The Daily Beast Podcast - FBI Director Nominee Kash Patel Sets Off Alarms During His Confirmation

Episode Date: February 2, 2025

On this episode of The New Abnormal, could FBI director nominee Kash Patel be President Donald Trump’s most extreme cabinet appointment yet? During his confirmation hearing, senators grilled Patel over his intent to weaponize the FBI to “come after” conspirators “not just in government” but “in the media.” Plus! Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, joins to discuss the ACLU’s lawsuit against Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship and the broader fight to protect immigrant rights. 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. Hello and welcome to another Sunday bonus episode of the new abnormal.

And we thank you so much for being here. Cody Wafsey, Deputy Director of the ACLU Immigrants Rights Project, joins us to discuss the ACLU's lawsuit against Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship and the broader fight to protect immigrant rights. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready to list us some clips? Clips. According to my therapist, no, but clips. You know, you made me just realize I probably should never let my therapist know about what I do to you guys of these clips because I fear what he would say about it. You would need to repent.

Oh, wait, that's not what you do with therapists. No. He'd have to, or she, would have to dig into your childhood to figure out where your sadistic streak comes from. Yes, yes, yes. That would be fun for him. Were you a fire starter, Jesse? No, not until I got into the prodigy of the late 90s. Oh, okay.

All right. Oh, good. God help everyone who got that terrible joke. Okay. On that note, we have, as we are taping, Cash Patel is sitting in his confirmation hearing. Well, he's the scariest nomination in this whole administration to be, and at least it's nice to see Sheldon White House taking him apart.

And here's what this nominee himself has said. About using his office to prosecute journalists, we will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. We're going to come after you, whether it's criminally or civilly. Is that a correct quotation, Mr. Patel? Senator, that's a partial quotation. But it's correct. In part.

Okay. So this is embarrassing. So what part wasn't correct? Like the punctuation? Like that he, like what part of it wasn't correct? Because that would have been my follow-up. Well, it was partial because they didn't get the part where Steve Bannon was rooting him along in that quote. Mm, got it.

Yeah, this guy is. He's not good, in my opinion. Just my opinion. I don't think I'd feel good about him being the director of the FBI. Well, I think that our opinion doesn't really matter. anymore. Look, I just, you know, I don't want to, you know, be out here on the ledge all by myself, but I just, I really, really think it would be bad to confirm him. Yeah. He makes Jay Edgar Hoover seem like a, I don't know, a fucking kindergartner at this point. So. Yeah, I am sure Hoover is,

you know, aspirational for Patel. I think he may surpass him, Andy. I don't know. It's times like this that make me realize how easy it is to be like a right-wing version of us because you could say would make Hoover seem like a guy wearing a dress away. Oh, shit. Yeah, right. I had to. Not that there's anything wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with it.

In fact, I celebrate it, but also. It's the walkback for me. Yeah. Yeah. Jesse, I'm sorry. I just don't think Hoover is a queer icon. As much as he may have aspired to be. Now, that's a statue we could replace some generals with.

All right, all right. Let's get into the real bed. Here we have Congressman Andy Uggles and the Money Honey on Fox business, Maria Barteromo. They're going to discuss a little policy here. I introduced a resolution to amend the Constitution to allow President Trump to serve a third term. as long as they did not serve two consecutive full terms. Tell us about that. Well, you know, there's certain circumstances in history that are unique.

So twice in American history have you had a president served two non-consecutive terms that would be Grover Cleveland and then, of course, President Donald Trump. And so my bill would amend the Constitution. It, of course, has to go through the ratification process, but it would allow him to serve a third term. And what kind of a response have you gotten? from your colleagues on this resolution? Well, to be honest with you, you know, President Trump won the battleground states and the popular vote because the grassroots engaged in the election, and they are absolutely excited about

the possibility. And at the end of the day, this was ratified. The American people get to choose whether or not he has a third term. But overwhelmingly, it's been supportive. We'll see what happens next. Didn't she ask what your colleagues thought, not what your constituents and the voters thought? So. Yeah, I think that's a fair indication that even his colleagues told him to sit the fuck down.

Yeah, pretty much. Look, this is stupid. This is probably not a big surprise that somebody would try to do this for Trump. And this is one thing I am confident will not happen. You don't think that we could have constitutional convention. of this country, Andy, you're crazy. Yeah, and for two-thirds of the states to ratify it. Sorry, three-fourths of the states would have to ratify it.

And it's just not happening. Also, it would need a two-thirds is, what, is the majority vote in the House and the Senate, I think? Mm-hmm. And they don't have those numbers. So if there's a danger of a third term, this is not it. Let me not be negative. You know, are we sure? We don't think that there's a possibility.

I'm not so sure. You know, I'm not, I'm not so sure. I think that we're still working within the confines of the law. And I don't think that they are. So just, you know, those are my thoughts. But that's the thing. This is working within the confines of the law. And that's why I don't think it'll succeed.

And that's why I say if there's a third Trump term, it won't be through this kind of process. Because. Got it. I see what you say. Again, just my opinion. but I just, I don't see any way, I don't see any way this gets out of the House and Senate, you know, to even go to the States. It shouldn't have gotten out of his mouth, but I mean, it did. Yes, true.

I will tell you too why I don't fear this, which is that we all have had to spend more time with these people than most people in America, and they should all be very thankful for that, as we all know. And one of the things... We don't mind patting ourselves on the back here. Well, I'm just more saying, because one of the... of the features of these people's personalities. I mean, this for even the most charisma-free amongst them that we've spoken to, is they all think that they should be in the Oval Office, and they're not going to let this go because they know that this is one step further away from it being their turn, because they all truly believe that they should be sitting there with very few exceptions. Oh, you think of vanity won't allow them to do it. I never thought of that.

That's why he dodged your colleagues part of it, because him and all their colleagues. Leges, literally, every time they're in that office, they're like, the drapes are 78 inches, huh? Okay. Yeah, this is pure sucking up. I mean, that's all this is. You know, I don't think, I don't think he believes for a second that this has a chance. It could have been called the Shinole act because he was polishing boots if I've ever seen. Yes, exactly.

Exactly. All right. So one of the things, the three of us were discussing this week is, um, a month. the shitstorm of the week, that there was many things that we've had to miss during these episodes. One thing I think was not discussed enough is the Medicaid portals were shut down. So we have J.B. Pritzker discussing this with Anderson Cooper. I have to say that the last 48 hours have been among the most bizarre and terrible since I took office back in the middle of Trump's first term. We saw, you know, not only the memo on Monday night, which caused massive confusion and we had

people up all night trying to decipher what exactly would that mean. And the memo, remember, said nothing would really go into effect until the end of the next day. Well, we woke up on Tuesday morning and all the systems have been turned off. We could not get Medicaid reimbursements. We had homeless shelters and head start programs that during the day told us we might have to close our doors for good because we can't get reimbursements from the federal government. Meals on wheels. So many other programs. And by the way, when you talk about Medicaid, we're talking about something that's billions of dollars to states. We in Illinois, I mean, we're talking about literally something on the order of $15 billion that we would lose if they cut and eliminate Medicaid.

I appreciate him so much. Yeah. You know, he was one of the first out front in front of a microphone really breaking it down for the public, like what this was. You know, again, for the people, the millions of people that voted for Donald Trump, I mean, there was a well-up of tears on TikTok with folks all of a sudden realizing that, wait, wait, what do you mean I'm not going to get my SNAP benefits? Wait, wait, wait, what do you mean I'm not going to be able to pay my doctor's bill? Wait, wait, what do you mean? and now realizing that, yeah, remember when he said, I don't care about you, I just need your vote?

This is what that looks like in action. I don't care about you. And now, guess what? Because I'm not running again if we ever have elections again. I don't care what you think. I don't care if you're angry. It doesn't matter to me. Look, this is the find out part of the F around.

So here we are. The only thing that annoys me, nothing about Pritzker annoys me, good for him. The thing that annoys me is that it had to be. It had to be governors. We've seen this before. And, you know, with governors under the first Trump administration, it was governors suing Trump that got the original Muslim travel ban, you know, overturned in court. And we're seeing it now with the budget stuff. And obviously I think it's great that the Democratic governors are fighting back and doing so strongly. I just would like to see more of this from, I don't know, Chuck Schumer. I can't think of anyone offhand.

Yeah. My thing too, though, is what I really want to see Democrats do is say, this is the vision Republicans have for America. Our vision would be this. Yes. Yes. We should be aiming for a Medicaid portal that anyone can use. Listen, at this point, the first time I saw one of those portals, I would long for Clippy helping me through it. We literally need to show a vision for how life would be better under our rule and really, really demonstrate that they had a choice and that we should never, ever, ever, ever, as Bill Clinton put it very well many years ago, ever give them the keys back to the car again. They drive it in a ditch every time.

I mean, this time they're not driving it in a ditch. They're like actually setting it on fire. You know, driving it into a ditch means that we can, you know, figure out the mechanics of it and get it back on the road. this is them literally blowing up, right, government from the inside out and all of the ways in which government is set up to help the people. And all I kept thinking about when this happened was my God, the poverty that we're going to get ready to see that like you only hear about in other countries or if you travel to other countries that don't have social safety nets, you see exactly what happens in those places and this will be on your front door.

So when Donald Trump and the rest of them were talking about, oh, you know, immigrants and people are going to be camping out on your front lawn, well, guess what? If there are no, if there is no safety nets, if there is no place for people to turn, where the fuck do you think they're going to go? But, you know, maybe that just feeds into, you know, the stock prices of the private jails going through the roof because you create the chaos and then you're sold the solution back. Yeah. And I think, Jesse, the thing you said, that was so important is, like, yes, it has to be made clear how horrible all of the stuff Trump is doing is and what it means for the future. It's not enough to be like, vote for us because they suck. There has to be a vote for us because this is what we will do. And the what we will do can't just be,

you know, well, we won't do this that Trump did and we won't do that that Trump did. It's got to be, as you said, Jesse, it has to be a vision for the future. And I think the Democrats, Party has been really, really bad at communicating any kind of actual vision, you know, on a national level. I think that's going to be so important over the next four years to remember that you're supposed to be doing that too, not just pointing out how bad the other guys are. Like, you have to do both things. You have to do it and carry through it. You know, a thing I think about a lot is Gavin Newsom campaigned a lot on doing things like making DMVs run better and all the bureaucracy in California that people are annoyed by. I was in California last week. Everybody's always annoyed by

how the permitting systems work and all that stuff because of a lot of this stuff. And he promised to make that better with technology. And honestly, he didn't. He instead said this. Democrats have to do both communicate it and actually execute it. A hundred percent. Yep. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal, the deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants Rights Project, Cody. Wafsey, who is lead attorney on the birthright citizenship lawsuit that the ACLU has brought against the Trump administration in regard to one of his many executive orders that have gone out. Cody, let's start there.

Talk to us. Give us the 50,000 foot view of this executive order. There have been so many, but this one was one of the most startling, the ending of birthright citizenship. Talk to us about what is inside of this executive order and like what raised alarm bells for all of you at the ACLU. Absolutely. And thanks so much for having me. So birth right citizenship is absolutely fundamental American value. It's what is guaranteed in the Constitution and says that everyone who's born in this country, no matter their race, no matter their parent's status or situation, everybody is an equal citizen just like everybody else.

So this executive order is really a fundamental attack on that value. It is the Trump administration attempting to strip away the citizenship from babies being born across the country. So which babies? What the order says is that it applies essentially starting on February 20th to babies who are born who don't have a parent who has basically permanent immigration status, something like a green card. So that's covering folks whose parents may be undocumented or have DACA or TPS and also folks who are here on student visas, on work visas, on other kinds of temporary status. As you know, folks in both of those categories can live here for decades and decades contributed to our communities, there are our neighbors, there are our friends.

So it's a really, as you said, dramatic and shocking assault on really what America is all about. And so we and our partners and our client organizations knew that we needed to immediately push back against this illegal order. And so we filed suit actually within a couple of hours of when the executive order was signed. So one of the things, Cody, that is really concerning to me, and I know many people, is that behind each of these actions that Donald Trump is rolling out, each of these executive orders, is a baked in desire for these issues to make their way through our judicial system to end up at the Supreme Court, where he has placed not one, not two, but three, MAGA appointees to the Supreme Court that now has us in a six to three matchup

where we have seen precedent overturned multiple times over the last couple of years. And so given that and this idea that they know, the administration knows that there will be legal challenges, are we just falling for the bait here? like how how do you navigate their desire to have these cases end up in front of a Supreme Court that they have stacked? Right. I think that when you look at an order like the birthright citizenship executive order, it's operating on a couple of different levels. One of the levels, and I think this is true really of so many of the orders and actions that we're seeing out of the Trump administration is just the cruelty is the point, the fear and confusion. is the point. This is a concerted effort to strike terror into immigrant communities across the

country to make people afraid to go about their daily lives. I think that is part of what we're seeing is that this is an expression of you are not safe. Your baby is not safe. But I totally agree that part of what's going on here is that the administration does not agree with the constitutional rules that have existed for well over 100 years. And there may be a view that, if they take this up to the Supreme Court, that maybe the Supreme Court will agree. Listen, it's no secret that the courts have become more hostile to civil rights and particularly immigrants' rights over the last few years. And we're clear-eyed about that. But particularly with this issue, The constitutional text is clear.

The history is clear. The Supreme Court precedent directly on point is clear. And so we have every belief that at the end of the day, we will prevail on this issue. And the citizenship of every person born in the United States will be continued to be safeguarded by the 14th Amendment. You know, one of the other things that had been mentioned was also potentially, going after those that have been naturalized and being able to then decide that you can go through a denaturalization process and be kicked out of this country that you have called home for decades upon decades upon decades. I say that as a child of immigrants whose family came here in the

1970s and have since become naturalized. And so when we hear these things, when you see these things and these stories going round, and now you're actually going to be battling out in court. Talk to us about the difference, if there is any, between this executive order that has come down and then the rumors that are going around or things that have been said inside of Trump's circle about naturalization. Right. Sort of two things about that. So specifically on the denaturalization point, this is something that we saw in the first Trump administration as well.

There are limited legal mechanisms for the government to go back and take a look at naturalization that has been granted. It is a very high standard, and the reality is that while the administration made a lot of noise about it last time, the ultimate numbers of folks that they denaturalize was quite a bit smaller than I think their hopes would have been. It's something we're very concerned about, particularly if we see much more aggressive use of the denaturalization procedures. And obviously, these two policies, both trying to restrict birthright citizenship and increasing denaturalization, share in Stephen Miller's agenda of trying to, frankly, demographically change the United States. That said, one big difference is that the birthright citizenship rule is specifically enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. And so, whereas denaturalization efforts may be illegal, it's sort of depending on the circumstances. This effort is really an attempt to rewrite the Constitution, and that's just blatantly, extraordinarily unconstitutional and illegal. I think that that's one point about denaturalization specifically.

More broadly, I think zooming out, it's useful to think about the history of citizenship rules and the way that they've been used across the history of this country to try and exclude and narrow who counts as an American. So you can think about this going back to the Dred Scott decision, which is an utterly shameful decision before. the Civil War that essentially said that African Americans could not be citizens of this country. That was part of what led to the Civil War, and it was what was specifically repudiated in the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause, which is what we're talking about here that guarantees birthright citizenship. Then you fast forward 30 years, and there were arguments being made about the children of Chinese immigrants. This was during a period of hugely racist and xenophobic mobilization against Chinese

immigration. This is the era of the Chinese Exclusion Acts, which specifically singled out Chinese communities for really extreme legal limitations, including that they could never naturalize and become citizens if they had been born abroad. And that was the context of the Supreme Court's decision on this issue called Wong Kim Ark. which interpreted the 14th Amendment and made very clear that everyone born in this country as a citizen, sort of regardless of their situation. But I think what you see is a through line from Dred Scott to the arguments in Wong Kim Arc and to today of attempts to use these citizenship rules and really warp the citizenship rules in order to create a more restricted view of America and, frankly, a whiter view of America. I mean, to be frank, we have seen these kind of policies instituted around the world and they have worked, right?

You can look at South America and look at many countries there that went through decades of whitening, through policy. And this is how they have gone about the erasure of black people, people of color. When I think about the ways in which white supremacy is emboldened and empowered right now, And the way that Donald Trump in his first term stacked the federal benches with his acolytes, I'm curious as to your thoughts on the power of the rule of law and objectivity. You're walking into these courtrooms assuming that your cases are going to be heard on their merit with listening ears, those that follow the law. But it has seemed over the last several years that those that actually do,

follow the rule of law seem to be far and few between. And so I'm just wondering if you can provide any insight into the tactics that the ACLU will utilize in order to also galvanize the public behind these cases. Absolutely. So a few things. So one is each and every judge hitting on the federal bench has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution. And one thing that is just overwhelming clearly clear about the Constitution, particularly about the 14th Amendment ratified after the Civil War, is that it reflects the values of equality. It speaks to exactly this question. Is the United States a country only for people of a certain race or people of a certain heritage, or is it a country for all of us? And the answer could not be clearer in the 14th Amendment that it is a country for everyone. And it, and that we are all of us equal citizens. And so at the end of the day, we trust and believe that those principles will prevail in this case and in others.

But I think you're completely right that the courts alone are not going to preserve what's best about this country. That it takes all of us. It takes state legislatures standing up and saying we will not collaborate with these cool ICE enforcement programs, and it takes regular people all across the country, calling their legislators, engaging in protests, doing all the things that we know we can do to build power. And the ACLU is thinking about how to push back on these incredibly extreme radical anti-immigrant and anti-American measures on all of those fronts. Your organization has been credited with preserving and upholding our civil liberties over so many

decades. I feel like the goal with this administration is to bombard and exhaust. And so how will you all be managing the onslaught that is coming your way on so many fronts that they're firing off on? Right. So I started at the ACLU a year before Trump's first inauguration. So I sort of grew up as a lawyer in the first Trump administration. And some things have been very similar so far. Some things have been different. And one of the big differences for us is just we're so much better prepared this time. Everything was a surprise the first time around. This time, I think we were clear-eyed about what was kind. coming. We spent much of the last year preparing for this possible situation and we are ready to go. I think the other thing I'd note, particularly in the immigrants rights space, is that there are numerous organizations doing really phenomenal work on a bunch of different issues. We've been in conversation. It really is a movement-wide project to push back on, as you say, this flood of executive actions. And so what I think you're going to see over the coming

months is all sorts of different groups standing up on different issues and pushing back. And that is just going to be, you know, enormously important. We are facing the behemoth of the federal government. Department of Justice is always going to have more resources than the immigrants' rights. movement collectively. But we also know how to strategically prioritize our resources to bring the cases that are going to have the most impact to identify the issues that are going to be most harmful to the communities that we represent and serve. And we've beaten the Department of Justice before and we can do it again. And so that's our game plan and that's our partner scheme. I can't thank you enough for the work that you do the work that your organization

does on behalf of the American people and just, you know, justice and civil rights and liberties for all people. I think it's going to be extraordinary to watch what is coming down the pike and hope that you all prevail, that liberty prevails in the end. So I just want to thank you and hope that you will come back and join us again soon on The New Abnormal and give us updates on to how your cases are unfolding. Thanks so much for having me. And yes, I'd be delighted to come back anytime. 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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