The Daily Beast Podcast - Howard Dean: The Republicans Are Now a Neo-Fascist Party

Episode Date: April 23, 2021

The Republican Party has suffered a total moral collapse and is now held together by a bunch of “nutcases” happy to endorse autocracy and neo-fascism—or so says Howard Dean, former presidential candidate and ex-chairman of the Democratic National Committee. The Democratic Party grandee tells Molly Jong-Fast he won’t run for office again so he is no longer treading on eggshells. That’s bad news for the likes of Sen. Josh Hawley and Mike Pompeo, who are on the receiving end as the former governor lets loose on the “crazies,” the “whack jobs,” and the “conspiracy theorists,” in a fiery edition of The New Abnormal podcast. 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. Today we have an amazing episode with an awesome interview with former Vermont governor, former DNC chair in 2004 presidential candidate Howard Dean, who's going to talk to us all about how Democrats win in 2022 and what in the hell is going on with the Republican Party. But first, we're joined by the national politics correspondent at the Washington Post, Olivier Knox. So welcome to the new abnormal, Olivier Knox. Thank you very much.

We're excited to have you. You have, like, made a big career transition from radio back to print. Is that weird? So I did two years at Sirius XM hosting a radio show, but every time there was breaking news, I just instinctively pulled my laptop keyboard closer to me. So I think once a wire service hack, always a wire service hack. So there's no way. I mean, I just, I would never have described myself as a former print reporter.

So I'm really sort of, I'm back in my element. Hopefully that element will include audio components soon. But it's a big shift back. Can we talk about fake vaccine cards? We could talk about fake vaccine cards, sure. What the fuck? That's a great way to start, actually. Yeah.

So there's this booming market online for people who want to get, You know, those little four inch by three inch cards. Most often blanks sometimes filled in with the... With what? Basically, it looks like it's people who are refusing to get vaccinated who are putting more effort into getting a counterfeit vaccine card than they would have to put into getting the actual shot in the arm. But with this whole conversation about vaccine passports

and the idea that the private sector coupled with potentially state governments might say you need to show proof of having been vaccinated to go on this cruise to come see this movie, to have dinner in this restaurant. People are going online to pick up these very easily faked cards. It's so interesting, though, that you have, people are working harder for a passport that doesn't exist. Right. I mean, you know, I'm now fully cooked. I'm very grateful to the entire scientific community for producing this vaccine. And so I have my little card that has my, you know, my name, my birthday, the manufacturer, the lot number in the location. I want to say, you haven't really been vaccinated if you weren't vaccinated in the parking lot of a six flags amusement park.

I mean, every like couple minutes waiting in that line and you would hear in the distance the people screaming on the roller coaster, it really set the mood. Wow. But yeah, I mean, they're putting in all this work. They're putting in all this work to be able to fake having been vaccinated, which of course means that, one, they're still vulnerable. And if they get infected, they could spread it to people who cannot get vaccinated because of underlying health conditions. So it's just on balance, not especially helpful. You've had to write about just a lot of different subjects. And one of the things that I think you've written about really well that I've really appreciated is what's going on in Afghanistan.

I don't think we're talking about that quite enough. Can you explain to our listeners what's happening there? Sure. President Biden, who's always been skeptical of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, at least since he was vice president, there's a great story of him over Thanksgiving weekend of 2009, writing out this multi-page long form, so handwritten memo to Barack Obama, and then sending it to Obama via the classified facts,

which I think is definitely an artifact from another era. But he's always been skeptical. He campaigned on ending the American presence there. And so now he has said, we're going to start the final withdrawal on May 1st. It'll be wrapped up no later than September 11th of this year. So, you know, 20 years since the original attacks. he's gambling a little bit. I mean, the gamble is that the United States does not need to have boots on the ground in order to prevent Afghanistan from once again being a launch pad for terrorist groups.

For the Taliban. I've read a lot of stuff that says that September 11th is like a terrible day to withdraw troops. I mean, I don't think that's the most substantive objection to the Biden plan. Right. But that it's a Taliban, you know, a very celebratory Taliban day. And so that you're giving them a win in this small, way? I think, I mean, it's very, it's not, you know, the way that the Biden administration has approached every single deadline it has set for itself is that they, they seem to finish things before their self-imposed deadlines, right? So it's not impossible. I mean, they've done this on like the 100 million vaccines, the 200 million vaccines, you know, they basically, they do this kind of all the time. So it's not impossible that they'll have wrapped this before September 11th, but they needed

time because NATO allies, you know, all the various countries that have contributed forces to the effort in Afghanistan, they're not quite. as logistically limber as the United States is. So it's going to take them a little bit more time to collect their gear and get out. Does this seem like a disaster to you? I mean, do you think this is a good idea from what you've reported about it? Well, from what I've read about and the people I've talked to, I mean, it's interesting. My friends in the intelligence community have been calling for this for much longer than my friends in the military. They've been saying for years and years and years and years saying there is no good way to keep troops on the ground and solve this problem in

perpetuity. Remember, we've had troops in South Korea and in Germany and in Japan for basically forever, but they're never really at risk from hostile attacks. That's not true in Afghanistan. And one of the concerns was if the United States blew past the May 1st deadline, which was negotiated by Donald Trump and the Taliban last year, then the Taliban might decide, okay, well, you miss the deadline, so now we're going to help you, we're going to help convince you to get out by attacking American troops. But to answer your question, I don't think this is a, I don't think this is a disaster. I'm very interested to see how the military and how the intelligence community mitigate the problem of losing visibility, losing intelligence on the

ground in terms of extremist groups. That's something that the CIA director, Bill Burns, longtime career diplomat, widely respected. He testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that there was a significant risk that al-Qaeda and ISIS might try to reconstitute in Afghanistan. So I'm going to be watching to see how do they mitigate this. You know, it poses a lot of logistical challenges. The idea that you don't want Afghanistan to be a haven for terrorist is basically the number one American national security interest in Afghanistan. So it bears watching. But no, I don't think this is, I don't think this is a disaster. Interesting. I mean, I understand it now, but I never understood why we went into Afghanistan when we couldn't get out. But I am not a foreign policy. You know,

I have not, this is not my wheelhouse. So how do you feel that Biden's doing all in all? That's a really broad question. I think what I would say so far is the one thing that I've really taken note of is that he has governed more to the left than I expected. Yeah. I mean, I think you can't really throw a brick online without hitting that kind of analysis. But basically, I think it's generally the case that he's, he's been more assertive and more progressive than I expected him to be. He's not getting tripped up by the same stuff that tripped up Obama early on in 2009 and 2010, you know, waiting, hoping for Republican support for big initiatives when it never materializes. He has not waited for that stuff. He's pushed ahead with it. And frankly, as I said, he's governing more to the left. So that's

has been a surprise for me. It seems to me, and actually we had Howard Dean on talking about this, which I guess will be later in the show, right, Jesse? That he seems to think that the Republican Party is sort of beyond all hope, and that they've just gotten so like Dr. Seuss and sneakers that they can't even be reasoned with. But we are in a situation where if Democrats can't get 10 senators on board, they're not going to be able to pass any legislation.

Most of the Biden agenda cannot get through the Senate with this parliamentary procedure called reconciliation, which lets you get through with 50 votes plus Kamala Harris to break the tie. Most of the agenda can't. Yeah, you're right. And we're going to see fairly significant test of that fairly soon. You know, we have... The infrastructure? Infrastructure is one. So is police reform. Right. You know, there's an ongoing conversation between the sort of the lead Democrat on the issue,

Congresswoman Karen Bass, and then the lead. Republican Senator on the issue, Tim Scott of South Carolina. So we're going to see, there are going to be some tests on this stuff. We're going to see another test on infrastructure, which is we expect the Republicans to come forward with a much smaller proposal infrastructure, somewhere between $600 billion and $800 billion, which is much smaller than $2.5 trillion, I guess, that the president's proposing. So we'll see some tests. It looks like, I mean, this is famous last words, but it looks like the policing stuff is moving forward more steadily than I have expected. I often do this because I'm a masochist, but I try to think of like 10 Republican senators

who are not insane, and I can get to like five. Well, this is definitely, we're treading on sort of dangerous territory for me as a reporter, but I would say, again, we will have to, you know, we'll have to see this. You can see Republicans setting aside a lot of this stuff for some of President Biden's nominees. Lisa Monaco just sailed through to confirmation really, really easily. So it's not like Republicans are, you know, like holding at the ramparts refusing to approve anything Biden does. And we should say Biden's pushing them really hard. I mean, the idea that Republican senators would agree to roll back the 2017 Republican tax legislation.

I mean, that's a pretty heavy lift. Right. But the Tom Cotton's of the group are not approving any of the nominees. And like the Trumpy senators, it feels to me, and again, you can speak to this in a bipartisan way or maybe even a historic way. It feels to me like there are a group of Republican senators who have learned the message from Trump that everything is a culture war and you're not there to legislate. Right. So that is a, I mean, so I would say that that's a lesson that Republicans have been teaching themselves ever since Newt Gingrich. rose to become to become speaker. You know, nobody, no modern politician, I think, is more responsible for the current state of

political affairs than than the Newt Gingrich. He understood early on bomb-throwing backbencher. He was the first to really understand what the newly installed C-SPAN cameras in the back of the House chamber meant. You know, he'd get up there and give these stem-winding fire and brimstone speeches to an empty chamber. But on TV, you wouldn't see that it was an empty chamber. So it looked like he was, you know, a leader on this stuff.

I would say, I mean, this goes back a long way. I mean, Molly, you're too young to remember the late 1990s, I'm sure. Tell me more. But there was a stretch of time, there was a stretch of time, where, you know, the Wall Street Journal editorial page was suggesting that Hillary Clinton might have had a hand in Vince Foster's death. I'm aware. The famed heart attack gun. Right.

Senior House Republicans in 1998 were openly suggesting that Bill Clinton launched military operations to distract the American public. is impeachment. The head of the NRA was telling membership to shoot federal agents in places where they didn't have body armor. There was a whole conspiracy theory about numbers on the back of highway signs so that when the invading United Nations troops came, they knew where to go. All this to say, it's become more virulent and it's become certainly more widespread, but it's not that new. This stuff, these strains of really angry, paranoid conspiracy theories, these have always been in the body politic, and I guess particularly on the Republican side. In terms of today, though, Molly, I think we've to sort of do a Republican zoology here.

And the cotton part of this is interesting. Basically, anybody with 2024 aspirations is going to be mimicking Donald Trump in some way, right? So cotton, Cruz, Hawley, all those people, maybe to a slightly lesser extent, someone like Mark Rubio, they know where the base of the party is. The base of the party decides the primaries. So they're going to be catering to them. And so that explains that. What I'm kind of more intrigued by is the Ron Johnson wing of the Republican Party. You know, I don't think he's running for president. I don't know what he's doing. He's out there, almost, almost more than the Tom Cottons and Josh Holley's and the Ted Cruz is.

The calculus there seems bizarre. I'm not in Ron Johnson's head. I don't know what his goals are. You know, we're still waiting to see, I think we're still waiting to see whether he's even running for reelection. You know, they're all coming in. And then, of course, there are people, I won't name names, but there are some, you know, House Republicans who are basically sentient YouTube comment sections. I all. They have nothing to contribute, frankly, to American politics, except for, you know, incendiary and sometimes delusional public statements. One of my favorite questions to ask, which I used to ask congressmen before I no longer cared, was, and they always, like, were completely shocked by it, but then always answered it, which was what broke.

Devin Nunes' brain. So the Devin Nunes, I don't know, let's call it a situation, is really interesting. I have not yet read John Boehner's book. I don't know whether I will or not, but friends of mine who have say that one of the most notable things about it is the total absence of Devin Nunes, which is interesting because Nunes was a big time Boehner loyalist. Right. And it was Boehner who, you know, who eventually got him on, got Nunes onto House Intelligence. Which was what broke him. Well, this is the thing. Like, it's really, I'm intrigued. And I think, because, you know, Bainer was constantly fending off these mini-coups against his speakership. And Nunes was a loyalist. And so for him to be absent from this book, I think is, again, and I haven't read it. So I'm only going by what my friends have told me,

but I think that's really interesting. And, you know, to some degree, we have to reflect on the fact that the most important political dynamic in modern politics is the rate of re-election of House Republican incumbents. As a class, they are not concerned about a challenge in the general election. They're concerned about a challenge during the primary. And that pushes them farther and farther and farther toward the right. Right. It's an impossible situation for them. I mean, not that I give them any, not that I'm giving them any credit.

D.C. should it be a state? I think it should. You don't even live in D.C. Do you live in D.C.? No, I lived in D.C. for years, but I'm now a suburbanite. Oh, monster. But yes, shouldn't D.C. be a state go? You are asking me for an editorial position, Molly. Oh, okay. In a nonpartisan way.

Shouldn't DC be a state? I mean, I think this is going to be a really interesting couple of years because of the conversation about Puerto Rico, the conversation about DC. And, you know, we think of the 50 states as sort of like, well, it's, you know, I mean, obviously people have taken history class, but it feels very much like the status quo. And what you don't realize is how much, you know, strange, hanky-panky went on to get to 50 states. States. My favorite being, my favorite being Idaho, which the people who wanted statehood for Idaho claimed that the name meant was like a native term that meant gem of the mountains. And in fact, it was coined by a mining lobbyist. So like we've had plenty of hanky, pankey. You know,

like, why do you think Northern South Dakota are two states, you know, when their, when their population would fit snugly in Manhattan? You know my, my hot take of reuniting the Dakotas. I don't know your hot take about that. What is your hot take? That's it. That's my hottest take is you reunite the Dakotas. I mean, there's also an even hotter take, which is you reunite the Dakota, put them in one Dakota and give the other Dakota to the indigenous people who had the land stolen from them in the first place. I suspect that might find some roadblocks if you try to get through Congress. I think we're good.

Mine is that we need to secede New York City from New York State and get a good representation. Then we get our two senators. Ooh, we're our own state. I like it. If we could ever be resented anymore by upstate this will do it. Especially after we let Westchester maybe negotiate themselves and do it if they want. You know Westchester. And then the Hamptons, too, but not the middle of Long Island because they're not going to want it.

Yeah. Heathens. Yeah. Or Staten Island. Any plan that envisions the Hamptons having two senators will meet with my absolutely irreconcilable opposition. Yeah. As well it should. As well it should.

Come on, Senator Puff Daddy, come on. So, D.C. statehood, though, but more importantly, it's going to make it through the House. It will. Right. There's no world in which it goes anywhere in the Senate, right? I agree. They're just, I mean, you know, could it come up for a vote? Sure. Is it going to get through? No. You don't really need to sit down and itemize the, you know, the likely Republican votes. There's not, it's just not, I'm sorry to say that's just not going to happen. I mean, are there zero?

I don't know if there is zero, but there certainly aren't anywhere near the 10. the 10 required votes. Right. When we talk about, like, Nadler has this Supreme Court bill to, like, expand the courts. Pelosi isn't for it. Will it still get to the Senate, you think? It's a good question. It depends on, I mean, you know, they are the folks like Nadler and Pelosi are closely watching both the Democratic base and the Democratic moderates. And, you know, Pelosi is a rather jealous guard of her House majority. So she'll take whatever steps she thinks will preserve and or expand it. My question here would be, so it's not going to go anywhere in the Senate, so is it worth taking that vote? Pelosi sort of regretted taking the climate change, the cap and trade vote early on in

the Obama era. The White House and Pelosi both thought that Harry Reid could be convinced to bring it up for a vote, and he didn't. So they took this really tough vote, and it helped cost them the majority. In this case, you know, it's sort of similar. Is it worth making the progressives happy enough to get a vote on this and maybe forced Republicans to block him in the Senate? Or is it such a problematic bill that you don't want to vote on it at all because it's not going to get through the Senate. And therefore, this is sort of theater that might be damaging but not helpful. It does seem to be like there's a whole, and again, I'm not going to have you be partisan. I'm just going to have you speak to this sort of element. It does seem like the Republican

messaging arm is very good. And they have managed to really, like, I'm pretty plugged in. And much of what I could tell you about the Green New Deal is stuff I heard at CPAC. Right. So, I mean, there are a couple of things here. One is that the original paper release from AOC's office, that was badly, that was just badly managed. And they ended up, they ended up walking themselves away from that. I don't remember what the phrasing was, but it was like, this is an early draft or a discussion draft or whatever. The Republican Communications apparatus may be good, but they're really struggling to define Joe Biden.

They have about 10 different, they have 10 different versions of Joe Biden. Biden out there. One is that he is this, you know, evil progressive mastermind out to undermine America and change, you know, everything about your life. And the other is, no, no, actually, he's a totally empty vessel who's being steered by various kinds of mysterious forces. But back to your point on the court thing, I mean, what I keep thinking back to is the decade or so in which House Republicans would vote to repeal Obamacare secure in the knowledge that it would go nowhere in the Senate. It's a bad analogy because I don't think that the court expansion and repealing Obamacare have the same resonance for the respective party bases. I think the, I think repealing Obamacare probably had more resonance.

I do wonder, again, it all depends on what Nancy Pelosi thinks is best for her house majority. That makes sense. This was really fun and you were really great. I really appreciate having you on. Thank you. Well, thanks, Molly. Thanks, Jesse. Appreciate it.

Hey, folks. If you haven't heard, every single week, we do a special bonus episode for Beast Insight, 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 Soladadadobrian. 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.com. Howard Dean is the former governor of Vermont,

former DNC chair, and a 2004 presidential candidate. And for this interview, we're joined by the Daily Beast Washington Bureau Chief Jackie Kucinich. So the thing I wanted to ask you, which I think is something we grapple with a lot actually on this show, believe it or not, is how do moderates, you know, Clinton, Democrats, even to a certain, certain of some Obama Democrats, reach out to progressives.

Well, what I always say, I sort of adopt a hectoring tone on this one. You know, I've worked with the left for a long time because Bernie, who basically revitalized the left in Vermont in the 70s. And my view, after a lifetime of working with very progressive people, is I think it's an artificial boundary. And the problem is language. And the problem is also political acumen. So to work on the moderates first, there is no reason that people like Connor Lamb can't vote for progressive stuff.

Because in fact, most constituencies of working class people, and here I'm going to sound like Bernie, really do want substantial change and have the system be fair. So there's no downside in voting for universal health care if you're from central Pennsylvania in a conservative district. because that's what your constituency wants. The problem is the language. And so the progressives are always adopted or often adopted as a sort of purer than thou. So if you agree with them on 70% of the time, instead of getting the 70%, they'll beat on you for the 30% that you didn't agree to. Well, that's totally counterproductive. And then they use flame throwing languages like sellouts and all this and the stuff.

So both, I think there is a realization in Congress between the progressive left and, and the moderates that they need each other. Because without both of them, we're not in power, and the right-wing fascists are running the place. And I hate to call Republicans right-wing fascists because often they supported me. But this is unrecognizable of this report for this Republican Party. They believe in autocracy, not democracy. They are racist. It's just shocking what's happened to the Republican Party.

So the Democrats need to be in power. The only way they can do it is that they both will work with both wings of the party. is where we'll work with each other, which means the moderates have to vote for more progressive stuff without calling it that way. And the progressives have got to watch their language and stop lecturing people. Since you've been around, I mean, I don't want you to feel like I'm saying you're old. A long time, Molly, a long time. But since you've been around. Yes, it's okay to say that. What do you think went wrong? Like, where do you think Republicans became fascist? Because like, I'm no fan of George W. Bush. And look, I mean, what happened?

in 2000 was very, you know, fucked up, excuse my French. But like... Well, that's actually where it started to go wrong. Yeah, tell me. Here's what happened. They thought that by taking over the courts that they could voice their agenda on the American people, what they did is corrupt the court. And you mentioned the Bush in 2000.

That was the mistake that unmasked all this. Millions and millions of dark money, as Jane Mayer would say, went into the Federalist Society, who then cultivated judges in the... essentially pack the court. So the Supreme Court is now not longer a legitimate legitimate arbitrator. Most people believe the 73% of people under 35 believe the court is essentially a political body, which it is. And this has been going on for long before 2000. It really goes back to Nixon with a southern strategy when he lured the Democratic racists out of the Democratic Party in the south, the George Wallace contingency, and put them in the Republican Party. And then made a pact

with the right-wing evangelicals who were also sort of a cult and pulled them into the Republican Party. And so you have a Republican Party, which emotionally, essentially, are neo-fascists. They fundamentally do not believe that another legitimate point of view exists other than theirs. I just wanted to go back for a moment to talk about what you noted about the differences in language between progressive and moderate Democrats. And I was curious, who do you think is doing a good job of bridging that gap? Because the devil is in the details that you can say that they just need to learn to talk to each other and band together, which has happened on a lot of things of this year. But it does seem like a lot of progressives feel like they're giving more in terms of policy.

And you've moderate Democrats, you feel like they're taking a lot of incoming because of some of the language that progressives are using. So that's exactly the dilemma. Right. And I actually think both sides are getting smarter about this. If you look, I mean, Bernie Sanders said that the rebuilding America bill was the most progressive piece of legislation he'd seen, you know, since Johnson and the War on Poverty. I mean, and it is. I mean, for example, the tax credits for low-income people with children.

Right. I mean, that's a, that's a tenth of a step away from universal basic income. Sanders recognizes this stuff, and that helps a lot. I happen to admire AOC a lot because she's really smart. and she gets the struggle. She has moderated her language. She has not moderated her voting record. What do I care?

But she has moderated her language. And she is sort of one of the unofficial sort of leaders of the progressive group. Ianna Presley, because she's older and had been in elective office before, she's always been a terrific leader for this. She gets it. You can't use the blowtorchor on your allies. Are you friendly with Bernie? Well, yes.

I mean, politically I'm friendly with Bernie. and I know Bernie, I've known him for 40 years. The way I say it is I've made my piece with Bernie. So are there potlucks happening in Manchester or not? No, there's not potluck happening any place for the last year. I know, but is there, you know, is there schmoozing? I feel like there should be schmoozing. No, Bernie's not a schmoozy guy.

Right. They're Vermonters. Vermonters are schmooze. We don't smooth. We don't smooth. So, Howard, I want to flip the subject little. We recently interviewed Jamie Harrison, who said he's taking on a 50-stage strategy, much like you did when you took over the DNC,

and you did this with great victories. But then Rahm Emanuel abandoned this. When looking back at what you built, that's obviously an easy infrastructure to crumble. What do you see in what could have happened if that strategy was sustained? We have still not really grasped a 50-state strategy. And I don't know that it was Rahm Emanuel's fault. Ron Manuel fought it while he was the D-Triple C chair, but it didn't do any good because we just didn't pay any attention to him.

I mean, we went to wreck. No, we didn't. We went directly to the governors and they found the candidates that it took to take back the house. You know, people like Nancy Warboys in Kansas because they couldn't raise money so Ron wouldn't have anything to do with them. Well, she won. She was only there for a term, but it took the house back. Anyway, that's how you go about things. So the fundamental problem is this has never worked its way down to the grassroots. So I was there for four years. We had, I didn't pay any attention to any of the Washington establishment because none of them supported me. And I knew it, all they were going to do was wind themselves up around themselves again. So we built the 50 state strategy.

But the original design was it to go all the way down to the state legislatures. We're getting creamed in the states. Right. And we, that can't continue to happen. So Jamie's got, and Jamie's got a handicap. And that is that he is a Democratic president. because when you have a Democratic president, the DNC is essentially run by the White House.

So he can't do all the things that he'd like to do. Because if he gets a call from the White House political director saying, no, do it this way. He kind of has to do it that way. I didn't have any of that problem. You know, I just did what I thought was right. And I didn't do anything that D-Triple C or the DSC wanted. Until the end, when Jim Webb came out of the woodwork because of the Alan McCaca comment,

and then I went and borrowed $5 million and gave it the DSCCC, who pretended it was theirs and gave it to the judge. Webb. Web probably doesn't know to this day where it came from. But things like having Tom Cotton run opposed. Like, we had this woman on named Amanda Letman who works for this thing. She's wonderful. I know very well, and I've raised money for her. She's what we need. Right. That we have to have Democrats running. Like, Tom Cotton should not run unopposed. That's absolutely right. Absolutely right. Ever. Ever. First of all, you can surprise people who win. Right.

I mean, nobody thought Jim Webb had much of a shot against George Allen until George Allen blew himself up. And second of all, if you let somebody like Cotton, who's clearly what right-wing nut case run by him, opposed, then Tom Cotton gets to give his version of the Democratic message. Wouldn't you rather have a Democrat giving that message? Yeah. Or a progressive? I mean, one of the most exciting races I think that's coming up is this guy Booker in Kentucky running. against Rand Paul. Ryan Paul is a whack job. And Booker is smart as hell and he's a great campaigner. If he'd started earlier, he might have won that primary. So that's a great race.

Are the odds against this? They certainly are. Are the people of Kentucky going to see a young, exciting candidate who has experience in the state legislature? Yes, and that's going to do a lot for the Democratic Party. Let's pretend that Jimmy Harrison has autonomy, right? And he can, what state would benefit the most from this 50 state strategy? Where is the soil prime for this sort of thing? Well, it's all over the place. It's in Georgia. For example, they just passed this voter suppression law, which is a disgrace. There's no reason for us to have a Republican good old boy segregationist in the legislature in Georgia. Georgia just voted for, not just for Joe Biden, but they elected a Jew and a black man, senator of Georgia, right? This is the state of Lester Maddox, which who apparently has been reincarnated is Brian Kemp.

So somebody in Washington needs to be financing the legislative, attempts at winning back Georgia. And will we do it the first time? Maybe not, but if you don't try, you never do. Why not Texas? Every year, we're told Texas is going to be blue. Every year. Well, I mean, every year it gets a little bluer, but we've got a ways to go there. The key in Texas is interesting. And it's hard, it's going to be hard. The key in Texas is Google, Apple, even Tesla, although Musk is certainly not a Democrat. But he's certainly not. No, he's not. But In order to build those cars, you have to be smart and you have to be educated. And that's our base, smart, educated people who know what's what.

And that's why Georgia won. You know, Georgia's changing. Texas is changing. And, you know, Texas has already always had smart educated people in it. But now it's getting to be more and more. And that's going to be the key. So I think those, I mean, if Delta and Coke had gotten in the game two weeks earlier, I think they could have stopped the voter suppression bill in Georgia, but they didn't.

Now, hopefully, they'll leave the American Chamber of Commerce, which is obviously a, you know, flunky for the right-wingers in the Republican Party. And they should. It's not in American corporate interest to live in an autocracy. Right. Republicans do seem to be going really hardcore on this Trumpian idea that you can punish corporations who don't do what you want. Let them do that and see how well they do.

Yeah. I have to say like that is a weird trope I never saw coming. These people were crazy. They're conspiracies. Their whack jobs. They're embedding their own reality. I mean, if they ever really run the country, it's going to be a disaster for us. This is why autocrats don't run good economies because they start believing in their own BS.

Do you think that a Matthew McConaughey governorship in Texas would be, I mean, where are you on that? I know nothing about Matthew McConaughey. I don't watch television. I don't go to see the movie. So I don't want to insult him because I'm sure. he's a good person. He does car commercial. In general, it's better if you have somebody who knows how government works in those positions, but there have been people who have come out of nowhere who've been terrific at what they do. And so I certainly am not going to diss Matthew McConaughey.

If he's the candidate, he's probably a pretty smart guy. And I mean, Abbott, look, Abbot been there for four terms or three terms. And he's a disaster. And he just killed 111 people for the benefit as buddies of the utility commissions and then send everybody a 16. thousand dollar bill for the three weeks that they froze so they can pay that to his utility friends as well abyd ought to be toast even in texas and that's another reason you have to run somebody in every race because one of the reasons abbot's hard to beat is because nobody runs against them and when they do they get all tied up and and this is a progressive moderate problem look i haven't said one cross word about Joe Manchin, right? I served with Joe Manchin. I know what Joe Manchin is. But the truth is,

without Joe Manchin, we don't have any power to get anything done. So what is the sense? I mean, obviously we don't agree on very much, but why would I publicly go after him if I know that he's all that's standing between us and autocracy? Where Mitch McConnell is, as a majority leader, who is not even an autocrat, he's just completely self-interested. So I think, I mean, your fellow travelers in the progressive movement would say he's also the one standing between filibuster reform. That's true. And I think it's awful. But look what we've already gotten done without filibuster reform. Look, I'm for filibuster reform. I'm also for the an advert bill to add people to the Supreme Court, at least fix the Supreme Court in some way. And there's lots of ways.

There's a very complicated subject, which is good for another podcast sometime. But that's another thing I think is very, very important. And do I agree with Biden on not having more justices? No, I don't. The Supreme Court was packed in 2000 and it's been packed ever since. You've lost the legitimacy of the court. It's an emergency and a democracy. I don't agree with Joe Biden on the not doing anything about the court for now. And I certainly don't agree with Joe Manchin, but I'm not fighting them. Why? Because, you know, I can have those those differences of opinion intern. How do you think Biden's doing, like it's been almost 100 days? I'm not a Biden person when I stayed out of the race. I didn't get involved with anybody

because I was doing this big project for the Democratic data stuff. I think he's probably off to the best start of any president I've seen in my lifetime. Really? That's that's high praise. His people are workhorses, not show horses. Most people have never heard of these people. They're unbelievably competent. They've been in government for a while. They're very, very smart.

And Biden, I think it's a combination of wisdom, old age, and having been through all the terrible personal tragedies, is smart enough to realize that he's going to keep his word. He really is the transitional president. He's transitioning to a whole new generation of smart people that are in their 40s and 50s. I think it's a great start. I love that you said 40s and 50s were young. That is what I'm going to take away from this interview.

Thank you. Listen, I make you feel young. You realize it was 20 years ago I was running, and most of the people I teach were not alive when I was running. Can we talk about that? I have a question for you. This is, I'm sure, annoying to you, but I feel like it's an important question. You were the frontrunner, and then you screamed and everyone got mad at you. That's not how it works.

Okay, explain. I was the frontrunner. We really screwed up Iowa royally. The campaign had the wheels coming off at anyway for a whole lot of reasons, most of which I wasn't ready for prime time, and neither were a lot of people in the campaign. We were they were all kids, and they were incredibly innovators. But the fact of the matter was, I screwed up Iowa. And the reason the scream speech was fun and entertaining, and I've had a lot of fun with it.

In fact, I don't know if you saw my redux of it at the 2016 campaign, which got about a three-minute standing. Oh, it was really fun. But the truth is, that had nothing to do with the race. I had already lost Iowa. I was the frontrunner going into Iowa, and I came in third. That was the end of the campaign. I mean, I kept going until Wisconsin, but I never got above third, except in Vermont, right?

Of course, thanks to my loyal minions, they did a write in, and I won the primary. I think that was about two months after I dropped out. So we are about to hit a vaccine glut in America where we have more vaccines than we need. It is going to fall on us to vaccinate the world. Whether or not we want to, you know, certainly America's going to need to lead a coalition. We are into this situation of the intellectual property. I think the intellectual property argument is total bullshit. Tell me.

Problem is the money. Okay. Look, India is making 3.8 billion vaccines. I mean, this is the intellectual property is not the barrier. The barrier is money. We need to put up a lot of money, and so does the rest of the developing world to get everybody vaccinated in the world. And the truth is, it's enlightened self-interest, because if we don't make sure that as many people can be vaccinated as we can find, that it's going to bounce back on us. They're going to be variants.

They're already variants all over Brazil because Bolson arrows of crackpot, a Trumpian crackpot, I might add. And we're going to pay for that because eventually those variants are going to make their way to the United States, and we're going to have to have booster shots in order to cope with them. It's not an open question. So I'm just going to say, first of all, we have to vaccinate the rest of the world or lead the effort. Because I think we can use the Russian vaccine, it looks like, maybe not so much the Chinese vaccine, just in medical terms. Or even AstraZeneca, right? Or definitely AstraZeneca. We need to put up a bunch of money for that.

And so do the Brits and so do the Chinese. The Russians can't afford it. But we need to do that. But it has nothing to do with intellectual property. This is not a matter of the vaccine companies. price gouging. As they're putting all this stuff out, it's working, and we already gave them a ton of money. That's not what the barrier is. I struggle to see why the intellectual property argument holds any water, because it sounds like just vindictiveness against the pharmaceutical

companies, and I certainly don't think the pharmaceutical companies are angels by any stretch of the imagination. But if we're going to have a problem, let's have a real solution, not something that just kicks the people you don't like in the butt. And the real solution is, we have to pony up a bunch of money, make five times as much of this stuff as we're making, some of which is already happening in India, because Astorzeneca did license their technology to an Indian company, and we should license our technology to other people. But to strip us of the technology is crazy,

and that's right on top of it. That's the Indian and Chinese approach, which is to take other people's technology. We've already been screwed by that. I talked to Dr. Hottes yesterday about this because I'm writing a piece about it, and he said a similar thing, which is that it's not necessarily the IP, but getting people over there to make the stuff. Well, yes, and there is capacity in the developing world.

Most of it's in India, but they're already maxed out. That's the problem. The problem is capacity and money. But you also need to set up labs that create vaccines in Africa and in Latin America. You mean that manufacturer vaccines? You certainly do, and there's no reason that we can't do that. There's not. I mean, the Indians, again, I hate to keep mentioning the Indians, but they have been in

generic, they make most of the generic medicine that we take in the United States. Right. They are very well equipped at drug manufacturer. But I mean, you can't just go into Africa, quote unquote, and set up a vaccine factory. Look what happened in Baltimore, let alone Africa. You have a situation where you can't export them without damaging them. We have to change that. Right.

But that has nothing to do with intellectual property. That has to do with rules about exporting, which we can change. Right. In America, let's talk about that for one more second just to drill down on this, because, you know, this is like the one thing that I'm super passionate about because I'm such a hypochondriac. There is AstraZeneca and J&J still in the United States, but it can't be exported because if you don't have an EUA, you're not able to export a drug. Isn't that correct? Well, J&J, we will have an EUA. I think I think that the, I think Fauci is right. I think

it's likely and that should. I don't think they should have paused it in the first place. Right. But I think it's, I think they should have warned it because you have a better chance of being killed in a car accident than you do of dying from the J&J vaccine. So, I mean, six and a half million given by the time they stopped it in six cases of blood clots. I don't want to minimize it if you're one of the ones that gets the blood clot is a disaster, but the chances are worse that something bad will happen to you when you get behind the wheel. Right.

So anyway, but I think Fauci is right. They will reopen the J&J. And then it needs to be, you know, pushed around the world. And so does AstraZeneca. We don't even have Astrosenica in this country. as far as I know. We sent some to Canada and some to Mexico. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, but we're not using it ourselves.

No. The EUA, right? Right. Well, I'm not going to second guess the FDA other than on the question of the suspension of J&J, because they are scientists to know what they're doing. And I'm not sure why they haven't given the EUA to AstraZeneca. But AstraZeneca appears to be a very good vaccine as being used in most of Europe, and that should be expanded.

But that's just, it's not, it's the manufacturing bottleneck, getting rid of the intellectual problem. property is not going to change the amount how we can manufacture it at all. But an IP waiver. What's that going to do? So shouldn't Africa be able to set up? I mean, I know it's problematic to have them set up their own vaccine labs, but you're not going to be able to export.

I mean, look, the Pfizer and the Moderna. The only actual property, we could say that Pfizer or AstraZeneca or whomever else. Look, we'll give you $2 billion. Go put up a lab in a facility in Africa and get this stuff out. We'll give you $10 billion. Right. We'll give you our whole foreign aid budget, which is probably worth it right now. Right.

That's nothing to do with intellectual property. That's not what's stopping it. Right. What's stopping it is some money? Yeah. India is now the epicenter of the pandemic. Right. Is intellectual property really the conversation that should be that we should be having?

No, it should be make more vaccines and get more over there. Now, Modi, of course, is totally unhelpful because he's basically trump with brains. Tell us what you really feel. I'm worried you're too scripted You knew an interview with me What's going to be? You can tell that I'm not running for anything again Yes, yes, we can't

No, well, you're great Do you think, will you run for governor Again? No Why not? This is your announcement That you're running for governor or not? No, I'm definitely not I'm running for governor.

But what can you get a Democratic governor in Vermont? I mean, what is going on there? Phil is a Democrat. He's just a moderate, Democrat. He voted for Biden. He said so publicly. He has gone after, he passed a gun legislation after we had a near miss with a school. We didn't have a school shooting, but there was Intel and the guy was going to do it. Phil is a moderate. He's more conservative than I am. There's some tax things I don't agree with them on and some social service. I'd be a little more on the left on that. What's not to

like here if you're going to have, and I think the next governor will be a Democrat because we've alternated since 1962. That's great. Aside from the governor of Vermont, I know you're not a big fan of many Republicans. Is there anyone else you think is doing a good job on the other side? Or you think they're interesting to watch at least? No, I here's what the problem is. I think Phil Scott's doing a terrific job. Here's the problems. These people are afraid and they've put their career above the country. And you can't, I don't blame them for that, but I certainly don't respect them because they've done that. I mean, people, obviously the right-wingers are true believers in sort of nutcases, you know, Holly and these nutcases, Pompeo. But some of them, some of them know better.

I hope not. If he is, I'll be a Canadian citizen. Ha-ha. No, that's not true. I'll be a Vermont citizen. Vermont citizen. So, but, but there are people who, I mean, Lamar Alexander was a very good person, but he just didn't have the backbone when he needed it. And same with Mitt Romney. And same with it, same with all the 10 senators who voted not to overturn the election. But they don't have the, you know, what's, stand up and call Trump what he is. And that's what's needed now. We really had a very close brush for the autocracy. And it's not over.

Yeah, no, it's certainly true. Because the 2020 and 24 elections, I mean, we really came close. I used to think that our generation, my generation, had it much worse and it was much tougher. There was a lot more violence than the streets. was a lot, we didn't have social media, you know, the National Guard murdered for college students, et cetera, et cetera. I now think this generation has it worse because even as bad as Nixon was, we never came close to losing democracy. And when the Supreme Court voted nine and nothing that Nixon had to give the tapes, he gave, Trump wouldn't have done that. We really came close

to no longer being a democracy. And so that's what the battle is about. And I think at times like that, you have to be willing to put your country first. And I don't see any of that on the Republican side, except for people like Phil Scott, Charlie Baker. And they get a pass because they come from a part of the country that supports that sort of thing. But, you know, it's really scary to see some of these Republicans. I mean, I don't think Asa Hutchinson is probably a bad person. But his, you know, what he's willing to let the Arkansas legislature get away with is shocking. I have one last question because we have to let you go and do the rest of your life. Right. You're a doctor. How are we going to get that, this, you know, Republicans to get vaccinated?

I think they will. I mean, my whole solution to this whole problem is eventually we're going to get there the way we got into it, which is reduction of cognitive dissonance. We have to make it really clear that what Trump stood for is unacceptable and crooked. And I think putting them in the dock would be a really good start. But there's already this going on. There's a lot of these people who invaded the Capitol are now whining because they're in jail. Yeah, they don't like jail. They could be worn down. So a combination of imprisonment and reduction of cognitive dissonance, if you're getting fired because you're a racist and your employer can't have you on the job because you're so disruptive, eventually your friends are going to say, well, geez, do I want to lose my job or do I want to keep talking like that? And it'll be a subtle process. It won't be oppression. It'll be internally. They will start to begin not to talk like that and to readjust themselves.

So it's going to take some time. is going to take imprisonment of the leadership and making people pay a penalty. So you'll divide them into martyrs and followers and eventually the followers will go in different directions. Fantastic. This is a pleasure.

Thank you so much. I can't wait to see the edit. At this point, Howard Dean hug up on us because Molly wanted him to run for office again. You're a great guest and we really appreciate you actually talking to us. Yeah, awesome. 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 DailyBeast.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. Hello, Jesse Cannon. Hi, Molly Jong Fast.

Another day, another pile of fuckery. That's right, the pile of fuckery. It gets higher and higher to the moon with it. There's so much fuckery. It's just impressive. So today is a relative. slow newsday, thank you God. But there has still been an opportunity for one Steyodor, Raphael, I think his actual name is Raphael, Cruz, a local Canadian fellow, perhaps you've

heard of him, who now represents a great state of Texas in the Senate. He loves a Mexican holiday. He is an asshole. He has terrible facial hair. Senator Ted Cruz, furious, I say furious about D.C. statehood. What Senate Democrats and House Democrats are trying to do is fundamentally corrupt. Their first priority is to change the rules to stay in power. Speaking of changing the rules to stay in power, Republican Party has recently lost the 2020 election and responded by GOP-backed voting measures could create hurdles for 10. of millions of voters. And, you know, he's also railing about the Supreme Court getting packed.

And it's like, hmm, let's talk about people changing rules there. Merrick fucking Garland would like a word. Yeah, that's right. So, Lion Ted, go fuck yourself. You are the fuck that guy of the day. Well, mine goes along with it, which is a not so nice fellow who I really, really have hated for a long time. One, Rick Grinnell. Rick has decided to fire off one of his many tweets that he does multiple times a day that says,

no state should have all the federal jobs. If D.C. becomes a state, then the federal government must move out of D.C. It disperses itself among the states, which for a different segment, I would call it shit for brains take of the day. Yeah. So why he doesn't get that all of the federal government will be in a reduced federal district and not within the state of D.C. That this is to give representation to citizens. But the other thing is, is if you want to talk about that as a concentration of people, most of the federal government employees are in other fucking states.

There's more even in Virginia and California. Like, come on, dude. And, you know, this is obviously that thing that these people are always floating if they're going to have the new talking point for Fox News each day so they can get on Hannity and smile. But this is a really bad swing and a miss, buddy. It's true. Well, you know, he's very busy running for governor of California. Yeah, that's going to go great. 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? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Last Last. laugh and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber.

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