The Daily Beast Podcast - I Read Project 2025 Head Kevin Roberts’ Book—and Was Terrified by It

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

Madeline Peltz, the deputy director of rapid response at liberal watchdog group Media Matters joins The New Abnormal to talk about Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts’ new book—which includes a forward from Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance. Plus! A discussion with Meredith McGraw, a national correspondent at Politico, about her new book, Trump in Exile, which chronicles the former president’s retreat to Mar-a-Lago after his defeat in 2020. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Madeline Peltz, the deputy director of Rapid Response at Media Matters, joins us to break down Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts' upcoming book that's been leaked, which is titled Dawn's Early Light, Taking Back Washington to Save America. And it has a forward by J.D. Vance. and has now been delayed until after the November election because, well, it's got a lot of bad stuff in it. Then we'll talk to Meredith McGraw, National Correspondent at Politico, and she'll tell us about her new book, Trump in Exile, which offers incredible new insights into Trump's retreat into Mara Lago after his election defeat, where he began plotting his return. Also, a whole lot of whining. But first, let's have some fun. Well, Danielle, this is our first gathering since the big announcement.

Obviously, our listeners, I would assume, already know that Tim Walls, governor of Minnesota, is her pick to join her on the ticket in the vice presidential slot. And we've seen in the past three days or so a lot of Walls mania. It's been really fun to watch. And I like that she made this pick. And as let our listeners know that you and I and Jesse were texting when she made the pick. and we all were just talking about how it was very weird to feel pleasantly surprised by the Democratic Party. But yeah, it's a good pick, I think.

He gave a great little opening speech, and there have been a lot of very favorable responses to it. And then there's the reaction on the right flailing, absolutely flailing at trying to come up with attacks on him. But I guess before we get to the attacks, Danielle, your thoughts. So first off, Walls was my number one pick for the vice president. with Mark Kelly as number two. And so I just felt elated because the more I learned about Tim Walls, the more I was just like, where has this man been all my life? He is the quintessential white guy that I love.

I love you too, Andy. Oh, thank you. But the fact that the man is a veteran, a former teacher, which I love, a former coach, started his school's GSA in the 1990. as the football coach. He is just the antithesis of what that toxic masculinity in-cell hate women ideology is on the right. We've been given this picture of white mailness over the last nine years that is spiteful,

that is ignorant, that is hateful, that is small-minded. And here comes waltz, as the black folks are saying, waltzing in, and he's like this freedom-loving, you know, cat-petting, piglet swaddling, like hunk of a man. And the fact that one of his first statements that he said on stage in Philadelphia, when he looked back at Kamala Harris was, thank you for bringing joy back. And I think that we have been living, and I know for myself personally, have been living in this place of darkness and despair kind of, you know, suffocating under the thoughts of what a operationalized Project 2025 would mean for America, that I forgot

how necessary it is that people actually feel inspired and not just scared to vote. I love this pick. I love the fact that the more that the right tries to attack him, like by putting his face on a tampon box. And let me just say, shout out to fucking Hillary Clinton, who turned that attack on its head by saying, so this man decides to put into policy that schools offer free menstrual products to menstruating students from fourth grade until 12th grade. And this is what you want to attack?

If that's radical and you want to put my face on a tampon box for offering free menstrual products that are incredibly expensive and taxed ridiculously, then by all means, go for it. Because nothing that they're trying to throw at this man is sticking because people are tired of the crap. Yeah, for sure. And I'm so glad you brought up the joy thing because it's such a sea change in emotion. And look, you know, there are some who might say that for a while there, we were here on the pod. Maybe we were yelling and cursing too much. And that might be true because, you You know, everyone was in a very dark place and things were looking bad. And it is kind of nice.

And it's one of those things where you don't actually realize how much of just sort of like crushing despair you're living under until it lightens a little. Mm-hmm. And that seems to be what's happened here. And look, none of us are saying that everything is puppy dogs and kitty cats now. And it's going to be a tough next couple months. And we've got to get through the election and hope that. you know, votes are actually counted and weird stuff like that that never used to be a problem in this country. But like you said, it's just, it's such an attitudinal shift. And it is kind of remarkable

to behold. And I was trying to think of like a time in my adult lifetime when I can remember something like this happening with regard to politics, where it just, where something changed so quickly. And I really can't. I mean, you know, Barack Obama winning his election, was an unbelievable night. It's not the same thing. Like, there are two different things. This is just remarkable. And you see it across the board.

And I know, like, I'm in a bunch of different group chats with people on the left and whatever. And just everyone just like, oh, my God, she picked walls. I can't believe she picked walls. And everyone just, like, with a stunned expression, like, is this what it's like to actually when someone in politics does something and you're like, oh, I like that? It can't be lost on us that people need more than hate and fear to move them. We've criticized the vice president on this show. We've asked on numerous occasions throughout the years, where is she?

You know, how come she's not being utilized in the best way that she can be? And to be honest, I still don't think we'll ever know the answer to that question. But what I do know is that when it mattered, when the spotlight was turned on her, she took off. She took off in ways that like, in my wildest imaginations, I couldn't, I couldn't have made up. And I think that the way that she is handling this move, the way that her team seems to be listening to Democrats, two voters, because people had been talking about, we want walls. I'm saying we had a great bench in terms of people to pull from, unlike the Republicans who basically had no one, which is why we ended up with Sir Couch a lot. But like, the thing is that like, you know, the choice of Waltz was just like,

how many boxes can this guy check? Yeah. Like how many amazing boxes can this man check? Because this is why they're struggling on the right right now. They can't find a stupid insult to make stick to him. They can't find, you know, they're trying to come for his service, for his public service, for him being a veteran. All you're doing is galvanizing veteran groups to come out and be like, are you kidding me right now? So it's like this change in tenor and tone and the energy and the crowds, it is electric. The thing that I just want people to keep in mind is that while we're watching the polls and they are seemingly shifting, depending on what you're looking at, that the only poll that matters is the booth that we walk into on November 5th. That is it. So if all of the people that are showing up and the cheering and the and the energy and

the memes and the electricity, if that continues for the next several weeks as we go into November and we walk into those booths with that energy, there is no doubt to me that they will win. Because, you know, we are the new abnormal so we can't talk about all sunshine and light. You're right. You started to bring it up anyway, about the attacking him for his military service and the other attacks that they've been trying to levy on him. I want to start with the military service because as a veteran, it just bugs the hell out of me. J.D. Vance said when Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the army and allowed his unit to go without him. This is a, what's the word, a lie. It is an absolutely blatant lie. And for those who don't know, Tim Walz served in the Army National

Guard for 20 plus years. held the rank of command sergeant major, which is the highest enlisted rank period. He retired in May of 2005, which means he put in the paperwork to retire at a minimum months before that, at a minimum. His unit in July of 2005 got alert orders to deploy to Iraq. So he was out. He was already gone. He did not drop out of the army when he was asked to go to Iraq.

He did not allow his unit to go without him. It was his former unit because he retired. J.D. Vance knows all of this. J.D. Vance is a liar. And for a guy who served himself to impugn the service of someone else like this is so reprehensible and so dishonorable. And also, J.D. Vance was a corporal. And maybe he wasn't in the, well, he was a Marine. Maybe he wasn't in the Marines long enough to know that you don't fuck with command sergeant majors.

They run the army and the Marines, whatever. The idea that they're going to try to make this stick and they're going to try this swift-boating stuff that they tried back in 2004. And not coincidentally, one of the lead guys back then, Chris Lhazovita, is Donald Trump's campaign manager now. So he's breaking out his old playbook. The lies against John Kerry in 2004 maybe were effective. I hope to God they are not effective now.

and it is the lowest of the low. But it's where they live. Like they live in the sewer. They live in the gutter. And truth doesn't know their name. So everything that they come out and attack, we know is an admission of their own weakness. And so the audacity for them to try and insult

his two decades plus of public service when we all know good goddamn well, how many times did Donald Trump defer the draft and get his daddy to cover for? him, right, because of quote unquote bone spurs, but they want to put his head on top of Rambo's body, miss me with it, right? I would not think that it is a smart strategy to attack someone else's public service when the person at the top of your ticket is a draft dodger. I just don't think that that's how this works and that it will work well for you, particularly when Donald Trump has

been caught on the record not wanting to be around wounded veterans because of how it looks. he is insulted people who have dedicated their lives to public service because he's like, what did they get out of it? There's no money in it. So the stark contrast that Governor Walsh poses to, again, their toxic masculinity, this is why it was a brilliant pick. Because everything that you could try and throw at this man, there are pictures and evidence and video before he ever had the vice presidency in his sights, before he ever had politics truly in his sights. of the character and the morals that he shows. That is more than enough.

And instead, we have videos of J.D. Vance, you know, calling Donald Trump Hitler, but now, like, it's the kind of Hitler he likes. Right. You know, give me a break. Yeah. And I just want to take a quick moment to maybe consider this a bonus, fuck that guy. This is the New York Times headline from August 7th. Vance attacks Wall's military record, accusing him of avoiding a tour in Iraq.

And then the subhead is Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio also claimed Governor Tim Walls of Minnesota had exaggerated his service record. Mr. Wall said his decision to retire and run for Congress came months before any notice of deployment. That headline and subheadline gives equal weight to both sides. One of those sides is a lie. It's an outright lie. It's a blatant lie. And it should be reported as such. This is not a he said, she said situation. There are facts and then there is a lie. And I don't know why they continue to do this. It angers me so much. And I just, so I just wanted to draw attention to it. Yeah. The New York Times, like, we talk about them often and they rarely get things right.

I mean, the fact is, is that that's not the lead. Like, that shouldn't be the hook of that. And it should be like, oh, Walt's military service over 24 years of dedication to this country is being attacked by a draft. and someone that put in six months of service. But that's not what they want, because that's not what draws in eyeballs. It just goes to show you again.

Corporatized mainstream media does not care about democracy and they don't care about the truth. They care about clicks. And any time that they get called out enough, then they have to change their headlines. But it just shows you that their first impulse is always to give the right, like the clicks that they want and need. So so much for the quote unquote liberal media.

Give me a break. Yeah. To me, the headline should have been J.D. Vance lies about Tim Walz's military record. And that's all you need because that's factual. That's what happened. And it should be called out. And the entire article, they call what J.D. Vance said. They call it provocative charges.

What? It's a lie. Like anyone can make up a lie. Anyway, I want to move on because I said earlier that they are just flailing with their attacks. And now this is an attack on Harris. I'm talking about. And they're so blatantly racist and I don't see any other way of saying it. I want to read a tweet from Trump's campaign spokesman, Stephen Chung. There was a whole thing, which I guess we didn't have time to get into. It's just a very bizarre thing where J.D. Vance

and his crew tried to storm Air Force 2 on a tarmac because he's doing this not at all creepy thing where he's like following her around on the campaign trail. It's all deeply, deeply weird. But Stephen Chung wrote, make sure Air Force 2 is deep cleaned because Lord only knows what Kamala Harris and her team have done on there. The smell alone on that plane must be crazy. I know we don't have a lot of time, so I'm just going to kick it over to you, Danielle. You're going to kick it over to me, and I have nothing to say that isn't going to be explicit after explicit after explicit.

These people are disgusting and they're vile, and the attack was racist at its core. And what J.D. Vance is doing should be referred to, by the way, as stalking, not just creepy and weird but stalking in the way that Donald Trump, if we all remember, stalked Hillary Clinton on the stage and was following her around. Well, J.D. Vance is now doing that with a plane and on a tarmac. It is not okay. Acting like a weird, bizarre, creepy ex-boyfriend that is going to be on a lifetime special at some point. But Chung, the things that have come out of that man's head and been put on Twitter, and he's labeled as some type of strategist. I guess he's a strategist.

If you consider being a racist, misogynist, bulldog of a pig, a strategy, sure, go off. Where did he come from, by the way? Wasn't he some type of, like, toxic male cage match fighting system? Like, so that's what he's about. Doesn't really know anything about politics. So can't attack people on their policy or on, you know, or on anything that actually matters about the American people. he's a mudslinger and a piece of shit.

So those are my thoughts. Okay. Delete away. I think it was UFC ultimate fighting championship. So yeah, you are correct. Oh, and fuck that guy. Like, you know. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal Madeline Peltz, who is the deputy

director of Rapid Response at Media Matters for America, where you, Madeline, have written a couple of pieces recently on what can only be said about Kevin Roberts' book that was supposed to come out, I'm assuming around now before the election, that is not coming out until after the election. They've delayed publication. And this is Kevin Roberts, who is the president of the Heritage Foundation, the architects behind Project 2025, and his book, which is titled Dawn's Early Light, taking back Washington to save America, J.D. Vance wrote the forward of. Tell us a bit about what you have learned with a preview copy of this book that isn't going to see bookshelves until sometime in 2025. Thanks so much for having me. So Media Matters has a galley copy

of Dawn's Early Light, which is an early version of what, like you mentioned, has not yet been published and has in fact been delayed until after the election. And in the book, it's basically a guide to Kevin Roberts' worldview. And that worldview is very much present in the much talked about Project 2025, which is also reflected in the Trump campaign and the broader conservative policy landscape in D.C. All of these things are really of a piece. And you see this new fixation with a extremely traditional and regressive view of the family unit as the building block for a clean, glorious, fascistic American society. And some of the ways that that comes through is these attacks on reproductive rights like IVF, in vitro fertilization services, attacks on women

who choose or are unable to have children, abortion access, and birth control. all of these issues are described as part of an anti-family conspiracy perpetrated by the left over the last century. And people like Kevin Roberts are saying that the new conservative movement, as he described it, is coming to remake America and eliminate what he sees as these problems. I want to read from your piece. You have a excerpt from page 63 in Kevin Roberts' book, Dawn's early light. And here it is. We need to understand what could be called contraceptive technologies, revolutionary inventions that shape American culture away from abundance, marriage, and family in the same vein. They shift norms, incentives, and choices often invisibly and involuntarily.

Conservatives invade against no-fault divorce, the sexual revolution, and the destruction of a culture of hope without recognizing that these culture changes are all downstream of technological ones. Unpack that for us. Yeah, there's a lot there. So Roberts is a former academic in the context of these small private Christian universities. So his language is very academic in that sense. And what he's describing there is the idea that technological advancements like the advent of birth control, like the advent of IVF technology, has remade American society and norms and the expectations

of particularly what the role of women in society is. So he describes the proliferation of birth control methods and other assistive reproductive technologies as part of a grand conspiracy to dismantle the American family, to force women into the workforce, which he says is a bad thing, and to normalize essentially promiscuity is one of the things that he sees as a great societal ill. And so there's a lot of talk about the Republican and Project 2025's positions on abortion and reproductive rights, all of which are extremely central. And one of the biggest, threats to civil rights on the landscape today. But it's part of a bigger project. And the project is remaking the role of women in society and forcing them back into the domestic sphere based on

this idea that that is a natural predisposition. So he also, the biggest threat that he sees to the project of remaking the role of American women are women who choose not to have children. who choose not to get married to men. And he maligns, as does J.D. Vance, the single childless women as miserable and alienated from society. And so it's really part of a bigger reimagining of what the role of men and women, which they see as an extremely clear binary is in this country. And that's at the very center of the MAGA movement right now.

I would also characterize his language. academic godly goop because it's a lot of big words but don't actually string together in a way that is pronounced of real meaty ideology. It is just their hateful rhetoric wrapped around with academic terms. And I want to offer this other blurb that you have in your piece from page 64 of the book on in vitro fertilization. He writes this, once you understand this pattern, individual choice masking cultural upheaval, you will see it everywhere. In vitro fertilization, IVF, seems to assist fertility, but has the added effect of incentivizing women to delay trying to start a family, often leading to added problems when the time comes. Their attacks on IVF are so

ignorant and beyond the pale. Because as you've stated, the only function that they see of women and people with uteruses is to be baby factories. And particularly, I would say, for white women to be baby factories for white men. In no part and way throughout the rise of people like a Nick Fuentes in the party, to Donald Trump, to J.D. Vance and others, it is this obsession with women's reproductive freedom tied into the quote unquote quote, replacement theory that they also purport. So can you talk to us about how this sentiment of what the role is of women and how the replacement theory and their other white nationalist ideology is intertwined here?

Yeah. I mean, just second everything that you just said, you said it better than I could have, especially second what you said about the lack of rigor in this pseudo academic language. It's a painful read. And it's taking me longer than I would like to admit. The great replacement, as you mentioned, is explicitly addressed in Dawn's Early Light in the 10th chapter, in which he touches on a number of different issues, but among them, immigration. And one of the things that he says, and I'll read from the book here, he says,

the Uniparty's preference is to supercharge immigration to replace native-born and Americans conscious of the war against the American way of life with more pliable groups indifferent to national unity. And he specifically invokes the Great Replacement. And in mocking the press who has called this rightly a white supremacist conspiracy theory, he says, don't you dare notice that it is happening. So he is saying that the Great Replacement is happening. And his use of the phrase, the American way of law, life, I think, goes very specifically to what you are saying about women and people who can have

children being baby factories and that that being a racially coded white supremacist perspective. Absolutely. The vision that he's that he's describing here, the nation that he is seeking to preserve in his mental picture of it is a white nation. And that is all of this talk about attacking abortion and the rights of women is part of preserving the image of white women as sort of the protectors of, you know, the America's future in a purified way, if that makes sense. I want to also go to your point about IVF. They say that single childless women and childless people in general are alienated from society. They have no stake in the future of this country, etc. But who's really alienated when you're attacking these services that everyday people rely on,

whether it is working women who rely on daycare and child care assistance or people who need help getting pregnant or people who have children through surrogacy, which is also something that Project 2025 partners have attacked. All of these are common everyday features of the lives of people seeking to make families. And from his ivory tower, the president of the Heritage Foundation condemns them. It shows really how out of touch this movement is

with people today. Yeah, and I just want to lift up again directly from your piece, this excerpt where Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation writes this. A culture of childlessness is in the final analysis, a culture of despair. Getting

married and having kids, on the other hand, gives you skin in the game for the future of your country. It forces you to grow up, give up childish things, and live in the real world. It grounds you, gives you a sense of purpose in life, and helps generate community, gratitude, and joy. A culture of children is a culture of hope. So when I'm reading this, as a childless person myself, having children, starting a family, is one of the biggest decisions that you can make. This manifesto, which is on par, exactly on par with Project 2025, so it makes sense that J.D. Vance wrote the forward. It makes sense that there are over 240 people from Trump's orbit, from his

administration that are part of the Heritage Foundation and part of Project 2025. But when I hear this, and I think about the ways in which the Republican Party has denied access to the child tax credit, that has made it more difficult for women to have safe deliveries and pregnancies in this country. America being one of the most quote unquote developed nations kills the most pregnant people where we have red state governors that have denied federal funding to enter into their states to feed hungry children. And yet in his manifesto, Kevin Roberts is saying a childless nation is a hopeless one and yet provide absolutely no funding, no resource, no care, no empathy, and create no policies that are about strengthening the American family other than creating the systems for which allowed

for the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the weaponization of pregnancy and uteruses. And so I just wonder, like, as you're trying, and I so appreciate you doing the hard work of reading this book. I don't know what to call it's really not a book. It's a manifesto. But reading this mess so that the rest of us don't have to, what comes up for you as you're going through this? And why do you think that they have decided now to distance themselves or to delay publication until after the election? Well, I have a similar reaction as a single woman, as a childless woman, as a woman who has had an abortion. I mean, I don't want children. Why would you want me to have children if I'm not in a

place to raise a family? And many millennial women and people who are capable of becoming pregnant have come to similar conclusions and are finding meaning in community, in friendships, in non-traditional living situations. I mean, why would you want to disrupt someone's personal version of happiness. It's a miserable, miserable outlook on, and it's a very out of touch with how women and young people in general are seeing themselves and seeing what the future looks like. I'm deeply concerned about the future. And that's why I hold my friends close. That's why I do the work that I do. But that's not any different just because I don't have children. So I see this as part of, these gender politics are very much at the center of this rising strain of what the

D.C. conservative elites describe as national conservatism. J.D. Vance is really the poster boy of this movement. He's deeply in touch with the fringe media as well as these fringe policy shops that have now become the establishment, you know, in the last few years. So I think that the delay of the publication is really just pathetic. First of all, there are galley copies out there and reporters, including myself, are covering it. But it doesn't change the fact that Project 2025 has a $22 million budget, and that doesn't even account for the Heritage Foundation's budget and all of the more than 100 advisory board partners. Altogether, this reflects hundreds of millions of conservative movement dollars. So if you take away the apparatus of Project 2025, you take away every element

that is involved with this initiative, you really don't have a conservative establishment, a conservative movement left. There's really nothing left. And so without Project 2025, the conservative movement is totally hollowed out. That and without Project 2025, like, they have no platform. Because what did, what did they offer at the RNC? At the Republican Convention, what was offered as their platform. So like to your point, without this, they don't have one. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the Republican National Convention platform was a list of bullet points.

That's what they put forth. And if you go to the Trump campaign website, it just links to the bullet points. So they decided it was a good idea to write down their schemes in a 900-page document, posted on the internet for everyone to read. And now they are surprised that, oh, it's. super unpopular? I mean, duh. Thatelen, we will have to leave it there today, but I just want to thank you and Media Matters so much for reading this book for us, for pulling out all of the finer points, and letting us know that this delay in publication is nothing more than a kind of bait and switch

that the Republican Party is trying to do and the Trump campaign is trying to do with regard of distancing themselves from their own manifesto and trying to distance themselves from their truth, which is that they think very little of women. They think very little of people who are not white, who are not straight, who are not cis, who are not married, who are not faux Christians. And that's their vision for America, which is incredibly dark. It has nothing to do with dawn's early light. It has everything to do with darkness and carnage. And I just, I want to thank you for making the time. And I hope that you'll join us again. Thank you so much for having me.

Meredith McGraw is a national political correspondent at Politico and her fantastic new book, Trump in Exile, shows how the former president turned his Mara Lago era into a platform for his complete takeover of the Republican Party. The book is out today and she joins me now. Meredith, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. The thing that struck me early on in the book was that it was kind of funny, not in the

ha-ha sense, but there is this sense in Washington as Trump flies at. out, which is, you know, right after Joe Biden's inauguration or during the inauguration, that it's over, that this is it for Trump as a political figure. And as you describe him, he's deflated and dejected. He lands at what in West Palm Beach a couple hours later. But then he gets what you describe as a hero's welcome on the route of the motorcade to Mar-a-Lago and also when he arrives at Mar-a-Lago to begin his exile. And all of that seems to be instantly dispelled. And it's like he's back, baby. He's back. You know, I think back to that moment in Washington and just how relieved a lot of Republicans were, frankly, a lot of the political class here in D.C. were that he was getting on his plane. He wasn't inserting himself into Biden's inauguration and he was gone. And there were some very serious doubts about whether or not he could have any kind of political life after what happened on January 6 and how he tried to overturn the election results in 2020.

And yet when he got back to Palm Beach, that was such an important moment for him. He had asked one of his aides on the plane ride from D.C. to Florida about how things were being received, how he was being received in the press, and what it was going to be like for him. And I think he had serious concerns, you know, about what this moment, this exit from D.C. meant for his political legacy. And yet when he landed in Palm Beach, it was a reminder that he still had this very fervent base of very loyal supporters who were going to be with him no matter what. And I think the just strength of the support of the support of. his base is something that a lot of people, more casual political observers maybe forgot in that

era. And that really fueled him, gave him some optimism that, hey, I'm going to be able to make this comeback. Yeah. And as you describe it, it was very quickly that he makes it clear to Republicans that he plans to maintain his grip on the party, right? Yes. I mean, if you think about it, Within days, he endorsed the new chair of the Republican Party in Arizona. He was making it clear via one of his aides that he wasn't going to be starting a third party. He was starting to reconnect with people on the Hill who had just rejected him. And then, of course, Kevin McCarthy, making that visit down to Marilago, having lunch with him, was so critical for McCarthy signaling to Republicans back in D.C.

that Trump was going to be part of their efforts to win more seats in the midterms. And Trump putting his thumb on the scale and saying, hey, I am going to be a big player. So watch out. So talk about how he used a combination of raising money and the handing out of the endorsements, as you pointed out, to cement this return to power within the party. So within months of Trump getting down to Palm Beach, he had a team of advisors that started thinking about what Trump's post-presidency was going to look like, what his political apparatus was going to look like, how he was going to do fundraising, how he was going

to reach out to supporters. If you remember, he did not have Twitter. He didn't have Facebook. He was suspended from those platforms after January 6. and they were trying to cobble together what this Trump 45 office, as they called it, was going to be. And a big part of that was endorsements. They knew that fundraising and giving out endorsements were ways that Trump could not only influence the Republican Party, but keep his power over it, too. He had a really incredible fundraising apparatus.

and just fundraising ability, small dollar donors still wanting to write checks for him. And they worked with him on doling out these endorsements. And people would parade through Mar-a-Lago. They would have their aides set up lunches with members or, you know, try to make sure that their fundraiser was held at his club because Trump might stop by and say something nice about him, even if he hadn't yet endorsed them to give a signal to their service. supporters and they would just trapes through the club one after another with the hopes of getting his blessing. And for his advisors, some of them were working for the very candidates that were

looking for endorsements too. So there were some moments where it seemed like there were clear conflicts of interest. But they really tried to have some sort of system, even though Trump in the and often makes these decisions based off of his gut and makes these decisions sometimes just based on the kind of personal chemistry he might have with them. But he would review the data that AIDS would bring to him, the polling, and they would try to show him, okay, this person's up, this person's down, like this person has this sort of support in this county, and at least equip him with the information that he needed to make these decisions

in the end. One of the things you wrote was that the key to understanding Trump's post-presidency was in the people he surrounded himself once he got there. Talk about who and what you mean when you say that because I noticed while reading the book that many of these names, Walt Nauta, Liz Harrington, Taylor Budowitz, the list goes on. They all sort of turn up in the classified documents charges that are filed by the Justice Department. Right. When Trump got down there, one of I think the biggest decisions he made right off the bat was bringing bringing Susie Wiles into the fold. And Susie Wiles had been a big player in Republican politics in Florida, but she had essentially been banished because Florida governor of Ronda Santas, she worked on

his campaign, but he and his wife believed that she leaked a fundraising memo to the press and it got pretty nasty. He was really determined to make sure that she had no place in Republican politics. And yet she was critical to not only his success in Florida, but Trump's too. And so in 2020, she came back on to Trump's campaign, much to the dismay of DeSantis, who called Trump to try to make sure that didn't happen. And then in March of 2021, she came to Marlago for dinner with Trump. and she is known for really taking meticulous notes and she would write memos during the campaign about what was happening in the state of Florida. And she presented all of this information to Trump over dinner.

And really the pretext of this conversation was for Trump, okay, how can I potentially do this again? How can I run for office again and win because he had won Florida? and Trump eventually was really frustrated with the state of his team and his operation in Florida and turned to Susie and brought her on to help him sort things out. But she was the one who called and brought Walt Nauta back from the White House. He was a valet in the White House and offered him a job with Trump. and he was known for being incredibly loyal. And, you know, there were others that were in sort of Trump rolled at that time, if you will.

Liz Harrington was a spokesperson at the RNC, but she and the RNC basically just departed ways because she was really pushing the stolen election widespread fraud stuff. And the RNC and Liz Harrington basically parted ways over that. but she ended up coming to work for Trump and was brought on. And, you know, one of the things that came up in some conversations that I had in reporting this book was you would have operatives around Trump who were true believers. They were super MAGA. They too believe the election was stolen that there was this widespread, like, fraud

and conspiracy to make sure that Trump lost. and that would be people like Liz Harrington. But then there were also others that were brought into Trump's inner circle who were based in reality, had a lot of experience in Republican politics and doing some pretty serious work in Republican politics. And that would be somebody like Taylor Buttigieg. Susie Wiles is very much that too. And they're Trump supporters. They are Republican. they believe in the sort of new MAGA movement, but at the same time,

they're not pushing these sorts of conspiracies too. And, you know, there's always been that kind of divide in Trump world between some more fringe figures that can get into his ear and push sometimes fantastical ideas and others who are just trying to make sure the trains run on time

and that Trump, you know, fundraisers and wins and does the sort of normal political operation things. Yeah, and one of the big things that happened during his exile was that helped him get all this messaging out and helped him, you know, further push the lie about the 2020 election being stolen. Was the creation of the Trump Media and Technology Group. And it was a really interesting story how that came about and how the guys who actually pitched the idea to him as seems to happen so often with Trump later just got completely

pushed aside. Yeah. I have to give a hat tip to Drew Harwell at The Washington Post. He had some really great early reporting on this, but I spoke to one of the people who was involved in the early days of Trump media. And, you know, this was another example of right off the bat. Trump was being pitched this idea to create his own sort of media empire. And some of the initial ideas were like a holiday cooking show. and, you know, golf show, and they were going to have TV and social media and all of this. And, you know, Trump didn't have Twitter. He didn't have Facebook. He was very angry with both social media giants and wanted to create his own media empire. And this is something that had been talked about before, you know, he had been pitched on different media deals in the past.

But with this, a group of guys got to. together and tried to build out what is now truth social. And at the same time, you had Jason Miller, who is close to Trump, very loyal to Trump, had worked for him as a communications aide after Trump left the White House. He left to go start getter, which was another social media platform that had been targeting conservatives who did not like Twitter or Facebook anymore. And true to so many things in Trump worlds, there was infighting, there was competition over Trump and his attention. And there's some really good details, I think, in the book about how true social came about some of the early ideas, but then also how, like, so many things, all of the infighting, the paranoia

played a role too, and the very people who helped start it are no longer involved. I encourage people to read the book because it's truly a wild story and sort of perfectly emblematic of the whole thing where Trump demands loyalty, but isn't always so great about returning it. Before we finish, I want to talk about the guy who is now Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance, because you mentioned him in the book and you write that in 2020. he skillfully maneuvered Trump world relationships and the media to win Trump over, even if his newfound embrace of Trump and Trumpism made some conservative suspicious. So how did he go about doing that?

So J.D. Vance and Trump's story really ran in parallel. If you think back to 2016 when J.D. Vance published Hillbilly Elegie, his memoir, it really helped describe the zeitgeist. He was talking. about poor white working class people in Appalachia, in the Rust Belt, their grievances, their frustrations with the socioeconomic climate of that time. And Donald Trump at the same time had captured the imagination of these people. And so J.D. Vance's book was describing in a lot of ways the very people that built the foundation for Trump's political movement.

But at the same time, J.D. Vance was a big critic of Trump. He had all sorts of terrible things that he was saying about Trump. He was a never-trumper, and he called him things like cultural heroin. And I believe in an email, he, like, compared him to Hitler. So he really had a lot of thoughts on Trump back then. But, you know, he's claimed that his podcast. politics evolved over time. And, you know, people's ideas change. You know, there's some that would say that it was a self-serving evolution. But there are plenty of people now in the Republican

Party who were spouting off very different ideas about what it means to be a conservative eight years ago, too. But J.D. Vance, he was part of a really crowded primary fields in Ohio for Senate. And at times it was like borderline parody. These primary contestants, if you will, at one point went to Trump's club. And it was sort of like this apprentice-style roundtable with Trump where they were all trying to compete with him. And Vance had the support early on of Donald Trump Jr. And that really proved to be critical. And it was Donald Trump Jr. and then of course Peter Thiel, who was a big player in the midterms. He's been a big player in past elections, the former, you know, the PayPal founder who has

dumped a lot of money into Republican causes. And so Vance had their support. And he also had support from people like Tucker Carlson. But he put himself in front of Trump at opportune moments. And I think he won. Trump over for a few superficial reasons. I think, you know, Trump would say he was like a handsome son of a bitch and like thought he looked the part as he often does with politicians. They have to look the part. He's always this like casting director. He's always liked the idea of winning over

his critics. And he liked the idea of winning over somebody like Vance. And he also, I think, respected his rags to riches story and thought he performed ball in debates. And in the end, ended up giving Vance the endorsement there in Ohio. And those were the seeds of their political relationship. And of course, now Vance is his running mate. Yep. Well, the book is Trump in Exile. It's just a super compelling read.

I plowed right through it. It is out now. Meredith McGrath, thank you so much for being here and talking about it with me. Thank you so much for having me. And I hope everyone enjoys the book. If you're a Trump hater, if you're Trump lover, you know, I hope people get some insight into who he was, what he was up to and what it means for this 2024 election. Andy Levy. Danielle Good Moody.

I love it. Who is your fuck that guy to end? this fabulous, and I genuinely mean that, weak. I think I have a first timer, I guess given the name of the segment, we can call him a virgin. Oh, shit. He is the Attorney General in the state of Missouri. His name is Andrew Bailey. And he is basically looking to execute an innocent man.

I'm going to cite here the great Mediba K. Denny, who in this case is writing at balls and strikes. Back in 1998, a woman named Felicia Gay was stabbed multiple times. I think it was dozens of times in her home in suburban St. Louis. And a man named Marcellus Williams was arrested and found guilty of the crime. Well, it turns out the footprints, the bloody footprints in her house did not match his shoes. The fibers didn't match his clothes. The hairs didn't match his body. And DNA evidence that came out later confirms that his DNA did not match the DNA on the murder weapon. As Mediba writes, the only link to Marcellus was the word of two people who were known to lie for personal gain

and to whom detectives had offered reward money and leniency in their own criminal cases if they helped obtain a conviction in the murder case. All their testimony was inconsistent with the crime scene stuff. It goes on and on. The prosecutor excluded black people from the jury. You ended up with a trial in which a black man was accused of murdering a white woman. You had a jury of 11 white people and one black person. So he was convicted in sentence to death. Wesley Bell, who is the prosecuting attorney of St. Louis County, also the guy who beat Cory Bush a couple days ago.

His office filed a motion to vacate the conviction saying, quote, new evidence suggests that Mr. Williams is actually innocent. And all of this has been opposed by the Republican Attorney General, Mr. Andrew Bailey. He basically has argued that he's already been found guilty and he's been sentenced to death. And everything going on now is a, quote, mere attempt to repackage claims already denied, which is not true. So this guy, because he wants to be seen as quote unquote, tough on crime and apparently he has an election coming up against someone who's even further to the right as he is in a primary election, he wants an innocent man to be executed by the state. I don't really understand being pro-death penalty, but even if you are, you have to look at a case like this and say, what the hell are we doing here?

Mm-hmm. And for this guy to be anywhere near the levers of power, a guy who clearly does not care one whit about the fact that he is going to sign off on the murder of an innocent man, it's disgraceful, and fuck that guy. I don't believe in the death penalty. I think that there have been too many instances that we have. have found and thank God for places like the Innocence Project and others where people have been put on death row and come to find out that the evidence was always insufficient. And it always happens to be a person of color. Yeah. That is on the other end of that execution. And so I think

that when you are provided with so much evidence and you decide to look away, how is that any different than you being a murderer? Yep. And deciding that I alone am going to take this life, regardless of the evidence at hand. And I think that, you know, society should be judged by how we supposedly rehabilitate people, how we treat quote unquote prisoners, and the fact that we have such disproportionate rates of imprisonment and death penalties that are, you know, lauded at people of color. Fuck that guy. And, you know, and the system.

Yep. All right, Danielle, close us out. Who you got? So mine is a little bit more lighthearted, but I think that. this person, I'm just over it. I'm over Jake Tapper. And people will say, well, for what reason now? Because there are so many reasons to be over Jake Tapper. My thought exactly. Exactly. But he takes to the airwaves of CNN to ask the question, what happened to we go high with regard to Tim Walts's quip about debating J.D. Vance and saying, well, if he'll, you know, get off the couch and decide to show up. Now, what I find

so problematic about Jake Tapper. And friends, there is so much, but we only have so much time on the show, is that you want to showcase this kind of BS outrage, right, around a joke, an actual joke. That was funny, by the way. But when you are faced with outright misogyny, racism, transphobia, Islamophobia,

the list goes on from Donald Trump and from Republicans, the reaction is, oh, well, we don't know what's in their hearts, so we don't know what to say. We don't want to call it out. It's racially tinged or it's this or it's that or whatever other fucking euphemism that you want to use for the vile, vile language that has actually caused violence in this country. Political violence to rise in this country. But when given your job as a journalist to call those things out and to draw attention to what matters, you turn your back to it and want to invite those motherfuckers on air to spew more of their lies. But you want to turn around and say that, oh, a joke, what happened to when we go high?

Miss me with it, Jake Tapper, and the entirety of CNN, who I can't watch anymore because it has become a revolving door for grifters, liars, and crooks. So I'm over it, and I'm over the faux outrage, because when it actually matters, when Donald Trump is is mocking disabled people, is saying vile things about migrants, is calling women everything but a child of God, it's talking about black people and people of color, they have nothing to say, nothing to say, except to give people a platform to spew more of their white nationalist beliefs. Don't come to me with your outrage about, oh, it's in poor taste to make a fucking couch joke. So for that reason and so many more reasons that we don't have time for,

Jake Tapper, welcome. And fuck that guy. Yeah, I just have two quick things. One is, you know, you mentioned that, you know, he doesn't seem to have the same level of outrage when it comes to the things being said by Republicans. You have to remember that a lot of those people are his colleagues. And the other thing is, I kind of wish Tim Walls hadn't made the couch a reference. For one reason only is because I had to explain what it meant to my mom. Yes.

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