The Daily Beast Podcast - Hannity, ‘National Divorce’ Backer, Forgets He’s a New Yorker

Episode Date: February 26, 2023

TNA hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy listen to a clip of Sean Hannity interviewing with Marjorie Taylor Greene on this Sunday’s episode of the show and have questions. And not just because Greene says that our American forefathers would have wanted a “national divorce,” but because Hannity, a New Yorker, supports it. “Does Sean not realize that he lives and works in New York” asks Andy Levy. “All of Fox News would have to relocate….” The two dissect this clip, and others like it, in this episode, along with comments Trump made while visiting an East Palestine, Ohio McDonald’s that he knows the menu better than anyone. Plus! Writer Bryn Nelson, PhD, and author of Flush: The Remarkable Science of an Unlikely Treasure, explains the underrated source of future cancer cases in East Palestine, Ohio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

new abnormal, and we thank you so much for being here. Today we have an extra special guest with Time Magazine's Bryn Nelson, who's an award-winning science writer and author of the book, Flush, the remarkable science of an unlikely treasure. And they're going to talk to us about what's happened with the Norfolk Southern Ohio train derailment. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready to listen to some clips? Hell yeah, absolute mo. Andy. Clips.

So, Mr. Trump went to East Palestine, Ohio, the side of the Ohio train derailment, and one Tucker Carlson, who many people have said Fox is turning their back on Donald Trump. I don't think so. Whatever you think of Donald Trump, when he's unleashed in a crowd of people, he's pretty unbelievable.

If you haven't seen the tape of him ordering at McDonald's in East Palestine, treat yourself. He wows everyone in the room. Again, you don't have to love Trump to know he's really good at this, and it's real. I mean, he feels it. That's why he's so good at it. So he's a huge threat. But in a normal country and democracy, you would let voters decide whether they want him to run the country again. But no, partisan prosecutors at all level, state and federal are trying to prevent him for running for president again.

Did he just say, if you ever see him order at a McDonald's? like the way he was ordering at a McDonald's. Did I hear that right? You did. You did. So Donald Trump, Captain America, went to East Palestine and ordered his favorite fucking fast food for the people there. And that's what makes him ready to be president again. What?

Yeah. Did either of you hear the order where he charmed their pants off? No. I think I heard a thing where he said that he knows the menu better than. anyone there? That's correct. Let's listen. What's your special thing today? Hello, everybody. That's a nice, beautiful,

so I know this menu better than you do. I probably know it better than anybody in here. We're going to take care of the fire department. Okay. We're going to take care of the police department. You know, nothing like going to someone's work and saying, I know this better than you. That really says charming people.

I love when people do that to me. I mean, I wish that he would walk into the National Archives and look at the Constitution and say that. The National Archives does not come with ketchup. You're right. You're right. So he would absolutely stay away from there. You'd have to put the Constitution on a wall and then he could throw a burger at it and get ketchup on it. Just put the Constitution on the McDonald's back wrapper and maybe Donald Trump.

would read it. Maybe. The fuck. I just love when Tucker put in context, too, that, you know, everybody loves this guy because he's belittling them in their workplace, but the prosecutors are going to keep from being president. That's what's happening. The pivot was unbelievable. Look, I mean, that's what his viewers want. And as we know, Tucker Carlson gives his viewers what he wants, whether it's true or not.

We also know that Tucker Carlson is scared. shitless of Donald Trump, as we saw, where he admitted that Donald Trump could destroy him if he wanted to and that they don't want to give him any reason to do that. So the most amazing thing about this whole thing to me is all these quotes came out, all these texts from the Fox people, including what I just mentioned about Carlson saying that Donald Trump is a destroyer and could destroy them. And then here he is not a few days later or less than a week later, kissing Trump's ass, continuing to kiss Trump's ass, as if those texts didn't come out, which I suppose they didn't if you were a Fox News viewer, because obviously Fox never covered that

or even talked about it. So as far as Fox News viewers know, that never happened. So it's just so Tucker can just get up there and keep on spewing the same bullshit and he is confident in knowing that none of his viewers realize that he is lying. Even if they did know, I don't think they care. True. Their brains are absolute mush. Again, put it on a Lego. Maybe they care about it.

Put it on a fucking Eminem. Maybe they care about it. Put it on a gas stove. You know, they blow that shit up, pun intended. Well, I have bad news. It's about to get a lot worse in this episode. No Senator John Kennedy this week. But the real bad news is for Kevin McCarthy because one, Sean Hannity, was having a real

Love Fest with his girl, Marjorie Taylor Green. They were talking national divorce on his show the other night, and boy, they were looking dreamily at each other, and here's what they were saying. And here's my question. You know, how did you get to this point? I mean, I look at topics. For example, how do you reconcile defund the police and no bail laws with law and order? How do you reconcile secure borders and wide open borders?

How do you reconcile energy independence with energy dependence? and New Green Dealism. How do you reconcile peace through strength with people that want to gut our defense? I don't see middle ground on a lot of these issues. So what is the other answer if it's not a divorce? Well, exactly, Sean. That's the problem in where we are today. And in my life and my world, all of my friends are regular Americans.

Everyone I talk to is sick and tired and fed up of being born. bullied by the left, abused by the left, and disrespected by the left. And our ideas, our policies, our ways of life have become so far apart that it's just coming to that point. And the last thing I ever want to see in America is a civil war. No one wants that, at least everyone I know would never want that. But it's going that direction. And we have to do something about it.

Regular Americans. Here we go again. Who the fuck are her friends? I just don't you want to know who the fuck Marjorie Taylor Green's friends are? Do they look as fucking crazy as she does? I mean, by all the Yolopoulopolis, we found out uses her address as his address.

So my answer is yes, he looks just as fucking crazy as her. I'm so tired of their regular American bullshit and no one wants a civil war except for the people that are walking around in Congress with AR-15 fucking pins on their lapels. Nobody wants that. That's her friends, by the way.

Except for the people that refer to Democrats as enemies of the state and say that they need. to be killed, right? Like, nobody wants this. You know, none of my friends do. Shut up. It just, it would be a big time saver if they just said white instead of regular America. Right. My favorite part of it, and it's a little low key is when, you know, as podcasters, we know this, that when you're interviewing somebody and they have a really, really profound thought, you say, how did you get to this point? But I love that Sean Hannity said that to her about the worst thought-out idea of all fucking time.

While agreeing with her. Yes. I mean, I just, you know, what did you know, I don't see any other way. I don't see any other way. Does Sean not realize that he lives and works in New York? Why doesn't he move? Well, stop with your logic, Andy. All of Fox News will have to relocate.

Yeah, from their wonderful off 6th Avenue location and then in mid-year. town Manhattan. None of those people want to live in Arkansas. No disrespect to Arkansas for me, but I can assure you none of those people want to live in Arkansas. I think maybe that should be our next campaign. Should we try and say like, hey, Fox News, just relocate. Right. Get out of that nasty liberal city and go where your people are. I mean, you are in the heart of fake America. Truly. Well, I have good news for YouTube blue checks. She's saying that we should start governing this country by what gets likes and retweets. Just take a listen. Wait, what? I actually think this is a much bigger movement than most people in Washington even realize. And you can take a look at the

tweets that I made just yesterday. The amount of likes and retweets that those tweets got should tell people a lot. And they're just not aware of it yet because they don't talk to regular people. You mean they don't talk to regular bots? Does she not know what bots are? Does she also not know what quote tweets are? Yeah, but that was my thought too. Because I am willing to bet that a large majority of those retweets were quote tweets from people who made fun of her and called her various things. But also the idea that Twitter is regular people. Yeah, yeah.

Like that's just dumb. And I say that who is on Twitter less than I used to be, but still way too often. Twitter is not regular. Like, there's a whole thing. Twitter is not real life. No, it's not. Like, if you start thinking that retweets and likes is real life, you have major issues, which in her case, it's not one of her bigger major issues, but it's still a major issue.

She is fucking delusional. Like, it is, her delusions are deep and wild. And again, we should all be terrified that this woman is a member of Congress. She is sitting on oversight. She is, you know, to the left hand of Kevin McCarthy. Like, this should be scary, right? When she said, I am not the fringe of the Republican Party. I am the new face and the mainstream of the Republican Party.

We all fucking laughed. Look at it. Look who's laughing now. This bitch, she wants to run government through Twitter. Oh, yo, I don't know. She is on the Homeland Security Committee, I believe. Yeah, that's correct. A woman who is pushing for a national divorce is on.

the Homeland Security Committee. That's the euphemism for Civil War is a national divorce. She's going through a real divorce. She wants a national divorce. She just wants company. Like build a commune with your regular American friends. All right. Well, I have bad news for you, too.

I think you two are just ill-informed about what the founding fathers really wanted. What did they want, Jesse? She's going to tell you. And do you expect it'll happen? Last question. Well, I think it's something that we should work towards because, you know, it's kind of the vision that our founding fathers had for America. And I think it's a great one. It worked in the beginning.

We just got it completely out of control. So I hope we can get there. All right, Marjorie Taylor Green. Thanks for explaining it all to us. We appreciate it as always. When we come back, Liam Neeson, the actor, was less than impressed with the ladies of the view after his appearance. We'll show you. We'll explain straight ahead.

The end is so good. Fuck, I'm crying. This is what our forefathers want. I just don't know. Oh, God. Did you intend to play that? No, no, no. I kept the Liam Neas and Barton because it's so fucking funny.

That is absolutely fantastic. She says the most inaccurate thing of all times. And it's just like, oh, well, Liam Dyson's not really impressed with Joy Behar's haircut. While the dramatic music plays, what more could sum up that shit network better? Oh, my God. Was she talking about the national divorce there or something else? That's what she was talking about. She's talking about your forefathers, Andy.

My four, my forefathers. Your forefathers. And what they wanted. They wanted, we got way out of control after they had 13 colonies. We got, we lost their shit. I just want to point out that my forefathers were killed by Hitler. Andy, you had four fathers? How did that work for your mother?

I don't know. She was quite happy, thank you. Folks, I am very excited to welcome to the new abnormal. Bryn Nelson, who is a microbiologist, an award-winning science writer and author of the book, Flush, the remarkable science of an unlikely treasurer. And author of a piece in Time magazine, The Water Crisis, No One in America is Fixing. Bryn, it's really great to have you. Thanks so much, Daniel.

Yeah, I want to jump right in because there was just so much wrong with your article. Not wrong in terms of what you wrote, but just wrong with the fact that we continue to say that America is the wealthiest nation. And we have, according to your piece, there are at least half a million people who, don't have proper plumbing in this country. You said, I believe it is like more than two million who don't have basic indoor plumbing access to clean water. And your piece is predicated on the environmental crisis that is unfolding in East Palestine, Ohio. That happened after a train loaded with toxic chemicals crashed, igniting a fire. You start out with your piece saying that

this environmental catastrophe has triggered thousands of fish in nearby streams to die. The residents are absolutely terrified of what has happened to their drinking water, their air quality. While the EPA has come out and said, oh, no, things are fine. We're testing and everything is fine. Explain to me how Britain, everything could be fine, but you got thousands of fish that died. Right. One of the things that I wanted to point out here is that in the U.S. we talk about different types of infrastructure. and we typically don't pay attention to them until there's a disaster, right, until there are headlines. One infrastructure, which is railway infrastructure, can intersect with another type of infrastructure,

which is clean water in ways that we may not anticipate until there's a disaster like this. And then suddenly, unsafe railway conditions can then imperil an entire community's water source. So that's one of those things that I hope comes across is that none of these, types of infrastructure exist in a vacuum. There are many different types of infrastructure, and when we ignore one, when we don't invest in one, it can have a cascading effect and imperil many others in communities. The other thing, so specifically for this East Palestine derailment, we know that there were a number of different toxic chemicals on the train, including vinyl chloride, which is used to make PVC pipes and other things, but can be very toxic and also can

seep into the groundwater. So you don't just have the immediate danger of the fire and the toxic chemicals that are released. And they had to do a controlled burn because they were afraid that there might be an explosion and it might make the catastrophe even worse. Right. So it was sort of at the time the lesser of two evils. But the question is, why did it have to get to that point? And that's more a question that the NTSB is going to need to answer. I think it just released an initial report that suggested there was an overheated wheel bearing. So they're going to be looking at that. Obviously, there are questions about the braking system that was used and some industry rollbacks of some safety features. What I hope happens now is that there's not just a one and done.

Yes, we're going to come in and we're going to test and everything looks fine. This is going to be an ongoing concern. There may be a drip, drip, drip of contaminants into the soil that we know can then get into groundwater. So hopefully the environmental monitoring that is occurring is going to be occurring for a while because we know from past chemical spills that it's not just the immediate impact. It is the impact over long periods of time that can endanger communities. So hopefully this monitoring happens and hopefully also meaningful remediation that the railroad company cleans up the soil in a way that is going to minimize the risk of it getting into the groundwater. I appreciate that. I think that what troubles me the most, one, is that it took days for this to become a national headline.

And obviously, as a person in media, I know what is competing for headlines and how the news cycle is now about a nanosecond. But this is not the first time that there has been an environmental crisis that has affected the world. water and waste management systems in American cities. While this is one that you're saying, you know, we hope that the people responsible continue to treat and continue to investigate the contaminants in the soil and the water, the reality is that there are people who live in these townships who are saying that they are already experiencing headaches, nausea, loss of taste, loss of smell, that this is not something that should be rocket science. Like, you're holding up a glass of water after an

environmental catastrophe like this and telling the politicians that are on the ground, hey, why don't you take a sip? And they're hesitant to do so or show up in the first place. And so if residents are already beginning to experience physical reactions and symptoms to what this is, I mean, do we really need to wait for months and years to recognize that this area has probably become the latest cancer cluster? Well, I guess one of the things that I would caution is that, you know, cancer obviously is something that occurs over time and can, you know, be difficult to trace back to single sources. Certainly, we do want to do monitoring of this. But yes, to your point, you have the immediate concerns, health concerns, which, you know, are serious and, and

and need to be taken very seriously. And then you have the long-term health impacts, right? And I think, you know, it can be easier to trace some of the initial health impacts directly to this crisis, to the chemical spill. And so, yes, absolutely. I completely agree that we need to have the residence health monitored and to understand what precisely was in the trains, what can the chemicals become when they are burned or mixed, because we know that other toxic chemicals can.

be formed from them. So that's one concern, and I don't want to minimize that at all. I think with a cancer cluster, certainly a vinyl chloride has been linked to cancer. It's a known carcinogen. So yes, we're very concerned about that. And I think primarily the route of exposure for the residents, in this case, you know, there's the initial air exposure. But then you also want to be very, very cautious about drinking water and whether there's any vinyl chloride that that it's gotten into the water because that's another route by which you could be, you know, slowly poisoning people over time. But I also want to point out that this is in 2022, we had 1,000 trained derailments across the U.S., right? So unfortunately, East Palestine was the community

that was badly impacted. It joins a very long list of other places in the United States. So, you know, I want to make clear that we have our work cut out for us because it's not just this town in Ohio. So it is many, many other places that have had horrible chemical spills who have had their water not only threatened, but in many cases, there's no infrastructure there to begin with. So you have some communities where there's literally cesspools outside their doors because there's no wastewater infrastructure. And that's also making people sick. It's a big mess.

Hopefully, this piece drew some attention to it. Obviously, there have been a number of grassroots organizations that have been begging for more attention in this area for years and years and years and years. And hopefully now, finally, there's some traction where we can get some money to prevent some of these disasters and also build up infrastructure where it's most needed. I'd like to read a portion of your piece for the audience because I think that there are a couple of paragraphs in particular that stood out to me that were just so shocking. So one of the things that you write here is that the 2021 report card for America's infrastructure released by the American Society of Civil Engineering gave a dismal D-plus grade

to the country's more than 16,000 wastewater treatment plants, a significant fraction of which have reached or exceeded their design capacities. The U.S. drinking water infrastructure earned only a marginally better rating with a C-minus. Let's talk about that for a moment, because again, I want to go back to my initial point. We often hear from presidents to senators, you know, to city council people and everyone in between, that America is the greatest country. I think that that is a belief system that has begun to crack under the weight of reality over the past several years. But when I read this paragraph, Brandon, and I hear that the American Society of Civil Engineering is looking at our infrastructure. And this is before we're talking

about the climate crisis. This is before we're talking about things that are already going to weigh on a crumbling infrastructure system, how does this happen? How is it that on one hand, we want to say that we're so wealthy? And on another hand, we're talking about Americans living in cities and rural townships that look like developing nations, that have the same inaccessibility to clean water and sanitation that we're more commonly associated with underdeveloped nations. Absolutely. I mean, I can tell you that when you start talking about infrastructure, it's not glamorous, right? It's not something that, you know, immediately everyone is on board with. And it is so important because it is the foundation for so many other things, right? Because if you don't have good wastewater treatment, then you have environmental pollution. Then you have health impacts. People like Catherine Coleman Flowers has documented. that in rural communities in the south, where there are health conditions that can be traced back to sewage. So yes, I think it's something that kind of gets lost a lot of times when we're

focused on other priorities. And it does take an investment. These are not cheap systems. But my argument is that the money that you invest in them, you're going to get back multiple times in preventing some of these horrible downstream effects without them. The problem is, I think, we've just been really short-sighted in our priorities and how we're allocating money in the U.S. It's not a partisan issue. It shouldn't be a partisan issue. Everyone should have access to this type of infrastructure. And I think there's enough blame to go around. So you're talking from state governments all the way up to federal governments. There have been reports. I mentioned one in what I wrote, where the share of capital costs on water infrastructure has been falling from the U.S. government.

Right. And only recently have we started. started to see an uptick in that. So, for example, the Inflation Reduction Act actually did earmark about half a billion dollars for new water systems and disadvantaged communities. And the U.S. EPA has started to do some initiatives to try and close some of these access gaps. Yes, incrementally, we're kind of inching back towards that, but we have a long ways to go. hopefully if any good can come out of disasters like the one in East Palestine, it's to remind people of why we invest in infrastructure, why we invest in safety in railroads, why we invest in clean water drinking systems in wastewater treatment plants, because we will recoup that money,

both in terms of the reduction in health care costs, reduction in environmental cleanup, and in contamination. And also we know that we can transform some of the waste into useful products. You know, that's a whole other thing that we haven't really talked about, but something that I discuss in the book, it's basically turning this idea on its head that, yes, we have this problem, which is basically shit out of place, right? But this could be a solution if we do it in the right way. It's the same concept of, you know, if we can invest in better safety for railroads, we won't imperil a lot of these other types of infrastructure to begin with. So I think, you know, hopefully this gets the point across that, you know, the more smart investment that

we can do now, the better off will be. So I want to highlight for folks that when you're talking about investment, again, from your piece, this is a direct quote from your piece, amid decades of chronic underfunding, the U.S. government's share of capital costs on water infrastructure fell from more than 60% in 1977 to less than 10% 40 years later. I mean, the drop-off in investment is catastrophic. And then you go on as you talk about the studies by just security based at NYU Law School that they say these extreme weather events. Because I want people to understand, like, all of this, all of this shit is connected.

Absolutely. And how government deals with things is in a very siloed approach. Oh, we're going to talk about the railways over here. We're going to talk about other infrastructure and water and bridges over here. We're going to talk about the environmental and climate crisis over here. We're going to talk about racial injustice over there. When, in fact, all of these things are connected. And when we look at our environmental crises, several years ago,

I worked for, I was a lobbyist for the National Wildlife Federation. I worked on environmental justice issues for several years on Capitol Hill. And there is no better place where you see the intersection of racial marginalized communities, black communities that have been underfunded and underinvested, like what we have seen in Flint, like what we've seen in Jackson, like what we've seen in these places with large black urban populations, where politicians have been siphoning off and stealing money. nobody goes to jail for that. And similarly, having these similar issues in rural areas that are

poor, that are largely white, that nobody gives a damn about either. And so I think that the environmental crises is where you see all of this intersection and integrated crises that we've been dealing with in terms of silos. So, Brian, if you could speak to how our current extreme weather events and the recent pandemic have illuminated even greater how connected and compounded these crises really are. So, yes, I couldn't agree more. Everything is connected to this. And some recent examples of this, the drinking water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi, one of the events that triggered it was storms was flooding. And so we know that flooding is worse now as well as other extreme weather events due to global warming. We saw an extreme cold snap in Texas that took out the power grid.

You know, that was a disaster. So if you talk about infrastructure that's being impacted by more extreme weather events, we're seeing that all over the country. And yes, if you already have a infrastructure that already has a D plus or C minus rating, that's not built to withstand these more extreme weather events, well, it makes sense that you're going to see more and more of these failures. And unfortunately, what happens is that these failures are disproportionately born by poor communities and communities of color. So yes, so I think it's absolutely essential to point that out. You know, again, looking at kind of what we need to do to kind of bring all of this forward, is that the investments that we make now in these infrastructures need to be done with an eye,

towards more resilient systems because we know that they're going to be more threats because of these extreme weather events. So it's not just enough to say, okay, well, we're going to rebuild some of these systems, but according to standards that existed 20 years ago, those are, you know, horribly outdated. And another example of this is that in New York City, for example, there is a plan to have a huge tunnel underneath a portion of the city to capture excess stormwater. Because what happens is if you have excess rain events, the city floods. And because it's a combined sewer system, so you could have raw sewage in the streets. So what happens instead is that the sewage is flushed out into some of the waterways. Well, where are the waterways? Disproportionately in poor communities. So when you're

making this tunnel to try and capture some of the excess water. One of the battles now is that the standards that were used for how big the tunnel should be and how much water it could collect, we're based on rainfall patterns that are no longer current because we know that extreme rainfall events in New York City, as in other countries, are increasing. So already, the initial design parameters for this tunnel are now woefully out. out of date because of the worsening of some of this extreme weather. So this is another example of the intersection of environmental justice, the intersection of extreme weather events that we know are getting worse from climate change, and how do we protect our infrastructure and our communities?

I mean, this is not an easy problem to solve. But I think doing it now and having the attention on it is going to save us a whole lot of pain and probably billions and billions of dollars later on. Brian, I thank you so much for this piece that you wrote in Time.com, The Water Crisis, no one in America is fixing and for your attention and work on this issue. It is so incredibly important. And I hope to have you back to join the new abnormal again, because I don't even think that we scratch the surface of where we can go. And folks, the book is called Flush, The Remarkable Science of an Unlakely Treasure. Brin Nelson, really appreciate you. Thank you so much, Daniel. It was a pleasure to be on.

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 podcast. 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 sign up today.