The Daily Beast Podcast - Don’t Be Fooled by Trump’s Long List of Executive Orders

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

The New Abnormal hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie look back on Donald’s Trump’s inauguration and the long list of executive orders he signed hours later. Then, Melissa Gira Grant, journalist, author, and senior editor at The New Republic, joins us to discuss the Laken Riley Act, a harsh immigration bill that could jail undocumented immigrants for minor arrests, even without charges. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. What a great show we have for you today. Melissa Drew Grant, journalist, author, and senior editor at the New Republic, joins us to discuss the Lake and Riley Act, a harsher immigration bill that could jail undocumented immigrants for minor arrests, even without charges.

But before we get to that, we're going to have a live reaction to Donald Trump's inauguration. But first, let's have some fun. Danielle, and to our listeners, I actually have some good news. From this day forward, our country world. flourish and be respected again all over the world. Also, we will be the envy of every nation, and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer. That, of course, was how Donald Trump started his inaugural address, and I'm going to be honest.

I watched as much as I could of it until I couldn't take it anymore. And then, because I'm a professional, I kept watching. And then because I'm a human being, I talk. turned it off. So I couldn't make it through the whole thing. I just straight up couldn't. I feel a little bad because I feel like, you know, I don't know. I guess we're supposed to take that bullet so our listeners don't have to.

But I read the transcript and I watched it through the part where he talked about all the executive orders he's going to sign, talked about reinstating his remain in Mexico policy, talking about sending troops to the southern border, designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Then he went on to go after, sorry, he said he's going to drill baby drill. It kind of went on from there. Danielle, how was your experience? Well, let me just be clear. I'm not taking bullets for any fucking body.

So let me start by saying that. I am not going to be providing a level of energy to this new regime that I have done. in the past. I looked at the trip. Daniel? Yeah. Yeah. I'm taking you off my list of people who would take a bullet for me. Okay. Not for you. For you, Andy, different. You said you wouldn't take it for anyone. No. I mean anyone in MAGA and anybody in Trumpville. For you, Andy. I'll leave you on the list. My apologies. But because you and I basically exist like Emily Dickinson, we're in our homes. So I think we're safe. But, you know, folks, like, what I mean, the reality here is, I just

want to remind folks that executive orders are essentially glorified press releases. And why do I say that not to minimize what other presidents have done in the past? But they're only so good as the time is for that person to be in office. They are always rolled back, depending on who comes next. if in fact someone does come next. I'm not quite sure. We are just in day one. But like these are just, you know, when people say shots fired,

that's what these are. So we're going to show you who we're putting a target on. We're going to show you how tough and big and bad we are. That's what these announcements are. Just, oh, as one of the other things that he declared was what genders people can have.

Now, moving forward in this post-America, post-Liberty, country that we are now in because that's something that you do in an inauguration speech. Also things noted, Trump did not put his hand on the Bible, not like it matters at all. To be fair, Danielle, it'd be a fire hazard if you did. Right. And that's what I think, because I think they were indoors. They were like, sir, please don't put your hand on the Bible because we don't know what will happen next. But, you know, you don't have to listen to Donald Trump. You don't have to bring that energy into your home, which is why I said, I will read the transcript, which I joked before,

and I said, was it in the comic section? Because I don't know where else you would find it. But I just want to shout out to the leaders who did not attend the farce of an inauguration. I want to shout out, particularly Michelle Obama, who started and said, I'm just not going and provided absolutely no reason other than I don't want to. And then shout out to AOC, who said she was not attending so folks can stop asking. And her clip was absolutely fire. So moving forward, like just because you receive an invitation to the circus does not mean that you have to attend. Those are my thoughts. Yeah. Maybe the worst part of that whole thing was when Trump arrived at the White House, President Biden greeted him and said, welcome home. And I'm not the first person to say this, but it's like, how do you spend

the last year or whatever talking about what a threat Donald Trump is to democracy, to the future, to so many people in this country, and then sit there and welcome him home to the White House. You know, I've seen people say, but that's the difference between Democrats and Republicans, you know, I'm like, well, maybe it shouldn't be at this point. Maybe the fact that Donald Trump broke all precedent and didn't go to Joe Biden's inauguration in 2020, maybe that should say to Democrats, oh, cool, we don't have to do that anymore. We don't have to pretend. But over and over again, and you're absolutely right, God bless Michelle Obama, God bless AOC.

All I kept thinking during the time when I was watching it, I'm looking at all the people in there, and I'm looking at the Democrats in there, and I'm just thinking, you are so complicit in this. Like, you are giving this man's words extra power by being there. And I know that's not your intention. and I know you're just trying to, you know, hold up American norms. But again, we've talked about this a lot, Danielle. I just, I see these people sitting here and I just think you are not up for this. This is not your time.

I mean, I see those people sitting there. And what I want to say to what Biden offered, you're part of the fucking problem. Like, let's be very clear. I've said this before. I appreciate and honor Joe Biden's 50 years of public service. I appreciate the incredible things that he did while he was president for four years. But his presidency is sandwiched between two Trump terms. You opened the door to this man walking back through again.

And then you sit there and you legitimize him by saying, welcome home to the place that he tried to burn fucking down. And we're just supposed to sit there and be like, well, we'll just grin and bear it for four years, not knowing. whether or not democracy continues four years from now, like is a joke to me. And this is why I say that these people who have been in office for decades need to step aside because they do not understand the stakes and nor do they have the stamina to deal with what is coming for us. And so, you know, the normalization of Trump began with that, with those acts of sitting there because you don't have to do it. The norms were broken 10 years ago.

Donald Trump came down the escalator the first time. So you don't have to show up and create some false sense of normalcy because all of us recognize that this is not normal, that this is not, not only is it not normal, it's actually not okay. And so by sitting there and thinking that you're sending some kind of imagery of like bipartisanship, what you're signaling to the American people is that like you are, you are not only okay but complicit in the downfall of our democracy. Because this man is sitting there talking about changing names of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and Hillary Clinton sitting there laughing hysterically. Like, you are dumb. But the fact that they are sitting there to begin with, instead of joining the thousands and

thousands of people that were down at the Lincoln Memorial at the Resistance March, that's where those people could have been today. giving speeches there to talk to people and restore their possibility of progress even in these dark days. But instead, they sat up there on that dais with the billionaire oligarchy. Yeah, I want to read a list of names. James Biden, Sarah Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John Owens, Francis Biden. The reason I read those names are those are people that just before the inauguration, Joe Biden gave preemptive pardons to their family members. And he did that because, as he put it, he's concerned that they'll be targeted by, quote, baseless and politically motivated investigations.

Then he said, welcome home to Don. Mm-hmm. How does that make sense? I don't know. I honestly do not understand it. And for a long time, I have tried to sort of look at this. The way they always put it to us, is, you know, in the military was respect the rank, not the person. And for a long time, I felt that way about the presidency or about anything. It's like, all right, you're not, you don't have to respect the person holding the office. You just, you're respecting the office. But it's too much. It's too much to ask. And to sit there and to think that you have to issue pardons for your family members, we're not even talking, we can get into, I'm sure we'll get into the other

pardons later of actual public figures. These are family members. And they're not like I had never particularly heard of Sarah Jones Biden before, his brother's wife. Like these are not out there public figures. And still, he felt it necessary to do this because he feared Trump and the Republicans going after them for really no other reason than they were family members of Joe Biden. And then you, and then you say, welcome home? I mean, are you fucking kidding me? What is your thought process there? Like you said, how do you hold those two things in your head at the same time?

And that's how I felt about all the people sitting there and all the people, yes, they weren't the ones standing up and cheering. I don't care. You were there. You gave gravitas and you gave power. And honestly, just by being there, you gave your blessing to this man. Mm-mm-mm. What a time.

What a time. It doesn't make any sense. It's like the mixed messages are beyond, are beyond right now that Democrats are providing. On one hand, don't worry, folks. All will be well. Democracy will prevail. Look at our institutions. On the other hand, just in case, let me pardon my family because I don't want to have to go visit them in Guantanamo.

Got it. But all is well. Welcome back. I, yeah. Okay. Yeah. You know, before we talk a little later maybe about the pardons and one particular commutation and other stuff, I want to reference something you said earlier about the oligarchs. And boy, there they were all in a row, huh?

Tim Cook, Apple, Jeff Bezos. Amazon, Zuckerberg, Meta, Musk, Twitter, Tesla, SpaceX. It was obscene. And, you know, Rachel Maddow was live and there was a clip going around of the camera panning to the dais and showing all of these billionaires mixed in with Trump's family and saying, how could this be? What is this? And Joy Reid's response was, this is a message. This is who is running the country. This is the American oligarchy. This is the broligarch. And, you know, people want to, like, you have to understand that everything moving forward,

every action, every statement, every gesture has meaning behind it. And it is a message to the American people to get in line, to get on board. And, you know, and it's sickening. We talked about, I think, last week, that this is the wealthiest cabinet in a history, that there are 26 people that Donald Trump has named and or appointed that are individually worth more than $100 million. There are 12 that are billionaires or come from billionaire families or are married to billionaires. And these are the people that are going to be setting policy or rather taking away rights

from the average American person who they are so far away from actually understanding and knowing. So it is just like, you know, because Americans have always had such a love affair with wealth and celebrity that has been propped up through corporate media, through reality TV, through, you know, the news coverage, all hail Elon Musk, isn't he a genius, isn't he incredible? All hail Mark Zuckerberg. Isn't he fantastic? look at what he's amassed. And it arrives in this place.

And it was sickening to see those people sitting in the places where dignitaries and presidents and activists and advocates and representatives should be. But you know where we're headed. Yeah. I don't think we should leave anyone out. The CEO of Google was there, Sundar Pichai. The CEO of TikTok, Shao Z Chu, was there. I think we'll maybe talk more about him.

and TikTok later. And it was just, I want to read this sentence from the AP story about this, talking about how these guys were all in exclusive seats. AP writes, that's a shift from tradition, especially for a president who has characterized himself as a champion of the working class. It's true that he has characterized himself that way. Maybe we could dig a little deeper into that AP Associated Press or, you know, I don't know, push back on that. And look, I guess I have to give them credit. Ali Swenson is the writer of this for bringing it up, at least. At a bare minimum, you know, they get a one-handed clap for that. But really the most astonishing thing to me still is the way that not rich people somehow think, have been conned, I should say, into thinking

that Trump is looking out for them and that Trump wants to help them. But you would think seeing something like this would help dispel that notion, but it won't. We know it won't, but it really does get to the heart of, as you said, of what's going on here with the, you know, broligarchy or the tech oligarchs, whatever you want to call them. And it really does show that when push comes to shove, all of these people, no matter how much money and power they have, it's never enough for them. It's never enough for them to actually find some convictions. or for some of them, Trump's quote-unquote convictions are their convictions, Elon Musk, for example. But for some of them, I do think inside they don't share Trump's convictions. And I'm not saying that makes them better because they have made calculated decisions to pretend to share his convictions and to suck up to him.

And again, how much money and power do you need? My God, you're running Apple. You don't need to give a hundred million or a million dollars or whatever to the inauguration. which, by the way, I'm fairly certain you gave nothing to Joe Biden's in 2020, but the slightest chance that they might lose the slightest bit of wealth and power, which they probably wouldn't anyway, and they instantly show who they are. Speaking of things that we have seen, the people on the dais, the things that we've seen thus far as day one of the Trump regime 2.0 unfolds,

What is trending right now on Elon Musk's platform is a video of Elon Musk giving what appears to look like the Nazi salute twice, not once to the crowd, but twice. And everyone is posting the still shot. Everyone is reposting the video. Folks, like I know that there have been a number of times, many, many times where people over-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-es. where people overuse comparisons to Nazis and can be said to be hyperbolic. I don't know watching this, what else you say that this is. And the affect, the passion in which he does it, not once, but twice. Again, I just said that everything that we are going to see and experience, everything

that's going to be said, every image that is going to go out, is purposeful. So what do we make of this? Yes, I'm with you. I guess the only qualification I put on it is it's, I guess, I just not much of a qualification would be to say he might not have meant it as a Nazi salute, but it is a fascist salute. Originally it was known as the Roman salute, but it's a fascist movement.

It's a fascist gesture. And it supposedly echoes how people saluted Caesar, which may be apocryphal. but regardless, my point in bringing this up is people like Musk have this fascination with ancient Rome. And in his mind, he may have just been doing a Roman salute. It doesn't matter because that salute was co-opted by the fascists in Italy and also basically co-opted by the Nazis. And we all know what it means. And so even if I extend to him that little bit of the benefit of the doubt, it doesn't.

doesn't matter because he knows damn well what it means and why it was used. And so I'm with you. You know, I get a little tired sometimes. I remember four years ago, I think it was. There was a picture of Laura Ingram. I believe speaking at the Republican Convention in 2020, it was a still shot of her with her arm raised up in what looked like, you know, a Heil salute. And I was like, come on, man. Like, she sucks. But I don't think she just gave a Nazi salute. I think you caught her with her hand up in the middle of waving to someone or like in a, you know, thank you gesture that you sometimes do when a crowd is cheering. My point being, like, I'm sort of the first person to say, ah, hang on a minute. I'm not saying that there. I'm giving him the tiniest bit of grace that he meant it as a more general fascist salute than a Nazi salute. And that's the best I can do here. Sorry, Elon.

For all of the history, Andy, that you provided us with, which is accurate and true, Elon Musk did that Nazi salute, that fascist salute, not once, but twice, one facing out to the audience and the world vis-a-vis all of the television cameras, and then turned around and did it to Donald Trump and the people in the Capitol building. So what I mean, like I'm not going to pretend that what we're seeing is not what we're seeing. And I'm sure as fuck not going to be providing the benefit of the doubt to people that are very, that are being very crystal clear. So it's either you see what you see with your eyes or you're choosing to keep your eyes closed. That's the decision that we're going to have to make moving forward.

Yeah, I'm with you. Like this was not like, oh, a still photo and oh, we don't know. And like this is video and this is not once, this is twice. Yeah, I'm 100% with you. I just, I don't know, the way my brain works, I'm like, ah, these guys are fascinated with Rome. Let me bring that up and say, hey, you know what? It may have just been a general fascist salute.

I mean, I say that just as a matter of maybe historical accuracy. But like I said, it doesn't make a difference. And the fact that he turned around and did it in the direction of Trump, I don't really care if it's a straight up, you know, Nazi salute or if he's saluting a guy the way Caesar was saluted. I don't want Caesar as the leader of America. So either way, it's awful and he sucks. So Danielle and I are back with a little bonus extra time with the two of us. Please, take your seats, people.

Please. We don't have to. Thank you. Thank you. We don't have to. We're on a time, you know, budget here. budget. What the hell is a time budget? Anyway, so Danielle, there's other stuff to talk about from today, stuff that happened at the inauguration. I don't know. Maybe we start a little bit with some of the other

pardons that Joe Biden issued besides his family. And that includes Anthony Fauci, retired general Mark Millie, all the lawmakers who served on the House January 6th committee and their staff, I believe. and Donald Trump wasted no time calling this disgraceful and telling NBC News that many are guilty of major crimes. I'll let you guess what case major crimes were in. And if you guessed all caps, you are correct. He also pardoned any capital officers who testified before the committee. Yeah. And, you know, again, the entire purpose of doing this is to save these people from retribution, which Trump has promised.

and I don't want to go back to the, you know, then you said welcome home thing again. But at some point, you're doing all of these things and I'm fine that he did them. It's this really does break with norms to issue preemptive pardons. I get it, though. This is sort of what I think we were saying. Like, fuck the norms if the norms are fucking you, I think. Ooh, Andy, did you just come up with a new tagline for our show? show? Maybe I did. I don't know. That was fire. You know, it's true. And it's the same logic that says you don't

say welcome home to a guy and sit there as he gives his inauguration address. We are having to do things that break with norms and, you know, not to be childish about it, but they started it. If one person is going to fight unfairly and you're going to sit there and fight fairly, guess who's going to win that fight. It ain't you. And so I'm glad he did this. I know it's a little problematic and sets a bad precedent and, you know, and I'm sure Donald Trump will take advantage of that precedent. But the fact is Donald Trump would have done it anyway. And so who cares ultimately? Let me tell you something. First of all. Speak on this, Danielle. Yeah. First of all, you know, to the point that you made,

at the top. Fuck precedent. The Supreme Court fucked us out of precedent. Like, you know, precedent doesn't exist anymore. And what we know is that Donald Trump spent an entire year saying who he was going to be turning the Department of Justice on. Cash Patel, who is now leading up the FBI, has said that the enemy is within. While we are on air right now, the official picture of General Mark Millie, form. joint chief of staff has been removed from the Pentagon. It was just unveiled a few weeks ago. We know where this is headed.

So I don't believe that Joe Biden's final actions set any type of precedent other than the fact that, one, he should have never invited that motherfucker back inside the White House with like cheers and applause and selfies. Number two is that by doing these actions, you are signaling, one, again to the rest of us that all is not well and that we need to do everything that we can to protect the people that tried to warn us and thought that they were doing their patriotic duty by speaking up about the atrocities that happened on January 6th. So to make those pardons of those officials and their staff, I mean basically at this point, Joe Biden should have

just blanket pardon everybody that was inside of the Department of Justice, blanket pardon everybody that was inside of the, do you know what I'm saying? Because no one is going to be safe. No one is going to be safe. And that is what those preemptive pardons just signaled to everyone. Yeah, I kind of wish he'd gone even further and preemptively pardoned lefty podcast hosts. Yeah. Hello. I mean, you know. I guess we didn't ask for one. I guess not. You know, shame on us, I guess. But absolutely. And a place where I do have to give Biden lot of credit is he did it at the very last minute. He commuted the life sentence of Leonard Peltier, who was, is an indigenous activist who's been in prison since 1975 after being found guilty of the

murder of two FBI agents. This is a case. I don't want to get into all the details, but the U.S. attorney who prosecuted him has since publicly apologized and called that prosecution and Peltier's incarceration unjust. And it was clearly a case where someone got railroaded and because of, you know, racism, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, because of America. I guess I could just say that. And people have been hoping for a long time that a president would come along and commute his sentence. It would have been nice if, you know, Barack Obama had done it. It would have been nice if Bill Clinton had done it. Peltier is now 80 years old and in bad health. But at least he did it.

And I have to give him credit because I think everyone had kind of given up on that. And it was a surprise when the announcement came down. I just, here we are. Yeah. And here we are. So post his inaugural speech, which is when we are recording, Trump was set to sign a whole bunch of executive orders. I think the number was somewhere in the 200 range, including at least a couple that have to do with trans rights. And when I say you have to do with trans rights, I mean taking away trans rights.

One of these is as reported, I hate to say reported, as transcribed by Barry Weiss's outfit, the free press. It will establish government-wide the biological reality of two sexes and clearly define male and female. It will, in the words of the free press, agencies will cease pretending that men can be women and women can be men when enforcing laws that protect against sex discrimination. It will state that woman means an adult human female. It will direct the government to make all identification, such as passports, personnel records. only have two genders, and you will have to put the gender you were assigned at birth. And there's a whole bunch more. And this is one of his day one priorities.

It's absolutely sickening. I guess it'll bring down the cost of eggs. I'm not clear on the connection there, but there must be one. Because, again, I know that's why he was elected. but no, a senior incoming senior administration official tells the free press, this really was a defining issue of the campaign. And this is what they are concerned about. They're concerned about taking away people's rights, putting people's lives in danger because they don't conform to incredibly outdated notions. Just a reminder, these are executive orders that don't change any.

current laws on the books for the rest of us. These are symbols and gestures so as not to get people confused with the chaos that they are trying to stir up because this is just the beginning. So folks need to get really clear on what executive orders mean and how they will impact you. If you are not working inside of the federal government, for instance, again, this is a glorified press release and a signal to the LGBTQ plus community that we are coming for you, particularly those that identify as trans or non-binary. And I don't believe that this announcement has brought down gas or eggs, prices, but you know, we'll get back to you by the end of the week. Maybe Andy and I are wrong and maybe, you know, even Elon Musk gestures on the stage. Maybe he was signaling, oh, the prices are up,

they're coming down. Maybe that's what he was gesturing. But I don't think so. Yeah, look, 100% executive orders, executive actions, whatever, however you want to call them, don't necessarily have the force of law, which is, you know, especially in this case, is good. But as you said, they send a message. And in addition to sending a message, in this case, to trans folks, that they need to be very, very afraid, which, by the way, is part of the reason for, you know, it's sort of the, it's the equivalent of the cruelty is the point. In this case, it's the fear is the point in addition to the cruelty. But it sends a message to Congress and it sends a message to the Supreme Court and to all other federal courts. And that's where it gets really, really dangerous because

so much of the federal courts has shown a propensity for doing what, it thinks Trump wants. Don't get me started on the Supreme Court. And you have a Congress with a Republican majority in both houses. So yes, I agree with you that he can sign an executive order today and it doesn't really have the force of law, but it can be a harbinger of what's to come. Yeah. What's to come? It ain't good, folks. It ain't good. So speaking of things, that were not good. Oh. You should just stop at speaking of things.

Speaking of things, thank you for joining us. But I'm sure folks listening to this were aware that TikTok went dark for a day or for a few hours. I'm not clear on the time span. But when you logged on to TikTok, it said, unfortunately, you know, the U.S. ban has come into place, but, you know, Donald Trump, he has a plan to support us and, you know, we'll hopefully be back up and running soon. I have never seen a bigger stunt queen than Donald Trump and this TikTok move. Donald Trump is the same person who when he was president in 2020, went all around town talking about how proud he was of signing off on the TikTok ban in the first place. how he wanted to get rid of TikTok.

There's like a whole montage that is going around. And what I've said before is that billionaires will create the problem and then sell you back the solution. And that's exactly what is happening here. He went and took on to Truth Social where he said that he wants the U.S. government to buy TikTok to own 50% of TikTok, which would essentially turn it into what state-owned media? because what does autocracy need for its survival? Media. It needs a consistent narrative that only the government controls.

And it was such a blatant ploy that I'm certain millions of Americans fell for, particularly those that are young who may not know what he did in 2020 and what's been happening. but, you know, just again, harkening back to all of those billionaires, including the TikTok CEO, being on the dais. What a move. Boy, what a move. And just so, again, the ban going into place was not going to disable TikTok. It was going to disable your ability to have consistent updates with TikTok in the United States.

And eventually, obviously, those bugs would continue and then it would become a non-functioning app. but it wasn't going to happen in one fell swoop. This was what Trump wanted to happen. TikTok agreed to make him look like the hero. All pomp and circumstance, all smoke and mirrors. Yeah, it was straight up theater. I mean, when TikTok went dark Saturday night, if you tried to log in or just open the app,

you would get a thing saying, sorry TikTok isn't available right now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us, on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. And then the next day, when TikTok came back, you saw a statement that said, we thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurances, blah, blah, et cetera, et cetera. We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States. So along with everything you said, it was Trump who initially proposed a TikTok ban.

And then he discovered that he was a little popular on it and had like 15 million followers. or whatever, he kind of changed his tune. And also when TikTok threw some money at him. Yes, all of that is true. And saying straight up that it's a stunt that TikTok was part and parcel of is 100% true. The bottom line for me is this was completely a Democratic own goal because Joe Biden signed this law into office. A lot of Democrats in the House and Senate voted for it. and a lot of the ones who did vote for it suddenly were appalled when TikTok went dark.

And Joe Biden said he wasn't going to enforce the law. Then why'd you sign it? Don't sign a law and then say, oh, I'm not going to enforce this. You called on Congress to sign this. So it's not even like you were like, well, I have no choice but to sign it. You wanted them to pass this law and you signed it. And yes, it's ridiculous that, Donald Trump will look like a hero here when he's the one that initially wanted TikTok gone.

But the reality is, as you said, that's how people are going to view this, particularly young people. It didn't have to be this way. Joe Biden could have not signed it. Democratic congresspeople could have not voted for it, but they did. All along, they kept claiming it was a national security issue. Well, if it's such a national security issue, Joe Biden, why were you not going to enforce the law? like none of this makes any sense. It's idiotic. You can't on the one hand say this app is a threat to the national security of America. And then when the law passes and is about to take effect, because you argued at the Supreme Court that it needed to take effect,

there was your administration arguing that. You can't then say, I'm not going to enforce it because it gives up the game. That TikTok is not a national security threat or that you don't think it is. because the only other alternative is you do think it's a national security threat, but you aren't going to enforce the law anyway because it was unpopular. So neither of those makes a lick of sense. The whole thing just makes me so angry because it didn't need to happen this way. And it didn't need to be portrayed as here comes hero President Trump,

saving the day from the Democrats who wanted to take away your app, Gen Z. So it's just, I'm so pissed about this, Daniel. Mm-hmm. Because it's fuckery. That's why we're so pissed about it. Because like it's, I mean, it's so fucking transparent. Like, it's so clear. And Democrats, again, failed.

Like, it is so wild to me because this doesn't all unfold without the cowering and the complicity of Democrats. And so we're watching this all happening. and it's only going to get worse. And I'll just say to folks, I've said this before, none of the apps that we use are safe, none of them. So you're using them at your own discretion and what have you. But when somebody is now specifically saying that Donald Trump is our hero,

and like, and that's how we're moving forward, be real cautious, is all I'm saying to the 170 million Americans that utilize TikTok. and the billion that like that you know around the world that use meta and all of these things just you know be cautious amen last friday the horrific immigration bill called the lake and riley act cleared what's probably its last threshold before final vote when the senate voted 6135 to advance it eliminating any possibility of a filibuster lake and riley is a punitive immigration bill which among other things will compel ice to detain any undocumented immigrant arrested for months minor theft that's arrested, not convicted, or even necessarily charged, and it'll also allow state officials to sue federal agencies or the state department. Joining me now to go deeper on this is the New Republic's Melissa Jira Grant. Melissa, thank you so much for being here. Hey, thanks for talking through this with me. Absolutely. So you wrote an excellent piece at the New Republic on this that had the headline the Lake and Riley Act spells chaos for the immigration system. Before we get

into how it'll do that, can you give us a little more depth on what? exactly Lake and Riley calls for. I mentioned that it'll require ICE to detain undocumented immigrants arrested for minor theft. What exactly does it mean and how exactly will it work? This bill had another life in the previous Congress, and it didn't go anywhere because it's a gigantic mess. It returned in this Congress on the eve of Trump coming, and it is still a mess. And in the process of it being debated in Congress, Democrats helped make it more of a mess. So the version of Lake and Riley that's been around the longest is the exactly as you framed it, that, you know, now ICE would be mandated to detain and possibly expeditiously deport undocumented immigrants and in some

very narrow cases, some people with legal status, though that seems unlikely, but it's just worth flagging that it's written in such a broad way, like it might not only be undocumented immigrants, who are arrested for, and that is correct to underline, there's no convictions required here, who are merely arrested for minor theft offenses. In the course of debate over the last week, finally, some amendments showed up. People hoped that these amendments might take out one of the worst parts of this legislation, which is something we're seeing a lot of Republican author legislation floating, this idea of letting state attorneys general effectively enforce the law themselves. So in the case of this legislation, that could mean, you know, if ICE release,

is someone from detention who was arrested for shoplifting. And the state attorney general thought that harmed their state in a very expansive definition of harm, they could sue ICE or DHS, you know, to say like, you've injured us by releasing this person. It's very unclear, like, what that would look like in practical terms. I think, like a lot of Republican legislation, it's sort of meant as a cudgel to sort of coerce people into compliance to create just like legal chaos at every turn. I'm not very sympathetic to ICE. Frankly, I don't think ICE ought to exist, but it is worth flagging two things that ICE has a problem with with this bill. One is it takes away their discretion. So right now, ICE does not have the capacity to detain every single person that this bill has flagged as someone

who ought to be detained. I think at their first estimate, it was like 67,000 people could possibly fall under this ICE capacity right now. I think it's around 43,000 people. So right there, it's just like, what are you asking us to do? Like, we won't be able to comply with us. When Democrats expanded the scope of the bill, they added some extra offenses to it, including one that is just right for abuse, which is assault on a police officer or an officer of the law. And that's something that, you know, civil rights attorneys, people who, you know, defended folks's rights at protests, especially have flagged as like, this is a lot of leeway for an officer to, you know, basically pull somebody under the umbrella of this legislation. And rather than, you know,

bring them to jail and charge them and give them an opportunity to fight a case in court to divert them from that process. It might be a little hard to understand what this will mean in practical terms, because I think part of the reason it got pushed through so fast is there's very little understanding period of how the immigration system works. But as it works right now, ICE does have a lot of detention to choose who they are going to actually detain. And for the first time, this creates this new category of offense where that discretion has been removed from ICE. So even if they don't want to take these individuals into custody, they would be required to for the first time. And it's a situation, you know, my nightmare situation of what it might look like on the ground in New York City, you know, there's a lot of push to put more police on the subways and that's certainly already happening. Police go through phases of focusing on different offenses, but, you know, one offense the police have targeted folks for when they're trying to get their numbers up is arresting people for jumping the turnstile. And that would be. classified as theft. And we know when we had a lot of newly arrived immigrants to New York

over the last few years, you know, folks didn't necessarily have the money to afford a metro card. I think it's $2.90 now or $3 for a one-way ride. And so people were getting swept into the criminal legal system because they didn't have the money to, like, swipe into the subway to get to their immigration appointment or a shelter or a school. So it's creating this sort of like supercharged pathway into deportation for people premised on some like really, really, utterly disconnected ideas about how ICE operates, how immigration operates. And I think at the end of the day, what it's here to do is to essentially like collapse these categories in the mind of the public that every single immigrant is potentially a criminal. And the immigrants do not have the same

due process rights as citizens of the United States. So one of the things you mentioned was the number of beds that ICE has. And you mentioned that they have like around, I think it's either 42 or 43,000, beds and that they have identified 67,000 people who they would be required to detain under Lake and Riley. And it's, I think, worth pointing out that 39,000 of those beds are already taken of the 42,000. So it's not even like you could say, you know, oh, we need 25,000 more beds. No, it's, you know, we need 60,000 more beds or whatever. And the other thing is that there's no funding involved in this bill, right? No, not at all. And ICE put a price tag on it last, over the last few weeks that it's gone up. So it was originally, we'd need to bring in 67,000 additional people into ICE

custody when currently ICE is funded for 42,000 people. And once this bill is expanded to include this offense of assault on an officer, they estimated it could go up to over 100,000 people that they would need to take into custody to comply with the bill, which could cost more than the entire budget of DHS currently by some of their numbers. Again, like, I don't know. Like, I think sometimes ICE might be putting these figures out there to be like, just give us the money to enforce this. You know, let us go. There's certainly some people in ICE right now. We're jumping at the bit for Trump's inauguration to run with this.

But I think the thing that really, like, they're flagging is, like, the idea of, like, what ICE detention looks like and what people in Congress, think ICE detention looks like are like so divergent that they're creating a situation where it's impossible for ICE to comply with this bill. Yeah. And then, you know, I want to talk about the threat of mandatory federal detainment for being arrested on a minor theft charge. Again, as we've pointed out, not even for being charged, let alone convicted on a minor theft charge, but just being arrested. That's a very useful tool for stoking fear. And as you write, it could be used by police or really by anybody to straight up threaten people. I talked to some immigration experts, immigration lawyers, who flagged this saying, like, we already have problems with people threatening immigrants with ICE,

you know, particularly employers who hire folks who are undocumented and then use their status as leverage to exploit them at work, to threaten them and their families with being deported. We've seen that also in abusive relationships. And this is another really effective tool where, like, bar is even lower. You know, you could just say, like, well, I suspect that this person stole the grill out of my backyard or whatever, you know, I think it really is going to come down to how much local police respond to this and how much police sort of take it into their own hands. That this is like an effective way to do, quote, unquote, public safety, you know, in their idea of what it is. I think that there are police and particularly sheriffs out there who are like really excited to

have this power as we go into this much. As we go into this much. moment. And we have also some fantasies embedded in this bill about sanctuary cities and sanctuary states. There's this false idea being floated with us that like, well, we're all at risk because ICE's hands are tied in these sanctuary cities. The police have to let quote unquote criminals go. And that's just not true. The whole public safety argument for this bill that this young woman who was murdered, Lake and Riley would be alive if this bill was in effect. There's nothing in this bill that would have prevented the person from murdering her from murdering her. His case is an appeal right now. He'd had some minor interactions with law enforcement, but law enforcement retained the

discretion to let him go for, you know, something like looking in his criminal record and seeing like, oh, he had been cited with a ticket in New York for like dangerous driving or something like that. And then he and his brother were arrested for shoplifting. I think it was $200 with of clothes and food from a Walmart in Georgia. Again, not an offense that typically results in somebody being even detained, especially if it's a first-time offense. Like the expectation is that you'll bail yourself out, you'll return to court, and you'll fight your charges. And there's so much discretion already built into the criminal legal system and the immigration system. And what this legislation does is give people who want to always detain people, even when it doesn't make any sense,

a tool to do that. We could have judges who are willing to release people. We could have even immigration judges who are willing to bond someone out, but they would not be allowed to do so with this bill. That's really dangerous. Yeah, for sure. And again, it feels like this is, I guess that you could just say that's the point of the bill. That's what they want. But talk about the second part of the bill, the one that gives enormous powers to the state attorneys general. This is kind of off the charts bad, isn't it? And as you say, it's a little bit being overlooked because the first part is bad enough, but this might even be in the big picture worse. It's creating this the second part of the where, you know, attorneys general, state attorneys general have enforcement power. You know,

the analogy that I sort of have made, it's not quite perfect, but things like SB8 in Texas, which in order to prevent people from challenging SB8, which was the quote unquote heartbeat ban, it was the abortion ban in the state of Texas, predating Dobbs. You know, typically speaking, the way this legislation gets blocked is somebody who would be harmed by it can, like, bring a lawsuit, a civil rights lawsuit typically. And sometimes courts will actually, you know, block the legislation temporarily where that lawsuit proceeds. Texas Republicans were like, we're going to get around that, you know, we're going to say that the way that this law is enforced is that regular people have a bounty incentive to, you know, report people essentially to be arrested for an abortion. And we've seen even some instances in Texas where now there's like direct campaigns to the partners of people who've had abortions to prompt them to report them. It's a really dangerous sort of vigilanteism. And I see aspects of that in this. So, you know, if you have an attorney general who doesn't like what ICE is doing in their state or wants ICE to go harder, they can just start dropping nuisance lawsuits about, you know, something.

as minor as, and this is horrible, but, you know, there's no age limit in this law. So say ICE is presented with a 16-year-old who is undocumented, who stole a pack of gum from like a convenience store. If Ken Paxton, the attorney general in Texas, doesn't like the fact that ICE didn't detain that person, like beyond police criminally charging them, like ICE detaining them for merely being arrested for that offense, what is going to happen in the courts? You know, we have an individual whose life is sort of like on the line, like they could potentially be deported before like any of this is even challenged in court. And in this case where somebody is not being detained, you know, Paxton is bringing this attorney general challenge, you know, because he disagrees

what ICE is doing, he doesn't think ICE is tough enough because of the problems we have right now with just a huge number of federal courts tilted, if not guaranteed to provide outcomes that would be anti-immigrant, you know, they could really create chaos at the level of the federal judiciary where, you know, we could just get into a system where a couple of these lawsuits drop and a couple of federal judges say, yes, Ken Paxton has the right to tell ICE to detain this person. That is not how the law works right now. It should not work that way. I think with all of these bills, particularly I think this kind of stuff we're going to see intensify as we get into this next Trump administration.

they make no sense. They're not supposed to make sense. If the cruelty is the point was the kind of motto of the first round of Trump, I think chaos is really what this is. It's supposed to make people take the most punitive approach they can because they don't know what conduct would run a foul of Ken Paxton or ICE. And it's meant to also scare people out of what could happen to them with any encounter with police. You know, if any encounter with police could potentially be a pathway into detention or deportation, like, just the chaos of even talking about this bill, like, sort of amps up that fear that, like, we're just entering uncertain territory. And I don't want it to sound like we're entering totally uncertain territory. There are still laws. There are still courts.

Above all, I think ICE really does not want to have discretion taken away from them. So it's setting up, like, a really chaotic fight that's going to create a lot of uncertainty, not just in the lives of folks who are undocumented, but also, you know, immigration attorneys, anybody who's in a to try to help them navigate the system that now has just essentially been crashed. Yeah, it feels like to go a little further with your abortion analogy, we're seeing in Texas and places like that, a lot of, there are instances of women not getting the care they need because doctors are afraid of running a foul of one of these anti-abortion laws, and they're scared to do something that might be medically necessary because they're afraid they might get

reported for violating the letter of the law. And that sounds a lot like what you're saying here with regard to, you know, there being no discretion and people being able to sue ICE and things like that. I want to ask you one last thing. I feel like it would be nice to blame this all just on Republicans. But as you alluded to earlier, we can't really do that, can we? No, there were multiple opportunities for Democrats to block this. And they didn't. And they made it worse. So when Lincoln Riley returned in the last couple of months, it had a Democratic co-sponsor, Senator John Federman, who's maybe not necessarily a great indicator of like where Democrats are at. Like, we know that he's sort of like tilting more towards the right and trying

to gain favor with Republicans. So maybe that wasn't that surprising. But we saw once this actually came up in its most recent vote in the Senate, which was a procedural vote to move it ahead, to stop debate and to actually go to like, you know, a vote on the bill at there were 11 Democrats, including Federman, who allowed this to proceed at that point in the Senate. And it is in a moment when there's a lot of rhetoric coming from some Democrats about, like, you know, don't comply in advance. Like, we're not going to do Trump's dirty work for him. Like, this bill is doing Trump's dirty work for him. You've just handed the keys to a deportation machine to this administration.

And you could have stopped it. And I think that's in terms of the chaos is the point. sort of thinking, like, if this is where Democrats caved, then, like, what can we expect going forward on immigration? I think they could have very easily opposed this bill just on, it's just chaos. It makes no sense. Like, go back and, like, write something real, you know, without even getting into the merits of it, without getting into Lake and Riley herself. And I think what happened is this showed that Republicans can essentially get Democrats to do whatever they want if they essentially paint, you know, immigration as like the most dire public safety issue. And Democrats

feel like, well, you know, we have to respond to that, right? Like, they've lost the capacity to say, like, no, like, this isn't a public safety issue. No, this doesn't keep anybody safe. A couple of Democrats said that I think Ron Wyden in the Senate, you know, there's been some good, like, public statements after the fact, but the reality is, like, no one should forget that, like, 11 Democrats let the Lake and Riley Act proceed. And when the chaos inevitably comes from this, when Democrats are standing up and like deploring Trump's immigration policies, like we should not forget that some Democrats gave those policies a hand. Yeah, 100%.

Melissa, thank you. It's always great to talk to you. And thanks for all your work at the New Republic and elsewhere. And hopefully we will have you back on soon. Yeah, thank you so much. Andy Levy. Daniel Moody. How are you starting off this week with your fuck that guy?

I'll talk about the thing that all the kids are talking about. And that's the Trump meme coin, which came into being, I believe, like Friday night or Saturday night. And no, I'm not going to sit here and explain what a meme coin is. Obviously, I know exactly what it is, but it's very technical. And I don't know if any of you could understand it. You have no idea what it is to you. I don't have a fucking clue. No.

And I'm fairly happy. about that. So he issued this meme coin, which is bad enough because it rose in value to like $53 a pop, which was way higher than where it opened. We saw a lot of headlines or whatever saying that the Trump mean coin now accounted for, I think Axios said, 89% of Donald Trump's net worth. Thankfully, journalist Molly White, who does understand, all this stuff, wrote up a little thing at her website, citation needed. News, explaining that, no, that's not accurate and let's not get ridiculous. But as she pointed out, it is a total grift. Basically, what you do is you start a meme coin, you buy, you yourself buy, I guess,

a bunch of them at a low price. And then as your fans slash cult members buy them, the value keeps rising and they keep paying more and more for them and the ones that you own become worth more and more and more. So it's a straight up grift. And the fact that he did this and then launched another one in Melania's name, I mean, at this point, it's like, do I even need to point out how completely unethical this is? Do I even need to point out that this is a fantastic way for foreign governments to give Trump money by buying this meme coin? Instead of handing him a check, It's basically high-tech Venmo at this point for foreign governments if they want it to be. And there's absolutely nothing good about this.

And the only really good thing that would come out of it is if it absolutely crashes before Trump gets out of it and brings the value all the way back down. And I guess the, you know, I would say the sad part of that is, is that all the little people, quote unquote, who invested in this because they love Donald Trump, would also take a beat in. honestly at this point, oh well, I can't. Empathy has become a finite resource and I can't give it to people that don't deserve it. So hopefully this thing will crash. I don't know that it will. As you so thankfully got me to point out, Danielle, I don't know shit about this. So, but the fuck that guy goes to, it goes to Donald Trump. It goes to Melania Trump who sometimes gets a pass even though she shouldn't. And it goes to, you know, everyone in in setting this up, who knew damn well that it was a grift. And it also goes into the people who bought into it, because stop being such easy marks. At least make it difficult.

Like, everyone is capable of being scammed, but you shouldn't be capable of being scammed this easily. So fuck all those guys. I mean, look, the point of the coin is to make it easier for foreign entities to give money. Why is that? Because Donald Trump's hotel that was opened right before he went into office the first time on Pennsylvania Avenue is no longer there. That's what he used the last time around. And so he needed something else. And this is what is being used. And as of right now, according to reports, it has inflated his worth to, I think, somewhere like $40 billion overnight. So there you have it. those guys. Danielle, close us out. Oh my God. It's not even the, I was almost to say close us out for the week. But the week, I knew you were going to say that. It's Monday. It's Monday as we record this. Who's your fuck that guy. Woo. So let me tell you something. When I was younger and I was learning in

elementary school about the transatlantic slave trade. And you're learning about the atrocities of slavery and, you know, and the heroics of abolitionists like Harriet Tubman, who took many a trips back from the freed north to the south to help people escape via vis-a-vis the underground railroad to freedom. And I remember learning about this and learning that there were, you know, some enslaved people who wouldn't leave, who wouldn't leave and who would also tell, right? Tell on their other enslaved people on the plantations as a way to try and curry favor with their abuser and their oppressor. And I never understood it. I never under, I never understood it, right? Because I'm like, if you have an opportunity, like, even death would be better, right, than the conditions in which slavery was

allowed to exist for hundreds of years. And then we fast forward to the parade of, you know, black celebrities who decided to tap dance for Donald Trump, literally and figuratively, for his inauguration balls, namely one of them being Snoop Dog, who over the summer had become America's sweetheart for his coverage of the Olympics and everybody talking about, wow, we remember where Snoop started on death row records with, you know, Dr. Dre and, you know, look at the evolution of this man's career, which is he's on every commercial, he's on every game show, he was at the Olympics and like Snoop is amazing, rah, rah, rah. Then Snoop decides that apparently there is no such thing as bad money and decides to use

his fame and his talent to perform for Donald Trump. and a room full of MAGA folks. And the backlash has been wide and deep. Because, again, I will say, not all people want to get free. And too many people put money over morals. And it is beyond a disappointment to see Snoop Dogg and Rick Ross and Soldier Boy and Nellie and others

who apparently are now a part of the 15% of black men who decided to abandon black people, who decided to abandon social justice, who decided to abandon progress all for their own self-serving needs. And so now I understand. I understand those people who didn't want to get free, those people who cared more about their own safety than the safety of community, because that is exactly what Snoop Dog, who now can bear the moniker lap dog as his new name. It is a fucking disgrace. And so for that reason, and for so many other reasons, Snoop Dog and all of those blackmail

hip hop artists get my fuck that guy for this week. Yeah, I don't really have anything to add to that except that, Danielle, I'm starting to think that Snoop is only about Snoop. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he posted a little thing on Instagram. Instagram, which people are assuming was a response.

It's audio of something called the Middle Fingers. So he doesn't seem too upset about this. Yeah, I don't know. Dude's already overexposed. Like, I was at the point where it's like, oh, God, another commercial, really Snoop. I mean, between him and the Mannings and the Kelsey's, like, you can't go 10 minutes with your TV on without seeing pretty much all of them. And I've had it. But that's a whole different subject.

But yeah, this was just, this was gross. And Nellie and Soldier Boy and Rick Ross, I think. It's just like, what are you doing, man? Like, fuck those guys. 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.

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