The Daily Beast Podcast - GOP Doubles Down on Trump’s DEI Blame Game Amid D.C. Crash Tragedy

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

On the latest episode of The New Abnormal, President Donald Trump wasted no time finger-pointing as he addressed the mid-air crash between a passenger plane and U.S. Army Black Hawk that left 67 dead in Washington D.C.– and it appears he has the backing of his allies. Plus! Former Washington Gov. Jay Inslee discusses Trump's flood of executive orders, legal battles ahead, and what Democrats can learn from past fights. Also, Religion News Service reporter Jack Jenkins delves into white Christian Nationalism’s influence on Trump’s project 2025 directives and the growing pushback from faith leaders. 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. goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

What an excellent show we have today. Former Washington governor Jay Inslee joins us to discuss Trump's flood of executive orders, the legal battles ahead, and what Democrats can learn from past fights. Then we'll talk to Jack Jenkins, national reporter for religion news and author of American Prophets, who will join us to discuss white Christian nationalism's influence on Trump's Project 2025 in the growing pushback from progressive faith leaders like Bishop Marianne Bud. But first, let's have some fun. So, as I'm sure everyone listening to this knows, on Wednesday night, an American Airlines jet

with 64 people on board ended up in the Potomac River after a mid-air collision with an Army Black Hawk helicopter. As of us recording this, there are believed to be no survivors, just an absolutely, absolutely horrific aviation accident and really the first commercial aviation accident on American soils since 2009. And look, we have absolutely no idea what caused this. You know, the videos we've seen that probably most of you, if not all of you have seen, seem to show the Black Hawk flying right into the plane. We do not know why. We do not know how. What we do know is that, the Trump administration and other Republicans wasted no time in blaming this on their favorite boogeyman these days, DEI.

We had Congress people going on Fox News, of course, talking about how it needed to be looked into if DEI is something to do with that collision and crash. We had President Trump himself at a press conference he gave on Thursday, pretty much spending 20 minutes blaming what happened on DEI. And then a reporter saying to him, are you saying this crash was somehow the result of diversity hiring? And Trump's saying, it just could have been. And then another reporter asking, I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the

conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with the crash. And Trump responding, because I have common sense, okay? And unfortunately, a lot of people don't. I'm going to turn it over to Danielle in a minute. I just want to read a little timeline that a lawyer named Greg Ducey. posted on Blue Sky. January 20th, FAA director fired. January 21st, air traffic controller hiring frozen. January 22nd, Aviation Safety Advisory Committee disbanded. January 28th, buyout slash retirement demand sent to existing employees. January 29th, First American Mid-air collision in 16 years.

So you tell me, Danielle, was this DEI? Well, no, is what I will say. Well, well, Well, no, because here's the thing, while we want to laugh off, shrug off, and I think honestly no one is laughing these days at all, you would think that after a collision that kills, what was it, 60 people that ends up in the Potomac, just, you know, a stones throw away from the White House where Donald Trump is, that you would get in front of cameras and you would begin by offering your sympathies to the families of all that were on board. You would think that the leader of this country would then give a robust thought behind saying, we are looking into this and we're going to be investigating this to make sure that our

errors are safe for all that need to travel and we understand how shaken up people are by this incident and move in that way. Well, that would have happened if Donald Trump wasn't the president of the United States. Instead, we get a barrage of bullshit where instead of taking responsibility for anything, moving forward, what we can understand from this terrible tragic incident and Donald Trump's administration's response to it is that these mediocre did not earn it, lack of fucking resume, lack of intelligence, white men that are in charge will now use every excuse in the book to blame everyone but their own incompetency. So here's the thing. The secretary of transportation used to be

Pete Buttigieg, who was a Rhodes Scholar. That's kind of like top of the top notch in terms of like intelligence. Now our secretary of transportation was on road rules on MTV. Does anybody see the difference here in terms of who we're now considered to be an authority over our transportation system is somebody whose claim to flame was reality TV? And I wish that this was a fucking joke, but it's not. And so why we will all get distracted and follow the bouncing ball that this administration will drop in front of us that says, oh, well, is it diversity, equity, and inclusion? Was it a woman that was flying the plane? Was it a black person? Was it a person of color? The reality is, is that it is most likely a white man, as is most of the pilots in this country

are white men. The fact is that everything that goes wrong, everything that is bad in this country, they are going to blame on equity. Everything that is wrong, they're going to. So if there so happens to be anything, any one person of color, any one woman or queer person that was staff, that was flying this plane or helicopter or what have you, this is what they're going to glob on to. And I encourage those that are in the media to actually do what these reporters did, Andy, that you listed out, which is the investigation hasn't even been going on for a day. So how are you blaming this on anything other than we have real questions about your firings that you did as soon as you got into office? Like, do not chase the DEI boogey man in this situation or in any of these

situations because it is going to be the first thing that they throw out as a way to place doubt. on the intelligence and capability of anyone in this country that is not a white man. Yeah, for sure. And by the way, if the pilots, and we have no idea as of recording this, we don't know the identity of any of the pilots involved on either the Black Hawk or the jet. But I think I feel pretty safe in saying that if both of them turn out to be white men, we're not going to be hearing a lot about how white men are unqualified to fly aircraft. So just something to think about. So according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a vast majority of pilots are male.

Around 92.5% of professional pilots are identified as male with the low percentage of 7 to 10% worldwide being women. I say those numbers because I think that it's just important for us to under like to grab onto the truth and the facts here and not fall forward. the bullshit. That's all I wanted to say. For sure. I just want to bring up something because you mentioned Sean Duffy, our new transportation secretary, and you sort of imply that maybe he's not qualified for this job. Danielle, I wonder if you'll change your mind when I say that at a press conference on Thursday, he said, quote, obviously it is not standard to have aircraft collide. I want to be clear on that. Is he? Oh, my God. Oh, dear God. So I found that personally very reassuring that, you know, this is not standard and we're not

teaching pilots to collide in midair. What are we doing here? It's unbelievable. Another thing I want to point out, I do want to say I read that timeline of all those things. I am not saying, and I'm not trying to equivocate here. I am honestly saying that I am not saying that those things led to this crash or this collision. This could very easily have just been pilot error. an absolutely horrific error that has nothing to do with external factors.

It can also do with the fact that the airspace over Washington, D.C. is insanely overcrowded. And there were a bunch of, I believe it was Congress that pushed through a bill a few years ago to increase the number of flights that were allowed to be in the air at the same time or over Washington, D.C. specifically coming out of National Airport, where this plane was coming out of, I believe Sean Duffy as a Congressperson voted for that bill. There's a lot of things going on here. I do want to point one thing out, though. One of the things I mentioned in that timeline is that on January 20th, the head of the

FAA resigned. Right now, the FAA does not have a Senate confirmed leader. He stepped down after being yelled at for months, I think over a year, by Elon Musk. because Elon Musk was butt hurt that the FAA was looking into Space X incidents and was not giving them the clearance they wanted without making sure they operate at the, quote, highest level of safety. And for a very long time, Elon Musk was calling on this guy to be out of office. And what happens as soon as Donald Trump takes over? He leaves the office. And these are the same people who are going to just jump on.

the this was DEI bandwagon, that would be bad enough and disgusting enough just in and of itself. But for them to act like they didn't quite possibly contribute to an atmosphere that may not have directly caused this crash, but certainly made it more likely. Again, that needs to be pointed out. I don't think anyone is saying that any one of these specific things is why this collision happened. I do think it is 100% fair and accurate to say that, a lot of these things did create the conditions to make something like what happened more likely. I mean, what I will continue to say is that this administration, what are we less than two weeks in? Or I should say two weeks in is wildly dangerous, incompetent and foolish.

And it is going to cost people their lives. And I just want to understate again because I saw people saying, show us the pictures of the pilot. show us their faces because that's going to justify everything that Trump has said. And I just want to undergird again. 90% of pilots in this country are white men, according to U.S. labor statistics. 90 fucking percent. So where is there a DEI boogeyman here? I'm terrified.

I'm terrified at what is going to continue to happen under this real. reality TV host of a president, reality TV, Magafilb-filled cabinet. And yet, these are the very people, the first people, that are going to talk about who didn't earn what. And their resumes, get them through the door at fucking McDonald's. And somehow their running agencies is wild to me and should be to everybody. Okay. I just want to point out that according to New York Times, the Army has confirmed that there

were two pilots of the helicopter, one man, one woman. So I don't know if that changes anything that we want to say or if it doesn't matter. No, because I'm not blaming anything on anybody's fucking gender or a race. I know, I'm just, I'm venting. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay. I just happen to see that on the New York Times page because they're live updating it. Meanwhile, in bad shit that's actually being done on purpose, Trump signed a memorandum to prepare a facility at Guantanamo Bay with 30,000 beds to, quote unquote, detain undocumented immigrants. And I don't know what to call a place like this. I do.

Well, I was going to say, other than what it is, which is a camp, and I would tell people to feel free to put whatever word in front of that they think fits, possibly a word that means when you gather a large group into one smaller area. The Trump administration is claiming, quote, this is not the camps. That's a quote from Pete Higsef. So obviously I believe it. So you believe it. Yeah. And that it's only going to be used for temporary transit. Given our history with Gitmo and the fact that there are people there who have been there for over 20 years right now without being charged with anything, I'm going to maybe. not believe it, Danielle, when he says that this is going to be used for temporary purposes.

It's happening before our eyes. That's all I'm going to say. So here's the thing, like, as with everything that Donald Trump announces, says and does. You have to ask yourself, who is making money off of it? Who is it going to serve? And one of the things that I just, you know, want to bring up is that after November 5th, after the election, do you know what stocks skyrocketed following the election much in the same way as it did in 2016? The stock prices for the country's two largest publicly traded companies that own and manage prisons and immigration detentions. So shares in GEO group and core civic are going through the roof right now. So you have to ask yourself, like, these are the people that don't,

donated in huge amounts to Donald Trump's campaign that filled up his inauguration slush fund, and they are going to reap the rewards of his policies of cruelty and hate, because that's what they are. To put, to say that you are placing a quote unquote facility that will hold 30,000 people offshore from the United States, which means that what? The press won't have regular access. Our members of Congress won't have access. I'm certain that they will do what they did the first time around with their camps that were not providing hygiene products or hygiene at all where they were sued. So this is one of the reasons why they don't want to have it on United States soil so that, again, it's not readily accessible.

The point being is that this is not only the beginning of what we have seen in other countries that happened in Germany and in other places, it is also a huge grift for this president and for his donors. Of course, like, I'm waiting for what the pushback is. I'm waiting for the investigations. I'm waiting for the criteria. that these facilities will have to meet. I'm waiting for any of that

because in the first rounds of ice raids that we have seen over the last two weeks, what we do know is that American citizens are being swept up in these raids. Last time around, they didn't even bother to put together a fucking Excel sheet that had the names of the people, phone numbers, contact information.

We have children that have still, still are separated from their families years later. So the idea that we're just kind of going to go about our lives and think that this is not what we know it to be, that if it feels bad and it seems eerily familiar to us, that we should probably go with that fucking gut feeling. Yeah, I think that's right. I just want to end by saying that part of this also in using a military base, we are seeing a complete militarization of immigration, of the immigration issue, quote unquote, right now. We've got, I think the Defense Department just sent, what was it, like 1,500 troops to our southern border. And Trump is using language that includes the word invasion, which is not a hyperbolic term as much as it is.

It is a specific legal term when it comes to things like this. And it authorizes the president to do things that he ordinarily wouldn't be able to do. So we need to keep an eye on that. And then again, by using Gitmo as a facility for undocumented people, it is just further sending that message that basically we are this close to being at war. I'm not sure with whom. I'm not sure if it's all of Central and South America or what, but he is putting us on a war footing when it comes to immigration. And that ain't good. Mm-mm-mm.

An absolute shit show. Jay Inslee was the governor of Washington State for the past 12 years. and before that was a member of the House of Representatives. He joins me now. Governor, thanks for coming on. Thank you. Thanks for spreading the truth. We appreciate that.

Absolutely. There are so many things I want to talk to you about, but I want to start with the absolute flood of executive orders that President Trump has been issuing. As governor, you sued Trump during his first term over the Muslim travel ban and you won. So talk about what you did there and the lessons Democrats can take from that. Well, the lessons are that you have to be called.

constantly alert to this convicted felon now in the White House because he will take away your constitutional rights and he will violate the law and he will ignore you and your vote every chance he can get away with. And that's just a reality. And you've got to be aggressive and you've got to be robust and you've got to be fast. And we were all things during the first rodeo with him. We had to sue him, I think it was like 82 times and we won 80 times. And so that was a pretty good track record. And unfortunately, because he just repeatedly thinks he's above the law. He really believes that the law is meaningless to him. He's lived his life like that.

And so you have to be aggressive and timely. And we were very successful. The current governor, my successor, Bob Ferguson, was the Attorney General. He's very successful. And our current Attorney General has been the first. I'm very proud of this. My former counsel, a young man named Nick Brown, was the first to get an injunction against him in this current administration

because he just got an injunction stopping Trump's totally, obviously unconstitutional effort to try to end what's in the Constitution, which is birthright citizenship. So Nick got within about 80 hours of Trump taking the oath, he got injunction against him to shut that circus down. So you just have to be alert, aggressive, and make good arguments. And then you have to do what we're starting to do now, which is to alert the public to this continued assault on our democracy, which continues. You know, January 6th is not over. This is a continued insurgency by this man. he tried to shut down a one-man partial government shutdown two days ago in the public outcry that we were involved in backed him up and we just got to just be very, very vocal against these

depredations. And, you know, I frankly, if I had anything to say to your listeners right now is this is not a moment to be feeling sorry for ourselves or grieving. It's a moment to get off the couch and take action as soon as humanly possible in every possible way you can and every forum you can and every chat room you can because we've got to speak up against these outrages. And we were successful and slowing him down, but we know he'll be back by trying to again ignore the law. Yeah, look, I want to talk about that order that you just referred to that came down from Trump's Office of Management and Budget. We're recording this on Thursday morning. And on Wednesday night, a federal judge indicated he's going to slap a temporary restraining order

on Trump's order because he agrees with Washington and the other states that filed suit that his order was in violation of federal law. I want to put aside the legalities for a minute, though I may come back to them. And I want to ask you, if this order were allowed to take effect, and as you said, you know, this probably ain't over because he's going to come back with something else. What would the ramifications be for the states? Well, I look at it from what the ramifications are for the people. It's very individual harm he would cause. I think of the domestic violence survivor who's, you know, just got beat up by her boyfriend and it tries to go into a domestic violence shelter that we have. And all of a sudden that shelter

doesn't have funding because a large significant part of the shelter funding we have is federal funding. In fact, 30% of all of our budgets in the state of Washington come from the federal government. And so those services disappear. I think of the veteran who depends on the Meals on Wheels for getting one meal a day, which is sometimes the only meal these folks can get, those services disappear and dry up. And when you shut off the federal spigot, that has immediate impact. These nonprofits don't have a bank account somewhere or a line of credit with a Swiss bank account like Trump's buddies. So these services can immediately go away. I think of Head Start, where people are dependent on early child education dollars from the federal government. And we had,

reports all over the country, people had to cancel classes the next day because of the slender financial thread that they have. Then you have the more institutional losses, like our transportation funding, drives up and stops. And the thing that long term, I think I'm maybe most concerned about, because I think Trump is going to continue his assault on our clean energy efforts, which are now hiring so many people in my state, that he wants to zero out because he wants to make sure that his buddies in the oil and gas industry continue to be on the gravy train and keep us addicted to oil and gas. And he just is trying to kill any of the clean energy industries that are giving us less

expensive energy and more efficient energy and cleaner energy that doesn't destroy the planet. He can't stand the fact that his oil and gas buddies might have to compete with people who sell electricity or hydrogen or fusion or heat pumps. And that's maybe a longer-term threat that he will continue who's ever. on, whether even though he withdrew this particular order that he had. So we've got to be very vocal in that regard and hold the Republicans' feet to the fire, frankly, because he's coming to eliminate the jobs in many areas that are represented by Republican Congresspeople. So one of our responsibilities is to help hold them responsible and help groups to do that, like the League of

Conservation Voters, for instance, who are making sure that that message is heard. So we've got some more work to do. Along those lines, I know you've always been a huge champion of environmental issues. How worried are you about how bad things might get over the next four years? Well, you know, you don't like to worry. You want to be positive. I'm going to start in the positive. I'm very optimistic about our effort to build a clean energy economy, to decarbonize our economy. And I'm optimistic about that because it's happening at quite a rapid pace. We have so many businesses in my state that are now rapidly finding a way to provide less expensive energy and cleaner energy. Companies that are making silicon nano batteries that extend the range of our electric cars by 30%.

We have two of them leading the whole world in my state. We have fusion energy companies that are leading companies in the world. We actually have three fusion energy companies in Western Washington that can make electricity at some point. It hasn't happened yet. but it's absolutely clean with no nuclear waste. We have a host of huge development of solar and wind, which have been very effective in providing energy, and the cost has come down by 90% in the last decade and a half.

So we have tremendous things going on in our society. We've got one every five cars now being sold is fully electric in our state. This is a transition that is happening. We just need to accelerate it. And obviously, anyone who understands the depredation of this man and how much he's in the bag for his oil and gas buddies, billionaires, has to be concerned because he is trying to take a wrecking ball through the federal government

to stop this progress as much as humanly can. And you understand why be so opposed to technology that works? Solar energy, it falls on Earth like for free. Why is so opposed to wind turbines? You know, like they don't cause cancer, pal. They cause jobs and clean energy. But he has this fixation again because he just loves the old gas gas. And so, yes, we ought to be concerned.

And the Inflation Reduction Act has been incredibly effective in building these opportunities. We've got to maintain it and hope, hope that some of the Republicans listen to their constituents saying don't take these jobs away from our community. Don't put our people in the breadline because they had jobs building batteries and electric cars and wind turbines and solar panels. Don't take those jobs away, Congressman. And we hope that some of these members of Congress will be affected by that. It's our job to make sure that they are.

And if that happens, we're going to continue this pace of progress. And another thing we should not forget. Our states can continue to move forward. Even during this time, my state, during the first Trump administration, made huge progress in clean energy. We adopted four or five major climate and clean energy laws that went into effect. They tried to repeal our Climate Commitment Act this last year at the ballot. box, and we won in a landslide, 62 to 38. So we have 24 states in the U.S. Climate Alliance,

all of them who have governors who are committed to continuing this transition, and all of them can continue to move forward. So we've got some good news there, too. I want to ask you about another thing, and I want to see how committed you are to trying to sound optimistic. You were in the Department of Health and Human Services under President Clinton. What are your thoughts on RFK Jr. as a potential secretary of that department? If I was trying to design a threat to the health of the children in the United States, I don't think you could design anybody better than Mr. Kennedy. To put a person who has spent like almost a lifetime trying to diminish the use of vaccines in our nation in charge of the vaccine programs in children's vaccination, I can hardly

think of a more dangerous thing you could do. And I'm a person. who has seen the results of misinformation regarding vaccines. And Mr. Kennedy has been decades spreading that misinformation because I know people who listened to him and listened to Trump to some degree during COVID and lost their lives. We had a state senator or a Republican state senator who swallowed that misinformation and got COVID and lost his life

and left his family without a father figure. We had a state trooper who had a viral video blaming me for a requirement to have vaccines, who shortly thereafter filmed a video and then got COVID and died, leaving a family behind. He was a good state trooper too. So I have seen in a personal way the devastation that this misinformation can cause. And I think it's farceal and it's kind of black comedy to hear him in this confirmation hearing and trying to say, well, that wasn't me. You know, I'm actually, I'm a vaccine fan. What a bunch of baroni. What a bunch of blown. The guy for decades has gone around the world, including Samoa, where he went and spread misinformation

and, you know, how much that impact had in the measles outbreak. There's no way of knowing. But I do know you shouldn't go to any island and tell people not to get vaccinated. That's essentially what he's done. So I could not be more harshly in condemnation. And that's difficult because I considered him a friend years a few decades ago because he had some decent work he did on environmental issues. Sure.

So this is an American tragedy. the Kennedy family has suffered too many tragedies, and this is another one of my, I feel for his siblings. I heard Caroline come out and share her views the other day. I met with her in Australia. She's our ambassador, of course, I talked to her last year, and I feel sorry for that clan. Yeah, absolutely. And that was, I mean, that was an incredibly strong statement that she put out. I want to ask you a broader question about the Democratic Party. I don't know how online you are, but a lot of folks, and I'll include myself in that, are not very happy to put it mildly with the way the party leadership in D.C. seems to be dealing with what we've seen in just

the first week or so of Trump 2.0. There's a sense, again, among people that I see online and whatever, the Democrats in charge are not up for this. What's your take on that? Well, I can understand it. I'll tell you why. I kind of feel it a little bit. And I'll just give you my kind of diagnosis of this situation. People in public office frequently reflect their constituents. And there has been, in my sort of feeling, the tone of a lot of my colleagues has been some sense that we're in a normal situation. You know, in an enormous situation, the niceties of collegiality are recognized. And I think a lot of leaders in D.C. are kind of this view that we're in a normal situation. And also I think, you know, they're kind of reflecting a little bit of the lack of

gumption that a lot of people are feeling. They're still grieving this loss. And they've sort of reflected that. I believe it's time to get over this grieving process. That's a luxury at the moment. I believe we've got to stand up on our hind legs and confront this guy every single day, every single hour, and every single form we can and say that it will not pass. You are not normal. We're not going to extend normal processes to you because you are a threat to our democracy and you are a continuing threat to it. As he's already shown a continued disrespect for the law, in three or four at least instances, he's shown he's not going to follow the law. Look, I'm concerned even if the Supreme Court makes rulings in our favor, he'll simply blow him off and believe the

Republicans won't confront him on it. So my belief is we have to blow the whistle on him every single day in every single forum and confront him in a very vocal, loud, demonstrative, take no prisoners approach. That's where I am on this. And I think our team needs to hear this from our leadership. You heard that there were six of my fellow governors speak to Mr. Schumer. Yes. Kind of urging him in that direction. You know, and we have some that are doing. Our Senator Murray has been, you know, brought a motion to force the Senate to vote against the pardons of the J6 insurgents.

She then went to the floor the other day to move, to have actions by the Senate against these impoundments. She's standing up tall, and I really appreciate that. And we just need more and as much of that as we possibly can get. You know, should any Democrat be voting for any of these cabinet nominees? In my opinion, probably not. Because all of them recognized they're going to do whatever Trump tells them. He'll tell them, doesn't matter what the Constitution is,

the laws and all, and he's chosen these people who will do his bidding regardless. And until that attitude changes, we should not be cooperative, in my opinion, on these confirmations. Now, that is an abnormal situation, right? Because normally you think the president gets to choose his people. Well, you shouldn't be able to choose people that are going to willfully say, I'm going to be willing to violate the Constitution as long as Trump tells me to do it. And that's the people that we've got, or these positions right now. So, yes, I share a little bit of that feeling. I am hopeful that we've turned the corner.

Yesterday, I said that we're back. You know, I went on X as much as I don't like that yesterday, and I said, we're back. We backed him down at least one on one round yesterday. But there's going to be many, many rounds. And we've got to be more aggressive in my view. Yeah, you know, you mentioned the governors again. And it kind of feels like we are going to need.

and we're already seeing the states where Democrats govern taking the lead as they're doing with the budget freezes, as they're doing with some of the other things you mentioned. Obviously, that's great. And I support them 100%. It just feels like it would be nice to have more of that same sense of urgency from the Dems in D.C. Well, I think it's tonal. Substantively, I suspect that our senators are doing everything they can substantively. But I think there's a tonal issue here.

when you have a team. We got a team that didn't prevail in the first half, and we need a halftime pep talk here about getting back in the saddle. That means getting back to helping organizations like Planned Parenthood, in other words. That means getting back in recruiting good candidates to win back the House.

This is not a four-year issue. We should be back within two years. That means getting back to the work that we need to do to restore democracy and safety in our country. That means getting back, difficult as it is, back into the fight. You know, a lot of people turned off their news sources in the last two months because of the pain of it. But they need to hear a clarion call. There needs to be some bugles

that are sound in charge here. And so I think that tonal concept is one we ought to pay attention to right now. Couldn't have said it better myself. And I think that's a lot of what people are sort of responding to negatively about some of the leadership in D.C. is the lack of that sense is sort of the nobody, as you said, nobody grabbing the bugle and telling people to charge. And it really feels like, you know, we're seeing it from the states and we're seeing it from some members of Congress in D.C., but not necessarily the ones in the leadership positions. Like, we're seeing it from AOC, we're seeing it from, I think even Elizabeth Warren has been very good lately. But I'm not seeing it from the Schumers and the Hakeem Jeffries and the people like that. And I wish I were.

Well, you may. And, you know, when you, when you have the bugle, there's always a concern you're going to blow it, but nobody will follow you. So maybe there's a little concern about people that people are not going to follow, but we just need to get away from this kind of passivity. We've got to get off the couch and we've got to get people believing that these efforts are worthwhile. So I'm all for taking that type of approach. And I think people will start to rally around the flag again when they hear the rallying cry. Excellent. Governor Inslee, thank you so much for joining. It was an absolute delight talking to you,

and I wish you were still in elected office, but I also understand why you might not want to be. Well, no, I loved elected office. I just thought it was time for a change in our state. But look, one thing I want to share with people listening, you don't have to be in elective office to be an impact. I'm a citizen. I got a voice. Everybody's got a voice. Everybody's got a cell phone. Pick them up and use them. Go rally your friends. We need to get back in the game here. Perfectly said. Thank you, Governor. Okay, thank you. Be well. Folks, I am very excited to welcome to the new abnormal.

Jack Jenkins, who is the national reporter for Religion News, and is also the author of the book American prophets, the religious roots of progressive politics and the ongoing fight for the soul of the country. Jack, over the last couple of years, we have seen a rise in this country. of white Christian nationalism. It was baked into, if you will, the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, which is essentially Donald Trump's current agenda

for the country. And we're watching it unfold over the last two weeks in real time. But a profound thing happened over the last two weeks, which was witnessing and listening to the courage of Bishop Marianne at the service that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance attended following the inauguration.

Bishop Buddy to the world talked about empathy, asked for the president to show empathy, to trans kids, to the LGBTQ community, to immigrants. And it was startling because we had not seen that level of courage directed at Trump ever. What did you make of that moment and the following backlash that the bishop is receiving? I mean, there have been calls for her to be deported from Republican elected officials. What did you make of that moment? So I appreciate the kind of the way that you set it up, kind of noting the recent rise of this particular form politicized conservative Christianity that sometimes self-describes as, Christian nationalism now. Before it was kind of an analytical tool. Now you have people like

Russell Vote, who actually was one of the key people involved with Project 2025 and is now the new head of the Office of Management and Budget who has self-described or advocated for forms of Christian nationalism. And that has been the kind of a dialogue that has been the preeminent form of faith that you would see in headlines. And what has been simultaneously happening amid all of that is that there has been persistent pushback from liberal, leftist, and progressive people of faith throughout that time period. It often doesn't necessarily make headlines, but back in 2016, shortly after Donald Trump was inaugurated the first time, around this time back then, there were people who were flooding airports to protest his ban on people from Muslim-majority

countries. And if you looked at the signs they were holding, many of them were religious. If you watched the health care battle, the effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act that happened shortly thereafter, many of the protesters who were out there in front were themselves religious, including Reverend William Barber. Bishop Barber was actually very involved in the pushback to Trump's administration that first go round. And there was a lot of involvement from faith communities in what was called the New Sanctuary Movement, where people who were at risk for deportation under Trump's administration were taken into houses of worship, kind of daring. the federal government to try to get them. You know, they were relying on the specific sensitive locations memo that discouraged immigration officials from doing that. I give all that context because it is actually very rare for this whole wing of, you know, what's often called the religious left, which is kind of a coalition of coalitions. It functions and looks very differently from the religious

right. It often works within the broader left as opposed to its own specific voting block, right. It has consistently been a voice on the left. It's been a voice in the Democratic Party. You could watch any of the last through Democratic National Convention and you could see it. But it is incredibly rare for that voice to have a direct conversation with the religious right. And the reason I was there to cover Bishop Buddies's sermon that day is because, you know, she had already in the past had a frustrated back and forth with Donald Trump. People forget, you know, in June 1st in 2020 when there were, you know, racial justice protesters outside the White House in Lafayette Square and they were forcibly cleared. Among those who were cleared that day was a seminarian and a priest who were there at the behest of the diocese, at behest of Bishop Marian Buddy passing out water to the demonstrators in support of them. And they were also forcibly cleared. And so the next day, Bishop Buddy was very strong in her criticism of Trump at the time. So I was curious if she was going to dig into that sentiment. You know, her theology that is often stood against a lot of the things that were represented

by Trumpism. And, you know, I should note that sitting near Trump in that room, not only was Speaker Mike Johnson, but also several of Trump's evangelical advisors who were very influential, his first term. So this moment that happened where she preached this sermon, and really, you know, she told me she went into this kind of worried that she would get more backlash from people on the left, that she wouldn't be stronger, right? She articulated this pleading tone with the president for mercy, that when she did that, it was a really interesting. moment of folks who have ignored this religious voice being forced to be confronted with it. And so, you know, one of the members of Congress actually walked out right after the sermon,

and then, you know, several of the folks who were in the pews that day were quick to issue condemnations. It was just an interesting moment of truly having to grapple with this very large subset of the American public who believe things very different than what has often been advocated for by religious supporters and particularly conservative Christian. supporters of Trump. And so I think it was just rare for them to have to acknowledge these people exist, frankly. And so I think that helps on earth a little bit of what the intensity of the blowback looked like. You know, what troubles me with regard to the blowback and what has seemingly been trending online is this idea that the model of Jesus, of being loving and kind and open and welcoming

is no longer what is trending on the right. You see AI images, Jack, of a Maga president with guns. You hear and read about their Jesus was weak, hours is, you know, is tough and vengeful. I want to get your thoughts on this ideology that has taken hold inside of the Magaverse, where they are literally in many ways, see, I was not say literally, but seemingly anointing Donald Trump in many ways as like the second coming and saying that he is divine, that this is, he is, he is working, God is working through him. You can't debate with people who think that way. Talk to me about this transition that we're witnessing and your thoughts around how we

discuss it. It is an interesting thing that we keep talking about in our religion reporter circles as well in terms of like this pivot that seems to have occurred. Right. So among the things that Bishop Buddy mentioned, in addition to calling for mercy for transgender children, for instance, she also mentioned refugees and immigrants. And I want to pinpoint that for a second because that has been an interesting point of dialogue as well. In addition to what Trump has promised would be the biggest deportations in U.S. history, he has also frozen, the U.S. refugee program. Right. Of the 10 groups that partner with the federal government to resettle refugees after they're vetted, usually over the course of years to come into the United States, six of them are faith-based.

And one thing we've watched in the last few years on kind of a more fringy aspect of the right. And now we're hearing actually Vice President Vance actually articulated some criticism of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for what he said, resettling illegal immigrants, which is not what they do, right? But there's this shift away from the refugee program that a more sort of critical view of that as a policy in some of these conservative Christian circles that, one, does not line up with the leadership, right? Like some of the lawmakers who criticize Buddy's sermon refer to her as having a spouse, quote unquote, radical ideology. But I should note that the Episcopal Church itself has come to her defense. An entity of the United Methodist Church has come to her defense. The multiple groups of nuns have come to her defense.

And her larger critique, the concern for immigrants and refugees has been repeated by multiple groups, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Union for Reform Judaism. And I can go on and on. And there's a lot of bafflement in those circles and what they hear from some of these supporters of Trump, who, you know, are suddenly turning on these programs and these ministries that these groups have done for decades. And I'm struck by, you know, something that I've thought about a lot recently is that back in 2014, the first feature I wrote as a journalist. I went down to the U.S. Mexico border, and at the time, what was called the child migrant crisis,

a nun by the name of Sister Norma Pimentel, had set up a respite center for migrants after they had been released by Customs and Border Protection. These were primarily mothers and young children. They would come to this church, and it was staffed by Catholic charities, and they would be given shoes and given shirts, and they might be able to stay in a few huts and tents they'd erected nearby.

And when I was there, Glenn Beck and Ted Cruz and two or three other Republican members of Congress were there celebrating this work. Glenn Beck, I think, donated the toys to children saying this is what we would prefer, that faith communities do this kind of work and not the government. And now 10 years removed from that, we're seeing such a shift among Republicans against the same groups that they were celebrating, you know, barely a decade ago. What has happened in between that is the phenomenon of Donald Trump. And I do think that, you know, there's a degree to which the religion can influence politics, and there is also a degree to which politics can influence religion. And so some of the analysts I've spoken to, some of the religious leaders I've spoken to have expressed concern that Trumpism might itself have be having a forming effect on some of these

religious communities. The theology against these sorts of things, you could go back and find very small pockets of people who believe these sorts of things. But the growth of it, I think you can track with Trump's rise. But I almost think, Jack, that they are turning Trumpism into a religion with Donald Trump as its divine leader. And so if that is becoming the case where you are seeing people disavow religious programs, people, institutions, as the, as you mentioned, the vice president did recently, what day. dangers does that cause for religious institutions across the board if they now find themselves in the crosshairs of this administration?

Something I've seen among some of the critics of the president in evangelical circles and even just some rank-and-filed evangelical pastors that have tried to lead their congregations in this time is they noted things like they would preach certain sermons just pulling from what they thought was kind of, you know, rank and file evangelical theology and had members of their church come up to them and accuse them of being woke and say that they're, that they've been sort of entrapped by liberalism or progressivism. Russell Moore has articulated that he has heard people come up to him and say, he said pastors have relayed this to him. Russell Moore, by the way, is the head of Christianity today and used to be the head of the Southern Baptist Convention's political

arm. He said he's heard pastors who say that their own parishioners come to them when they preach about Jesus being a kind and giving leader and they say, no, that's a woke Jesus. You've become woke. And that is deeply troubling to a lot of people in these communities because they see it as an inversion of what they think of as basic theology within Christian circles. And the folks who have conveyed this to me feel like they are losing control or losing any sort of influence over their own members of their own churches. And I'll note that this is one of the phenomenons that has happened during the past eight years is that there has been a rise of this small community, but things called patriot churches, right, which are a very specific subset of folks who have, they'll preach

things from the pulpit in defense of Donald Trump explicitly. That's happening alongside groups like Turning Point USA, that's run by Charlie Kirk, who have actively courted pastors, encourage them to preach things from the pulpit, messages that align with Christian nationalism or align with TPPUSA's brand of conservatism, which is in many ways a defense of Trumpism. And that is, you know, again, a explicit political group encouraging religious groups to, in terms of what they preach. And they've said this publicly. And I think the concern for a lot of religious groups, and even in that world, is that they're not the ones who are kind of dictating the theology anymore.

it's the supporters of Donald Trump or even Trump himself, if not explicitly, then implicitly. Now, I should know that that is distinct from a lot of the other groups I mentioned earlier, these progressive and liberal religious groups of multiple Christian faith and many other faiths who have been vocally critical of Trumpism for quite some time. And in many instances are some of the first to criticize him. I should note that one of the first lawsuits filed against this new administration was by a group of Quakers who are challenging the revocation of the sensitive locations policy that I mentioned earlier. That's not super surprising to those of us who've been covering those groups for a long time. And I think you're going to see a lot more of that moving forward. But that group has been, you know, has felt that they have been distanced from white evangelicalism in particular for a long time. And so I just see that clash that you're talking about. You know, more often than not, the reason we don't see the kind of moment that we saw with Bishop Marianne Buddy, preaching a sermon to Trump and to people in the pews who are many of the biggest religious supporters of Trump is that they often don't consider themselves part of the same religious communities.

And they don't see their faith in the same way. And they can quickly dismiss each other. And that just leads to a very different religious landscape than we have had in decades past. Where do you see then the role of the religious left in terms of galvanizing their followers or bringing in new followers into their space under the guise. of like a loving and caring Jesus. Where do you see this in the, in I guess, what some would call the resistance? You know, one thing I'll note is, it's regardless of how one may feel about the theology of the religious left.

They feel it very deeply. And for them, this is a religious impulse to do the things that they do. By which I mean, you know, one of the other reasons I think that we're hearing about Bishop Buddy, for instance, aside from the fact that she was given an opportunity to preach a sermon directly to the newly inaugurated president. One of the reasons I think that it's not that surprising that you're hearing from these religious voices first is that one of the stories that we heard going into Trump's inauguration is that a lot of activists on the left more broadly are tired, right? We've seen a lot of reporting about a lot of the exhaustion in those

groups. But I think a lot of these religious groups, the religious left more broadly, Not only are they, you know, organized by default by virtue of being religious communities, they also, you know, for a lot of them, they don't see it as something they can take a Sunday off on. They're going to preach a sermon about what they believe they have to preach about, even if they're tired because their faith compels them to do so. And so I think it's been really interesting to see how fervent the response has been to Bishop Buddy among the broader corpus of liberal and leftist activists and progressive activists who kind of feel inspired by that. And so my guess would be that they end up feeling a similar role that they have in years past, by which I mean they're going to go do, the religious left is going to go do the activism and preach the sermons and stage the sit-ins that they have for quite some time. And maybe the larger progressive movement will be there with them.

But they'll be there alone, is what I found, even if there's only one reporter or no reporters there to cover it. And so I think the other aspect there is that there's this broader organizing apparatus that I think, you know, it doesn't always see these groups as easy allies that may kind of come to recognize that there's a reason that these groups were so well represented in the, quote, unquote, resistance in the first Trump administration. And I expect them to be, you know, deeply involved in the mix this go-round as well. And I think that my guess would be is that Bishop Buddy's sermon is just the beginning. I hope that you are right. Jack Jenkins, thank you so much for making time for

the new abnormal. And I hope that as things continue, you will come back and join us again. I'd be honored. Thanks for having me. Danielle Moody. Andy Levy. It's the end of the week, isn't it? Yeah, I can't even tell anymore. All right, close us out, Danielle. Who's your fuck that guy to finish off this lovely week? Mm-hmm. Well, I'm going to go with the, I mean, there are so many. So many to choose from. This segment is getting very difficult. But I am going to go with Tennessee Republican lawmakers that have recently,

fast-tracked Governor Bill Lees, $5.5 million proposal to create a new state immigration division and allocate funding for new training grants for local law enforcement agencies seeking immigration agreements to cooperate with federal authorities. This is according to the AP. And you think to yourself, oh, well, that doesn't seem so bad, I guess. Well, it's what's inside of the fast-tracked that is problematic, which is inside of this plan, if you can call it that, includes a proposal to create a Class E felony against any local elected official voting for or adopting a so-called sanctuary policy. Let me say that again. Included in this fast-tracked GOP-led bill. is to create a policy that would make it a Class E felony if any elected official were to use the

democratic principles of voting to vote for sanctuary policies. This could include voting in favor of local government restrictions that impede efforts of U.S. immigration and customs enforcement to detain migrants in the U.S. without permit. And while this seems wildly unconstitutional, due to state and federal protections afforded to lawmakers, apparently Republicans are doing their, I don't give a fuck what you're going to do. Who go and check me? And rushing this through, this is, I mean, folks, I don't know how many times we have said this over the past several years.

This is not a democracy anymore. You do not have to be fool in to believe. that this is a democracy anymore. These lawmakers are putting together policy that makes it illegal for you to vote your conscience or vote on behalf of your constituents. So this is either you vote for Trump's policies or you go to jail. That's what this piece of legislation says that is being fast-tracked in Tennessee. And for that reason, because we know that it will be a domino effect across red states, Tennessee GOP lawmakers. Once again, welcome to the hall of fuck that guy.

Yeah, and I guess anything I could say is probably better said by Justin Jones, who is the Democratic representative in the Tennessee legislature from Nashville. And listeners may recall he was one of the Tennessee three who was expelled from that body, but was then elected back in. And here's what he had to say of this bill. He said, this is un-American, this bill is immoral, it's constitutionally inconsistent. And really, I don't know what else needs to be said, particularly the immoral part. I'm just going to shut up because he said it better than I could.

Fuck those guys. So, Andy, how are you closing out this week in the Magaverse with your fuck that guy? I'm going to close out with sort of an odd fuck around and funny. find out story? Hmm. There's a preacher named Father Calvin Robinson. He is, well, as of Wednesday, he was a member of the Anglican Catholic Church. And he gave a speech at the National Pro-Life Summit.

And at the very end, he decided to say, my heart goes out to you. and he then threw a salute, a salute that will probably be very familiar to people who saw Elon Musk give the same salute last week or to anyone who's watched a World War II movie or seen footage of Nazi Germany. And he did it with a little smile on his face if you watch the video. It was very much, you know, owning the Libs smiled and he thought he was being so clever because he said, my heart goes out to you when he did it, which is what Elon said. The Anglican Catholic Church did not think he was particularly clever, and they have defrocked him. They put out a statement saying, while we cannot say what was in Mr. Robinson's heart when he did this, his action appears to have been an attempt to curry favor with certain elements of the American political right by provoking its opposition. Mr. Robinson has been warned that online trolling and other such actions are incompatible with a priestly vocation and was told to desist.

Clearly he has not, and as such his license in this church, has been revoked. He is no longer serving as a priest in the ACC. A couple things to know here. First of all, the Anglican Catholic Church is really right wing. This is not some woke church. This is a church that is, you know, institutionally, I would say probably more conservative than the Catholic Church, of which it is not part, by the way, I should make that clear for people who don't know that they call themselves the Anglican Catholic Church. They are wholly separate. They don't recognize the Pope or anything like that. But again, they are a very, very, very conservative institution. And even they figured out what the hell was going on here and said it wasn't okay.

Part of me is tempted to contrast this with the Anti-Defamation League, excusing what Elon Musk did when he made the salute and thinking that it's very, very bizarre that the Anglic and Catholic Church recognizes a fascist salute when it sees one, but the Anti-Defamation League apparently does not. But I'm not going to go there, Danielle. This is an example of something we've seen time and time again where Donald Trump or maybe Elon Musk or whatever does something and they get away with it. And then lower level people think they can get away with it too. And it turns out they can't. And obviously we should be happy that they can't. But it would be nice if Trump, Musk, et cetera, also couldn't. But I suspect we're going to be seeing more of this. I suspect we,

I know there was a woman who went viral on, I don't remember if it was Instagram or TikTok, also doing to salute whatever company she worked for fired her. And it's just something you remember for the people out there who think that they are fighting, you know, that Trump and Musk are fighting for them. No, they're not. And they don't care if you got fired for doing exactly what they did. And have a brain. Please, even the smallest sliver of a lobe would be nice. But anyway, to Calvin Robinson, who is no longer a priest with the Anglican Catholic Church, fuck that guy. You know, here's what I'm going to say. I'm going to disagree with you a little bit. I think everyone should go ahead and do what's in their heart.

So if you want to follow Elon Musk and doing the fascist Nazi salute, I say go for it. Film yourself doing it. Pick nice lighting. Do you know what I'm saying? Put your name all over it and do it. You know, do it with your full fucking chest is what I say. And make sure that everyone catches all your angles so we know exactly who the fuck you are.

You don't need to have a brain in your head. Go ahead. Go for it. You're bad. You got the power. Go for it. Fuck all those guys. I don't know, guys.

I didn't hear any civic literacy in there. I was thinking that too. It's like we didn't once address, you know, try to be optimistic about anything. No, I'm going to save that for next week. I really got a lot to get off my chest. Starting now. Now. Yeah.

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