The Daily Beast Podcast - GOP Leaders Flip-Flop as Pete Hegseth Faces the Guillotine

Episode Date: December 8, 2024

Some Republican leaders are squirming to keep Pete Hegseth’s name in the hat as president-elect Donald Trump’s defense secretary nominee—at all costs, said The New Abnormal co-hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie. Plus! Christopher Robbins, reporter and co-founder of local news outlet Hell Gate, discusses New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ big shift on immigration. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Reporter and co-founder of Helligate Christopher Robbins joins us to talk about New York Mayor Eric Adams' strong pivot on immigration and seemingly pandering to the incoming president Donald Trump. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready to listen to some clips? Clips. So Pete Higgseth, you know, by the time this lads, we have no idea what his fate may be in store, but I sure do enjoy the squirming along the way and the showing the true colors. Here's Rick Scott getting interviewed about Pete Higseth and his NDA about his alleged sexual assault. Anonymous sources say these things without willing to go on, go on your show or some show,

and have you asked them all these, all the questions? A point that you're making here. The woman who accuses Pete of raping her in 2017, although the police that we should know, did not charge him with any crime. That woman, Pete Tegseth, paid her money and she signed a non-disclosure agreement. So she can't come on my show to talk about it. Do you think Pete should release her from the NDA so that I can ask her the questions that you want me to? Absolutely not. There's so many.

There's so, think about it. Yeah. That pretty much sums it up. I mean, my God. I expected a little bit more squirbing than absolutely not. Yeah. My God. It's unreal.

And I mean, you know, now Lindsay Graham one day is talking about how concerning these allegations are. And the next day, he also is talking about how they're all anonymous. And so obviously the talking points went out. They were told how to respond to these questions. and they simply don't care what it makes them look like because they know it pleases Donald Trump and that's all they care about. Well, and they haven't really been punished that much

for acting like this. No. Nope. So why would they stop? Right. Rewarding bad behavior. A great recipe for bad politicians. Whereas if they say something that does, you know,

cross Donald Trump or make him mad, there are ramifications for them. Mean truths. Yeah. Yeah. Mean truths. We should put that on a T-shirt. Yeah.

The new abnormal offering mean truths. New segment alert. It's really giving a local band opening up at the Farley, the Buffalo Wigs. Yes. I like it. Won't you please welcome to the stage? Mean truths. Mean truths.

Opening for Blueshammer tonight. we're really having fun of the dystopia today. Okay. It would be great if they were like, if they played like ambient music, just like the exact opposite of their name. Ambience really back. It's trending on TikTok right now with the kids.

Totally. So the other side of the sycovency for Trump's appointments is just plain stupid. So we, of course, we have the mascot of the Senate of Stupid Tommy Tuberville. Yeah, we're a better veteran. and picker of people than Donald Trump. Isn't that your advice and consent?

That's your job. Advising consent. But that's more the Democrats. But don't you think both sides should do the vetting? Well, yeah, just some degree. I mean, but we have to be convinced. I mean, they should do all the background work. They should go after our nominees.

I've not heard very little from the left. Donald Trump did all the vetting they needed to do on peak headset. And I just can't believe we even have people on our side. They're saying, well, I've got to look at this, got to look at that. What they're doing is they're throwing rocks at Donald Trump. They're not throwing them at peak headset. They're throwing them at Donald Trump because they're saying, well, we don't believe you did the right vetting and we don't believe he can do the job.

Wait a minute. That's not our job to do that. That's the Democrats. What? Did he just say that our job is not to do any vetting? That's the Democrats job. So you can literally pick up any Tom, Dick, or Harry off of the street and say, hey, here's the Secretary of Defense job.

and we wash our hands of our responsibility to make sure that these people are qualified? Tom, Dickerry, Pete, whatever. Jesus. Okay. He sees the Senate the way he sees women and that it's just their job to always consent. Ooh, damn, Andy. I'm not saying anything else for the rest of the show. I can't.

I think it's just funny because, like, you know, there's all these headlines of, like, Trump administration officials like, blindsided by this latest thing of Pete Hanks said, blindsided by things they didn't read in J.D. Vance's Azoopo report. Blindsided by this, like every time these mother, but blindsided by Matt Gates' new ethics report. Like every time Trump nominate somebody, the vetting is not the job that's done, unless they're doing it at a vet.

I swear to God. Yeah, they just stick their heads in the sand and, you know, and hope for the best. Like and this, but this is what it means to put all of your trust and faith and power into one man. This is what it means. It means to not think for yourself. It means to just say, well, Donald Trump said that it's good, said that this person is it. And that's what I'm rocking with.

So I know nothing other than what I'm told to say. And that is, I mean, that is autocracy. That is dangerous. That is scary. And also Tuberville, Tuberville, whatever is name. He's just so dumb. Yeah. I mean, yes.

I don't know. It's almost like it's a cult. Yeah. It's almost like I thought at one time when I was younger that people that were in Congress were exceptionally bright. Yeah. Until I went and worked on Capitol Hill. And then it's kind of like meeting your heroes.

Don't do it. Don't do it. That's how I felt about journalism. Mm-mm. So here we have Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, and talking about some of the things we have to look forward to having to defend in the next Congress. Pacific examples, Planned Parenthood and PBS are in congressional control. Are you planning to act both of those?

I would like to. That's for sure. Spending for both of those? Yeah, we've got to build consensus to have the votes to do that. Now, some of this will be done by executive order out of the White House. Absolutely. He has a broad authority to do a lot of that. Where Congress is involved, that's where it takes the hard work of legislating and getting everybody on the same page. So there will be lots of ideas that come out.

we don't want to put too many of it out right now. Okay, but this is part of that, preparing the playbook to unleash and unroll in January. Yeah. Unleash and unroll. Hmm. Mm-hmm. I mean, I'm not saying, oh, and you're surprised

because that is like the worst kind of reply. Mm-hmm. But I am saying, I mean, they told us they were going to do this. Mm-hmm. And by us, I mean the American people. I mean the people that voted for them. So I guarantee you there are, a bunch of Americans who are going to, you know, who think, yeah, defund plant parenthood, you know,

stop, they shouldn't get government money. And then when either they themselves or their wife or daughter or girlfriend or mother or whomever needs the kind of care that Planned Parenthood can provide, they're going to be upset that it's not there anymore. 100%. I don't know what else to say. Like, that's what it is. And I mean, the amount of money PBS gets from the government. I mean, it's less money than Elon Musk probably has in his, you know, nightstand next to his bed. Yep. So to act like that's going to do anything in terms of balance the budget? No, it's not.

It's a purely ideological thing. They think PBS is woke. Yeah, it's woke. They're going to run the country by like, you know, mean tweets. And like, do you know what I'm saying? And being so online, like, because they don't actually know anything about how. government. And this is why, you know, part of it is, yeah, these people are absolute conspiracy theorists. They're crazy. They also don't know how things work. And I keep saying, I'm like, obviously,

they don't have to because they're just going in to break it. And that's the job here is just to go in and break things, whether it's the American spirit or, you know, or agencies. But that's their, that's what they see their role as. Well, I have great news, y'all. No, you don't. How dare you? How dare you think that just because every other time I've said that it's something horrible that you think it now? We're getting a 51st state. Oh. Okay.

Do you think it's D.C., Puerto Rico? No. Well, that's because you're a smart news reading. Because it's not. Here's the five to explain to us the logic that Donald Trump's going to bring us a 51st state of Canada. I'm not going to make Canada the 51st state. We'll make it 51 and 52. You make Western Canada, that'll be Republican.

Eastern Canada, that'll be Democrat. So you keep the electoral balance there. So many reasons to make this a state. It's the, I think, has the third largest oil reserves in the world. Oh, a lot. So that makes us a energy behemoth. It's the most well-educated country in the world because we need a little help in that department. Clearly.

Talk about mining, agriculture, fishing, AI, tech, real estate, Canada, you name it, they got it. We'll never probably lose another Winter Olympics. We'll have all of their skaters and skiers. I mean, good luck, Sweden. And they share our cultural heritage. They share our language. It's just a no-brainer. Now, I don't know if Canada is going to go along with it, but there's ways to maybe change their opinion.

Do you want to end up there? I like it there. I think it's a good idea. The army is minuscule, but that's fine. We'll pay to protect them as a state. But we're doubling the size of the country, America. He's an idiot. Yeah.

Like, he's just so fucking dumb. It's, like, embarrassing. When he says, like, oh, we need help with education, yes, we should start with you. I'm certain that Fox could find him a tutor, like in just common sense. Oh, I hate him. I assume that whole thing was sort of a. joke and that the... Do you? Well, I kind of do, and because I feel like the people who watch the five probably

think that's really funny. But I was also struck by the education comment because we're talking about, yeah, maybe stop and think why a country other than America, that education is good there. And maybe like if you brought that into America, maybe it wouldn't be good anymore because first of all you want to get rid of the Department of Education, et cetera, et cetera. So anyway, I don't want to go too deep into this because he ain't worth it. And I think the whole thing was just a joke anyway. It's hard to tell when something isn't funny that it's meant as a joke. But I do think in this case, that's what's going on here.

But he is just so fucking stupid. It's unbelievable. It hurts. It does. I just want to fast forward to when they learn about the massive Indian worker backlash that Canada is having right now. Ed would probably think about it. They're like, oh, fuck, they speak French. Yeah.

God damn it. Get out of my country, you French-speaking freedom friars. Mm-mm. Freedom friars. Deep cuts with Jessica. I remember that. Yeah. Good one.

My God. Remember when we thought that that was going to be the dumbest thing we'd ever see Congress do? Oh, God. That was such a nice, nice thought. Those are the good old days. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal Christopher Robbins, who is a reporter and co-founder of Hellgate and recently wrote a piece on Mayor Adams and his change-up, if you will, on undocumented people living in New York City and what he plans to do in order to aid the incoming Trump administration. in their targeting of undocumented people. So Christopher, give us the view, the 50,000-foot view,

and run us through what Mayor Adams said before he was peddling himself out for a pardon and the changes that have obviously come now that we know that Donald Trump is coming into office in January. Yeah. So right after Election Day, when Donald Trump was elected president and defeated Kamala Harris. The Adams administration held a press conference. Mayor Adams was there with many members of his administration. And the tone there was serious and straight-faced. And the mayor's director of immigrant affairs was there. And they wanted to project a sense of calm. They kept on saying that,

look, like, what we need to stress right now is that panicking is not going to help. We are not going to participate in a mass deportation sort of scheme, which is what the Trump administration has said, is going to happen on day one. And that was the tone right after the election. But basically, since the mayor was federally indicted in September, the mayor has sort of taken pains to avoid declaring support for national Democrats. He wouldn't even say Kamala Harris's name, basically until election day. He was pressed repeatedly before the election. Why aren't you out there stumping for Kamala Harris? Why aren't you offering her full-throated support? And he just sort of demurred. He wouldn't directly say that. And I think people have looked at Adams's

reluctance to align himself with National Democrats and Kamala Harris. And I think they're sort of correctly noting that Adams believes he is being politically prosecuted. He has said this. It's not a secret that, like, he would probably appreciate a pardon from Donald Trump. Trump. Trump has already announced to the successor of the federal prosecutor who is currently prosecuting Eric Adams. He's resigning in a few weeks. Trump is putting someone new in. Adams' case his federal charges. That's all sort of very much in doubt. And I think you can see Adams' change in this week as part of that. So on Tuesday, Mayor Adams had a press conference in which he, you know, was almost essentially masked off MAGA. He praised Elon Musk, basically alluding to

like Elon Musk being able to fix New York City's public school system. It was kind of an odd comment. He basically compared artificial intelligence to a racehorse and said that like China's unafraid to let this racehorse run. You know, these incoming Trump appointees aren't afraid of being canceled and neither am I. And and we got to let this racehorse go. Again, just like strange, fair, even for Adams. And then I think most chillingly to a lot of New Yorkers is that he said that he essentially said that undocumented immigrants are not afforded due process under the U.S. Constitution and that people who are charged with the crime who are undocumented should be deported.

And that's obviously not what the U.S. Constitution says. I want to quote what he said and what you put in your piece, which is, quote, I'm an American. Americans have certain rights. The Constitution is for Americans. And I'm not a person who snuck into this country. My ancestors have been here for a long time. And I don't know if your blouse is made of cotton, but they used to pick some of that.

Christopher, what? The message after the election was we don't want to stir a panic up in New York's immigrant community. But comments like these, obviously, how else to read that except that Eric Adams is going to help the Trump administration do what they said they were going to do, which is mass deportations. And at the same press conference, you know, Adam said he is meeting with Tom Homan, who is the Trump's incoming borders are. He is the former ICE director in the first Trump administration.

He said some pretty interesting things earlier this year. I'm quoting him from from the summer when he says, Trump comes back in January. I'll be on his heels coming back. And I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen, they ain't seen shit yet, wait until 2025. And this is someone who Eric Adams is like, look, we got to hear him out. I'm willing to hear this guy out and listen to what he has to say. And, you know, while Adams has since today, in fact, this morning clarified that, oh, look, I don't want to go after immigrants who have stolen an apple. The fact of the matter is the NYPD's crackdown, ongoing crackdown on low level offenses in this world will put people in danger of deportation. It is so transparent, I guess, Christopher. I said that Eric Adams is a see-through

as cellophane at this moment. He is doing whatever it is that he can to court favor with Donald Trump and Donald Trump's sycophons and his inner circle so that he can avoid prosecution. The fact is, is that, like, he's a grifter. Like, can we also lift up the things that he has done? and that he's being charged with. And the reasons for these charges that came up federally and how many people inside of Mayor Adams' own circle have resigned or have been indicted? This level of lawlessness that has become the norm

in our politics because of Donald Trump is disgusting. But to then threaten the undocumented population of New York City, which frankly New York City would not be able to run without their way. work and their investment. I don't understand how he thinks that he's going to be able to get away with this and still have the support of New Yorkers. Yeah, I mean, I think the federal charges against him. He's being charged with bribery. He's being charged with taking campaign donations from a foreign government, foreign agents. You know, I think that has deeply wounded him politically, especially in a Democratic primary come June. And there's lots of people running against him pointing to those federal

charges, which again, sort of underscores the hypocrisy here of a mayor who has told New Yorkers like, look, innocent until proven guilty, let me keep doing my job, I'm going to exonerate myself, these are merely charges. And then, you know, at the same time saying, you know, these extremely vulnerable people, immigrants who just want to make their lives in New York City, they're not afforded the same presumption of innocence that I am. I don't think they should be in the country. They're not Americans and I am. I think that's. deeply repugnant to so many people. And yeah, it's worth sort of putting a point on that. I will say, though, you know, a lot of, it will be interesting to see because the first Trump

administration, you saw lots of New York politicians, New York leaders, you know, pledging to fight Trump on day one, pledging to resist. It was the era of the hashtag resistance. And then over time, you saw how lots of Democrats tried to sort of work with Trump because of federal funding, because of lots of reasons, taking a, if not less combative tone, but maybe trying to flatter him, maybe trying to bargain, negotiate with him in their eyes for the better of their constituents for New Yorkers. Eric Adams can sort of make that argument. He can say, look, like, I want what's best for New Yorkers and what's best for New Yorkers is for me to work with the federal government. At the same time, as you pointed out, there's the very real possibility that Trump will make

these federal charges against Eric Adams go away. And that Adams is not saying these things just for the betterment of New Yorkers, but to his own benefit. Tell me how Eric Adams, it was last summer, if I recall, where you had, or maybe it was the summer before, the stunts that were being pulled, right, by Ron DeSantis and Abbott in Texas, where they are shipping human beings around the country as if they are political footballs, as if they cargo and sending buses to New York. And what did Mayor Adams say at that time? We welcome these undocumented people that are just trying to make their way and set up housing and set up,

you know, schooling. And now he's done a complete and total about face on it. And it's pretty much saying if Tom Holman is the quote unquote border czar that he's going to essentially welcome him with open arms into New York City, which is in direct contrast to what Governor Hockel said and also Attorney General Letitia James said following Donald Trump's election. So can you speak to that? I would temper your point of view a little bit just because while Adams did say that, you know, look, we must take care of these people and Governor Abbott is playing a dangerous political game with these human beings and New York as a city of immigrants, Eric Adams also used these migrants to make a political point,

namely that Joe Biden's federal government was not doing enough to help New York City shelter, feed these folks. And, you know, Eric Adams, in fact, did say that the migrant crisis would, quote, destroy New York City. And he's pointed to them repeatedly. In fact, he did so again on Tuesday that, like, these people are a drain on our society. And I would like to spend money on New Yorkers, but I can't because these migrants are here. You know, we're talking about, you know, in the low billions of dollars, around $6 billion,

I think it was the number that flashed up on his PowerPoint on Tuesday. New York City has a annual budget of around $100 billion. Right. So we're not talking about, we're talking about 6% of New York City's budget, which is a lot. But no, I mean, he's always sort of made this point of like, look, I'm doing my best here, but the federal government is leading me high and dry, which is why he's able to then say, oh, I'm being prosecuted politically because the Biden administration doesn't like me because of my comments on immigration, while federal prosecutors have said that their investigation of Adams

that resulted in these federal charges began in mid-2020, well before Adams became mayor, well before he made these comments about the Biden administration. I appreciate the clarification. Talk to me then about how Adam's views differ from those of Hockel on this particular issue. I mean, I wouldn't say that they differ too much except the, you know, I think Kathy Hockel has been much more of a supporter of national Democrats. She was deeply embarrassed when New York lost several congressional races a few years ago. And so she spent the lead up to this election, trying to be. make sure that that didn't happen again, that Democrats held on to some swing seats in purplish districts across the state. She's supportive, extremely supportive of Joe Biden.

So, you know, in that sense, she wasn't standing in the same sort of weird place of criticizing Joe Biden repeatedly and then at the same time trying to, like, she didn't have to twist yourself in as many knots as Eric Adams. You know, Eric Adams is he came into office calling himself the Biden of Brooklyn. When he was elected in 2021, national Democrats were like, hmm, interesting. Maybe the new model of Democrat that we should emulate is this sort of center-right, caring cop as embodied by Mayor Eric Adams in New York City. Well, now we're entering 2025. You know, Eric Adams is deeply politically wounded by all these federal charges against him. He spent the better part of his first term criticizing the guy he was trying to emulate. And now he's

cozying up to Donald Trump, you know, you could argue for lots of different reasons, but in hopes of getting some leniency from him. Where do you think, Christopher, that this leaves New York City right now? We know, again, that Donald Trump wants to make a target of blue states and cities that he has gone after, you know, it was not too long ago during COVID when he withheld FEMA funding. It was not too long ago when he was going toe to toe with then Governor Andrew Cuomo over COVID relief in using it and weaponizing aid during a global health pandemic. And so what do you see for New Yorkers moving forward if this is the posture that Adams is already taking and Donald Trump hasn't even been sworn in yet? I would say two things. The first is that, you know, what does it mean for

immigrants living in New York City, you know, I think there's obviously lots of reasons to be concerned. I mean, there's a current city law in the books that prohibits the NYPD from cooperating with ICE in civil immigration affairs. And Adams's comments should scare a lot of people. And that is a practical matter. We'll see how that plays out in the coming months. We'll see what the city council does. We'll see what the state legislature does to sort of try and shore up. the wall that was created between ICE and the NYPD during the first Trump administration. But, you know, bigger picture politically, you know, we're in a deeply strange time because there's a mayoral primary in June. There's lots of people running. Adams is wounded politically, but could run as an

independent. You have former governor Andrew Cuomo, who is apparently interested in running for mayor or governor or who knows. Exactly. Exactly. No one knows. Yeah. And, you know, Kathy Hockel, who who is trying to her posture towards the Trump administration was, look, in areas where he wants to help us, like infrastructure or whatever, I welcome his help. In areas where he wants to hurt us or divide us, I will fight him tooth and nail. We are in extremely strange times right now politically. But yeah, I mean, I think on the immigration front, the NYPD has ramped up low-level arrests under Eric Adams. And that spells serious trouble for immigrants who might get caught up in, again, what Trump is saying will be like mass deportations on day one.

I mean, what I took from your piece and what I'm taking from this conversation is that Mayor Adams is no friend of New Yorkers. And frankly, he is just not to be trusted. So whether it is looking to see, to your point, what the city council will do, the state legislature, in order to protect New Yorkers, it's going to be necessary because it is very obvious that mayor, Eric Adams will sell out anyone and anything in order to save his own ass. And that is disgusting and disappointing, but not surprising. Christopher Robbins, thank you so much for making time for The New Abnormal and for your work at Hellgate.

Really appreciate you. Pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder.

Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts

as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and science. Sign up today.