The Daily Beast Podcast - Does the MyPillow Guy Think He’s a Governor?

Episode Date: June 1, 2021

Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO and Trumpist conspiracy-peddler, flew his private jet to the Republican Governors’ Association meeting the other day. The guvs promptly threw him out. But the incident got Molly Jong-Fast thinking: does the MyPillow CEO think he’s already a governor or something? Lindell claims he wouldn’t “run to be a dogcatcher right now,” because he doesn’t trust the voting machines. Plus! Politico’s Tara Palmeri talks about her search to find Liz Cheney supporters in Wyoming. And Battle for the Soul author Edward-Isaac Dovere gives us a peek into how Biden sees the political landscape.If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Jong-Fast and welcome to The Daily Beast, The New Abnormal. I'm a left-wing pundit and an editor-at-large at the Daily Beast. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. Our world has been turned up day down. On the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and figure out how to get ourselves out of it. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon. I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails.

Today we have a super insightful episode with Tara Palmeri, co-author of Politico's Playbook and host of Power, the Maxwell's, a podcast on Jislene Maxwell's family. And then we have Edward Isaac DeVore on his new book, Battle for the Soul, inside the Democrats campaign to defeat Trump, who's going to take us inside the Biden campaign and administration and tell us what to expect next from them. But first, we have Virginia Heffernan in L.A. Times column,

and host of the podcast after Trump. Welcome to the new abnormal, Virginia. I can't tell you how happy I am to be here. I'm very excited because, A, we've known each other for a million years, and B, I always think of you as like a real grown-up. Oh, my gosh. All right, I'm going to put it. I'm going to, like, get it together.

I'm going to say complex words about gerrymandering. I just feel like adults know a lot about gerrymandering. And also birds, birds. Everyone knows about birds, though. Oh, I hate birds. I mean, I don't have to tell you, sorry. It freaks me out. Birds in the house, like, I love dogs, cats, bunnies, whatever, but actually, bunnies not so much.

All right, so let's talk about Mike Lindell. You may remember Mike Lindell as the most famous industrialist of the Trump era. Yes, that's right. For an extraordinary Edison-like invention. Of the My Pillow. Yeah. I mean, just he, he, he, it was a game changer in the pillow world. In the fellow world.

In fact, what's interesting about my pillow is that you just remove the space, my pillow, and you have a completely new product. Exactly. Yep. My. I guess my pillow makes my megabox because he has a private plan. I mean, the private plan set, I mean, I just will say parenthetically that I think Teterboro is where all problems start.

Exactly. Just anyone who goes, anyone who tells you like, oh, we didn't fly into Kennedy, we flew into Teeterboro. The like humble brag of Pima is like getting into my pillow and Epstein territory in my book. So private play, I think someone needs to be on the Teeterboro beat is all I'm saying, all the time. Just sit there and watch the trafficking roll in. Eating the snacks. I bet there are really good snacks at Teeterboro. What's the Dorsey, Home of Gabagool. Yeah, Gabagool. All right.

Gabagool. I still don't know what that is, but I have watched all of the Sopranos. It involves sausages, right? It's more like a spicy ham salami concoction. Oh, that sounds bad for my... That is what's in my pillow. That is not what's in my pillow, you monster. We know for sure.

We don't know what the fuck is in there, but we know it's not spicy tomato meat products. So it seems like he's a bad Fred to Brigg or a log to a party. Okay, so Christy Gnome, Governor of South Dakota, hopped a ride with my pillow, my industrialist, Michael Landau. Right. So they are, they're like Patrick Byrne of Overstock and Maria Butina of prison. That's right. You know, it's another one of those rich, insane industrialists meets, I don't know, femme fatale. How about that? She took the wrong private jet to the Republican governor's invention. Because I think Mike Lundell thought he was going to go to that because he is a Republican governor.

Right. Spoiler. Making my pillows does not make you my governor. Now, chances that Mike Lendell could actually become governor of a small Republican state, 80% if he ran. Mm-hmm. I mean, that's the dumbest. part of this win dumb prizes. Like, it's not even that hard for someone that famous and insane in the Republican Party to

become a governor. I would argue he definitely has talked more about voting machines more than any other governor in America, which does make him a little qualified. If a little qualified to steal an election. Can I just quickly add this something about Mike Lindell being a cosplay governor? I have a couple data points. One is President Eisenhower. who built Camp David and named it after his son David Eisenhower,

said he wanted a place, said he wanted a place a getaway from the drudgery quote of being president. I think we need to understand that being in politics leads to governing and governing is boring. It is not a PR operation. It is something that you need to go, you know, throw some horseshoes and shoot some bows and. and arrows and skeet shoot, like the Eisenhower era,

in order to get over the tedium of being president. And I feel like we have made these jobs, celebrity roles. And instead of playing up the, just like public service should not be, is not being on a reality show. Like, it's a general thing. Like, I feel like we need to really dial down the razzle-dazzle, really play up the drudgery.

And I think my, He's doing a pretty good job, by the way, in that. But anyway, so I just don't know, why would every single industrialist and every single lady with abs or... Or just arms, yes. With just arms, want to be, of all things,

a governor. She should feel like this is just like knows the grindstone. Like, she's like a CPA in South Dakota. But no, she thinks this is not just a TV app. Anyway, I feel like that's my general critique of American politics and major jump. We bring the subject

to sub-thag fun. It seems like there was a little coup brewing down at the QAnon convention. Did you guys see that Mike Flynn endorsed a Myanmar-style coup? I mean, first of all, Texas, the state, which is about to make it so that you can just get a gun with no

training, no permit, no anything, right? Hosted a MAGA convention this weekend, which included Mike Flynn was basically the star. Sydney crackin Powell. Oh, yeah. Right? Who else was there? Oh, your

boyfriend, Louis Gobert. Ah, young Louis got his teeth fixed and he's ready to roll. I don't know if he got his teeth fixed. I on a previous podcast referred regularly to that guy, like, ignorantly

as Louis Gomea. I just wanted him to be friends. Hell yeah. Someone had to call in and be like, why do you say pro-publica, first of all. And why do you say Louis Gomer? Instead of Louis Gomer. Yeah, I don't know what happened to me.

You'll remember Alan West. I don't remember Alan West. God, you've got a lot. You both have a deep, deep. Encyclopedic knowledge of the stupid. Alan West, former congressman, former combat veteran, Christian conservative,

head of the Texas Republican Party. African American, And secessionist. Zach Payne, Red Pill 78, spoke at the maga info.tv conference. He's a talk show host, political commentator, and a censored patriot, as opposed to an uncensored patriot. If I beep you too enough, could you to be censored patriots? I am neither censored nor a patriot.

Okay, guys, and I just want to bring everyone's mood down a little bit. How is that possible? You can't ever bring Jesse and I's mood down. It's down, maybe. It's already up on. It's way down, yeah. Then maybe this will move it up a little bit. Okay, we keep saying bad time for democracy,

and I would have agreed with you a year ago. But what about how we have a pretty great president and the majority voted for him decisively, and we have a vaccine, and he's rolled out all these great FDR plans. I mean, I'd say that looks pretty good. I just don't want to... Ah, cock-eyed optimist.

That is not cock-eyed optimist. We have a great president. I just feel like, as Windsor Man, our now former Republican colleague in political, you know, brooding, said, Democrats need to know how to win. Like, we won by a majority. Like, you walk down the street, and most people you're seeing are, You're wrong. Even my Trumpite neighbor has taken down all his flags and stuff.

Oh, that's good. How many flags, Virginia. Oh, my God. A lot of flags. Giant huge flags that say Donald Trump on them. Like, it just was very, I'm very worried about what's, what's happening now. And I feel like we see Republicans have, you know, they took this Democratic victory as a reason to make it harder to vote. They're doing it quietly, but like, they went in and.

Georgia and Florida and Texas in states where, I mean, the Texas thing didn't pass because the Texas Democrats walked out in the middle of the night, which is like fucking badass and like we need Democrats to behave like that all the time. But like you're, you know, the way Georgia, Democrats won Georgia by, you know, a handful of votes. And now if that, you know, if they make it harder to vote, the idea here is to get at, you know, is to disenfranchise. those voters that Stacey Abrams registered. Right. Getting sensitive again to the completely ill intentions of the Republican Party is a way to lose sleep, right? And they're always telling us that their numbers are enormous. They lose these congressional votes on the strength of, as you'd say, a handful of lawmakers who represent often 100 million fewer people than Democrats.

So this is like this counter-majoritarian party that cannot hold back the tide of normalcy that I think this country is about. Like, you can fight for a long time to make your not of, you know, cultists rule a place. But, you know, sooner or later, and I think sooner, it just becomes clear that it's just too much trouble to hold together a monopoly that's threatened from all sides. And let's hope. But do you see what I mean? Like, you know, the world, it's like entropic or something. Like, you can't worship Q&ON. It's just they've become increasingly elaborate in their ideas of conspiracies. And they don't, you know, when you used to be like, Republicans, damn it, they have, you know, 12 kind of compelling beliefs. And when abortion comes up or when whatever, you know what they're going to say. And you know that it like kind of appeals to the brain. But now, You have to take people like my in-laws who, you know, we're just like normal Republicans and are just like, I give up. I don't even know what they're talking about now, you know? I just really do find that hopeful. I think that people don't, I don't think people can hold on to this much insanity for this long, especially when it's a tiny majority, a tiny minority of people who believe it.

I hope so. Well, to that point, it's a little scary to think that if that poll is to be believed that there's now 20 some odd percent of people who identify as QAnon believers, that that's now bigger than the evangelical movement that gave George W. Bush so much power during the 2000s. Yeah. No, I know. And the thing is, we do scare the hell out of ourselves all the time looking at these people. But that's good. We should be scared. I mean, we had, you know, we weren't scared and we got a reality television home.

who ended up, you know, we got him out by like the skin of our teeth. I mean, this could have ended really, really, really badly. And so I'm all for panic here. Like, this is a problem. We got Victor Orban in Hungary. We, you know, there is a rise of authoritarianism just because we beat it back this time. And it doesn't mean. And, you know, if you look at these secretaries of state, you know, we're seeing a lot of crazy.

Republicans running for those jobs because they know you can overturn an election that way. I mean, is there any way that we're giving it too much oxygen? I don't know. Like, I've trying really hard to write as much as possible about like, you know, holy fucking shit, I cannot believe the size of that relief bill or this infrastructure bill. Just, I mean, of course, like they sink like stones these pieces. It's all anyone wants you to do is tweet about Mike Lindell and bless. them. That's all I want anyone else to do. But I also think it's interesting. You know,

there was Charles Lindberg. There were terrible things during FDR state side, but you just need to like keep pushing. Like when you look back, you're like the trend of history was like going in this good direction for liberals in them their times. And instead of paying attention to the cultists, you know, but the cultists are super interesting. I get it. And maybe they have, maybe this isn't something like close the doors and starve them, my oxygen. I just don't know. I know that I stayed in a cortisol locked in cortisol hair on fire state for four years with Trump. And I have no idea if it did any good. I mean, I think that the problem is Trump, you know, was not a very intelligent villain. Whereas now you have somebody, you know, you have people like Ron DeSantis who, I mean,

who really is creating performative laws as a way. of appeasing this base, right? Like he knows, Desantis versus the CDC, right, because he doesn't want to have these vaccine passports because the base doesn't like them, right? I don't think he cares one way or the other. And you have DeSantis continually trying to pass these performative laws as a way of getting the base excited for his 2024 presidential run. I mean, he knows that his technology bill, that bans technology from banning Trump has that, you know, there's no state law for internet, you know, there's no Florida Facebook, right? Like, this is a fucking bullshit.

But it doesn't matter because he's, you know, he's good at doing this performative Trumpism. And, you know, the difference between him and Trump is Trump really believes that everything he watches on Fox News. And DeSantis really knows that his supporters really believe everything they see on Fox News. and like this is a much more dangerous person for the Democrats to go up against. And the Democrats, again, continuously are bringing an ice cream Sunday to a knife fight. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess so.

But that ice, okay, I know I should let you leave it there because that's so much wittier than what I'm the kind of sentimental. No, go for it. But like, he's, yeah, he's bringing trillions of dollars to a knife fight. And that, I think, another kind of master, like, big thesis that I keep leaning on is the idea that generally trade was supposed to be was supposed to, I think that early capitalists said it was supposed to sweeten existence

because existence before I then was so warlike. And I'm putting all my steak in in woke Coke just to make it more immediate. I think the fact that Coke took even its mildest stand in favor of all things voting means that we have I don't know. I just want Coke to work its coca colonization powers on the U.S. that it worked on the Soviet Union. We need to like taste freedom in our everyday products and get back to a kind of letting capitalism take this on.

And Biden, by risking inflation to pump this country full of money, and that's why I say the most, that's why I say Mike Lindell and Mike Flynn and every other winner tick cashed their Biden check because money doesn't care. Like a pile of money and like cartons and crates of Coca-Cola on one side, like the Watkins team on the other side, Q and Ted Cruz on one side and a bunch of Coca-Cola on the other. I know what I'll choose. I just really hope woke Coke is more successful than new Coke. I love you, but I think you're wrong. All right.

All right. I hope you're right. But I think this idea that Democrats have that if we help people that they'll see that we're really the good guys and won't be tricked by the idea. I mean, remember, large portion of the Republican Party believes that Democrats are eating children. Yeah. We are in uncharted insanity. And so I love you, Virginia. Please come back.

I hope I'm wrong. But I think I think we're in trouble. Hey folks, if you haven't heard every single week we do a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast membership program. Sometimes we interview senators like Corey Booker or the folks who explain what's happening behind the scenes in media like Jim Acosta or Soladadad O'Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes we just have friends around to analyze what's happening in the news. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member

where you'll support The Beast's fearless journalism, as well as getting full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member, head to New Abnormal.com. That's New Abnormal.com. Tara Palmerry is the co-author of Politico's Playbook and host of Power, The Maxwell's. Welcome to New Abnormal Tara Palmerie. Thank you for having me. Can we talk about what you saw this weekend? Because this was like a sort of weirdly sleepy weekend. But there was a lot of fuckery. Yeah, there was.

I mean, what was this crazy convention in Dallas? Mike Flynn, C. Powell, like CooCombin. For God and Country Patriot Roundup. This is like the Q-PAC. It's like CPAC, but even more Q-E. Yes. But forgotten, let's talk about for God and Country Patriot Roundup for a minute. I mean, Mike Flynn, there's so much weird fuckery.

I mean, who even thought that we'd be talking about Mike Flynn to, you? You know, you're one of the Biden administration. I want to talk to you about a poll, and I think this relates to Mike Flynn and the success that Republicans are having right now quietly undermining, you know, democratic messaging, etc. Among Republicans, here's a poll from you, gov, the economist. Among Republicans, who is responsible for storming of the U.S. Capitol? So Democratic Party gets like 33% Antifa only gets like 24%. Okay, so it's basically the Democratic Party, or is there anyone like, is it like aliens above that? It's Democrats, Antifa, and then sort of at the bottom is Donald Trump.

Wow. Yeah. I've also heard theory that it was a green screen. Hmm. That one the best. The explosion was really Hollywood production. No, I don't know. When I was in Wyoming, I talked to this guy at a pawn shop who was actually there on January 6th.

And his defense of it all, by the way, he will not be voting for Liz Cheney. He said he was there and he was like, it wasn't that bad, though. So I think that's one of the ways of reconciling it is to say it wasn't that bad and like that liberals are hyping it. Or like, we didn't go there to storm. and we were just there to protest. Like, it got a little out of control, just like a crowd. Like, that was a lot of this stuff that I heard out in, like, the heartland. But I also have heard just in general from Republicans that are really, like, I don't even know.

Like, some people heard in my family that were like it was Antifa when it first happened. I want to talk about this reporting you did. After the January 6th riot, you went to Wyoming to cover Matt Gates's bizarre speech. he went to Wyoming to challenge Liz Cheney. Basically, he was there as like an emissary for Trump. He was like, I'm going, I'm going to do this for Trump. Yeah, no, it was crazy. And honestly, like, there was a big part of me that was like, I really don't want to go.

This is also in the middle of COVID. I wasn't vaccinated. I was like happily sitting on my couch in Brooklyn. But then I was like, no one's going to cover this. It's going to be small and lame. Maybe I'd just go because it would just be like, kind of funny. And I also had just started the job

and I was like, I can't be the girl who doesn't go. There was a lot more to see than I thought. Oh, yeah. And I guess I underestimated Trump's grip on the party before I got there.

But I was just really surprised to see all the people that turned out for Matt Gates, like 800 to 1,000 people for Matt Gates. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, no. It wasn't like it was, you know,

his son or even like Kimberly Guilfoyle. He's a congressman from Florida. And I get that he has a big profile on Fox, but it was just like, and the more I went around and talked to people, the more I was like, oh, wow, like, people are really fired up about Cheney's vote, and they're all still pro-Trump. And I think, like, from Washington, from New York, we, you know, everyone was thinking, like, what just happened was horrible on January 6th. Right.

The rest of the country must feel the same. But I felt like Trump really was still as popular as before, if not more, and had become sort of a martyr. And then also the whole anti-masking political liberally. like, you know, equating that to political liberty and just general, like, not caring about COVID at all was sort of jarring when you, when it's not like I spent all of COVID in like a liberal bubble or something like that. I did go to North Carolina. I went to Charleston. I've, like, I've been places, but I just, I don't know. There's something about Wyoming. It's the cowboy state. And yeah. Then I started like a little challenge for myself. I'm like, I'm going to find people that support Liz Cheney. And it was actually really hard. Yeah. That's. is a really interesting thing because this was right after January 6th, a time when even like Mitch

McConnell was saying like, this is not good, right? I mean, even real members of leadership, I mean, even Kevin McCarthy was like, you know, this was too much. And you still had people in Wyoming who were just totally unfazed. Yeah. And I think that was sort of like nobody was really sure what the political calculus was. And they were like, oh, like he did it. He finally did it, Trump. Like, he went too far. You know, an insurrection, you know, a revolt on our capital. That was it. And then you actually like take the temperature of people who saw it, maybe they stopped watching it on TV or like they were a little upset by it or they thought it was Antifa or was hyped by the media, whatever they were thinking. And you realize, like, no, actually this didn't even do a dent in it. And like Trump still owns your party. And it was around that time that you saw people backing down from, like, Mitch McConnell and McCarthy.

Because I think I saw some polling to, I remember before I went to Wyoming, Trump's spokesperson, Jason Miller, offered me some polling from Wyoming. And it was like, yeah. And were you like, please don't get too close. You know, I was skeptical. I was skeptical the whole time. Like, I just thought I was going to see, like, five people. in like some weird town hall and it was just going to be lame

and you know and it was just going to kind of be this sad story and but it was just it was a mini Trump rally and I was like oh shit you know what I mean like this is real so let's fast forward for a minute to like to present day

do you think this is still true yeah I do but I don't think it's like 50% of the country I think it's 30% maybe 25 and I think it's just those I don't know if he can win an election. Just because he has like a cult following doesn't mean you can win an election. I think people took a risk on Trump, like just general Republicans or against Hillary because she was so hated by anyone who was not even by Democrats, but you know what I'm saying. She had a history that people

used against her. Yeah, exactly. So that was, I think people were like, oh, whatever, like Trump, better than Hillary, right? I think that was sort of the feeling. But then, and I remember even I was living in Europe at the time and I had covered Brexit. and I like saw this sort of like anti-globalist, as we would call it in Europe, because our anti-European sentiment brewing, this kind of like xenophobia. I mean, I'm Polish, half Polish, half Italian. And I have a Polish passport and I was covering Brexit in these like small towns in UK. And they were like, the polls are stealing our jobs. And then there were this campaign like, we love our polls in London to like make them feel better because like they really had come in from easy.

Eastern Europe for better paying jobs, like in the same way we have that draw, except like, obviously, because of the European Union, they were legally there. They could be, you know. And so it was just like, and I said to people, I was like, I think. And then when I would even go in London, I'd talk to like taxi drivers and I talked like baristas and people like that. So I felt like in UK, not to keep going on, but they were like secretly be like, well, yeah. And this would be like the Pakistani or Indian, you know, driver of the taxi who also is like kind of like a, probably an immigrant as well or maybe at least first generation. You know what I mean? Being like, yeah, we don't need these people coming into our country taking our jobs.

You know, not knowing, they think they're just talking to an American, not an American with like a passport from that country. You know what I mean? And it's like, it's fine. I mean, it's not, I don't take it personally in any way and I wouldn't even reveal it, but I just found it to be really interesting. And then like, at one point, I was like talking to the telegraph about like possibly covering Brexit for them. And it was just like kind of hilarious to think like of an American poll covering Brexit for like a Tory newspaper. And it's like, I don't know, it all, it defies logic. And a lot of the whole thing did.

And I just felt it in my gut that, like, there's just this feeling like the elites don't get a, don't get the working class anymore. And do you feel like that's still true? Not as much anymore. I think like, I think Brexit ended up being this kind of lie. I think people like needed something to believe in that made them feel like the underdog. Like, I just think the white working class feel like felt like they, they couldn't, the Democratic Party, the social Democrats or whatever they are in, in Europe. They just felt like they weren't being heard from, I think, the more liberal parties anymore that were kind of like so many paces ahead of them in terms of like progressiveness and like globalization. And they just felt like, hey, I've got a job as a plumber and I can't do it anymore because this Polish guy's going to do it for the same.

We're going to do it for less. And he's going to live in like a house with four of his buddies and send all his money back to Warsaw. And he's not here living with his family like trying to start a life. And I get it. Like it's the same thing I've heard like even for my dad who's a, electrician, you know, like, I think he also struggles with the idea that, like, he didn't go to college. Like, there's a class of people

that come in to this country for the same job that you did in the same way that Italians did the same thing back, you know, when they first came to this country. And it's, I think, like, we just, maybe we moved too fast. I don't know, but these people felt left out and not to sound like Hillbilly L.G. Part, whatever, five, white girl style. But I'm just saying, like, I felt it then.

Pitch that book deal, Tara. Pitch that book deal. Yeah, right? The last thing people want to hear is the plight of the white girl. But, you know, all I'm saying is that I felt it then. I don't feel the same now. Now it's different. Now it's more like a cult following. Like people don't even remember why they got into it in the first place.

But now it's like a club. And I think that's why like cute. But it's all about a revolt against the elites. It's the same thing. But the sentiment has changed. Like now it's like there's a pedophile cabal and like, you know, we need to start a coup. Take our country back. It's about God.

Like it's about things that are bigger. Do you know what I mean? Like it's not. about the job anymore because I think, I mean, I could be wrong, but I get the feeling that, like, white working class people are doing better now. Yeah. Am I wrong? I don't know. We need to look at data there, but I definitely think what you're saying is really interesting. And I do think, like, the thing that I keep hearing from the very few people I know who are in Trump world or tendentially involved in Trump world, they feel like Trump is busy playing golf and not

really very focused. Oh, no, definitely not. It's kind of like, it's also weird that he's not on the road, but still like, and, you know, people keep pointing out people that used to work for him that are not on the team anymore. Like, you know, every day, those numbers, those poll numbers slip, you know, choosing him among Republicans as their first choice in a Republican primary. So every day, that number just drops one, two. And I think like, you know, he does need exposure. Like, someone's going to fill that space. He's not really like, I know he's on OANN, I know he's on Newsmax, but like I just, like I said, I think there's not enough people. Like, I think even if he did run and he won the nomination, like, maybe he has enough support to win the nomination,

but like, I don't know that he could actually win a general election, even though it was close this time. Yeah. I just think, like, I don't know. And it's interesting to me. I also think, like, his blog did not catch fire. No, they were like worried that the platform wasn't going to be big enough for all the people that were going to get on it, like that they wouldn't go bloods of people that would come to listen to Trump. There's a bit of stagecraft to it all. Like, I also wonder if right now they're trying to find the right size venue for him so it doesn't look small when he goes out there.

And like it's proud of small. And here's a question. We have Syvance trying to, Syvance and Tish James both really committed to trying, you know, to getting him on taxes or getting him on, you know, deflating assets or getting him on fraud. I mean, look, there's no one on God's Green Earth, I think even his supporters who don't believe he did some hanky-panky with his books, right? I mean, you know, I think even Trump.

Yeah, right. No, totally. But I also think that, you know, he'll spin it as like, that's business. Like, yada, yada, yeah. Like, even the taxes that he barely paid taxes didn't seem to stick. Like, I think, again, he's sort of an aspirational character still for a lot of people. But I think, but here's the thing, like, is he going to, is it going to be successful in the sense that he spins it as he's a martyr kind of like Sylvia Berlusconi did? Right.

You know, like, they're coming up that, you know, the deep state's coming after me, and this is the latest way if it was Justice Department. Like, I don't know. It's, I'm trying to think about it, but like, he represents, like, because even when he, the more he's despised by the establishment, the more that his base, like, loves him. Do you know what I'm saying? The martyr thing works for him. Because he's never tried to be establishment. Like he's never, so, but again, like, I don't know. Is this space growing?

I don't think so. I think it's at its max. It's like, this is your market. Like, I don't know that it grows. I don't think kids are growing up being like, I want to be Q&ON. You know, I don't think it's a Facebook generation of baby boomers that are going to meet, you know, they're part of Peter and out. And they're dying off.

Yeah, they are. What's crazier than Q&on, more outlandish, and Pizzagate and scarier than a Mexican getaway with Ted Cruz? The answer is what the American right wing has planned next. Be one of the first to listen to Fever Dreams, the new podcasts from The Daily Beast tracking the conspiracy slingers, orange acolytes, and straight-up grifters pushing to retake power. Every Wednesday hosts Swin Subisang and Will Summer,

checking in on the movement of the radical right. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash podcasts or your favorite podcast player to catch the first episode and get subscribed. That's fever dreams, which you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Edward Isaac DeVorett is author of the new book, Battle for the Soul, inside the Democrats campaign to defeat Trump. Welcome, Isaac, to the new abnormal. Thanks for having me.

We're very excited to have you. Explain to me what the fuck happened with that 2020 election. A lot of what the fuck happened with the 2020 election, right? The crazy thing about this is I pitched this book in 2018. it got bought in the summer of 2018. And the proposal said something like, you know, there's going to be the craziest election we've ever had, the most important election in the history of America,

and obviously didn't know any of the things of them were going to come to be part of it. But already it was clear that it was going to be that crazy. I will quote the great scholar of politics, Tom Hanks, who is in the book, he did a fundraiser by Zoom that was in the middle of the Democratic. convention, that weird, mostly virtual Democratic convention last year. And he said something like, you think about all the things that are in front of America right now, and this is speaking

in August 2020, the public health crisis, the economic crisis, rethinking how work is supposed to go. At that point already, the racial reckoning after George Floyd. And he said that all of this is happening in an election year. To him, he said, it makes you think that maybe there's something bigger going on. There's like a higher power or something. Whether you believe in his theology of it, it is amazing how many things ended up in the balance of this. And of course, like by the end of the year, by the end of the campaign, there was Ruth Bader Ginsburg dying and what happened the Supreme Court and all that. It's just amazing how much went into this. And, you know, when I had originally conceived the book, it was going to trace everything that was going on in

the Democratic Party. And then most of the action I thought would wrap up once the nominee was picked. Instead, there ended up being a lot about the general election and about the events of 2020. And even the book was on a pretty accelerated timeline already. And I was turning in chapters by like chunks of chapters to my editor through December. The last chunk was due January 4th. And I sent my editor an email with everything but the final chapter. And I said, look, let me just see what happens this week. There are the Senate races in Georgia tomorrow. We should account for that. On Wednesday is the certification of the election.

Now it's going to be a lot of theater, but we need to account for that too and write it in. And then I was in conversation with Biden folks about an interview with Biden that we thought might happen the first week in January. I ended up being in Wilmington on the day of the riot writing about things from Biden's perspective, not expecting that it would be a riot, obviously. And then stayed over in D.C., I'm sorry, stayed over in Wilmington because I didn't think,

that with the curfew in D.C. I'd be able to get home. And as I'm walking into the speech that Biden gave the day after the riot, my book editor sent me an email and he said, we're going to push everything back a couple weeks there because you're going to need to write through this. And so the last 50 pages of the book, the last two chapters, which are the riot and then a lot of what was going on to the inauguration with that very weird scene that was there. And then it does build up to the Biden interview that ended up happening. It happened at the beginning of February. And we talked about a lot of these things. Those 50 pages, it's not even that they weren't in the proposal. You've written books. Right. It's supposed to all be in the proposal. Yeah. They weren't in the outline.

They weren't conceived of until after the book was supposed to be finished. Yeah. It is weird that the news has moved so quickly. And to put it in a book, you've really sort of put your finger on one of the bigger problems in both book writing and writing in general. You have a real insight into the Biden camp, it's very hard to get an insight into the Biden camp. How did you do that? Well, I've been covering him for a long time since he was vice president. And in fact, towards the beginning of the book, there's an interview that I did with him that was one week before Trump's inauguration. We were sitting in his office in the West Wing, a couple doors down from the old office. I had spent time with him covering him as vice president. I spent a lot of time

covering him when he was running for president. And I spent a lot of time with the people around him who really make a difference in his thinking and the people that he trusts. It's an inner circle that has built up over 30 plus years, right? Longer than that, if you count his sister,

obviously, it's not his whole her whole life. The Biden world is an insular one, but a broad one. And he's one of these people that it's like, I remember in 2016 and it came back again because of Hillary Clinton

running. But Bill Clinton, it was so easy to get people to tell me stories and tell any reporter stories, like, well, Bill Clinton said this or he made this commitment to me because Bill Clinton would do that to everybody. Joe Biden is like that, but like without quite as much of the narcissism, essentially, that is part of Bill Clinton, right? He'll talk to anyone. He'll have a deep conversation, and people can often mistake how close they are with Joe Biden and then mistake how they relay it to people how close they are with Joe Biden. And that can be tough for reporters to weigh through. I think you need to carefully look at who's actually in the meetings with him and in the conversations.

And that's that circle of people. Was he upset when Obama World picked Hillary? You know, you go back and I trace some of this in the book. Biden was not ready to run for president in 2016. There was no groundwork that was being laid. There was no planning that was being done. He had kind of given up on the dream. He figured it was never going to happen.

And he could tell also that Obama was tilting towards Hillary. That wasn't great for him, but it's not like he would have been running a full-fledged campaign if that haven't happened. And then he starts to transfer the dreams of being president onto his son, Bo. But then, of course, what happens is that Bo develops his brain cancer, which right away they know is almost definitely going to kill him. The survival rate is very, very low. and is incredibly difficult for Biden. And he goes through this period of just being in the hospital all the time of the sun and thinking about what's going to happen.

His beloved son is closer to his boys than anyone on the planet. And then when Beau dies, and his Memorial Day weekend of 2015, the Boe dies, Biden ascended to this absolute spiral of grief. And two things start happening in his head then. One is that he's sort of using, talking about running for president as a coping mechanism, so that he's not thinking about the grief all the time. And he's also thinking about in a related way of this is a way of carrying on Beau's legacy. But as it goes through the summer of 2015 and into the fall when he finally pulled the plug on it,

there was not a campaign. It was not ready to go. And he definitely wasn't ready to go. He was in terrible shape, as one would expect from losing your second child, right? As the baby daughter died as in the car accident. And then he decides not to run, but it never quite goes away. And in that interview that I did with him right before Trump's inauguration, he is reflecting on what happened in the 2016 election. And he says to me, the problem is that the Democrats lost touch with who they were supposed to be talking with. And he's going on about this. And I said to him, you know, that sounds like a stump speech. And he said to me, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not something. Well, maybe it's a stump speech for someone else. And I said, okay. And then you see, and it's a stump speech. And it's a stump speech. And then you see, and it. And What I trace in the book is how it goes from that and from a very ramshackle operation that he had politically to putting something more together and to his own evolution in thinking about how to run through Charlottesville, which is the seminal moment for him in getting into the 2020 race. And then meeting a moment that happened, to come back to what we were saying earlier with 2020, that he could not have anticipated.

Nobody anticipated would be there with the pandemic and everything that was brought on and with Black Lives Matter that, that was brought on last year. The presidency that he has in front of him now, he knows is so different from what he ever expected to have. And part of that is rethinking how he incorporates the progressivism within the party that took root and that was so much part of this campaign. And it's just, it's a really complicated evolution for him.

It's not the presidency he thought he'd be running in 2019 when he got into this race. It's so far different from what he imagined. imagine a presidency of his would be when he was trying to think about it in 2015. Do you understand the dynamic between Bernie and Biden? It's a dynamic that's built on respect, mutual respect, in a weird way. And you wouldn't maybe think that. They like each other personally. There's a sense that they're both going for the same kind of voter and the same kind

of politics, ultimately, but that they have a very different idea of how to get there. But Bernie Sanders, one of the main things that he wants among politicians is to be taken seriously and to have people give him the respect that he thinks he's earned and deserved. And I don't mean that purely in an egotistical way. Of course, there's an element of ego to that. But Sanders changed the political conversation in 2016. And he changed the way campaigns operate and built something that nobody thought he could do and that he obviously didn't really understand. he'd be able to do. And he did it. And he did it on the strength of his candidacy, and he did on the strength of the ideas that were resonating with so many people.

And Biden made a concerted effort in this race to always keep up the good relationship with standards, always be respectful to him, always personally talked to him when they were at events together. And it was so important for him once the nomination fight was wrapping up after Super Tuesday to figure out how to build that relationship with Sanders even more, right, and to make sure that Sanders felt a part of the campaign so that there wasn't what happened in 2016 where the Sanders, where Sanders himself and a lot of his supporters felt very disengaged from Hillary Clinton's campaign. And obviously that had, that had a real effect on what happened in the general election. So Biden was doing that. They were talking a lot over

their aides were talking a lot. There's task forces, which, as I point out in the book, they were actually originally conceived as by Obama, who was also helping build this relationship with Sanders. It's one that was essential to the campaign that ended up happening over 2020. And I think when you look at the way the presidency has gone so far, it clearly is having a big influence there too. Isaac, so one of the things that people have taken from your book is like this focus

group on two-time Obama voters who went for Trump, and then they say that they wanted a president who'd do stuff. It seems like Biden was doing a lot of stuff, but now we're getting into a gear shift. What are you seeing here? It seems like we really do see people, especially like we've done a bunch of interviews that say, like, you want to save democracy and keep a fascist out of office. You've got to do things for people and actually deliver for them. Do you think that the Biden administration understands that? Yeah, and Biden himself has made that case about democracy and autocracy. that democracy has to work if people are going to believe in it. I think we don't know exactly whether we're in a gear shift here. I understand why you're feeling that a little bit. But let's see

what happens with the infrastructure proposal. Let's see what happens with things like the paid family. Let's see what happens with things like the paid family lead proposal that was in the state of the union address. We're still in an early sense of what this presidency will be. There was that rush about COVID relief. But look, what happened there, I think, is important in that Biden was seen coming in as like, oh, this old school dealmaker who'll work with Republicans all the time. And in fact, what he ended up doing was making people think in the country that he was not being so partisan and that he was breaking through a lot of the partisan gridlock.

But actually, of course, the American Rescue Plan had zero Republican votes in the House and zero in the Senate. but importantly, has a lot of popular support in the country, right, among Republicans and Democrats. And that goes to what Biden and his aides have been saying that bipartisan to them, they're not taking that as having Republican support on Capitol Hill. They're taking bipartisan, meaning it has support all around the country. I think that is nice. I don't know that Democrats have as much time as they think they do.

And I'm curious to know what they're going to do. feels more and more like Republicans are not so interested in doing anything that's going to sort of protect democracy. Do you, do you have a sense of what the Biden administration can do to protect democracy, small D democracy? I think a lot of that's going to come down to what happens with the John Lewis Act, which may be the part of the HR1, right, like the voting rights that gets pulled out and focused on. That in itself may be difficult to pass without getting rid of the filibuster. And that's a big question, maybe the biggest existential question for the Democrats, staring them down certainly after infrastructure, but in a more existential way because it's

about democracy. It's also about probably Democrats, capital D Democrats, doing better at the polls. And the legacy of John Lewis is one that is very much there in the Democratic Party. I trace that he's one of these characters who shows up in the book over and over in ways. I never interviewed him for the book. He was already quite sick by the time that I would have been reaching out for an interview. But you see how much voting rights was even before what we saw in November and all the Republican efforts, a major, major concern for Democrats. But now it's not a concern.

and say you've got to choose whether you're going to do something about this, because otherwise, what's happening in Republican-controlled states all around the country is an effort to push back on voting and access to voting in as many ways as they can in a way that's not really subtle what's happening here and what the intentions are. Right. It feels like Biden is still sort of in Obama land. I mean, do you think, since you are one of the few people who's talking to this White House, right, because they're not really so leaky, do you think that they are understanding just what the stakes here are? Yes, I do. That doesn't mean that they know quite what to do about it. If you look at this as Biden, he's already the oldest president ever, right? I hope he's alive and

well for a long time. But actually, his post-presidency is probably going to be shorter than , say, Barack Obama's or George Bushes or Jimmy Carter's, right? And he has this sense that he wants to do a lot and do it quickly for the sake of his legacy, for the sake of, he thinks a lot in terms of, like, seeing the world through his grandchildren in a real way, not just as like the thing the politicians say, like, it's so close with his family. And he, he, is trying to juggle all these things. But when I talked to him in that interview, he was in the Oval Office.

It was still COVID restriction, so I was over the phone. But we're talking and he points out and starts talking about the portrait of Franklin Roosevelt that he put in that top spot, the main spot in the Oval Office, right over the fireplace. That's how he's thinking about himself now. That doesn't mean that he's going to be that, right? But that's the North Star that he's got.

Some people said to me, well, who might have been if it weren't Roosevelt, like when he'd gone into the race? And I think it probably would have been more like a Harry Truman, which Truman did a lot of things, but was more of a function of continuing Roosevelt, right, which is how Obama may have related to Biden in this. But Biden now wants to do these things. Again, he's running up against realities of a 50-50 Senate and of Joe Manchin and certain cinema and all that. And so there is an urgency, but there's also a, how do we not blow this all up so that nothing happens? I think the other point, I'll just say quickly, is that like he, of course, was in Obama world, which maybe makes him

cooked in the way that the Obama administration was always ready to take a deal. And he took a lot of deals for Obama. He was the dealmaker. But he seems to have learned some things from that of not giving in as much to Republicans as Republicans might want. And also, I think the campaign was a big part of that, too, how he saw the way that the Republicans were supporting Trump, as Trump called the president of Ukraine, right, in a way that was meant to not only tarnished Biden politically, but to trash his son, Hunter, right, who, of course he loves very much too. And continuing through the campaign, continuing through, it's not like he's unaware that

all these Republicans, so many of them, voted to try to overturn the election results hours after the riot. He knows that, and he's trying to figure out the way through that. Yeah, I hope he figures it out quickly. I'm a little worried. Starting to get a little worried. There's obviously not a lot of time for any of this. Yeah, this was so great. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Jesse Cannon.

My drunk fast. Today, there's fuckery. Tomorrow there will be fuckery in a month. There's so much fuckery, isn't there? There's a lot of fuckery, but in Texas, I like to think of Texas as the worst place in the world or the juggernaut of fuckery. The juggernaut of fuckery is good. I like that. I like that.

That's very good. Dear Texas, your government is fucked up. We have your governor, one Greg Abbott. He sucks. I also enjoy Ken Paxton, who has got so many indictments, right? Like, I'm staying in government so I can't go be sent to jail. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's a great defense.

That's right. It's a hell of a take, man. So today we have Texas. and our governor, thankfully not my governor, but your governor of Texas, Greg Abbott said that he is very excited about this. The most conservative legislative session in a generation is wrapping up. And here are the things he's excited about. Each one, I submit to you as fuckery. Constitutional carry, which means you can get a gun as long as you can walk and talk and pay.

Second Amendment sanctuary state. I don't even fucking know. It's your sanctuary to have guns and kill people. A heartbeat bill, yes, but the harpy bill is six weeks. You have basically a blastocyst who does not have a heart, but is, according to Republicans, has a heart and cannot be aborted. At six weeks, that's the size of a P. That's one missed period.

election integrity, which of course is there's greater ability to undermine elections and change the results if you don't like them. Voter suppression all day. Right. We love a good voter suppression in Texas. Stopping cities from defunding police, again, didn't happen. You know, non-existent crimes are the hardest to fight. I like the analysis that also this basically mandates that you can't move money towards education in your schools because Texas loves having the worst schools. It's the, you know, it's the, it's the brand and cracks down on riders and protesters because, you know, the right to protest is not protected in the fucking constitution motherfuckers.

So for all of these fuckery, we would like to say that Greg Abbott, go fuck yourself. Yeah, truly, it's hard to beat, but I think my contenders are really giving them some competition. I want to say a hardy fuck you to two of our least favorite clowns. Matt Gates, who basically at this America first rally, which has kind of been revealed now as like being this new Steve Bannon thinks it's Matt Gates is basically saying Steve Bannon

is the god of the GOP now. The Yoda. The Yoda. Oh, thank you. The Yoda. I mean, they're both green. That was an excellent tweet. So he's ratcheted up the rhetoric talking about bringing guns to Silicon Valley. Marjorie Taylor Green's telling everybody the swamp hates you.

Mike Flynn is saying that we need a coup and endorsing a coup down to human non-relly. This is all of them ratcheting up the rhetoric in a really, really dangerous way. And this is really, really not good. And the fact that we used to have some sort of boundaries on the walls of this kookiness, but now that Matt Gates knows his jail time is imminent, he's going wild. And, you know, the other two are already a little off the reservation. I'm going to say, fuck you for not having a soul and a concern about America. You know, it will be a very, it's a very interesting thing watching Matt Gates get more and more worried about how this ends for him. Yeah, and it's not going to end well. I mean, look, it's hard to know, right, because we live in a world where Don Jr. was exonerated from criming because he was no, he was decided he was too stupid to collude.

So we don't know. I mean, white Republican men get away with a lot of shit. if history is any guide. One of the things I've got from you and that I have to consider every time I hear about somebody getting prosecuted is, will they have the Don Jr. defense? I'm too fucking stupid to be convicted of a crime. On that note, we'll wrap this episode

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