The Daily Beast Podcast - America Has Never Seen a House Speaker With a Limper Gavel

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, CNN Analyst and New York Daily News columnist S. E. Cupp describes what she saw at the State of the Union. Plus! The Daily Beast Political Investigations reporter Jose Pagliery talks all of Trump’s latest legal jeopardies. 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.

First, we'll be talking to a Daily Beast political investigations reporter, Jose Pallieri, and he's going to tell us about all of Trump's latest legal jeopardies, including the E. Jean Carroll case. Then we'll be speaking to CNN analyst and New York Daily News columnist, S.E. Cup, and she's going to tell us what she saw at the State of the Union the other night. But first, let's have some fun. Oh, Andy. In an interesting turn of events, we have a wonderful case of white-on-white crime in America, which I know, you know, is startling for many because you're just so used to black-on-black crime via Fox News. But in a glorious thread, Don Trump decided to tweet a photo of then, I guess, teacher Ron DeSantis, with a group of what looks like. Miss Universe pageant women that Trump would like, young and blonde, drinking alcohol, and basically referring to Ron DeSantis as a groomer and a pedophile. I wonder where they get this from. This coming from a man who has been known to walk into the dressing room of Miss Universe

pageant contestants, has been known to say that he can grab a woman by wherever he wants because he's a star, has been accused of a sexual assault by a legion of women, including the case that will hopefully go finally to court with E. Jean Carroll in April. It's like pot, kettle, misogynist pig, misogynist pig go head to head. It's like the, what is it called, a cage match I'd be willing to pay tickets to see. There are so many good parts of this story that it's hard to know where to begin. But I'll start with, I guess, DeSantis gave a little response,

and he basically just poo-pooed what Trump said. But he did it at a press conference where he was doing one of his little phony culture war things and was talking about lifting attacks on gas stoves, and among the stuff like that was diapers. So there's a great photo and actual headline at Slate. The headline is DeSantis responds to Trump-pervert accusation. from between towers of diapers.

And he's standing there with gas stove boxes behind him and boxes of pamper's to his left and his right. And it's just absolutely amazing. But I think the best part of this are the outraged conservatives. They're not, of course, outraged that Ron DeSantis partied with high school kids or was photographed with high school kids because they know that shit like that is, let's be honest, is probably innocent. But they're outraged that Trump is, you.

using the same tactics that they've been using against LGBTQ people and calling him a groomer and using words like groomer and a fibophile words that have been weaponized against people simply for being gay or queer or trans. And it's just, it is so delicious to watch them be absolutely outraged that Donald Trump would do this when it's literally their playbook. It's literally what they've been doing for the last several years now. I'm just, watching this like and it's like that old this is going to age me but it's that old PSA where the dad discovers drugs in the kids room and the dad I learned it from watching you dad exactly it's like I learned it from watching you dad and it's literally what it is so it's absolutely amazing and I

I can't get enough of it and I honestly hope that they just keep hurling these insane accusations at each other for the next year here's the funny thing is that the acupuncts While just hyperbolic in their nature are not actually insane because Donald Trump is a known like is known right. Oh, Trump yes. Trump yes. Absolutely 100% is known to sexually harass women and has been accused of sexual assault. He talked about his own daughter on Howard Stern as a fine piece of ass and she was a teenager at the time. Like if she wasn't my daughter. I would marry her. What? So for somebody like that to then turn around and find some obscure picture of Ron DeSantis, who is Satan? Let me like, let me be clear. I'm not, no one is defending Ron DeSantis whatsoever. Sure. But to come out and say, look at you, groomer, look at you, whatever. It's just like, they're so lost in their own tornado of bullshit that they just don't know which way is coming and which way

is going. It's like, what pedestal are you coming from? That you can throw insults like this and not think that we can't pull up headline after headline and lawsuit after lawsuit that says far worse. Yeah, I think pedestal is the wrong peda word there. You're right. You're right. You're right. And look, you pointed out, you know, what Trump did with the Miss Universe pageant going backstage into the dressing room. It's important to remember he also did this at the Miss T. USA pageant. Mm-hmm. So literal teenagers, and he's walking backstage into their dressing room as a grown-ass man. I mean, even as a teenage-ass boy, he shouldn't be doing that. But as a grown-ass man, he obviously certainly shouldn't be doing it. For people who don't know who Chris Rufo is, Chris Rufo is one of the people that Ronda is using to help completely change the new college of Florida from a sort of independent, very well-respected institution to, basically turn it into some kind of hellhole of a of a christian right university and chris rufo instrumental again in this groomer slur and in using it and using it and using it for desantis to be

in bed with someone like that and now for this groomer stuff to be hurled at him i just again i can't get enough of it and if this is a preview of the republican presidential campaign season, and then sign me up. I am absolutely here for it, and you absolutely love to see it. I love to see it. I really, you know, cage match it. I hope that the Republican primary is akin to like the WWE. Like I am all out ready for the fuckery and all of the things that they have been hurling at one another,

hurling at Democrats, just go toe to toe with each other. Can you imagine when he starts going after Pence, his own form of vice. president who has to ask permission to be around other women. I can't like you either either in the GOP and you're a man, you're a white guy, you're either like some weirdo that can't be in the room with other women and refer to your own wife as mother or you're like fucking around with teenage girls and like walking into dressing rooms like only the best fucking people in this party. Only the best. And Nikki Halley. She is in for some fun.

So speaking of things that we're, I think, here for, how about that state of the union? How about it? Yeah. Dark Brandon. My general take on the state of the union is, I think it's stupid. And I think absolutely nobody cares about it except the political journalist class and the political commentary at. And literally within a week, if not days of the state of union. no one ever remembers what was said in it.

I think it should be eliminated. And I think we should go back to the sending a letter to Congress, which I think was Thomas Jefferson's idea or something like that. That said, this one was actually fun. Yeah, good times. And not fun as a light word, but I think it was actually important because it just continued to expose the party of Marjorie Taylor Green. Mm-hmm.

And any time that she is the face of the Republic. Party, it is good for Democrats. And she is increasingly the face of the Republican Party. And I think Kevin McCarthy is, I don't know if he's there yet, but there's got to be at this point. There has to be at least a small part of him that is like, oh, God, what the hell did I do? Who are these people that I laid down with and why am I itching so much now? I think it was really instructive to see the difference between the party of Marjorie Taylor Green and the party of Joe Biden. You know, it was a meme spectacular.

What Marjorie Taylor Green, her screaming, her thumbs down, her Curella DeVille fit showcase to the American people. And, you know, I never quote this man because I have my own feelings about James Carville. But James Carville went on MSNBC and referred to Marjorie Taylor Green. I counted them seven times as white trash. like seven friggin' times. He referred to her and the Republican Party as white trash. And I almost died because I was like the accuracy.

The way in which she carried herself, the party carried themselves. And then the spectacular moment, right, which we'll get into is Joe Biden, who by the way, let's just all say that Joe Biden is very underrated. He is very underrated. people never think much about what he's going to come out with. And I'm telling you over the last two years, he keeps topping himself. He keeps coming out and he keeps coming out swinging as an 80-something-year-old dude. And what he did at the State of the Union by making these people fall into a very basic fucking Hannah-Barbera cartoon trap of, oh, stand up for seniors. Stand everybody.

Stand up for seniors. Let's clap for Medicaid. Let's go. Oh, so it's off the table? Because you all said that you were going to remove it in your bullshit Rick Scott, you know, five point plan. You all said you were going to do this, that and the other thing. And he walked them, dog walked them into a fucking corner. And they're too stupid because all they do is pander for Fox News and pander to their base and they actually don't know how things work. And Joe Biden presented a master class in how to go after Republicans. after all of these years of wanting to go high, I love Michelle Obama, I love her, but she is probably the only person left in this country that can go high. Everyone else needs to punch at their fucking weight.

And that's what Joe Biden did the other night when talking about the Republicans' plan to get rid of entitlements. And they want to boo and hiss and heckle like they were at some type of monster truck show. And he let them air themselves out. And I thought it was, m'ah, the chef's kiss.

It was beautiful. Yeah, and there were a couple things about that. One was, you know, in addition to Marjorie Taylor Green, it was great when the cameras pan to people like Mike Lee, and he had this look on his face like, how can he get up there and say that we want to gut Social Security and Medicare? It will be my objective to phase out Social Security. To pull it up by the roots and get rid of it.

People who advise me politically always tell me that's dangerous, and I tell them, in that case, it's not worth my running. That's why I'm doing this, to get rid of that. Medicare and Medicaid are of the same sort. It need to be pulled up. Gee, I wonder where Joe Biden got the idea that there were some Republicans who want to get rid of Social Security and Medicare.

It's shocking to me that he would get up there and lie like that. But the other thing is, you know, you talked about Michelle Obama's thing about when they go low, we go high. And I'm with you. I like Michelle Obama as well. I think those days. are kind of passed, and it's sort of like that's like a nice, nostalgic look at how it used to be, maybe.

But that said, there are ways to fight. And I think what Joe Biden showed during this speech was he fought, but he sort of did go high when he fought. He sat there calmly. And as Marjorie Taylor Green in her whatever that ridiculous Emma Frost, white witch jacket was. I mean, she's white and she's a witch. but she's not the good kind. No, no.

Sorry, I made a comic book reference. I shouldn't have done that. She looked the fool. And Joe Biden sat there and just calmly was like, oh, okay, really? None of you all want to do this? So you're all agreeing? You're all on my side here? We don't have to worry about this.

And so he fought back because he responded and he replied. But he didn't fight back by saying, you know, oh, shut the fuck up, you idiot, which is basically what they were saying to him. Right, right. So, so he, yes, he fought, and I'm glad to see it, and I'm glad he,

it's not so much that he fought, it's that he stood up for himself. And that's something that we don't get a lot of from Democrats historically. They just tend to buckle. And it was absolutely fantastic that he didn't buckle and that he did. And I'm not sure,

and I'll ask you, Danielle, because I don't really know. And I'm going to ask Essie Cup this too when I interview her. Do you think it was planned as a trap? I'm not sold that it was, and I think Biden just very smartly turned it into one, and I think it was a brilliant move. I don't think it was set up in advance, because I've seen people say, oh, that was planning. He knew they were going to reply like that. I don't know that I buy that. No, I don't think that he knew that. I think that he was going to talk about Social Security and he

was going to talk about Medicaid and how important it is and those entitlements and let the cards fall while they may. I don't think that he had any idea. I mean, here's a thing. We saw, this has all been predicated during the Obama years when you had the first guy to stand up and yell liar in a hushed room at the president of the United States. We all knew where this was going, like with the 15 votes for Kevin McCarthy, with how these people act in general. So I think that Joe Biden knew that he was walking into a circus ring. And he was just like, so bet, you know, I'll be. I'll be. the ringleader and you will follow me. So of course he's going to say these things and let the cards fall where they may and it fell in his favor. And I think to your point, Andy, the beautiful thing that

he did was that he didn't go low. He said no, you all, you all want to, you want to boo, you want to do this? I like contention. I think that contention is good for the country. But what you're not going to do is call me a liar. Call the White House and check your facts. That like that, when he said that, he was just like, miss me with it. Google right here right now. Who? Who said what? I'm not going to call out names, but I will tomorrow. And I thought that that was badass. Yeah, I actually thought he should have called out names. That was the one thing I thought he should have done was sit there and say, hey, Rick Scott, he put out a document and it was a policy document that had the backing of the Republican Party when he did it. And he should have talked

about Mike Lee. And he should have actually named the names, but fine, he didn't. Yeah, and Ron Johnson. And look, I don't think they're the only three. No, not by a long shot. He was very clear. He kept saying he said some Republicans and then want to do this. And then he said, I'm not even saying it's most Republicans. He said, I'm just saying it's some Republicans. And they still couldn't handle the fact that he was telling the truth. Like he didn't sit there and say, Republicans want to cut Social Security. And then you can, you know, that's easy to weasel out of. And you can say, well, here's seven Republicans who don't want to cut Social Security. He was very clear and honestly very clever about it by not making that generalization.

Because what he said was 100% true. It was 100% provably true. And we just played you one of the clips. And there are clips of the other people saying it too. And there's the actual documents from Rick Scott. So what he said was 100% true and it's irrefutable that there are some Republicans in Congress that want to sunset Social Security and Medicare, that wants to sunset Social Security and Medicare, that want to gut it, et cetera, et cetera. You know, it was a very, you can't handle the truth moment. Oh, my God, it was so good. And I just need to say this.

Kevin McCarthy as Mrs. Garrett from the facts of life, shoeing, you know, in the back, like to try and get his raucous, adolescent fools in order just again shows you that that man has absolutely no power. look like an absolute fool trying to shush these people that you know good goddamn well don't look to you as a leader are not afraid of you in any type of way and know that you and your Fisher Price fucking gavel can't do a damn thing but I loved it the shh shh oh my god it was fantastic he has I have never seen a man with a limper gavel it is just unbelievable I don't know if they make gavel Viagra but man does he need it

Folks, I am very excited to welcome to the new abnormal, Jose Pallieri, who is the political investigations reporter at The Daily Beast. Jose, you have written a couple of pieces recently on Donald Trump, one of which I think is a pretty big bombshell, which is that Donald Trump's attorneys in the E. Jean Carroll case, and folks, if you remember, the Eugene Carroll case, there's a lot going on there, but I'll allow Jose to give us the in-depth understanding. But we know that she has accused Donald Trump of sexual assault roughly 20 years ago. One of the things that she has said is that she has DNA evidence from the dress that she was wearing when he allegedly assaulted her in a department store in New York City. Since then, he has slandered her. He has lied about her. He has done all.

all of the things. And all she is asked for is his DNA. Well, Jose, you write in your piece, Trump says he'll hand over his DNA for Eugene Carroll case that he is saying that he'll do just that. But it's not as simple as the headline would state that it is. Right. And look, with all things Trump, right, there are caveats, there are strings attached. This is scheming at the legal level because what we've seen in this case, which has gone on for a really, really long time. I mean, this is dating back to when he was in the White House. It's 2019. She comes out with this book that accuses him of raping her at a Bergdorf-Goodman department store in Manhattan. And you had to consider that this entire time she's wanted to drag him into court and finally

have her day in court where she can formally accuse him of attacking her. And he has weaponized the Department of Justice using taxpayer money to push it back. His lawyers have fiercely resisted moving this case forward at every step of the way. And if you know how these court cases go, there's a period of time where both sides exchange evidence. You do that as you prepare for a trial. That's called discovery. There's a deadline for that because at some point, a judge will say, that's it, we're ready to duke it out in court. And that deadline has passed. And it's only now very conveniently that the door has closed that suddenly the former president is dangling this one thing that Echin Carroll has asked for, which is his DNA. Now, what we know, what made our story exclusive was that we know that this happened

at the very same time that Trump hired this new lawyer to the case. His name is Joe Takapina. He is a known celebrity lawyer. He's really aggressive, really loud. He makes his presence known at press conferences and in courtrooms. And we could very well attribute this new development in the case to the fact that he's now on it. Because what this does is that it sets it up for one of two things to happen. One is likely, one is not likely. Unlakely scenario is that the judge will say, wait a minute, hit the breaks, let's reopen

discovery, let's exchange evidence again, and then you delay the case. So you could say this is a delay game. But what's more likely to happen is that we'll go to trial. And then Gene Carroll's lawyers will say, we asked for his DNA. He wouldn't give it to us. You make of that what you will. And naturally, any juror would say, oh, you didn't want his DNA tested. Oh, he must be guilty as sin. But then Trump's lawyers can turn around and say, actually, we did offer it, but you didn't take it. You didn't take us up on that offer. That's what makes this so interesting because it's about the timing of the offer. It wasn't until the very last minute that the former president says, yeah, sure, we'll give us. a shot. What's fascinating about this, by the way, is that we don't know what the results will be. I mean, the dress that was tested in a lab three years ago in California showed that there were traces of some four different individuals, at least one of them, male, but there was no semen on the dress. And I actually don't think that that has been called out enough because that

detail makes this case really, really tricky. This dress has been hanging at her place for more than two decades. She says that she never wore it again after he allegedly attacked her. But, I mean, imagine that. You've got a coat dress that's been hanging in your closet now for some like 25 odd years. There are animal hairs on it according to the lab. So I guess a cat maybe or maybe a dog had brushed up against it. So the question now is going to be, and this is a scientific question, like can DNA hold up that long? Can you accurately determine whether or not belongs to this person, especially when they've resisted so long submitting their DNA to this test. And so, again, the bombshell here is really in the sort of strategy to try to push this opposing

team up against a wall and put them in what I would call a pretty difficult situation. Okay. So my thoughts, and you tell me, because anyone who has read a paper, watch television streamed on their phones or on their laptops, know good goddamn well. that Donald Trump lies about most everything, that his big legal maneuver has always been delay and distract. So how is it that this bullshit offering because that's what it is won't be seen

as yet another tactic? And if I am E. Jean Carroll's lawyer, if I'm Robbie Kaplan, and I'm saying, okay, yeah, actually they did submit the DNA. They submitted it after the deadline. They submitted it during this time. They submitted it in a way

so that they could once again have a talking point about it, but not because they actually wanted to vindicate Donald Trump from any of the assumptions of guilt. So how is this not seen as a gift to the E. Jean Carroll team? I mean, in all understanding of Donald Trump, there is nothing that the man does that is above board. And we know that he does not have the best people around him, let alone the best legal team. Well, what's interesting here is that I don't think that the judge in this case is going to have tolerance for any kind of games. I mean, I was in the courtroom on Tuesday. when this new lawyer that just joined Trump's team had asked for six-week extension for the trial.

And the judge was just scoffing at that. There was no way in hell that he was going to give them any more time. In his final order, he said it's still on for April. We're not delaying this anymore. And part of that could be because the Trump team thus far has delayed this by every means possible. I mean, let's start from the beginning with this case. You would think that just on the face of it, it's a pretty simple case. You've got one side of the first. You've got one claiming that something happened in the 90s, you've got the other side saying it didn't. All right, I don't see how there's much more than just putting these two parties in a courtroom and then seeing what the jurors will do with it.

That's the real simplistic view, of course. But the case essentially comes to that. She has a story. He has a response. What do you make of that? Especially when on her side, her evidence is that she spoke to some friends afterwards and told them what happened. And so we'll see what they say at the trial about their recollection of those phone calls.

and the description she gave of the events. But from the beginning, we have to remember that Trump was president when this first came out, and he used taxpayer dollars and put the Department of Justice between him and his accuser. And so for more than a year and a half, the DOJ was saying that you cannot sue the president. You can't distract him while he's in the White House. He has the right to speak from the podium at the White House, and he has the right to employ federal prosecutors to work on his behalf. In something of a surprising turn, I covered that when Joe Biden entered the White House as president,

he actually continued the DOJ taking that stance that the DOJ should be in some capacity representing the former president, which at the time pissed a lot of people off because they thought, look, he's no longer president. How could you use government lawyers to defend this guy when he's accused of doing something long before he was ever in public office? But then let's move past using the DOJ in such a strange case like this one. The DOJ is not representing people accused of rape. That's not exactly what they do. After that, then his lawyer on this case, Alina Haba, took it to appellate court saying, well, he has the right to speak at the White House about these issues.

It's not defamation because he's doing it as an employee of the United States. Well, that's a little bit of a head scratcher. Define employee of the United States. Is the president an employee? of the government or is he an elected official? It's a little different. The bar might be different for him. And so right now, the DC circuit is figuring out some of those answers. If and when they come back with that, it'll be really interesting how this plays out at trial. But this is another aspect of this. If the appellate court comes back and says that you can't hold Trump accountable for what he said

when he essentially called her a liar at the White House, then half of this case sort of goes away, because half of this is a defamation case. But we are still proceeding for this trial, this like Bill Cosby type trial, because it's a civil one, it's not criminal, where under this new New York law that allows rape survivors to sue their alleged attackers decades later, we still are going to see that at trial in April.

But again, we have to keep in mind that we're going now on three years of what could have been a pretty simple case. I cannot imagine that this trial would have lasted longer than at most a week and a half. By contrast, this is not the really complex stuff that Trump is facing now in all other directions, right? This is not him intimidating elections officials in Georgia. This isn't him hiding mounds of classified material at his private estate. This is not a really complex financial fraud investigation involving the

Manhattan DA and the New York Attorney General. No, this is a woman accused him of rape, get them both in the courtroom and they get to talk to the jury. The fact that it's lasted more than three years at this point is astonishing. I mean, and you would think, let me just throw it out there, that if you didn't sexually assault someone, that the first thing that you would want to do is offer up your DNA, the first thing that you would want to do is get this case done and over with so that you could be vindicated as the truth teller, as an honest individual that would never engage in such conduct as to sexually assault someone. But who am I kidding? This is the same fucking person that said,

you know, I can grab a woman by the pussy and, you know, I can shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue. I can essentially do whatever it is that I want because I'm Donald Trump. So for me, I guess I get to a place where I am just utterly disgusted by our quote unquote legal system. I'm utterly disgusted by the fact that E. Jean Carroll is one of dozens of women. that have accused Donald Trump of sexual assault, of sexual harassment throughout his many, many, many decades. We've heard from pageant, Miss Universe pageant candidates that Donald Trump walked in on in the dressing room.

We're talking about young girls as young as 18 years old that are half naked in a dressing room and Donald Trump walking in to just, you know, check on them. I find it just so disgusting that here we are at this place where Eging Carroll may or may, you know, we'll see if she actually does get her day in court in April. But the tactics that the Trump team uses, the tactics that Donald Trump himself use are disgusting and should be erred out in that way, in court, in front of jurors so that they understand exactly the type of scumbag that they are dealing with. Well, there are some parallels to this delay strategy that we've seen elsewhere, right? So in this recent case, this trial that just wrapped up where two Trump companies were convicted

and sentenced for tax fraud and faking business records, in that case, for years, they would not turn over the information that Manhattan prosecutors were requesting to see whether or not they actually cheated on their taxes. And we know that in that case, from the prosecutors who worked on it themselves. We know that at every step of the way, they would not turn over the evidence that ultimately proved damning. There was even a secret one-day trial that none of us had knew about at the time where this local judge in New York City held them in contempt for dragging their feet on turning over records. And we never heard about that. So there are lots of cases involving the Trump world where not only do they manage to successfully delay these cases, they really game the justice system

because they understand its weaknesses, targeted them, they've utilized them over and over again with some degree of success. I mean, in the end, the Trump Corporation and Trump payroll corporation were convicted, but you could argue they were convicted like more than a year after they should have. And then you've got to ask yourselves, would that have affected Donald Trump's ability to raise money or run for office again? I mean, we're seeing it now in Georgia, right, where they have essentially held back Fannie Willis's investigation of him for what was, again, essentially a simple phone call. Trump called Secretary Brad Raffensberger and demanded that he fined some like 12,000 votes that didn't exist. why that takes longer than a few months just blows my mind. And yet they've done it because they've also gotten a bunch of witnesses in that case to fight it tooth and nail. We see it right now also with

the way that he hit all those classified records at Mar-a-Lago. Again, that's one case where that probably could be investigated and prosecuted pretty quickly. But from the beginning, he actually used a judge he appointed in Florida to hit the brakes on that case and stop the FBI. from conducting their investigation, something that every step of the way, every other judge who's waited on this, every appellate judge has said, this is not how this works. You can't use the justice system this way. And so we know that the Trump team knows how to game the courts. And they're doing it pretty well so far, even though in the end, these cases don't go their way. And so this is another one where I do think that this trial could very well proceed in April. It'll be interesting to see how

actually goes about because this dress has been the cornerstone of the case. It's what Gene Carroll's been asking for since 2019. I mean, she's been tweeting about it. She's talked about it on interviews, on TV. She's just wanted his DNA. The fact that he's coming in now and saying with the last minute offer, hey, you know what, actually, I'm willing to have my DNA tested should be, yeah, I imagine that that's going to be viewed with a lot of skepticism from every side. And I got to tell you that if the judge was just like, you know what, I know that we had a certain timeline for disclosure, but being as how this is such a serious case, you know, with the former president of the United States, I'm willing to forego our initial deadline and timeline. I would not allow Donald Trump's

attorneys to give me a damn thing. You would be getting that DNA sampled in front of the judge. You know what I'm saying? Like, why would I trust Donald Trump's attorneys to say, oh, we brought him to the doctor's office or we brought him down to the police department. And here, we're bringing you Donald Trump's DNA sampling. If I'm a judge, I'm saying no, you can do that right here. We'll close to the cameras, close to the courtrooms, but I want to make sure there's no disruption in the handling of this DNA. That level of accountability, by the way, hasn't really happened in any of the cases that I've been covering. Because, you know, even in this one case where the New York Attorney General is accusing Trump and his entire family at the Trump organization of engaging in blatant bank fraud, lying on records,

inflating the size and value of their properties, just faking the numbers on paper. In that case, the local judge in New York time and time again has had to demand more and more answers from Trump's side because he'll say, all right, I want Trump to answer these questions in a sworn document. and then he'll get back that document, and it won't be a sworn document, and none of the answers that they were seeking are there. And so that judge, Justice in Goren in the state of New York, he has had to, several times had to intervene to force Trump's hand. I mean, this is a judge who also forced Trump to get deposed behind closed doors, and even that fight took more than half a year because Trump just wouldn't do it. He wouldn't show up for his own deposition pursuant to a subpoena. Again, no one on this earth would be. be able to fight this the way that the former president has.

He's used his power, of which he still has quite a bit, to hold this off. It took a lot of poking and prodding from law enforcement. It took intervention from judges. It took answers from appellate courts. This is a guy who will fight every step of the way. That's why these things take so long. Yeah. If only it, he would dare to fight for the American people in the way that he fights for himself.

Jose Pallieri, thank you so much for making the time to join the new abnormal Folks, check out his investigative reporting at the DailyBeast.com. Really appreciate you. Happy to be here. The State of the Union speech wasn't without fireworks this year, including maybe some attempted lib-owning gone bad. Joining me now with her perspective is CNN commentator and New York Daily News columnist SECup.

S.E., thanks for being here. Hello, thanks for having me. So you wrote a thing. We're just pretending we don't know each other. Are we just pretending they all? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Right.

Fine. So Ms. Cup, you wrote a thing for the New York. Daily News that was titled, Joe plays the nice guy with Rowdy and Rude House. I'm guessing Joe is referring to President Biden. That's right. Rowdy is Kyle Bush and Rude House is Dr. Gregory House, MD. You got it. Okay. Down the line. All right. All right. I'll be serious. I said this in my discussion with Danielle on this podcast. My take on the State of the Union speech is it's generally worthless. literally nobody cares about it beyond political journalists and commentary at. Not even.

Yeah, I mean, barely. And within a week or two, absolutely nobody remembers a damn thing that was said in the speech. Now, that said, this year might actually be a little different for the reasons you talk about in your piece. So let's get into that. You compared it to the notoriously rambunctious British Parliament. And I think that was really spot on. Well, thanks as always for reading my work.

And I'm being serious there because I do a lot of these interviews and people don't always read it. And so I appreciate that. I'm sure I was not alone in making that comparison because when you're watching and the president of the United States is interrupted over and over and over again by like loud jeers and taunts and heckles, you can go one of two directions. You're like at a comedy club or you're a British parliament. Right. And the political metaphor seemed more fitting because Joe Biden wasn't funny. But I don't want to sound prudish and like, oh, I was, you know, give me the vapors. I was so offended.

Honestly, I loved what Joe Biden did because he just let them, like, embarrass themselves. Right. You know, he didn't try to meet them in the gutter. He didn't try to scold them. At times, actually, he, like, very earnestly tried to change their minds, which was adorable. It was cute, yeah. I had a show many years ago with a bunch of people, and one person on the show was not nice to me. and he was, I think, very threatened and insecure.

So he would take every opportunity on the air to condescend to me or mock me or put me down, sometimes in pretty sexist ways. And that was all wrong, of course. He shouldn't have done that. But I couldn't figure out how to, like, how to tame him. You know, I tried going back at him. I tried reasoning with him off camera. I tried complaining.

After weeks of this and no change, I just realized, like, I'm just going to let him embarrass himself. Because the viewers can see that he's being a jerk. Right. I don't need to point it out. Everyone behind the camera also sees it. And I think that's what Joe Biden did really effectively because I think the goons in the Republican House conference just looked sad and silly. You know, no one took that very seriously.

Now, first of all, I was someone who was on a show with you for a year. It wasn't you. Okay. I just wanted it to be made clear to the audience. that it maybe wasn't me. It wasn't you. I do want to get more into the president, but before I do that,

I just, there was something that I know I was shocked. I don't know if you were. Marjorie Taylor Green behaved like a petulant child. This was completely unforeseen, was it not? No one could have predicted this. Yeah. The woman who literally stalked and taunted a school shooting victim before she made it to Congress.

Who would have seen this? And I mean, I make the point in the piece that like Kevin McCarthy, invited this. I mean, I know he shushed them and tried to, like, corral them both before and after the state of the union and during the state of the union. But when you invite disruptors into your house, don't be surprised when you get disruption. Yeah. And that's what they're there for. That's like the only thing they're there for. And Marge, even after the spectacle, said she wasn't sorry at all. And she would do it again. So none of this was surprising or unforeseen. Yeah, I have an adorable little kitty. Yeah. It was one day, I don't know.

a month or so ago, she knocked over, I had a water bottle on my night table next to my bed, and she knocked it off. And I had forgotten to put the cap back on and there was water everywhere. That's not her fault. Right, right. That's my fault for not putting the cap on because I know, much like Kevin McCarthy has to know, that's a cat being a cat. And what we saw that night was Marjorie Taylor Green being Marjorie Taylor Green. So it's just at what point do you think that Speaker McCarthy and his limp gavel realize that he is in bed at least, you know, politically speaking, with at least several psychopaths. And do you think that that night kind of drove it home for him or do you think he's still

not there yet? I actually think it's option C, door number three. Okay. Which is that he finds Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Bober and Matt Gates offensive, but useful. Yeah. They can speak to and for the. maga crowd in ways that he knows he cannot and they can retain them and he can look maybe tough or

fair or like a leader by sort of disciplining them but not really and so i think there's a reason he restored their power there's a reason he hasn't marginalized them in ways that he easily could have the paul gosars and you know all of those cretons i think he finds them useful he can't do that he can't do what they do. Just, you know, just like Mike Pence couldn't do what Trump did. There's just not that gene in these people. So I think he uses them. I think he knows exactly who they are, what they're going to do, and that's why he keeps them around. I agree with you to a certain extent. Look, obviously, yes, he knows who they are and he knew who they were. They are useful to him, mainly because he needed, like you said, he needed them. And he wouldn't be speaker without them.

And that's literally all he cared about. I guess my point is, that at least to me, anytime Marjorie Taylor Green is the face of the Republican Party, it is good news for Democrats. I agree that you and I are rational, Andy. But I don't think this is about you and me. I think this is about the country writ large. And believe me, I have no illusions about the country. I mean, the country elected Donald Trump. But I don't think people look at when they see clips, because nobody watches the State of the Union, but when they see clips of her acting the fool the way she did, I don't think that's good for the Republicans.

I think it's good for the Democrats. And I guess my point is at some point McCarthy has to realize that this shit is not good for him, even though he needed it to get the power. It's ultimately, I think, and maybe I'm wrong, but I think it's not good for him that he has to be up there and he's shushing them, which is not even working, so it just makes him look weak. I just think that has to hit home, but maybe not. I think all of that is right. Yeah, but none of this has been good for the Republican Party,

which is why people like me in 2015 were like, don't do it. Right. Don't do it. It's going to be bad. It's going to be bad for the party for many, many years. So, of course, you're right. It's good for Democrats. And that's been proven true as Republicans lost the House, the Senate, the White House. And then Democrats did pretty well in these midterms. And, you know, we'll have to see if Republicans can win a national election again. And it will be because of these people, you know, Donald Trump, Brit large, and then his acolytes, for sure. However, what I mean by useful for McCarthy isn't just what you pointed out, which is 100% true,

he literally needed them to get elected speaker. He still wants to speak to the MAGA crowd. And without the MTGs and the Lauren Boberts and the Matt Gates and the Paul Gossars and the people who are actively parroting Trump and keeping him alive in the memory of the GOP, I think he believes he loses those voters. And while that base is shrinking, it's condensing. And so that that 25% that is like MAGA Republican or the Republican Party is still a sizable voting block. Yeah. And someone's got to keep them in the fold and not sitting out.

And that's why I think he believes people like Marjorie Taylor Green are useful. Yeah, I'm with you. I agree with everything you said too. I just think at some point, I think at some point it gets to be a net loss rather than a net gain. Well, the chickens are going to come home to roost. And I think that's what you're getting at. And that's for sure. But that's always been the case.

And it was just a matter of time, I thought, you know, I think before that all happens. It's not happened yet, but I think it, of course, will. Yeah, no, I agree. Okay, so let's talk about President Biden. There are some people who are saying that, oh, he laid a trap for the Republicans, with Social Security and they walked right into it. I don't know that I buy that. I do think, obviously, I think it worked out that way.

Yeah. What I'm saying is I don't know that that was like when the speech writers were sitting around crafting the speech, like they were like had the thought, oh, well, this is, the Republicans are going to go nuts over this. And then boom, Biden's got him. I think, you know, I think Biden played it masterfully. And I think he turned it into a trap once, once the, the Republican response was what it was. But I don't think it was pre-planned. And honestly, I think

it's more kudos to Biden for doing it on the fly. Right. I completely agree with you. And as I heard people describing it that way, I was like, oh, that's not how I read it. And I know speech writers, sort of an unwritten rule of speech writing is you don't try to predict how an audience is going to respond, especially this audience, which is not the most to respond at all. Exactly. So that wouldn't have been smart. And I don't think they did that. I think to your exact point, Biden was really light on his feet and quick on his feet in that moment and was like, oh, great. So we're all in agreement. So glad we don't have to worry about that. That was the masterful trick of it, which, yeah, like better for him than trappling. No, absolutely. And look, and then he, this is not about that night,

but he has since followed it up and gone on TV and showed Rick Scott's masterful. plan and talked about what Ron Johnson said and stuff like that. So he's really like he's really going out there. He had receipts. This wasn't out of nowhere. No, exactly. And look, I said this when I was talking to Danielle, he was very careful not to say, because he did it several times, not to say Republicans or most Republicans. Right. Right. He didn't even say he said probably not even most, but he said there are some Republicans. And it's like, that's demonstrably true. Right. And like he qualified it so much, and yet they still, again, you had Mike Lee sitting there looking like, what? How can he say that? And then you have clips of Mike Lee saying exactly that. Right. So he really did, I mean,

that part was well planned. But yeah, I'm with you. I think, I think kudos to him for turning it into a trap. But I don't think he set out to do that. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah. So another thing that you wrote in your piece, you wrote, despite the childish and disruptive antics of the rude Republicans, Biden was unflappable and undeterred, refusing to meet them in the gutter, and instead killing them with kindness. And I read that and I had two thoughts about it. First, and look, I'm not the hugest Joe Biden guy in the world, you know, but I do think that's sort of basically who he is. Yeah. At bottom, I think he's a decent fellow. Yeah, yeah. And I think that it's not his, you know, he was, he was not going to get in the gutter with Marjorie Taylor Green.

He was going to sit there and just sort of calmly act like an adult. adult, but at the same time, not take the shit that they were slinging at him. And I do think that really paid off for him because it would have been really easy for him to get down, to meet them in the gutter. And he didn't. So he showed backbone without actually getting dirty. Yeah. And I think he was who he is. And so that all came very naturally, which is why it looked natural. It didn't look staged or planned. One of my age old criticisms of Barack Obama is that, and this is nothing to do with his politics. But like, Like, he could be kind of nasty and he planned a lot of one-liners that were maybe a little rude.

And he was smart so he could pull it off. But it was a little nasty. Biden couldn't do that and doesn't want to do that in ways I think like George W. Bush didn't think like that. Right. That's not one of Biden's talents, nor do I think it would be natural for him. So I think he was so true to himself and to his credit, he continues to lean into that, even as Democrats, go to him into being. nastier into being more progressive and less conciliatory and, you know, not trying to find common ground with other Republicans. That's just not who he is. And he's not going to give that up.

Yeah, I agree. And look, I don't want to get into this whole thing. But there are times I do wish he were more progressive or whatever. But I also recognize that he's the president and let other people bring the nasty and bring the sort of ideology. And I think he is right to sort of be a little above that and just act the way he did. So the second thought I had when you wrote your thing about, you know, how he refused to meet them in the gutter and killed them with kindness. I thought to myself, yes, that's exactly what he did. And I thought that in today's Republican Party, that reads to them as weakness.

And like I have no doubt that MTG and the others, they really thought they had him. They really thought they were killing it. And that, you know, people were going to look at this and be like, holy shit, these people are tough and Joe Biden is weak. I don't think to anyone with a even vaguely normal brain, it came across that way. But I do think that that's what we've seen over the last six years is the Republicans do think that the rudeness and the harshness and the nastiness, they sort of falsely,

equate that with strength. No, for sure. And I mean, again, this reminds me of this guy I had a show with. Every time he said something nasty, he got this like, look, where he thought he really, he did something there, right? And he, like, he thought he won. And I, you know, I first tried to beat him and there was no point to that. And he was always going to think he won, even when he looked terrible. Right. Or condescending to me or looking very obviously threatened by me or whatever he was doing. And I think that's exactly the case for these clowns. They really do believe they're winning because their voters believe that's what winning looks like. And Trump conditioned that. This didn't, you know, this just didn't come out of thin air. Yep. Trump conditioned that over

years. And now they really do want a politics of revenge. And they want Democrats and even Republicans who don't think like they do. They want them punished. And, And so yelling at Joe Biden or breaking with all the norms, making fools out of themselves, their voters see that as being tough. And you're not going to change that because they're now completely conditioned to believe that. They've completely abandoned things like decency, integrity, honor, you know, even being honest and truthful. None of that matters as long as you're punishing the right people, as long as you guys

have the same enemies. And that's really sad and it's no way to govern. I mean, obviously, that's no way to govern and get things done. But for some of them, it's definitely a way to stay in power. Yeah. And, you know, as you allude to, they have no interest in governing. They have interest in staying in power and in their grievances and their rage. And to their credit, that's what their voters want.

Their voters are not interested in governing either. Right. Their voters would not, you know, Herschel Walker voters. Right. They would not have voted for Herschel Walker if they were interested. in governing. Like what the guy works? What's going to do in the Senate?

In the art and craft of governance. Right. And it's the same of like even DeSantis, who does once in a while come up with actual policy solutions. There are solutions to non-existent problems, but they're policy solutions. Right. His fans, his voters are also here for the anti-woke, you know, the grievance politics. It's not the governing.

It's become a feature, not a bug. No, you're absolutely right. Before I let you go, I have to ask you this. what did you make of the Mitt Romney, George Santos pre-speech run-in? Because my favorite part was that after the whole thing happened. And obviously, this was something that Santos didn't come up with in the moment. He tweeted at Romney. It was something along the lines of, well, you'll never be president.

And I just thought, that is just amazing George Costanza, the jerk store called Energy. That was literally the first thing in my head is, this is George Costantos or something like that. Just unbelievable. The jerk store called. And they're running out of it. Who cares? Through their all-time bestseller. But to tweet that after the fact, like you just got embarrassed on the floor and you clearly

had no good responses at the time. And then you tweet after, oh, yeah? And I just pictured Costanza's face and him, you know, Santa's, you know, if Costanza had Twitter, his problem would have been solved. He would have just been able to tweet. that. Yeah. And if if Costanza, I mean, there's a lot of neurosis to Costanza, but I'm not sure he was like a sociopathic liar. Well, he was a liar. He was a good liar. Remember, as he. It's not a lie. It's not a lie. If you believe it. I do know that. But I'm not sure sociopathie. No. Yes. What I would. Yeah.

accuse, diagnosed to handle with. But no, I mean, I loved that moment because I thought, oh, Mitt, you're so adorable that you think you're going to go in and, like, scold this guy

and he's going to feel ashamed and make him feel bad about it and you're going to make him go home and really think hard. Right. And the life he's living and the choices he's making and maybe have some, like, self-reflection.

I thought that was adorable. Obviously, George Santos is not ashamed. but I really adored Mitt for trying. It was cute. Yeah, I know. Shaming people who have no shame, like, you just, you can't do. Exactly. Exactly.

But it was so mid. It was 100% mid. Yeah. Essie, thanks so much for being here. Really appreciate it. You can catch her on CNN and read her hot takes at the New York Daily News. Essie, you're the best. Thank you.

Andy Levy. Danielle Moody. Andy? Who is your fuck that guy to close out this fucking week? Ah, man. Ron DeSantis has quickly become a fuck that guy favorite. I'm sort of going DeSantis adjacent today. And it is New York Times columnist named Pamela Paul.

And she used to run the book review section, and she used to be married to fellow New York Times columnist Brett Stevens. She has quietly become possibly the worst of the New York Times op-ed writers. and she has a piece today with the title, What Liberals can learn from Ron DeSantis. And it is exactly what you would expect. It starts with saying, well, we shouldn't underestimate DeSantis. Nobody is underestimating Ron DeSantis.

We wouldn't be talking about him all the fucking time if we were underestimating him. We're talking about him because we think he's scary and that there's not zero percent chance that he could be president. of the United States. The main part in this that really got to me was she describes his approach to education as a maverick approach. We all know that in America and in American politics, that is a compliment. John McCain famously traded on that nickname for decades and it showed his

independent streak and how he wasn't beholden to corporate interests, you know, except when he was part of the Keating Five. So that's a compliment straight up there that you're describing his approach to education as a maverick approach. And she talks about the Stopwoke Act and says, you know, yes, it has an incendiary name and there is some what she describes as egregious efforts to curtail free speech in it. Oh, thanks, Pamela. And then she says, but it's important to recognize that aspects of it appeal to Floridians tired of racial and ethnic divisiveness and the overt politicization of what's taught in the classroom. So she's giving him cover right there.

And she does the same thing with the don't say gay law, saying that it has reasonable and legitimate attractions for a broad range of parents who worry about the age appropriateness of what their kids are learning in primary and secondary school. And she goes on and on, and all she does is she sort of both sides is all of his educational stuff.

like she throws a sort of bone to the idea that, oh, yes, some of these, you know, it goes too far in some ways. And you can always tell there's a trick when you're reading op-ed people. Whatever they end with is the thing they agree with. So she'll start by saying there are some problems with this. But, and then you do the other side, and that's the side you agree with. And that's why you end with it so that it's what's fresh in your reader's minds. And that's what she does throughout the whole piece. This is the New York Times giving cover to Ronda Santis for his blatant,

censorship of school libraries, of history, of what kids are being taught in schools. And as we've discussed time and time again on this show, the idea of these laws is it's to keep people ignorant of actual American history. And it's also to throw people back in the closet, to throw LGBTQ folks back in the closet. And it's just the idea that the New York Times would give cover to shit like this is so appalling. I mean, their coverage of trans issues has been bad from the jump, but it's just getting worse and worse. And we do not need the New York Times of all places helping Ron DeSantis and trying to, you know, sort of, I'm not a fan of this word generally, but normalizing these horrible laws and all the horrible things he's doing to the educational

system in Florida. So my fuck that guy for today is Pamela Paul and more broadly, the New York Times Appet pages, and more broadly than that, the publishers of the New York Times. Love this for us, because first of all, the New York Times, just so folks, you know, we don't really pay attention to history, profiled Hitler back in the late 1930s for his gardens and the long walks that he used to take. That was at the same time when he was, you know, pushing caravans and trainloads of Jewish people into Auschwitz and other concentration camps. The New York Times profiled Hitler as this wonderful, nice leader that love to take long walks. So they have a history of this type of bullshit.

And it is up to people like us and you, Andy, to continue to call them out. And again, I love it when white women want to talk about how people are just tired of racial grievances. Imagine actually being a person of color and having to deal with your bullshit when you're trying to just, you know, know, shop in a grocery store, walk on a fucking sidewalk, you know, live your day-to-day life. And you can't because you've got motherfucking Karen's jumping out of every bush wanting to call the cops on you for simply being daring to be black and alive. Good job, Pamela. We're watching you. Yeah. I want to get to your fuck that guy for the week. But I just want to say, yeah,

whenever you hear someone like that talk about racial grievances, it just refers, of course, to people of color or whomever, just saying, hey, it kind of sucks what's going on now and we'd like it to be better. Like, yeah, that's, you know, to them that's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you calm down with that talk. We can't have that. So anyway, but who is your fuck that guy to end this week, Daniel? This week, just some days I feel like we're in more of a dystopian hell than other weeks.

And this week is no fucking different. Thank you, state of Missouri. So according to the Associated Press, the Missouri GOP, who has the majority in the house, decided, Andy, they voted against introducing a ban on children carrying guns. Let me say that again, just so folks get it. There was a piece of legislation that was going to stop and restrict children from carrying guns without adult supervision in public because, according to Democratic Representative Donna Berenger, she said this. Her date, district wanted the ban so that they could, quote, stop 14-year-olds walking down the middle

of the street in the city of St. Louis carrying AR-15s. Can we just take a pause for a fucking moment? These are the same motherfuckers who are pushing out legislation to ban children from attending drag shows. These are the same fucking people that are going to stand and picket and protest in fun of fucking libraries about the books that they find are dangerous, but you're going to vote against a ban on having fucking children who are not even of age to have a weapon of mass destruction from being able to walk down the street with it. Because they want to make sure that they're

training up these little fucking white boys as the next Kyle Rittenhouse is. This type of shit is just unimaginable in any type of country. that makes any goddamn sense. If this is not just us living in a banana republic, living in some kind of fascist, like, I don't know what is. But for you to say, you know what's dangerous? Fantasy.

And people lip-sinking to pop superstars, right? People teaching your children about expanding imagination and loving every piece of themselves. That's the danger. But 14-year-olds walking down the fuck street with AR-15s, no, we're good. That's great. Posing with children like Lauren Bobert did, her little kids with rifles bigger than they were. Nah, that's good. We applaud that. That's America. I can't. Yeah. I did have a thought, though. If you want them to ban this being

okay for children, just get like five black kids walking down the street with AR-15s. Except I don't want those little kids to be shot dead. I was going to say the only problem is they would end up dead, of course. Yes. But I also guarantee you the Missouri legislature within 24 hours would convene an emergency session and ban children from carrying weapons while walking down the street. Well, you know what I would like? And I'm just throwing it out there for you, wonderful drag queens.

Maybe all of you should get your gun licenses. Seriously? Maybe. Maybe the next parade that we see will be a bunch of wonderful, gorgeous. fantastic drag queens that are strapped in more ways than one. Okay? Just saying. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal.

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