The Daily Beast Podcast - Adam Scott: The Parks & Rec Cast Has Never Gotten Too Political—Until Now

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

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

Hi folks, it's Rick Wilson, and welcome to The Daily Beast's The New Abnormal. Hi, I'm Molly Jongfast, a left-wing pundit, and editor-at-large at the Daily Beast. I'm also an editor at The Daily Beast, a former Republican political strategist, best-selling author, and full-time troublemaker. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, business, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. I'll try to keep Rick to the minimum number of F-bombs and try to keep our... kids, pets, and other wildlife sounds from invading our respective bunkers. Uh, Maui John Fast. Yes, Rick Wilson.

Did you go to an indoor Trump rally this weekend? No, I was going to ask if you had been to an indoor Trump rally this weekend, or as they call them COVID-palooza. I like to think of them as super spreader events. Well, if it's a super spreader event, doesn't there have to be a very special guest? Oh, my God. I set you up for a bad joke. I see now why I, why do I do this?

Why, why? I'm not making the joke. You're so classy. But America will be great again. Oh, Jesus Christ. I just would like to say that the last indoor event was Tulsa. You'll remember who got COVID three days after Tulsa? No relation, obviously, but he did.

9-99, baby. Herman Kane, RIP. RIP. So now we have another one indoors, Who Will Die? Mm-hmm. Right? I mean, we're in this. He's killing off his own supporters.

My favorite part of it was his advanced people were all wearing masks. His staff were wearing masks. And the MOOCs that they put in the audience behind him didn't wear masks until the cameras started. Then they put their masks on. I know that picture is amazing. The picture of all of them with no mask and then masks. It's so breathtakingly cynical. And it just shows that this is a guy who treats these people as essentially cannon fodder.

These are props. And so what if they get the vid afterward. They've died for the dear leader. But this is my question for you. If you kill off your supporters, I mean, it's still only September, right? So say you have people who are his supporters who have traveled near and far. I mean, his real people who really are in the cult. If those people die, doesn't that hurt his reelection prospects?

I mean, just not even humorously, like just fundamentally. No, I'm actually not going to make a joke about this for once. That's a question of whether or not happens at scale. There are a group of people that follow around before COVID particularly, and I guess it's recapitial. itself now. There were people that followed him around like Grateful Dead. Like Fish or Grateful Dead, right? They were traveling roadie type characters. They would go to every rally. So it is a question of whether or not there's a group of people like that who are going to end up comprising a major

spreading vector for COVID, especially as we enter the fall COVID season. And as many estimates are now saying that we could have 400,000 dead people by the end of the year. Now, if there are a couple thousand people that do this with Trump and are going to these rallies and are not masking and all those other things, we could very well end up with a very meaningful number. I don't know if it's going to cause a difference in the election in terms of the number of people that are Trump supporters who are going to be out there voting, but it is certainly going to cause cost to the American people. No question about it. So at this rally, there was this moment of like peak irony where these people are chanting

all lives matter while subjecting themselves and everyone they come in contact with with this deadly pathogen. Oh, Molly, don't you know by now? It's just a hoax. Only 9,000 people have died. It's just the flu. It's just the flu. What could possibly go wrong? Look, we are about to enter in. The great pandemic of 1918, the great flu pandemic came in three significant waves between 18 and 1920. This is possibly going to model the same kind of thing where we're going to have our first wave in the spring of 20, our second wave in the fall of 20, and our third wave in the spring of 21. And all these things that we keep bucking up and we keep saying, okay, we're reopening bars, we're reopening restaurants, we're reopening this, we're reopening that. I mean, Florida today is back to having bars at 50% capacity, having observed that in Florida, and maybe it's just because it's Florida, my home state, right now, 25% capacity looks like a gazillion percent capacity. I can't imagine what could possibly go wrong, but these rallies have become a cultural rallying point for Trump supporters,

where they're essentially saying, I'm going to walk over the hot coals. To prove my loyalty. I'm going to count. Catch the bullet in my teeth, approve my loyalty to the dear leader. And, you know, an awful lot of them are going to approve their loyalty by sitting on a respirator or dying. Which is the only difficulty with it is right now is that it affects people who are not going to these rallies. It's the idiots who went to Sturgis, South Dakota for the motorcycle rally, who they have now been able to trace due to their phone pinging's this gigantic wave of COVID infections all over the country from these fucking morons who went there to do the Harley rally. It's crazy. It is just shocking to me that, and I mean, I think the idea is that it's a social contract.

We are here to protect other people. Trumpism, it comes back to this fundamental idea that Trumpism is never about public service. I mean, I remember that moment when Hillary Clinton was like, being a public servant is about public service. And Trump has never, ever, ever been at all interested in that. Well, it's not that he's not interested in it, Molly. It's that he can't focus on it. There's a mental variable in Trump's head where nothing is relevant unless it's about him. And whatever that's his narcissistic, sociopathic, blah, blah, blah.

I'm not a psychiatrist, but I play one on this podcast. Or whether it is just that he is a fundamentally amoral person who does not understand that the presidency is a glorious burden. And it requires service to others. This is a good time to bring up something that your listeners have been writing to find out you guys opinion on. Noted journalism-fob president Donald Trump, he seems really reckless. about wearing the mask, do you think he's already gotten the vaccine? I, as someone who has been participating in the Pfizer vaccine trial, do not think that Trump has gotten the vaccine.

But because I think Trump is pretty freaked out by vaccines because he's stupid. But I don't know. Rick, what do you think? I don't think he has a vaccine. There would be a whole bunch of different shenanigans that would have to obtain to make that happen. And I don't think this White House could keep that particular secret. Right. or any secret.

These people cannot organize a two-car motorcade, so I don't think they could keep that particular secret. And I think, frankly, he would brag about it. Yes, I agree. He'd be like, I got it. He would go out and say, I got it, because I am very special and it's the best vaccine. No one's ever had a vaccine that's good before.

And the response with me, my response to vaccine, amazing. He would boast about it. Yes, I agree. Look, I get why people would think about that. But you also have to look at the way the Secret Service and the advanced team set up the indoor rights. rally. Donald Trump was never within about 10 feet of any person in that room, ever. And they were very careful about there was a walkway essentially that was shielded past these range, I guess you

could say. And he never saw a person, touched a person, got near anybody else. And it is very clear that while he wants to, he doesn't care if people infect themselves, that the way they've set this all up is, he's like elevated on these platforms above all these people. And he's at least 10 feet away from them. So I talked to a former White House advanced guy about it. He said you could really tell how much they've set it up. So there's no like walk into the room where he shakes hands with people or fistmouthed people, etc.

It's really something. I think he's pretty careful. The other thing is, I don't think you can underestimate. We don't know if he took hydroxychloroquine or whatever it is and zinc. But he did say that he had. So he doesn't understand how viruses work and he believes in the power of his immune system and his superior

genes. I have the best genes. viruses cannot affect the Trump genes. Except that one thing from the 80s that required, you know. You know, I'm just, no one here thinks that Trump has that was just an off-color joke. I don't think he understands how science works. He's a germaphobe, but I don't know that he quite. Though I was shocked, can we go back to the tapes for one minute here? Because for me, they were so seismic those Bob Woodward tapes because it did seem to me,

Trump really did understand how bad the virus was. on February 7th. Yes, he knew. I mean, we've talked about this now a couple of times, but this was very clearly a case of the president having full recognition. I mean, hesitant to use this word, but it's true, intellectually understanding that COVID was deadly and that it was highly transmissible that affected young and old and that it was worse than the flu, and that he then chose to consciously go out and lie to the American people to minimize the virus, to pretend it wasn't going to have a serious impact, to go out in public and to say things that led to people not engaging in the correct behaviors medically or economically to mitigate the

impact of the disease on this country. And so, these tapes are not fake news. They are not a lie. They're not liberal media reporters trying to make the president look bad. Like, that takes any work. I know I was going to say it's pretty easy. They are the fact, and they are a damning indictment in his own words. It's that question of what did the president know and when did he know it and he knew everything months before any of us even knew it. The South Dakota Attorney General reported hitting a deer Saturday night but actually hit and killed a man whose body wasn't discovered until the next morning. It was one of those two-legged deer, Molly? Yes. When is the president's birthday? Do you know? Because I really don't know. It's Christmas like Jesus. Is it really? Okay. No. I didn't know what it was,

but you know what the perfect gift for Donald Trump would be? No, tell me. me. Something he not only deserves but would enjoy. What? A third term as president. Uh, uh, uh, yeah, that seems legit. He seems to believe that he deserves it. Yeah, that seems legit. I mean, good for him. How badly he's been treated. Yeah, I mean... I regret to inform him that I will be helping to deliver coal to his stocking in this particular gift. But this idea this weekend that's bubbling up out there among Trumpists, it follows this pattern he does over time. He first says something, he kind of test marks it like a joke. I'm kidding when I say I want a third term

illegally and unconstitutionally to establish my authoritarian dictatorship and then it becomes a line in the speeches and it gets there and then you have Trumpers making arguments like well the deep state really was she did bad to him he ought to get one by the end of the month you'll have like Rich Lowry writing

furrowed brow editorals like although it makes me feel quite nuanced I have mixed feelings about it there is an argument to be made for a third term These fucking people, it just kills me. We're minutes away from the federalist saying that Trump is owed this third term. Oh, yes. I think it's only a matter of time before Malaysian plagiarists weekly does that.

For those who are trying to play along at home, that's a dig against Mr. Megan McCain. I would say that's a reasonably deep cut if I do say so myself. Yes. Don't ever say the words misinformation around Trump because we go, where is she? Is she hot? I don't want to get too deeply into this. But we're going to talk with Alex Gibney today about his great new film and about disinformation. But it is starting to look a lot like 2016 again.

You know, we're seeing these stories of disinformation in Florida, Hispanic online communities and on Hispanic talk radio that is lurid and crazy. That is to the same degree of like Hillary Clinton pizza restaurant stuff back from 2016. We are seeing, I think, a growing risk factor of that. That, of course, there's no national response to because it benefits Donald Trump. So, I mean, I just caution everybody to keep your eyes wide open because of many of your fellow women. Americans believe this insane bullshit, whether it's QAnon at the top. And there's been some delicious new Q&NONN news, as we all know. So it turns out that one of the major purveyors of Q&ONM for shittery is a guy named Jason Galinas from Berkeley Heights, New Jersey.

There's been a terrific story in Bloomberg. The group that did it was called Logically.a.i. The sort of an online investigative platform that Jason Galinas, Galinas, has been one of the guys running the Q&ONA app, QMAT. An Armor of God, which is another Q&on catchphrase. The weird thing about Jason is that's his sidegag. His main job, he's a senior vice president at Citigroup. Why, yes, that would be Citigroup. You've heard of Citigroup, of course.

I have not. You haven't heard of Citigroup? Well, you know, Citigroup owns a lot of things like city mortgage and city bank and City Chicken. That's a South Park joke for you Americans. That's right. But Jason Galinas is a senior vice president at Citigroup. I'm really curious to see what happens when Citigroup hears that one of their employees is

running a set of apps and websites involving a global conspiracy trying to stoke civil war in the United States among insane people who believe that former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton ran a cannibal underground occult pizza restaurant child sex ring. You can always bash those words up in any order, by the way, and it makes the same sense. I'm just stunned that a guy from Citigroup, hello, Citigroup, you should call us. We're happy to hear your story about how you employ someone at Citigroup named Jason Galinas, who is a kid. Q-Anon propagandist and who runs this completely bat-shit insane Q&N website. But hey, Jason, looking forward to you being really famous.

Super famous. Folks, with us today is Alex Gibney, whose new documentary I watched last night. It's called Agents of Chaos. And it's a history of the Russian troll farms and the Russian disinformation campaigns that have not only reshaped politics in Russia, Ukraine, the United States, and around the world, but are with us again right this minute. as we're speaking, the same kind of effort that Vladimir Putin and his allies executed on the U.S. in 2016 has returned. And the documentary that Alex has produced, I will tell you it's one of the, I don't think I moved in the almost three hours of watching it last night.

It was absolutely riveting. And so, Alex, we are deeply grateful for that you're with us today. Thanks so much for having me. How did you get to this subject? I was contacted by somebody who said, an interesting person would like to talk to you and they would like you to interview them, but I can't tell. you much about it. That was intriguing. And that was an early, early 2017. And it turned out that that was a person was, he was a former investigative journalist for the Wall Street Journal, who was now running a company called Fusion GPS. And that's the company that ultimately hired Chris Steele to do the dossier. So I went out, did the interview. And that began to open my

eyes to at least a sense of curiosity about this whole Russian incursion. And then not too long After that, I was approached by Lowell Bergman, who also knew Glenn Simpson, and he said, wouldn't it be interesting to really do a deep dive into this? And we thought we'd do a deep dive for about six months or something, but it took us about four years, and we're finally out with what we found. In the course of this, Donald Trump, from the beginning, has been a guy who has always said, if they like him, he views them differently. And obviously, there were a lot of ties into his campaign in the course of the 2016 election. The Russians provided in the view of the Senate and the intelligence community and almost anyone with the pulse, they provided him with this meaningful boost

in the 2016 election. My question is this, has that organization and operation become more sophisticated? Is it more dangerous now? Is it because nothing's been done to stop it, right? I would bet that it has become much more sophisticated. And I don't think we have reckoned with what we need to do to protect ourselves against it. So both those things are true as we're rolling into the 2020 election. What was the thing that was the scariest for you while you were working on this? That's a tough question to answer. I didn't really fully appreciate how deep and multifaceted was the Russian cyber intrusion. So that was scary.

And it was scary to see how far back it went because I had done a film a number of years ago called Zero Days about the U.S. Israeli Stuxnet attack. And this is kind of Russia's hop in the ball. And they had practiced this multifaceted campaign in Ukraine in 2014. and they learned a lot in doing that, and then they applied those lessons in 2016 in the United States. So that was scary to see how they were upping their game, the Russians. But the scarier thing was to see just how ridiculous, on one hand, and also terribly corrupt, on the other hand,

was the audience for it here. When I say the audience for it here, I mean, largely speaking, the Trump campaign. And also the Trump operation, which I think saw the campaign early on, not so much as a political adventure, but as a monetizing opportunity. I think for the longest time, Trump was simply interested in doing a Moscow Tower deal. President was a good backup plan.

On election night, I was hearing from senior people in the Trump campaign before the results started rolling in. And it was essentially, thank God, this is over. He's going to go watch Trump TV now and I can get the hell out of this. It's crazy. Let's go have a steak dinner. I'll tell you all about it. The accidental nature of it still blows me away.

And I think it probably had to surprise, even from some of the stuff you had in the documentary, we're interviewing the RT people and they're popping champagne and And she says, I wanted to drive around with a MAGA banner or an American flag through Moscow. They seemed a little bit stunned that it worked, too. They did. They were. I think they were all shocked. They had no idea because, look, one of the three prongs of the cyber attack was an attempt to invade election systems throughout the 50 states. But it wasn't to flip votes in order to give Trump the election. The intent was to create doubt about the legitimacy of Hillary Clinton's inevitable victory. So that will give you some sense about what they were thinking. their whole cyber plan was designed to discredit Hillary Clinton who they figured would inevitably win.

So they were completely shocked. That idea that to delegitimize the election was something that Trump latched onto like a wild dog. If you recall in his rallies in the last three, four weeks of the campaign, it was rigged, it was crooked, it was stolen all the time, all the time, all the time. And they amplified that dramatically. And I think you can sort of see the outlines of it again on the bot presence on Twitter and elsewhere. because it's certainly, we're starting to see that again, that they're going to contest this election no matter what happens. Look, I think that is the definition of collusion, not conspiracy, but collusion.

In other words, both Trump and the Russians had a vested interest in selling the notion that the election was going to be rigged. Trump so that his ego wouldn't be bruised after he inevitably lost, and the Russians so that they could discredit democracy. You know, that's the other thing that I discovered in doing this film that I didn't really, wasn't sufficiently aware of when I started. And that is, a lot of what was done in terms of interference in the U.S. election was actually done for domestic consumption in Russia. It was helpful to Putin to be able to discredit the idea of democracy and also to say, what's the big deal

about a rigged election? Everybody has rigged election. They have them in America too. And so if I rigged my election here, what's the big deal? The most important thing is, I'm in power. And it's that kind of ruthless delegitimizing of the rule of law and democracy that I think is ultimately the larger agenda here, both for Putin and for Trump. How much do you feel Putin understands Trump? Oh, I think Putin understands him pretty well. I mean, as a former KGB guy, he is a pretty astute student of human behavior. And I think he sees Trump for the kind of venal, cynical character that he is. He's a purely self-serving, heat-seeking missile. So long as it's

about him, that's all that matters. And I think Putin understands that. And I think that one of the interview subjects in the film is a guy named Timothy Snyder, a professor at Yale, who's done a lot of work in Russia, Ukraine, and also on issues of tyranny. And he wrote a book called The Road to Unfreedom. You know, he sees this as, rather than use the word collusion, he sees it as a seduction. And KGB people are generally good at that. They're good at telling people what they want to hear in order to be able to get them to behave the way they

want them to behave. So I think Putin is pretty smart about how Trump operates. And he saw how he was operating for a number of years as he was trying to do commercial deals in Russia. I think that's exactly right, Alex. People think of the way that Trump was co-opted as, you know, it's the P-Tape or what have you. But it's much more likely when you're dealing with the Russians. And an old-school KGB guy like Vladimir Putin, that it would be the sort of, it would feel a lot more scattershot and slow and creeping up there and inevitable. And suddenly he's in their pocket.

And suddenly he's doing things for them. No one's saying to Donald Trump, you will take the microfilm. He's in a dead drop like some fucking 60 spy movie. They know they can rely on this guy to do what they want. They get it. Yeah, Trump is much more godfather than John LeCarray. And I think that everybody looked at him saying good things about Putin during the 2016 campaign as if that was some strange political maneuver.

I think it was much more venal and corrupt than that. I think he was just praising Putin because he thought it would help the price on the Moscow Tower. Exactly. perhaps open up new lending venues for his always cash-stripped enterprises. But do you think what happened here was that the American people were more gullible than anyone expected? I mean, I can't help but think about that. There was a story out yesterday. I don't know if you guys read that where the guy was like Trump has done. They were interviewing sort of low information voters and they were saying like Trump has done more for the American worker.

Do you think that is why there was that X factor that they didn't see comments? I think the X factor was that there was a tremendous amount of cynicism toward the American political process that just became overwhelming. And Trump became the vehicle with which to exercise that cynicism, that the economy hadn't been working out so well for a lot of Americans. And everybody was sick to death. Well, not everybody, but there were a lot of people who were sick to death and wanted to use Trump as their vehicle to send a message that it wasn't okay. He was their agent of chaos. Use the title of the movie. That's what I think happened.

If you think about Trump, there's been a lot of talk about how can people vote against their economic interests. The appeal of Trump transcends any kind of rational assessment of policy. It just has to do with, does this guy kind of get my gut? Now, in some cases, there are policies, like for evangelicals, it's abortion. And so for them, it's like the good Lord has sent us a sinner to deliver us to the promised land, which is no more abortion. But I think for a lot of people, he just becomes a vehicle for vitriol. And Trump, I think one of his geniuses is being able to manipulate. anger and vitriol and hatred. And that's where a lot of the troll farm stuff came in in terms of being able to ramp up that sense of vitriol. That's where I think it had its greatest utility, not so much in convincing people to change their minds, but maybe to make them so disgusted with the process that they never went out and voted. We used one example in the film where 75,000 people

who turned out for Barack Obama and Detroit stayed home in 2016, and Hillary Clinton only lost Michigan by 10,000 votes. I remember watching in a real time and just being shocked at how well done it was. How much of this do you think was an element of surprise? How screwed her way? I think we're still pretty screwed because what's happened is we live in a media landscape in which facts have less and less valence. And that's maybe the scariest thing of all. And that's what social media has done, largely speaking, but also networks like Fox. And now increasingly even on the other side. So that's, I think, the scariest part for me. We can't agree on basic facts. And if you can't agree on facts, then you can't agree on facts, then you

can't have the rule of law, for example. So that's the part that I'm really concerned about. And obviously, the Russians, we know that there are cyber intrusions and that there are Camille Francois, who studied the Russian attack in 2016, is looking at what they're doing now and saying they're coming and they're coming again, and they're coming again hard. And I'm not sure we've really learned the lessons of 2016. Well, right now we're seeing down in Miami, suddenly, all these brand new websites are popping up out of nowhere and all these Twitter and Facebook accounts are just magically appearing. And they're spreading in Spanish language. wild conspiracy theories that echo a lot of the same things that we saw in 2016. I'm sure there

will be a version of Hillary Clinton is running a child predator's cannibal sex ring or pizza restaurant any minute now. And I think the Russians learned a really interesting lesson. And that is, there's no goddamn upper limit to the gullibility of American boomers on social media. That to me is like, oh, the website says it's Miami News Today.com. It must be legitimate. And they learned how to do that very effectively, I mean, starting as you point out in the film, during the Ukraine information warfare battle, that they were putting out things on both sides of the equation to so chaos and so dissension. Well, that was really one of the interesting things for me to discover, is that they were manipulating the media on both sides of very polarizing issues, because

what they really wanted to do was to increase the emotional valence rather than any kind of, rather than persuade people of one thing or another. And they figured that the anger would ultimately ramp up and allow people to move into a zone in which facts didn't matter. It was just a kind of raw fury and emotion that was driving the populace. But what's the end game? Well, I think the end game is ultimately to discredit truth and discredit democracy. Now, we can laugh sometimes that democracy is always truth-based. Obviously, democracy can be corrupt and so forth and so on. But I think the idea is, particularly when it comes to the rule of law, the rule of law needs facts. And if you discredit the notion of facts, then the rule of law doesn't have much valence. He wants to live in a world in which

the only one thing matters, and that is power. You're either on top or you're not. And norms of behavior, laws that apply to everybody, all those things are the elements that a tyrant like Putin, let's call him a soft tyrant like Putin wants to discredit. So the goal is just to stay in power and rule the world? Sure. You say that, like that's a small thing. If you're Putin, stay in power and whirl the world until you die, sounds pretty good. Yeah, it does not yet. And listen, that's the other thing that I think that I didn't fully appreciate it until when I started this film is that a lot of the attack on the U.S. was really playing to a domestic audience in Russia. And by going after the world's most powerful superpower, Putin keeps giving

himself more legitimacy with voters or with the populace, even at a time when he can't deliver economically to their domestic needs. But he gives a sense like he was going to make Russia great again, right? And how do you make Russia great again? Well, you bring a country like the United States to its knees with a troll factory run by your chef. By the chef. Right. It's so depressing. What are you going to do next?

Well, this has been an exhausting year. I'm hoping maybe we can move past, but I also am just finishing, literally, today or tomorrow, a film on the federal response to COVID, and that'll be released in October. You have to come back and talk to us about it because that is something that Rick and I spend a lot of time talking about. Yeah, make sure that you keep the account running because we're talking four. 400,000 by the end of this year at this point from... We're talking about two 9-11s every week at this point.

How guilty is Jared, by the way? Not to give it away, but he's pretty guilty and he's pretty corrupt, but also incredibly incompetent. I mean, we have an element of the story in the film about his so-called task force, which ended up being 10 kids between the ages of 22 and 24 who are using their private cell phones and private email accounts to try to find PPE all over the world. That was Jared Kushner's task force. His WhatsApp group. It seems like having rich parents doesn't make you a genius.

That's for sure. There's posturing. He postures, but ultimately, he's just completely incompetent and deeply corrupt. No, it's true. I mean, it's sort of shocking. And he had no qualifications. None of these people have any qualifications. And by the way, that was part of the MO in terms of hiring policy for the Trump administration.

There was an elemental distrust for people who had expertise. And so they would routinely hire cronies or religious fanatics or donors. The idea of hiring cronies, it's so on brand for the Kushner Trump enterprise. Do you have any idea how, if we were living with a functioning federal government, how we could conceivably fight back against this Russian intervention? I mean, look, there are a lot of ways, but one of the key ways is providing information to the American people, which is something that the Trump administration currently isn't doing. And frankly, the Obama administration didn't do enough of is to let people know what's happening.

So we, the American public, can watch out for it. And the other thing is to begin, really, in terms of elections, you would think that there could be a bipartisan initiative federally, but working in conjunction with the states, to fix how it is that we vote and count the vote. But so far, neither of those things have happened. Was there anything else that really blew your mind while you were doing this research? Well, the only thing that I would say that I find interesting that I think the film gets. at that nobody was really getting at until the recent Senate intelligence report is the jaw-dropping coordination between Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort and I figure it was literally represents Russian intelligence and an oligarch who's deeply close to Putin. So, and providing

intel on polling data on all the key swing states. If that's not collusion, I don't know what is. But it happened as the case with so much of this Trump story for, purely venal reasons. Paul Manafort was deeply in hock to Oleg Deripaska, and so he figures, sure, I'll work for free for Trump. And then I built the favor factory back in the day. And so now I'll just monetize it when I have an opportunity at some point in the future. It was just quid pro quo. Paul was a big favor bank guy. There's been no real national level American response to this. I mean, the intelligence community seems like they're walking around on tiptoe trying not to offend Donald Trump. But there has not been a national response to this.

There hasn't been a pushback. I mean, under President Wilson, there would be pictures of Vladimir Putin being walked around like a dog on a leash or what have you on social media memes, et cetera. That may be connected to why there is no President Wilson. The likelihood of a President Wilson should leave people just thanking their lucky stars that no confluence of events has ever led me to the White House. I would just say it gives America pause. It would give America pause. Mostly pause just between screaming, because you can only scream for so long. Trust me, my victims know that.

There has not been a national security effort that has pushed back on this in a comparable degree of effectiveness and vigor as they've done to us. That's true. I think it's one of the issues of there are a couple of people, Celeste Wallander, in particular, who is advising the Obama administration to push back and push back much harder. But there are a lot of people who were very cautious about whether that could escalate things. but there really hasn't been much of a penalty for this kind of interference. The problem, though, on the one hand, I regret that. And I think that is a problem because otherwise it will continue. Yet at the same time, we have to look to ourselves as the people who opened Pandora's box. I mean, when we did what we thought was such a brilliant thing by destroying critical infrastructure in Iran through the Stuxnet Internet attack, which still we haven't taken credit for, you know, that broke norms of international law that seemed like a good strategic idea at the time.

but then it sets a context in which everybody now is free to do whatever they can get away with. So that's why things are to get back to a place where there's a sense of consequence, but also a sense of sort of universal norms and codes, that's a trickier proposition, I think. You have to begin to have discussions of proportionality. And, you know, one of the things we got into in zero days, which is the film about Stuxnet, is that one of the things that was sensible, ultimately, about chemical weapons and about nuclear weapons, was multilateral treaties that hold people in check. And something like that has to happen on the cyber realm, not just ginning up your cyber capability and launching relentless cyber attacks, which are then countered by another cyber attack,

but coming up with some kind of international cyber treaty that reckons with this new world and puts in place proper punishments. It's not easy, but we managed to do it with nuclear weapons. But though, I'm not wild. The idea of mutually assured destruction is not a wild concept. There's a wildly engaging concept for me, considering how much money we spend to blow the world up 500 times over. But still, yeah, you're right, there was a sense of equilibrium in some fundamental way. The question is, how do you get to that place? When does the movie come out, Alex?

When is it released? 23rd and 24th on HBO, but I think it's on all the HBO platforms like HBO Max, HBO Go, all that. So next Wednesday, Thursday. It's so amazing. I mean, it's just a brilliant movie. Before we get into things, we have a fun little treat. There are so many insane things happening in the world right now, and two episodes a week just aren't enough to cover it all. So, the new abnormal is going to release a limited run series of bonus interviews over the next few weeks for Beast Inside members only.

We'll release a new one each Sunday. But listen carefully. Only Beast Inside members will have access to these. So head over to the new abnormal. dot thedailybeast.com to become a Beast inside member now. That's new abnormal. dot the Daily Beast.com. Adam Scott is an actor known for his roles in parks and recreations.

Big little lies. hot tub time machine too and tons more, as well as the podcast host who hosts the show, you talking, talking heads to my talking head. We're so excited to have you with us today. It's really fun. I'm like a big Parks and Rec geek, so. Oh, thanks, Molly. It's really true. He's such a great character for this time, too. I'm just curious, Like in some ways you were doing politics and acting even before that was a thing. Can you talk a little bit about that? I guess so.

Yeah. I mean, I think that Harks, one of the great things about it is it's kind of love of community. And Leslie Noe is such an indelible character and means so much to so many people, I think less because of politics and more because she's all about getting up, getting out, and do. doing something with and for your community and making a difference. And I think that optimistic view sort of cuts through politics. I mean, I think the show once in a while took a political, somewhat a political turn, but was usually framing it in the kind of confines of this small town. And so I think by and large, Mike and the writers avoided taking any real political stances. And it was more of a kind of macro look at politics and where we are in this country or where we were in this country because it's already

been, what, five years since we finished? So this Thursday, September 17th, the Parkscast is actually getting together for an event for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, which is September 17th is the first day you can request your mail-in ballots, your absentee ballots. And so we're doing an event. It'll be Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, me, Jim O'Haret, Reda, show-creating. or Mike Shore, we're all going to be getting together to raise some money for Wisconsin. Tell us why Wisconsin. Is the show based in Wisconsin? It is, right?

I forgot. No, it's based in Indiana, actually. Typical New Yorker. You would think it was based in Wisconsin. It would make sense if the show were set in Wisconsin. But the show was set in Indiana, but we really like Wisconsin. Wisconsin is, as you know, a huge swing state this year. And more and more kind of people are thinking how Wisconsin goes, the election goes.

And their mail-in or absentee ballot laws are needlessly complicated. So as much messaging as we can get out there about, you go to whizdems.org. That's W-I-S-D-E-M-S dot org slash ARCS and Rec. And that's an and A-N-D in the middle of that. Can you talk to us about your podcast? We started it. My friend Scott Ackerman and I, Scott Ackerman, who has a TV show and podcast, Comedy Bang Bang. We started this thing years ago because our wives were sick of hearing us talk about you too.

The two of us figured out that we were both YouTube fans since childhood. And so we started a podcast where we could talk to each other about you two and went through their discography album by album. See, I can already feel Molly fading. And I do not blame you. I do not blame you. I'm fading as well. I'm a music producer so you can use my energy to take it. Yeah.

Are you even that excited about you too? I feel like you too isn't even that excited about you too. See, this is a common misconception. And if you have an hour or two, I'll walk you through it. No, we did a series of podcasts, one episode per U2 album. And it was mostly a screwing around just like a comedy podcast that happened to be about you two. And then eventually we sort of got going and had the band on the podcast, which was not at all our goal when we started it. Literally, it was just to have someone to talk to about this band. So anyway, we had

you two on a couple of times and then moved on to REM. Did the REM podcast, same thing, had those guys on. And now we're on talking heads. Oh, wow. And going through their discography. So that's it. You two, were they everything you had hoped for and so much more? You mean, in person? Yeah. Yeah, they were really terrific, cool guys. We were, I mean, the episode where we interview the four band members, I still have not listened to it because I'm sure it's embarrassing. I think you can hear in our voices that we're both really nervous and all of my questions ended up just being compliments. So it's deeply embarrassing. Why are you so brilliant? Why are you so talented? It's so stupid. I find interviewing really hard. And I also think you can tell me if you think this is right.

It's not necessarily who the guest is. Sometimes it's just where I'm at. Yeah, absolutely. And what I've found, and Scott is much more of an experienced interviewer than I, thank God, which kind of saves us when we're actually interviewing people. But what I've found is exactly what you're saying, Molly, which is my confidence kind of ping pongs back and forth, depending on how the interviewee is reacting to the question. So I can easily just get buried and lose all gumption as the interview is it going on. So you're an actor, but you're also smart. That seems like a dilemma in this modern world. Discuss. Well, first of all, thank you. I don't know where you're finding this evidence of me being a smart person. And you just take the win. But I appreciate

the perception of that. I agree that the profession does not require intelligence, but I think it helps. But there are plenty of factors that you come across that are brilliant and it's not like you, they're Mensa members or anything. Except for Sharon Stone. But they're, except for Sharon Stone. I mean, that's always the exception, isn't it? Did you guys see that HBO show years and years? Yeah, I loved that show. Wait, what was it?

Yeah, I think it was on about a year ago, if I'm... You're correct. And I just watched it, and it's pretty extraordinary, and it's about this one family and the UK and their kind of journey through. It starts about five years in the future and then goes from there. And you see Emma Thompson plays this Trump-like figure who's kind of climbing the political ranks throughout the years that you're following this family. And you see her start just as kind of a nobody.

And then she eventually, by a fluke, gets MP, gets elected to be an MP and then goes and goes and goes. And I won't spoil it for you. But as she's climbing, rising in the ranks of the UK political system, you see certain members of this family disgusted by her. But then certain ones amused. And like you said, just for the sake of being contrary and thinking it's funny, encouraging her along and voting for her even. And I think you're right. There is a lot of that with intelligent people. And there's this trick of that they were using a lot of the Republican convention even where they're like, look, they think that this is exactly how you're going to vote.

And so don't get trapped by that. Do whatever you want. Vote Republican. It's you're right. So I think that's a trick that does work with some people. Can you talk a little bit about the good place? Because it is so amazing. Yeah.

Well, Mike, sure. Co-creative Parks and Recke created Good Place. And it's a brilliant show. it really, really is and asked me to do a few of them. And I jumped at the chance because I love Mike and think that he's brilliant and everything he writes is really fun and goofy and intelligent. And he just knows how to do like eight things at once really well in one line of dialogue. And that's really tough. And he's doing it on network television, which is free and going to everyone. And there's a real strength in that, too, I feel. And so something like the good place, beaming out to

everyone's house for free, I think, is just kind of a, just a really interesting idea. There's something that smart. And also playing a bad guy, though. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's like the greatest bad guy ever. And you're known for usually being a likable person on TV shows and characters a lot of the time. Yeah, I guess so. I guess that maybe since Ben Wyatt, which is my character on Parks, was such a good person.

and in certain ways Mike's alter ego maybe a little bit. Well, even back to Party Down, too, you were a very likable character on there. Yeah. And I think Mike really wanted to sort of write the exact opposite for me. And so it was really, really fun. Yeah, it's such a great show. It's amazing. Obviously, your profession right now has gotten very complicated with COVID.

What have you been working on? Yeah. I don't know how you guys feel, but this six, seven months is just crawled, but it's also flown by. I'm still recording in this closet at home. Just be glad you have a closet. Yeah, I've been in this, because I also had this game show

that aired over the summer, and we did all of the ADR for it in this closet. ADR is all the voice stuff you don't get on the day. And with a game show, it's mostly just going like, that's $500. All of it in this closet, and I'm still here. So it's been strange. and doing animated things and just keeping busy.

We're talking about the podcast, but I am about to start work on a show that was like days away from going when the shit hit the fan in March. And so we're starting in like a month. So I'm really excited. Can you tell us anything about it? Sure.

It's called Severance. It's a show for Apple. Ben Stiller is directing. He was a podcast guest. Yeah, I know. I was really delighted when he popped up on one of my favorite podcasts. Oh, thank you.

He's so good. He's directing Patricia Arquette is in it, and there's a bunch of other great people. She's the best. I love her, too. I'm glad they're reuniting after how good Dan Mora was. Oh, man, I know. I have to watch Dan Mora. It's amazing, right? I've seen it three times. Wow.

It's pretty perfect. I challenge anyone to find a fault with that series. It's incredible. Are you going to film in L.A.? New York, actually. Oh, my God. So cool. So I'm going to move out there here pretty soon.

Are you going to bring the children? I think eventually they'll come and hang out for a bit. Yeah, they can go anywhere, right? Depending on school and because they're at home right now, so we'll see. So your Twitter is probably one of the more politically engaged Twitters. What are your thoughts on what people could be doing now? I feel like, and I know how annoying it can be when actors or whoever are just sending out political stuff. And I know some people think it's stupid and stick to acting.

I get that sometimes. And I totally get that. But at the same time, I feel like. Right now, everyone needs to do absolutely everything. They can because like you guys say on this podcast over and over again, this election is more than just an election. And I have to say back in 2016, I was shooting in Ohio right around the election. And on some days off, I went around to schools in the area and just for the Hillary campaign, trying to get people to register and vote. And was trying to warn them about the danger to the republic if this guy gets elected.

And I think it was a hard thing to wrap your mind around at the time because he was still sort of an abstract idea and sort of an amusing cultural character for a lot of people. I just think now we have the data. We have the receipts. We have the hard evidence. This is what this guy is doing and look around, look around at our country. So I think being annoying on Twitter is a small price to pay. And I'm doing stuff with the Biden campaign. but I think I'm just looking for ways to help out without being too gross and annoying.

It's tough because I am frightened. I think a lot of people, a lot of people are. I do think the people who complain about actors being too expressive politically are people who then are very thrilled when Kid Rock does a concert for Trump. Yeah, I guess so. And I get it, though. I get that even. I get that when someone that you're used to just seeing in a sitcom on TV,

starts saying, you should vote for this person, it's sort of like, well, why do I have to listen to you? And it's, I totally get it. And you don't. But again, I'm going to keep doing it because I, Karen, and I'm looking for the avenue that I can travel down to help. And this is, this is the one. And November 4th, I will shut up 100%. So we are going to have our special fabulous guest do a special fuck that guy. So please, Adam, tell us who is your fuck that guy? This is a very special moment for me that getting to do a fuck that guy and FTG, as I call it. My fuck that guy for this week would be Peter Navarro. This interview he did yesterday with Jake Tapper is extraordinary.

But I will also fold into that the fact that on other Sunday shows, both George Stephanopoulos and Chris Wallace are both siding the Woodward tapes in that they're grilling the Biden reps about what he was doing in January. February and whether he was in favor of the Chinese travel ban quick enough. And Stephanopoulos didn't even ask Jason Miller about the Woodward tapes, didn't even bring it up. So I think just something to keep our eye on is them, this false equivalence with Trump lying about the severity of the virus to the American public and covering up the truth and them trying to flip it onto Biden like, what was he doing? Well, he was not the president and he was doing what he could. And with the knowledge.

that he had. It's just ridiculous. Let's give a special shout out to Jake Tapper because he really was like, this is fucking bullshit and goodbye. Yeah. He's the only one that's actually nailing people down on the Sunday shows. Like, truly. Yeah.

Okay. Molly, we have a combined arms of multiple access. Fuck that guy today. Yes, multiple. Well deserved. I would like to begin discussing the degenerate, diseased, herpetic fop, Roger Stone, who went on television, well, if by television, I mean to say InfoWorse streaming service with the revered journalist Alex Jones this weekend and spoke directly to Donald Trump, arguing that he needs to begin to nationalize the voting operations in places like Nevada, and that he needs to start arresting people under the Insurrection Act, including the Daily Beast reporters and other figures, including, I'm guessing, two editors at large, who've had words for the president a time or two.

as someone wrote this weekend, the only way to communicate with Trump is through television. So Stone is trying to stoke this, like, degree of civil war in this country or an authoritarian takeover that will queue up a civil war. They're talking about armed patriot groups out there in the world now, taking to the streets. 300,000 boogalus is I think what they're kind of pitching for right here. But so much of this bullshit this weekend that Roger and Alex are definitely leading my fuck-that-guy list for the week. It's amazing to me that Roger Stone, who got a pardon, or he didn't get a pardon, he got his sentence commuted, is now shopping an idea to keep Trump in power. It's so shockingly transparent, but so very on brand.

Entirely on brand. And Caputo was putting out this video about trade armed leftist cadres in the country, ready to take people out. So Michael Caputo. And you actually know who Caputo is, right? Yes, of course. Michael Caputo is one of the Trumpian Demi-Mond stone sycophant guys who has spent many years now. You're going to be shocked to hear this. I know this is going to blow you away that Michael Caputo spent years living in Russia and working for Russians,

including a little Russian you might have heard of. I don't know if you've heard of this guy, but his name is, it rhymes with Shmladimir Schmuten. This is a guy who is married to a Russian, lived in Russia, is ass deep in all the Russian shenanagan. of this organization was fired from the campaign because, you know, the quality rises to the top of the Trump world and the people who can't cut the ethical standard are out. But Michael Caputo has now been inserted as the Trump administration's hitman and Duboy inside of Health and Human Services. Which is pretty important during a pandemic of health and human services. Right. He made the accusation this week that there is a seditious left-wing hit squad preparing for an armed

insurrection. He also said that CDC is harboring a resistance unit. I have the names of 62 communists in the State Department. Sounds familiar. The resistance unit are people who understand science. Believe in science and medicine. Right, right, right. But look, this guy is a conspiracy theory cuckoo. And he is saying that Joe Biden is ready to have a left-wing army of armed Antifa stand down. Trump won't stand down and that his armed insurgent groups are going to bring civil war the U.S. And he's on this video. He's like, if you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it's going to be hard to get. Now, look, he's not wrong. Right. Wait, he's wrong. No, he is wrong. He's wrong. Ammunition is actually really hard to get right now. Try to buy

Subsonic 300 blackout ammunition right now. You can't fund it anywhere. See, I love, you could hear me almost going along with it. And then I heard what he was saying. And I was like, no, do not buy ammunition for your gun. Do not buy guns. This is not the appropriate response to crazy Trump world lunatic. Thank you for coming to my obvious things talk. There are squads being trained all over this country, Mom. There are no squad. Jesus fucking Christ.

I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to say that. Jesus. No, Jesus. Just fuck. All right. Anyway, continue. But yes, there are no armed insurgents and Roger Stone. And also, Mark Levin is also shopping this idea that Trump needs to have this

Insurrection Act. And you know, if they're shopping these ideas, it's because they think that Trump will go along, because Trump thinks, probably. Well, you know who will go along with it is Bill Barr. The man who will go along with anything. Trump will say, what is the insurgent erection act? I don't understand it. Why is there an insurgent erection? That happens to be sometimes four hours or more. I don't get it. On that note, we'll wrap up this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking with smart folks from The Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics, and science, who will help us understand what's happening to our country and the world.

We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. We're just getting started and don't want you to miss an episode. If you'd like to follow us on Twitter, I'm Molly Jongfest and he's the Rick Wilson. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you again on the next episode. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studied The Daily Beast podcast at the DailyBeast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber.

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