The Daily Beast Podcast - Dems Completely Dropped the Ball During Trump’s Speech

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

The New Abnormal hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie react to President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night—and flame the Democrats for failing to stage a cohesive protest of Trump’s speech. 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. Welcome to a special late night bonus episode of the

new abnormal, and we thank you so much for being here today. We are going to be doing a live reaction to Donald Trump's speech before the joint session of Congress. Without any further ado, take it away, guys. Thank you. Why did that sound so rousing? Because you just spent two hours listening to an old man ramble on nonsensically. Take it away, guys. There's nothing to be said about what Donald Trump said. It was exactly what was expected. I lost track of the lies within probably 60 to 90 seconds.

It was completely out of control. But that's Trump. And that's, in my opinion anyway, that's why there shouldn't have been a single Democrat in that chamber tonight. Here's what I will say. I actually wanted to start with Democrats and the talking to that they received from Leader Jeffries. which was not to make themselves, quote unquote, the story. Yeah. To not protest in any manner.

He did not want the paddles. He did not want shirts. He did not want outbursts. He said, keep the story, Donald Trump. Earlier this week, I think that The Onion might have put up a post that said something to the effect that Democrats believe if they stand still, no one will see them. And I'm like, Jeffries took that to heart because I don't understand what he believes Democrats operating in a space of decorum is going to show the American people and the world.

I mean, I think that the paddles were ridiculous, but the only person that I'm praising is Representative Al Green, who actually showcase some passion, some anger, some rage channeling what I think that a lot of Americans feel right now. And if I were leader, I would have said, okay, so Al's going to lead us, and then he stands up, he gets thrown out, and we all walk out. But alas, you know, it was more of a trickle than a flow. Yeah, it was pathetic. When Congressman Al Green was forcibly ejected by Mike Johnson, who was very clearly ready to do just that, by the way,

this was planned for this. The fact that every other Democrat pretty much in that chamber did absolutely nothing is shameful. It's absolutely shameful to me. They sat there. They sat there. And then, yeah, you mentioned the little paddles with the signs. Ridiculous. Wartless. They treated this with the exception, again, of Congressman Al Green and the Democrats who flat out said, I'm not going to be there. AOC, Ron Wyden. Ron Wyden, Hill. a town hall at the same time as this. Great idea. AOC was on social media and is doing an Instagram live now that the speech has ended. Fine, great idea. The Democrats who sat there and wore their little pink outfits and held up their little paddles, worthless. Absolutely worthless. Hakeem Jeffries,

I mean, to go back to that onion headline, you know, that Democrats seem to believe if they stand still, no one can see them. Mm-hmm. Yes. But also, apparently that's what Jeffries wanted. He wanted them to not be seen. And I just, I don't understand it at all. All they did was lend legitimacy to this. The fact that they didn't stand up and applaud means nothing. They sat there as Donald Trump mocked them. And they took it with the exception of Al Green. And then I know a few more walked out later. I know Maxwell Frost posted on Blue Sky picture of himself and a bunch of other representatives. like maybe seven or eight talking about how they had just walked out. Great. I'm glad you did. I wish you would have done it, you know, 45 minutes earlier when Al Green got ejected. At least you did it at some point. Danielle, help me here because I just, I don't, I don't want to bash the Democrats. I want to be positive about them. I want them to be a good opposition party, but they're just not up for it. They're not up for it. And, you know,

And again, there were a handful of folks, like you mentioned, Representative Jasmine Crockett, Frost, Bernie Sanders. He also walked out after some time. But the problem with the paddles, let's just say, the problem with the auction paddles. They weren't being used correctly. One, they were not being used correctly. Two, they're dumb. But three, if you don't have cohesion in your. effort. If it is not a coordinated all of us in mask every time that he says something that is a lie,

we hold up that says it's a lie, that, you know, we resist. Like, because there is no leader, because Hakeem Jeffries is in fact trying so desperately not to be seen, there's no coordination. so everyone is just doing their little bit, right? Like it's like having a Broadway production and you have the chorus and everybody decides that they're just going to sing their favorite line of the song instead of actually like singing in unison. It just looks like a big old fucking mess. And that's what this was.

So nothing that came out of Donald Trump's mouth was a surprise. I want us to speak for a minute on the lone and first. trans representative from Delaware, Representative Sarah McBride, had to sit there. And again, it's a choice because we're no longer operating in normal time. So decorum is not going to be the tool to use against fascism. It's just not. But imagine sitting there as the lone transgender representative in Congress that was duly elected and listening to the president of the United States,

disparage you, your community, as if your presence doesn't matter at all. And then providing no reaction to it because you too are trying just to focus on the saying, you know, as she has said, I'm just trying to focus on the job that the people of Delaware sent me to do. But just think about that for a moment.

You know, and it's just like, again, the idea that we shrug off his disparaging, disgusting, discriminatory remarks towards 1% of the population, the 1% that we shouldn't be focused on because they have nothing to do with our economic downturn, with our footsies with World War III, with our coordination with Russia. They have nothing to do with that. And yet they're blamed for everything that is happening right now. To sit there and to watch her was heartbreaking, honestly. Absolutely. There's two things here. One, first you said she had to sit there and then you did say it was a choice. And it was a choice and she shouldn't have sat there. But I understand that it's tough for her.

What I don't understand, again, is her fellow Democrats sitting there and not doing a thing while Trump was saying these simply cruel and untrue things. And they sat there and did not stand up for her, did not walk out for her, did not do anything for her or for any transgender person in the country. And look, I like to joke about the word ally because it's a very easy thing to say that I'm an ally. So I like to joke about it. But there are things you can do to be an ally. And one of them is standing up for an underrepresented group, a small group that is being. abused and that's what's happening right now and they failed they absolutely failed to do that

but they failed to do that all night they sat there Donald Trump talked to this woman January little John I think her husband is February friar tuck but I'm not positive she has this whole story about how her daughters her 13 year old child was transitioned secretly by her school without her knowledge. And none of it's true. She actually has lost a court case around it. There are emails that show that she was involved the whole time. And also, there was no transitioning involved. It just had to do with pronouns. That's it. And Donald Trump sits there and lionizes this woman who was invited, who is sitting with Melania Trump. And again, the Democrats just let these lies spew out of Trump's mouth. And these aren't, the lies that he tells are dangerous lies. The

lies that he tells about there being people on the Social Security roles who were 300 years old or whatever, which is simply not true. It's just that Elon Musk and his crack team don't know how to read and don't understand how databases work, et cetera. None of that shit is true. And it's been debunked over and over again, but Trump doesn't care. Elon Musk doesn't care. Mike Johnson and J.D. Vance sitting behind him don't care. J.D. Vance just has this. He has this grim. of like a, he looks like a 12-year-old who just shoved an eight-year-old into a locker and is proud of himself. Like that, that's what he looks like. Yes, I mean, Trump's speech was historically horrible. But it's Donald Trump. We expect no less from him or no better, however you want to put it.

The Democrats had things they could have done. They had things that could have been good optics, as they say in the business. Instead, they chose to hold up tiny little paddles that unless you got a close-up shot of them, you couldn't even read. And it was just, it was a complete and utter failure on the Democratic side. Yeah, you know, also the choice to, for some to coordinate around the color pink, I can tell you that I can think of a lot of colors that send a message unless we were going to the Barbie film, pink was not, not one of them. To your point about J.D. Vance, he loves being around bullies. So the image. that you gave of, you know, the bully that's shoving the kid into the locker. And, you know,

J.D. Vance is that one that's standing up and like cheering. Yeah, boss. Yeah. This is who the country is being run by. And for Donald Trump, I mean, one of the most glaring comments and like there were many because it was the longest, I think, joint address that we've ever heard in the history of the country. And unfortunately, this is not the Apollo. And you cannot sandman this may. And you man off, which would have been helpful. Or like, I don't know, the Golden Gloves or the Oscars, start playing the music at some point. But when he said, you know, no more unelected bureaucrats will be running the country. And then everyone points to Elon Musk. And the irony is lost on them. Like, no more unelected bureaucrats, but Elon Musk was riding in the car with you and the first

lady. And just to be clear, I don't know what judges were there and need to be, you know, listening. He also declared in the joint session that Elon Musk was indeed the head of Doge. And shouldn't he be applauded for the great job he's doing? Meanwhile, the lawyers for Doge say that, oh, Elon Musk isn't in a court of law said that he was not the head of Doge. So like, they are literally playing in our faces right now. And I guess like the applause for Elon Musk was for the fact that he wore a suit, you know, which was I think the first time that we've ever seen that because that's so important to them. Again, right, when it's President Zelensky in the Oval Office, the man who's been fighting a war for three years. God. You know, so there were a lot of first. It was the first time that a member of Congress was

escorted out of the chamber by the sergeant of arms. You know, if you, you know, if you, you you remember, we can go all the way back to the Obama years for the July was the first disruption that we've ever had. Then you can go to Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Bobert. Don't remember Democrats ever escorting anybody out. Well, and here's the thing, Danielle, because what you're saying gets to the heart of this. This speech doesn't matter, whether it's the joint address, the presidential address to Congress, whether it's a state of the union. It doesn't matter. It never has. It only matters to weenies in D.C. And people like us who have to talk about it. The vast majority of Americans don't watch this speech.

Because of that, the things that you just pointed out are what we remember. We remember Joe Walsh yelling, you lie. Do we remember anything Obama said in that speech? I don't. We remember Marjorie Taylor Green being her usual obnoxious self. Do we remember what she was being obnoxious in response to? I don't. So those are the things that we remember.

And that is exactly why the Democrats needed to do something. because they had a chance here to be the only thing that was remembered about this speech. They had a chance to make a statement, and they did not, with the exception of Al Green. And he will be probably the only thing we remember from this speech in four or five years, if we're even allowed to talk about it. They could have done something else that would have been memorable. They chose not to, and Hakeem Jeffries told them not to. And I assume Chuck Schumer told the senators not to.

And again, that's why I say they failed because they had a chance to be memorable and they didn't take it. Yeah. Well, shout out to the few that showed courage and showed conviction. And to your point, they're the ones that will be remembered. You know what? And I hope that Democrats, I hope that folks, if we have midterms and who are voting, remember who sat silently by and allowed this to happen because they thought decorum was going to be the best. weapon in this war we're in, and it's not. Fuck those guys.

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