The Daily Beast Podcast - Aug. 23 Member Bonus: Trump Is Pushing Even the Quietest Celebs to Speak Out

Episode Date: October 15, 2020

This members-only episode was originally published on August 23, 2020 and moved to this feed for full member access. Actor, comedian and activist Billy Eichner totally gets why Taylor Swift took so long to get publicly political. In this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, the “Billy on the Street” star explains why celebrities may take a long time to speak up—and how Trump is changing that. “It's easy to sit back from a distance and say like, ‘why doesn't so-and-so get more political.’ And I definitely feel that way sometimes, but the few times I've had like internet backlash for something or, you know, people being angry at something, I can hold my own. And it doesn't, like, ruin my life at all,” he explained. “I think Trump pushed us to a place” where celebs who were previously silent on major issues now feel compelled to speak up. That said, he is just “sick of getting angry on Twitter.” Eichner also spoke about the ways he’s trying to make one of his biggest dreams come true: “It would make me so pleased to flip the Senate.” Plus, he shares his thoughts on the South Carolina race between Lindsey Graham and Jaime Harrison. “Lindsey Graham, to me, is the epitome of someone who makes me physically ill,” he added. And of course, he answers our burning question: When is Billy on the Street going to come back? (“Coronavirus killed my career.”) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi and welcome to another the new abnormal member exclusive episode. We thank you so much for being here. Billy Eichner is an actor and comedian known for roles on difficult people and parks and recreation. And of course, known for his fantastic and hilarious show, Billy on the Street. I'm a big fan. I love difficult people. And I love Billy on the Street. And I love your comedy.

And so you do interview people. And I was curious to know how. that skill set just sort of serves you. Yeah, what we were just talking about this before we started recording, but it does help me. It helps me in social situations on a date, especially a first date, which is really a job interview of sorts, because dating me would be a sex occupation with very little room to grow. I feel like dating is why people get married.

To avoid dating. I think you are. are right about that. It's like so many hours of awkwardness and finally you're just like, let's just get married. So that actually does help me on dates to keep the conversation going, especially when the other person seems shy or socially awkward. So it helps me in that way. It helps me, you know, also in meetings, work meetings or pitches or things like that. Again, just to keep the conversation going. People are shockingly shy. And I, don't have that problem. I have other problems, but I don't have that problem.

And that's people. Rick Wilson is like super friendly. And I'm always giving them a hard time about being too friendly to people. I don't know if I'm super friendly, but I'm... But you're friendly. I'm just Southern. Right. No, that's true. That's a thing. See, but there's a thing with it being Southern. It's like you can be perfectly polite to somebody, but you're also saying fuck you in a whole variety of different ways that other people don't recognize or understand. Right. It's very Southern. As my brother would say things like, oh, I would never have thought to wear that outfit. Right.

Very passive, aggressive, yeah. All the derivations and variations of, bless your heart. Right. Billy, you grew up in New York City, which Jesse and I both did. Is it a weird transition to be in L.A. now? Does it feel... Well, I don't know if you've heard this, but New York and L.A. are very different. Tell me more.

Get out. It's not new to me anymore, truthfully. We always, Billy on the street, when it became a TV show. which shockingly, we shot the first season in the summer of 2011. So it's almost 10 years ago, which is crazy. I'd been doing that same kind of shtick for my live show and for, you know, the internet years before that. So when it became a TV show, it was produced by Funny or Die,

which is based in L.A. So economically, because I'm a total control freak and I also wanted to edit the episodes after we were done shooting them, we would obviously shoot in New York, and then I would fly to L.A. to edit the show for a few months. And I have editors that I love, that I work very closely with,

but I was there 24-7. Not a bit of that show gets edited without me. So that was my first opportunity to come to L.A. And then it just kind of snowballed, and I ended up spending half the year here, and I would fly back and forth. And now I've been here. The past two years is the first time in my life I've never had a,

place in New York also. But, you know, I don't know. If I wasn't in show business, would I live in L.A.? Probably not. But I don't mind it. Certainly all the cliched things I grew up as a New Yorker, you know, you are supposed to hate L.A. You're conditioned to hate L.A. based on Annie Hall and any number of movies that you grow up watching. But I don't hate L.A. And it makes sense, look, this is where my industry is to a certain extent. So it has been helpful in that way. You did some cool stuff with the midterms. Can you talk about that? And why do you think more celebrities aren't politically active like you are? Fear? Well, I do think it's getting better. I think Trump pushed us to a place where even people who prior to this were very quiet and fearful of, you know, a potentially more conservative fan base. People like Taylor Swift being the most obvious example.

and she's really come out of her shell politically in ways that I really appreciate and admire, because that must not be, that's hard when you're tailor-struck. It's easy to sit back from a distance and say like, why doesn't so-and-so get more political? And I definitely feel that way sometimes, but the few times I've had, like, internet backlash for something, or, you know, people being angry at something I said, I can hold my own and it doesn't, like, ruin my life.

at all and it always passes, but it's a lot. It's a lot of energy coming at you, like a lot of negative energy coming at you through your phone. And you have to be a very strong person in order to take that with a grain of salt and laugh it off and just move on with your day and or apologize if you really feel like you did something wrong. But that's hard. And if I have felt that way, I mean, Taylor Swift gets that times a billion. So now for me, I try. I try. that the majority of my fan base, not all, by the way, which has sometimes surprised me, but I think that the majority of fan base is smart and they're not going to be alienated by my political stance because I'm almost positive the majority of them and, you know, share the same

views, certainly share the same political party. And so it never scared me. And even if they didn't, I'm not the type of person to give a shit about that. Leading up to the midterms in 2018, I saw these statistics about how few people vote in the midterms. Yeah. Yeah, I'm curious about that. Yeah, especially young people. It was just a staggeringly low number. And then even among adults, it was a shockingly low number.

I mean, only half of the people who can vote vote in the presidential election, I believe, maybe less than that. So you can imagine the midterms, you know, people don't even know what they are. And so I thought I would take whatever notoriety. I have whatever my platform is and help educate and engage voters, especially young voters. And I called Funny or Die because they had done some political work in the past and they had worked with the Obamas and they had some experience in this area. And I said, guys, we need to do something because I feel helpless.

And I can't, I'm sick of just getting angry on Twitter. I want to do something tangible. you know, whatever we can do. So I started a campaign with Funny or Die called glam up the midterms, glam, G-L-A-M. Sometimes people hear it as clam up with... Because the joke being, a lot of my work is about pop culture in Hollywood, and we're always talking about, you know, someone,

a celebrity who gets a glow up or, you know, everyone's glam squad and all of that. And the midterm sounded like homework to me. They sound so dry. So I thought, what can we do to, to just get young people on board, you know, and without being condescending and didactic, which is a hard thing to do because some of this stuff just by its nature is dry. And at this point, I think, you know, people were feeling very alienated by the system because of Trump

and really who can blame them. So we did what we could. We did live events. I went all over and spoke to people in various battleground states. We did events in Arizona and Nevada and Michigan. We went canvassing in Jersey for Tom Malinowski. We went to San Diego where there was an important race. Me and Will Ferrell went down there. Me and went Wanda Sykes and Blake Griffin, went to Detroit and did an event. A lot of your comedy, or at least a lot of what you're really, really known for,

is having these sort of wonderful interactions with people on the street and the sort of randomness of it. Do you miss that now in this sort of COVID era? I don't shoot Billy on the street as much anymore. We actually, we ended the TV series, the half-hour episodes back in 2016, and now I do occasional segments for the old internet. Although...

Tell me more. Have you heard about that? All the episodes that we did, the half-hour episodes went on Netflix for the first time late last year. So it's had this resurgence, and people don't know when I'm shooting it or not shooting it. It's all very confusing. But yes, I miss Billy on the street.

Realistically, I don't know when we'll be able to do that. I mean, that thing literally checks every box of what you're not supposed to. Right. And I think, I mean, who even knew? Who thought about how we were inhaling each other's droplets? I mean, think about Billy on the street. Do you know how many droplets I have, like, in my body? You're like a wash with droplets.

Yeah, so you may actually be okay. I don't even want to think about it. And I don't, the thought of doing it, we couldn't even do this if we wanted to, but doing it with masks would be so depressing. So we'll wait until we can do that properly. But I really am dying to come back to New York. This is too long for me not to be in New York, I think. Sure.

It's funny because I feel the same way. My brother and my father live in L.A. And I had a niece during the pandemic and I still haven't met her. Wow. Yeah, that's really sad. That's crazy. So will you do more political stuff? Do you think we can get more celebrities interested in politics?

Do you have thoughts on this? I certainly will. I'm working with Swing Left, which is a great organization. Great organization. People don't know. They can go to Swingleft.org and find out more. I worked with them a bit in 2018. I went canvassing through their system.

Obviously this year, I don't know what we're going to have in terms of traditional canvassing and what's safe and what's not. You can't really do it anymore, unfortunately. Yeah, I don't think there'll be much knocking on doors. but Trump said he had knocked on a million doors. Yeah, but Trump also says that he's 239 pounds. Right, exactly. He also wants to be on Mount Rushmore.

So, kind of terrifying. Can I be honest? No. In our world, I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up on Mount Rushmore. That's the truth. I mean, I rather him be on Mount Rushmore than be in the White House. Oh, sure. If that was the choice?

There are already a few. problematic people on Mount Rushmore. So, you know. Who belongs there. Yeah, exactly. So I'm working with Swing Left. We're finding ways virtually to do all we can do. Swing Left.

I know this sounds very antiquated, but they swear that it's effective. They have this big letter writing campaign that they're doing. It absolutely works. It's cuckoo, but it works. It sounds crazy in old school, but when you think about it, I think you understand why it's so effective. They're doing a campaign called the Big Send, where they're getting anyone, anyone, Anyone listening? And what is nice about it is that it doesn't require many resources. It's fairly affordable to do even in this economy. It's basically you can go on swing left.org or you can Google the big send and it gives you instructions on how to write a handwritten letter or postcard and send it to a Democratic voter, especially those in swing states or places where the races are going to be tight. But what we really do have a chance to flip the Senate. My focus with them has been on flipping the Senate. I'm happy to say it now. It looks like we have way more. of a chance to do that than when I first started talking a swing left about it at the end of last year,

knock on wood, anything can happen. But the big send is great. And when you think about it, you realize why it's effective. At first, you're like, oh, letter writing? Like, really? Like, no one, everyone just looks at their phone. But we're so accustomed to looking at our phone, that it all becomes just like a waterfall of content just going by. But if you get a handwritten, when was the last time you got a handwritten letter from someone? And so, When you get one from someone, and it's just a simple letter, it's not a big long thing, you know, it's just a simple letter or postcard reminding people to vote either early voting in October or on election day in November or reminding people to order their mail and ballot. If they don't want to go to the

poll, if they feel that it's unsafe. And it's such an easy thing to do. You need a pen and a piece of paper and a stamp maybe. So that's one type of campaign they're doing because we can't knock on doors. We're also planning various virtual events. They have a virtual event. They're going to be. be doing during the DNC next week, which is coming together at the last minute. Oh, a DNC event of the last minute. I am shocked. Yeah, especially this year. Exactly. Do you have a race you're excited about? Like I said, it would just make me so pleased to flip the Senate. One race I'm really excited about because six months ago it would have seemed so unlikely is Jamie Harrison and Lindsay

Graham in South Carolina. I guest hosted Jimmy Kimball for a few nights earlier in July. because Jimmy took the summer off. And I got Jamie Harrison to come on as one of my guests. And I was already very impressed with him from what I saw online. But I just really fell in love with him. I mean, it just seems like, especially for South Carolina, look, it's South Carolina. You're not going to, like you saw in the primary.

He's not, you know, you're not going to get Bernie Sanders voted in in South Carolina. But Jamie is the perfect candidate. He's a perfect bridge between what we say is the establishment. and the future. And the fact that I think he's really speaking to people in South Carolina, black people, but everyone across the board and really speaking from the heart, he seems so authentic and genuine, which are not adjectives I would use to describe Lindsay Graham, obviously. It's amazing how close it is. I think they're tied in the polls right now. Jamie is raising an incredible amount of money. No Democrat has won in South

Carolina. I believe Lindsey Graham won in 1998 and has never faced a real challenge until now. Right. Jamie is a remarkable candidate. And as difficult a hill as South Carolina is to climb, he's already right now posting in the, you know, 43, 44, 45% range. And that is remarkable in and of itself. And one thing that's happened in South Carolina that people don't understand is that a lot of affluent people have moved down from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, to Kiwa Island and to the Eastern's half of the state. And so the western half of the state, you know, around Greenville still looks like South Carolina in 1990. And the eastern part of the state is starting to become much more suburban, much more educated, much more affluent. And it's going to be very interesting to see

if Lindsay can do his backflip to being the, I'm a John McCain Republican. Remember me? I love John McCain. And I think you're going to see a lot of people in that race, especially if you end up with a blue wave and a perception or at least an anticipation of a massive African-American turnout this year, which Hillary did not enjoy. I mean, she was 5.1 points down on African-Americans. So if Biden does better than that, Jamie has a fight and chance. I agree. That would just be so satisfying. Obviously, it would help us flip the Senate, but Lindsay Graham, to me, is just the epitome of someone who makes me physically ill when his face popped up on my television.

The image you should have of Lindsay Graham is of a remora. He's that fish that's always biting the dead skin and eating the feces off of the shark's anus. I don't want to accuse Lindsey Graham of ever having come close to an anus. I won't. I was thinking more national geographic than anything is more scurrilous than that, but I take your point. Well, that's where my mind went immediately. He's a pilot fish.

He's a parasite. Yeah, he's disgusting. And so I love Jamie Harrison. That is correct. Do you have anything you want to plug, Billy, before we let you go? Not really. I mean, coronavirus has really killed my career. There's really nothing.

The fact that I said yes to this is really a year ago, I wouldn't have answered. You were like, those nobodies? Talk about a parasite. I mean, I'm happy anyone asks you to do anything. I'm totally, totally kidding. What I want to plug is, I mean, Billy on the streets on Netflix, blah, blah, blah. It is really good and funny. There's, like, other things out there.

But really, if you're looking for ways to get involved in the election, it doesn't matter if you don't have a dime to spend because you are certainly not alone in that struggle right now, but you are angry and scared. And then, like I said, swing left.org, go anywhere. Do one thing. Just do one thing. that helps someone else remember to vote, that encourages someone else to vote.

That's the one thing I would plug. On that note, we'll wrap up this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking with smart folks from The Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics, and science who will help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. We're just getting started and don't want you to miss an episode. If you'd like to follow us on Twitter, I'm Molly JongFest, and he's the Rick Wilson.

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