The Daily Beast Podcast - How Trump Turned Asians Into a Target

Episode Date: March 19, 2021

It didn’t have to be this way.  The coronavirus pandemic didn’t have to become politicized—or racialized. But last March, President Donald Trump “decided to call coronavirus, which has no ethnicity or zip code or nationality, the China virus,” says Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali on the 100th episode of The New Abnormal. “There was no reason to make coronavirus a racist thing,” co-host Molly Jong-Fast adds.  Now, not only are people of Chinese descent coming under attack across the U.S., but other Asians—because “bigots aren’t nuanced,” adds Ali, who wrote about the wave of anti-Asian hate for the Beast before the Atlanta massage parlor murders. “As a Muslim, as a son of Pakistani immigrants, we’ve been through this for the past 20 years,” he tells Jong-Fast. “And I realized that that story in America is the original story that gets a remake, and sometimes the villain just gets changed, right? So right now it’s Chinese or the Chinese, whoever looks Chinese. It’s been Muslims. It’s always African-Americans, it’s Latinos. We’re all the invaders.”  “It’s a society-wide problem,” he says, “that requires a society-wide solution.” After Ali tells Jong-Fast why we’ve got to nuke the filibuster, she welcomes freshman Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) on the podcast to talk about the pandemic and how the vaccine campaign is going. “The United States is probably in the best position, except maybe for Israel, throughout the world, in terms of vaccinating its population,” Auchincloss says.  Still, he cautions: “Not to be a Debbie Downer, but this problem of cold storage is very much still with us. If you look at countries near the Equator, we are nowhere near herd immunity. And indeed we’re looking at late 2022, early 2023 to hit that tipping point. And there the cold storage supply chain is very much an issue.” The U.S. needs to develop a Marshall Plan for vaccines, he says, because “we’re in a race right now between vaccinations and variants, and it doesn’t help the United States if we win it domestically and lose it internationally.” Lastly, Jong-Fast brings on Evan McMullin, former 2016 presidential candidate and former CIA officer, to talk about how the GOP is changing. The last five years, he says, were not an “anomaly” for the party. “We were headed towards that for decades,” he says. “And I don’t see us getting past the last five years immediately either. I think there is that opportunity, but you know, it, it will take time.” McMullin says he’s still a registered Republican but is not sure how long he’ll stay that way, given the “current direction” of the party. 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 Rick & Molly 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 Jongfast 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 upside down. On the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and figure out how we get our out of it. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure everything doesn't go too far off the rails. While we have fun discussions about our world gone mad, and while I take that duty seriously, ourselves, not so much.

On today's episode, Congressman Jake Conacloss is going to be talking to us about a host of issues, including the minimum wage. And then Evan McMullen, who's a former 2016 presidential candidate, is going to talk to us about how the Republican parties change and what he hopes to see in the future. But first, Wajali, who's a columnist for The Daily Beast, is going to talk to us about Asian American racism and the filibuster. Hi, Waj. Welcome to the new abnormal. I feel like the cool kid who finally got the invite to the cool kids party. But I'm the dork, right?

Like, and Chet and Travis. Oh, stop. Is she stop it? Chad and Travis and Jennifer, like, always threw these parties and had meatloaf. And I always just like, what's meatloaf? And then, like, I heard that you guys, like, wear shoes in your home. I'm like, I want to do that. Now I'm here. I feel so excited.

You just wrote about anti-Asian hate. Talk to me about it. Yeah, so, you know, we wrote this piece a week and a half ago. And obviously, it's one of those pieces that you wish you would never write. And there was just this surge of anti-Asian hate to the point where stop AAPI hate is a group that started as a result of this just to deal with this recent search, right? And AAPI, for those who don't know, is Asian American Pacific Islander. And specifically, the stat that was alarming to me was from last March, December, they reported 3,000 incidents of anti-Asian hate. Now, the number is probably much higher because we know, like, people underreport these

incidents. And it was only between March and December. So if you're listening right now, you're like, huh, what happened last March? Well, last March, if you recall, then President Trump decided to call coronavirus, which has no ethnicity or zip code or nationality, the China virus, China virus, and he also called it Kung Flu. Yeah. And then I think it was Yamish and other reporters who asked him in the White House press

conference, why are you calling it that? He goes, I just want to be accurate. And so, lo and behold, this doubling down an amplification of, quote, China virus by writing media, starting last March, lo and behold, creates a climate in which anyone who looks Chinese becomes the target. And so I'll give you two examples of how bigots aren't nuanced. Recently, an 84-year-old Thai man was killed. He's from Thailand, not China.

And last year, in a grocery store in Texas, a father from Myanmar and his two sons were knived because the man blamed them for being from China and they're from Myanmar. And so the only reason I wrote it is because I felt like, number one, it was a huge topic that no one was talking about. And number two, as a Muslim, as a son of Pakistani immigrants, we've been through this for the past 20 years. And I realize that that story in America is the original story that it gets a remake. And sometimes the villain just gets changed, right? So right now it's Chinese or the Chinese, whoever looks Chinese, it's been Muslims.

It's always African Americans. It's Latinos. We're all the invaders. And so I feel like, okay, we all have to step up and stand up and say that this is an American problem that deserves an American solution. and we have to say no to this hate. And we have to also call out the climate that has allowed this hate to flourish. And the final thing I'll say is this hate doesn't happen

in a vacuum. Again, what caused the surge of nearly, now it's about 4,000 incidents? Last March, the President and States, the commander of chief, the man who decided to call Mexicans rapists and criminals, the man who decided to do a Muslim ban, the man who told four U.S. Congresswoman of color

to go back to where they came from, made a decision to call coronavirus, Chinese virus. And then a week and a half ago, if you remember, Molly, when you did his, tweet posing as a press release, he again called coronavirus the China virus. Yes, I do. And he's sort of relished in this kind of racism. What do you think we can do?

Well, so, you know, this is where Biden administration and where leadership matters is on January 26th, Biden did an executive order saying that we have to condemn xenophobia and anti-Asian racism, right? So I think people underestimate the power of the commander-in-chief and leader of the country setting the tone and the rhetoric. And I'll give one, one credit to George W. Bush, just one. But after 9-11, he was very clear in his speech that, you know, this is not a war against Islam and, you know, Muslim women who wear hijab. I don't want them to feel threatened. He went out of his way to say that, which was important. Words matter. Now you compare and contrast that Trump, who's calling it China virus. So you have that type of leadership. You have the executive order. Two weeks ago, you had the

Biden administration, the Justice Department, meeting with Asian American leaders. Those are the folks, right on the ground, the community leaders who live this. You have to talk to them about what their community needs. And what they're saying, the community needs is, number one, take this seriously. Number two, educate America and law enforcement about this threat. Number three, investigate it, report it, prosecute it, right? And we also need a media narrative and a campaign. I think this is where you and I come in, right, to raise awareness about this issue.

Because oftentimes the whole concept of racism and white supremacy in America, it's only told through a white and black prism. And it kind of just erases everyone else. And when it comes to Asian Americans, what's really bad about it is that there's this myth of the model minority that is used actually to both enforce white supremacy and as a wedge against black people. So I'll give you an example. My father came here after 1965, after the Immigration Nationality Act, right? And a lot of Asian and South Asians came after 1965. And because they, you know, were able to get an education or become upper middle class. Oftentimes, this model minority stereotype says, you Asians, you are the good minority. You're the good immigrant. You don't rock the boat. You pull yourself up from your bootstraps.

You don't whining complain. You're not on the welfare. Why can't the blacks be like you? Totally damaging, totally harmful, totally inaccurate, totally flattens all of us, removes all of our challenges, removes all of the hate against us and uses us to attack black people, right? And Latinos. So you've got to kill the model minority stereotype, and you need one more, more than one narrative of this thing called Asian American, right? That's the power of storytelling. So it takes what I call the multicultural Avengers to step up. It's a society-wide problem that requires a society-wide solution. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

I think that you're right, and I think that it's just awful. And again, it's like such a weird thing because it's not weird, obviously, but it could be prevented. that all of this could have been prevented. Like there was no reason to make coronavirus a racist thing, right? Except that Republicans just enjoy that. Well, he knows it would appeal to his base, right? And so, I mean, like you say China virus, okay, you want to capitalize on China being the number one threat. You want to capitalize on you being tough against China.

All right, maybe. But then what's your excuse for Kung Flu? And then when you double down on it after Asian American reporters and communities are telling you, yo, this is harming us. Like people feel afraid to go out. People are being spit at. People are being assaulted. People are being told, go back to where you come from.

They still double down on it. And I'll tell you again, this is the same guy in the midterms. Let's take it back to 2018. At that time, President Trump is riding a bullish economy, right? He just got this awesome report about job growth. He decides to literally run the entire 2018 midterms on one talking point. Invasion, caravan, rapists, criminals. And then we had to entertain this myth of economic anxiety,

which is just like the zombie narrative that never. It's like Michael Myers. You want to kill it and it never does because in this country, we refuse to call out racism as racism and we refuse to talk about white supremacy. So it's like, why is he saying that? Well, maybe Donald Trump is racially charged. He had a racial flare up.

No, he's racist. And his base, according to all the studies, responds to him primarily, not exclusively due to racial anxiety. And so it, you know, Trump and Republicans like, hey, our base loves this, our base needs a villain. We need to attack somebody on Fox News 24-7. Let's attack the Chinese and let's call it the China virus. And let me deflect all my F-ups as president during a pandemic that is killed over half a million people and outsource it to China.

And lo and behold, in this climate, people go, I need something to beat up. I'm angry. I'm pissed off. Ah, that person looks Asian-y and Chinese-y. Let me go punch them. And one last thing I'll say, if you let me, is that this doesn't happen in a vacuum, Molly. I think people forget that this is part and parcel of U.S. history. Like, the first immigration law that was passed, one of the first major ones was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. And the reason that was passed was to placate the, quote, economic anxiety of white workers at that time, at that time.

And the politicians decided to attack the Asian American community and Chinese workers as the yellow peril during an election year. It's a remake. It's a remake. That's a good point. I mean, with terrible consequences, but a good point. Today, you wrote on the filibuster. You want to talk to us about the filibuster? Yeah, I say we got to nuke the filibuster.

I mean, I see Joe Biden two days ago on ABC News interview. He, for the first time, gave his most robust support for reforming the filibuster. And for those of you don't know, right, the filibuster is this archaic tool used in the Senate that is not part of the Constitution. That would completely be anathema to like Alexander Hamilton and the founding fathers, right, that allows minority rule, right? It requires 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate. And basically, it has been used historically to block civil rights progress. And in modern times, it's been used by Mitch McConnell, who with pride, has called himself

the grim reaper to turn the Senate into like a graveyard for progress. And so here we are with a slim majority. You got 50-50. You have black voters who gave us Georgia and Senator Wernock. and Asoff. You got black voters who turned and flipped Georgia blue. You got Joe Biden, who probably has a year and a half, Molly, to get stuff done before the midterms, because the midterms don't look good for the Democrats because of gerrymandering, because of voter suppression, just because of history, whoever becomes the president that his side usually loses big, right? And while this is happening,

in front of our face, Republicans are openly and nakedly and shamelessly promoting over 250 voter suppression bills in around 47 states explicitly to attack black and democratic voters to basically steal the election. Now, people say, why don't you nuke the filibuster so you can take it to a simple majority, which we have, where Kamala Harris will come and give that 51st vote, and we can pass the John Wright's Voting Act bill. We can pass for the people bill, right, the Senate version of the House bill. We can expand voting rights. We can limit gerrymandering. We can expose dark money. You know, we can literally win this election. Oh, we could also do infrastructure.

Oh, we could also do gun control. And maybe we need gun control after eight people were just killed in Atlanta. Oh, we could also do infrastructure. But then you have Joe Mansion and cinema. Here's my question for you about this. A lot of people want to nuke the filibuster. I personally think it's a good idea. But we had Adam Gentleson on here twice talking about the filibuster.

Damn, twice. We're big filibuster people, and we believe in nuking it, or at least I do. But my question for you is, how does this not then become a case? that gets kicked up to the Supreme Court. Right? So pass the John Lewis voter rights bill, which says, you know, you can't gerrymander districts without, you know, some kind of approval

and you can't remove voting, you know, you can't remove poll locations an hour before the election and all this stuff that Republicans love to do to screw Democrats. Okay, so say all that happens, there are going to be, you know, 15 conservative groups bringing lawsuits in order

to try to kick that up to the Supreme Court. And when it goes to the Supreme Court, you have three Trump justices. How will you possibly get around that? This might be bold, but you expand the courts, right? I mean, if you go tit for tat that way, okay, expand the courts. You stole two, right? Mitch McConnell obstructed, denied Merrick Garland a hearing,

and then created a rule, which he then reneged on to bumrush Justice Barrett. And by the way, Mitch McConnell, who's whining and complaining about scorched earth and talking about pendulum swinging, And, like, you know, he's terrified. Who nuked the filibuster for Supreme Court's nominations? 2017. Mitch McConnell.

That's how he got Gorsuch. So, you know, I say it's time for hardball. Because this, look, I get it. I understand the politics behind this, right? You can't use the word nuke, and you have to get Mansion and cinema, and they have to prove their independence reek, and they're courting this phantom moderate base. And yeah, I get, I get it. I get to the whole theatrics.

But we don't have time, Molly. That's the problem. We don't have time. And so how long are you going to milk this to try to push Joe Manchin? Because Joe Manchin knows what's up. He wants to go back to West Virginia and say, guys, I tried everything. I really want to get you this infrastructure and jobs, right? Give them something.

Like, say, infrastructure. But guess what? The Republicans don't want to do anything. And look, I got you these checks, which is super popular. And 75% of America loves their relief bill. But guess how that happened? There's something called reconciliation because no Republican will vote for it. So I got to just nuke the filibuster.

When are you going to do that? And how are you going to promote that? You're not going to have time. And so I'm actually thinking about the long term and short term. I'm worried about the fragility of our democracy. And I've always said that the Republican Party will not moderate after Trump leaves. I predicted, and I didn't take a genius that they will further radicalize and weaponize. And lo and behold, I give you January 6th. Yeah, I mean, that was sort of in the name of Trump. But yeah, I see where you're going with that. I actually think that more than Manchin, the problem is going to be cinema. Because she is actually, Manchin has said he's sort of open to it. He's more open to it. The other thing you could do if you're, if you don't want Republicans to be able to say that you've nuked the filibuster is you can, you know, do a talking filibuster and get a few of these bills through. You know, look, so I don't disagree with the process. Joe Biden did what he had to do at that time because you have to basically weaken it, weekend and weekend and weaken it. Right. I get what he's doing. But I also feel like some of us, it's a push and pull, right? So some of us have to put it all in the line and tell people what's at stake. And what I said in the piece and I think I just said it on Twitter, and I agree with this. You can either be on the side of the filibuster and Jim Crow or you could be on the side of democracy and voting rights. There's no. both sides. There just isn't. Because how can you, as a Democrat, go to Georgia, okay, Biden and Kamala are going to Georgia on Friday, right, to promote the relief bill? So you're going to go to Georgia, we're going to be meaning to black activists and leaders and voters, and you're going to say, hey, I'm for the filibuster, which, by the way, President Obama called a Jim Crow relic, and Stacey Abrams, who helped deliver Georgia

said has to be removed. And Senator Warnock said as an impediment of voting rights. And by the way, I'm for this filibuster, which will block the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and, by the way, the Four of the People Act. And I'm going to do this while I know that Republicans are aggressively trying to suppress your votes in Georgia. But I'm for Senate traditions and I'm for bipartisanship. Vote for me. How can you say that with a straight face to these black voters, in particular in Georgia, who helped overcome immense voter suppression by Brian Kemp to actually deliver you the state. And so those are the stakes that we're dealing with, in my opinion. No, I agree. This was so great. Thank you so much for coming on. You were great. No, thank you for, I filibustered on

your podcast. I had no intention. There's a lot of filibustering that goes on on this podcast, and it's absolutely fine. We appreciate it. Representative Jacob Conachauce is a freshman congressman from Massachusetts fourth congressional district. Hi, welcome to the new abnormal. Thank you so much for. joining us today, Representative. Thanks for having me on. It's fantastic. So talk to me about the two things that I, the thing I really want to talk to you about first

is how do you know about cold storage and vaccine shipping, etc? Can you explain to us about that? I can talk for too long about that. I grew up in a life sciences family and I represent a life sciences district. I like to brag that President Biden could have staffed his entire COVID response team from the Massachusetts 4th alone. And so I take very seriously my obligation to really have differentiated impact in Congress on the question of life sciences from R&D through manufacturing, through storage and distribution.

And in my district, we have all of that. We have people who are leading the charge on MRNA vaccines. And we also have companies like cold chain that are building the storage and distribution supply chain for the distribution of biologics. It's representative of the opportunity facing Massachusetts right now, which is, as we confront the post-pandemic world, there's a tremendous opportunity. We should be doing not just world-leading R&D, but also be the manufacturing and logistics hub for life sciences worldwide as well.

There's increasing political pressure to domesticate our supply chain. There's increasing economic interest in having the makers close to the inventors. and I want to be leading the charge on that here in Washington. This is like something very close to my heart because I was in the Pfizer trial as a guinea pig. So I am very, you know, and I had it. My trial was at Yale. And so I had to, you know, very early on, they took the vaccine out of the deep freeze and they let it thaw for 30 minutes. You know, it was a whole thing.

So I'm curious to know, are you surprised at how well it's gone? I am not surprised that science has come to the rescue. I think if you were given a scorecard over the last year to our various institutions of political and civic life, the life sciences would get an A for just stepping up in this last year. And no, I'm not surprised at all that we have seen brilliant people develop a vaccine and we have seen great ingenuity in the manufacturing and distribution of it. Unfortunately, I'm also not surprised that we've seen federal leadership fall short. Yeah. When we talked about this this summer with the rollout with the MRNAs, there was a real fear that we weren't going to be able to find places that would have this super cold storage and have people be able to administer this vaccine. Like, I feel like we don't spend enough time. I was reading about the AstraZeneca problems this morning, you know, with the approval stuff. And we are in such a good position. We have three EUA vaccines approved vaccines. I mean, I feel like it's kind of amazing. The United States is probably in the best position, except maybe for Israel throughout the world in terms of vaccinating its population. Not to be a Debbie Downer, but this problem of cold storage is very much still with us. If you look at countries near the equator, we are nowhere near herd immunity. And indeed, we're looking at late 2022, early 2023 to hit that tipping point.

And there, the cold storage supply chain is very much an issue. Johnson and Johnson's approval obviously is a big help because that's a single dose. and that doesn't require sub-zero, but we still have significant work to do on this front. And the United States really needs to launch a Marshall Plan for vaccines. We in America have, we're sitting on a ton of AstraZeneca. Don't you think that America should give that AstraZeneca to some of the countries where it's been approved? Well, I mean, AstraZeneca is going to be up for approval here in the United States.

So I don't think that it's incumbent on the United States to be distributing vaccines globally when they still could be used here. and they're not going to be, they're not perishable in a time frame that it's going to take for them to get approved. So I don't think I would necessarily put that point on it. But what I would totally accept in the premise of your question is that the United States has both a self-interested and a moral obligation to be vaccinating the world. And I really mean that. No, I agree. Seven billion people.

Well, and I hope that that's going to be our next step because we, but supposedly, as Biden has said by May, we're going to have enough vaccines for all Americans. And as you and I both know, the reason why you have to vaccinate everyone is because if you let the virus go, the variants will come back and who knows what you'll get. We're in a race right now between vaccinations and variants. And it doesn't help the United States if we win it domestically and lose it internationally. Yeah. And Brazil is a great example of this, unfortunately. We've seen a new Brazil variant emerge. That variant seems to be a pretty nasty strain.

And if we're not helping Brazil, we're not helping America. Right. So talk to me about the other thing that you're particularly passionate about or were historically is early childhood education, right? That's how you got into politics to begin with. The very first issue I ever campaigned on as a candidate for city council six years ago was expanding pre-K and early education. I'm proud to say we made progress on that in Newton when I, during my tenure as a city counselor. And unfortunately, it is more relevant than ever. What's happened with in-person learning over the last. year is a tragedy. I use that word deliberately, understanding the scope of the tragedy we've seen with this pandemic. The loss of in-person learning, especially for younger kids, is a tragedy. It's going to lead to mental health outcomes. It's going to undermine numeracy and literacy for an entire cohort of kids. And let us take this crisis as an opportunity to invest in early education and

early child care as true socioeconomic infrastructure. I read this David Lionheart's New York Times, letter every morning. And he wrote this morning that there's been a real partisan divide on COVID. And in a way that I hadn't even thought about it, which was that I had actually thought about it, but it's still kind of a damning, a dime and deemate of liberals as well, which is that liberals really overcorrected in a way that may have been harmful as it comes to the schools. And I'm curious to know what you think about that. I think the Democrats need to be the party of science. And being the party of science, a year ago meant enforcing mask wearing. It meant using the best evidence we had available,

which was that six feet seemed to be the appropriate distance. And it meant, you know, investing obviously in the vaccine R&D. Now we have science that tells us that schools are safe, that three feet is safe, that if you open the windows in schools, that's very effective in terms of improved ventilation. So let's follow the science again. You talked about the Marshall Plan. So you have some relatives who were involved in the Marshall Plan? I do. You've done your research, yeah. Where do we go with the Marshall Plan from here? And what is your vision for that? My vision for that is recognizing that it's not about money. It's about manufacturing bandwidth. The Biden administration gave $5 billion to Kovacs facility. Kovacs is the global vaccination effort.

And we could give another $5 billion. And I think we should. And I think that's good. but we need to recognize where the actual bottleneck is. And the bottleneck is not really financial. It's literally the equipment necessary to produce biologics. That stuff, which I think will surprise nobody is very high end. And the people who are skilled enough to operate it are not everywhere. We need a much broader, deeper government and private sector partnership in Massachusetts, again, not to brag in my district, but really could be the epicenter for that, where we are massively scaling up manufacturing. We've seen this with the Seram Institute in India, but that's a very brittle reliance. They had a fire there a couple weeks ago. It thankfully did not damage the COVID vaccine production

lines, but it could have. And if the Serum Institute in India goes out of production, we are in serious trouble. We need much more resilience than that. Yeah, no, I agree. One of the things I feel like you're going to be into, even though I have no evidence to support this, but is this idea of a public Works program or a year of service. Where are you on that? This is an issue that I want to give a shout out to actually a former opponent of mine and the primary, Alan Casey, who's really been a leader on this issue with City Year and then with AmeriCorps. I'm a big believer in service. I think too much the military becomes the definition of what public service looks like or elected office. And I grew up in a family that was scientists and doctors and they talked about what they did

as public service. And I think we need to have a more expansive definition for the next generation where service is about improving the community around you, whether that's at the local or the global level. And I'm absolutely an advocate for making our young people invest themselves in missions that are bigger than them. My friends who are libertarians were enraged at Mayor Pete's idea of a year of public service, but I think it's like very exciting. And I know Bernie Sanders had an idea of a climate corp, you know, of young people doing a year doing that. I mean, do you think there's any world in which that happens? I am skeptical about the federal government directing the energies of an entire cohort of

people for an entire year. I am a market Democrat. I believe that the market is usually the best way to allocate resources to the highest and best purpose. And so I would be skeptical of, you know, a group of. Washington officials telling a bunch of people exactly how they're going to spend their time for a year. But I do think that we can use funding mechanisms that give people the freedom for that year to then go out and do what truly makes them passionate. Right. It definitely seems like young adulthood in American life hasn't completely been figured out.

What's it like being in Congress right now? I mean, I've interviewed a bunch of Congress people, all Democrats, but someday we'll get a Republican. But it seems like it's pretty contentious. I mean, yes, it's contentious. I don't think that would surprise most people. We are in a situation right now where the House GOP is really, I think, locked in an internecine fight about what kind of party it wants to be. And I'm not able to predict how that's going to roll out. And it's something that's going to have to be resolved, I think, within the ranks of the GOP. But giving a standing ovation to Marjorie Taylor Green because she thinks I own space lasers is not a great look.

And not a great look. It's a bad sign. And that doesn't reflect the entire GOP. I have been establishing relationships with members of the Republican Party where we can find common ground on national security, on climate change, because I'm sent here to Congress to work with people with whom I disagree. That is my job. It's also my job, though, to represent the values of my constituents and people who subvert our constitutional institutions, people who spread sedition, people who incite conspiracy theories are not upholding democratic values. My constituents want me to hold the line on that, and I respect that. Yeah, I'm curious, I want my representative to hold the line on that, too. Do you think there's a world in which these people ever get held accountable? Like, we heard stories of a certain GOP congresswoman giving tours the day before, the insurrection. Like, we haven't heard much more of that.

That is still, there are bills and efforts in Congress to have transparent fact-finding about exactly what happened. I do think that there will be accountability. And there's a difference between on the House floor exercising your right as a member of Congress to disagree with one another and even to say inflammatory things. That is a protected right. There's a difference between that and actively inciting insurrection. And I think we've got to be very clear about where that line is. And yes, hold people accountable for it. I was one of the first members of Congress to call for Marjorie Taylor-Dream, for example, to be expelled from her committees because inciting political violence goes outside those guardrails.

Do you think that there is a future where Democrats in Congress, or, I mean, it would be nice if it were bipartisan, but I think that's unlikely, we'll be able to, you know, really hold these people. I mean, I guess being stripped of your committees is being held accountable, but there's certainly more going, I mean, Mo Brooks spoke at the stop the steel rally. Yes. Actually, I called for his censure as well. I want to take that word bipartisan and sort of unpack it a little bit because I think there's a real difference between unity and bipartisanship. And you can have unity without having bipartisanship. And I think Americans want unity and recognize that unifying initiatives can oftentimes be launched on a partisan basis. I look at some of the most important legislation in American history, in fact, everything from the 13th Amendment to the Great Society, were largely partisan pieces of legislation that have now become touchstones for the American body politic. The American Rescue Plan is a great example of that. American Rescue Plan is roaringly popular in this country. passed on strict partisan lines. So I feel like that is a unifying piece of legislation.

It's about helping people, even though it's not a bipartisan piece of legislation. Speaking of unifying ideas that are not bipartisan, minimum wage, you support a $15 minimum wage, as do most people. Where are we with that? And is that, I mean, is that possible? Is that ever going to happen? I think it's possible. I think the bill, as it was included in the ARP initially, is going to be tough in the Senate. To be blunt, I think even with some Senate Democrat,

that's going to be tough. And here's an issue where members of Congress need to be open to negotiation. We can say, we can lay down, we want a $15 minimum wage across both tipped and non-tip sectors for all age cohorts. This is what we want. But we also have to come to the table with moderate Democrats and with moderate Republicans and say, all right, what can we get passed? Do we need to give states more latitude? Do we need to have an alternative youth minimum wage. Do we need to have some daylight for the tipped minimum wage? Like, let's roll up our sleeves and negotiate. That is what we're here in Congress to do. Yeah, that's really good. This is great. Thank you so much, Representative. I enjoyed it. Thank you for having me on.

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To become a member, head to newabnormal. That's new abnormal.thedailybeast.com. Evan McMullen is a former 2016 presidential candidate as well as a former CIA officer, and today he's going to talk to us about how the Republican Party's changing. Welcome Evan McMullen. Good to be with you, Molly. Good to hear your voice. I'm so excited to have you.

You're also, I sometimes say this, but it's true. You're actually my friend. Yeah, that's true. And you have like the greatest life story ever. But first, I want to talk to you about what the hell happened to your political party? Well, look, I think a lot of people are asking the question now, you know, what is its future? And there's built into some of that discussion, the assumption that what happened over the last four to five years just happened suddenly and a new direction could happen just as suddenly. And I don't actually think that's the way it is. I mean, look, the Republican Party was founded as an anti-slavery party. Our first president, Abraham Lincoln, sort of, personified values that were consistent with our national values and enabled the party to actually provide leadership to the country at a critical time. Of course, that was a long time ago.

And in recent decades, the party lost its way, abandoned its own and American principles. And then we ended up getting Trump, you know, decades later. And we're not going to move away from that kind of leadership or that kind of ideology very quickly. And so it's going to take a lot of time. And the question is, can the Republican Party be reformed and be made healthy along an acceptable timeline? Or do we have to start something new, a new faction, something maybe more formally organized in certain states where the Republican Party is just no longer even competitive? That's the question, you know, what timeline can the Republican Party reform along? And if it's not an acceptable timeline, what needs to be done?

I think that's the question. But this is not going to be the last five years I don't see as an anomaly. We were headed towards that for decades. And I don't see us getting past the last five years immediately either. I think there is that opportunity, but it will take time. You are Republicans still now. I'm a registered Republican at the moment. For most of my adult life, I've been a registered independent, although conservative, and I had always worked within the Republican Party space in formal ways and informal ways. But I am at the moment a registered Republican, but I don't really define myself so much by my party registration as much as I do by what I stand for. What are the ideas and the principles that I think are important? And those are the things that I've always wanted to, I've always fought for. and hoped to do so from within a party and specifically within the Republican Party.

But, you know, my party registration is not as important to me as it is for a lot of people. And I don't know how much longer I will remain registered as a Republican Party. I don't feel like the party represents me very well. It's current direction. And so, you know, I hope for a better day. I think the country needs two healthy parties. As long as we're a two-party system, we need two parties that are committed to democracy and truth and decency and our ideals. And we should all fight for those things, no matter how we're

registered. But yeah, that's where I stand now. But don't you feel like in Adam Kinsinger or even, I mean, I'm no, trust me, I'm no Cheney fan, but don't you feel like that these couple of House Republicans more accurately represent you or now? Yeah, they do. And that's, that's a good thing that's happening is that we have Republicans in Congress who are standing up a few of them. It's not many, admittedly, but standing up advocating for a new direction for the party. And the reason why that's a good thing is, and gives some cause for cautious optimism, is that for the last five years, we saw nothing of the sort among congressional Republicans. And so I think the fact that you see that now represents the reality that 20 to 30 percent of the party wants a new direction for it. And so you

that's enough to start seeing representation in Congress, whereas over the last four years, it was something like 90, 95% of the party at certain times were supportive of the party's direction. So that represents a, you know, people like me have fought for a new direction for the party for the last five years with 10 to 15%, sometimes much less, sometimes 5% of the party. now I think it's more like 20 to 30 percent. And so, you know, look, we're making our case and pulling more people to our side. It's still not enough to change the direction of the GOP in the immediate moment. But again, these things don't happen quickly. But the trends are favorable, although still indicate a great deal of challenge for those of us who want a reformed Republican Party.

I don't know if you read this, but I read Punchball this morning. I haven't seen it. I read that and a couple of other newsletters in the morning. And it was an entire issue about what do Republicans stand for. And the problem, I mean, one of the many problems with Trump besides racism, sexism, fascism, what is that he actually, in a lot of ways has a sort of reverse stance on all of the kind of traditional Republican platform. That's right. On many issues, whether it be fiscal responsibility or at least stated fiscal responsibility, trade, and, and many other issues, our alliances, our free state alliances, these kinds of things, national security.

But I think there's a core part of the Republican Party now that really doesn't care about those things in reality. It's, you know, many of the primary voters in the party are more interested in seeing their leaders fight a culture war, which is why you find Kevin McCarthy, you know, spending his time that, you know, the Senate or the House minority leader, the leader of the Republicans in the House, reading green eggs and ham in a video that he shared a couple of weeks ago, which is quite remarkable. I mean, we're in the middle of, well, hopefully at the tail end of a pandemic. Many Americans experiencing economic hardship. We've lost almost 550,000 of our fellow citizens. And this is how, you know, the leader of the House Republicans is spending this time, literally reading green eggs and ham to make some culture war point that,

won't improve the lives of any American. Not a single American will have an improved life because Kevin McCarthy decided to take the time to do that or other among his colleagues, others among his colleagues, you know, arguing about Mr. Potato Head. I barely even understand that controversy because I can't bring myself to pay attention to it. It's too stupid. Honestly, it is. But you know, that's what many of the primary voters in the party want to see. They want to see this culture war. And unfortunately, for them, I think they're going to find is that that's not what the rest of the country wants. And meanwhile, the Democrats are governing. And of course, they're doing things that Republicans don't support and, you know, even sane Republicans, you know, have, you know, concerns about.

But they're governing as Democrats. And they're governing. Meanwhile, Republicans are talking about culture war issues that, again, please the primary voting base or some of them, but don't actually help any American, don't lead the country forward. And I don't think help them win elections that will end up deciding who controls the House and the Senate and the White House in the future. And so it's really just a question of when is the party collectively going to realize that this culture war is a political loser, just like it's been for the past four years. You were at, I'd love to ask you about this and you love to not answer, but I'm going to ask you about it again because I have you here. You were at that meeting where McCarthy is recorded as saying, I think Putin pays Trump.

Yeah, I was at that meeting. Yeah, I was at that meeting. And I was at, you know, other meetings where the issue of Trump and Russia were discussed. And there was discussion about what the Russians were doing. to Western democracies and, you know, acknowledgement of Trump's issues and including the potential that in that conversation that Trump had been compromised by Russia or that Russia had some undue influence over him. I mean, that was, there was awareness. I mean, that's, I mean, this is something that happened now five years ago. It's just, I think it's, you know, perhaps still

relevant now in that the Republican Party leadership was willing to turn a blind eye to a real threat to our self-government, to our Democratic Republic, personified through a candidate that had risen through the party's own ranks that was receiving help. We now understand receiving help from the Russian government in his election. And we've just seen a recent intelligence report that was released publicly or became known publicly that the Russians again tried to help Trump, although in a less successful way in 2020. And so, you know, this is part of the moral and patriotic decay of the party that needs to be corrected, where the party has put its own interests and individual leaders in the party have put their own

personal interests above the interests of the country. And it's even now, five years later, it's hard. for me to even just say that because I can't imagine that it's actually true. But that is exactly what has happened. Some of our leaders have put their own interests and the party interests, but more so their own personal interests above the interests of, you know, of over 300 million Americans and the broader interests of the country. And it speaks to a rot at the core of the party that needs to be corrected, no doubt about it. You were in the CIA for a long time and you have like the greatest CIA joining story ever, which I tell my second son all the time.

And he's very impressed. You have to talk to him on the phone one day. I would love to talk to him, by the way. Yeah, he was, I was telling him. But will you just tell us for two seconds this story? Because it is really amazing. We didn't have a lot of money when I was a kid. And so one way that we entertained ourselves was that my father on his way home from work on Fridays would pick up a stack.

And it was a literal stack of movies. from Blockbuster, you know, when you still rented them hard copy. And we would all sit around and, you know, my parents would cook popcorn and we'd watch these movies together. And one movie that my father brought home was three days of the Condor, which is an old Robert Redford spy film. And it's still one of the best spy films ever made, although, you know, certainly fantastic and not accurate in any way, but still fascinating and a great film. But it captured my attention. I think I was about 11 or 12 years old when I saw it, and it inspired me to read every book I could get my hands on about the agency. And then when I turned 15 or 16, one summer I was home,

and I think my parents were at work. And I was sitting on my parents' bed, and I grabbed the phone, and I dialed 4-1-1, because that's how you got phone numbers that you didn't know before the internet. And I asked to be connected to the CIA. And that was a little bit difficult to make happen. But in this condensed version of the story, I'll leave that aside. But finally, I got connected to the agency. And an older man answered the phone and said, hello. And I said, well, hello, is this a central intelligence agency? And he said, who are you calling for, sir? And that frustrated me because I thought, Well, just say who you are. You know, you're a government agency. Just identify yourself. And I said, I'm calling for the Central Intelligence Agency. Is this the CIA? And he still would not answer and asked me who I was calling for. And so I remembered in some of the books that I had read that there was a recruitment center. And that seemed like the most appropriate place to go. So I asked for the recruitment center. And he said very well. And he connected me to an office. And an assistant answered the phone and said, This is the recruitment center.

And I started talking to her about working for the Central Intelligence Agency. I thought, surely there must be something there. My parents worked me so hard at home. There must be something, some floor I could sweep or mop or something I could do to get started. And I remember asking them if, you know, I had an advanced belt in Taekwondo at the time. And I asked them, you know, would that make me more competitive? And of course, that signaled to the assistant there that I was probably too young and she asked how old I was. I told her and she said, you know, why don't you, she laughed and said, why don't you call back when you're older?

And so I waited for a couple of weeks and I had technically met her requirement. I was older. And I called back again and went through the same channel. And when I got to the receptionist, I asked for a recruitment officer. And I got a recruitment officer, an actual agency officer who was doing a rotation. and the recruitment work. And he and I would stay in touch for the next few years as I would graduate from high school

and then serve a mission for my church, the Church of Jesus Christ to Latterty Saints, the Mormons. And then to Brazil, and then I came back and reconnected with them. And when I was, I believe, a sophomore in college at Brigham Young University, I received an offer to become a student trainee with the CIA.

And then for the rest of my undergrad career, split my time between school and the eight It was quite a way to get started. This was so great. Thank you so much for coming on. Yeah, my pleasure. Hi, Jesse Cannon. Hi, Molly Jungfast.

So, we're so enthusiastic. Why are we so enthusiastic? I think it's because we have a very, very big milestone today. Today is our 100th full episode. 100. Think about that. And I once read a statistic. I don't know if it's still true.

that less than one percent of podcasts hit this milestone. So I'm going to have had us both on the back. I'm very impressed with us, but more with our wonderful listeners who continue to tune in, because that is really quite great. And that's who we should thank for getting us this far, because surely the Daily Beast would put an axe to our heads if we not have these wonderful listeners. Without you guys, we're just two people sitting in a room. Yes.

staring at the wall. So to give thanks for them, we have a fuck that guy that starts with the all-time remaining champion of fuck that guy. Could you tell us, Molly,

what your man has done? So I pride myself on my hostility towards Louis Gomer. You'll remember Louis Gomer from Texas's first district. He is just awful. He's awful in every way.

He's neither smart nor intelligent, neither intellectual nor verbose. Occasionally has aspersions cast on his asparagus. That's right. But he does, he did get COVID and he lost some teeth. So that was sad. And one of his other congressmen called him Congressman COVID, which was kind of mean. Do you remember that?

You know, I'm going to go as far as saying, don't call that one mean. Just call that nail on the head. Right. Accurate but mean. So Louis Gomer has, you know, they are the party of police, except when it comes to honoring the policemen who tried to protect them at the Capitol riots. Louis Gomer and the illustrious Marjorie Taylor Green, two of the dumbest Republican members of Congress, maybe the dumbest. Though, I do think we should put Lauren Bopert in that category. Oh, yes, yes.

Yes, MTG and Louis both voted against honoring this Capitol police officer who protected them during the January 6 riots, which they both supported the riots and not the police. And so I would say that Louis is back in the fuck that guy box. You know, we can't put him in every week, but we certainly can put him in a lot. And so Louis Gomer, fuck you. Yeah. And what is nice about this is this is a shame that they will wear around their necks and actually will be hit on this for the rest of their time in the public area because this is really truly despicable behavior. But my fuck that guy is not one that we do all the time. What?

You know, we got to keep it a little fresh when you hit 100. You don't want to be hitting the same notes all the time. Certainly true. So my fuck that guy is Congressman Mo Brooks, who was one of the people. Mo Brooks, Alabama's Mo Brooks. He helped incite the insurrection on January 6th, but instead of taking the hint where He was his speaker at the stop, the steel rally. So Mo has not taken the hint where many of his colleagues are thinking about holding him

responsible for that and casting him out of Congress. He's saying, nah, I got bigger plans. And Richard Shelby in Alabama has decided he's retiring. And Mo is doing a rally exploring, running for his seat with the large-headed alien from Mars attacks looking. Santa Monica Gerbils. Stephen Miller. I would like to point out about Mo Brooks that Ali Alexander actually said that Mo Brooks helped organize the stop the steel rally. That is correct.

And so for that, he thinks he should be rewarded with higher office. With his Senate seat. And for that, I reward him with a fuck that guy. I think that's a well-deserved one. 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.

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