The Daily Beast Podcast - Here's What the Hell Joe Manchin Is Doing

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

nathan Kott, who worked for Joe Manchin for seven-and-a-half years, joins The New Abnormal, and co-host Molly Jong-Fast gets right to the point: "Are you surprised by what you're seeing right now" from the West Virginia Senator?"No," says Kott. "He's the exact same person he's always been. It's just he's getting more attention in the last year than I think he had before." Plus, Molly and co-host Andy Levy run through even more Republican fuckery, starting with Trump's fear of fruit. "If you're that worried about tomatoes, I guess you just assume that everything is very dangerous and you might as well give everyone guns' jokes Molly. Finally, Marc Caputo of NBC explains what's happening in the great state of Florida, where "conservatives are a lot more Trumpy "now. "In 2016 when Donald Trump won people thought it was a fluke. And then in 2018, when Ron DeSantis won by less than half a point, they're like, 'okay, Andrew Gillum, his gubernatorial opponent was a flawed opponent. And then in 2020, Donald Trump won so big here by a bigger margin than Obama did in 2008 and that kind of got conservatives or Republicans to realize, 'there is nothing to fear from Democrats anymore in Florida, let's keep pushing the envelope.' And so that's where we are. We're in some serious envelope pushing." 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. Today we got a really great show for you. Jonathan Cotton, who's a former staffer for Joe Manchin, is going to try to help us understand why Joe Manchin is opposing legislation that would help so many of his constituents.

Then we're going to talk to NBC News National Politics Reporter Mark Caputo on what's going on the, well, I hesitate to say great state of Florida. But he's going to help us understand what's happening there. But first, let's have some fun. Andy leaving. Molly Jongfest. Today, of all days, we're going to talk about the hard time that poor Donald Trump has had. He's had a tough, tough time. Did you know that?

Just trying to overturn American democracy, minding his own business. It's thirsty work. It's hungry work. Sometimes you need food. Am I right, Molly? Sometimes you need food, but you got to be careful because some people. food is dangerous. Dangerous fruit, that is the name of my memoir.

Dangerous fruit, tomatoes, pineapples, and bananas are dangerous weapons that can take a person's life, the former president claimed in a deposition he said last October. Again, I know I say this every time, but I think that to call these people morons is unfair to morons. There are people who are just, they just have, they're just not smart and it's just genetic, it's by birth, whatever. And so it's like, it's not their fault. And they could be great people, and they could end up being way more successful than, you know, people who have higher intelligence, whatever. It's not the end-all be-all. So yes, there are people like that. Then there are people like

Donald Trump who have been given every advantage in life. And I don't know how to describe this, but yes, I know what you mean. People like Donald Trump should not be lumped in with just like a person who just happens to not have the highest intelligence level in the world. But this is a guy who basically, he, you know, at one of his rallies back in 2016, he said, if you see someone getting ready to throw a tomato, just knock the crap out of them, would you? And in this testimony, he said that he had been told that day that someone was, quote, going to throw fruit. And this put him on high alert. He said, you get hit with fruit, it's very violent stuff. We were on alert for that. It's worse than tomato. It's other things also. But tomato, when they start doing that stuff, it's very dangerous.

I wanted people to be ready because we were put on alert. They were going to do fruit. You know, what's amazing about doing fruit is that, no, I'm just kidding. What I think about this is like, what I always find fascinating about Trump is, like, you will read these quotes of his, and you realize how sort of deviated from the mainstream he is. Because, even people like Ted Cruz or even Josh Hawley, like these people can sort of do a sentence with words in them that isn't so incredibly incoherent. They can pass. Right. Whereas when you see a Trump sentence like quoted, it's always, and you know, and that's why.

And they were going to do the fruit. And I told them. And they're like these crazy sentences. And it's funny because I write about Trump all the time. And I want to use a quote. And the quote is three paragraphs long because he's saying, and you know, and then they come to me, the people. And you can't even quote him because you're like, who are the people? Who the hell is he even talking about?

There's a whole level of incoherence. And then later he added pineapples and bananas to his list. Smuggling in a pineapple is not the easiest thing, I would imagine. Yeah. You know, to be fair, I will say. that I would not want to get hit with a pineapple because it's got that pointy stuff. I've never really seen anyone throw bananas as part of a throwing fruit thing because you might accidentally turn it into a boomerang because it's got that shape and it just will come back

and hit you in the head. A few kids out there who are going to throw fruit at the former president, don't throw bananas because you never know what could happen. The very dangerous banana. The banana rang is a real thing. Don't make fun of me. I mean, it's not. even that heavy. I don't know. I mean, I think we're getting bogged down in the specific

here. And perhaps we should just say that the guy who's the spiritual leader of the Republican party believes that fruit is a dangerous weapon and perhaps that's why they won't ever get serious about gun control. Right? I mean, if you're that worried about tomatoes, I guess you just assume that everything is very dangerous and you might as well give everyone guns. The only thing that can stop a bad man with a tomato is a good man with a gun. Right, in AR-15, you know, tomato on AR-15 violence. So, I mean, that may be where we're at. All I can say is that the only person having a worse week than Donald Trump is one, my Kevin McCarthy.

Oh, you're Kevin. My Kevin. my Kevin having a bad week, and you knew it was a bad week, when I read in the industry, there are these political industry newsletters. I get them. I read them in the morning. The moment those tapes came out from these were tapes where Kevin McCarthy was saying, like, the crazies in the party are going to start violence, right?

Kevin McCarthy was saying the stuff that we were all saying to each other, but there are tapes of him saying basically what, you know, he said exactly what Liz Cheney said, which is exactly, what we all were thinking, which was like these people are out of their minds. So the moment those came out, the next day you saw in all the sort of political trade newsletters, McCarthy's not worried. McCarthy knows it's going to be fine. McCarthy's people say they're not worried. I thought like, you got to be kidding me. I mean, Trump unendorsed Mo Brooks because Mo Brooks was like maybe the election, you know, we got to stop talking about stealing the election, you know. Right.

Like, I mean, just completely crazy. But the thing is, see, McCarthy did it the right way for Trump. He went from not supporting Trump to supporting Trump. And Trump likes that. And so now, you know, the story is that Trump is fine with McCarthy saying, you know, in the immediate aftermath of January 6th that this was all Trump's fault and that he was going to talk to him about resigning. But as soon as he stopped saying stuff like that and went back to being the technical term is Trump's little bitch. Yes, I think that is. That's the political scientist.

Yeah, that's when I studied political science, that was the term. Trump is now happy with McCarthy, and he doesn't really care that McCarthy said this stuff right after January 6th. Also, it gives something, it's something that Trump can hold over McCarthy. And there's nothing Donald Trump likes better than holding something over someone else. So he's super happy. McCarthy's problems are not with Trump, but McCarthy's problems are, it, it appears, possibly with the ultra-crazy wing of his party, not to be confused with the just normally crazy wing of his party. The people like Matt Gates and stuff like that, who McCarthy is on

tape as saying of Matt Gates, he's putting people in jeopardy and stuff like that. And Matt Gates is not happy with Kevin McCarthy. And of course, Kevin McCarthy wants to be speaker, assuming the Red Wave materializes in November. And I don't know. What do you think? Do you think this hurts his chance to be speaker? Because that's really the big question here, right? I think he gets screamed.

Everyone keeps saying to me, oh, you know, or at least the reading, the stuff I'm reading, you know, oh, McCarthy's going to be fine. McCarthy's going to be fine. This is a party of abject lunatics. Right. And they're not, he's not going to be fine. Like, he's going to be screwed. And I think that they wish that he would be fine.

I think that even I sort of wish that he would be fine because the person they put in there is not going to be better. Right. Right. But I don't think he's going to be fine. And I don't, and I think like already you have Matt Gates saying, well, we saw Tucker, you know, saying, well, maybe. I mean, I don't want someone, I mean, not that McCarthy is so sane or anything like that, but they want someone who's as crazy as they are. And I'll be shocked if McCarthy ends up his speaker. If he does, it will be a miracle for him and possibly. for, I mean, I don't know, it's all terrible for us. But I do think what you're going to see if Republicans went back the House, which they're convinced they will, you know, again, who knows?

I think what you're going to see is you're going to see they're going to really, the last few sane Republicans are going to have a really terrible time and wish they had just retired. No, I think you're right. And I agree with you. I think he's in trouble as far as the speakership is concerned. Is that a word or did I make that up? I have no idea.

Yes, it is. I think it is. As you pointed out, you know, in addition to Matt Gates, and some of the other ultra-crazys, you've got Tucker Carlson, who is, as we have noted... It's pretty much the boss. Yeah, of the Republican Party.

And he's up there saying, you know, saying things about Kevin McCarthy now that, like, he's a liberal democratic puppet and he doesn't care about people like you is what Tucker is telling his audience. So I think he has, I do think he has a real problem with those people in his own party.

The only thing that may save him is the fact that he, like, this is where the quid pro quo is coming in. Like he did nothing to Marjorie Taylor Green when she spoke at a white nationalist conference. So maybe she returns the favor. Maybe that's what he's counting on. But I tend to agree with you. I think he's in trouble for the speakership.

And I also agree with you that there's absolutely no chance that, if it's not him, that there's no chance the person will be better. I mean, it'll be like Jim Jordan or some lunatic like that. Right. Or someone worse. Yeah, it'll just be an awful person. The thing I actually desperately wanted to talk about, and I haven't had an opportunity to talk about, is this Madison-Causorn thing. Because basically, over the last few days, we've had Madison Cossoran oppo dump like you can't fucking believe. It's unreal.

We had Politico doing the underwear picture of him. We had the Washington Examiner, had a story about him bringing a gun to the airport. This is the second time this has happened. We had basically every outlet and conservative ones more than liberal ones have been dumping oppo on Madison Cawthorne 17, 18, 19 days before his primary. Like, what are the odds? Yeah, and don't forget the insider trading stuff, which is, you know, oh, that was the Washington Examiner, I guess, that they basically said he did a pump and dump a pump and dump scam or scheme around a let's go brand. And what's worth, I mean, first of all, if you're willing to buy a let's go Brandon coin, perhaps you deserve what you get. But even beyond that, right? Am I wrong? You're not wrong at all. But even beyond that, it really shows that if this Republican Party wanted to, they could get rid of Marjorie Taylor Green. They could get rid of Lauren Bopert. They could get rid of Donald Trump. Like, I mean, for example, also you have Tom Tillis saying he wants to investigate. Madison Cawthorne, two reasons. One, they didn't like that Madison Cawthorne said that thing about

cocaine orgies because first rule of fight club. Who even knows if it's true? Who even cares? And then the second thing they didn't like was that Madison Cawthorne doesn't raise a lot of money. And MTG raises a lot of money. Now, of course, as we've interviewed someone who talked about this in our last episode, she actually spends a lot of it on Krasn, more fundraising. But, you know, I think there's a feeling that he's a drag on the party. Yeah, no, I totally agree. And he may be the dumbest member of the Republican congressional caucus. And like to the point where even the other dumb people are like, you dumb, man. I feel like that there's a lot of, like, that's what's going. Like he just constantly, like he, the things he does, like the things Lauren Bobert does,

they're asinine and they're insane, but they sort of do, you know, they play to the base. And same for Marjorie Tareler Green. The weird thing. Madison Cawthorne does, don't play to the base. They don't, they don't drum up the base. They don't get the base wild to come out and support him. So it's so much easier for them to go after him. And look, there's nothing, I mean, insider trading, out of all of these, obviously, the insider trading thing on the, on the cryptocurrency is the, that's the biggest potential charge, the most serious. But, you know, even the pictures that were leaked of him wearing women's lingerie.

Like, of all the, like, of all the dumb things he's done, why do I care if he was wearing women's lingerie at some kind of party or event? Like, whatever. But the fact that that's the level that they're going to get stuff out about him, like you said, Molly, it's just indicative that they could do this for the other people. They don't want to because they see Madison Cawthorn as a drag in a way that they don't, no pun intended with the lingerie. Right.

They see him as a drag on the party in a way that they don't see the Boberts and the MTGs and the Gages and the people like that. I think you're totally right. Look, they think that they can do better with someone else. This is not they don't like having a guy who has sexual, you know, harassment allegations. I mean, I think it's important to realize like this is a completely craven calculation. Oh, yeah. They're not doing the right thing here.

I don't think anyone, you know, if anyone is out there suggesting that they're doing this because it's the right thing to do, they need team of psychiatric help because they are obviously not doing this because it's the right thing to do because, well, they never do. This is because they, again, they don't think he's helpful to them to the Republican Party and they're looking for ways to get rid of him. And they're not wrong. I'll give him that much. They're not wrong because he's not, again, he's not. helpful to the party in the way that, though it pains me to say it, MTG and Bobert, I mean, they are the party. I don't think Madison Cawthorne is the party. Right. This is who they are. And when people tell you who they are. Believe them. Believe them. Yes, I believe them.

They talk. Jonathan Cot is a former staffer for Joe Manchin. Welcome to the new abnormal, Jonathan Cod. Happy to be here. Let's talk about Joe Mansion, shall we? Okay. Sure. You worked for Joe Manchin. I did work for him for seven and a half years. Get our listeners up to speed on working for Joe Manchin. And are you surprised by what you're seeing right now? No, because this is the same Joe Manchin that I knew when I met him in 2012, 2013. He hasn't changed at all.

It's just there's been more media tension around him. Remember, when I first started there, he was during Mansion to me. So there was a ton of media attention around him for doing something that, you know, most people didn't expect from an A-rated NRA member who came from West Virginia who famously shot the cap and trade bill in an ad and he's run for Senate. He's the exact same person he's always been. It's just he's getting more attention in the last year than I think he had before. I think a lot of people have trouble understanding what the hell he's doing. So can you explain to us a little bit about what you see his. motivation as? I think he has the same motivation for almost anything he does. I remember this because

it was one of the first weeks I was working for him. We're walking to the floor and he said, buddy, if I can't go home and explain it, I can't vote for it. Right. And I said, okay, but this is, you know, it's just sort of a party line vote. And he said, I don't really care. If I can't go home and explain it to West Virginians, I can't vote for it. I think I'd been to West Virginia one time before working for him. I'm a Jewish guy who grew up in Brooklyn, about as far away from West Virginia as you can get. And I finally went to West Virginia with him, and he just goes around and talks to everybody. It doesn't matter if he's going grocery shopping, if he's getting gas, if he stops at a sheet's on the way home, if he's at Tudor's biscuits, getting breakfast, wherever he is. He's just talking to

everybody. And I think he just has a better understanding of his state than most people do. And the state is a is a complicated state. You know, there's, well, people think like, oh, well, it has a high Democratic voter registration. A lot of those people aren't Democrats anymore. They're the old, you know, Kennedy Johnson, Roosevelt Democrats who have switched parties. He doesn't really care about party affiliation and is just focused on what he's hearing from his constituents. And that's basically how he handles his votes. He goes home most weekends.

He talks to as many people as he can, comes back and decides how he's going to vote. That's basically what he does. So you don't think the fact that he has, you know, he makes money on energy stocks and that his state is the coal state has any effect on his dislike of some of these climate change provisions? No, not at all. I don't think whatever money he makes off a energy company I know has no impact on him because, you know, there are times he votes for climate bills. I was with him when he went up to Rhode Island with Sheldon White House to learn more about. the impacts of climate change directly from Sheldon Whitehouse in Rhode Island. I think the fact that he's from West Virginia and he's grown up around people who have been coal miners, you know,

his family grew up, he grew up in a small coal mining town. He lost his uncle and a bunch of friends when he was in high school and college at a coal mining disaster. So that is front of mind for him, but I think it's just how he views his constituents that he is told by, you know, people like Ernie Moniz, that coal is going to be 20% of the energy portfolio for the next 30 years. So he believes that we should find a way to do it cleaner and better. Right, but coal, it's only going to be part of the energy portfolio because Americans are making it that way. I mean, it's extremely expensive. Clean coal is an oxymoron.

I mean, coal, you know, coal is a vestige of another time. I mean, it just, I understand that Mansion likes it. I understand that it comes from his state. but there are about a million different sources of energy that are more of just cost effective, not even the environmental. I mean, coal is like, I mean, you know, it's one of the most expensive types of energy. It's more expensive than ethanol. I understand that he comes from a very poor state where people have not a lot of options.

And I understand that he comes from a very red state where Republicans, you know, which has now decided that it's going to, you know, identify as Republican, but I just don't understand the thinking behind this. I think his thinking is how he's laid it out. We can transition and we can bring on new forms of clean energy and he's working to do that. And I think you saw a lot of that in the energy bill that he and Lee Murkowski passed last Congress. And a lot of that was in the infrastructure bill. But he also thinks that we should be spending money on R&D and making sure the technology is there so that when the transition happens, it can happen efficiently and effectively. Even if you got rid of coal right now, like tomorrow we woke up and there were no more,

you know, you were not using any coal for energy in this country. You wouldn't be able to replace it with other forms of energy right now. So as he works in the transition period, he thinks that the best way to do that is through R&D investment and in all of the above strategies so that we're using everything we can so that, you know, we have the best, we have the cleanest. And then also we can export it to other countries like China, India, who are building hundreds of coal-fired plans and not doing it in the cleanest way. I mean, if he supports that, why did he not support BBB? I mean, BBB was filled with things that would like, were money for his constituents. I understand that his constituents didn't necessarily know it was money for them and that Democrats are terrible at messaging.

so they couldn't tell that. But like things like the child tax credit, it's not for me. It's for people in West Virginia with a lot of children who are, you know, it lifts children out of poverty. So why would someone who represent such a poor state not supported? I just, I don't understand. I think that was one element of it. He didn't say he's not supportive of the child care tax credit. He's actually supportive of it. He wants to do it in a more fiscally responsible way. And I think he's, He's trying to work with Susan, I mean Susan Collins on that bill specifically, and they can get that done. I think his issue with BBB was there were a lot of things that he didn't feel were necessary that needed to be in there. He was very concerned about what was going to happen with Russian and Ukraine and what was going to happen with inflation.

And I would just point out that he's been proven right on those things. No, he has not been proven right on inflation. And in fact, that is one of the things that I mean, if you see with the, those numbers today, the economy shrunk because of the cut in government spending. So government spending does not cause inflation. That is absolutely debunked, right? I mean, there are a few things that cause inflation. But I know that Mansion is shopping a line that government spending causes inflation,

but we know that the lack of government spending is causing the economy to shrink. So that's actually not true. The other thing I don't understand, again, is if you're from a state that's so poor where people desperately need these eyeglasses and the insulin and the bridges and the I mean, I don't need insulin. I can afford it. And I live in a blue state. If you represent these people and you're their only shot and you can sit, you know, you can take children out of poverty. Like, what's the thinking that he's worried that there won't be money for, for war with Ukraine? I mean, and again, I support what's happening right now and I think we have to support Ukraine.

I just am wondering, like, isn't he supposed to serve the people of West Virginia? How is he serving that by rejecting BBB? He rejected outright BBB. He rejected the plan that he was presented with at the time. He's still, I mean, I think he said it, if not today, some point this week that he's still open to discussions with the president on how to get it done. He has other concerns. He is concerned about fiscal responsibility. He believes that we're spending too much and that that has led to inflation. And there are economists who have told him that and were outspoken on that. I understand that. But I just am curious, if you have a situation like this, Republicans did this enormous tax cut for the wealthiest.

I just don't, I don't quite understand. And he wants to get rid of that. Right. I understand that. And I think that's good. But it strikes me that there is certainly more he could do. I want to pivot for a second because I think as much as Mansion has probably and very likely killed these climate change provisions that, you know, I don't know if my, you know, we'll see,

I mean, ultimately he could be the domino that causes uninhabitable Earth, right? I mean, it's, we are just talking about percentages of degrees, right? I mean, he could ultimately be the domino in what he's done with foiling all these climate provisions. But I'm just curious, you know, one of the things that Chuck Schumer said was that he was going to make it so that Mansion had to vote. against these climate provisions, which he was happy to do. Does it strike you that Schumer is not effective?

It seems like that Mitch McConnell would never do that. He would have the votes. No, I don't think it's that I would never say Chuck's not effective. I would say that, you know, the majority leader has a very difficult job. He has the narrowest of narrow margins. And he has a caucus that has Kristen Cinema, Joe Manchin, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren in it. It's not easy to navigate that. But Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders aren't standing in the way of legislation.

Sure. But Show Manchin is doing what he is sent to the Senate to do, represent his state and his people. He thinks this is the best approach for it. And he is trying to work to get something done. He just didn't think at that time where they were going was the best route. And he had other concerns. I mean, he is still said he's open to talking about it. he's laid out more areas that he wants to focus on.

You can understand, right, that, like, he has a state that is, you know, filled with poor children and he's rejecting the child tax credit. You understand why a lot of people might think that there's more to his inability to deliver for the American people. No, I don't they, I mean, he's not against the child care tax credit. He was against it being in the bill and the way the bill was laid out. He didn't want to see budgetary gimmicks. of one program is funded for three years, one program's funded for five years, we're using this, this one's 10 years out. So he has said he's willing to work with Susan Collins and he's also trying to find ways. Right, but now those people don't get anything. Yes, I understand that.

And those are his people. Right, but he'd be the first one to tell you that he's working on that and trying to find a solution to it. Where's his solution? Because the midterms are in November. I mean, when does that happen? I would bet there's probably moved. on some form of BBB before the August recess. Question is, you know, you've got a second poor estate in America, right? Got a, you know, children in poverty. I'm just having trouble understanding how this works. He is trying to find an answer to that.

And he is trying to find a way that the child care tax credit can work. He is trying to find a way to pay for it so that it's not something that we use the child care tax credit. and then we wind up having to cut other programs. And he's trying to find a way to do it in a larger package or in a bipartisan way so that they can get it done. And if it's, if it gets done for 10 years, then we want to fund it for 10 years. It was part of a larger package. You could say there were other things in that package and people can pick individual items out of that and say, well, what about this?

What about this? But it was a, you have to look at it in the totality of the bill. Right. There were a lot of things that would benefit poor West Virginians. He may not like them, but they would have benefited the poorest people in America. I mean, the child care stuff. I mean, they're not for affluent people. These are government programs to help people who are barely scraping by, which happens

to be the population of its state. I just wonder how that works. I think one of the other areas he wants to focus on is making sure that their means testing it so that it does only go to those people. I think that's been one of his concerns with a lot of these programs is that it's just blanket for everybody and it's not for people who need it most. Like you just said, like I don't have it, but if I had a child right now, I shouldn't get the child care tax credit and I wouldn't qualify for it. And by the way, I didn't qualify for it. And means testing tends to be a way to make it harder for poorer people to get the things they need.

But we're out of time. Thank you so much, Jonathan. I hope you'll come back. Yeah, absolutely. Mark Caputo is a national politics reporter at NBC News. Welcome to the new abnormal, Mark Caputo. Well, thank you. So what the fuck is going on down there?

The great state of Florida. Yeah, Florida's being Florida, but Florida's also getting a lot more conservative. I think Donald Trump's win here in 2016, and conservative are a lot more Trumpy, maybe we should say. In 2016, when Donald Trump won, people thought it was a fluke. And then in 2018, when Rhonda Santos won by less than half a prox, point, they're like, okay, Andrew Gillum, his gubernatorial opponent was a flawed opponent. And then in 2020, Donald Trump won so big here by a bigger margin than Obama did in 2008 that I kind of got conservatives or Republicans to realize, like, there is nothing to fear from Democrats in Florida.

Let's keep pushing the envelope. And so that's where we are. We're in some serious envelope pushing. So explain to me how this happened. I mean, I know that Rick Wilson, who is a friend of this podcast, says that what happened was that the Democratic Party just sort of died. Is that what happened? I think there's some truth to that. It's been a long, slow death. I'm a believer, though, that candidates can make a huge difference as well as like party organization and the end also voters. And I think when you have the combination of factors, the candidates not necessarily being the right candidates, of the party organization being non-existent and not doing the things that need to do, namely voter registration. And then the fact is, is like,

Like in the end, there's a lot of Democratic voters here just don't vote. And it's not voter suppression. It's apathy. Sure, there's some voters suppression somewhere. But by and large, when you look at turnout rates, they're not turning out. Okay. So that might be true, though, of course, and it does seem like it's true. But then you have the case of Val Demings.

Explain to our listeners what's happening with Val Deming's because Val Deming's has raised, I think, has she raised the most money of any? Democratic Senate candidate? No. But close. Rafael Warnock in Georgia has. And Tim Scott for a while was up top. But Warnock, by and large, it's just pulling in the lion share of money. But yes, Val Demings is pulling in boatloads of cash, but that's because she's got a campaign that knows how to use Facebook, knows how to prospect for small dollar donors and help build her profile that way. A lot of that money is not from within Florida. I don't have the breakdown, but that helps a, explain an element of her success. And she's now going to be spending a lot of money.

She says on field that is on voter outreach. Right, which is good for Democrats. Right. But the question is has the Democratic Party, large or small, done enough to register voters, keep the voter rolls strong, replenish those they've lost? The answer that's no. So what do you think happens here in these midterms? I mean, it does seem like Marco Rubio is not a very Trumpy candidate and he's sort of weathered in Trumpism has sort of what withered him. Well, I think it's safe to say that when Marco Rubia ran for president in 2016 against Donald Trump, Donald Trump beat him so badly in Florida, 66 of 67 counties, that it really took something out of Rubio, if you almost compared to a boxer who just had one extra fight too many.

And it really, really took it out of him. Now, you know, in fairness to Rubio, he did run for re-election that 2016 was re-elected by a pretty strong margin and has sort of grown comfortable as a senator, more comfortable as one. I think his presidential ambitions have doled a little, but the reality is every senator who looks at him or herself in the mirror sees a future president or more, who knows. So I think it is safe to say that, yeah, Rubio has a far lower profile now in 2022 than he did in 2016. That having been said, you know, the polling looks pretty good for him. I mean, his favorability ratings are pretty good. And the Democratic Party is still in a state of shambles in Florida. And the headwinds against Democrats are strong here, as they are nationwide, really.

I mean, there's just that weird force of gravity of midterm elections where the president's party gets punished. And it doesn't look like this midterm is going to be any exception. I don't want to forecast a Florida election before it occurs, but it is safe to say it's going to be a really tough year for Val Deming's and perhaps an even tougher year in the gubernatorial ranks because Ronda Santos is very popular. Why is Ron DeSantis so popular? A lot of people like him. Maybe that's redundant. I should rephrase. Just explain to me because it seems like I just don't, I'd love to know what they like about him.

What they like about Ronda Santos is his authenticity. A lot of people like the fact. that he is willing to put a middle finger up in the establishment's face, the media's face, that he kept Florida open. There are a lot of people who like the way he defied the expert class, didn't listen to the experts, kept Florida open Florida kind of early, kept schools open. And while Florida's death rate is kind of middling now, this is a guess of mine, but it's kind of on information and belief in talking to people.

You know, people don't blame DeSantis as much for the deaths from COVID as they do COVID. And now, Florida before vaccines was actually doing relatively well in the nation as far as death rate. After vaccines, Florida actually did worse. You know, some of that could be attributed, and a lot of folks have done so to DeSantis' messaging. I wouldn't call it anti-vax, but sure as heck wasn't pro-vax toward the end or, you know, kind of mid-summer of last. year. But, you know, the fact that matter remains is, I was surprised with this, is my best friend's wife is from Honduras. And she in 2012 became a U.S. citizen in part to vote against Mitt Romney because she hated this anti-immigrant stance and language she was using. And she, you know,

is or was an immigrant. Fast forward a number of years. Last year, I remember talking to her, and she's like, you know what? I kind of like DeSantis. Now, if you've got a immigrant Latina saying that about Ron DeSantis. That's kind of your one woman focus group, giving you an idea of sort of what sort of broad support he has in the state. Okay. So what could Democrats do you think to turn it around? Well, number one, get a time machine. Thank you. Yeah. Go back in time and do your job. Do what Barack Obama did and the operation under him and register voters. Well, the fact is, is that we are a growing state. And there are lots of people. people moving in and out. Those registration drives that were very successful for Obama in 08 in 2012,

just disappeared. And they didn't do the work. The other thing that Democrats in the state have a problem with, which really became manifest in 2020, is with the Latino electorates, plural, in South Florida. What I mean by that, it's not just Cuban Americans. It's Colombian Americans. It's Venezuelan Americans. It's Nicaraguan Americans. They do not like the modern progressive movement as embodied in Bernie Sanders and in Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. I cannot understate how much damage it has caused Democrats to have had them as faces of the party when they have used the word socialist in a positive way. If you say socialist to someone whose family escaped socialism or leftist violence in Cuba,

Columbia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Venezuela, you've got a problem. And they have a problem. So to give you an idea, Miami-Dade County where I live is the largest county, the most populous county in Florida. More than 50% of the residents here were born in another country. It is overwhelmingly Hispanic. And in 2016, Hillary Clinton won Miami-Dade County by 29 percentage points, almost 30 percentage points. In 2020, Biden won up by only seven percentage points. The toll of the view of a lot of

Latino voters that the Democratic Party is too socialist, that, you know, progisiva is not a positive word for that, really came into play, and Democrats really paid the price. And I'm not sure how fixable it is this election. So what do you think they should be doing in the long term? Well, again, registering voters. The Democratic Party in the state and you're seeing in other places nationwide is also having a problem hemorrhaging white voters. Like more and more white voters, more and more often, are voting Republican. And 63% of the voters in Florida are white. So if a candidate, a Republican candidate, carries more than 60% of the white vote and then starts doing better with, let's say, 40% of the Latino vote. Latinos are about 17% of the registered voters of

Florida. That is a toxic combination for Democrats to deal with. That is the sweet spot for Republicans. So find a way to appeal more to white voters. How to do that? I don't know. That's a fraught conversation to have, but it is what it is. What does Democrats pass back money, organization, and candidates? If you look in 2020, you know, Val Demings looks like a pretty attractive candidate in the state, but I'm not sure the money and the organization are there with her. If this were a different environment, like in 2018 when it was really a coin toss election, yeah, now we're talking. But at least in the short term, I don't see how that happens. You know, the Democratic Party's chairman certainly hasn't been doing as much as a lot of people

hoped you would so that you might see a turnover at the top of the party chairmanship where someone actually says, okay, we're actually going to try to reorient this party toward getting back to basics, registering, communicating with voters. And then, you know, maybe sort of finding a way to have a farm system that's going to produce better candidates on the whole. I'm not saying the candidates currently are bad. But, you know, when you look globally at the state, Obama did well at the top of the ticket. He won twice, you know, 2008, 2012 in Florida. But otherwise, we've been a pretty red state for quite some time.

Interesting. Thank you so much for joining us. I hope you'll come back. Great. I appreciate it. Andy Levy. Molly Johnfest. Who's your fuck that guy?

My fuck that guy is a bunch of people. And it's a little thing that's been happening on Twitter. So please, to our listeners who aren't on Twitter, i.e. the smart ones, bear with me for a second. So there's this organization called the Trevor Project, which is like the largest LGBTQ plus suicide prevention and crisis intervention. Hotline organization, whatever you want to call it. They do great work. They literally save lives. So obviously what we've got going on now with Florida, with the don't say gay and everything like that.

is anything now that is in service of gay or queer or trans youth, if you do anything to try to help these people, you are called a groomer. Some guy tweeted he was very upset that the Trevor Project has a way for children to talk to counselors that sort of sidesteps the parents. It's obviously for kids who cannot talk to their parents about the fact that they think they might be gay or they might be trans. or whatever, and either their parents or just are just unmitigated assholes or they just don't have that kind of relationship with their parents. So the Trevor Project is like, well, rather than these kids, you know, getting depressed and maybe

killing themselves, hey, we've got a hotline. We've got people you can talk to, you know, who will try to help you. So, of course, this to some people on the right, is grooming. And so this whole thing started on Twitter. I mean, it's not grooming, but they love to call it grooming. Nothing they say is grooming is grooming. It's just it's another word they use like woke because they have a vocabulary of like four words, so they have to just keep using them over and over again.

So this idiotic group called Moms for Liberty tweeted, why is the Trevor Project encouraging children to keep secrets from their parents? And I replied because of moms like you, I would imagine. And they got mad at me and said, what does this mean? And then I said, a whole bunch of people have explained to you, the simple truth that there are kids who can't talk to their parents about sexual identity issues and why supporting those kids is good and necessary. You don't care. Oddly, they did not reply to me after I answered their question, which I thought is weird. So there was that, and then there's this

guy named James Lindsay, who you may have heard of even if you're not on Twitter because he's one of these bright lights, in quotation marks, of the right. He's one of those guys, he's like a Ben Shapiro type. He uses very big words. So people who are aren't that smart, think he's smart. So he jumped in on this whole thing and started with the whole groomer thing. And this became a whole big thing on Twitter. So those people are my fuck that guy. But I want to point out the good that came out of this is that someone said, hey, I'm

going to donate to the Trevor Project. And they have, when you donate, they have a place you can donate in honor of someone. And they put in honor of James Lindsay. And this became a thing. And other people, including me, I'll say, started doing it and just sort of adding to a Twitter thread. And there's now like thousands of dollars have been donated to the Trevor Project in honor of James Lindsay, which is absolutely fantastic.

So at least some good came out of this. But still, fuck these guys. Like they do not care about kids. They don't care if kids are going to die. And they run around saying everything they do is for the children. And this is just 100% proof that nothing they do is for the children and that they don't care if children die. So fuck them, honestly, fuck them straight to hell.

Molly. Excellent. Who is your fuck that guy? My fuck that guy is a little governor in the state of Florida. His name is Ron DeSantis. He thinks that someday he's going to be president. And maybe he is. And when he is, someone will have to get me out of Gitmo.

I don't know. I'm just saying the guy is just absolutely beyond the pale. And he's continually putting his constituents last and his presidential ambitions first. And for that, he gets a hearty fuck you for me. Amen to that. That's right. 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.

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