The Daily Beast Podcast - Donald Trump Could Be Elon Musk’s Ultimate Cash Cow

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

This week on The New Abnormal, writer and editor at The Lever, Lucy Dean Stockton, tells us all about her recent piece covering Trump’s promise to appoint Musk, which could allow for a special tax benefit available only to government officials. Then, Gabriel Snyder, the editor in chief of The Fine Print, is here to tell us about his seven steps to surviving election night. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. What a great show we have for you today. Writer and editor at The Lever, Lucy Dean Stockton, is here to tell us all about her recent piece.

Musk could reap huge tax gift from Trump win. Trump's promise to appoint Musk could make the billionaire CEO eligible for a special tax benefit available only to government officials. Then Gabriel Snyder, the editor-in-chief of the fine print, is here to tell us about his seven steps to surviving election night. But first, let's have some fun. You know, here's the thing is what I will say, is that I just, I don't get it. I don't get Donald Trump and Maga Republican men and their, it's not a bromance. It's not like, oh, just a bunch of bros, you know, sitting down in locker rooms. Donald Trump's closing argument after appointing three Supreme Court justices that overturned Roby Wade

and is killing women. Yet another woman is in the headlines for having lost her life in Texas, again, because of not receiving reproductive care for a miscarriage, is now leaving her child that she already had motherless. And Donald Trump's closing argument is,

I'm going to do it whether the women like it or not. I'm going to, quote unquote, protect you. I'll be the protector, whether you want it or not. That's Donald Trump's closing message to the women of America. And guess what, Donald? No one wants it.

No one. Not one person. Not even Melania. Based on the fact that she can't stand to be next to you or give you a kiss on the cheek on stage. It's atrocious. It's disgusting. And I don't understand the Maga women in these audiences that clap like mindless seals.

And I apologize to seals. Like every time that Donald Trump comes out of his mouth with these horrible, just grotesque statements. But like all that flashed into my head, Andy, when he said, I'm going to do it whether women like it or not, was E. Jean Carroll. And the mountain of women that have come out and have said that Donald Trump has sexually harassed them, has sexually assaulted them, that's all I heard. and it was disturbing that this man, once again, were just days away, could possibly be president again. Yeah, for sure. It echoes back to the infamous Access Hollywood tape. You can't say it's surprising that he used that phrase because that's been his MO. I can do what I want to women, whether they like it or not.

You know, there's something really interesting going on on TikTok where a bunch of Gensi women who are maybe voting for the first. time, they're learning about the Access Hollywood tape. And we forget that that was eight years ago. And for people who are in their, you know, early 20s or whatever, they were super young when that happened and it probably didn't register with them. And it is now all over TikTok with like, you know, reaction videos from Gen Z women listening to the Access Hollywood tape and just being in absolute shock that this guy said something like this and now might be. president again. And all of this goes to why I am sort of of the mindset that I really think Kamala Harris is going to win because I think women's anger is not taken into account enough

by pollsters, by so-called political experts, et cetera. And I think a lot of the, by journalists, I think a lot of the reason for that is it's, they view it as sort of old news. They view it as, well, that was the story in 2022 after Dobbs. And, and, you know, it's two years later. They, women can't still be angry about Dobbs and about everything that comes out of Donald Trump's goddamn mouth. And I think they're very, very, very wrong about that. And so these comments are, it's all of a piece. And I think the Harris campaign has done a great job in getting these comments out there. They've put out a bunch of really good videos with Trump saying, whether they like it or not, and with like a list of things that he has done, which includes E. Gene Carroll and

Dobbs and women dying because they can't get access to reproductive health care. And I really do think that ultimately, this is why he's going to lose. I agree with you. I want to say that I don't even think that it is just like women being angry. I think that the fact that people are waking up and understanding that precedent no longer matters, that people in their wildest dreams, we've been talking about protecting Roe v. Wade ever since 1974. The reality is, is that until it was taken away, I think that people just thought that it was a political talking point, a way to get out the vote. But then you recognize that we are now living inside of a post-Rowe world and the

headlines that we saw in our history books of women dying are now everyday stories that are popping up in our news feeds. And I don't think that it's just women because abortion is not just a woman or a person with a uterus's issue. It is about our economy. It is about our families. It is about what comes next. What else can be taken away? Because if you can take away Roe v. Wade, you can take away affirmative action, you can take away voting rights. Like, what comes next? Do we go back to a completely segregated United States of America? Do we go back to Jim Crow? Because all of these things passed through the courts. And if the courts are now owned by MAGA because of the judges that Donald Trump put out, then like nothing is safe. And I think that that is what is resonating with people is that there is no

safety in America in a Donald Trump presidency. Yeah, for sure. I don't. don't think it's just women, at least I hope there are a lot of dudes out there who recognize all of this. But, you know, we're looking at now, and maybe some of this gets into wishcasting. We're seeing women outpace men in early voting, I think, by like 10% nationally and even bigger than that in Pennsylvania, which is obviously going to be a huge state where it's, I guess, as of Thursday, the early vote is 56% percent. women and 43% men. I do not believe that is good for Donald Trump. Obviously, not all women are voting for Kamala Harris. As you pointed out, there are the ones at these rallies that clap and

hoot and hooter when he says his awful, insane, horrific things. But I have to believe that women who are going out early to vote, the majority of them, and probably not a narrow majority, are casting their ballot for Kamala Harris. look, conservatives are getting worried about it. We're starting to see it. People like the odious Charlie Kirk from Turning Point USA, I guess tweeted out, early vote has been disproportionately female. If men stay at home, Kamala is president. It's that simple. They know that women are going to be their downfall. I can't emphasize enough how happy that is going to make me when it happens. But it is really striking how much they realize that I think everyone but Donald Trump,

I think realizes how underwater he is with women. And like he said, when he said whether they like it or not thing, the whole point of that was he said, oh, people keep telling me I have to stop saying I'm going to protect women that women don't like to hear. You know, and the point is the people around him know, they know how badly he is doing with women and that he just absolutely cannot do anything to reverse that because he can't help himself. He comes out and says it. He says, yeah, they keep telling me not to say. this stuff, but I'm going to keep saying it. And then he says, you know, whether they like it or not. So this is who he is. And I think people know who he is. And I think women in particular know who he is. And this is why I have some faith that things are going to be as good as they can be.

I really like Andy. How you like, you're like, should I say it? Is it going to be it? Jinks? I don't know. I know. I know. But I'll say quickly, before we move on, that you know that it's not working in terms of their quote-unquote appeal to women as their protectors because you have, you know, dudes going on, what's her faces show? Megan Kelly talking about how they can't stand the vice president's ads telling women that like your vote is your business and that this, I don't know who it is because I don't follow right wingers in that way, But, you know, one of these toxic white guys says, you know, that Kamala Harris is undermining the husbands who provide, quote, unquote, a nice life for them. That was his response to seeing the ads that women, your vote is your choice.

Is that how dare they undermine their husbands? And these husbands are out there working hard to provide a nice life. Like, the world that they occupy in their heads, this 1950s, like the man goes out to work. and the little woman is like staying home to hold down the homestead is wild. But you know that their level of anger at these ads shows you that they're resonating, that they're absolutely resonating and working. And, you know, in a few days, you know, we'll find out. Look, so recently, we all watched the MSG Nazi rally that Donald Trump held in New York City,

where Tony Hinchcliff goes ahead and refers to Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans as garbage, floating, floating island of garbage. Then they go on to continue to disparage every group, basically. So Joe Biden comes out and says, yeah, the comments and those people, that's what's garbage. And lo and behold, surprises no one that corporate mainstream media then wants to turn around, and make Joe Biden's comments what's really the problem. Not the problem that we have these fascists that don't believe that anyone other than white men should have any power, any respect, any dignity, any autonomy.

And that Donald Trump himself in, I don't know, the day before, had said something and continues to say things that are wildly offensive and disgusting and gross and never has issued an apology. But somehow Biden's statements is what the media needs to hang its hat on and how dare he in the same faux bullshit outrage that they offered in 2016 with Hillary Clinton and deplorables. And you know what? They are garbage. They are fucking trash. And I didn't see anything that was wrong with what Joe Biden said.

And I don't think that it was a gaffe. I think that it was absolutely the truth. And guess what? He ain't running for re-election. So I don't even understand why it's even a, point of conversation because the person who actually is running for the White House has sent things that were far more vulgar and gross, calling his political enemies, the enemy within, referring to them as vermin, saying that people from African countries come from shithole countries,

lying about the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. The list goes on and on and on. Joe Biden has had enough and says that they're garbage and this is what we have to hold on to. Miss me with it. Couldn't agree more. The thing about Joe Biden is we've spent the last how many months talking about how he's not the best messenger in the world at this stage in his life. And before he dropped out, we had Republicans talking about his age and the fact that he was quote unquote senile or had dementia. And now all of a sudden they want to parse his words and say, well, no, this is clearly what he meant. Like, come on, you can't have it both ways. And the other thing is, J.D. Vance, he declined to condemn Tony Hinchcliffe for what he said about Puerto Rico being a garbage island.

He literally said, we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America. And then he comes out after what Biden said, he says, this is disgusting. Kamala Harris and her boss, Joe Biden, are attacking half the country. So it's like, fine, you expect this from the Republicans, of course, They're hypocrites. And of course, they're going to try to make a big deal out of this thing that was absolutely nothing. But again, the media goes along with it. This is only a story because the media is choosing to cover it as a legitimate story instead of, you know, Joe Biden said something, and he may or may not have meant this one thing. But Republicans who have said all of these things where they were very clear what they meant are now pretending their outrage.

Like, if there's a story, that's the story. They absolutely will not cover it that way. And then Democrats have to go out there and Josh Shapiro says, I would never insult the good people of Pennsylvania. Even if they chose to support a candidate I didn't support. And Kamala Harris has to go out there and give a little thing and say that she also would never call someone garbage based on who they vote for. First of all, yeah, you can call people garbage based on who they vote for. I honestly don't see what's wrong with that. Me neither.

But the idea that this is a story, I hate that we're even talking about it, even though I think we sort of had to, but it's just not a story for all the reasons you laid out. He's not the candidate. There's a reason he's not the candidate. And slips of the tongue are one of them. So this is such a nothing story. And it is such a drop in the bucket compared to the vast ocean of the utterly herald. and reprehensible and racist and misogynist and anti-Semitic and transphobic and homophobic comments

that have been made by Donald Trump, by his surrogates, and by pretty much, I don't want to say every Republican, by the vast majority of Republicans over the past couple years. So, Danielle, while they are missing you with this, I would also like them to miss me with this. But you know what couldn't be missed? Do you know what couldn't be missed, Andy? Was the size of the Vice President Kamala Harris' crowds at her closing argument at the ellipses? It was, I think, 75,000 plus people gathered to hear her appeal to America in the final days of what has been the longest election season of our life. times. And I couldn't help but see, as so many have already said, the stark contrast of the last

time people were gathered at that ellipses. 2021, January 6th, where Donald Trump's face was on screens orange and menacing and angry and hateful following his loss, where he stood there in front of the White House and told an armed angry mob to go take their country back. Contrast that to to 75,000 people chanting USA, holding up signs that read USA and freedom and dancing and just the collective breath of fresh air that her campaign has offered as an alternative to Donald Trump. It was a beautiful sight to see. What stuck out to me, though, was when she said, pointing to the White House behind her, that in 90 days, it will either be myself or Donald Trump that occupies that office. And just the thought, again, of Donald Trump ever being near the resolute desk, ever being inside of the oval office, my stomach dropped. Because it is still so possible that that could be an outcome. And just the days, 90 days, like hit me like a ton of bricks.

Yeah, for sure. I violated one of my principles and turned on cable news to catch her speaking. And she was good. I mean, look, she's no Barack Obama. She's not Bill Clinton in his prime. And that's fine. Like very, very, very few people are Barack Obama. Michelle Obama is one of them. But in general, there aren't a lot of people in the world who can give a rousing speech the way they can. But the words she said were, I thought, fantastic. When she said, things like, you know, those who came before us, the Patriots at Normandy and Selma, Seneca Falls and Stonewall, on farmlands and factory floors, they didn't struggle, sacrifice, and lay down their lives only to see us seed our fundamental freedoms. They didn't do that only to see us submit to the will of another petty tyrant, which is exactly what Donald Trump is. And by the way, is why the people voting for him are garbage, even if she won't say that. Because if you're voting for a tyrant, petty or otherwise, you're garbage. But it was a good speech.

The imagery was fantastic and such a contrast. As you said, to January 6th. It's hard to believe that the Democrats actually did something right. But, I mean, replacing Joe Biden with her was just a God-tier move. Mm-hmm. 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 campaigns.

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.pub slash October surprise. Beast dot pub slash October surprise. Folks, I am super excited to welcome to the new abnormal writer and editor at The Lover, Lucy Dean Stockton, whose recent co-authored piece entitled Musk Could Reap Huge Tax Gift from Trump Win. Trump's promise to appoint Musk could make the billionaire CEO eligible for a special tax benefit available only to government officials.

And I think to myself, Lucy, oh, how nice. more breaks for the world's richest man. Talk to us about the tangle web that Musk has weaved inside of our government, where he is already, over the last 10 years, has received $15.8 billion of government contracts, has already been able to put his entire body through the tax loopholes that are available to Uber wealthy people. So just give us kind of the framework and then bring us into

why Trump could be his ultimate cash cow. I'm happy to. Yeah, I mean, so Elon Musk, currently the world's richest man, in addition to being one of the most obnoxious billionaires, has also been gunning for the presidency. Of course, he himself cannot be president. He's not running.

But he's been campaigning with Trump and specifically angling towards a secretary of cost-cutting position. It's a made-up position that Trump has promised him. Musk has said on multiple occasions that he'd be very excited to work at the White House. And it made us question sort of what he's aiming for. I think the first thing that you laid out is that Musk is really, really entangled with the federal government. Being the secretary of cost cutting would put him in charge of tons of government contracts. And it sets him in hot water with these huge conflicts of interest. People don't know this, but Musk actually makes tons of money off the government every year.

He made through, his companies made three billion dollars across 100 different contracts last year. In the last decade, his companies have made $15.4 billion in government contracts. And some of those contracts are Tesla contracting with like the Department of Transportation. But others, most of them are around SpaceX, which contracts with every government agency from the Department of Interior to the Department of Defense to NASA in total 16 different agencies. So Musk is actually reaping huge benefits from government contracts. And if he was put in a position in the executive branch, he would be, you know, commanding and organizing his own contracts. But he also gets tons of tax breaks for his companies and for himself. And we were questioning

first, like, is this all he's angling for? I mean, it's obvious that he makes tons and tons of money from the government. But then we realized that if he had a position in the next Trump administration, he would also be setting himself up for a very specific little-known tax loophole that basically exempts government officials from paying income taxes potentially for life, which I'm happy to talk more about. It is wild to me that people like us pay more taxes than the richest man in the world, that regular average Americans are not able to have the same benefits, to reap the same rewards as the Uber wealthy. Like, as I was reading your piece and I'm saying, this is not new law that is being created

for Elon Musk. These are laws that have been on the book that are just being exploited. And there was a push to try and make changes as wealthier and wealthier people have come into government, but they've always failed. So can you talk to us about these loopholes? Talk to us about the failed work of Congress to actually shut things like this down. Yes, I'd be happy to. I mean, I think it's worth noting, you know, that this potential tax break is something that Musk hasn't even gotten yet, but he still managed to pay no income taxes for a number of different years. In 2018, he paid no federal income tax. And in previous years,

he paid less than $100,000 on reported income that ranged up to $1 billion. It's really insane considering what ordinary Americans and small businesses are forced to pay when companies like Tethla and SpaceX have also gone years without paying any corporate income tax. The tax system itself is rig, but then there's also this very specific tax loophole. When business people join government, they're often forced to sell off their investments in what's called required divestiture. And basically what it does, it's organized by the Office of Government Ethics, and it applies to many different levels of government. There are obviously different, varying levels of severity to this. But depending on the position that you're in, you may be required to sell off your company and put it in a

blind trust or put it in treasury bonds that are then managed by the Treasury itself. You're basically trying to erase conflicts of interest. To pause you for a second, which Donald Trump did not do when he was president, instead, He signed over supposedly his businesses to his sons to lead, who we know are idiots, not your words, mine, for them to run, which means that he basically was still running his businesses while he was president of the United States. But continue. Yes, and the move at the time was condemned by the ethics director. Yeah, he was obviously flouting decades of precedent that had established any sort of images of impropriety. There are ways that Musk had joined.

without necessarily selling office companies. He could join an advisory council and just be a member on that. It doesn't really give you real executive power, but advisory councils often invite, let's say, heightens or leaders in industry, because they're offering industry expertise, I'm quoting that, to policymaking. But, I mean, if it was that, he'd have a very limited role

and he probably wouldn't necessarily be able to, like, make broad sweeping decisions or have any administrative power. If he was getting for something bigger, he could be the chair of an advisory. counsel, in which case he would become a special government employee, which actually makes him subject to the same conflict of interest laws. So again, he would have to divest. He could also be granted a waiver, which is given when basically he's allowed to keep his companies if they don't affect the integrity of the position. Obviously, that would be almost impossible when he's so involved

in so many agencies or when his contracts are. But it would be given by Trump and once it's given, even if it's inappropriately given, it's given. There was also a Senate attempt in 2018 to force to sell their conflicted assets that didn't pass. But I think what is most notable is that those are all basically if he breaks the rules. But if he follows the rules and he does divest from his company, that's when he could really get a huge payday. This is the thing that I don't understand. This is the piece that I think is really important for you to walk us through, that he would reap, greater benefits if he divest from his companies and tell us why that is.

Yes. So if he follows the rules, he could stand to gain the most because of a 1989 law that was set to minimize the burden on government employees when they were leaving industry. So basically what it allows you to do is divest from your companies. And instead of taking a huge financial loss, when you just... joined government, offered you a lifetime tax deferral at an unlimited amount. So you could sell your company and invest it in, let's say, a mutual fund, you know, something that basically offers the appearance of being blind, of not having conflicts of interest. And then you would never have to pay taxes on that. Ever again. Ever again. Potentially ever again. So this is what I need to understand.

You're a government employee for a certain amount of time. I doubt. divest from my businesses, I put them in a trust or I sell them off, and then I'm able to continue to reap the benefit of never paying taxes on those assets ever again. Exactly. And the Office of Government Ethics has noted that the divestiture program, the tax deferral in it, is not an employee benefit. That's what they say. It's intended only to reduce the financial burden of complying with ethics laws. But experts actually have found that many officials see the tax break as a perk. I mean, yeah, one person that we spoke to who was working in the Office of Government Ethics, Richard Painter, said that it was absolutely a nice benefit of government service.

They found that some people wanted to go into government service so they could have the ethics lawyer, get them a certificate of divestiture, which would then give them this lifetime tax deferral. And, I mean, people know about this loophole. You know, I don't think so many ordinary people do. because it's like the highest form of tax evasion. Sorry, not to imply legality. But that's what it is. This is not about the small business owner. You know what I'm saying? Like this is benefits for Uber wealthy people to shelter them from having to pay back a country that they live in, that they reap the benefits of. And I'm thinking to myself, and this is my words, not yours, but how fucking greedy. Does somebody have to be who is worth $250 billion to say, I want to give nothing back

to the country that I live in? Absolutely zero. And I'm the world's richest man. And we think that that is acceptable. And it's acceptable that there are members of Congress and the Senate that are millionaires 10 times over. And this is a benefit that they're able to reap. This is not just for folks that say had a job at Google, and then they want to go and work in government for a hot minute. And so they're going to be losing money by doing so. These are people that are already Uber wealthy. Right. Two things to that is that I think that the most egregious case of this was related to Henry Paulson, who was nominated by former president George W. Bush in 2006. At the time, he was the CEO of the investment firm Goldman Sachs. He sold off 484 million.

million dollars in Goldman shares upon taking office to avoid holding the stocks while also running the Treasury Department. And he received a certificate from the Office of Government Ethics to do so tax-free, which allowed him likely to avoid paying tens of millions of dollars in capital gains taxes. I think it's really crazy because if Paulson had held on to the stock, its value likely would have plummeted two years later during the 2008 financial crisis. But, you know, what's also just crazy is that the CEO of Goldman Sachs led the Treasury Department. I mean, that's another thing is like Elon Musk, he would pay nothing in taxes. And instead he's saying, oh, but I am serving my country by rerouting contracts from the government to better benefit the companies that I may continue to own.

Also, currently out there right now, talking about Donald Trump's economic plan that it needs to provide necessary, hardship. Americans will have to deal with necessary hardship in the short term in order to have some long-term prosperity down the road. He doesn't tell us when that is or how hard it will be, but in that time that Americans under a second Trump regime would be living under austerity measures because of the social safety nets that they will zero out. That and while he is evading taxes, but also like continuing to make an exorbitant amount of money, he's dictating to Americans how tough things are going to be for the 99%. Absolutely.

I can't think of anything more Orwellian. Like, it's just so disgustingly wild to me. It really is. Yeah. And I guess the last sort of twist, maybe two last twists in all of this. And is that in 2016, Senate Democrats attempted to close the sleephole. before Trump came into office, it would have limited, the bill basically would have limited the amount of capital gains taxes that people could avoid at $1 million, but it was abandoned.

In 2018, it would have closed this loophole and it didn't gain enough traction. And then I think what's also notable on sort of like the bureaucratic government cycle side of this is that the chair of the Office of Government Ethics needs to be replaced right now. And Biden nominated David Huitama last year, but he hasn't moved forward in the domination process, largely because of stalling from the congressional Republicans who would basically stall it long enough that Trump, if elected, could install his own director of the Office of Government Ethics, basically allowing Trump to set his own code of ethics, even as he's president. I mean, there would be no guardrails. There would be no sort of checks and balances. So Lucy, tell me, is it fair to say that basically Donald Trump and Elon Musk's economic plan is to pillage the American people, literally squeeze them for everything that they have,

turn this country into a shell of itself in the way that you look at Russia and the Russian oligarchs, and you look at Hungary, and you look at Turkey, and these places that, that have certain families with obscene wealth while everyone else is desperate to make ends meet. Because there is no government assistance whatsoever, but you're still paying in to this system, basically paying in and tiding to a king as opposed to a government that is actually providing you services in return. I think we are not to be so extreme, but I think. we are very close to surrendering democracy to oligarchy in like a meaningful, practicable way. I'm going to plug our podcast right now for a second because listening to it was such a revelation.

We just released the final episode this week. It's called Master Plan. And it basically stories the 50-year-long plot to basically capture every level of government from the master planner. So these are corporate leaders and conservative ideologues. And I think what we're left with today, what started in the 70s and has now given us this system that we have today is just every level of government can be rigged in the favor of conservative and corporate interests. It's like from campaign finance reform deciding the politicians that get into power that are handpicked by billionaires that then create the legislation that moves. through the executive branch that is then finally decided or changed by a judicial branch captured by billionaires. We are really living in the master planners world. Not to be too conspiratorial, but I think that's just sort of what the evidence shows us. And I think it's pretty existential.

There are so few safeguards left and there are people working to change things. But the way things are going are really catapulting us towards more and more extremes of inequality and the ultra wealthy sort of dictating the world we live in. Well, I just want to thank you so much for your incredible reporting at the lever and I encourage everyone to head over there to read your piece. Again, it is entitled, Musk could reap huge tax gift from Trump when it is up now. Lucy, really, really appreciate you and look forward to having you back again. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on. Gabriel Snyder has been a part of numerous newsrooms, including stints as the editor-in-chief of the new Republican Gawker, an editor of the Atlantic Wire, as a reporter at Variety

in the New York Observer, and he was also the publisher and editor-in-chief of the fine print. In addition to all of that, he is now a contributor to the journalist-owned Flaming Hydra, where a piece he wrote this week about how to get through election night caught my eye. And I thought it'd be fun to talk about and obviously very timely. And thankfully, he agreed to come on. Otherwise, I'd just be talking about it to myself. So, Gabriel, thanks for being here. Glad to be here. So the piece you wrote has the title, Election Night Step 1, Turn Off the TV. And the piece itself has seven steps to making it through election night. But before we get into what the steps are, I'm curious what prompted you to write it. Really thinking about how to preserve my own sanity. You know, I've,

been a political junkie for as long as I can remember. And, you know, watching the election returns was always a very exciting event, you know, even sometimes when it wasn't going my way. And the last few years, I've noticed that those nights have become just anxiety attacks. And I've really been thinking about how to, I guess, you know, prevent the news, or at least reading the news from becoming such a mental health issue for me. So I've become really, really, I guess, deliberate, not just on election night, but all the time about how I'm getting the information that I want to get. Yeah, no, I think obviously that all makes perfect sense.

So let's get into the piece. And I want to say right off the bat that I think pretty much every piece of advice you give is fantastic. And also, I will probably not be following the majority of them. But to our listeners, I would say, do as Gabriel says, not as I do. So let's jump in. Step one, as we learn in the title, is turn off the TV. And by that, you mean TV news here, right?

Exactly. Cable news, turning on CNN and NSNBC used to be, you know, first thing I would do on election night. I might be dating myself by saying that a little bit, I realized with some of this advice. But really, you know, I have just stopped watching cable news. entirely, but especially on election night. And at first, you know, for me, for anyone who is used to, you know, getting, finding out who's winning from the TV, it was actually kind of scary when I did it. The first time was in 2018. And I found out that it was totally fine. There are lots and lots of ways to get that information than from cable. I couldn't agree more. And I am

famously, and by that I mean the 10 people who know who I am know this about me, I am, I am famously a person who is completely cable news-free. I think this is fantastic advice. In general, this is absolutely one of the steps I will be following. And I agree that people should feel free to extend this beyond election night. And let's also point out that on election night, there's also the networks. Yes, there are the networks, but I think ultimately, you know, this is not meant as disrespect to my friends who work in TV news, but it's show business. You know, They are there to put on a show, and election night is one of these things that they know how to do. They've done it a bunch, and it's like, I don't know, putting on a Christmas pageant.

They all kind of look the same. And the sameness that they often go for is to hype up the drama, hype up the anxiety. And it's not to give you the best information or, you know, the earliest prediction of who's going to win. They're really trying to set that tone. And frankly, it's just not what I'm looking for. To be fair, though, sometimes there are holograms. There are holograms, and, you know, there are speeches, and sometimes that's the easiest way to turn on the speech is to, you know, fire up the TV. But, you know, if you like magic boards, then, you know, by all means, tune in.

But I'm trying to, you know, get through the history of our Republic in a more soothing manner. Yes, totally agree. All right. Let's go to step two, which you say is gather some friends. And this does feel like a really good one. Oh, you absolutely should not do something as terrifying and as anxiety making as an election night as close as this one alone. That, I feel like, is the key ingredient to just freaking out and really having a terrible night of it. So whatever that means to you of gathering friends, do that.

You know, if you can get together with people and be with them, that's awesome. But if not, I'm a big believer in group techs. I know lots of people are, but I think specifically for a election watching. you know, group chat can be really, really great. I would also suggest, though, that you kind of discuss your rules and boundaries. I know that one of the things that I'm not looking for out of my election night group chat is someone who's dropping in all the latest memes that they saw on X, you know, so you can say no memes or whatever. But, you know, just talk to each other and be with people is probably the one thing. It's step two here, but probably the number one

thing I would recommend. Yeah, it's kind of, as I was reading it, I was thinking, it really is kind of the linchpin for all the other steps. And once we get to the other steps, I think it'll be clear why the idea of being around people sort of mitigates doing all the other things that you say you shouldn't do. So let's go to the next step, which is turn off Twitter, which, as you say, in the piece, pretty much goes for social media in general, right? Yeah, I think if you are trying to, you know, avoid the anxious vibes of election night, stay away from any kind of fast-moving feed. For me, when I gave up cable news, I was like, oh, I'll just look at Twitter. It's no X. I hate having to distinguish them. Yeah, we don't say. I don't say that. All right. So, yeah, so I tried to just

get through a Twitter, but I found that, you know, even my feed isn't that curated, but, you know, it's fairly, I do block and whatnot. But on these kinds of moments, it's just so many people saying things that aren't helping anyone and you're not getting the value out of it that you probably want. And I want to point out that you say this is not just about reading. This is also about posting, isn't it? Oh, God, definitely don't post. I mean, this goes back before the pandemic, but maybe I'm just going to describe my own mental instability. But I found myself, you know, getting posting something and then getting into some kind of fight with people on Twitter. And I would find myself like, you know, someone would walk up to me who has no idea what's going on. And they're like, what's wrong with you?

And I just realized that I was getting myself up into this fighting, aggressive state and all the stresses going. And I just did not need that at the time. And so I feel like, you know, just be aware that these feeds and algorithms are designed to do that. They are trying to make you feel like that. And so if you don't want to feel like that, stay away. Let me ask you this, because you don't mention it in the piece. Is it okay if I scroll through TikTok, if I I've trained the algorithm to show me pretty much only sports, movie and TV bloopers, and clips of British game shows. That sounds totally fun.

Okay. If your TikTok is tuned to not show you anything election related, great. Yeah. My TikTok is, I actually have two accounts, but I really only go on the alt, and I block anything political that comes through on it so that it is like 100% politics free. So it's my escape hatch. And I've done that on purpose. so I really like that. Okay, let's go to step four, which is just one word, but it's a really, really

important word, and that word is wait. Explain what you mean. I was saying election day, you know, they go by a pretty predictable pattern. And one of the things that is predictable is no one will know anything for hours on election day. There's this big gap between when people start tuning in in the afternoon. And when the first information, which is usually the election polls come out, which that's the data that says, 48% of men went for Harris and 52 went for Trump. So it's looking good for Trump. Whatever. They don't actually know anything from the exit polls, but it is data that they can talk about. Before they have that, they are going to do nothing but just fill time. And it's actually, I think, the worst moment to look for answers from

not just cable news, but really any kind of political media. So what I mean by wait is just expect to not know anything, not learn anything from, you know, on East Coast time from about noon to 7 p.m. Yeah, absolutely. And then the same goes for for people on the East Coast. We are not going to know the West Coast stuff during our prime time for the most part. Absolutely. West Coast stuff comes in, you know, super, super late. I mean, sometimes, sometimes the elections decided before the West Coast comes in, you can say if, let's say the Midwest is called before the West Coast closes, it doesn't really matter at that point how Oregon or even California is going to go. There is a lot of waiting that goes on on election night. And, you know, it's just, or election day.

So it's just good to, you know, know when you're not going to get anything. So you can do literally anything else than hunt for news or some little bite of information. Yeah, absolutely. No matter how much they want. to talk about the polls in Arizona having just closed, you're not going to get results from Arizona before midnight East Coast time, and probably much later than that, I would guess. Okay, step five is a great one. It is, remember how to browse the web. And I like this one because it's also the one where you're basically saying, hey, I'm not telling you to put your head in the sand all night, isn't it? Oh, absolutely not. I'm going to be wanting the latest

information on election night, just like everyone else. But, you know, you've got your cable news off. You've deleted your Twitter app. And so what are you going to do? Well, you have the entire world connected to your web browser. And literally every news organization on the planet wants to give you the election results on election night. So it's a really great resource. Use it. Yeah, absolutely. Just, you know, sort of like alcohol or drugs. Just be responsible. Be responsible out there, people. Yeah. Know your supplier.

Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So I want to move to step six. For people listening to this, and Gabriel, you may not know this, but there have been several surveys. I think I've seen four, maybe five, surveys of podcast listeners. And the new abnormal listeners always rank at the very top in terms of intelligence and

attractiveness. For these listeners who are probably sitting there thinking, look, there's no way I can do all this. I need to know the latest info as it's being reported. And you've sort of got them or pretty much you do have them covered with step six, don't you? Yes. So I felt a little bad giving this one because I told you to delete Twitter. But this is a, if you really, really, really have to get on Twitter and you want that instantaneous

rush of news, they have a list function. This was a huge help for me in my Twitter detox program. And what the list function is, is you can just pick just a few people that you want to follow for the night. So what I do on election night is I have a list of about 40 people. They're the total nerds who count votes and know how the vote comes in Nevada from Clark County and Washoe, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And those are the people that I want to follow. And it blocks out everyone else. Now, it blocks out everyone else as long as I don't scroll over to the other feed.

Right. So the advice is you have to have the discipline. of only following that list. And, you know, I encourage you to make your own list. I have a list. It's called Election Night. It's on my account. I got the idea from Josh Marshall, who runs Talking Points Memo. He has an election night list. His is a little bit too big for me. So I made one my own. Go copy ours. Take people off of it and really have, you can really control, you know, exactly what you're getting. And, you know, I guess that kind of goes to back to the top. It's just, you know, if you want to avoid freaking out about while reading the news, just be super, super mindful of

where you're getting the news and that is what a list does and you know those have been you know that in in my in my real heights of anxiety where you know i have to know you know what's coming out of Georgia or whatever that has been sort of my my i guess i kind of think of as my methadone yeah no that's a great way to explain it and i do have to say that you were kind enough in your piece at flaming hydra to note a list along those lines on blue sky and i have added it to my feeds i'm going to try it out on election night. You've done something that you shouldn't do. Don't add them to your feeds. I think if you do that, you're going to be just in your feed. So the really, really you got to do is if you're on blue sky and you've got one of those lists, you've got to really narrow it and use it

as a list. That's the key. Gabriel, I've already told you I'm not going to follow pretty much all of your advice. So, you know. All right, all right. Well, any of your listeners, I just want to make sure. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. But I don't want to be accused of being dishonest. One of the things that I have found on Twitter is I'm not on there anymore. I mean, I try not to look at it and I'm successful like probably six days a week. Dave Wasserman, whose handle is at Redistrict, sometimes feels like as long as you're looking at his feed, you know what's going on. Absolutely. He's one of those accounts on my election night accounts. And, you know, sometimes just one person who's active is all you need. I'm going to sound like an obsessive on this. And I kind of am. But in my. attempts to break up with Twitter. At one point, I made a if, do you know ifft, the automation service? Yeah, sure. He made an automation to email me just one person's tweets once a day.

I'm laughing because I never thought of that, but it does sound like something I would do. So I understand. All right, let's get to your last step, which is simply go to bed. And talk about why it's okay to do this and why won't miss anything if you do. Oh, it's so vital. I mean, I think the worst part of an election night is, you know, it's the wee hours, there's no new information going to come in. The poll workers have gone home, and yet everyone is still talking. And they are talking despite the fact that no one's going to know anything until the morning. And so I've spent the night doom scrolling until like dawn and it ruins my next day. And so I just feel like, you know, it's okay.

Just know in advance. It's okay to go to bed without knowing who the winner is. That is, you know, very, that's what happened last go-round and very possibly could be what happens this year. Yeah, this is really, really good advice that I absolutely did not follow in 2020 along with, I think, a whole lot of people because we'd never really seen anything like that before, or, you know, or at least in a very long time. And it's such good advice. It's like the idea of staying up till six in the morning thinking, well, it's only three on the West Coast. So Arizona,

who knows, we might know something more. And you raise such a good point. You're like, no, they all went to bed. So go to bed and be refreshed for Wednesday because Wednesday is probably going to be a pretty stressful day as well this year. So all of this is such incredible advice. And I really, I wish I were a different person and could follow all of it. But I'm going to follow as much as I can. And Gabriel, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate your time. Well, thanks for having me on.

And good luck next Tuesday. You too. Andy Levy. Danielle Moody. How are you closing out this last week before election day with your, fuck that guy. I'm closing it out with something that applies directly to a lot. election day and my fuck that guy is actually four dudes and a woman. I think I'm right about that. And those would be the conservative justices on the Supreme Court. Sorry, let me rephrase that.

The MAGA justices on the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court in its way less than infinite wisdom overturned a federal court of appeals decision and allowed the state of Virginia to, to continue to purge its voter rolls before this election. They did this. You may have heard of it, but if you have it, it's because they used a process called the shadow docket, which is where they don't necessarily and usually don't write actual opinions. They just issue decisions.

Glenn Yonkin, who was the Republican governor of Virginia, who we were assured, was not one of the ultra-maga conservative bad guys. but was a normal everyday guy in a, what was it, a damn vest jacket. Sweeter vest, sweater vest, whatever the hell was. Hadagonia vest. Yeah. He is, he had ordered election officials in Virginia to go after, quote, unquote, non-citizen voters and to do it in a way that used the Virginia DMV's records to identify voters who checked a box self-identifying as non-citizens.

Now, DMV records are, as is often reported, wholly unreliable. And Shan Wu at The Daily Beast reported, other reporters have already found instances of Youngton's efforts resulting in the removal of Virginia voters who are actually U.S. citizens. They may have checked the wrong box on the form. Apparently, some people are confused by the forum. So basically the idea here is, as usual, Republicans are trying to kick off the voter rolls, people who are probably not going to vote for Republicans and people who are probably not white and possibly English is not their first language. It's a very obvious thing that they're doing here. And it's so obvious that the courts up through the Court of Appeals said, no, you have to stop this. Another thing is it's happening in what's known as this quote unquote red zone, which is 90 days out from the election. And the courts are basically like, no, you can't do this 90 days out from the election.

If you want to do it, you got to wait and it's got to be far out from another election. So this got appealed, obviously, by the state of Virginia. And the Supreme Court, again, with no reasoning or anything, went ahead and said, no, we're putting an end to the stopping of the purging. and we are bringing back the purging. We're saying the purging is okay. And Danielle, as you said before we started recording, these people really do. They love their purges, don't they?

Mm-hmm. Oh, they do. It's just unbelievable. And yes, this is only about a case in Virginia, but it obviously has national implications. And it's obviously just another sign of the fact that the conservative wing, sorry, again, the MAGA wing, of the Supreme Court will pretty much stop at nothing to try to help Donald Trump get elected

this year. So yeah, I'm out. Fuck those guys. Yeah, the Supreme Court just never ceases to amaze me. I would say that they would go down in history books as the worst Supreme Court, but we may not have books anymore. So I don't know how they sleep at night. I really don't. Just undoing every bit of our democracy and doing so with a smile is wild. Fuck those guys. Yeah. I do. want to correct myself. I said it by far that guy was for the five justices. We don't know exactly what the vote count was, but Kagan Sotomayor and Katangi Brown Jackson did say that they would have denied it. So it might be six to three or it might be five to four and the fourth person just kept quiet. Anyway, Danielle, close us out. Who you got? Is it, is it somebody unexpected? Is it somebody

we've never heard of? Is it somebody where people are going to have to Google? who they are. Who is it? Unfortunately, it is not a fresh face to the hall of fuck that guy, but it is definitely a new genre for what we usually put this man in fuck that guy

for, because whenever you think that Elon Musk can't stoop any lower, then you realize, oh, we haven't reached the core of hell yet. Reports have come out that in another one of Elon Musk's get Trump elected scheme,

which is really the scheme for him to continue his spree of tax evasion and sucking off the government for $15.8 billion worth of government contracts. Elon Musk, it has been reported through his pack, hired a bunch of apparently black door knockers to get people to, I guess, sign his agenda for their, you know, million dollar cash prize. As it turns out that the door knockers that were hired were told that they were going to receive housing as well as transportation for their work. When they arrived, that transportation was a U-hole. And if you know anything about a U-hole, it only has two seats in the front. The back is made to store, you know, shit that you're moving. not actual human beings.

But this is the mode of transportation that was used to bring door knockers around. They were also given unrealistic quotas to meet in terms of the number of doors that they would need to knock. And if they didn't meet that, they would also lose their housing at a shit motel as well. It is not lost on me that the people that were hired for this work and brought in for this work in Michigan, were black. It is not lost on me how little Elon Musk thinks about workers because you can just see a trail of destruction everywhere that he has ever been. It's just gross. It's not surprising. It's just disgusting. And the fact is that he will, I'm sure, get away with it, right? Get away with these conditions that are horrible and not.

nothing will happen to him. And that's why Elon Musk continues to do what it is that he does, because nothing ever happens to him. He's so tied up and wrapped up in our government with Tesla, with SpaceX, and this man should be cut off in so many ways. But he knows, richest man in the world, he can do whatever the hell he wants, and that's what he continues to do at other people's expenses. And so for that reason, and so many,

reasons. Elon Musk remains chiseled into my hall of fuck that guy fame. Yeah. You know, when I first heard this story, like a thought went through my mind. It's like, well, you can take the South African out of South Africa. And then I realized, no, that's not even right because it's not like, you know, hi, this is America. Like, this is hundreds of years of shit like this happening in America. So, you know, It's ridiculous for me to even think that South Africa is involved here when there, unfortunately, really is kind of nothing more American than what he's doing now. Every paragraph in this story, which is great reporting by Jake LaHut, by the way, at Wired. The driver of the U-Haul told the group of door knockers that he was carrying, he said, I just had surgery, bro.

Like half my foot is cut off. And he said he was having difficulty driving. this is the guy they got to drive them, a guy who just had surgery where half his foot was cut off. Every part of this story was so disgusting and so disgraceful, but like you said,

he's not going to pay a price for this. No. Except he is going to be your fuck that guy, which, look, it's a pretty heavy price. So fuck that guy. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. We're back every Tuesday,

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