The Daily Beast Podcast - How Marjorie Taylor Greene ‘Basically Bought’ Her House Seat w/ Adam Serwer

Episode Date: October 19, 2021

Army veteran Marcus Flowers is running against Marjorie Taylor Greene as a Democrat in Georgia’s 14th district and tells Molly Jong-Fast why he chose to run against the MAGA maniac and the reason death threats from QAnoners don’t scare him. Plus, David Drucker, senior political correspondent at Vanity Fair and author of the forthcoming book In Trump's Shadow, reveals dirt on Tom Cotton (that makes him look good?) and the author of The Cruelty is the Point, Adam Serwer, answers an important question: Would Ron DeSantis be a crappier president than Trump? If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Jong-Fast and welcome to The Daily Beast, The New Abnormal. I'm a left-wing pundit and an editor at large at The Daily Beast. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. Our world has been turned up to down. On the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and figure out how to get ourselves out of it. And I'm producer Jesse Kenan. I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails.

Well, I know I learned a lot from today's show. David Drucker, senior political correspondent at Vanity Fair and author of the forthcoming book in Trump's Shadow, will talk to us about how the Republican Party is mutating. Then we'll talk to Marcus Flowers, who is actually running against one of the main mutations of the Republican Party, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green, and he's going to tell us how he's battling her to win that congressional seat.

But first, we have the author of the amazing book, the cruelty is the point, and a writer at the Atlantic, Adam Serwer. Welcome to the new abnormal, Adam. Thank you so much for having me. So we've long been wanting to have you. You wrote a piece, Adam, called The Lie About the Supreme Court Everyone Pretends to Believe, which was about the partisanship in the Supreme Court, which is particularly clear now with our super-conservative 6-3 court.

Justice Alito then talked about this piece. in an interview, and you wrote a piece responding to Justice Alito saying, by attacking me, Justice Alito, proves my point. I mean, do you think you're the only journalist to ever have this happen? Probably not the only one. No, I'm sure I'm not. I mean, these things just usually, they're not really out in the open. That way, I think Clance Thomas has a long-term grudge against Nina Totenberg.

There's, like, actually some pretty good examples of personal animosity between individual justices and individual reporters who have covered the court for a long time. I think what was weird was that the piece that I wrote, I'm not a regular Supreme Court correspondent anymore. I used to cover the court for MSNBC and Mother Jones, but I haven't been to the court in years. And so it's a little strange, you know, just in general that Alito pulled out something that, you know, was not written by a regular Supreme Court correspondent and was clearly an opinion piece to make his point. I'm not entirely sure why that piece in particular got under his skin.

I would like to think it's because I accurately described his motives, which is that the conservative majority on the court no longer feel any obligation to even pretend they're not just doing what they want to do. But I think on some of it, he must have thought that somehow by citing that he was making his point that the court is apolitical and it's actually journalists who are mischaracterizing things, which, you know, women in Texas do not need me, they do not need the Atlantic to tell them that they don't have a right to an abortion anymore. They don't need me to tell them that. They know. And so Alito can sneer and be like, well, technically, but, you know, the reality is that

women who can afford it are like traveling across state lines to exercise a constitutional right. And that's a situation that the Supreme Court decided to allow in Texas. It's hardly a leap of faith to assume that that situation is the way it is because a majority of the court does not really recognize abortion as a constitutional right. This gets into a question I wanted to ask you, because I do think the Roberts court was able to make it look, you know, they did a lot of very conservative things, but they made it look like they were not as partisan. This summer, I think we saw a lot of Republican justices bitching, and we should say conservative. of justices, but we all know what they really are, bitching about journalists considering them

to be partisan. But there really is a real difference, like, between this Kavanaugh court, right, because he's now the swing voter and the Roberts court of the last semester. Do you see that? Yeah, I mean, I think what's different is that Roberts, when Roberts controlled the court, what Roberts liked to do, they used to describe these as time bombs. He would like warn you that he was going to do something a couple years before he did it in like some decisions. So like a couple years before the Shelby County decision, there was a, there was a different voting rights case in which he was basically right. I'm going to strike down a big portion of the Voting Rights Act if you don't do what I want to do. And this is already ridiculous, right? But that looks moderate

compared to what the court is doing now, but now that he no longer has control over it because they can afford to lose his vote. Now that they're just like, well, we're just going to do this now. You know, he used to warn you, and so it gave an impression of incrementalism, even though, as in the voting rights case, you know, Roberts is basing it on nothing in the Constitution. It's just his own personal ideological belief that federal voting rights legislation goes too far and infringes on what he sees as the equal sovereignty of the states, which is a doctrine that simply does not exist in the Constitution

and has some, you know, pretty noxious precedence in terms of its use. you know, that looks moderate compared to what the court is doing now, which is just like, we're going to do whatever we feel like doing. And if John Roberts doesn't like it, he can vote with the liberals and we'll still have five votes. Yeah, it's amazing. And I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about the Biden Supreme Court group that has recently put out a decision on whether or not the court needs to be expanded. Now, look, if the purpose of the commission was to get Biden off the hook for expanding. the court, then it did its job. I could probably pick a group of elite lawyers who would recommend court expansion, but I would have to pick them. If you just get a bunch of esteemed legal scholars, the elite legal profession revolves around the prestige of the court. So you're sort of like,

it's like getting a bunch of the board of Amazon to like vote on rules regarding internet commerce. I mean, that's probably a little too strong. But the point is that these are people are pretty much all institutionalists. They want the Supreme Court to be there and to do what it does. They might prefer a different composition of the court, but they're not going to undermine the court as an institution in any way. And this is actually, I mean, the problem with this also is that it changes the dynamic for the justices, because if the justices are concerned about how the other political branches might react to them, they might restrain themselves a little bit. what they're with the justice is that particularly the conservative justices who have been whining about being seen as partisan because they're acting in a partisan way or ideological way they're going to respond to this well with like huh well you know we don't have anything to worry about and they really don't honestly because it's not like joe mansion and all right kirsten cinema are going to vote for court expansion they can't even get them to vote for a popular infrastructure bill but there is basically the court is getting no pushback from anywhere except for public opinion um it's

certainly not getting any criticism from the Biden administration, which for obvious reasons does not want to piss them off. It's not in their interest to get in a fight with the court right now because the court is holding all the cards. But to the extent that they're lashing out at the press, it's because the only people who are giving them a hard time is in the arena of public opinion. The Democrats are not going to do anything. The Republicans are ecstatic about the composition of the court. You know, so the only people who can register their displeasure and not face consequences for doing so are basically people in the public realm who, you know, never need to go before the court and therefore never need to butter them up.

Let's pull back for a minute because what I think ultimately is the underlying issue with all of this is that democracy continues to be in peril. How worried are you? I don't know if I'm worried. I'm resigned. I mean, I think you look at what's going on right now is you basically have a race to the bottom that's occurring where Democrats, basically, basically, basically their ability to retain the majority in the House

rests on their ability to gerrymander the hell out of the states that they control. And you see Republicans doing something similar where they're trying to gerrymander the states that they control in such a way so as to make it more likely that they will be able to get the majority in Congress. And when you do this, what happens is, I mean, it's pretty much what the liberal dissenters said in prior cases on gerrymandering, which is it is politicians choosing their constituencies. And they choose their constituencies in this way so that they can insulate themselves from backlash against public opinion when they do things that are unpopular.

And in the case of Republicans, they are trying to insulate themselves from, you know, the growing diversity of particular states like here in Texas, they are just, you know, despite their gains with Latino voters in the last cycle, they are attempting to diminish the influence of black and Latino voters with the drawing of districts. and that's just happening in plain sight. Can that backfire? I mean, I think it can backfire in the sense that you can't draw, you can't prevent people from moving. You can't prevent coalitions from changing, whereas you once might have assumed that a particular suburban area would have been a Republican district. Maybe now it's more of a Biden district. Gerrymanders aren't effective forever. Right.

Doesn't it make your margins smaller? It really depends on the map. I mean, what they're doing now with gerrymandering is they really have it down to a science. where they can very much figure out how to draw a district and draw districts in such a way so as to completely marginalize the other party. And the problem with this is that the way that democracy works is there's a feedback loop. Representatives have to hear from the public. And when they act against the public's interest, the public can give them feedback in terms of voting them out.

But if you can never vote these people out, then the people in power never have any incentive to care what you think. So you have a situation like Wisconsin where, you know, you'd have the Democrats, would have to win the popular vote by like 10 points or something because of gerrymandering and geographic distribution in order to actually win a majority in the state legislature. And this is just, you know, it's a real problem. It's a solvable problem. You can do things like multi-member districts that will like diminish the effect of this kind of approach to democracy. But it is a real problem from democracy in the basic sense that people cannot actually

popular will cannot be expressed because it's been sliced into a million pieces. by the politicians who are supposed to be responsive to public feedback. Let's talk about the January 6th panel because I feel like that committee has, it's a big week for them. They're voting on Tuesday about whether or not they're going to enforce the subpoenas. I always think from what I know that to sort of prevent a slide into autocracy is more narrative. Do you have any thoughts on that? The thing with things like this is when you look at American history, the precedent is that when you do not respond forcefully to violent attempts to change the outcomes of elections, those efforts can be rewarded

later on. I mean, a lot of the guys who in the South, a lot of the men who led insurrections in the South against the Reconstruction governments return to Congress as congressmen and senators. And so, you know, the risk here, you know, with the capital riot is that this is going to become, and you're already seeing it happening that rather than a shameful event, it's going to become a kind of rallying point where people who participated in or promoted it or celebrated it are going to be seen as more loyal to the party and therefore more desirable as representatives. And unless there is a sufficient enough, a forceful enough response, there isn't going to be a deterrent from doing something like this again. That said, I really think

that the risk of a violent overthrow of the United States government is actually quite low. I think it's like far more likely. When you look at the way democratic backsliding has worked across the world, I think it's much more likely that someone with authoritarian instincts wins an election and quietly erodes the democratic system of checks and balances within, with a high level of control over his own party, which acts as a kind of buffer between him and the institutions of accountability in that particular government. And so I think it's actually a bigger risk that Donald Trump gets elected again and he is even less restrained than he was last time by either Republicans or by institutions within the government. I think that is a much bigger risk

than the proud boys, you know, attacking D.C. and taking over the Capitol again, if that makes any sense. Yeah, it does. I worry more about like a Ron DeSantis playing by Donald Trump's rules. I don't really know because Donald, I think it is difficult to distinguish between the quality that were unique to Trump and the qualities that are institutional within the GOP. So, for example, the Republican Party did not need Donald Trump to tell them how to racially gerrymandered districts. He didn't come up, for example, with the plan to try to use the census to affect a nationwide racial gerrymander that would enhance the influence of white voters that was done before he even took office by Republican Thomas Hofeller, who was, you know, a longstanding political operative. Yeah, there's another conservative talking point that seems important, and I'd love to just get your hot take on it, which is a lot of these people like Marjorie Taylor Green are talking about this idea of a national divorce. I'm going to get to that in a second, but first, I want to finish my prior thought, which was, you know, it's hard to distinguish between, you know, the aspects of the GOP, which are turning against popular democracy because they want to retain power with a minority coalition using an account of majoritarian levels of government.

in undemocratic ways. And Donald Trump as a person who was unrestrained in his expression of the ideological principles behind the belief that that minority coalition is more legitimately American than the rival parties coalition. I think, you know, it's both an institutional and an individual problem, particularly in the sense that I'm not, you know, maybe Ron DeSantis is as shameless as Donald Trump. Maybe he's as selfish. Maybe he's as his ability to.

to inspire undying loyalty is the same, but I'm not so sure. You know, but institutionally, the larger problem is the ideology of the Republican Party that says, our voters are truly American and the other parties voters aren't, so we are justified in stripping them of their basic rights. And, you know, the structure of our system of government, which allows them to hold power with the minority of the votes. Those are sort of the real big issues, and they fuel each other. As far as the national divorce thing, look, man, that's a joke. I'm sorry.

Like, these guys on social media who want to play Neo-Confederate every day, it's really stupid. I have little patience for it. Nobody wants to do that. It's just a bunch of loud voices on social media. And the reality is that, you know, because of the urban rural divide, what that means is that, like, you know, Atlanta in San Antonio and New York have more in common with each other than the rural areas of their own states and vice versa. So upstate New York is probably more politically similar to rural Texas than places that are nearby. It's just a stupid idea. The sort of like insurrectionary fantasy, which I've been saying for years, honestly, I've been saying versions of it for years.

They've always been like conservative blogger. Like even back in like 2008, 2009, 2010, you know, remember Sharon Engel with Second Amendment remedies. I mean, this sort of stupid martial posturing from guys who are just fantasizing on social media about violence. violently killing their political opponents. It's really stupid. And obviously it's dangerous in the sense that some idiot can take it seriously and then go and like, you know, because we live in a country with very lax gun laws and lots of firearms can like go and shoot somebody up or shoot a public place up on the basis of some sort of ideological insanity. I mean, obviously it's dangerous in that sense. But nobody actually wants to break up the United States is the stupid

idea. On the other hand, I think that the talk about this, it's really sort of a concession that They do not even want to try and win over a majority of the population. And they feel like they should be entitled to run things, even without appealing to the majority of the population. They don't want to have to win people over. They want to just have power no matter what. They want to roll a seven-off every time. They just do not want to accept the transfer of power as a thing that has to happen in democracy when you lose. And I think that's dangerous as far as, you know, it is an ideological belief that is, you know, perhaps closest.

in the mainstream of what the Republican Party is right now than I would like. But there's all this stuff about, you know, we're going to have a second civil war. You know, I think that's mostly fanatizing from guys who, you know, want to act tough on the internet. And hopefully I'm right about that. But that's what it looks like to me right now. Yeah, me too. I hope so.

This is so depressing, but also so helpful. Thank you so much for joining us, Adam. This is great. Thank you so much for having me. Hey, folks. heard every single week we do a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast Membership Program. Sometimes we interview senators like Corey Booker or the folks who explain what's happening behind the scenes in media like Jim Acosta or Soladadad O'Brien. Sometimes

we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner, and sometimes we just have friends around to analyze what's happening in the news. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you'll support the Beast fearless journalism, as well as getting full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member, head to New Abnormal.com. That's new abnormal.

dot the dailybeast.com. David Drucker is a senior political correspondent at Vanity Fair and author of the book In Trump's Shadow. Welcome to the new abnormal, David Drucker. Good to be here. Thank you. So let's talk about the book. Your book is about this idea

of what the future of the Republican Party is going to look like. Would you say? Is that fair? Yeah, no, that is fair. In Trump's shadow, the battle for 2024 in the future of the GOP was my attempt to take the Trump years and the Trump era and look into the future and see how the former president Donald Trump impacted the Republican Party long term and try and do that through the prism of what the 2024 primary could look like. And in my thinking, among all the other things I was thinking that sort of led to the book was that there are so many great books. incisive books about what happened during the Trump presidency. But what I wanted to try and do was take some of those things and talk about what it meant for the future of the party. And given we're really a two-party system and a two-party country, what it meant for the future of the country.

Yeah, I think, I mean, I think we talk about that a lot on this podcast is what the Republican Party is going to look like. And I think you can't, you absolutely, I mean, a lot of the listeners of this podcast are pretty committed liberals. I think that's fair to say, you know, I'm often saying to them that they really need to know what the Republican Party is up to. So I'm curious to know your take because you also do write, you write for a bunch of places like Vanity Fair and you're on CNN, but you also write for the Washington Examiner. You know, it's funny. The examiner never tells me what to write or what not to write beyond the usual editor assignments of, hey, I think this campaign would be good to look into or what about this thing.

that is happening in the news. What more can you find out about it? You know, I spent 20 at the 2018 election cycle, the one in which Democrats won back the House, flipped 40 seats, basically looking at the implosion of the Republican Party in American suburbs. The examiner's given me a platform to just kind of follow politics wherever it takes me. The thing that's interesting in my mind is that Republicans will talk to you in a way that they probably wouldn't talk to someone. I think that's a fair point. And I think, look, I think part of it is just that for various reasons when I became a journalist full time and this became my profession, for various reasons, and I started in Southern California, I started cultivating Republicans more than I did

Democrats at the time because I felt like there was an open space in the marketplace. And I really just wanted to get ahead. And I remember thinking at the time, you know, there's a lot of things. going on with the Republican Party that not everybody understands. Because they are the minority party in California, they don't get as much ink as the Democrats are getting. And so all that is to say is that I've spent 20 years studying the Republican Party, its evolution, talking to Republicans in politics and Republican voters. And so I think some of this is the trust that I've developed with Republican sources. And some of it is just that I understand the mind of the Republican voter and the minds of the various kinds of Republican voters.

And so I think it has helped me sort of understand them and know how to talk to them to try and understand what's going on. So what is going on? Great question. And within Trump's shadow, I set out to try and explain what is going on. And I think there are a couple of different things happening. As I report in the book, Trump is still as hostile. as ever to the party he affiliates with and the party he leads. But in fact, that's why so many Republican voters like him, because he channels and shares their contempt for the party they affiliate with. At the same time, you have Republican politicians, particularly Republicans who

want to run for president, who plan to be around a lot longer than Trump. And I mean that really in a chronological sense. You know, if you're an in Trump's shadow for various reasons, I focused on six particular Republicans. But like if you're a Tom Cotton in your early to mid-40s, or a Nikki Haley on the cusp 50, or even, you know, a Mike Pence, you know, late 50s, early 60s, your political career you're hoping is not over. And if you're Donald Trump, you're 75 years old headed to 76, it's just chronologically, so many Republicans are trying to figure out the lay of the land. And what I discovered in Trump's shadow and reporting this is, is the most important thing to Republican voters, probably, at least when you're looking at the Republican base,

is attitude. How do you channel Trump's attitude as they see it as a fighter? And how do you do it in a way that's authentic so that base Republicans don't look at you as a pretender? And this is one of the things that preoccupies Republicans that are looking at higher office. Oh, I'm sure that's true. And so interesting. Now, a lot of people, would say that the Republican Party has taken an anti-democratic tact, right, with all of this. You know, the big lie is now a litmus test for if you are a Trumpy Republican or not. Do you see that? I mean, it seems clear to me, but I'm not in it the way you're in it.

So I think that it's true in some cases and not in others. And I think the best way for me to illustrate that is that, you know, for, some Republicans that we see on news programs, even today, yesterday, tomorrow, what have you, you know, if you ask them a direct question, did Donald Trump lose the election? Was Joe Biden elected in a fair election? Not an election absent any fraud at all whatsoever, but just a fair election where even if you add up all the fraud, it wouldn't have changed the outcome. And some Republicans, particularly Republican leaders in Congress, don't want to answer that question. Right, because they know there was no fraud. Correct. Look, as an

I don't know anybody in either party that's ever told me there is absolutely zero fraud in an election in a country as big as ours. The question is always, was there enough fraud to change the outcome? No evidence has been presented to prove that. And I just want to just follow that through for a minute. I mean, the only election fraud that I have seen that was proven was that North Carolina congressional race that Dan McCready and the Republican had all those ballots. picked up. So, I mean, besides that, I've never seen a election fraud case that actually went and was prosecuted. But anyway, continue. Yeah, correct. And look, you know, some Republicans will make the argument that because of the pandemic, some states changed the rules governing how people vote

in a way that wasn't consistent with their state's constitution. And people can have that academic argument all of the time, but we still have not seen any evidence that people manufactured votes, stole votes, manipulated votes, and the electoral college results were certified by all of these states, and that's a key metric. But the larger point, Molly, that I was trying to make to answer your question, was that on the one hand, you have Republicans who won't acknowledge that Joe Biden was elected. But on the other hand, as I report in Trump shadow, So you have somebody like Tom Cotton, who in many ways was a Trumpy Republican, if you will, before there was Trump, if you look at his policy agenda, who made it his business to never get on the

opposite side of Donald Trump while Donald Trump was president. But when push came to shove and it was time to either object to the electoral college results or not, Tom Cotton voted to certify the electoral college results, would not support objections. And in fact, worked very hard with Senate minority leaders. then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to stop his fellow Republicans, convince them not to object to the results because he found that it undermined our constitutional system and it suggested that the power of the election somehow might lie with the vice president,

a single individual within our government, found it completely incompatible with our Constitution. And so he wouldn't go along with it. And there are other Republicans like him, even though they don't get as much attention. attention, because naturally, especially in our business, the people that are speaking up the loudest tend to get a lot of attention. So you had numerous sources confirm this? Yes. And I feel very confident in my reporting on Tom Cotton in in Trump's shadow. And I would add that my reporting on how Mike Pence, the vice president, approached this, is also consistent with somebody who, though he desperately avoided any separation or suggestion that he was ever on opposite sides with Donald Trump,

while Donald Trump was president. Vice President Mike Pence completely resisted attempts to have him throw the election. And in fact, when he set out, when he had his attorney in the vice president's office, Gregory Jacob, research the word I'm looking for here, research the constitutional implications of this. and do a full deep dive into what the vice president was empowered to do or not empowered to do. Part of his goal, according to my reporting, and I'm very confident and comfortable with my reporting, is that he didn't want, he wanted to be the last vice president that anybody would ever tempt into throwing an election. Because what the former president wanted him to do was reject state certified electors. And keep in mind, and I don't want to get too far into the weeds,

but there were no competing slates of electors from any state or the District of Columbia. Every state submitted one certified slate. That means there was nothing for the vice president to do but ascertain or count. And the president was telling his vice president, no, no, no, you can just send this back to the states or throw it to the house. And not only was the vice president uncomfortable with that, he wanted to make sure he knew what he was talking about, but he also wanted to make sure that no president would ever try and do this again. And so in the dear colleague letter that he issued ahead of the vote, ahead of certification, it was intended as a sort of, this is my own analogy,

but often in Supreme Court decisions, even the dissenting opinion becomes a sort of roadmap for future lawyers to try and attack something. He was trying to leave a paper trail that definitively said the vice president doesn't have the power to do this so that it, the future if a future president pulled this, there would be this paper trail to say, no, Mike Pence already looked into this when Trump asked them to do it. And we already know we can't do it. And so these are very complicated figures. They abetted Trump. They were supportive of Trump, however you want to look at it. But the request, the push to subvert the election

was a bridge too far, even for some of the most admiring and committed Trump supporters. But here's a question for you. So, yes, it didn't happen this time. But it looks to me like a lot of these Trumpy, I mean, if the litmus test for these state, I mean, these people who are running for governor in Arizona and governor in different swing states or red states is that the election was stolen from Donald Trump, how do we have a free and fair election with those people? Well, I think this is a fair and unknown question, and it's a question that I've been asking Republicans that I talk to. And for instance, I recently interviewed former New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, who will tell you is one of Donald

Trump's close friends, and we know was his close advisor and close ally throughout his presidency. He's now become very critical of how he handled the post-election period. But what I asked Chris Christie for the Texas Tribune Festival in my interview was, how confident are you that if a Democrat wins the presidential election in 2024, and the House is controlled by the Republican Party, that the House will not object and overturn or attempt to do so the will of the voters. What Governor Christie told me was that he believes that House Republicans, a majority of them, were willing to vote to overturn the 2020 election because it was a free vote. They knew they didn't have the votes to do it.

They knew it wasn't going to happen. And so even if every single one of them did so, they were outnumbered. That vested with the responsibility of actually certifying the election, it's not something they would do. That's his opinion, but I know that a lot of people are concerned about this. I mean, it's terrifying. So you really believe that Mitch McConnell and Tom Cotton would have not let Pence do it if he had? Well, there's the mechanics of the issue. You know, Mitch McConnell and Tom Cotton and any other member of Congress,

Congress, we're not in a position to control what Mike Pence did on the dais. But I think that had the former vice president gone along with Mr. Trump, we would have seen political chaos in the moment. And I think that the entire, I think the joint session would have shut down as all of this sorted out. We know that Democrats wouldn't have stood for this. We know that there are many Republicans who wouldn't have stood for this. But exactly how this would have played out, it would have been unprecedented. What I feel confident in my reporting in the book is that their very intent, Mitch McConnell's, Tom Cotton's, and other Republicans, particularly in the Senate, but not only in the Senate, was that Biden had won the election, that none of the challenges in court

had been fruitful, and that there was only one option. And the option was to certify an election and move ahead. Do you think that the Republican Party, like there are so many candidates who I think of as, you know, not someone I necessarily align with politically, but who I used to think of as sort of reasonable. But none of those people will ever speak against Trump. I mean, the closest we got were the people who voted

that it wasn't okay to lead a violent insurrection. I mean, what are they scared of? I think there are two different ways to look at this, right? So there are some Republicans, not many, who are willing to speak against the former president. The ones that are vocally opposed to him, and I think of Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, who I write about in Trump's shadow, I think about Representative Liz Cheney, Representative Annab Kinziger, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, these are Republicans that may be able to have a local power base, but are going to have trouble running for president.

and this will explain why so many Republicans that have issues with Trump don't want to be as vocal as the Republicans I mentioned. And it's because for a large, for a significant, and I think the way to refer to it as a significant percentage of the Republican base reveres Donald Trump. And then you have another percentage of the Republican base that doesn't necessarily revere Donald Trump, but believes that he did, aside from all of the bluster and, the post-election period, did some very consequential positive things, and they're not interested in the party going backward, and they're also not interested in a party at war with itself. And so for all sorts of reasons, if you're a Republican aspiring to the White House, you don't want to alienate voters. And so what I would say is they're not really scared of Trump.

You're scared of the base. They're scared of voters, and Donald Trump still has a very good relationship. relationship with the base, and not always, but in many instances, can energize the base and weaponize the base against a particular Republican that he doesn't like. This was really helpful and very interesting, and I hope you will come back. I'd love to come back, Molly. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks, David. Marcus Fowers is running for Georgia's 14th congressional seat against Marjorie Taylor Green. Welcome to the new abnormal, Marcus. Thank you for having me, Molly. I appreciate So tell us a little bit about your race.

My race against Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green. We're doing pretty well. We've raised about $3.5 million so far from probably about 130,000 individual contributors. And last quarter, we raised about 1.3 million. Now we're up to about a million dollars cash on hand. We're going to need all of that money to make an unprecedented. unprecedented investment in this district, one that's never been made before. We're going to be the

first Democrat campaign in Georgia's 14th congressional district to be able to go up on the Atlanta television market, the Chattanooga television market. We're going to have a field of organizers. We're going to go out and knock 100,000 doors. And we're going to sit and talk to the people of Georgia's 14th who are kind, generous, and caring people. I know people don't believe that because Look who we sent to Marjorie Taylor Green, but there's actually a story there. And Marjorie Taylor Green is not actually from your district, right? She's not actually from the district. Well, she lives in Milton, Georgia.

That's in Lucy McBath's district. Right. She moved in there because she knew she could win, right? Oh, she knew. I don't even think she would have won the primary against Handel, but, you know, she swooped into our district when Tom Graves decided to retire. She came in, self-funded to the tune of about a million and a half against the Republican primary challengers there. And they had really raised a lot of money. I think maybe Calvin had raised $100,000.

I don't know. She swips in commercials and gets her name out there and just basically bought the primary for being honest about it. And the people really didn't know who she was. Right. I got a bad bill of goods there. That's basically how that happens. But then in general, the Democrat dropped out of the race. Yes, because he was getting a lot of death threats, too, right?

I spoke with Kevin a little bit before he dropped out of the race. And, you know, at the time, I was a government official. So I was bound by hatchax. So I couldn't be too out with me political and do too much. But I could do some phone banking, go out and put out signs, whatever he needed. And I understand why he dropped out. The Secretary of State would not allow the Democrats to field another candidate. at the time. So that's how we ended up with Congresswoman Green. Yeah. And it's not such a red

district, right? It is. But it's changing. You know, we're waiting to see in November what the lines are going to look like. But I can tell you this right now, Molly. There's about 30 to 40 percent of the GOP who are absolutely in my Congresswoman, Marjor Taylor Green. You know, I tell people all the time, I'm talking to people here in this district because of running. I'm running because I've been talking to people in the district and I know how they feel about Congresswoman Green. To be fair, there's probably about a third of the district who's going to be with her because she's a Republican, but not all of them are with her. And I guarantee the Democrats here are serious. And depending on what it looks like in redistricting, because this district can't

get any ridder, it can only move to the Atlanta suburbs towards the Atlanta suburbs and it'll become bluer. So I think that's a result of them trying to hurt Lucy McBath. Right. So that could actually hurt Lucy McBath's but help you. That's kind of what it looks like. Theoretically. Well, theoretically, we'll see what the lines actually end up being. So we'll know more after the special session in November. Tell me a little bit about your backstory. So a little bit about me. I was born in Troy, Alabama, birthplace of John Lewis, absolute icon of the Civil Rights Movement.

One of the many men from the Civil Rights Movement that I absolutely looked up to and watched this story in my entire life. At 11 years old, I moved into a children's home in Talladega, Alabama, which is right the next door to the district. So I have a long history with this district with my father and my stepmother. Both lived here for many, many years. And at 18, I joined the Army. I swore that oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

And that's what I've been doing ever since for the last 27 years as a soldier, a defense contractor for state and Department of Defense and a government official for Department of Defense. I spent about a decade in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan doing all kinds of missions there. My background is in logistics and compliance. I've set on governance contracts. I've trained Afghan and Iraqi soldiers and police officers. So that's a little bit about me. And you come from the district.

I'm from Alabama, but I've lived in this district for many years. Yeah. It is certainly something to have someone who actually lives in the district who's running for Congress, which I think is, yeah. It is. And like I said, my family's lived here for decades. So this is home. You know, I went out.

I spent about 20 years overseas. And I came back to the States and decided to come back home. So you're in a tough district, but you are running against a real mega lunatic. That's one way to put it. Right. But I feel like you could sort of create the playbook for how to run against people like that, right? Because you're not running against a normal Republican. You're not running against Adam Kinsinger or, you know, you're really.

really running against someone who she has, in fact, been kicked off all her committees. So I'm wondering how you'll, if you have sort of special ideas on how to do that. You know, it's, for me, it's, it's simple, Molly. It's about meeting people where they are. It's about going out and talking to people. And I think a lot of what we're seeing in this district and many other districts around the countries, people feel like they've been left out. And, you know, for me, most of my life, you know, I've considered myself apolitical or,

non-partisan. And here's a thing. Our district's facing multiple challenges. And that's what I'm running for Congress, help solve those challenges, whether it be jobs and the economy or infrastructure, health care, education for our kids. I mean, rural

broadband is something that, you know, we really need here. Let me tell you what got me into this race. It was watching Marjorie Taylor Green and the social reckoning that was happening all last summer. Then on January 6th, I was working as a government official. I was working from home watching what was going on at the Capitol,

watching Trump's rally, watching people go from that rally to the Capitol, break in. And then the point for me, the breaking point for me, was seeing police officers being beaten with an American flag. Meanwhile, you have a Confederate battle flag being paraded through the Capitol Rotunda. That's when it became mission critical for me. The very next day I called my supervisor and I resigned my post as a government an official to walk the Congress.

So this weekend I saw Ms. Green touting a national divorce. It seems like it's pretty easy to really appeal to people that do you really want to be represented by the person who's representing that in our country right now? Do you have thoughts on how you appeal to people and try to get them on the side of a Democrat that a lot of people don't trust around Georgia now? No, unfortunately, you know, this is nothing new. national divorce thing she's talking about. She was talking about seceding from the union earlier this year. And she's, you know, we've seen these antics time and time again from her. I can tell you

people here, they're tired of it. They want affected and efficient governance. And it's not so much about red or blue. It's definitely not about that with me. It's about effective and efficient governance. It's about serving the needs of the people. I've been a public servant my entire adult life. I've done nothing but serve the country. Put quite simply, America's been in my life. I think I bring an authority. I know someone Green doesn't bring to the table. And I think people see that.

We have a huge veteran community here, and they know it's all about the country. For me, it's not about your party politics or your political leanings. It's about getting things done for the people of the district. It's about constituents, services, something Marjorie Taylor Green knows nothing about, something she hasn't done since she's been in contact. I'll sit down and I'll work with local leaders, with, you know, business leaders in the districts to get things done. The message to the people of my district is about working together and getting things done. Effective and efficient government, not politics grievance, not antics.

Talking about succession, it's ridiculous what she's doing right now and people who are seeing right through that and they're tired of. They want to see a government that works for them. And that's what I intend to bring to the sea. But also, I mean, it does strike me, she isn't on any committees. So she really isn't doing anything in Congress, even if you're a Republican. I mean, wouldn't you want to not have that seat occupied? I mean, I guess you don't want a Democrat, but still, isn't it worse to have an MT? I mean, isn't it worse to have her in Congress than to not?

And no, it's not good to have her sitting in Congress, doing nothing for the people of Georgia's 14th. It'd be much better to have someone there who can work across the aisle. But I'm, you know, I tell people, I'm optimistic, and naive. I've been up to Capitol. I've talked with lawmakers on both sides. There is goodwill there in the center. Yeah. On both sides.

This is a Republican. She's a true believer. You need to approach her as such. Uh-huh. I feel so sorry you're going to have to discuss this person so much for the next year of your life. Are you scared about like Q&ON death threats and stuff like that? Because that was what in the end took her other opponent out. Are you scared about that or now?

Oh, Molly, I take things as they come and I take threats seriously. I spend a decade in war zones. You know, I told you this is an important mission. It's one that I just couldn't walk away from. It's about bringing sanity and decency. and decency back to the sea. So, you know, the Q&N guys, I've already had those threats and things like that. We face several of them.

But what they're going to learn about Marcus Flowers is that I wasn't built for backing down, not when the mission is this important. And it is. Democracy itself is at stake. And that's not hyperbole. It truly is at stake. Thank you so much, Marcus Flowers. I hope you'll come back later on.

Any time. I appreciate you having me on, Molly. Just, it's great talking with you guys. Thank you. What's crazier than QAnon, more outlandish than Pizza Gate, and scarier than a Mexican getaway with Ted Cruz? The answer is what the American right wing has planned next. Be one of the first to listen to Fever Dreams,

the new podcast from The Daily Beast, tracking the conspiracy slingers, orange acolytes, and straight-up grifters pushing to retake power. Every Wednesday hosts Swin Subisang and Will Summer, Checking in on the movement of the radical right. Head to the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts or your favorite podcast player to catch the first episode and get subscribed.

That's fever dreams, which you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Jesse Cannon. Hi, Molly Jong Fast. What's going on? Lots of people being assholes. Doubt right shocks. Let me tell you.

Lots of fuckery. Today was the day that 84-year-old, Colin Powell died. He was in a previous incarnation a Republican, but since the Republican Party has no place for people who are at all normal, he voted for Obama, he voted for Biden, he's not really Republican anymore, but he is being used by the Republican Party to make a case against vaccines. And the Fox straight anchor, and by straight anchor I mean straight news anchor, really he's not. John Roberts tweeted out, got to make you think about breakthrough. Something to the effect of, he actually deleted the tweet, but the tweet says something

effective, breakthrough infections. I wonder how many breakthrough infections there are. This inspired some of the worst bad actors to go forth and speculate about breakthrough infections. But here is the truth, and Dr. Peter Hottes just said this on CNN, which is multiple myeloma is a cancer that works on your immune system. So it makes you quite impaired. Immunosuppressed people don't do as well with the vaccines, which is why there has been this recommendation that if you have an immunosuppressed condition, you get a third shot. And this is not, you know, an 84-year-old with multiple myeloma dying of COVID is not the same as a healthy person dying of COVID who's younger. And we know this from reading numerous pieces about the virus, is that really you're 80s.

is a determinative factor, even if you're vaccinated, that the age makes you more likely to die. And then this person has the immunosuppressive cancer. So even more clearly, this was not about bright through infections, but was really about how dangerous this virus is for people with immunosuppressed conditions. And so Republicans are off to the races using this as proof that vaccines don't work. And for that, I say, oh, come on, you haven't killed. enough people? Right? I mean, when do they get done with this? When do they decide that they've killed enough of their supporters? And so for that, I say, fuck you guys. Jesse, who is your fuck that guy? Mine is one Kendall Roy. I'm sorry, Don Trump Jr. Jesus Christ. What was you

you know, session coming back really hits you a heart. Yeah, really. So good old dumb of the dumb and dumber brothers. He is now yet again appealing to the Q&ONN portion of the Republican base and he Instagrammed a message that said they should start reporting the number of kids that go missing every day the way they report COVID numbers. Who wants to tell him? If we don't report missing children, we just don't do it. Because why would we? It's not like their children and people miss them.

But, you know, this is like the funniest thing because like Qadon and the Rooney Wright find every way they can to find the dumbest things to latch on to. because we have to remember the statistics about kids going missing, that fewer than 300 kids under the age of 21 were abducted by strangers between 2010 and 2017. And it's a non-existent problem. Nearly every abduction is someone in the family taking a child from another member of a family. This is a non-existent problem. So maybe we should report this every day to show how dumb you are junior and QAnon is.

Yeah, I mean, I think that we know that this is some way of trying to get these QAnon people to believe that Trump is solving, you know, a non-existent problem. But Trump is very good at solving non-existent problem. Yes. Some might say that's the only thing he's good at. And these people all love to virtue signal a non-existent problem and to try to pretend they're virtuous by saying, oh, I'm protecting children. It's like, no, you argue against mass. masks and vaccines all day and get people killed. You're not virtuous.

Yes. A good fuck that guy, I think. 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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