The Daily Beast Podcast - GOP Is Throwing Out ‘Catastrophic’ Candidates to Democracy

Episode Date: April 16, 2024

This week on The New Abnormal, co-hosts Danielle Moodie talks to Andrea Miller, the founding board member of the Center for Common Ground, about the importance of the black vote in the South for Democrats in this election. Plus! The Washington Post tech reporter Drew Harwell gives us the details on the people still investing in Trump Media & Technology Group despite its rapidly plummeting stock price. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

What an excellent show we have for you today. Andrea Miller, the founding board member of the Center for Common Ground, is here to tell us about the importance of the minority vote in the South for Democrats in this election and what she and her organization are doing to motivate it. Then we'll talk to the Washington Post Tech reporter Drew Harwell to give us the details on the people still investing in Trump media despite its plummeting and plummeting stock price. But first, let's have some fun. So Danielle, over the weekend on Saturday, I believe, Donald Trump, your favorite ex-president,

was speaking in Pennsylvania, and he decided to talk about the Battle of Gettysburg. I know you haven't heard this clip yet, so we're going to get your live reaction to it. Because it's really quite something. Jesse, can we roll that? To save by the immortal heroes at Gettysburg, Gettysburg, what an unbelievable battle that was, the Battle of Gettysburg. What an unbelievable. I mean, it was so much and so interesting and so vicious and horrible and so beautiful in so many different ways. It represented such a big portion of the success of this country. Gettysburg, wow. I go to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to look and to watch. And the statement of Robert Lee, who's no longer in favor, did you ever notice that?

No longer in favor. Never fight uphill, me boys, never fight uphill. They were fighting. He said, wow, that was a big mistake. He lost his great general. And they were fighting. Never fight uphill me, boys, but it was too late. What? What was that? Did you know that Robert E. Lee is no longer in favor?

Did you know that the people that fought at Gettysburg were vampires and immortal? Like what? Can we start at the beginning? He said that they were immortal. Does he know what that word mean? Yeah, I assume he meant that, you know, we still talk about it today and not that they were vampires. That's not what he means. You could be right.

He might have watched Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer. Exactly. That was in a few movies. Yes. So it was beautiful and horrible and amazing. And he just goes there to look at the beauty and the horror. What? Do people even know what they're applauding at anymore?

Like what do you think that they're applauding? Are they just seals? I don't know. That was horrible. I just the idea that Robert E. Lee has been canceled, I guess, because of woke. We can't even support secessionist Robert E. Lee, who treated his slaves miserably and was not about state's rights, but was about the institution of slavery. But somehow it's bad that he's not in favor.

It's just unreal to me, the things that come out of his mouth. I think it's unreal to him the things that come out of his mouth. That was fucking crazy. You know, there are sometimes when you hear his speeches and you're just like, wow, that was chaotic and all over the place or just like very Hitler-esque. That was just, what was that? Yeah, I don't know. Well, in the spirit of Robert E. Lee, the Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by D. McKesson, who was a Black Lives Matter activist, and basically let stand a Fifth Circuit decision

that the leader of a demonstration can be sued if a police officer gets injured by someone who was at the demonstration, not by the leader of the demonstration themselves. This decision by the Fifth Circuit, Court of Appeals, was insane, and the Supreme Court, instead of saying this is insane, just allowed it to stand. McKesson was represented by the ACSAPS. not a single justice dissented from the decision not to hear the case as NBC News reports. And the whole thing just confuses the hell out of me because I cannot understand the logic behind, hey, I'm the leader of a demonstration and some idiot who says they're part of the demonstration attack someone else. In this case, I guess it was a police officer. And somehow I'm responsible for

that. But the Fifth Circuit said, yes, you are. And the Supreme Court said, well, we don't need to change anything there. Yeah, so I think that what folks have to understand is this is a really serious case. It is a serious case about our right to assemble, our right to protest. And basically, what the Supreme Court has said is, oh, you don't have that right anymore. Because if a protest, let's look at it as the March for Women's Lives. March for Women's Lives was the largest protests that we had seen historically in this country. If one person, right, at that million some odd person march, then were to attack a police officer or a building, then you're telling me that the organizers of that march are able to be sued. That is just the first way to, I don't know,

get rid of a constitutional right without explicitly saying that you're getting rid of a constitutional right. Then I think that when you look at laws like this and like others that Florida governor DeSantis has put out that says, oh, if you decide to shut down a bridge as a protester, which we know happens a lot and a motorist then decides to mow you over, oh, they're not liable for injury or any bodily harm. I just think that what Republicans are doing to this country, and to our Constitution, people are not really paying attention to the ways in which the Supreme Court is completely complicit in the erosion of our rights. And I don't see how one person or an organizing group can be held responsible for the actions of an individual that they're not directly

tied to, but police officers can kill unarmed people all the time, but we can't fucking sue them. I find this country so exhausting in this way of it's just the chipping away, the chipping away of what it fundamentally means to be an American citizen. And that is held up by our Constitution, which they are just shredding. Yeah, 100%. If I'm looking at this correctly, it also means that the person who commits the harm doesn't even have to be, say, part of the protest. they could be a counter protester or, you know, they could be, for example, if it's a Black Lives Matter

protest and neo-Nazi show up and start shit and a police officer gets hurt or whatever, then somehow whoever organized the Black Lives Matter march or rally could be held liable for this. This whole thing is insane. And you're absolutely right to describe it as basically outlawing protesting because it's going to make it really tough to hold a protest if you know that you are going to be, I guess, legally and civilly liable if something goes wrong at the protest, even if it's not of your own accord and nothing that you have said or done incited violence, you're going to have to think really hard about whether or not you want to put yourself in that kind of legal and quite frankly financial

jeopardy, which is, of course, the entire point of this, as you were saying. And it's just the whole idea is to is to chill dissent. It's to make you think twice about organizing any kind of protest. And it's just, yeah, the idea that the Supreme Court would just let this stand is just unfathomable. You know, but it's like everything that the Supreme Court has been doing, whether it is, you know, we say, oh, Republicans say states rights. They say, oh, that it's states rights so long as you want to carry a gun. But if you want bodily autonomy, no, that's the right of the state. If you want to organize because it is your right to organize and assemble against like unjust forces, they're saying, oh, I guess you can do that, but then you're going to be liable

and potentially have to file for bankruptcy because you could be sued by whatever officer. Or you have what happened in Charlottesville, right, where you have these counter protests that come that are absolutely violent, that are looking to cause harm. And so you're going to be, like responsible for that like i just i don't get what the end game is here i don't get what the republicans end game is i guess it's for us to live in a society where you have no right to protest you have no right to information you do what you're you're supposed to do you stay in your lane you keep your head down and or or else right like that's the direction that we're headed in and and it is insane to me, insane that Republicans, it's a 50-50 percent chance that they fucking win. How?

I don't get it. I don't get it. Yeah. No, it's nuts. Look, at this point, we're sort of used to the Fifth Circuit making these insane decisions, particularly coming out of Texas. We've seen a lot of that, the Miffa Pristone case and other examples. But it feels like, anyway, it used to be like the Supreme Court was like, at least you knew that they wouldn't go that far in being stupid, but we just can't think that way anymore, I guess. And look, Sonia Sotomayor did say, she wrote a little, you know, she did not dissent from this ruling, but she wrote a little thing saying Dorea McKesson, in this case, should have ample First Amendment protections available to him, you know, above and beyond whatever the Fifth Circuit ruled here. The

problem is, as we've seen, we don't know that to be true anymore. Like, yes, that should be true. You know, there's a case NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware back in 1982 that specifically said that if you organize and lead a protest, you cannot be held liable if one of the people in the protest gets violent. But I don't know how you square those two things. I don't know how you square letting this thing stand, which clearly says the opposite of that. We've just reached a point where you have to go, this doesn't make sense. And that's a really shitty way to run a country, I think. I mean, they just want to run it into the ground.

We know that it doesn't make sense, right? Like, we know that the decisions that are being made are, like, counterintuitive to what it means to be a part of a democracy. This fundamental right of the right to organize is at the core. I think of all, like freedom of speech, freedom to organize. So like, if you take that away, then what do we have that separates us from any of these authoritarian dictatorships? We're saying, oh, you can do it, but do so at your own risk. And so you will see this now adopted in all of these red states. It's now in three. It will go to the rest of them. These are the

areas of the country that have the most egregious forms of oppression, whether you're looking at voting, policing, environmental education, etc. So we really are setting up a very clear, like, divided civil war type energy in this country right now. Yeah. I mean, are you doing PR for the new movie? I don't even want to see it because I'm like, because I'm like, yeah, because I'm like, why do I need to go see it when I'm living the fucking documentary? It's a movie, a movie, not documentary.

No, I know. It's a movie. but I feel like it might as well be a documentary just like don't look up. Like what do I need? I need a grab bag. See what I'm saying? Like I need space food, a grab bag

and putting money under my fucking mattress at this point. That's how safe I feel. Well, the good news, Danielle, is that at least soon your vote will be safe because House Speaker Mike Johnson after meeting with, again,

your favorite ex-president Donald Trump down at Mar-a-Lago, announced that they have come up with a plan to prevent non-citizens from voting. And they are not letting the fact that non-citizens already can't vote get in their way. And I say, you have to admire their moxie, Daniel. To admire it. First of all, like, no one likes Mike Johnson, right?

Like, no one likes him. Every week, they are threatening to get rid of this man that is hanging on literally by one vote. And so he flies down to Mar-a-Lago to go take pictures and shake hands with Donald Trump because by just being in his presence, it's like, maybe they'll like me. But we've seen this game played out before, and it doesn't usually go that way. But again, Mike Johnson, there are so many important pieces of legislation that need to be passed. There is so much important work. And I think that Republicans actually don't know, like not only do they not know how to work or what to work. or what to work on, they just don't care to. So then they invent these crises that are not real crises,

but the ones that we actually need to deal with, they don't want to. So this one, oh, we need to have election integrity. So you're going down to the, you're going to talk to the person who is under criminal investigation for overthrowing and for trying to overthrow an election. And all of the fake electors like are either in jail or getting ready to head to court. But this is who you want to talk about election integrity because of the made up story around non-Americans voting in elections, but let's not talk about the number of stories that we've heard of Republicans voting multiple times in said elections. I'm just so fucking tired of their bullshit and not being called out on their bullshit.

Oh, we had a bipartisan immigration deal. But then they blow that up that deal because God forbid Donald Trump provide any type of win for this country that would actually put the country before himself. So they blow that up. It's just like, what do they do all day up there on Capitol Hill? Like I worked on the Hill many years ago. I remember people actually working, writing legislation. Like, what do Republican staffers do in their, I guess they just sit around and watch Fox and eat bonbons? I don't fucking know.

Yeah. The staffers sit around and watch Fox. And the members, the Republican members, sit around trying to figure out how to get on Fox. So I think that's what they do all day. Again, I feel like I need to point this out yet again. You already cannot vote in this country if you are not a citizen. Yep. You know, maybe there are people out there saying, well, but this is going to make it harder

for them to even try, for non-citizens to even try. I just want to point out that the Heritage Foundation, the group behind Project 2025 and a group that is about as in the bag for Trump as it gets. According to a database that they have, this is getting this from CBS News, in the last 20 years, there have only been 25 cases of non-citizens trying to vote in federal elections. So basically one a year for, you know, if you want to round it out. And somehow this requires the Speaker of the House to champion new legislation to stop the one non-citizen a year who tries to illegally vote. We know what this is. This is not a bill looking for a solution to a problem. It's a bill looking to scare people. It's a bill looking to make people

feel like this is a problem, like non-citizens are illegally voting in this country, when in fact, they are absolutely not. But this is just all part and parcel of setting the table for more election denialism in 2024 if Trump loses. And the sad thing is, it's probably effective. There are probably a lot of people around the country who see that Speaker Johnson is doing this going, you know, man, I can't believe for all these years, non-citizens have been voting in our elections. Thank God, you know, Donald Trump and Speaker Johnson are finally doing something about it. That's the scary part, is that this dishonest shit like this, it works. It works.

It just works too well. And I don't honestly know what it takes to combat it because there is so much misinterpreted. information. But it's like, how do we take this and do it in the reverse with the actual truth? Like, here, Mike Johnson could have passed a bill to fund Ukraine, an immigration bill. Like, remember when Congress actually worked, right? And you had legislation that was regularly going up to the Senate? We don't have that process anymore. It is absolutely broken. All they do is sit around and figure out what will make Donald Trump like me. Not like what is going to make the country better. I don't know if we ever get back to that. And that, because it's not sexy, I guess, because it's not, it's not going to get

you that spot on TV. It's just a waste of our fucking money and our time and our energy. Yeah. No, it's just unreal because there have actually been a whole bunch of studies done on non-citizen voting. And the Brennan Center compiled a whole bunch of them. And it points out that just one example of many. After the 2016 election, the New York Times asked election in law enforcement officials in 49 states and D.C. And out of 137.7 million votes nationwide, they found two possible instances of non-citizens voting. Possible instances. Two. Not two million, not 2000, not 200. Two. And the Brennan Center has a really good. good rundown of a whole bunch of different studies. And every study shows exactly the same thing.

And this is where, like you said, it gets really frustrating because how do you combat this misinformation or disinformation, more to the point here? The answer should be you combat it with the truth, with actual information, but we don't live in that world anymore. And that's the scary part. That's what enables Donald Trump to say all the shit he says. And that's what enables the Speaker of the House, who, like you said, should have much better things. to do with his time. But it enables him to champion this legislation like he's doing a service for the country when all he's really doing is wasting taxpayer money that goes to paying his salary and the salaries of everyone in Congress. And, you know, unfortunately, I don't know what the

answer is. I don't know what the answer is other than to keep saying the truth over and over again, you know, the way you and I do. And look, I'm not saying we're heroes. That's for other people to, you know, make that determination. I'm just saying we're out there doing the work. And I'm going to say that we're heroes. So there's that. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal. Andrea Miller, who is the founding board member of the Center for Common Ground,

executive director of people demanding action, founding president of the National Women's Political Caucus of Virginia is a political director and digital and elections strategist. It's wonderful to have you. We are about right now, what is it, roughly seven or so months until the presidential election. Andrea, there is just so much that is unfolding and happening. And particularly as it pertains to the targeting of black voters. I want to get, you know, just your thoughts, your 50,000 foot view thoughts on,

the importance of black voters in this election, in the South in particular? Well, good afternoon, Danielle. Thank you so very much for having me. I am very, very honored to be your guest. And you just asked the $10 million question. What is the importance of black voters? Black voters in this election are really crucial importance, especially in the southern states. What a lot of people don't really realize is that after the Civil War, all the freed slaves did not automatically move or migrate to New York and Chicago. there were literally millions of people who decided the devil that you know is better than the devil that you don't know. So every southern state still has a black belt. And that is where so many of the black voters live.

Some of those black votes go through very, very, very urban areas. For instance, in Alabama, the Black Belt starts in their capital city of Montgomery. In other states, the Black Belt is in more rural areas, but then ends up in some very large urban areas. And we've really been working at Center for Common Ground to make sure that black voters hear the important election information. I am so disappointed that even in 2023, when we call black voters,

some of them are telling us, nobody's called us in years. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Why do you think that that is? I mean, every election we have known over the last several cycles, is the most important election

because of the kinds of candidates that the Republican Party are putting up are extraordinarily detrimental, catastrophic to our democracy. We saw it in 2020 where South Carolina came out and was the deciding factor, thanks to Representative Clyburn, for Joe Biden being the Democratic nominee. And what we've heard is that with black voters, that many of the parties don't come knocking until it is almost time for them to cast their ballot. I feel like there is more outreach that is happening earlier and now, but you tell me.

Well, the party, and again, Center for Common Ground is a nonpartisan organization. one of the things that we understand is that black voters and Hispanic voters and voters of color voters that are normally ignored by both parties are sort of at a point where they're in a mentally I have had it. I have had it with you showing up two months before an election and suddenly my vote is very important. So one of the things that we do at Center for Common Ground is we are establishing democracy centers, and we started building them in 2020, where they are local, in community organizations that people trust that work with the community all year long. Several of our democracy centers are feeding centers. One of them is building affordable housing. They are there to work with the community on what the community needs. Now we've got rural democracy centers that work with their community on signing up for broadband.

So we really understand the frustration. on the part of the black community. And we also understand that they're kind of like that ignored wife when the guy has a mistress. They're over there doing everything for the mistress and the wife is sitting at home going home. How much longer does this make sense?

But there really aren't any other suitors. So what we've started seeing is we've started seeing black voters stay home rather than burning out to vote. So we work on early outreach and we also make sure that voters know when they can vote, where they can vote, the date and times that it's open. A lot of times people don't realize early voting. is really something for the privilege because information about early voting is only available on the internet. Nobody mails you information about early voting. It's not in your newspaper. If you have the internet, sure, you can go look it up. If you are older, if you are rural, and there is no internet, if you are low income and you don't have a computer, you don't necessarily know. I live in Virginia.

Virginia has 45 days of early voting, and that means our satellite locations open at different times. Well, if you live in, there are 14 large, over large counties in Virginia where they've got multiple congressional districts in one county that's how big they are. Without the internet, you would never know when is this library going to be open. for early voting as opposed to that one. Are they open on Saturday? I don't know. But if I had the internet, I'd be able to find out. You know, and I feel like it is so important for groups like yours to exist because of

the amount of misinformation that has flooded our country. I would say since 2016, right? But I'm sure prior to that. But I think 2016 is when we saw a real flood of misinformation on social media. Most recently, we heard about it in New York, where I am, two really nefarious actors inside of the Republican Party being charged with a million dollars for their participation in fraud as it pertains to robocalls. And so when you're providing the right information to voters, do you. you have a conversation about misinformation? Do you have a conversation about robocalls and predatory folks on social media? How does the orientation kind of work to what you're providing versus what we

know is out there? Well, number one, so many of our black voters aren't contacted by anybody at all. They don't get any information, let alone misinformation. What we do, whenever we provide voters with information. We spent 9.4 million postcards in 2020 and we'll probably stand 12.5 million postcards this year. We understand that many of our voters, their base means of communication is the telephone. So we not only give the website of where early voting is,

We give them the phone number that they can call if they have a question. And our volunteers verify that the phone number we are having voters call is answered by someone who can answer questions about elections. And we do the same thing in our phone banks. And we also do the same thing in our tax banks. For instance, in 2020, we knew that the Fulton County Board of Elections was closed because of COVID, because we called for two weeks to verify the phone number and no one answered. So we held all the Fulton County postcards until we were able to get through this. someone and verify that, yes, this is the right number.

And they explained they had a COVID outbreak and no one had been there for two weeks. And voicemail was full. So talk to us now about the states that you're working in, which are obviously the southern states that are so completely important, but also ones like North Carolina that we've seen absolutely just the lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson that is running there. I don't think I've seen a character like this in quite some time. And that's saying a lot. But it's like the candidates that the Republican Party are putting up are some of, I mean, to me, they're straight out of a villain's playbook. But you're in North Carolina. You're in Virginia. You're in South Carolina.

Alabama, you're in these places that we've seen a lot in the headlines as it pertains to voter suppression, as it pertains to really anti-democratic policies that they're putting up. What does it look like on the ground in these states? Because when we say battleground, you really are doing battle. So give us a picture, Andrea, if you can, about what it's like to work in these southern states and what your organization has been up again. Well, Virginia is a southern state. Virginia is the former capital of the Confederacy with major emphasis on the word former. So what we have in Virginia is we really are no longer a voter suppression state. We don't have laws that are really trying to keep people from voting. And we also most of the time don't have these caricature candidates.

So when you mentioned the North Carolina candidate for governor, it made me smile. And I almost think of the villain snively whiplash. This candidate is so offensive. Pick anyone, any group of people. where he has not said something offensive. Women, people that are non-white, non-white voters, he's attacked people who are Jewish. He's attacked people on the basis of their gender,

their religion, their race, pick anything, and he has attacked voters. So you're kind of like, well, as he goes through all these groups, who's left. And you look at North Carolina, they still have early voting, which is excellent, but North Carolina got rid of drop boxes. And North Carolina instituted photo ID. Virginia got rid of photo ID. North Carolina implements photo ID. And who doesn't have photo IDs? well, older voters, especially older rural black voters who may no longer drive, so they don't have a driver's license anymore. So it's automatically impacting the more vulnerable voters. Now, South Carolina, they have early voting, but one of the things we saw in the Weddie, 22,

election was that not all of the candidates that we were expecting were showing up on the ballot. There was some interesting chicanery, let's say, where when you were in certain precincts, candidates that you would expect to be there weren't there. And again, we found out first, because we were giving rights to the polls. and our cars all had signs on them, and people were coming up to us and saying, well, when we went in to vote, the candidates we were looking for, they weren't on the ballot. Like what? So there are many, many, many, many different ways that states can legally disenfranchise voters.

We're not really working in Mississippi this year, but Alabama still does not have no excuse early voting or no excuse vote by mail. They've got one day to vote. So what if you're sick? What if your child is sick? Well, you missed it. So just all these different things. And we're also working in Texas and Georgia. These are two states where we are really seeing these Roving election vigilant is all that I can call them who are literally getting people's voter registrations thrown out. Now, again, if you've been registered and you've been an active voter, the last thing you expect is to show up to vote and have the person that is signing you in announce that you aren't registered. I've been registered at this address for 15 years. Well, you're not registered now.

So we've got a tool we want everybody to use. It's called Active Vote, A-C-T-I-V-O-T-E. Now, what does Active Vote to? Well, number one, when you first sign an active vote, it takes your name and your address and it checks to see, do you have an active voter registration at that address? And if you do, it says, hey, you're good to go. And if you don't, it's like, oh, excuse me, your voter registration needs attention.

Because it's going to pull every elected official from president down to county council and judges. And then for elections, every election that you're going to be voting in that's going to be on your ballot, including ballot amendments. Now, I've got to say, hey, North Carolina, there are 38 people, 38 offices for people to vote in when they show up to vote in November. It is wild because they've got judges and they've got, of course, the governor and everything else. they've got all these opposites. Well, I just want to, you know, thank you, one, for the work that Common Ground is doing. It is so necessary. It is unfortunately necessary.

I hope that at some point we can have elections where it is easy for people to vote. They understand how to vote. That nefarious activities that are done are prosecuted to the utmost success. of the law, but that we make voting transparent and easy and the information just present for people to make the informed decisions that they need to make. Andrew Miller, thank you so much for making the time for the new abnormal. Thank you for the work that Common Ground continues to do. And we hope to have you on again as we get closer to the election. Thank you so much, Danielle. It has been a pleasure. As of this recording, shares of stock in Trump Media, owner of the many times indicted former president's social media platform, Truth Social, are trading it under $28, a far cry from their high in the 70s less than a month ago.

But this hasn't stopped many small investors from continuing to have faith in the company and its dear leader, nor will it stop the company's execs from continuing to make cushy salaries. Here with the details is Washington Post Tech reporter Drew Harwell. Drew, thanks so much for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me. Let's start with these execs. Trump media actually lost a bunch of money last year, and yet somehow it had the funds to pay out some nice executive salaries, right? Yeah. Trump media lost, like you said, $58 million last year. And I think even more telling its revenue was about $4 million, which is somewhere between net sales of a typical McDonald's and Chick-fil-A franchise. Right. This is a very small company. You know, it has the Trump name, it has the brand. And yet, this is basically a website.

You know, this true social is a very small social media platform that's used by basically exclusively the Trump supporters. Its audience is very small. You know, it has 36 employees. And yet, the executives that are in this company, many of whom are, again, Trump supporters, have been kind of rewarded with these very lavish salaries. So you have the chief executive is Devin Nunes, former Republican congressman from California. paid $750,000 last year. He's paid a million dollars last year. He and many other executives get these retention bonuses, they call them, that are $600,000 lump sum payments that they'll be getting this month. Retention bonus, you know, they describe these as, I guess, to keep these people

inside the company, but it's unusual to see a bonus like this. You know, basically the company is paying out as much in bonuses to its executives as it made in revenue last year. So the financials of this company are kind of all over the map. You know, you mentioned Devin Nunes. A lot of these guys are familiar faces in Trump world. You've got Nunes. You've got Cash Patel, Dan Skavino. They all seem to be doing quite well for themselves.

Yeah, they really are. The board of this company, like you said, it's got Cash Patel. It's got Don Jr. Trump's eldest son. It's got Linda McMahon, formerly, you know, small business administration, big Trump supporter, Bob Lightyzer. So this is a board that is like very heavy. in Trump land. And yeah, you know, Cash Patel, who was formerly on, you know, the White House

National Security staff, he gets a big payment every year, basically as a consultant. And Dan Skavino, who started as Trump's golf caddy many years ago, has been like a long time aide, run social media, ran White House social media, does a lot of Trump's tweets and now true social posts. He gets paid $240,000 a year. And he got a big $600,000 retention bonus too. So the money is just like pouring out of this company and it's all going the way of Trump's allies. And let us not forget too. I mean, Trump himself, he never put any money into this company. And yet he was given 57% ownership of the stock. So his stake, you know, depending on where the stock prices is, is in the billions of dollars. So it's just, you know, even if his stock goes down 90%, because he has

been given so many shares in this company, he could make, you know, tens of millions, of millions of dollars just from this one website property. So that's just, you know, that's the art of the deal for him. He has, this has been extraordinarily lucrative for him. And yet he really didn't have to do all that much. It's very, very different from, you know, the golf courses and the towers and the, you know, the fancy real estate in the past. This is something he was very hands off on. And it's, it's been extraordinarily profitable for him. Yeah. Look, it's good to see him getting a break for once, I think. So you mentioned he owns, or somehow he has like 57% of the stock, but let's talk about these small investors, these I guess so-called retail investors. They bought the

stock. They're watching their portfolio shrink bigly, I guess we could say. What kind of folks are talking about here? Yeah, so these are all-American Trump believers, basically. You know, retail shareholders are, you know, small-time, non-professional, amateur investors who, you know, they have money squirled away or they have retirement funds and they basically choose where to put their money in. They're not professionals. They're not institutional investors. And most of the investors that we know about in Trump media are this crew of retail investors. I mean, it's mostly Trump people.

With a lot of stocks on the market, you know, they're owned by these big, giant institutional investors. We don't hear about that happening with this company. And the company, you know, Trump media and Nunes and Trump have always really kind of boasted about that. We have all of these believers who are giving us their money. It's very similar to kind of the small donations of his campaign. But, you know, that has come with its own problems, right? Because this is a stock that totally just went into the stratosphere when it hit the market late last month. And even before that, you know, its merger partner was trading basically as a Trump property

and people were investing in that. And so when the stock, you know, pumped up, like you said, into the 70s and now has crashed back to Earth and basically lost half its value in the last two weeks, all of these amateur investors, you know, this was real money to them. They've put it in and they're really kind of sort of blown away, seeing it all fall apart. But it's, you know, I talked to a number of people. This involved a lot of cold calls, true social messages, a lot of getting yelled out over the phone, which is, I guess, basically typical for a journalist these days.

But, you know, I just trying to find people across the country who are investing this. And it was interesting. You know, I talked to an interior designer in Florida. I talked to a guy who cuts down trees and tears up stumps in Oklahoma City. I talked to, you know, healthcare workers. None of these were professional investors, but they were all very devoted Trump fans. Even if they weren't big true social people, some of them didn't even use true social at all. But they just, they saw the Trump brand on there and they said, you know what?

I'm going to give my money to this guy who I really. really believe in, who I feel like is getting this unfair attack against him and the media and now in court, I'm going to give him my nest egg and hope it all goes okay. The interesting thing there is not even so much that they are these retail investors. It's that they're not, at least from the way you describe them and from reading your great work at the Washington Post about this, they're not making any sort of, I guess, calculation here, I guess is the right word. It's not like they're sitting there going, well, this stock is, and then they have a bunch

research that they've done on their own to justify them buying it. It's more of, as I think you even write in your piece, it really is just an article of faith for them, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. It is 100% not based in logic and all emotional. And I can, I say that because people said that to me. They're saying, I'm not looking at the balance sheets. I'm not evaluating this like a typical company. I'm seeing the Trump name and I'm hitting the button on my phone and the money's going out of my pocket and into this company. And it really is, yeah, it's a show of faith. And that's why, you know, as the stock has gone down, the interesting sort of breakdown has been the people who see, oh my God, my portfolio is dwindling. And I'm really seeing this crisis of faith, basically,

because on one hand, you have, you know, this money people were counting on for retirement. And on the other, you have, well, but Trump means me. Who am I to run away now and lose my money and back away? So people have talked about Trump media being a meme stock. You know, we talk about with GameStop and Reddit, and there was this big core of meme stocks where people were, you know, everybody was jumping in all at once to make money and for the lulls and just having fun with it. Trump media is like that because so much of its value comes from just like the mass movement online and not really connected to the fundamentals. But it's almost more than that. It's like there is for some people almost like a religious devotion element where they feel like I'm going to walk. by faith and not by the logic of whatever the numbers say or what the line says on the stock market, I'm just going to put my belief in and hope that Trump's going to work things out. Well, that's the thing. These meme stocks, they were a joke. They were a bit.

In that sense, this does seem very different. You talked to a guy who said, I think the quote was, this isn't just another stock to me. I feel like it was God Almighty that put it in my lap. Yeah, exactly. With GameStop, the whole joke was like all of these people basically hated GameStop. And they thought it would be hilarious if it went to the moon. With this, it's backwards. It's like they love Trump so much that they want this stock to do so well because, yeah, they'll get profit from it.

But also, like, they'll prove all the liberals wrong by elevating Trump. And so, you know, with him, you know, and this was a guy who's 71, you know, he runs a tree service in Oklahoma City. He is not rich by any scale of the imagination, but he had money and he felt like when he heard about true social and Trump media a couple of years ago, So he told me it was basically an epiphany. He was like, okay, I'm going to invest. And he had told me that he had only really done this once before, like years ago. He put a bunch of money into penny stocks and he lost his butt, as he told me. And he basically swore off the stock market ever again.

But here you had this guy who he really loved in Trump asking for his support. And so he put basically all of his retirement money into the stock that now is ebbing away as we speak. And so for these people, it's, I don't think any different number on a balance sheet would change their commitment to this stock. And, you know, I think that's, there are very few people like Trump who can inspire that kind of basically blind devotion to something that is connected to a market. There is gravity in the market. And these lines do go down if they're not supported by anything. This is not the first instance of this that we've seen with Trump. There's still this bizarre aspect of, here's this guy who has whatever his wealth is, it's ungodly at any number. And yet somehow he has

convinced these people who, as you said, these people are not rich. And they're putting basically their, you know, their retirement savings or maybe their kids' college funds or whatever. They're saying, I have to give this money to support Donald Trump. And it really is just amazing that he is able to, I guess inspire is the right word, but just considering how much money he has, and how much money they have, it is just bizarre to me that he has somehow convinced them that they have to give what little they have to he who has so much. Yeah. A lot of the marketing around this company and to get shareholders has been this form of basically

victimhood and martyrdom for Trump. With true social, they have said, you know, we're going up against big tech, cancel culture, invest in us because we believe in free speech, give us your money. And when Trump media has, you know, this was a company that was plagued with all of these delays, had all of this drama for many years. I mean, even just the fact that they got to the stock market took so long. All the while, there was this, you know, constantly changing group of enemies that they would hold up as, you know, getting in the way of the Trump, the Trump vibe. And so they were constantly asking for people to invest, to use true social, to sort of believe in the cause. And so, you know, these people feel like they are, you know, they're soldiers on the side of Trump.

helping them. There was one other public company that Trump was involved with. He almost always uses private companies. Trump organization is, you know, 500 private companies, basically. But there was one time where he did something called Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts. Back in the 90s, 2000s, it was like a holding company of his Atlantic City casinos and his, you know, other properties. It opened to great fanfare. A bunch of people put money into it. And at the time, you know, Trump was a businessman, And celebrity, he wasn't a president yet, but a lot of people believed in, you know, this guy from Queens who grew up was very hard charging. A lot of people believed in him.

That stock also, you know, that stock basically plunged very quickly. Within a decade, it went bankrupt. Trump made a ton of money out of it. And the shareholders basically left with nothing. And, you know, I talked to shareholders at the time who, you know, were New York guys and they believed in Trump and their monies went to zero. And even then they were saying, how can I have been fooled to believe that this was a good idea? They were sort of like regretful, but they also felt like, but I really believed in it.

At the time, I was really part of it. And so now you have, I feel like you have, it's deja vu all over again because I'm seeing that kind of belief system, plus everything politically that Trump has done in the last couple years to sort of make this, not just about business, but about culture and politics and media. And that sort of commitment from his small-time shareholders is just carrying through to, you know, a whole new generation of public company. Yeah, I mean, this really is it's investing as part of the culture war. So why is this stock tanking in the minds of these people, of these retail investors? Surely it can't be a conspiracy.

Good question. So if you're to ask a financial analyst, why is the stock going down? They would say, look at the financials of the company. It doesn't make a lot of money. The money it does make is going out to executives or to legal bills or to debts or whatever, commerce oiling notes or whatever. Analysts say it's overpriced as is. It does not belong up in the $3 billion, $4 billion range because it's basically just a website

that doesn't have a big audience. And so they're saying there's all sorts of financial reasons why it should go down. When I talk to the Trump media investors, they have a lot of explanations that would seem Pretty familiar if you've been following the election fraud, quote unquote, hoax campaign that Trump has been on for many years. They say there's this organized conspiracy, basically, of people who are tanking the stock to make Trump look bad, to undermine him and his followers, to humiliate him in public. And the shape of what that conspiracy looks like changes from person to person. Of course, it's not really based on anything resembling evidence. It's just kind of a vibe.

It's just a feeling that the stock should be doing great. Everybody loves Trump. And yet the line keeps going down. And so, you know, hearing that sense from people who feel like there is a conspiracy there, it's like it really is just the election fraud all over again. I mean, and Trump, this has been a soundbite from him for a long time, which is just that they're going after me because they want to go after you. There's this giant deep state that is so powerful that they can control not just Washington,

but the stock market. it and now look what they're doing. And so when you create that self-reinforcing defense, you can use it for basically everything. And so now when people are seeing this line go down, they're not necessarily questioning, could the Trump company have done something different? They're saying, oh, Lord, it's the deep state is added again. You talk about the deep state and whatever. I would assume they're also blaming people like you who are writing stories about Trump media. Yes. The media in their argument is one of the biggest challenges to this.

company. They say the company is doing great, but the media coverage is unfair and it's making everybody think it's worse than it really is. To which, you know, the obvious counter is that all the numbers we're getting on this company are coming from the company itself, right? I mean, as a public company, they file documents with the SEC. They tell us their revenue and their, you know, their executive compensation. We're not just making that up out of thin air. It's always impossible, really to tell why a market does, why it does. Trump is on trial today, obviously, but I think it's separate to that is the company came out with this kind of technical filing today that allows them to issue a bunch more shares, basically. And when you issue a bunch more shares, it doesn't just

magically invent money out of nowhere. It actually tends to dilute all the other shares. So all the people who have shares right now, their value just naturally goes down if there are more shares. So that could be behind it. Or it's just, maybe it's just last week, the stock lost, you know, another 20 to 25% too. So maybe this is just the same phase as last week where it all is kind of going down. And this is a stock. I mean, when the merger partner for Trump Media, the company that basically helped take it public, when it premiered in late 2021, it shot up to $175 a share. And I've talked to people who bought at $175 a share, who then watched it go to basically $10 to $15 a share in a couple months. The stock is like so unusual because the highs are so high, the lows are so low,

and big swings and value are just totally commonplace. And so for the people who are shareholders and see a conspiracy at every turn, you know, it's like this is unusual. But I think a lot of that is just this is an unusual company. This is a company that doesn't run like any traditional tech company. and the tragedy. This is all based on one guy. You know, the initials of the company, DJT, Donald John Trump. This is all about him. And if you're expecting anything else, you're going to be kind of surprised. Drew Harwell, I love reading your stuff over at Washington Post. Thank you so much

for coming on. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Andy Levy. Daniel Moody. Andy Levy, how are we starting out this real spring week? This is what I'm hoping for in New York and America with your fuck that guy. All right, I'll get through this quickly so you can go outside, Danielle, because I know you're just, you're itching to get out in that good weather. My fuck that guy is going to be Carrie Lake. She is running for the Senate in Arizona after losing the gubernatorial race, which she then, for, I think to this day, insists was rigged against her. And she is like the ultimate election denier. So anyway, as we've talked about on this show and as I'm sure all listeners know,

Arizona resurrected its absolutely heinous anti-abortion bill in the past week. And Carrie Lake, who very much wants to be Donald Trump's vice president, she has come out against Arizona resurrecting this bill, which is very interesting because in 2022, she referred to it as a, quote, great law. Not really sure what's changed in her mind between 2022 and 2024, except that she now has national political aspirations, which, by the way, he's never picking her for FEP because I think she might be too crazy even for him. But it's just such a great example of Republican hypocrisy

and speaking out of both sides of their mouths on this issue, the issue of abortion and reproductive freedom. Because they'll sit there in one breath. and tell you that they don't believe abortion should ever be legal. And as Donald Trump will say, as he once said that women needed to be punished, he quickly backtracked within a day or two saying, no, actually, it's doctors that need to be punished. But of course, he won't stand by that. And they'll tell you that, you know, well, nobody thinks, you know, nobody thinks that if someone is the victim of rape or incest, that they should be forced to carry a fetus to term. But then a day later, They will pass laws that say just that.

So my fuck that guy is Carrie Lake because this is a particularly egregious kind of hypocrisy and doubles speak. But it's really more her as just sort of an exemplar of the Republican Party all across the country at the local level, at the state level, and at the federal level and how they are saying one thing and doing very much another and how they are itching to pass a federal abortion ban, whether they say so or not. And so just a sort of hail and hearty, fuck that guy to Carrie Lake and to all the other Republican elected officials who are on the same path that she is. I mean, are you sure? Because, like, she can vacuum. You know?

She can vacuum. Yeah. But she does women's work, Andy. It's true. So I don't know why you don't like her. Anyway, fuck that woman. Danielle, who's your fuck that guy? I want to start off this week, I'm strong with if we lived in a country where everyone had to abide by the same laws, then I think that this person would probably be charged with a crime. That's just me. I'm not a lawyer. But Representative Eric Swalwell, friend of this show who has come on, has recently, according to the Hill, accused conservative media personality Clay Travis for jury tampering, which is a crime. And why would he say that? Well, let's take a look at what Clay Travis posted on Elon Musk's dumpster fire site.

Quote, if you're a Trump supporter in New York City, which let's just full stop there, if you're a Trump supporter in New York City who is a part of the jury pool, do everything you can to get seated on the jury and then refuse to convict as a matter of principle, dooming the via hung jury. It's the most patriotic thing you could possibly do. Is it, Clay? Is it the most patriotic thing that I could possibly do? I mean, I know that to you all in the Republican Earth 2 camp believe that hugging a flag is the most patriotic thing that you can do or screaming, you know, xenophobic comments is the most patriotic thing that you can do. But here's the thing. If you're the thing, If you do live in New York City and are from New York City, chances are you know who the fuck

Donald Trump is. You've heard about him. So the chances are that you support him is probably small. But also telling people to join a jury pool so that they can not convict Donald Trump of crimes before they even hear out this case seems pretty fucking illegal. to me. And so I hope that somebody is paying attention. I have no idea. But right now, Donald Trump, you know, whose case begins this week, faces 34 counts of falsifying business records because of hush money that he paid to a porn star that he slept with while his wife was giving

birth. Like, but you know what? If you believe in America, this is your guy. So you should do everything that you can to protect a twice impeached multiple times criminally indicted cheater, misogynist, racist, homophobic, transphobic pig. But that's the most patriotic thing that you can do according to Clay. So do that. Fuck that guy. For the love of God. I just, you know, when we talk about crimes, it should be a crime to post something like this. But, you know, what do I know? It may be. I'm not a lawyer. I don't know for sure. Sure. I have seen lawyers suggest that it is arguably their words, jury tampering, and therefore a crime. And I would be interested to find out if it's a crime. And by that, I mean, I think he should be charged with it. Because really, that's the only way to find out, isn't there? And then he could tweet that he thinks jurors owe it to themselves to lie and get on his jury and find him not guilty. And we could just keep going down this road, which is always fun. Anyway, yeah, fuck that guy.

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