The Daily Beast Podcast - How Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Trying to Become Trump’s VP

Episode Date: July 9, 2023

Daily Beast reporter Zach Petrizzo talks with co-host Andy Levy Marjorie Taylor Greene’s VP moves, her drama with fellow Rep. Lauren Boebert, and why Team Trump is anti-Kari Lake. Plus, Andy and co-host Danielle are forced to listen to clips of Trump and DeSantis saying weird things. Or in Trump’s case, making odd noises. And Andy makes a bold claim: Trump would be better than DeSantis on LGBTQ issues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

We thank you so much for being here. Today we're going to be joined by Zach Patrizo, a politics reporter for The Daily Beast, and he's going to talk to us all about Marjorie Taylor Green's ouster from the House Freedom Caucus and what's going on with Carrie Lake down in Mar-a-Lago. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready for some clips? Clip us. Clips with Shamis. My new favorite thing.

Thank you. Much better than clips with Jesse. Great. Wow. Because I'm not Jesse. I'm going to try to do this a little bit differently. I've decided I'm going to open us up with some inspirational words. Oh.

From a time that I think could be relevant, you know, there's a lot going on. And so famously, when Dunkirk fell, Winston Churchill went on to the House of Commons and delivered the, we're going to fight them on the beach as speech. And so I think let's just open it up. I know it's a little weird after the 4th of July, but let's just open it up by listening to that clip. Florida, we fought the woke all across the board. And as president, I will fight the woke in the corporations. I will fight the woke in the schools. I will fight the woke in the halls of Congress.

We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. We are going to leave woke ideology in the dustbin of history. Oh, I'm sorry. That was Ron DeSantis at the Moms for Liberty conference. Oh, dear fuck. How many times? Six times in 19 seconds. It's amazing.

Wow. That is the Guinness Book World Record. of fuckery. Like, oh my God. What's amazing to me is he's been saying that same paragraph in, like, speeches for months now. He thinks it's really good. And look, maybe it is for his people who probably don't even realize that he's, you know, copping Churchill. But it's so bad. It's just so fucking bad. Every time he does it where he says it so many times, it's like a little kid who's like, you want to see how fast I can get to that tree? You see how many times I can say woke in like a it. It's just like, here's the thing, and I, you know, aside from how dumb he sounds, how immature

he sounds, how toddler-esque to your point, Seamus, that he sounds, aside from all of that, I miss the days when people would tell you what they were actually going to do for you, as opposed to what they're going to get rid of. Like, nothing that Ron DeSantis has said has delivered for those poor sad souls left in Florida, has he changed their lives in any type of way for the good? He is not talking about making sure that you can do anything in your life, except I guess be able to open up the fridge and know which ketchup or mustard is woke or not. There's nothing he's delivering to people, right? So I'm like, this should not be so fucking hard for Biden to be able to win the next election outside of the fact that most people think he's 162. Outside of that,

it's like Biden is actually doing for all Americans, right? Like actually delivering. And these people are talking about, I'm going to fight the woke here and fight the woke here. Dude, people are trying to put gas and like medicine in their cabinets and gas in their cars and like food on their table. What are you doing for them? Absolutely fucking nothing. Yeah, agreed. It's funny because I was just thinking about this earlier today. This is a big difference from Trump. Trump is a nut job and he's insane and he believes terrible things and should be nowhere near the office of the presidency. A thing he does get is exactly what you're sort of pointing out, Danielle. When he talks about stuff, he talks more about stuff he's going to do. He's going to build not just a wall,

but a big, beautiful wall. Like he sells it as a shiny, exciting, wonderful thing that he is going to do for people. And he does. does that with a lot of different things. And again, I'm talking just about style here. This is not in any way I would assume listeners realize this is not a defense of Trump. But it is a sort of defense of his style because I think that's what works. And to your point, I think coming out there and just being a sour puss and talking about all these bad things and whatever and how I'm going to, you know, fight the demons. And I don't know that that plays as well nationally, even with the Republican base as, as a Trump promising people make America great again and keep America great. I mean, I think that's what people want to hear. They want to hear that I'm going to do all these big, beautiful things for you. Obviously, he's only talking to, you know, white people. So again, not defending him. It's just a matter of style. And I think you're absolutely right. I think none of these people understand that for some reason, except Trump. Yeah, I don't fucking know. On that note, guys, I know we have all at this point seen the

really weird anti-pride attack ad desantis indoors and a lot of people have just come out of the woodworks to dismiss it rightfully so and i think that if i have to say my favorite clapback has come from secretary of transportation pete what's your reaction to that video you know i'm going to choose my words carefully partly because i'm appearing as secretary so i can't talk about campaigns and i'm going to leave aside the strangeness of trying to prove your manhood by putting up a video that splices images of view in between oiled up shirtless bodybuilders. And just get to the bigger issue that is on my mind whenever I see this stuff in the policy space, which is, again, who are you trying to help?

Who are you trying to make better off? And what public policy problems do you get up in the morning thinking about how to solve? You know, we're focused as an administration on how to get things done to make people better off. spent my week traveling around the country to places that are benefiting from infrastructure funding. We were in Appalachia and an eastern Kentucky community that's been wiped out by floods repeatedly, and we're bringing them highway funding that's going to help them not only improve the road, but also improve the dam and protect them from floods in the future. A few weeks ago, we were in North Dakota where there's a railroad crossing that was a community headache for decades.

And thanks to President Biden's bipartisan infrastructure funds, we finally have the the resources to do something about it. And we're going to make that better and have it not be a problem holding back first responders. These are the kinds of problems that most of us got into government, politics, and public service in order to work on. And I just don't understand the mentality of somebody who gets up in the morning thinking that he's going to prove his worth by competing over who can make life hardest for a hard-hit community that is already so vulnerable in America.

I thought that was pretty good. I will say this, that's it. You are waking up every day, figuring out how to be the biggest monster, figuring out how to cause the most pain. I can't imagine having the type of power that a Ron DeSantis has to do well for your state. You're like, you think that people actually run for office because they believe that they have a vision, right, to actually help people. But that's not who Ron DeSantis is. It's not who the Republican Party is. They could give a fuck about helping their own constituents.

They could give a fuck about helping make America actually better, right? You're dumbing down curriculum. You're putting literal targets on the backs of people. You're making us less globally competitive, less likely for people who want to innovate and grow and inspire to come here. So it's just, you know, everything that Buttigieg said is 100% right. If you want to vote for people who want to wake up every day to make life worse for everyone that you don't like, go with God. Yeah, I also just really like the way he started off by saying, you know, setting aside

the weirdness and then perfectly describe the weirdness as an aside or whatever. I love that as a sort of rhetorical device just doing it that way. But he also did perfectly describe, like, you know, this is a video, filled with shots of dudes with oiled up bodies. And you're trying to make whatever point you think you're making. And it's just hilariously sad. But yeah, I mean, look, this video, we talked about this on the last show. This is like one of the most hateful videos I've ever seen from a presidential candidate.

And like you said, how do you wake up every day just deciding I hate all of these people for being themselves? Yeah. Beyond everything else, it's just so fucking weird. just let people alone. My God. It's wild as if that you watch that ad, and there's a minute where I'm like, is this a pro-Trump ad?

Yeah. Because it's just like, oh, yeah, look at Trump being positive towards the LGBTQ community. I know. They're literally highlighting calling Ronda Santos like pure evil and things like that. And then it just turns into like a teenage

white boy's bedroom wall with like fight club posters and shit. I know. Yeah. I think left to his own devices, Trump would be better on LGBT stuff because I honestly think that deep down he does not give a shit for the most part. I also think that he is completely captured

by the right-wing maga nut jobs on this and that in practice he wouldn't be much better so it doesn't really matter what's in his heart. What matters is how he acts. Yeah. He doesn't get a win on this for me or anything like that. But DeSantis feels like he's running more on what is inside his.

is black, shrewbled heart on things like this than Trump is. I'm glad you brought up Trump. We're going to play a game. It's called What is Donald Trump doing? Do you guys want to hear it again? No, I don't want to hear that again. I want to unhear it. So that was Trump in Michigan, imitating what I believe he's trying to imitate what he thinks

a trans athlete would look like trying to weight lift. It does not sound anything like that, though. What? No, it doesn't. And first of all, Donald Trump doesn't pick up anything that a can of Coke or ketchup. So, like, obviously he doesn't know how to impersonate anyone actually exerting any physical activity.

That is not his fucking jam. Jam is his jam, but that is not his jam. Oh, my God. That was so disgusting. Like, is it possible to rinse out your ears with, like, alcohol? Ugh. Seamus, what did you think it sounded like? he was really enjoying some pizza

Okay, fair enough Yeah, definitely just that The best part about that clip is Well, not the best part But if you The Chiron No parts of it are No parts of it are very good

But the caron for the moment When he says that is Trump says I will stop World War III Like by what? He's also clearly never lifted weights before Because this space object work is not very good Oh no His hand is terrible

Terrible. His form is terrible. Yeah. Anyways, let's move on because... I think Danielle wants to hear it again. No, I think I'm good. I think I'm good. All right.

What about the audience? The audience want to hear it again? Yes. I'm not going to do that to Daniel. No, guys, you know what? Let's think about something positive, because sometimes you've got to speak your truth, and it's not just at Christmas time,

because sometimes you've got to do it at 5 p.m. Eastern on the Most Watch Cable News Network in America. And so with that in mind, let's give it up for the great Janine Perot. We're really great, and we needed to believe, and if we didn't believe they were going to ruin our lives, and they proceeded to ruin our lives, if it happened under Trump, if it happened under Biden, go after every single one of them. And to the very least, maybe the cowards that want to control our lives by lying to us and manipulating us

will resign and take their pension. I don't care necessarily if it goes to Biden. I don't need to sit here and make him, I don't need to sit here and make Biden the bad guy because hopefully people are seeing what his policies do. Why he wasn't an office? It was Anthony Blinken. It was Jim Comey. Are you telling me Jim Comey was on.

Donald Trump's side, he tried to set him up for this whole thing. Jim Comey is I'm a single-handedly responsible for Hillary Clinton losing the election. Do you think so? I do. The Americans found it in the most untrustworthy candidate they had ever seen. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jeanine Piro was having a normal one.

What's a normal one? What's a normal one? Oh, sorry. I guess I'm a little too online. It's an expression you use when you say, oh, just having a normal one when someone is doing something insane. Oh. I have literally never heard that expression ever, Andy.

You people spend way too much time offline. Yeah, I spend way too much time in real life talking to actual people. But aside from that, like, she's a fucking nut job. And it is amazing to me that anything, like, she doesn't outdo herself. This is her normal status of being. Like just bat shit crazy, saying a bunch of hot shit. And that's it. Like nothing about what she just said.

shocked me. It's shocking to me that like this is how she knows. Like I don't think she's putting on. Do you know what I'm saying? There are some people that I watch and you're like, oh, they're acting. Like, oh, they're like putting it on. Like I believe that this is how crazy she is. Like Carrie Lake, like this is who these people are. They're just nuts. No, that is correct. That would be a normal one. As someone who knows her or knew her. Oh, that's right. These are your people. I mean, they were your people. It's possible. It's possible. I'd been to a party at Janine Piro's sprawling house. Describe it. Do so? No, I'm just saying it's possible. Uh-huh. A long time ago, she held a very large party at a very large house in New Jersey, if I remember correctly, and was nice enough to invite the red-eye boys. The whom?

Is my mic not working? No, I hear you. I don't know who the red-eye boys are. It's him. Yeah, never mind. That was his show. Oh. I didn't watch Fox, Andy.

I know. me neither. All right, guys, let's go to the last one just to finish off the week. Lindsay Graham was doing a stump speech for Trump in South Carolina and got boot off the stage. Obviously, I'm not going to make you guys listen to Lindsay Graham getting boot off the stage because I think it's much funer to Donald Trump make fun of Lindsay Graham for getting boot off the stage.

Twice. Now, you know, you can make mistakes on occasion. Even Lindsay down here, Senator Lizzie. We love Senator Diffra. We're going to love him. We're going to love him. I know. It's half and half.

But what I need some of those liberal votes, he's always there to help me get him, okay? We got some pretty liberal people, but he's good. He's good. We know the good ones. We know the bad ones, too. We got some real bad ones. But even he makes mistakes on occasion,

but you can't make a mistake. Who are the liberal votes that Lindsey Graham gets. Like, what is he fucking talking about? I assume he means like the whatever Republicans there are in the Senate who aren't fully MAGA. Oh. I don't know.

What? I'm guessing. I'm totally guessing because I don't know what he means either. I mean, over the last six years, people have made careers out of trying to figure out what he means. But I just love the fact that he said Lindsay Graham, you know, it's 50-50. I couldn't figure out if he was talking about Lindsay or about the crowd reaction, like if it was half booze, half cheers. And he was saying, that's half and half or whatever.

I want to believe he was talking about Lindsay as a person. It's definitely more fun that way. This is great, too, because it was like, again, Lindsay had just gotten boot off the stage. And so this is one of the first things Trump's does is just go on stage and go, anyways, Lindsay. It's such a, like, mean older brother move. Yes, but he also sort of defended his little toadie, so that's nice. Sort of. Sort of.

No, he's okay. He's okay. I can't wait until they're all indicted in a few months. You know, that's a 50-50 toss-up, just like, just likeing Lindsay Graham. I'm more of a 70-30 girl. Seventy-thirty. Joining me now to give us the inside scoop on the weeks going on in politics is Daily Beast Politics Politics Reporter, Zach Petrizzoz.

Thanks for coming on, Zach. Thanks so much for having me, Andy. It's a happy coincidence that you're a politics reporter since I wanted to talk about politics. Let's start with some news coming out of the inaptly named House Freedom Caucus, where it appears that everybody's crush Marjorie Taylor Green has been booted? Yeah, that's right. So Marjorie Taylor Green, of course, kind of the firebrandt, MAGA, breathing, you know, Trump-loving member of Congress from Georgia has been given the boot from the House Freedom Caucus. This is, of course, the most conservative caucus in the House. It has members among the likes of Lauren Bobert.

It has Matt Gates. It has others. So this is really seen as the most conservative members. And as we've reported at The Beast, you know, dating back since early July when the Congress first began, Marjorie Taylor Green has kind of bucked, you know, House Freedom Caucus members. And, you know, her alignment with Kevin McCarthy, the speaker, has really kind of irritated many of them.

Yeah. I wanted to ask you about something before we. get into the mechanics of how this happened. You wrote that green, as you just said, has drifted away from the far right flank of the GOP. I know what you're saying there. And so I guess I agree with you, though it does make it sound like she has become some sort of rational moderate. Yeah, no, she definitely hasn't, right? She's just kind of rebranded herself and in a way that I think is more palatable towards, you know, kind of becoming closer with Kevin McCarthy, ultimately having more power for, you know, what she calls the quote-unquote dessert or these, you know,

kind of right-wing expeditions that she has, such as impeaching Joe Biden or impeaching majorcas or whoever, you know, it is. Ultimately, Green, you know, and in speaking with sources close to her and reporting on many of these stories, Green really sees the upside where she's able to kind of exert her power on kind of these right-wing MAGA, you know, issues that Trump himself behind closed doors speaks highly of, you know, green pushing as a way to kind of ultimately show her cards and have power over McCarthy. And she made that decision early on when she split with the speaker vote and ultimately supported McCarthy in that contentious vote where, you know, the House Freedom Caucus left her hanging and didn't support McCarthy.

Right. Okay. So let's talk about Congresswoman Lauren Bolbert's role in all this because she is, as far as we know, still a member of the House Freedom Caucus. And she and she and And MTG sort of went from BFFs to, I don't even know if frenemies was a middle step. And now it just seems like they're straight up enemies to the point where, as, you know, as you reported, I think it was last month, MTG called her a little bitch on the house floor. So you would think that Bobert was maybe behind this move or at the very least completely in favor of booting MTG. But apparently that ain't so. Yeah, so, you know, taking you back a little bit to January, like you said, they were friends seemingly before this Congress. A lot of their kind of pet project, so to speak, or a lot of the goals that they have are similar in terms of kind of these red meat issues such as the border and everything else, you know, impeaching political foes, etc. But of course, in January, you know, we had noted that there was a dust up, an exchange of words in the women's speakers bathroom. And this was kind of the beginning. of them really kind of knocking at each other. At that time, you know, I thought personally,

you know, this is pretty significant. You have two, you know, extremely influential right-wing members of Congress really going at each other and really not holding back. Well, it turns out, like you had mentioned, this past month on the House floor, they had an exchange. The exchange, the audio wasn't picked up, but kind of in recreating the scene and having, you know, sources that were familiar with the situation and everything else, the Daily Beast was able to kind of read create this. And long story short, Congresswoman Green had really kind of taken issue with the way in which Lauren was kind of taking these kind of vague jabs at her. And it just came to a head with Marjorie Taylor Green calling her a little bitch and taking issue with fundraising and a bunch of other things

that have kind of been boiling up for months now. If I remember correctly, there was like anger over competing impeachment amendments or bills or whatever. Yeah, you got that right. Since the first day of the Congress, Marjorie Taylor Green had presented. her articles of impeachment. From the folks that I had spoken with in Trump world, you know, Trump was very much aware of this. Trump really loved this idea of impeaching Joe Biden. It was seen as a way to kind of stick a thumb in Joe Biden's eye. And, you know, Trump had kind of always thought more impeachment the better. We have Representative Green on this. And then Green kind of gets some movement on that. And ultimately, Congresswoman Lauren Bobert introduces her own articles of impeachment,

which was kind of a week or so out from, you know, one of her fundraising deadlines. And, of course, you know, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green kind of seized on that. That's really where they, of course, Green accused Lauren Bobert of copying her. And quite frankly, almost rightfully so because they were very similar ideas. Okay. So given all this history, let's go back to what I was saying. What was Bobert's role in pushing Marjorie Taylor Green out of the House Freedom Caucus? Well, yeah.

You know, it seems as though Lauren Boebert actually didn't have as big as a rule as you might think, right? I mean, you might think, you know, members of Congress stabbed themselves in the back. But apparently, according to our reporting at the beast, Lauren Bobert on an initial motion when it came to a freedom of speech, you know, motion, which basically revolved around Green being able to call her a little bitch, if you will. Congresswoman Lauren Bobert would have voted not in favor of booting Green out if it was solely based on. on the little bitch comment. But it seemed as though it was kind of a series of things. And of course, Bobert didn't specifically say whether she voted for or against it. I imagine I'll come out in the days to come. But it is interesting because Bobert could have, you know, pretty easily said, this is enough ground, get her out of here. Right. But Bober didn't. And to her credit, she didn't.

Folks around Bobert definitely wanted to try to get this behind her. You know, the little bitch thing, I think came out of left field for them. This has been taking up new cycle after new cycle after new cycle. And of course, Bobert herself is in a tight race. I mean, you know, she's already back in her district campaigning, campaigning, having members come in to kind of help with some of the fundraising and other stuff. So the pressure is definitely on her to kind of show her constituents. I mean, she only won by a couple hundred votes this past cycle. So she's really in a tight race.

And I think these types of things, she really doesn't want to get distracted by. So as of now, as you said, we don't know how she ultimately voted on removing MTG, but we do know based on what she herself says, and I think in your article, based on what other GOP sources have told you, she was not anywhere near like the prime mover behind this. No, and that's what's really kind of interesting. She wasn't. And it seemed as though there were some other members that were extremely vocal about, you know,

green support of McCarthy, really being something that was a driving factor. The House Freedom Caucus really a group of these rebels, right? These people that buck the party that, you know, kind of give Kevin McCarthy headaches. And, you know, Green's done the exact opposite. Green has played the game perfectly in Washington, you know, where you kind of, you know, exchange your cards and, you know, try to match your power levels and become friends with the speaker, right? And be able to have the speaker kind of vouch for you and get behind your ideas and your bills

and you're, you know, sending money back to your district. She's kind of played that card and it really, really is irritated many of those House Freedom Caucus members. I will say when it comes to the House Freedom Caucus, one of the things that makes it so incredibly difficult to get straight answers is a lot of these members kind of live by one of these rules that's kind of perhaps not written down but kind of spoken, which is, you know, the first rule of fight club is that you don't talk about Fight Club. And so that's what kind of makes some of this a little a little cagey at times because ultimately it's just a bunch of members in a room at the end. end of the day and they really kind of run the show. I mean, you probably can't say this because you have to cover them, but I can say it. It also doesn't help that a number of them are inveterate liars. Oh, yeah, of course, that doesn't help, especially that with Trump world, right? I mean, you run into that nonstop. I mean, you have AIDS that are just constantly lying to you and people

trying to mislead you. So that's a real fun part of my job. Yeah, I would imagine. Has MTV spoken about this yet as of when we were recording this? She's not, and her spokespeople have gone silent. People around her seem to be kind of putting up the shutters, so to speak, and trying to weather this storm out by not saying anything. Marjor Tiller Green, of course, this did mean something to her, right? I had spoken to her and being in the House Freedom Caucus meant something to her. And I think at the end of the day, she doesn't want to burn too many more bridges because, of course, as the Daily Beast reported not too long ago, you know, we had obtained a Marjorie Taylor Green text message that was ultimately sent to Matt Gates and then to Steve Bannon, which this was like a month and a half ago or so now,

that had basically, you know, called Laura Lumer, who's this Trump-aligned anti-Muslim activist. Green, and this text message had called Lumer a piece of shit and has gone to war with Steve Bannon as well. So Marjorito Green kind of has a lot of these far-right forces now working against her. I don't think it will impact her back in her district. But, you know, I think at the same time, you know, she's also trying to kind of steer away from some of this, you know, heavy drama. Yeah, absolutely. And I honestly think that, like, one of the things. that, you know, I've said this before for a long time, people would say to me, and I,

and I see it just on Twitter and elsewhere, you know, stop covering her, stop covering her. She's this fringe member of the Republicans. And I kept saying, first of all, she's not so fringe anymore. And second of all, I don't think she's a bright person, but I think she has this sort of animal cunning, or I don't even know how to describe it. And I think like all these things you point to, like her working with McCarthy and getting in, I think that all points to what I was trying to get at, that she's a little more canny maybe than even like, as you said, the House Freedom Caucus is just, you know, they have the reputation for just being, they're the bomb throwers, they sit at the back of the room, they're never going to have the power.

And I think she is sort of a little smarter than them in this regard and understands that she needs to play the game. Oh, it's 100%. You hit the nail on the head, Andy. I mean, she understands she has to play the game. She understands the power that, you know, the NRCC has and all these, you know, fundraising groups in D.C. And she also understands the power that, you know, McCarthy has. And I think also, to a great extent, the relationship that McCarthy and Trump have, of course, as if we reported at the

Daily Beast, you know, Green doesn't just want to be a member of Congress, quite frankly. You know, she has larger politically ambitions. Right. Right. And that includes being Trump's VP. Right. Green has kind of cultivated this really wise relationship with McCarthy. One of McCarthy's, you know, long-time advisors, his guy named Brian Jack, who was also one of Donald Trump's closest policy advisors. So you have this kind of very unique relationship. Of course, McCarthy has come out and defended Trump in terms of the Department of Justice investigations into the ongoing holding and maintaining a classified documents. So yeah, I mean, Green ultimately, you know, is trying to play her cards very wise here. And who knows? She might be VP one day. I guess we'll have to

wait and see. God, what a thought. All right, let's move to something else that you wrote about, which Danielle and I talked about a little bit on Friday's pod, but I want to get more info about it from you. I'm talking about your piece that had the headline, Trump begins to sour on, in quotes, Spotlight Hound, Carrie Lake for VP. Tell me about this. Yeah, so, you know, within Trump world, you have a ton of different candidates and people, Republican lawmakers to former Trump staffers, kind of all. trying to toss their hat into the ring to be a possible VP running mate. Of course, we've reported a bit back that the list was kind of broad. It continues to be broad.

People from the likes of, like I was saying, Congressman Marjorie Taylor Green to Tulsi Gabbard, to Elise Daphonic, to Kerry Lake, actually. And while, you know, all these names are kind of really spinning around and Trump himself has said and people close to him, his advisors has said that he's thinking about this. I think ultimately now he's giving it more and more thought. especially after last month, there was a campaign stop in Iowa. He took a question from the crowd, and he said, yeah, I've been thinking about it. I've been thinking about it. And once, you know, a crowd member asks him something like this, it kind of sticks in his head. And ultimately,

members of Congress have called up Trump and his advisors too. And they're all giving their input now. And as we reported at The Beast, one thing that I found really interesting was the fact that Kerry Lake, who is kind of this ultra-maga election fraud touting, failed gubernatorial candidate in Arizona, seemingly has crossed not only kind of Trump's top lieutenants, but Lake has also crossed Trump. And it might not be exactly what you're thinking. Did she say something, this, that, or the other? No, not necessarily. Lakeson really is that she could potentially kind of overpower Trump. Right. And she could become kind of more combative with the media and gain more headlines. And of course, with Trump, you know, he's the main show. He's the main deal.

Crossing Trump that way isn't great. And as we noted in the piece, one advisor had said that Lake, you know, she was going around a little bit too much and kind of trying to shake the trees when it came to, you know, being a VP pick. So that didn't sit well. And then, you know, another component of this is there was a headline, of course, in a fellow IAC brand, if you will, People Magazine, which had said that Carrie Lake was spending more time at Marlago than Melania Trump.

That headline alone, as we know, So ticks off, Trump. I mean, those types of headlines. Trump, of course, he gets printed out stories after story after story, and he runs through a stack of papers or whatever have you. Typically, many of these types of stories will just kind of go to the waistbin or whatever. But stories about Melania Trump, I mean, really kind of get extra scrutinized, you know, ultimately, quite frankly, because I think he hears about it when he has to see her and

when they meet for dinner or whatever have you. And Melania Trump and her people are very cognizant of the headlines. And of course, this really just didn't. sit well and one of his advisors had conveyed this to me. So I think Lake's kind of definitely in the bottom, you know, with Trump and his top folks really souring on her. And quite frankly, them proposing other people to me. I was talking with one advisor, you know, they were really big on Tim Scott. Another advisor has been really big on Byron Donald's, of course, the lawmaker from Florida. So you have a couple different people in there. I think with Trump, you never know which way he

might go with some of this. But it does seem like Lake is definitely on the bottom. at least right now. Yeah, look, I am absolutely in awe that a Trump advisor told you about Carrie Lake, quote, she's a shameless, ruthless demagogue who wants power and will do whatever she has to do to get it. And I just, if there were awards for lacking a sense of irony, I mean, this would be a unanimous consent kind of thing. I can't even think of a potential rival to this quote. You know, sometimes you have different people spin you in Trump world and sources that are out for their own agenda and stuff like that. But sometimes ultimately when you get talking to these people and when you really kind of dig into them, they ultimately might share, you know, kind of a nugget of truth. And that might come with a side of irony.

Zach, thank you so much for being here. I love reading your stuff. Appreciate you so much. Thanks so much for having me, Andy. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder.

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