The Daily Beast Podcast - Chuck Todd Gave NBC the Hardest Read on Television

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

This week on The New Abnormal, co-hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie discuss Chudd Todd’s searing criticism of NBC. Then, Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD, joins us to talk about her organization’s efforts to counter the anti-LGBTQ+ messaging many right-wing politicians have leaned into. Plus! The former editor at the Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun-Times, Mark Jacob, will tell us all about a piece he recently wrote about how journalists in the media in general seem bored covering the upcoming election. 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 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 Kedden, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

What an excellent show we have today. Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of Glad, joins us to talk about her organization's efforts to counter the anti-LGBQ plus messaging many right-wing politicians have leaned into. Then the former editor at the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, author Mark Jacob, will tell us all about a piece he recently published on his substack, Stop the Presses, about how journalists in the media in general seem bored covering the upcoming election. But first, let's have some fun. Danielle, finally, someone has given Donald Trump a break.

This man who has been besieged on all sides finally catches a break. And I'm talking, of course, about a New York appeals court that lowered the bond that he has to give in order to, appeal his case from $454 million to $175 million. And they also gave him, as you may recall, we thought Monday, March 25th was going to be the day that Tish James could start, at least start the process of seizing Trump's assets if he didn't come up with the $454 million to appeal the decision against him. But the judges, in addition to lowering that to $175 million, have given him an extra 10 days to come up with that money. So let's get into this, because You know, we're at the point where our society, our power structure is to blame for allowing Donald Trump to get away with everything he has.

And they seem to have learned no lessons from this. I have heard lawyers who I believe and people who I respect say that, look, this decision is not unusual. This is the kind of thing that happens. And my response to that now is I don't care because Trump is unusual. And Trump needs to be stopped. and the fact that our legal system is basically being the handmaids to fascism by allowing him to constantly and consistently get away with shit. It has to stop, Daniel. When the news came out, I just wanted to throw up my hands and throw my phone.

And, you know, I'll say what one of our former guest, Glenn Kirchner, has tweeted, which is, quote, the verdict is in. The rules, the laws, and the constitution do not apply to Donald. Trump the way they apply to you and me. Like, that's just it. No one can convince me fucking otherwise. And to your point of saying, oh, well, this is not unusual. It is unusual that a fascist, a racist, homophobe, a transphobe, a xenophobe, a misogynist, a man that has been found guilty of sexual assault and grifting, that is

the Republican nominee. I'm tired of everyone trying to think. that they can be the bigger adult in the room and somehow that is going to prove what point exactly that once again Donald Trump whiteness wealth and connections and power are the currency and for everybody else that doesn't have those things well go with god because our justice system doesn't give a fuck about you it's absurd to me it is absolutely absurd I'm over it and what I realize is that on top of media, on top of the justice system, tell me where everything is not in cahoots for a Trump win in November. Like honestly, tell me where we see any fucking light at the end of the tunnel that isn't just the oncoming train, a Trump administration 2.0, that by the way, won't ever fucking leave.

I don't understand how things are set up anymore. And I think that if the goal is to just create a. never-ending vortex of hopelessness, despair, anger, and grief, then success. Job well done. Job well done. Yeah, it is almost impossible to be overly cynical about this stuff at this point. It's not just this decision today. It's Merrick Garland, slow walking, other cases against him. And, you know, you use the word conspire.

And I guess I won't go. I know you didn't mean that literally or in the sense of it's a conspiracy. But it really does feel like whether they're all acting independently or not, and I believe they're all acting independently, but they all sort of seem to have the same goal. And that is to sort of tiptoe around everything that Donald Trump has done, from defrauding investors, from defrauding the government, all the way up to planning a coup against these United States. And we have to sit here and act like everything he's done is sort of like, oh, well, it's in the normal bounds of behavior. And we have to treat him like we would any other person in America.

And five years ago, I might have agreed with that. I don't agree with that anymore. This guy is so obviously a clear and present danger to America. And the fact that we are treating him as if he snuck a couple of cookies out the jar at three in the morning. And, oh, Donald. It's reprehensible. over it. We have said this many times on this podcast before, but I am over Merrick Garland. I don't

know that I was ever under him, but I'm definitely incredibly and increasingly over him now for slow walking ship and for these judges who now allow him to secure a bond that he, let's be honest, I'm assuming he will be able to secure a $175 million bond as opposed to a half billion dollar bond. Everything is conspiring to either let him walk or push all these trials back until after the election, at which point he will able to make them completely vanish. Here's something that I want to say too, because there was a piece that came out in the New Yorker that was entitled The Forgotten History of Hitler's Establishment Enablers. And I tell people that if you have not read this, it's a new book on Hitler that is out, what I will say is that the way that

the author of the piece, Adam Gopnik, weaves down the way that the enablers of Hitler all thought that they would be able to hold on to power, that the capitalist structure would stay together, that all would be well. And then they fucked around and they found out. It's wild because when you read it, it is literally like you are reading from a headline from today, where you have the judges, the bank, the pollsters, the politicians, the establishment, all of these people telling themselves and the world that all will be fine if Donald Trump is elected again. Andy, what I realize is that when we

say on this show and others that like, oh my God, Donald Trump is a threat to everything that we know, no, he's actually not a threat to the billionaires, to the billionaire class. He's not a threat to the wealthy. He's not a threat to the white. He's not a threat to those that are already in power because they perceive him as being one of them. It won't be until he has absolute power that they have given him that then they will realize that he doesn't give a fuck about them either and that they two are not safe, but they were fine when it was just the black and the brown and the poor and the middle class and the marginalized and the queer and the disabled that he was going to after. But once they come for him, as the poem goes, it'll be too late. But they all have this six

sense of entitlement and safety that does not exist when you turn power over to a dictator. So I just, I really, I don't know. But what I, what I see is, you know, all of these little pieces coming up, you know, about Hitler and not just him, but the infrastructure that a lot of allowed him to have the rain that he did, to commit the murder that he did. We never really go after and look with a magnifying glass at those people. It's always just the man. But I'm telling you, Donald Trump would not have gotten to this point, if not for the establishment in every agency, in every industry that has been holding him up.

Our next story falls right into place there. And that's talking about NBC News hiring former Republican National. committee chair, Ronna McDaniel, as a contributor, apparently for, I believe it was reported, $300,000 a year. This is a woman who helped Donald Trump push his election theories that the election was stolen in 2020. This is a woman who up until at least, you know, a few days ago, had absolutely nothing bad to say about Donald Trump. And she's been a handmaid to Donald Trump and to Trumpism and to the creeping fascism that we're seeing this country. And, NBC News, which by the way, not that long ago laid off a whole bunch of journalists,

had decided that they needed to pay her $300,000 to get her dumbass opinions on their air. And again, you are hiring someone who is an inveterate liar. Really, as a news organization, why in the world would you do that? What is the possible reason for doing this? And you can get into this more, Danielle, but if Chuck Todd can be roused, from his softball game, his softball life, to actually come out and make statements saying that this was a really bad move by NBC. That's how bad this is, Daniel. You're absolutely right. And like we say, you know, a broken clock can be right twice a day. And it is rare. It is rare times

when I can agree with Chuck Todd and Chuck Todd gives the hardest read on television, you know, on this topic, which is the revolving door of Trumpist Maga bullshitters who leave his administration, who leave Mar-Lago and are welcomed with open arms into mainstream media. You know, one of the things that I kept saying during the Trump administration was just like, none of these people should get jobs after this. None of them. Not the fucking press secretaries, not like the lowly fucking intern and staff. If you have Trump administration on your resume, you should be as good as done.

But that's not how mainstream media has worked. They've hired person after person. You had fucking Sean Spicer on Dancing with the Stars. Do you know what I'm saying? That is called a rehabilitation campaign. Oh, hey, I was out on the fringes, but let me be normalized back into your living room. And so for the folks inside of NBC News who are from the anchors, to the personalities, to the other people that are there are just like, are you fucking kidding me?

Like, how do I even pretend to be a real journalist at a news outlet? And this is the whore shit that you're dragging in. And for Chuck Todd to say on air that their bosses needed to have apologized to Kristen Welker for putting her in the position where now this woman, Ronna McDaniel, was paid $300,000. And let me just just. add this on because yet another friend of the show, Kurt Bardella had tweeted, majority of the people of color that you see on these cable news shows are not fucking paid. They are not paid and they are smart and they are thoughtful and their analysis is needed in these times. And they are told time and time again by establishment that there's no money

in the budget for them. But if you are a lying piece of fucking shit so long as you are white, And you are a Republican. My God, does the money flow? Remember, this is the same ownership that let Medi Hassan walk, a guy who is widely considered to be one of the best interviewers on, you know, on TV. And they let him walk. But months later, they then give money and airtime to Rana McDaniel, of all people. I don't even care how this works out.

Like, it may get to the point where NBC has to, you know, get out of this contract somehow because there's a revolt from the people working there, et cetera. It doesn't matter because she's won because if that happens, guess what? She becomes a hero. She becomes a victim of woke. And she gets to go out and give speeches and, you know, and get paid to talk about how she got canceled by woke or whatever dumb phrase they're

using now, you know, whether, look, for all I know, they'll blame it on DEI or, you know, whatever bugaboo they've got up their ass. week. So it's like the damage is already done. Even if they never use her, even if they just pay her salary and never use her on any shows, the damage is done to their credibility as a net loss. And the damage is done to her credibility because she gets a net gain. There is absolutely no reason to bring someone like Ronna McDaniel on. As you said, all of these people who serves in the Trump administration should be persona non grata at any kind of news organization. Let them go work for, let them go get a job at Newsmax or OAN, you know, or Fox News, a news organization that's not really a news organization. Let them go work there. As we were saying before we went to air, who is this for even? Like, who did NBC think that they were doing this for? The millions of MAGA viewers who watch MSNBC, who watches NBC news and says to themselves, you know, I really need to see what Ronna McDaniel thinks about this.

I don't think that anybody in Ronna McDaniel's family looks at her. as you know, I really need to see what the fuck she thinks. The woman got rid of her name because Donald Trump told her he didn't like it. So you know where her allegiance is. She chopped off a part of her name. And so you're going to bring her on and think that you're getting what, some insider scoop? If you want the scoop, go to a fucking dog park. There's the scoop that she's going to fucking give you.

Folks, I am so happy to welcome to the new abnormal. Sarah Kate Ellis, who is the president and the CEO of Glad. Glad is one of the premier LGBTQ advocacy organizations focused primarily on the presence of LGBTQ folks in media and making sure that the coverage that LGBTQ people receive is fair, is accurate, and it is a narrative that is respectful and thoughtful and expansive about the community. Sarah Cape, it is wonderful to have you. I want to give you the opportunity to tell folks a bit about the work that you and Glad have been doing as the last couple of years for the LGBTQ community. Not great. I've reported it on here. There has been over 500,

anti-LGBQ bills that we have seen passed around the country, particularly those that are targeting trans youth, trans youth athletes, all bubbling out of Florida with the don't say gay bill and then just spreading like wildfire. So how has Glad been able to kind of respond to this moment of considerable pushback? Well, hi, Danielle, and thank you so much for having me. It's been a a pretty contentious few years. There's no doubt about that. And I think what we've been doing is mobilizing our resources, especially with the attacks on the trans community. When you look at polling in America, about 30% of Americans say they know someone who's trans, which means 70% of Americans are getting their information from the media on the transgender and gender non-conforming

community. And right now, the media has been a lot of politicians who are using the community as a wedge issue to bolster their careers and create fear and try and get elected or raise money. And so our job at Glad has been to counter that narrative, to inoculate that narrative and focus on the folks who are most vulnerable for that narrative in the country, especially a population when we're talking about the elections, because this is all being done in the benefit of the elections. And so what we look at are women who have school-age children and older folks in the country, so 60-plus.

Those are the folks that are the most vulnerable to this misinformation and fear-mongering. And so what we have done is created ad campaigns. We work with Hollywood to have inclusion in storytelling in order to demystify who transgender folks are and explain what health care looks like for trans folks or what being on a sports team means to a trans person. What gets me with the barrage of horrific legislation that we've seen come down, is that it seems always that the opposition looks to bolster their cause based on the hope that people don't know who trans people are so that they can paint them as these boogeymen, as these people that are lurking in the shadows as opposed to your next door neighbor. And so talk to us about how even the representation of trans folks in the media in Hollywood

really has shifted over the last several years. I think that's a great point. And so if you just step back for one second, about seven years ago, people weren't even talking about transgender people. I mean, they've always existed, obvious. Right, right. But because of media representation,

it wasn't so long ago that Laverne Cox was on the cover of Time magazine. And trans folks started to get media attention for coming out as their authentic selves. And so a community that has already, has always existed, has all of a sudden a spotlight on them. What we realized very quickly was that folks who were looking to advance their own agenda at the cost of marginalized people founded as a very effective tool because there wasn't

a lot of representation. And because people still are, just to give you an idea, when Caitlin Jenner came out, which is not our greatest trans representation, but at the time, she was the most visible transgender person in the world when she came. Six percent of Americans said they knew somebody who was trans. After she came out, we polled again and it doubled to 18 percent from one person coming out on the Diane Sawyer show. So you can see how representation has put not only a. advanced trans folks, but also put them in the crosshairs, right? And so it's on us now to educate

folks and inform people because, you know what, Americans and the people in the United States are not built for hate. We just aren't as people. We're about inclusivity. We're about equality. And it's even starting to show Danielle in our polling. We just recently did a voter poll. voters across the board are starting to reject candidates who are using transgender people to campaign. That's wonderful news. And I think that, one, what we saw at least, you know, if you look at Florida and Ron DeSantis and the way that he turned that state, the sunshine state, into this hateful state, where everything that every policy that was coming out was about targeting the LGBTQ community. And what people can understand those living inside of Florida is that that targeting didn't change their lives for the better. It didn't put more food on their table. It didn't make prescription drugs more affordable. And so at some point, I think that there is a tipping point that is met where it's like you're not going to get more people to support your cause of hate when they don't see their own lives changing for the better.

I would agree with you. It's a short-term strategy on Iran DeSantis's, and it ran its course. But this is the same playbook they used against gay and lesbian people 15, 20 years ago, especially around marriage. And it was more fearmongering. It's the exact same playbook. And it was working at first. And then it does, like you said, it has a turning point.

And I think we're seeing that turning point. Do you think that when we have these inflection points, Sarah Kate, in, you know, in our society, when we're making, you know, incredible progress where 2015, we have the passage of same-sex marriage, we have, you know, more shows and more representation, and then we see this entire backlash that we've been experiencing over the last couple of years. I would argue, you know, since the, since Trump came down the escalators and, you know, right following the same-sex marriage decision, we've been seeing a pushback. Is there then do you feel more responsibility on Hollywood, more responsibility on media to do the opposite of what politicians are doing, to offer people a better story and a better narrative than what is being sold?

I think it's on all of us, honestly, Danielle. Yes, we are pushing Hollywood, but it's not just Hollywood anymore, right? It's Silicon Valley. It's what the five major social media platforms aren't doing. that they could be doing. It's on CEOs who were hiding under their desks in pride during Pride Month. Not all of them.

Actually, there's been more corporates who are supportive of LGBTQ folks. But I also think it's not just LGBTQ. This is a backlash on women. This is a backlash on people of color. This is a backlash on all those who have not been the powerful. And the system is changing. There's systemic change that's happening in America where it is becoming more equal.

And I think this is a backlash to that overall. And so I do think, and there is no just one lane, right? It's not just LGBTQ people. It's not just trans people in bodily autonomy. Women in bodily autonomy. It's people of color in bodily autonomy. You know, like there's a lot here. So I think we have to, Hollywood has to do.

more. But culture is created by influencers. It's created by Silicon Valley. It's created out of the Beltway. It's created out of media and journalism and all need to be held accountable. It's why we have reports now on all of them to hold them accountable and measure where we are, even video games. I mean, that's the most pervasive entertainment in the world. And their lack of LGBTQ inclusion, their lack of women, their lack of people of color is startling. You know, I want to go back to something that you said with regard to pride the month of June and what we saw last year and the year before, which was kind of this pullback in many ways. At one point, we got to a place, I think we, I'm saying, like the LGBTQ community where we're just like,

wow, pride has become entirely corporatized, right, where every corporation wanted to put up a rainbow. Every corporation was running a commercial and doing something. And then, again, because of the politics of the moment, we started to see a pullback in that. And how do you, you know, you mentioned and you said, you know, not all CEOs and not all places, but we have seen, you know, with Budweiser, with different companies getting attacked for wanting to expand their audiences, wanting to up their representation of traditionally marginalized groups. And so how do you see pride, even though we're gay, we say this, you know, 365 days of the year, 12 months of the year, not just during June, but how do you foresee corporations kind of dealing with

this continued attacks on diversity and inclusion? And what will Glad's role be in this moment? That is a very big question because it has a lot of angles to it, right? So I would say overall, we're seeing more corporates come to support LGBTQ folks. But we're in an election year and they don't want to be caught in the crossfire because our community has been politicized, even though this isn't political, that they don't want to be caught in the crossfire. So they're continuing to do the work, but not doing it very publicly. And I think I'm seeing that more and more. Very few are stepping away from it.

And the reason is, is because the writing is on the wall. When you look at the next generation and that 30 to 40 percent are LGBTQ of Gen Z, you know that in order to grow your consumer base and your employees and to attract the best and retain the best, you're going to have to be inclusive. It's demanded from this next generation. And so I think what's happening is folks are quietly doing the work and making sure that they're still inclusive and not doing it in very theatrical out there ways, if you will. The numbers are the numbers. And anyone running a business now knows what those numbers are and can see the writing on the wall. I mean, I think it's extraordinary when you just said 30 to 40 percent of Generation Z identified.

as LGBTQ or non-binary or, I mean, that's really extraordinary. It's extraordinary. Not only that, over 80% identify as allies to the community. Oh. So, I mean, whether it is, whether you're servicing the LGBTQ community or our allies, it's in mass and it's not going to change. And I think that's the biggest blowback that we're seeing right now. And our job is to keep our foot on the gas pedal.

Our job is not to let up. Because even though, as you mentioned earlier, there are over 500 anti-LGB pills, that is a direct backlash to the advancements that we've been making, right? That's a matter of trying to control us. Only any passing is bad. And even that they are proposed creates damage to the communities, real damage.

However, less than 10% are passing. There isn't a real appetite for this. And I think that as we see this change, as people understand who transgender and gender non-conforming people are, and they realize, as you said, that they are their neighbors, their coworkers, their members, it becomes demystified. And there's no boogeyman. There's just people who want to be, you know, have a job, have a family, earn a living, just like everyone else.

You know, let me ask you this because I think that, you know, what you had stated earlier as well with regard to how media has changed. I think obviously when Glad started, we were talking about television. You're talking about radio. And now you have all of these media platforms, traditional media, non-traditional media, video games. What is your hope as we move, as we, you know, propel ourselves into the future? What is your hope for Glad as our consumption and just what we understand as media changes?

What's really important about this is that it's not just media. It's influencers. It's people who have really large followings. You know, one thing that we talk about here and there is that we work with the Pope. The Pope has two billion people who follow him. I mean, there is a larger leader in the world. We've worked with him behind the scenes on coming out on the blessings of same-sex marriage, on decriminalization because half the countries that it's still criminal to be LGBTQ in,

which is about 70 are Christian countries. And he's been doing a lot of work on that as well. So my hope and my dream is that we're influence, power, and culture. is created. We have a seat for the LGBTQ community and a voice at that table or in those rooms. And that's what we've worked really hard over my tenure to make sure that we're in those places and those spaces, places that we haven't ordinarily been in like the World Economic Forum or video games or Broadway for that matter. And religion. I mean, working with the Pope has been unbelievable the mountains that someone like him can move for our community. And that's my dream,

is to make sure that we are in all of those spaces and have a voice at those tables. Well, Sarah Kate, all I want to say is it has been an extraordinary decade that you have been leading glad and expanding the footprint, the narrative, and just, you know, taking our community in places and spaces that we had never been before. So I just want to thank you for your continued work. And I hope that you will make the time to join us again soon. I would love to. Thank you so much for having me.

According to my next guest, some journalists seem bored by the biggest story of our lifetimes. And he wrote an excellent piece on it on his Stop the Presses subsack at stop the presses. With the app title, some journalists seem bored by the biggest story of our lifetime. Joining me now to explain is author, former Metro editor of the Chicago Tribune,

and former Sunday editor of the Chicago Sun Times, Mark Jacob. Mark, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for asking me. So let's start with the obvious question. What is the biggest story of our lifetimes? Well, the biggest story of our lifetimes is the threat to overthrow American democracy that you're seeing from the right wing. I mean, you know, they tried three years ago in a very obvious way on national television.

You know, Salt the Capitol and, you know, fake electors thing came out. Clearly, it's an ongoing coup attempt. I mean, you see it in many, many ways. Just from the standpoint of an interesting journalism story, it's an incredible journalism story. I mean, it's got all these elements, it's got all these characters. It's got, certainly has import. And I'm stunned to see that some journalists want to just, you know, yawn and complain about two old guys running. And, oh, it's more of the same.

And, you know, we can't write these feature stories about their spouses of the candidates, because we've already done that. And it's so shallow at a time of crisis in our country. So where are you seeing this journalistic boredom with the Biden-Trump rematch? Like, let's name names here, at least in terms of outlets. Well, a very obscure journal called The New York Times. And actually, the thing that set me off to write this piece on my substack was the headline of a very prominently.

It led to a website for a while. And the headline was, the Biden-Trump rerun, a nation-craving change, gets more of the same. And, you know, so they might as well just had a headline and said, yawn. Not only is it stupid, but it's wrong. It's just wrong. It's not a rerun. The last time these two guys ran was before January 6th. It was before the Dobbs decision overturned abortion rights. It was before Biden came up with an economy that defied all expectations. It didn't despite all the negative talk in the New York Times about how we were going to have a recession. The conditions are so far different from what they were in 2020. In your piece, you call

viewing this election as a rerun of 2020, you refer to it as a huge misreading of our political situation. How so? We were in crisis then. I mean, I felt like if Trump had won last time, he would have learned enough that he would run a much more autocratic presidency and that we would were in big trouble if he won last time. That's become much more clear now. I mean, Trump all this dictatorship talk since of that 2020 election, Trump has even said he wants to terminate the constitution or parts of it unspecified. And he's talked about sending troops into U.S. cities uninvited. He's, you know, talked about these gigantic. I mean, there's just so many things that have been talked about that make it clear that Trump is intends to become a dictator

if he is elected again. You know, this isn't be speculating or just, you know, being, you know, chicken little, you know, running around. This is what anyone who's paying attention knows is happening. And I don't understand why the New York Times feels, and other publications as well, feel like they're bored by it. It's not interesting enough for them. And the real problem here is that they're viewing elections as entertainment devices instead of things that determine the future of our country and our children and our grandchildren. Yeah, absolutely. And along those lines, as you also note, you know, January 6th happened three years ago and Trump's what you call his dictator talk has gotten progressively worse. But it feels like none of this really seems to register at places like

the Times, where if you look, or at least I feel like I see far more horse race stories, stories about Biden's age, stories about college kids being college kids. I see so much more of that than I do about Trump calling migrants animals or saying they're poisoning the blood of this country or that he's now calling for a national abortion ban, et cetera. It's like they cover those little things that I mentioned, but they never give an overarching sense of, hey, this is why this election is so important. I don't know why this is, but they seem to be way more concerned with style than with substance. I mean, could they write about, you know, what the future of pharmaceutical drug crisis is, Trump versus Biden? There's a big difference there. Could they write about foreign policy? Could they write about

mid-east policy, Trump versus Biden? I mean, there's a lot of things that are actually issues that people are going to be voting on, rather than whether, you know, who's wearing the best tie and stuff like that. And yet I hate to just bash the New York Times, although they are the worst offender of this. They really are. I mean, and they are a very influential news source, and a lot of other news sources mimic them. So it is so important for them to get it right. It just seems like they're just so shallow when they should be, you know, being boring and important. I mean, is it all about clicks?

I mean, is that all they care about? I mean, you know, they have the recipes and they have the crossword puzzles. Let the people who want those, enjoy those. The political coverage is supposed to tell us who we should vote for for president. No, absolutely. And what really rankles, and obviously this is what you're saying in your piece, is that the choice in this election is so much darker than it usually is. And you don't have to be a huge Joe Biden fan or even any kind of Joe Biden fan to see that.

Oh, yeah. Amen. I mean, that's kind of the point of the piece, is that rarely and never in our lifetimes have we had an election that has had so much at stake. I mean, you know, yeah, I mean, Bush versus Clinton and, you know, back in, you know, the 90s and stuff like that. All right, fine.

Those were important elections, but not like this. This is the question. I mean, you've got the, you know, the project 20, 25 going from the, you know, the Heritage Foundation and all those other stuff. I mean, they are planning to fire a bunch of civil servants and put an army of Trump acolytes in office if he wins. They're planning to have giant, camps. They're talking about using National Guard troops from Red States to go roundup immigrants,

and they're even going into the Blue States. They've talked about like, well, if the Blue States don't want to cooperate with this giant Roundup, that they would send National Guard troops from the Red States to invade the Blue States to go get them. I mean, that's nuts. That's crazy stuff. News organizations did not realize they should be hyping this election as incredibly important and super interesting. Yet they're into style, they're into vagueness. Here's an example of how the New York Times just doesn't really know how to get sharp on stuff. If you remember when Trump talked about how his opponents were vermin? And, you know, I mean, come on. He talked, you know, he's not, just more recently he's, he's said that, uh, that some migrants are not people.

And then he's calling, and he's also calling his opponent's vermin. And we know kind of where this kind of talks comes from. But the first New York Times headline on that story was Trump takes Veterans Day speech in a very different direction, which was like, really? Wow, that's very informative New York Times. Super, you know, really like that. And, you know, I went on social media and denounce that headline for its vagueness and avoidance of the real issue. And the New York time, it wasn't just me, but a lot of people did. And New York Times came back and rewrote it. And they rewrote it as, in Veterans Day speech, Trump promises to, quote, root out, unquote, the left. Oh, come on. How could you? How could you?

I mean, you know, I was in journalism for, you know, 40 years. I know how to write a headline. And those people in New York Times ought to know how to write a headline. Yet they come up with something like that. And finally, the Washington Post came out with what it was actually a good headline. And theirs was Trump calls political enemies vermin, echoing dictators, Hitler Mussolini. And, you know, what, was that so hard? Right.

That was obvious. I mean, that's a good headline. And the Washington Post, you know, I don't want to seem like I'm bashing all media. because Washington Post on stuff like that is generally better than the New York Times has been. And I just wish that people would meet the moment in journalism. I mean, this idea, the whole, well, you know, two old guys running for president. We're so bored with this. We can't, you know, pick apart through social media from 20 years ago.

We can't interview their high school teacher. We can't, you know, I mean, it seems like they're so in this route, kind of this routine of how they do things like this, that they don't recognize that not only is this a unique situation we're facing, but it's incredibly interesting and very journalistically fruitful subject that they could be covering. There are too many journalists who feel like they're not allowed to be cheerleaders for democracy, which is wholly different than being a cheerleader for one party over the other, at least in a normal world.

It almost feels like they're too afraid, like they feel like, well, if I show a slum, towards democracy, I'm actually favoring the Democratic Party, and I can't do that. I have to play this down the middle. But there is no down the middle between democracy and, you know, call it what you want, authoritarianism, fascism. That's how it reads to me and to, I think, a lot of people. That is of a problem. I wrote a separate substack newsletter column about that. I mean, just to ask the question, is it in New York Times neutral on the question of democracy? Because they often seem that way. Peter Baker, who's their chief White House correspondent, he comes across that way. I mean, he's not inaccurate in any way. He's actually quite accurate. He says a lot of, you know,

has a lot of information in there, but it's devoid of any values as far as whether he likes democracy or not. And my attitude today is that journalists ought to be behaving in a way that would get them in big trouble if a democracy happens. They ought to be writing stories that are so pro-democracy that if a dictatorship happens, they will be arrested. Frankly, Peter Baker might keep his job and do very, very well in a dictatorship. And I don't mean he's pro-dictatorship. Sure. He's not.

But he's so devoid of pro-democracy values that he's just playing everything as if it's some sort of tactical game, as if it's a video game or something. It's all, well, you know, for example, when Trump says something awful, Peter Baker doesn't write about how awful it is and how danger it is and how threat. threatening it is to like immigrant groups or to Jews or to any of the people he's saying horrible things about. He writes about it about what it means for his prospects for winning in November. It's just sports coverage. And that just drives me nuts. Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious what you think or how you think we got here. How did we get to the point where so much of the media is unwilling or afraid maybe to do anything but both sides this election and pretend or ignore really.

what Trump is. Well, I don't think the media changed a bit. And that's the whole problem. I think that, you know, as I say, it was in news media for, you know, for decades. And it's pretty much the same as it's, it's always been. You know, they like these kind of political set pieces. They like to know, you know, they know the conventions are coming up. They know how to cover them. They know that, you know, New Hampshire is the first primary. They know that Iowa is the first caucuses and, you know, this bellwether state stuff and all this. They know it's such wrote to them that they're very comfortable in it and they like to cover it like that. And in that kind of system, that kind of the 1990s kind of system where you had this balance between parties largely. They felt very

comfortable with, here's what the Democrats say, here's what the Republicans say. And frankly, just, you know, as a confession here when I was on the foreign national desk at the Chicago Tribune, and I would count the number of quotes we got from Republicans and Democrats to make sure they were about even that we had everyone represented. And I thought that was being fair. But that wasn't right now i know that that wasn't being fair i mean that really what you should have assessed i should have assessed is you know how fact-based those quotes were and used the ones were fact-based i mean but this whole but the news media is very comfortable with this kind of tit-for-tat this kind of you know he said she said you know the kind of thing where they just can

be you know they don't have to take aside on whether something is true or false and so the news media in my opinion they're also part of the power strike This needs to be understood, you know, that in, especially in old Washington, you know, the news media were powerful, famous, influential people. And they liked it that way. Therefore, they had a stake in the situation staying just the way it was. And, you know, everyone going to their cocktail parties and hobnobbing and all that stuff. What disrupted things is a sharp turn toward fascism by the Republican Party and where they became not a normal political party, but more like an organized crime syndicate. And they just, a just a plain old lying organization in which telling lies was just part of how you played the game. And that's the change. And the news media have been utterly incapable of reacting to that. They've tried to, and they've been so desperate. You know, you see this with like Jake Tapper on CNN, I think, who's not a bad journalist, but he's just desperately looking for moderates, which I don't think many of them by the old standard even exist anymore.

But he's just desperately looking for Republican moderate. It's, you know, just beating the bushes for them. You know, and, you know, some people thought Nancy Mace was one. Some people thought at least Stefanik was one. No, they're not. And the news media are so, they're so desperate for the same kind of political ecosystem that we had in like the 1990s and like that, that they have been unable and unwilling to adjust to new circumstances.

It's so frustrating. And is there any chance the media figures this out before November? obviously I'm not optimistic at all. I would love for you to tell me I should be. I suspect you're not going to tell me that, but I would love for you to tell me that there's reason for optimism. I think there's reason for optimism. I mean, the sad thing is it takes them so long. I mean, how long did it take major publications to use the word lie in connection to Republican lies? They finally did, but boy, they resisted it for years. I mean, they got lied to, lied to, lied to, and they used all these cutesy terms. About Nikki Haley, they said she had an ability to massage her message

for the moment. For feedback Ramoswami, they said he had a pension for dispensing with the facts. They don't want to use the word lie. And so, and when you don't, then you don't, you're not direct. They also, you see news organizations use terms like they'll say something that's just a plain all fact about a Republican. Then at the end of the sentence, they'll say critics say, as if, as if it's not a plain all fact. They're just afraid of facts. And of being direct. And this indirectness is really dangerous because it turns everything into an opinion. And that benefits the liars who have lying opinions that aren't based on facts. So will the news media get better? Well, we have, you know, we have what, seven months, seven or eight months? Yeah. I don't think they will in time.

Some of them are, you know, the Atlantic did a whole issue on the coming dictatorship if we don't do something. The New York Times has written stories about the plan to persecution of immigrants under Trump if he gets elected. There are like breakthrough stories. It's just that the associated Press, which Associate Press hasn't been too terrible with its headlines, but you need people to get direct. What I, you know, on my Stop the Press's newsletter, I called for newspapers to do page one editorials warning the nation about the coming dictatorship if they vote for Donald Trump. Newspapers traditionally have done page one editorials occasionally, you know, if something really important's coming up or is happening, and they really think that the public needs to know.

Well, the public needs to know this. And I'm not just talking about page one. in print. I know print is dying. I'm talking about, you know, put it at the top of your homepage, you know, blast it out on your social media. The news media need to understand if they are pro-democracy and they should be because if they're not pro-democracy and Trump gets elected, they're going to find themselves, you know, marched out of their newsrooms, possibly. I mean, the First Amendment is not going to survive if Trump gets elected, in my opinion. He's already talked about, for example, you know, that MSNBC needs to be punished for its coverage. I mean, there needs to be a crackdown on them.

So the news media of an independent news media will not survive a Trump dictatorship. They ought to get real and wake up. Will they do that? Will they do page one editorials? I don't think they're going to take my advice on that. But I do think you're going to start seeing more and more voices in the news media saying, especially when we get really close to the election, especially if Trump's rhetoric is just bad. Trump may pretend to moderate in the next seven months as well.

You know, he may say, well, I'm really, you know, the guy who got rid of Roe versus Wade is going to try to explain to us why he wants a compromise on abortion. And what he really wants to do is try to placate people who believe in abortion rights enough to where they can, you know, hold their nose and vote for him, even though, you know, his promises are engraved on the wind. I mean, he never, he never says anything that is in the least believable. So, so I think he may lie a bunch of times to try to pretend to be a moderate, you know, and people have short attention spans. so they may go forward. I'm not totally pessimistic about the ability of the news media to wake up, you know, see what's happening and sound the alarm. Well, hopefully it won't be too late. Mark, thanks so much for joining us. I encourage everyone to check out Mark's excellent substack. Stop the Presses at stopthepresses. News. I won't say that you made me feel a hell of a lot better about the situation, but at least you see a little bit of cause for optimism and that's nice. Mark,

thanks so much. All right. Thanks a lot. Danielle Moody Andy Levy Daniel start off this week which I gotta be honest It's not that glorious Not that glorious I feel bad saying that

But you know That's my truth Who's your fuck that guy Well it's been a while since we heard from Rob Down in Florida And he's back And he's worse than ever

So apparently this week According to the Tampa Bay Times Ron DeSantis has signed a bill blocking most kids from social media websites. Setting up an expected court battle that could prevent the legislation from ever taking effect.

So House Bill 3, passed by lawmakers with bipartisan support this month, mind you, forbids kids 13 and younger from creating social media accounts and requires the platforms to seek out and remove their profiles. Kids 14 and 15 would need parents consent. Now, let me just say this.

What happened to parental rights and control? I thought that that was. was the entire campaign that Republicans have been running on. Parents should have the say on what books their kids read and what curriculum they're being introduced to and, you know, because they're so fragile and they're so fearful. So it should be parents, right? This is what got Glenn Yonkin elected in Virginia. Was this idea of parental rights? You know, what about the parents? And so now here comes big fucking brother. with his white fucking high-heeled boots,

stepping all over parental rights and saying, no, no, no, I know better than what you know. So no one is saying that social media doesn't have adverse effects on kids because guess what? Social media has adverse effects on all of us, right? I don't actually care if you are 13 or, you know,

or 63. If you're on anything for too long and consuming a bunch of content, yeah, you're going to have a distorting. perspective of yourself and of the world. But that doesn't mean that you need government, right? Again, the small government people, the people that continue to tell you that government is too in your business, but yet they want to be in your uterus, they want to be in

your household, now they want to be the parents and control over your children. What's next? Right? What's next for them to ban, for them to tell you that you have no control over? And that's what I want, like if I'm Democrats, and by the way, the fact that this was bipartisan is again, I'm just like, y'all have so many bigger issues in Florida, like so many bigger ones. This should not be the thing that unites Democrats and Republicans together. So I really hope that Ron DeSantis gets sued, that the government gets sued because the only people

that should be making decisions for children are their parents and caregivers. Right? Like, in all honesty, you can't have it both ways. So for this legislation and just for so much more, like, when are you going to go away, Rob? Just roll away. Roll away. No one wants to hear from you. But for that reason, we're starting off this, you know, I got to tell you, folks. I know it's early in the week, but it's not a great one with my fuck that guy. This keeps coming up in various states and inevitably it should be ruled unconstitutional. It's also, all these things are absolutely impossible to enforce. How do you prove that you're under 13? What kind of ID shows that you're older than 13? What kind of ID shows that you're 14 or 15 and need your

parents' permission? They're going to have to use some kind of age verification thing. I have no doubt that I could circumvent one of those things if I needed to. I have absolutely no doubt that teenagers have better ways to circumvent those things. But, you know, lawmakers who know nothing about technology, keep passing these stupid-ass bills, and in addition to being unconstitutional, and as you said, taking away parents' rights, there's absolutely no way to enforce this in a manner that works. So, yeah, fuck these guys. So, Andy, it's a miserable, rotten, no good week already in America. Maybe it'll get better. Maybe it'll get better. You're right. Things do change. Who are you starting out the week with your, fuck that guy? Well, I am going to

go with someone. And Danielle, I know he's a favorite of yours. So I'm sorry about this, but I'm going to go with longtime Democratic strategist James Carville, who first came to fame, I guess, around, what, the early 90s? 1800. Yeah, was that 1890? I think it was 1992 with Clinton, and I think he still thinks it's 1992. He was asked in an interview that he did with Maureen Dowd, don't get me started on her, he talked about his concerns with the current Democratic Party. And here's what he said. He said, a suspicion of mine is that there are too many preachy females. Don't drink beer. Don't watch football. Don't eat hamburgers. This is not good for you. The message is too feminine. Everything you're doing is destroying the planet. You've got to eat your peas. Okay. Anyone who refers to women as females,

you pretty much automatically know anything that they say is going to be awful and misogynist. and it's just going to go from there. But really, you think the problem with the Democratic Party in 2024 is that there are too many preachy females? That's your go-to line. This is one of those people who, you know, we talked about Ronna McDaniel earlier in the show. James Carville also should not be being put on TV for a lot of reasons. Some of them visual. But more importantly, because this guy has, he literally has not been in touch with the Democratic Party.

Again, I think since the early 90s, and with all the things going on in this world, he's going to get out there and rant about preachy females. Stop giving this guy oxygen. Stop giving him airtime. Let him sit on the bayou and, you know, I don't know, hunt crocodiles or whatever the hell he does down there. Crafish, whatever. Proffin. I prefer to pronounce you crayfish.

But they're two different crustaceans. I know. All right. Crawfish, fine. Crawdatties. You happy? Mm-mm. Mm-hmm. Oh, my God. Anyway, unless it's Bill Hater on SNL doing a James Carville impression, which is delightful, I don't ever want to see anything that looks or sounds like James Carville again. Fuck that guy.

The only correction that I have is that, yeah, he is not one of my favorites. I just want folks to be very clear and aware of that. You say that now. Off air, it's a different story. story, but okay. Oh, my God, this man preachy. And let me just tell you, James Carville, to use the right wings language to tear down your own party, that ain't it.

That is not fucking it. So if you want women who are like kitchen cake, maybe, is that, was, was that what you want, but with a little D on their lapel and, you know, a little D in their diamond cross. Shut the fuck up. Like, in all honesty, it's not 1992. I don't think we need to hear from you. I don't think that you have your finger on a pulse.

And so I'm good. I'm good. And apparently, if we're all a little too preachy for you, you know, sit this one out. Sit it out, my friend. Go crocodile hunting. Duceus. Fuck that guy.

One of the things he said in this interview was when I look at these polling numbers, it's like walking in on your grandma naked. You can't get the image out of your mind. I would just like to say for the record, both my grandmothers are dead. I would still rather walk in on them naked than him naked. Oh, oh. Fuck that guy. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal.

We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Shamus Calder. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover

what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.