The Daily Beast Podcast - Ex-GOP Rep: My Party Was ‘Beamed Up by Aliens’

Episode Date: May 25, 2021

Former Republican Congressman and NSA official Denver Riggleman has wrote a book about BigFoot and studied terrorist groups. But his party’s fascination with QAnon? That perplexes him the most. He tells Molly Jong-Fast all about it in this episode of The New Abnormal. Then, Jacobin writer Luke Savage also joins to discuss Mitch McConnell’s fart-like legislating style and Zachary Karabell, author of Inside Money, explains why breaking up big tech companies may be more trouble than it’s worth. If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Today we have a super interesting episode with the former Republican congressman from Virginia's 5th District and former NSA employee, Denver Regalman. And he's going to talk to us about the future of the GOP, Bigfoot, and QAnon. Then we're going to talk to Zachary Carabelle, the author of Inside Money, Brown Brothers, Harriman, and the American Way of Power. But first, we have Jacobin writer Luke Savage to talk about his latest piece for the Atlantic, if democracy is dying, why are Democrats so complacent? Welcome, Luke Savage, and you abnormal.

Hi, Molly. Thanks for having me. I am so excited to have you. I read your piece this morning. You know, it's so funny, it's like this piece I'm talking about here is a piece in the Atlantic that's called, if democracy is dying, why are Democrats so complacent? All weekend, I had been, I'm not all weekend. Since basically the election, I had been with my hair on fire about this. There was one of these substack bros was tweeted that like politics was boring now.

And I was thinking to myself like, what are you nuts? Like we are in the, I mean, it feels like we're on the precipice of complete disaster. And reading your piece today, I was like, someone gets it. And then I was also jealous because I was like, wait, why didn't I write that? What is going on? Well, you know, it's interesting what you say about the sort of politics is boring sentiment. I mean, I think that is one of the paradoxes and kind of the contradictions of this moment right now, because I think something a lot of people, I think somewhat understandably felt after the Trump era,

is like, you know, we just want to, time to switch off, right? And I think that this is kind of one of the big contradictions of the Biden presidency is that, you know, a lot of Biden's appeal actually was in kind of, you know, people were hoping in some ways that he would inaugurate this kind of anti-political era. But as you say, there's a lot of, There's a lot going on, right? Politics doesn't stop when Donald Trump is off Twitter or when he's not in the White House anymore. And it feels like the lesson Republicans have learned from Donald Trump is that they can do anything they want. Yeah, I mean, I think that's true. And in many areas, they're not given cause to think otherwise. You know, what I was kind of exploring in the piece was this dynamic that's, I mean, it's, you know, it's an extension. An earlier dynamic, there's been a longstanding war on voting rights in America. I mean, the war on voting rights is a constituent, you know, constitutive feature of American democracy going back to before America even was a democracy, right?

Since the election, you know, there has been a very noticeable uptick in these bills being passed at the state level. And doesn't it feel like the goal is to make it harder for people to vote, especially in CDs, right? Yeah, I mean, so, I mean, all of these bills, I mean, there's tons of them. The Brennan Center has been compiling these things. And, I mean, last I chat, I don't know what the most recent data is, but as of this morning, the data in the piece was 361 bills as of March the 24th. So it's a 43% increase in the number of bills with provisions that seek to restrict voting, a 43% increase since February. And yeah, a lot of these, you know, it's kind of the standard stuff, right? You know, very, very few, it's very rare for people to just come out and say, we want to make it harder for people to vote. But, you know, just like you do, with, I don't know, means testing, welfare checks or whatever, you say that this is actually about transparency, or it's about cracking down on fraud or whatever. But, you know, at the end of the day, the goal in a lot of these cases is to target suppress votes in, you know, constituencies that are

disproportionately, you know, non-Republican. It is a concerted strategy. There is a tremendous amount of, you know, naked political opportunism at work. But when you see all of these Republican-controlled legislatures doing this stuff. I mean, this is not accidental or sort of, this isn't a passive process playing out. It's a, you know, it's a quite active process. The thing that I think about is like, Republicans seem completely emboldened. And Democrats are like, it's 1972. Like, they control the House. They control the Senate. They control the presidency. This may be the last time this ever happens, right? I mean, we're, you know, the Republicans are making it harder to vote. you see how much better Republicans are at messaging.

You know, I had a senator on here who I love, and I said, you know, they're out there with these, like, very catchy slogans, and you guys are, like, not even trying. And he was like, well, we do good stuff, and then people see it. And I'm like, you do good stuff, and then Republicans take credit. And since kind of, you know, Obama's first term, at least, to some, I mean, I think to some extent before that as well, but especially since, especially since the Republican victory in the 2010 midterms, what you've seen. seen as a dynamic where the right wing of American politics tends to act in a pretty ideologically

coherent and consistent way. And the liberal opposition or, you know, the liberal alternative, whether it's in power or out of power, often doesn't really act that way. I mean, the Democratic Party, I mean, I suppose to some extent, there are a lot more constituencies, especially now that at least are nominally kind of under the, you know, under the Democratic banner, or at least are to the left of the Republican Party. But there is a consistent drive, you know, I think among the Democratic leadership to seek out compromise with the Republican Party. This is one of the things that I think really, really hamstrung Obama. And even when Obama, you know, did have a, you know, briefly a 60-vote filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, I mean, there was this remarkable hesitancy to just

pass an ambitious agenda. And instead, there was this constant desire to, you know, try to seek out Republican validation for legislation. And I don't think that's helpful at all. And as you say, I mean, right now there is a potentially a very small window where the Democrats have a razor-thin Senate majority, which, given the presence of a couple of senators in particular. Right. Cinema and Mansion. It's a difficult thing to manage. I think there are ways that it could be managed. You know, they have control of the House and they have the White House. And yeah, there doesn't, you know, as there's this massive onslaught on voting rights, happening in Republican-controlled legislatures, I don't think you see anything like as kind of

consistent drive, you know, coming from the other side. And there has been this narrative that the Biden presidency, you know, I come at this from the left and I'm pretty critical of the Democrats, you know, for the most part. And there has been a narrative that the Biden presidency has been pretty radical so far. I would dispute that in some ways. But I think this is one area where you can see that even when there's a certain amount of kind of proactive rhetoric coming from Joe Biden, or Chuck Schumer. I mean, they are, you know, Biden did mention these two big voting rights bills in his recent speech to Congress, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and HR1, which is also known as the For the People Act. Biden mentioned them, but then, you know, what are the Democrats doing

to make sure these bills pass? And I think the answer is not a great deal or not a great deal that's particularly aggressive or forceful or consistent. Yeah, I mean, that's what I don't understand. It's like, this needs to happen right now. This is a big problem. You're not going to have. free and fair elections if you don't protect voting. The thing is you watch, you know, you have Biden saying like, we're going to build high speed trains. Like, fuck the trains, man. Get the fucking voting. I'm serious, though. Like, it's not going to matter if you have trains if you don't have democracy. I mean, like, it seems insane to me that this isn't like what everyone is freaking out about. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think voting rights are particularly relevant because,

you know, there are things kind of on the stated democratic agenda, things like the Pro Act, you know, it's a potentially transformative piece of labor legislation, you know, their immigration reform, other things, the $15 minimum wage. You know, these are things that certainly, you know, somebody like me approves of and would like to see become law. Right, and me too. The voting rights, I mean, small D democracy is the most basic commitment. You know, I mean, the filibuster, which is what's standing in the way of voting rights is

also, you know, the main obstacle to those other things I just mentioned. Voting rights and kind of the willingness to, or in this case, the unwillingness to push aggressively on that, I think, is illustrative of kind of a much wider issue here, which is one of the reasons I wrote the piece. It feels to me like they're still playing by this Obama playbook of like, we don't want to seem too radical. We don't want to seem to, you know, now Republicans are going to push this narrative about inflation, right? We know from having economists on this podcast that inflation, we were expecting inflation, right? You don't go from zero to 60 without inflation, right? It just doesn't happen. So, like, we see again and again and again that Republicans are using these, like, debunked talking points, but because Democrats aren't out there debunking them, they are winning.

I mean, it's like, you know, you have an entire television network that is just, and an entire Rupert Murdoch, you know, Death Star that is just pumping this information out. And then we have Democrats being like, well, we do good stuff and people notice. Like nobody, I mean, I just, it's like I can't believe that we're still doing this even after Trump. Yeah, I mean, one of the lessons of the Obama era, right, is that, you know, voters, particularly in the midterms don't, I mean, they don't reward you for appearing reasonable, right? Yeah. They don't, they don't reward you for being magnanimous and seeking our compromise. Right. What Mitch McConnell figured out is that if you, if you do that, people tend to just, you know, there's a certain constituent.

at the midterms that will just swing towards the opposition party because nothing's, nothing's happening, nothing's changing, nothing's getting done. Given my job and where I work, I'm not really someone who's in the business too much of giving political advice to the Democratic Party, but I do think that the best thing the Democrats could do to help their midterm chances would be to just pass a very ambitious agenda, which includes a lot of the things that nominally at least they were running on. And so the kind of hesitancy to do that, I mean, just from the point of view of like, Forget philosophical commitments, forget, you know, a principle, forget anything like that, even forget morality. Just out of crass political opportunism, you would think there would be, you know, some desire to at least, you know, disrupt the filibuster long enough to make sure that large numbers of people can vote and that there can be higher voter turnout, which invariably helps the Democrats.

Do you think this is about the skill of a Mitch McConnell versus the skill of a Chuck Schumer? I mean, I don't think ultimately it comes down to personalities here. I do think there are different philosophies at play, and I think McConnell's is the more effective one. I think McConnell tends to, you know, he's an ideological zealot, but he's quite pragmatic about kind of what he does. And he's been able, I think pretty quietly in some ways, you know, compared to kind of, you know, louder and more obnoxious, more kind of visibly obnoxious Republicans who get a lot of media attention. he's been able to have, you know, pretty tremendous influence. And I think, you know, you go over to the other side and, yeah, there's a kind of constant seeking out of compromise and things like that with a rival party that doesn't want to, you know, cooperate or collaborate at all and has no interest in doing so. And that's a big part of the story about why the Republicans, you know, after 2010, started winning and have kept winning in various ways since. I'm curious what you two think. It seems though like the Republicans, the one way.

they have changed to me is that they really are running against the Democrats as a brand now and saying these are the people who will cancel you and Dr. Seuss and they really are running against them as an entire party whereas the Democrats are still just like, well, let's not say Trump's name and maybe we'll win. Yeah, I mean, I don't actually know what the long-term Democratic strategy is or even kind of the, you know, I don't know what the blueprint for governing looks like. I mean, I think clearly the priority in the early going was to get infrastructure bills passed. And there's kind of a second one now. Biden says he's going to kind of shed parts of his stated agenda that he ran on to try to get the second phase of this past.

But what happens after that, I don't know. And I worry and I suspect that what you'll continue to see is that the Republicans will act with mostly kind of unity and relative kind of coherence and consistency. and the Democrats will continue to have a kind of, you know, fragmented strategy that's continuing to seek out kind of compromise with a partner that really isn't there, you know? Right. I mean, you have one party that is trying to get rid of democracy and you have another party that's like, should we give people trains, should we do this, should we? And, you know, if you don't fix the voting, there's no choices. Yeah. I mean, it should be said, you know, these voting rights bills, they're only controversial because, you know, because there's been a concerted, you know, attack on voting rights. I mean, this is not, you know, I mean, HR one, which is, I think, the more, you know, it's kind of the larger of the two. I mean, you know, we're talking about things like automatic national voter registration,

you know, expanding mail in voting. One of the things that interest me the most is independent redistricting commissions for house districts. So you get less gerrymandering. You don't have these extremely oddly shaped districts that don't correspond to like any kind of natural. or geographic boundary. There's also some measures in it to combat the influence of dark money. Like all this stuff, frankly, in most other countries or in many other, you know, countries with democratic systems, this would be considered, you know, completely non-controversial. Right. And Republicans got out there early and started saying, like, this is Democrats

trying to steal elections. So, I mean, that's the thing I keep, not to be an asshole here, but I'm so, the way Republicans are able to message. Yeah, you know, it's interesting, though. There was a piece, I think I mentioned it in my Atlantic piece, a piece that Jane Mayer at The New Yorker, she did a while ago, and she got a hold of this recording, you know, where it's a kind of a Republican-adjacent strategy session. There's a, I think Grover Norquist is on the call.

The main guy who's speaking is a kind of research staffer at some kind of Coke Brother outfit. But it's interesting because they're strategizing, around, you know, how do we, how do we sort of undermine this push for voting rights? And they're actually struggling quite a lot. And what the, what the fellow from the, I'm forgetting the name now of the Coke, Coke affiliated Institute, but what he's explaining basically to the people on this call is, when we presented people with a kind of neutral description of what the bill is, they like it. Even conservatives like it, he says. And he runs through the list of, he says, you know, we tried,

we tried tying it to, I don't know, AOC canceling people. people, like, whatever. Like, he just runs through. We try to madlib of different, like, right-wing grievance strategies, and, like, and he says, you know, basically none of it worked. So, I don't think the Republican messaging around voting rights are, in fact, in so many other things, I don't think, I mean, it's effective in riling up the Republican base, but that's always going to be true. In so many of these things, you know, there's a lot of issues that are thought of is extremely controversial, and are actually, you know, less controversial among a majority of Americans than people think. And it's only because, you know, minority rule has been so kind of

deeply entrenched in the American political system that a lot of this stuff seems controversial at all. You know, I cover, I wrote about the Democratic primaries throughout 2019 and 2020. And right, the big issue that was being debated there was one of the biggest issues anyway, was healthcare policy. I mean, polls consistently show that there's a majority of support for, you know, for some kind of universal system like the one that Bernie Sanders was championing. And yet that is the most I mean, like, Biden is now shedding even the public option, which is kind of, you know, a much more kind of watered down type of health care reform. But in a sort of small D democratic sense, a lot of this stuff is actually not that controversial. And the right wing messaging on it also often is not nearly as effective as people think it is.

Oh, that's interesting. You would think that after the huge success of the vaccine, which is like an exercise in a public option, right, that should. get Americans more excited about a public option? Because that's what this was, right? That's right. And, I mean, again, I think if, you know, again, if the Democrats were willing to push on some of this stuff and, you know, not just push in a legislative sense, but if, you know, willing to use the tremendous platform afforded to them by controlling the United States government to make an ideological as well as a legislative push, you know, you're right. I mean, you'd think a pandemic would be exactly the time to advocate a massive overhaul of the American

health care system, which is something that polls, I think, pretty consistently for years, have said is something people want. You don't see that drive there at all. The reasons for that being somewhat complicated, but nonetheless, very frustrating. Yeah, I mean, I just can't. It's so frustrating. But I really appreciated having you on. Anytime. Thanks so much for having me, guys. Hey folks, if you haven't heard every single week we do a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast membership program. Sometimes we interview senators like Corey Booker or the folks who explain what's happening behind the scenes in media like Jim Acosta or Soladadobrian. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner.

And sometimes we just have friends around to analyze what's happening in the news. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you'll support The Beast fearless journalism, as well as getting full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member, head to New Abnormal.com. That's new abnormal.com. The DailyBeast.com. Denver Wrigelman is the former Republican congressman from 2018 to 2020, who represented Virginia's 5th District and a former NSA contractor. Should we start by talking about Bigfoot, or should we ease into Bigfoot talk? Well, it's honestly a little bit odd. It's that Bigfoot that sort of got me famous on disinformation.

when I'm a disinformation guy, but I mean, we can go into other talk and ease into why I'm so, you know, not only just with my counterterrorism background, but the Bigfoot crap, we can have a lot of fun with whatever you want to do. We'll talk to us about Bigfoot. So what happened was, it was our 15 year anniversary of my wife and I and I told her I was going to take her to a for Hawaii. And instead, I scheduled a Bigfoot expedition in Olympic National Forest. So how did that end besides in divorce? We actually stayed together. I thought, it was funny and I don't know if you would think this Molly. Oddly, she did not at all. Yeah. Like it was shocked. Like I, sometimes I think I'm pretty good with practical jokes or I think

I'm, you know, just a funny, sparkling guy that is absolutely untrue. That was not cool. Like, we landed in Seattle and she's like, why do we have all this hiking stuff? I'm like, well, we're going to hike in Hawaii and we're going to the big island. And she's like, that's really cool. So, but then we got off and I'm like, hey, you know, Steve is meeting us here, our buddy Steve spinner and he's going to be here with me. He's actually, he came on the plane, right? And this is, and she's like, wait a minute. I thought this was like, we're going to just stay in Seattle and then go on. I'm like, no, honey, this is awesome. We're doing a big foot expedition. So it didn't go over great. And then, but she loved it. Like, is sort of like this curiosity, bizarre thing. And what

it happened was I was working for the national security agency at the time, Molly. Right. I had been an Air Force intelligence officer. I had been in counterterrorism. I was, I was, I was down to non-kinetics. I was doing big data stuff. I was doing all kinds of crazy stuff and tracking, you know, senior leadership for certain terrorist groups. And I'm looking at these people, it wasn't Bigfoot that was so incredible to me. It was the believers and how they sort of had embraced this lifestyle. And no matter what you did to try to convince them otherwise, Bigfoot was true just based on faith. And that got me into how does this actually align with like, you know, al-Qaeda, you know, the Taliban at the time. How does this align with all of that in what I've done

in my life? And then all of a sudden I started to study these different belief systems like religions. And that's, and then it just took off from there. I mean, it's just became sort of my, which is scary because I never spent all that much time doing it, but it sort of became, you know, that I was the Bigfoot Congressman, even though it was about disinformation and beliefs. And of course, Bigfoot erotica, you know, I got accused of Bigfoot porn, you know. Yeah. Let me ask you about that because you're a Republican, you were in Congress from a pretty red district. Were you like, oh, my God, my party has lost its mind? Well, I think, you know, it's that saying, right?

I didn't leave the party. The party left me. You know, you've heard that from everybody. But it wasn't just that they left me. It's almost like they were beamed up by aliens, right? It was that, you know, it was that crazy, right? And that's the thing that happened is that you saw that I knew there was some. fringe elements in the party. The thing was, Molly, I don't have the political lineage. You know,

I came from nowhere, right? And so I'm like, well, I'm a Republican. I'm a constitutional conservative, but I'm a little bit more socially libertarian than the normal definition. I'm not a social conservative, right? Where do I fit? I'm like, well, I'm a pretty good Republican. I think things are cool. But then it was actually my first campaign where I got sideways, not only but the incredible attack from the far left, but the attacks on my person, when I, I won the convention, and I don't know what I can say on this program, Molly, about the awful things that were said to me. You can say whatever you want to say, man. Like, this is the place for it. It's not network television, so go for it. When I won by one vote, because the congressman

before me had to resign because of alcoholism, which is odd because I own distilleries. That's a little ironic. That's a whole other story. It is a little ironic. It is. You know, the guy who makes liquor replaces the guy who drinks liquor. It's great thing. But anyway, so too much liquor. What happened was I won a committee vote by one vote, committee convention by one vote against a staunch social conservative. And the only reason I think I won is because she was out of the district, and she was district topping trying to win wherever she could. Her name was Cynthia Dunbar, just a bizarre human name. So I went by one vote because I live in the district. And then immediately, the activist on the floor, everybody voted against me, said this to somebody who worked for me,

now all the fags are going to get married. That was how that started. And it, and it, and it, As it progressed, I found out that being socially libertarian, this is Virginia. I mean, this is not like a crazy southern. I mean, it's R. It's R. Well, we're R plus six, right? So it's R plus seven now. So it's not, but there are certain segments where these individuals control the party based on how Virginia structures the way that they reelect people, which isn't usually primaries in the Republican Party, but these very small conventions. So the activists run the party and the fringier, the better, right? The more ideologically. And plus they don't have jobs. I mean, they got a lot of time on their heads,

right, Molly? So yeah. Anyway, so it's, you're, you're really fighting the, the retired and unemployed political grifters that have, we sort of leverage their ideology to scare people in the submission. So that's really what I found. And I'm still like, well, I'm still like the, I'm the new Republican, you know, I'm such a charismatic, incredibly intelligent man that this should be easy. And then so, anyway, so, uh, being incredibly naive and, and, and, and, over estimating my own talents, it became evident that I was in trouble right after August 2019, as soon as I did the same thing, sweating it was over. And it was just a slow descent from there. When they started the conspiracy theories that I was funded by George Sorrows, I was trying to

change a sexual orientation of children. They were preaching about me in churches. I knew it was enough of climb. And I still did well, but certainly I did lose in that, in that church convention. You know, I got beat in a church parking lot by 2,500 people. That was it. So that it was one of the most bizarre things I've ever been through in politics. And I learned a lot being in Congress and I learned a lot in this thing. But it's been, it was the worst two years of my life, maybe one of the best experiences I've had, but the worst job I've ever had. And I've been to, and I've been to war, Molly.

Like I'm a vet. I mean, I've been in, you know, I've been in places where you don't want to go in the outhouses, right? So, so it's a, it was an incredible experience, really. Talk to us about your QAnon bill. I started hitting Q&on pretty hard before everybody else, which was a very lonely journey. Yeah. And you must have gotten a lot of threats, too, because I know I get a lot of threats. Sure. Oh, yeah. I mean, the good ones are just when they send you the picture of the gallows and say that traitors should be hung. I enjoy those.

But of course, you know, instead of being, and I guess it's what's bothersome is instead of, I don't think I'm a shrieking violent, right? I was a bouncer, military veteran. So instead of like, oh, you know, trying to, I want to meet the crazies halfway. You know, I'll spoon feed on the apple sauce to be a. asylum. I think we can help them. I think what happened was when I said that QAnon had the same number of letters as moron back in June or July, then I said Q&ON was the mental gonorrhea of conspiracy theory is one of my all-time faves. So if I had to go back in time, though, I probably would have changed some of that, Molly, because I think I was a little bit leaning too far forward with, I was very confrontational at the time. You know, after, after the wedding, my family had been just dragged. So explain what the wedding is. Oh, the wedding. So I officiated a same-sex wedding in August of 2019.

Which by this point, it had already, I mean, it was same-sex marriage was not something new. No. No. And I said it in a Washington post interview right after the convention, right before the convention, Molly. You know, Laura Bezella from the Washington Post, she's like, Denver, you know, here's the question, you know, what do you think about same-sex weddings? And I remember us talking, I'm like, what do you mean what I think about it? Like, what do you think about it?

I'm like, what do you, I don't know what you're asking, right? She's like, well, do you support it? I'm like, yeah, who cares who gets married? Right. That's all I said, right? I didn't even care. Like, it was a throwaway for me. I didn't give a shit.

But that throwaway, oh, my. It was two very good dear friends of mine, and they asked me to marry them. And I did it in the Charlottesville area. And I knew there'd be some pushback, but even as an intelligence officer, I guess what I didn't understand, I knew QAnonon was out there and I knew we had this sort of bubbling conspiracy element. What I didn't understand was how bitching. It was and hateful. And that no matter what I did to try to say, hey, I'm for individual liberty, it did not matter.

I mean, I was going against God. I had to repent to the constituency. The committee told me that if I didn't repent to them, they would get somebody to run against me, which they did. They interviewed 20 or 30 people. All for doing something that was completely legal. That's correct. And when I look back on it, you know, I'm like, maybe I should have been angrier even then. Like I still hope it's and I told somebody the other day it's well beyond rage.

It's well beyond anger. It's down to this point that I'm like, I thought that conservatism was about individual liberty, not about trying to impress a lifestyle on somebody else based on your own particular belief system. And that, and that the belief system is not only, it could be religion, but I'm talking about a belief system that could be something like stop the steel or the great awakening, right? Those type of things that should worry people. So talk to me about this bill, though, this anti- because it's like the only anti-Qanonan legislation ever, even though QAnon is actually a huge problem. Well, and I was the only one to speak on the floor. I don't know if you remember, Molly, you know, we had co-sponsors and, you know, and thank goodness, you know, Adam Kinzinger and things like that. I had like three or four Republican co-sponsors, but when I got to the floor to speak, you know, I was the only one that showed up.

You know, it's like going to your own birthday party. You're the only one with the balloon in a kazzo. So, you know, and so, but I spoke on that, but Tom Alanowski from New Jersey, Democrat called me, texting me back in, God, I could say it. I think August, he's like, Denver, I've seen what you've been doing on Q and on. Would you do a bill with me? You know, a resolution. And I'm like, sure. And me and him went back and forth on it because at the time, Tom was also getting massive threats. He's being called a pedophile and all that. And he also, but Tom has also been very outspoken about. far left violence. So, and you know, here's a Democrat who's outspoken about far left violence. Here's a Republican who's, you know, kicking QAnon, right, the Jimmy, right? And so we're like, we got to do this together. And it took us until October to get the bill in the foremob. I mean, it was a slough. But when we finally did it and got it through, it was a really good feeling, but that I don't know, if you guys go look at my Twitter, 10.5,000 comments directed at me from QAnon faithful. I mean, some support, but if you read them, they're horrific.

And it was then that I knew that I had stepped on a landmine of crazy, right? And it had splattered all over me. As I'm talking to both you, I just, here's the thing. You know, when you have a Mike Flynn or a retired three-star general, take the Q&A and what was in June. Yeah, this summer, we could say. That's when, you know, I'm the chief strategist for the network contagion research institute, awesome, right? And if you go back and look at the data, there was a spike in radicalized language. right after Flynn took the oath. And there's also another cat you guys need to be aware of. His name is Lieutenant General retired Thomas McInerney. Have you heard of this guy? I heard about him because he, yeah.

Yeah, the hammer and scorecard debacle with NSA. And now you're talking to somebody who worked in NSA, Monagist. So you're talking to a guy who has a little bit of knowledge. The issue is, is that these guys have such a vast sort of ability to reach people on different social network media channels. And it's almost like their mainlining. these conspiracy theory straight in the people's frontal lobes. And my issue with this is this. So how do you even have an argument? Like for instance, say me and you, Molly and Jesse, say we have an argument about HR1 or HR4 or we have any argument at all about legislation, right? I'm like, hey, Molly, you know what? I think HR1 overreach is based on the taxpayer-matched

funding for dollar for dollar, six to one dollar for dollar. And you're like, well, Denver, that might be, well, I disagree with that. But the majority of the bill is, right? Me and you go back and forth on policy. How in the hell do I do that if election integrity is a cover for stop this deal? How do I, right? And that's the thing I've been trying to say to because like, I can't have a discussion as I say whatever I'm at, I am, right? Because I don't know what I am. I'm sort of fiscally conservative, but I'm more socially libertarian, whatever the hell I am, right, Molly. But if I say I'm a Republican and I want to have a discussion with you about the infrastructure bill, you're going to say, well, Demer, that's all fine and well.

But, I mean, it's very difficult for me to have discussion with you when you voted not to accept the electors. It's very difficult, Denver, when you actually put out a tweet saying that Dominion stole the votes or you retweeted a Trump tweet, right? That is a difficult thing. And that's what I've been trying to impress upon people, that if we can't have facts-based policy discussions, it's really difficult for me to be serious. if you're those kind of individuals to be serious about it. And that's, that has been my screaming call is that there has to be a facts based way of doing business in a republic like we have. And if we allow disinformation to control it, we are in dire freaking trouble. And violence is right around the corner again if we don't watch our peas and cues. And that seems inevitable, doesn't it? I don't want to feel validated. I don't want to tell you guys that somehow I was, you know,

like, look, I told you so after January 6th. But, you know, I was saying this. And my, My four speech on December 10th is directed as I could get that I thought there was going to be Connecticut crimes. Also back in October on my four speech on Q&O, I said that we're in threat of violence. I believe after January 6th, even with deplatforming, and we could have that discussion about what I feel about deplatforming, that I think it's worse in the dark corners. I think you're saying more of a sort of an anger and a hostility. I think a lot of that is borne out in polling. I don't think you've seen this much excitement in the GOP in a long time. And I do believe they're in the same swim lane.

And I told people that listen to the GOP is going to do very well in 2022 based on the fact that the stop-the-steel sort of methodology has been baked in to the populace is something that's true. It's factual. It's objective to them. And again, Molly, that and both of you, I feel like I'm the crazy guy, right? I really do. I feel like I'm the crazy guy. I mean, that sounds right to me. Why aren't Democrats doing more?

I'm not sure. I almost wonder, are they trying to time this somehow with their. polling, are they saying that, you know, enthusiasm is down, which they're saying. I would think they'd be coming out saying, listen, and I have critiques, right? I'm like, good Lord, guys, you have a chance to moderate. Right now the Democrats can come out and say, hey, we can just, we're going to meet you halfway and we're the ones are going to take the infrastructure bill, and we're going to meet you halfway. We're not going to put some things in here that they're even center and center right folks, maybe even center left. They've gone a little too far. So I'm a little bit

confused about why that they're doing some tilting to the left further. But I do believe that I think that there's a timing issue with them. And I would say if I'm in messaging right now, they're probably saying, well, you know, the enthusiasm's going to get there because Trump's going to do a rally soon. All we got to do is wait. Right. And as soon as we wait, if we wait long enough, we're going to be able to batter them with messaging starting, I'm going to humbly submit late summer, early fall. you're going to see the Democrats actually rise up in a way as far as trying to get their messaging coordinated because the GOP is already coordinated. I'm telling people they're coordinated. You guys. Do you think there was some Trump administration officials that were involved in Q&ONN? That's why we need a 1-6 commission. You know, I think there certainly were people that were, they're playing footsies or Patty Kink with some of the influencers. And if you guys, there was a report, and I can back this up with math, right? I can back it up with data. There's a report we put out, was it December of 2020, maybe November 2020, where we proved that the subpoena Obama or Obamagate meme actually matriculator or was pushed up from internet trolls and Q influencers that in under 48 hours, President Trump was tweeting Obama gate. And do you guys remember this with Lindsey Graham, Obamagate and subpoena Obama? Yeah. He was tweeting at less than 48 hours after it started as a troll line on Reddit and Twitter.

And when you read the report, it's chilling. So knowing that influencers were dictating White House policy, which is where you see Adam and Liz screaming about this, that's the issue that we have is that the White House was perpetuating means and disinformation based on maybe basement-dwelling internet trolls, right? Or even language that would come from Flynn or McAnne or Sydney Powell or Rudy Giuliani or Len Wood. And that was the issue that we had. And so the one six commission is important, but I think it's important for us to do that social

network linkage work to see if those type of things were happening that were organized and coordinated. But regardless, it was coordinated in authentic activity. And whether it was accidental or not, the White House was picking up those signals from conspiracy influencers. So that's the thing, right, Molly, is a great saying, right? Whether you get shot on purpose or on accident, you're still getting shot. Yeah, this was so great. Thank you so much for coming on. So interesting. And we really appreciate it.

You know, Molly, when you say that you're going to listen to an audio book of mine that's Bigfoot as complicated, I got to come on your podcast. Exactly. You know, and the fact is that what I want people to understand is things might be lighthearted when I wrote this book back in the day, right? But as you read the book, it becomes more terrified. And I think the terrifying thing is is that people can live a full life, believing in something that's absolutely untrue. And if that is what happens to a political party, we're going to have huge problems going forward as a country. And that is really the scary part of this whole conversation. Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much. This is great. We really appreciate having you on. Thank you. You guys are great.

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

checking in on the movement of the radical right. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash podcasts or your favorite podcast player to catch the first episode and get subscribed. That's Fever Dreams, which you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Zachary Carabelle is the author of Inside Money, Brown Brothers, Harriman, and the American Way of Power, and a founder of the Progress Network. Welcome Zachary Carabelle.

to the new of normal. Thank you, Molly. We're so excited to have you. You have some really bold ideas about capitalism, and I would love you to sort of explain how they fit into the book that you've just published. Bold or not, and it's funny you have bold ideas about capitalism when I've just written a book about a 220-year-old firm that was almost self-consciously the antithesis of bold as a cultural statement.

But in the world today, being modern... modest, self-effacing, somewhat humble, and aware of the fact that there's only so much private gain you can have without that impacting the public good. All those things are bold in contrast to a world and to a capitalism as it's become understood that is largely about how much more can I get, I being, you know, me individually, I being a company, I being a country. And, you know, capitalism is a maximizing. of more is certainly an aspect of it, but it's not the only way in which we can conceive of capitalism. And I guess my germ of a thought about Brown Brothers Harriman and why I really was interested in

this is it points to a different type of capitalism, not flawless, not blemishlessness. You know, human beings are flawed and full of blemishes, but an alternate version. One of the things you said that I thought was interesting was this idea that wealthy people during that period had more skin in the game and were more philanthropic. The period we're talking about is like, I mean, it's a wide range, right? Yeah. But the people in the previous centuries and had more skin in the game when it came to philanthropy and were more involved with that today's billionaires are actually not very philanthropic. Can you talk about that? People before me have noted that the sea change in the financial world came in the 1980s

through the early 1990s, when all of these banks that had been private partnerships, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, all transformed from partnerships to publicly traded companies. And in doing so, we're able to do something they had never been able to do before, which is essentially use other people's money to profit and magnify their exposure to any one thing. And what you then had with the financial crisis and on and on is you essentially privatize the gains. So whatever money, they made was their money, but you offloaded the risks and the costs onto the public. Basically, what you're saying is that with these early investment banks, you owned the risk. Right. And with these later ones, you basically get the public sector to underwrite your risks, to cover your losses. In the financial crisis, taxpayers covered the risk, not even shareholders. Right. Or the Federal Reserve, which isn't quite taxpayers, but it's still the public sector. And for that, we got nothing. Yeah, although, I mean, you could argue that there was something to be said for systems not imploding, but we certainly didn't get nearly as much

relative to them not losing nearly as much. Right. And you could also say, like, other systems like local news did implode. Yeah. And I would say that the difference of partnerships, like if you're an executive at a company today, I think of AT&T, which just got rid of CNN and Alvd Warner because it was a bad acquisition. Right. So the CEO sort of goes, oops, my bad. And even though the company loses billions of dollars and the shareholders are a little worse off, that's the extent of it. Now, imagine if that had been his own money. And someone had said to him, look, you're going to do this deal. And if it goes bad, you're losing your home. Yeah. And maybe your job. And maybe your livelihood. Even rich people's partnerships in the 19th into the 20th century were much more like that. If you were

presented with a deal, go invest in the railroad. in the 1870s as a partnership. How much do you want to risk losing your home? Because you can't offload it onto the public sector. And look, that didn't mean there wasn't greed, and it didn't mean there wasn't racism, and it didn't mean there wasn't elitism. But it did mean that systemically,

there was a much closer relationship between gain and loss at a personal and a collective level. And I think that made those people more connected to the public good. Is that the reason they were more philanthropic, or is the reason twofold? Because I wonder how much of it was that people did, that the threat, revolution was always there. Sure. And it was less that they were more philanthropic, right,

that they believed in public service. Now, that was drilled into them and all these private schools and universities had this notion of with great power comes great responsibility, like the Spider-Man theory of history. You can be cynical about that and go, oh my God, that was just self-serving clatt-traps so they could pretend they were doing God's work when they were just enriching themselves. I happen to think human beings can simultaneously be self-interested and of service. And that the two, you know, are not contradictory, even though it just makes things messier. The difference today, right, is like these people believe that they had to shape the system and they had to participate in the shaping of the system. And they had to serve either in government or their community or else, A, there might be revolution or B, there might not be enough affluence to go around, that they could only thrive unless their community thrive.

Today in like tech elite land, their only notion of public service, and I'm painting with a broad brush, admittedly, is massive private philanthropy, which is not at all the same thing as public service. Setting up a massive private foundation is better than not setting up a massive private foundation, but it should not be confused for public service. Right. I think that people don't understand the nuances of some of these. What you give away all this money, but you also then offset all your taxes. Sure. So we have a tax code that says for every dollar you give away, you write that off against your income to the point where you can write off most of your income by giving a lot of it away and then controlling the disposal of it in a foundation. Right. You know, is the world better that there is a Gates Foundation, irrespective of whatever's going on with Gates now, then if it doesn't, yeah, it's better that there be a $50 billion foundation that's dedicated to Internet access in West Africa and malaria pills and all that stuff. But partners in an earlier era, like the Brown Brothers partners, actually believe that they had an obligation to serve in government and to serve in public to be part of the nexus of solutions. And I'll do one more little bugabare today. I live in New York City.

I think you do too. You know, there are a lot of wealthy people in New York now whose attitude is, oh, you know, these socialists are coming into power. They're raising our taxes. We don't get anything. I'm just going to move to Florida. Yeah, a lot. You know, the first two statements of, oh, there are a lot of socialists and power and they're raising taxes, and I don't like it. It's a perfectly legitimate standpoint. Even if you think it's totally wrong, it's a legitimate standpoint.

I mean, they're not socialist, but yeah. Moving to Florida saying, I'm out of here because I don't like it, is the ultimate mercenary attitude. Like, I am here only as long as the system can give something to me, but not long enough for me to give something to the system. And that's where I think this cohort of an earlier era understood that, you know, you're part of a community, it is your responsibility to work for its betterment. Full stop, which means you don't move to Florida. Right. Well, and I also think that the question is how do we fix what is clearly, like, the wealth

inequality is getting bigger. We have a group of people, you know, we have generations that are not living as well as their parents. Like, how do we go down? And then we have a very small group. that's controlling, you know, an enormous quantity of wealth. And this is even probably worse in America than it is in a lot of other countries. So how do we turn these tides?

So it's fascinating is we live in a world where there was a reaction kind of in the 70s, 60s, 70s, but it's, you know, we're kind of still living in the aftershocks of that world, where a small white male elite who controlled a lot of money and a lot of power was seen as doing so in a way that left a lot of people out. And I'm not, I have no rose tinted glasses for the world, the establishment world of Brown Brothers Harriman, although I absolutely believe there are lessons, constructive lessons of their culture to learn today. But I don't want to go back to that culture. You and I would never be having this conversation in that culture. Me, you know, because of race and ethnicity, you because of, you know, that and gender. I'm Jewish too. Right. No, I'm saying you because of that and gender. So we were not allowed to have this conversation. I mean, we could have been private, but it would not have ever been part of the public dialogue. So there's no going. back and there shouldn't be. What was fascinating is all that elitism, all that sense of to the man are born and hierarchy and pyramid, the average income of someone in finance or a CEO relative to your middle class worker was 30 to 1 in 1950. Today it's 320 to 1 and more than that

in some cases. So our sort of more meritocratic, arguably more democratic elite, right, who come from different walks of life, different backgrounds, is way less egalitarian and public-minded than that much more hierarchical closed off coterie of white guys. And I don't, you know, first of all, I think that's fascinating. I don't know what that says about the reality of our meritocracy today, but it does say something

about culture, right? Government could break up every big tech company, and then you just have 10 more big tech companies. Right. That's a question I have for you, because like an Elizabeth Warren, And again, I don't know enough about finance to know if she's right or not. But, you know, she has a real mind to break up a lot of these tech companies.

And so do a Tom Cotton, right? I mean, that's something that those two senators oddly agree on. Does that seem like a smart play to you? So I think part of the problem is culture, right? So if you broke up Facebook into 10 companies, and right now I think the idea is you'd break it into five. Personally, I don't think the $1050 billion companies. are suddenly vastly more egalitarian and solve these issues than one $1.5 trillion company. Right. That's what I think, too. I don't understand. Maybe you could push back against that and say,

no, no, no, no, no, no, you know, breaking them up and creating more fracturing and more competition will ultimately be good. I mean, I don't know what evidence there is of that. We broke up standard oil in the early part of the 20th century. And then there was like nine really big oil companies. We broke up AT&T when it was a telephone monopoly. Now there are three big wireless carriers. I mean, unless you have a culture that respects the need to be somewhat imbalance with your larger society, all the regulation in the world is only going to keep kind of moving the deck chairs on the Titanic, and it's not going to change the underlying. And the thing that I kind of push back against Elizabeth Warren and some who have been, you know,

the more progressive critiques of these systems is it doesn't actually get to sort of root causes. And I don't think government alone can get there. And I, you know, I'm sure some people find that answer. are really unsatisfying. Like, oh, that's just a dodge and break them up and tax them to death. I don't know that that solves these underlying questions of equity without a culture that is willing to develop it organically. Right. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's a good and interesting question, which is how do you solve this inequity? And I don't know. The other problem that people find frustrating is when you start talking about culture, it's like talking about education. Like,

oh, the real solution is, you know, we should educate people better or differently. The virtue of those answers is that they're true, the vice of those answers is that they're incredibly fuzzy and they're not satisfied. But I think a lot of these problems, human beings, particularly in the political realm, like, they want the answers and they want them now. And they want, you know, that which is wrong to be made right, and they want that to happen tomorrow. And I think a lot of the issues we're dealing with now have been the evolution of decades of culture and are not going to be the product of days of solutions. It takes a while to recreate better system. Yeah, I mean, do you have any other suggestions that you think could be implemented that might make a large difference?

I actually do believe, just like I think most families believe, that inculcating culture, that is really setting certain values and then living them is profoundly important. And companies do this, right? And there's certainly evidence now of many companies beginning to do this, even absent of coercion to do it. Sometimes because that's what their customers want. Sometimes it's because that's what their employees want. So there are companies that are being much more focused on sustainable business practices, not just in terms of carbon, but in terms of how they treat their workforce and diversity within their workforce. Some of that's because of pressure from the outside.

Some of that's just because the leadership of those companies decided like that's what's right, you know, or that's what's appropriate, whether it's like Marks and Spencer, huge, you know, food store in England. you know, Unilever, which is a global brand like Dove Soap and stuff. So I do think, I do think those things matter hugely. I mean, you could even argue that a lot of the gains in sustainability, companies using less stuff, being more mindful of carbon emissions, has come as much from a change in their culture as it has from any government regulation. So it's not like these things are totally airy-fairy, you know, that what you preach and how you practice as a large company or even a mid-size or a smaller one matters a lot to these outcomes. And I

I do think that's a path towards some of these solutions. Yeah, that's really great. This is really, really interesting, and I'm so grateful you were able to come on and talk to us. Thank you so much. My pleasure, Molly. Oh, Molly. It never ends. It never, it never ends.

This is, this is going to be our new introduction. Our new introduction is just Jesse. Groaning. Groaning. That's our new introduction for fuck that guy. For her famous one segment. I'm going to change the music to just you and I making grud sounds. Yeah, that'll be great.

People are really going to enjoy that. Yeah, people are going to love that. So who is your fuck that guy? You know what's funny? I just told you who my fuck that guy was, but I have also a last minute ad. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Every weekend, it feels like Marjorie Taylor Green

and Ted Cruz try to, like, steal the internet by trying to figure out who can say the worst, most upsetting, most trollish thing, and get the blue checks, mad at them and get a lot of, you know, it's negative, but it's still attention and they love attention. This attention is good for conservative fundraising. But my, fuck that guy is actually going to be, I mean, I wanted to be, okay, so I'm conflicted. I wanted to be Liz Cheney because Liz Cheney gave this interview last night to Axios where she said, you know,

Donald Trump's deal, stole the election and then refused in typical. Cheney family fashion, let's not forget where she came from, said, you know, all these new voting laws are not at all connected to Trump and they're fine. Right? Like, God forbid anyone should ever put democracy, small D,

democracy over anything else, right? Like, they're still just scumbags. So I do want to say a hearty fuck you to lose. Cheney. Well, of course we wouldn't have Cheney being such a major force in politics if it weren't for other election stealing activities like the Brooks brother or

riot. That's right. But as the weekend went and people continually tweeted about the horror that is Marjorie Taylor Green, she attacked AOC last week, she, you know, she sucks up all the oxygen. But I'm going to say, don't sleep on Mo Brooks. I mean, Mo Brooks, Alabama congressman, really a piece of shit, spoke at the stop the steel rally, may have been, according to Ali Alexander, we again don't know what's true and what's not with Ali Alexander, but according to him helped plan the stop the steel rally. This guy is going to be a U.S. Senator. He's going to run for the Senate in Alabama, and he's going to win.

And because Kevin McCarthy is such a fucking coward, he's not going to kick him out of Congress. So you're going to have one of the shittiest, most anti-democracy, members of Congress now as a U.S. senator. So for that I'm going to say Mo Brooks is my fuck that guy. Jesse? Mm-hmm. Who is your fuck that guy?

Mine is a lovely man we got to know about a year ago this time. Newly minted Missouri Senate candidate Mark McCloskey, who you may know as one half of the couple who are scared out of their minds that Black Lives Matter protesters were outside their house and brought out guns to quote unquote protect themselves. But unfortunately, a Republican Party of today, we now have a world where this is what. What makes you qualify to be a candidate in this party? Because when it's not just getting mad at divorce court proceedings and thinking that's what qualifies you, it's things like this. What's funny, though, Mali, did you see who he's running against? Eric Greighton's.

What fucking sleazy sleaze bags. Yeah, for those who don't know who Eric Gritens is, is he's attempting a comeback three years after resigning from office following a probe into allegations of sexual and campaign pain misconduct. But I think, you know, it's nice here, Molly. Yeah. Is we may see our chances of getting the Senate improved if they keep electing Todd Aiken's part two. I mean, it's certainly possible. Republicans did send Tommy Tuberville to the Senate. So the bar's pretty fucking low, but it's possible. I mean, on the other hand,

they did recently have a Democratic senator. So we can we can hope that that state hasn't gone too far off the reels, but I'm never too optimistic these days. Right. I mean, I think Missouri is a lighter lift for Democrats than Alabama. 100%. But neither are great for us. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond

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