The Daily Beast Podcast - Capitol Police Officers Could Be the Key to Nailing Trump

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

It might take a little while longer (it’s already taking a while), but, according to Daily Beast investigations reporter Jose Pagliery on this episode of The New Abnormal podcast, we may be moving closer to former President Trump being held accountable for inciting the Jan. 6 riots. He tells co-host Danielle Moodie why he thinks so along with an explanation of the civil suits against the former president that may also get him indicted. Plus! The Bulwark’s Tim Miller tells co-host Andy Levy what it was like to attend CPAC, in person, what he thought was the most “chilling” part of Trump’s “deranged” speech during the event, and theorizes the likely reason Ron DeSantis avoided Trump and CPAC altogether. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. Welcome back. What an exciting episode we have for you today. From Donald Trump to Carrie Lake and all the madness in between, we have the bulwarks, Tim Miller with us today to try to make sense of what happened at CPAC this weekend.

Then we'll be joined by Daily Peace Political Investigations reporter Jose Pallieri to talk about Trump's legal troubles and how a recent Department of Justice memo may have just opened up even more. But first, let's have some fun. So Danielle, welcome to a new week. I know you're probably a little bit hungover, not from partying, but from what you always have on your calendar as your favorite weekend of the year. And that is the annual CPAC convention. This year it was held in Washington, D.C. It used to be annual, but you can't even call it that anymore because there's like, I don't

know, there's like 22 CPAC conferences a year now, including one in Hungary. And I think they were trying to hold one at. Oh, shit. But couldn't get the permits. I'm not really sure. I don't know. Can I say that? Probably not. Probably not. Anywho, it was the usual load of crazy that you get at these whack-job conservative events. Although for most accounts, it was a lot more low energy than it's been in the past in terms of the crowd. And again, I think that's because they're holding more than one and there are now competing other groups are having these conferences.

But you still get the full crazies on stage. You get the Marjorie Taylor Greens. You get the Donald Trump. Trump Jr. and is, I assume it's just a friend. I don't know that it's his dealer. And you get your Kimberly Gilfoyle. You get your Carrie Lake. All the crazy show up for CPAC or most of the crazy show up for CPAC. So Donald Trump gave a Fidel Castro length, epic speech that was around the two hour mark, I think. If you go online and look for fact checks, you'll just see like unbelievable amounts of fact checking because basically every word out of his mouth was a lie. But there was one thing in particular that he said that stuck out to me as sort of a very chilling thing for someone who wants to be president supposedly of a democracy or a public to say. And that was the phrase, I am your retribution, which to me sounds more like something out of a bad superhero movie.

So Danielle, what did you make in that? So first, if we were to rate this, the energy level at CPAC on a scale of one to Jeb, Bush, I would say that it was giving like serious fucking low energy. Half the seats when Trump was speaking of his X-Men speech were empty. And people were putting up, you know, the visuals from 2020 when he was there, 2020, you know, from the past couple of years until now. And like you're saying, it was half the people, half an attendance. And it just does not pack the same punch that it did. That's what all the coverage said. But going to Donald Trump, Donald Trump is the embank. of white male fragility and grievance.

Everything that comes out of this man's mouth is woe is me, woe is me. This I am your retribution is basically the QAnon shaman. That's Donald Trump. Yeah. Like he wants to be the QAnon shaman Robert E. Lee balled up into one saying go charge the hill on my behalf. Like it harkens back to the I alone can fix this. Exactly.

These are, this is not terminology. This is not language that. comes out of the mouth of a president of the United States. It comes out of the mouth of an authoritarian, a strong man, which is not about we the people. It is about I alone. And I think that, aside from the fact that no one could keep up their fact checking with Donald Trump, I mean, this is disorder level at this point, the amount that this man lies. Like, between him and George Santos, I don't know who would win the competition. At least Donald Trump, I think, is his real name. But like other than that, it's like every fucking thing that comes out of his mouth is just wild hot shit.

And these people eat it up. I saw one clip, Andy, which was really crazy. So all of these people, you know, they are tinfoil hat, you know, motherfuckers, right? Like that would be the sign of their gang. There was an interview that was happening and they were asking about January 6th. What do you think about January 6th? Do you think that Donald Trump bears any responsibility, blah, blah, blah? And this woman decked head to toe in Trump gear said that never happened.

That January 6th never happened. It is tapes from the government that this never happened. Now, I say this to you and our audience and folks will be like, these people are crazy. That woman is not a lone wolf. Right. She is part of the Q&ONONC crazy pack that is, now in charge of the Republican Party. And they believe that the videos that we've seen, the

testifying of police officers that were beaten, the testifying that went on with the January 6th committee is all a lie. This is like people still believing that the earth is flat, that there was no landing on the moon, and that 9-11 didn't happen. This is who this base is and it is terrifying. Yeah, we were talking about this before we started recording. The thing is, it's easy to look at this stuff and you look at the various speakers and what they say. You know, they're basically end times people talking about biblical figures like Ball and Mollock. You know, and you're tempted to just say, like you said it, you're tempted to just say, oh, that's just some crazy person. The thing is, it could be that, I don't know, 15 years ago at a CPAC, you could look at someone like that and say,

that's just some lone crazy person. But like you said, you can't do that anymore because all the shit that goes on at these conferences is now Republican mainstream. This is not a libertarian party convention where you get whack jobs going up there. And you can laugh and you can watch it and just say, you know, this is actually funny because you knew they were nowhere near the seats of power. You can't do that now because among these speakers are Marjorie Taylor Green. Among these speakers are Nikki Halley. And even the speakers that sound insane, well, again, like Marjorie-Telle Green, are in Congress now. Or if they're not in Congress, they're speaking to a bunch of people who are either congressional aides or there are Congress people who are listening to this or watching it

going, this is what our voters want. We've got to push for legislation here. It's at the point where the laughter is gone. Like there's nothing amusing about this shit anymore. And maybe there never should have been. But it did seem okay to love. when it was just a couple of crazies. But now that the crazies are the party, you can't. You cannot laugh at this stuff because you sit there and laugh. And then four months later, some law is passed and you're like, wait, how did that happen? And what was obvious as we were moving through this weekend of CPAC was the obvious hatred,

dehumanization, demonizing that they have for the trans community and LGBTQ people. Yep. I care a lot about my mental health and wellness. So I don't sit through and watch all of these things. It's enough for me to watch the clips, right? Like I tell people, you need to protect your mental health. Dip in and dip out. The things that you hear can really eat away at your hope and hopefulness and all of these things.

But, you know, for them to talk about the trans community and the way that they do, it's not a real identity. They're not real people. And that is just some of the high level things that I will say. Here's my problem. And this is, you know, and I have many. But here's my problem with them as a person who is queer and identifies as queer and came out, you know, 20 years ago is when people tell you how to respect them, how to identify them, when people offer that to you and your responses, I don't give a fuck.

That says so much more about you than it does the other person. I don't know who these vile human beings think that they are, the Marjorie Taylor Greens who want to recite and wrongfully so, any verse from the Bible that would tell you that everyone, if you believe in God at all, isn't worthy of dignity and respect. Nobody from the LGBTQ community is saying, you need to love like me, you need to look like me. No, all folks have ever been saying is just rest.

respect me and give me dignity to live my life, free of obstacles, free of oppression, free of injustice. And the fact that these people somehow think that they have the sole line to God, to Jesus, to whomever it is that they worship, and that in order for us all to be accepted as human, we must assimilate is really on some hot shit. Andy, it is honestly, it is very scary. Again, the way that they are speaking, the way that they are moving. around LGBTQ people, but specifically trans people.

I could not agree more. Look, I've been saying for a while, I say this as a cis-hete white man. The language being used about queer people, and as you said, about trans people in particular, is to me, if you're going to make Nazi comparisons, that's the most apt one to what's going on now. And it is the utter dehumanization of people, as you said. And as you said, these are people who are not. saying you have to love like me. The people who are saying you have to love like me are the people who are attacking the queer community and the, you know, the trans community. Don't even get me started

on the pronouns shit because it literally costs you nothing. Not a thing. To call someone by the pronouns that they prefer. It costs you nothing and you can't even do that. As you said, that says so much about who you are as a person. And unfortunately, when Donald Trump says something like, I am your retribution, that's the people he's talking to. That is exactly the people he's talking to you. He is saying to them, I am your retribution for being forced, quote, unquote, to call people by the pronouns they prefer and to let those people live their lives in a way that you don't agree with.

I am your retribution. The anti-trans rhetoric in particular flowed pretty freely at CPAC this year, but from no one more than this trashy little shitbird of a bigot who works for Ben Shapiro's loathsome dailywire, a failed actor named Michael Knowles. You may know him from his role as Doctor in Hall from Operation Elephant Ears. You may know him as guy number one from Denver Mullet in New York City. Oh shit. Not guy number one. Or as surgeon in the Nick. This guy is a failed actor. And unfortunately, we're seeing a lot of this failed actor and failed comedian to right-wing YouTube star blogger type pipeline. And it's just out of control. And for those who don't know,

he in a speech at CPAC, and this made by far the biggest headlines of anyone there, which at a place that had Trump senior, Trump Jr., you had presidential candidates, you had Steve Bannon, and this guy somehow managed to be the biggest asshole in that group. And in his speech, he said for the good of society, and especially for the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely, the whole preposterous ideology. And he got applauded for it. So it's like your first thing would be like, imagine being at a place where you feel like you can say that and not get booed. But he didn't get booed. He got cheered. These are the people we're talking about now. And again, this is not some fringe. This is,

is a good portion of the base of the Republican Party in the 2020s. And as you said, it's terrifying. It's terrifying to me, again, as a cis-hait white man, hearing this kind of language and knowing what it means. I obviously, I cannot imagine what it's like for someone who is more directly affected to it. A member of the queer community, a member of the trans community, a person of color, to hear shit like this being utterly mainstreamed. And so I would never pretend to be able to understand.

it the way someone like you or any other member of those communities can. But I'm just saying it is fucking terrifying to me to hear that shit. And I'll be talking about this with Tim Miller after this. You know, one of the main phrases we always heard from sort of the gay community was it gets better. Right. Yep. You always want to think that. You always want to think that it gets better.

And it seemed like for a while it was not as fast as it should have been, but at least it felt like things were moving in the right direction. On the upside, because there was just so much horrificness and negativity over the weekend. Please give us some good news. Well, I don't know if it's kind of a mixed bag. Or something good. Yeah, I was going to say, it's kind of a mixed bag. But over the weekend was the 58th anniversary of Selma, Mississippi, where late John Lewis, when he was 25 years old, led 600 protesters, mostly youth, over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in

Mississippi to walk the 54 miles to the governor at the time George Wallace's mansion to demand dignity, respect, voting rights, and end to segregation and brutality. And they were met, as many know the story and have seen the imagery by the state troopers that severely injured dozens of people on that day. And the whole thing was filmed. The whole thing was filmed. And many say, look to Selma as this kind of moment. where the world was just finally seeing the brutality of racism and injustice and Jim Crow in the United States.

And I got to tell you that I had mixed emotions as I was watching the news over the weekend and seeing the imagery and listening to everyone from Al Sharpton to President Biden who was there and did the walk over the bridge and talking about this moment. We always love to believe that Selma happened hundreds of years ago. If you were one years old,

when this happened, you are 58 now. You're not even at retirement age. Our history of oppression, brutality, and dehumanization of the black community is still frankly very ripe and real, but it's also not as distant as folks would have us believe. And then what got me as I was watching this is that this lesson is not even being fucking taught in Florida. And in other states that are adopting DeSantis's erasure of American history. So, you know, I look at this and I want to say, oh, look how far we come.

And then Tyree Nichols, George Floyd, Brianna Taylor. I look at hundreds of voter suppression laws after the gutting of the Civil Rights Act. I look at CPAC. And I think, where the fuck are we headed? I know. I'm running out of things to say about this kind of thing because we're assaulted with it on a daily basis, particularly with what's going on in Florida and in other states that are doing, Now, similar things, as you said earlier, sort of taking their cues from Ron DeSantis.

President Biden spoke in Selma. I feel like we didn't hear much about that. I feel like maybe we should have heard more about that. And he said some really good things in his speech. And he was there with Alice Arpton and he was there with Jesse Jackson. And I would like to live in a world where that is considered more important than what happened at CPAC. Like I said, we can't ignore CPAC because what's happening there is unfortunately important. I'm saying I would like to live in a world where it's not important, where it is just a bunch of loony tunes, crazies who have absolutely no political power and no chance of getting political power.

And we could just ignore them and laugh at them. And instead, we could concentrate on things like the anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma and look back on something that happened. Like you said, this is not ancient history. and there are a lot of people on the right that try to portray stuff like this as ancient history, if they're allowing it to be portrayed as at all. Yeah. I am not quite old enough to have been alive for that, but I am pretty damn close. And there are millions and millions of people who are alive right now, who were alive back then.

And none of this is ancient history. It is modern history. and it is stuff that, you know, as you alluded to, it is stuff that we've started to deal with. There's started to be a reckoning. But now it feels, much as it does with gay rights and what's going on with trans people, it feels like we've put the transmission in reverse. Mm-hmm. A hundred percent. And we're going back and we're going the wrong way. And it's just, it's utterly sad. And as cynical as I am, I did not foresee shit going backwards. I'm always leery of how sleep.

progress is, but I did not foresee shit actually going backwards, and especially to the degree that it really is now. And it is absolutely frightening. And we need a course correction ASAP. 100%. As you just heard me and Danielle discuss CPAC took place over the weekend and now here to talk about it from the perspective of someone who was in the room is the bulwarks Tim Miller. Tim, thanks for being here. Andy, what's up, brother? Not much. Happy to do it. It's It's a refreshing change from the crowd that I was spending time with last week. What was the atmosphere like there? I feel like I read a lot of reports that use phrases like low energy, which generally hasn't

been the case there in recent years. Yeah, it was definitely low energy. A reporter friend described it as kind of like going to the mall after the Apple store has left, you know, like a little bit, the vibe there is a little sleepy. I'll say this. It's hard to figure out what to attribute that to, though, because there are a couple of different things apply. Like one is the whole party is CPAC now, right?

I went to a Turning Point USA event called America Fest right before Christmas in Arizona. And it was bumping. You know, and CPAC now happens like once a fortnight. You know, there's a Texas one of Florida and Hungary, right? And then, you know, then you have Matt Schlapp, the head of CPAC, pummeling people's junk, allegedly. And so is the fact that it was lower energy, the fact that the attendance was lower, a signal that people are, you know, ready to turn off the Trump show? Or is it just that like they've got more channels that they can turn to?

for their MAGA content now, and it's not just this once a year gathering. That's hard to say. It was palpable that, you know, while the crazy was as intense as ever, you know, the crowd was not to the standard of past CPEX. Yeah. And on Saturday, I guess, the former guy, as Joe Biden likes to call him, spoke. And Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk tweeted, epic speech from President Trump, a bold vision for the future, vintage America first, law and order, election integrity, and ending the endless wars. And I got to say, I looked on Twitter. I was surprised to see that you liked and retweeted that. I think that that was Elon is now doing that. They're like force. It's forcible retweeting.

Right. You know, in order to maintain my blue check now, I have to do, I have to retweet two mega-grifters per day. Just stand good standing with Elon. I guess I didn't share that point of view, I would say. I thought that it was pretty long. You know, I saw DeSantis last week, too. He's got the Trump disease. I went down for the circus. I was in the villages for a DeSantis event. And, you know, he spoke for about 80 minutes. Trump spoke for like a. 100 minutes or even more. And it's just like the people don't even want this. It's very meandering. They both have a lot of grievances. It's one area of comparison. But no, I thought that Trump, at least in one sense, he didn't spend the whole time whining about how he really won. So I guess if we're grading on a massive curve from a political analysis standpoint, it's stepping in the right direction. But it was as dark and deranged as ever. Oh, absolutely. And it does seem for as much as they hate communism, they're all turning into Fidel Castro when it comes to the length of their speeches. which seems a little odd to me. But there was like a really chilling line in Trump speech, I thought, where he said, I am your retribution, which sounds like it's from a Punisher movie or, you know, at best,

maybe like a John Wick type movie. It feels like that's not really what you want in a democracy? No, you don't want the head of the government to feel like they need to be, you know, executing retribution against their political foes. It's a little bit different than the whole, you know, I'll govern for all Americans type kind of peens. that we used to have in the old day. It's a little bit of a change. For me, I thought in very Trumpian fashion, the most chilling section was also had a very V-Pish twist to it. And that was when he was kind of having a fantasy hallucination about Putin taking down the NATO building,

which on the one hand made it seem like, it kind of seemed like he was rooting for Putin to like bomb or attack the NATO building. And so at first you're getting pretty concerned, right? That it's like, well, I guess that's because of his fetishization for autocrats. But then as the little Diatribe goes on, it turns out that he had some concerns about the architecture of the NATO building. He thought they did a bad job with the way that they built it. And so he had some, you know, had some complaints. He wanted it to be more in the classic style. So, I mean, the whole thing is, it's like one minute, you're like, this is ludicrous, one minute you're mocking them. You know, and then the next minute you're like, boy, this is a little alarming. So Putin, and this is basically

Howard Rourke from the fountainhead, just blowing up the ugly building. Yeah, I guess. Good to know. Yeah, it does seem, though, I am your retribution seems like a little bit of a move from Reagan's shining city on a hill. Yeah, it's definitely a pivot. Yeah, it's a bit. And this is kind of the related question to the kind of limp CPAC crowd attendance, right? Is we know that there is a burning hot element of the party that desperately wants retribution. Right. You know, we see it online.

You see it when you go to these events. But is that a majority of the party? plurality of the party, I think that that kind of like remains this open question because if the answer that is yes, which I'm open to, I think that it very well could be yes. We're heading into an extremely dark place, right? Where the, where the animating energy of the party and the leadership is how we can punish our foes. And obviously that ends poorly. I think that there isn't slightly better potential possibility, which is, which is, which is that maybe it's, you know, a quarter of the party or a third that gets animated by the idea of retribution against foes and that there's a big,

middle that they don't hate it. Right. They're not principally opposed to it or anti-ante it, right? But they might want to just like kind of move on to something that they don't share that deep-seated loathing, right? Like they don't love the elites, but they want somebody that can maybe actually beat them in elections rather than somebody that's like pretty good at coming up with nicknames for them, right? Right. I think that that kind of remains this sort of open question is can Trump get from the 30 of the core voters? that really do respond to this dark message, the weird shit, as George O.B. Bush would say it. And can he

appeal to that next group over to get himself to a majority? I think it's possible. But I think that's as much in question now as it's been since he came down the escalator. Well, and I guess sort of along those lines, obviously the person who was the most conspicuous by their absence was Ron DeSantis. So what do you make of that? Is that Trump avoidance? Is he trying to avoid being in the same place at the same time as Trump? Is it just simply, as you said earlier, there are so many of these conferences and DeSantis went to a different one. And it's just like, this is sort of the future where you have these competing conferences. Yeah, I think there are a couple of things at play. So I guess I went to see DeSantis down at the villages on Tuesday. And he had launched his book this week. Right. And, you know, you've been in the

business, Andy, that's not an accident. You know, you pick your book launch day pretty far in advance. I think that they, you know, wanted to counter program CPAC. I don't think that this is a sign that he is moving away from the MAGA message that you hear back in any sense. But I think it is a way to say, okay, DeSantis is maybe head and shoulders ahead of the other Lilliputian wannabe magas, you know, trying to replace Trump and saying, okay, you know, I don't need to go be one of 12 people on this state trying to be the biggest loser to Trump, who is obviously going to win the straw pole and be the biggest draw on his home turf. I'm going to do my book tour. I'm going to have this event in the breakers in South Florida with a club for growth and see, can I, can I,

offer an alternative that isn't in direct conflict with Trump. And if you go to CPAC, your choices are either direct conflict, which Mike Pompeo chose, to just deafening silence, or to just trying to be mini-Trump, which is not a position you want to be if you're going to end up challenging him. So I just think from a strategic standpoint, it made sense, both from an avoidance standpoint and from a trying to present yourself as an alternative, not as, you know, one of the people competing to win the bridesmaids contest. That's an excellent point. And like you said, it's no surprise that Trump handily won the straw pole. Tiny G got second, though.

Do you prefer Tiny D or Meatball Ron? I prefer Meatball Ron personally. I don't know. I kind of like Tiny D. Tiny D is a little too on the nose. You think so? I think so, yeah. Meatball Ron is evocative to me. Yeah. So my only issue now, from my man on the street experience, Andy, so we were testing out the various nicknames with the people that showed up to these events

last week. And I got to say that those of us with TDS, the Never Trumpers, and the liberals, really like Meatball Ron. A lot of the MAGAs thought it was a little below the belt. Several of them felt like that doesn't sound like the Donald that they know to make a body image attack like that. As opposed to Tiny D. Yeah.

Well, we didn't test out Tiny D. Oh, okay. All right. Establishment, I think maybe fit was landed a little bit better with the target audience. But I was interested in your take. Yeah, no, I'm a Meatball Ron kind of guy. Although, you know, I came up with when Trump first came up with the sanctimonious, which is awful. I thought he should have gone with

Dol Santos. That's not bad. I kind of like Des Sanctus. It means nothing, but that's kind of Trumpian. It is just totally nihilistic. It's just he feels like it looks good and it feels degrading and you're not sure why. None of the voters know what it means. Exactly. There's something for that. Anyway, so Trump won the Strawpole, but I got a little bit of a sick thrill out of the fact that Carrie Lake won the vice president of Strawpole. And I think you may have had a little run in with her. I did.

She was in the Reagan dinner slot, which would make you feel good about the direction of the party. The night before Trump had the prime time speaking position. We connected in the hallway at CPAC to just, you know, have a little discussion. Well, first, I wanted to congratulate the governor. Oh, sure. I was interesting that she made it out of the state. I didn't notice any Arizona patrolman with her, which I thought was strange. Security detail, yeah.

Yeah, I thought that was true. Usually you see that in a governor. Sure, with a governor, sure. Yeah, but she didn't have that. So we just had a little discussion. And the crux of it was I offered a counter position. Her view is that, you know, she won and that the election was stolen from her. That's one way to look at it.

There's not a lot of evidence for that. There's actually zero evidence for that. But I offered to her a counter proposal, which was that maybe she should have tried to appeal to people that had voted for actual winners like John McCain and Doug Deucy and Jeff Lake. And like, maybe the reason why she lost was that she told them to go to hell and campaigned in the final days with Steve Bannon and Pizza Gate, Jack. and this cast of weirdos, and that maybe she might have been able to kind of get across the hump had she tried to, you know, reach out to people more in the traditional Republican lane. She rejected that suggestion. Yeah, she thought that was wrong and that I was biased and liberal.

And then we went back and forth a few times. When she ran out of substantive defenses, she insulted my outfit. It was a good effort, I guess. She's asked me why I look, why I dressed like a 13-year-old, which is, you know, not nothing. Yeah, I got a little chuckle of that. Not nothing, but not at the top of your game. You know, it wasn't like, it wasn't a high level roast, but it was an effort. So again, the CPAC vibe is this, it's smaller, but like the intensity of the weirdos is as high as ever, right?

So as me and Carrie are having this exchange. I mean, you know, just we get encircled by people in Joe and the Ho got a go t-shirts and like red hat and like weirdos to shouting at us, Carrie, Carrie. She maintains, despite her loss of very loyal following, which is another change in itself. It's just like, this is not how things used to go. You know, when John Kerry lost to Bush 2005, he wouldn't go around with like Carrie Dead Enders screaming his name everywhere. At some level, you can understand why, like, she keeps up the charade. Because in her tiny little maga bubble, it feels like, you know, she has a lot of support.

Oh, absolutely. And look, I loved her, I guess her office's response to winning the straw poll was that they were flattered, but unfortunately the Constitution would not allow her to be. both governor and vice president at the same time, which I got a real kick out of. Clever. I'm coming to adore her, Tim. Just like the camp of it? Yeah, it's just, there's something pure about it.

Yeah, I got disappointed. I had another set of questions I didn't get to get to because she stormed off after a while. I guess she couldn't take the heat. I thought I was pretty nice, all things considered, because I was about to go lower. She is so campy. And if there ever was like a drag brunch mom, it's carry-like. Right. I mean, like, if you had to, if you had to just paint an archetype of a

mom was trying to get away from her kids and has one too many mimosas at drag brunch and Scottsdale on Sunday. Like that is Carrie. Like she's done that 50 times. And like gotten up on stage. Yeah, got up on stage. She has befriended the drag queens. It's a little bit sad to see her now kind of turn and attack the LGBTQ community and all that. But like the campy element of it remains, right? Like the spirit, despite the fact that now she disavows drag in all of its forms, the spirit of drag still lives within her. Absolutely. Okay. So speaking of the spirit of drag, sort of, but in a much more serious way, let's get to the Daily Wires, Michael Knowles. Yeah, what a little bitch. Yeah. He made the biggest

headline at CPAC, which at a place that had Donald Trump and presidential candidates and stuff like that, for this little shitbird to make the biggest headlines is really something. So in a speech, he said, for the good of society and especially for the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, transgenderism must be eradicated. from public life entirely the whole preposterous ideology. So this obviously has sparked a lot of, I don't even want to say discussion, because that elevates what he said to a level it doesn't deserve. But what the fuck, man?

Yeah, I mean, obviously he's just trying to be provocative. And he's a colleague for Matt Walsh, who's like, you know, who just dined out and, you know, has this whole compound has been funded by his anti-trans activism and commentary. So, you know, there is this question of like how you fucking deal with these. assholes. But to me, it's like, this ties a little bit to the DeSantis question, which is what I wanted to ask if I had the chance when I was down there is about this attack on Disney and this attack on woke. And obviously, the transgender attack is more serious, you know, because it carried this weight of like actual violence with it. Yes. But it's just the notion of like, what exactly

do you want to do? Right. Going back to, you know, those who used to be in the Republican kind of circle, like the classical liberal view of how was the federal government going to eradicate this? like, let's even just pretend for one second to take this obnoxiousness seriously. Are we jailing people if they're cross-dressing? Like, what are we doing with Mrs. Doubtfire? You know what I mean? Like, the whole thing is reposterous. It's just hate speech. Like, that's all it is. Like, he just wants to provoke. He just wants to target. He just wants to demonize in order to get clicks for himself and help build up Republican candidates who appeal to other, you know, people that have this hate in their heart. And like, that's all it is. Like, there's no actual policy being proposed by

it or there's no actual substance behind it. It is just an affront and an attack to advance their own kind of brand among these fucking losers. But it works. And that's the scary part is that there are a not insignificant amount of people that hear this and go right on. That's what we need to do. Yeah. I mean, look, there's the famous slogan, it gets better. And you always try to believe that for gay people, it gets better. For trans people, it gets better. For people of color, it gets better. For Jews, it gets better. And then you start looking and you're like, it ain't getting better all of a sudden. Yeah, no, it's definitely getting worse. And directly with the transgender, if you look at the poll numbers, the numbers are actually getting worse as far as increased support

for laws that discriminate against transgender folks, whether it be in sports or bathrooms, whatever. No, it's not getting better. And the interesting thing, just to show you how nakedly political this is, these are all the same assholes that were sad about don't ask, don't tell, and In one second, they just turn the page and they're just like, that's not working anymore, right? So we're going to turn our fire to a new group. And you can see this with the don't say gay stuff in Florida schools, right? It's like, okay, well, the gay marriage stuff isn't working anymore. The gay's in the military stuff isn't working anymore.

Like, let's bring back this old saw, right, and start demonizing gay teachers, right? Because that is a scare tactic that might work again because parents are susceptible to this kind of rhetoric. So it is, I think, extremely alarming. And I think that if you look at the two leading Republican contenders in Trump and DeSantis, in addition to Knowles and the Daily Wire assholes, they see that this is a political winner for them. You know, this is not an issue that Trump dressed in drag, right? This is not an issue that Trump actually cares about, but it's starting to make it back higher and higher in his speeches. And DeSantis, when I went to go see his speech, it's all about woke, sexualizing kids, trans.

He sees that as a political winner. And it was a political winner for him in the midterm. And I think that's the most alarming part about all this. No, absolutely. It's incredibly alarming. And as a great philosopher once said, fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering. And they are propagating the fear, which has led to anger.

And then the anger has led to the hate. And the suffering has started. And unfortunately, I am afraid it's going to get worse before it gets better, which I'm not happy about. Look, before I let you go, I want to talk for just a brief second about convicted criminal. old Steve Bannon. Because he and his speech basically declared all-out war on Fox News. He said, Murdoch, you've deemed Trump's not going to be president. Well, we've deemed that you're not going to have a network because we're going to fight you every step of the way. Now, my first reaction to that is let them fight. Go, have fun. What do you think this means? Should Fox be scared of this?

Well, they obviously are if you look at the Dominion lawsuits. Yeah. Part of the reason why Fox did what they did about the election fraud, despite knowing better, the reason they played footsy with, you know, Rudy and all these liars about the election fraud was because they were seeing their numbers tank. You know, they're seeing Newsmax pick up steam. At CPAC, there's a whole media row out there. And, you know, it's just filled with people that, like, listeners of this podcast, like, have never heard of, like, getting mobbed. You know, there's, there's all these alternative right-wing media outlets, Real America's voice, you know, OIA and Newsmax are still around, NTD Network, Epoch Times, run by the Falun Gong. It's endless, right? So the question

is, can those folks eat into Fox? And I think the question, the answer to that is, like, yes. I think that that that could work. But is there a ceiling on it? I'm hopeful. I'm praying that the answer to that is yes. That just like we saw in the midterms, like there's a ceiling to the election denialism. There's way too many millions upon millions of people that believe this nonsense and wanted to live in like a mega dictatorship following a Donald Trump coup. But there also was a big group of people that really were like, okay, this went a little too far for me, right? And I'm a Wall Street Journal Republican, and I just, I'm not going to vote for these freaks, okay? And I think that the same question comes in the media consumption, right? Like, can Bannon take a chunk out of Fox? I think so.

Do you make enough of a chunk out of Fox to pay for his legal bills and like, you know, get himself a boat? Yeah, I think so, right? Can it be enough that it's a real threat to Fox? I don't know. Is it enough that it makes Fox want to continue to tack right to guard its flank? Absolutely. And in a lot of ways, that might be the scariest prospect. You know, that Fox ends up doing more Tucker-style programming in order to protect itself. That could have some real consequences, particularly on issues like Ukraine. Tim Miller, thanks so much for being here. Tim is with the bulwark.

You can also see him on the Showtime series The Circus, which I have been seeing ads for nonstop during my Twin Peaks to Return rewatch lately. Tim, thanks so much. Really appreciate it. Andy, thanks, brother. Nothing is more abnormal than the rise of the radical right. Fever Dreams is a Daily Beast podcast, taking you inside the rights push to retake power from the MAGA Acolytes to the straight-up grifters. They recently released their 100th episode, so there's no better time to listen. Head to beast.pub slash fever dreams to check it out.

Folks, I am very excited to welcome back to the new abnormal, Jose Pallieri, who is a political investigations reporter at the Daily Beast. You, sir, have been busy digging in on. investigations into Trump, as you know, so is Georgia, so is the Department of Justice, so is, you know, New York and everywhere. We are all on a race to the bottom. Correct. And your latest piece is where I want us to kick off, which is entitled how a new DOJ memo sets up two potential Trump indictments. Now, look, I feel like if I were to hold my breath and wait on these indictments, I would have passed out and died two years ago. And yet your piece, kind of breathes new life into my hopefulness, which as anybody who listens to me knows is the side

of a mustard seed. Talk us through what these two memos are, what the new DOJ memo is, and why it seems viable that Trump may in fact see a criminal indictment. Let's start off with describing where this came from. Shortly after January 6th, 2021, Donald Trump was hit with a ton of bad press, also lawsuits related to the way that he incited that riot. And I don't think, I mean, anyone with their head screwed on their shoulders correctly wouldn't doubt the fact that he very much inspired what happened that day. So let's just start with the groundwork here. These injured police officers who responded that day and tried to hold people back away from the Capitol building sued former President Trump, alleging that he personally was responsible. And these

all sorts of really interesting because civil cases like this that don't result in anybody going to prison, right? They target people's money. They tend to go by very slowly compared to the criminal justice system. I mean, you can have civil cases go on for years and years and then by contrast, a criminal case could happen in a year and a half, right, and then somebody ends up in prison. That's not what happened this time around. This civil lawsuit by these police officers and a consolidated one that was also brought forward by Representative Erick Swalwell in California have actually moved by kind of rapid in the sense that a judge has already found that it's very plausible that Trump is directly liable for what happened here. He's allowed this lawsuit to move forward. And aspects of it have already

made their way to an appellate court in D.C. that asked the Department of Justice to weigh in and say, well, are these defenses put forward by Donald Trump legitimate at all? The idea that he has a First Amendment right to say what he did that day, or that he is protected somehow as a president for what he said, was it all within the realm of his job? And all eyes were on the DOJ because this has the potential to do two things. One, breathe life into this lawsuit that could very well hold him accountable. You can imagine how much money he'd be on the hook for if a jury found that he was responsible for the destruction that day. On the other hand, that DOJ position could very well indicate what the Department of Justice is willing to do when it comes to its own investigation of Trump.

And so last week, the DOJ finally answered the appellate court and said that absolutely not. What he said that day is not within the scope of his job. I know that this sounds like, well, this isn't exactly brave of the DOJ. I mean, they finally said what's on everybody's mind. But this is coming from a Department of Justice that is under the executive branch. Many times it's their job to do as much as possible to protect the office of the president. Not today, not tomorrow, decades, centuries from now. They want to give as much cover and protection to that person.

And in this case, they left this former president out to dry. So our story is about how not only does this, obviously, score a win for these police officers who were injured by these MAGA crazies, but also in the DOJ's own investigation, this means that the DOJ has essentially knocked down whatever defense. Trump will have if and when, and I think it's when, they criminally charge him for incitement of a riot. And what surprised me in reporting this through were the attorneys and former prosecutors who told me that, indeed, this doesn't just help the DOJ. This also means that if and one, and again, we think it's when, the Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis down in Georgia, charges Trump for meddling in Georgia's elections and trying to intimidate the top elections official over there. What she'll have with this is a document that says,

listen, buddy, you can't tell me that all of your actions were covered somehow under the First Amendment and they weren't covered by your presidential immunity. You can't just go around saying that the election's fake and pissing everyone off because with the power of that office, get ready for it. There's a small degree of responsibility. Like maybe don't try to tear apart the democracy you're supposed to lead. Really? Are you sure? Yeah. So one of the people that you interview for the piece, Mary B. McCord, said this. Had DOJ concluded that incitement unprotected by the First Amendment could nevertheless be within the president's official functions, that could conceivably have impacted criminal charging decisions related to the same speech.

Such incitement, though, of imminent private violence would not be within the outer perimeter of the office of the president. And that is a quote from the Department of Justice. So what we have here, what we've seen over the course of the last couple of years since Donald Trump was not reelected, since he lost the election, is that Donald Trump and his attorneys have been using privilege as some invisible cloak in Harry Potter. Like they just put it on and they're like he can move through and do whatever the hell he wants because he was the president of the United States. And even after leaving that office, when his lawyers have been investigated, have been deposed, trying to still use the reach of the office of the presidency and say, this is privilege, this is privilege, this is privilege. So by your investigation here, we now see to your point that Trump is left wide open.

You have not only the civil lawsuit that we're still going to see whether or not this goes through from the police officers, but there's another lawsuit by the two Georgia poll workers, Shea Moss and Ruby Freeman, mother-daughter poll workers, volunteers who live in Fulton County, who had their lives destroyed by the president of the United States and Rudy Giuliani for making them the sole reason while Donald Trump lost the election because they were passing something nefarious. Come to find out it was mince. Right. These are the women in that video. that was circulated in Maga World that claimed that there were some poll workers who were stuffing ballots and suitcases. They were chucking them in. These are fake votes that contributed to Trump's loss there. And of course, as anyone in their right mind knew then, and as I guess everybody else learned during the January 6th committee hearings, all of that was absolute crap, right? I mean, like, that was just absolute disinformation. And it was malicious disinformation because there was no way that this could be plausible. These women have sued Julianne. for defamation. And I think what's really interesting in their case is that their lawyers,

they don't have like run-on-the-mill lawyers. They have white shoe law firm lawyers at Wilkie Far who are taking this on and using this as an opportunity, as our story shows, to not just go after Giuliani, but they're demanding any communications he had with President Trump. And not just the communications they had as friends. These are communications they would have had where he was their lawyer. This is notable because the January 6th committee couldn't get that. Part of it was that they just didn't have the time to fight for this, but the other part was that maybe legitimately, Rudy Giuliani said, look, these are attorney-client communications. These are always secret. They're always private. You can't get them. And in this instance,

these lawyers for these two poll workers are saying, we want those communications. We think that there's evidence there, probably, that what you said that defamed these two women may have come from some degree of malicious intent, that you knew what you were. You know what you said. You said, that defamed these two women, that you knew what you were saying was false, that maybe this was some sort of strategy, political strategy, or a PR strategy. And if they succeed, this is what's really interesting. If they succeed, then we're going to get a whole new look at what Trump knew when, which is so pivotal.

I've talked to some really intelligent people who have still, still tell me, well, isn't it dangerous to criminally go after a former president? That sounds like revenge. I mean, is there really any evidence that he specifically knew? We have to posit a world where someone can be too stupid to prosecute, and that itself is pretty frightening. But if we can show, and as these attorneys are hoping to get, if we can show that Trump knew what he was saying was utter bullshit, then he's not just criminally liable. Then he is personally liable for a lot of the damage that continued. And this is the sort of thing that, even though it's slow moving, it could very well be what ends up bringing him down.

The problem here is, as you noted earlier, like, everybody's holding the breath. I mean, this is taking so long, it's painful. Not just for, like, the American public, but even as somebody who covers this day to day, there's a lot of groaning. And I think what's really interesting, and I want to get your thoughts on this, is the other bombshell that was dropped, I guess, you know, time is a construct, but maybe it was a week or two now, was the deposition of Rupap Marta in the case that is being filed against him by Dominion with regard to the fact that he knew, as did all of the hosts on Foxxie,

news that they're lying to their viewers on Fox about this stolen election was bullshit. And he said in his deposition under oath that, yeah, they knew. They knew that they were telling a lie. Sidney Powell's name came up in correspondence that Tucker Carlson had via text message that said that she was a nut job, but nonetheless, we're going to put her on the air. And so I wonder for you in your investigations, how do you think that that revelation, which was Rupert Murdoch saying, no, no, we knew that they were lying. They knew that they were lying.

The only people who didn't know were their duped audiences. So how do you think that something like that in conjunction with the DOJ memo in conjunction with the Georgia poll workers, you know, offering up their defamation lawsuit will come into play? Well, one thing that I think about when it comes to this topic is some of the evidence that the January 6th committee surfaced. which were those really damning text messages from Fox News hosts and the Trumps. And they were talking about how, oh, no, you should really call this off. You should do something about these rioters. I'm so sorry that these results came back the way they did.

I mean, it really shows what increasingly looks like a concerted effort on all parties to not really play dumb, but to just like bring about the reality they wanted. And in law, there's a term for that. It's called conspiracy. and that's how you take down the mob. And so it's a tired comparison. I do it all the time and I have to like pinch myself to wake up every time I do it. But prosecutors are absolutely going after the Trump's the way they would a mob.

You start from the bottom up. And what you're trying to prove here is that the people at the top knew what they were doing. And there was a quiet or maybe even a stated agreement to conduct themselves as they did. And that's what we see with the Trump organization. We see that with a tax fraud there. That's what we're certainly seeing with the January 6th incitement of a riot. And it's worth zooming out just a little bit and remembering that the incitement of a riot isn't even the biggest aspect of the Department of Justice investigation.

I mean, the real big parts are about the way that the Trump White House tried to find fake electors. Yep. Which again, like, I mean, as journalists were covering this, I mean, every moment was sort of jaw-dropping. And if you were the casual reader of The Daily Beast or the Washington Post or whatever, You'd be like, oh, wow, even more crap. Oh, gosh, this is even worse. This is even worse. But it's worth stopping to remember that we had a president who tried to conduct a bloodless coup.

That even though we keep getting reminded of that, even through the January 6th committee hearings and the occasional lawsuit that mentions it, we still haven't seen the Department of Justice come down on the people who took part in that. We're all holding our breath. And we might not have to hold our breath much longer. I mean, I've got some reporting that looks into the grand jury investigation in Washington, D.C. now that's underway. And at some point soon, maybe the next month or two, could take some sort of action. The issue they're having, of course, is that now it's in the hands of a special counsel, which slows things down. For those of us who remember Robert Mueller, that was a year's long effort that resulted in a whole lot of nothing. We have to see if Jack Smith will be any different.

What pisses me off, which is many things about this Department of Justice under the leadership of Merrick Garland, is the fact that Robert Mueller, regardless of how his investigation fell flat by being obstructed by Bill Barr, is the fact that he had laid out 10 ways in which Donald Trump obstructed the law. And while Donald Trump at the time was president of the United States

and they had their arbitrary like fucking handshake deal that says, oh, you can't prosecute a sitting president, Merrick Garland had everything in a folder from Robert Mueller that he could have opened up an investigation as soon as Donald Trump stepped on the helicopter and left the White House after Joe Biden's inauguration and decided not to. So I'm like, in my humble opinion, where we are right now is not just the responsibility of Donald Trump and his Republican enablers that fought tooth and nail to have

him stay in power. But it really is of Merrick Garland because he was given. This treasure trove of information that Robert Mueller set out and said, no, there's prosecutorial material here, but we can't do it while he's president of the United States. I am not anticipating that the special counsel, Jack Smith, will come out with a report that's 450 pages and ends with, and we're not going to answer the question. I don't expect that of him and his team, but we don't know what to expect, really. One thing that lots of people are hoping for, right, are the indictments over the classified documents that Romar Lago, the incitement of the riot, the moving of the fake electors, the intimidating of a Georgia elections official. There's a lot there for them to work through. The concern

I think that some of us who are reporting on this on the periphery have is that at times it feels like maybe is this too much? Like, is this too much of a case for the Department of Justice to handle? They have huge investigations spanning the globe about codics trafficking and global terrorism and all sorts of matters. But when it comes to our own domestic affairs, parts of this would seem like an open and shut case. The fact that it's taken this long is sort of a head scratcher. And maybe it's some version of the criticism that journalists get at times where it's like, if you see the way that we cover developing nations or anywhere outside of the U.S., if we were to do that here, the journalism would read a whole lot differently. Like, we wouldn't refer to the three

percenters and the oathkeepers. We'd be like an armed right-wing resistance movement seeking to install a fascist government, right? Like, we would cover it different. I'm not saying we have the Daily Beast. I think we certainly do cover it the way it is. But journalists overall would cover it a little differently. And I wonder if there's some of that going on with the DOJ, like if federal prosecutors, when faced with a person of color with a little bit of weed is like, I know what to do with this, and then faced with an old white guy who wants to stay in power illegally, it's like, I think I know what I'm supposed to do with this. The results may be different. And that's not surprising. Last thing really quick is your other article that I wanted to get the opportunity to touch on,

which was, you know, the fact that Trump is going to trial next month with E. Gene Carroll. In this case, Eugen Carroll has stated that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s in a department store. And she is going to court and they finally bring this up in April. But his lawyers, according to your piece, are trying to disregard or have the judge disregard the Hollywood access tapes, which everyone has fucking heard, which is where Donald Trump says when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. They say that this shows no pattern of behavior. I'm saying if it doesn't show a pattern of behavior or serious character flaw,

somebody who would joke about sexual harassment and then be on trial for sexual assault or the defamation thereof because her statute of limitation has run up on, I believe, on the rape charge. Where do you see this going and how do you see this playing into the larger pieces that we just talked about? The Trumps are very adept at using the justice system and the court system against everyone else. They figured out early on decades ago that if you throw enough money at a problem, it can very well go away. And it reminds me of this saying where like, if you don't have a lot of money and you have a legal problem, you have a legal problem. But if you have a ton of money and you have a legal problem, you don't have a legal problem. Yep.

And in this instance, what we see is that he's using his lawyers to say in the run up to this trial, do not need to hear this Axis Hollywood tape. Saying that you're grabbing someone by the pussy against their will because you're rich and they will let you do it has nothing to do with using your power and your riches to force yourself on a woman at a department store. Those are two distinct things somehow. Whether or not they're going to have any success there is going to be entirely up to this federal judge. But so far, he's shown no tolerance for bullshit. He doesn't want to grant them extra time. He doesn't seem happy that at the last minute, Trump hired this new lawyer to breathe some life into his case. And this is also the judge who has consolidated these two matters. He's

pretty smart guy who realized that a defamation case and a rape case about the same incident are about the same thing. So let's just try them. I mean, honestly, we'll just have to see. I mean, the judge is going to have to make the call whether or not under legal parameters, which can be highly technical and full of jargon, whether or not the jurors should or should not find this relevant. And look, I have personally, as someone who's covered the court system for more than a decade, I have my own critiques about jury selection and what people should hear and their consumption of news during a trial. I don't know how we can trust a jury to determine someone's fate or like sentenced someone to death. If we also don't trust them to like not be able to read the news and

know that it's different from what's in the courtroom, I think that's stupid. But that aside, it's going to be up to the judge to figure out whether or not the jury should find this relevant. The average person would probably find it relevant. That person who, you know, boasted about using his power to touch women inappropriately against their will would maybe act inappropriately at at Bergdorf-Gudman. But that's not to say it happened, by the way, that's just to say that maybe this comment is relevant to an allegation. Correct. But in this case, by the way, is pretty interesting because this is another one where I keep referring to it as like a Bill Cosby-like trial so that people can understand what this is. This isn't a criminal charge, but this will be

a rape trial, and this will very much be like the Bill Cosby one, one where a person who claims to be a victim will be able to potentially hold another person who's rich and powerful, accountable for their money. And let's not discount just how damaging this could be. If she ends up winning, then we have a presidential candidate who has been found liable. A jury has found him liable of rape. That's astonishing. It's astounding. And that will happen in the midst of criminal investigations in New York and Georgia and at the DOJ, wherever they are. I would like for this game of pin the tail on the donkey or pin the tail on the elephant in this. case to come to a conclusion at some point. And so hopefully we are near that. Folks, if you are

not reading Jose Pallieri's work at the Daily Beast, you are surely missing out. So make sure that you check out his latest work. Jose, thank you so much for making the time for the new abnormal. This was great. Happy to be here. Andy Levy. Daniel Moody. Let's start out this week right, shall we? Always. Who is your fuck that guy today? Oh, God. God. My fuck that guy hails from the great state of Texas, which may or may not secede in the near future. Somehow, Danielle, he was the White House doctor. He was President Obama's physician.

And now he is just completely out as a nut job Republican, and honestly one of the worst. And he went on Maria Barteromo's show on Fox News over the weekend. He was asked about the fact that Joe Biden just had a cancerous lesion removed, I guess, a couple of months ago, and they just revealed that. And his response to that, this is a doctor. His response to that was Biden is the cancer. He's what needs to be removed, not the lesion they found. Wow. That would be a bad enough comment from anybody.

That would be a bad enough comment from anybody who is currently a member of Congress, as Ronnie Jackson is. the fact that he's a fucking doctor, and he sat there and said that the cancerous lesion wasn't what needed to be removed. It's Joe Biden is what needed to be removed. Uh-oh. He also sort of did a little truther thing on it saying he's not entirely sure he believes that there was such a procedure done and that the whole thing is just meant to be a distraction for Joe Biden. I'm not sure what the distraction is from, but it just boggles my mind that someone who I assume is still licensed to practice medicine. And honestly, if a doctor said something like that to me, I would be reporting them to the AMA. Yep. Not to be a Karen, but, you know, there are certain things. When you're a doctor and you're saying shit like that, you shouldn't be a doctor. I mean, this is a guy who was reportedly drunk off his ass on duty a whole bunch of times, sexually harassed or made lewd comments to female subordinates and a whole bunch of other stuff. So he's just, you know, a classy guy all around is I think what I'm getting out here.

But he gets a hell and hearty fuck that guy for me for talking about someone who just got a cancerous lesion removed in the way that he did as a physician, let alone as a human fucking being. So Ronnie Jackson, fuck you. Yeah. And, you know, hey, shout out to the AMA. Maybe you want to investigate him. Just saying. Just a thought. Just a thought.

Danielle, who is your fuck that guy? I haven't talked about this man in a while. And it's because the Republicans have really, the true Republicans have really been taking up a lot of air and oxygen. But he's back. And who am I referring to, Andy, but Joe Manchin. Oh. The fake Democrat from West Virginia, who loves a camera, never met a lens he does not like. And so he goes on CBS's Face the Nation over the weekend.

And when asked about whether or not he would endorse Joe Biden for. re-election in 2024. He did what he always does in order to keep all cameras, eyes and ears on him, which is to say, quote, I'd like to see who all the players are. And he said also, quote, I've got plenty of time to make up my mind. He was also asked about whether or not he sees himself as a Democrat. Again, these questions that he is evaded saying that, quote, I'll make my political decision in December, whatever that may be. And that is going to be. And that it's going to be. his decision to either run for re-election in West Virginia. Maybe he will pull a cinema and decide that now he's an independent, which he's been

acting not like an independent, but like a Republican for however long. And I'm just like so fucking over Joe Manchin. We laid out on this show all the ways in which we should be terrified by what Republicans are doing and that there doesn't seem to be enough outrage on our side, right? on the Democrat side saying, how do we push back against what is becoming pervasive? It started in the Petri dish in Florida, the don't say gay bill, the erasure of AP black history, all of these things. And now it's populating like an actual cancer across the country.

And so my feeling is if Joe Manchin actually gave a fuck about this country, like he says he did in this interview, then you would be doing everything possible to secure a lot. our democracy. Instead, you're holding on to the filibuster like it's, you know, the fucking holy grail. It's obscene. I think that he is obscene. I think he's disgusting. I've thought this for a very long time, but this move right now when again, you're seeing all that Republicans are doing. And my only feeling is that he must agree with it. He must be cheering for it. And the only reason he doesn't become a Republican is because he would be one of many, as opposed to, again, having all eyes on him to see where his vote will land.

So for that, Joe Manchin, fuck you forever. But you are my fuck that guy at the beginning of this week. Yeah, I think you're dead on. There's only one reason that he is still a Democrat, and that's because he knows the cards he holds as a Democrat. I think if the Democrats had a large majority in the Senate, if they had 60, he would switch. Because the Democrats wouldn't need him at that point.

The problem is, of course, like, the Democrats are fucking stuck with him because it's not like some progressive Democrat is going to take his place in West Virginia. Nope. So they're just kind of hosed and they sort of have to, they're forced to cowtow to this guy. And I get it politically, you know, neither of us is naive. We know how this shit works. But man, it fucking sucks. It just sucks that they have to do this. And he is milking it the same way cinema has milked it.

these people like nothing more than being kowtowed to and being catered to. And it's absolutely disgusting. And yeah, and he doesn't even have the comment courtesy to say that he is going to endorse his party's nominee for the presidency in 2024. So, yeah, fuck him. Forever in a day. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday.

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