The Daily Beast Podcast - Gov. Abbott Is Bullsh*tting About Mental Health Reform

Episode Date: May 27, 2022

In this episode of The New Abnormal, hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy call out Republicans for avoiding the gun conversation at all costs, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for his insane mental health hypocrisy. Plus! New York mag correspondent Gabriel Debenedetti tackles the Biden elephant in room: What happens if Joe Biden can’t run for reelection? There are a few people that may be backups for the party, he says. And last up, Pennsylvania Rep. Chrissy Houlahan shares what she thinks are the root causes of the gun violence epidemic—and that the entire Republican party “needs to be cured and cleansed.” 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 Invo. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. 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. First, we're going to talk to New York Magazine, National Correspondentatty, and he's going to talk to us about his latest article that tracks what the Democrats are going to do if Joe Biden is not their nominee in 2024. Then we're going to talk to Representative Chrissy Hulahan, who represents Pennsylvania's 6th Congressional District, and Emily Churniak, the founder of New Politics.

But first, let's have some fun. Andy Levy. Molly Junkfest. As we deal with the aftermath of this Texas shooting, this is like Sandy Hook. It's really like, it's the closest to Sandy Hook we've had. 19 fourth graders and two adults murdered in their classroom. Every piece of reporting we have gotten from Texas is more of an indictment on the police, policing, and Republicans' absolute inability to want to do anything about the guns ever discuss.

I feel like we were just talking about a horrible shooting, and here we are again. But Buffalo was a great replacement, white nationalist, yes. Racially motivated, racist, racism by someone who had been radicalized by conservative, 4chan, 8,000, right? Yes. So this is a different story, but it's the same story. Yeah, that's exactly right.

It's a different story, but ultimately it's the same story. A bunch of people senselessly lost their lives because somebody decided that they were going to get a gun and use it. I guess you're right because this one really hit hard and obviously because you see these pictures of these little kids. And it's just so if your heart isn't broken by seeing these pictures, then you've got a, hole in your chest cavity where that heart is supposed to be. You want to say that it's unimaginable, but it's not because, as you said, this was a lot like Sandy Hook. So this is not the first time this has happened. And what's unimaginable to me is that this has become imaginable. You see something like this and you're not like, well, I never thought that could happen. No, of course we

thought we know it can happen. It's happened before. And guess what? It's going to happen again. and particularly with, as you alluded to, Republicans wanting to blame everything but the fact that people can walk into a store and get a gun. They're now blaming doors. Yeah, I mean. That's their thing now. Door control. That's what they've come up with now. They want door control.

Yeah. I mean, I think what's really interesting about this shooting, so when it happened, you saw people who are not even that political in a rage, furious. right, like people who have been tuned out for the last couple months are back and they are furious. So, Republicans were like, now is not the time to talk about guns. Of course. Right, because they knew this was a loser for them. So they said, let's just wait a little while. Don't let Democrats politicize gun violent, right?

He shouldn't be allowed to politicize gun violence and say it has anything to do with guns, right? I mean, these people, and Kelly Ann Conway, by the way, on television, one of the worst of them, on Ari Melbur saying, like, we need time to mourn and not worry about guns. Like, these people are just disgusting. But the thing I thought was interesting was, you know, we saw all this polling today that says that 88% of Americans want background checks. Right. Imagine something you can get 88% of Americans to agree on besides this. Nothing.

Yeah. Right? I mean, they don't even, 88% of Americans don't even agree on, like, that you need air to live. So, I mean, this is pretty shocking. and so Republicans are trying to just play at the clock until people forget about it. And Democrats are trying to play out the clock until people forget about it. You know, we have Chuck Schumer saying he's going to bring in a bill for domestic terrorism. Not quite what I was hoping for.

Yeah, that's sort of the motto of the Democratic Party, I think. Not quite what I was hoping for. You know, he's saying Schumer puts. gun check vote to next month. I mean, okay. Like, you can't do it today? I mean, we're going to vote on legislation. He says six hours ago, just not now.

I don't know. Yeah. I just, I feel like every time they say now is not the time to politicize. I said, okay, can we talk about guns in regard to the Buffalo shooting now? It's been 12, 13 days. It's never time to talk about it because there's always another fucking shooting. Right. No, so they can just keep saying.

that. And, you know, when there's a shooting every 10 days or whatever, then it's like, oh, well, you can never talk about it because it's always, it's always happening. So it's like, okay, well, can we talk about guns in the context of the Buffalo one now? It's been 12 days. It's been 13 days. Can we, what if we do that? Is that okay with you? It's insane. Look, I am sympathetic to the idea of not passing legislation when you're angry because that's how we got things like the Patriot Act. Of course, that was a Republican legislation. No, of course. I just mean in general.

It's like the same way you don't send an email when you're angry. You know, they say wait a day before you send an angry email or whatever. It's kind of the same thing, but with a lot more consequences, obviously. But on the other hand, when something is happening continuously or continually, there has to be a time where you can do something about it. It's absolutely pointless to say, well, you can't do that. You shouldn't do something now. now is not the time. No, now is the time. It's past time. It's way past time to do something. And again, remember that I'm saying this as a former NRA member years ago. It's just way past time to do

something about guns in this country, something serious. And they will do, the Republicans will do anything to avoid it being about guns. They will try to make it about video games. They'll then, you know, they'll pivot to Glenn Beck brought up transgender people being able to use bathrooms of their choice, you know, as one of the things that leads up to stuff like this. The doors thing. I mean, it's just they literally, they pivoted to doors. I just, I was in shock and it was a whole bunch of them. It was Ted Cruz.

It was Dan Patrick. Dan Patrick is most famous for saying that during COVID, he would be happy to die for the Dow. Yes. He didn't quite say that he said, if I have to, yeah, to protect my grandchildren's way of life, I will die for the Dow. I mean, Jesus Christ. So it's just clearly that was like, You know, that was a memo that went out to Republicans saying, hey, we got to talk about doors.

It's been way too many people for that. There's no, look, none of them, first of all, are smart enough to just independently come up with that. But they're not that smart. I mean, the shooting is like it's the first time ever that Republicans have decided that they're interested in mental health. Yeah. Like, they're like, oh, this is a mental health crisis. You're like, wait, you guys are interested in mental health? Well, not really.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, let's talk about Texas governor Greg Abbott because he's, one of those people out there that's saying it's a mental health issue. In April, he cut $211 million from his state department that overseas mental health programs. Texas ranks last out of every state they rank 50th. Actually 51st because this includes D.C. So Texas ranks 51st for overall access to mental health care in America. So like you said, like suddenly they're concerned with mental health. They're never concerned with mental health. They're never concerned with any until it comes down to that thing or guns.

And then suddenly they care about it. That's how much they fetishize and worship gun culture and guns, is that they will suddenly pretend or at least pretend to care about mental health. And they'll pretend to be interested in doors and architecture and, you know, video game violence and stuff like that. Whenever it comes down to a choice between that thing and guns, that's the only time. Yeah, I think that's right. So there's evidence from the January 6th committee. Again, we haven't heard them yet.

They're mostly just like telling us their dates, etc. But they do have evidence they've told in your times or someone leaking. By the way, this is like the leakiest group. I love it. Yeah. They are really. I mean, and by the way, every time we talk to people who report on this, everyone complains about the leaks and yet everyone is leaking.

You know? So that's something. What I think is really interesting about this is you have a tape, I guess. I hope they fucking play it, excuse my French, of Trump somehow expressing a joy or some kind of positive emotion about his followers screaming hang Mike Pence. Again, this is one of those things nobody is surprised by this. And yet, the existence of it on tape takes it to a whole other level. Yeah, which leads me to two points. One is just to further go down what you're saying, that basically, according to these leaks, as reported by the New York Times, Mark Meadows, who was the White House Chief of Staff, told the committee, or the committee was told that Mark Meadows told a bunch of his colleagues that Trump was complaining that Pence was being taken off to safety, which already is like, what?

I'm like, okay, whatever. And then, according to this same leaked testimony, Meadows told these colleagues that Trump had said something to the effect of maybe Mr. Pence should be hanged. So it's just, I mean, oh my God, every day, it's something more and more ridiculous. But this gets to another point in mind. Why aren't all these hearings televised? I'm old enough to vaguely remember, Molly, you were probably in your early 20s, Watergate. Oh, you know what? By the way, I would just like, for the record here, Andy Levy is a lot older than I am.

Thank you very much. The hearings were televised, and people saw this happening every day. And the fact that they're not being televised now and they're not public hearings, I don't know. I guess maybe they're getting information they wouldn't have gotten in a public hearing. But I feel like they lost a big opportunity to let the American people. see all this stuff and let it be a huge part of the news cycle because it's airing day after day after day after day. I don't like that all this stuff is having to be leaked. I'm glad it's being leaked. Don't get me wrong. But I just think it should be out there. I think they should have done it

like the Watergate hearings. And, you know, this stuff is of vital interest to the American public and it shouldn't be going on behind closed doors. But obviously that's a digression. Whatever. The fact of the matter is we've got a, you know, sitting president saying he wished his vice president would be hanged. Yeah, there it is, man. He was complaining that Pence was being taken to safety. How? How? How, Molly?

Please, help me. I'm dying here. I'm telling you, he's always been like this. I know. I know. And he doesn't care if Pence gets, I mean, I think, look, I mean, we don't know what's in his heart. I assume more of the same, but, you know, the man has brainworms, and he thinks helping Pence not be murdered is somehow an affront to him.

Right. I mean, I actually just nailed it there, unfortunately, for me. You're right. You're right. Yeah, you know. Yep. At least he did well in the Georgia primaries. Speaking of which, this was not a good primary for Donald J. Trump. Now, I'm not saying that the people who won this primary are anything less.

absolutely deplorable, but they're not Trump's deplorable. They're just regular, shitty, Georgia deplorable. Jody Heights does not win against Brad Raffensberger. Trump's candidate Purdue is unable to dislodge Brian Kemp. It is a bad night for Donald J. Trump in the state of Georgia. Yeah, and particularly the size of the Purdue loss. He was over 50 points behind Kemp, I think it was. I think Kemp had over twice as many votes as Purdue. Purdue obviously was a big stop the steel proponent. So yeah, not a good night for the orange man, as my resistance friends like to call him. Obviously, that's good news, even if, as you say, it's, you know, it's not like, it's not like Kemp is somebody we want to put on a,

make a statue of anytime soon. But I don't know. I've seen a lot of people saying, well, this proves that Americans, you know, even Republicans want to look past the 2020 election now. But I don't know. Didn't a guy in Michigan just win who is basically a stop the steel guy? Not Michigan.

It's Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania candidate is super stop the steel. Yes. And also bought paid for buses to go to the insurrection. He's really something. And then again, with Pennsylvania, we still don't know if Trump's chosen candidate TV Dr. Oz or David McCormick, Trump's non-chosen, but still very Trumpy, you know, married to someone who worked in the Trump administration, hired many Trump accolites. We don't know who's going to win that. That's going to go to a runoff now, or not a runoff.

It's going to go to a recount. So, I mean, it's still, you know, look, I mean, I sort of. certainly think that Trump does not have the power he used to have in the GOP primary world. I think that's pretty clear. And if you want to know just exactly how much that's true, look over to the great state, and I mean this ironically of Alabama, where Mo Brooks was endorsed, was one of Trump's biggest supporters. He spoke at Stop the Steel. He said a lot of incendiary things. And then he was unendorsed by Trump because his campaign wasn't doing well. Then he sort of caught some fire and was running well. And now he's locked in a recount.

You know, he does not have the power he used to have. No, I guess that's true. I just wonder if, like, Kemp, I get the sense that Georgia Republicans kind of like him and think he's been doing a good job as governor. So I feel like it, you know, they might have just looked at that and said, you know, regardless of anything else, this guy's been good for our state. So we're going to vote for him. I don't know. I just, I'm always leery of saying that Trump's power has diminished. And I, that doesn't mean I'm right. I could be completely wrong about this.

And I would, you know, obviously love to be wrong about this. I just get nervous when people start acting like Trump is. you know, fading or is the thing of the past because I do still think he's the presumptive frontrunner for 2024. Yeah. I mean, I also think what's worse is that Trumpism is really alive. So Trumpism, I mean, you're looking down a barrel of Florida governor Ron DeSantis behaving by Trump's rules, which is worse. Yeah. And a lot of the people like DeSantis are not old. So it's not like they're going away anytime soon. This is what looks like the future of the Republican. party. This is not some last gasp of an old guard. This is, this is the new guard. The new guard is

incredibly Trumpy. And we're going to be stuck with this for, I think, a really, really long time, unfortunately. Right now, you're seeing Pence come out as, you know, like, I'm going to be the less insane version of Trump, which, of course, is hilarious because he's super fashy and weird. But also, because I don't know who Mike Pence appeals to. Yeah, I mean, I think the people Mike Pence appeals to is that old guard, maybe, of conservatives. Maybe, but I don't think those people like Mike Pence either. Well, okay, I think that's who that's who he thinks he appeals to. But I agree with, I mean, Mike Pence, if he does run in 2024, I don't think he has a chance either against,

certainly not against Trump, but I don't think he has a chance against DeSantis or someone of that ilk either. I just don't. And, you know, look, a lot of people run for president and think that they have a chance and don't. I mean, we see that every four years. And I think Mike Pence is one of those people. I just, I cannot imagine who he thinks his base is these days. It's like so many vice presidents. It ends up being that you don't have a significantly differentiated base from what your president did.

Well, that's the thing. And he made, Pence is probably thinking to himself, look, I'm an authentic conservative. and I'm going to get like, you know, the evangelicals are going to love me. And well, they've already sold their souls to Trump and Trumpism. The fact that he's, you know, probably, yes, is probably much further to the right than Trump on quote unquote culture issues and things like abortion. Trump pays enough lip service to that stuff. That's all he needed to do. And so now all those people, you know, because yeah, I could see Pence being a natural fit for the evangelicals and that, you know, that, you know, that.

wing of the party. But they've been completely co-opted by Trump and Trumpism. So I, whatever he thinks his base is, he's wrong. Yeah. Gabriel de Benedetti is a national correspondent for New York Magazine. Welcome to the new abnormal, Gabe. Thanks so much for

having me. It's very good to be here. We have you here to talk about a piece that is super interesting to all of us. And Jesse and I both came to it on our own and decided you had to come on. Basically, the idea is that some anxiety in the Democratic Party about what's going to happen at 2024.

Can you explain to us what that looks like? Absolutely. I think that the first thing is, like, no one will even agree about how much anxiety there is. There's a huge disconnect in the Democratic Party right now, and it basically boils down to this, on this specific topic, at least. Joe Biden says all the time that he wants to run for a reelection in 2024. At the basic level, people don't believe him. The recent poll showed that one third of the country thinks he's going to run in 2024. And he can't exactly say that's not true because his own pollster did that poll.

Is that John? Yeah, John Insaloney did that poll. And he's a great pollster. And so this makes it very uncomfortable for the president. And then there's this other reality that even within the Democratic Party, real people, but also elected officials, donors, et cetera, there's just this anxiety that they don't know. Yeah, they think Biden wants to run again and plans to, but he has pretty terrible political standing right now. He's older than any other president has ever been. And a lot of people are sort of saying, well, you know, listen, it's uncomfortable, but we might as well ask the question what happens next if he can't run for reelection.

But because this is a taboo thing to talk about, hopefully not now that I've written this, but because people don't really like to talk about it, everyone's just talking past each other. So it's a very uncomfortable situation. The White House is convinced this isn't a problem at all. But, you know, there are about a dozen people. out there who are putting themselves in position to possibly run just in case they need to. A name that I was surprised by, I wasn't surprised as much as like I just haven't heard him talked about so much is Roy Cooper. Yeah, I think that Roy Cooper fits into the category of person who Democratic strategists would like to talk about and would like to take this seriously. Cooper's, you know, the two-term governor of North Carolina. He's won the state twice at the same time that Donald Trump won it. So that's a sign of something. There are a lot of skeptics.

of course, that say, you know, there's no, you got to tell me why Roy Cooper isn't just Steve Bullock or something like that. You know, nothing against Bullock, of course, but he ran for president with the idea being, I want a red state a few times, even when Trump did, and that didn't get it very far in 2020. Point being, you know, there are a lot of people trying to find someone in the party who could be the secret Bullock candidate. But there's also a lot of skepticism. For one, Cooper hasn't said that he's interested. You know, he always says, I'll support Joe Biden. The other part of this is even people who are skeptical of Biden pretty much think at this point, especially if Trump runs again.

What you really need is someone who is very famous and has a very set image in the public consciousness just because, you know, Trump is going to do everything he can to try and smear them. Biden benefited from that in 2020, obviously. Not many people know who Roy Cooper is outside of North Carolina. Right. There's no one in this article, though, that's super like the person who's going to come in and save the Democrats. Well, no. And there's certainly no one that's even talking about it.

it openly. I mean, one of the really uncomfortable pieces of all this for a lot of these folks who are talking about this is, of course, there is a backup plan. The headline in the story when it ran in print is there has to be a backup plan. There's a backup plan, right? And of course, the answer is, yeah, the backup plan is the vice president who, you know, wins all early polling, the preliminary polling that's out there about the primary without Biden in. And of course, Kamala Harris is the person who leads all those polls. She's the best known. And certainly she wins early polling in states that have a lot of black voters, which is the same exact thing that happened with Joe Biden, and one of the reasons that he won the primary.

The problem is that there are a lot of people in the party who really don't know if she can beat Donald Trump, and she herself has tried to be very careful not to talk about 2024 because she, of course, says, well, Joe Biden's running in 2024. So you see we keep running into this wall where no one wants to talk about it openly, but everyone acknowledges, you know, quietly, well, maybe there is something that we should be worried about here. uplifting, right? Yeah, I mean, listen, that's every day for us. But there are two candidates that I just want you to talk through with me.

Stacey Abrams, if she were to win, there are a few Democrats that if they did well in these very complicated and likely rough midterm elections might be real candidates. Because remember, that's the path that Barack Obama took. So the two I want you to just play out for me are Stacey Abrams and John Federman. Sure. The difference just to start between what they did and what Obama did is Obama won his election at 04. So he did have two real years of work in the Senate before he hit the campaign trail full, more or less full time. Right. Abrams and Federman are both really interesting in the sense that they obviously have this ability to tap into a strain of excitement among Democrats, but also some non-democrats who just don't get that animated.

by, you know, work-a-day politicians, who, you know, which describes a lot of these other people who might run in this scenario. But Fetterman and Abrams both, you know, would have to pretty quickly turn around right after winning and launch a campaign. One of the big concerns here, you know, with the Biden question is even if we accept that he says he's going to run again, if you doubt that, you still have to deal, you know, reckon with the fact that he almost certainly is going to drag his feet on making an actual decision. So if he says, I'm not going to run again, no one expects it. that that's going to happen anytime soon. One, because it would drain his own political ability for

the rest of his term. But two, because this is a guy who takes forever to make decisions about his own political future. In 1987, when he was thinking about running for president, it took him months and months and months and months. In 2016, when he ultimately didn't, you know, it took him months and months and months. And the same thing happened in 2020. So there's no real reason to believe that that would be any different now. So people are just going to have to turn around and launch campaigns very quickly if we end up in that world. And it's really hard for someone who is a brand new center, or a brand new governor to do that. That said, they both do have a certain kind of excitement around them.

And if they're able to win, both of their races are going to be really tough. There's going to definitely be a lot of people pushing them to do something like this. For that reason, though, they're both also going to have to answer a ton of questions, I suspect, over the next few months saying, you know, do you pledge to do your, to hold out your full term? And that's always an uncomfortable thing for someone like that to answer, even though it's also easy for them to just say, yes, of course, and then turn around and not do it. Right, which is a favor of mine. Of course. Do you see any of the people from 2020 that are looking like they're in a better position than they were before?

It's a really good question. I think, for one thing, you know, so much is going to change between now and then. And I know that's a cop out. But it is true. We just don't know, you know, what's going to, what the landscape could look like. I mean, Harris is obviously in a better position purely because she's the vice president. She certainly doesn't have this sort of untested politician thing about her. She's more of a known quantity.

But for a lot of reasons, that could also be a downside for her. her because she hasn't emerged as some sort of political superstar as well as president. Booker, Klobuchar, Warren, or others on the list, I wouldn't say that any of them are in obviously better position. At the same time, you know, Klobuchar is certainly taken more seriously as a national political figure than she was before her last campaign. Probably true of Booker, too. But again, it's just really hard to see what their path looks like if this breaks down the way that we expected to. Pete Buttigieg, obviously, that applies to him too. Everyone knows who he is now. No one knew who he was a few years ago. But again, it's really hard to see how someone like that can run against Harris. And also,

if one of the reasons that if Biden decides not to run again, if one of those reasons is that his political setting just isn't that high, it's a hard case for someone in his cabinet to make, you know, well, you should vote for me. I, uh, you know, I don't have anything to do with the bad stuff, but I have plenty of good things to do. It's just a hard case to make. Right. I was watching a local ad that Republicans are running against Reverend Warnock. And, It was like, Warnock is really great, but he supports the Biden agenda. Are you seeing Democrats trying to distance themselves from Biden? And I know Biden is actually not, he's one of those presidents where he kind of wants people to do whatever will help them win.

I think that he doesn't have the kind of iron grip over the party that other presidents have had. Do you think that you see Democrats doing that? And do you think that's a smart play? Yeah, definitely. It's a great question. I think for sure you see people doing that. I mean, it's definitely sure that he doesn't have any kind of iron grip over the party. People aren't afraid of him.

There is a high level of appreciation for him. I think a lot of Democrats really like him and like the kind of political figure that he can be at his best. You know, I wrote about this like pretty significant cognitive dissonance in this story, which is a lot of people have a ton of appreciation for what he has been able to do as president, but just at the same time have this anxiety about what comes next. Yes, in the midterms especially, you definitely see people running away from Biden. But the way that they're doing it is not necessarily by saying explicitly in their ads, you know, I support bipartisanship, I don't like Joe Biden, because that, you know, in this political

environment that, A, you don't get anywhere by dissing the president among your base voters, but also, you know, swing voters to the extent that they exist in some of these districts or states, they don't really buy it. So what they're doing is just not talking about issues in D.C. or to the degree that they are, they're talking about stuff that isn't really associated with Biden in the public eye. So you talk about infrastructure spending and you can. can say if you're an incoming candidate, you know, I helped bring X number of dollars to the district so we could build that bridge you all like. You know, this is sort of the classic thing to do, but it is a painful thing for Democrats right now because for the first six, seven months of the

Biden administration, you know, it feels like ancient history now, but no one on the Republican side could land a knock on him. You know, it really was this sort of, wow, this guy is, he's figured it all out. You know, maybe this really is what it takes to, you know, move the country forward after Trump. Obviously, now we're back in this fully, you know, that was that was a little honeymoon. We're back in this fully polarized fever dream. And people can try to run away from Biden. But the reality is that he's not the reason that the Democratic Party have bad marks right now. It's just a confluence of really bad structural vortexes that have, that have created this unfortunate situation for everyone.

As Trump's grip on the party loosens, clearly, I know there's people will, if you tweet that, people will get mad at you. But it's certainly true. It's clearly true. I mean, he's losing. But no, I'll get mad at you for saying it on a podcast. Right. Because, yes. So as we're on a podcast, well, they'll just lecture you about how you're wrong and how there's

some Republican strategist who says that that's not true for any number of self-serving reasons. My question for you is, as Trump's grip on the party loosens, but Trumpism itself and the goal to be as shitty as possible at all times does not, do you think this helps Democrats? and if it does, where should they be sort of, like, where is their opportunity? Yeah. Well, I think there's no better place to look at for this specific question than Georgia and the Abrams race because it's obviously clear that the personality cult around Trump is simply not what it used to be. And part of that is that likely that he's not, you know, completely ubiquitous at all times.

It's, you look at what happened with Kemp. You know, Kemp beating Purdue was read by a lot in the main, a lot of people in the mainstream media as this, you know, massive rebuke of Trump. I'm not sure that was necessarily it, but it is obviously true that the very fact of Trump supporting Purdue was not enough, not even close to enough to convince these voters that they really needed to go in that direction. That said, the question about Trumpism, I mean, that's definitely not going anywhere. And that speaks to the idea that Trumpism is not an anomaly from the Republican Party. It's what it's, you know, it's the sort of natural gross conclusion of where we've been going with these things. So, you know, you look at, for example, in some of those races in Georgia, but also all over the country, it really is a sort of gateway issue for a lot of these Republicans, whether they have Trump support or not, to say that the election was stolen. And this is like you can't even get anywhere in a Republican primary unless you're willing to at least play to some of these fears, at least in a, you know, primary that a lot of people are paying attention to. This isn't true completely up and down the ballot, but it is in a lot of cases. You look at the example of not a lot of people paid attention to this race, but the Idaho gubernatorial primary. You know, I saw reporting. that... Yeah, with the lieutenant governor. Exactly. Yeah, Janice McGeehan. Trump supported her, and it sounded like, I saw some reporting to this effect, that Trump supported her in part because he was told that the governor, Brad Little, who, by the way,

is an extremely conservative governor, congratulated Biden for winning. That actually wasn't even true. You know, Brad Little didn't congratulate Biden for winning. And yet Trump heard the rumor and then supported the extreme right-wing white nationalist lieutenant-governor, or white nationalist adjacent, I should say, lieutenant governor. And then, And of course, she lost by, you know, a trillion points because people didn't take her very seriously. But Brad Little, who is the supposed responsible conservative there, is himself an election denier. So it's sort of like a gateway. You got to pass that point.

I mean, she just is wild and out of control. She didn't she also, when he left the state, try to. Exactly. Yeah. Can you explain that? I can. When he left the state at some point last year, she became the acting governor by default. and then repealed mask mandates at state, you know, state institutions, repealed vaccine mandates.

And then, of course, he came back and put them back in place. But it turned into this sort of like farcical seesaw where you had these two extremely conservative Republicans in Idaho running the state and throwing these state institutions into chaos because they didn't know what the rules were on any given day, trying to, you know, outflank each other and prove their conservative credentials, which of course, you know, it only got you so far, apparently in the primary. But again, Brad Little, a very, very conservative governor among the most conservative in the country. So I have one more question, which is about Newsom. And actually, it dovetails nicely. Newsom is not in your article. Why is he not in your article? Follow up question. Beto had like a star making moment yesterday when he stormed this press conference. First talk to me about Newsom and then talk to me about Beto. Sure. So Newsom has mentioned briefly in there as someone who is sort of always part. of the conversation, but not like a serious top, top of the line member of the conversation.

One part of this, and this wasn't in the story, but it's just true is a lot of people aren't sure if he, you know, what his position would be in terms of 2024, if Biden were not to run simply because he has this longstanding rivalry, friendship question mark with Harris. You know, they have overlapped for a long time in San Francisco, so it would be very uncomfortable. That said, he is someone who, you know, was one of the Democrats who was out there first and most prominently, after the Roe v. Wade news leaked after Politico broke that story, you know, Newsom proposed a amendment to the California Constitution, codifying the right to abortion, then went out there and said, you know, where is my party? Where are the Democrats?

Which, of course, is a rebuke of Joe Biden, whether you want to admit that or not. It obviously is. Right. But it's a complicated question as to what he does in 2024. He will be part of the conversation if it comes to that. Beto. Yes, Beto. I'm coming to you live from Austin, Texas right now. I think the reality is that a lot of people think that his way of expressing anger, of expressing being fed up, is certainly activating for a lot of voters. And I think it's something that needs to be taken somewhat seriously. The reality is that this is going to be a really, really hard race for him. And I think one of the big questions is the degree to which people here in Texas, but really all over the country as well in other races, are activated by this gun issue over the next few months. I mean, the horrific reality that we know in this country all too well is that this matter is sort of omnipresent, but it fades away in terms of political salience every few weeks because we keep having these mass shootings, but then people don't vote on this, or at least Democrats don't vote on this in the same numbers as Republicans do because they don't have the same lobbies.

They don't have the same incentives. It's a horrible situation, obviously. I'm stealing this as from a tweet, so don't tell everyone. But the NRA of 2002 is not the NRA. array of 2013. Absolutely not. And yet, Republican officials are just as in lockstep, if not more, and more extremists in some cases than they were in 2013. Obviously, I, you know, I don't mean to hedge too much here when I say that we'll see how this plays for O'Rourke in Texas. As someone who has been wrong about many things, I love a hedge. Like, you're welcome to hedge here.

Yeah. But I think that the reality is, you know, no one in the right mind would say that this is going to be a good year for Democrats in the midterms unless something changes pretty dramatically. That's especially true in Texas right now. And he definitely faces serious headwinds. He got close running this sort of supernova campaign in 2018, which was a great year for Democrats. Right. And so, you know, this certainly gets him a lot of attention. And I think a lot of people will really appreciate what he's saying. And by the way, I think a lot of Democrats who are just as fed up as he is will take what he did and will take what Chris Murphy is saying on the Senate floor and try to roam with it. I don't know how that's going to play electorally. I think I'm frankly more interested in how it's going to play

in the Senate over the next few weeks. But I think we unfortunately know the answer to that. Do you think, and this is more of a calculus question, it's sort of your opinion, do you think that they're like Abbott was the first state to ban abortion? He was the first, I mean, you know, he has this six week. He basically functionally over. returned row. He has permitless carry. He has been on the front lines of passing very, very conservative. Some might say crazy legislation. And he also, you know, never has fixed the power grid. Do you think that that catches up with him because Texas is this state that is not as as red as it used to be or you think that the headwinds of inflation are just too much?

The other thing that you should, that we should know that's very relevant here is massive voting rights crackdown all around the state. And, you know, voting restriction, it's extremely difficult to vote for a lot of folks in Texas compared to previous election years. So that I think that's your answer right there, right? It's not the only answer. That's what he's banking on. That's not the only answer. Texas is not as right as it was many years, a few years ago. The reality also is that Abbott did have a primary and he won it by 50 points. You know, a number of hardcore Republicans ran against him, hardcore conservatives. The national headwinds are super real here. And there, you know, Abbott also talks about the border all the time. And so he is certainly

calculating that he all he needs to do is win over the Republicans and that there are a lot of them in Texas. And he's not trying to win over any swing voters because the calculus is that there simply aren't any. And he can, anyway. Totally. That's right. So I don't know. I think a lot could change. But what's also true equally is that O'Rourke just doesn't have the same amount of money or attention as he had last time. And that might be a good thing because it's not as easy to caricature him as a sort of national interlober, which of course was always silly because he's very much from El Paso. He is from Texas. Absolutely. But the headwinds are very real for him this time too, and he will need a massive amount of momentum.

But, you know, we're talking in May. The election's not until November. As much as I don't like to hedge, it's only responsible to hedge at this point. You know, we can talk in six months and we'll have a different answer. Thank you so much, Gabe. I hope you'll come back. Thank you for this deeply uplifting conversation. Sorry. Representative Chrissy Houlihan represents Pennsylvania's sixth congressional district and Emily Churniak as the founder of new politics. Welcome to the new abnormal, Representative Hulahan and Emily. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, thanks.

So I actually met you, Chrissy. I don't know if you remember this, like years ago, before you ran for the house. I would love it if you would sort of paint the scene for us about how you decided to run. in your district, which is a pretty purple district, right? Yes, it is. And it's a kind of a multi-tiered, multifaceted journey to deciding to run in a place like this. And it was largely started because of the election of President Trump in 2016. I was really alarmed. I think many of us were very alarmed. It's sort of what the nation had just said about itself and one another. And I have been raised in a family of service.

In fact, my father is military, my grandfather as well. My father also happens to be a refugee. He came here from Poland when he was very, very small, having survived the Holocaust. And so he was very alarmed after the election of President Trump for what we were, you know, setting ourselves up for. And my daughter, my oldest daughter, is a member of the LGBTQ community. She was deeply alarmed as well. And I just sort of took some time to take an inventory of my ability to help in this situation and to serve at the this really important time. And that was part of my motivation was the realization that I had

the space and time and qualifications in my life at this point in my journey to be able to try something hard and do something that would be helpful. And I really genuinely thought that this would likely be unsuccessful because of the diverse purple background of my community. But it was, I think, not just me who was really alarmed, but also the large part of my community that was as well. So in the end, I ended up being successful, thanks to the help of so many people, including Emily, who believed in me and in this time. So Emily, why don't you explain to our listeners what you do? Thanks, Molly. So we recruit and support servant leaders to run for office. So military veterans, people that have done AmeriCorps programs like Teach for America, Peace Corps, you know, we believe that

these leaders have a country first mindset and have the leadership skills that are desperately needed in political life. You know, they've worked with diverse teams. They've led people towards a mission greater than themselves. And we think those leadership skills are really important in our current times in the political arena. So if we had a Congress full of Chrissies, I think we would be solving a lot of big problems right now in our country. So explain to us what happened in 2018, how you ran and how you won. Sure. You know, what happened in 2018 in Pennsylvania was, I think, pretty indicative of what happened across the nation as well. I serve in a community that's about equally divided between Democrats and Republicans, 40, 40, roughly speaking, and 20% independence. And I think that we

recognize that not just the basic things that everybody talks about when they think about somebody who represents them of, you know, health care and jobs and education and the planet and the economy and that sort of thing, we're at stake, but indeed the democracy itself was at stake. So there was an enormous, enormous energy around that concern that I think drove people to be organized and aware in a way that they hadn't been really ever. And I include myself amongst that. You know, as Emily mentioned, my background is in service, having served in the military, myself, in addition to coming from a military family. But I also am a Teach for America, a teacher as well. So I taught high school chemistry down in the Philadelphia area for a while, too.

So this was a time for, I think, all of us to figure out how we could each be of service. And each one of us in our community could do something, whether it was knocking doors or making phone calls or texting or activating a network to make sure that gerrymandering was changed. And it was in the state of Pennsylvania. We all had a different role to play. And so I think that as a consequence, we ended up with a very large class, frankly, thanks to people like Emily, of people who have servant leader back. And I'm really grateful to this moment to be able to serve with many of the people who came in with me in that class because I think we really have changed the face and the disposition of Congress.

I really do wish that there were more people that I could work with who had similar backgrounds and similar temperaments and similar commitment to the nation. Talk to me a little bit about what your district looks like. So the sixth congressional district is just outside of Philadelphia. It's due west of Philadelphia. It's the county of Chester County and a little bit of the county of Berks County. It's really intriguing because it is the reason why people watch the suburbs of Philadelphia is the reason why the 6th Congressional District is so intriguing.

As I mentioned sort of the political disposition and diversity, we also have the suburbs of Philadelphia in the east of the district. We have a lot of rural and farmland area in the west. We have dairy farms and mushroom farms. In fact, we grow the majority of the nation's mushrooms in my district. And then northward in the district, we have the city of Reading. People may know Reading from the Reading Railroad and the Monopoly Board, but Reading is a really historical city that at one point was a enormously successful urban center

and has now fallen on more difficult times. And so this is now a community that's an opportunity zone. In fact, we have two opportunity zones in this community. So this is a rural, urban, suburban farms to pharmaceuticals kind of a place. You also have this military background too, right? Can you talk about that? So I served up at Hanscombe Air Force Base, which is in the Boston area right after completing my undergraduate degree at Stanford. I had an ROTC scholarship.

And the ROTC scholarships in the Air Force are really intriguing because they specify a specific degree because they're aiming you at a specific job within the military. And my degree had to be an industrial engineering. And I'm grateful for that because I use those skills every single day. have for the last 35 years or so. But what I did in the military was project engineering and program management. And so what I did in the military is work on advanced projects that were going to be happening 20, 25 years from then in the field. Things like the Strategic Defense Initiative, the Air Defense Initiative, thinking frankly about things like supply chain stresses, what will

happen if electric grids are taken out, what will happen if water pathways are taken out, modeling and simulating that, modeling and simulating the attack of ballistic missiles from any number of places were the things that I did when I was in the military. Right now is a really interesting time to be elected and to be in the world. I'm curious where you are. I know the House has passed some gun bills, some bills that enhance background checks. Will you talk about that? I know they're they're still in the Senate forever and ever, right? It is a devastating time to be in a position of ability to do something about the scourge of gun violence because I think I can, and this is, I think, relevant to this conversation, uniquely speak

into guns and gun safety, being a veteran and having been a teacher in urban Philadelphia and understanding the dangers of guns in classrooms as an example and being a mom, frankly. But what I would say is, you're right, the House of Representatives has passed a few pieces of legislation a couple times since I've been in office, which is about three years now. And you're right to say that those pieces of legislation unfortunately have languished in the Senate. I am hopeful, however, I am in the process of working through a group that I belong to called the Problem Solving Caucus or PSC. That is a group of bipartisan members who want very much to work together and find solutions. And this group is actively, as you and I are speaking, trying to put together a working group to once again try and take a run at what is it that we can collaborate on, work collectively on. And then, frankly, get the attention of the Senate on as well, because it doesn't help if we pass things.

Of course, it only helps if we can kind of sweep in enough people on the Senate side to make a difference. And that's what we're up to right now. I mean, again, with the Senate, you always get into the problem of, do you have 60? I mean, the polling shows that sensible gun laws are more popular than pretty much anything we poll about. But do you think you have 10 sane Republican senators? I hate to be the eore of the conversation, but I don't really see 10 senators. I see maybe a couple of few, including possibly Senator Toomey of my own state in Pennsylvania. But I think that's why this conversation and why voting in elections and those kinds of things have

such important consequences. And I think that, unfortunately, if we want to see action at the national level on this issue, we collectively have to vote differently. And we need to make sure that we get folks in. And again, regardless of R or D, who understand that this is, as you mentioned, a very, very popular and very, very concerning issue for people, I can't for my life understand why people, of all stripes, don't understand that this is something that the people want I move forward with legislation. You have this very diverse district. I mean, how do you even talk to people about this?

Have you heard from constituents? You know, you have this district that is both rural and urban. Like, you know, where you are is much more sort of representative of the country than where I live. So what do people say to you? Well, when I was a candidate, actually, I'm a Democrat. And as a Democratic candidate in a place that hadn't had a Democrat or, in office in this position since the Civil War, I was cautioned to not, you know, lean into conversations about guns and gun safety.

And rather to, you know, keep my mouth shut because there were so many people in this community who were gun owners and that sort of thing. At one point in time, I remember just having this epiphany at my personal epiphany, which is like if I can't talk about this and if I don't run on this and then I'm not being true to myself and I'm not being true to what I think the community wants. And if I, for whatever reason, don't succeed in trying to serve in this way because of this issue, then I'm the wrong person to serve our community. And so it was definitely a personal kind of like reflection on the advice I was getting from, you know, campaign land and the feeling that I had at that time that. And honestly, I think there was a shooting at one point in time, yet another one where it was just like, I give up.

You know, we have to, we have to start talking about this. And I would also say, well, first of all, I would never tell Chrissy to not be authentic and talk about what you want to talk about. It wasn't you. I know, I know. We know who those people were. I also think the reason why leaders like Chrissy's in her background, you know, and what we tested and what the data shows is that it's really because the voters trust people who have served.

And so their background and their bio, you know, coupled with their sort of narrative around, I'm here to get things done and work with others to move the country forward. You know, anyone can say those words. I'm here to move the country forward. but because Chrissy's service background, you know, and her bio is what it is, you know, voters trust her when she says those things. And so I think Chrissy has a perspective to talk about guns. She's, she knows how to use them, right? She's trained. And I think a lot of our veterans in office are really authentic messengers and can be a really powerful force around gun safety and common sense gun laws because they understand and have used guns in their service. So let's talk about that for a minute. I've seen over the last few days we've seen Republicans, just obfuscate and say it's everything but the guns. What do you tell people about the guns? Well, I think that it's a combination of a lot of things and we need to address all of them, you know, simultaneously. I think that recognizing that there is also an issue of mental health

in our communities and recognizing that there's also an issue of having enough information and data to make good decisions about what would be most effective is helpful and recognizing that there are things, smaller things, like let's say safe storage, as an example, red flag laws, you know, that we should bite off in chunks that are resoundingly popular before going to things that are perceived as being more extreme. And I think that like anything, any issue in my community, just a decent and civil conversation is what I'm always trying to get to. Because we can all, you know, disagree on different things. And that's what's the beautiful thing. about the country and our First Amendment rights. But we should do that with civility and being

decent to one another. And I think that that's also something that this atmosphere, this environment lends itself to people of backgrounds such as mine and the people that Emily is and encouraging and helping to get into office. Because we are kind of trying to start, not just as problem solvers, you know, as people who are coming in and trying to find the common ground. And it's not just, frankly, about military backgrounds, but also, I think to some degree, it's intriguing that a lot of the people who Emily has elevated have also been women. And so there's a combination there that, you know, a little bit of a secret sauce where the women who I get to serve with, who have service backgrounds are pretty powerful in and of themselves. And I think they do a terrific job of trying

to pull people together. Yeah, I agree. And I think we could look at examples like, Florida, I mean, if Florida is able to pass gun safety laws, I think there's hope for the country, right? Like if DeSantis signed that, you know, and they raised the age 21, they had red flag laws. I mean, they did some really important things in a Republican legislature. I mean, it's not a Democratic legislature. So I do think, as Chris said, there's a way, there's a way forward here. But it's not a federal way forward necessarily. It might be a local way forward. I mean, it would be better if it were a federal way forward. There's a lot of negativity about the midterms. give us something to feel less worried about?

Well, I guess what I would say is I'm hopeful because I think people are with, unfortunately, this issue that we're talking about with the issue of Roe and what's going on there with the Supreme Court, I think there is another awakening of sorts happening. And I think that that's good news. You know, people being engaged in their community politics and the election of state, local and national people, I think, has become more energized because of those unfortunate things. And also because we are, I think, feeling a little bit more freedom from COVID and we're out and about. I think that certainly Democrats in my community are energized to knock doors, to text,

to, you know, phone in a way that they couldn't and didn't be during COVID. So I think that's positive. I think people are starting to understand that. stakes are super, super high in places like mine. And it's not, again, you know, a functioning Republican Party with, you know, differences in policy and that sort of thing is okay. This is not a functioning Republican Party. This is a, in my opinion, a diseased Republican Party, and it needs to be cured and cleansed. And so the stakes of having, you know, a Republican, as an example, in my seat, are more than just policy differences. You know, they are democracy in my opinion.

Have you heard from constituents about Roe? Yeah. What's interesting is in my community in this part of Pennsylvania, remember that Pennsylvania is complicated. We have a complicated relationship with energy. We have a complicated relationship with choice. We, you know, are a purple place.

We've got nine Dems and nine Republicans in Congress and one Democrat and one Republican in Senate and a Democratic governor and the House is Republican controlled. We are like purple. And I think what's intriguing about the Roe issue is that even though we have a lot of very conservative folks, many of whom are Catholic or are more conservative in terms of their religious beliefs, I've been approached by many, many

women who are traditionally would be considered quite conservative, who are very alarmed at the reproductive freedom and the liberty that is being threatened for the choices that they may have made when they were younger, for the choices that they believe their children. their daughters should be able to make for themselves. And I think that that's been really intriguing to have somebody who, you know, comes up and self-identifies as an example as being really deeply Catholic and very involved in the church as an example, but also being incredibly alarmed by, you know, what's happening in the Supreme Court. That's, I think, a good indicator of what's going on in this community. Yeah, that's what I think, too. Emily, last thoughts about the midterms?

I'm hopeful and pragmatic. Do I think the Republicans will probably win the majority? I think it's highly likely. But I think, as Chrissy said, it really depends on who gets out in votes. And hopefully that, you know, the Chinese symbol for crisis is two characters. One is opportunity and one is danger. And that makes up the word crisis, right? So I think in this world of danger that we're in, there is an opportunity to motivate voters and to get Democratic and independent voters out to vote. And again, I mean, we're a bipartisan organization, but I agree with Chrissy. Like, this is really about democracy. And how are we protecting our democracy by voting the right people in. And so I'm hopeful that I think we can, it's early still, we have time to mobilize

people to get out the vote. And I think, you know, we can really elect some leaders that will be transformative. And so I think, again, like, Chrissy's not just a Democrat, right? She's a, she's a transformational servant leader. Like, her impact in Congress is much higher than, I think, just your average congressional member. And I think we can continue to get more people like her, you know, in office and, you know, hopefully Christy will, I'll just say for the record. I hope she run statewide one day. I think that would be amazing. So I just, you know, I just want to put it out there. I hope she thinks about it when there's an opportunity for that. And I think we can continue to see these kind of leaders like her really be elevated on a statewide and in a national level to really

helping our country together and to get things done. So that long answer was for the midterms. I am hopeful with also sort of a pragmatic eye on it. And I think it really depends on, it's in our hands, in our hands as voters to really decide how this outcome. is for the country. Thank you so much. Thanks, you guys. Yeah, thank you. I was good to talk to you. Thanks, Molly. Andy Levy. Molly Jongfest. It is our segment where we say each other's names and talk about a bad person. Who is your bad person? My bad person, my fuck that guy for this week, is one of your personal favorites, Molly. So I apologize. I wrote a piece about him. I believe you did. He is a congressperson by the name of Paul Gosar.

and he decided, so I just want to point out again, this is a sitting congressman, he is in Congress. The afternoon or the evening, I guess, of the horrible, just the massacre in the Texas elementary school, he tweeted that the killer was, quote, a transsexual, leftist, illegal alien named Salvatore Ramos. Well, he got one thing right there, and that was the name, Salvatore Ramos, who was neither transsexual, nor leftist, as far as we know, nor an illegal immigrant. And it was also so early, by the way. Yeah. Bodies were not even cold.

Like, really, he did this in a way to just get those sort of misinformation out there. No, absolutely. It was misinformation that started on, I think it was 4chan online and spread to 8chan into Reddit. And then, you know, it's the 4chan to Republican Congressman pipeline, apparently. Right. Paul Gosar decides to tweet all this completely utterly wrong information because he does not give a fuck because all he cares about is his dumbass culture war. So some idiot made up a thing about the person being transsexual and the other stuff. And so he just decided, I got to tweet this.

I got to get this out there. Now, on a personal note, after he tweeted that, I replied to him on Twitter saying, I hope you fall off a bridge, you absolute piece of shit. Right. And I then sent that tweet to a friend of mine and said, hey, if I get suspended from Twitter, let people know that it was because of this tweet. And I've never been, I've been on Twitter for, I think, 34 years now or something like that. And I've never been suspended or anything like that. But sure enough, later that night, I got a polite little email at 212 AM. I got a polite little email from Twitter saying, hi, Andy, your account has been locked for violating the Twitter rules. Basically, I just, I had to delete the tweet to get my account back,

so I did that. And that's fine. I guess they interpreted falling off a bridge as wishing someone harm. I would argue it could be a very low bridge, but whatever. The bottom line is, fuck this guy forever for doing stuff like this. And he is just, if he's not one of the top, got to be a top five dumbest member of Congress and just an absolute disgrace. And fuck that guy. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Can he always be fuck that guy? I mean, I guess he can always be fuck that guy. He seems to want to be.

So my fuck that guy is a bunch of guys, and they're shitty Republicans who have lost their seats because they went full Trump. Never go full Trump. The first is Mo Brooks. He has the runoff. He wants to have a Senate seat. Again, maybe Mo Brooks will win this runoff, but he has done a lot of damage to himself. I mean, I know nobody ever talks about the damage that these people have done to like norms. I feel like that was like that's that was like the kind of discourse that happened in 2015, right?

We've moved on from norms discourse. But like, you know, he has ruined all these norms and he also has really done, you know, he's represented this state of Alabama rather shittily. You know, there have been people from Alabama like Doug Jones who have represented that state in a good light. I mean, few and far between, but they exist. So Mo Brooks ruined himself going to a runoff may or may not win. Jody Heiss gave up his seat to run against Brad Raffensburg, lost by a sort of spectacular margin. Louis Gomer, my ironically favorite member of Congress, a man with few thoughts and fewer teeth. will no longer be a member of Congress come January because he gave it all up to run against Ken Paxton, who is also terrible, but somehow managed to – he's actually doing a runoff with George P. Bush.

But the point is, Louis Gomerant has lost his seat. Then we have – again, I don't know. Madison Cossorn also lost his seat. I think that was about different stuff, but yes, yes. Ultimately, yes. So they all get a hearty fuck that guy. Perhaps the best thing that Trump ever did was get them out of office. Do you think that Louis Gomer's dentist is Paul Gossar? I hope so. Well, that would explain the teeth problem.

That's what I'm saying. And I say this as someone who myself has really bad teeth. 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. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you again on the next episode. Want more great listens?

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