The Daily Beast Podcast - Ben Stiller Dishes on Trump’s Obsession with Zoolander

Episode Date: July 3, 2020

Ben Stiller had no idea he was casting a future president when he grabbed Donald Trump and Melania for a quick cameo in Zoolander. But Trump apparently never forgot about it, Stiller tells Molly Jong-Fast, Rick Wilson, and Matt Wilstein in the latest episode of The New Abnormal. Stiller recalls how Trump even derailed an interview during the last campaign to talk about Zoolander 2. Trump “started going into detail about, you know… in the culture, people don't care about male models anymore,” Stiller recalls. Not that Stiller is particularly gratified by the attention. “Everybody has their own theories about whether or not [Trump] still wants to be president, but I think it's gone so far now. People's lives are being affected. And really, to me, it's not funny anymore. It's kinda just like, it's a little bit insane,” Stiller says. The actor/writer/director/comedian also discusses his work as an advocate for refugees, what it’s like to play Michael Cohen on SNL, what he wants to see from Joe Biden if he wins, and what are the boundaries of comedy in 2020. (“Tropic Thunder probably would not have been made... It would be tone deaf right now to make it,” he says.) Plus! Rick, Molly, and George Conway talk about whether Tucker Carlson will run for president (yes, with Eric Trump as a running mate); whether a war criminal is about to become a new Trumpworld star (unfortunately, that’s a yes, too); and whether our commander-in-chief actually gives a shit about the troops he’s supposed to be leading (hard no). As George says, Trump “expressed more concern about how he was perceived walking down that ramp at West point than he did about the fact that the soldiers that he spoke to that day could go to Afghanistan and get killed, because some Russians are paying money to the Taliban.” Subscribe to The Last Laugh: https://link.chtbl.com/thelastlaugh Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi folks, it's Rick Wilson, and welcome to The Daily Beast's The New Abnormal. Hi, I'm Molly Jongfast, a left-wing pundit and editor-at-large at the Daily Beast. I'm also an editor at The Daily Beast, a former Republican political strategist, best-selling author, and full-time troublemaker. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, business, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. I'll try to keep Rick to the minimum number of F-bombs and try to keep our... kids, pets, and other wildlife sounds from invading our respective bunkers. Hey, folks, with us today on our 22nd show is a returning guest, an all-time new abnormal champion, George Conway.

Hey, George. Hey, what do I get through this? Joy. Well, there's a beautiful smoking jacket. A smoking jacket. You get rewarded with a QAnon drop. Sounds like several congressional districts are getting that. Yeah, right?

Yes, it's true. The number of Q people who have infected the Republican Party is a. sign of just how gangrenous Trump has made the overall institution. There are four Q&N candidates in the state, Republican Q&N candidates in the state of California. Oh, yeah, but California. Colorado, Oregon, Georgia, Georgia, Ohio, Texas. The one in Georgia apparently is so kooky. Even the other Q&O, whoa, dial it back.

They should just give her a different letter. You know, she's a recipient of a Trump pardon. Special, special, special. And she changed her name. Well, as one does, when one gets pardoned. Speaking of pardons, once Roger Stone is pardoned, he's obviously going to have to change his name. To Roger Stoned. Is he like wearing like clothes that say like a handker shift that says pardon and a time just pardon me?

Like, hi, I'm Roger. Pardon me, Stone. I think his mantis have the word pardon on one cheek and me on the other. He's probably going to get the domain name pardon.com. We rent that for a while. When is he supposed to go to jail? I thought was this week maybe. I don't. Next week.

next week. It was supposed to be this week, but they had to move it. Right, right, right. Because of something or other. The judge wrote some opinion about it, but I didn't read it. That judge seems like she's really sick of the Trump administration. I think she's just sick of bullshit generally. That's what she is. But as what is? I guess that's a synonym. I guess the news of the day, and none of us had really had time to read it as we're recording this podcast, is that the Supreme Court is going to take up the issue of whether or not the Democrats can have a look at the Mueller grand jury material. I think it's why. One more thing to make Donald Trump's already shitty week even more horrifically shitty.

Well, I think it actually, that's what he wants because they don't want it out and they want as much delay as possible. Because I think it's unclear whether they're going to win or lose. But it can push it off till after the election, right? Yeah, it gets pushed off no matter what. I doubt there's any scenario where we end up seeing the documents before election day. I think that that was their first goal, win or lose, is just to push it off and keep the process going. So isn't the tax stuff supposed to come out this week at the Supreme Court also? The tax stuff will probably come out next week. The Supreme Court has decided all but eight of its cases. Usually at this time of year, they will decide up to four or five cases per announcement sitting. And they're done for this week, they announced. They said that they're going to have an announcement session on Monday.

The day, as that decision comes, there'll be a tragic fire at Mazars, Trump's accounting office. and all the records were lost. They'd have to burn down the Trump organization, too, because the Trump organization was subpoenaed by the district attorney of Manhattan. And I think, as I've said, that they're going to lose the Vance case involving the Manhattan DA. I think they're going to lose that pretty bigly. Biggly? How mad do you think Trump is at Gorsuch?

For what? You mean that one, which for the gay rights decision? I don't think he really cares about it. I think he honestly doesn't care about that issue. I think they'd be perfectly happy to make judges an issue again for political reasons. Do you think they'll use this to try to push Thomas to retire? I don't know if anybody's pushing anybody to retire, but you have to wonder, I mean, there were these rumors this week about Alito.

But when you think about it, he's 70 years old. Now all of a sudden he's looking at a Democratic Congress and a Democratic Senate. It's actually not a crazy rumor. I don't think Sam Alito, I mean, it's a tradition. for traditional for Supreme Court justices to dance with the one who brung you and quit during the administration of the party that appointed you. You can't always do it if you get hit by a bus. You can't certainly can't.

But when you have control over it, the tendency is to want to do that. And remember, people were very critical of RBG for not having done it during the Obama years, although she's such a trooper. She's going to outlast the Trump administration, I think. You can see him quitting now and maybe even, maybe even, maybe even CT because he never really like the jobs as much as others did. I think he'd like to drive around the country in his RV. That's Wood Wood. Yeah, but for me, I mostly leave a trail of bodies, but that's another story for another day. Rick, this is definitely going to get picked up by the right-wing media. Continue. I hope so.

So, George, when the Alito rumor was floated, of course, by Hugh Hewitt, who has become one of the court synographers of the Trump world. And the Thomas rumors, at least the ones I saw, initially came out on right-wing media. Don't you smell a little politics in this of the Trump folks trying to gin up the base? It could be because politically, I think, from a Republican standpoint, you want people to remember the judge's issue. It's one of the reasons why he got elected in the first place. I mean, I remember being just absolutely distraught and morose that Saturday when we found out that Scalia had died. And it's like, oh, no, President Hillary is going to appoint the next justice, is going to appoint his replacement. President Obama or President Hillary Clinton will do it either way. And somehow it didn't happen, thanks to, I guess, Mitch McConnell and Leonard Leo. And then Leonard, I mean, the election.

And that was a major, major issue. It was a major, major, major issue for me to support Trump. So how do you think Trump's week's been going? I mean, every week it seems like the pile gets a little higher on the guy, especially with this Taliban story because it brings back all his memories of Russia. I will say, though, one thing is Lindsay Graham says he's golfing better than ever. Well, that is a relief for the country. I mean, it's amazing.

Every day it's something new with him, and it just doesn't stop. me this whole insanity of the Russian bounty scandal where he's literally denying that there is any such intelligence. He's saying it's a hoax. First he said the intelligence was bad. Then he said it was a hoax. Meanwhile, his people are saying, we briefed him on the intelligence. And you don't hear Republicans who got their briefings coming out and saying, well, this is nothing. You don't hear them saying that. Everybody's concerned. A lot of profiles and courage right now. And instead he's saying it's a hoax. Wow.

It's astounding. I want to stick on Trump's mental state because I think we're a lot of the stuff that's been laying down on him on COVID and the crowds and the campaign being in chaos and everything else. Yes, he's a narcissist who never gets out of his own head, but he feels the slippage all around him, I think, right now. And it just seems more evident that this guy,

I don't think he's ever going to quit. Do you agree with that? I definitely agree that he will not quit because that would be the ultimate humiliation. And what he's all about is self-aggrandizement and projecting this image of infallibility and perfectness and brilliance and strength. And to resign would be the ultimate humiliation. I mean, it's one of the reasons why he freaked out about impeachment was he viewed that as the scarlet letter. So he's not going to quit.

Don't you think being defeated is worse than quitting? Well, if he's defeated, he can take everyone else with him and blame everyone else. And say he was cheated. Right. And he can say he was cheated. He can say there were all these incompetent people around him. And he'll find some way of deludedly saying something that assuages his own ego if he loses. He was gone in deep state, whatever.

The Russians didn't do their job. I don't know. No one was better for Russia than me. And they did not live up to their word. For that of year, I'm going to do my reflection. Important to note here that both Rick and George are doing Trump impersonations. Well, I don't know. Sometimes I have to, that was Reagan.

I don't get it into my head. Crazed Rick Wilson's Trump imitation. It's low end. It's low rent. It doesn't work. I have a question for both of you. Now you're both being targeted by an ad for the club for growth. That is an bizarre thing.

Can you comment on that? What is the purpose of it? I mean, I can't even, I don't even get it. First of all, the ad was stupid. But secondly, like, the only point I could figure out for it, the only rationale I could think of it is that they would run it in D.C. Just to curry favor with Trump the next time they say Trump should do something. That's the only thing I could think of.

I'm worried it's going to hurt your presidential run, George. I feel like the nomination is already out of reach for both of us. We're behind in the delegate count a little bit. So maybe we can pool our delegates. It's such a nothing burger, and it's stepping out of the hilarity of it for a second. This is a bunch of dying animals. These are dinosaurs looking up at the meteorite coming down on the earth. And they don't quite know that it's going to kill them all yet, but it's coming.

And all of them are trying to have these twitch reflexes. It's like, we'll stop the meteor, and the meteor is not going to stop. And it's just crazy because somebody gives you money so that you can run ads on TV. And you want to support the re-election of the president. This shows you that they have. absolutely nothing to say about anything. They're running ads about a pack. And it's like, and the fact of the matter is running ads at about a pack doesn't couldn't possibly help you with the public, not only because Rick and I aren't running for anything, but because when people

watch TV ads, they watch the ads, okay? How many of them, when they're watching TV, are going to say, oh, wait, I got to wait for the end. I got to wait for the end. It says, who produced this message? Either the message is good or it isn't. Now, some of the people who pay more attention to politics care about this stuff, but it's not going to change their views. Attacking the messenger in this way isn't going to change their views of whether what they saw before the end of the commercial about who did it is good or not. We didn't devote a whole lot of bandwidth to this this week. We had much bigger fish to fry.

It is a sign of Washington's old establishment feeling very nervous and very desperate. And I don't know, call me crazy. I've been doing this political thing for 30 years now. I have never once seen an ad run against consultants. There's a reason for that. Honestly, I can't think of any ad ever run against consultants that made any difference at all. So this weekend we found out it was originally broke by the New York Times. It was then confirmed by the Washington Post, the Associated Press, even Fox News, that Russia was putting a bounty on American troops' heads and for the Taliban.

Actually, there weren't only the Republicans in Congress briefed on this. They brought some Democratic members in it on the second day. But this is pretty much known to be a fact at this. point, despite the fact that Kelly McEnany said, McAney said yesterday that it was still unproven. And the president's been saying it's a hoax. Right. Like the coronavirus.

What's your thinking about this? It's just going to go away on its own. It'll be down to zero. I think by Easter. Down to zero soon. We'll have a vaccine for it someday. Someday. Like magic?

Just like magic. He managed to pack in several lies, one that it was a hoax, one that it was made up by the New York Times, book section. Those deep state operatives of the New York. York Times book section. I mean, it's incredible. I mean, he's saying that he wasn't told, deny that he was told about it, even though it was actually in the presidential daily brief. So then they're saying, oh, but brief doesn't mean putting it in the document that briefs the president called the presidential daily brief. That's not briefing the president. It's only briefing

the president. If somebody stands in front of the president and waves their arms and say, hey, Mr. President, this is in your brief. They acted out as a little play. They got to Am I in it or something? They have to play act. You know, where they got a guy dressed up with a turban. He's the Taliban and you got a Russian guy. Ending of dollars. That's a brief.

They didn't brief them. They didn't. Trump would be like, bring in the turban guy. I really, really understand. I need to understand it. Maybe that's the way they can get him to do something. They could come in and then they'll have a Trump impressionist with an orange face and the yellow hair.

It was some kind of a club and bash the Russian. and then open up his jacket and have a stupid man sign. And then Trump will say, maybe I should do that. Oh, you know. I saw that guy. He was very handsome. He looked a lot like me. Maybe not as handsome.

But then he hit Putin with a club. But what I love about these Trump denials is that we know Trump doesn't read, right? Like the denial was, of course he didn't see it. It was written. Right. Right. And then we went to Trump's people defending the fact that while he doesn't read, he consumes information. Mac and he did have to say, the president does read.

And then somebody online created this fake CNN breaking news alert. CNN, breaking news. And then they show a Gap McAnneying saying, the president does read. It's kind of amazing that we're in a conversation about how the president consumes media. Well, no, I mean, let's not say consumes media. That sounds more like there's actually something in his head where there would be a process by which he intellectually reviews the material and it provides him with a cohesive worldview. He is looking for, do I look good in this picture? Are they nice to me or are they mean to me?

That's it. That's all he is. And how is my implanted wig looking? And we've read news stories in the past about how they try to keep or get his intention when they give him powerpoints by putting the word Trump in big letters. I'm sort of impressed that he sort of scans stuff to see if he's in it and then decides if not he's not interested. I mean, it does show a certain singularity. Well, yeah, I mean, that's what he does. And it's about him.

He wants to know what people are saying about him. So will there be any move back to Russia? Will the Trump administration push back at all? It's remarkable. We haven't heard a statement from the president saying, if this turns out to be true, even though it is true, by all accounts, we will take firm action. You didn't have not a peep about that. And all seriousness, so when we joke about his idiocy, this is serious stuff.

This is crazy that President of the United States would not be expressed. any kind of concern that a geopolitical enemy is putting bounties on the heads of American soldiers. It's insane. He's out bashing away saying the real threat is Antifa. It's astounding. He's expressed more concern about how he was perceived walking down that ramp at West Point than he is about the fact that the soldiers that he spoke to that day could go to Afghanistan and get killed because somebody, you know, some Russians are paying money to the Taliban.

It's crazy. It's obscene. All the fun and joking aside, it is obscene. It is a repulsive, dangerous, I'm shaking myself and thinking, this has got to just be bullshit. There's a part of me that wishes it was bullshit and that it was some fucking spiteful leak from the intelligence services, but it's not. This is who he is. And it smacks of desperation, frankly, by people in the intelligence services wanting to get this out

because they don't have any other way to do it. What are you going to do? Go to the inspector general. He gets caught. Inspector General get fired and then you get fired for telling the truth. My absolute favorite part was Rich Grinnell saying, well, they didn't tell me about it. It's like, blanche.

Oops. So Rich Grinnell is now in the campaign, right? I think he's in the campaign now. The way they seamlessly move from intelligence to campaign is really something. Well, I wouldn't necessarily attach the word intelligence to Grinnell. He was just there as a spy for the Trump campaign and for the Trump enterprise. There was no national security reason for him to be there. He was in the White House for what, like 60 minutes?

A hot second. What do you guys think will happen to people like Vin, and Lisa Page and struck? And the people who have been like, lifetime career, intelligence, foreign service people who have been pushed out by Trumpism. Can they come back to the government? Maybe someday in the next year. I think two things have to happen, Molly. I think first off, you have to beat Trump.

And the second thing is you're probably going to have to about a two-year process of hosing out every agency where these people have burrowed in and have started to influence the way there are a lot of very bad actors in this equation. And it's going to take some real work to shove them out the door. It has to be done. I'm going to put George in charge of that. He's going to be named Witchfinder General of the Biden administration. No, but that's true. That process probably is going on right now. It happens at the end of a lot of administrations where people who had political appointments that, of course, would end up terminating at the end of administration go and become civil service jobs at high levels in the administration. And so that'll be interesting to see with what extent that phenomenon is going on now.

They reformed it a little bit during Obama, but I'm hearing there are still people, they're mostly lower level. They're Schedule C type, not the SES types, that are trying to convert and stay back as sleeper cells. So it should be a high priority of the Biden administration to root out vanilla ISIS. Ha ha ha ha ha, vanilla ISIS. Hey folks, joining us today on the new abnormal is Ben Stiller. He is not only a great guy who serves as a UN ambassador, but you might have seen him in a couple of movies here and there, like Zoolander, the greatest movie of all time, Tropic Thunder, which is my favorite. favorite movie of all time in terms of comedies. And of course, Meet the Parents and a million other things. Ben, thank you so much for being with us today. Also joining us today is Matt Wilstein from The Last

Laugh. Hey, guys. Hey, Matt. How's going? So I have a lot of questions for you, but you've worked on and directed some of my favorite, favorite movies, but also you've done a lot of satire. And I'm curious, you once said that Trump is like a villain in a naked gun movie. Do you think it's harder to make art in a time of, like, preposterous politics? Well, honestly, I don't know if it's the politics as much as just the atmosphere of the political correctness now and everybody being afraid to say something that's offensive and, you know, rightfully so in most cases, but comedically, I think it's definitely challenging. I haven't been out there really doing it for a while in terms of movies or sketch comedy or anything like that. So I think it's much tougher now.

And when I think about movies that I've worked on in the past and I look at them now, definitely there are jokes and scenes and things that I go, oh, I don't know if we could have gotten away with that today at all. Just so you know, we're both enormous Tropic Thunder fans, and it gets way too many references. There were some jokes in there that would be hard to do in 2020, I guess, right? Yes, for sure. And I mean, I think it would have been just, it never would have gotten really approved probably just to be finance as a movie now, which, you know, I could understand contextually. But at the time, that's the thing to me that's so complicated about how we approach what's appropriate and what's not in terms of the time frame that it was made. It doesn't

necessarily mean that anything was more appropriate at another time, but you have to look at the context and realize, well, that's what was happening. And so, but I watch things now through my daughter's eyes, who's 18 years old. And, you know, and she's very, very aware of things that are offensive and things to me that I'll go, wait a minute, that's not okay. And she's like, that's awful. That's horrible. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess you're right. And I see it, you know, but it's really, it's a totally different lens. And I think also, you know, you have to be able to draw the line somewhere. And that's the challenge for comedy people, is, you know, where are you drawing the line and how can you still be able to make fun of what needs to be made fun of in terms of how people react to things as human beings.

Right. I guess it's that old phrase of you. You'll know who's got power when you can't make fun of them. Yes. I think what Molly asked was an interesting question. It's like in this time of like a complete, he is like a comic opera villain in the White House. Yeah. So over the top now.

It's just insane. I think it's really insane. I mean, it's very hard to parody. I mean, I think there are people out there who we see on Twitter and, you know, and Instagram who are really funny like Sarah Cooper and who found ways to show how crazy it's gotten in terms of what is accepted. But Dutch comedy in particular right now, I think has a voice in terms of really being able to underline all of these, the hypocrisy too. But in terms of like being able to satirize and go over the top, it's pretty hard because it already is over the top.

There's also like an underlying sort of sense of like it's funny, but it's not funny too. Right, right, yeah. That's why I do think that shows like the daily. show and political satire is so important right now. And I think that's where I think people are connecting is because it's a way to just kind of not only to vent, but also to show how crazy all this is and just to really step back and go, this is not normal. And I guess the sketch comedy stuff that would have been possible in this time is also the COVID stuff that's just blown it all up in terms of being able to do things like SNL or other bigger format comedy things. These guys are all still doing their bits, but they're doing them from their webcam, their addicts and

stuff. Yeah, which is really interesting because I think you see how inventive people are and how funny people are anyway, even without all the trappings. And also, I think these comedians who emerged on Twitter and Instagram who are doing their own thing, like Sarah, are kind of having a chance to really shine. It's like kind of more egalitarian in a way because people are able to kind of go to different places for comedy. I think Twitter for sure has definitely been a place to go for that. It's sometimes dark comedy on Twitter. Yeah, well, I have a very love-hate relationship with Twitter. I don't know.

Welcome to our hellscape. My friend the other day was saying he heard this term. Have you heard this term, doom scrolling? Yes. Basically what I think I do every day, which is like, you know, I get on Twitter and I start scrolling, looking at all the bad news and like looking for, you know, what's the next crazy thing that happened and what's this worst thing that happened with Trump and all of that. I mean, it's, I find myself falling into that, really.

It is definitely an addictive thing, I think, on a certain level. It's watching a train rack. I mean, you can't look away from it sometimes. Yes. Yeah, and I think it's something we have to all look at in ourselves and figure out what is it. What is it? What is meaning? But I still think it's better to be addicted to Twitter than it is to be addicted to Instagram,

because Instagram really does make you dumber. Where is Twitter? My only take on that is I feel that Instagram is a more personal thing, at least in my experience. So I actually have taken a break off of Instagram because I found that. that it was taking me to places in terms of checking in on things and people in ways that I somehow knew. And that wasn't taking me to a good place all the time. Or like, you know, seeing somebody having that amazing vacation and go, like, why is my life not like that? But then the Twitter aspect is I find more kind of news oriented and maybe not any more positive in a

negative sense, but it's a little bit less personal, I find. Hey, Ben. This is Matt Wilstein. Hey, Matt. I wanted to ask you, with social media, I'm wondering, there's this funny thing that's happened going back to Tropic Thunder, where every once in a while, it seems like people on Twitter will rediscover that Tropic Thunder exists and that Robert Downey Jr. is in it in Blackface. I'm curious if you're aware of that and what your reaction to that has been, because now we've seen there's these shows like 30 Rock that are pulling episodes down and other shows like Mad Men saying, no, we're not going to pull it down. So how do you kind of think about all of that now? It's complicated, really. Yes, I am aware of that. And I heard Downey was on, I think, Joe Rogan's

podcast a while back talking about it. And, you know, for me, it's the context of it. I totally see, like, that's why I was saying, like, right now today, Tropic Thunder probably would not have been made because it would be the atmosphere would just be, that would just feel wrong. It would be tone deaf right now to make it. But at the time we made it, it was very clear in terms of, for us, the idea behind that character was an actor, it was making fun of an actor who would go to any lengths to win an award. And for me, that was always the very clear idea behind it. Now, Does that mean that necessarily now I would do it today? I probably wouldn't because I would know that the atmosphere today would be like that would feel wrong.

But at the time, it was very clear that that's what we were doing and felt okay to do it. Now, I'm not saying that that's okay to do for, that doesn't mean blackface is okay. Blackface is not okay. But it's probably never okay. So I have no like to stand. I'm saying, well, that character's doing that. But for us, it was really clear that this is making fun of an actor who take on any character just so that he could win an award because actors are so self-involved. think when we were casting it, it was really clear to me that there were only a few actors who I think

an audience would buy doing that and not find it offensive. And to be honest, when we made the movie, I took the movie to the local NAACP chapter in L.A. and showed it to them because I wanted to get their feedback before we released the movie. And that went okay. And then what I got blindsided by was the Special Olympics came after me for playing Simple Jack. And like, yeah, yeah. So I was so concerned about the reaction, you know, of Robert playing that character that I wasn't even thinking about where we really got attacked, which I understood, too, from their point of view. But the bottom line is when, you know, you have to be clear what your point of view is when you're doing comedy that's edgy. And for me, it was always making fun of actors who would do anything to get more attention

and to win awards. And so, but I also am totally sensitive to, you know, how people would react to it, react to it now. What would you want to see Biden do if he's elected? Do you have a sort of you do this work with refugees? Like, what would you like to see? I literally just want to have a president that does what presidents do, doesn't speak in a way that intentionally divides the country. It doesn't incite divisiveness. I mean, look, as a person, I could tell you my personal feelings about the president, but since I am a goodwill ambassador for the UNHCR, I do hold back because the reality is, it's really hard, though. I find it really hard because I really do, on so many levels, feel that the president is taking us in completely the wrong direction.

a country in a way that we've never, ever experienced. And it really bothers me when I see, especially watching my kids have to deal with this because I'm constantly having to explain to my 14-year-old son, like, this is not what a normal presidency is. This is not the way it usually happens. And the fact that these kids have kind of had to go through this and see the level to which we've kind of been drawn as a country in terms of the political divisiveness and just also the culture war that's going on, I just want a president that's going to be normal and that's going to restore unity and is going to support the ideals of what it means to be an American, which is equality and justice, and not be constantly being political. And I think that's, maybe it's a low bar, but I think right now that I

think there's so many people just want that. Ben, I have to ask you about the very long and strange relationship between Trump and Derek Zoolander, because I don't know if you remember a couple years ago, you sent me that audio of Trump reading the tweet where he says he's being like really smart and you read it as Zoolander. I loved that you did that. He was actually in the original movie with Melania on the red carpet in that scene. So what do you remember about his cameo in that film? Well, we were shooting at the now defunct VH1 Fashion Awards. And that's where that scene took place. And so we shot at the real fashion awards. And basically, as people were coming up the red carpet, we pulled them aside and asked them to talk about Derek Zoolander. And so Trump and Melania did

that. There were so many movies that had like a silly cameo from Donald Trump. And He became sort of like a home alone. Yeah, it's like kind of like a thing. Oh, you get Donald Trump, he represented a certain thing. I've had people who reached out to me and said, like, you should edit Donald Trump out of Zoolander and all that. But at the end of the day, it's kind of like, again, that was a time when that exists and that happened.

You know, there's a funny story that Chris Matthews told, though, about that he was interviewing and he kept on telling the story on the air. He was interviewing Trump during the campaign. He told it a few times, which was that he was interviewing Trump during the campaign. And there was a commercial break. and Zoolander 2 had come out. And Zoolander 2 was a big bomb and didn't do well. And Trump started talking to him during the commercial break.

They were talking about like nuclear arms or something or what his stance would be with the Russians. And then they got to the commercial break and Trump brought up Zoolander 2 to Chris during the break and started talking about why he thought the movie didn't do well. And he started going into detail with him about, you know, it's not that the movie wasn't that funny. It's just that in the culture, people don't care about male models anymore. And so the audience has changed. And Chris found it so interesting that he was so fascinated about why.

why Zoolander 2 didn't do well as opposed to what did he do with the Russians and nuclear arms proliferation. I'm shocked that he didn't think it didn't do well because he wasn't in it. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure he's surprised. Yeah, that might have been part of it in his thought process too. And anyway, Chris told it a couple of times on the air. And of course, it was so for me having to go through the movie coming out and not doing well, I finally sent Chris an email saying, can you please stop telling the story about that

Zoolander 2. It's hilarious and yet terrifying. That's great. Yeah. But I do think like he is obsessed with pop culture. I mean, everybody has their own theories about whether why he wants to be president and whether or not he still wants to be president. But I think it's gone so far now where people's lives are being affected. And really, to me, it's not funny anymore.

It's kind of just like it's a little bit insane. Oh, no question. Yeah. Yeah. And just on the UNHCR front for me, you know, what I'm involved in a lot, I've gone and talked to Congress about it too, you know, is trying to change the U.S.'s attitude on resettlement for refugees because under this administration, it's been turned down to the lowest level it's ever been. And I think, you know, what's more concerning to me is the rhetoric that's used by the president and really echoing other leaders across around the world that this anti-refugee rhetoric that really turns them into this sort of like

feared other. And I think that to me is the most concerning thing of all because it really does affect people's lives in a very real way. I think you're right. And I go back to that. We've talked about New York a little while ago, but it's also what America was. We were this propositional nation, anybody could come here. Anybody could adopt this country and become us. And that seems like that's in the past. Yeah, and also that's who we all are. I mean, that's what the country is made up of, unless you're a Native American and we all came here at one point or another. There's just that reality and the reality that refugees are so, contribute so much to the country and to any country they go to and in terms of economy and all of that. And there's so many positive stories. And so, you know,

there's just like a feeling now. And by the way, when I reach out to people, like sometimes I'll engage people on Twitter about that stuff. If you've got the snarky comment about refugees, and when I start to engage people one on one, I usually find that very quickly becomes very friendly and human. And a lot of times because they appreciate that you're actually acknowledging them. But I think there's also this reality that we as people are good and want to do good. And when we're pushed to that fear place, that then people sort of like your hackles go up. And I think that's my concern is that when you see the president retweeting images of people being mean to each other or people with guns on their law,

no matter what you feel about it, it's just there's nothing positive about that. It's a tone problem for sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Ben, since you've been doing so much drama recently, was there a fun release in getting to do those live shows on SNL as Michael Cohen? You ended up doing like five of them, right? Yeah, and you know, when you get the call from Lorne to do it,

you have to show up and do it, right? So at first it was like, I hadn't done a live show for a long time. There's something about doing SNL that's really, really fun, and it's also really, really scary because it's just the reality of live television. And also, it's SNL, so you want it to be good. The process on doing that show is so crazy because it's being rewritten to the last possible second. And then there was the reality of Michael Cohen. And so I'd be watching in the news as everything would be going down with him and going,

oh, like, something would happen during the week. I'm like, I'm going to get the call on Friday. Literally, I'd be like, I think I'm going to be busy this weekend. Well, yeah, you're lucky the show isn't on now because he just got sent home from prisons. So that could have been a sketch. Yes, no, I know. It was fun to do. I mean, I also really admire those people who are great at live performing, you know, like the Kate

McKinnons and Will Ferrell and people who are just so, it's just like it's a real art form to be able to nail it in that after you've done the dress rehearsal, because they do a dress rehearsal before the show, which is also almost like doing the show for real with a real audience. And then if it goes well in the dress rehearsal, you kind of have this feel like, oh, that was great. We did it. And then it's like, no, we haven't actually done it. Now we have to really do it.

for real. So it's a really interesting process to be able to kind of figure out how to deliver at that moment, which I don't personally feel like that's not something that I do that well, but I, that's, I love making movies. I love having multiple takes and you can kind of like tell yourself, well, I might use this take, if I use that take, but I don't have to decide for six months. And then, you know, live television, it's just like you have to nail it right there. And you got to reunite with your old friend Robert De Niro.

Yes, that was really fun. First of all, people love Robert De Niro. So if you're in a sketch with Robert De Niro, you know. You know when he comes on. No pressure. No pressure. No, but it's great because he's so great and so beloved. And also I love how outspoken is about how he feels about what's going on right now.

When he just shows up, he doesn't have to do anything. I remember when we did that first sketch, you know, when they revealed him on camera, the ovation lasted for like a minute or something, you know? So it's great because and with Bob, it's just fun because you're never not happy to be in a scene with Robert De Niro. It's never not, you know, exciting for me. So even with COVID, what are you working on? Well, I was about to do a series for Apple that we were about four or five weeks from shooting that I was directing and producing. And I guess we're still working on that and trying to figure out how to go back to that because people are starting to talk about working again now pretty seriously. I've been really enjoying, though, having time being lucky enough to be able to hang at home and spend time with my family and not have to go out and be kind of working all the time. I'm fortunate, as we know, most people who are affected by this, The positive aspect for people who are able to not have to worry about their income is that, you know, there's a lot more time to connect with people that you don't necessarily, you know, you don't spend that time doing when we're in the flow of life.

So, you know, working on a couple of scripts developing stuff as a director. And I've really kind of gotten into this rhythm of, I spent a lot of time in my life working, especially, I guess like the last maybe like three or five years a little bit less. But my daughter just graduated high school and my son just finished eighth grade. And so it's been such a weird experience for these kids having to go through this, especially the kids graduating high school, because all of a sudden it was this time when they're supposed to be sort of having that senior year where you can just finally kind of like relax and celebrate it all. And then it's just sort of like we're in this world where we as parents don't even know what to say. I don't know what to say to them in terms of like, well, you know, it's going to be okay. And we're going to get through this, which I believe we will. But we don't know when and we don't know how.

Also, as we watch the news and read Twitter, we're all going to die. And see the sort of like watch the graph. It can be tough to figure out how to guide your kids through it, let alone just guiding your kids in a normal world, too. Support troublemakers like us who speak truth to power. Believe it or not, your actions speak louder than our words, and our super-egos can get very loud. Visit newabnormal.com to sign up and become a beast inside member. So now we come to the most exciting part, fuck that guy.

And we're going to let our guess tell us his fuck that guy first. George Conway, who is your fuck that guy? Tovartish Trump. No way. Yeah, you wouldn't have guessed it. Tovadesh Trump. Comrade DJ Trump, who doesn't give a damn about whether our soldiers are being killed because Taliban are being paid to do it by the Russians.

He wins this week by a mile as he does with me every week. That and his complete failure on the coronavirus front, which is going to be getting worse over the next few weeks because of him. There's just no competition. I'm concerned. When Fauci said that on Tuesday, that was unbelievable. No, it's depressing. It's sadly, unfortunately, very, very, very believable.

Speaking of the COVID response, my fuck, that guy is a former spy novelist named Alex Berenson, who has become this sort of preeminent coronavirus truther, largely because Tucker Carlson has given him a platform on his show. The Tucker Carlson White Power Hour. That's right, the Tucker Carlson White Power. By the way, when Tucker Carlson runs for president, this is like my nightmare fuel. And you know it's going to happen in 2024. Yes, he's going to run for president. I assure you. And Eric Trump will be his running mate. Oh, don't say that. No, you won't. Can you imagine Eric Trump in Iowa? I can't imagine Eric Trump in anything but an orange jumpsuit. The Trump kids are never going to jail because it's gone to that too stupid to collude kind of. They don't have the intellectual capacity to be held. accountable. But anyway, so this

former spy novelist is just pumping out coronavirus misinformation and is also and I think this is maybe the most dangerous part is also very anti-mask, which seems like an insane position. Have you met Trump supporters?

Rick Wilson, who's your fuck that guy? My fuck that guy this week is a guy named Clint Lawrence. Who? Clint Lawrence. This is a deep cut. This is a deep cut. Clint Lawrence was pardoned by Donald Trump recently. And he was convicted of second-degree murder by the army. Clint Lawrence is the worst kind of example of a military leader. He's deployed overseas in Afghanistan, and the reason he was brought up on second-degree

murder charges was because he committed murder. You mean the murdering? Yeah, the murdering, the crimeing. He was also engaged in doing things like directing his people to shoot at civilians and saying things. It's like, funny to watch those fuckers dance. Anyway, this guy is a war criminal, and he is about to be converted, I assure you, into another hero of the Trump universe. presence pardon of him is, when you read the stories, it's just the guy was so far outside the rules of engagement and the laws of war that only Donald Trump would look at this and say, that's my kind of soldier. You know, he destroyed the lives of the people in his platoon. It's like Mike Flynn. It's very much like Mike Flynn. But Clint Lawrence is, he's about to

become a star in Trump world because he is a war criminal. And I find the whole war criminal issue to loom even larger now that we've got the Russians paying bounties to the talism. band to kill our guys. So Clinton Laurent, you're my fuck this guy for today. 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 the Rick Wilson. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you again on the next episode. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.