The Daily Beast Podcast - Don’t Be Fooled by Trump’s Latest Golf Admission

Episode Date: September 27, 2024

The New Abnormal co-host Andy Levy isn’t so sure that Trump will actually follow through on his promise to quit golfing. Then, a conversation with the Daily Beast’s Chief Creative & Content Officer Joanna Coles and Emmy-winning comedian Samantha Bee about The Daily Beast Podcast, a new way to discover and engage with the day’s most interesting stories. Plus! Editor at The Bulwark Jonathan V. Last joins the program to discuss his most recent piece, “Stop the Steal Part 2 Is Coming,” and Trump’s efforts to take back the White House—whether he wins in November or not. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

The Daily Beast chief creative officer Joanna Coles and late night legend Sam B joined Annie and Danielle to dish about their new podcast, The Daily Beast podcast, and speculate on all the contents of Melania's book and talk about whether or not they really believe Trump has stopped golfing. Then we'll talk to Bullwork editor Jonathan V. last to break down his recent piece, Stop the Steel, Part 2 is coming and what to expect Trump and the right wing to do on election day and how the Democrats can push back. But first, let's have some fun. Evidently, Donald Trump was in Pennsylvania, or at least that's where he said he was. Who knows these days?

Because he never keeps that straight either. But to a rousing applause, Andy, this man found himself stating that he is the protector of women, that with him around, women won't have to worry their. little pretty heads about abortion because he took care of it. And then he went off and told us, regurgitated one of his truth social posts and said that women are less safe and broke and miserable since he left office. And so he's going to come back and be their protector. And what got me were the clapping bunch of seals in his audience and the women cheering,

cheering cheering him on. I have such an issue to pick with 50% of white women. I really, really do that we'll never leave Donald Trump. We'll continue to stand by their men. The man is an adjudicated rapist that owes E. Jean Carroll over $90 million because he was found guilty of sexual assault. But Donald Trump is going to be the protector of women. Andy, make it make sense.

Make it make sense. Oh, I can't. I can't. First of all, women don't need protectors. They need respectors. Oh, oh, yeah. Okay. And as a well-known woman respecter, hashtag ally,

I feel very strongly about this. And I think that's sort of what Vice President Kamala Harris was getting at because she was giving an interview on MSNBC and was asked about this. And one of the things she said was, She said, I don't think the women of America need him to say he's going to protect them. The women of America need him to trust them.

And look, I think you can, you know, substitute the word respect in there or whatever. But the point being and the point that the vice president was making is this is a dude who, you know, had to quickly walk back when he said that women who have abortions need to be punished. This is a man who obviously goes around bragging about how he got rid of Roe v. Wade by appointing the justices that he appointed. None of that obviously is protecting women, but also none of that is respecting women. And I said that half jokingly at the top, but it is also true. Like, it is very clear that he does not respect women to make their own decisions regarding their health, regarding their reproductive freedom, and regarding anything else.

And we've seen the same thing from his running mate, J.D. Vance, talking about childless cat ladies and so much rhetoric from the Trump campaign and Trump surrogates about how unhappy working women are. And all of that is because they absolutely 100% do not respect women as human beings. And they love to frame it as putting women on a pedestal, but they're absolutely not. They believe in their hearts that women are lesser. And even his language saying, I'm the protector of women. Ain't no woman out there asking you to protect them. Mm-mm. Just treat them like human beings.

It's so aggravating and gross. It's appalling. It was appalling to listen to the applause, knowing good goddamn well what these men have done and said about women. From the disparaging, disgraceful, disgusting comments that J.D. Vance continues to make about women, about the purpose of post-menopausal women, about, you know, our sole duties and responsibilities. are don't worry your pretty little head about your bodily autonomy, just do your job to cater to men and for white women to, you know, use your wombs as the white man babymaking factory that it was intended for is just wild. And so when I look at these poll numbers, I'm just like, okay, okay. White

women continue to show people who they are. And I don't know, you know, what it will take, but it's wild to me. Well, only half of them. Only half. Yeah, only half. 50 big percent. You know, who apparently is concerned about protection, though, and the fact that they indeed may need it, is Mitt Romney. So if you'll remember that Mitt Romney had come out and was talking about the fact that he has had to, out of his own pocket, I mean, he's a billionaire, so I'm not concerned, but pay for security for himself and his family. After the votes that he took against Donald Trump, the speaking out that he's done against Donald Trump, we all know what happens when you do that, which is that you become a target. And so recently, Mitt Romney was talking about the fact that

he is really concerned for the safety of his family if Donald Trump is to be elected again, because he has 25 grandchildren, five children, just like a bunch of people, that he's concerned are going to need protection around the clock because he thinks that Donald Trump may, in fact, come after him and his family. And I don't think that Mitt Romney is wrong. No, he's not wrong. He's a little late to the party, but he's not wrong. I mean, I still have very clear memories of him happily and enthusiastically shaking Donald Trump's hand in 2012 when he, Romney, was running for president and how hard he courted Donald Trump's support. And this, you know, you can say, well, but he didn't know who Trump was.

Trump was already doing the birth or shit back in 2012. He had that dinner with him right after he got, after Trump got elected in New York. Oh, in 2016. Yeah, he had the three-star Michelin restaurant, Jean-George's Reds Prebis, Donald Trump, and Mitt Romney had a four-course dinner. Just kissing his ass. Absolutely. So, yes, he's absolutely right now, but he was absolutely wrong then. People are wrong, and people, you know, learn.

And at least he's learned. So that's good. On the other hand, has Mitt Romney come out and endorsed Kamala Harris? Said he's not voting for Trump. I mean, that's the extent to which he'll go. You know, he will say, I'm not voting for Trump. Trump, he will not come out and say, I am endorsing Kamala Harris because Donald Trump is an authoritarian who hates democracy and wants to take this country down an incredibly dangerous path. He won't say

that, but he will say that he's worried about his family. I mean, he's not worried about them enough to have a full spine, to have a full-throated endorsement, not just against Donald Trump for his own protection and what have you, but like for a fucking democracy. You're a senator to say that I'm not going to vote for Donald Trump, then like go all the fucking way and say who you are going to vote for and why? Like I just, I'm so tired of these people that have these platforms that have the money

and the power for their own protection. Meanwhile, there are people that have less that have taken more of a stand with so much more to lose than these people do. But we continue to pat them on their backs because, oh, you're the one Republican that has stood up, well not stood up tall enough, not with enough energy coming out from your chest to say the whole truth.

So miss me with it. Mitt Romney, you have the money to go ahead and afford to protect your whole goddamn family from now until the end of days. So do that. Yeah, I don't think I've heard a word from Mitt Romney about the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, you know, where we had, what was it, 33 bomb threats. Mm-hmm. After Trump and Vance spread malicious lies that, by the way, they knew were lies and they did it

anyway. It's like at a certain point, it's like, I don't want Mitt Romney's family to be hurt, but I don't want a lot of people to be hurt. And for a guy in his position, as a senator, you're supposed to worry about more than your family and you're supposed to worry about, you know, this is not, as you said, Danielle, this is not like a specific thing that's aimed only at the Romney family. This is aimed at a large swath of this country. We're talking about a guy who claims he wants to deport 20 million people, which is more, than the total number of undocumented immigrants in this country. So we're talking about, you know, either U.S. citizens being involved in this or whatever it is, people who are here completely,

100% legally, Trump doesn't care. He just wants to get black and brown people out of this country. And you know what? Maybe speak up about that and make it about more than just your family. How would you know that a Republican is saying it if it's not just centering themselves? That's a fair point. From one spineless self-centered politician to another self-centered politician, this is why people lose faith in politics, I just want to say. So finally, finally, Eric Adams, mayor of New York City, has been indicted. And his indictment comes on the heels of the chancellor of New York City public schools resigning, the police commissioner resigning. Eric Adams has been indicted on multiple charges of wire fraud, conducting business as a non-registered foreign agent, which does anybody register as a foreign agent?

Like, no one seems, is there a registry? Is it at Crane Barrel? Because I just don't understand how all of these people are able to operate and no one registers a fucking thing. But nonetheless, Mayor Adams is in the wrong. position for these types of crimes. And I said this on the broke down social media platform, Twitter, when I said that he would have been better off having higher professional ambitions outside of mayor and have gone to president or Supreme Court justice where grifting and taking hundreds of thousands of dollars, if you're Clarence Thomas, millions of dollars worth

of gifts are totally okay. But apparently, it is not okay if you are a mayor of New York. It shouldn't be okay anywhere, but apparently this is the only place where you're probably going to go to jail for it. Particularly if you run your crime operation, worse than a Scooby-Doo ring where you are actually texting the instructions of the crime that you are doing. Who does that? Who does that, Andy? I honestly, I do not know. Eric Adams does that, Danielle. Obviously, this is a huge story in New York. I think it's fair to say it's a nationwide story because New York is the center of the universe.

Mm-hmm. So, like, a ton of people I've been talking with about this. New Yorkers, you know, friends in L.A. and whatever, like, what the hell is going on there? And I'm like, look, you all have your own problems. Leave us alone. It's like low-level mob shit is what all of this is. It's like having the fire commissioner say that, you know, if you don't do this, we're going to condemn your building.

It's telling a restaurant owner basically the same thing. Give me, you know, I forget if it was like $20,000. I think it was $40,000. We can make all your problems go away. It's this cut rate Clarence Thomas shit that just is unbelievable to me. It's like how cheap the sellout is. And even with the thing with Turkey, which is what the Adams indictment is about, it's free hotel rooms or they thought they were being smart.

So he would pay like $600 for a hotel room. room that would cost $4,000. So you could say, see, I paid for it. And it's flying for free on Turkish Airlines. And it's just, it's such low-level stuff to sell out for that it's even more pathetic than, I mean, at least Clarence Thomas got a yacht trip, you know, and he got all this. Mortgage paid off. He got mortgage paid off.

He got, you know, someone's college tuition paid for. At least he sold out big. This is Eric Adams sold out the city of New York on the cheap. And it's so gross. we all saw this coming. You know, Danielle, we've talked a lot about Eric Adams. We don't talk about him that much on the podcast because a lot of it has like a local feel. But you and I and Jesse and whatever, you know, Eric Adams is a topic of conversation because it's like everyone knew from day one that this guy wasn't right.

Yeah. And now we're seeing the fruits of that. And he becomes, they're saying that the first sitting mayor in modern New York City to be indicted. And given our illustrious history of heart. herbal mayors, that's quite an accomplishment. All I'm going to say is we could have had Maya Wiley. I know. But y'all wanted to be tripping. We've got a special segment here on the new abnormal and joining me and Danielle are the Daily Beast chief creative and content officer, Joanna Coles, and Samantha B, the host of Full Frontal, formerly of The Daily Show. You've seen her, you know her,

you love her. They have actually, I guess, launched a new podcast called The Daily Beast podcast. It will be out every Thursday. And did the two of you want to start out by telling us a little about it? Sure. Well, first of all, thanks for having us on. Joanna, do you want to talk about the podcast? I'm so excited about it. I do too. And please, everybody, go to your favorite podcast site and download it and review it. It is a, it's really a sort of work of friendship between me and Sam as we unpack the news, just like you and Danielle do, Andy. Sam and I just, there's so much to talk about. I love her perspective on things.

You know, we're going to be talking about stories in the beast. We're going to be talking about stories happening out in the world. And obviously, as Sam says in this episode, we're going to be tracking the run-up to the publication of Melania's book in myopic. detail in my open I cannot wait. Oh boy, I can't wait. I mean, I know people are excited about the VP debate and

like the election and whatever, whatever. But really, my countdown clock is related to the millennia book. It's the only thing I care about. It's our Super Bowl. We're trying to figure out how do we get the book without paying for it? You know what I mean?

I'm suggesting I have a library card. I love library. The library buys one or two copies. So it's the minimum possible contribution to their kitty as it is. You know what I mean? And everybody, we all just borrow it. It's very democratic process. We all wait in line.

I can wait. I will not send them even a fraction of a penny. That sounds a little like socialism to me. I don't know. I know. Oh, I'm from Canada. I know all about that. You're from a good country.

Yeah. Well, I keep wondering if her book is going to start out with, I was a, you know, a young black woman who is striving to like get a footing in politics growing up on the south side of Chicago. I'm very excited to see if it starts out like becoming or maybe it's, you know, becoming something different. Who's doing the audiobook is the real question? Because, you know, Michelle Williams did such a good job with Britney Spearses. Maybe it's Ted Nuchin. I don't care. I just know it's going to be good. I think you should. the audio books. I should. Honestly, give Andy and Danielle a taste of your Melania.

Okay. I try very hard. I've been working really hard on it, but it's not very good. So I can only say her words. You know, they say that I am complicit, that I am with him, that I believe everything he believes. You know, I don't even like Christmas, a fucking Christmas. I hate Christmas with the decorations and stuff. That's so far. You're like, no. It could be, no, I'm like. Okay, I'm going to see Andy's face right now. He's like, I don't know. I mean, I think that you made her sound good. You know, so I'm like, oh, I'm like, I could, yeah, it sounded, it sounded softer, maybe a little kinder.

I think you need to inject a little bit more Scooby-Doo evil in that. Well, wait until you hear Ted Nugent's version. It's very good. I love this for us. I'm wondering if it's going to get banned by libraries there because it talks, there is apparently, according to her. One of her five, I think, at this point, videos promoting the book, there is a whole section about her nude modeling and how she doesn't like the fact that people critiqued her nude modeling

because it is the thing of great art. Apparently her body is compared to that of, you know, Italian statues and marble. And we should all marvel it in the same way that we would, let's say, you know, a Picasso or what have you. I can't wait for her museum to open since there won't be a Trump library. because they don't read. There's a note of Gurneka about Malania, I will say that.

Well, we can all go see her gigantic 30-foot sculpture. Isn't there a... Yes, there's a big wooden sculpture of her in Slovenia. Sam, you and I should go and do a podcast underneath it. Oh, that would be amazing. We should just go. When we conceived of this podcast, I did not necessarily think that our first field trip would be to Slovenia. But it does seem very beautiful there.

In hindsight, shouldn't you have? I should have. This was stinking on my part. You know, we've been talking about Melania. Her husband is still running for president, as most of us know. Most of us know this. And there's some huge news coming out of his camp as well, where he has, according to the New York Times, He has said that he is not planning to play golf at his courses for the rest of the campaign season, I guess.

I have my thoughts on this, but I want to throw this open to our guests and see, Danielle. What do we all think is going on here? Is he just scared? I think he has a right to be scared. I think that they've been telling him this for the entirety of running and being president. They've been warning of this and literally imploring him, to golf in these big wide open spaces. So, I mean, it would seem that he finally got the message unless there's something else going on.

You tell me, what's the scoop? It could be that he's trying to avoid the fees. At his own contourses? It's quite expensive to go golfing, isn't it? It's possible he's not raising as much money as Carmelah. He may be finding it hard to divert campaign funds. I mean, to Sam's point, I do actually think, I wonder if he's suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I mean, an incredible thing to be shot at to actually have blood drawn from you

by an assassin's bullet that missed, or an attempted assassin's bullet that missed by a quarter of an inch. So he must wake up every morning thinking about that or surely going to sleep every evening thinking about that. Then, of course, there was the second one where extraordinary the idea that the Secret Service agent spotted the muzzle of the gun through a bush. I mean, I mean, what an extraordinary thing and immediately fired and the guy scampered off. And obviously, we know he's now been charged. But that must be actually, even for Donald Trump, that must be really shocking and really traumatic. I would think so.

The phenomenon of copycats is just so very real. So it's, I'm sure that the temperature is so incendiary right now. It's really not worth it to golf at all. The only thing. The only truly, the only truly, the only. bright spot in all of this for me because it is such a grim story is that I always love it when he's in a state of discomfort. And I know that golf is so pleasurable to him and so relaxing. It's kind of fun for me to imagine him as a caged bird. I just don't know what he needs to relax from.

This is the thing that I consistently like when they were just like, oh, they take away the one pleasure he has. And I'm like, it's not like he works hard. So I'm always so confused by that. Like even his schedule when he was president. It didn't start until noon. So I'm, you know, like, what are you relaxing from? But look, I think that Donald Trump deciding that he's going to take time off from his pleasure of golfing for the rest of the campaign is an opportunity for them to continue to the narrative, right, about the assassination attempts, try and get the sympathy of people who, you know, just before I came on here, I'm looking at the images recirculating from the first attempt. on cable news.

And I wonder, do you all think that this will, because, you know, apparently many people thought he was going to be a changed man after the first attempt. And I don't know what delusion they were living under. But do you think that seeing the pictures on display, will that have effect over the next, you know, 40 some odd or less than days until the election for voters? Well, Sam and I were discussing that does this make the likelihood of President Vance all the likely. Suddenly, the idea of J.D. Vance as president comes front of mind in a way that it doesn't normally. Normally, as we know, VEP candidates don't actually make that much difference. But this is

an extraordinary cycle, and it could be that it does. I guess it forces that into your, into your imagination bucket in a way that I don't, I don't really, I haven't really thought in those terms. It's very daunting. I'm not sure. I don't know. It's such an interesting question. Will the, proliferation of those images have a greater impact, but I feel like we've all seen it, and it's already out there and you can buy a T-shirt, you can buy tons of T-shirts with it. So it's already kind of, it's out there, and I feel like it's affected the people that it was always going to affect, and it's diminishing returns for everyone else, perhaps. I don't know. I think if it's getting people to think more about a president, Vance, that's very good for

Vice President Harris. Yeah. Yes. Vance, clearly not very popular in the country. But here's my hot take on this whole golf thing. I don't believe it. I think it's a red herring. I think it's a faint.

I think he is leaking that out there so that the crazy people who, like the guy who showed up at his golf course, will not show up at his golf courses and try to assassinate him. So then he actually can play golf free of crazy people, you know, with rifles. I just finished watching Chimp Crazy, that documentary. about Tonka, the missing chimpanzee, and I was sort of picturing in my mind, him as a caged chimp in his own basement, just sticking his little tongue out for treats.

Anyway, this is so awful. I'm sorry, I didn't even enjoy that documentary. I'm not trying to promote it. I think it was really severe exploitation, however, I did finish it. Oh, my God. Danielle, I think you write about the images of the first assassination attempt, moving people to potentially vote for him. And obviously his base is just doubling down. We have a piece by Adrian Wenner in The Beast today about the shy Trump voter and this notion of people that would never admit in public that they vote for Trump, but actually secretly do because they think he's stronger on the economy.

And Adrian says, it's a bit like those people that you sit next one, a plane who fart. And then they immediately look around to see if it's someone else. So it's like, who voted for Trump? Because I didn't vote for Trump. Obviously, it's the last confidential thing we can do in America. Even Google or Amazon Echo isn't in the voting booth with you. So it's our last private secret act. And I do think that there may be shy voters out there who somehow like his strong man image,

which was reinforced by the assassination attempt, but don't want to discuss it outside. And there was a survey this week that showed that 68% of Americans self-censor at work. They don't want to talk about politics at work. They just don't feel comfortable doing it. And I sense a lot of those are shy Trump voters. You know, I think the shy Trump voter is interesting.

I mean, I've said on this show so many times that I don't believe in polls. Ever since 2016, I just don't put a lot of stock in them. you can get polls to say what you want depending on the questions that you ask where you ask them what devices that you're asking them on but there is something that i want to ask the both of you that is something that again following the overturning of roby wade i was actually shocked by and i i don't know why i'm shocked but you know when we think about the people that are going to be shy about donald trump or or not come out quite vocally uh in the same way that a lot of his rally supporters

do, 50% of white women are still going to stand with Donald Trump. 50% according to polls right now. And I'm just curious as to why the hell that is, given the fact that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, given the fact that in their own Project 2025 playbook, they are targeting like white women as property. And I'm just, I'm curious as to why the both of you think that they're still 50% are still there. I'm curious which one of you it is. It's Joanna. It's true. It's true. It's true.

It's not me. I wish I had the answer to that question. I just think there's always women who are captured, who have value systems that I cannot in any way comprehend, who enjoy that proximal power to powerful white males. It's just a perception of power. I really have no idea. Talking about shy Trump voters is really something. It causes me to have, it causes my brain to crack a little bit because I'm like, you're shy. You're a shy Trump voter because you know fundamentally that it's wrong.

And you should be, you know what? Keep being shy. Keep being shy. Be so shy and come on out and vote on November 10th for your candidate of choice. see you on the 10th. Which is my birthday. So I'm like, please, give me a gift. Vote on that day.

Happy birthday, Daniel. Thank you. All you shy girls and fellas. I have a slightly different take on it. I think that this boils down to, what, 200,000 votes in seven states maybe where the economy has been hit hard. Women do the shopping. Women go to supermarkets. They see the prices have gone up.

They see their husbands losing jobs. And they feel for them. And they feel for their sons that are growing up in a time of anxiety. I mean, we hear Scott Galloway talking about this. He's one of the best people talking about the crisis that's going on with young men. And I think the mothers of young men see this. And they're never going to meet Donald Trump. They're not afraid to be locked in a closet with him like poor E.

Carol was on the floor of Bergdorf-Gubman. But they do see their husbands and their sons suffering in the work environment. And they see that groceries are expensive and they feel that Donald Trump, for whatever reason, I'm not saying this is correct, but they identify Donald Trump with being a strong man standing up to foreign powers. And they think that he's going to be better for the economy. And I do think that the Democrats haven't actually presented the economy case as strongly as they could have done. I also think there's a fair amount of women who would never vote for a woman,

and I can't really explain that. I know, you know, generationally, you know, my grandmother who raised me, who I loved more than anything, would never have voted for a woman. She just wouldn't. You know, so there is plenty of self-directed misogyny. I think also it's just as simple as there are plenty of white women

who are racist or don't like immigrants or whatever. And I think that's the simple answer there is, look, maybe they're not happy about Roe v. Wade being overturned, but at the end of the day, they're much more afraid, you know, in their minds that someone from Haiti is going to steal their dog and eat it because they keep hearing that this is happening. So I think it might just be that simple. On top of all the other stuff that all of you have said, all of which I completely agree with. Well, I agree with everything that's being said right now. I've tried talking to my white woman peers.

No one's listening to me. Yeah. And I do think that people, listen, people forgive celebrities a lot, right? And for the longest time, Donald Trump was in their home, acting the role of CEO. And we all know that, you know, Trump stakes and Trump casinos and Trump water, Trump University. I mean, you can go on listing his failed businesses. but on television, he played a successful businessman, and he did it for endless seasons.

And we still underestimate the impact that had of him in the living room pretending he was a successful businessman. It's like we have ads with a guy in a white coat saying, I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV. You should try aspirin. He's like that guy. It works. Crazily it works.

I will say this as we close out that I pray that over the next. 40 some odd days over the time folks listen to this, maybe it's 39, that it doesn't work this time, that the combination of the 50% of white women who have sense, represented by the two of you, we'll do, will be enough in combination with the rest of us. But please, before we get out of here, Joanna and Sam, tell us again, when folks can listen to the Daily Bees podcast and listen to all of your analysis and musings. It's on Thursdays, wherever you listen to your podcast, please sign up, please review us, please give us feedback.

We'd love to know what you'd like to hear more of. You know what? Give Joanna feedback. I don't really want to hear it. And we have Kara Swisher giving us lots of advice on our first podcast. She like you guys is the OG of podcasting, so we've got all her advice. And we'd love some advice from you. What should we be doing?

You guys have been doing this for a long time. You have a ton of subscribers. What should we be doing? What shouldn't we be doing? What shouldn't you be doing? I don't know. You know, you continue to make people laugh, have conversations that folks have on their couches at brunches and at cocktail parties because there isn't a place that I go that people aren't talking about politics. And like we also, we need some levity, but also like good analysis. And I think that you two bring a blend of that and do it well. Thank you so much. Thank you. Sam, I just think you need to light you up. Don't be so serious. You know?

Thank you. Am I talking too much with my hands? I know you can't see them, but I probably am doing something wrong physically. I have felt very attacked throughout this whole segment. Okay, good. Good, because you're being attacked. Thank you both for making the time for the new abnormal. Appreciate you.

Thanks so much for having us. Thank you very much, guys. Joining me now is Bullwark editor Jonathan V. Last, who has a lot to answer for. Sorry, I misread that. Who's here to answer my question. JVL, thanks for being here. Both are true, Andy. Yes, both are true, but I don't like to be that rude in my intros generally.

So you wrote a piece earlier this week called Stop the Steel Part 2 is coming. Why do you believe this and why do you say the danger is maybe even more acute than it was in 2020? So Trump is going to say that he won the election. I think we can all just take this as given. This is what he has done at every point in every single primary, every single general election that he's done. We do have a like seven or eight years worth of data on this. We are in a slightly less dangerous place than 2020 because he's not the sitting president, but he does still have access to both a bunch of legal procedures he can pursue to try

to overturn the results of the election and extra legal procedures. There are things he can do which aren't illegal exactly maybe, but aren't actually provided for within the scope and spirit of the law. Things like pressuring local boards of canvassers to refuse to certify results that displeased him. This is something he attempted to do in 2020. But what makes this dangerous is that it's very clear that Republican voters are going to go along with it. We know they're going to go along with it because they did it in 2020. Republican elites will go along with it.

Again, we know this because they did it in 2020. And it does not make any sense to say that the people who said that Joe Biden really lost, even though we won by 7 million votes, that people who said 2020 was stolen would say that 2024 wouldn't be. That's not going to happen. is like somebody commits a murder, but then doesn't want to run a red light. Right. What makes us really, really dangerous is that we are going to enter this election almost certainly in a place of greater uncertainty than we've had since probably 2000.

And it is not going to be clear who's going to win. You know, we've had overwhelming favorites going into most of the election since 1980. And we're probably going to hit November 4th. with Harris somewhere like about a two and a half point favorite, maybe in the popular vote, maybe three and a half. Everything is going to be in the margin of error. We're going to have multiple pathways to 270 for her. And within those states, she's probably going to be within the margin of error in at least half of them.

You know, you can just imagine a world where it's midnight on November 5. And the results are very inconclusive. and nobody is saying anything except for Donald Trump who is saying, we just want a great landslide victory. Right. And so just what does the world look like when you wake up on November 6th then? And half the country has already decided that Trump won. Yeah. And the headlines will, of course, be Trump declares victory.

Yeah. Maybe it all works out. Like the best case scenario is that it all works out. And the legal processes are followed scrupulously and the extra legal attempts to overturn things fail. And she gets enough. votes to actually win, and so she's sworn in. And we at that point have the entire official elected Republican Party and 46% of the country saying that she's wholly illegitimate and that she stole the election. That's the best case scenario. Right. What percentage chance do you give

even that best case scenario? You know, I generally think best case scenarios are more unlikely than likely. If she's got a 50-50 chance to win, which is basically what it is. I mean, she's in coin toss territory. And maybe the real answer is. is that it's 6040, but for one-time outcomes, that 60-40 is the same as 50-50, right? You're not playing blackjack all night. So if she has a 50% chance to win the election itself, then what is it? Another 50% chance that we get to the best of all possible worlds following the election. So that gives you like 25%. I mean, these are all, you know, monopoly numbers. Yeah, sure, of course. The point is that there's a very good chance that bad stuff is coming

our way. Well, one of the things you said in your piece is you said there's basically a sort of a perfect storm brewing here? What are the components of that storm? Yeah, the perfect storm here is about the uncertainty. And, you know, I went back historically and looked. And again, the final polling going into election day of almost every race since 1980 showed a very clear advantage for one candidate. The only two real surprises were 2000 where the race was closer than it was expected to be. Bush was up by five. And then if you remember in the final week, we had the DUI story break. Right. And, you know, we now know after the fact that Bush's own internals saw him lose five percentage points almost overnight. And those were largely Republicans. This is so quaint.

Those were largely Republican and evangelical voters who decided to just stay home because he'd gotten a DUI like 30 years earlier. Again, like, what a different time. Yeah. You know, going into it, again, we had a pretty clear sense. And then in 2016, we had a clear sense that Hillary Clinton was up about three and a half points. She underperformed that a little bit. But the reason we were surprised by the results was because we didn't understand the realignment that had gone on within the electoral college. And with this, we, you know, we're going to go in with two things happening.

One, Harris's number is going to be pretty low. Again, I expect she'll be up probably two and a half to three and a half points in polling, final polling. But we, there's a lot of evidence to suggest. that the coalitions are continuing to reshuffle and that she's doing a lot of that work herself. And so we don't understand how the electoral college shuffling is going to work as the coalitions change. And so we're really going to go into election day as blind and foggy, we in our understanding of what the vote count is going to look like as we have in most of our

lifetimes. And so much of this is down to our electoral college system, isn't it? And I would like to point out that I've been harping on the insanity of the Electoral College for decades now. And JVL, I have suffered the slings and arrows of outraged commentators for this, probably including you, sir. I am temperamentally conservative. And so the Electoral College, I think, is a huge problem. But doing anything about that problem creates other problems. I think moving to a national popular vote is not a great idea.

I think it opens up a bunch of problems. It makes the parties weaker when what we need are stronger. political parties because we need them to be stronger gatekeepers to keep people like Donald Trump from winning nominations and taking over the parties. But there are ways in theory to reform the electoral college, right? You could do winner take all by congressional district, for instance, that might eliminate some of the biases in it. But the problem is that we're unlikely to get any reforms that are helpful. And it strikes me that we're more likely to get unhelpful reforms like the attempt the Republicans made in Nebraska this week to undo the winner-taker.

call with their congressional district and shifted to a winner take all by state. And also, it just, I think the idea of making any switch from the electoral college is just as a practical matter, a dead letter, because we no longer live in a country where the mechanism for making structural changes to our government system are practical. Like this is, we just have sclerosis. And this is what happens in some would say mature, but some would say desiccated and sick. Yeah. Culture, right? I mean, this is like, you see this in every sort of organization, whether you're looking at an institution or a business, whether it's a university. You know, as you get older and the legacy systems pile up on top of one another, it becomes impossible to make big changes. You know, even if in theory, there are mechanisms for those changes. And so in the same way that impeachment is a dead letter now, like impeachment is no longer actually a viable mechanism to remove a president. And the 14th Amendment has now been made a dead letter, even though it, in theory, exists. Amending the Constitution is a dead letter. Like, he's no longer.

It simply can't be done anymore in America. Oh, for sure. A hundred percent agree with you there. You are wrong, though, when you say that a national popular vote is a bad thing because that's the only way it should be done. But I will move on. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying it creates a new problem.

Sure. At least it's one person, one vote. I want to ask you because, you know, you brought up the Bush to UI thing in 2000 and how evangelicals stayed home. And I was trying to think of something that could make evangelicals either stay home or vote for someone other than Trump. The only thing I could come up with would be if he announced he was converting to Islam. No, I don't think that would do.

I mean, maybe if he woke up and he was black, maybe that would. Yeah. It is kind of weird looking at the huge gulf opening up between him and Mark Robinson in North Carolina. And I just, you know, like, I don't know if Mark Robinson was a white dude, I don't think there would be much distance between him because what that gulf is, you have a bunch of Trump voters in North Carolina who were saying, I love me, Donald Donald. Trump, but I can't go to the whole hog with this, this Mark Robinson fellow. What's the difference between them? Well, I mean, one of them was convicted of felonies and

right. Yeah. Maybe this is unfair. I think that has to be at least part of it. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, we talked about this sort of best case scenario thing where Harris wins and it's a big enough margin that whatever shenanigans Trump tries just are dead in the water and the election. And the electoral vote is confirmed and she is sworn in. You say, even in that scenario, we are by no means even close to being out of the woods, right? Yeah, the problems are all about us and who we are. There's going to be another recession someday. Like, it's very nice that Joe Biden was such a good president that he got us to a soft economic landing, which, you know, it's the kind of things that gives economists wet dreams. But that doesn't mean the business cycle has been invalidated. There

will be a recession. And if 46%, maybe 47% of the country wants to roll the dice on a guy who literally says he wants to be an authoritarian in a time when everybody is fat and happy, when we are boat sales or at record numbers, I just somebody sent me an article yesterday. Rolls Royce is having record numbers of custom orders. My God. I mean, this is, you know, I don't know if you saw CNN did a story with a bunch of at a boat parade, a Trump boat parade. Things are about as good as they get in America right now. Crime is way down. The economy is doing very, very well, you know, stock market at record highs, real wage growth, outpaced inflation, et cetera, et cetera, low unemployment. I don't know, like what happens if there's a recession in year three of the next Democratic president and things

are actually bad, like really bad. I think the country has shown us that they're absolutely willing to roll the dice on authoritarianism. It's just not sustainable to live in a society in which one party has to play perfect baseball and can never make any mistakes because the other party is toxic and dangerous. And until the Republican Party gets fixed and the Republican Party can't fix itself, what it needs is it needs Republican voters who don't want, you know, toxic bad, illiberal things. Until that changes, like, we're just trying to keep the plates spinning.

As you've said, or at least intimated, even if Harris wins by a large margin, again, in this sort of best case outlier scenario, that doesn't mean that Republican voters across the country are suddenly going to say, okay, the race wasn't fixed. She didn't cheat. They're going to keep harping the same thing. And Trump obviously is. And so we're going to be in the same situation we found ourselves, you know, or that we've been in for the last four years. really. It's ground dog day. And this will continue. I mean, if you want it to be optimistic, which, you know, I can only do if I really concentrate hard and enforce myself. The optimistic view of this is that historically, America has never resolved these tensions. We just sort of bulldoze over them. Right. And I was just reading about a book about this, about like the age of anxiety, which was a period of American history for about 30 years around the turn of the 19th century. And it's one of these things where everything was terrible. And then all of a sudden it just wasn't.

Like all of those attitudes just sort of evaporated overnight because a new generation came through and was just like, yeah, we can't live like this. We're going to be different. And so it is not the case most of the time in America that these big problems reach rational conclusions with a clear winner and a clear loser and everybody learns there, you know, learns and hugs and starts over. We just take these big debates and we just layer on top of them. It's the way Rome would always just build a new city on top of the old city. So maybe Donald Trump goes on to his eternal reward at some point when he's 92 or something. And none of the other Republicans are as talented demagogues as he is. Because he is talent.

I mean, he's very good at what he does. Sure. You watch him and J.D. Vance together and you understand the difference between them, right? just in terms of native ability to control a popular movement. He also occupied a unique place in American culture for 40 years before turning to politics, which nobody else really has. So maybe Trump goes away and that creates the moment in which the whole etchice gets just gets shaken and reset. And you can't anticipate that.

You can't plan for it, but you can hope for it. And so I think that's probably the best we got. You brought up J.D. Vance. So I want to ask you about another piece you wrote about him. And what you say in this piece is you say that he is the purest political expression you've ever seen of what's known in the wrestling business as X-Pack Heat. That's the letter X-Pack Heat. And that is not Elon Musk's child. So what does that mean?

What is X-Pack heat? In the world of wrestling, heat is what the wrestlers are supposed to draw from the crowd. And it means of reaction. And if you are a face, a baby phase, if you're a good guy, then the heat you draw is people cheering because they love you. And if you're a heel, one of the bad guys, your job is to make the audience really hate you. Because the, you know, wrestling succeeds. It's just got her damn wrong where, you know, we want to see virtue triumph and we want to see the bad people punished. That's the whole, you know, Greek tragedy and not even tragedy, I guess the whole Greek ethos of professional wrestling.

And there's a third kind of heat, which is very rare. It's become known as X-PAC heat after this, this wrestler, Sean Waldman, who wrestled under the ring name X-Pack. And it is when the crowd hates a wrestler, but they don't hate him as a villain. They don't hate the character. They hate the performer. They don't want to see the character lose because it fulfills some, like, you know, some scratches a moral itch for them or anything.

What they want is they want the character to go away. Yeah. They don't want to see him anymore. It's a change the channel heat. And I think that's what J.D. Vance has going on. There was a Harvard youth poll that came out this week, and his favorability number on it was 18%. It's hard to imagine being that low.

To be that low, like Sam, Sam Bankman-Fried polls at like 17%. Right. If we did his favorability rating, right? I want to point out, this is for voters age 18 to 30, right? Voters age 18 to 30. This is not an apples to apples comparison, but last year Gallup pulled all people, like all Americans. And Putin's favorability number was 5%. To only be 13 points ahead of the most infamous war criminal on the planet is pretty wild, especially

because J.D. Vance is not, like, he's not Hannibal Lecter. Like, he's a total D-bag, but he doesn't sexually assault women. He hasn't been convicted of any felonies. He's just a very normal, weirdo, white nationalist kind of, right? You know, like, those guys are really a dime a dozen these days. You look at him in, I just get the sense that People want him to go away. She's not going to. He's got a lifetime appointment in the United States Senate. And he's got patrons who have multiple billions of dollars. I don't think he has the Jews to take over the movement, though.

And I suspect that he probably gets relegated to backbench status and might even be a little bit like damaged goods if Trump loses. Because if Trump loses, there is going to have to be a scapegoat. And Vance has done everything. that has been asked of him. You know, he ain't going to be scapegoated the way Mike Pence was. Right. Because Mike Pence ultimately, you know, like meatloaf,

he would do anything for love, but he wouldn't do that. J.D. Vance will do anything. Yeah. But also, like, I don't know, like somebody has to take the blame because it can't be Trump's fault. And so maybe people in Maga start whispering, you know, JD was too weird. Or maybe it was, oh, J.D. had a brown wife.

And, you know, maybe that's what the problem was or something. So, I don't know. We'll see. Yeah. No, I think you're dead on. And I think people do just seem to want him to go away. I mean, with Trump, there's the fascination of the train wreck, right? I mean, Trump, for whatever else he is, you do want to turn on the channel because you want to see, like, oh, I bet, you know, is he going to say the N word? Right. Like, well, maybe he'll do it because it's, you know, he's this crazy wild man with J.D. Vance.

It's almost like the, what is the Zach Elphinacus brand of comedy? It's like the uncomfortable comedy. Like cringe comedy? Gringe comedy. It's like it's like cringe but without the comedy part. Yeah. Yeah. You know. It's very much in line with a Ron DeSantis type thing. It at least seems to me it's a very similar personality type when you see them giving a speech or anything like that. JVL, I got to run. But as always, it is a pleasure to have you on. And hopefully we will see you again soon. Good to be with you, Andy.

Danielle Moody. Andy Levy. Danielle, who's your fuck that guy to close out this week? There is not enough curse words for me to use to express my disgust for this person. And I won't have people, you know, ears bleeding, listening to me go off. But you can just imagine all of the curse words that I want to say. But Representative Clay Higgins, that piece of shit from the state of Louisiana used his official congressional account to tweet the most vile and racist lies about the Haitian people.

I am not going to repeat what he said. Danielle, you know what? I'll read the tweet. I 100% understand why you don't want to read it, but there may be people listening who haven't heard it. So I'll read it. He posted, LOL, these Haitians are wild. Eating pets, voodoo, nastiest country in the Western Hemisphere, Colts slapstick gangsters, but damned if they don't feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our president and VP. All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of the country before January 20th. The chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Representative Stephen Horsford from Nevada,

took to the House floor to censure Higgins over his post. And let me tell you something. The House of Representatives loves to censure, but apparently only. women of color. They have yet to censure one of the Republicans' white, rabid, racist, to which there are many that walk the halls of Congress on a regular basis. But Clay Higgins, in the way, the degrading language that he used, the racist tropes that he used, the hateful language that he used should be censured. But we know that the House of Representatives is run by the other Fisher-Price Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who has no spy.

fine, we'll do absolutely nothing, not even admonish. And so when people have the audacity to say that, oh, not all Republicans are racist or not all Republicans or there are some good ones, point to me where? Because I see no one that comes out and actually condemns these racist pieces of shit when they say hot trash and say, this is not representative of our party. What they do is link arms and continue to walk lock step. So Clay Higgins is the Republican Party and the Republican Party is Clay Higgins. They are racist and they are unapologetic about it. So I am just so outdone with this part and parcel that we continue to do around, oh, there are some of these good Republicans. No, they are not. They are all poisonous and dangerous and disgusting. And the man should be

censured. I wish he would be kicked out of Congress, but, you know, I'm sure he's also representative of his constituency's thoughts as well. But for this reason and for so, many other reasons. Clay Higgins is my fuck that guy to close out the week. Yeah, I mean, this was so vile. And as much as we're used to this kind of thing now from the Republicans, even this was like my jaw dropped when I read it because it was just so vile and so horrific and absolutely unbelievable. And you know what? You mentioned the Republican party. This is what really gets me. Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, was asked about this. And, of course, first of all, he lied and said he hadn't seen the tweet because that's what they always do.

But then he went on to say, well, you know, we talked to Clay. He said he went to the back and he prayed about it and he regretted it and he pulled the post down. I'm sure he probably regrets some of the language he used. But, you know, we move forward. We believe in redemption around here. Clay Higgins, after that, went on CNN. Even though he deleted the tweet, he said, it's all true. I can put up another controversial post tomorrow if you want me to.

I mean, we do have freedom of speech. I'll say what I want. It's not a big deal to me. It's like something stuck to the bottom of my boot. Just scrape it off and move on with my life. That does not sound like a man who prayed on it and regretted what he did. That does not, to me, sound like a man who was looking for redemption. And the thing is, Mike Johnson, who holds himself up as a deeply religious person, is a fraud.

Because he knows who Clay Higgins is. He knows that Clay Higgins doesn't regret saying what he said. And he will sit there and use prayer and religion to cover up this shit and talk about how we believe in redemption here. No. Just as much as Clay Higgins is absolutely fuck that guy with your permission, I am going to add Mike Johnson to that. Because I am just, I am so sick of these people hiding behind religion and they're just their absolute frauds and they use it in the worst possible way. and it just, it really pisses me off. So fuck both those guys.

A thousand percent. Andy, how are you closing out this good, good Eric Adams' indicted week with us, with your fuck that guy? Okay. So this is a story that really sucks. The guy named Marcellus Williams was executed. I say executed. I should say murdered by the state of Missouri earlier this week. And you may say to yourself, well, all right, Andy.

Obviously, you oppose the death penalty. so you're going to say anytime a state does something like this, it's murder and it's wrong. Yes, that is true. But this is so egregious because this man, Marcellus Williams, who had been found guilty of a 1998 killing, it turns out there was no forensic evidence linking him to the murder weapon or the crime scene. And the prosecutors who got him convicted have now renounced that conviction, the victim's family, say they opposed his execution. Some of the jurors

from the original trial opposed his execution. And yet the governor of Missouri, Mike Parson, I'll give you one guess what party he belongs to. He would not commute the sentence. And despite

a river of evidence pointing to Marcellus Williams not being guilty, and Governor Parson decided it was very important to him that this man die. Again, unsurprisingly, Mike Parsons is white, Marcelus Williams is black. I'm sure that has absolutely nothing to do with any of this, of course. But the fact of the matter is that at every turn, Missouri was given the chance

to stay this execution, to annul this execution, the death penalty. And the governor basically said, nah, we're good. And on top of that, the appeal went up to the Supreme Court. And unsurprisingly, the conservative justices voted not to stay the execution. And so Missouri went ahead and executed slash murdered Morcellus Williams this week. As I said at the top, I understand that there are people who think the death penalty is sometimes warranted. I could not disagree with them more. But in a case like this, even if you mistakenly believe that there's any kind of good effect from a death penalty, how you can possibly think that executing a guy where the prosecutors wanted his conviction overturned. How you can think that you're somehow being moral and upright

in doing that is quite frankly beyond me. So a big fuck that guy to the governor of Missouri and to the conservative justices who allowed this to happen and to everyone else involved in this who let it happen. Fuck all of them. Absolutely disgusting. I have no notes on that, Andy. They should be our fuck that guy for the year. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal.

We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder.