The Daily Beast Podcast - Conservatives Still Want Trump to Be Their ‘Big Strong Daddy’

Episode Date: October 27, 2024

The New Abnormal co-hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy sound off on Tucker Carlson’s bizarre diatribe on Wednesday in Georgia, where the former Fox News host compared a second Donald Trump presidency as akin to a father coming home to give his little “girl”—the country—a “vigorous spanking.” Then, a conversation with Daniel Nichanian, the editor-in-chief of Bolts, who joins the pod to break down the outlet’s Cheat Sheet to the 2024 General Elections, explaining which local races are the ones to keep an eye on. 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. goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

Hello, and welcome to another Sunday edition of the new abnormal. We thank you so much for being here. Today we have an extra special guest with Bolt Senator-in-Chief, Daniel Nicanian, who will break down his publication's cheat sheet for the 2024 general election and which local race is to keep an eye on. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready to listen to some clips? Clips.

Clips. All right. I'm going to apologize at advanced to you both. I don't normally find it okay to publish someone being horny on video on a politics show. But unfortunately, the air to the frozen fish sticks fortune, that's a tongue twister, a.k. former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is forcing my hand here. If you allow your two-year-old to smear the contents of his diapers on the wall of your living room, and you do nothing about it, if you allow your 14-year-old to light a joint at the breakfast table,

if you allow your hormone-addled 15-year-old daughter to like slam the door of her bedroom and give you the finger you're going to get more of it and those kids are going to wind up in rehab it's not good for you and it's not good for them no there has to be a point at which dad comes home yeah that's right dad comes home and he's pissed dad is pissed he's not vengeful He loves his children. Disobedient as they may be. He loves them. Because there is children. They live in his house. But he's very disappointed in their behavior. And he's going to have to let them know. He's going to have to get to your room right now and think about what you did. And when dad gets home, you know what he says? You've been a bad girl. You've been a bad little girl and you're getting a vigorous spank. right now. And no, it's not going to hurt me more than it hurts you. No, it's not. I'm not going to lie. This is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. And you earn this. You're getting a vigorous spanking because you've been a bad girl. And it has to be this way. It has to be this way because it's true. And you're only going to get better when you take responsibility for what you did. That's not said in the spirit of hate. It's not to be a said in the spirit of vengeance or bigotry?

Far from it. It's set in the spirit of justice, which is the purest and best thing there is. And without it, things fall apart. So I'm convinced you hate us. And I know I feel like I say that every week, but what the entire fuck was that? The crowd cheering to the quote unquote vigorous spanking,

these people are absolutely, they are not okay. They are not okay. I know that at the end of that, it was what, like Donald Trump was the daddy or something? Tucker Carlson is a piece of shit. And this idea of this authoritarian daddy, which is what America needs,

America is a democracy where people have a voice and they have a vote. We don't need some two-bit want-to-be dictator coming in who doesn't even, like, like just the, rational point? Donald Trump doesn't parent his own fucking kids. So why in God's name would you

think that he's coming in to save the day for America? For four years, he put our economy in the trash and was responsible for hundreds of thousands of COVID deaths because of his negligence. Oh, like, no, go ahead, Andy, because I, I cannot. Look, as a rule, I don't kinksham. And I, And I really do believe that what consenting adults do in the bedroom or anywhere else in private is their own business. And the idea that he wants to reveal himself like this is wild to me. But there's a sexism, there's a misogyny. There's the sort of, you know, grotesque sexual fantasies that he, I guess, has about Vice President Harris. It's all disgusting.

but I do want to go back back when I was Fox News guy. Lou Dobbs used to have me on his show once a week, and I would just trash Trump. And for some reason, Lou, who could not have been a bigger Trump guy, got an incredible kick out of me. And he would just laugh. And he really enjoyed me. And I don't know, to this day, I don't know why. And he's passed, so I'll never know why. But one of the, I remember saying this one time to him, I said, there is a strain of conservatism that wants a big, strong daddy figure.

This was before the 2016 election. And I went on about that. And again, he just, he laughed. He thought he was delighted that I was saying all that. But I was right. And this is exactly it. I remember also saying, I think this was also before the 2016 election. There were people calling Trump, you know, online.

They would refer to him as daddy. And I remember saying they're the only honest people on the right, the ones who call him daddy, because that's exactly what they want and how they view him. And yet, they are not okay, as you said, Danielle, and there is a deep dysfunction in what they are looking for. And I would feel bad for them, except that they want us to have to be part of that. And again, and this is where what you do in the privacy of your own home is your own business. But when you try to force me to be a part of something, I don't want to be a part of, nope, nope. I no longer respect what you're doing or respect your right to do it.

Just no. And this is just, this is that. This is that 100%. Yeah, you can trace this trend of talking like this. There was Nixon and Agnew. It would often do similar things. But this one really just reeked of psychiatric ills more than most of them. Yeah, for sure.

Well, okay, I'll try to make it up to you guys. I don't feel like you will. This is what happens when you doubt me. Jesus. Here we have Governor Walls. Well, he's going to say his opinion on this fellow work. no fan of Elon Musk. But look, I'm not going to waste all the time.

I'm in. I'm going to talk about his running mate. His running mate, Elon Musk. Seriously, where is Senator Vance after he got asked the simplest question in the world at the debate, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?

And after two weeks, he finally said, no, he didn't. That's where he's been spending his time. But that's it. So, look, Elon's on that stage, jumping around, skipping like a dip shit on these stones. You know it. Think about it. Think about that.

That guy is literally the richest man in the world, spending millions of dollars to help Donald Trump buy an election. Now look, they're saying the quiet parts out loud now, because Donald Trump has already promised that he would put Elon in charge of government regulations that oversee the businesses that Elon runs. It's a hell of a buy. He could spend billions to make more than 10 billion on the back yet. So in other words, Donald Trump, in front of the eyes the American public, is promising corruption. That's what he's promising you.

And you know what? I don't believe he keeps many promises, but he'll keep that one. I guarantee he'll keep that one. Dip shit is such a great word. It just really is. I don't even know what it means. I mean, I know what it means, but I don't understand really the etymology of it. Who decided to put dip in front of shit?

Whoever did it, you know, deserves at minimum a Nobel Prize, I would say. And Wals used it perfectly. And I guess not even 10 years ago, I would have been like, man, what do you do? And you're running for vice president. you shouldn't be using language like that. But we're so past that. I mean, we're so past that when we have a guy who talked about shithole countries and stuff like that. And, of course, everything he said about Musk is correct.

I would have said so many other words, but I know that that's probably the most appropriate one. Dipshit is a curse word, right? Here's the thing, like, we're so beyond, like, political norms, but it's, like, so wild to me. I just want to say this. And it's not a critique on Tim Walls at all. But it is really wild how, like, how far our politics have fallen because of Donald Trump. Like, between him, I hear, like, bullshit all of the time on cable news, like the word. It's just like none of this was part of political coverage before Donald Trump.

The way in which it's been normalized is like it's really unfortunate. But, I mean, there are no other words to use for Donald Trump and Elon Musk and what they're doing. You know, we've tried all of the euphemisms. We've tried all of like the, I guess, the deep and thoughtful analysis. But like at the end of the day, Donald Trump is a fucking Nazi and Elon Musk is a dipshit. That's where we are. Yep. Yeah. I just want to say that according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest known use of the word dipshit was in 1963. Really glad we got to the etymology of that one. So it would not be a Sunday episode without displaying a thing that Mr. Trump displays every day that he is fully

fucking going through dementia. Here we go. As many as you have no idea what I did in the White House. I stopped wars with France. France, you know the France story? They were going to charge us. Think of this. 25% to all America.

I have to protect American companies, whether we like them or not. I'm of mine. I didn't even like. You know, Google is treating us much better. Do you notice that? What happened to Google? They're treating us much better.

Very nice. I appreciate that very much. they say McDonald's was one of the most viewed things that they've ever had. We often use word salad to describe him. That feels like the most chopped into fucking pieces salad in the history of the world. It's a chopped word salad. France? Yeah, yeah.

Our ally. McCrott, a very nasty guy, Danielle. Like, not the fact that he almost tweeted us into war with North Korea or tweeted us into war with Iran. but like it's France that he was saving us from? The un-pasteurized cheese I mentioned before. Yeah. Dangerous. Keep it out of the country.

Who wants good digestion anyway? I do think what he meant was a trade war or economic war. Yeah. On the other hand, the fact that he said he has to look out for American companies is about the most honest thing a president has ever said about us going to war. So, you know, I'll give him. Two claps for them. The biggest election of our lifetimes is less than a month away,

and the news is only going to get crazier and more important as the countdown continues. As each day brings new headlines and critical campaign updates, the future of the country may be decided by the stories that cut through the noise and capture our attention during the next few weeks. If you want to stay informed through all of the twists and turns, the Daily Beast's new daily newsletter, October Surprise, is the reliable resource you're looking for. It will keep you in the know on,

everything that's happening as we race toward election day. Sign up now at beast. dot pub slash October surprise. Beast. Pub slash October surprise. Boltz is a tremendous website slash digital magazine that focuses on local government and local elections, particularly as they impact voting rights and criminal justice. You can find it at boltsmag.org.

And joining me now to talk about a cheat sheet for the 2024 general elections they just put out is its editor-in-chief, Daniel Nicanian. Daniel, thank you for. being here. It's always fun to join you. So how many elections does this cheat sheet cover? 10, 20, 25? So at the moment, there are 540 elections on the cheat sheet, which are organized by theme and types of office. So it's maybe a little less overwhelming than it sounds. And even that's just, you know, and be a small slice of what's on the ballot in November. The U.S. elects a ton of stuff, and there's a ton that is at stake in a few weeks. Yeah, absolutely. I got a to be honest with you, I don't think we're going to get to all of them. But let me start with sort of

a blakeet question. And I'm not even sure there's a clear answer to this, but I'm curious what your thoughts are. The Democrats did fairly well nationally in 2022, I guess sort of not counting New York, oddly. The vaunted red wave never materialized. The Dems held the Senate. Barely, the GOP took the House, but not by anywhere near as large a margin as some people feared. What is your take on this year. As I think a lot of people are going to tell you, it's very close right now. It's very uncertain. Unfortunately, my Tilius are not saying anything different. But I think what's also important is that no matter what happens in any one race, and of course everyone cares about the presidential race, there's really a ton happening around the country at the state level, at the county level, that is going to have a huge

impact on people's lives and going to have a huge impact on the same issues for which we care about the presidential election, right? So if you care about abortion, if you care about criminal justice, if you care about elections, obviously the presidential election matters, but there's just really a lot else that is going to shape the country. Yeah, absolutely, which is exactly why I wanted to talk to you. We talk a lot, obviously, about the presidential election on this podcast, but all these state elections and even local elections seem to have more and more importance every year and certainly this year. So let's talk about some state-level stuff. What are some of the key states we should be looking at with regard to the makeup of their

Senate, houses, assemblies, et cetera, their legislatures. Right. So first of all, I will say, there's an election in every single state and D.C. on our cheat sheet. I think it's really important to understand that there's important stuff happening quite literally everywhere, even if you're not in a presidential swing state, or even a state that might swing one way or the other at the state level. But to your question, there's a bunch of states that are really the key, key states to watch if you care about the question of who's going to control the government of the state. And I'll immediately start with Arizona, which in many ways is possibly the state that has the

most interesting stuff up and down the ballot overall. But what's very interesting in Arizona is that Democrats have a shot at flipping the state House and the state Senate and taking full control of the state government. They have not had that since the 60s, so for a very long time. And they're just a couple of seats away in both chambers. And what we have seen since 2022, because you mentioned Democrats had a better than expected night on election night, is that Democrats in states that they've captured for the first time in a long time, Michigan is where they did that in 2022.

For instance, they've very quickly opened the floodgates to a lot of reforms that Democrats really care about that they haven't had to do. So Arizona is really somewhere very interesting to watch. Another very interesting state is Wisconsin. So Wisconsin, obviously also a battleground state at the presidential level, has new maps this year because the state court, the state Supreme Court, swung to the left a year ago and struck down the gerrymanders that the GOP had passed to lock down control of the state government. So as a result, the state has very new maps this year that are more fair that give Democrats a much better shot at not just gaining

seats, but also possibly having a good night and flipping the state house in particular. And on the other side, on the other side, I would look at states like Michigan, Minnesota, states that Democrats just captured a couple of years ago and where Republicans are hoping to flip back. If I recall correctly, last time you're on, we talked a lot about what they're called trifectives, which I guess is where one party has control of both houses of the legislature and the governor's office. The states that you're mentioning, are those the ones where we're looking to maybe, hopefully, from the Democratic perspective, gain trifectives and the ones that you say, where you say Republicans, Michigan and Minnesota, are they hoping to reverse trifectives?

For the question of who's going to run the state government on the side of possible gains for Democrats, really the main one is the state of Arizona, possibly Wisconsin, but it would be a stretch for Democrats to gain so much in one cycle in both chambers to really take control of the state. But then Democrats are hoping to defend their trifectas, as I said, in Michigan, in Minnesota, and also in places that have a governor's race. In Washington, for instance, that's a place where Democrats hope to keep their control, the state government, keep their trifecta. And then the other thing to watch, Andy, is that there are states where Republicans have a super majority at the state level in the state house and state Senate that is enabling them to override the vetoes of a governor,

who's a Democrat. Potentially, the main state to look at there is North Carolina. So in North Carolina, I'm imagining a lot of people who listen to this have heard of the Republican nominee for governor in North Carolina. He's the guy who had a scandal broken by CNN last month about the fire right statements he made on porn sites a while ago. But that's a state where Democrats are favored now to keep the governor's mention, but where Republicans have a supermajority in the state House and State Senate. And they've used that supermajority. They've, for instance, passed restrictions on abortion and other laws of the sort. So that's a state where the supermajority is what's at state. Can Democrats gain just a couple of seats, just one or two seats in the chambers to stop

the GOP from just being able to do whatever it wants effectively, even if the state has Josh Stein as governor. Gotcha. So let's talk about governorships. I think there are gubernatorial elections in, 11 states. Am I right about that? Yes. It's in 11 states, yes. And three of them are currently Democratic, eight of them are a Republican. What's the state of the races there? Which are the ones that may flip? Right. So it's not the most interesting place to look over all of the 11 states. The two main ones that are competitive. The first of the first one is what I just said about North Carolina. It was meant to be the most uncertain governor's race maybe of the country. But with the scandals involving the Republican there, I think a lot of people will say.

that Democrats have a clear advantage. The other one is the state of New Hampshire. So the state of New Hampshire right now is run by Republicans, even though it votes blue at the federal level, typically. And there's an open race for governor there. So that's a very interesting race, because if it goes blue that governor's race, if it flips to Democrats, it would break control of the state for Republicans. Those are both key ones to look at. Talk about some of the other big statewide offices. Supreme Court, Attorney General, Secretary of State. It feels like All of these are kind of more important than ever, or at least seem more important than ever, given election challenges, outright election denialism, abortion bans, all those kinds of things.

What are some of the key ones there? Right. So absolutely, those are some of the most important elections on the ballot are what you just mentioned. And I really would start and could talk for three hours about state courts, because state courts are so important. And we've seen that in recent years on abortion fights in particular, but also on. a lot of other things like election law. If the presidential election is very close, we will see that the state courts step in and issue a lot of important rulings on mail voting and a lot of other things. And they're really underappreciated their importance, but there's a lot of very important

fights happening right now in state high court's elections. And I would start with the state of Ohio and the state of Michigan. Michigan and Ohio are the two states where the majority of the court could flip. So the GOP has a chance to flip the state Supreme Court in Michigan and Democrats hope to flip the court in Ohio. And those are courts that have handed down very important decisions in recent years. Then I would point to the states of Florida and Arizona. And in those two states, there are four state Supreme Court justices on the ballot in two weeks who just recently voted to uphold abortion bans. And now they're up for retention. And their and their efforts, arguments that voters should oust them. Now, here's what's super interesting, Andy, that there's

also a referendum on the ballot in Arizona this fall that would cancel elections for judges, and it would apply for the current cycle. It would apply for the elections happening on the same day. So Republicans have put a referendum on a ballot in Arizona to cancel the elections happening on the same day for the judges who are being, who voted to uphold an abortion ban. That really can tell you how important state actors are seeing these state courts. So I think people should see, should look not only at the court elections, but also at these referendums that could have a huge role in what's next. I've heard about this referendum, the Arizona one, about canceling the judicial elections or whatever. How would this work? Would the people in there now just continue to

have those jobs in perpetuity? Or what is it replaced with? Yes. They would, effectively, it would make the system in Arizona much closer. It would give them life tenure, which obviously is a concept that exists at the federal level, right? But to do so, what's interesting or what's controversial is especially doing so in response to an effort by the left in Arizona to organize around the court and make people care about these abortion bans. And again, what's controversial is it would cancel elections happening on the same day. That is so wild to me. And do we know the chances of this referendum passing? No, you know, what's interesting about the elections that I cover most is that we often don't know anything because there are very few polls about referendums or state courts. So we often

are in the dark. It is true that historically voters have not been kind on the idea of giving up their voice, giving up their ability to vote on things. So I would guess that it won't pass, but there's so many things that people are voting on on Arizona. And that that's a very interesting one. Yeah, that is just wild. Is it 12 states that have some form of abortion measure on the ballot in terms of referendums? So I think there's 11 states with abortion referendums this fall, and one of them can. I keep talking about it, but it's Arizona. Arizona has a measure that would establish a right to abortion access. This is happening at the same time, again, as there's the measure to cancel judge elections, at the same time as there's the two elections

for the state Supreme Court justices, and I could go on at the same time as there's another referendum that the Republicans have also put on the ballot that would make it a lot harder in the future to qualify ballot measures on the ballot. So Republicans have been very frustrated in Arizona in recent years that the left has been able to qualify measures like abortion access or like the minimum wage or other measures like that. And so they have put a measure on the ballot to make it harder to pass future measures. So, you know, there's a lot at stake that's all different but also all related in interesting ways, especially in Arizona. Yeah. Wow. I don't think I think I realize just how wild this Arizona election is with all of these different things.

And it's going to be very interesting to see what comes out of there. I could go on. You know, I believe you. But let's talk a little about local elections because this is another area where I think we've learned the outcomes of these elections are so much more important than just for the people in those counties or districts where they take place. Because, you know, we have election denials again. We have book banners. All of that on top of the usual sheriff's prosecutors, et cetera, that has. have a huge effect on the people who do live there. But it does seem like a lot of these local elections

are much more important, even both statewide and even in some cases nationwide than they used to be, or than we used to realize they were. I think in particular, the efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn elections has made a lot of people aware of the importance of the officeing offices, right? These are offices that obviously always existed, and they're often elected in the U.S. like the, again, the offices that run elections are elected, both at the state level and at the town level or the county level in many places. And in 2022, there was a huge effort by the far right to take over election offices that are going to run elections. Now, we would be having a very different interview right now if those candidates in 2022 had won. What's remarkable about the midterms

is that in pretty much every single current swing states, there was an election denier who ran for SOS, run for the elections chief job at the state level, in Michigan, in Pennsylvania, in Nevada, in Arizona, they all lost those office in midterms. If these people had been in office right now, we would be having a very different interview right now about what people are doing. But there was very much a reaction to those candidates in the midterms. So now this year, obviously the elections for these local and state election offices happening now are only to decide who would run elections in 2025, 2025, 2026, 2020.

eight and so on. But we are seeing a similar theme, especially at the level of county offices this year. We ran an interesting piece on Florida a couple of months ago at Bolt's because I hadn't quite seen that, but there was an organized effort at the county level in Florida to recruit and run candidates effectively who were election deniers or Trump supporters who amplified false claims of fraud in elections to take over these offices. A bunch of them lost in the Republican primaries in August, but there are six of that group of that coalition who are running in November. So it's really important to pay attention to these elections because in 2026, in 28, we might be having this conversation about what those officials are up to.

I'm just going to take a wild stab and say that Arizona is another state where this is important to keep an eye on. Absolutely. Arizona is possibly the most important. in state to keep an eye on for this, but I try to not start there to not just be in Arizona. The biggest county in Arizona is actually the majority of the state lives in one county in Arizona. And there's also one of the biggest swing counties in the country. The person who runs elections there is currently held by a Republican who's been very active on social media and elsewhere in rejecting the Trumpian false claims of voter fraud. He's been very active. He lost the Republican

primary in August to a candidate who has been much more allied with the far right in Arizona and whose campaign manager actually was a fake elector in 2020. And now that candidate is running to take over the election system. And again, the nation's biggest swing county effectively. That's something that if he wins, I assure you we will be watching very closely in a couple of years and in 2022. I just, this is Maricopa County, right? Yes. Okay. Last question because I'm just about out of time. Are there any states where you're just like, oh, there's nothing to see here, everything's good. And if so, can I move there? So the only reason that there are states this year that have a lot less happening is that their elections are usually held on odd number

years. So there are states, but in those states, there's a bunch that have elections in 2025. And so as soon as November is resolved, you can be certain that everyone's going to be talking about the governor's races next year in New New Jersey. The governor race in Virginia is coming up, so don't expect any quiet in those states either. Okay. Daniel Nican, thank you so much as always. You are just so informative. And folks go to boltsmag.org. There's just so much good stuff there. I can't even begin to name it all right now. Daniel, thanks again. Thanks so much for having me. 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.

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