The Daily Beast Podcast - All of Trump’s Cabinet Picks Have These Things in Common

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

As President-elect Trump continues to announce surprise pick after surprise pick for his Cabinet, The New Abnormal co-hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie discover what they have in common. Plus! Melissa del Bosque, investigations editor at Lighthouse Reports, talks about the implications of Tom Homan’s appointment as “border czar.” Then we'll talk to journalist Noah Hurowitz about the legislation that would be able to declare nonprofits terrorist organizations. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Melissa Del Bosque Investigations Editor at Lighthouse Reports and co-founder of the Independent Newsletter, The Border Chronicle, joins us to talk about the implications of Tom Homan's appointment as borders are in the misinformation network surrounding the U.S.-Mexico border. Then we'll talk to journalists Noah Hurwitz about the legislation that would be able to declare non-profits terrorist organizations. But first, let's have some fun. So this week has brought us a treasure trove of absolute fuckery. Like the absolute worst people that you could imagine ever being in charge of the most important agencies that this country has. It is evident to me that, you know, one of the goals of white delusion, white. supremacy is to shove in people's faces that you don't need to be qualified.

You don't need to be smart. You don't even need to have been an active lawyer for a bunch of years in a credible firm or credible space. All you have to do to ascend to power is to be white, is to be cis, is to be associated with Donald Trump and love him and have tap dance for him over the past nine years. And that is a shoe in for any position. That's the point. Right. The rest of us are forced to jump through obstacle after obstacle, hoop after hoop, told that we are unqualified, even when we are the most qualified. And here is Donald Trump's cabinet. I cannot express to you, Andy, the level of just absolute

I don't even know what to call it these days. It's not really anger. It's not really despair. It's just this like, oh, here you've been America. This is who you've always been. Donald Trump is just brash enough and bold enough to say, fuck you to every marginalized community, to every minority, to every group of people that is not white and say,

yeah, we didn't need to. to make up new rules and new games. We just needed to have a full-on takeover and put you back in your place. And that is what this week has been. I mean, Tulsi Gabbard, Matt Gates, a Fox News host for Secretary of Defense, it is just a wash in unqualified,

undereducated conspiracy theorists, ring-kissing pieces of garbage that are now, Not pledging allegiance to our Constitution or our way of thinking or values, but to Donald Trump. So good luck, America. It's been great knowing you. Andy? I agree with all of that.

I would add to it that on top of all of this being very bad for marginalized people, it ain't going to be great for white people either, regardless of what some white people think. As these proposed nominees or nominees kept coming out one after the other, I started, it was like, Rage Against the Machine has a great song, Bulls on Parade. And this was just, this was fools on parade. It was just like one fool after another. And I started to think, is he doing this? Because like by dropping them one after the other, it's sort of like, first you're focused on one awful person.

And then he drops another one who's even worse. And it sort of takes your mind off the first person. he dropped because suddenly they're not quite as bad as that person, even though they're all awful. And it just feels like he's playing with us by doing this. But I guess let's start with Pete Hegseth, who's the Fox News host, you mentioned Fox and Friends, I think weekend host. I think Paul Rikoff is a guy who founded a group called the Independent Veterans of America. And here's what he had to say about Pete Hegseth. He said, Hegseth is undoubtedly the least qualified nominee for SECDF in American history and the most overtly political, brace yourself America. And I have nothing to add to that

because everything that Paul says is 100% correct. The only thing I'll go further with is we need to talk about Pete Hegseth's connections to Christian nationalists and the far right. He's got a million tattoos and a whole bunch of them are religious-based, but they're not just religious-based. they're steeped in religious violence. And in particular, he's got an inscription on his inner arm in Latin that says, Deus Volt. Deus Volt means God wills it, which, look, if you didn't know better, you would say, okay, he's just a really religious guy. And he's saying, you know, hey, whatever happens, it's God's will. No, this was a battle cry during the first crusade. It was a battle cry. It was summoning followers of Christ to take up the sword in defense.

of Christianity. And he is so steeped in this Christian national, this violent Christian nationalism. And this is the guy that is now going to be running our defense department. This is scary as hell. Look, we can go on to the other ones. I just, this to me, this was one of the earlier picks. Then you get to Matt Gates as attorney general and Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And you sort of forget. because they're both probably even worse than Hegsef, but Hegsef is pretty bad himself. I mean, here's the thing with me about the Secretary of Defense that I feel like people need to begin to wrap their minds around because everything that you have offered up in describing him

and painting the picture about him is terrible. But here is the worst of it, in my opinion, which is that the role of the Secretary of Defense has always been with regard to defending America standing in the world, defending other Democratic nations around the world, et cetera. This is not what Pete Hegsef is being appointed for. They are and will and are preparing to weaponize the most powerful military in the world on the people of the United States. That is the goal here. They all hate the same people, the same groups that represent any type of dissent or otherness, whether they be LGBTQ, black, Muslim, undocumented, disabled. The list goes on. But this is about militarizing America to the point that Putin has done with Russia,

where there is no dissent because, I believe one of their first acts is going to be to make a very public example of a marginalized group or representative from said group and show what their power is and what their purpose is. And when you have people that say that they are guided by God, then facts and logic and laws, man's laws, dare I say, have no bearing. on the decisions that will come down. That, to me, is what people need to be incredibly conscious and aware of, where they think that there are laws or guardrails or things that are in place. You cannot argue or logically defend against people who believe that they're endowed by God

to do God's work as violent, like you said, Andy, as that may be. Yeah, and to sort of piggyback on what you were saying, the other reason, or one of the main reasons he was chosen, was to help apparently purge the military and purge the military of the quote unquote woke generals and whatever else they decide that that means. I mean, it is absolutely wild to think that we have an administration now that wants to copy the example of Joseph Stalin. in 1941 when he purged the Red Army. And that also was done for political reasons. And that's what this will be. And if you're talking about a way to make America less safe, by all means, purge 200 generals, which is a number that I believe they've been throwing around.

And God knows how much more of the officer corps and NCOs and whatever. Because basically it's whatever they decide. And what they've decided is, you know, for example, women should not be in the military. They think any time a person who, is not a white man gets elevated in the military, that it is a sort of DEI situation and that they are unqualified. So you can imagine who, when they start purging, who they're going to be purging. Hint, it's not going to be people that look like them. I cannot think of a quicker way to deplete whatever military readiness this country needs. And I want to throw in on top of that because

it's been going around and it's been going around as sort of a, not a joke, but Hexath famously said, on Fox News that he hadn't washed his hands in 10 years because he doesn't believe in germs. I mean, this is insane, obviously. But let me just speak about this real briefly from a military perspective. There are things out there called germ warfare, bio-terrorism. If this guy doesn't think germs exist, how in the holy hell are we going to have a military that is prepared to protect itself and protect America against things? things like bioterrorism, biological warfare, chemical warfare, germ warfare, etc.

So this guy, I keep seeing this germ thing thrown around is like a separate thing. Like, oh, he's just crazy there. I maintain that this has a direct bearing on the fact that he should not be in charge of the military because you have to recognize science if you're going to be in charge of an organization where you're dealing with, you know, all the stuff I just made plus nuclear weapons? I mean, does he believe in nuclear weapons? He says he doesn't believe in germs. He can't see them. He can't see atoms either. Does he not believe in the atom bomb? It's scary shit. We should probably, I guess, move on to some of these other insane nominees. But this is scary shit, man.

I guess the people that join the military will just be praying about it. Germs don't exist. They don't need vaccinations. They, you know, don't need any of the things that science has provided. Us, so pray about it. Go with God. I don't even know. Let's move on. Who's up next? Tulsi Gabbard. Matt Gates. Pick one. Let's go with Tulsi Gabbard. Go ahead. All right. Tulsi Gabbard has been nominated to be the Director of National Intelligence. She has absolutely no background in intelligence. She is a religious cultist. I don't really know what else to say other than she has no business being the head of the Office of National intelligence. Also, she has, I mean, Danielle, you get more into this if you want, but she has a lot of, what's the word? Dubious relationships with other countries. And that scares me a little.

The last thing I want to say about Tulsi Gabbard is in 2018, Tulsi Gabbard referred to Donald Trump as corrupt, unqualified to serve. And in a tweet called him Saudi Arabia's bitch. now she's going to be his director of national intelligence. Amazing. Amazing. And I also believe didn't Hillary Clinton pretty much lay out that Tulsi Gabbard was like a Russian plant for all of us. So it makes sense then that she is in charge of our intelligence. Up next, Matt Gates, who has been under investigation by the Ethics Committee in the House since 2021,

was investigated by the Department of Justice for potential sex trafficking, sex, sex with underage girls. The report, they were about to vote on, the release of said report, and now he has resigned. We don't know if that report will be released because now he's going to be appointed attorney general. He's been a lawyer, I think, for a year. He did important things like get fishing permits for people, and now he's going to be in charge of the Department of Justice. Andy? Yeah, Mark Joseph Stern, who's been a guest on the show, show several times, wrote a piece at Slate called, no matter how bad you think an attorney general Matt Gates would be, he'll be worse. And I think that's exactly right. If you go through the

story of what the House Ethics Committee has been investigating and this party that Gates was at, it's fairly clear that some really, really nasty shit was going on involving underage women. Can I butt in to add to that? Mm-hmm. Yeah. This is from esteemed reporter Julie K. Brown, breaking attorney for teenager at the center of Backgate's sex trafficking allegation says she was a high school student and there were witnesses. Here's a quote from her lawyer. Mr. Gates' likely nomination as Attorney General is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events. We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses. Yeah. It is absolutely unbelievable that this guy is going to be running. the Justice Department solely on that basis alone. And then on top of that, the idea that he is not even the least bit qualified to be in charge of the Department of Justice and that it will be,

I mean, look, it's going to make Trump's first term feel like the DOJ was not politicized at all. And it was. It's going to be absolutely unbelievable. And what an amazing coincidence that that Trump announces this and Gates resigns his seat, you know, like two days before the House is supposed to release its report. Just wild how that happened. Oh, dear God. And then, I won't call this the finale, but in a nod to efficiency, there will be two idiots co-leading, the Department of Government Efficiency, aka Doge, Vivek Ramoswamy, and Elon Musk. Because why have one person lead a made-up commission when you can have two people lead it and provide outside consulting on government efficiency?

Yeah. There was an important word you said there and I want to emphasize it, commission. Because they can call this the department of government efficiency all they want. It is not a governmental department. Government departments cannot just be made up by the. president. It doesn't work that way. So they will have no, for example, they'll have no statutory authority. They can't direct other actual government departments to do anything. All they can do is issue recommendations, which, and I'm not downplaying that because the recommendations are going to

be god-awful. But it's really important, I think, for people to understand that just because they've decided to call it a department, it's not a department. It's not a department. and it has no authority whatsoever. And there is a way of looking at this as this is Trump giving to people that he finds very annoying, a job that sounds important but really isn't. And I am very much hoping that that's what it becomes. Earlier in the show, we talked about some of Donald Trump's nominees for cabinet and other positions.

And now I want to focus on the man he's tapped to be his border czar, Tom Holman. Joining me now is Melissa Del Bosca, Investigation editor at Lighthouse Reports, co-founder of the Independent Newsletter, The Border Chronicle, which provides in-depth coverage of the U.S.-Mexico border region with context and analysis. And she's also part of Seeds of Distrust, which is an ongoing investigative collaboration between Lighthouse Report, the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting, the Texas Observer, the Palabra, and Puente News Collaborative. Melissa, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks so much for having me. Absolutely. Okay, so I want to talk about something you did as part of this seeds of distrust, this ongoing investigative collaboration. You collaborated on a huge investigative report called Border 9-1-1, the misinformation network profiting off the invasion narrative. Now, Border 9-1-1 is a group that Tom Homan is, or was, I guess, the president and CEO of.

What is it exactly? Well, Border 9-1-1 was actually, part of another organization first called the America Project, which is run by Patrick Byrne, started by Lieutenant General Mike Flynn. And there are two of the country's most prominent election denialists. And Patrick Byrne, who made his fortune from Overstock.com, he was a CEO there, has spent millions on election denial efforts nationwide. So Border 9-1 was part of their platform. in conjunction with election integrity, which I'm putting in air quotes right now. Right.

Because really it was a huge effort to undermine Americans' belief in the electoral system and to really just so chaos. So Tom Homan was a CEO at the America Project for a few months. And then he spun off Border 9-1 as an independent organization under his own control. And he created a 501c3 nonprofit and a 50C4 dark money organization. And the term dark money is used because they don't have to reveal who their donors are. So you can't see who's actually contributing to the organization. I assume that group still exists, even though Tom Holman is, I guess, moving on. But what exactly does Border 911 do? What's its purpose? How does it go about its business?

What Tom Homan did is he created these two entities under his name, you know, made himself CEO and president. And he started this effort at the beginning of 2023. And other members of the group include Rodney Scott, who used to be the chief of Border Patrol, Derek Malts, who was a special agent in the DEA. We also have Victor Abilah, who was a special agent in Homeland Security Investigation. So it's a group of former federal and state law enforcement officials, and then there's also a Fox news contributor named Sarah Carter. And interestingly, a couple of the members have become news correspondents. Jason Jones, for instance, works for Newsmax. And he's a former captain for the state police in Texas and probably one of the main propaganda guys for Operation Lone Star in Texas.

which is a state-funded deportation and detention system that's been built by Texas's Governor Greg Abbott, who's a key ally of Donald Trump. So you mentioned propaganda, and I think that's important. And part of the headline of this investigative report was that the misinformation network profiting off the invasion narrative. So tie those two things together. What is the kind of misinformation that border 911 spreads? and how does it function as sort of a propaganda arm of the anti-immigrant right?

Yeah, so I've been reporting on the U.S.-Mexico border since the late 90s. So I've watched several iterations of propaganda, you know, be proliferated for the benefit of people's political careers and for financial benefit. I mean, in the mid-aughts, you know, during the Obama administration, it was ISIS, you know, that they were just on the Mexican side of the border and getting. ready to invade the U.S. And, you know, they were finding Korans and prayer rugs in the desert, you know. And back then we had a robust local media ecosystem. So we would all go out there and check it out. You know, it'd be like, nope, ISIS isn't here, you know.

And actually the Quran that the sheriff says he found, this border sheriff, was imprinted in New York, you know. So we would debunk those things. but that local news ecosystem doesn't exist anymore. And in that vacuum is this really, like, massive ecosystem now of like MAGA, social media, content creators, influencers, and some of those folks are actually Border Patrol agents and law enforcement who have their own, like, media channels now, which they profit from financially and politically, because they're aligned with the MAGA movement. So the invasion rhetoric really became a big thing starting as soon as Biden took office.

And I really watched it proliferate. And it was Ken Cuccinelli, who's a former Trump cabinet member and one of the authors of Project 2025. His proposal is to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security. That's one of the things that he wants to do. And he's a former senator from Virginia. And so he was traveling state to state and convincing governors, trying to convince governors in red states to declare an invasion on the border with the thinking that, you know, I mean, what we really have is we have a refugee and humanitarian situation at the border. We have displaced people who are arriving, requesting asylum. But it's being recast as, you know, these are people arriving who are coming to invade our country. And then they're saying that, you know, the Biden administration Democrats are purposefully allowing

these people to invade our country so that they can vote for the Democrats and the Democrats can stay empowered forever and ever. And this is really like an iteration of the Great Replacement Theory, which was popularized in Europe in the mid-aughts also, that the white citizens are being replaced by people of color and it's this intentional plan. What does all this mean for America with Tom Holman as the borders are? Well, I mean, the interesting thing was to watch Border 911 work, right? You have these former state federal officials who are very clearly aligned with Donald Trap and worked for him. And they have a nonprofit, which is supposed to be nonpolitical, but they're still going around and being political anyway.

And, you know, their ground game was extensive. They traveled from city to city, and they portrayed themselves as experts on the border and in, you know, immigration and national security. And they basically just scare the hell out of people. They say, you know, we're under invasion. This is intentional. This is the most insecure, insecure border that we've had in our lifetimes or ever. And that the only thing that can save us is if you vote for Donald Trump. And basically every state in the country was inundated with.

these political commercials about how we're under invasion, you know, with these like grainy footage of people climbing walls and masses of people arriving just to really scare the heck out of American voters. And it was very successful. I mean, they planned this and they executed it and there was a lot of money behind it. It got them what they wanted because we now see Tom Holman, you know, being appointed borders are. We see Rodney Scott, another member of Border 9-1 who's probably going to be the head of Customs and Border Protection, which oversees Border Patrol. Victor Avila is being considered for the head of Homeland Security Investigations. Steve Montenegro, who we haven't talked about, he was a national policy director for the

America Project and then a consultant, and he's a sitting House of Representatives member in Arizona, has just been appointed Speaker of the House in Arizona. So he really benefited from this as well. he's very closely aligned with the border 911 member. So it's worked out really well for these guys. You know, they're going to make a lot of money. Yeah. And in the process, hurt and maybe kill a whole bunch of people.

I want to get your thoughts on some things Holman has said in the recent past on Hannity Show on Fox News. He talked about there being a sort of a grace period before these mass deportations start. And during this grace period, immigrants could self-deport, which is something. thing I don't think I'd heard since Mitt Romney in 2012. And I'll read you a quote. Here's what he said. He said, criminals and gang members get no grace period. But while we're out prioritizing the public safety threats and national security threats, if you want to self-deport, you should self-deport. Because again, we know who you are and we're going to come and find you. For the non-criminals, you want to self-deport, I'm all for it. Because when they self-deport, they can put everything in

order, their family business that they got, homes, or whatever. They can put all the, that in order and leave with their family all together. It makes perfect sense for the ones that are not criminals. This is insanity, I think. Well, it's a deliberate scare tactic, and you're right. I mean, we're going back to the first administration of the Obama administration, right? When, you know, they talked about self-deporting and, you know, Obama was called the deporter in chief, right? Because they deported so many people. And, you know, Tom Homan was at ICE during that time. and part of that whole thing, there was a huge grassroots pushback against the first Obama administration. And Obama ended up walking it back and saying, well, you know, there needs to be discretion.

We can't just be doing wholesale worksite raids and just deporting everybody. We're going to just focus on criminals and, you know, people who have records and stuff like that. So Tom Homan is basically kind of going back to the first Obama administration, but it's going to be a hundred times worse because there are no guardrails now. And it's really Stephen Miller being the policy director for Trump. Stephen Miller is a very destabilizing character. And what I think is going to happen is he's going to put a lot of pressure. As bad as Homan is, Miller is going to intervene and make it worse.

Because what Stephen Miller wants to see is military, you know, going door to door. He wants that spectacle. He wants blood, basically, whereas Homan is an old school ice guy who's awful, but still has some guardrails from working within the federal administration for so long, a federal agency, whereas, you know, Stephen Miller is just a chaos agent. So I expect to see a huge collision between these two guys coming. That's interesting. I hadn't even thought of that. And look, nobody is worse than Stephen Miller. I couldn't agree with that more. And it's You brought up that Holman was in ICE during the Obama administration.

When I was doing research for this interview, I was reminded that in 2015, he was actually given an award for being really good at deporting people from the Obama administration. So this is a nice little legacy that we were left from them. Another quote from Holman, a recent quote, he said this on Fox and Friends. He talked about having immigration and customs enforcement ICE conduct workplace raids, which supposedly. The point of those is to go after labor and sex trafficking. What do you make of this? Well, they don't have the investigative chops to do targeted rates like that. I mean, this is all spectacle. So they're going to put everybody, all of their agents on spectacle and not on long-term investigations where they could really actually target, you know, sex trafficking networks and

things like that. That's not going to happen. It's going to be, you know, work site rates like we saw during the first Obama administration, you know, it's going to be at like chicken processing plants and things like that. And we also saw that very few employers got in trouble, you know, it was just punishing workers, marginalized people while, you know, the bosses just got off with a slap on the wrist. And I expected that will happen again. Yeah, for sure. It's never the business owners that pay the price here. One of the way that Holman is described is as the father of the Trump family separation policy. What does that mean exactly? He spearheaded that or it was his philosophical idea? Well, I mean, during the first Trump administration,

he was the person in the room, you know, when they were having conversations about what were they going to do that put it out there on the table. Like, we separate families. And he wholeheartedly believes that by making it so, so, so brutal that that people, people will not come. But, I mean, we've had this policy in place since the mid-90s now where thousands of people are dying in the desert and in the river when they're trying to cross. And, you know, we basically had death as deterrence as a policy. And that hasn't worked because people are fleeing such, you know, extraordinary circumstances that they're going to come anyway. So he put that out there on the table and then it ended up getting adopted, you know, Stephen Miller really pushed for family separation to happen once it was out there because there were

people in the government, I think like John Kelly that did not want to do it. You know, they took it off the table. But Homan was the one who brought it out there and then, you know, was in favor of it. Yeah. And I think we can be pretty sure there won't be a John Kelly or anyone else in the room who was opposed to it in the second administration. I want to close. I want to ask you, towards the end of last year, you wrote a piece titled The Lucrative Business. of border chaos, how Trump, right-wing media, and MAGA authoritarians will use the border to win in 2024. So, Melissa, I'd like to congratulate you on being right, but I kind of have absolutely no doubt that you would have loved to have been wrong. Oh, my God, I wish I was. I really, really,

really wish I was wrong. Yes. But you did call it. I mean, because at least in my mind, it was immigration and you know people will say well no it was the economy people were upset and in my mind you can't separate the two because people are being told that whatever they're paying more for eggs is somehow the fault of immigrants and that immigrants are taking the jobs and immigrants are getting our taxpayer money and so to me even the people that are claiming that it's the economy it's so intertwined. And Donald Trump and the Republican Party have consciously set out to do this. It's so intertwined with the theme of immigration that I really do think immigration was the reason that they won this election. So I think you were absolutely right. And I think you called it over a year ago. It's just really painful.

Having watched the space, the U.S.-Mexico border for so long and reported on it, I've experienced it personally in my own career. And when I'm talking to people, you know, in communities along the border now, where even border residents parrot this propaganda now where they say, oh, every immigrant who crosses the border gets a cell phone and $700 and government handouts. And so I have to figure out, like, where are they receiving this information from? Sort of what is their social media diet, you know? And unfortunately, a lot of this misinformation, I end up tracing back to people like, you know, Senator Ted Cruz to elected officials now who are very much invested in this disinformation campaign and are rewarded by these platforms, you know, like Facebook or X, where the algorithms favor polarizing content

and they've made a decision actively to de-emphasize news. So everybody now receives their information without any kind of context. It's all based on memes and sort of vibe. and I really believe in my core that this election is the first election where we see the full ramifications of this social media disinformation ecosystem that, you know, people voted against their direct interests because they bought this propaganda. Yeah, I don't disagree with a word you just said. Melissa Del Bosque, thank you so much for being here. Check out Lighthouse Reports.com and the border chronicle.com.

for stuff that is actually filled with facts as opposed to propaganda. Thanks again, Melissa. I really appreciate your time. Sure. Thanks so much for having me. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal freelance journalist Noah Hurowitz, whose recent piece at The Intercept entitled, Lawmakers Reject Bill that Would Let Trump Destroy Nonprofits, is up now.

So Noah, give us the rundown of HR 9495 and what the initial purpose was of this piece of legislation that was endorsed and introduced by Democrats. That is now something that they're trying to distance from or do not want passage of. Yeah. So HR 9495, also known as the Stop Terror Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act. This version of the bill was introduced in September, but it stems from two earlier pieces of legislation that passed the House almost unanimously earlier this year. So there's two provisions in the fact. One, the stop-payer financing part is ostensibly it would give power to the Secretary of the Treasury to designate any group that he or she sees fit as a so-called terrorist-supporting organization and thereby revoke its tax-exent status. The other half of the

bill is a very uncontroversial measure that would, if there's an American being held hostage abroad, and there are several still being held by Hamas, there's also people unjustly held prisoner abroad. They would not be penalized for back taxes while they're being held. That part of the bill is obviously enjoys broad support from both sides of the aisle. The South Terror financing part did have broad bipartisan support up until Tuesday. When the original bill, H.R. 6408, went before the House in April, it was passed by the House 382 to 11. The only people who voted in opposition were 10 Democrats, including all members of the squad and a few others, and one Republican Thomas Massey of Kentucky, who has been, you know, he's a Tea Party alum, he's kind of libertarian-minded.

He's broken repeatedly with the GOP in his party's daunch supportive of Israel. The reason I mention Israel is that we'll get into this, but this is broadly seen as critics say that it is a measure to crack down on pro-Palestine solidarity groups, and supporters basically say the same, except that they consider the groups to be supporters of terrorism. Those measures both went to the Senate in April and kind of got tied up in committee. The Stop Terror Financing Act, 6408, got tied up in committee in part because of lobbying by the ACLU, who kind of sounded the alarm in the Senate when this bill went to the Senate Finance Committee. The other provision, the tax penalties on American Hostages Act, that got tied up apparently because of,

oh, it depends on who you ask. According to the GOP, it's because there were a few technicalities that had to be worked out. But critics of this bill accused the GOP of essentially holding that part up and adding it to the Stock Carrier Financing Act in order to make it harder for Democrats to vote against it, right? Because who wants the headline that they voted against? Here's what I'm my interpretation of this bill, which is that it's bullshit. And I'll break it down for why I think so. One, the standalone, the tax penalties on American Hostages Act could have been its own standalone

bill that would have had wide bipartisan support because, one, the average person would have never crossed their minds that somebody that had been held hostage, let's say for a year, two, three, ten years would be coming back to the United States and somehow what, be given like some outrageous fine or be thrown back in jail for not paying taxes while they were in prison abroad like that makes sense exactly and that did happen not the jail part but you know there was a was a Washington post journalist who was held for a lengthy amount of time in Iran and when when he was finally freed he came back to like a $20,000 tax bill that is a very real concern you know this is not that part of the bill is not grandstand it no it's not so the point being then that had this been

introduced in my opinion in good faith then then these two things would not be interconnected, that the standalone piece for those that have been held hostage would be obvious to anyone with a brain in their head, but let me not assume what I think is normal and obvious is normal and obvious to others. But the stop terror financing piece of this to me also doesn't make sense

because we know that organizations that support terrorism don't receive a tax. tax-exempt status in this country. That is already something that we know. So I'm confused about why we need redundancy in legislation. That's my first question. That's a great point. To be very clear, it is quite illegal to provide material support for terrorist organizations. And there have been groups that have been criminally prosecuted for the groups and individuals that have been criminally prosecuted to this in the past. In speaking with some of the civil liberties, groups that spoke out against the Fulth Act, they pointed out that many of the provisions that the

government has to go after groups accused of material support of their own problems and their own issues with civil liberties. But the fact is that it is illegal under U.S. law to provide material support for designated terror organizations. And there is a clear process by which to punish groups that are accused of doing that. And that happens through due process in the courts. This, on the other hand, is there's a lot less due process here. So basically what the bill would allow the Treasury Secretary to do is if there was a group that the secretary deemed to be a quote-unquote terrorist-supporting organization, a notice would be sent to that group of the intent to designate,

and that group would have 90 days to what's called a curing period to appeal. And they would appeal to the Treasury Department that just said you are a terrorist supporting organization. Now, there would be an ability after that to appeal and that would go to a court. But there really is, even if a group were to go through that entire appeals process and win, they would have an indelible black mark on their name. Right, which is what you stated in your piece, which is like, what donor in their right mind is going to go to an organization and say, oh, yes, let me go ahead and support and attach my name to an organization that was just, labeled as a possible terrorist organization, even if you win on that appeal, that tarnish is there forever.

Absolutely. And it's not just the headline of this donor donated to this group. It's also you could potentially open yourself up to liability. But you also don't, you know, essentially by proxy supporting a terrorist organization. And so this really would be the kiss of death for a any nonprofit group that is enmeshed in this process. And this is, you know, you quoted Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat from Texas in your piece, and he said this, quote, all of us support stopping terrorism. But if he is on a march to make America fascist,

we do not need to supply Donald Trump with any additional weapons to accomplish his ill purpose. And here is where I want to bring us into focus, which is that this is why I see, said from the outset that this bill is bullshit to me and why I think that Democrats always find themselves being duped by the most dubious of Republicans. Donald Trump has referred and Republicans have referred to nonprofit organizations like Planned Parenthood as enemy of the state organizations that kill babies, for instance, because of their support of reproductive justice and abortion access. So there is nothing that would stop Donald Trump and his whoever, his, his, his, his, his,

his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his gets into the Secretary of the Treasury position to go after anyone. And again, you know, this came about in the context of the Palestine Solidarity Movement and in the context of a lot of baseless accusations against pro-Palestine groups like Students for Justice in Palestine of being terrorist organizations. Like these accusations have been flying for for a year and more. And in terms of Palestine, this could turn the Treasury Department into the enforcement arm of groups like canary mission that make it their life's purpose to smear activists as the purpose of terrorism. But it could also be applied in a much more broad fashion, especially under an administration

that is untrammeled by many of the norms that Democrats would be or Republicans in the recent past, which is not to let anyone off the hook because I think that one way in which the Democrats made a big mistake or kind of showed their ass here, is that they were all for this bill up until the re-election of Donald Trump. And I think that is really problematic that they were like, okay, this bill of dubious constitutionality, this bill with really, you know, this redundant bill that could really be used to chill free speech. It's fine if our guy is in there. But I will say that they saw the danger very quickly. But here's the thing, Noah, is that like, in my humble opinion. No, no, they did not actually see it quickly because Democrats suffer, and this is just

me here, but Democrats suffer from a failure of imagination. And you would think that after nine years, since Donald Trump came down that escalator, you would think that you would create legislation that would not require a continuation with political norms and the assumption that people that are holding office have some type of moral character. And, and share the same values that America was founded on. I mean, that to me is where we find ourselves where, oh, Democrats are like, oh, okay, well, if we have a responsible president of the United States,

then, oh, this bill makes sense. It's still redundant, is my point. And what it does is create this weaponized format for the Department of Treasury to basically weaponize its power against nonprofit organizations, which in many ways are the foundation of how democracy works in this country where groups are able to form in order to try and create levels of a quality of life, of education, et cetera. And it cannot be based on other people's opinions on whether that organization should be able to do that if it doesn't align with your political ideology.

That's exactly right. And we have seen even under President Biden and with some support from Democrats, particularly pro-Israel Democrats, we have seen a lot of targeting of left-wing or pro-Palestine nonprofit groups. You know, there were entire hearings in the House earlier this year about the alleged anti-Semitism of campus protests and the funding that was to them. You know, there were very strong accusations made of foreign sponsorship of these protests. We are in a period of attack on civil society. And thankfully, thus far, a lot of that has been just words. But this was really an attempt, I think, to take that from words to action. So right now, NOAA, HR 9495 has failed. It did not pass. So just to walk you through what happened with this bill, there was a

pretty dramatic week. On Thursday, the 7th, I believe, this bill was added to the calendar for the first day of the congressional session coming back from recess. And it was added under a suspension of the rules, which essentially means that a normal procedure is suspended. There's limited debate. No new amendments are to be made to bills. But the trade-off is that for a bill to pass under suspension of the rules, it has to have a two-thirds super majority support. I started reaching out to some Congress people and some sources in non-profits. Friday to get a sense of what this could mean, especially in light of the re-election of Donald Trump, I reached out to Representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas. He's a Democrat because he had

spoken critically of this bill in an earlier discussion of the bill in September, and I wanted to get a sense of where he stood. And his spokesman told me that he was planning to vote against it because of the re-election of Donald Trump. But as far as I could tell, there was no organized movement within the Democratic caucus to stop it. Because that appears to have changed because on Tuesday, you know, we started to see some statements from the more left-wing members of Congress that they were opposing this. And that was no surprise because, you know, all, again, all of the members of the squad opposed the earlier legislation in April.

But I did hear from a spokesperson for Representative Doggett that he was now actively opposing. And I heard from some sources that he was trying to sort of whip opposition among the Democrats to try to block this bill. Because if it were to pass the House, it would go on to the Senate. And that, you know, it could, any number of things could have been slipped into an end of year bill. If this had flown under the radar, you know, it would have, it could have been a very different story. But on Tuesday evening, when this came before a vote, it was, honestly, to my surprise, it was defeated because it did not, like, 145. Democrats voted against it. 52 Democrats voted for it, but that was not enough to reach the two-thirds majority, and therefore the bill failed. Do you think it will be reintroduced in the new

MAGA Congress? I think it's certainly possible and potentially probable that this bill will resurface when the next session of Congress reconvenes next year. The Republicans will have full control. Thomas Massey, the lone Republican to vote against it in the House, he will not be enough to prevent this from passing. And I think it does appear to be a goal of the Republicans to not only crack down on pro-Palestine groups, but to increase the power of the executive branch, increase the power of federal agencies that are controlled by Trump to pursue his agenda. And we know from the last nine years and certainly from the campaign trail, that part of Donald Trump's agenda is to take revenge on his perceived political enemies. And so I would be surprised if this doesn't come back.

And unfortunately, due to the change in the shifter power in Congress, it's very likely that it could pass. So this was a victory for the ACLU and for all of the, you know, more than 120 civil society groups that actively campaigned against this. And I would say, a victory for civil society in general, and by extension, America, it might be footlived. Some of the people who I have spoken to in the aftermath of the vote on Tuesday, while pleased with the Democrats coming around, they expressed concern that this could very easily come back, and it could come back in an even worse form. I don't think that if the GOP makes changes to this bill when they introduce it, I would be surprised if those changes are.

better or due process rather than worse. Well, we will have to leave it there today, Noah. I appreciate you and you're reporting on this. And folks, Noah is also, on top of being a freelance journalist, is also the author of the book El Chapo, the untold story of the world's most infamous drug lord. And you should pick up a copy of that as well. Noah, thank you for making time for the new abnormal.

Appreciate you. Thanks so much for having me on. Andy Levy. Danielle Moody. Andy, how are you closing out? Hellscape of America. Well, we've been talking about actual nominees that Donald Trump has made for various departments and also the stupid commission with Musk and Ramswamy.

I want to talk about someone who I think I briefly mentioned the other day we were talking about who might be the education secretary, assuming there's still a department of education to be the secretary of. And that is Ryan Walters. He is the current superintendent of schools in Oklahoma. And he is a religious nut job who wants the Bible taught in school. And in fact, he has sort of floated the idea that there should be a national mandate on this that would require Bibles in classrooms. And it's the way that they do it that really grates on my nerves.

And here's what he said. He said, look, if you're teaching American history, the Bible has to be included, and we cannot allow left-wing activists to sit here and say, we don't like Christianity. We will ensure history is taught in every class. Okay. The thing that really gets to me is that they pretend they want the Bible taught as history, as part of American history, as, you know, as an influential book. And you know what? I don't really have a problem with that. I don't think there should be a national mandate for for it. But, you know, I've taken classes on the Bible. It's an important book. It's an important literary work in terms of the history of the world, obviously. But that's not what they want.

And they can claim that or sugarcoat it all they want. What they want is the Bible taught as truth. And they don't want people to know, well, the Bible inspired, pick a founding father who the Bible might have inspired. That's not what they want. They want, Jesus said this, and therefore we must do this. And they want that taught in public schools. And again, this is the guy, his name is being floated around as a potential secretary of the Department of Education, which, by the way, Ryan Walters wants closed. I don't know, do you take the job as the head of a department you want to get rid of? I would say, yes, you do.

And then you work to dismantle it from within. And that's what I think he would do right after he gets around to mandating the Bible being taught in all. classes or in that their Bible should be in every classroom. So, you know, he's already done this in Oklahoma, by the way. Back in June, he told all Oklahoma state schools to immediately incorporate the Bible into classroom curriculum. This is via the independent. What he said was effective immediately, all Oklahoma schools are required to incorporate the Bible, which includes the Ten Commandments as an instructional support into the curriculum in grades five through 12. So this is what he wants. And And there's, again, a very good chance that he will be nominated by Trump to be the head of the Department of Education.

So he just gets a fuck that guy. I don't even have time for him to give it some kind of label. Just fuck that guy. Now, are we sure it's going to be him and not Marjorie Taylor Green as head of the Department of Education? Because, you know, I like to go with the worst of the worst. And unfortunately, I'm not sure that he checks out, you know. Look, it could be Chris Rufo for all I know, so. It could be a Diet Coke can at this point.

Fuck those guys. I'm so over it. Yeah. You know what's scary? What's scary is that it hasn't even begun? That's what's scary. I know. He's not even president yet.

Yeah. That's the thing. Okay. Yeah. All right, Danielle, close out the week. Who in the world is your fuck that guy? Elon Musk. I'm not even going to give you a big, a big to do about it.

And you'll say why, and I'll say for so many reasons. And then here's this. Apparently, Elon Musk is the new first lady. First funny, Danielle. No, no, no, no. I don't care. I'm not going to use the name he likes. He is traveling with Donald Trump everywhere.

And evidently Trump has said, Elon won't go home. I can't get rid of him until I don't like him, which I mean egg timer, folks. But the fact is he joined Donald Trump at an appearance at A1 policy conference where one of the speakers said, quote, where is the George Soros of the right? George Soros, as you all know, is the Hungarian American billionaire who has put his money behind good things like progressive causes and has always been that person that the right charges with everything

that has to do with progress. And funny enough, Elon Musk raised his hands and said, here I am, the man that spent $143 million to elect Donald Trump. I guess not even to elect Donald Trump. He spent $143 million to buy a president, which is fairly cheap when you see his fortune. and it's just hilarious that all of a sudden now it's good to be George Soros so long as it is

on the right and so long as you are the puppeteer of Maga. I can't express enough how much I detest this man and how happy I am that people, including myself, are fleeing finally following Andy, our leader to Blue Sky. to bluer skies because like he just gave his fake commission a gray check on X, which identifies it as a government agency. And then you can, you can. He did? Guys, yes.

Oh my God. I didn't know that. Midas Touch just posted it. Oh, Jesus. And now the agency or this commission as it as it is is taking in resumes via DMs. according to Midas touch, but only from verified users. And how does one become verified by paying Elon Musk? Folks, that's amazing.

The circle jerk here is wild. What do I call it the circle jerk of life? Mm-hmm. Yes. Wait, now I'm curious. I'm just opening my Twitter account. I want to see something. Go ahead.

Go see something. I am verified. I am still verified on there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. By all means, leave us and go apply for Doge. I was about to say this is Andy giving us two weeks notice. I had no idea, Andy.

Yeah. You know what? In the interest of efficiency, I'm going to make it two years. Okay. Danielle, happy to have you on Blue Sky. I could be one of those people who was like, really, now, finally, this is what it took, really? All that other stuff wasn't enough. It had to be this.

But I am not that kind of person, thank God. I'm so glad you're not. I am just, I am welcoming you, open arms, and maybe we'll get Jesse there too at some point. Oh, Jesse's got to come. Who's been there for two years, two years. You haven't posted, though. I posted like a week or two ago. All right.

No, okay. I got to go follow Jesse now. But, yeah, no, fuck that guy. I cannot believe he gave himself. Why could you? Why? Why can't you believe it? No, I can.

Believe it. It's just, it's, yeah, I don't know. It's just, it's amazing. Oh, God, fuck that guy so hard. Mm-mm-mm. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded 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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