The Daily Beast Podcast - A Theory for Why Trump Kept Those Classified Documents

Episode Date: August 16, 2022

Democratic strategist James Carville has a message for people who are doubting Merrick Garland: Just wait. On this episode of The New Abnormal, he explains why Dems should have more faith in Merrick Garland—and also shares the long list of GOP candidates across the country that makes Molly Jong-Fast crack up. Then, Matt Castelli, a former CIA officer and Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council who is currently running for Congress against Trumpy Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), joins the pod to share his plan for taking Stefanik down and calls her an opportunist. Plus! Hosts Andy Levy and Molly dissect Trump’s latest Truth Social admissions, including that he has multiple passports. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Zhang Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic Invo. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. 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 the wisest and funniest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it. Oh, yeah, this is a fun one. First, we have legendary Democratic strategist James Carville, and he's going to talk to us about what he's seeing in the midterms, and the trouble Mr. Trump seems to have found himself in. Then we're going to talk to Matt Costelli, who's running for the Democratic nomination to run against Elise Stefaniac.

And he's going to tell us all about his race. But first, let's have some fun. Andy Levy Molly Jongfest Why does Trump have Multiple passports? Someone explain this to me Should I have multiple passports?

Have I been doing this all wrong My entire life? Almost 44 years My birthday's coming up In case you're wondering. Is this me? I don't have a passport. The government

will not let me leave the country because I know things. Oh, that's good. Yeah, so I'm not really an expert on this. But what you're talking about, of course, is that your former president, Donald Trump, he truthed on truth social. Let's read it together in a dramatic reading.

Wow! Explanation point. In a raid by the FBI of Mar-a-Lago, TM, they stole my three passports, one expired. Ergo, he has two, along with everything else. Let's discuss what other passport could he have? Again, I don't have a passport. So I don't, I'm now on international man.com, Molly.

Like you're not there every day. It's Santa. The article, Andy, don't why? I am not saying I had that bookmarked. I'm just saying that's where I am now. And it says that, among other things, having a second passport allows you to invest, bank, travel, live, and do business in places you wouldn't otherwise be able to. Oh, that's cleared up a lot.

Thank you. So, sure. But I feel like that's for, like, dual citizenship. Like, I don't know. I don't understand. Well, it doesn't sound good. Not good. It says a second passport unlocks the door to international financial services that otherwise might not be available to you. Something stinks in the state of Denmark. Somebody's a dual citizen. Somebody's sketchy as hell, man. That's all I'm going to say. Real fucking sketchy. Speaking of sketchy, someone else is sweating a little hair dye syrup.

today down his temple. You know who that is? I'm assuming that is Rudolph the leaky reindeer. Everyone's least favorite mayor, Rudolph Giuliani. Yeah, he got the nod told that he is a target. You never want to be a target. You never want to be a target. He's a target of a investigation in the great state of Georgia.

I'm outraged. Yes. And if it. If Rudy can be arrested for crime. If they can do this to the mayor, Molly. Because he's as much the mayor. He's as much the mayor now as Trump is the president now. And they keep saying if they can do this to the president.

So if they can do this to the mayor, think of what they can do to you if you try to interfere in federal elections in the state of Georgia. Think about it, Molly. And I hope this is a deterrent to you and your efforts to, to, interfere in a federal election in the great state of Georgia. If Rudy can go down for a loud act of crime, what does that say for the rest of us? The funniest thing about all of this is all of these guys, like, they go on TV and they explain all the criming that they've done. They tell everyone.

And then they're outraged when the government comes after them. It's amazing. I'm sorry, but still my face. favorite stuff is when they're like, if the United States government could do this to Donald J. Trump, they could do this to you. And it's like, why haven't they done it sooner? Yeah. Like, they didn't do it when he was like calling Georgia. I was like, if you can just find me those, you know, whatever number of votes I need. As we say, come on, man. But let's face it, this guy also has been breaking laws on the regs since at least the 80s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It took 40 years

of criming till he finally reached the level that it takes for a rich white guy to reach where the government goes, all right, you know what? You've done it now. We gave you 40 years because you're rich and you're white. But now you finally, you've maybe crossed that line. Yeah, maybe. It's been a weekend of Republicans basically threatening the FBI, which many people would not have seen coming because they have pretended for so long.

to back the blue, quote unquote. So on Friday, a guy went to the FBI field office with a gun and then killed himself. There was a warning on Saturday, a Homeland Security FBI warning, I think, together that said that they're worried about it. They're really worried about a terrorist attack. While Republican, a lot of Republicans kind of played this up and tried to increase the rhetoric in typical fashion, voice of reasons. elder statesman, and many say polymath, Steve Ducey. You'll know him from, I think he tried to make s'mores with his hands once. I think that's true.

Yeah. Steve Ducey went on Fox's morning show, which is known to be a thing that Trump used to watch. I don't know if he still watches it or if he found something worse, that he said perhaps the harmful rhetoric against the FBI rhetoric that you can see at night on Fox. with Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. In the morning, they'd like you to tamp it down. Steve Ducey says it would be great if he called for an end to the violent rhetoric against federal law enforcement. Well, isn't that special?

Yeah, I mean, it would be great if he called for an end to it. It would also be great if, as you said, the people on his network would stop doing it without needing him to call for it. You think Tucker Carlson is like, oh, well, if Steve Ducey says not to do it? No, of course not. And look, I'm all for, you know, not everyone on a news channel has to speak in lockstep, but we're not talking about, you know, having a little disagreement over a tax rate here. We're talking about whether or not you should use violent rhetoric against the FBI because of their...

They're trying to follow the law. I mean, I think... Right. Because they legally are, you know, following a judge's order. Right. And by the way, the head of the FBI was... put in that job by one Donald J. Trump. Yeah.

That's Chris Ray, I believe. Yeah, Chris Ray. But the funniest thing is Trump is now, apparently, he is now saying that he had his representatives reach out to the Justice Department. To threaten them. Well, no, actually, to offer help and to try to turn down the, I don't even know what he was trying to do. But supposedly, he has said he will do whatever it takes to help the country, because the

country is now angry, as if that's not because of him. I hate to use the word chutzpah for people who don't deserve to have that word used for them, but it is unbelievable hutzpah for Donald Trump to be calling the Justice Department and saying, hey, can I help with anything? You know, people are angry. It's like... It's like stealing your wallet and helping you find it. Right, exactly. It's interesting now that they're all, you know, sort of after what happened in Cincinnati on Friday with the FBI field office. Now, Now they all suddenly are like, oh, maybe we shouldn't have been saying all those things. I mean, except that's not really true because Trump just tweeted or truest.

I'm sorry, his true thing about where he said, wow, explanation point. And the passports, that was 27 minutes ago. So he's not trying to take down the temperature. No, of course not. Third world explanation point. Yeah. I mean, it's been an interesting week of seeing a lot of the Republican Party go woke and being like, government overreach, the Justice Department isn't being fair, and the FBI is out of control.

These are all left-wing talking points. I don't know if somebody, you know, like Marsha Blackburn, a podcast favorite, she tweeted the other day, Americans shouldn't have to fear the impartiality of our Justice Department. That is literally, literally what black people have been saying for decades, if not centuries. I'm now wondering if you know all those. stories, none of which are true, of like the cops passing out from being in the same room as fentanyl. I think maybe someone opened some critical race theory near Marsha Blackburn and it infected her. Yeah, it's the only answer that makes sense.

And she's now, she's now Marsha Wokeburn. Oh, oh. Oh. Thank you very much. Yeah, that's really bad. Good night, everyone. Tip your waiter, try the veal. there are shades of Nixon here.

I know. It's so fun. And it's funny because it's like this weekend Fox News, there was a Fox commentator saying that Nixon using that Nixon presidential, it's not a crime when the president does it. Right. It's not the sort of defense of presidential overreach, which when Nixon said it, it created a scandal and was basically, that was sort of the end of his career. So Fox News was using that to defend Trump this weekend. Like it's not, you know, because they went down a whole.

rabbit hole of like the president can de cash Patel everyone's favorite was on there being like he can declassify anything whenever he looks at it he just puts his hand on a document and says this is declassified which then led to many memes of michael scott from the office saying i declare bankruptcy right so uh i declare that that's not how any of this works but speaking of tapes surveillance video subpoenaed by the DOJ, concerns that Donald Trump may still have some classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. I mean, like you said, this is great because this is like the Nixon tapes. This is like, you know, not only did you did it, did you do it, you recorded yourself doing

it. I mean, I would hope. And apparently they have video, they have a 60-day period of video that includes views from outside this storage room where a bunch of these documents were saved. and Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush reported for the New York Times that the footage showed after one instance in which the Justice Department contacted Trump's team, boxes were then moved in and out of the room. They're so dumb once again and thank God for it. Yeah, thank God for it. But apparently, I guess this raises issues of whether or not they might not have gotten all of it yet because it may have been moved somewhere else.

It makes it seem fairly obvious that they knew they had this material, which is a bit of, of a problem because one of Trump's lawyers a while back told the Justice Department. Actually signed a document. Signed a document saying all the classified material had been returned. Oops. And it's amazing and it's hilarious.

It's a Cohen Brothers movie. I mean, it's burned after reading or something. Like, it's just unbelievable to see how it's, you know, how these keystone cops operate. But to go, just very briefly to go back to what you said about the Nixonian defense, that it was Will

Kane on... Yes, Will Kane. The morning show, the weekend, Fox and Friends weekend. Will Kane is proof that a little intelligence goes a little way. The thing about Will Kane is he was not always like this. I knew him. Yeah. I knew him. The Will Kane I knew would be punching the Wilcane of today in the face for saying what he said. And it's a perfect example of what has happened to all these people and they just, they've decided that whether it's for money or for fame or whatever, they, they have picked their horse and reality no longer matters and they will just say or do anything. And it's, it's really, I mean, it's sad. Not sad to me.

I mean, it's sad in the fact that it's like ruining the country. But, you know, they're ruining themselves. I don't care about it. I don't mean it's sad in the sense that I feel bad for them. They chose this. But it's sad that it's come to this. James Carville is a senior Democratic strategist. Welcome back to the new abnormal, James Carval.

Oh, we're good to be here, Molly. Always good to be on the new abnormal, but it fits me. It's been a bad week for Republicans. It's all this noise about a wave here that Democrats are going to be ousted. It's too early, but the last three special elections, which I placed a lot of stock in, have gone exceedingly well for the Democrats, one in Nebraska. And then Kansas, I actually went to Kansas, that bed was a shocker and a blowout. And then there was little notice, special election at Minnesota 1, that Trump won by 10, the Republicans run by 4.

That doesn't indicate to me right now there's anything like a big Republican wave farming out there. And then, you know, you got all of the circus. So I don't know what it is surrounding Trump. I never, I never seen anything like this. You had said to me you were watching Kansas when we had texted the other day. Explain to us what you were watching there. Well, Kansas have a supermajority of Republican legislature, but they have a Democratic Supreme Court. In the Supreme Court in 2019 ruled that something along the lines of road, that the right for a woman to have an abortion was enshrined in the Kansas Constitution.

So they put forth a ballot measure that would give, but add a constitutional amendment that would expressively give the legislature the right to regulate or abolish abortion. Now, a couple of things to remember about it is they, and the governor who is a Democrat, in a good one too, it doesn't have any say so over this. So they decided that we're going to do it on August 2nd on primary day. Well, if you think about Kansas' huge Republican state, there are very few Democratic primaries. They're an enormous number of Republican primaries. So the idea being that the Democrats wouldn't come out, vote, they don't have a history of primary voting. And Republicans do. Furthermore, independence can't vote in primaries in Kansas.

So there's no history of independence voting in a primary. And then with $4 million from the multi-sou Catholic Church, they started sending out text to everybody in Kansas says, if you want to protect a woman's right to abortion, you should vote yes. Actually, the way the ballot measure was written, you wanted no to win. Oh, interesting. So this was a massive deception led by the Republican Party, right-wing preachers and

shall we say compromise the bishops leave it at that so people were saying well it couldn't be close it was 59 to 41 it was a blowout it was just a they're still really

and of course the national media hiss figured it out about three days before the election which was good because when it hit it shook everybody Hey, where did this come from? I didn't know about this.

And it was a great result. I'm going there next weekend. I'm going to speak to the Kansas Democratic, they don't call it Justin Jackson Day dinners anymore, but they call it Demo Fest. So looking forward to seeing all of them again. So that's quite interesting. I hadn't known the history of the primary voting over there.

It seems to me, again, and I'm not in Democratic politics the way you are, but it seems to me like a lot of these candidates are, just on the Senate side, certainly, much better candidates. By the way, I recommend everybody read Sean Valencia's piece in the Washington Post today. I couldn't recommend it enough on what a goddamn idiot Marker Rubio is. A little twerk, right? That's exactly what he is.

But you got, in Georgia, you got Herschel played football with out by helmet. water. I mean, really, you're supposed to put the thing on, son. And then you got Ted Bud, a gun runner in North Carolina. Then we got the magnificent Wizard of Oz in Pennsylvania.

Why do you only go running Kansas? Who voted in 2018, in 2018 in New Jersey in 2019 in Turkey. I forget which one. But it would be in New Jersey. turkey combo going.

Then you have the lovely JD Vance, who's Tim Ryan, real star the cycle. Real star is now a hit in Ohio. And of course, you got the really intellectually

compromised Ron Johnson. Ron Johnson on whether to wind his ass scratches watch. And in Iowa, you have the lovely Senator, Carlos Grassley, who at the end, if he's reelected at the end of his term, would be 95 years old.

And we got a hell of a candidate now, I'm two. And then we move on to Arizona, where we have this stunning Blake Masters, who really didn't think we should have gotten involved in World War II. Serious. I mean, I'm not, I'm not making this up. No, I know. Yeah. He also reads like he's 22 years old. Right. I don't know how he could come up with candidates. band. It really takes some effort. I might be forgetting one. Adam Lacksalt. Oh, yes, in Nevada. Yeah, he had Ted Cruz come in campaign for it. They all you need to know. But yeah, they've got an all-star

line up there. The thing that scares me the most about these midterms is there's quite a big group of governors that are Trumpy governors. And if they win, we will no longer have free and fair elections. Well, look at the guy in Pennsylvania. Right. Doug Maastriano. Yeah, he's able to kind of stand out that day. You got Governor Whitmer, she got to remember what she got running against her. Yeah. Governor Evers and Wisconsin is another big race. There are a lot of governor's races. I mean, don't remember. You don't think about the Secretary of State. All the election deniers that are running for Secretary of State. Attorney Generals and that kind of stuff. Democrats have been pathetic about paying attention to anything other than.

What Democrats do is we get somebody that we really love or somebody that we really hate. We put all our money at that as opposed to, you know, distributing around to a bunch of different people that have a chance. I mean, see, Amy McGrath, I can't tell you how much money we waste of trying to beat Ms. McConnell. Right. And that was never going to happen. No. Ohio and Iowa could happen. It really could. Ohio, I get. The other Ohio senator is a wonderful Democrat. So, I mean, I understand that. But explain to me, Iowa.

Grassley held elected office starting in 1959. So the 50s of one decade, 60s, the 70s, the 80s, 90s, the Nauts, the teens, the 20s. I think there's eight decades in politics. Maybe it might be times for fresh base. I don't know. I don't want to get too far out there. I don't want to be a gentleman myself. And the guy running against him, Franken is like a retired kick-ass admiral.

grew up in Iowa and is a very, very good candidate. Registry in the United 50. Right. The morning register poll, hey, I'm at 47. And I think if people get to meet, Frank, and they're going to like him more and more. At least that's the hope. So I was considered now a red state for probably good reason.

But I don't know. This is one that I don't think is a waste of money at all. So that's pretty interesting. So what do you think about? Let's talk about what's happening right now with Trump versus the FBI. Does this help Democrats or does this hurt the FBI or both? Look, first of all, he is a criminal. And when you have a criminal that exists in a society, you have to deal with it.

I don't think it hurts Democrats at all. I think that they're going through all the hoopie and this and that. You see, some of the people are like, well, let's wait and see a little bit. And this is like the top of the first inning. I mean, remember, Mary Gawlin is like a pit viper. You know, he prostitia Domoho shitty case, the Unabomah case, the Olympic bomber case. And I think these guys are really methodical. We're frustrated for all the reasons people frustrated at him early on,

seemed to be stressed that he has now. And I was told, I hadn't seen it as a political story. Apparently there's another search warrant. somewhere. And they're just going to keep coming. And their defenses are just literally absurd. I mean, absurd. Like, he can declassify anything he wants. I mean, if he didn't think of that whole Cash Patel and John Solomon, these are some of the most manifestly unqualified, goofy people in the entire United States. I mean, the people, it's not just Trump, it's the people around him. I mean, it's a real, I don't know, what he's,

what it is. And of course he was doing that. Indeed. You ask why did Trump want all these documents? And the answer is the most logical reason he was going to sell him. Right. And it's worth wondering, like, what does Merrick Garland know? What information has he gotten from other countries? They probably know more than they're telling us, right? For them to go get that guy sign up search for. Right. They know it. The other thing is people are wondering. you know, who dined them, who affidavit? It's, well, maybe it's Jamonka or whatever. What about the Secret Service?

Right. There's spies watching him every moment of every day in federal law enforcement. He can't do anything. He can't talk to anybody. And, of course, then he sends a message to Mary Gawlin. It's going to be violent sound like. How can I help?

Well, that's instructive. It's right now. He's knocking the door down to try to get into jail. They're going to open it for him. Let's talk about everyone's favorite third party weirdo, Andrew Yang. This is one of the amazing things in politics is that everybody thought he was brief. And he kind of talked differently. I don't know.

Do you see him on Jim Acosta? Yes. He runs from president. He's got something. You know what he's braced that got a guaranteed income. He doesn't do anything. He runs the mayor. He actually starts out as a kind of front run, if you were.

call. And of course he's this third party is the dumbest goddamn thing I've ever heard in my life. I'm a fair on TV and a nation of wash of really stupid ideas. This is a really stupid idea. And he couldn't even explain what he was doing.

But yet, you know, well, Andrew Yang he appeals to young people. He's really smart. Well, if that's what young people are, you know, are enamored by, I feel like Charles Grassley ought to win re-election. Shit. You can't do no better than that.

So you don't think there's a big hope for a third party? Well, there was not most hope for Ralph Nader, but he threw the election to George W. Bush. There wasn't much hope for Jill Stein. Jill Stein got more votes than Hillary Lost by. Right. And by the way, she was a Russian agent. Hey there, future Jesse here. I have to note for legal purposes that Jill Stein does deny this claimant calls

a conspiracy theory. Okay, back to it. James, that slanderers. You case, okay, Google Michael Flynn, Vladimir Putin photograph. Right. And see who was sitting at the table with Putin and Flint. Now, maybe she went over there on her own dime to try to convince Putin that human rights is the way to go. And, you know, maybe I got a full head of hair. But that ain't the case. And just Google it. In your own times, because of Harvard study, ran more stories on Jory's emails than they did on. on all of Trump's entire rights and never reported that Jill Stein was a Russian agent. And still, I don't know if they've ever reported that.

If somebody as technologically as dupus as I am can figure it out, anybody can figure it out. Give me a sort of two-second sense of where you think Democrats need to go to sort of do well in these midterms. One of the things that start, in 2021, let's just get a little history here. Yeah. We were losing everything. I mean, we only run New Jersey by two points. Right. Then things started to turn around some.

And I think what Democrats need, and thank God that these lefties have figured out that everybody wants them to shut up, defund the police and that kind of nonsense. And the Democrats have tangible things that they can point to. I do think, you know, gas prices is something that people deal with every day. Right, and it's going down. For now, hopefully it will continue. They got historically bad candidates, and yeah, I think Democrats need to run on. We got things done, and we're working on other things. Usually and historically, but the public does, they go into an off year, and they say, well, the wrong track number and presidential approval have been very accurate indicators of party performance, right?

The wrong track number is horrible. presidential approval is getting slightly better, but it's still historically low. So what if, but the voters say, the only thing I can do if I don't like it is just vote the sons of bitches out. Just send them a message, vote for the other party. That's all I can do. In this instance, I think voters are saying, I don't know, maybe I got something to lose you, you know, and to the extent that you can feed that, that thing that you don't

have a vote to give away. It's not free. Your vote can cost you. And I think that's one of the reasons that we're defying historical trends now. And I'm sorry, you know, if you look at the polling, people kind of support this search warrant. And, you know, I've looked at 35 percent that they're going to get them anyway. But there's a lot of people that are saying, you know, I don't know if I want these crazy bastards in power. And all they do is talk about how they're going to investigate everybody.

It's payback time. People are not going to vote for you based on the fact that the 35% will because they just hate the liberals. But the other 65 is not numbered with your number one priority being to investigate your political enemies. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. James Carville, thank you so much for joining us. This was great. All right, Molly. Good deal.

Thank you, Dale. Matt Costelli is running in New York's 21st District for the Democratic nomination to run against the least. Welcome to the new abnormal, Matt. Thank you for having me, Molly. We are in the midst of New York redistricting fuckery. Explain to our listeners what your district is, what it looks like, and who you're running against. So I'm running in New York 21.

The 21st congressional district is about a third of the entirety of New York State, about 15 different counties in the aftermath of redistricting. It's one of the largest congressional districts east of the Mississippi. And it is currently represented. by Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who folks may know is the number three in House Republican Leadership. She's the one who ousted Liz Cheney to take over that role, close associate of the former president. There's been some scuttle about her as a potential VP candidate for him in 2024, and we're taking on the challenge of defeating her here in this race.

You have your primary this Saturday, right? It's on the 23rd of August. So it's... Oh, yeah, it's two weeks. Tuesday after, so a week from tomorrow. We're in the midst of early voting right now, though. So folks are going out to the polls as we speak. Is it a competitive primary? Listen, I'm not going to take anything for granted. We're going to work incredibly hard to make sure we turn out every single Democratic voter. But I'm honored to have the unanimous support of the Democratic Party across this district. That's all 15 counties that make it up. We also have former members of Congress, like Bill Owens, who used to hold the seat. Yes, a Democrat did represent this district prior to Elise Tophonic. We also have current members of Congress, like Representative Abigail Spanberger,

who've come forward to endorsed us, labor unions, et cetera. So I'm proud of the support we've been able to build, and we're confident in our standing in the primary, and then build on that to the general election. So let's talk about the general. I read a headline that said, Elise DeFonik is the one politician who benefited from Cuomo's redistricting. Explain to us what your sort of plan is.

So the district actually is after what happened with redistricting here in New York, the courts took it over because there was a determination that the maps initially drawn by the legislature here were gerrymandered. And the courts gave us a more favorable map. So we picked up areas in the now 15 counties that actually helped to flip New York 19 for Antonio Delgado, who used to be a member of Congress and is now the lieutenant governor here in New York. So there was a lot of interesting, I think, activist spirit among Democrats, but also areas, this is a district that's very independent-minded. You have to build a coalition here. The registered voter breakdown is 30% Democrats, 40% Republicans, and 30% independence and

unaffiliated voters. There is no one majority already with existing registered voters. You have to build a coalition. And that's what we've been doing from day one. My entire campaign mantra is built on country before party. And I think it's certainly time that we have representatives who stand up for something like that because folks like Stefanik have gone the other direction and I think pose a unique threat to our democracy as a result.

But we're building that coalition of not just Democrats who are pretty fired up to defeat Elise Stefanik. But we also hear from independence and Republicans all across this district who have been turned off by not just Stefanik's opportunism, which is pretty clear to everyone. She's embraced extremism. And she's also not showing up to do the job that she was elected to do. She doesn't spend much time here in the district. Spends a lot of time on Fox News, spend some time down in Mar-a-Lago, but she doesn't actually

show up and deliver results for our community. So we're building a coalition of not just Democrats. Here in New York, we have a unique opportunity through fusion voting. If you can collect enough signatures from registered voters, you can run on other lines. And we established an independent line in this race called the moderate party. And this is something we're really excited about. We were required to turn out 3,500 signatures. We got over 6,600 signatures for that moderate party line. There have been other Democrats across the nation to include Tom Malinowski in New Jersey, who are clamoring and trying to get fusion voting up and running to allow them to run on or carry the support and endorsement of a moderate

party in addition to the Democratic Party. We're the only ones in the nation that have been able to do this. And it's a great vehicle for us to build a coalition that can win and defeat Elise DeFonik in this district. You really need to reach out to independence, it sounds like. Absolutely. And that's always been the case. Listen, this is a moderate district, notwithstanding what you see from the breakdown of voter registration percentages, This is a district that Barack Obama won twice before Trump. This is a district that voted for folks like Bill Owens, a Democrat, who was a moderate Democrat, who held the seat for a number of years before Stefanic.

Other members of Congress, like Kirsten Gillibrand, when she first ran, a portion of this district was hers. Even on the Republican side, John McHugh and even Chris Gibson, they were moderates. And people first voted for Elise Stefonic. They thought they were getting a moderate. Right. I was going to say, she used to be, she went to Harvard. She was very sort of moderate.

Yeah, and she's changed, and folks really recognize that. She's perhaps always been an opportunist, but at least presented herself early on as a moderate. That opportunism really took a turn when she helped to defend the former president during his first impeachment trial, and she got some FaceTime on TV, and that went to her head, and she's embraced the former president ever since. She has gotten, I think, the benefit of becoming one of his closest associates, certainly his top accolite in the House of Representatives. And we saw that in the aftermath of the 2020 election, right? And so everything that we're looking at in terms of past voting data, that's 2020 and prior. If we look at her actions in the aftermath of 2020 with January 6th, she voted to decertify the election, she voted to defend and embrace this former president and try to kind of upend the will of the people. We've seen her reject, whether it was the bipartisan, independent commission on January 6th, trying to seek some transparency there, ousting Liz Cheney. She's now the messaging chief for every single message that's being promoted and put forward by every single House Republican that's running

in this cycle. So she has embraced extremism to advance her own career, but it's come at the expense of our district. And the independence and moderates here are pretty upset about it. In places in upstate New York where they have Trump flags, I mean, are you seeing some of these Trump flag voters not like Staphanic, or is it that there are less Trump flag voters? I mean, talk to me about sort of, are you seeing anybody kind of leave the Trump train, or do you just ignore those voters? No, I don't ignore any voter. I'm seeking to represent everyone. And so I've had the opportunity to go into every community throughout this district. And I hear from folks all across the political spectrum. I hear from folks who were former Republicans who were turned off in the aftermath of

particularly January 6th and what they saw from the former president, despite having supported him in that election. I hear from folks who are current Republicans and are concerned about that. I hear from folks who are current supporters of the former President Trump and are turned off by Congresswoman Stefani because she doesn't actually do her job and represent this district. So there is a strong coalition that can be built in threading together a whole bunch of different constituencies. And the job one is about showing up and listening to folks. And we've done that. This is a district that is actually home to the largest number of veterans of any in New York State. And for your listeners, I served at the CIA for nearly 15 years. I led counterterrorism efforts there,

served in Afghanistan and Iraq. I actually served in the same department that found al-Qaeda leaders like Osama bin Laden, the most recent attack and strike that was taken against Ayman al-Oahiri. That's the kind of work that I did. And then I served in the Obama White House as the director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council and was asked by the Trump administration to stay on in that role. And I did for the first year of the Trump White House, which was a fascinating experience. But when we talk to folks about my record of service and we talk about putting country before party, folks here are turned off by the extremism, the divisiveness that we're seeing, certainly at the national level, and certainly from folks like Congresswoman Stefani. They're exhausted by it. They just want somebody that's going to show up, listen to their concerns, and actually address the common challenges that are facing all of us. That's super interesting. Do you have thoughts about Stefanik has a new thing she's doing? Because you really do have a background. to national security. I feel like you'll find this hilarious, but also terrifying. She's calling for an

immediate investigation into political weaponizing of the FBI. Discuss. Oh, dear. As a former CIA officer, if I were to ever have taken intelligence that was important and vital to our national security, I would fully expect a visit from federal law enforcement. That's the FBI's job to protect our national security. And so I think what these reports are that we're hearing now, it represents an enormous breach of our national security. And what we're seeing from Stefanic, rather than accepting that on its face and understanding and supporting our law enforcement with the job that we've asked them to do, she's now attacking them. And this far-right extremism has now come, I don't know, full circle, wherever it may be, to now be advocating for defunding our law enforcement,

attacking our law enforcement. This past week, it's been atrocious. And we've seen the results of what that extremism and that rhetoric has led to. We had this armed extremists show up and attack the FBI field office in Cincinnati. We've seen this huge surge of threats of violence against law enforcement online. And it's pretty disgusting to see Stefanik really standing behind that rather than standing behind our law enforcement. When it comes to this question about the materials, et cetera, listen, those documents that the FBI went and retrieved through this lawful search warrant, they didn't belong to Trump. They belonged to us, the American people. regardless of their classification levels, and we understand that much of that was classified at the top secret level

and posed a unique threat to our national security, those documents belong to us. You don't just get to retire from being president and take everything out of the office. The office of the president belongs to us, the American people. And so the FBI went and did their job that we asked them to do. And to see Stefanik just embrace, I think, not just the former president, but she's defending her future. She's tied herself so closely, and she's banking on, I guess, you know, potentially becoming a vice presidential candidate in 2024. And that has led her down this dangerous path of creating a threat to our federal law enforcement. Do you understand why Trump took what he took?

Well, I don't know what was taken. So I can't decipher that. Right. I mean, but you've heard some things like information on the president of France. I mean, it does seem like a hodgepodge of stuff, nuclear stuff. Yeah, these are the key outstanding questions that I suspect are really at the heart of whatever investigation is ongoing. Why did President Trump have these documents? Why didn't he give them back when he was asked to or when he was handed a subpoena to give them back? You know, what did he do with this information since leaving the Oval Office? These are all critical, important questions that this investigation should on earth. And these are the questions we should be asking,

rather than focusing on classification levels or what have you. This is a legitimate. legitimate investigation about information that could imperil our national security. As a former intelligence officer, that kind of material could contain information that could get people killed. The CIA asked people to put their lives on the line to give us information that may create insight into our national security against foreign adversaries. We have technical means that are out there that could be jeopardized by this data. And to have them randomly lying around this resort in Florida is not. It poses a unique threat to our democracy and our national security.

So it's totally appropriate that this is being investigated. And there are a lot of outstanding questions about why they were taken, what was being done with them. And I'm really interested to find that out. One of the things Elise Stefonic likes to say is that she stands up for law enforcement. Can you explain to us, does she stand up for law enforcement? So this is a pattern of this behavior that we've seen at a Stefanik, where she's just a scam artist. I'll cut across a couple of areas with this. She certainly didn't stand up for law enforcement in the aftermath of January 6th, which, if you look at it in those terms, was the greatest assault against law enforcement in our nation's history.

We had five police officers die in the aftermath of that. We had well over 100 seriously injured. And rather than asking for transparency and accountability for those criminals and the crimes that were committed that day, she sought to embrace those criminals and to defend them and to not seek transparency and accountability for those officers and their families. So she can talk a good game about supporting law enforcement when it's put into this incompatible position with her closest allies and associates in her party are actually the ones who need to be called into question in terms of their culpability for those crimes. She's proven that she'll side with those criminals rather than our law enforcement. Certainly too with this effort right now in investigating those classified information down in Mara Lago. But we've even seen her, you know, this scam that she talks out of both sides of her mouth, support for veterans. She'll talk a good game about support for veterans.

But in Washington, she's voting against her interests time and time again. She voted against the PACT Act to provide health care benefits for those veterans that I served alongside in places like Afghanistan and Iraq that had prolonged exposure, toxic exposure to these toxins in burn pits that are now leading to cancers. Why would she vote against that? She's voted against other health care and education benefits for our veteran. So it's an opportunity for us in this race to actually reveal Stefanix record for what it is. She's a hypocrite on multiple fronts, and we're going to keep exposing that. Thank you so much, Matt. This was super interesting. Thank you so much, Molly.

Andy Levy. Molly Johnfest. Kevin McCarthy. You may know him as being not related to Andrew McCarthy. But vaguely related to Joe McCarthy, I think. Right. Oh, probably. It has a question for you. Okay. It's a fascinating question.

He wants to know, I know this was during the argument on the Inflation Reduction Act, he wants to know, is America better off today than they were two years ago? Well, let me think, two years ago, 2020. What was happening in 2020? I stubbed my toe one day, I remember. That wasn't fun. Oh, oh, I know. COVID, lockdown. That was 2020.

That's why gas was so cheap. Oh. We got to get into, this is the fuck that guy segment. So, Andy, who is your fuck that guy? Well, I guess it's Kevin McCarthy for thinking that I was better off two years ago than I am today. Two years ago, particularly in New York City, I basically could barely leave my apartment. And today, I can leave my apartment once or twice a week. I'm not saying I do.

I'm saying I could if I wanted to. Theoretically. theoretically, it would be possible. Is America better off today than they were two years ago? I mean, ignoring the grammatical horrors in that sentence, if anyone thinks they're not better off now than they were two years ago? I mean, I don't know. I guess he was better off two years ago, maybe,

because he wasn't declining to be interviewed by the January 6th committee, and all that fun stuff. But I think America is better off today than it was two years ago. I think. So I'm going to say fuck that guy. Well, and also it's a completely fake. I mean, you can't say it be hot. Right.

Gas was cheaper because no one could leave their houses. Right. It's like Merry Christmas. Do you want to know who my fuck that guy is? I do. So basically a fascinating thing has happened. John Fetterman's campaign has been very, very good digital. They've done a lot of really interesting and fun stuff that is, I think, quite funny and naturally very viral, including...

Molly, the term is shit posting. They've been shit posting. I love a 43-year-old woman saying shit posting. And they've used Sukki. Snooky. Snooki. Jesus Christ. Desecrating by home state's hero.

Jesus. Okay. So there's been a lot of New Jersey shit posting, including the... the edition of a cameo by Snooki. So Dr. Oz, New Jersey resident, has decided that he also is going to shitpost. And his people made what looks like a very expensive video in the style of Monty Python animation, which includes a lot of really good things like free health care. And what is in Federman's head?

And then they take the stuff out. and what's in it is pot and also releasing non-violent offenders and then spending tax dollars. Well, that's kind of the job. And anyway, it's a pretty hard to understand ad, but it does include AOC. Dr. Oz, part of this push is that he also went grocery shopping and had it filmed as he was making a crudite plate for his wife

to show that things were so expensive. Andy Levy, why is this person or fuck that guy? There's so many reasons. The first ad, the one that's the sort of Monty Python-esque one, I think the worst part of it is that, first of all, you're talking about John Federman, who recently had a stroke, and you're doing an ad showing like you're opening up his head in an animated thing to show what's in there.

And the ad actually starts with the voiceover saying, now that Federman claims to be recovering, from his stroke. So they're sort of, even by saying it that way, they're putting it out there like, well, maybe he hasn't. Maybe he hasn't people and you should think about that. So that's just gross. But the crudite ad is amazing. And I encourage everyone to seek it out online because what he does is he walks down, you know, the fresh vegetable aisle of a supermarket and picks up stuff because his wife wants to make a crudite plate. And he picks it up and rattles off the price of the price of of everything. And so it's like broccoli, asparagus, carrots, whatever. And it comes out to like 20 bucks. And he pretends to be outraged at like a tub of salsa is $6. And then at the very end, he says it's all Joe Biden's fault. Yes. And it just sort of comes out of nowhere. Like it's so bizarre. And it's so bad at trying to make him look like a regular guy. This fucking, you know, multi, multi millionaire as if 20 bucks makes a different.

to him as if he cares that this food cost $20. It's so pathetic. And like you said, Federman's team, you know, for whatever it's worth, is doing a great job of shit posting, of sort of just needling Oz and really harping on the fact that he's got homes in New Jersey. And they've just been doing an amazing job of it. You can take or leave that if you think that that's a good thing for the country, if that's the direction that political campaigns are going.

But regardless, he's doing it well. And that's a rare thing for a Democrat. And Oz's responses are so bad and so pathetic. You can't help but watch them and just laugh. But at the same time, think fuck that guy. Yes. I just want to go on record saying that that out is Monty Python-esque instead of jib-jab-esque is very insulting to Monty Python.

What's Jim Jib. You don't remember Jib-Jab? I think it shows Molly's age. Oh, fuck both of you. Jesus, Jesus Christ. Because to me, it was like a TikTok thing. You know, or maybe something you'd find on Be Real. Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.

For Molly, she's always going to go to Monty Python. Every once in a while you get a Mary Tyler Moore reference. Sometimes it's your show of shows. The first movie she ever saw, which was the train coming at her really fast, and everyone in the crowd screamed because they were scared. And so it's just, it's an age thing, Jesse. And I do not believe in ageism, so I think we should drop it. Okay.

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