that to be 100%. But 46%? It was low,” Slavitt adds.
There’s now a plan in place to purchase as many as 600 million doses, hopefully enough for every American. States are now using 75% of their doses, a big step up from a few weeks ago. And there may be another vaccine around the corner, from Johnson and Johnson. “I would love to tell you, we weren't going to be starting with a huge stockpile of Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The truth is we're starting with a small number and we've got to build it as quickly as possible.”
Meanwhile, the virus is evolving. More contagious, deadlier variants are spreading, fast. But even here, Slavitt sees some signs for hope. “All of the vaccines work very well against the English B117 variant. So that's good. The South African variant—and there's another one that looks like the South African, that's the Brazilian variant—that one it's interesting. There is a degradation of performance of the vaccines against the South African variant. However, that degradation is thankfully still above the scientific threshold for effectiveness,” Slavitt says. “It still generates antibodies. It doesn't generate as many. But it’s good.”
The vaccines may even be a bit better than advertised, Slavitt says. “You know, we may have done a little bit of a disservice to ourselves when with the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, we talked about the end point as including [serve] and mild [COVID-19 cases], because we really don't care as much about the mild. And so we get very fixated on the fact that they're 95% percent effective against both, right. And we probably should have stepped back and said, ‘you know what, let’s just measure it against more severe symptoms.’ In which case, the Johnson and Johnson does very close to comparable.” And all of the vaccines seem to stop severe cases—from all the variants.
There are even some indications that “viral load”—the amount of virus a person carries—“is decreased for people who are vaccinated,” indicating “that these vaccines not only reduce disease and save lives, but these vaccines also will reduce the ability of people to affect one another, which if it holds up, will be terrific news.”
But only if the vaccine gets into the arms of the people who need it the most, Slavitt cautions.
“It's not just how many vaccines are being administered, but also how equitable equitably they're being distributed. Because look, we all know there are half the population or more would crawl over broken glass to get the vaccine, right. But the problem is they’re crawling over other people,” he adds. “You know, they're getting online and going into communities, maybe neighborhoods they've never visited or visited in a long time, but [where] we put vaccines that are really hard hit by the virus. People are coming in, refreshing their browser, and going in and getting these appointments. It's really important that we not just focus on how many people we vaccinated, but that we do it as equitably as possible. And that's a big, big push for us.”
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Mitch McConnell Proved He’s Even More Craven Than Ted Cruz
That impeachment vote in the Senate was tough to swallow, with 43 Republicans voting to acquit Trump for the insurrection done in his name, by people waving his flag. Even more gag-worthy was Sen. Mitch McConnell’s speech afterwards—blaming Trump for the wannabe coup minutes after voting to let him off.
“The most galling statements for me were the ones from the Mitch McConnells and the Rob Portmans and the Marco Rubios after they voted to acquit Donald Trump, basically saying, ‘Well, you know, the whole coup thing was kind of bad and I wish you wouldn't have tried to do it. And I wish a cop wouldn't have died. And you know, he made some bad choices. But you know, I had no choice,’” Bulwark writer-at-large Tim Miller tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest edition of The New Abnormal.
But of course, McConnell and his crew did have a choice. The House impeached Trump on January 13. The Senate decided to take a vacation, rather than take up the case right away. And once the vacations were over and Biden was sworn in, they decided against all reason and precedent that an ex-official like Trump somehow couldn’t be convicted.
“For Mitch McConnell to be like, ‘I really wanted to do it, but…’ Bullshit. The only reason that you didn't do it was because of you. It is galling. Give me a hundred [militia-friendly Rep.] Lauren Boberts—who are too stupid to know that it was bad, or Ted Cruzes—who are sociopaths—over Mitch McConnell, trying to try to tell me that he has some feelings about this. Give me a break,” Tim says.
Also on the show: Rep. Andy Kim tells Molly what it’s like to be the rare Democrat representing a Trumpy district. Molly gives an update on the Lincoln Project situation. And Tim keeps going in on McConnell.
“I know that many listeners will think that Mitch McConnell doesn't have a soul at all, and that's understandable. But he actually does have a flicker of one. He does love the Senate, you know,” Tim adds. “And he wanted to be able to emote about that in his weird Mitch McConnell way. And that's what actually makes it worse… Don't try to memorialize to me. You had an opportunity to do something you didn't. You made the craven move. You sided with the insurrectionists.”
Miller says, “Basically what we saw on Saturday was a Republican party that had an opportunity—after five years of being craven cowards that rolled over for Donald Trump at every chance—finally was able to put the stake in his heart and say, ‘We don't need you anymore. We don't tolerate this. And we want to move forward, even it takes a little pain.’ And 43 of them said... ‘nah.’”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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TEASER: The Marine and The Doctor Taking On Marjorie Greene and Lauren Boebert
Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert weren’t elected to their positions in the House of Representatives by accident. They ran campaigns like everyone else, and won. Given Greene’s “nutty” aka QAnon-supporting and anti-mask-censorship antics in particular since she arrived in Washington, it may be hard for lots of people to understand why. In this bonus members-only episode of The New Abnormal, co-host Molly Jong-Fast sat down with Doctor John Cowan, the Republican surgeon who lost to Greene in her district despite both candidates supporting Donald Trump, to get an idea for what people may have had in mind when casting their ballots for her. “I think this is why she got elected is because people really felt like these guys are absolutely crazy in Washington DC,” he explains. “And they are, many of them are, trying to actively destroy the country through their policies and rhetoric and whatnot. And [voters] looked at someone like Marjorie and said, ‘we've got the answer to that. You know, she's a fighter she'll say or do anything.’” Essentially, says Molly, she won for the same reasons Trump did. Cowan agrees: “I think they just thought, well, we've got somebody who's literally going to kick it to the government and maybe he can crack that or drain the swamp as he was off to say.” Then, Molly talks to Gregg Smith, a former Marine and ex-colleague of Erik Prince, who is running against the GOP’s Rep. Lauren Boebert in Colorado. He feels that he can and will defeat her. Donald Trump had support out there because “people out here will generally vote against the mainstream,” but that support has dwindled, and Boebert’s response to the insurrection is being questioned, he says. But Democrats aren’t going to win the area by pushing Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders-level ideologies too hard. “You've got to address the issues that are important out here.” That’s basically what both Cower and Smith have in common with one another: hope in the voters. “I do think people eventually will wake up and see that there's a lot of darkness there,” says Cowan. Plus, Smith shares the moment he knew Erik Prince couldn’t be trusted: “I never want to see him again.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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The Marine and The Doctor Taking On Marjorie Greene and Lauren Boebert
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There Is a Way to Take Down Fox News (And It’s Not a Boycott)
Amidst hundreds of thousands of Americans dying from COVID-19, countless pleas from health officials and the CDC to wear maks and social distance, and a recent report from Lancet that put the cherry on top of the “this was basically Trump’s fault” sundae, Fox News has decided to do what Fox News does: Go against all of that. This time, their “poison pill” of choice, as Media Matters’ President and CEO Angelo Cursone calls it in this episode of The New Abnormal, is vaccine skepticism. “What Fox is doing with the vaccines right now is similar to the role that they played at every step of public health measures,” Cursone tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast. “They dismissed social distancing early on. They were sort of skeptical about the masks and Jeanine Pirro was warning her audience. That the only reason people wear masks is to do bad things.” Now, they’re telling their viewers they’re not sure about taking the “George Soros Kool-Aid.” (Rick Wilson is already seeing this play out with “MAGA moms” on Facebook). But Fox has a reason for this, adds Cursone, who shares his theory. It has to do with your cable bill—and it’s also the very way the network could be destroyed. The more outrage they get, the more viewers, the more negotiating power they have against cable companies to get them to charge cable watchers more for their channel. “Fox News, now, for every person that has cable news pays Fox news between $2 and $2 and 50 cents a month, whether or not you ever watched the channel and what they're trying to do, because they've lost so much, advertising [wants to] get that number up from about $2, a person to $3 to $3 and 50 cents over the next year,” and if there’s a way to hit them where it hurts, explains Cursone, it’s here. Of course, it’s not a New Abnormal episode if there isn’t talk of impeachment, especially the hearings going on right now involving the Capitol insurrection. Rick is particularly furious at Rick Scott and Marco Rubio: “They're basically just saying, ah, yeah, our little plot failed. Our little coup failed. So we're just going to hang out here and be the dick kids in the back of the room, throwing at the teacher.” Speaking of dicks, Molly tells the fun little tale of Marjorie Taylor Green and the Tantric Sex Guru and Daily Beast congressional reporter Sam Brodey talks about his experience witnessing the trial in person.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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The Worst People on Facebook Now Want to Ruin Real Life
For years, Facebook has been a cesspool of conspiracy theorists, political ragemonsters, and quacks pushing cures for decaying Boomers. But as dangerous as these creeps were, they were mostly contained to the social network.
Until the pandemic hit.
Now, all of us are locked down. And Facebook’s worst actors and brainwormiest thinking is bursting out into the real world—and threatening to take it over.
“I see it a lot actually in local community pages,” The Daily Beast’s Kelly Weill explains on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “To give an example, I was looking at a page, a local news site, about my 5,000-population hometown. The main restaurant, they closed down for a COVID exposure or something. And people were saying, ‘Ah! This is tyranny. We don't have to do this.’ Someone was posting an image macro in the comments with the ‘where we go one, we go all’ Qanon thing. And I'm like, ‘Oh my God, like, this is about the salad bar.’”
“You really see the conspiracy theories and the atomization, the disconnection from real people and how you would hopefully behave in a real life setting. That just vanishes on Facebook. And I think with so many people using that now as their main means of communicating, it's spreading,” Weill tells Molly Jong-Fast.
Take the icky phenomenon of online multi-level marketing. Those “are those parasitic posts that you see all over your Facebook. It's your friend from home saying, ‘Hey, I just got a great deal on vitamin supplements. And, uh, if you, you know, give me $50, I'll send them to you. Or you can go into business with me and become my associate,’” Weill says. “It's something that you're not legally allowed to call a financial cult, but golly, does it sound like one.”
One local politician in Kansas was in so deep, he had “someone come and make a sales pitch for during a political meeting on preventing COVID,” Weill continues. “During a council meeting on COVID, he brought in someone from an essential oil company to make the pitch about how these products can help you and your family and empower you to live the healthy lifestyle.”
“I don't think there are official rules against doing that. We've just been, uh, coasting on people not doing that. That's been kind of the unspoken expectation,” Weill says.
Speaking of expectations, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) stops by the show to talk about what he wants to see from Trump’s upcoming second impeachment. And Rick Wilson has a message for the Republican senators who want to let the ex-president off the hook: “This is one of those votes, like the Iraq war or Obamacare, that you never escape. You never escape it. And if you think the tide isn't turning, you're not paying attention. Trumpism is still a threat and will be for a long time, so I know that's why those guys are afraid. But the rest of the country is done with this bullshit.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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TEASER: Democrats Don’t Care About Debt. And That’s OK.
The pandemic shook things up, a lot. It exposed the country’s deepest inequalities, and arguably, made them worse. Now, all eyes are on President Biden to see how he’ll fix it, and Republicans are responding exactly as expected: by crying about the debt. Here’s the thing, though, says Paul Krugman, an American economist and op-ed columnist at The New York Times, there’s really no reason to. It’s a tale as old as time. Both parties spend, but when it’s time for Dems to make the economic plans, and Biden took office, Republicans “suddenly rediscovered that they were worried about debt” he tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal. But it actually doesn’t matter, he claims. “The important thing to realize is that governments are not like you and me, governments don't have to pay back their debt,” he explains. “All they have to do is make sure that their obligations don't grow beyond any reasonable estimate of what they can us over time. That means they never actually have to pay off debt. It's a threat that exists only in the imagination of people who want to have some reason to squeeze government spending.” Instead, says Krugman, lawmakers should prioritize giving money to poor families with children, which is cheap and will get them out of poverty. “You can do an enormous amount for children, fairly affordably,” he says, but for the love of Pete, stop calling it tax breaks. “It's actually just giving people money,” he says, which isn’t a bad thing at all. Will the Trump voters go for this? It’s unclear, but Krugman says Biden’s policies actually help them the most. (“There's basically no place in America that is more dependent upon federal aid. That is more lifted out of absolute misery by massive support from the taxpayers than Eastern Kentucky. And it's very, very hard to find someone who didn't vote for Trump and those in those counties.”) Plus! The past alignments of the Democratic and Republican parties are completely changed, he says. (“People used to describe [the GOP] as being a center, right party, but it's not, it's now an extreme authoritarian, anti-liberal, anti-science, anti-almost-everything party that more or less [resembles] fascist parties of Europe.”) And! A prediction of what economic recovery look like post-pandemic. It’s good news for the working class.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Democrats Don’t Care About Debt. And That’s OK.
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The Hamster Wheel of Trumpism Will Turn Greene Into a Hero
So how are House Republicans dealing with the fallout from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s freshly resurfaced 9/11 trutherism, school shooting denialism, and threats on fellow lawmakers’ lives?
They’re giving her a standing ovation. “Marjorie Taylor Greene is House minority leader,” co-host Rick Wilson says on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “She runs the House.”
The newly elected Georgia Republican, Rick says, is the GOP’s equivalent of the “crazy uncle.” “You know, we know he’s drunk. We know he’s crazy. We know he comes to Thanksgiving dinner every year lit to shit. And we’ll just pretend it’s not happening.
And even though Greene was booted from her committees Thursday night in a largely partisan vote, Rick predicts she “will raise a ton of money because they will all say, ‘Oh, we have to teach the lying libtard cucks a lesson. And Marjorie Taylor Greene is a hero and Trump loves her, and therefore we love her’... I guarantee there will be a cottage industry that emerges and says, ‘Well, Marjorie Taylor Greene is rough around the edges. She says some crazy things sometimes. And you know, we don’t believe in those crazy things she says, but, but, but a little echo the distance but she’s just asking questions. She owns the libs. Don’t you want to own the libs?”
Later in the episode, co-host Molly Jong-Fast asks Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) whether Republicans will return to the normal world now that former President Donald Trump has been defeated.
“Some of the early signals are not good,” the senator says. “Look at Kevin McCarthy yesterday, there were basically no consequences for one of the members who’s just spinning these conspiracy theories. And based on what I heard, there’s a real question about when the dust settles here in the next couple of days, whether she’s going to have more power than she did before.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) tells Molly that while he has always “tried to form coalitions where I can, when you have someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who’s not just refusing to certify the election results but was actually threatening assassination against Secretary Clinton and President Obama and harassing members of Congress, you have to draw the line.”
“Kevin McCarthy last night displayed the greatest moment of weakness in a party leader I have seen since Newt Gingrich tried to resist the all you can eat pizza bar at Sbarro,” Rick concludes of the House GOP’s closed-door vote Wednesday night. “This idea of giving Marjorie Taylor Greene a free pass by rapping her lightly on the wrist and having her say, ‘I no longer believe wink, wink, wink that QAnon wink, wink, wink is a real thing, wink, wink, Hillary Clinton wink Adrenochrome wink the Jews wink.’ By letting her pass through there and letting his people give her a standing ovation with no punishment, no sanction, nothing, he showed his weakness and he showed how weak he was to the country, to Pelosi, and to the rest of his party.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Will Biden’s Team Find All of the Vaxx—Before It’s Too Late?
In recent days, top members of the Biden administration have a startling admission: That millions of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were lost somewhere in the system.
So now, the race is on to track down all of the vials. “This is the number one priority within the Biden administration right now is finding doses and making sure they don't go to waste before they start to ramp up supply through other means,” Erin Banco, The Daily Beast’s lead reporter on the COVID beat, tells Molly Jong-Fast on The New Abnormal.
“Their rhetoric right now has been, ‘we have only been here for X amount of days, please give us time. This is not easy.’ I think they're only going to be able to use that excuse for so long. Like, look, you're in government. This is your job. Yeah, these things take time—especially coordinating them across all the States and territories when everyone has a different distribution plan. It’s a slog. But from what I hear, the CDC should have a better idea of where things stand this week,” Banco adds.
And while the scramble to find the doses continues, the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection still lingers—especially for those who were there in the Capitol as the MAGA mob raged. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) tells Molly about her harrowing experience.
“There's pounding at the doors. Officers are yelling at people and saying ‘make sure those doors are secured,’” Dingell recounts. “My colleagues were taking benches and chairs and helping secure the doors. And we were told to sit in our chairs, pull out our escape hoods, which are the gas masks. And that if we were told to kneel, we needed to do so right away, because there could be some shooting. It still seems surreal.”
Finally, Rick Wilson addresses the revelation that John Weaver, one of his fellow co-founders of the Lincoln Project, sent unwanted, sexually explicit messages to people as young as 14.
“If we had been aware of this, if I had been aware of this, I would not for a second have hesitated to report John Weaver to law enforcement. I would have done it in a hot minute,” Wilson says.
“I am sickened at his behavior and I'm sickened that we fell for a deception of this scope and scale. And I'm sickened by the fact that a predatory person tried to use our organization and our mission to exploit it for personal reasons,” Wilson adds. “It's a group that shares, we share a very firm belief in accountability, Okay. And I think John should be held accountable.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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TEASER: Republicans Aren’t All Dumb. They’re Just Part of Cult.
Lots of us have been asking ourselves (and Twitter) many questions over the last year. Questions like: How did about 74 million people vote for Trump, again? Why do people actually believe in QAnon? And, more recently, if Republicans can see Trump for who he really is-—and how he has become a hero among a sect of the party that, at their worst, believe celebrities are part of a global pedophile ring, and at their best, that masks are a form of censorship—than why do the majority of them still support him? Norm Ornstein, an American political scientist and The Atlantic contributor, joined co-host Molly Jong-Fast on this members-only episode of The New Abnormal to share his insight. “There are plenty of Republicans, and I put Rob Portman in that category, who know perfectly well that this stuff is just awful, or plenty of it is, but they'd gone along because they're a part of the cult,” he says. He also adds Mitch McConnell to that list: “He knows what Trump is. He knows that Trump is a doofus and a racist and has no ability to govern, to read anything, all of that, but he could get the tax cuts and get all these judges, knowing that basically the best way they can cling to power is to stack these courts that will let any voter suppression measures pass muster, and that will block Democratic presidents and [hit] the goals they can't accomplish in Congress alone.” If it continues like this, he adds, “you can't have a democracy for long that doesn't have two functioning problem-solving oriented parties.” Then there are the Majorie Greene Taylor types in Congress to think about. How did that happen? Trump certainly fueled it, but he didn’t start that fire, says Ornstein. “The Republican party had an insurgent outlier party that was dismissive of its opposition, that was contemptuous of facts and science that had blown up norms and could care less about the others in terms of governing long before Donald Trump emerged as a potential political figure or presidential candidate,” he says. “[Republicans] just dove in headfirst into the muck.” Then! The two discuss a topic Molly gets crap for and that’s why Diane Feinstein really needs to retire. And the two roast Kevin McCarthy, big time. “McCarthy had this moment to be free of Trump. And he just went back for more,” says Molly.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Republicans Aren’t All Dumb. They’re Just Part of Cult.
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Trump Sent a Mob to His Office. Now He’s Kissing Don’s Ass.
He’s supposed to be a leader—the leader, in fact, of the Republicans in the House of Representatives. But he ain’t doing much leading.
As The Daily Beast reported, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) went in a matter of weeks from angrily criticizing Donald Trump for inciting the MAGA mob that attacked the Capitol—to kissing up to the entire Trump family.
“The House of Representatives’ [Republican caucus] is comprised of the Trump party—with the exception of 10 or 11 reps,” says Rick Wilson on the latest edition of The New Abnormal. “They're the pro-sedition, pro-insurrection, pro-mob party,”
“Right? It does feel like McCarthy is really giving Trump the Republican party. He really is,” adds Molly Jong-Fast. “I mean, there was like a chance where the Republican party was going to escape from Trump's clutches. And then [McCarthy] was like: ‘Too scary. Let's go back.’”
McCarthy went down, too—all the way to Mar-a-Lago, to bend the knee on Thursday.
“Kevin McCarthy had to flee his office [during the Capitol Riot]. He begged Donald Trump to speak, to stop what was going on as it was going on. And Trump was silent. And now Kevin McCarthy is going to apologize to Donald Trump,” says Jon Allen, co-author of the forthcoming Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency. “I don't know what to do with that… If you come to my house and try to kill me, if you bring your guns to my house, one thing I will not be doing is apologizing to you and begging for your forbearance.”
And meanwhile, the Republicans in the Senate are acting only slightly less timid.
“I call the alligator fried chicken theory, which is you can keep throwing the alligator fried chicken [while you’re] sitting on the edge of the dock. But when you're out of fried chicken, he bites your foot off, okay?” Rick says. “They keep thinking they're going to be the last one like that. They're the last piece of fried chicken and they're going to be okay. They are not, [Trump] will always be there doing this to them from afar. He will haunt them until he is dead. And once he's dead, they'll upload them to the cloud and he'll haunt them for all the Trinity until the heat death of the universe.”
“The only path to cutting off the pernicious infection and the metastasizing cancer that is Trumpism is to vote to convict him. Now, I recognize that that would take people in the Senate on the Republican side with these rare and terrifying characteristics that are unimaginable in modern American politics, things like courage and integrity and patriotism and a love of country and putting country before party,” Rick adds, “All these things would be, would be easy, but they're also in Congress rare as hen's teeth, as my grandma would say.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Josh Hawley, Could You Stop Your Whining for Five Seconds?
Authoritarians like Sen. Josh Hawley don’t have much to defend these days. Their little insurrection failed, their Dear Leader is gone, and his stewardship helped kill more Americans than World War II.
But they’ve still got the politics of aggrievement. Of victimhood. Of straight-up whining.
Take this past weekend, when Hawley mewled about being silenced—on the cover of a major national newspaper. “It was the absolute pinnacle of the very white, Downy white, snowy top of Mount Snowflake,” Rick Wilson laughs on the latest edition of The New Abnormal.
“Oh, I can't, I can't say a word—except on the Senate floor, where I was elected by the people of Missouri. I can't say a word—except on Fox, the largest cable network in the country. I can't say a word—except the New York post, which is millions of people every day. I can't say a word except on Facebook and Twitter and TikTok and every other platform in America,’” Rick adds, channeling Hawley.
“But what you should be saying, Josh Hawley, you fucking snake is this: ‘I apologize to the family of officer Brian Sicnick for having incited the crowd which murdered him.' So Josh is not muzzled. He just lacks a moral compass to speak the truth about what he is,” Rick says.
Speaking of the Senate, Adam Jentleson—author of Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy—joins the show to talk about how the Democrats can free themselves from Mitch McConnell’s grasp.
And speaking of problems with the truth, a number of MAGA men could be in a world of trouble for airing a bunch of nonsensical conspiracy theories about Dominion, the election technology firm. The company has sued a bunch of folks in greater Trumplandia for defamation. The latest: Rudy Giuliani, for a cool $1.3 billion.
“If you haven't read this filing, it is quite something,” says Molly Jong-Fast. “It includes such things as: ‘also during that defamatory podcast, Rudy claimed supplements would cure his viewers’ achy joints and muscles and implored them to stop wasting money and switch. He instructed them to use his name when ordering and said they could get a second bottle free if they ordered now.’”
But what’s really “interesting about this lawsuit is that they use Tucker Carlson's statements that there's no there there to then attack Sean Hannity—and to ask why Fox news gave Giuliani a platform on Sean Hannity's show, even though Tucker Carlson had said it was a scam,” she adds.
Rudy and the rest are talking tough. But their lies—that Dominion “really is a Venezuelan company” (it’s Canadian) and helped steal the election (no)—are too big. They are going to have to back down, Rick predicts, or pay up. “The fact of the matter is, Molly, Dominion has them all by the balls.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Did Trump and Biden Swap Bodies???
If you don’t understand the title of this episode, which suggests some Freaky Friday voodoo between President Biden and ex-President Donald Trump, congratulations, you have logic. Unfortunately, there are many people who don’t, like the QAnon believers who are still clinging to their conspiracy theories the same way that Donald Trump attempted to cling to the presidency: with nonsensical BS. But seriously, one of the latest QAnon theories that hasn’t yet been proved false, is that Trump is still somehow president...in Biden’s body. In this episode of The New Abnormal, Rick Wilson, Molly Jong-Fast and guest George Conway unpack that and a whole lot more. “It's really the only answer that makes sense,” Molly jokes. “It’s just so simple and obvious.” What isn’t obvious, however, is how the non-QAnon Republicans will move forward with Biden as president, especially Mitch McConnell. (“They have the problem of the distortive, gravitational field that Donald Trump casts over some element of the Republican party and they need to stamp it out. And you know that in his heart of hearts Mitch McConnell wants to do that. He just doesn't want to leave any fingerprints,” says Conway.) Then, the three pivot Trump. It’s a new era, but it’s impossible to not talk about him. In fact, Molly says Biden has 99 problems, and, yes, Trump is still very much one of them. To start, he left no federal vaccine roll-out plan, and also, to quote Conway, “he's basically a criminal.” Not even a Nixon-style criminal, either. Worse. (“I mean, [Trump] was like a one man show there and people were trying to get out of the way or avoid doing what he asked them to do," says Conway.) Plus! Daily Beast Washington Bureau Chief Jackie Kucinich tells Molly what to expect from Chuck and Mitch in the next week or so, but also the next two years with a Senate that’s split down the middle: “It's still gonna be really hard to govern. This is razor-thin, as thin as it gets.”
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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TEASER: Mitch McConnell Is Already Trying to Train Wreck the Biden Admin
It is said that before Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009, a group of Republicans got together and vowed to oppose everything that he would do, or rather, try to do. Did the Trump loyalists on the hill and Mitch McConnell’s Republicans huddle together last night and make a similar vow, this time for President-Elect Joe Biden? It’s a possibility, says Michael Tomasky, special guest on today’s members-only episode of The New Abnormal, which happened LIVE on Zoom. Even if they didn’t, Tomasky, and co-hosts Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast, know that Mitch’s sneakiness isn’t ending with the Trump administration. Take the impeachment for example, says Rick: “They’ll pretend they’re doing to convict him,” but they, mainly Mitch, won’t. “If he meant it, they would have done it. I think he’s leaning slightly more toward it, only because the ‘22 [race] map is staring at him a little bit.” They’re all still tied to the race, so Mitch’s games will continue. In fact, he’s already trying to trainwreck Biden. “If Mitch McConnell wants Josh Hawley to wear a Spongebob outfit, he will do that. He is letting Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz play their game,” says Rick. Speaking of the Biden administration, the crew shares what 46 should say in his inauguration address, and the question almost leaves them stumped. “There needs to be an acknowledgment of the precarious place we’re in. He needs to explain to the American people what a perilous place we’re in and what we can do to come back,” says Tomasky. Rick agrees (“You can’t have a car crash like this and not talk about it. There needs to be some sternness to it, too.”) and Molly goes even further. One word: accountability. Plus! Rick, Molly and Tomasky surmise what Trump could have possibly said to Biden in the letter he left for him (a mention of a gorilla channel??), how the Bannon pardon was a “fuck you moment,” the DNC’s next moves and, of course, the Trump administration’s very last Fuck That Guy, to which Rick and Molly bring the heat.
If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com
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Mitch McConnell Is Already Trying to Train Wreck the Biden Admin
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Preview: Sarah Cooper Calls Trump a ‘Petty Bitch’
In this preview of ‘The Last Laugh’ podcast’s new episode with Sarah Cooper, the comedian shares her parting message for the president she has spent the past year making fun of on TikTok.
Subscribe to ‘The Last Laugh’ now to hear our full conversation, including Sarah’s thoughts on what should happen to Trump and his family after they leave the White House and why she thinks the MAGA crowd actually enjoys her Trump lip sync videos.
Twitter: @sarahcpr and @mattwilstein | Instagram: @sarahcpr and @lastlaughpod
Highlights from this episode and others at The Daily Beast.
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How to Kill MAGA Nation’s Brain Worms
How will we bring the Trump supporters who live in an alternate reality back to the real world?
A recent Pew poll asked who respondents thought was to blame for the Capitol riot—and an “astounding” number said President Donald Trump bears no responsibility, Rick Wilson told his co-host Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal.
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers “really want to close their eyes and say, it didn’t happen. Oh, it’s just going to go away. Well, it did happen. You made it happen. It’s not going away. It’s going to be with you for a long, long time,” Wilson said.
“They’re forgetting that this particular party now has a base of people who believe in the craziest fucking things you’ve ever heard of,” he added. “And who hate Republicans if they’re not named Donald Trump.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Atlantic staff writer Anne Applebaum, joined the co-hosts to offer historical examples where societies were able to come together after insurgencies and civil wars.
“We need to find some way to reach people who now live in this in an alternate reality,” she said. “In December, something like 35 percent of Americans said they had doubts about who won the election. More recently, something like 21 percent approve of the storming of the Capitol. So somewhere around those numbers, we have a number of people who don’t accept that the election was won by Joe Biden. Therefore, they don’t accept the rules of American democracy. Therefore, they think it’s OK to commit violence against the institutions and people who compose that democracy.”
To reach those people, Applebaum said, “All the lessons are about getting people to focus on practical and real issues and getting them away from the culture wars. So you will not win by shouting at people, ‘You are fascists!’ even if they are… and you will not win by arguing your case. You will win by getting people to talk about fixing the roads... getting people to refocus on some real project in the real world that a community can do together.
Most important of all, said co-host Molly Jong Fast, is to avoid focusing on Trump. “If you’re building a bridge or doing something else, at least it’s not about Trump,” she said. “And I feel like when you talk about Trump, you just lose no matter what side you’re on.”
To ensure the MAGA mob doesn’t rise up again, the co-hosts agreed that the Capitol insurrections and their enablers in Congress and the White House needed to face justice.
“If Democrats who now control the Senate, even though it’s by very small margin, can’t do something here to punish people for doing an insurrection, then they’re just going to do it again,” Jong-Fast said.
Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now.
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TEASER: Trump’s Legacy Is Going to Get Worse (Just Wait)
Donald Trump is not the only “bad” president this country has had in office, but from one historian's perspective, he’s certainly one of the worst. “This country has had a few [bad presidents]. There are the ones who are simply bad at the job and incompetent, and a lot of bad things happen on their watch. There are those who are corrupt and engaged in criminality, and have scandals that plagued their administration And there are those who actively do the country harm through their action or their inaction,” says historian Kevin Kruse on this bonus members-only episode of The New Abnormal. “Trump checks all of those boxes.” That even includes President Herbert Hoover who was in office during the Great Depression. (“Hoover was, aside from that glaring failure of the depression, Hoover was someone who actually had a life of real accomplishments. Trump likes to preen as a self-made man, and he's not.) Then, Kruse and co-host Molly Jong-Fast switch gears and discuss the state of voter suppression and the history of how it impacted Black Americans in this country. Essentially, says Kruse, the Voting Rights Act is an effort “to undo all of the voter suppression that had happened since reconstruction,” which was a lot. And once the Shelby County v Holder Supreme Court decision gutted it, a lot of states were very open about their suppressive tactics. It was bad, says Kruse, “the intent of these laws was just as clear as it had been in the late 1800s. But he is optimistic about a Biden administration turning the tide. Plus! He explains what people misunderstand the most about American suburbs—which is why many of them in Georgia turned blue—and why Trump has pandered to Jewish people.
Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now.
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MAGA Riot’s Chilling Reality: Regular Folks, Ready to Kill
One of the most frightening aspects of the assault on the U.S. Capitol was how, well, normal some of the participants seemed—and how openly they spoke of their willingness to murder other Americans if President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory was certified.
The Daily Beast’s Will Sommer was outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 and described his conversations with the rioters to co-hosts Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal.
“I was really struck by the people I talked to who were not necessarily crazed QAnon people... but kinda just like people you might think of as your neighbors, your grandparents,” Sommer said. “And just almost to, to a person, they were all just like, ‘Well, if Joe Biden gets his votes certified today, there’s going to be violence and we’re going to kill people, and there’s gonna be a civil war.
Then, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) joined Wilson and Jong-Fast to talk about what happened after he was told to “take out a gas mask and get ready to duck” inside the Capitol.
For a while, Swalwell said, the reality of the danger just was not sinking in. “I still thought, there’s no way they’re coming in here—until the house chaplain went up to the podium where the president usually speaks for the State of the Union,” he said. “And she started offering a prayer and I thought, OK, they’re going to get in here. This is not good.”
Sommer said he was struck by the “huge amount of entitlement” among the MAGA rioters.
“I do feel like so much of the reaction, both from the rioters and the people who were there at the protest in general, was this shock that laws would apply to them,” he said. “...A weird thing I heard a lot at the Capitol was this idea that if you pay taxes, you could just break into whatever federal building you feel like. And because your taxes in an indirect way pay for the Capitol Police that... you’re their boss.”
When the conversation shifted to President Donald Trump’s impeachment in the House, Wilson said more Republicans would have voted to impeach if the vote hadn’t been public. “One of the guys that voted in favor of impeachment told me… if it was a secret ballot, Trump would have been impeached with 50 percent or more of the caucus voting against him.”
“They’re fucking petrified,” Wilson said. “Well, guess what? You created this monster and you kept feeding it. You kept it in the basement. You hauled it out to vote every two years, but you kept feeding it and now it’s loose and it hates you more than it hates anything. I say this a lot: There’s nothing a Trump voter hates more than a Republican that doesn’t support Trump.”
Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now.
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Too Many Dead Capitol Cops for Josh Hawley to Pretend He’s Innocent
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) just can’t understand why everyone wants him to resign.
He put out a brave tweet calling for the “violence” to end after a mob he helped incite laid siege to the Capitol, and his “woke” publisher still gave in to “cancel culture” and axed his beloved book. Now people won’t stop going on about his objecting to the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the blood-soaked wake of the riot.
To offer the senator a bit of clarity, co-hosts Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast talked to Pennsylvania’s truth-talking lieutenant governor, John Fetterman.
Fetterman, who’s faced his own challenges from Republicans who refuse to accept the 2020 election’s outcome at home, had a few choice words for Hawley and his erstwhile political ambitions on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. Plus, New York University professor and “Pivot” co-host Scott Galloway on exactly how much credit we should give Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey for kicking Donald Trump off their platforms.
“There’s blood on your hands, Josh Hawley,” Wilson says. “...You begged and pleaded to be the favorite of Donald Trump by continuing with this fucking lie, that inflamed, these conspiratorial lunatics, and they came down there.”
Wilson also calls BS on appeals for political unity if there aren’t going to be any resignations first—Hawley foremost among them. “All those excuses and this false and shallow horseshit hypocritical appeal to unity and reconciliation,” he says. “Yeah. OK. Quit first, motherfucker. And then we'll talk.”
Fetterman had a direct, searing message for Hawley and his fellow GOP “objectors.”
“Your supporters drove you from your very chamber. And after all that trauma, people were shot and people died, you still were so hell bent on exploiting this for your own political advantage. After all that, you still got up in front and continued to tell what you know are lies,” Fetterman says. “You know, [Hawley] went to Stanford and Yale law. He knows better than anybody that this is all garbage. And this is the point. And that’s what makes him so reprehensible. You know, I don’t care what your political beliefs are. If you’re willing to damage and endanger over your ambition, your, your soul is dipped in dog shit. I don’t know how else to say it.”
Then, NYU professor Scott Galloway joins for a discussion about Twitter and Facebook taking away the president’s social media accounts.
“There is nothing noble. There is nothing patriotic. There was nothing civic in Zuckerberg or Dorsey kicking these people off of their platforms,” Galloway says.
“This is them trying to wallpaper over their delay and obfuscation. People who get DUIs typically have driven drunk 200 times before they kill a family or they’re pulled over. Wow. And these guys have been driving drunk and all of a sudden a family got killed. And now they’re sorry… They deserve zero fucking credit for doing the right thing at the bottom of the ninth inning.”
Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now.
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Michael Cohen: I Am Certain That Donald Trump Is Psychotic Right Now
Donald Trump is in deep shit. So deep, that he finally admitted to leaving the White House at the end of the month. And his supporters? Well, some would say Wedesnday’s riot in D.C., when his supporters-turned-domestic-terrorists defaced the Capitol, inspired an “oh-fuck” moment. As for what is going through the president’s head right now, co-hosts Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast turned to the man who spent a good deal of time with Trump to find out. Michael Cohen, author of Disloyal and host of the Mea Culpa podcast, came on the latest episode of The New Abnormal to chat about the chaos and what Trump’s next moves are. Needless to say, he did not censor himself in the slightest. “I am certain that Donald Trump is psychotic right now,” he says, adding that he fully believes a coup was the president's goal all along. “Donald Trump would rather burn down the White House, then turn over the keys.” At the least, Trump and his enablers on the Hill encouraged the events that went down and Cohen thinks they should “pay.” Yes, he was someone who encouraged him, but it’s different, he says. “I did work for him. And what did I do? I paid $130,000, you know, to keep quiet. The fact that the president got his pecker pulled by a porn star, seriously? And you want to compare that to the seditious acts of these proud boys, of the Wolverine Watchmen and all these other crazy groups? You can’t compare the two.” Then, James Carville joins and gives an ultimatum to the Biden administration: “If they're not going to look at [Trump’s crimes], I'm going to resign from the Democratic party,” he says. “If it's not an impeachable offense to encourage a mob, to interfere with a constitutionally mandated congressional procedure, then there's nothing impeachable.” Plus, Rick breaks down Wednesday's seditious acts, Josh Hawley gets inducted into the Fuck that Guy Hall of Fame, and he and Molly speculate if anyone actually would vote to keep Ted Cruz in the Senate. And! Look out for a Trump News Network! Coming soon for just $4.99 a month!
Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now.
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The Orange Lives Matter Coup Won’t End This Trumpist Chaos
After inciting a mob of his drooling followers to sack the Capitol, President Donald Trump proved he’s too dangerous to hold office, even if it’s just for another two weeks. But don’t count on his cabinet to do the right thing, not even after the first attack on the Capitol since 1814.
“These people are gutless, spineless, chicken-shit, horrifying, boot-lick traitor scum,” Rick Wilson says on The New Abnormal. “Even if Donald Trump had his finger on the trigger and was saying, I'm going to nuke Peoria,’ … these people would not pursue the 25th amendment. Everyone's just fooling themselves.”
This was a day that was stupid and pointless as it was dangerous. A day for a thousand self-owns. Molly Jong-Fast wonders why these people are protesting the electoral college when “the greatest irony here is the electoral college is the only thing that gets Republicans in office. And yet they're coming out against it, right? I mean, we'll go to a popular vote. Let's go, bitches!”
The crew muses about what would have happened if Mitt Romney had gotten his hands on Ted “Fat Wolverine” Cruz today after shouting at him across the rotunda. Does the shirtless, horned “Q-Shaman” supply Q-Anon with psychedelics that explain why they believe the wacky things they do? How does one wax Roger Stone’s Richard Nixon back tattoo? Is Mike Pence planning on starting his own gang of “Prude Boys” with his new-found free time? And what exactly were those Trumpist morons really trying to accomplish? All of this on this special bonus episode of The New Abnormal.
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TEASER: The Orange Lives Matter Coup Won’t End This Trumpist Chaos
After inciting a mob of his drooling followers to sack the Capitol, President Donald Trump proved he’s too dangerous to hold office, even if it’s just for another two weeks. But don’t count on his cabinet to do the right thing, not even after the first attack on the Capitol since 1814.
“These people are gutless, spineless, chicken-shit, horrifying, boot-lick traitor scum,” Rick Wilson says on The New Abnormal. “Even if Donald Trump had his finger on the trigger and was saying, I'm going to nuke Peoria,’ … these people would not pursue the 25th amendment. Everyone's just fooling themselves.”
This was a day that was stupid and pointless as it was dangerous. A day for a thousand self-owns. Molly Jong-Fast wonders why these people are protesting the electoral college when “the greatest irony here is the electoral college is the only thing that gets Republicans in office. And yet they're coming out against it, right? I mean, we'll go to a popular vote. Let's go, bitches!”
The crew muses about what would have happened if Mitt Romney had gotten his hands on Ted “Fat Wolverine” Cruz today after shouting at him across the rotunda. Does the shirtless, horned “Q-Shaman” supply Q-Anon with psychedelics that explain why they believe the wacky things they do? How does one wax Roger Stone’s Richard Nixon back tattoo? Is Mike Pence planning on starting his own gang of “Prude Boys” with his new-found free time? And what exactly were those Trumpist morons really trying to accomplish? All of this on this special bonus episode of The New Abnormal.
Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now.
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Trump Just F*cked Himself and His Party in Georgia
Things were already sub-ideal for the president and his Republican party in the Peach State.
The GOP’s incumbent senators, who in any normal year would be locks for re-election, both have a habit of shady stock trades. The early vote has been huge, and breaking Democrats’ way. Then came the instantly-infamous call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger—the one where the president asked to dig 11,000 votes or so out of the trash pile.
For Trump, the news may get worse. One end of the call took place in Fulton County, Georgia, where Fani Willis was just elected district attorney. “She prosecutes without fear or favor. And her folks are looking at that call closely,” Daily Beast editor-at-large and Georgia political veteran Goldie Taylor explains on The New Abnormal’s first show of 2021. “Donald Trump—and anybody else in that room, helping him—could very well face charges here in Georgia, in Fulton County. Charges that they cannot make go away.”
I didn’t have to be like this, of course. “If Donald Trump had just shut his mouth, he probably would have sailed to reelection. If he just shut up and handled COVID right. Georgia, he would have sailed in. This primary here in Georgia, he wouldn't have a problem,” Taylor tells Molly Jong-Fast.
But this president can’t help himself. He attacked the Republican establishment for not bowing to his election fraud conspiracies. And this was a party that for decades was a “juggernaut… they have had control of the state lock stock and barrel because they were just more highly organized,” Taylor says.
Now, they’re anything but. “The President of the United States can't stop attempting, consciously or unconsciously, to screw this election up for this party. And he’s just, in new and different ways, tried to throw obstacles in and [Sen. David] Purdue and [Sen. Kelly] Loeffler’s way,” says Sam Brodey, The Beast reporter who broke many of the biggest stories about their pair’s financial shenanigans.
Trump keeps railing about how Georgia’s November election was totally rigged—and it sure seems to be having an effect in the January election, where many die-hard Trumpists say they’re not sure they trust the system enough to vote.
Loeffler and Perdue may still win, of course; they’ve got history on their side. But “there is this Republican civil war that is playing out in Georgia and the candidates are having to fight against that,” Brpdey continues. “This has an impact. A huge segment of voters in this state hang on every word that the president says. And like after a certain point, he's saying this every day, so it will have an impact and we'll find out what it is.”
Because today is election day in Georgia.
Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now.
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NARAL President: We’re Prepping for End of Roe v. Wade
Trump did a lot to roll back women’s healthcare—from enacting a global gag rule, which prevents non-American health organizations from receiving monetary aid from the U.S., to stacking the courts with anti-choice judges all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. Add the threat of losing Roe to the mix and Biden will have his work cut out for him after he takes office in January. Should he appoint a “women’s health czar?” Molly Jong-Fast asks Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, in this members-only bonus episode of The New Abnormal? She was half-joking, but also serious. Hogue is all for it. “It would send such a clear message that that terrible era that Trump ushered in is over,” she says. But even so, it won’t be over just yet. Hogue says reproductive rights “absolutely could” be taken away and that the organization is even preparing for the possibility. “A lot of our work over the last few years has been about making sure that we have what we call ‘islands of access,’ [like] Blue States that are caudifying the right to abortion, making sure that we have like practice in place where women can go,” she says. In the meantime, Molly asks her what Biden should do as soon as possible when it comes to the anti-choice legislation in place from the Trump/Pence era (which, by the way, is not driven by morality, says Hogue, but by control). “It has always been about targeting women and women of color. And it's always been about forcing women to adhere to a very narrow period view of where they think our role in society is,” she says. To combat it, Bden can start by rescinding the global and domestic gag rule, and appoint people who believe in science. Even then, the key is to not get complacent, lookin’ at you white women: “We have to rebuild the muscle that any time we are not fighting for something, we are losing it any time.”
Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now.
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The Most Acid Trippy Episodes of The New Abnormal
Trump getting COVID. Antifa plotting to take down the White House. The truth about Russia disinfo. Bill Clinton impressions. The Lincoln Project scoops. The very first year of The New Abnormal by The Daily Beast has been a wild, trippy ride. It featured scientists, politicians, whistleblowers and the Daily Beast’s best and brightest reporters. In this special episode, we compiled the most fun, most hilarious and most brutally honest clips from co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson’s best episodes. We kick off with the duo talking about Trump getting COVID (and if Biden secretly planned it all), then go into a few clips from bonus episodes that only Beast Inside members had access to including what Rick and Molly got wrong about the election (and what Democrats should have done differently, like running celebrities, says Molly. Also, “are you out of your mind? Voter fucking registration,” said Rick). Next, there’s the episode where comedian Ike Barinholtz recounts the obviously real friendship he and Don Jr. shared while killing innocent animals and boating. We even had Rev. Raphael Warnock on the show before the special election run-off officially kicked off in November (“Kelly Loeffler was appointed appointed by Gov. Kemp to warm up the [Senate] seat before I get there,” he jokes of his incumbent opponent) and Veep showrunner Dave Mandel’s episode dives into why Mitch McConnell basically punched America in the penis. Masha Gessen drops a bomb on her episode, claiming that the country’s problem is not Russian interference, it’s the fact that we let it in. And of course, the greatest moment of TNA’s history: when lightening literally struck Rick’s house during a “Fuck that Guy” segment.
Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now.
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TEASER: This 24-Year-Old Diabetic Is Saving Lives the Government Won’t
Twenty-four-year-old Madelyn Corwin’s social media feeds feature a few selfies, videos of her insulin pump, and almost always a link to a GoFundMe page. The most current fundraiser is to raise money for a woman named Nicole who lost her diabetic son in 2018 because they couldn’t afford insulin. In other words, Corwin’s pages are not just young people fodder. Her activism is literally saving lives. “I just make a statement and I'll have people message me on Twitter or Instagram and be like, ‘thanks so much for posting about this, my dad died like three years ago,’” she tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast in this bonus episode of The New Abnormal. Corwin works with the organization Mutual Aid to raise awareness for a healthcare crisis most non-Diabetics wouldn’t otherwise know about: the insanely high costs of insulin and the Americans who are dying as a result. “[People] kind of just think like, Oh, like, you know, like Joe wasn't taking care of himself, but in reality, like Joe literally couldn't afford to take care of himself.” Without insurance, insulin (which is mainly distributed in the United States by three major companies) can cost up to $1000. Some states do have cop-pay caps, says Corwin, but she cited research that found they only help up to 27% of people on the drug in each state. “I believe in ‘96 it was like around 20 us dollars,” she says, but that rate has doubled in just the last five years. “But once it started hitting like 2011, 2012, it was like hitting those $200 a vile marks. People were like, okay, well, like something's going on?” Lobbying is a thing, but it hasn’t made much of a dent. Now, they stick to financial crowdsourcing, education and accountability. In the meantime, the #insulinforall community are deciding what the next move is: “I mean, I guess in like a dream world, I want everyone to be able to get insulin for free, but we live in the United States,” says Corwin.
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This 24-Year-Old Diabetic Is Saving Lives the Government Won’t
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How These Comedians Turned MAGA Men Into Laughingstocks
Rudy Giuliani tried really hard this year soil himself: the hair-in-the-can, the Russian agent pal, the presser by the sex shop, the buckets of conspiracy drool. But it wasn’t until he got caught red handed with Borat’s daughter that his reputation was smeared fully, finally, and forever.
The hand-down-Rudy’s-pants incident was one of a whole bunch of different ways that political comedians rammed into Trumpworld in 2020. Matt Wilstein, The Daily Beast’s resident comedy guru, breaks down the highs and the lows with Molly Jong-Fast and Jesse Cannon on a special crossover episode of The Last Laugh and The New Abnormal podcasts.
From Jordan Kleppler’s head-first dives into the maskless hordes at MAGA rallies to the viral impressionists who took over your Twitter feeds, Matt, Molly, and Jesse break down the funniest moments, and answer some of the biggest questions as we finally leave this hell year behind: What does Sarah Cooper do if she can’t channel Trump? How did Balire Erskine manage to become Tiffany Trump’s bestie? How does Kleppler prep to make unintentional comedy with MAGAmen? What was up with Jim Carrey’s impression of Joe Biden? Was Saturday Night Live ever really funny? Ever?
For more great political comedy, listen to The Daily Beast's The Last Laugh podcast.
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How Melania Trump Destroys Her Friends
“I begged her to just come out and say that I was her friend, I was loyal. Nope, nothing,” says Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, author of Melania and Me.
Stephanie Winston Wolkoff considered Melania Trump a friend—more than a friend, really. Wolkoff even followed Melania to Washington, helping produce the 2017 inauguration and advise the incoming First Lady. But when the stories started coming out about the insane overspending during the Inauguration, Wolkoff says Melania threw her to the wolves—allowing Wolkoff to take the blame in the press and kicking her out of the White House.
“I begged her to just come out and say that I was her friend, I was loyal. Nope, nothing. So the betrayal, the pain of that was like—I gave up my whole life for this woman. No one else would help Melania. I mean, she was alone,” Wolkoff tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “I should've known better. She is just like her husband.”
So Wolkoff began taping her calls with Melania—calls which formed some of the bedrock for her book, Melania and Me. Improbably, Wolkoff and the First Lady kept talking, even after Wolkoff was cast out.
When Melania wore that instantly-infamous “I Don’t Care” jacket on a trip to a center for migrant kids, Wolkoff called.
Their mutual friend, the fashion designer Herve Pierre, was being attacked online for the fiasco because he had made dresses for Melania in the past. But this jacket was a $39 item from Zara. Wolkoff asked the First Lady: Would she clear things up? Say something in public?
Melania admits that Pierre “had nothing to do with that jacket.” But she declines to make any kind of statement on his behalf. Instead, Melania laughs, “I'm driving liberals crazy, that's for sure. And you know… they deserve it.”
Wolkoff was horrified. “When I sent [Pierre] the photograph [of the jacket], he immediately wrote me back saying, ‘Is this Photoshop? ‘And I wanted so desperately to say yes,” Wolkoff tells Jong-Fast. “He was devastated.”
“There's so much callousness,” Wolkoff continues. “Even in just trying to get [Pierre] paid for collaborating with her and making her first dress, it was like pulling teeth. There is no empathy or remorse for the fact that here's someone who was blamed because he's known as her ‘stylist.’”
Moments like these—and the casual dismissal over the Inaugural—made Wolkoff feel better about recording conversations with a woman to whom she had once been so closely connected.
“Taping a friend is, it's unacceptable. It really is. But Melania was no longer my friend when I pressed record. Because when I pressed record on the conversations I had with her, it was only after she, Donald, and the PIC [Presidential Inauguration Committee] [tried] to make me the scapegoat and to falsely accuse me for the overspending of $107 million of the inaugural funds,” she tells Jong-Fast. “First and foremost, I taped to protect myself because I needed to be protected once I knew I was going to be under investigation.”
Jong-Fast answers, “I don't think anyone ever regrets taping a Trump.”
This is part two of a two-part talk with Wolkoff. In part one, Wolkoff took us inside the war between Ivanka and Melania Trump.
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TEASER: Zerlina Maxwell: Republicans Know Dems Suck At Messaging to Black People
Political pundit and author Zerlina Maxwell was booed and hissed at during a Politicon a few years ago (which is “a Comic Con for political nerds”) because she said that if Bernie Sanders ran in 2020, which he did, he’d have to improve his messaging toward communities of color. Fast forward to this year and Maxwell has a book out on the subject and stands by her statement. “It seems like I was psychic or something, but really I was just saying a thing that seemed to be an obvious point that somebody needed to say, and I think Republicans understand this,” she tells Molly Jong-Fast in this bonus members-only episode of The New Abnormal. “That's one of the reasons why they try to suppress voters of color and they try to pack power in, in the court system. You know, they understand the demographic shifts in a way that I feel like Democrats needed to.” What does she think of Biden’s cabinet? Molly points out that some have criticized the president-elect for not enlisting more Black women. But Maxwell is OK with his choices, despite the bar being incredibly low thanks to Donald Trump. (“I mean, we're already doing a lot better than we were just a couple of weeks ago.”) Speaking of Trump, Maxwell shares the one thing she can’t quite wrap her head around: “I look around and I can't believe that there's 70 plus million people who are getting duped by somebody who's not intelligent,” she says, both in general and with the coronavirus messaging. “We lie to ourselves when we say that we are exceptional in particular ways in which we are proving to ourselves in this last year, we are not,” she adds. “Like, if you asked Americans to do something mildly inconvenient, uh, to protect their neighbor, they're going to sue them.” Plus! Jong-Fast asks Maxwell what white feminists can do to be more intersectional, and frankly, better to Black women and causes. To start, she says, aboriton isn’t the only cause feminists should focus on: “They need to really lean in to the fact that racism is a problem they need to care about too.”
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Zerlina Maxwell: Republicans Know Dems Suck At Messaging to Black People
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Inside the Ivanka-Melania War
They’re the two most important women in Donald Trump’s life. And they absolutely loathe one another.
Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the former Melania Trump confidant and author of Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady, spills the tea on the latest episode of The New Abnormal, starting with the very first days of the administration.
“Melania didn't come to D.C. that week, but Ivanka stayed and Donald stayed there. And all of a sudden, that's the weekend, Donald signs the immigration, what was it called? The ban. Yes. Ivanka shows ‘Finding Dory.’ Now, if you couldn't be more tone-deaf. Children were being separated from their parents. And here you're screening a film where again, this trout fish is being separated from its mother.”
“Is that because Ivanka is dumb or is that because Ivanka is evil?” Molly Jong-Fast asks.
“Listen, I say it as it is. I think it's a mixture. I really do. I think that Ivanka is Donald in a suit, right? All of the Trumps are taught to be Trumps. They don't show emotion. A Trump is a Trump because they are authentically and unapologetically skin deep, and also self-serving. And their attitudes and disrespect for each other is again, you have to get any inside to see it,” Wolkoff answers.
And Wolkoff does indeed go inside, accusing Ivanka of purposefully boxing Melania out at every turn.
“So [Ivanka] impinged on Melania's duties while overstepping her rank and boundaries. And I mean that, in a sense like she poached individuals that we were for the East Wing, that we were vetting to have—Kayleigh McEnany, Mercedes Schlapp. I mean, these were people Melania was looking to bring in. We called [Ivanka] the serial poacher. It was deceptive. But you don't go and hire people that the First Lady's looking to bring in,” Wolkoff adds. “The princess wanted to render Melania irrelevant. And you know, Melania refers to them as ‘snakes,’ Jared and Ivanka, and they'll do anything to get what they want. And they do.”
Maybe none of this would’ve been that big of a deal—if Ivanka had been the mastermind she played on TV. But, uh, she wasn’t.
"What was particularly galling, not only to us, but also to Melania, was that Ivanka and Jared were no more qualified to be engaged in any governing of the country than she was. Not that any of us that had never held those positions,” Wolkoff continues. “So to hear Ivanka put her name in the same sentence, as working with [former White House Chief of Staff] General [John] Kelly, it's like, 'Oh my God, how could you even?' Who would do that? Who would just be so disrespectful to say something like that? And think I she genuinely thinks it and believes it."
This is part one of a two-part talk with Wolkoff. Part two airs next week—and includes previously-unheard tapes of Wolkoff and Melania.
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Will Trump’s Fake White House Have a Churro Bar? An Omelette Station? Or Both?
It’s getting near closing time for the Trumps at the White House—Monday’s electoral college vote made that official. Which means folks like Ivanka Trump have to GTFO and find themselves new careers.
It might be a bit tricky, Daily Beast contributor and Hysteria host Erin Gloria Ryan explains. Just about everybody hates Ivanka these days—well, except for a handful of Fox-addled octogenarian creepers. That corporate feminism she used to try to embody? That “Hallmark feminism where there's absolutely no substance behind any of the things that she's saying”? It might’ve worked before. In the dying days of 2020, it just makes everyone gag.
And the only thing worse is her “naked desire for her to be seen as an American princess. We literally fought a war so we wouldn't have to live in a monarchy,” Erin tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal.
So she’s settling into a new little palace in Miami. Meanwhile, daddy will be just down the road, setting up shop in his bizarroworld castle, Mar-a-Lago. Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson think it’s only a matter of time before Trump cultists start treating Dear Leader’s place like the real White House—and Donnie looks for new ways to extract cash from his megafans.
“I’m wondering how much it costs to get him to sign your boobs,” Molly says.
“Free—if you stop at the churro bar,” Rick answers.
“There's going to be an omelet station for sure,” Molly counters. “Or a station and you'll get to say mean things to Eric.”
But before the festivities begin, there are still a few remaining questions: How many more cabinet members will Trump fire on his way out? How many more Trumpists will declare war on the GOP? Will Donald try to smuggle any Oval Office tchotchkes in his pants? “I'm still curious to know,” Molly says, “does Trump get dragged out of the White House or does he go to Mar-a-Lago and just forget to come back?”
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TEASER: COVID Whistleblower Rebekah Jones: I Knew DeSantis Would Go After Me
COVID whistleblower Rebekah Jones always thought that having a gun pointed in her face would be terrifying. That’s what the movies and TV shows have us all believe anyway. But she says when the Florida state police raided her home and held a gun inches from her face after she told them her two children were present, she felt “nothing.” She even let them enter peacefully, she says. “I was prepared to be arrested,” she tells Molly Jong-Fast on this special members-only episode of The New Abnormal. She was actually prepared to be arrested months ago by the Gov. DeSantis administration, when the virus numbers got bad last spring and she created her infamous COVID tracker contradicting the state’s numbers in addition to filing a whistleblower complaint “against the state for manipulating data and breaking the law.” So why are they going after her now? “I think they're purging everybody who's disloyal,” she says. Also, DeSantis doesn’t like her, or anyone who is making him look bad. Could other states be doing the same? Maybe, she says. (“Nobody wants to look like it's, they've lost control.”) As far as Florida is concerned, though, Jones isn’t shutting up. She restated her assertion that her state is absolutely underreporting hospitalizations and deaths and the DOH has even changed people’s cause of death. (“They've deleted people, [from the tracker], including children. When I drew attention to the fact that a two-year-old died in Escambia County, in Florida, less than two weeks after he was diagnosed and hospitalized for it, they reported him as a death. And as soon as I tweeted about it, and there was a big press reaction, they deleted it. They actually changed his dead status from yes to no.”) She doesn’t know what will happen next, but she wants people to keep paying attention to what’s happening with the virus. (“DeSantis would love to just distract people from what's going on with hospitalizations right now.”)
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COVID Whistleblower Rebekah Jones: I Knew DeSantis Would Go After Me
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Is This When Ivanka Will Run Against Little Marco Rubio?
Ivanka and Jared have big plans...to move to Florida, and maybe start the tropical version of the Met Ball. “If you had $30 million to spend on 1.6 acres of empty space, where would you buy it?” Molly asks Rick. “Miami,” of course, to be somewhat near Trump’s favorite kid and son-in-law and witness when Ivanka primaries against Marco Rubio, he answers. Rick can see Trump turn against Rubio now: “I await the day that little Marco after applying his lip so firmly to Trump's, his entire critique of Donald Trump being in the form of elliptical, passive aggressive Bible verses when he wakes up and goes, wait, she filed for what? And then Trump comes out and tweets about it and says, little Marco was never with me. I put up with him because blah, blah, blah.” But when? In this episode of The New Abnormal, Rick and Molly make predictions. In the meantime, Rick makes another bleak prediction of Trump Republicans (“They are scheming and planning right now to do every possible thing they can to fuck this up and cause enormous damage and cause as much pain as possible in the lives of ordinary people.”) Then, Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias walks us through what it’s been like fighting against Trump’s voter fraud cases across the country, and explains the hilarious reason the president was able to win just one. And Daily Beast reporter Olivia Messer shares horrifying stories from her COVID superspreader coverage and some of the outlandish virus lies people have told her (and they actually believe.) Plus! How Biden can prevent the Hell that is a Trump 2024 campaign and Mike Pompeo is sketchy as fuck—and not just because he’s throwing a 900-person holiday party.
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‘Look! Trump Didn’t Poop Himself! Yay! Good Job, Donald!’
You’d think they’d have learned by now, just a few weeks from the end of the Trump presidency. But people are still falling for the same head fakes and tricks.
Take, Molly Jong-Fast says, Trump’s recent trip down to Georgia. “It was one of those many Trump's speeches where you saw on Twitter for the first 15 minutes people were like, ‘sometimes Trump can stick to the teleprompter’; ‘teleprompter Trump, bravo for just, like, reading the words.”
And then, of course, things went off the rails. Like they always do.
“These people always give him credit for doing things like, ‘Oh, look, he didn't poop himself! Yay! Good job, Donald!’ It is endlessly baffling to me that in the last 40-plus days of this goddamn hellish shitshow of an administration, there are still people in the media and the Republican party trying to normalize Donald Trump, trying to say, ‘Oh yeah, this is okay. This is cool. It's just a little weird. Yeah. He's not, not that far off the beaten path.’ When in fact it is completely cuckoo pants,” replies Rick Wilson on the latest episode of The New Abnormal.
Rick then gets a little worked up about how Trump is spending his last few days in office doing anything but actually, y’know, being president.
To which Molly replies: “Trump hasn't worked this entire time. So it wouldn't be odd for him to start now?”
Plus! The team wrestle over whether the Democrats can ever sell “socialism.” Molly airs out Rudy Giuliani for getting the experimental COVID treatments the rest of us can only dream of. Rick reveals which Trump body part “smells like honeysuckle and rainbows and victory.” Chris Colbert joins the dynamic duo to talk about the “Say Their Name” podcast. And Kathy Griffin stops by to talk about what it’s like to be blasted by Trumpist cancel culture and accused of cyber terrorism. “I don't know how many terrorist groups are trying to get a 60-year-old, wacky, red-haired, vulgar comedian. So I would not typically think of myself as a terrorist,” she quips.
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TEASER: Former Trump Org VP: He Didn’t Want Black People To Build His Skyscrapers
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Former Trump Org VP: He Didn’t Want Black People To Build His Skyscrapers
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Julia-Louis Dreyfus: We’ve ‘Talked About’ Making More ‘Veep’
The gods of comedy have heard your prayers—and just might make them come true. “Veep,” the greatest political comedy of all time, could return, somehow, some way, in some form, if only for a short while.
“We've certainly discussed it,” star Julia-Louis Dreyfus tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “Everybody's sort of gone off now and everybody's doing other projects and so on. But I don't rule it out entirely, doing some sort of ‘Veep’-related thing. I mean, there's an area that we could jump back into. I think [showrunner] Dave [Mandel] and I have talked about it.”
Mandel adds, “We left just enough sort of like there's some time jumps in there that you could definitely—”
“Go back into,” Dreyfus offers.
“Yeah. You could kind of color in and answer a couple of questions. So I think anything is possible,” Mandel says.
Not so long ago, Mandel and Dreyfus were wondering aloud how possible it was to do political satire with Trump in the White House. How do you parody a parody?
Now, Dreyfus says, “There's always an opportunity for satire and we're hopeful that with the Biden administration, you know, things will sort of settle down and then we can be the outrageous ones.”
“Yeah. It requires a baseline of normalcy. And if we can get back to that, if we can get back to a time where you're not thinking about the president every six minutes, I think maybe we can get back to some good old fashioned political satire,” Mandel adds. “But [the Trumpists] made it difficult. They raise the bar on stupidity on a daily basis. So it was very hard to out-stupid. You know what I mean?
In the meantime—this weekend, in fact—the ‘Veep’ cast is getting back together to recreate one of the craziest, most prescient episodes of the show. In it, The Beast’s Kevin Fallon noted, protesters are planted [who] “alternately chant to ‘count every vote’ and ‘stop counting the votes’ as new information trickles in, changing their message based on which strategy would be more advantageous to them.”
Sound familiar? But here’s the truly crazy part. That’s "an episode from the fifth season of ‘Veep,’ so many years back," Dreyfus says. 2016, to be exact.
"Yes, ‘Veep’ is real. It's a documentary. And it's about real life," she jokes.
The re-read of the episode——featuring guest stars Patton Oswalt, Kumail Nanjiani, Mark Hamill, and Stephen Colbert—is a fundraiser for a group looking to boost turnout in the upcoming Georgia special elections. Dreyfus thought it’d be cool to "read the very script that seemed to become reality the last couple of weeks. Let's read that, a sort of an uncut version of it."
The cast did a similar thing in advance of the general election. Maybe they’ll get used to being back together. Maybe it’ll become a habit. Maybe, maybe, just maybe…
The gang also talk to Matt Tyrnauer, who produced Showtime's limited-series "The Reagans," about the myth of "Saint Reagan" and how he held the press in a "fog of war" to earn him his esteemed reputation which the crew find undeserved.
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Does Trump Really Want Republicans To Win in Georgia?
Trump is headed to Georgia this week, where there’s about to be a pair of special elections to decide the balance of the senate. But don’t expect the president to really talk up his Republican, MAGA AF buds, George Conway says. “It's better for him and better for his ego if they lose.”
Trump has a problem, George explains to Molly-Jong Fast and Rick Wilson on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. Well, two. First, “Republicans did better than he did” in the general election. Not only does “that undercut his claim of fraud… it means that there were significant numbers of Republicans who couldn't stomach him. And that's the reason why he lost and all these other people won.”
So now Trump is hate-tweeting Georgia’s Republican governor and Republican secretary of state. And he’s doing his damnedest to tell his followers that their votes don’t count, that they’re sure to be stolen. “It was amazing to see [RNC chair] Ronna McDaniel desperately to explain to Republicans why they need to vote in an election that will decide the balance of the Senate,” Molly remarks.
“It was like watching a walrus trying to fuck a beach ball. It's so awkward,” Rick replies.
Then Baratunde Thurston—host of the new podcast How to Citizen—joins Molly for a frank discussion about what led to Trumpism, and how we avoid falling for it again. He’s got a number of structural reforms in mind, to take money out of politics and put in back on the street. But there’s more.
“I want a lot of tribunals, Molly. I want COVID tribunals because I think there are political leaders who have blood on their hands that they need to be held to account for it. And I want some kind of like media tribunals because a lot of the media establishments created this fiction that is Donald Trump,” Baratunde says.
Speaking of media monsters, Rick and Molly has had it with a certain interview formally known as the “Money Honey.”
“Maria Bartiromo was once considered a legitimate and serious journalist,” Rick says. “And now she's being fitted for a pink hanbok, much like the North Korean propaganda lady who sits at the screen and stares and screams about the glory of the Kim Jong Un family. She allowed Donald Trump to go on television this weekend on the airwaves of Fox and bleed out the craziest horseshit you've ever heard.”
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Alec Baldwin: Here’s Why I Won’t Run for Office (Yet)
Alec Baldwin has given serious thought about running for office. He already knows what it’s like for people to hate his guts (Like for things like playing the president on Saturday Night Live—“They say things like, ‘I don't know who we want to get rid of first Alec Baldwin or Trump.’”) But seriously, he has considered diving head-first into the political world, and there is a chance he still might, but there’s a few things he’d need to take care of first—and someone he’d have to convince. In this episode of The New Abnormal, the 30 Rock actor tells Molly-Jong about his wife’s opinion on the matter, and why he credits his dad for standing “on the right side” of politics these days, according to Molly. After all, out of all the Baldwins in the family, there is only one Trump supporter. “[My dad] was a very progressive guy. He was very, very humanistic, very, and he would always say things to me,” he said. “My father was somebody that kind of understood that if we give people equal rights, it's going to, I don't want to say infiltrate, but pervade through every part of our society. And that's the change.” Baldwin was actually planning on leaving the country if Trump won re-election, but now he’s thinking about still going anyway. (“We still think it's a great time to get the hell out of here.”) In the meantime, he has all eyes on 2022—and a fantasy about being appointed the ambassador to Spain. Baldwin also reveals how much he prepared for impersonating Trump on SNL, and the reason Donald rants for so long at rallies. Plus! Listen closely, there’s a moment when he and Molly are almost the victims of a horror movie that only parents would find scary.
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Who Will Trump Pardon Before He Leaves Office?
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TEASER: Who Will Trump Pardon Before He Leaves Office?
The end of the Trump administration is like the end of a season finale of the most batshit Netflix show. Everyone has questions of how it will finally end, including one big one: Will Trump pardon himself before leaving office? Some theories predict VP Mike Pence could assume the presidency for just enough time to pardon Trump. But, Rick Wilson doesn’t see that happening. In this members-only bonus episode of The New Abnormal, Rick and co-host Molly Jong-Fast do a Q&A with producer Jesse Cannon to answer some of these burning questions about the Trump administration and their performance as political commentators (“I got wrong a lot,” says Molly. Rick also has three major predictions he got wrong during the election cycle.) But one thing they’re sure of, is that the chances of Pence pardoning the president are extremely unlikely. The two think Trump pardoning himself is more likely, but there’s a big caveat to that. “The essential thing of a pardon is it involves the admission of a crime. And so he has to admit that he violated the law,” says Rick. Rick and Molly also discuss why Biden’s ‘“boring” Cabinet picks (unlike Trump’s) will piss off Mitch McConnell: “He's picking people who are not these enormously, you know, controversial or dramatic figures. And that's okay.” Plus! The hosts talk about their favorite crimes of the Trump administration, and speaking of crime, “I think we're going to hear about Jared for a long time.” And will there be a President Dan Bongino in 2024??
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Ivanka’s BFF: Trump Gave Kids’ Friends Supermodel Nicknames
If you thought Ivanka Trump’s childhood best friend, Lysandra Ohrstrom, had enough to say about the First Daughter in her scathing Vanity Fair article, you’d be mistaken. Oh no, Lysandra isn’t finished yet. She came on the latest episode of The New Abnormal to talk about the president’s favorite kid and the offensive and crude things Ivanka and her dad would say or do when the two were growing up—and what finally made Lysandra become the “class traitor” many have been quick to call her on Twitter. “I have really been grappling with whether to do this for so long since Trump announced that he was running,” she told Molly Jong-Fast. In fact, “Ly” (as Ivanka called her) had been loyal to Ivanka over the last four years to the point where she forwarded her press requests as a heads up. But standing in line to vote early this fall, enough was enough. (“I just went home. I sat at my computer and I started writing a long essay about why her dad shouldn't be president. And it was very much pegged to my recollections of growing up with him.”) Some of the “recollections” include Trump calling out Lysandra’s looks and nicknaming Ivanka’s young friends after models like Cindy Crawford, behavior that she found “shocking as a kid.” (“Most dads didn't make comments about your weight. Most dads didn't kind of call all of my young friends after different models.”) She also addresses that necklace incident mentioned in the article, all of their friends who called to thank her for writing the article, and if Ivanka will ever be welcomed back in New York City. Plus! New York Times National Politics Reporter Astead Wesley joins to talk about an interesting call he had with AOC and the prediction about QAnon Queen and Congresswoman-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene that made Molly sick. And! Rick Wilson and Molly talk about “Coup-anon” and the ways Trump is basically “Kim Jong Un without the good hair.” Oh, and why Sidney Powell is “a complete whackadoodle,” in case it isn’t obvious.
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TEASER: Biden Doesn’t Want to Prosecute Trumpland. But His AG Still Might.
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Biden Doesn’t Want to Prosecute Trumpland. But His AG Still Might.
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Amy Klobuchar: Forget Trump’s Election Rants. Biden Has This
“It's so funny,” Molly Jong-Fast tells Sen. Amy Klobuchar. “There's been so much sexist talk about women [in politics] being too emotional and being too sensitive. And then we have an entire party held hostage by the president's moods.”
Klobuchar laughs in response: “Exactly. I think it was John Bolton that said that we just don't have time to live through seven stages of the president's grief. That is exactly what's happening.”
“Even when presidents have lost elections,” the senator adds, “they have led, they have had to deal with last-minute crises. And this guy is not doing it. I don't think we should be surprised, but the fact that he is not leading and trying to demolish our democracy at the same time and tarnish the reputation of good people like [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] Chris Krebs is just an unbelievable trio of evil.”
But don’t worry, the senator says on the latest edition of The New Abnormal. Despite all the histrionics and the wackadoodle press conferences and the late-night tweets, this presidency is over. “It is getting more and more clear that there's no other paths. And at some point [the Republicans] are going to have to allow for this transition.”
It’s not even like the goal of the Trumpists is to win, despite all their quasi-fascist, overturn-the-election talk, says Rick Wilson. “The goal is to sow dissension, the goal is to build chaos. The goal is to ensure that the Trump brand for the next four years still is able to grift off of their email list and suck down rube dollars: ‘they can steal our election, but they can't steal our pride.’”
And what should Biden do, once he’s in the Oval and Trump is still doing his authoritarian wannabe thing? And his enablers are back in the senate? There have been some leaks out of Bidenworld that Joe is disinclined towards retribution. “I think they need to recognize that playing by the Marquess of Queensberry rules and playing nice” won’t work, Rick says. “I think Lindsey Graham needs to be under investigation by the ethics committee. The guy’s involved in outright attempts to fraudulently manipulate the election. It’s just crazy.”
Molly isn’t so sure. Quoting Masha Gessen, she says: “it's really important that the president doesn't look like he's doing that [taking retribution against Trump], because democratic norms are so important. Instead, we have to narrate the experience of the people who've gone through Trumpism.”
Which is another way of saying this is—hopefully, please God—almost over.
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My Twitter War With the Congresswoman from QAnon
Molly Jong-Fast explains to Rick Wilson why she got into a brouhaha with the Congresswoman from the First District of QAnon in the latest episode of The New Abnormal, which features presidential transition veteran Neera Tanden of The Center For American Progress and Carl Zimmer of The New York Times, who gets us up to speed on the latest vaccine breakthroughs.
Molly and Congresswoman-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene, an avowed QAnon supporter, fell out on Twitter over different interpretations of government interference in a woman’s health.
“I did make fun of her because she used the phrase ‘My body, my choice,’ when referring to not wanting to wear a mask, which is of course an expression that is used by the pro-choice community,” Molly said. “So, I may have suggested that she might also be pro-choice, which got her just enraged because while she won’t wear a mask, she does not want anyone to have control over their own uterus.”
Rick said Greene will continue to court the vote of conspiracy theorists who believed President Trump went to Washington to fight a cabal of elite pedophiles even though he was now on the way out. “She’s a weaponized money suck for crazy people. And so that’s why she’s going to flirt with Q and all this other bullshit.”
Rick said he had been following one other Twitterstorm this week, over the blossoming friendship between forgotten Trump child Tiffany and another fringe Republican congressman Matt Gaetz. “It's someday going to grace, the pages of TMZ, and perhaps even be the subject of a Netflix show called ‘The Orange Crown.’”
Molly agreed this one has legs: “I feel like it's so stupid. They're probably going to get married.”
Neera Tanden, who worked on the 2008 Obama transition, said Trump’s “temper tantrum” over the election, which he lost, would have real terms consequences. “You may face unnecessary deaths because of their slow walking transition, which has nothing to do with anything other than feeding the defeated president’s ego,” she said.
In most departments, Tanden says the challenge for Biden is not understanding how the agencies work as they have ample experience of that, it’s trying to work out just how much damage has been done. “I imagine there’s a fair amount of trying to bury the bodies,” she said.
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TEASER: Masha Gessen: The Problem Is Not Russian Interference. It’s That We Let It In.
President Donald Trump may be following Vladimir Putin’s Autocratic playbook closer than we all realize—and the Russian interference was just the tip of the iceberg. In this bonus members-only episode of The New Abnormal, the New Yorker staff writer and Surviving Autocracy author Masha Gessen joins co-host Molly Jong-Fast to talk about this phenomenon. They explain that leaders like Trump and Putin put a system in place to hold power, and if you’re wondering how a man like Trump could do something so seemingly elaborate, it makes sense. “The destruction they wreak is all the more effective because of the incompetence,” Gessen explains. “They thrive on instability. The more anxious people are the less likely they are to opt for change ” Biden, they say, will have to dismantle this system (though they wish the president-elect would ditch the “Build Back Better” campaign). Why? For the same reason they dislike when people solely focus on Russian interference. “We've been very stupid to focus on it as much as we have,” Gessen explains. “The problem is not Russian interference, the problem is we sank so low to where Russian interference sank in.” Plus! Hear why they compare Trump to a ‘witch afraid of water’ when it comes to lawmakers of color like AOC and the late John Lewis.
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Masha Gessen: The Problem Is Not Russian Interference. It’s That We Let It In.
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Trump’s Election ‘Coup’ Is More Like a Fake Orgasm
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Ivanka Trump Is Never, Ever Going To Be Forgiven
She may have been hoping to spend her days jet-setting between Davos and Aspen—when she wasn’t mingling with Manhattan’s gentry. But only the super rich get those kinds of second chances. And that ain’t Ivanka. “They get forgiven because they have billions of dollars—they can float a charity. Someone like [New York Jets owner and ambassador to the UK] Woody Johnson, who's given millions and millions of dollars to Trump and who has been a real Republican piece of shit, will get forgiven because he can donate and donate, right? Someone like Ivanka, who is so clearly an eyesore—and isn't so rich—ultimately, she’s not going to get forgiven,” Molly says on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. The best Ivanka Trump can hope for, Molly Jong-Fast says, is a scuzzy reality show, like her dad. Speaking of the Trump family, Mary Trump joins the crew to discuss her uncle’s electoral loss. “It's amazing. On the one hand, losing is the thing that is the worst thing to do [in his mind]. But he's never won anything ever… never won anything legitimately. Legitimacy means nothing to him because his ego is such that if he gets the win, just by virtue of cheating, lying, stealing, he knows he deserves to win. So it's okay for him to cheat, lie, and steal.” In happier news, famed scientist and physician Eric Topol says the early results about the new COVID vaccine really are a ray of hope. He believes it might even be a so-called “superhuman vaccine… meaning it’s even more powerful than the typical human response,” he tells Molly. “We could see the virus having a hard time finding people to infect by mid-year… This virus will probably be endemic. It'll be here for years. But it's just going to have a harder time finding people.” But don’t throw out your masks or anything, he warns. “They're going to be really important in 2021… First of all, the vaccines, when we talk about 90% efficacy, that's against pneumonia or getting your body infected with illness, it doesn't sterilize the upper respiratory tract. That is the nose. And so you could be a carrier of the virus. You’re going to have to wear a mask because you won't know if the virus is sitting” in your nose. So, not back to normal any time soon. But we’ll take it.
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Can Dems Keep It Together Long Enough to Beat McConnell?
Joe Biden is asking Americans to turn down the heat. Some of his strongest supporters are busy lighting one another on fire. Biden and Kamala Harris hadn’t even been declared the winners of the election when members of their far-flung coalition began attacking one another: Blue Dog versus Democratic Socialist, the Squad versus Abigail Spanberger and other purple-district Dems. “You would think that they would want to enjoy their victory for, like, 30 seconds. You would think that after toppling a sitting president, they would want a high five once,” Daily Beast Editor-in-Chief Noah Shachtman tells Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson on a special edition of The New Abnormal. Especially because there are two big run-off elections in Georgia this January—races that will determine whether Mitch McConnell runs the Senate or not. Rick, for one, smells blood: “There may be some Republicans who now look at McConnell as the Alamo,, but no one has ever like gotten up on a rainy January morning and thought, ‘My God, I must defend Mitch. McConnell's honor! He is one last knight standing on the hill!’” Plus! Molly talks about the deeply weird dynamic of cable news hosts trying to get Trump to GTFO. Then she gets Rick to admit that Americans love a bit of socialism—when it’s called something else. The gang ponders what constitutes a giant raft of horseshit. Rick addresses his GOP past. And Trumpists scramble to find new jobs. (“My favorite piece of intel from election day was from one sources in the campaign. I said, ‘What you doing?’ And the response was: ‘LinkedIn.’”)
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BONUS: Trump Wants Ivanka to Carry the Dynasty. But Jr. Speaks Dick Fluently.
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Why the Trumpy Supreme Court Will Give Him the Finger
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‘We Won. And I Feel Like Shit’
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It May Take This Long for Election Results to Be Official
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Trump Isn’t Playing 3-D Chess. He’s Eating the Checker.
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TEASER: Sharon Stone Worries Trump’s COVID Vaccine Won’t Be ‘Safe’
Sharon Stone doesn’t trust Trump one bit. In this members-only episode of The New Abnormal podcast, the actress sits down with host Molly Jong-Fast to chat about abortion, the #MeToo movement, voting, and the pandemic. Growing up, Stone attributes her involvement in politics to her father. "He was really believed that people of all races, colors, creeds, gender identities should have the same rights and privileges. And it was a very, very strong attitude in our family," Stone said. The two also spoke about her thoughts on the election, and all the things she’s doing to help get out the vote. “I had the great pleasure of moderating a zoom fundraiser. I worked with a good friend of mine and we organized a grassroots voting campaign called Vote Proud to get people out to vote who are in the LGBTQ community. Anything and everything that I possibly can do to get people out to vote," she said. Stone then touches on Trump's response to the pandemic. We’ll just say this: Don’t expect her to be first in line to get a vaccine if he’s still the president. and says there’s no way a vaccine is safe right now and touches on her work with infectious disease expert Dr. Fauci. "We do not have a clear path to a safe vaccine yet at all," she says, adding in her thoughts on Dr. Anthony Fauci and what she really thinks of the president: “He does not respect himself and others."
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TEASER: Mueller Deputy: This Is Where the Special Counsel Came Up Short
Hindsight is always 2020, and in this case, Andrew Weissman is pretty sure where Mueller and team came up short. He was part of the team that investigated Enron. He personally promoted former FBI attorney Lisa Page and served as Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s deputy during the Russian collusion hearings. He wrote a book about the experience, but came on the newest members-only episode of The New Abnormal to share that insight with co-host Molly Jong-Fast. When it came down to it, “we didn't have sufficient proof that people in the Trump campaign were trained not to accept anything from foreigners,” says Weissman. Also, “I think we should have said whether we thought he obstructed justice or not. I didn't think we should have used very hard to understand double negatives.” Then there’s the four-eyed elephant in the room named Bill Barr, who Weissman says no one from his team anticipated “undermining the rule of law.” But it didn’t take them long in their investigation to figure out that was what was happening. Speaking of which, Weissman predicts a lot more “harm” to the justice system if Trump is re-elected for another four years. And if Trump isn’t? It won’t be gumdrops and roses just yet. Weissman has an unnerving prediction for what Trump will do if he loses. Plus! He breaks down how he got to this place and has some action items to make sure it never happens again.
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Mueller Deputy: This Is Where the Special Counsel Came Up Short
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Sharon Stone Worries Trump’s COVID Vaccine Won’t Be ‘Safe’
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Chill the Fuck Out. This Isn’t Another 2016, and Here’s Why
Molly Jong-Fast, like many of us, is nervous about the election. Sure, the polls look pretty decent for Biden; they looked good for Hillary, right? Not exactly, Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report tells Molly. In the last couple of weeks of the last campaign, there was so much attention on those freakin’ emails. “You could see the race tightening. Hillary went from up 11... and then in the very last NBC poll, she was up four points, with 16% undecided,” Walter recalls on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. This time, though, the pandemic is the focus. And Trump has basically surrendered to the virus. “Now Biden's up, nine, 10 points with very few people undecided and very few people thinking they're going to vote third party. So it's just, it's a different environment. Biden's a different kind of candidate. And Donald Trump is the president at a time when we're in the middle of a crisis that the majority of Americans don't think he's handled well.” Then! Sen. Sherrod Brown talks about whether Biden has a shot in increasingly-Red Ohio. Plus! Rick Wilson debuts the Lincoln Project Time Machine! MAGA junkies chase the Dragon of Cray! Jared Kushner attempts to outsmart a sack of hair! Steve Bannon gets ready to punch out license plates instead of lies! And Eric Trump takes a delightful trip to Frog Dick, Alabama!
On election day The New Abnormal is going to do what we always do and talk about what's happening with the election and you can listen in if you Join Beast Inside today where you'll gain access to an exclusive Zoom version of our podcast where you can ask your own questions. We’ll help you stomach the last moments—or so we hope—of the longest, weirdest, crappiest presidential campaign in modern history. Join Beast Inside today and then join us on election day when we pull back the curtain, New Abnormal-style.To hear this along with the rest of our upcoming bonus episodes head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com. That's newabnormal.thedailybeast.com.
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The Lincoln Project’s Secret War Plan—Revealed!
Rick Wilson and his crew of Republican refugees have been getting in Trump’s head practically since the day they got together. But over the weekend, the psychological combat hit a new peak, when Jared and Ivanka sent one of daddy’s lawyers after the Lincoln Project over a billboard they put in Times Square. And Rick, for one, was loving it. “A big part of our operations has been from the beginning to disrupt the leadership of the Trump campaign and to cause Donald Trump himself to poop his diaper and to cause these people to lose their minds. [Now we’ve] pinn[ed] down Jared and Ivanka Thursday and Friday of last week, and distract[ed] Donald Trump,” Rick explains to Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “So it's the eve of battle. And two of the generals of Trump's army have now been paralyzed. They have thought of nothing else for the last several days… You drag off resources, attention, time, focus from what they should be fighting and you make them fight the battles you want them to fight. Think of me as kind of like a redneck Sun-Tzu.” Then! Molly has an incredibly powerful interview with Dr. Rick Bright, the vaccine expert turned whistleblower. He was in charge of a massive federal effort to develop medical countermeasures to biological threats. But he couldn’t stand by while Team Trump pushed a bogus treatment for COVID-19. “I had to decide at that moment to be complicit and be part of a government that would put people's lives at risk—or to step out,” he tells Molly, choking up. “I still get emotional about it because I still remember that day of stepping out and how impactful it was on me, knowing that it was going to change my life. You just know they're gonna come after you. So you have to decide, is it worth it? And to me, it was absolutely worth it.” Plus! Will Trump’s wig come off in a toilet? Where’s the real power in American politics? (Hint: not in D.C.) Why did Team Trump want to inject Santa? And how in the name of Gotham City did Bane get on this podcast?
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TEASER: Preet Bharara: There Could Be An ‘Avalanche of Revelations' If Trump Loses
Preet Bharara, the former U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of New York, joins “The New Abnormal” host Molly Jong-Fast to chat about the last presidential debate, the story leading up to his resignation, and why there could be an "avalanche" of new revelations if President Donald Trump loses the election.
Bharara said that the presidential debate was "relatively normal," but that's no thanks to Trump or his opponent Joe Biden. "The person I credit most for that as most people do is Kristen Welker," he said.
Jong-Fast then reminds Bharara of one of his proudest moments from 2016: Not calling Trump back. He details the incident and why he doesn't regret his decision for a second.
"It is a good thing for public servants not to so badly cling to their job… that you won't do the right thing," he said.
Next, Jong-Fast and Bharara chat about the impact of the election outcome and what will happen if Trump loses.
"My guess is there is going to be a cascade of people who are going to write books for a lot of money, or good citizens who are going to blow the whistle on all sorts of things… that we don't know about yet," he said.
Adding, "I also think the potential for bad conduct and bad activity during the transition, if Trump definitively loses, is going to be very high. It's going to be very difficult for either Congress or some prosecution authorities to ignore what could very well be an avalanche of revelations after January 20, about this president and the conduct of the people in this administration."
Lastly, they discuss how someone with Trump's background could never get a national security clearance, Bharara's book Doing Justice, plus more!
Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now.
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Preet Bharara: There Could Be An ‘Avalanche of Revelations' If Trump Loses
Preet Bharara, the former U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of New York, joins “The New Abnormal” host Molly Jong-Fast to chat about the last presidential debate, the story leading up to his resignation, and why there could be an "avalanche" of new revelations if President Donald Trump loses the election.
Bharara said that the presidential debate was "relatively normal," but that's no thanks to Trump or his opponent Joe Biden. "The person I credit most for that as most people do is Kristen Welker," he said.
Jong-Fast then reminds Bharara of one of his proudest moments from 2016: Not calling Trump back. He details the incident and why he doesn't regret his decision for a second.
"It is a good thing for public servants not to so badly cling to their job… that you won't do the right thing," he said.
Next, Jong-Fast and Bharara chat about the impact of the election outcome and what will happen if Trump loses.
"My guess is there is going to be a cascade of people who are going to write books for a lot of money, or good citizens who are going to blow the whistle on all sorts of things… that we don't know about yet," he said.
Adding, "I also think the potential for bad conduct and bad activity during the transition, if Trump definitively loses, is going to be very high. It's going to be very difficult for either Congress or some prosecution authorities to ignore what could very well be an avalanche of revelations after January 20, about this president and the conduct of the people in this administration."
Lastly, they discuss how someone with Trump's background could never get a national security clearance, Bharara's book Doing Justice, plus more!
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Final Debate Just Proves Trump ‘Can Lie in Different Gears’
On a special episode of The New Abnormal responding to the final presidential debate Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson are joined by GOP political consultant Mike Madrid, Daily Beast senior editor Tim Teeman and Gary Peters, the Senator from Michigan, who is here to outline the fight against voter intimidation at the polls.
Molly was aghast at Trump’s almost normal debate performance. “It’s almost worse when Trump tries to be normal than when Trump is just insane,” she said. “When he acts like a normal president… then you have constantly fact check him in a way that you don’t when he’s just huffing and puffing and screaming.”
Madrid, a veteran Republican pollster now working with the Lincoln Project, said Trump’s relative calm on stage means he can’t be counted out of the race yet. “If he had just blown his top and set his hair on fire and started stomping on his feet, then we’d be like, OK, it’s done,” he said. “He can lie in different gears.”
But Rick is not convinced that Trump did enough to turn it around. “My theory of the case going in was that Trump needed an absolute knockout, absolutely needed to slaughter Joe Biden on that stage tonight. And I don’t think he got there. I don’t think he even got close to getting there,” he said.
Away from the debate stage, Tim Teeman joined the gang to discuss the Trump campaign’s last gasp “gaslighting” effort to court LGBTQ voters by claiming Trump had been an ally all along. “I don't know about Donald Trump’s personal bigotry, but it doesn’t matter if he’s a bigot personally or not,” he said. “He’s advancing a course of bigotry for his own ends. And that honestly makes him just as dangerous as the bigot with a pair of keys in their fist, ready to punch you in the face on the street.”
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Sacha Baron Cohen on Borat, Trump and Risking His Life for Comedy
Comedy legend Sacha Baron Cohen goes deep on all of the crazy things that happened during the filming of his Showtime series ‘Who Is America?’—including truly incredible stories about his interactions with Sarah Palin, O.J. Simpson, Ben Carson and more. He also talks about interviewing Donald Trump as Ali G. and reveals some big secrets behind his classic film ‘Borat.’This episode was recorded in front live audience as part of the SAG Conversations series at the SAG-Aftra Foundation in Los Angeles on May 21, 2019.Follow @SachaBaronCohen and @mattwilstein on Twitter and @lastlaughpod on Instagram.
Highlights from this episode and others at The Daily Beast.
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Does Rudy Giuliani Have an Ounce of Pride Left?
Rick Wilson spent years working for Rudy Giuliani. He used to look up to his boss, the mayor. These days, he can barely look down without spitting. “The worst possible Greek tragedy doesn't encompass the fall of Rudy, from calamity to clown show to complete moral and physical collapse,” Rick tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “The fact that Trump views him and uses him as this hatchet man, his delivery boy for these absurd attacks… You know, there's a part of me that like, ‘Do you have no fucking pride left? You only get trotted out for the shit jobs like these. You only get brought out and hosed off once every few months when Donald Trump has to do something disgusting.’” Caroline Giuliani, Rudy’s daughter, isn’t happy with the decisions he’s made, either. That’s why she recently announced that she’s voting for Joe Biden. “I felt like I had an obligation just because it's, it's just so bad. We're in such a crisis,” she tells Molly. “I want to be on record as being on the right side of history. I also felt like people feel so alone right now. I've had such a great reaction from so many people just saying, ‘Thank you... You articulated things I've been feeling.’ And it just made me feel a little less alone.” Then! Alabama Sen. Doug Jones talks about why his opponent, Tommy Tuberville, is even worse than Roy Moore, the last guy he beat.
Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now.
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Town Hall Sh*tshow Was a Truth Window into Trump
On the night of the duelling townhalls, Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson recorded a special episode of The New Abnormal as a desperate Trump delivered a wild performance that virtually served as an ad for Joe Biden. Two guests join the show to sum up the state of American politics right now with Jay Michaelson, legal affairs columnist at The Daily Beast, Rabbi and editor at 10% Happier, on hand to run down the latest from the Amy Coney Barrett hearings. And audience favorite Hank Gilbert, who is running for the Texas first congressional district against Republican Louie Gohmert, is back to share the unprecedented election buzz he says he is seeing in Texas. Gilbert says he can’t believe it took so long but Texans have finally realized that “this narcissistic bastard” is bad for America and they’re ready to vote him out. “People are excited. I’ve never seen this type of atmosphere before,” he said.
Trump seemed to be doing his best to show viewers himself that he was not fit to be president during the NBC townhall, says Rick. “You had Trump with one leg on the ground, leaning over, hunched over, glaring at Savannah Guthrie like he was a mad man, like he was about to flee the scene of a crime. And you had Joe Biden sitting in the chair, legs crossed, hands gesturing, talking smoothly and calmly.” “When he wouldn’t answer the QAnon question, all I could think was, ‘Does Joe Biden need to report this like an in-kind contribution?’ This was fucking crazy,” Rick said. “This shitshow was a truth window into Trump.” He had, at least, managed to directly criticize white supremacy after failing to do so at the presidential debate, which just confused Molly: “Wouldn't it be more of a no brainer to disavow QAnon—the Democrats eat children—than white supremacy? His supporters are already racist.”
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Oct. 11 Member Bonus: Val Demings Says She Has a Plan to Stop Trump’s SCOTUS Pick
This members-only episode was originally published on October 11, 2020 and moved to this feed for full member access.
Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) helped get Trump impeached, but now there's a new battle: his SCOTUS pick. She worked within the government’s Internal Affairs department and became one of the impeachment managers in Trump’s case after 27 years as an Orlando police officer. And impeached he was. So on this members-only bonus episode of The New Abnormal, co-host Molly Jong-Fast asks for her thoughts on Trump's SCOTUS appointment and how exactly Democrats and citizens alike can stop it. (Mitch McConnell is “pushing it down the throats of the American people,” she says.) Her plan? Lots of pressure. (“This is not a moment for partisan politics. And we expect our leaders, Mitch McConnell, to lead the way there. His number one responsibility is the health, safety and wellbeing of the American people. And so I am hoping that he will feel the heat, if you will, from the American people.”) The former cop also shared what the future of police departments should be, and for her, abolishment is not the way to go (“When you talk to people who live in some of the highest crime areas, they say they don't want to see less police. They want to see more police, you know, because they know what it means. We should not talk about the police and the community as if there are two separate entities. If the police are the community and the community is the police one cannot exist without the other.”) Plus! Demings subtly takes a dig at her state’s Gov. Ron DeSantis. Then she explains the best way to get Disney World, and the economy at large, back up-and-running safely. (Spoiler alert: we’ve got to get the virus under control first.)
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Oct. 4 Member Bonus: Busy Phillips on Her Abortion and Embarrassing Louis Gohmert in Public
This members-only episode was originally published on October 4, 2020 and moved to this feed for full member access.
Busy Phillips had an abortion when she was a teenager. It’s been known for a while, but given the uncertainty of Roe v. Wade after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, she’s determined to not let people forget. (Kind of how she and many women like her will never forget the night Trump won the election—“I was really knocked back by Trump's win to the ground. I mean, I like to the floor, like in hysterics.”) In this new members-only bonus episode of The New Abnormal, the “Freaks and Geeks” actor tells Molly Jong-Fast how and why she transitioned from acting to activism, and why she is so passionate about standing up for reproductive rights. “I just wanted to say very simply, you know me, I had an abortion when I was 15 and the situation surrounding it is unimportant, but I deserve bodily autonomy. I deserve equality and I'm not going to be shamed for decisions that I've made about my own body and my own life based on my own beliefs,” she said. Of course, the two had to discuss that time last year that she testified in front of Congress about her abortion. If you missed it, it was definitely a moment worth seeing, especially if you despise Louie Gohmert (R-TX). Phillips explains the wonderful moment when she shut him DOWN from her point of view. (“I have to say that was my favorite thing that I've ever done in my life was saying that to him.”) She also poses to Molly an interesting question: What if vasectomies were as stigmatized as abortions? (“They're like, well, don't be insane. It's like, well, how is that insane?”) Plus, Phillips shares her favorite RGB quote and her feelings on Trump’s “mismanaging” of the pandemic. (“The lack of empathy in this country that's been learned is incredibly overwhelming to me.)
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Sep. 27 Member Bonus: Is Trump or Biden More Likely to Keel Over on Debate Night?
This members-only episode was originally published on September 27, 2020 and moved to this feed for full member access.
“People are dying, tens of thousands of people are out of work, he’s embarrassing,” is not only the quote of the year from Philippe Reines but also sums up how he, Rick Wilson, Molly Jong-Fast, and Mike Madrid feel about Donald Trump’s dwindling support among his own base. To make matters worse for the president, he is set to debate Joe Biden for the first time Tuesday night, and he doesn’t have that same 2016 anger and energy he drummed up to defeat Hillary Clinton. In this new members-only bonus episode of The New Abnormal, Rick, Molly, Philippe and Mike discuss what Joe Biden should say, word for word, when he gets on that stage with Trump and the one thing that could sink the president without Joe’s help. Two words: no crowds. “That is where Trump is at his worst,” says Mike. “Without that he’s going to be like a goat in the wilderness.” There’s also the whole painting-Biden-as-senile by the Trump campaign thing, and it just won’t work, Mike says: “They’re tried to convince people that he’s senile and will drool on people while at the same time trying to convince people he’s some mastermind of the left that’s going to being about socialism.” It is quite ironic. “If one of those guys is more likely to keel over Tuesday night on stage, it’s not Joe Biden,” adds Philippe. Then, the group switches gears to talk about Trump losing support among a few of his core voter demographics: senior citizens and non-college educated men. (“COVID has broken the Trump fever") Plus! Rick gives a dramatic reading of one of Trump’s rally quotes and it’s just a bogus as you’d expect. And the group discusses that awkward moment when the crowd booed Trump at Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s funeral: “This is the only time he’s worn his mask when we desperately needed to see his face.”
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Sep. 20 Member Bonus: The Real Reason Trump Won’t Stop Yelling About Mail-In Voting
This members-only episode was originally published on September 20, 2020 and moved to this feed for full member access.
President Trump will not shut up about voting by mail, repeatedly asserting that the system that has been used in elections prior is “rigged.” Meanwhile, Republicans have tried endlessly to block certain states from making it happen. In this new bonus episode of The New Abnormal, Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) explains the motivations behind the constant anti-mail-in ballot rhetoric and it’s deeper than Trump trying to prevent Americans from voting. “Really, what they want to do is two things: They want to undermine the confidence voters have in the election. And they want to undermine the confidence that people have in the post office,” he tells Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast. Why? Privatization and manipulation, aka “get people to believe that this simply cannot be done” so they give up and continue to yell at each other on Twitter. But there’s something that Americans can do and that’s voting right away. “As soon as you get the damn thing, turn it right around,” says Schatz. There’s also another thing that voters can do, he says, and he failed at it in 2016. It’s taking social risks to stick up for Biden “in ways that are actually going to cause discomfort at the human level between people that care about each other, because the other side did that.” He tells Rick and Molly exactly where he himself went wrong. Plus! Schatz shares why Facebook will almost always take Trump’s side. And the gang trio discuss why Kansas and American “housewives” there are more progressive than we think.
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Sep. 13 Member Bonus: Will The Republican Party Ever Be the Same Again?
This members-only episode was originally published on September 13, 2020 and moved to this feed for full member access.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse thinks the biggest problem with climate change deniers is the people that line their pockets. The Rhode Island Democrat joined The New Abnormal co-host Molly Jong-Fast and producer Jesse Cannon to talk about the environment, the GOP dropping the ball, and how putting an end to secretive political cash could be the key to solving it all. “The key thing to do on the environment is to focus on the dark money problem,” says Whitehouse. “I don't care whether you're talking to Tea Partiers or Bernie Bros, the notion that big, powerful, special interests can spend unlimited money anonymously through front groups and deploy huge political power out of sight is equally offensive across the board.” He explained how certain groups are in the pockets of political donors (cough cough, Republicans) and how the party's disdain for science has similarities to their COVID-19 response. “The power of the science denial industry is manifest in both examples, Coronavirus and climate, and the willingness of Republicans to bear pain and scorn and deny truth.” But does the GOP stand a chance of ever going back to being that Grand Ole Party? For the sake of the climate, at least? In Whitehouse’s opinion, there are two options for that to happen, one of them involves a complete overhaul. (“You wait until the Republican party is so discredited and its climate denial that a surge of new Republicans come in and sweep out.”) Then, the three discuss Trump’s eerie Supreme Court scouting and the funding of the Federalist Society: “The whole thing is being basically run like our intelligence community would run a covert operation against a hostile nation.” Plus! Molly really wants to know how Whitehouse can work with Rand Paul and if Rhode Island calamari is really as amazing as the DNC made it seem.
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Sep. 6 Member Bonus: Lev Parnas: Trump’s Cronies Made Fun of Him Behind His Back
This members-only episode was originally published on September 6, 2020 and moved to this feed for full member access.
Lev Parnas has been a major character in the ongoing Trumpworld corruption saga and was even arrested for his role in it all. These days, he is choosing to spill the tea. The former ally of Trump lawyer Rudy Guiliani joined this bonus members-only episode of The New Abnormal to come clean about his complicity in the Trump “cult,” how he started to “drink the Kool-Aid” (“I was approached by a couple of gentlemen in Florida to hold a fundraiser for [Trump]”) and what he knows about Ukraine. “Rudy is very key. He has the president's ear,” Parnas says. “That's the most important part.” He says Rudy was the person who approached him and “basically started asking us some questions about Ukraine and Igor [Fruman.]” But despite the circle of shady players that continues to revolve around Trump, they all talk behind his back. The subject varies depending on the new cycle. “We would talk about his bad decision making, the stubbornness. Like I remember with Charlottesville, for instance, when he came out and said there were people on both sides. I thought half the RNC was going to fall off their head,” he said. “It was not off limits to anybody as long as [Trump] wasn't around or [Donald Trump] Jr. wasn't around,” says Parnas. “I mean, he was laughed at. It was funny to watch how nobody had the strength to go up against him” Plus! Parnas also name drops the people still caught in Trump’s inner circle and who is in his ear (besides Rudy—“It's not only Sean Hannity.”) and why he literally thanks God he got out of it.
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Aug. 30 Member Bonus: Trump DHS Official: Of Course There Are Racists in the Administration
This members-only episode was originally published on August 30, 2020 and moved to this feed for full member access.
Even a former member of Trump’s Department of Homeland Security thinks he is bat-shit, and surrounded by actual racists. It would be funny if some of the stories that former DHS official Elizabeth Neumann told Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast on this episode on The New Abnormal weren’t so terrifying. She admits that she did “hold her nose” and vote for him in 2016 and really believed he would rise to the occasion. But that dream died super quick—by the end of summer 2017 to be exact: “It was clear he didn’t have a strong enough character to put aside some of his bad habits,” she said. There was one moment, though, that changed it all. Or, as Molly put it, “made you realize we’re not in Kansas anymore.” “He was having some sort of school yard bully fight with a man who is trying to launch a nuclear weapon,” she explained. “It was a huge wake up call for the department.” Neumann also spoke to the influence Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller had on immigration and when she, a pro-lifer, realized the president “wasn’t a true Christian.” And then she makes two scary admissions, which says a lot because they are all pretty scary, tbh. The first is that Nuemann can say with certainty that many of those in Trump’s orbit are racist. In fact, she had a moment while working in the department in which she thought, “Oh my God, some of these people are racist.” The second, and related to the first, is the role that Trump has had on domestic terrorism and white supremacy in the United States: “The president not speaking out against white supremacy and against QAnon is extremely dangerous. He is creating that fear that creates vulnerability in people to be recruited and radicalized by groups that have an intention of violence.” Plus! Will more former administration officials come out? Neumann shares her thoughts.
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Aug. 23 Member Bonus: Trump Is Pushing Even the Quietest Celebs to Speak Out
This members-only episode was originally published on August 23, 2020 and moved to this feed for full member access.
Actor, comedian and activist Billy Eichner totally gets why Taylor Swift took so long to get publicly political. In this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, the “Billy on the Street” star explains why celebrities may take a long time to speak up—and how Trump is changing that. “It's easy to sit back from a distance and say like, ‘why doesn't so-and-so get more political.’ And I definitely feel that way sometimes, but the few times I've had like internet backlash for something or, you know, people being angry at something, I can hold my own. And it doesn't, like, ruin my life at all,” he explained. “I think Trump pushed us to a place” where celebs who were previously silent on major issues now feel compelled to speak up. That said, he is just “sick of getting angry on Twitter.” Eichner also spoke about the ways he’s trying to make one of his biggest dreams come true: “It would make me so pleased to flip the Senate.” Plus, he shares his thoughts on the South Carolina race between Lindsey Graham and Jaime Harrison. “Lindsey Graham, to me, is the epitome of someone who makes me physically ill,” he added. And of course, he answers our burning question: When is Billy on the Street going to come back? (“Coronavirus killed my career.”)
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Aug. 16 Member Bonus: What the Fuck is Happening with the Mail?
This members-only episode was originally published on August 16, 2020 and moved to this feed for full member access.
Delayed prescriptions, mailboxes being toted away, Americans dying and families wondering if they’ll get evicted. Seems like a great time for the Senate to go on vacation, at least in Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s eyes. In this members-only episode of The New Abnormal, Sen. Gary Peters, Sr. (D-MI,) who is leading the investigation into the United States Postal Service backlog, explains this postal shitshow to co-host Molly Jong-Fast and producer Jesse Cannon—and how Mitch McConnell is screwing over the American people from a comprehensive COVID relief package. “So the negotiations started finally,” says Peters, “but not in the room was Mitch McConnell.” And neither was another Very Important Person: “President Trump was on the golf course,” says Peters. Then, there is the postal service situation. “There was a major spike in comments coming in” about post office delays, he explained. That’s when he kicked off his inquiry, which hasn’t been easy with a Postmaster General who is “not very forthcoming.” But he does have some ideas on what’s happening (hint: it’s pretty messed up.) Plus! The group touches on where polling is for Joe Biden in Michigan (which makes Molly’s heart race) and what those who are furious about what is going on with the post office can do.
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Aug. 9 Member Bonus: Jim Acosta: CNN Wanted Me to Have Bodyguards at Trump Rally
This members-only episode was originally published on August 9, 2020 and moved to this feed for full member access.
The job of a White House reporter is no easy feat, especially under an administration that constantly refers to the press as “the enemy of the people.” But CNN Chief WH Correspondent Jim Acosta knew early on he would not back back down. “When he started to call us fake news and Sean Spicer was calling us fake news and Mike Pence was calling us fake news at that infamous news conference, I just thought, you know what, that's it I've had enough,” Acosta told Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal. That may explain why CNN assigned FOUR bodyguards to him at a Trump Rally (“You have journalists in this country who were being threatened on a regular basis.”) He also answered some burning questions on the forefront of all our minds, including whether Trump writes some of his own daily briefing questions for right-wing pundits and the real end-game for press secretary Number 3405: Kayleigh McEnany. “I'm old enough to remember when the White House press secretary’s job was to serve the American people, to serve the presidency, not just the person who is the current occupant of the Oval Office,” he says. Plus! The trio discuss who may be leaking to the public these days and the White House’s reaction to Trump’s interview with Axios’ Jonathan Swan: “They were trying to do ‘Clean up on aisle 6.’”
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Aug. 2 Member Bonus: Why Cory Booker Won't Punch Trump in the Face
This members-only episode was originally published on August 2, 2020 and moved to this feed for full member access.
Turns out, Sen. Cory Booker is a bigger pacifist than we suspected. He joined Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast on this members-only episode of The New Abnormal and told them about the time “a big guy” asked the New Jersey native to punch Trump in the face–and his response to that person. Booker also shared his thoughts on what may happen in the Senate thanks to Trump (“I think that what people are realizing is this could be the end for Republican party dominance”), how the president compared to Nixon, and the time one of his campaign staffers projectile vomited all over him and his partner Rosario Dawson. Plus! The trio imagine Putin staying in a Motel 6 and get Booker’s advice on how the Democratic Party can get out the vote: “If you’re not doing something about an issue that you care about, then you are complicit.”
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Trump Is Polluting the Planet With a Thousand Mini-Dons
It’s bad enough that we have to deal with one Donald Trump here in the U.S. of A. What’s worse, Mehdi Hasan explains on the latest episode of The New Abnormal, is that Trump has become a template for a whole planet full of bad-faith actors and wannabe strongmen. Before he became the host of his own TV show in America, Hasan interviewed all sorts of international politicians. “What I noticed over the last few years is that they all now start talking like Trump. They all use the same verbal tics, the same ‘fake news,’ the same completely brazen lies,” Hasan tells Molly Jong-Fast. “This is not a coincidence. People around the world have said, ‘well, it worked for Donald Trump. Why can't it work for me?’ Of course, all politicians are bullshit artists. But what’s different today, Hasan adds, “is the way in which Trump and co. have turned lying into not just an art form, but an instrument of power. They don't lie just to get their way. They lie because they want to destroy our shared reality. They want to demonstrate their power. They want people to back them and say, yes, ‘I don't believe my lying eyes.’” Speaking of belief, you’ll be gobsmacked by the lengths Alex Gibney had to go to in order to make “Totally Under Control,” his documentary about the government’s response to COVID. For some interview subjects, he’d drop off a high-tech camera rig so they could basically film themselves. For others, “the camera person would go in alone to an Airbnb, kind of scrub it down, and then set up this shield—a series of shower curtains and tarps—between the subject and the camera person. And then there would be a lens sticking through,” he tells Molly. “That was a way… to do a proper lighting setup, but also be safe.” Then! Rick Wilson asks the questions on everyone’s mind, like: How much cash would it take to turn Texas blue? Why does Mike Lee hate democracy? Is mail order herpes a thing? And will Ted Cruz even remember Trump’s name on November 4th?
Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now.
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TEASER: Val Demings Says She Has a Plan to Stop Trump’s SCOTUS Pick
Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) helped get Trump impeached, but now there's a new battle: his SCOTUS pick. She worked within the government’s Internal Affairs department and became one of the impeachment managers in Trump’s case after 27 years as an Orlando police officer. And impeached he was. So on this members-only bonus episode of The New Abnormal, co-host Molly Jong-Fast asks for her thoughts on Trump's SCOTUS appointment and how exactly Democrats and citizens alike can stop it. (Mitch McConnell is “pushing it down the throats of the American people,” she says.) Her plan? Lots of pressure. (“This is not a moment for partisan politics. And we expect our leaders, Mitch McConnell, to lead the way there. His number one responsibility is the health, safety and wellbeing of the American people. And so I am hoping that he will feel the heat, if you will, from the American people.”) The former cop also shared what the future of police departments should be, and for her, abolishment is not the way to go (“When you talk to people who live in some of the highest crime areas, they say they don't want to see less police. They want to see more police, you know, because they know what it means. We should not talk about the police and the community as if there are two separate entities. If the police are the community and the community is the police one cannot exist without the other.”) Plus! Demings subtly takes a dig at her state’s Gov. Ron DeSantis. Then she explains the best way to get Disney World, and the economy at large, back up-and-running safely. (Spoiler alert: we’ve got to get the virus under control first.)
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Why Pence Is So Good at Being Evil
Author and Daily Beast Editor-at-Large Goldie Taylor is, um, not exactly Mike Pence’s biggest fan. “He does things that boil me,” she tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. Take that fake gentility of Pence’s. He’s the kind of guy who’s “always genteel when he tells you, you shouldn't be in the room with him. He's always genteel when he tells you that because of his manness, his whiteness, his superiority, that he's better than you.” Molly is right there with Goldie, saying of Pence, “he is good at being evil in a way that Trump is not.” Rick Wilson adds, “Mike Pence wasn't as shouty as Donald Trump [in this week’s debate], he was still as dickish as Donald Trump in every possible respect.” Speaking of debates, Rick sizes up Trump’s threat to skip the next one. (Bluff.) Molly muses about “Fox Business, the last bastion of the impossibly racist.” (“Imagine if Lou Dobbs gets me deported, that would be like the greatest moment of my life,” she says.) And Mike Espy talks about his run for U.S. Senate in Mississippi. Plus! Trump’s imaginary girlfriend! Pence’s shellacked head! Stephen Miller’s kitten rampage! Steroid rages! Bill Barr’s strange absence! Michigan militia-fails! And super-spreader events: the new Republican brand!
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Kathy Griffin: Pence Is ‘Nothing But the Crap Under Trump’s Shoe’
Kathy Griffin joins Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson for a special episode of The New Abnormal recorded right after the vice presidential debate. The gang thought Kamala Harris was the clear winner but they couldn’t stop looking at the vice president’s eye. “The closeup shots of Mike Pence’s bleeding eyeball were like watching an eighties horror movie. I expected some sort of snake to come running out of it at any minute,” said Rick. And that was before the fly stuck to his head. “It's almost like it gets inflamed during the debate. And the fly was doing some triage,” said Griffin.
Pence came into the debate needing to try and help Trump win back the women voters who have deserted him since 2016, but that was a total fail.“Maybe I'm biased because I hate Mike Pence with passion and burning fire of a thousand suns,” said Molly. “But I just saw a guy who doesn’t give a shit about women and who doesn’t respect women and who talked over [the moderator] Susan Page and talked over Kamala.”
Rick agreed: “He comes across as a guy, who’s saying, ‘Well, hey little lady, what can I do to get you into this beautiful ‘89 Camry today?’ Just there’s a little creepiness about him.”
“I will say, as a female watching, I did feel like Pence was doing a very classic gaslighting, the woman,” said Griffin. Pence also failed to commit to President Trump accepting the result of the election and agreeing to a peaceful transfer of power. “Mike Pence will be in a Nuremberg trial someday,” said Rick.
Griffin said it was tragic as Pence had once been seen as a mainstream Republican. “It’s shocking to watch him get indoctrinated like a freaking member of right-wing ISIS, go on his degenerate journey to becoming nothing but the crap under Trump’s shoe,” she said. “And it’s disheartening watching him tonight… just parroting, conspiracy theories that seem to get crazier. As the night went on, I just looked at him and I went, fuck that fly—that guy.”
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Should We Replace the Trump Administration With Chimpanzees?
No, seriously. After turning the Rose Garden into a superspreader party, after lying 143 ways to Sunday about the virus and 17 more about the president’s health, maybe it’s time to let some other mammals have a shot. “I could release 50 chimpanzees in the White House and they would behave with more care,” says Rick Wilson on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. Molly Jong-Fast replies, “My favorite moment was when they”—the White House staff, not the monkeys—”said, ‘you know, he's totally fine, but we've given him this experimental drug that has only a compassionate-use approval... Being lied to about the president's health is a time-honored tradition. But this group has really done it with a kind of zeal and flare and incompetence that we have never seen before.” Speaking of those experimental drugs, Yale’s Dr. Howard Foreman breaks down all the different therapeutics the president is taking—and lays out why he thinks Trump has been sicker for longer than anyone realizes. Maybe as long as two weeks. Then! The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser and The New York Times’ Peter Baker compare covering Trump’s D.C. to covering Putin’s Moscow. Plus! Matthew McConaughey’s Camaro! Hugh Hewitt’s dumbest moment yet! White House moles emerge! Bill Barr gets even sneakier! And Rick shares his thoughts about Biden’s decision to take down his negative ads while Trump was in the hospital. “Joe Biden is falling victim to this asymmetric bullshit, civility, fuck that noise. Get on it. Get back on the negatives, do it. Now he's attacking you. He's attacked your family. He's attacked your campaign over and over again. Do not hesitate.”
Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now.
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TEASER: Busy Phillips on Her Abortion and Embarrassing Louis Gohmert in Public
Busy Phillips had an abortion when she was a teenager. It’s been known for a while, but given the uncertainty of Roe v. Wade after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, she’s determined to not let people forget. (Kind of how she and many women like her will never forget the night Trump won the election—“I was really knocked back by Trump's win to the ground. I mean, I like to the floor, like in hysterics.”) In this new members-only bonus episode of The New Abnormal, the “Freaks and Geeks” actor tells Molly Jong-Fast how and why she transitioned from acting to activism, and why she is so passionate about standing up for reproductive rights. “I just wanted to say very simply, you know me, I had an abortion when I was 15 and the situation surrounding it is unimportant, but I deserve bodily autonomy. I deserve equality and I'm not going to be shamed for decisions that I've made about my own body and my own life based on my own beliefs,” she said. Of course, the two had to discuss that time last year that she testified in front of Congress about her abortion. If you missed it, it was definitely a moment worth seeing, especially if you despise Louie Gohmert (R-TX). Phillips explains the wonderful moment when she shut him DOWN from her point of view. (“I have to say that was my favorite thing that I've ever done in my life was saying that to him.”) She also poses to Molly an interesting question: What if vasectomies were as stigmatized as abortions? (“They're like, well, don't be insane. It's like, well, how is that insane?”) Plus, Phillips shares her favorite RGB quote and her feelings on Trump’s “mismanaging” of the pandemic. (“The lack of empathy in this country that's been learned is incredibly overwhelming to me.)
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Why Trump Can't Quit His Most Awful, Most Racist Fanboys
Donald Trump is now claiming he’s not a Proud Boys stan. But let’s get real. When he was on that debate stage the other night, shouting out that racist crew? That was the true Trump. Like Rick Wilson tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal, if someone told Trump, “‘Hey, a robot Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot came back from the grave along with robot zombie Saddam, and they all formed the Undead Dictators for Trump Club, would you issue a statement?’ He would say, ‘Well, they like me. So, you know, whatever they did before in the afterlife now in their necromantic incarnation,’” that’s okay. “If they like him, he likes them. This is the simplest rule of the crazy, narcissistic, authoritarian horseshit that defines Donald Trump... He knows the Proud Boys are part of his team. They're part of his base. He likes them.” Speaking of true colors, what does it say when a president surrounds himself with men accused of abusing women? From Parscale to Rob Porter to Corey Lewandowski, “it's a pattern that is really pretty shocking. And one of those people wouldn't be able to survive in a real administration,” Molly says. Plus! Princeton’s Sam Wang talks about the Democrats’ juiciest Senate targets. (Alaska? South Carolina? Kansas?) The New York Times’ Mara Gay talks about her bout with COVID—and her rage at Bob Woodward for keeping quiet for so long about what Trump really knew. (“I thought of [him] at dinner parties in Washington telling his friends, ‘Oh, make sure you get a mask,’ while the rest of us are running blind.”) Molly goes over her voting plan. (You have a voting plan, right? If not, make one right now.) And Rick discusses “the president's continued flirtation—and by flirtation I mean, they've been at a cheap hotel room fucking for three days—with white supremacists.”
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Trump Came Across As ‘A Total Assh*le’ In The First Debate
Former Republican operative Stuart Stevens joins Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson for a special episode of The New Abnormal on the night of the utterly chaotic first presidential debate. Trump’s amped up ranting reminded everyone that he’s “a guy that you just would not want in your face for another four years,” Stevens concluded. “Trump just came across as a total asshole.” It was a night when the moderator, Fox News’ Chris Wallace, was unable to keep control. Stevens suggested giving the moderators the right to cut off the microphones of unruly candidates. “I think the moderators ought to have the rights to shock collars,” said Rick.
They all agreed that this kind of Trump performance was unlikely to make inroads with the college-educated voters or the white moms he needs for a second term. “Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani did not kill it with the debate prep,” said Molly. “It was not a great debate for women tonight, but I don't think Trump really gives a shit about women quite frankly.” Molly wishes they would just cancel the rest of the debates. “Trump is insane and he is just so destructive. And when you give him a mainstream media venue, it ends up undermining elections and civil society as a whole,” she said. Stevens, who was part of George W. Bush’s debate team, was more upbeat. He said this had been a terrible night for the president. “I think that there's going to be a big movement for Biden after this,” he said.
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Trump’s America Meets All ‘Four Threats’ To Democracy
President Donald Trump isn’t a threat to American democracy on a metaphorical level. He’s a threat to the country’s entire political structure, literally, according to two academics who have studied American democracy throughout history and wrote a whole book on the topic. Dr. Robert C. Lieberman, Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University and co-author of Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy, joined Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast on this episode of The New Abnormal to share which of the “four pillars” that help sustain democracy Trump has completely bulldozed over (hint: all of them.) According to Dr. Lieberman, that’s a big problem. “The American democratic system is supposed to keep one person or one small group from gaining all the levers of power at the same time. And that's where things have kind of fallen down,” he says. See, these threats have always crept up in our history (even Alexander Hamilton was involved in partisan games) but Leiberman says it’s the “piling of threats on top of each other” that triggers the alarms. (“Trump seems to have an unerring instinct to make just about every situation, worse. He is a product of this confluence of threats. He is a product of the time.”) The team also hears from Rev. Warnock, who is running for Senate in Georgia’s special election race against Sen. Kelly Loeffler and would become the first Black Senator for Georgia if he won, “at a time in which we're dealing with a renewed conversation and reckoning around our age old problem of race and racism in this country.” Plus! Rick tells Molly the cold, hard truth about the future of the Supreme Court and the two discuss why the GOP is headed for an Ice Age, just how sketchy Deutsche Bank is, and of course, Trump’s “all kinds of illegal” tax revelations.
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TEASER: Is Trump or Biden More Likely to Keel Over on Debate Night?
“People are dying, tens of thousands of people are out of work, he’s embarrassing,” is not only the quote of the year from Philippe Reines but also sums up how he, Rick Wilson, Molly Jong-Fast, and Mike Madrid feel about Donald Trump’s dwindling support among his own base. To make matters worse for the president, he is set to debate Joe Biden for the first time Tuesday night, and he doesn’t have that same 2016 anger and energy he drummed up to defeat Hillary Clinton. In this new members-only bonus episode of The New Abnormal, Rick, Molly, Philippe and Mike discuss what Joe Biden should say, word for word, when he gets on that stage with Trump and the one thing that could sink the president without Joe’s help. Two words: no crowds. “That is where Trump is at his worst,” says Mike. “Without that he’s going to be like a goat in the wilderness.” There’s also the whole painting-Biden-as-senile by the Trump campaign thing, and it just won’t work, Mike says: “They’re tried to convince people that he’s senile and will drool on people while at the same time trying to convince people he’s some mastermind of the left that’s going to being about socialism.” It is quite ironic. “If one of those guys is more likely to keel over Tuesday night on stage, it’s not Joe Biden,” adds Philippe. Then, the group switches gears to talk about Trump losing support among a few of his core voter demographics: senior citizens and non-college educated men. (“COVID has broken the Trump fever) Plus! Rick gives a dramatic reading of one of Trump’s rally quotes and it’s just as bogus as you’d expect. And the group discusses that awkward moment when the crowd booed Trump at Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s funeral: “This is the only time he’s worn his mask when we desperately needed to see his face.”
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It’s Time to Thank Donald Trump for His Dictator Routine
Most of us were horrified when Donald Trump hinted that he might not be willing to give up power. Rick Wilson was kind of appreciative. Trump has long flirted with the dictator thing. Now the mask is off. “I think the correct response to this is defiance,” Rick counsels on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “‘Thanks for being honest about it. And also fuck you, we're coming to vote you out of office and humiliate you.’” And while the Trumpkins are doing everything they can to undercut every ballot they don’t like, all of that election interference doesn’t matter if it’s a landslide. “If there is a massive voter turnout on November 3rd, these are still only marginal,” Rick says. Molly Jong-Fast puts it more urgently when she adds, “The only way our democracy is going to survive is if every Democrat goes out there and fucking votes.” Then! Molly talks to Danielle Moodie about the appalling results in the Breonna Taylor case. (“How much does this country expect Black people to swallow? You want to be able to kill us with impunity.,,. And then you expect us, what? To wait for justice that we know is not going to come?”) And Sister Simone Campbell tells Molly who she thinks is the better Catholic in the presidential race. (“What we find is, Vice President Biden is totally in line with Pope Francis, caring for the unborn and caring for the born.) Plus! A dispatch from Qongress! A love letter to Mitch McConnell! (J/K) Pig farmers run wild! What to bring to Election Day! Who’s in Marco Rubio’s ratfuck brigade! And is there enough mayonnaise in the universe to turn Comrade Ron Johnson’s chicken shit into chicken salad?
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Mitch McConnell Is About to Punch America in the Penis
You know our politics are beyond fucked up when the showrunner of Veep says he can’t compete with real-life Washington. “I mean, we did a Supreme court episode. And as sort of horrible and tragic as our Veep worldview was, we have lapped it, maybe even double lapped it,” David Mandel tells Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “I shake my whatever to Mitch McConnell. He really has outdone himself, best comedy writer of our generation... And he's literally about to punch the country in the penis. I mean, I'm sorry. There's no other way of saying it. It's literally a dick punch.” (To which Rick quips, “that would be so on brand for 2020.”) Then! Molly and Planned Parenthood Action Fund chief Alexis McGill Johnson talk about the Supreme Court fight—and what it means for the November election. (“I feel pretty fucking galvanized,” Molly says.) Plus! Meet the new polling firm of “Rasputin, Devil, and Death Squad”! Listen to Rick render his opinion on the SCOTUS-packing talk (“dumber than a fucking sack of hair.”) And take a trip with Mandel down Republican National Convention memory lane: “I've never seen a convention where you thought to yourself as you were watching, ‘boy, a lot of these people seem really high on cocaine.’ Like, person after person after person. What convention could you even say that about? I'm not even sure you could say that about a cocaine convention, that this many people [are high]. I think at a cocaine convention, people pull themselves together for their big speech and they'd go, ‘I'll do cocaine after my speech. Not before I address the nation from the White House.’”
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TEASER: The Real Reason Trump Won’t Stop Yelling About Mail-In Voting
What you're about to hear is a teaser for our new bonus episodes we are doing for subscribers to Beast Inside, the Daily Beast's membership program. We have a very special guest with Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz who is going to be talking to us about a wide variety of subjects including Facebook and where the race stand with the senate.
Again, this is for Beast Inside members only. To hear this along with the rest of our upcoming bonus episodes head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com. That's newabnormal.thedailybeast.com.
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How the Trump Campaign Lit a Billion Dollars on Fire
The Trump campaign raised more cash than just about any campaign in history—and it’s still broke, pulling TV ads in big states and slowing down key data operations. On the latest episode of The New Abnormal, Rick Wilson breaks down for Molly Jong-Fast—and the rest of us—how Team Trump managed to burn a billion bucks. First off, the Trump spent something like $400 million to raise that billi, an absolute ungodly sum, straight into the fundraisers’ pockets. So you’re down to $600 million. Then you take the Trumps’ skim off the top, call it 20%, and you’re at $480 million. Throw in some bonehead moves, like $11 million on Superbowl ads and another million on D.C. market ad buys. Layer in $20 million per month in staff costs and—well, it ain’t the first enterprise Trump has run into the ground. But that doesn’t mean you should count Team Trump out of the election. “There's nothing they won't do to hold power,” Rick says. “If Donald Trump was told tomorrow, 'you have to go personally kill Ruth Bader Ginsburg.' He would do it. If Donald Trump's told tomorrow that you have to feed Melania to dogs, he would do it. This guy has to hold power or he is in the deepest possible hole.” Then! Molly talks about taking part in a COVID vaccine trial—to show the skeptics on the left that it’s safe. Former Obama national security aide Ben Rhodes talks about how world leaders have “already moved on” from America. And progressive congressional candidate Jamaal Bowman dishes on the advice he got from AOC: “Jamal, don't be shocked when you get here. It's like an upside down world.” Plus! Fascist Huckleberry Hound! ‘Sexy’ Ben Shapiro! Gourmet food stores filled with Antifa! Teen trolls! And the Trump campaign kid who’s monitoring this pod for his slice of that billion-dollar pie.
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Adam Scott: The Parks & Rec Cast Has Never Gotten Too Political—Until Now
Dems say that the Russians hacked into our political system to help Trump win. Trump and associates blame former President Barack Obama for the interference. But the truth is, both sides have it wrong. Filmmaker Alex Gibney (known for documentary films like “Enron and “Taxi to the Dark Side”) has been immersed in the world of foreign hacking, troll farms, and most importantly, what happened in 2016 for his upcoming docuseries “Agents of Chaos.” And he knows the real reason that the Kremlin came after our democracy. “It wasn't a ‘flip votes in order to give Trump the election’” kind of thing, he tells Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast on this episode of The New Abnormal. It actually was all about Hillary. (“It's that kind of ruthless de-legitimizing of the rule of law and democracy that I think is ultimately the larger agenda here, both for Putin and for Trump.) Speaking of Trump and the 2020 election, Gibney says there’s definitely a lot more “scary” disinfo campaigns to come—and they’re “more sophisticated.” Is there anything we can do to fight it? Good news: Yes. Bad news: It’s on the Trump administration to take certain actions, and well, yeah. Then, actor Adam Scott joins the party (er, podcast) to talk about the just-announced Parks & Rec reunion in Wisconsin to support Democrats. (Leslie Knope, 2024) and why he is not gonna “stick to acting” despite ticking off the “shut-up-and-be-an-actor” Twitter trolls: “I think I'm just looking for ways to help out without being too gross and annoying. It's tough, because I'm frightened. I think a lot of people are.” Plus! Rick and Molly give Adam the special honor of his very own Fuck That Guy pick. And! The two discuss Roger Stone’s Civil War, QAnon’s own Jason Gelanis (who works for CITIGROUP!!) and whether Trump has secretly gotten the COVID vaccine.
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TEASER: Will The Republican Party Ever Be the Same Again?
What you're about to hear is a teaser for our new bonus episodes we are doing for subscribers to Beast Inside, the Daily Beast's membership program. We have a very special guest with Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse who is going to be talking to us about a wide variety of subjects including how dark money is affecting this country and how the GOP has become a toxic force. Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse thinks the biggest problem with climate change deniers is the people that line their pockets. The Rhode Island Democrat joined The New Abnormal co-host Molly Jong-Fast and producer Jesse Cannon to talk about the environment, the GOP dropping the ball, and how putting an end to secretive political cash could be the key to solving it all. “The key thing to do on the environment is to focus on the dark money problem,” says Whitehouse. “I don't care whether you're talking to Tea Partiers or Bernie Bros, the notion that big, powerful, special interests can spend unlimited money anonymously through front groups and deploy huge political power out of sight is equally offensive across the board.” He explained how certain groups are in the pockets of political donors (cough cough, Republicans) and how the party's disdain for science has similarities to their COVID-19 response. “The power of the science denial industry is manifest in both examples, Coronavirus and climate, and the willingness of Republicans to bear pain and scorn and deny truth.” But does the GOP stand a chance of ever going back to being that Grand Ole Party? For the sake of the climate, at least? In Whitehouse’s opinion, there are two options for that to happen, one of them involves a complete overhaul. (“You wait until the Republican party is so discredited and its climate denial that a surge of new Republicans come in and sweep out.”) Then, the three discuss Trump’s eerie Supreme Court scouting and the funding of the Federalist Society: “The whole thing is being basically run like our intelligence community would run a covert operation against a hostile nation.” Plus! Molly really wants to know how Whitehouse can work with Rand Paul and if Rhode Island calamari is really as amazing as the DNC made it seem.
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Has Any American Killed More Americans Than Donald Trump??
So Donald Trump copped to it. He told Bob Woodward that he knew how deadly the virus was—and downplayed it anyway, encouraging MAGA nation to act as if COVID-19 was a cheap Chinese knock-off of the flu. “It's remarkable that in these interviews, the President of the United States confessed to fucking manslaughter,” Molly Jong-Fast says on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. The lawyers might debate whether Trump has any criminal culpability. But to Rick Wilson, there’s no question about Trump’s moral responsibility. “No American has killed more of their fellow Americans in this country than Donald Trump, except for Robert E. Lee and Jefferson fucking Davis. No one has a body count to rival Trump's. He knew it. He knew it was there. He did it. He let it happen. It is the most unbelievable and horrifying outcome that we can imagine.” Molly adds, “Mike Pence was at a pro-life event the other day. And I was thinking about the irony, right? This administration has killed 100,000 plus plus plus people. And they're talking about embryos. Like, it's almost beyond parody.” Mike Schmidt, the Pulitzer-winning New York Times reporter, joins Rick and Molly to talk about his new book, which examines some of Trump’s closest confidants—to stop the president from using his power. “What is that human experience to be one of those guardrails and those containers? What is that like? What is the human experience of standing between the president and the abyss?”
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UNLOCKED: Trump DHS Official: Of Course There Are Racists in the Administration
As you’ve probably heard, we also run bonus episodes every Sunday that are only for Beast Inside members. As a small token of our gratitude, we’re sharing one of those bonus episodes in full with you here. If you want more bonus episodes like this, with more of the spicy interviews and blunt banter you know and love, consider joining Beast Inside. Doing so supports us, The New Abnormal, and the rest of fearless journalism from The Daily Beast. Head over to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to become a member now – or after you listen to this amazing interview with Elizabeth Neumann.
Even a former member of Trump’s Department of Homeland Security thinks he is bat-shit, and surrounded by actual racists. It would be funny if some of the stories that former DHS official Elizabeth Neumann told Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast on this episode on The New Abnormal weren’t so terrifying. She admits that she did “hold her nose” and vote for him in 2016 and really believed he would rise to the occasion. But that dream died super quick—by the end of summer 2017 to be exact: “It was clear he didn’t have a strong enough character to put aside some of his bad habits,” she said. There was one moment, though, that changed it all. Or, as Molly put it, “made you realize we’re not in Kansas anymore.” “He was having some sort of school yard bully fight with a man who is trying to launch a nuclear weapon,” she explained. “It was a huge wake up call for the department.” Neumann also spoke to the influence Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller had on immigration and when she, a pro-lifer, realized the president “wasn’t a true Christian.” And then she makes two scary admissions, which says a lot because they are all pretty scary, tbh. The first is that Nuemann can say with certainty that many of those in Trump’s orbit are racist. In fact, she had a moment while working in the department in which she thought, “Oh my God, some of these people are racist.” The second, and related to the first, is the role that Trump has had on domestic terrorism and white supremacy in the United States: “The president not speaking out against white supremacy and against QAnon is extremely dangerous. He is creating that fear that creates vulnerability in people to be recruited and radicalized by groups that have an intention of violence.” Plus! Will more former administration officials come out? Neumann shares her thoughts.
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Who Is Trump’s Handler in Russia?
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TEASER: Lev Parnas: Trump’s Cronies Made Fun of Him Behind His Back
What you're about to hear is a teaser for our new bonus episodes we are doing for subscribers to Beast Inside, the Daily Beast's membership program. We have a very special guest with Lev Parnas a person from inside Trump and Guilliani’s inner circle. In this interview we talk through all the fuckery around Giuliani's attempts to get dirt to smear Joe Biden as well as the horrors of being inside Trump world. Again, this is for Beast Inside members only. To hear this along with the rest of our upcoming bonus episodes head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com. That's newabnormal.thedailybeast.com.
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What Will Happen to Fox News When Rupert Murdoch Dies?
Everybody has got to die sometime, even the Great and Powerful Fox News giant Rupert Murdoch. But what will happen to the empire when papa ‘Doch finally does kick the bucket? CNN’s Brian Stelter shared his theory with Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast on this episode of The New Abnormal and it’s hard not to see it as a possibility. But spoiler alert: It’s super complicated. (“There will be a battle over the future of the company because there's this trust right now. There's eight votes in the trust,” he says. “Rupert has four votes and the kids have four votes. So he wins. If, and when he dies, there will be four votes from four children,” and dun dun, dun” one of them leans more liberal.) Stelter did the work none of us wants to and wrote a whole book about Fox. He brought up a personal Molly Jong-Fast nightmare (Tucker Carlson 2024?) and the trio discussed the very obvious occurrence of the network literally controlling what the president says or does. (“Tucker will tweet or say something on the air. And two days later, it's Donald Trump's policy.”) Then! Dr. Al Gross, who is running for Senate in Alaska as an Independent, spoke with Molly and producer Jesse Cannon about why the state isn’t as red as everyone thinks and how he’s able to balance his time as a commercial fisherman, an orthopedic surgeon, and Master of Public Health. Oh, and that stimulus check the state’s citizens get called UBI. Plus! Find out which hill Bill Barr is dying on to protect Trump this time.
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Trump Jr. Loves Boats, Hates Rhinos and Is So-So on Democracy
Ike Barinholtz—of Eastbound and Down, Suicide Squad, and Mindy Project fame—loves, and I mean LOVES, Donald Trump Jr. It was a passion that grew white hot on safari. “I went with DJ TJ, we went to beautiful Tanzania back in 2014 and it was amazing,” Ike tells Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson on the latest edition of The New Abnormal. “We talked to the locals and they were really great. And then this really nice man, he was a guide. And he took us to just the most majestic group of sleeping rhinoceroses and we just blew their fucking heads off. It was beautiful.” But Ike admires one of the president’s top four smartest children for more than his guns. Ike also appreciates Don’s nuanced political views, especially when it comes to boats. “Look, everyone is born with a boat. We know that, but only people who really commit—to not just the boating lifestyle, but also the MAGA lifestyle—have earned the privilege to fuck up all of the wakes in a lake. And so once again, DJ TJ is right and that's why I'm supporting him in 2024.” Plus! Trump Senior turns the White House lawn into a NASCAR parking lot. Melania goes dictator chic. And Molly—this part is serious, I swear—recites a Tiffany Trump tweet over an electropop beat.
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TEASER: Trump DHS Official: Of Course There Are Racists in the Administration
What you're about to hear is a teaser for our new bonus episodes we are doing for subscribers to Beast Inside, the Daily Beast's membership program. We have a very special guest with Elizabeth Nuemann is a former member of Trump’s Department of Homeland Security and will be talking to us about the racism and horrors she saw inside the administration. Again, this is for Beast Inside members only. To hear this along with the rest of our upcoming bonus episodes head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com. That's newabnormal.thedailybeast.com.
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Ivanka Is an Idiot but Unequivocally the Smartest Trump
It’s the last night of the Republican National Convention and former GOP operative Tim Miller joins Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast to break down what Rick calls “four hours of sweaty Castro-esque speechmaking.” The most surreal speechmaker of all may have been Ivanka Trump. “There were a lot of lies,” says Miller. “But I thought the lie that really stood out to me was when she talked about how much he loves his grandchildren.”Molly was impressed, sort of. “I did think tonight, Ivanka is an idiot, and she is absolutely unequivocally the smartest of all of the kids.” Aside from Trump, himself, the gang agrees that Rudy Giuliani gave the most despicable speech of the night. Former Giuliani staffer, Rick, says the former Mayor of New York was kickstarting a Republican race war that will run until the election. “There's never been a more perfect exemplar of ‘everything Trump touches dies,’ because that speech tonight; it was, at one point, everything but the n-word… They're coming for you, they're coming for you to your suburbs. These black lives matter…” And when it came to Trump himself, Molly says he was totally off-form: “He finds reading very boring. So, I mean, every speech where he's not saying crazy shit is him being totally bored by whatever they're making him read."Rick agrees “it was very low energy speech,” but predicts the calm—maybe even electable—Trump will not last long. “We all know something about Donald Trump. After he’s been disciplined and held down by his staff for a couple of days, he has an equal and opposite reaction and goes fucking nuts.”
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Mary Trump on Whether ‘Despicable’ Ivanka Could Be New VP
Mary Trump, The New Abnormal’s favorite guest, is back for the third night of the Republican National Convention. Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast want to know if it’s too late for Trump to drop Mike Pence as his running mate and bring in fresh blood. “Pence is a total drip and his only value to Donald is that he sucks up to him,” says Mary. “Do we seriously think that Mike Pence could not be convinced to step down?”
Rick admits it would be incredibly tough to bring in a new vice presidential candidate at this late stage, but can see why Trump would do it. “It's a difficult enterprise. Although, I think Donald would be tempted don't you, Mary? Because it’s like a reality TV play. It’ll be dramatic. The ratings will be yuge.”
Molly was taken back by the sheer scale of dishonesty at the convention tonight. “Those were C-PAC-level lies, not RNC-level lies,” she says. Rick suggested Richard Grenell, who was briefly Acting Director of National Intelligence, was making a strong entry into “the Trumpian liars Olympics” with his convention speech. Mary says he was the undisputed champion. “It was the worst, most damaging performance of the evening, if not of the entire convention, because of the things he was lying about with a straight face. Everything he said was a lie.” Rick selects Trump as today’s ‘Fuck that guy’ for his defunding of FEMA as a hurricane makes landfall in Louisiana and Texas, but Mary says: “You know, that money stolen from FEMA that may not have been needed if Bannon hadn't stolen it from the GoFundMe…”
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Why Are These Crazy People at The RNC Saying What They’re Saying?
Former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum joined Molly-Jong Fast and Rick Wilson on a special edition of The New Abnormal for the second night of the Republican National Convention and he just couldn’t work out what the Hell the GOP thought they were doing? Stephen Harper, the former prime minister of Canada, used to have a sign up on all four walls of his campaign war room, Frum explains: “And the sign said, ‘Why are you saying this?’” While the Democrats realized they needed to create lots of short video segments that would be shared online, Frum compares the RNC disaster as a low-rent version of the Tucker Carlson show on Fox News. “He's a professionally competent white supremacist with a volume controls on the input device that matches the volume output,” he says.
Molly was also unimpressed by Melania’s “dictator chic” and her very long speech. “In the end she was just like this weird alien trying to mimic a human,” she says. Amid the cavalcade of nepotism, Molly also thought Tiffany Trump’s performance was instructive. “There's always been a liberal fantasy that Tiffany is not as evil as the rest of the adult children. I think tonight, that fantasy has been put to bed,” she says. The sight of former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi prompted Rick to issue a warning that Bondi has been working with Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon on concocting “Hillary's emails 2.0”—some kind of opposition research attack on the Bidens. “Tonight was a preview of the October surprise,” he says.
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White House Insider: Trump Wanted to 'Maim' Immigrants
It’s the first night of the Republican National Convention and Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast are joined by Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, who shares eye-watering tales of what Trump is really like when the cameras are switched off. You thought what happened on screen on night one of the convention was crazy? It’s nothing compared to Trump behind the scenes, where national security officials couldn’t get through a meeting “without him doing 20 tangents, becoming irascible, turning red in the face, demanding a diet Coke, spewing spit,” Taylor explained. “Literally out of goddamn nowhere, he'd be like, ‘You know, who’s just my favorite guy? The MyPillow guy. Do any of you have those pillows?’ When it came to the issue of the border wall, Trump would be dreaming up “sickening” medieval plots “to pierce the flesh” of migrants, rip all the families apart, “maim,” and gas them. “This was a man with no humanity whatsoever,” Taylor says. “He says, we got to do this, this, this, and this, all of which are probably impossible, illegal unethical,” Taylor recalls, but he was writing them down as the president spoke. “And he looks over me and he goes, you fucking taken notes?”
All that, and there was still time for the “Fuck that guy” segment, and Jerry Falwell Jr. won a hotly contested race after it was claimed that the anti-LGBT preacher had encouraged the pool boy to have sex with his wife while he watched from the corner of the room. “I would like to salute you for providing the most meta and self-referential ‘Fuck that guy’ ever,” Rick says to Molly. “Because Jerry Falwell said to his wife, ‘Fuck that guy.’”
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TEASER: Trump Is Pushing Even the Quietest Celebs to Speak Out
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The Fall of Steve Bannon, the Gristle Icarus
On the final night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson team up with The Daily Beast’s senior White House correspondent Asawin Suebsaeng, who thinks this week’s online convention felt like the best PBS telethon since they threatened to publicly execute Elmo. Joe Biden gives his big headline speech and sounds suspiciously like a U.S. president. “It blew up the bullshit trope from the Republican party and from the Trump campaign, that Biden is some doddering senile old man… he came out and he tore the goddamn bark off Donald Trump,” says Rick, who also had praise for an old adversary. “Michael Bloomberg went out there and just stuck a goddamn shiv in, Donald Trump. It was some sweetness.”
The team debated whether progressives in the Democratic party should fight harder to drag Biden to the Left, but they were united in their glee over the arrest of Steve Bannon.Molly describes it as “a moment I have long dreamed of.” Rick says this was his “favorite ‘Fuck that Guy’ of all time.” “It’s the gristle Icarus; it’s the whiskey necromancer; it’s Steve Fucking Bannon, the human skin tag, a gigantic sack of bile that walks on two legs.”
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Rockstar Obama Sure as Hell Triggered Trump
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Why Mueller Dropped the Ball. Was He Corrupt or Incompetent?
Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson were up late to fight crime after a “seamless” night two of the Democratic National Convention. Former Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Eric Swalwell joined a special edition of The New Abnormal which asked—after the publication of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s final report on Russian electoral interference—what the Hell happened with Robert Mueller?
Molly’s interpretation of the 1,000 page report was pretty clear: “It seemed like a lot of shoes dropped in that the Trump campaign was giving clues to Roger Stone, which got passed to Julian Assange to influence the 2016 election. But it seems like Mueller dropped the ball on this… I’m no expert, but it, it sort of looks like collusion.”
“Is Mueller incompetent? is Mueller corrupt? What is happening with him?” she asked.
Rick, a former Republican insider, suggested that the failure of the Mueller report to nail the Trump campaign came down to Mueller’s temperament. “I think Mueller was too much of an institutionalist and too much of an incrementalist. And I think when you’re that kind of person, you have trouble understanding sometimes just how fucking wily and corrupt people like this are.”
Rep. Swalwell had another answer. “He did not pursue the finances. And also he did not put the President's ass in a witness chair. And those, I think, were the two shortcomings.”
Trump’s failure to stand up to Russia on behalf of the U.S. has left a huge opening for former Vice President Joe Biden and Rick was impressed by his move to lock down the kind of voters who backed Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
“The Democratic Party for the first time, in a lot of ways, since John F. Kennedy seized control of the national security narrative again, and position themselves as the party of strength because they came right out and made it a centerpiece of tonight,” he said.
Molly suggested the DNC also did well to contrast the potential First Ladies. “It seems almost unfair, you know, to watch Jill Biden in the school she is teaching at versus Melania building a tennis pavilion.”
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TEASER: What the Fuck is Happening with the Mail?
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Blame Fox News For the Rise of QAnon
It’s the “secret sauce” of Fox News: “tell people who feel socially inferior that you're really the smart one. You're really informed, you know the real secrets about what's really going on,” explains Rick Wilson on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. For 20 years, Fox has been force-feeding this sauce to its listeners, saying “that your life would be perfect if it wasn't for that George Soros, your life would be perfect if it wasn't for ANTIFA. They prep these people's minds to reject empirical truth all the time.” And finally, you have them believing in lizard people. In satanic pedophile rings. In QAnon. But maybe, Molly Jong-Fast offers, the QAnon takeover of the Republican party isn’t so bad. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the conspiratorial congressional nominee? Maybe “she and Devin Nunes could someday be on a reality show where they've run away from their spouses. And they're living in a bunker in South Dakota. It's called ‘My Dumb Congressmen.’” Then! Rep. Lauren Underwood, a public health nurse and the youngest Black woman in Congress, talks about her experience doing pandemic preparation in the Obama administration—and whether we can do anything now to reverse Team Trump’s missteps. And! Hank Gilbert, who’s running against Congressman COVID Louie Gohmert, talks about staring down pistol-toting Trump minions for daring to question Dear Leader. Plus! Molly breaks down Kamala Harris’ generational strengths. America’s worst governor compares reopening schools to killing bin Laden. And the ghouls running the late Herman Cain’s twitter account attack
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Donald Trump Actually Did Us All One Big Favor
Kurt Andersen has been tooling on Donald Trump for decades—the Spy magazine co-founder once even tricked the Donald into cashing a check for 17 cents. But, Andersen tells Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson, Trump did us all a favor. He showed America just how rigged our system is in favor of the ultra-rich. “His final ad [of the 2016 campaign] was all ‘Wall Street has taken all of your wealth and ruined the working class. And we must defeat these people of whom my opponent is a puppet,’” Anderson recounts on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “Well, yeah, you had a point. But you didn't actually govern at all on that basis. So maybe, maybe he's sort of put that critique of the system on the table”—especially for Republicans who couldn’t take in that kind of message from someone left-of-center. Rick, the GOP consultant, says it’s time for Republicans to realize that “the party of free markets is full of shit because it [isn’t] about free markets. It’s about gaining enough power to use the regulatory state and legislative process to advantage your individual companies or markets. That's not capitalism, that's crony capitalism on a good day and something much worse on a bad one.” Then! Molly and Rick answer listener questions, revealing how they met (not on a chain gang, they swear) and what their surprising super powers are (“I can hit my head on almost anything,” says Molly). Plus! Will our dynamic duo actually open a dogfighting pit, or will they go straight to selling meth? And what does Rick enjoy more than “getting rip shit on cheap gin and watching the Teletubbies?”
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TEASER: Jim Acosta: CNN Wanted Me to Have Bodyguards at Trump Rally
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The Yachts, the Private Jets, the Safaris: NRA Grift Exposed
National Rifle Association boss Wayne LaPierre rails against the elites trying to take real Americans’ guns Meanwhile, the NRA is taking gun-owners donations—to fund LaPierre’s ultra-lux lifestyle. That’s the crux of New York Attorney General Tish James’ landmark lawsuit against the NRA. “And it looks like they're in a ton of trouble,” The Beast’s Harry Siegel tells Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “Tish has the receipts”—from the 107-foot yachts to the complimentary safaris to the private charters to the gazillion-dollar wardrobe. Then! Rebekah Jones, the former Florida state government data geek and whistleblower, talks about how she was pushed to juke the COVID stats by Ron DeSantis’ cronies. “We changed how we count cases. We changed the criteria itself. So pneumonia was originally one of the surveillance criteria—we had ER, data for pneumonia, influenza, and COVID-like illness. And one of the first things they did was cut out pneumonia. It was too high,” she says. Jones is convinced a similar game is going on throughout the country. “We really don't know how many COVID cases we have in America; we’ll probably never really know.” Plus! Molly rolls out a new campaign slogan: “Vote for Trump, even if we kill you.” Rick opines on drool buckets. And Alexa orders a rat stick for Molly.
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TEASER: Why Cory Booker Won't Punch Trump in the Face
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Trump Has Us on the Brink of a Social Civil War
There’s two things that Rick Wilson loves the most in this world and that’s food and politics. On this episode of The New Abnormal, Taste the Nation host Padma Lakshmi joins Rick and co-host Molly Jong-Fast to chat about her experiences foraging onions in the desert, hanging out with Thai women in Las Vegas and gaining 20 pounds, on purpose. Oh, and how immigrants and Native Americans have way more MAGA clout than Trump ever will. “It should be mandatory that [politicians] go and embed themselves for a week,” she says. Then, MSNBC’s Joy Reid joined to discuss her history-making career move, the impending “social civil war” and Trump’s ability to praise a drug that could kill people. (“It's like a cult leader in a way,” she says.) She and Rick also walk Molly through a typical day in Florida (most notably the bath salt, face-eating zombie incident—not to be confused with the also-mentioned “Zombie bin Laden.”) Plus! The duo opine about Trump’s failing ad strategy and the morons pushing our country into an economic crisis tailspin.
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Tammy Duckworth: Trying to Teach Kids During COVID Is FUBAR
Sen. Tammy Duckworth may be on Biden’s VP shortlist. But when it comes to childcare during the pandemic, she’s just as confused as the rest of us. “So my choice is five hours of homeschooling every day for my daughter and failing her, because I'm not a trained educator, or sending her to a school where she could very likely get this virus or bring it home and get her two year old sister sick or my 79 year old mom, who lives with us,” Duckworth tells Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “That's the problem: impossible choices.” Duckworth also opens up about just how hostile the Senate was to working moms until a hot second ago. One particularly ridiculous question stands out. “They want to know if you're gonna breastfeed on the floor. [And I said,] ‘I’m not exactly planning on whipping one out in front of them. But if the baby is hungry, I'll feed her.’” Then! Princeton’s Sam Wang talks about the out-of-the-way campaigns that could make a huge difference for decades to come. Plus! A Trump ambassador goes to a Nazi cemetary—and gets all wistful. A Republican candidate swears “celebrities and Democrats catch COVID and magically heal.” The Stephen Hawking of the U.S. House of Representatives displays his genius—at infecting everyone around him. Finally! Rick asks the big questions: Who’s more popular, Zombie Bin Laden or Ron DeSantis? Was Tulsa Trump’s Jonestown? And does Chuck Schumer realize that “he's got Mitch McConnell's balls in a bag for once?”
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‘Pretty Close to a Hundred’ New Epstein Accusers
Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald reporter who helped expose Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes, joins The New Abnormal to talk about what’s next now that Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s right hand, is behind bars. “There's a lot of women right now that are coming forward a lot and they're talking to prosecutors,” she tells Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson. “There's pretty close to a hundred, from what I hear.” Meanwhile, a judge is close to unsealing a giant pile of documents related to Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking ring. “I hope somebody is standing in Maxwell’s cell when this happens,” Brown says. A year ago, she notes, when just some of those documents were unsealed, and a few big names were found to be in those papers, “Epstein was dead the next day.” Plus! Why Biden needs to be up 15 points in Florida before you can rest easy; how “Jared is slipperier than an eel in a barrel of KY”; why we’re now in the “most dangerous hundred days in American history”; what is “douchebag entropy”; and how, in Molly’s words, “hell hath no fury like a mediocre man trying to get his hands on my uterus.”
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Trump Has a Nuclear Arsenal—and Can Remember 5 Whole Words
Feeling comfy? Secure? Relatively unbothered by the state of the world? Then consider this: The President of the United States, who holds at his fingertips a devastating nuclear arsenal, also is bragging on television about acing a dementia test that involves remembering five whole words and counting backwards by seven. It’s one of a number of pleasant scenarios contemplated by Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “What I am so impressed with in this administration is how dumb everyone is,” Molly quips. She and Rick muse about which rich scumbags will get shout-outs in those sealed Ghislaine Maxwell court documents. Prof. Eddie Glaude, the Chairman of Princeton’s African American Studies Department, ponders whether Trump is the worst president in 150 years—or the worst one ever. The Beast’s Michael Tomasky wonders which foreign government will attack our election this time. And Molly has a few words for all the media geniuses who think Donald Trump has totally changed his M.O. because he’s finally starting to acknowledge the pandemic: “The guy only has one tone, which is deranged.” Plus! Will Mike Flynn do donuts in a tank on the White House Lawn? Will Bill Barr literally wipe his ass with the Constitution, or settle for a metaphorical move? And what does this phrase mean? “Person. Woman. Man. Television camera. Sean Hannity. Bat shit cuckoo pants.”
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Mary Trump: What Really Shocked Me About My Family & the KKK
Mary Trump joins The New Abnormal with a giant barrel of tea to spill about her family. Her uncle Donald? “He was protected at every turn from his incompetence, from his total inability to handle money. The media, the banks kept propping him up and protecting him and letting him fail up consistently and constantly—until the Republican party started doing the same thing.” Her grandfather Fred, the family patriarch who got arrested by a Ku Klux Klan rally? “Honestly, that story surprised me. Not because my grandfather wasn’t antisemitic, he was, but because he would spend time doing something other than making money. I'm totally serious. Like he went to a Klan rally with what free time? He's perfectly happy being racist and anti-semitic in his own house and his place of work.” And on the pathologies that drove them all, Mary dives deep. “Just like being kind was weak, or being wrong was weak, so is needing to sleep like a normal human being. I think that's why Donald doesn't sleep, because daddy wouldn't approve. So that's maybe why he drinks 12 diet Cokes a day and is up until three in the morning tweeting,” the Too Much and Never Enough author tells Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson. Then! The Nation’s Elie Mystal joins Rick and Molly to discuss the passing of John Lewis—and the rise of a new generation of activists. Plus! Can Allen West turn Texas blue? Is Rick part of Antifa? And is there anything—anything—Bill Barr hates more than graffiti?
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Donald Trump Is America’s Abusive Dad
Legendary filmmaker Judd Apatow really liked Donald Trump—when he was on TV. “I watched [the Apprentice] all the time because I found it so hilarious that all of his opinions were so wrong and everyone he would fire was always for the wrong reason. It was so terrible and crazy that it was fun to watch,” Apatow tells Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. These days, Apatow isn’t laughing. “When you're in show business, you meet people like Trump, you meet people who literally don't exist in the same dimension as you; they're just gone. And that's what he's like. He's like Cosby in a way, these people who are completely deluded and they've been famous and all of their wishes are attended to — they lose complete touch with reality,” Apatow adds, calling Trump the “abusive parent to the country.” Then! Washington Post media editor Margaret Sullivan weighs in on the Bari Weiss controversy. “If Bari was truly bullied at work, then that's very regrettable and I'm sorry to hear that, but she was not forced to resign. I guess you could say cancelled herself,” says Sullivan, author of the new book Ghosting the News. Plus! How many minutes will Trump’s new campaign manager last? WTF is up with the Trumps and Goya beans? And how did Molly possibly survive an entire day without Twitter?!
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Biden-Palin 2020?
Joe Biden is so far ahead of Trump, James Carville jokes on the latest episode of The New Abnormal, that the former Vice President could win, even with Gov. Youbetcha by his side. The strategy is simple, Carville tells Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson: “Attack, attack, attack. Attack from the right, attack from the left, attack from the center, attack everywhere. People say, ‘Well, you know, you got 89% of Republicans will be for [Trump] no matter what.’ Yeah. Maybe so. But watch the number of people that identify as Republicans go down. 89% of 34 is a lot different than 89% of 30.” Then! The Beast’s Erin Banco describes the Trump administration’s “parallel conversations” on the escalating COVID-19 threat. There’s the one the professionals are leading, Banco explains, and “those tend to be pretty serious and Dr. Birx is not shy about issuing warnings to the nation's governors.” Meanwhile, “you have president Trump seemingly either unaware of the conversations that are happening within the taskforce or deliberately twisting the truth.” Plus! Rick begs to go to Gitmo! Molly ponders how the hell you can close Starbucks and open schools. And our wonder twins ask themselves: Are Trump Steaks actually made of … Trump himself?!
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How Silicon Valley’s Sociopath CEOs Are Just Like Trump
Recode co-founder Kara Swisher has this thing she likes to call the “prick to productivity ratio”—how big of a jerk a particular executive is, verus how much he gets done. And these days, both in Silicon Valley and in Washington, that ratio has gone all wrong. “Taking advantage, just not caring about the consequences—that's being played out in Silicon Valley over and over again. So don't be surprised at what Trump is doing. Silicon Valley sets the tone,” Swisher tells Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson in the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “Their lack of self reflection is so vast that I always say they can't see themselves in mirrors, like they're vampires.” Then! Separated author Jacob Soboroff talks about exposing the Trump administration’s child detention facilities. “But when you had the opportunity to see what these 5,400 families go through,” he tells Rick and Molly, “it's impossible to understand this for anything other than a government-sanctioned torture program.” Plus! Rick and Molly discover that the Donald used to kick his own children back in the day. And our dynamic duo wonder if anyone can stop the man in the White House from making this pandemic worse. “We need a federal government to control our president,” Molly says.
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The Trump Family’s Civil War Could Blow Us All Up
Mary Trump legal battles against her uncle might seem like a fun little political soap opera. It’s way more than that, Mary’s lawyer Ted Boutrous explains on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. The attempt to stop her tell-all book before publication—“I think it's really an effort to intimidate people from speaking, to intimidate the press. But also it's a political tool. It's a fundraising tool. It seems to excite people who support president Trump,” he tells Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson. Then! The Beast’s Kate Briquelet—who has broken some of the biggest stories about Jeffrey Epstein’s cabal—joins the dynamic duo to talk about the arrest of Epstein ‘madam’ Ghislaine Maxwell. “There are power players in New York,” she explains “who are very nervous that Ghislaine is going to spill the secrets.” Plus! Does Trump know how to listen to a podcast? Could Kanye’s ‘run for president’ could really, really backfire? How is Ye like Vermin Supreme? And what the hell is “the McKinsey of grift?”
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Ben Stiller Dishes on Trump’s Obsession with Zoolander
Ben Stiller had no idea he was casting a future president when he grabbed Donald Trump and Melania for a quick cameo in Zoolander. But Trump apparently never forgot about it, Stiller tells Molly Jong-Fast, Rick Wilson, and Matt Wilstein in the latest episode of The New Abnormal. Stiller recalls how Trump even derailed an interview during the last campaign to talk about Zoolander 2. Trump “started going into detail about, you know… in the culture, people don't care about male models anymore,” Stiller recalls. Not that Stiller is particularly gratified by the attention. “Everybody has their own theories about whether or not [Trump] still wants to be president, but I think it's gone so far now. People's lives are being affected. And really, to me, it's not funny anymore. It's kinda just like, it's a little bit insane,” Stiller says. The actor/writer/director/comedian also discusses his work as an advocate for refugees, what it’s like to play Michael Cohen on SNL, what he wants to see from Joe Biden if he wins, and what are the boundaries of comedy in 2020. (“Tropic Thunder probably would not have been made... It would be tone deaf right now to make it,” he says.) Plus! Rick, Molly, and George Conway talk about whether Tucker Carlson will run for president (yes, with Eric Trump as a running mate); whether a war criminal is about to become a new Trumpworld star (unfortunately, that’s a yes, too); and whether our commander-in-chief actually gives a shit about the troops he’s supposed to be leading (hard no). As George says, Trump “expressed more concern about how he was perceived walking down that ramp at West point than he did about the fact that the soldiers that he spoke to that day could go to Afghanistan and get killed, because some Russians are paying money to the Taliban.”
Subscribe to The Last Laugh: https://link.chtbl.com/thelastlaugh
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Did Trump Blow Off Some Sketchy Intel? Or Commit Treason?
Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast have some thoughts on the matter in the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “It's not just treason. It's historic treason,” Rick says about the revelation that the Russians offered bounties on U.S. soldiers—and Trump kissed up to the Kremlin anyway. “This is a guy who was already going down into the dustbin of history. And now there's going to be a line at his grave where they're going to have to throw cat litter down. Because people are gonna piss on it for all time.” Plus! Democratic Rep. Connor Lamb talks up his favorite Republican. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison gets real about police unions. (“I'm reluctant to even call it a police union because a union is an honorable, wonderful institution,” he says. “These institutions are not like that at all. The teacher's union does not deliberately harm the kids. Nurses don't hurt the patients. UAW doesn't break the cars.”) And Molly dishes on White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany: “At least with Sean Spicer, you did feel he possessed a human soul. Whereas with Kaylee, it's just this sort of terrifying, blonde sea of obfuscation.”
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Is Agent Margaritaville On MySpace For Fascists?
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Does Henry Winkler Have an Antifa Membership?
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What the Hell Is John Bolton?
Molly Jong-Fast, like the rest of us, is rather confused. On the latest episode of The New Abnormal, Rick Wilson and Molly try to puzzle through the mystery of Donald Trump’s mustachioed menace. Plus! The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Cartwright tells the juicy backstory behind his big scoop that Mary Trump has written a tell-all book about her fucked-up family. The Beast’s Nicole Phillip talks about how the United States tried to disappear the Tulsa Race Massacre. (“American history, the sins of America? When it comes to race, when it comes to slavery, when it comes to native Americans, it's sanitized. It's whitewashed. It's covered up,” she says.) And be sure to listen to the end, or you’ll miss a very MAGA guest appearance by the Dragon of Budapest himself. No, really.
Rick & Molly’s Cameo greeting from Dr. Sebastian Gorka https://www.cameo.com/v/pWetTAiUS
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Can You Force Fox News To Be Less Racist?
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BONUS - Rep. Katie Porter on How Working Moms Are Wiping Congress' Ass
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Will Bill Barr Go to Jail When This Is All Done?
Attorney General Bill Barr was in on Trump’s scheme to bribe and lean on Ukraine’s president. He let his boss’ criminal cronies off the hook. But the worst part, former DOJ prosecutor Glenn Kirschner says, was Barr’s crackdown in Lafayette Square on people just expressing their First Amendment rights. And if Barr isn’t under criminal investigation in 2021 for that, he tells Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast, then “shame on us.” It’s part of a jam-packed episode of The New Abnormal. Rachel Bitecofer of the Niskansen Center for Public Policy, joined Molly and Rick to present her forecast for this November. Of course, the dynamic duo tackle the ultimate fuckery that is the Donald Trump White House, including the president “playing footsie” with Confederate flag truthers, his Twitter-gasm over his Tulsa rally and how the “Bitch Boy” and his minions did the seeming impossible: became even more racist.
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DC Mayor: We Had to ‘Defend Our Borders’ from Trump’s Troops
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Are We All Trapped in Tom Cotton’s Authoritarian Wet Dream?
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Justice Is Not White Folks’ Possession to Give
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How To Screw Up a Vice Presidential Pick
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Julian Castro on Why Everyone Hates Ted Cruz
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Eric Swalwell: 'We Aren't Being Told the Truth About Russia'
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Why Michelle Malkin Is Den Mother of the Alt-Right Dipsh*ts
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Adam Schiff on Bob Mueller’s Biggest Mistake
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How George Conway Moved Into Donald Trump’s Head
In this episode of THE NEW ABNORMAL, Republican lawyer George Conway reveals to Rick Wilson and Molly-Jong-Fast what irks him the most about Donald Trump, and how he’s managed to troll the president so hard, so well. (Spoiler alert: Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale accidentally gave Conway the idea.) Plus! Rick and Molly discuss comic opera dictatorships, Facebook’s about-face, and the man who chews Trump’s food.
The meme referred to in our George Conway interview: https://twitter.com/skolanach/status/1259511266000830465
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Gretchen Whitmer’s Chilling Call With the White House
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Jared Kushner, Our First Android Vampire President
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BONUS - Extended Interview With The Atlantic's James Hamblin
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What’s Next for Andrew Yang — And How to Stop the Trumpy Apocalypse
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The White House's Racist Kool-Aid Man Episode
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Mitch Antoinette and the Goldfish Brain
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Dope Fiend For The Dow Jones
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En liten tjänst av I'm With Friends. Finns även på engelska.