The Daily Beast Podcast - Donald Trump Jr.’s Inauguration ‘Fuckery’

Episode Date: April 30, 2021

There are dozens of legal cases against the Trumps, but perhaps the most fascinating is one in the District of Columbia that has attracted little public attention according to Mother Jones’ D.C. bureau chief, David Corn, who joins the latest New Abnormal to break down an under-the-radar Trump legal case and what’s in store for Rudy Giuliani. Plus, the road ahead for voting rights with LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter and Southern Black Girls and Women’s Consortium. If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

On this episode, we're going to have a great talk with Alasha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, Southern Black Girls Consortium, as well as a 2021 Harvard American Democracy Fellow. She's going to talk to us about what's going on with voting in Georgia, voting rights, and Democrats winning in the South. But first, we have David Korn, who you may know as D.C. Bureau Chief of Mother Jones, a MSNBC analyst, and author of the number one New York.

Times best-selling book, Russian Roulette. Hello, David Korn. Hello, Molly. Welcome to the new abnormal. I was going to say back, but you've never been on. We won't talk about that, but you will now be on regularly. That's good. It's a little bit of a sore subject for me.

So let's just move on. Exactly. All right, so let's talk about what is going on with Don Jr., because you just wrote a piece. Don Jr., what's going on? Well, we should tell the audience, we're talking about Donald Trump Jr., so there's no question there. There's actually a fascinating case going on now,

a legal case here in the District of Columbia that not a lot of people have paid attention to. It's about the Trump inauguration committee. That was the nonprofit. Remember, that's a key thing here. Nonprofit committee set up in 2016 to organize and finance and pay for the Donald Trump inauguration events, the parties, the mall,

celebration for some people was a celebration and it turns out there was fuckery, huh? There was indeed fuckery. I know this is hard for our listeners to wrap their heads around this, but the Trump clan, the family

used the presidential inauguration to make a buck. Not just a book. Really am shocked. Maybe up to a million of those books. And Carl Racine, not a nationally known political figure, but is the Attorney General of the District of Columbia

filed a case a couple months ago that basically that accuses that alleges that the nonprofit Trump inauguration committee overpaid Trump Hotel by hundreds of thousands of dollars booking space there for events that did and for events that did not happen. And then on top of that, it also paid for a party, hundreds of thousand dollars for a big party at Trump Hotel that was really a party for Donald Trump

Jr. Ivanka and Eric, and not part of the official inauguration celebration. So here you have the Trump family making money. I am shocked, I tell you. Shocked that there was fuckery. There's been gambling going on in the bankrupt Trump casino. So you know, it's really kind of a big deal. I mean, we've become very jaundiced when we look at Trump's and fuckery and sleighs and and scandals. But here, you know, this was at the very beginning of, you know, even before, you know, he moved into the White House, here they are trying to score and actually succeeding and making hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so what the Attorney General wants to do is say, listen, you're a nonprofit. Or the, you know, the Organization Committee was a nonprofit.

It is not allowed to engage in self-dealing with the Trump Hotel and the Trump organization to make money for that. It's not allowed to pay for private parties. You have to give that money, back to me, and I will give it to real charities, because nonprofit money is supposed to be used for charitable events. And so, you know, the suit was filed at the end of last year. It's just getting going. There have been some great filings submitted by the Attorney General. And in the course of doing this, he has hauled in for depositions. Ivanka, Tom Barrick, who was the billionaire pal of Donald Trump, who was the chair of the inauguration committee, a lot of people who worked on the committee, and a guy named Donald Trump Jr.

So explain to us how he lied, though. Okay, so now we're getting to Donald Trump Jr. So he was brought in for a deposition. And some of the depositions have been made public, some have, you know, all of them have been yet. And going through his deposition, and I should say, in looking at the inauguration scandal, I was able to obtain a lot of internal documents

and material from inside the inauguration committee. I found instances when he said things, and he's testifying under oath, he swore to tell the truth. This is like testifying at a trial, that he said things that were contradicted by these documents, by other people's recollections, other depositions, statements that really appeared to be false, utterly false statements.

And the first one that I described in this piece of Mother Jones that came out this week was when he was asked about Stephanie Winston Walcoff, who is the person who kind of blew the whistle. And he said, I don't know her. Yeah, I've heard of her, but I don't know her. And she was in this room, I probably wouldn't recognize her, which is interesting because Donald Trump has said that a lot in depositions when asked if he knew if he knows someone. I wouldn't recognize them.

Anyway, that's an aside. Junior or senior says that? Senior has said that. So it's like a family pattern here. So I came across a videotape from one of the prominent, one of the key inauguration events a candlelight dinner at Union Station here in Washington. I'm sure your invitation got misplaced. Yeah, what was my?

I never get invited to anything. And the video there shows first Donald Trump, senior from the podium saying, great event, great event. Tom Barrack, Stephanie, Winston, you guys did a great job. And then it cuts to Donald Trump Jr. saying, this is incredible, Stephanie, and Tom did an incredible job.

This is historic, guys, historic. Now, that certainly would give you some indication that he knows her and would probably recognize her, but beyond that, as they would say, and there's more. I have emails from Donald Trump Jr. to Stephanie Winston Walcoff. During the planning of the inauguration, he had talent that he wanted to offer her. And he writes he's very, who was the talent? Well, you didn't say, so that's kind of funny.

I wish we knew. I wish we knew, too. It's probably Benny Johnson. And, you know, one of the things he said in his deposition was, I had no involvement with her. He didn't even say, I don't recall, which is usually the Dodge, I don't recall having any involvement with her, said I didn't have any involvement with her. Well, here we have emails saying he did. So you have the woman who, you know, blew the whistle and said, don't do this. Then he have the guy who had a personal private party thrown from him and who shares in the revenue stream into the Trump Hotel saying never saw her before.

I wouldn't even recognize if she walked into the room. So that seemed to me to be a pretty clear false statement. And the piece of gossip I'll give you before we move on is in looking through some of these documents from the inauguration. I found one in which they said that they seemed to have been in conversation with and maybe even had an offer from Stephen Tyler, lead singer of Aerosmith, to perform at Trump's inauguration. But there is a note saying he wants to use it as a. as a platform. So we're going to say no to this. A platform for what? Well, I don't know, but I will tell you from the book I did Russia Roulette, which you've heard of, Molly. Yes. Tell us more. Steve Tyler performed at the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow when Donald

Trump owned the pageant. So there was a preexisting connection between Mr. Arrowsmith. I know the other members of the band won't like be calling him that, but between Mr. Arrowsmith and Donald Trump, senior. But so anyway, that was one of the big whoppers that Donald Trump Jr. said when he said he didn't know Stephanie Winston and wouldn't recognize him. Because also in her book, she describes during the inauguration having a intimate dinner with the Trump family on, I think the second night after the inauguration in the White House with just the family and her, Donald Trump Jr. was there. And then afterwards, they all flew home together, probably on the private plane. So he knows her. He would recognize her. But he also said other things. He said,

that he had nothing to do with the finance committee of the inauguration. That was the fundraising arm that raised over $100 million. Some of it still is quasi unaccounted for. Some of it has been caught up in other scandals. It's coming from foreign sources. He said he had nothing to do with it. Well, the CEO of the inauguration committee, a woman named Sarah Armstrong, a Republican operative,

in her testimony, said that he attended at least one meeting of the finance committee, if not all of them. So, again, that looks like it wasn't a true statement. he said he couldn't remember being at events, inauguration events, the big parties that he clearly was at, including the one of the candlelight dinner one in which there was a video. What else? He said he couldn't remember whether there was a concert being organized for him

when there are all these memos that described this concert. This was a good one. At one point during the planning, they were going to have what they call the sportsman ball. It's for sporting gents. Really, that's code for hunters. It was a ball for the hunting community. And if you paid a million bucks, you get like 80 tickets to the event, and you get a

reception and a photo up with the president-elect or the president, if it's after the inauguration, Donald Trump. And better yet, you get to go on a multi-day hunting trip with Donald Trump Jr. And Eric Trump, don't you want to go on a hunting trip with the boys? So can we hunt on Jr.? or now? Where was that book or movie, the something game? The dangerous game. The dangerous game, yes.

So I suppose for enough money you could. I'm not sure for a million dollars, but if you up the ante... So did the hunting party ever happen? No, it leaked out that this event was being planned, and they got a lot of criticism. It looked like Don and Eric, Don Jr., and Eric was selling access to their dad for tremendous amounts of money. Which they were. Which they were.

got kind of shelved late in the game. And so when he was asked about this, and I'm guessing that the Attorney General's office wanted to know if nonprofit funds were being used to support this event, to put it on, and that the money it raised was going to go elsewhere and where it would go and where would that money go, Donald Trump Jr. kept saying, you know, people were talking about this. I don't know anything about it. He said, I wasn't focused on it. It just wasn't a focus of mine. Well, I came up with a lot of planning documents for the inauguration committee, and on schedule after schedule, it said the sportsman ball, the host would be Donald Trump, Jr. So it was well into the planning stage, and it's kind of hard to believe that they were

planning this thing without Donald Trump Jr. being a part of it. Yes, it's a mystery for the ages, which I assume eventually we'll hear more drama about that. Do you think? I mean, well, I think this case is going to go on. And I think right now it looks like Christine has a good chance of winning, which it's not a criminal case at this stage. So that would mean that no one is going to go off to the who's gal. And I'll take any excuse to say the word of who's gal. Yeah.

It would mean that, you know, the Trump inauguration committee would have to find a way to give back a million or so dollars. And, you know, you look at what happened with the Trump Foundation. Well, they're good for it. You can see that there's a paper. had in here of misusing and abusing charitable organizations. And I should say that the Trump organization, which of course is owned by the Trump family, is a defendant in the suit. So it could be that the money may have to come out of their pocket, you know, the actual, the Trump family itself. So it's, you know, not good news for them. Nothing that's surprising. We know that.

But it does show us that even with the Trump's out of the White House, the scandals still continue. And the good note is there's still a chance for justice. Yeah, that's true. So talk to me about what other cases are going against the Trumps right now. Gee, I mean, the New York City AG has been looking at the inauguration as well. But they also, the New York City AG and the New York City DA, the district attorney, Cyrus Vance, have both been looking at Trump business practices and whether he and his business and I think other members of the family lied about the value of their assets.

You know, sometimes if you want to, you know, if you're going to be taxed on something, you want to downplay. Yeah. This property isn't worth anything. Now, if you want to use it to collateralize a bank loan or to buy insurance on it, you might say, this is worth a gazillion dollars. Right. And, and, And if you, you know, do both at the same time, you're defrauding either the government or your business partners. So there's a case by looking at that. That's the case that people might hear about because that's the case in which Trump went to court to stop DA Cyrus Vance from obtaining his tax returns. Tax returns. But they have them now, right?

They have them now. And then also that could lead to other cases or other things. Once, you know, they start looking at that. So, you know, those are, you know, several cases. Also, you know, there's the E. Gene Carroll case in which, you know, she's trying to get a DNA sample from Donald Trump, senior. Do you think that would happen? You have to really be committed to a lawsuit to want to get a DNA sample from Donald Trump. Yeah.

And so, I mean, you know, now that he's out of office, she has a much better case. And, you know, the courts have been, you know, somewhat supportive of her lawsuit up. now. So we'll see where that goes. And then, you know, I saw something, like there are 29 law cases involving the Trumps at this point. So there are, there are others out there. I, you know, you need a scorecard. I don't have a scorecard right in front of me. But, you know, we can add to that list. You know, drum row, please. We can add to all that. Rudy Giuliani and Victoria Tuncing. Talk to me about Rudy Giuliani and also Victoria Tenzing. Let's go. Yeah, yeah, the sweetest guy in the world. Yeah, a mensch. You know, I used to

collect money for the homeless with him. I mean, he's just a great, wonderful human being. I delight. Yeah. Big heart. He just doesn't talk about that stuff. Yeah. As I, anyone who's listening to the show will know that he was raided. The former U.S. attorney who raided the mob, the department on Madison Avenue. You know, high-ranking DOJ official, just a Toronto official. And the former mayor of New York,

America's mayor, as some people might say. was raided, was raided by the FBI and the U.S. attorneys that he used to oversee. Like how much evidence must they have before they go into Rudy's house? To get a warrant of that nature, there is a bar. And that bar is you have to have a reasonable suspicion that a crime was committed, and you have to have a reasonable belief that the raid will turn up evidence of that crime. and you have to bring that to a judge who has to then assess it and agree with that. So that's just with any, but that's like if they wanted to raid Molly Jong fast.

Actually, for you, they might drop the bar a little bit. But for the average American citizen, that's where the bar is. Now, you have to believe that any, you know, that the FBI, that the Justice Department, and I know most, I know the deep state, you know, the anti-deep staters won't believe this, but it's really true that the Justice Department judges, would not say yes to something like this if they thought it was on a lark. Because it will create a political

and as created a firestorm. Took the firestorm right out of my mouth. That is, you know, if you're looking to read a tea leaf here. And of course, let's just say for all the kids out there, everybody is innocent until proven guilty. Donald Trump may not believe that. Rudy Giuliani may not believe that. But we as good Americans believe that.

But so it does, if you're reading tea leaves, it would suggest to me that these guys had a good reason to go in and do this. Yes. Talk to me about Victoria Tenzinger. She got searched yesterday, too. CNN reported yesterday that her home was also rated in search yesterday. Victoria Tuncing, who herself used to be a high-ranking anti-terrorism official in the Justice Department, and she's married to Joe DeGeneva. So I assume it was his home, too, that was rated. he is a former U.S. attorney here in Washington, D.C. And I've known Joe and Victoria for decades.

I used to be friends with her daughter in like the late 80s, early 90s. And I used to be kind of friendly with them. But in the last, you know, 10 years, particularly under Trump, they've become far-right wackos, believing all the deep state theories that you can come up with. He was basically booted off Fox for, you know, a criticism. George Soros with anti-Semitic tropes. I am shocked. And they've been working with Rudy Giuliani and they were, you know, they had a job

interview with Trump, to be his lawyers at some point. But they worked closely with Rudy Giuliani and with John Solomon, a conservative reporter, when they all were digging up stuff and working with Ukrainian officials and oligarchs to try to, you know, smear Joe Biden, which we now know was an ever. that was, you know, connected to a run in parallel with a Russian intelligence operation to help Trump and hurt Joe Biden. So they all are a part, they all were KGB or FSB, now it's called, they are Russian intelligence useful idiots. Are they being rated for this? Well, probably not. They're being rated most likely for working on behalf of these Ukrainian officials and oligarchs

here in the United States without registering as foreign agents, because it seems as a Part of the deal was you give us dirt, even if it's manufactured dirt, on Joe Biden and Ukraine, and we will do your bidding here in Washington because we have influence with Donald Trump. And if you want, say, this is the possibility, you want the U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine fired because she's talking about corruption. And that gets in the way of your plans. Well, maybe we can do something about that if you help us. So now, if they did anything like that, that's a violation of federal law. Farrah.

I want to talk to you about Farah, though. Farah is largely kind of usually bad, but it's sort of a slap on the wrist, often. I mean, it's often been under-prosecuted, which I think is bad. You know, fair to spell it out here is if you're working for a foreign entity, a government, a corporation, and trying to influence the U.S. government, Congress, the executive branch, the president, the White House, you can be paid to do that as long as you tell people you're doing that. That means it's called the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Keyword registration.

You have to register without a filing with the U.S. Department of Justice. It's not very onerous, and it should ask for more information than it does. It's a great tool for journalists. I've used it many a time, but you have to file, fill it out. If you don't fill it out, then you're working subrozer covertly for foreign interest and that's against the law. It's what Michael Flynn, he ended up not pleading to this, but this is one thing that he could have been prosecuted for, doing this for the government of Turkey when he was working as an advisor to Trump's presidential campaign. So it really is an important law, but in the past, historically it hasn't led to a lot of criminal or convictions, certainly not with jail time. Often they give you a slap on the wrist and they make you fill out the forum, sometimes it's a fine. But with Paul Manafort, they, actually locked him up for this until, you know, he got pardoned by Trump, the guy who he was protecting in a lot of ways. And so they've raised the bar, and if Rudy, Victoria, Tuncing, and

Joe DeGenever were involved in illegal covert condesstine lobbying, particularly if it's tied to a Russian intelligence smear operation, well, I would consider that a very serious case. if I were on the other side, if I were them. So it's not something that if the U.S. attorneys decide and the Justice Termin decides to decide to bring forward a case like that, I would not expect to slap on the wrist at the end of the day if there's a conviction. Fascinating stuff. Hey folks, if you haven't heard every single week we do a special bonus episode for Beast Inside,

the Daily Beast membership program. Sometimes we interview senators like Corey Booker or the folks who explain what's happening behind the scenes in media like Jim Acosta or Soledadadobrian. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner. And sometimes we just have friends around to analyze what's happening in the news. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a beast inside member where you'll support the beast fearless journalism, as well as getting full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member, head to newabnormal. Dot the DailyBeast.com.

That's New Abnormal. Dot the DailyBeast.com. Latasha Brown is the co-founder of Black Voters Matter and the Southern Black Girls Consort. Welcome, Latasha, to the new abnormal. Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here. We're very excited to have you. You are really, you're in Georgia. You're in the center of what's happening. Can you explain to us what's going on now on the ground?

They pass this bill. What's the status? You know, we are in the midst of what I say is probably the biggest modern battle of democracy, that we're dealing around with how do we protect? democracy at a moment when we actually should be thinking about how do we strengthen democracy and expand democracy. What we are seeing is we're seeing the GOP, we're seeing Republicans all across this nation literally lead these bills in 47 states around the nation to actually marginalize the vote,

particularly black vote, communities of color, any voters that they feel will be democratic leaning. They're introducing these bills and throughout legislatures, all. over the country that would have a devastating impact on young voters, disproportionately voters of color all across this nation. And so that's what we saw in Georgia. So essentially what happened in Georgia in this passage of this bill, you know, which we think is extremely egregious for a number of reasons. What we feel is that this bill was created to be punitive. It was to punish black voters for showing up and showing out in record numbers this last election cycle. The irony of it is

that some of the elements of the bill, you know, that restrict access, that seeks to restrict access around absentee ballot voting and drop off voting, that literally the Republicans were the folks who actually introduced this legislation years ago in hopes that it was going to be a vehicle to provide access to rural white voters who they saw as their constituency base. And so they were the ones that pushed these rules in the first place. So ironically, you know, here we are on the eve of because black voters actually utilize these tools just as other voters around the state, you know, and came out in historic numbers. What we're seeing is this punitive effort to marginalize an impact of voters in the state of Georgia. Now, you are sort of an incredible success story, your state and what you guys have done in your organization.

Can you talk a little bit about what you guys did in Georgia? because it's pretty amazing. You know, I can. You know, Black Voters Matter Fund and Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute. We've been working as an organization in the state for about four years, but literally Cliff Albright and I are longtime social justice organizers.

And, you know, I've been working in the region. I've been working in states in the region, including Georgia, for over a decade. And so ultimately, over the last decade, there has been a shift of really putting a focus on how do we engage black voters in the state? You know, that oftentimes what we were

starting to see is we're seeing where the inequity seemed to be growing and growing. You know, we wanted to make sure that there was representation, but we also wanted to make sure that we had policy that was more reflective of the interests of our communities and advancing our communities. And what we believe

is for the entire state. And so the work that we've been doing, you know, over the last years, and I would say really over the two decades, but but our organization in particular last five years, you know, is that we have been doing grassroots organizing and supporting those groups on the ground. There are kind of three big buckets. The first thing that we've been doing is working to build the capacity and support

grassroots groups throughout the state. What does that mean? That means that in the last few years, we've been working in over 50 counties where we support small grassroots groups, whether or not they have a 501 status. It may be the group of women volunteers at the people. church that they're constantly doing voter registration and education. It may be a sorority, fraternity.

It may be churches. It may be a social justice group. It may be a youth organization or an abolitionist group. But what we saw was a possibility and potential when community comes together. What we felt is that ultimately if we are to literally strengthen democracy, it is going to take the engagement

of our full, our community and the full participation of our community. And so through that process, we have been supporting grassroots organizations, and partners throughout the state by providing resources, providing tools, providing training for them, really being able to support them on issues. Some of those groups have been doing work around local referendums to local election races and being able to support them in that work.

And also to see ourselves as a coalition, as an alliance of working together, how do we build power locally, but also how do we actually leverage our work together? And so that's some of the work we're doing. The second bucket of the work that we've been doing is literally we understand the importance of leadership and literally being able to build the leadership pipeline and one of our core principles is how do we support the leadership and voices of black women? And so we literally invest in those organizations and those efforts that are led by leaders in our community so that they literally can actually advance their vision forward and being able to provide that support as a leadership

pipeline has had a tremendous impact on our community, on really around people being able to speak up and feel powerful and to feel educated on issues that oftentimes will just go under the table and people are not aware of it. And so that's been a second bucket of our work. A third bucket of our work is really around narrative shift.

That fundamentally, what was important for us is that we shift the narrative of who are black voters. Like, it's not just about black votes because people care about black votes. There are people who have who care about black votes that have not necessarily cared about black

voters. And so for us, we wanted to make sure that we were centering the community, that we were centering our community. And so a lot of the work we do around narrative shift, around actually speaking to voters, not out of a fear frame, that, oh, my goodness, you got to vote because the boogeyman is going to come get you, but really be able to speak to our community out of a power frame, that we fundamentally have power as a community. And if we come together, we can actually leverage that power and envision the communities, the kind of the policy we want to really have more reflective leadership, people who actually align with our values, and be able to actually remove some people from office who have actually been damaging to our communities

and who don't stand for our interests. And so that has been a big part of our work. And so over the last few years, we have worked with hundreds of black-led grassroots groups by providing direct resources. Last year alone, we supported over 600 black-led grassroots groups. We invested directly over $10 million, which means we actually gave wrote checks, direct checks, that direct support to those organizations to do the work that they do anyway. They're part of and being able to expand and to build on that work. Part of what we believe is that politics

is local and that fundamentally those are the folks in those communities, whose best position to support and anchor that work in the communities, you know, then the people that are there. And so we've done a whole number of things, a range of things around even building out of building culture. You know, one of the highlights, I think, from last year in Georgia that we did was a collard green caucus that right before the new year, there is a tradition in the black community that on new years, you have to have black eyewps and cornbread and collardons.

It's like symbolic of having luck and health and wealth in our communities. And so what we were able to do is have a caucus where in 50 counties around the state, we were able to provide fresh collard greens, freshly grown collard greens, and blackout peas and cornbread mix to our community, also as a part of a process of really recognizing that this work isn't just about the vote. This work is really around how the community takes, how do we take care of each other? How do we take care of ourselves? And so through all of that process that we're doing, it is always sprinkled with some black joy. We're always using music and culture to really be able, you know, voting can actually be a traumatic experience.

You know, when you're standing in line for five, six hours, when you consistently, many black voters, you know, consistently in this process where you go to one polling site to vote and they tend to another polling site to vote, all of those things that we experience to actually overcome voter suppression can be very stressful. They're very trying. And so we want to make sure that we create in a process, a culture of joy that as a community, that when we show up together, when we work together, we win. And so that's a lot of the work that we're doing and also building coalitions across the board, that building this multi-generational, multiracial coalition with groups and other organizations across the state, that is ultimately what has led, I think, what led to the Georgia victory. Like, it's clearly set up in such a way that African Americans have many fewer polling sites, right? and that, you know, the neighborhoods that are, you know, predominantly African-American, certainly in places like Georgia, have less polling sites. So people have to wait online longer.

So they're de-incentivated to vote. What can we do about that? That seems like a fundamental problem. That is a fundamental problem. The first thing, we have a clear opportunity to deal with that, not just in Georgia, but across the nation. We need to push for the immediate passage of HR1 and HR4. in Congress. That is the For the People Act, and that's the John Lewis Voting Advancement Act. You know, the reason why it's important, now go to the John Lewis Voting Advancement Act.

Part of the reason why it is important is because in 2013, the Voting Rights Act was essentially gutted, that the Supreme Court basically took out Section 5, which was called the preclearance clause. And essentially, what that does is it would prevent states from just arbitrarily closing these polling sites as we've seen them do since that time and literally particularly and take a hard look at where there implications that were driven by race or other issues that impacted protected classes. And so in that space, what the John Lewis Advancement Act does

is it restores the Voting Rights Act. It creates a new formula, but it actually puts the teeth back in the Voting Rights Act. So everybody that's listening to this right now, we should be calling our senators, we should be calling our congresspeople, although it's already out of the House and the sitting in the Senate, we need to put pressure and demand that HR1 and the HR4 are passed, because what we are seeing is we're seeing that these states, that there's legislators in the state, particularly these GOP-controlled state legislators, that are operating in bad faith.

And the only way that we can actually literally effectively protect voting rights will be federal legislation, and we're actually looking at that we have the opportunity right now. So the first thing I think that we should do is to kind of educate ourselves on HR 1 for the People Act and HR4, the John Lewis Voter Advancement Act, and push for the Senate to pass that. This is something I'm obsessed with because we had Mike Espy on a bunch of times and like a state like Mississippi. Can you work your magic there, please? We are working our magic there. Believe it. I'm sorry to be bossy, but no, no, no, no. It's so unfair.

It is Mississippi is a interest in state. Let me tell you what my belief is about Mississippi. Believe her that. Please. And this may be because I have a biasedness there because part of my family, I'm from Mississippi. My family, my father's family is from Mississippi. I grew up in Alabama, but I would go to Mississippi in the summer to visit my grandmother. My father's side is all from Mississippi.

But let me say this, that where there is, oftentimes, if you take a look and see where there is great political oppression, That's usually where the greatest possibilities in promise exists. You know, when you're looking at the state of Mississippi, there's some things that I want to note that people may or may not know, that Mississippi has the largest in terms of percentage of the voting electorate than any state in the country of black voters. And so black voters literally make over 30% of the population there. Yeah.

Black voters, and there is a growing Latinx population as well, that the demographics are shifting in a way in Mississippi, that there's so much promise and possibility that exists in that state. But what we see is that state has also been severely underinvested. There's been very little to no investment in that state as it relates to supporting civil rights, well, civic education and civic work. And so I think Mississippi is a key, I think it is ground zero, as a state of showing when we empower and invest in people,

how we can shift, how we can actually shift the political landscape of the state. But I will also say there are some really amazing things that are happening out of the state in spite of. You know, the beautiful thing about people, that people who are resilient, that we oftentimes, it's innovation that in the midst of really oppressive systems, sometimes you see the greatest innovation. Some of the things that we're seeing in Mississippi right now, we're actually, believe it or not, replicating it in other states that you have the people's association. which is based in Jackson, where they're literally in Jackson, Mississippi, I

would say we have the most progressive mayor in the country, in the nation, who is actually Chokwee Lumumba, who was just elected, who is extremely progressive. He's actually more progressive. I would challenge someone to find a more progressive mayor than Chokwee

Lumumba. Here we have, in the midst of the deep, deep south, in the midst of the heart of the Confederacy, we have a progressive mayor that is so progressive that there are other elements like the people's assembly that people are actually doing participatory budgeting. So instead of just accepting kind of the, and I know this happens in other places, but rarely it does not happen to the scale that it needs to happen. I think across the country, but I think there's some examples of literally in the midst of a highly contentious

environments, oppressive environments. There's some really good work happening in the Gulf Coast in Mississippi and in Jackson, Mississippi, in the Capitol, that we're actually seeing these remarkable changes. You know, what's interesting is when you think about voters all across the nation, black women in the state of Mississippi have a higher turnout vote than any other constituency group in the country. Wow. And so the issue is, what we've not done is we've not really invested in the organizations

and the institutions that are pushing social justice and doing work. There's an organization's like One Voice Mississippi that has been doing an amazing work. Just a few years ago, there was some legislation that the community pushed that got brought to the forefront around education reform in the state of Mississippi. And fundamentally, it literally, it almost passed. My point is, while we see on the surface, some of this, the regressive policies that we're seeing, they're in response, not because the people of Mississippi don't have any power. it's actually quite the contrary. That it is what you're seeing as you're seeing most of the

most regressive tactics being used in places where people are getting organized. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What is happening now on the ground in Georgia? Because Delta and Coke said they disagreed with it, but it was

like too late, and then Republicans were like, we now hate Delta and Coke. But what has the status been since then? So there's a couple things that have happened. So since the passage of that bill, there's a corporate accountability campaign that we launched. Along with partners, we did a

corporate accountability campaign. We're saying corporations have a responsibility of protecting democracy, that the right to vote is not a partisan issue. That's not a left issue, a right issue, a Democrat or Republican issue. That's a human rights issue, that all people should have the right to actually operate

in their agency and make a decision and a choice of what governs them and who governs them. And so, in that, that we launched a corporate accountability campaign that now you see on the aftermath, many of the, some of the corporations, as you said, like Delta and Coca-Cola and others that are saying, oh, no, we didn't agree with. We don't agree with this. But we haven't stopped there.

We've actually continued to push for a number of things. The first thing that we've pushed for, we've actually been monitoring around and did the research to find out who they have been supporting. So there are three things that we've been pushing in our campaign. One, to divest in those elected officials who have been leading voter suppression efforts that immediately, we're saying that these corporations should not be investing in their campaigns. They should divest immediately in them and other organizations that support voter suppression efforts, that that is not a partisan issue, that is a civil right and a human rights issue. The second thing is that we're also saying, as I shared earlier,

that is important that what we're seeing is we're seeing, you know, these bad, actors on the state level that we cannot just leave it in hands for for those in the state that we need a strong federal legislation just as we need a strong federal legislation in 1965 which led to the passage of the voting rights act that we're there and we have an opportunity pass that so we're asking for support for hr1 and hr4 the third thing though is we're saying no this is not going to stand we're not going to be in a state that because we participated in the election that we're going to be punished because we actually voted So we're asking for the recension that literally there is a repeal. And this state has done that before. That there's a repeal of SB 202, that that bill is repealed. We're not just going to let that stay on the books, and that's okay. So how do we do that?

How can we support you? Thank you. I think there's a number of things. I think one, the biggest, the most effective tool that we've seen so far has been in organizing. When groups have organized and put pressure on their membership, and got their membership to put pressure on these electives. What we've seen is we've seen shifts. We've seen people lose their contracts.

We've seen people change there, have a quote, change of heart understanding about the bill. And so I think there's a number of things. I think the best investment at this point is to support those groups that are on the front lines doing the work. Groups like the New Georgia Project, groups like ours, Black Voters Matter, groups like Georgia stand-up,

the Georgia Coalition of the People's Agenda, the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, The New Georgia Project PAC. My point is the best way that I think that people can be supportive is not only just kind of leaning into like lifting this issue up, but support those groups on the ground that are on the forefront leading the fight because it is also a public education campaign. This is going to be a public education campaign to put enough pressure where the community and voters are aware and put enough pressure on electives to make sure that we build up the kind of pressure to get this recess. Who would rescind it just to get into the nuances, not the nuances, the sort of nitty-gritty. The legislature, it would have to be called back to a vote. So it would be the next legislative

session that starts in January. In that legislation session, it would be a bill that would come up and would say a repeal of that bill. So the pressure needs to be put on Governor Kemp. The pressure needs to be put on Governor Kemp. Governor Kemp and the legislature. Yeah, wow. It's exciting what you're doing. The world is changing. The landscape. change and I do want to, you know, in the midst of all that has happened, Malad, I just want to just remind the audience that part of what is happening right now is his response to the people standing up. It is not, we are literally moving forward. We have to demand better. And so even no matter where people are, if I can just tell them a couple of tips of what they should do, it's not just

even terms of, one, help and lift up the work in Georgia. We're completely welcome that. But also, we're seeing this same kind of legislation pop up in 47 states across the nation. So I'm quite sure many people who are listening. This is happening in your state right now as well. And so it's really important that people pay attention to what is happening in their legislature, that they're putting pressure to stop these voter suppression efforts that is happening within their state, that they, too, they put pressure on the Senate that we all focus our attention on. We need HR1 and HR4.2.

pass. You know, we put Biden in office, we put the, we gave them favorable circumstance for the Senate, we've got to hold them accountable. And so we need them to pass that. And I think the third thing is we actually have to literally build coalition, continue to build this work and this

coalition together, because that's why we're winning. We're winning because we're working together. Yeah. Thank you so much. This was really, it was, you know, I always am struck by when I talk to activists. I'm always struck by that there's real hope and a sort of love of humanity. And it's really exciting. So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. What's crazier than QAnon, more outlandish than Pizza Gate, and scarier than a Mexican getaway with Ted Cruz? The answer is what the American right wing has planned next. Be one of the first to listen to Fever Dreams, new podcasts from The Daily Beast, tracking the conspiracy slingers, orange acolytes, and straight-up grifters pushing to retake power. Every Wednesday, Host Swin Subisang and Will Summer, checking in on the movement of the radical right. Head to the DailyBeast.com

slash podcasts or your favorite podcast player to catch the first episode and get subscribed. That's Fever Dreams, which you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Jesse Cannon. Hi, Molly Jong Fast. Who is your fuck that guy today? I don't want to say he's the peak of fail son,

because he's not, right? That's a horse race that's fierce. Right? And I also think that, like, the thing with Andrew Giuliani, oh, I gave it away, is that, like, he's not Don Jr. He doesn't have millions of Twitter followers. He can't harass me on Twitter. But he is incredible at sounding like an asshole. And so yesterday, when his father had his house searched, rated by the FBI, as one does,

Andrew came out and said, if this can happen to my father, this could happen to anyone. And I'm sorry, but like, there are all, I mean, this is not a this could happen to anyone. This is like if you, you know, you do sleazy shit endlessly, eventually they come and raid your house. Andrew Giuliani, go fuck yourself. I think at this point, it's safe to say that whenever a Republican says this could happen to anyone, it means, please, pretend to I'm not an elitist who's done something really shitty, and I'm getting in trouble for it. Yeah, it's a pretty incredible saying. Who is your fuck that guy today, Jesse Kana?

Well, I'm going to aim at this one horrible person who's just, it's like we're driving closer to the disaster this human is. One, J.D. Vance, who is running for the Ohio Senate, author of one of the worst books I've ever read The Hillbilley Allergy, one of the worst movies I've ever turned off by the same name. Yesterday in response to Joe Biden bringing out a proposal of universal daycare. He's tweeted universal daycare

is class war against durable people. And I think there was the phrase corporate daycare in there. Oh yes, yes, yes. You'll remember corporate daycare. This is like that funny thing of like all these people who come

from these like main capitalish backgrounds. They're like, no really. I have a nuanced opinion on this. It's like, no, your nuanced opinion is all a bad opinion. These is not class war against normal people. This is actually trying to lift normal people up and give them freedoms in their lives and make their lives better. But as evidenced by Lorne Bobert with her fucking stupid blanket, lion Ted pretend he's going to sleep. And just that all these people reflexively opposed Biden on like even things like not clapping for defeating cancer.

These people just have to oppose everything. And it's so fucking stupid. And seriously, J.D. Vance, I hope to God, we don't have to deal with you for a number of years because I'm already tired of it. Yeah. I want to say one last thing about Ted Cruz in our one segment. Ted Cruz was, you know, there's this video of him sort of dozing off and then waking up. And someone was like, he's faking it. And I was like, that's almost worse.

That is worse. Right? The only thing dumber than him falling asleep while doing something is him fake falling asleep while doing something. Which you could totally see him going either way on that one. I mean, he's not looking very in shape these days. So I imagine the blood sugar crashes pretty hard sometimes. I don't know. I mean, part of me feels like this guy is the guy who decided to go to Cancun while his constituents were literally freezing to death.

So maybe that's the guy. who pretends to fall asleep during Joe Biden's address, thinking that that's some kind of brilliant political jujitsu. Well, you know, you, me, and John Boehner both say, fuck that guy. That's right. But don't buy John Boehner's book. That's damn right. Do not buy John Boehner's book.

Don't give that asshole any money. But I may buy that big wide glass on the front just for a gag gift. Well, I will not buy that. As it sober, I will not be buying that one glass. 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.

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