The Daily Beast Podcast - Inside Trumpworld Hero Ali Alexander’s Teen Sexting Scandal

Episode Date: April 23, 2023

For a party who likes to accuse Democrats and the LGBT community of corrupting children, the right has a few creeps in their own closet, including accused underage sexter and MAGA hero Ali Alexander.��Will Sommer, Daily Beast reporter and host of the Fever Dreams podcast, has been reporting on the accusations against this right-wing figure, and joined this bonus episode of The New Abnormal podcast to explain what Alexander is accused of, how a guy like him became so prominent in the alt-right movement, despite claims of pedophilia, something they so adamantly accuse the left of, and how he was “exposed” to begin with. Also on this episode, hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy listen to clips of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) badly rip off a Winston Churchill quote to tear down wokeism and a mind-numbing (but hilarious) clip of Marjorie Taylor Greene finally being put in her place by one of her fellow Republicans.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

abnormal. We thank you so much for being here. Today we have an extra special guest with Daily Beast Reporter and host of fever dreams Will Summer, who you of course may know from his latest book, Trust the Plan, The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy that Unhinged America. And he's going to talk to us today about the latest craziness with one of Maga's top figures, Ali Alexander being found to be an alleged pedophile along with a whole bunch of other fun stuff from Mago World. But first, let's have some fun. Do you guys want to listen to some clips? Hell yeah, I do. Clips. Clips. All right. So let's start out with the absolutely stupid, which we kind of always do, but I'm just making that novel today.

Here's Rod DeSantis, aka Meatball Rod in South Carolina on his shadow presidential run that he's too scared to announce. and he's going to say woke seven times in 20 seconds. Oh, God. So because the woke represents a war on truth, we have no other recourse but to wage a war on woke. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob.

Florida is where woke goes to die. That is the worst Churchill ripoff. ever heard. Are you kidding me with that? He like he basically took the we will fight them on the beaches, we will fight. And he turned it into woke. Oh my God, what a fucking loser. You know that he doesn't know anything about Churchill because Florida's curriculum even

before the bands was shit anyway. Right. Although Churchill was kind of racist, so he probably would appreciate that. Solid point, Andy. It just reminded me that Marco Rubio put out some. video, he's mad that stuff hasn't gotten to the Fort Lauderdale, like the flood victims. Yeah. And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, but the state didn't elect a governor to get supplies to flood victims. It elected a governor to own the libs. So what do you expect? Like, that's not his job.

Yeah. You can't float on woke, so. Yeah. You know. Woke floats. Woke floats. Fuck them. This reminds me of when Joe Biden, and did Rudy Giuliani's presidential run with saying everything out of his mouth is noun verb in 9-11. Right. Yes. For Trondasanta's everything is just fucking woke. He sounds like my dog clank when a fucking delivery guy is at the bar just going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. All fucking day.

Like, Jesus Christ. Oh, my. Seven time in less than a minute is pretty fucking obsessive. One third of a minute. One fucking third. Yeah. That was wild. I wonder, what do you think his ringtone is?

Maybe it is, oh, woke, woke, woke. Seven wokes in 20 seconds, so that's 21 WPM. Yeah, because technically the claps were in there, too. That's amazing. Oh, my God. What a dunt? All right, y'all, I got good news. Even the Republicans have had enough of Marjorie Taylor Green.

apparently Chairman Greene, not to be confused, he's missing an E from his name, is telling McCarthy, he's had enough of her on the Oversight Committee, and Mike Kevin is considering booting her from the Oversight Committee, according to reports, since yesterday she got banned from speaking further after calling Secretary Majorca O'Wire. Let's unfortunately listen to this. Outrage. Complete outrage where China is poisoning America's children, poisoning our teenagers, poisoning our young people. longer are you going to let this go on? Congresswoman, let me assure you that we're not letting it go on. We are fighting this. No, I reclaim my time. You're a liar.

You are letting this go on. And the numbers... Well, actually, I want you to take the words of the speaker down. So in making a ruling on this, it's pretty clear that the rules state you can't impugn someone's character. Identifying or calling someone a liar is unacceptable in this committee. And I make the ruling that we strike those words. Sorry, just a point of order.

It's a legitimate question. You're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Did you move to take the words down or to strike them, Mr. Thompson? Sorry, I just stepped in. Yeah, take them down. So my understanding is if words are taken down, that means that the member can no longer speak

in whatever the proceeding is that those words were said. Personal inquiry, point of personal inquiry. That's, there's no such thing. Stand by just. It does terminate the time of the individual who is speaking. So, uh, the gentlelady is no longer recognized. I feel stupider for having heard that. Why is it taking people this long?

Why is it taking, not people? Why is it taking Republicans this long to become exasperated with her bullshit? She doesn't offer anything. She's like a fucking TikTok meme. Do you know, like she, like she, She literally offers nothing. Like everything, like everything is outrage in China and guns, like in Jesus. Like, that's her.

She's like a, she's a walking fucking meme. Look, we'll see what happens. There's talk of her being booted from the committee, I guess. But she seems to think that good old limp gavel Kevin has her back. And I would not bet against that. But I do want to, I generally hate the stickler for rules type stuff. But hearing Dan Goldman say, There was no such thing.

That was very good. I mean, that was amazing. That was absolutely amazing. My favorite line of the whole thing is the gentlewoman is no longer recognized. Like, I want that on a fucking t-shirt. Seriously, seriously. Oh, God. All right.

So there's a very big revelation, a lot of great reporting from our colleague Will Summer, who will be talking to this week, that Ali Alexander is an alleged pedophile who was very close. of the MAGA movement very helped organize the January 6th rally. So conservative talk show host at the Blaze, Steve Dees, has some thoughts on this. I don't know who Ali Alexander was. I don't never heard his name until yesterday, you know, but I'm not heavily connected into that world.

But if you're not a groomer or a homo—can anybody—can the non-groomers and homosexuals at this point on the right raise their hands so we just know how many we have? Because, I mean, is everybody just grooming kids? and sodomizing each other. Everybody just doing that? I mean, yes. Seems really, really, to the point that the ratio's getting a little high that we should be asking questions. There was literally no mincing of words.

Like, there was no subtlety, like at all. But was he wrong? It pains me to ever say that. Steve Deas said something right. Actually, it was half right, because a lot of the groomers out of these Republicans are not gay. So for him to lump that all in together is obviously a swipe at gay people, and he ain't right about that.

But he is right about there being a lot of closeted gay people on the right, and he is right about there apparently being a lot of people on the right, straight or gay, who seem to have an affinity for underage peccadilloes, shall we see? say. I mean, let's just say thou art protests too much. Like every single time that they point a finger, they are pointing in the mirror. It is just fucking ridiculous

at this point. And the whole Ali Alexander just scandal is just good fucking God. Wow. I think I keep thinking about my lovely girlfriend, Lauren, send me this account, New Girl NY underscore FL on

TikTok, who does a weekly report on who's arrested for pedophilia. And you'll be shocked to hear it's mostly youth pastors and not drag queens at all. And they literally keep a score about who it is each week. And yeah, it's kind of looking like it's one party, not the other. But I wonder which one it is. Yeah. It's so funny. We found an issue that maybe can't be both sides. Oh my God. All right, y'all, I got some big news. when we had neocons who wanted to invade Arab countries, we thought we were in hell. Well, I got some news.

We're in MaguWorld. It's time to take things to an even crazier place. Tucker Carlson last night previewed a new documentary where it seems he's making the case. It's time to invade Canada. We're happy to be here for more than a hundred years. The United States has, as a matter of official policy, opposed dictatorships around the world. But what if tyranny arrived? right next door. What would that look like? And what would our government do in response?

Would we liberate the people living under authoritarian rules we have around the world? That is the topic of our upcoming Tucker Carlson Original's documentary, O Canada. Here's a first look at what we found. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. Fortunately for the oppressed, America's influence is considerable. Oh, Mankind.

We like to say people kind. Exactly. All right. The police then moved in and arrested me. My daddy. In the entire time that I was in prison. They shot me point blank. My mouth, my nose.

Like when you described this, I was like, okay, he's joking. right, he's being satirical. No, he's not. I don't know what happened to him. I really don't. I think it was the bow ties. That does cut off oxygen to the brain. Yeah, I think it was, I think they were too tight.

Yeah. Boy. I mean, they're attacking, like, we're going to have no neighbors. Because it's like, they screw about the fake caravan of fucking Mexicans coming up. Then now they don't want you to go north either. Like, they want us to invade Canada. Like they just, what was it before? You said they want 13 year old girls pregnant, the 13 year old boys with an AR-15 cigarette in their mouth, and ready to go to war with any one of our neighbors at any fucking time.

Fox News, they are wild. Like, they don't want a wall. They want a dome. They want to just dome America. Like, that should be their campaign slogan. Dome America. I want out. I don't want to be locked in that.

Wasn't that a failed show on NBC? Yes. Yeah, it was a not very good Stephen King novel, The Dome. I mean, and it's just, or under the Dome, I forget what it was called. But I think that's what they want. They don't want China coming in. So you got to, you got to block off, I guess, the Pacific. They're mad at Canada.

They're mad at Mexico. Other than Hungary, I don't think they like Europe very much. So we need a dome. All right, y'all. I'm going to change things up here, big time, bigly even. I know people love bipartisanship. So I'm going to end on a bipartisan note. Here's Ohio Senator J.D. Vance with a solid point.

I think we all will agree with. This is maybe the most important lesson of Iraq, is that the people who drive our foreign policy very often don't know what they're doing, but they suffer no consequences when they're wrong. We in this room need to change that. We need to make sure that the people who have made catastrophic mistakes at the very least have to apologize for it

before they advocate the next catastrophic mistake. for the next generation. How about that? Well, between this and Steve Deas. You're feeling a little conservative today? I'm feeling like that old onion headline, the worst person you know made a good point is doubly true today. Yeah, true. I just want to put that under every time Ari Fleischer does a tweet storm ever again.

While we're at it, maybe trickle down economics every time somebody says it works. Catastrophic mistake. Like everything that comes out of their mouths. Oh, my God. Folks, I am happy to welcome to the new abnormal Will Summer, who is a reporter at The Daily Beast and hosts of the podcast, Fever Dreams, an author of Trust the Plan, the Rise of QAnonon and the Conspiracy that unhinged America. Will, it is like the right has no shortage of scandals right now. And what I think is the most vile of them all is what is happening around Ali Alexander,

who was one of the masterminds, if I'm correct, behind the Stop the Steel rally, was one of the masterminds for Trump behind the big lie. And as part of the, I guess, Q&ONA cabal that they're all in, one of the big other big lies that they are pushing is that the left is filled with groomers and pedophiles. And that's why we need to stop wokeness and stop conversations about LGBTQ people and equity and all of these things. And as it turns out, Ali Alexander has a whole bunch of skeletons in his closet of the pedophile variety. Talk to me about this. Yeah. So Ali Alexander is one of these sort of ubiquitous MAGA internet and sort of hanging out at Trump Vents characters. He rolls with

people like Roger Stone and Alex Jones, Jacob Wohl, Laura Lumer, these kind of these people who seem like just internet oddballs, but then they have these actual connections to the Trump campaign and Trump world. But like you said, I mean, Ali is part of this movement that says, you know, any LGBT person is a groomer or what have you. And yet, in my latest story out with The Daily Beast, I wrote about two people who were teenagers and two teenage boys who said that Ali had asked them, and in one case received from them, dick picks and other sexual content. And so, and Ali sort of issued a vague apology for this.

So point being, he got caught up here. You know, he was in his 30s at this point. So he got caught up, you know, asking for, you know, I hate to speak in legal terms, but I mean child porn. Right. Because here's the thing. I don't give a fuck how old Ali is. What I care about are the young boys who he was propositioning for child porn.

There are also other. stories that are circulating around him and his office. But one of the things before we get into that, that I find really troubling, because as a part of this entire right-wing, hyper-toxic masculinity, anti-LGBQ, is this idea that by virtue of talking about LGBTQ people, by virtue of sending your kids to a drag show that somehow they're going to be indominy. And yet here is this person, and Nick Fuentes, who is a name that this audience knows, who dined with Donald Trump and Kanye West, who is a known white supremist, apparently knew about Ali Alexander and his pedophilia, but was covering it up. Can you speak to that? Yeah, I mean, this is an interesting situation because these rumors about Ali were around for years and years, you know, how he was towards some of these were legally adults. and at least one case, a teenager who was very clear to Ali that he was 15 years old.

And so these rumors had been around for a while. I certainly knew about them for a while and had been trying to report it out. But certainly these far right or alt-right leaders like Nick Fuentes, they knew as well. And so in Fuentes' case, I mean, he's got this white supremacist movement called America First that sort of specifically says, you know, we are a bunch of teenagers and young men. And so he was palling around with Ali. These text messages have come out where Milo Uinopoulos, who is, of course, a similar character, you know, in this whole universe where he was saying, you know,

hey, Nick, heads up, Ali's a creep and he's preying on teenage boys as, you know, a year ago or more. And then Nick Puentes keeps, you know, hanging out with this guy, working with him on the Kanye West campaign. This is becoming kind of a larger issue for Nick Fuentes, for people like Roger Stone, who has come out and said, well, I didn't know about any of this. You know, there's a lot of people implicated in this. So here's the thing.

In your piece, you get to the part where I guess issues some type of. apology where he says that he was quote battling with same sex attraction well he started out by saying quote this is too gay i don't know what that means neither do i yeah and then moves into the quote battling with same sex attraction but here's the thing that i want people to understand and i know people who listen to the new abnormal are very very wise there is a very big difference between being a fucking pedophile, am being queer. And here he says,

I'm battling with same sets of attraction. No, you are going after young boys, underage boys. Influential like boys who don't necessarily know any better by a grown man coming at them in this type of way. And so what do you make

of this half-assed apology that he issues and how is it going to land within this kind of this toxic masculine, anti-gay, but I guess pro-petophilia space. Well, it's very, very weird. I mean, the thing does really stress here. I mean, these messages are like sort of classic groomer stuff. He's saying, okay, you know, I can, you know, depending on what you do for me, maybe I'll connect you with these famous people on the right. The number one rule is secrecy. And like, you and I are like, we're a family. talk about me, you know, this kind of stuff. I mean, it is really, really creepy stuff. And so it's a very weird situation because, you know, Ali was allied with this America First movement, which, you know,

Ali is black and Arab, and they are a loudly white supremacist and he's very openly gay or he's bisexual and they are very homophobic. And yet, I think this was sort of an alliance of convenience. And then the two guys who have come out and said that they were when they were teens, that they were victimized in this way. They are either members of America First or sort of, in one case sort of affiliated with it. Rather than disavowing Ali, Nick Fuentes has doubled down and said, you know, well, maybe these teenagers shouldn't have been flirting with them. A lot of Nick Fuentes' as allies have really gone on in the attack against these victims. It is very bizarre to see this obviously reprehensible group of people in many ways, but say, you know, the one thing we are

somewhat cool with is this guy soliciting, you know, according to his victim, soliciting child porn. I just want to go on with what he has said here. Yeah. It's very weird. peace. Quote, I apologize for any inappropriate messages sent over the years. So first off, Will, he's acknowledging here, like, I don't know which offenses you're talking about because there have been so many. So I'm just going to give you a blanket of, quote, over the years. Then he goes on to say, when I have flirted or others have flirted with me, I flexed my credentials or dropped corny pickup lines. Other times, I've been careless and should have qualified those coming up to me's identities during flirtatious banter at the start. Why does this read as if, oh, he was on

some app with somebody who was of age and like, oh, I'm sorry I got caught up. In nowhere does he acknowledge that these are underage boys. And by the way, I want folks to like recognize that in Florida, Rod DeSantis is passing legislation to make this type of supposed abuse against children, you can receive the death penalty for it. This is how adamant the Republican Party is about protecting children. How do they rationalize this? I mean, it really is. And you know, you're making this point here.

This was clearly sort of a systemic effort on his part. I mean, this was not like one person he messaged and then said, oh, geez, I didn't realize you were that young. I mean, at one point, one of these guys says, you know, I'm 15. I'm a sophomore in high school. And then Ali says, yeah, why aren't you said to me any jackoff material? I mean, it's like really vile stuff. In his case, he's kind of attempted to say, oh, I'm leaving public life for a while, all this stuff. But he had specific things.

You say, come down and visit me and, you know, lie to your parents, tell him you're going to a swim meet. I mean, really, really twisted. And just to underline, I mean, this is not some random guy who was just tweeting with a MAGA hashtag. And this is a guy Donald Trump wanted him to speak at the January 6th rally on the ellipse. And it was only prevented by Katrina Pearson, a Trump aide who basically said, this guy's too weird. We can't have him associated with us. And then he actually, Ali organized the rally outside of Congress on January 6th that didn't happen. But conveniently, ended up drawing a lot of people to be right around Congress.

And then that's when the riot started. This has been known in conservative circles. You write at least since 2015. This is before or right around the time that Donald Trump is running for president. How does a pedophile like this get access and is rubbing shoulders with some of the most powerful politicians in the Republican Party? I mean, it is very strange. The way that so many people on the right appear to have sort of brushed it off and sort of said, well, you know, Ali's value to the Trump movement or to the right is too significant.

But this is a guy who he sort of rose to some sort of notoriety around 2008. He was a big blog guy. he tried to organize bloggers on the right. There were a lot of questions about his fundraising. I mean, he's a convicted felon related to, I believe he broke into a car and sold someone's credit card in 2006 or 2007. I mean, it's very kind of shadowy background, but he was very well connected on the right. And I think a lot of these fringe figures saw him as someone who could bring them into a more mainstream Republican audience. I mean, this is a guy.

He had connections to Jack Dorsey, the former head of Twitter. I mean, Jack Dorsey would consult him on how to handle conservatives on the app. I mean, he was a guy who had a lot of connections. Obviously, he worked for the Kanye West sort of fake presidential campaign for a while. And that's ultimately what sort of led to his downfall because Milo, who had all of these, as you would say, receipts, I guess, on Ali. Ali basically pushed him out of the campaign. And then Milo said, well, you know, F you know, here's all these victims. So it's a very, a guy who's really well connected.

And I think a lot of people turn a blind eye to his behavior. And the point being that these political connections then allowed him to say, well, if you, maybe send me some pictures I might like. Maybe I'll connect you with these people. So he was really exploiting people according to these messages based on that. You have down in your piece, Aidan Duncan, who was 15 at the time in Colorado, and you say interested in right-wing politics, sent Alexander nude pictures after he was asked for them and he said this in a podcast interview. I guess my question is, how does somebody that is convicted of a felony? And I know that I'm going to regret asking this. What is his background that makes him so valuable to this right wing,

anti-gay, but clearly pro-petapilia party, that he was able to continue until like his rival wanted to bring him down? Yeah. I mean, I think this is just sort of a story we see over and over, especially in the Trump movement. I mean, this is a guy who really had no credibility besides just his, he was willing to be really shameless and I think do whatever it took on behalf of his to sort of advance himself and advance the MAGA movement. And so this was sort of a useful character to have in your back pocket, you know, in the same way that Roger Stone is, like a guy who is in many ways a ridiculous character but can also sort of throw up a lot of garbage or, you know, he's the guy who's going to sign the permit on the rally or something like that. And then, you know, he was a useful

guy. I mean, you know, I forgot to mention, I mean, he was invited to the White House when Trump was in office for the Trump social media summit. So he was sort of recognized as one of the, like, the heroes of the Trump internet. And of course, meanwhile, what else was he doing on the internet? Well, now we've come to learn. Your article just reads like page six, you know? Like, it just reads like something that you would be like, oh, no, this couldn't possibly have, like, really happened, right?

Like, this known pedophile in circles that are referring to their political opponents who are anything but groomers and pedophiles, and yet it seems like the entirety of the Republican Party right now is filled with nothing but groomers and pedophiles. So whether you have Matt Gates, who is trafficking 17-year-old girls across lines, and yes, he wasn't convicted, but it did happen, whether it's Roy Moore up in Alabama

that, again, was just hanging out in front of high schools. And now this dirt bag, it's like, I don't understand it. Like, what do you make? of it. Is it just the willingness, like you said, to just do the unthinkable, just the willingness to just, you have no morals, you have no shame, you have no conviction whatsoever. And that's the attractiveness. Yeah, I mean, the irony or the hypocrisy, whatever you want to call it, I mean, it's really on the nose. I mean, I feel like so many things over the past few years, like you, you couldn't write it in a TV show. It's too obvious. But in this case, I mean, this guy, you know,

he's claimed vaguely that some messages are fake. But when I said, well, which ones are fake. He didn't get back to me. So I think we can take the messages as pretty credible. And I think if that's the case, I mean, he's pretty much dead to rights. I mean, he's seen a lot of his allies bailing on him. I mean, it's just really bizarre to see someone who, I think, from what we can tell was praying so openly on young men and boys, you know, have to be able to be successful for so long. Do we think, will, that aside from the scandal version of this and aside from the fact that it literally makes my stomach turn, is there going to be, any prosecution here? Is there, aside from just it being reprehensible, something that not even, you know,

would make it into an episode of Shonda Rhyme's latest political drama, is there going to be a legal side to what we are learning and what you've uncovered? I think there could be. The 15-year-old has said that he is filing a police report. My understanding is it has been filed in Colorado where he lives. It's been a couple years. So I'm not sure how viable that prosecution is. But my sense is that potentially there could be. I mean, I think a lot of this stuff is written down. I think it's pretty clear. And obviously, Ali was interviewed by the January 6th committee. I think it's reasonable to think there was already some FBI interest in interviewing him related to the riot. Who's to say? But I do think a lot of what's described in my article, I think it's pretty reasonable to think, you know, in general terms could be a crime. Here's the thing is that my assumption would be, right? People have been arrested for having

child pornography on their computers. I'm like whether or not any of his victims were to file charges. I mean, I think that this is an investigation for where he lives of let me confiscate. We believe that you have pedophilia material like on your person in your home, on your laptop. And this could be something that would turn into a legal case. So I hope that you could. continue to follow this, even though God bless you for doing so. Thank you. Because it can't be easy. Well, I mean, really, so many people involved in it, even the people who, you know,

it's just sort of that entire world is, it's a lot of sort of reprehensible characters on all sides. I have a high tolerance for it, so I'm happy to wade in. The article that Will wrote is entitled, Stop the Steel Organizer, apologizes after being accused of asking teen boys for dickpicks. It is up now and live at The Daily Beast. Will, thank you so much for making the time to join us on The New Abnormal. Appreciate you. Absolutely.

Thanks for having me. Hope you enjoyed checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast. The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com

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