The Daily Beast Podcast - GOP Knows It’s ‘Hanging On by a Thread’ in a Post-Roe World

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

The time for being squeamish about abortion is over. That’s what pro-choice advocate and author Ilyse Hogue tells The New Abnormal’s intrepid co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy: “Roe is actually a fire-alarm fire,” and it’s time to “talk loudly and proudly about what we stand for.” (That goes for you, too, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland—Levy knows you’re listening, and he dares you to prosecute someone based on the explosive testimony coming out of the Jan. 6 hearings.) Speaking of which: what does the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, who for the current moment has “brought Trumpworld to its knees,” as Jong-Fast puts it, mean for where the Jan. 6 Committee is heading? What’s left to prove? That assessment comes courtesy of the Daily Beast’s hometown hero, politics editor Matt Fuller. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Zhang Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic Info. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objective. 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 the wisest and funniest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it. What a great show we have today. We're going to first talk to Elise Hogue, who's the former president of Nairaal and current president of purpose and the author of The Lie that Binds, an inside look at the anti-choice movement's disinformation. Then we'll talk to Daily Beast senior politics editor Matt Fuller, and he's going to tell us about what's going on in Congress right now.

But first, let's have some fun. Molly. Quite a hearing. I watched it on the airplane. I was, you know that it was a blockbuster because the surprise witness, a 26-year-old aide, I would say she sort of brought Trump World to its knees, disgust. Yeah, a little bit. We'll see how long that lasts. They're trying to malign her. Yes. It's their basic playbook, is what they're. they're doing. Watching that hearing, it was, I think I texted you guys, it was like it was one Jesus Christ moment after another. Like, it was just constant. It just really got to the heart of they all knew something like what happened on January 6th was going to happen. They all wanted something like what happened on January 6th to happen. Except Cassidy Hutchinson. Right.

The fact that the way that Trump World has tried to debunk her story, which by the way, they have not been successful at doing it, but they were like, he was in the limo. You can't get to the front of the limo. And then, of course, he wasn't. He was in this SUV. I mean, well, it might not have been true, but it does prove it. I mean, like, I love Trump World because they're just so amazing. Next, they're going to say, like, she wore a short skirt.

They're already like she wanted to work at Mar-a-Lago. Why would anyone want to work at Mar-a-Lago? Yeah. She wanted to work at an ex-president's crappy country club, and she was mad that she didn't get a job with this guy who lost. It doesn't even make any sense. Look, there are a bunch of things here. One is I do not give a shit about the limo story particularly. I don't give a shit particularly about the ketchup being on the walls because there's,

They were like the least important things that she had to say that day. I'm just going to use this opportunity to yell at the media for focusing on those two things because I don't care. I'm sure he threw a plate with a well-done hamburger on it or whatever against the wall and ketchup got on the wall. I care more that he wanted the magnetometers shut off so that people with guns could come into his rally and then head to the Capitol. I hate to high horse this, but the media just fails constantly. And they focus on these things because they're lurid or whatever. And yeah, I get it. The image of Donald Trump lunging from the backseat of the presidential SUV is like, whoa, what a great image.

Whatever. I don't care if he did it or not. I suspect he did it. I suspect the story she heard was true. And mainly I suspect that because all the people who are saying it's not. true so far have refused to testify under oath. So you'll pardon me if I'm going to take their word a lot less seriously than I will at someone who did testify under oath. But look, the right wing media is, as you pointed out, is glomming onto this limo thing. And the normal,

quote unquote, normal media should not be playing this game. The normal media should be focusing on everything she said about Mark Meadows, not giving a shit about what was going on on January about Donald Trump, about the encouragement of everything that happened on January 6th. I get so mad, Molly, at this stuff because we don't have to do this. We don't have to talk about we're bogged down in this limo thing because a fucking white supremacist Jack Posobiac tweeted out a picture of the wrong limo. Pizza Jack, but I do want to say, I do think we should get stuck on the they are not here to hurt me.

Trump's saying they're not here to hurt me. I mean, that's what I'm saying. is an unfucking believable admission because it's saying, A, he knows they're coming for violence. Exactly. B, he knows they're here to hurt someone. C, he knows they're not here to hurt him. And I think if we're going to focus on anything that is absolutely mind-blowing. I would say one other thing, Pizza Jack, running real hard.

Remember, he was involved in Macron Leaks. He was involved in PizzaGate. He continues to be a verified source on Twitter. I do not know why. I think it's a little interesting just in Twitter stuff for a second. There was also this Breaking News 9-1-1, which is another like non-vetted news source. So, I mean, I think it's really important for all of us in Twitter, non-twitter, everything to just make sure that when we're seeing stuff,

we're making sure that it's from someplace that's reputable. And even the reputable places, right, sometimes, like with a police denial or something like that or a Republican saying something not under oath. If it sounds fishy, like, keep going. You know, don't necessarily trust it if it sounds fishy to you. And I think that is really an important message with all of this, even when it comes to fancy places.

I want to go back to what you said about what the president said about they're not here to hurt me. Talk about putting to bed all the lies we heard about. how, oh, this was actually Antifa that stormed the Capitol. Not that it needed to be shot down because it was always bullshit, but it shoots down their own stories. They make up these stories, oh, this wasn't our people, this was Antifa. Really? Trump said they're not here to hurt me about Antifa with guns? I don't think so. Everything he does demolishes their own stories. It's just so important to me to focus on this stuff. And Kevin McCarthy,

getting out there denigrating Cassidy Hutchinson when he refuses to sit under oath, when he is on tape saying one thing, and then the next day pretending he'd never said it. Like, I am just so sick of these guys. This country would be so much better off if we took everyone who was in Gitmo and set them free and put all of these people there in their place. This country would be so much safer if we did that. Yes, definitely the terrorism is coming from insomely. the Republican Party largely.

Garland has been briefed. Yay! Liz Cheney needs to go to Merrick Garland's office and scream at him. Hopefully she's doing that. Look, I don't put it past her. I will never vote for her for president, but she's a killer. And not in a good way necessarily, except with this one thing. Is it wrong of me to say that she could take a few lessons from her father and

forcing people to do things? Are you saying she should shoot people in the face? Andy, that was your words, not mine? Your words, not mine. He's saying she should daughter board him. That was correct. There we go. I'm optimistic.

I think when Brett Baer is saying what the F, I think it would be very hard for Merrick Garland not to do something now. Though I don't, I'm not daring him. Yeah. Look, I'm very happy that the Attorney General has been briefed on the evidence against Donald Trump. regarding January 6th. I think it's great that the Attorney General is keeping up to date on this stuff. I don't know why that's a story. Like, that's what the Attorney General is supposed to be doing, getting briefed on this stuff.

And then I don't know, maybe, you know, acting on it and stuff like that. But I have zero faith in him. I dare him to prosecute someone. Yeah, he's an avid, new abnormal listener. So this makes a lot of sense. He is. He DMs me. constantly on Twitter.

Yeah, that's right. Me too. Asking about why is Molly eating again? You know what? By the way, I'm never eating. So, okay? I'm never eating. I told him that.

I am just telling you that's what Attorney General Merrick Garland, those are the kinds of questions he has for me. Never eating. I am hoping that he throws politics out the window and doesn't say, well, we can't do this because people might get mad. That's not your job.

Your job is to do the right thing. Do the right thing. And there's a lot to do the right thing about. So we'll see there's going to be more hearings. I feel like there'll be more blockbusters. We'll see how this goes. And the hope is that we will keep it going. Back to the Supreme Court.

You know what the thing that I love about this Supreme Court is, and I don't think we spend enough time talking about this, Alito and Clarence Thomas have been completely Fox News pill. So even though they won't. went to fancy whatever grad schools and colleges. They are like just clearly old guys who watch Fox News. So this occasionally spills out like today when in his dissent, Thomas claims that COVID vaccines were developed with the use of aborted children. I don't think Ginny is writing his opinions for him,

but one man, one flesh, one man, one woman, one flesh. I'm saying it, one Facebook account. Like, I wouldn't put it past them. One man, one wife, one insurrection. Yeah. On the one hand, we're supposed to believe that they have this incredible marriage and it's nothing but love and they're so close. And then we're also supposed to believe, oh, well, we don't talk about work.

I think they talk about work. I agree. But I'm saying that's what we are supposed to believe, apparently. Yeah. And no, I don't believe it either. I guess it's probably too late for this term, but maybe next term we are going to get at some point, Thomas is going to write a decision talking about the return of JFK Jr. To run for president with Donald Trump.

He's going to be V. Yeah. Listen, man, you laugh. I'm not laughing. I wish I were laughing. I'm not laughing. I'm crying. Speak for yourself. I'm laughing. JFK. Jr.

He's going to love those Q&on folks. This is going to end up being just great. Yeah. But, you know, the court, they did it again today. They basically ruled six to three that it's okay to burn the planet. Look, they just gutted the Environmental Protection Agency. Nothing to see here. No, not at all. I mean, why should the environment be protected? That Nixon was a crazy liberal. Yeah. The guy who started the Environmental Protection Agency.

And he needed to be put in his place. And who better to do it than five people who don't understand math or science? Yeah, six people in this case. Gotta love Roberts. Yeah. He was trying to keep the court. But then he was like, eh, fuck it. Like, obviously, it's too late.

Let's just pass lots of crazy shit. No, he has, he's given up. He's like, look, I am tired of being part of the four. Yeah. I don't want to be a loser. I want to be a winner. Exactly. I'm telling you my favorite thing about this, though.

It's like they don't realize they have a lifetime appointment. You have a lifetime appointment. You have the rest of your life to ruin America. Do you have to do it in your first three months? Yes, yes, they do. The planet's not going to burn overnight. And the quicker you start this, the quicker we can all get on with dying.

I understand why they felt a pressing need to do this now. You might as well abolish it. the EPA at this point. That's, which, by the way, is which conservatives would love. Which is coming. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But look, they couch this in, well, this is the administrative state

cannot stand. This is Congress's job. This goes counter to everything we know. This goes counter to why the EPA was set up, as you said, under Nixon. But it's just day in and day out. It's another decision that just fucks us. They've made it so that we can't abort these decisions.

they're fucking us and we have no recourse to do anything about it. Elise Hogue is the former president of mayoral, current president of purpose, and the author of The Lie That Binds, an inside look at the anti-choice movement's disinformation. Welcome back to the new abnormal. Thank you, Molly. It's good to be here. I mean, did you ever think that we would be sitting here in post-row America? Well, I mean, not only did I think it, I wrote a book about how, unless we changed the current trajectory, We were on. This was where we were going to end up, and I'm not at all surprised by the timing.

I mean, we knew that this was what was coming down the pike as soon. I mean, look, we knew it as soon as they started stonewalling Merrick Garland. So this has been, you know, a six-year slow-motion train wreck. It's really the zenith of their 50-year plan. Do you think they'll ever be legal abortion for women in the state of like Alabama or Mississippi? I do. I think that they are so out of the mainstream that their resistance to bodily autonomy, to abortion rights, to women's like literal station in society, it cannot hold in less, and there's a big in less here, Molly. We actually descend into authoritarian rule where the majority of those who participate in democracy are routinely ignored, which is what we're parallel close to right now. So I'm not suggesting that. I think there's a couple of questions that we have to

ask ourselves, which is, how do we make sure that doesn't happen? Because as I wrote in my book, The Lie That Binds, abortion was always the tip of the spear for them of a much bigger agenda that has everything to do with minority rule, everything to do with a sort of white fundamentalist patriarchy, making sure that people who do not ascribe by their theology don't have power in society. So, you know, are we waking up to the reality that Roe is actually like a five-alarm fire, not just, and it would be enough, but not just for the people who cannot access abortion, but for what it portends for democracy as a whole. If we could actually stop the authoritarian power grab,

then absolutely I do believe that the day will come where abortion is legal across the land, because that's what public health demands. That's what the majority of people want. But our role in the meantime is to mitigate as much harm as possible. Now, let me offer something else, because I think it's important for your listeners who are sitting in Massachusetts and New York and feeling real safe to hear,

is that their desire is not to actually stop with abortion being illegal in Alabama. I mean, the people who come and march in the streets every January 21st aren't marching with signs that say federalism now, send it back to the states, right? They're marching with signs that say abortion is murder, and their absolute next play is a federal abortion ban. And so nobody should feel safe.

Everybody has skin in the game. The skin in the game should absolutely be about restoring legal access to abortion, but it's about recognizing the moment for what it is and not allowing the downward spiral to continue. Yeah, I mean, that's a really good point. And didn't Mike Pence really give away the game or like the day Roe got overturned? He was like, we're going to do a nationwide ban. I mean, half the people dancing in the streets were saying that, but is it a little bit more frightening that Mike Pence did?

Sure. I mean, you know, my biggest, I'll just own this now since we're past this chapter in American society, my biggest concern about Trump being impeached when that was happening was not that he didn't deserve it. Of course, he deserved it. But that Mike Pence being in the White House was actually far more. frightening because he had even more radical views and he knew how to work with Congress to make it happen. Yeah. Mike Pence is really quite scary. I want to like play a game with you here. You are president right now. What do you do? I mean, here's the thing I will say. The thought

exercise is interesting and I understand people's clamoring for more leadership and I feel that too, right? This is a thing that has historic roots in not just a Republican power grab, but in Democrats refusing to actually be proactive, recognize how sacrosanct this right needs to be, and pass the legislation, be more bold, destigmatize abortion, talk about it more as not just the right and the medical procedure that people need, but also the popular position that it is. The thought exercise falls down for me, and this is probably a product of me knowing too much in the idea that any one person can do any one thing at this point and save us from the moment. You know, this is going to take everyone. And so I'm certainly not letting President Biden off

the hook. He has a huge amount of responsibility to participate in both the rhetorical and the executive leadership that people are craving right now. And I thought it was a good step, right, a step out of the paralysis that we're feeling that he said, we should suspend the filibuster to codify row that was very welcome this morning. But what I don't want people to think, because I got so many calls after the decision came down saying, what do we do now? What do we do now? And like, we can't let ourselves off the hook. This is a long game at this point. We had options for it not to get to this point. We did not take them. And now it's a long game to claw back the rights that we have to do through state legislative elections, through municipal zoning, through expanding

our majority in the Senate with people who genuinely and authentically believe in abortion rights, as well as civil rights, and as well as the idea that people's protection should supersede old institutional rules. I am a firm believer that we need to expand the court because this court is illegitimate and no longer has, you know, the power to govern people's lives. So it's going to take a lot of different things. And do I want to see the president and the Democratic leadership lead more aggressively and more proactively and throw everything they can at the wall? Absolutely. But I just want to dissuade your reader or your listeners from thinking that anyone can do any one thing and it's going to solve the problem. Right. It's a big problem that has lots of

different pieces, right? And lots of different solutions. Correct. The reason that the radical right wing shows abortion as, you know, what we call in the book, a Trojan horse to advance a deeply unpopular agenda is because they counted on people's silence, because people don't like to talk about sex. People don't like to talk about abortion, right? And they gambled wisely. People didn't want to talk about it. And the time for that is absolutely over. cannot call their bluff on their minority rule strategy unless we're actually going to recognize it for what it is and talk loudly and proudly about what we stand for. I would love to see every Democratic elected and every Democratic candidate take the stage in every debate they do between

now and November and come out punching, right? Come out and say, do you Republican opponent, stand by your party's position, which is to force women to carry pregnancy to term, knowing nothing about their lives, nothing about their health, nothing about their families. Do you stand by that position? Because they should be on the record, because that is a deeply unpopular position. We had Rob and Marty on the podcast who wrote the Post Row Handbook, who actually is working in an abortion clinic in Alabama. And she was saying to me that these doctors, if they think you've had an abortion,

and you're bleeding and you come into the hospital, they send you home. Yeah, I mean, Robin would certainly know better than me, my experiences. But it seems like we're going to see a lot more of this maternal fetal death. Oh, yeah, I think to the point that you're connecting Robin's point to mine, I totally agree. Right? Like, the GOP should be made to own every single calamity that happens from here on out. That is blood on their hands. And, you know, we can clamor for it, but we need to hear the Democrats actually saying that this is on them.

It feels like a lot of the talk we've heard on television has been, like, largely theoretical, right? Like, what does this mean? And can you get the pills? Can you still get the pills? But like when I talked to Robin, I realized, like, the past row in 1973 because women were actually, like, in the hospital dying, right? It was like a septic abortion ward. What I think that a lot of people don't remember because most of us were not alive or we were not super cognizant 49, 50 years ago, is that this was as much an issue about women dying as it was about anything else. And so I don't think that any of us on the left or the right are prepared for just the kind of healthcape that's going to rain down on us.

I think that's right. And I'm sure, again, Robin, Marty, is, you know, the on the ground expert on this stuff. But one of the things that I know to be true is that what we didn't have in 1973, that we do actually have much better science, much better networks around is self-managed abortion, which can be done safely and needs to be sort of acknowledged, right? But the difference is we had a culture and a GOP at the time that had zero interest in punishing women, not overtly. They knew it to be a political killer for them, right? Like they were basically like women or victims, blah, blah, blah, would prosecute doctors, bad enough, terrible. Doctors trying to serve their patient should not happen. But now we actually have a culture and a GOP that is happy to vilify women, right?

And so the thing that should chill people to the bone, certainly there are going to be disastrous health outcomes of this. Certainly people will die absent some kind of intervention. and the GOP owns that. But what we're also going to see is a serious uptick in the criminalization of miscarriages, of self-managed abortions, of all of that with investigations into people's homes

very akin to what my home state of Texas has done with the anti-trans law, right? Where they're investigating parents for providing gender-affirming care, which is absolutely egregious, but also terrifying. That is the power of the state coming into your home, investigating your periods, investigating your parenting style. We already had this

happen, by the way. This is not the future. In 2015, a woman helped her daughter get abortion pills off the internet. And she started to hemorrhage and her mom did the responsible thing and took her to the hospital and the hospital called the cops. And the cops charged the mom. You know, so like this is not actually futuristic fiction. This is happening. What we're going to see is the gloves come off and a scaling of this kind of, you know, punitive, like, state coming in and punishing women, punishing parents for helping their kids just try and manage their own reproductive destiny. It's terrifying. And it should be. People need to be scared. People need to move through scare and action, but people should recognize the gravity of the threat. It does seem like the abortion

pills are safe and they should still be provided. And I, in my mind, feel that it was. would be my patriotic duty to help, especially when a law is this unfair and also unjust. But I also think, like, the collateral damage is just we just don't even know where it's going to go. Correct. I think that's right. And the thing that I really, really hope your readers here is, while they may exercise state power and control and surveillance in service of abortion, it's not going to stop there, right? These are the ingredients for a totalitarian state. And that's what we have to recognize the threat of. Right, exactly.

I think that's such an important and also scary thing. So tell me something that's going to make me less terrified and depressed. What's the happy news? Let's hear happy news. So the thing that should make you less terrified and depressed, particularly on the abortion front, is that we have an activated community of people who have been preparing for this. Robin is very embedded in those networks, right? And they are ready to serve their own communities. And we've

been here before, you know, whether it's the mutual aid societies that have been necessary to, you know, enforce civil rights and Jim Crow South or whether it's, you know, the sort of pre-row illegal abortion days. Like, people are springing into action to support one another. And that should give us all a real sense of hope and pride in the communities in which we reside. But the second thing that I would say is that they are on very tenuous ground. They know that they are in, and by them, I mean, the GOP that supports this radical right power grab, they literally know that they are hanging on by a thread and that thread is the idea that there is no organized resistance that the Democrats are afraid, right, that they are by brute force going to be able to hold on

the minority control. And the reason that gives me hope is because the solution is right here in our hands, right? I said this after Kavanaugh. Their hope was that we would take the lesson out of Kavanaugh that we are powerless and therefore go home and not resist. They know they can only hold the line so long if people refuse to go home, if people continue to turn out every day, vote in every election, lobby their state houses, lobby their federal government, because the majority will ultimately prevail. So that gives me hope because I see no signs of people's anger, rage, and commitment abating. And that is our secret weapon. Good point. Thank you so much for joining us. This is super interesting. And also,

So we just have to keep going, right? Thank you, Molly, for all you do. It's really, really important. I appreciate it. Thank you. Matt Fuller is a senior politics editor at The Daily Beast. Welcome back to the new abnormal Matt Fuller. Thank you for having me.

It's been an exciting 24 hours. There was an article in Reuters, I think it was Reuters, that said Biden will not take any bold action on Roe. And then today, he... Biden said he was going to take bold action on row. He said he's open to filibuster cut out. I was pretty excited about that. Here's the problem with the carve-out. The one carve-out they've done in the past, well, I mean, first of all,

they've actually done many carve-outs with the filibuster. We should be clear. Right. But the most recent one was the ceiling debt limit carve-out for Republicans, and they still had to have 60 votes. I think Biden's saying he could support 50 votes for it. But the situation here is that there really isn't 50 votes, at least not right now for this,

because you have, again, Mansion Cinema who are still saying, well, we don't want to eliminate the filibuster. And there's this thought that even on this issue doing it would dismantle the filibuster. So Biden can say that. I certainly get the politics of it. Better than him not saying it, right? Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the first step here in actually moving this conversation forward.

But I'm still not very hopeful that they're going to actually eliminate the filibuster for abortion. Right. But it is better than I can't help you. I'm sorry. Good luck to you. Right, right. In one session, Amy Comey Barrett, handmade in this first session, she's repealed row, got to the EPA, and basically made it so that New York can no longer have concealed carry restrictions. What does she do for an encore?

It's been a banner term for Amy Coney Barrett. Yeah, I mean, look. I think all these justices came in and we kind of knew what to expect. Amy Coney-Barrant was clearly a very conservative justice. It so clearly was against abortion rights. Even Susan Collins voted against it. Right. I don't think there was much hope there in that regard.

Obviously, these justices are conservative. They have a very conservative perspective, legal perspective, and they've proven their willingness to throw out what they used to refer to as super precedent in a number of scenarios. So, you know, they're there for a long time. These are still very young people in Supreme Court years. So much more to come. Yeah, all bad.

Talk to me about what this does. I've seen some polling. This has helped Democrats, right? Or tell me some terrible thing that will make me despair. It certainly, I think, well, you know, there was this 2018 backlash against Trump, the suburban affluent educated women who were largely driving Democratic majorities in 2018. I think a lot of those women are once. again pissed off. A lot of those, for lack of a better term, country club Republican women are

mad and actually can't believe that we're in a world where Roe has been overturned. It's still unclear what this is actually going to do electorally. Elections, you know, they move quite a bit in short amounts of time. So we'll have to see, but it can't imagine this is good for Republicans, how much it's going to move the races. We've already seen races moving a little bit in Georgia, particularly this Warnock and Herschel Walker race. Yeah, now he's up 10 points. Up 10 points, right, which is, you know, an incredible shift. And I'd like to think it's a lot of the Daily Beast reporting on Herschel Walker's kids,

but I don't think that's quite moving the race. I think it's probably more, again, these issues like abortion, I think there's, again, a lot of women in Georgia who are incensed. Certainly this is the type of issue that's going to motivate people to run to the polls, But this is complex because they don't have 60 votes to codify row into real law. And again, there doesn't seem to be the real motivation to ignore the filibuster to make it 50. Talk to me about what you think the January 6th committee. I'm going to say this.

I've been saying it for a while, but I think it's really true. It's working. This is like the first congressional hearing I've ever seen where like you actually are like, oh, this is really good. Like, they're really doing a good job. Discuss. Yeah. So I think you have to ask who's the intended audience here, right? It's certainly not the person who's just going to be following what Trump says on truth social and call this a kangaroo court. There's always been Republicans, a section of the population here who is always going to believe that Trump is innocent. This is a witch hunt. They have that ammunition to call that, right? There really isn't. Now, there are Republicans on the committee, Liz Chating, Adam Kinsinger, but they're not pro-insurrection Republicans as Republicans wanted as Trump wanted. We have a situation where they're able to, the January 6th committee is able to present a very coherent storyline. I think these are very,

these are made for TV moments. I mean, certainly this Cassidy Hutchinson, her hearing was sort of incredible. And if people were watching that, right, people who are tuning in and with a fair mind, I think they're walking away and saying, wow, you know, I'm not very comfortable with Donald Trump being president. Or, wow, I really actually do need to go vote to make sure that Donald Trump is not the president again. Those people who are who are movable, I think it's actually working in that sense. We're seeing some movement on focus groups that people are now saying, maybe Donald Trump shouldn't run, which has never really happened before among the Republican Party. So there's movement here. There's good signs. And it's the collection of factors here. It's not just one thing where Republicans

had for so long thought, oh, the generic ballot's so great for us. We're clearly going to win, inflation, gas prices. There's now a collection of things that I think are swaying towards the Democratic favor and could actually move elections here. What was interesting, to me about these hearings was that at the end, you really heard Congresswoman Cheney sort of ask for more testimony, asked for the other people who've been enabling Trump world to come forward. I thought that was pretty interesting. Yeah, I think we're foreseeing now that there are still a lot of people who are loyal to Trump. Clearly, Cassie Hutchinson, the storyline behind her testimony is that she testified with a Trump

lawyer, didn't feel like she quite said everything she wanted to say, and then went back with her own lawyer, and then disclosed a lot more. There's a lot of Trump world figures who have more to say, who know more, who have been quiet, who may have even been lying. Obviously, we have contradictory accounts here from people who are under oath, so someone's got to be lying. We don't exactly know everything there is to know. Obviously, there's people who have not cooperated with the committee who clearly know quite a bit. Mark Meadows, I imagine, knows quite a bit about these accounts and they could testify and verify a lot of what Cassie Hutchinson said and probably knows a lot more than what she,

was able to disclose herself. So she's making an appeal to say, come forward, do American duty. This is a 26-year-old woman who's taking the heat that you guys wouldn't you wouldn't step in and take. And that's cowardly of you. As Cassie Hutchinson said,

what she saw on January 6th was un-American. And I think Liz Cheney, as a Republican, is trying to appeal to her fellow Republicans in that American sense of duty to stand up and say something here, that this is wrong. And they know it's wrong and they just, you know, don't care.

Where do you think this goes next? The January 6th committee, we're still going to be looking at, I mean, obviously the most recent thing here is Pat Cipollone was subpoenaed. I don't know if he's going to testify. They still need to build up this case and this timeline of what Trump knew when he knew it. I think they've, in a convincing fashion, showed that he was aware of these people were armed. He knew that the election lies were bullshit. All that, he was trying to fan the flames here. At this point, it's about who else was. was involved in this scandal. What exactly, what exactly did they know? When did they know it?

Verifying a lot of these certain claims and sort of hammering at home. I think it's got to be hammered home for a lot of the American people here for it to really have that effect that they're looking for. Oh, Jesus. Senate pickups for Democrats go. So this is part of the problem for Democrats is there really isn't a huge battleground for them to win. You have Pennsylvania, you have North Carolina. Those are the big pickup opportunities. Wisconsin? Wisconsin, certainly. That's definitely in play, particularly when you have Ron Johnson just spouting off and saying whatever he wants. Then things start getting a little bit trickier. You're looking at Ohio. That's a much tougher race. Arizona's not a pickup opportunity. It's a defensive opportunity.

Right. I mean, so is Nevada. Yeah, Florida is a pickup opportunity, but it's unlikely. So the field of play is limited. If everything went great for Democrats, they might pick up three seats. If everything went terrible for them, they might lose three seats. It's, probably somewhere in the middle. We're looking at a very slim majority either way for Republicans and Democrats. And this is part of the problem. There really just isn't 60 votes for Democrats to be had in the Senate. If they get to 52 and they have 50 real Democrats, that could be a big deal. For sure. And if you don't have mansion and cinema, you have a lot more power.

That's been a huge aspect of this. But getting to 52 is pretty much everything going correct and nothing going wrong. Thank you, Matt Fuller. Thanks, guys. Andy. Molly. Since you're in a lighthearted mood, I like to think of you as a cheerful and happy. Yes. Who is the guy who has gotten your ire to die? Among the many, Molly, I'm going to go with the Texas Attorney General, a man by the name of Ken Paxton, who is not at all in trouble with the law himself and has not been under investigation for many, many years.

He's one of my favorite indicted AGs. Yeah, it's a little always weird to me how you can have someone who's indicted be the attorney general of the state. But, you know, what the hell do I know? Now that Roe v. Wade is in the dumpster, and by the way, we've been assured that the court is not going to go any further and that, you know, birth control is safe, gay marriage is safe. Oh, yeah.

Unless you read the Thomas opinion. Or unless you read, uh, or unless you read, uh, or listen to Ken Paxton. Tell me more about this Ken Paxton, who haunts your dreams and nightmares. Kenny P. Like Kenny G. But with indictments.

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Right. He was on one of your favorite channels, Molly, News Nation. Oh, the best. He would like the Supreme Court to overturn Lawrence v. Texas. It's sort of commonly known as the sodomy ruling.

but it basically, Lawrence v. Texas, said it was okay for gay people to have sex. And Ken Paxton doesn't like that. And he thinks it should go back to the states. He feels the same way about gay marriage. So basically everything that we are being told not to worry about, Ken Paxton is saying, no, you should worry about them. Because I, as the Attorney General of Texas, would like to get rid of them. And I am calling on the Supreme Court to help me do that.

He gets my fuck that guy for this week over some incredibly strong competition. Yeah, I'll say. Do you want to know who my fuck that guy is? Yes, I do. Are you waiting with bated breath? I had to think about it for a second. But yeah, no, I do. I do want to know.

Perhaps you will remember one tiny, very muscular fellow who hosted Fear Factor. Well, you may or may not, remember? He's an MMA fighter. He has enormous arms like hams. All muscle. No brain. Joe Rogan, your favorite liberal in mine, endorsing Ron DeSantis. Because he's not a fucking liberal.

He's not. He's just a ding-dong. He's not smart. He is, however, has enormous muscles. And for that, I am very pleased for him if he could spend more time in the gym and less time telling his millions of followers what to do, we'd all be a lot better off. Thoughts, prayers?

I think you're right. I think that people should stop sort of referring to Joe Rogan as a liberal. Maybe I've said this before, but I'm not sure, but I'm tired of hearing about these so-called politically homeless and politically tribalist people who count Joe Rogan as one of them. They're all conservatives.

Occasionally they have one or two heterodox opinions, but at heart, they're all conservative. The biggest thing for me about Joe Rogan is people I say, well, he's just, he's very curious. So he has a bunch of different people on his show because he's very curious. He's not curious. He's credulous. He just, he hears ridiculous shit and he believes it. That's not being curious.

He's basically David St. Hubbins, where he says, I believe virtually everything I read. That's who he is. So somehow he's convinced himself, even though Ron DeSantis kind of like half the things that Desantis wants to do, Rogan claims to be against. But they're, oh, I think Ron DeSantis. this would be a good president. Yeah, well, he likes him because he's... Whatever.

I mean, the whole thing, there's no, they're there with any of these guys, but at least they have enormous muscles. And so for that, we give them a hearty, fuck you. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from the Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics, and science. We'll help us understand what's happening to our country and the world.

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