The Daily Beast Podcast - BONUS: Trump Wants Ivanka to Carry the Dynasty. But Jr. Speaks Dick Fluently.

Episode Date: November 6, 2020

“It’s all over but the crying,” says Rick Wilson in the second-ever The New Abnormal LIVE, alongside co-host Molly Jong-Fast, The Beast’s legal columnist Jay Michaelson and Daily Beast Politics Director Sam Stein. While the official results won’t be verified for a few days, especially given these extremely close swing state races and runoffs happening in Georgia, there is strong reason to believe that Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States. One thing we all know for sure: Trump isn’t going down without kicking, screaming and lying as much as humanly possible. If he officially loses, Rick predicts, his behavior over the next few months might get worse. There will be a slew of “executive orders, he’ll commute a bunch of scumbags, and undermine Biden’s legitimacy,” Rick says. “Shit could still really hit the fan,” adds Jay. However, Sam thinks he’ll work more covertly and “give the reins to Pence, cover his tracks.” An Ivanka as VP joke slid in there, but is it really a joke? The group surmises who Trump will dub heir to the Trump political dynasty (“Like the Kennedys, but orange,” says Molly). Ivanka would make sense, but Jr. deserves more credit here as caring on Trumpism 2.0: “He speaks dick fluently.” As for Trump, they discuss his likelihood of running again in 2024, maybe alongside Tucker Carlson?, what Georgia being such a close race means for the Repubican party and how Biden will handle the COVID-19 chaos Trump is leaving behind. Plus! Can Trump convince Biden to pardon him? Maybe. But he definitely won’t be the powerful figure he was pre-presidency, says Rick: “He may get another reality show, but he’s not going to be the billionaire development figure he plays in his head.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi there. I'm New Abnormal producer Jesse Cannon, and thank you all for coming to a extremely special edition of the New Abnormal Live. As you can see here, the host Molly Jong Fast and Rick Wilson are here, but we're also joined by two special guests, the Daily Beast columnist Jay Michelson, who covers Supreme Court stuff and political director Sam Stein. I'm a little scared about having Rick and Jay's mouse here, both without beeping, but I think. think we'll get through it and I'm sure you'll enjoy it. So I'm going to kick it to the host to say hello first. Good morning, everyone. And I just want to say a couple of words, four words that I think you're all going to enjoy. President-elect Joe Biden, it is all over but the crying. There's not going to be a last-minute legal maneuver to flip this thing over. It's not going to be a different outcome at the end of the day. Pennsylvania is going to go for.

Biden. Arizona is going to go for Biden. Nevada is going to go for Biden. Georgia is going to go for Biden. And that, my friends, is the ball game. The long journey is coming to a close. It's all over, but the president being dragged naked in a fetal position from the golden throne in the residence bathroom at the lighthouse on January 20th. Between now and then we may have some other visions of fresh hell from him. But the election itself will be wrapping up today, it is, it is as close to putting the wheels on the runway as it gets. And again, there will not be a successful ability to challenge these, these votes. The American people have spoken. The game is ending.

So let me also before we get started, say the Q&A tab is where you can upvote questions and type of bid. There's a chat function, but first we're going to have a poll that's really fun, which is a question that's very near and dear to my heart, which is, how sicker? How tired are you of this election? And I'm not allowed to vote, but I'd vote for an even extreme or answer. There should be a right. Yes, sir. We are definitely in a point where people are mentally and physically,

exhaust it. It is, it is, this has worn people down in a profound way. But I do think that it's really important to realize this is not 2000. This is like, these states are all about to go blue. I mean, are blue and about to be called. This is not like everybody fighting over one state, one state. Well, no, trust me, this is a lot different than Florida in 2000. And I speak from experience. we have poll results which are one doomed scroll away from being fucking exhausted at 66% my ballot was not counted i claim this entire podcast widespread hereby is the magic word jay oh i forgot and i'm the lawyer supposed to be we do this election is that possible but don't have to this well actually why don't we do that why don't we kick this over to jay real fast

and to talk a little bit about the lack of teeth on these arguments, since he is the expert on this. It is actually true. I hate to be the bearer of good news, like Rick, probably. You know, I think the worst case scenario as of a day or two ago was that this thing was going to drag on, and these lawsuits would give a sort of air of illegitimacy to the whole thing. The entire legal strategy was just smoke and mirrors.

So there was never, if you look, you know, I've read these pleadings in detail, and I don't recommend doing that. The more you look at them, the dumber they get, the hazyer they get. There have been some really good social shares, you know, of Judge Diamond, for example, saying, literally telling one of Trump's lawyers, what's your problem? Like, you're in the room, the observers are there. That was one of the lawsuits. But clearly, the strategy was just to somehow get to the Supreme Court with something

and say, we're going all the way to the Supreme Court, and to prolong the process and make it seem illegitimate. Now, the way that's, yeah. Is anything going to get, is anything even that, you know, was anything going to get kicked up to the Supreme Court? There's nothing there, right? It depends on the timing of the official certification, I think, in particular, Pennsylvania.

But if the margin, if Joe Biden's margin ends up being larger than the number of these so-called late ballots, which are, these are the ballots that were mailed by Tuesday, but are still being received today. There are only a few of those, relatively speaking, those ballots. If the margin is greater than that number, the Supreme Court's not going to take the case because it's moot. There's no live case or controversy there. If the margin is smaller than we all think it will be, which really seems unlikely, but if it is, it's possible that they could take that case.

But again, on the merits, there's really hardly anything there. So the nightmare scenario was that this sort of strategy, the political strategy of using the courts as a tool to make things look illegitimate, they're just not going to have enough time to do that. Do you guys have anything to add to that? I think that's right. And I think there's another one other aspect of this. You don't dispatch Rudy Giuliani and Pam Bondi and Rick Grinnell. Yeah.

If you're bringing your age of election legal folks, you know, and when Ben Ginsburg essentially says, fuck this, it's not going to work. as a guy who has certainly enjoyed the use of Ben Ginsburg services over many decades, if he says it's not going to work, it's not going to work. Yeah, I mean, my favorite was the report of Jared Kushner pacing around looking for a, quote, James Baker-like figure. From a Freudian perspective describes his entire life.

But certainly the fact that it just now has occurred to him like, oh, gosh, we need someone, we need a grown-up in the room. you know, was maybe the whole thing in a, in the nutshell. And what happened to Bill Barr? I mean, he's just gone, right? Well, it's also like, it's not the Attorney General's job to be a lawyer for the presidential campaign. I know.

I mean, incredibly. But he hasn't done that before. Yeah. I mean, if there was like a fantasy, if Trump's fantasy of like they're burning ballots or whatever, if that were true, those are crimes. And then, yeah, the Justice Department would presumably get involved as would other law, law enforcement agencies. But like, it's not, I mean, it's clear that Trump has thought for four years that the attorney general is like Michael Cohen. Like, it's like the guy who I call to fix things.

Like, he's supposed to be a fixer. But that's not actually in the job description. And even if Bill Barr wanted to do that, which he might, it's not clear how he would. Well, why is that not clear? Couldn't he just do it? I'm just curious here. I mean, doesn't he do stuff like that all the time, Bill Barr? Like he did, do, didn't he sort of try to silence, what's her name with the rape charge? Yeah, I mean, but that was actually weighing in with, I don't want to defend that action, like, so don't get me wrong, but like, in terms of, like, legally what was happening, you know, that was sort of a legal position of the U.S. government that this suit shouldn't be allowed to proceed. So that, it may be, like, really bad tasting, but it was kosher. But here, it's

Not, again, unless there's like a law being broken or you could imagine, I mean, you can imagine the government weighing in if a case did get to the Supreme Court. So let's say that the late ballots thing actually got it. And the government could take a position. And then Bill Barr would be responsible for doing that. And presumably that would be on Trump's side. But just to kind of like get involved or, you know, who was it, was it Seth Gorka who was like the U.S. marshals need to get involved. Clearly not knowing what the U.S. marshals do, right? I'll be hearing from the Marshall's student now.

Have you seen anything that you have felt is really beyond the pale? Yes. Rick Wilson's Gwarka impression. You haven't been with us enough. Oh, yeah, you're sorry. My little bit of you're infinite. He does a library impressions, and some are worse than others. No, the war compression, not bad, rag.

It's not bad. Beyond the pale. No, you know, it's like, it's tight because our Overton window of what's beyond the pale is just completely by the past four years. So it's just, it's difficult to know what, you know, is reasonable anymore from the Trump world. But, you know, just talking this through with you guys and with Jay, it's like, I really don't see, I guess I'm surprised that Bill Bard didn't do more in a way. There's like, he could have taken some sort of. imaginary legal fig leaf and applied it to the election and impounded ballots. And that would have been within my realm of expectations for what could have happened. And it may happen. Who knows?

So in a way, I'm like a little heartened that these past four days have gone the way they have, even as we're witnessing absurd efforts by the president and his biggest supporters to delegitimize the results and to question the veracity of the vote, things that, you know, would have been totally unacceptable and should be unacceptable. You know, I feel like I look at this and I say it could have gotten so much worse in some respects. The only place where I'm ever the less cynical person in the room is at the Daily Beast. That never, ever happens in my life except here. And I guess, yeah, I guess A, I thought last night was like a horrifying display and I like went to my social media in despair about the Bougaloo starting to this morning. So I guess I was more shocked than you were about that.

And I guess, yeah, I was a little naive, maybe, but I don't, you can't, I mean, you know, Bill Barr is somewhat constrained to by something about reality and, you know, the law. And it just, it's, it's, again, if there were like a concrete example of here's an action that Bill Barr could have taken, even in a ridiculous stretch of his role, I guess I could see that. But, you know, it is like that, that insurance ad. Like, that's just not how any of this stuff works. Like, you can't just kind of, like, go on in there, guns blazing, you know, even if you send CBP in.

Put aside Bill Barr for a second. Put aside Bill Barr for a second. I think, I think, I guess the sort of hypothesis that I'm coming up with in my head is that I think for a lot of institutional Republicans, of which I do actually think Bill Barr probably is one still, roughly, although he's a Trumpist, but a lot of their elected lawmakers. I think they basically hit a point where they feel like they've gotten what they wanted out of Trump. And he's sort of a useful idiot.

And now they're comfortable enough with the idea that he's on his way out. And I think this election result is for them probably, you know, professional Republicans in D.C., probably the best of all worlds, right? It's like, okay, Biden constrained by a Republican Senate, you know, we don't have to deal with Trumpism. will probably have a really good midterm in 2022. You know, it's not the worst outcome if you're a professional conservative Republican in Washington, D.C. Obviously, if you're a Trumpist, it's horrible because your dear leader is gone. But, you know, maybe that's what's happening here is that people are just sort of ready to accept this outcome. I think the results in Florida gave Florida Republicans a little bit of confidence.

but I ascribe that not to Trump or Republican Party messaging, but because we built a great party here for years and they're really, really good at their work. What's scaring the shit out of national Republicans is Georgia and Texas. Those places had no business, and North Carolina, frankly, they had no business being that close. Those are bulwark states in the Republican coalition

and the electoral map. And you're going to see a lot of repercussions from that. It's also that Trump is sui generis in many ways. And the ability to turn out those low propensity non-colle white male voters was the secret sauce of Trumpism in 2016 and this year. And those people only responded to the idea of a Trump character with all the foundational work of the apprentice and everything else and Donald Trump's branding for many, many decades. And I don't think those people are activatable by a Marco Rubio or a Ted Cruz or a Tom Cotton, maybe by a Tucker Carlson. But I think that there's, I think there's going to be a lot more recrimination inside the professional conservative space than they are anticipating right now. Because that, that weird combination of that alchemy of Trump and Fox and Facebook and the apprentice and all these things that one.

time with that underlying populist, you know, that underlying Yalkyida populism that's out there, it, I don't think you replicate that as easily. And a guy like a Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton or Nikki Haley or whomever, it's going to sound to those people like a stupid echo, like an imitation. It's going to be the velvita of Trumpism. I think it'll be, I also think that Democrats really owe Stacey, A. and John Lewis a big debt because that that those are the voters who've turned out for them. Well, they also owe Joe Biden and other groups, including ours, a big debt because for the first time in a presidential campaign, real money got spent in Georgia.

Right. By the Democrats and by allies against the Republican ticket. This was the first time that money. was out there in real numbers with a lot of zeros. Because, look, if you were a Democratic consultant for Barack Obama or for Hillary Clinton, you were like, Georgia, whatever. Maybe someday. And this was the first year that their resources were really in there.

I mean, Georgia was our number two state for expenditures in the last quarter. And it was our number four state for expenditures overall at Lincoln. Because we recognized it was one of the places where that particular suburban magic that was opposed to Trump, combined with African-American turnout. It's why we had the Migos running around for us in the last two days the campaigned in Metro Atlanta and why we had suburban women

getting the message about COVID and the Northern Tier counties over and over and over again. So it was, yeah, they set the table, but it took the rest of the campaign stuff to get in there and do it. You've got to, I mean, the Biden campaign spent, I'm not even sure what the final, number is I think it's like $65 million in Georgia, which is real money.

But you have, I do think you have a situation where this was really a referendum on Trump, right? Yeah, as it should have been. But I mean, in the Democratic Senate, in those Senate races, you saw, like, as Susan Collins wasn't a Trumpist, she wasn't predicted to win, she did win. Do you know what I mean? Like, I feel like the people who, it was really Trump, who lost. this election more than anyone else.

Yes. Well, so let me jump in since we do have to get to a bunch of these audience questions, as much as I think this is an amazing conversation. And I want to pivot to something you were just saying. So Eric Yelland is asking, what's the worst case fuckery that Trump undertakes during this lame duck session? Vice President Ivanka. Look, I think he's going to do a floor. of executive orders. I think he's going to pardon a bunch of scumbags or commute a bunch of scumbags.

And I think he's going to do everything he can to get the stab in the back and it's fully burned into the American consciousness to try to validate himself and to minimize Joe Biden's legitimacy. And while America will start tuning him out, there are still 70 million Americans who won't tune him out. and they'll think it was stolen, and they'll feel justified in every kind of shitty behavior. And as Jay said, the boogaloo hasn't started, but there probably will be some jackasses who believe that that tomorrow Joe Biden will institute Bolshevik Antifa Sharia gay marriage, and they will go out and do some stupid shit.

I think the range of outcomes could be so vast here. You know, it's tough to speculate. You know, you can see a world in which Trump defeated, sort of cognizant that he's lost, just decides to, you know, basically pack it in, right? And hand over whatever reigns to Mike Pence. You could also see a world that Rick describes where he uses his remaining time in office to optimize himself politically and financially. Yeah.

You know, I think the big fear among, you know, good government types of Democrats is he does the pardoning the commutation, but that he also tries to, you know, cover his tracks, get, you know, dispose of any records that might be problematic that future investigators might look into things like that. And then obviously in the real world, where we do live still, you know, there's like a raging inferno of a COVID crisis happening right now. he's going to be president for another two and a half three months or whatever it is. If he just, I mean, he's given up more or less as it is, but, you know, we do need to manage this thing. And having a impetuous person as president who's not really engaged in this is a huge existential problem for the country. So, you know, things are going to get potentially quite bad. And he'll leave a real pile of shit for Biden to have to have to. pick up. I do want to remember, too, that, you know, we heard it. There was a pretty big LGBT case,

ironically, with no gay people in it this week at the Supreme Court. ObamaCare is next week. You know, a lot of the sort of ordinary course stuff that's happening is still happening. I guess I had a question, piggybacking on that question, which is I've heard from some folks that, you know, there might be more Trump rallies and that this is just going to turn into like a kind of pep rally season for him to just go to Super Spreader. events. Does that seem, is that in your realm of possibility? Sure. We recorded that. Swin reported that for us. You know, I think that might have been done or talked about in an alternate universe in which this stuff was more uncertain in the court

system. But it's, you know, I could easily see Trump going around the country, you know, saying I've been robbed, that type of stuff. It's in his DNA to do stuff like that. I mean, isn't that concerning, though, on the theory that, right, so now some white nationalists, kill some people of color, and that leads to extreme, you know, violent, angry protests from the black community, from others, from allies, and that leads to more. I mean, I, I guess, you know, this is my generational trauma, you know, as, like, you know, Jewish stuff, like speaking out, but, like, it just feels like the shit could really still hit the fan. I think we all feel that way.

Remember, there are still a lot of people who bought into the Flight 93 predicate from 16. And there, there are a lot of them. Explain that, explain that, explain that, explain that. Okay. In 2016, a conservative nationalist writer named Michael Anton, who, in a long fucking story wants to work for me, it's a lot, a really long story. Crazy. We may have to do an entire pod on that. We may.

Although then he was sort of like reclusive and muttered to himself a lot. But he became a very influential person in Trump world, a speech. writer and a strategist in Trump world. Because you wrote an article called the Flight 93 election. He said, you have two choices. You don't like Trump, but Hillary is so much worse and more dangerous. And so we have to try to seize the controls even if we crash the plane. Well, I think there are a lot of people who still believe that and who think that now Joe Biden is going to usher in, you know, AOC's Green New Deal tomorrow and that he's going to, you know, kill all the

doctors except those working for the national health care system and and you know impose mandatory abortion for all the crazy stuff that's in their head in that bubble that fox built them and chief i'm going to have a seat in the cabinet um and i think a lot of those people are delusional and frightened and they think that the world is now ending that this is the apocalypse that joe biden is a combination of carl marks and satan um and a lot of those people are going to react badly I think what, you know, Jay's scenario, there may be boogaloo types or some other crazy types who go, you know, fuck it. It's all over. The world is ending.

I'm going to go shoot people up. And if that happens, Trump will not be a president as one would expect a president to be. He will say something like, what did I get it? I know the good ideas on both sides of this murder. Because he can't help himself because he'll think that person liked me. And that's why they did it. He can't ever get away from that. From Kim Jong-un to Vladimir Putin to the Bougalus to David Duke, to all these people,

they will always, he will always revert back to somebody likes me, and whatever they do is excused by the fact that they like me and not the other guy. So he's also going to be in a state right now, I think, of real panic because of two big things. First off, unless Trump TV somehow takes off, he's in deep shit financially. Who's going to be in business with Donald Trump when this is over? who tell me tell me what bank is going to go and say hey this guy's a great fucking credit risk and secondly and because of that his whole financial empire is kind of be kind of rickety he may get another reality show or trump tv may work out but he's not going to be the billionaire

developer figure he plays in his head the other thing that's going to happen is the legal jeopardy now does not disappear it increases and and the idea that Donald Trump is going to have to face, you know, the finally look at the tax fraud charges, the bank fraud charges. You know, there are going to be things that rattle out from this administration in terms of legal cost of legal exposure. There's just a lot there that makes his post-retirement more sitting in conference rooms with lawyers and less sitting on the golf course at Marilago. I would also say one thing because that a few minutes ago, Rush Limbaugh, pretty much conceded that Biden had won.

So that is, I think, a large shift. And if Rush, we just need a few more of those, you know, the far-right media can make this a lot less painful and scary and divisive if they'll come out and do the right thing. Now, I've never seen them come out and do the right thing, but the fact that Rush Limbaugh said that is a good sign that we're, you know, I feel like every time a far-right media figure does that, we take one step away from Civil War.

The angel gets its wings. Okay, I want to jump in for a second, and then we're going to go a little bit more on that subject. But I first want to ask the audience, we have a poll ready. If Trump loses, will he leave the White House willingly, which, you know, there's some interesting answer choices there. But what I do want to put the back on, there's a lot of questions about, you know, Tish James has come out and said that she's going after the family. We have Syvance and we now have a bunch of Hatch Act potential violations. I'd love to start with Sam. Do you have any insight on what you think is going to happen there?

I don't know anything. I have no insights on the Tish James stuff. The Capitol Hill stuff I have a little bit more insight into. I mean, they're already looking into the use of the White House as a spot for the RNC convention. I think the bigger question is going to be found in, you know, once they, once you start, you know, really digging into, you know, contracts that were rewarded for, you know, COVID relief payments, for instance, whether, you know, there's this big investigation currently happening by whether Peter Navarro acted improperly in trying to steer COVID contracts, PPP contracts, things like that

that have been really under the radar because we're so focused on existential questions in this country. I think there's going to be a fair amount of accounting that happens in the post-Trump world. I don't know what Biden does in terms of the politics of this. And maybe Rick and Molly can weigh in on their thoughts here. But obviously there's going to be some thirst and appetite on the left for him to use whatever authority he has with the executive branch to look into Trump's conduct. does he do it or does he take sort of the Obama view of things and say, look, the past is the past, we've got to move forward. I need to keep an eye on, you know, my own political standing and I don't want to, you know, deviate from my pledge to voters to be a healer, not a divider. I actually don't know where that debate plays out.

And I don't know which one's better for the country and better for him politically. Yeah, you know, Sam, I think that's a good point. There will be, I think, what I understand of Biden's character, there will be a part of him that says, we got to put this all behind us and go forward and work together. And I think if this was, if this was one-term president, Jeb Bush, or one-term president, you know, Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio, or Carly Fiorena, who had done some things that were questionable, that would be more understandable to the American people. but the extraordinary degree to which Trump's, you know, efforts to monetize the White House are right there on the surface. And the degree to which the malfeasans led to 230,000 deaths in this country so far, and things like Jared and things like Navarro and other people in the White House who were making, you know,

an extraordinary amount of decisions that are shady on a good day, I think it's going to be harder for him to both resist that pull. And I think there may be some things with some of these U.S. attorneys out there in the country where they're going to kick it up the chain to whoever his AG is and say, here's what they got. And you won't be able to just say, I declined to prosecute. It's over now. He's all playing golf.

I don't think they're going to have that. I don't think they'll have quite the same ability. But I think you're right. that natural instinct to say in the past of the past is present, I think in a lot of it. Bush didn't go after Clinton and Obama didn't go after Bush. Right. I also think the politics aren't as simple as in the past, right? I think a lot of Biden's win is, you know, Biden, you know, he obviously sold himself

as a united, but I think a lot of it was just pure disgust with Trumpism and Trump that brought into this place. And I think if he were to turn his back on that by saying, look, the past is the past. I think he would actually run some real risks politically. I think people want him to have, they want him to pursue a full of, a full accounting right. Yeah. What about the possibility of a grand bargain where Trump says, I won't salt the earth if you give me a pardon? Like we'll have a smooth transfer of power.

It'll look almost normal. But hold the word of hostage for a pardon. Is that a moment? I won't nuke finland if you pardoned me. But he won't ever do that because he's not rational. I don't know. I feel like I'm only not really joking about that possibility. I mean, he's got, he has something that Biden wants, right?

The stability of the United States of America and the credibility of the government. And, you know, this is the guy who didn't write but sort of said he wrote the art of the deal. I'm just, I'm putting it out there. You heard it here first. Jay, isn't the more interesting question or more immediate question? Does he try to, you know, preemptively pardoned himself? Can he leave it? And does he resign with a day to go to have Mike Pence party him?

Aren't those more like immediate questions? Yeah, I mean, the self-pardon thing is funny because pretty much there are a lot of disagreements about why a president can't do it. But it's pretty clear that we think a president can't do it. But it is untested, actually, right? I mean, this was floated with Nixon at the time. You know, that was a new one. I haven't heard the idea of resign early and have Pence do the pardoning, but that's one to think about.

My head is now spinning just on that. But he can't get pardon from the state crimes. No, that's right. I mean, it would be incomplete. But, you know, Trump has a property in Dubai, and Dubai has a limited extradition property, and they just got those nice business deals in Israel. I don't know.

Now I feel like I'm the less naive person here. I don't see any of this is out of the realm of possibility. The guy knows he's going to lose his shirt. He knows how to weasel out of things. And he does have something Biden wants. But doesn't he, I mean, I feel like the problem with Trump is that Trump has a fantasy that Eric and Jr. are going to be his heir of parents to, I mean, I think he thinks he has a dynasty. No, his fantasy is Ivanka will be their parent.

Right. But he feels there's going to be a dynasty. There's a Trump dynasty, which will, you know, be the Kennedys, but orange. And I'm not sure how you would convince him that he now, no, he's going. All these charges are just a political hit job. This way, you know, yeah. And there's no, there's nothing improper here because all these charges are BS and it's just the lame stream. And he was savvy to do the self-pardon, yada, yada, yada.

I think, you know, now it's going to, I mean, will it go to the Supreme Court? I mean, that would be an interesting, you know, that'd be fun for me, like, if this case actually goes to the Supreme Court. And now my head's spinning just on that. I mean, it isn't, it is not a resolved question. No. And this is not a Supreme Court that's in line with the mainstream of legal academic thinking. So, you know, this is a Supreme Court that's way to the right philosophically of anything that, you know, is anything I learned in law school, certainly. at my elitist coastal liberal institution.

And we can agree that basically Kavanaugh and Amy Comey are going to sign off on basically anything Trump does. I hate to give Justice Barrett even any credit whatsoever, but we don't yet totally know that that's true. But Kavanaugh is... Well, Kavanaugh, if his opinion in one of these, in the recent Trump election case is any indication, I mean, he's really kind of... I don't think we're allowed to say the word off the reservation anymore,

but he's definitely like somewhere, somewhere or not within the bounds of ordinary Supreme Court jurisprudence. What he did in that election case, citing Bush v. Gore, twisting it, misstating what the president actually held, was truly beneath the Supreme Court justice, regardless of what. That was a very interesting moment. I actually had a pretty conservative Fed Sock-style guy reached out to me and say, holy shit, what have we done? And I said, well, you rushed and you, you know, you, you let Leonard Leo get a, and Mitch McConnell do a, do a quick and dirty. Yeah.

So, but I do think that, that the dynasty idea with Trump is kind of powerful right now. Because he's looking, so I heard from a pretty senior person in Hollywood today, about the Mark Burnett show they're trying to pitch to him, which is he gets to still play the president and essentially dump on Joe Biden every week and say, oh, I would have done this. Well, I was made America great. And basically it's like a weekly masturbation session for this guy.

If they do that and he makes some money off of it, he'll try to sustain that for a couple years and then pass the reins. Look, I think there's only a matter of time before Don Jr. shows up in Iowa. I want. Yeah, I think so. I think, because Junior, while Trump may have wanted Ivanka, Junior actually speaks dick fluently.

Okay? And that's what the MAGA base wants. They want the asshole, transgressive, you know, fuck you in your face, fuck your feelings, you know, suck it lives, uh, thing. That's what they're desperate for. Hold on, Colfield or whatever that guy's name is, the new 25th. Madison Cawthorne. Madison.

Madison. Yeah. Dry Borland. I'm giving him a little bit too literary prominence here. This is super, super good, but I'm getting concerned that we're not getting to enough of these questions. All right, Jesse, be the grown-up, Jesse. Be the grown-up. I do want to say there's a strong argument that first there was Duckout Dynasty, and then there's the new reality TV show Trump Dynasty.

That's all I'm going to say. Wow, I'm so stealing that. Is it shown Colin still alive? Couldn't we just merge the dynasties and things? the actual dynasty? Oh, okay. Teresa Bohannon is asking how much of Biden's response to COVID will be dampened by the ours control of the Senate. Will this mostly have to be executive orders? You know, we've heard so much about how the executive overreach has been bad, may this be actually a thing that the left starts rooting for? How do you guys see this going down? Well, executive overreach is a tempting drug, and there's a great amount

of fuck you ism and good for the goose, good for the gander on it, as a guy who thinks that executive power should be limited and balance inside of our tripartite system of government, I don't like executive overreach,

but the standard now exists. And I was cautious when Obama did some executive orders. And I warned people, like, someday President Marco or Cruz or whatever is going to undo those things. well, Trump, because he couldn't govern at all, took it way out over the cliff. I think Biden is more of an institutionalist, but I do think he will correct some of the ones

that are the most egregious and should. A slight tangent to that, because it's not about COVID, but I think we're going to see that battle on the cabinet picks. Another unresolved legal question is what advice and consent of the Senate really means. And if Mitch McConnell is true to what we've heard, which is that, you know, anyone to the left of the center, we're just not going to pick. It's not clear that advice and consent of the Senate requires what we've seen as confirmation of cabinet appointees. So I think in terms of executive power, that'll be even an earlier battleground.

Because, again, from a sort of legal and regulatory perspective, there's not a lot that Congress has to do. And there's a lot of appropriating resources, but it's well within the existing mandate at Department of Health and Human Services as well as within the FDA and so forth. There's not, legally, there's no constraint there. Really, Congress would only need to appropriate enough resources to make those things, to enable those things to happen. I would say to-

To the actual question about COVID response, you know, there's two trains of thought here, which is one, you know, we're in such a bad place that there's not much Biden can do to get the genie back in the bottle. At a certain point, the pandemic's a pandemic, and you can't really undo it. But when you talk to the Biden people, there's a few things that they're trying to do. Obviously, they're going to, you know, on the economic front, they do want to craft a stimulus bill. But it's looking more likely that that will be done in the lame duck because I don't think anyone wants to wait three months for it. And it's going to probably be a lot smaller than Nancy Pelosi was hoping for her.

I think she made a bad bet. And now she's going to pay for it, thinking that Democrats would get the Senate too. In terms of what Biden can do, there's a few things. One is he can use the Defense Production Act in a much more aggressive manner than Trump has. I'm not sure what. What? Has Trump even used Defense Production Act at all? They ended up using it sparingly.

But Biden can do it. The question is for what purpose? I mean, are we at PPE shortages, or we have mass shortages? Or we have ventilator shortages? I'm not sure. He can probably do it if it gets really bad and we need prop up. hospitals and things like that. But the main thing beyond the stimulus package in the DPA is just sort of temporally and behaviorally what will Biden do. And you can expect a lot more briefings

featuring Fauci. You can expect a lot more talks to the nation, you know, preaching the importance of public health guidelines and personal safety measures, things like that, which they personally, that the Biden people think actually will have an impact. We're avid news consumers and so we think people are digesting information like we are, but in reality, a lot of the American public doesn't get their news that way. They believe that having someone giving them a message that, no, wearing a mask is important and trusting, you know, your scientists is important. They think that will actually have a tangible impact.

I don't know. I mean, we might be way too far down the road. to this pandemic for it to change course. But that's their hope. I would say I would just add one thing, which is I think the vast, from what I understand, I think the vaccine stuff is really coming along and that a number of the most promising candidates have not worked with the federal government. And so that that will be out of-

Molly, can you go deeper on that a little bit? I just, from what I understand, because Trump has had such a sort of aggressive stance towards vaccines. A lot of these vaccine manufacturers have worked really hard to keep the federal government out of it. Now around the end of November, we're going to see an emergency use authorization for at least one and maybe two different drugs. And I think that these companies, from what I understand, are working on their rollout without the federal government. And so we're going to probably see a really, that's going to happen without Trump or without Biden, and that will probably start happening in December, which is exciting.

Okay, so the next question I have for you guys, which is a big pivot, is from Nancy Poole. It's getting a lot of up votes, which is what are the chances of the two Georgia Senate races, them flipping the Senate to Dems with it? And I have one more question for that, which is, isn't Alaska not decided yet? Alaska's not the side of Jeff I think Rick would be best on the Georgia ones Rick you're muted I'm sorry I was meeting so you didn't hear the chainsaw

singing in the distance um first off the Alaska you shot any animals today Rick Wilson I've only been home like eight hours okay just give me some time it's water moccasin season

Alaska has still yet to be called they've only counted about 46% of the vote last I saw as as much as we can question all the polling this year Gross clearly had a very good run in Alaska we'll see how that turns out

I haven't gone to school on where the votes are still outstanding in Alaska but we'll know probably the next 24 to 48 It's a slow count state just because the logistics are just so difficult. In Georgia, what you're going to see is a very interesting chemistry. Both Asov and Warnock are candidates who appeal to slightly different sides of the Democratic turnout equation. But with both of them in the race, this becomes a very simple election. It's Warnock and Asov versus Mitch McConnell.

okay they don't they're republican opponent i mean qadon kelly is bat-shit crazy i mean like netherier than a goddamn you know fruit cake but this is a choice for those voters that you can activate in georgia right now who are fired up from a big win for for joe biden you can tell them this is now the decisive lynchpin moment and i think we can get turnout in metro Atlanta sky high especially considering for a runoff election. Look, a great runoff election is like 10, 12% turnout. It's going to be a game of small numbers. And so you're going to have to

really work the Atlanta Metro. I predict that the MAGA world is going to be a little down because, look, David Purdue is like a bowl of vanilla ice cream melting in the sun. He's boring as hell. QAnon Kelly is a more exciting candidate for them,

but I think that a lot of the juice will have gone out of the MAGA thing that put her there, the Q&O on saying that put her there. And to sustain her base, she has to run up numbers with the crazies and with the Confederate flag dudes out in the rest of the state, which is anathema to the metro markets in Georgia, which are Atlanta, Macon, and Savannah, where Joe Biden had a surprisingly strong turnout this year. And I think you have to make it against, look, I'm running against Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump's legacy.

I think there's a great chemistry there, a great possibility for both. You're going to see a lot of money get spent. You've got to see Mitch McConnell mortgage everything else they've got to save those two. Yeah, I think the only hope for Democrats here is a disaffected Trump base, completely, you know, giving up on the political process because they think it's rigged, in which case you can maybe see a path for Democrats. to emerge, but you're already seeing pledges of tens of millions of dollars from the Republican side, because this is the argument for them.

So I would not be optimistic about the chances for Democrats in these races, but it's not beyond the realm of reason to conjure up a scenario, which it does happen. Yeah, and look, you've got, you've got an African-American on the ticket statewide. as much as we saw in this election, African-American turnout being vital in places like Michigan and Wisconsin and Georgia, in this race, it will be even more vital. And I think that there's a way to get you there in a runoff. Again, it's going to be a game of very small numbers.

So we're going to see probably 10 to 12 percent turnout on a good day. It could be lower than that. So it's going to be a game of small numbers. You have to cherry pick very carefully how you do the campaign. The disadvantage for Democrats is the media they're going to have to push is in the most expensive part of the state. And the Republicans are going to push media in the least expensive parts of the state. So it's a tough race in both cases, but not impossible.

And I think if the Trump base is angry and disaffected, there's a possibility. Rick, I have a question for you, just based on the results from Tuesday in the utility of paid media. You know, obviously tons were spent on Democratic Senate candidates on the airwaves. Sure. Some to some good effect, some to frankly what seemed negligible effect. In a runoff like this, having just witnessed what happened we saw on Tuesday, do you as a practitioner of this stuff change your tactics at all? Well, I think you rely heavily on digital, not only because it allows, you know, much finer targeting, but I think it also lets you run an integrated suite of advocacy, where you're talking about, you know, you're doing a get-up-the-vote message and advocacy message to the same person at the same time. Again, it's also a short port.

This is it going to be a quick election, guys? It's a quick election. I have a question about the micro-targeting. of Cuban voters in Florida. Yep. Why? Why did Democrats sleep on that? Because they are holistically bad at understanding the word socialism is pure fucking poison in South Florida.

They didn't want to piss off AOC and Bernie by going down there and saying, Joe Biden is not a socialist, fuck you, and stopping the shit out of them. out of Trump. It is a, I get it. I've written about it a lot. And I, it's, I'm not making the argument about the economic underpay. I'm not making any argument about socialism, as a brand with Cuban Americans and with Venezuelans and with Colombians. It is pure fucking poison. Right. But my question is more, more, micro-targeting. Why are Democrats not doing more micro targeting because you would think you would be able to micro target like this guy killed all of these Puerto Ricans by not responding to the hurricane. At LP we did target so we didn't spend a ton

of money in Florida because we our data showed us that Florida was a real high hill and it's so expensive. We micro targeted Puerto Rican voters in Seminole County, Florida, Red County. We flipped it because they flipped. I didn't have the money to go and spend $10 million on micro-targeting every Cuban-American voter in the state. Right. I didn't have the resources to do it. And I don't know what the disconnect was with the Biden campaign because I can't talk to them legally speaking. I mean, just because I don't want to go to jail. But I think there was a degree to which, and I heard a lot of my Democratic friends laugh it off.

Socialism. They don't care. No, they do care. But also, like, there seems to have been micro-targeting failures. Like, if you look at Maine, Susan Collins should have been an easy seat to pick off, right? Not a Trumpist, said she was pro-choice, went right down the party line. Like, there clearly were messaging failures in Maine, right? Look, that one is a black box that nobody's solved yet, okay?

Because I can tell you something. on election day the consultants for Susan Collins had a call and they said well guys it wasn't our year we don't know what went wrong Susan's a great person

we love her we did our best on election day they were absolutely convinced they had lost the NRSC's IE group was convinced they had lost their last poll showed her meaningfully down there was not a single poll that showed Susan Collins winning for weeks.

And we had pulled back in Maine because we thought it was done. Everyone else thought it was done. But that is one of those anomalies in this year where it is a real mystery. And as I said, her consultants, one of her consultants let me know that they had a post-mortem that morning. And they're like, we got our asses kicked. We don't know what else we could have done. and the win was a shock to them. An absolute shock to them.

This might be a little simplistic, but this is sort of what happened in 2016 where a bunch of people, the assumption was at the end of the race then that Trump was going to lose. And so people didn't cast votes for Hillary or they did for a third party candidate just because they didn't like Hillary

and they assumed Trump would lose. I wonder if what happened this time around was something, a variation of that, a cousin of that, where a bunch of Republicans had basically said, okay, the president's going to lose. I'd like to have a check on Biden.

You know, I'd like to support my Republican down-ballot candidates. And you ended up seeing a lot of late-deciders making the calculation that split government was in their, late-deciding Republicans make the calculation that split government was better than United Democratic government. And those Republicans had prior to, than been more open to the idea of voting for a Democratic Senate candidate. You know, Sam, I think that's a, I think that's a damn robust theory.

I think it's a damn good theory. And we do see that a lot. And by the way, just, you know, to remind my Democratic friends, in two years there'll be another election. And elections are an elastic response to public perceptions in the public is not sold on unified government by either side over time. It just never lasts over time. Yeah.

You know, this is homesthetic tension in our politics where the left never holds too much power for too long. The right never holds too much power for too long. There's always bounce back and sway in the system, which is, yeah, I guess partly by design. Yep. So I'd love to get one last one that I think the audience really wants to hear you guys on before we wrap this, which is from Greg Pliska. It says if Trump's ism hasn't been repudiated. what is the future? It is a radioactive hellscape

full of cannibal mutants devouring one another as they sit around a dying fire as the children ask grandpa, what was it like in the before time? That Rick Wilson cheer we all come here for. Trumpism

itself is part of a larger global rescission of democracy and freedom. It is a state movement. It is an authoritarian movement. It is a movement that focuses on the dear leader, not on a philosophy or principles or anything else beyond aggrandizing the great leader. I think Trumpism will be the most powerful force in the 2024 election cycle for the Republicans.

I think it will be a very powerful force for the Democrats in the 2022 cycle, because every Republican in the primary is going to race to say, but I love Mr. Trump. I miss him so much. But in 24, you're going to see Tucker Carlson and you're going to see Don Jr. And you're going to see Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton running as Trumpism 2.0. Hey, Rick. Rick, why do you think Donald himself won't run again? Well, unless they perfect his robot exoskeleton, I think he's going to be too old at that point.

But it's still possible. And look, I really encourage the president to declare file immediately for 2024. file immediately. I pray of you, sir. File today for 2024 because you need to make America great once again. What about the argument that Trump won because he was the most famous and that this is actually about fame and that if Democrats picked a celebrity, they could, that Trumpism is actually just about being famous? The governor's theory. Yeah. Well, the difference of that is that Arnold Schwarzenegger actually did take on governing. Right, but I'm saying, though, but maybe if Democrats pick a movie star, you know, if Lady Gaga...

Democrats are about to win. They need to pick some of it. They run with the most anti-movie star guy around. But, no, look, I think... Although, he was the most famous in the field. I mean, there is something to the point, right? Name ID is magic. Look, I think the celebrification of politics is absolutely at issue here.

The idea that you pick a Tucker Carlson in 24 as your nominee would not be far afield from picking Trump in 2016 at this point. Except it's worse because Tucker Carlson is smart. But the popular. I mean, the populist ideology around the world is remarkably similar, right? Right, whether it's Brazil or whether it's Israel or whether it's Britain or the right-wing parties in Europe. And some of those leaders are charismatic leaders, but some of them, let's say, Bibi in Israel and maybe even Bolsonaro or not necessarily. But they're ethno-nationalists, whether you want to call it racist or not, they're ethno-nationalist populists, they're anti-elitists. It does feel to me as though the problem is more than celebrification, although that's, of course, part of it.

but this real anti-liberal movement that seems to be globally. Now, Jay, that's a really good point. And, you know, the ban on wing of the Republican Party, even though Steve Ben is going to go to jail at some point, is going to remain a powerful force because it has a reinforcement mechanism at Facebook that feeds these people, these messages. In every one of these places,

Facebook has become a dominant part of the nationalist populace and neo-authoritarian movements. And thanks to Mark, Zuckerberg. Appreciate your help on that. But those people will keep getting that reinforcement. They'll keep being told that the brown people are coming to kill you and put a taco truck in your neighborhood. Black people are going to destroy your suburban home prices.

That Antifa is one minute away from killing you and your family. They're going to keep seeing that shit as long as Fox exists as Facebook is the amplification channel for all these people in that space. I have a question for you with the remaining time I have left. The Republican Party, we all know, tries to limit ballot access. We're seeing them do pretty well with a lot of voting by mail, a lot of expanded ballot access. Do we think in a coming Biden term that obviously wants to do voting right act, there's any chance in hell that we see any expansions to voting after this election?

Well, I think Mitch McConnell will set himself on fire and leap off the Capitol Dome before he does that. But the dirty little secret guys is that the Republican Party in states like Florida, Texas, and Wisconsin, have run aggressive early voting vote by mail and absentee ballot programs for generations. The Republican Party of Florida, a little quick history lesson before we wrap up, a guy named Tom Floyd in the 904 was the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida. He wrote a plan called Operation Sledgehammer. It was a 25-year plan to destroy the Democratic Party. The fundamental core of it was to rev up Republican absentee voters and Republican early voters so that they would be fired up weeks in advance. It wouldn't matter what happened in the campaign.

They'd cast a vote in September. It would be done and in the bank. They were great at it. They're still great at it. Now, Trump fucked it up and took a shit in the baby pool by saying, vote by news, fraud, don't do it. And so they ended up having to push these people out on election day. Does that iterate? Does that work if you don't have a celebrity candidate like Trump and a fanatical cult like Trumpism?

We'll see. But no, you will not see under Mitch McConnell any expansion of voting rights or election security measures or election integrity measures or anything else to improve our elections. But we're going to go way back. The Supreme Court has a majority that says there's no racism anymore. There shouldn't be any voting rights act that has any teeth whatsoever. What's left of the Voting Rights Act has already been sort of tattered. They've said that there's unlimited partisan gerrymandering is allowed. So big data is going to rule the, you know, it is just that'll happen.

The Democrats are going to do that too, back to Goose and the Gander in the houses that they have control. But this census, you know, which we haven't, by the way, we just got finished with me on. and talk about how the census is going to be sabotaged in the next two or three months. And that's going to have a huge impact on how these districts are drawn by the various partisan legislation. And I think, look, I think two other things that are, that are, as Jay pointed out, you know, after Shelby, that was, that was the, I mean, the Voting Rights Act is on life support after Shelby. But I do think you're going to see at some point, there will be, at some point in some of these states, the Republicans are going to start saying that they, are the oppressed minority. They already say that.

As much as, well, in the legal side, as much as Republicans have benefited by the electoral college over the years, now that Texas and Georgia are turning blue, I will predict for you very clearly, and my friend Reid Galen has a longer theory about this. It's very smart. Within 10 years, the Republicans will be calling for the elimination of the electoral college. Because they're going to start losing in Texas.

And if you don't have Texas, that's the ballgame, guys. If North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas flip blue, that's it. You can't do it. But they're never going to win the popular vote. Yeah, I hate to, again, close on a downer, but they did so well with Hispanic voters in Texas. And they said so well with Cuban and Venezuelan voters in Florida. I'm wondering if they'll have second thoughts about the racist voter suppression campaign that they've been doing. Well, let me tell you something about Hispanic voters in Texas.

Texas, more than half of them are pro-life. Yeah. And the Democrats don't get that. In the Rio Grande Valley, they may be as blue as the day as long on every other issue, but they're religious. They're really, really religious. You're more likely to see a Baptist church in the Rio Grande Valley with Mexican immigrants or Mexican Americans in it that believe in almost every other thing the Democratic Party

represents, and that's a disqualifying note with them. And it's just... Democratic friends often have a... Believe that America is homogeneous ideologically. And those weird pickups like Cuban socialism and abortion and Mexican religious voters in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. It's a... But ultimately, don't you think this election was a good election for Marco Rubio in a weird way? No.

No. But there are... there are, those are voters that the Republican Party can win with. Yeah, but every other Republican hates Marco Rubio. Trust me on this one. You will never, if you're, if you were a 2016 candidate, okay, you will never survive the 2024 primary because at some point you said something critical of Trump or failed to defend Trump or weren't suitably, you know, didn't give him suitable adulation at

some point you will get those ads against you in the 24 primary and no matter what you do with the theory of marco rubio in 2016 was just that he could win moderate Hispanic voters he could cross the he could cross the spectrum i of uh ethnically it's not going to work he's he's a like all of them if they were critical of trump ever there's going to be you know a core in the trump base that will that will that will never forgive them for it ever Can I ask one last question? We actually can't. We have to end.

We're over. I'm sorry, Molly. I want to thank you guys for being so insightful. It really is one of those things where we can listen to you all day. I wish we had more time. I want to thank the members for attending, but we do have to wrap, unfortunately. Thanks so much for coming here. Sam Stein and Jay.

Thanks, Sam. Thanks, Jay. Jesse. You guys have to come on the pod. We didn't stop the podcast. I'm going to your boss, guys. Any minute now. See you, folks. 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

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