The Daily Beast Podcast - 2023 Will Finally Be the Year of Accountability for Donald Trump

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

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.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. Some of us are still on break for the holiday, but that doesn't mean we can't record to a fantastic episode just to get us back in the group.

Today we're joined by Mary Trump, author of The Reckoning, our nation's trauma and finding a way to heal as well as the host of the podcast, The Mary Trump Show. She's here today to talk to us about how Donald Trump's 2022 ended and what lies in the cards for him and the Republican Party in the new year. Folks, I am so excited to welcome to The New Abnormal. My first interview of 2023, my friend Mary Trump, who you know you should be listening to her show, the Mary Trump show, where she speaks with some of the most influential people in politics and puts together the most badass panel of political analysts, strategists, called The Nerd Avengers, which I am so grateful to be a part of Mary. and she is also the author of two books, Too Much and Never Enough,

How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, and also The Reckoning, Our Nation's Trauma and Finding Our Way to Heal. Mary, welcome to the new abnormal. Hello, my friend. It is so cool to be with you at your new gig. I'm so happy that you got the new abnormal. What a phenomenal edition. So congratulations for that.

I know it's not, it's been a bit of time, but, you know, first time on with you. And happy new year. Happy New Year. I mean, my God. So first of all, let's just pat ourselves on the back that we made it through 2020, because there were so many moments where I think we all felt like

that may not happen. And we did it. We've changed the calendar year. But Mary, we ended the year. My God. It was like, I don't know if you felt like me, but I felt like I was crawling over the finish line, like gripping my fingertips into the ground.

just trying to make it over. How did you feel at the end of the year? Like running a marathon barefoot over broken glass, perhaps, a seven years long marathon. You know, I have a substack called The Good in Us, and it's become increasingly more difficult to write in the context of that notion. Yeah. So what happened, though, is, and I agree with you,

heading into the midterms, oh, my goodness gracious. My God. And I do think that that kind of stress is insupportable. over any length of time. But I think the midterms were a real turning point. And I just wrote about how for the first time in seven years, I actually feel not simply that this coming, this year, this new year is going to be less awful,

but that it's going to be good. And it might actually be really good, depending on how certain things we're going to talk about play out and how we contribute as well, I think. But yeah, between the midterms and the end of the year, it was just this constant bombardment. But for a change, not just bad stuff. There was a lot of good stuff coming at us too.

And I think that that's right. I am a person who believes in astrology. And many astrologists have said that the beginning of this year, kind of like the end of last year, you need to take it slow. Where Mars is in retrograde, Mercury is in retrograde. There is a lot of realignment that is happening. And I think that that makes sense if we are looking at like our place, political astrological forecast. And so I kind of want to take a bit of a step back before we project

into what we think is going to unfold for 2023 and look at how the year ended, particularly with your uncle, who if we're looking at having a not good, very bad end of year, I think that Donald Trump makes that list. We got his Trump organization on 17 guilty charges, including fraud. You have the January 6th committee finally wrap up 18 months of their investigation, which provided over a million documents, thousands of interviews, 10 public hearings, 165 page introduction into their final report. And then you also had the release of six years' worth of Donald Trump's taxes where we learned that, guess what? Oh, I don't know. While he was president, the IRS forgot.

to ask for Donald Trump's taxes. Oops. It's funny because they come after me. You know, they come after everybody. If you forget to cross a T or dot an eye. So as the year was coming to a close and the headlines for your uncle were not good, what were, how were you taking in each of these pieces that I've mentioned and some that I did not? My first thought always is, yeah, so like we knew all of this.

So it's lovely to have it out there. But nothing in his tax returns is surprising. Nothing in the January 6th report is surprising. I don't mean to sound negative. But the end result of all of this still remains that despite all of the things you just mentioned, the fact that he stole tens of thousands of pages of highly sensitive and top secret documents from our government and perpetuates the big lie and fomented an insurrection against our country, he's still not just running free.

still raising tens of millions of dollars every month. And he is, let me see, what is it he's doing? He's running for president for Christ's. So although, yes, there is some sense of poetic justice that we seem to have reached 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. There will be no one thing, but there will be like everything at some point will start to. add up instead of, you know, his getting away with one thing and then the next, there will be this cumulative sort of density of horrors that will finally catch up with him. And I do think that that's what's happening. So even though it looks bad on paper and isn't really having much

of an impact, 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. I think that's one of the things 2023 will be for. and that is accountability. Do you think, though, Mary, that the country as a whole, I mean, you know, you started out by saying it's been a seven-year marathon running barefoot over glass. And honestly, for anybody who has made their life and their work about politics, about justice issues, about movements and equity, that's certainly exactly the right description. Because we've taken a lot of hits, a lot of backslides, a lot of holding on to our democracy

with everything that we have and we're still facing headwinds. Do you think, though, that given all of those things that the public has lost their appetite, and if the public has lost their appetite for justice in the instance of Donald Trump and accountability, and we hear from Republicans who they're going to create a circus of distractions over the next year, right? But do you think that the public is exhausted and they're just doubt? and ready to turn the page whether or not that page ends with accountability. I mean, yeah, we're all freaking exhausted, that's for sure. But I think one of the reasons we're so exhausted is because there hasn't been accountability

and one of the things that will energize us. And by the way, that's necessary if America is ever going to be a properly functioning democracy is holding not just Donald Trump, but everybody else who is complicit in. in his crimes accountable. So I don't think people are ready to turn the page on that at all other than the Republican base. So I think if you want to demoralize pro-democracy-loving Americans, the best thing to do is nothing.

Yeah, I think that that's right, too. Looking back at the midterm elections, right, where we were all kind of waiting with bated breath to see whether or not Americans were going to show up in mass in order to save democracy again, it feels like every election has been the most consequential election of our times. Every election since 2016 has been the most consequential election, whether it be a midterm or or presidential. And what we saw is that the Democrats were able to hold on to the Senate. I'm not going to talk about Kristen Cinema because I don't have the energy or the time to care. Democrats are able to hold on to the Senate. We did not get a shalacking in the House in the way

that the media and pollsters had set up this red tsunami that was supposed to happen that didn't happen. By the time that folks listened to this, we will know whether or not Kevin McCarthy is able to become the puppet speaker, and I'll tell you why I think that in a minute, or somebody else will be anointed the head of this quote unquote, Maga Freedom, Trumpist, white supremac caucus in the House. When we look at the midterms and how people showed up, What does that tell you, Mary, about the mood of the country and their understanding of how consequential voting and voting for the right people are? It tells me that contrary to the expectations of a lot of us who pay way too much attention to this stuff, other people also were paying attention to a degree we may not have given them credit for. It tells me that once again, the media failed miserably in doing its job and made a race that was about fundamental human rights like the right to choose and bodily autonomy and democracy.

They made it about inflation and high gas prices, which as we know are temporary and pretty much out of the control of anybody who's running the government. And we learned that still the majority of Americans understood what was its state. So I think that's an incredibly good sign. And the other thing, as you mentioned, we were being told this as a red tsunami. I know we lost the House. I considered an enormous victory that it's such a slim margin because we were told we were going to lose 30, 40, 50, 60 seats, right? So people are paying attention and it completely changed the narrative,

especially when you think about everything that was going against the Democrats going into this inflation, high gas prices, Biden's low poll ratings, the media, basically concentrating on the horse race, regardless of all the really important things that were going on in the world. The fact that Biden's incredibly pivotal speech in which he referred to certain elements of the Republican Party is semi-fascist wasn't even broadcast. The message wasn't getting out, all this other stuff, and we still won. So imagine, imagine what the midterms would have been like just pick one thing if inflation had been low and high gas and gas prices had been stable. Yeah. To your earlier point, I think that we do not give the American people enough credit.

What we've seen with the Republican Party is that they actually think very little of the electorate, right? I mean, we saw that by the candidates that they put up, whether we were looking at a Herschel Walker, whether we were looking at a Dr. Oz, whether we're looking right now at Santos, right, from New York, who is a fraud, right? But why is it, why is a Santos on Long Island able to be sworn in to become a member of Congress because of the shit that we looked away from for seven years with Donald Trump because of the political norms that we allowed to become so afraid that any crackpot could decide to run for office and lie about every single part of their lives?

And so I look at that, Mary. And, you know, and you said that the media continue to fail. the people, but the people still showed up, regardless of what it was that the media was trying to force feed them or, frankly, hide from them altogether if we're talking about a Fox News or a Newsmax. And so what do you think is the responsibility that those of us who are in the media, who use it to try and wake people up, who use it for the betterment and for educational purposes, is what do you think that our role is when this House changes hands? We don't know to who.

We know it's to the Republicans, but we don't know to who when it changes hands. And every single hearing that comes out is some Biden circusry rather than something that is going to benefit the American people. I would like to think that in terms of the mainstream media, and I know there's really nothing we can do about it, but I'd like to think that they won't cover it. Or if they do, they cover it through the lens of skepticism and probably horror would be appropriate to because we already know what the Republicans are going to be having hearings about Hunter Biden's laptop. The outrageous fact that Twitter wouldn't publish naked pictures of the president's son, you know, they're going to try to impeach Biden and on and on and on. Or they will probably impeach Biden and Fauci and probably Hillary Clinton, because why not? Because why not? And nobody covered Donald's, I guess he had something to say on New Year's Eve.

Nobody covered that. So maybe they're learning their lesson a little bit. But they actually, that was one of the stupidest things I've ever said in my life. Sorry, they don't learn their lesson. They don't learn their lesson, Mary. So that leads it up to the rest of us. And how you started, your question is something we all need to hang on to. We underestimate the American people.

So again, as you said, the Republican Party has nothing but contempt for the American. people. They have nothing but contempt for the American experiment and democracy. And they have a particular contempt for their base, which is quite something. And I think that kind of, that makes the rest of us feel that people are tuned out, aren't paying attention. And we learned that in the last, at least three election cycles, it's not true. People really are paying attention. Right. And we need to do better, pay them more respect. And instead of speaking to the fact that they're not paying attention and making all sorts of excuses for that, speak truth. You know, just keep speaking truth because people are clearly listening. And I think the future is in small independent media, you know, shows like this

one, substacks even, or newsletters. Medium is another place where people publish newsletters. Maybe make a more concerted effort. And I know I really want to do. this in in 2023 to amplify other voices and not act like we're in competition, but that, you know, we are so much stronger when we lift each other up. And that's what we try to do. We just need to do more of it. You know, it's interesting because, again, one of the things that I have been thinking about a lot is, you know, America in so many ways was founded on this false idea of individualism. Whenever you look around at other countries, other cultures, other ethnic groups, other tribes, you recognize that community is actually the

foundation of what makes their societies tick. I think one of the things, too, that I felt as the year was coming to a close, and I want to get your thoughts on this, is there's been more conversation about a pushback against greed and capitalism and technocrats and those that are the ones that are the overlords of our information and the flow of that information. and the democratization thereof. But there was also more power in collective community and pushback. And I just want to get your thoughts on

the more people come together, the more folks like Donald Trump, like Elon Musk, like others, lose the control that they have to be able to wield. And so, you know, we saw headlines like quiet quitting and this, that, and the other thing. And it was just like, no,

how about the people have decided that they actually have power, that they have a voice, that they are not just here to be the nation's mules and workhorses. And so I wanted to get your thoughts on how those conversations were bubbling up and how we saw in a couple of states rises in minimum wages. We have seen moves to more equitable community treatment rather than this celebration of individualism. and look at Elon Musk. He's this genius. He's this God that we all need to worship because he was born into significant wealth. Yes, he was. And has the great distinction of being the first person in human history to lose $200 billion, which is also a reminder that no one human being should have

that kind of wealth. It's disgusting. And it's really dangerous. I think the myth of rugged individualism has been one of the most toxic forces in this country's history. And it has led to things, like people not getting vaccinated, not wearing masks, not caring. And what's the weirdest part of that is, okay, you don't care about a stranger, but you don't care about your kid or your friends or your colleagues or your family. It's very weird. And I think it warps people's ideas of what is appropriate behavior if you want to live in society. And I think we have lost much of our sense of what the commons are, right?

But 2022, I think we'll look back and see it as, among others, things the year of overreach. We saw it with some Supreme Court decisions, which basically completely undermine the idea that the purpose of government is to protect its citizens and to unite them. I think that their gun decisions made that clear. The Dobbs decision made that clear. The threats to go after privacy overall made that clear. So I do think that it's a bit of another tipping point.

And look, some of them did it by themselves. Like Donald Trump is entirely responsible for revealing himself to be who he is because he can't help it. If he had just handed back those documents, we wouldn't even know about this stuff, right? Right. Same thing. If Elon Musk could just either not bought Twitter at all or bought it and kept it public and had a board of directors overseeing everything, he wouldn't have lost $200 billion, probably. You know, if Andrew Tate... Oh, my God.

It'd stop to think... maybe being mean to a teenager is not such a good idea for my brand. Maybe he wouldn't be in a Romanian prison right now. I don't know. But if you take a step back and you just look at those three people, because I think they're like, it's sort of the same person in some ways. Yep.

Yep. I don't think Elon Musk and Donald can do anything physical. That's probably the only good thing you can say about Andrew Tad is he is a fairly skilled athlete. But why do we imbue these malignant narcissists, these megalomaniacs, and quite frankly, people who've pretty much failed to achieve anything in their life that they didn't buy or that wasn't handed to them. Why do they get imbued with this sense that they're so much smarter than the rest of us? Why do we give them so much power?

Why do we let them pivot away from maybe the one thing they were genuinely, I don't know, I can't say earned really. Let's just stick with Andrew Tain for a second. You know, he was successful in his sport. Good for him. But then he became an influencer. Why? You know, why was he allowed to pivot outside? I mean, the guy's worth like $300 million.

Why? And I think we need to think long and hard about what makes so many people need figureheads like that and why they end up with such outsized influence because it's been America's problem all along, but it definitely seems to have gotten worse in the last decade or so. I mean, I think it started with Reagan, you know, this whole macho bullshit. And the people filling that role have just gotten worse and worse and worse and worse. They have taken it too far. And we're seeing it, right?

Yeah. And I think that so many of the things that you said are right. And I also want to lift up what is the other trait that these megalomaniacs and egomaniacs have is that they are wealthy white men. And I've said this before that this false sense of masculinity comes from a deep sense of fragility. And this idea that I have to perform bravado and I have to perform masculinity to hide the fact that I really am quite small, that my character actually does not match what I am being imbued with. And I think that you see that this explosion of ego, you watch it on Fox News. I mean, Tucker Carlson did a whole faux-ass documentary on masculinity. It's their obsession with this

idea because they feel so absolutely small. But the thing is, the thing that always gets me, and what I want people to understand is that when we create this false connection between wealth and genius, then we allow ourselves to say that those that then don't have, that are less fortunate, that we're not born into that kind of wealth, then we also make the false connection between poverty and laziness or lack of intelligence and lack of wherewithal. And we allow ourselves to exist on that false narrative because if we were to really examine the truth, then we'd have to actually change systems, right? We'd actually have to look at the systems instead of looking at the people.

And that's what this country, that's what I think has allowed for the rise of Donald Trump and for the rise of an Elon Musk and these types of strong. men is because we want to look at the people rather than the system that has created such inequity, such devastation. Because if those people can make it, there must be something wrong with the rest of us. And we don't actually do the deep dive that's required. Yeah, that's deeply embedded in this country's Calvinist roots, you know, this whole idea of predestination and there's this tiny group of people who've been chosen and your success is ordained by God. So therefore, if you're you're a slave, you deserve it.

Yep. Yeah, that hasn't gone anywhere. It's just transformed into something else. I think it's also important to point out how devastating it is when we make wealth the thing most to be wished. Like when we think wealth is not just the most important thing somebody could have, but the only thing anybody needs. And I can't speak for Elon Musk or Edutade, although I can speculate. but I'm guessing it's their situations are quite similar. Donald is a lonely, unloved, unhappy person and unconnected.

Like he's unconnected from anything beyond himself, anything bigger than himself because he doesn't think anything could be bigger or greater than himself, right? And when that becomes the model, you're right. That means that we need to take a step back and look at that, the system that perpetuates that because what we have is a situation in which a significant minority of people in this country have authoritarian personality. You know, they hate change. They need somebody to follow.

They like things to be homogeneous. And the other thing, too, is they're insecure. So not that they would ever admit this consciously, but one of the reasons they identify with people like Donald and Elon Musk because of, you know, the ways they overcompensate, they're identifying with the fact that they're losers. Because they think, all right, I'm a loser and their losers. And look what they've accomplished.

So I think that's part of what gets us in a lot of trouble, which is sort of a long way of saying America fails miserably at helping people with their mental health issues. I mean, it's a hundred percent. I laugh because it's 100 percent true because I think about if we go back to the beginning of the rise of reality TV, it was giving you the satisfaction of looking at people doing the most disgusting and degrading things and you then feeling better about you. yourself, right? So if they're tied up in toxic relationships, if they're eating, you know, cow testicles, if they're doing all of these things, like literally, that was the birth of reality TV. You could then look at your own life and say, oh, I'm so much better than that. And I'm only looking at this for entertainment until the lines became more and more blurred. And who rose out of that, right? A Donald Trump, right? Like who rose out of that, of that space? Like,

And so then it turned into, oh, a wanting and a desire for the super sweet 16s and the houses that you can't afford and the living beyond your means. And what does that then fuel? The economic crash that we had with people wanting to, people getting loans and things like that by loan sharks, aka Wall Street, that allowed them to want to live beyond their means and then the bubble burst. And so it's like all of these things psychologically feed into that deep insecurity. that feeling like if I can fill myself with likes and praise and wealth, then I will be better than.

Right. And that and that comes therein lies the worship of wealth and greed and all of those pieces. Yeah. What is none of that about? Meaningful human connection. Happiness, fulfillment, kindness. All of that gets alighted. And I think that the greatest danger here is that the right has done a quite brilliant job, actually, of convincing people not that they should do better than other people, but it's enough if other people do worse.

So, come on. Yep. Hey, it's okay. If I don't have health care and I have to choose between heating my home or feeding my family in the winter, that's okay because there are other people who have less than I do. It's a really, really self-destructive way to live your life. But it works. And of course, a lot of it works because it's built on the whole fallacy of white privilege. So let's make some first quarter predictions.

We won't make predictions for the whole year, Mary, because I hope to have you back again. So let's make some first quarter predictions of this new year. So we know, like I said, at the top, Kevin McCarthy is going to be up for vote to become the Speaker of the House. Why do I call him a puppet speaker? Because he is going to be owned and bagged and pimped out by the quote-unquote Maga Freedom Caucus. And why won't they put up anybody else for a vote?

Because why would you want somebody with their own mind and opinion when you could own Kevin McCarthy? Right? when all you got to do is put your hand up his back and open up his mouth. Why would you want to vote for anybody else who you have to like, you know, fight for? Fight their opinions and fight their judgments. You know, this is easy. It's like just get a doormat. So that being said, where do you see us moving in this month of January and February as, again, we know that the referrals were made by the January 6th committee for criminal referrals to the department.

of Justice, Donald Trump, John Eastman, and others. We know the taxes are out there. And we know that pretty much not a lot is going to get done in Congress. They're going to be a lot of executive orders. That's my prediction, because I don't know what the House is going to do except show its entire ass, right? And the fact that Republicans can't run anything except into the ground. So what are your predictions? I think it's actually, this sounds counterintuitive, but I think that since they got the majority, I think it's a good thing that they have it because 2023 will just continue this trend of overreach and showing your hand. In a spectacular way, the American people are going to see what Republicans do with power

in isolation, because it won't, you know, it will just be this one part of one branch of government in contradistinction to Senate Democrats, who I actually do think are going to meet the moment and take over some of what the House was doing and can no longer do if it's in the hands of any Republican, not just, I mean, let's be real. It kind of doesn't matter who's Speaker of the House if it's a Republican. They're all the same. It's true. Whoever it is, it's going to be Marjorie Taylor Green, you know.

Yeah, yeah. And Jim Jordan. I think there will absolutely be indictments. What's interesting, though, is from where? because we have so many choices. Because we have so many choices. So many choices. I think at the moment, Georgia and the stolen documents cases are the two strongest.

Yep. The strongest contenders for being the first to indict. But I'm going to take whatever we can get going into 2023. We need to hit the ground running. And, you know, I think that's enough. If we can get some indictments and we can. get the Republican Party, the House of Representatives showing its hand. Like, they are going to give us the roadmap.

They are going to fix inflation by starting a committee to investigate Hunter Biden's laptop. Correct. I think that all of those things are right. And what I see as the role of the Democrats and the new fresh Democratic leadership is to keep the pressure on, continue to be the communicators. right, and say, this is what they wanted power. Y'all gave them power. Do you feel any better in your day-to-day life?

Are any of the new committees that they are creating? Any of these hearings, are they affecting your day-to-day life? And as so long as the Democrats, led by Hakeem Jeffries, can keep that eye on the prize, communicate to the American people exactly what it is they would be doing if they had the gavel and showing them what the Republicans aren't doing, doing for them, I think that we will set up 2024 in the way that we need it to go in order to continue not only to hold onto our democracy, but to actually strengthen it.

That's such a good point. And honestly, I think it's another good reason that the Republicans got the majority in the House because Hakeem Jeffries, he has plenty of experience. It's not like he needed time to fill the role of speaker. He will. be a great speaker someday and he would have been if he had been sworn in tomorrow. However, what this gives him the opportunity to do is not have to worry about whipping votes and counting votes and it gives him the opportunity to do what he is so brilliant at. And that is just fighting the jugular and going right for it because he doesn't have to compromise with anybody. And he is going to be able to show Democrats what it looks like when you fight, which the Democratic

Party historically has not done enough. He is going to show the American people in stark contrast what it looks like when you have unsurious criminals in charge. And he's also going to make us see very clearly what it looks like how much of an impact you can have, even if you're in the minority. We have a year, I think, to just go brass knuckles, no holds barred. And, And not just expose the Republicans for what they are, but to change fundamentally the way Democratic leaders and elected Democrats deal with its base. I think Hakeem Jeffries will be the leader we need in order to empower the Democratic base in a way it never has been in order to say to them, we're not deferring your rights anymore.

We are going to center you in a way we haven't before. And I think that could be a huge watershed. I love it. Mary Trump, my prediction is that I need 2023 to be the year of the Phoenix for Democrats. It is the year that you burn things down that you do no longer need and rise from those ashes, stronger, fortified, and victorious. Friend, I will have to have you back on in the second quarter of the year to see how our political astrology has played out for the first quarter.

I appreciate you so very much. And thank you for joining the first episode of 2023 for The New Abnormal. Thanks, Daniel. This is amazing. And it's going to be great, my friend. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going.

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