The Daily Beast Podcast - Donald Trump Is No Longer the Kingmaker He Thinks He Still Is

Episode Date: June 7, 2022

Is Donald J. Trump losing his impenetrable grip on the Republican party? Co-host of The New Abnormal podcast Molly Jong-Fast thinks so. She shares her theory with co-host Andy Levy on today’s episode. Also, the two attempt to answer this question: Who is a scarier Republican candidate? Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump? Plus! Daily Beast politics editor Matt Fuller gives Molly the cold-hard truth on gun legislation that’s bubbling up in the House and Senate and who—and who won’t—vote for it. Plus! British columnist & host of The OriginIanory Podcast, Dunt explains why Brits will have “an absolute psychological breakdown” when the Queen is no longer the Queen. He also shares why England Prime Minister Boris Johnson isn’t very secure in his position. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Zhang Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic Invo. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objective. 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 the wisest and funniest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it. What a great episode we have today. First, we're joined by Ian Dunn, who's, of course, who we call any time we want to hear about England. And he's a columnist at the Eye newspaper, as well as the host of the origin story podcast.

And he's going to talk to us about that Jubilee and Boris's vote of no confidence. Then we're going to talk to the politics editor at The Daily Beast, Matt Fuller. Matt's going to tell us about what's going on in Congress right now. But first, let's have some fun. Andy Levy. Molly Jong, Fast. We have a few more midterm primaries. There are some happening as we speak right now.

And then there are some coming in August because that's a really great time to have a primary two months before the real thing. Two and a half months before the real thing. What I've noticed is that Donald J. Trump is no longer the kingmaker. He thinks he is. Discuss? Discuss. Doing my lines. Yeah, I guess.

I'm sort of 50-50 on this because you got, you got your JD, well, you got your JD Vance. Right. You got your Mehmet Oz. Right, who, but barely won in a runoff. And McCormick just decided not to pursue it. But he was much further back before Trump's endorsement, I feel like.

I feel like he was not up there. But yes, you also have, I mean, you have, you know, the slaughter in Georgia. You have Mo Brooks, although, yeah, I guess he actually kind of surged after Trump withdrew his endorsement. Yes. Unendorsed, endorsed, endorsed. Yeah, Mo Brooks, the elegant. But David Perdue got like, you know, 12 votes, so yes.

Yeah, Purdue. But so to me, it's too early to tell is sort of the way I'm going with this. Like, maybe promising, like, I just refused to jump on the, Trump is dead bandwagon. See, I am operating from the Trumpism is alive and well and super destructive, but it doesn't need Trump to operate. Agreed. And this is very clear with this second straw poll that Ron DeSantis won.

And I'm just going to say, like, what is much scarier to me, this is the second time he's won this straw pole at the conservative thing in Colorado, the Western Conservative Summit. Jesus, can you imagine the kind of footwear that happens at the Western Conservative Summit? What are you picturing? Bejeweled cowboy boots that say MAGA. It's a lock her up in rhinestones. So is he losing his impenetrable grip on the Republican Party? And I mean, I think, like, there certainly is evidence to suggest that.

No, I agree. By the way, how does he... Does Santos won 71% of the vote to the former president, 67? Yeah, it's a weird little straw poll where they can... How does that work? They can vote for more than one candidate and stuff like that. Ranked choice, straw poll? It's sort of the way that conservatives want their votes to be counted across the country.

You know, they can just keep voting and keep voting, you know, until they're going to guy wins. Yeah. It's definitely not an impenetral grip anymore. I think that was a good way to put it, Molly. And I absolutely agree with that. And 100% we are both in agreement that MAGA is not dead. Maga is unfortunately alive and very well. And I guess the thing is I go, like, I go back and forth between trying to figure out whether DeSantis or Trump would be worse as president. DeSantis. Well, here's the thing. DeSantis is much smarter. We all agree on that. And that could make him more dangerous.

But Trump has the cult behind him. There's no real cult of DeSantis. He doesn't sort of have that outsized personality that you need to be a cult leader. Right. So it's hard for me to decide who ultimately is worse, who is more dangerous. Is it the smarter guy or is it the guy who's, you know, once he's there, can say or do whatever the hell he wants and people blind. follow him right off the cliff. And I'm not sure.

Right. I'm not sure either. I mean, it's impossible to know. But I think they're both bad. Yes. Let's agree that neither is great. And a Republican Party that no longer has any interest in democratic norms and is unfettered by even trying to appear like they believe in democracy is probably not great either. No, I would say that overall that's a net bad for the country, Molly.

Yes. So Trump endorsed both of J.D. Vance's made in a lab candidates. Interestingly enough, J.D. Vance, the wealthier person, was able to convince Trump, the person who will do anything for money, to endorse both his candidates. I'm sure that's just a coincidence. Turns out that Blake Masters, I'm going to go out a limb here and say he is a huge racist. Yeah, he's a dick, I think, is what we say in the political world. But masters whom the white nationalist website V. Dare feted last year as an immigration patriot, yeah, I think you got it, you know. I think that's a pretty good case that he's. You might be a racist. Yeah, another way you might be a racist is if you say that America has a gun violence problem and then say that that problem is, quote, black people, frankly.

that's a tell, I think. That's if you're sitting at the poker table, I'm going to, if you say that, I'm going to say, oh, you're a racist. Many people are saying that. Yes. This is like a new thing I've heard conservatives do, too. The interviewer will say, you know,

there's this terrible mass shooting problem. And the Republican will say, well, look at Chicago. Yeah. There's shootings in Chicago that no one even cares about. Like, the idea is that somehow Democrats don't care about guns when they're used in Chicago. I'm going to go on a limb here and say, like, no, we do. When Democrats call for gun legislation, they don't exempt Chicago from the gun legislation.

Last I checked. Right. And they're always like, you don't hear about the gun violence in Chicago because Democrats don't want to take away those guns. I mean, again, do Democrats want to take away guns? No. But do, I mean, I personally would like to. That's not, I'm not making legislation here. But, like, certainly would an assault weapon ban lead to less children being mowed down in their schools?

Yes. Yeah. Yes. I mean, that that's pretty clear. And then, you know, the other thing that conservatives will do is say that, you know, well, Chicago, they have very strict gun laws. And they just, this is just proof that gun laws don't work. And they, of course, don't ever bring up the fact that all those guns are imported from the surrounding states that have very lax. gun laws. They don't like it when you say that and when you say that that's why you want,

you know, like federal laws and stuff like that instead of leaving it up to each individual state. Because, yes, people get around the harsher gun laws by going to the states that have, like, basically walk in and buy gun laws. It's just, I mean, Masters is, look, this is another Peter Thiel-backed candidate, just like your boy, J.D. Not my boy. Yes. Yes. Well, oh, I forgot you were a Josh Mandel. Oh, Jesus Christ. But look, this is, you know, Peter Thiel is getting his money's worth, I guess. He is just a weird dude.

The candidates he endorses are way, way out there. I just wished everyone made fun of Peter Thiel's his seesteading idea of having these, like, you know, libertarian enclaves offshore. But if those had been successful, he wouldn't be with us in this country anymore. And so I blame America. for not getting rid of Peter Thiel by not taking his sea-steading project seriously.

I don't know. Send Peter Thiel to the sea and Elon Musk to Mars. I mean, that's what it needs to be. Yes. Yeah, no, I agree. I think there's a good case for sending Elon Musk to Mars. Speaking of which,

Elon Musk, probably not going to buy Twitter. I know you're surprised that this loud must. mouth asshole is not actually going to do what he says he is. But if you're surprised, there's a tunnel in Las Vegas that goes one way. I'd like to sell you. I, for one, am surprised that the guy who spends his day posting really stupid memes on Twitter did not do his due diligence before making his offer to buy the company.

That is just shocking to me. Without due diligence. That's what I just said. No, but he did. He made a deal that said he didn't have to have due diligence. Yeah. That he didn't have to do due diligence. I know.

It's insane. Yeah. And now he wants due diligence. Yeah. But I think he should pivot and buy Facebook. I just, I think he fits in much better there. Yeah, it's true.

He can post his done little tweets like the other day he posted one and then at the end wrote from a friend. It's the equivalent of those re, re, re, re, re, forward, forward. And that's more, that's a Facebook thing. A friend sends. That's peak boomer right there. No, just go by Facebook. Leave, you know, go hang out with those people.

And, you know, just leave Twitter alone. It's bad enough without you. Well, the problem is he's Facebook age, but dates Twitter age. Speaking of terrible people who are the worst, Peter Navarro, indicted for contempt of Congress. Let's just enjoy this moment without complaining about how Mark Meadows and Dan Scavarez. Vino, Trump's favorite caddy, both were not indicted because I guess they have better claims of privilege. Navarro, however, was indicted, and they were worried he was going to flee. So they took him in handcuff.

I mean, I don't hate it. There's two things about this story. Well, there's three things about the story that I love. The first is that he was indicted. Okay. The other two are that the night before he was indicted, he was on, I think he was on actually MSNBC. And he said. On Ari Belber.

Yeah, he was on Ari Melburgh's show, and he said that he was willing to go to prison over this. And I thought to myself, well, we have something in common because I'm also willing for you to go to prison over this. So I like that. And then I loved how he could not stop complaining about the way they arrested him. Yeah. Basically, like, the entire subtext of what he was saying was, don't they know I'm white? Like, you don't do this to white people. Yeah.

And it's just always great to me when all these so-called, law and order buffoons have to actually deal with the criminal justice system. And then they finally are outraged. They're outraged when it happens to someone like them. But they're more than happy when it happens to people who they believe aren't like them at all. I absolutely love that they got them in an airport. I don't care. They shouldn't have done it that way probably.

They could have just quietly brought them in. But I do not. I just refuse to give a fuck, even though I think probably he's not wrong about it. It's nice to see. It certainly is something. You know, I guess he has no claim to privilege, which would make sense. I mean, I don't think any of these people do.

I hope that we see more of this kind of stuff from Merritt Garland. So we can stop having to call him Merritt fucking Garland. That would be nice. Yeah, I kind of, like, I'm just a little bit afraid that they're sitting there going, See, we did something. What are you complaining about? We got Navarro. Yeah, I would not like that.

No. I would not be great. But that definitely worries me. Yeah. Ian Dunn is a columnist at the Eye newspaper, as well as the host of the Origin Story podcast. Welcome to the new abnormal, Ian. Oh, thank you very much. We had to have you on because the whole weekend we've seen pictures of the royals sitting around.

What are they watching? Well, I think they were watching a concert. towards the end. And at the beginning, they were watching the planes, you know, the planes fly by in various formations. I mean, I found they're quite enjoyable watching them, mostly because I just look at the children

because the children are quite amusing. And the children, much like the rest of the family, looked like they would rather be doing almost anything else. The aisle sort of rests on them. It's just amazing to watch it because the only person that cares about the royal family, I feel like, is Pierce Morgan. because he's obsessed with Megan Markle

and any opportunity he can to say something about her. I don't think in America, I mean, like that is the only time this sort of permeates my media silo is when I see him attacking Megan Markle. And they are all mad at her because she took Harry away. Yeah, I guess so. She's like the Yoko of the royal family. They're kind of mad at her because she's,

Because, you know, she's not really left-wing, is she? She's just sort of generally kind of water color, liberal, generally a bit progressive. And probably, realistically, they probably just like her even though they don't have maybe even the sort of articulation to say it. Because she's, yeah, because she's not white. And because she's American, I suspect that that's part of it, you know, and there's this sort of sneering view of, oh, you know, shouldn't she be in Hello magazine or something like that? You know, it's so interesting because if you think about it, here's Harry, who is, most famous for wearing a Nazi uniform during Halloween, you would think that the family would be like, oh, thank God. That was all I ever knew about Harry until he married Megan. Yeah, you know what?

I agree with that because I never thought much of him, but then when he married her, you can kind of judge people by their partner. And in that case, I was like, well, there's probably something quite impressive about you. I imagine that what is impressive about him is the fact that, you know, he is a prince and therefore a rather attractive prospect to many, many women. But nevertheless, you know, you could think of him in a rather higher esteem by virtue of her. They're an absolute shit show. There's not just her. There's also Prince Andrew.

I mean, the whole thing is falling apart at the scene. We need to talk about how convenient it was that Prince Andrew got COVID. Oh, my God. I know. I mean, so he doesn't have COVID. They're just lying, right? It may have just been a simply very fortuitous infection that he suffered. And it certainly improved everything for them.

But there are a few, like if you go around the country, because of the sort of the very weird manner in which the Brits treat the royal family, if they like them, but they have to be mocked just out of principle. Some of the sort of local arrangements were to sort of put paper mashay effigies of Prince Andrew covered in bunting with pizzas around him for the excuses he made for where he was on various dates. and lack of sweat and things like that. But I have to say, you know, the funny thing is, despite all of that, people generally have a very tough view of the family, they still love her. They love the queen. And that's pretty much universal.

Like obviously there's a wing of sort of pretty diehard socialists and people quite far to the left. You don't feel that way. But pretty much everyone else really does admire her. And there's no, the thing you get when you're watching this thing is this country is going to have an absolute psychological breakdown when she leaves. I mean, it really is going to traumatize us quite, quite severely. Because basically, she's one of the only bits of the Constitution that actually works. You know, you look around at Downing Street, at the police, at Parliament, at the civil service.

Nothing actually works in this country. The whole thing has fallen into disrepair. But she is quite serious about the duty she has, about public service, no matter what else you can take away from them. You can't take that away from her. And on that basis, the affection for her is genuinely very real. That is so weird. I mean, that's the kind of thing we just don't see over here. I mean, I guess that makes sense. If you're saying it, it has to be true. That is not how this works. Yep. So here's a question. Clearly, everything else over there is a shit show. How is Boris? still your prime minister?

Well, that's a very good question. And it mostly goes down to the supine, craven cowardliness of the conservative party. And it's total inability to stand up for the values which it claims to believe in. I just want to stop for a minute and just go through this for a second. So since you were last on the podcast a couple months ago,

basically it's been party gate after party gate after party gate, right? Like there's every day there's a new allegation that he flouted the lockdown rules in some ridiculous way. And his excuses have been more and more ridiculous, including and perhaps the crescendo of which was, I was ambushed by a cake. Yes, he was ambushed by a cake. And then later on, in Downing Street, in the flat that evening,

he was then ambushed by a collection of friends and his wife and alcohol. There's a series of ambushes. He was investigated by all of these for the police. Tory MP said, look, we can't make a judgment on him. We've got to wait for the police investigation. The police found that he'd broken the law once. They let him off for the rest of it. We were then told by Tory MPs, oh, we can't make a decision on him now. We've got to wait for the internal report from the cabinet office, from the senior civil servant into what he did. That comes out.

I mean, that was just fucking diabolical. I mean, it was like, I want to call it like the last days of Rome, but it's if 16-year-olds were organizing the last days of Rome, that's what Downing Street was like. So it's full of like there was red wine spilled all over the walls. There was vomit. There were people fighting. Remember, these are supposed to be the most senior people in government. There were people having fights at 2 o'clock in the morning in the middle of lockdown,

smuggling alcohol in, constant emails of make sure you don't get caught by the press, anything like that. Even then, they refused to move against him. Then Tory MP said, okay, you know what? If the local election results are very, very bad, then we'll move against him. And that doesn't happen either. The local election results are terrible. they still don't move against him. The whole time this is happening, I mean, it's kind of a piss take, right,

because it's such a pathetic scandal to have. But at the same time, it's also something that goes very deep your idea of what is the rule of law, right? I mean, since John Locke, since the very beginning, the idea is that the government does not break the laws that it passes. And if you're in a situation where the prime minister is literally writing a law with no intention of himself sticking to it, you're in a very, very dangerous state for the kind of the basis, the moral basis upon which representative democracy functions. So he still doesn't go. And finally, now as I'm talking to you, they are organising a vote of no confidence in the prime minister. Why? Because I think they went off home for the Jubilee. They went back to their local areas. They just heard this absolute

tidal wave of outrage from their constituents, just going like, what the fuck is he still doing there? And then something very important happened. As he came out of a car with his wife to attend one of the ceremonies for the Jubilee, the crowd started booing him. And that was absolutely seminal because that is not a crowd of liberal, progressive North Londoners, right? That is a crowd of royalists. Like if he doesn't have that constituency with him, he hasn't got anyone with him. And I think that moment really, really started a lot of Tory MPs.

So it's so interesting because it's not so different than our Republican Party, right? They're terrified of Trump. They were scared of the tweets. Now he doesn't have tweets. They were scared of the power. Now he doesn't have power. And they're still terrified of him. So it tracks, right?

It does track. I think there's also a sense of a party that just sold its soul to someone who looked like they had a bit of magic with the electorate. You know what I mean? Is that Trump or is that you guys? I mean, you're going to have to correct me on Trump. But to me, that's how it looked like with Trump. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No question.

It's certainly how it feels over here. Because, I mean, what the fuck is the Conservative Party right now? Right. I mean, it's supposed to be this fiscally conservative Thatcherite party. And yet under Johnson, they've been interfering in the economy wherever they can. They've been throwing money at communities because they think that they can create a new electoral dynamic there. They call themselves this sort of this moderate party of government. Don't worry, we're always very sensible.

We always take care of the economy. In fact, they're basically pyromaniac vandals. They've destroyed our trading relationships by breaking away with the EU. They literally passed legislation, giving themselves the power to break international law. They break the law themselves in Downing Street. So they're not that either. They sold themselves once as one-nation conservatives. You know, we try to bring the country together.

But in fact, under Johnson, their entire electoral strategy is based on using wedge issues, predominantly around issues like sort of trans rights, statues, the teaching about racial equality in schools, and trying to just drive communities against each other. So all of the things that they said they stood for, they have forsaken because they thought he was the golden boy of elections. Now, it turns out that he's an electoral disaster for them, and suddenly they don't have any of their actual principles to fall back on. So they're in a state of really quite advanced ideological decay.

But your liberals also not so great, right? Oh, you're being a bit harsh? What's happening with Kier-Storber? Well, the Labour Party is, okay, let's put it this way. He's not going to... I mean, look, I'm happy to hear it, but I'm just getting the sense.

Yeah, look, he's not an inspiring man, and probably no one's ever going to rush to the barricades for the leader of the Labour Party. That's true. You know what the funny thing is. He does actually have integrity, and he has a sort of basic... level of decency. And I know how absurd this is for me to sit here and act like that should be

something that you should aspire towards in politics rather than just a base level assumption as to the character of someone running for office. But that is absolutely the country that we're in right now. That in itself would be a massive boom to us. And so on that basis, I think that there is something genuinely commendable about him. His electoral strategy is extremely cautious. He is essentially waiting for the Tories to fall apart and then to stand there and go, look, I'm not them. At the moment, you know, and I'm not going to pretend that that's tremendously imaginative or daring of him, and we need more if you're going to improve the country. However, at the moment, electorally, that's a pretty good strategy because the Tories really are

falling apart and he really isn't like that. Can you explain to me if this Johnson no confidence vote happens what that would mean? I mean, would they then sub in someone else? What would happen? Right. So, I mean, they're going to vote on that now in the next few hours. We'll have the results this evening. Hi there, this is Future, Jesse. I just want to give a little update. Boris Johnson did survive this vote, but it wasn't so good. He got less votes than Theresa May did when this happened to her.

If he gets 180 votes in support of him, he wins. Now, he's pretty much rigged that system because there's something in the Conservative Party called the payroll vote, which is basically the number of people who are ministers or serving ministers. And that adds up to about 170 people. So you only need another 10 who you aren't directly paying to support. you in order to survive. But really, if he gets anything below 250, he's kind of a dead man walking. Like, this happened to Theresa May, the previous Prime Minister, she survived. But once you

have a demonstration that around the third of the parliamentary party aren't with you, you are suffering the kind of damage that you can't really realistically, politically come back from. So there are rules in the Conservative Party that say that he's immune from another contest, immune from another no-confidence vote for another year. The truth is, those rules are worth absolutely fuck all. They can write them and rewrite them as much as they like. And in fact, that's exactly what they were going to do with Theresa May after six months because they were like, we've got to find a way of getting rid of her. So the most likely outcome at the moment is he survives, but he's so badly damaged that he can never really come back. And then they just find

someone else to replace him with? Yeah, but they're not impressed by any of the other people around. And look, this is partly a creation of himself, right? Like he surrounded himself by some of the most stupid people that I've ever seen in front-line British politics. I mean, and he did that on purpose. It's because he didn't want big, independent-minded figures, big beasts of politics, being able to challenge him.

So on TV, moments before I spoke to you, Nadine Dory's, who's the culture secretary, was on TV defending him. Now, Nadine Dorees, I can't even tell you what it's like to watch interviews with it. It's like, you get the sense that her brain is with you in the audience, waiting to find out what her mouth is

going to say next. It is just this torrent of the most abject nonsense that you have ever heard, including in this case telling us, seeming to think that the Bank of England decided whether Britain was going to have economic growth or not. I mean, really quite spectacularly foolish things. And yet the cabinet is surrounded by people at around roughly her intellectual level. So under Johnson, you've seen this real degradation in the standards of thought within the Conservative Party. You also then had an attempt to purgelly. the party of any of its moderate element. So the old One Nation conservatives, these are figures like Ken Clark who'd been on front bench politics for around four decades, really big,

impressive sort of center-right figures. We're all purged from the party over Brexit. So you've lost that whole wing, really that whole centuries-old conservative tradition, has just gone. So that's similar to America. Like we, they sort of, all the sort of sane-ish Republicans are out. interesting. You see, I suspect, oh, I wonder if I'm being too optimistic here, which is not something that people usually say of me. Maybe today has just made me over-excited. Well, just try. Tell us what you think. I'll give it a go and I'll try it on for size and then afterwards, I think I'll feel rather strange. The Conservative Party is going to be ideologically broken after Johnson, but I don't think it's quite got the same sort of emotional seduction

as Trump had over the Republican Party. I can't see that you. years after Johnson's gone, you'll still have him pulling the strings in the way that Trump is able to do on the other side of the pond. I suspect that he will fade away rather quickly. And that there's a sense of, maybe I am being optimistic, but there's still a sense of just a sort of atom of shame in the conservative soul, the kind of person they've selected to be prime minister. Well, I mean, I think with Trump, the issue is not Trump because, you know, a lot of his candidates in the midterms got creamed. So it's more that Trumpism without Trump is continuing.

And Trumpism is basically just racism and sexism and rejecting democracy and all the sort of worst elements of Trump. Right. But Johnson in a certain way, correct me if I'm wrong, he's more intellectual than Trump, which is not saying much. But there's some ideological sort of something there. I mean, whereas Trump there's really, I mean, the man is just Swiss cheese up there. I would put it the other way around, actually. I mean, I agree that Johnson's more intelligent for what it's worth. But, you know, I've met five-year-old children who have a greater grasp of politics and language.

The one-eyed man is king, you know. Right, yeah. And ideologically, I think Trump is more coherent in that, you know, he always seemed to sort of generally hate Asia. He always seemed suspicious of immigrants. I mean, he's basically just like a really ugly, xenophobic nativist. Yeah, he's an archie bunker. Right. But he was that.

I'm getting dangerously close to that whole sort of, you know, say what you like about national socialism, but at least it's an ethos. I think he could actually believe the stuff that he said, mostly Donald Trump, whereas Johnson doesn't believe in anything. He will be whatever you want him to be. If he's running for London mayor, like he was a few years ago, he's this sort of pro-immigration, open borders, liberal-minded guy.

If he's running, you know, to be the prime minister of a party that's defining itself by Brexit, He's anti-immigration. He's pro-Nativist. So he's sort of aping the Trump language when he thought that that was the way to secure his electoral ambitions. He really doesn't have a single conviction to his name, apart from the absolute and urgent need to pursue his own career advancement. Yeah, Trump. And Trump does, I guess, have beliefs. I think so. They're just fucking horrible. So it will continue on. And Kirstormer will lead labor from now on until. they find someone bad.

There is a slight problem here, which is that there was a very fierce right-wing campaign against Stama to try and just sort of stain him with some of the party gate story. And that concerned the fact that he wants ate food. So there is a photo of him. It's unbelievable, but this is really true. There's a photo of him during the local elections a couple of years back, during a bit after lockdown where the rules of change. changed. So you can work and while you're working, obviously you can eat, but you know,

you can work. And during this local election campaign, there's a photo of him from outside of an office and he's having a curry and a beer with it. And this was an attempt to claim that Starma was the same as Johnson, despite the fact that Johnson had well over six parties, booze everywhere, photos of him holding them up, clearly parties, not just eating food while you work. Insanely enough, I mean, the Daily Mail, this right-wing newspaper, extremely reactionary, blithering, quite, quite mad. Not owned by Murdoch, weirdly enough. Not owned by Murdoch. No, and with a rather different sensibility, it's quite good at speaking to England's more conservative soul. It ran him on the front page for, I think, 13 consecutive days. No front pages dedicated to Boris Johnson's

parties, but 13 consecutive days about the fact that Keir Stama had a beer with his curry. And that did trigger a police investigation by Durham Police. Stama, after calling for Boris Johnson to resign, if, you know, he was found to have broken the law, kind of had no option at that stage, but to say, if the police find that I broke the law, I will resign. Now, I don't think the police are going to find that, but there is a glimmer of a chance that they will, and if they do, there is then a chance that Kea Stama, who ate food, would have to resign for it,

and Boris Johnson, who had several parties lasting until four in the morning, would not. Amazing. Amazing stuff. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Not at all. Thank you for having me. Matt Fuller is a politics senator at The Daily Beast. Welcome back to the new abnormal Matt Fuller. Hello. Thank you for having me.

Lots of exciting stuff happening in Congress. Exciting. A word? That's a choice. Exciting is a word. That's right. Right now, the Senate is trying to do something bipartisan on guns. Right? Explain to me. Yeah. Let's start with the house real quick. They're actually passing a package of bills this week, the so-called Protect Our Kids Act, which is aimed at reducing gun violence, particularly these school shooters. A lot of these proposals are pretty common sense, pretty popular.

It would raise the age for buying a semi-automatic rifle from 18 to 21, would bar the sale of high-capacity magazines, create new federal offenses for gun trafficking and straw purchases, which are when someone buys a gun for someone who wouldn't otherwise be allowed to buy a gun themselves. It would kick the issue of bump stocks. This is the thing that the Las Vegas shooter used, where the kickback of the rifle triggers another shot, basically, basically turning a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic weapon.

But the ATF would have jurisdiction over bump stocks, and they're likely to make them illegal. Would crack down on ghost guns. This is the guns that are basically someone assembles themselves just by buying parts or uses a 3D printer to buy and to print off and assemble a gun and they don't have serial numbers would require gun owners to secure their firearms if they live with a minor or someone who's not allowed to have a gun. So there's just a whole host of issues that they package together, bills that have packaged together and they're passing that this week. That will

largely be a partisan vote, Democrats for and Republicans against. I think almost almost all Democrats will go for that. So no Republicans will go for raising the purchase age to 21. They'll say it's because of other stuff in the bill, right? Right, right. It's always easy to vote no. You point to one issue in this package of bills that you didn't like and you say that was the, you know, the thing you would have supported that, but you didn't want to support that. But the other thing. Can I ask you a hot take just for a second? So Nancy Pelosi loves to do, and she's very effective. She passed a lot of legislation. I mean, it doesn't necessarily get through the Senate, but she passed it in the House. She likes to clump up a bill like this.

Say you just did, you have to be 21 to purchase an AR-15. I mean, would that be harder for Republicans to vote no on or now? I absolutely think so. The only issue there is it basically just takes more time to pass these bills. Right. They know that it's a, and in some ways, they're actually trying to preserve the political issue, right? You package it together also so that a Democratic opponent can point out that, hey, this person voted against raising their age for buying a semi-automatic weapon from 18 to 21 or, you know, they don't

want to make ghost legal. So there's pluses and minuses to that strategy. I think in the end, they're basically looking at it is this is a show vote, it's a political vote. It's about showing voters where they stand, trying to highlight where Republicans stand on these issues and they're using it as a political issue. So there's no world in which trying to pass like an 21-year-old age vote would help. Right.

It's an ideological question. Yeah. But bringing the Senate back into this. Chris Murphy, Democratic Senator from Connecticut, has been negotiating with John Cornyn, a top leader in the Senate on the Republican side from Texas. And they're trying to figure out if there's some bipartisan, quote, bipartisan solution to guns. If there is, it would be extremely narrow. It would probably be something like, you know, very narrowly expanding background checks for guns or red flag laws, basically allowing someone to petition the court to take away their guns temporarily. Separately, the House is going to pass that bill themselves, another bill of red flag laws later this week.

And they're not adding that law, that one into the package because they do want a separate vote. And I think that would be the easy thing for Republicans to point to. If they added that in, they'd say, oh, this is actually. undermining our Second Amendment rights to a gun for future crimes is usually the argument. So they have separated out that bill, knowing that, so they've basically put together a package of what they think are the most popular gun restrictions together. They've also promised that they will at some point have an assault weapons ban vote, although that might not happen because they might not have the votes for that.

On the political side, they are trying to play that game. But they also understand that this is a show vote. you can't tie up the House floor for what would really be weeks on end. If you tried to do this all in one, I mean, I guess you could theoretically try to speed through everything very quickly and do them as individual bills. But certainly because this is not going anywhere, these aren't actually going to become law. I think they've made a decision that it best suits them politically just to package it together. The most popular things they have do that vote. But the Senate could pass because the thing is the House will pass whatever.

whatever Democrats want because they can. Yeah. Right, because that's the math. But the Senate needs 10 Republicans to go along with this. So if the Senate is able to pass something, it could actually become law. Correct. And that's sort of the hope. But again, what you're talking about here is something very small in the Senate.

It should be noted. Chris Murphy said this weekend that he's more hopeful than ever about some sort of action. But take that also with a salt shaker of salt because someone tweeted at John Cornyn that he And I've heard he's trying to make gun laws more restrictive. And all he did was quote tweet it and say, not going to happen. So what I think is interesting. And Jackie Kucinicat a piece about this in The Beast was that every time there's a mass shooting, Mitch McConnell says like we're ready to talk. Right.

We need a lot of a solution. Yeah. Right. And then they just run out the clock. And then they're like, these Democrats were unreasonable. We tried. They're unreasonable. And that's it.

It seems a lot more like a ploy than an actual plan. Obviously, I think there's this outrage after these mass shootings and there's disgust from voters where like, why won't Congress do something? And it's very easy for Mitch McConnell and say, well, we are doing something. We're trying to find an actual solution. And then, you know, two, three weeks when the nation sort of moves on to the next thing, it's a much, it's a minor story that, oh, yeah, we just didn't reach that. We didn't reach agreement on it.

So that seems more likely to me. I mean, you'll never go broke betting against action in Congress. Right. There's obviously, there's a chance that they'll get something. But even if they do, it would be so minor and so narrow. I don't really see it really affecting, you know, substantively altering gun laws in this country. It's something at the margins, maybe. In our superpartisan world, there's no advantage for Republicans forever legislating on guns, right?

Because they're worried it'll tamp down enthusiasm for the midterms, make them look like they're not Trumpy. I mean, I, you know, I think if you were to break down what it means to be a Republican, there's a few issues that I think people generally would name. I'm anti-abortion. I'm pro-gun and I like lower taxes. Right. And that's it. And that's pretty much, I mean, you know, there's more to it. But those are the core issues, I think, of the Republican Party. Now, maybe I'm pro-Trump is the maybe the fourth and or really the first central one. But they're really not even pro-Trump. they're pro-Trumpism. Pro-Trumpism. I think that's fair. Which is racism. I'm sorry. Your words.

I can say it is on the opinion side. You can. But yes, continue. Those are sort of the core elements. And certainly Republican voters have always been afraid of scaring their base on guns. Anyone hears, oh, they're trying to, you know, they're trying to make guns more, gun laws more restrictive. Or they're trying to take away my guns. Right.

Come and take it. You know, like, there's real elements. of this is what it means to be a Republican. This is what it means to represent me. And these are for Republican voters sort of like the sacred things that they send their congressmen to do. Like, don't take away my guns is a big one. You know, there's not much motivation for Republicans to do anything here, even though, you know, politically what we're talking about here, they're popular solutions. Right. I think there was a data for progress poll in December that found 73% of voters favor more restrictions on ghost guns. I mean, I think if you actually went to

someone and said, hey, do you support people not building guns themselves so they don't have serial numbers? I mean, that sounds insane, right? There's always been real support, like somewhere in the 80% category for expanded background checks. I think people generally think you have to pass a background check to get a gun, and that's just simply not true. There's all these really popular, really common sense solutions to a problem that is uniquely American with gun violence. And I think a lot of Republicans are unwilling to talk about it because it, it's a gets just sort of cast as, oh, they're trying to take away my guns. Right.

Okay, so let's talk about January 6th. The hearings start on Thursday night at 8 o'clock. There's a lot already a lot of GOP counter programming. I mean, they say that they're not worried. But the fact that they're doing a whole counter programming initiative makes me think that there's some anxiety there. I think that after January 6, on January 6th, there was a lot of disgust from Republicans. And you saw this. Republican members themselves didn't want to talk about this issue. They wanted to ignore it. And then slowly that, I think that changed a little bit. No one really knew what the narrative was on January 6th. And it's sort of become, it's become another Republican Trumpist issue that, you know, we're jailing these people as political prisoners. And this is just a witch hunt. And the media overble this. I was there on January 6. What I saw was a very serious issue and a serious swipe at democracy.

see. Where were you there? Oh, I was in the House Gallery. I was right above when Ashley Babit was shot. I was 12 feet above that. I saw them breaking down the door in the House Gallery. I think for people who were there, and even, by the way, for the members themselves, this was a definitely a formative moment, but also the rhetoric and where the voters are has shifted. So to be a Republican means that you, you know, you oppose the January 6th committee. You certainly feel like this is a witch hunt. this is the media overblowing this and we just need to move on, whereas Democrats have always felt like this is a very serious issue. Also, there's political points for them to be scored here. But more than that, I don't think it's just, I don't think it's just normal politics. I think this is something

sacred for a lot of these members who, you know, this is their workplace. A lot of them were scared for their lives, including, by the way, as we've seen, like people like Marjorie Klo Green, who are texting Mark Meadows and asking them to do something. There's a genuine interest to get to the part of this. We have, this is now, we're 18 months removed from January 6th. I don't expect huge explosive revelations. All the revelations that we've seen are very interesting. But the truth of the matter is they haven't really gotten at what was Trump doing? What did he know? When did he know it? What was he saying? Was he delaying, you know, the National Guard from coming in? those questions have largely been unanswered and they haven't been able to get those answers because

people like Mark Meadows refuse to cooperate with the committee and the Justice Department refuses to prosecute them for ignoring subpoenas and not cooperating. Do you think that the Justice Department's lack of prosecution has helped the Republicans sort of get away with it? I mean, absolutely. I mean, there are people who know the answers to these questions of what was Donald Trump's saying to Kevin McCarthy. Right.

This phone call in which Kevin McCarthy is saying, you need to act. And supposedly Trump is saying, well, I disagree, Kevin or whatever he's saying. Clearly, Kevin McCarthy, after the fact, was pissed off at Donald Trump and thought that he had some responsibility for this attack. And again, his politics quickly shifted too. But because there's been this reluctance to really go after these top people like Meadows, like Kevin McCarthy, they're not going to get those answers. And so we're going to be left, I think, with a lot of questions about what Trump's role was. I think we're going to see this was an awful

attack on democracy. I'm sorry to ask you this very annoying question, which you probably can't answer anyway, but let's just try. Why do you think that Merrick Garland has been so hesitant? Congress made criminal referrals. Like, this wasn't like Merritt Garland would be acting on his own. He would just be following a criminal referral. Why do you think that Garland has been so hesitant to follow? Well, it's tough to get in his head, but I think Merrick Garland is sort of a, he's like a West Wing Democrat, right? He's trapped in this worldview. That doesn't exist.

Yeah, it doesn't exist. They work together and we have norms in Washington that we follow. And one of the norms is that you don't prosecute a former chief of staff. this is also, by the way, one of the reasons why there were a lot of Republicans who before Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court were saying, oh, well, if it were someone like Merrick Garland, I'd certainly take a look at him, like Lauren Hatch explicitly said. So, you know, Merrick Garland has never been the attack dog here. That has never been his role. It's never been his judicial philosophy. And I think that's coming, you know, we're seeing that play out a little bit as an attorney. general. There's zero chance that Biden swaps him out for someone else. Yeah, I think that that just doesn't seem like Biden either. Right. Exactly. Biden also has, you know, a very similar view of Washington. I think he would be very afraid of the impropriety of swapping out an attorney general. Yeah, that's what I

think, too. Merritt Garland's inability to follow these criminal recommendations leads to a sort of feeling in D.C. that maybe this isn't all as bad as we thought it was, even though everyone knows it was, in fact, as bad as we thought it was because we saw it on television as you saw it firsthand. Yeah, I think people have made up their minds about January 6th. You either think it was a horrible attack on democracy and in some ways a litmus test for going forward in politics or you think the media is lying and this is overblown and this is some people who are largely tourists who are loud in the building or were there as peaceful protesters and also feel like this has just become a distraction and unfair in the media. It's sort of a cry more lib situation.

We're not going to come to a collective understanding of this. So the January 6th committee is going to issue, you know, they're going to have these hearings. I think it's for the people who believe that it was a terrible attack, they're going to have plenty of proof for that. And the people who disagree aren't going to tune into this. They're not going to watch it. They're going to dismiss it. They're going to watch the Jim Jordan counter programming. And that's just the reality of politics today. And it's not a very encouraging sign, but it's, it is where we are.

Certainly not. AOC yesterday said Congress was a corrupt institution. Here's what I would say to that. I know a lot of these members. And I think there's this real mentality of throw the bums out, right? And I think that's largely fair. I think that the system itself is somewhat corrupt. where you have, you know, members having to take donations from lobbyists and go on pack trips and listen to leadership and they can't even offer really amendments to bills and all that kind of sucks.

But I will say on the margins, there's a lot of members of Congress who get up every day and are trying to do the right thing, who get up and say, how can I help people? But none of them are Republicans. Well, don't force me to exactly point out, but there are certain people who, you know, I think Democrats from Connecticut, Rosa DeLauro gets up and says, how can I help pregnant women get a meal? How can I make sure that babies have diapers, right? Or Jim McGovern, or how can I help poverty? Also Democrat from like Worcester Mass. Yes, okay.

How can I help reduce poverty, reduce hunger in the United States? And these people could make a lot more money in the private sector. They could leave Congress. They could go be lobbyists. They could do whatever. And they choose to be here because they still think they're, doing some good. And, you know, they're doing it at a personal sacrifice. These are not fun jobs, to be honest with you. These are long hours, tough jobs. It's not fun to, you know, spend your

Saturday going to the local VFW and meeting with voters or whatever. And they do that because they feel like they're actually accomplishing something. And I think that, by the way, that's true largely of AOC. She could go be a celebrity and make a ton of money doing whatever. She's there because she still wants to do something in Congress, even as depressing and difficult as that is. And Sometimes it's really at the margins. You do see members of Congress actually change things and actually make the world a better place. So I think that's true for a lot of people. There's a lot of members who are there for that.

It's a sucky job if you're just there to wear a pin or just, you know, do tweets and, you know, take selfies and whatnot. Yeah, that's a shitty job. But I think there's a lot of members who are there for the right reasons. And I think that's one thing we still miss about Congress. Thank you, Matt Fuller. All right. Hopefully that wasn't too depressing. Andy Levy.

Molly Jongfest. Who is your fuck that guy? My fuck that guy is pretty much, I feel like at this point, every Republican who lives in Ohio. But I guess I'll narrow it down to the ones that actually make the laws for now anyway. The Republican House in Ohio over the weekend passed a bill that will ban transgender girls from competing in any school or college sports. in the state of Ohio. And if anybody decides that they have a question about someone's sexuality or someone's gender, they can call for a doctor to have to prove the biological sex of that person. In other words, if they think someone is secretly competing as a trans person, they can demand

that that person get an exam, an actual physical exam from a doctor. It's one of the most disgusting things I have ever heard in my life. There is literally right now, by the way, there is one transgender girl in the entire state of Ohio who is competing at the high school level. One, that's what this bill is supposed to be, quote unquote, fighting against. One person. So anyone can make this claim can say, I think that person. is trans. Of course, we know people and no one would ever use this for other reasons. You know, they would only do it if they thought the person was trans, which, by the way, is still fucked up and wrong. Once that charge is made, the person who is accused then has to have a doctor

certify that they have the correct genitals, that they have the correct hormonal levels. It is absolutely unbelievable. Every single House Republican in Ohio voted in favor of this. And it is absolutely disgusting. It's one of the most disgusting things has been done in this country post-slavery, I think, at this point. It's just, it is so foul to force people to go through genital exams. High school kids, it's just unbelievable. And again, there was one transgender girl competing in athletics in the entire

fucking state of Ohio. Yeah. This legislation is unnecessary. It's cruel. It's inhumane. and I basically just described the Republican Party. So fuck those guys. This is the whole thing, right?

They just want to use kids, hurt kids as a way of winning votes with showing how MAGA they are. Yeah, it's just disgusting. The only thing is I think that, you know, Jim Jordan is from the great state of Ohio. So I'm assuming that he will fly home on the weekends and then not notice any of these genital exams going on. because that's the kind of thing he likes to do. Yeah, that would be. Ignoring crimes is kind of his specialty. Yeah.

Do you want to know who my fuck that guy is? I am almost literally dying. Yes. Waiting with bated breath. Yes. So again, one Lewis Comert as of January will no longer be in the United States Congress. You know, Molly, I notice you keep bringing this up

because we all know you're really sad about it. It's a tough pill to swallow. Acceptance is part of the stages of grief, so I'm proud of you. Right. I'm at, I'm right, I'm trying to accept. But there is a, there's a frontrunner for dumbest moron. And his name is Mo Brooks. And he is running for the United States Senate because if there's anything that Marshall Blackburn has taught us, it's that you can actually not be too stupid to serve in the Senate.

But the point is, Marcia really did lower the average IQ by about 10. Mo Brooks is hoping to lower it by another two points. He was endorsed by Trump. You'll remember he spoke at the rally, the January 6th rally. He said he was going to kick ass. There was some kicking and ass involved. He was endorsed by Trump. He was an early Trump pumper.

Trump then unendorsed him when he thought he wasn't going to win, which is a covering. very classy Trump move. Now Mo Brooks and I'm just going to read you the tweet because it's so I mean the thing is it is true that these people really

do just debase themselves Maga Nation here's my story join me and asking President Trump to hashtag re-endorse Mo so that we can send a message to Mitch McConnell by sending a real

America First Conservative to the Senate on June 21st. By the way, Mitch McConnell, between Herschel Walker, Herschel Walker and his many personalities, and Dr. Oz, and Eric Greitens,

I think that Mitch McConnell, I mean, he is a terrible person, but he is, if any of those three go to the Senate, he's going to, it's going to be really rough for him. So that's the only bright spot at democracy.

dies is at least it'll be bad for Mitch McConnell. I have to say that the entire Mo Brooks thing was one of the saddest things I've ever seen in my life. But the most amazing part of it was he said, I think President Trump knew what he was doing. He gave our campaign the kick in the pants we needed. He was like a football coach grabbing us by the face mask and getting us in gear. So he's now like trying to make this sound like Trump was doing him a full. favor by unendorsing him and that's why he did it. It is so sad and these guys are just,

I mean, to use their terminology, like this is just the ultimate beta cuck right here. Speak for yourself, man. He's basically, he's Kevin Bacon in Animal House saying, thank you, sir, may I have another as he gets whacked with a paddle in the ass. And it's just, it's absolutely unbelievable and it's hilarious and sad at the same time. Yeah, he deserves. Absolutely. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from The Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics and science. We'll help us understand what's happening to our country and the world.

We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you again on the next episode. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast, at the DailyBeast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline.

Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.