The Daily Beast Podcast - Is the Supreme Court About to Turn New York Into the Wild West?

Episode Date: May 20, 2022

It’s another week chock full of Republican fuckery, and The New Abnormal is all over it, including a tough interview with Bryan Jones the Republican trying to take down creepy Matt Gaetz in Florida���s first Congressional District, and starting with a conversation between co-hosts Molly Jong Fast and Andy Levy about how Republicans seem more interested in capitalizing on the baby formula shortage to score points against Biden than they are in fixing it and, you know, making sure babies can get fed. Then Jay Willis, the editor in chief of Balls and Strikes warns Molly that the looming Roe reversal its just the start, and that “a lot of the backlash to this opinion has also dealt with not only the disastrous consequences for women, folks who may become pregnant but also for its really unnerving hints about where the Court could go in the future. Roe is not enough for Samuel Alito, who’s got all kinds of accumulated culture war grievances to air.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Zhang Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic Invo. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. 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 the wisest and funniest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it. What a great show we have today. First, we're going to talk to Jay Willis, the editor-in-chief of balls and strikes. He's going to tell us about all the latest fuckery with the Supreme Court. Then we're going to talk to a Republican, Brian Jones, who's running against Matt Gates in his primary in Florida's first district.

But first, let's have some fun. Andy Levy. Molly Junkfest. So we were recording this on Thursday. We had a pretty exciting primary day on Tuesday. And by exciting, I mean horrendous. But it did spawn an entire news cycle of high fuckery, as we say here on the new abnormal. We had Trump's pick for GOP governor nominee in the great state of Pennsylvania.

Doug Mastriano, the Great Commonwealth. Is it a Commonwealth? Thank you, yes. Yes, the Commonwealth. Doug Mastriano, most famous for funding buses to take people to the January 6th Stop the Steel Rally. Always a classy move. He has won the nomination. He is already on video telling people that if he becomes governor, those 19 electoral votes will go to Trump.

That's not how any of this is supposed to work, I might add. And then we have, on the Republican side, things have gotten very heated between the wonderful and illustrious crack doctor, quack, doctor, Dr. And the very rich hedge fund investor of the people known as the husband of Dina Powell, whatever they. that guy's name is random normal guy. David McCormick. And they're in a runoff. Discuss. Well, first of all, the runoff is very, very exciting.

It's always great when you have a close Republican race and every ballot has to be counted in every ballot so many matters. It's always a pleasure to see. And, you know, also how excited they are about having to win the mail-in ballots that they, you know, would be more than happy to just completely do away. with or so they claim until it's important to them. That's fun. This is the thing about the Republican Party is it sort of forces you to root for a hedge fund executive.

Merry Christmas. I think Oz would be easier for Federman to beat. Yeah, that's what they said about Trump in 2016. So I never believe that anymore. I agree with you. It's not that I don't agree with you. It's that I don't trust myself or anyone who says that. anymore because I've learned my lesson.

No, it's true. I mean, I think you're right. That said, I'm so curious about how this recount goes. Trump has already weighed in in his typical fashion on truth social. Perhaps you've heard of it. It's Trump's social media platform, which I guess is he's the only person on, right? Is that how it goes? I mean, maybe there are other people on there.

He said that Dr. Oz should just say one. The problem with that strategy is it's 0 for 1. You know, I understand why he says that because that's the kind of shit he believes, but it's so far anyway, it's 0 for 1 in the last two years. So I don't think that's going to work. I honestly have no idea who's going to win this race. I mean, and I can't decide if I feel like absent Trump's endorsement, Oz would not be in this situation to have a chance to win.

But I also feel like you've got Trump endorsing a guy and he still can't get a clear victory. So maybe there's like that part of it is a good sign? I don't know. I go back and forth on this. I mainly, though, I think that his endorsement clearly boosted Oz up there. I cannot tell you how weird I feel just calling him Oz. The great and powerful. Well, that's so weird.

But I refuse to call him Dr. Oz, even though. he was at one point an actual well-respected doctor because as you pointed out earlier, he's now a complete another quack. So I don't think, unlike Jill Biden, he does not get to be called doctor in my mind. I mean, I just think that in this situation, you have two pretty Trumpy candidates. I mean, remember, McCormick has all of these Trumpers in his, who he hired for his campaign. Yeah. And you have Dr. Oz who got the Trump not, but. is pretty much very trumpy too. And then you have this, like, tiny margin of votes.

So, I mean, it's a sort of fascinating study in, like, who ultimately is the Trumpiest. I wonder also in this primary if Oz did say I'm the winner, if it would work here. I mean, look, I'm not. I mean, this is all democracy dies right here, right? Like, these are experiences where we're seeing democratic norms be thrown out. in front of our very eyes. So as much as it's hilarious, it's also horrifying. But it is interesting to me because, like, I wonder if it would work.

I feel like it wouldn't. And maybe I'm wrong about this. And it's not because I have any great faith in, you know, in democracy at this point. But I feel like, like, when you claim a presidential victory, it's easy to say that, like, you know, oh, well, these states, the results are wrong. And then people in, like, North Carolina are like, yeah, those. those idiots in Arizona screwed it up and people in New York could be like, yeah, those idiots in Ohio screwed it up. Right.

I feel like it's harder when it's a more localized election, you know, even though obviously this is statewide. But everyone in Pennsylvania sees these results. They see that it's this incredibly narrow margin. It's sort of like these are their neighbors. So I feel like they won't, they wouldn't be as quick to accept like, because if Oz declares victory, what is he saying? He's saying that the count is wrong because he has an incredibly slim margin right now and it's inside the number of absentee ballots, I believe. So even without a

recount, he could end up behind before the recount. I feel like he can't really do this, but maybe I'm completely wrong and maybe I'm underestimating just how bad shit is. I have no idea. It's a totally bizarre and strange turn of events. And, And it'll be interesting to see. One of the super fascinating things that also happened on Tuesday night was the end of Madison Cossorn as a member of Congress. I'm going to be weird about this because I'm a little worried that he may do something bad to himself. Really? Oh, yeah.

You know, I had a little bit of anxiety about that, too. There was a really good piece. Was it Politico that did the really big piece on him? Yes, it was really good. It was actually really good. And look, he's been nothing but an unrepentant asshole for the past couple years. And there's no excuse for that whatsoever. But I will say that the Politico story actually, you know, getting into sort of what happened to him since his accident and everything, made me, I don't know if sympathetic is exactly the word, but at least sort of worried.

I'm like legitimately worried about him, like that he is going to, you know, and that this loss may be like the last straw for him. I don't know. obviously I hope I'm wrong and I don't mean to be a downer about this. No, it's true. I think nobody wants anyone to hurt themselves. Of course. Of course. And he's, you know, has had a lot of problems in his life.

And he's had, you know, he had a terrible car accident. I mean, the man has had a terrible time. And I think also another important data point here is that, you know, the guy who's replacing him, I'm sure, is going to vote exactly the same way as he would. I mean, you know, there's a case. people will say like the quiet bad candidates are as bad as the loud, bad Republicans, but I would actually disagree because these guys spread a lot of hateful rhetoric in a way that the quieter bad Republicans don't.

Right. So like a Marjorie Taylor Green is not actually the same as someone who votes the same as she does because she does a lot of really racist and terrible things. So I would say that ultimately this Republican congressman from North Carolina's 11th district, who we will never hear from again, right? No one will ever know who he is, is still probably a better bet than Madison Cosshorn. Yeah, no, I agree with you. And look, I'm not saying I'm not glad that Cawthorne lost. I am glad he lost.

But I honestly do hope, like the guy needs help. It's very clear that he needs help. And, you know, the people, obviously, there's always the asshole enablers who are more than happy to let people self-destruct as long, you know, if they can go along for the ride and it makes them, you know, richer or whatever. But I hope he gets away from those people. And I hope he, like, legitimately, I hope he legitimately gets professional help somehow comes out of this a different person. Yeah, I'm sure that'll happen. Well, the thing is, if it does, then ultimately it will be, it will be good for him that he lost because that was. wasn't going to happen if he won, but like for the first time, he's not being rewarded for being an

asshole. So maybe there's a chance. I don't know. In the meantime, glad he lost and completely agree with you that the guy who replaced him, I don't think is going to be Abraham Lincoln. So another thing that Republicans are pretending to be concerned about his baby formula. They are very upset about the baby formula. They feel that it's proof. They're true that it's true. They're Joe Biden is not a good president. They're so upset about the baby formula, except when it comes to voting on the baby formula, which they will not do.

They voted against more money. I mean, not all of them, but some of them voted against more money for the FDA to speed up the baby formula bottleneck. And all of them voted against helping poor women buy formula because obviously can't help people who aren't. aren't rich because then, you know, where are the donations there? Yeah. Andy Biggs, Lauren Bobert, Matt Gates, Louis Gomert, the personal favorite of Molly

Jongfest, Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Green, Clay Higgins, Thomas Massey, and Chip Roy. Those are the nine Republicans who voted against allowing low-income women to buy more baby formula through the WIC program, the women, infant and children program. If you had to guess, if someone said to you nine Republicans voted against this, I think you would go nine for nine. Yeah. I'm always surprised that Chip Roy isn't that other guy. There's another guy from Texas who seems like he is Chip Roy, the other guy in that list.

And you don't mean Clay Higgins? Clay Higgins. That's what I'm thinking. Clay Higgins. Yeah, but Clay Higgins and Chip Roy, they're basically. Basically the same person. Representative of Northern Virginia, I believe. If I'm not.

Yeah. Northern Virginia via Texas. Chip Roy. Come on. Clay has the most iconic accent in all of politics. He can't be taking his valor from him. And Chip worked for Ted Cruz, the worst person in the world. That's right.

All I think of when I hear Clay Higgins is, I don't know if you know this about me, but JFK is one of my top ten favorite movies of all time. Oh, wow. Rekant. because Oliver Stone is about to be canceled. Oh, he's a nut job. Oliver Stone is a nut job. And the movie is completely nuts.

There's not a thing in it that's true. It's just an unbelievable piece of filmmaking. But every time I hear Clay Higgins, I just think of Tommy Lee Jones as Clay Shaw slash Clay Bertrand, which is also, by the way, why I always know that Clay Higgins is from Louisiana because that's the connection there. So anyway, just a little peek inside my brain for the listeners

that they've been, you know, begging for. Makes a lot of sense. So, yeah, no, totally the baby formula thing. I mean, again, and I just want to have a two-second conversation with you about this. This is another situation where there's something that is a problem. Republicans have no incentive to fix it. Right. They would rather run on it in the midterm.

So this is like immigration, right? Immigration is there's no path to citizenship right now. There's really not a path. There's a few different sort of things, but there's no, like, really clear path to citizenship. And the reason why is because Republicans want to keep running on this, so they don't want to ever fix it. That's what this is with the baby formula. Yeah, absolutely. It's gas prices, spiking, like, the thing that happens under every president, but that is now somehow completely an utterly Joe Biden's fault.

The inflation stuff, it's like, you know, inflation is new, but. it's also happening in England and in, you know, the rest of Europe. And it's happening. I mean, it's not Biden's inflation. It's the world's inflation. That said, Biden should get rid of those Trump tariffs tomorrow. And why he hasn't is a mystery to me. Like, those tariffs don't do anything for anyone.

And, like, one of the many stupid things Trump did was put in these tariffs. The tariffs, like, should go tomorrow. Like, that just seems like it doesn't make any sense. to me. Completely agree. But I guess what I'm saying, and you're right about, I mean, the gas prices may have actually been a bad example for me to use because as you're, you're

right. I mean, they're higher now because of inflation. And also because OPEC is a price fixing scheme. I mean, the fact that we even like let OPEC keep going is a scam. But gas prices go up literally every summer. And every summer, the party that's not in

control starts yelling about the president who is in control. And the Democrats do this due too. This isn't even just a Republican thing. And it's just very fucking annoying. This is different. You're right because of the inflation and everything. And yes, the tariffs should go. But you're 100% correct about immigration. And if Republicans couldn't have a migrant caravan coming to this country every even numbered year, they wouldn't know what to do. You're absolutely right about the baby formula too, except, I mean, look, I will say it was only the nine of them that voted against this access to baby. formula act. So at least the rest of them kind of did the right thing, even though they're, again, they're somehow blaming Joe Biden for the lack of baby formula, which makes absolutely no sense,

except that it's politics. And that's what people do. They just lie. But I do believe that they are not in any great hurry to solve this baby formula shortage, you know, at least not before November. Yeah, it's ridiculous. And they don't want it. I mean, this is the whole thing is that the, you know, since New Gingrich, and then greatly increased by Trump, was that, you know, there's no impetus to legislate. They just want to own the lips. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, Madison and Cawthorne, we were just talking about famously, like basically said, my entire, you know, job is going to be comms. Right.

And that's all he cared about. And, you know, I'm just, I'm just looking here at foxnews.com. baby formula shortage bills pass house. Amid GLP claims Dems are covering up the real problem. Right, the real problem, which is why, that Joe Biden has been drinking all the baby formula? I mean, it's just the whole thing is so insane.

These people suck so badly. And I'm telling you, they're just such nihilists. It's like they don't care about anything. I mean, it's really kind of just crushing to watch. They would care if it was fetus formula. Right. Fetus formula. That's right. I think that's fair. Blastula formula.

And yesterday, by the way, there was an abortion hearing where a lot of very smart doctors got up there and tried to talk to Republicans in Congress and the Republicans in Congress screamed at them. I saw Chip Roy screaming about baby parts. That was where I, you know, real good faith argument there from Chip Roy. If you listen to that hearing, or if you listen to Republicans in general, you would think that the vast majority of abortions happen when, like, the fetus is halfway out of the woman. Yeah. And it's just, it's so bizarre. It's because they know that 93% of abortions happen in the first trimester. Of course. Most Americans are fine with first trimester abortions.

Right. They are. Right. They are. And, like, so they know that's a loser for them. So they talk about, you know, the 20. week abortion and the truth is, and I say this as someone who knows a lot of people who've had situations that have been like this, you have the 20 week abortion when the baby is dead,

or when you know the baby is about to die, or when you're about to die, or some combination of the two. I mean, most of the people who have those late abortions, it's because this is like some kind of terrible confluence of events has happened. No, of course, but, and, you know, they don't, look, they don't want to admit that, but they also just, they want, they, they know that as, you know, an early term fetus or whatever you want to call it is really just, it's a collection of cells. But what they need to sell is that it's, it looks exactly like a baby that is being killed. So they need to get it as close to birth as possible. And so they conjure up this sort of nightmare world where, you know, women are running to abortion doctors when they're eight months pregnant

or the day before they go into labor. And it's just, it's absolutely insane. But somehow it works for them, which is really frustrating. I think what's important is that, you know, Republicans know they can't win so they're going to cheat. The other thing I think is important when we don't feel, I feel like we don't talk about this because we live in America. So we're so stuck on American politics. the rest of the world, including Catholic countries, Mexico, Ireland, you know, lots of places in

South America are moving forward on abortion. They're saying, like, women should be able to take, you know, 50% of these abortions happen with pills anyway. The pills are safe up until 11 weeks. Like, the world is moving forward with women having control over their own bodies everywhere but here. Yeah. It's not the only issue where that's kind of the situation. you know, this country is just is regressing in so many ways that so many people thought was never possible. Like, you know, even if you wanted things to go further, to progress further, and you were frustrated at the state of them, it was hard. Not, not, I don't want to say everybody, nobody thought that it was possible, but a lot of people thought, well, at least we have X,

at least we have this protection, at least we have these rights. And now, you know, what we're seeing is, well, maybe we shouldn't have taken that. those for granted. And maybe the people who were screaming that we shouldn't take those for granted were actually right and weren't being hysterical. Jay Willis is editor-in-chief of balls and strikes. Welcome to New Abnormal, Jay. Hey, thanks for having me back on. Appreciate it. So I want to start with Roe because I feel like when we're talking about the Supreme Court, we have to start with Roe, but certainly right now. A fascinating turn of events since that leaked draft. Aren't you kind of surprised how this all went down. And will you tell our listeners sort of all of the excitement that kind of happened

after that? Yeah. So a leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion is basically unprecedented and certainly unprecedented in the way that this one happened. It hasn't happened since Obamacare, right? And that wasn't a publication of a draft opinion. There were sort of hints, whispers about maybe what the Chief Justice was thinking about doing, but there's a huge difference between, you know, some conservative clerk chattering to a friendly journalist and like Politico publishing a 90-page draft opinion, putting it on the website and telling people to go nuts. Right. True.

Like, that just hasn't happened before. Sam Alito's draft opinion in this is a full-throated repudiation of Roe and Casey. It calls them wrong from the moment they were decided and says that they must be overturned, which is not significantly, I mean, significantly, it's not at all out of step with what far right conservatives like Alito believe. But it was, I think, a shock for some people, especially, you know, folks who are more in the center, more institutionalists to actually see in print the words, Roe is overturned. And a lot of the backlash to this opinion has also dealt with not only the disastrous consequences for women, folks who may become pregnant,

but also for its really unnerving hints about where the court could go in the future. Like, Roe is not enough for Sam Alito, who's got all kinds of accumulated culture war grievances to air. So let's talk about that because one of the interesting things that this opinion did was it opened the door to privacy. That's right. It's reasoning calls into question other unenumerated. rights. These are rights that if you are listening to this, they are probably very important to you,

and for very good reason. As you say, rights that are related to one's privacy and autonomy. So the rights to use contraception, the rights to same-sex marriage, to sexual intimacy and privacy. Elito, in the opinion, he insists that the decision doesn't implicate those things. He says, this is just about abortion. My reasoning does not extend to anything else. It's not at all. persuasive. It's sort of like, so what I'm supposed to do is just like, take your word for this. Alito was a dissenter in Obergefell, the same-sex marriage case. That was seven years ago. The idea that he's saying, look, this decision that I hated at the time and that I still talk about how much I hate, don't worry. I'm definitely not coming for that next. I just don't know if like the

just trust me argument. We shouldn't laugh because it's so scary, but yes, go on. Yeah, I just don't know if Your entire evidence for, you know, that these rights are not under attack is just trust me, Sam Alito. Sorry, I don't know if I'm, I don't know if I'm buying that. Yeah, me neither, man. I mean, Jesus. So there were a lot of like hot takes with this leak, like a lot of conservatives more mad about the leak than the decision, obviously because they love this decision. And then a lot of like blame casting, especially like the far right, like the real Trumpist. were like publishing the names of different clerks on the liberal side being like these are the people who leaked the draft.

But ultimately there was also some conjecture that it might have come from the right, right? Yeah. So let's take those in turn. Like first of all, you're right. There was this sort of cascade of criticism of the leak. Right. Hand-wringing stuff about a blow to the court's legitimacy and inexcusable and a violation of traditions. and trust, blah, blah, other just like dead-end formalist bullshit. It's important to understand that those arguments get the problem exactly backwards. The court is not like losing public trust or losing its legitimacy because of a leak. The court is leaking because it's lost the public trust. The leak is not a disease.

It's a symptom of the problem. People understand that this court is political and has always been political and that this particular far-right supermajority is like an imminent threat to the problem. rights to a lot of people and places and things that they care about. In my view, if the court doesn't want its precious, mythical, nonpartisan reputation to be ruined, maybe it should stop doing stuff that's so, like, obviously, partisan and extremist, just like one suggestion there. Yeah, it's crazy talk. As far as, like, yeah, the identity of the leaker, I really want to be clear, like, I don't give a shit who leaked this, right? My view is that any transparency for an institution

that is like famously contemptuous of the notion of transparency or accountability is a good thing. The court hands down all of its decisions like, you know, Moses descending from Mount Sinai, this is the law now and you are to follow it. Except that law came from God and the Supreme Court's law comes from like nine fancy lawyers. Right. Who should be treated with the same amount of skepticism that you'd accord to any random Fed Sock deadender telling you what to do. Well, I think the point is we don't want to, nobody wants to get sued here.

But again, there's a conservative thing where they couldn't defend taking this right away from women. So they decided to defend the process, right? And I think that's what's like really relevant here is that they knew they had a loser. And so they went for whatever they could, which I think is super interesting. And I mean, we see that in the way that abortion is covered, right? Like the people, they want to talk about late term abortion, even though 93% of all abortions happen in the first trimester, because they know that that's a loser for them. And so I do think that's interesting and maybe does point to a conservative justice or a clerk, but we, again, we don't know and we shouldn't speculate.

But so there are a couple of other really big decisions that are going to come down in June that are also extremely important. Will you talk our listeners through what's coming down? Yeah, so setting aside the Roe and Dobbs case, again, if that's something that one can set aside in one's brain, getting rid of. of 50 years of constitutional right to abortion access. The other big case that folks are watching is this gun rights case out of New York. Bruin, if that person goes one syllable with their name, Bruin, I'm sorry to you and your family. But yeah, it's a challenge to New York State's concealed carry laws. Backing up for a minute, in 2008, the Supreme Court, for the first time in its history,

divined a individual right to gun possession, unconnected with your service in the militia in the Second Amendment. And it's hard to overstate how, like, astroturfed this was. The court had never previously held that. This was like a real sea change in the law. And it was the product of this long campaign of conservative legal academics and gun rights organizations to gin up the sort of alternative history that your friend and mine, Antonin Scalia, could cite in support.

But this was about having a gun in your home for self-defense purposes. So the question in Bruin is whether this extends outside of the home. If there's a constitutional right to carry a gun outside for self-defense, perhaps even concealed. Right. This law would call into question concealed carry regimes in California, New York, New Jersey, some of the nation's most populous states. Right. And the outcome just sort of depends on how wild westy these justices,

really want to get. Right. Most states used what are used what are called shall issue issue licensing schemes where if you apply for a concealed carry permit, you presumptively get one unless one of a handful of exceptions applies to you. New York's a little different. Authorities can deny you one unless you show like some kind of special individualized need. The court could decide that that's too onerous a requirement. It could, you know, issue a narrow decision about New York's law. Or it could issue like a broader, more generally applicable rule of law that would apply to these others. We don't know, but like spoiler alert, it's not going to be great. I seem to remember Eric Adams, not my favorite person in the world, by any stretch of the

imagination, having a lot of anxiety about this and saying that this will actually be quite bad. Eric Adams is hardly like some sweet summer child liberal. I mean, if he's worried, we should all be kind of worried, right? So it's interesting to see how this, how the, the logic of Heller to Bruin is reflected in the Roe and Dobbs discussion we just had. In Heller, the court, again, your friend in mind, Antonin Scalia writing the opinion, took great pains to talk about how limited the decision was, how moderate it was. He talked about how it didn't call into question longstanding traditions of legal restrictions on guns. for people experiencing mental illness, for example, or people convicted of crimes, which really parallels Alito's arguments in this Dobbs draft.

Scalia said that the decision is just about gun ownership in the home. Now you have the conservative legal movement pushing for gun possession everywhere. Same thing with Alito. He's saying this only applies to Roe and Casey and abortion, but based on the way the conservative legal movement treated Heller, Again, I'm not so sure there's a lot of stock we should put into that. If you give a demagogue an inch, they're always going to take the mile sooner or later. Yeah, so interesting.

One other important thing to talk about in the Bruin case is what might come to folks as an unexpected ideological coalition and alignment here. There's a brief filed in this case by public defenders in New York who argue with the gun rights folks, who want the law struck down because they say gun possession laws are used to discriminate, incarcerate, criminalize their black and brown clients. And they're right. That's true. There's a long history of that. There's plenty of statistical evidence for that. And there's not a really easy way to reconcile these two awful realities. Black people are far more likely to be incarcerated for illegal possession of a gun. And they are also far more likely to be shot.

and killed by one. And I think what the case really illustrates is this problem of talking about crime and about public safety using only this really clumsy language of gun rights. Gun possession gets framed as the only reasonable method, the only metric of self-defense, against whom? Against other people who have guns, right? And always left out of this conversation, again, about the very specific scope of your right to gun possession is stuff the Supreme Court couldn't address even if it could if it's conservatives wanted to policies that could actually make people safer decarceration investing in housing and education and health care and job creation but instead of like acknowledging this sort of failed state status quo and talking about actual solution everything gets

discussed through this very narrow lens of who gets to have a gun and who doesn't and get to have one. And the result is this absurd, this absurd sort of theater where people are having to fight for their lives and their safety in 2022 by arguing about the implications of no joke, like mid-14th century English laws about where you could and could not carry your sword, which would be like really funny if it weren't just like such a damning indictment of the legal systems, inadequacies, its inability to, again, actually address real-world problems and keep people safe. And also with Alito, Alito also has a 16th century religious zealot on abortion, too, right? Yeah, that's really sort of the story of how the modern conservative legal movement works,

with its emphasis on originalism, textualism, the sort of like amateur law office history. There's always a market for legal, quote unquote, scholarship that will discuss the never-before-seen evidence that the framers always intended what Josh Hawley wants. Right. Magical how they come up with that. That's been the fuel behind the shift in Second Amendment jurisprudence. It's always what's undergirded the attacks on Roe since it was decided 50 years ago. But yeah, whenever you get an opinion that's written by a conservative justice, that starts with a line like,

it is important to examine, you know, the longstanding national tradition rooted in English law. Like, spoiler alert, that opinion's going to end real badly. Ted Cruz had a big win. Why would anyone give a Ted Cruz a win? And can you explain to us a little bit about what it is? Oh, my God. Ted Cruz.

Sure. So that was a decision the court handed down earlier this week. FEC versus Ted Cruz for Senate. talk about an unsympathetic party. At issue in this case is a campaign finance law that's pretty simple, at least like in the world of campaign finance law. So if you loan your campaign some money, you can repay those loans to yourself with donations that you receive before the election.

But for donations that you receive after the election, after the voters have already cast their ballots, any loans that you've made to yourself, you can only use those post-election donations to pay back up to $250,000. Pretty simple rationale. Like a donation that goes towards retiring a winning candidate's debt is basically a gift to the candidate, right? They've incurred a certain amount of debt. And if you're donating to retire that debt, that's money in their pocket. One of the ways the government put this in a brief, like a post-election donation, is not a bet. It's a bet on a sure thing. So the Supreme Court says this week, this is fun.

This is okay. The $250,000 limit is no good. It is a violation of your First Amendment right to free speech. It is an opinion from Chief Justice John Roberts and contains genuinely some of the dumbest reasoning I've ever read in a Supreme Court opinion. Certainly since his Sheldon County opinion where he decided that protections for black vote, voters were no longer necessary because black people were voting at greater numbers than they did during the Jim Crow era. And it's like, do you have any idea why that might be, sir, Mr. Chief Justice? But anyway, in this case, at one point Robert says that post-election donations,

they aren't really gifts of a problematic nature because they just restore the candidate to the status quo before they lent themselves money. I'm quoting here, if the candidate did not have the money to buy a car before he made a loan to his campaign, repayment of the loan would not change that. It is hard to come up with a clever analogy to illustrate how dumbness is because you don't need to be a fancy lawyer to understand that this is not how money works. If you spend your money on something and then someone gives you money so that you can spend your money on something else, that is, Like everyone who's been to a birthday party understands that that is a gift. Like the fact that I previously had more money before I spent it does not me.

That just makes me like every person who has ever bought anything ever. And in terms of like where this fits into the court's First Amendment jurisprudence, treating spending his speech, previously the court has said, you know, it's accorded broad First Amendment protections to political. spending. But it said, hey, the one thing that we're going to take a hard look at is laws that are designed to address quid pro quo corruption, you know, at straight exchanges of money for favors. They say that might be valid grounds for limiting political speech, political spending going forward. And it's like, if this is not that, what is? This is purposefully obtuse about how the world works. And at this point, I expect the court to like only uphold laws that prohibit exchanges of cash stuff briefcases in daylight on TV. And even that I think you might get conservatives

being like, well, there is a time honored tradition in this country of rich people getting what they want. It's funny, but it's also just quite tragic. And we see where this is happening. So we're just nobody's ever doing anything about the Supreme Court, right? Like no term limits, nothing. The obvious answer of what the Democrats, in my view, should be doing about the court is expanding it. Changing the court size is something Congress has done a half dozen times, something like that. It's plainly constitutional. There's no meaningful, like, legal barrier to it. There is, however, a barrier in that it would require political courage. And we're talking about the Democratic Party here. So let's set that aside for a minute. Really what Democrats, in my view, should be doing

is running against the court. There's too many of these politicians who tiptoe around the court, like criticizing it is a political third rail. That's just objectively not true anymore. Polling shows this. People have less faith in the court. They view it as a political institution, and they understand the threats that it poses to their rights. Democrats should be talking about that. Roe is not some abstractions, you know, words on a page that are about to be over And this is going to affect the rights and the safety of millions of people. Talk about the reason this is going to happen is because conservatives successfully took over the courts. The Supreme Court is just like, it's not some fount of unimpeachable legal analysis.

It's the most powerful conservative policymaking body in the country. I always laugh sort of when conservatives say that, you know, the court isn't a legislature. And I'm like, well, you're right. It's worse than that because its members can't be removed from office. in an election. So yeah, I think Joe Biden, when he talks about the danger row faces, he should be talking about the reasons Roe is in danger and promising to appoint justices who are not like these justices going forward. Same with Democratic Senate candidates. You should be putting the ability to confirm judges and justices that are going to defend bodily autonomy,

putting that front and center. No free passes for powerful politicians just because their jobs are like technically organized under a different article of the Constitution. Thank you so much, Jay. That was great. Yeah, thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Brian Jones is running for the Republican nomination in Florida's first district against Matt Gates. Welcome to the new abnormal, Brian Jones. It's a pleasure to be here, Molly. Thank you very much. I think just by coming on this show, I'll be labeled a rhino, which can we just all agree at this point that that means nothing? I think at this point, there's not a Republican who's has not been called that at some point in time. And I have my own thoughts on what that means now

as a representative and name only. But that's one of the biggest problems I see in politics today. Okay. So you're a Republican, and we don't have that many Republicans on, though we have had a few Representative Kinsinger, different primary candidates. You're running in Florida's first district against Matt Gates. Yes, ma'am. That's correct. You were special ops. You grew up in the panhandle. Will you tell us a little bit about what? what Florida's first district, for those of us who do not live there, it looks like. Yeah, absolutely. Happy to, yeah.

So, like you said, I was born and raised here. It's in the northwest portion of Florida. So we spanned four counties here, but some of the cities people probably recognize is Pensacola, Destin, Fort Walton Beach. That's the main area here. So we're ordered by Alabama. I'm proud to be from this area. You know, we have more military presence in this area with military bases and veterans and retirees than any other congressional district in the nation. It's number one out of 435.

Yet the last time we've had a veteran represent us here in Congress was 1995. It's been 27 years. And I think that's a problem for this district. And quite frankly, I think that's a problem for this nation as a lack of veteran representation in Congress. We're at a low at 17 percent currently. And you compare that to nearly 70 percent through the 1950s of the 1970s. And that's something I'd like to see changed. So let's talk about why you decided to run and primary a citizen.

Republican. Why did you decide to run in primary city, Republican? That's a great question. I think ultimately, you know, I always go back to this quote as, you know, the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is good men to do nothing. I've devoted my life to serving this country. At 18, I swore an oath to defend support and defend the Constitution, and I went to the Air Force Academy, and I've served the last 15 years in special operations, leading teams taking the fight to the enemies of this nation. I've devoted my life to service. And I look at this as just a continuation of that service to this nation, but in a new capacity. You know, I felt called and compelled to this. After 15 years on active

duty coming off now, giving up retirement, the benefits and all that that come with it, you know, I just felt a strong calling to it. Like you said, I was born and raised in this district. My high school sweetheart, Rachel was born and raised in this district, which we're raising our two little girls. And we're losing the specialness that is this place for a lack of reprefer I'm deeply concerned about our country and what my daughters are going to inherit. And I feel like I have an opportunity to change that. Your running doesn't have anything to do with Matt Gates. Well, I think that you and I will certainly disagree on some policies, but I think that we will absolutely agree that. I think Matt Gates is one of the worst members of Congress. Absolutely. I think that certainly has something to do with the fact that I don't think that he deserves to represent my friends, my neighbors and the service members that are in this district. I mean, we, again, none of us really know what's happening there, but there was an announcement that he was under FBI investigation. We don't know where that is at.

That was months ago. But that is certainly still going on. And he's not, by the way, the only member of Congress under FBI investigation, because of course he's not. I want to talk to you about policies. So one of your policies is protecting the Second Amendment. I'm curious how you square that after a weekend that had three mass shootings. And also, like, another question I have about the Second Amendment is, like, it doesn't even seem in my mind that there's any possibility of even sort of tamping down the proliferation of AR-15s. So I'm just curious, like, what needs to be protected there?

That's a fair question. And again, I think that's probably something that we'll differ on. But let me tell you my stance. Ultimately, the events of this weekend in any of these shootings are a complete travesty and any loss of life. What I'm concerned about is making emotional decisions, which this is deeply emotional whenever there's loss of lives, that go against the foundations of our Constitution. You know, like I said, I swore notes of support and defend this Constitution. And I may not be politically correct all the time, but I'm constitutionally correct.

And I will always stand by that. And I believe that our founding fathers and enabling that right is a powerful thing. And I think that, unfortunately, you know, any infringement upon that right sets a bad precedent. for the future of our nation. And, you know, one of the biggest things that people should be concerned about is any time the government steps in and says, you know, hey, I'm here from the government, I'm here to help, right? That looks like what would be, you know, gun restrictions. And I have to relate, you know, this to the current situation in Ukraine and the tragic, you know,

events that are unfolding there. And while I hope that something like that would never happen in America, ultimately the people there who are begging for weapons and arms to not only just defend their families from, an invasion and attackers that are trying to kill them, but also to defend their nation. I mean, that's the reason that that constitutional amendment was written. And I'm a strong believer in that. So you don't want government to infringe on our rights, but you're okay with there's this draft, this Alito draft that's been leaked, which says that abortion doesn't appear in the

constitution. And ergo, we should overturn Roe, which has been precedent for 49 years. I'm just curious, like, you know, like you don't want government going in there, but you want government going in there. Yeah. So I would say it's a, that's an apples to oranges, but I do see the comparison. And here's where I'll talk about that is that ultimately, again, that goes back to a, just the sanctity of life. So I'm a 100% pro life. So for me, the reason for that is a deeply personal. I'm adopted. My mother was 16 years old when she had me. She was not aware that she was pregnant for a good portion of that. ultimately gave me the opportunity for life that now I've been adopted into a family. I've been able to serve this country. I've been able to now run for this political office. I'm raising two beautiful girls. I have a wife. You know, I have opportunities that if I wasn't given the opportunity for life that I wouldn't have. So I understand, you know, kind of the parallel there of government interference, but when it interferes with the ability for someone to have life,

then that's the issue for me. So when do you think life begins? That's, you know, know, a conversation that's ongoing with scientists and different things like that. And I don't know that you're ever going to have, you know, a complete agreement on that. But for me, I'm just going to say that I'm 100 percent that pro-life and I don't see any infringement upon that is a good thing for people, especially in the situation than I was in. So let's talk about another thing that I think is important. So you're very much pro-border wall. But I'm just curious, again, like how that squares with, like, we have this very, very tight labor market. We're having problems with, I mean, everything from, you know, getting, you know, we have fruit rotting in farms.

You know, there's all sorts of places where there are not people to work the jobs we desperately need. Immigration is at a low. Biden has largely kept Donald Trump's immigration policy. We're down immigrants. We need them. I mean, the economy has slowed partially because of a lack of government spending, but also partially because we just, you know, we don't have people. people to do these jobs. How do you square that with build a wall? You know, I go back to the fact that we have to keep faith in the foundations that built this country. And this country is a nation of law and

order. And, you know, at the end of the day, crossing into this country is illegal. And I try to simplify it, you know, by that. I mean, the people that have been most frustrated as I've gotten around and talk to voters and think that are most frustrated with illegal immigrants and that sort of thing are people who legally immigrated into this country and did the hard work necessary to become. a U.S. citizen. Right. No, and that is for sure true, but there's no legal path for them. I mean, I definitely see, and especially in Florida, where you have a large population of people who've come from Cuba and who've really experienced repression and then we're able to come here. But the way that it's worked so far is that there's no legal path. And one of the reasons why it's gotten

harder and harder to have a legal path is because for Republicans, the sort of fight of immigration is a winning issue. So there's no impotence. to ever find a path for people to be legal. Even though, I mean, if we're going to talk about the roots of the country, I would think that immigration would almost be, I mean, I don't know about you, but like my parents came, my great-great-grandparents came over the 1800s.

On the other side, they came over in the 1700s. I mean, there was no one here, right? I mean, except for indigenous people. So it actually, the roots of the country kind of are immigration, but even larger than that, like, if there's no legal path, then what are these people going to? going to do. I mean, we need these immigrants to continue to grow. Otherwise, we've become Japan.

Republicans have no impetus to have a legal path. So what, I mean, where does this end? You bring up a great point. And I'm fully insupportive ensuring that there is a legal path for people to U.S. citizenship. I mean, that is absolutely, I mean, you're right. I mean, this country was born, you know, and built on the foundations of differing views. And virtually no one was not an immigrant at some point in time to this country. So we absolutely need to, you know, you hit the nail on the head, though, right? When you said that this has just become the hot button issue, you know, and that's the problem in politics today is that there's just a lack of leadership that people actually don't want to solve these problems, you know, it was recently related to me. There's two types of people

in Congress. There's legislators that are working hard every day for the American people to try to get things like you're talking about past as a legal path to citizenship. And then there's entertainers who I'm running against an entertainer who's not passed any laws who's consistently in the bottom percentile of introduction of any laws or co-sponsoring anything right but is interested in pushing these narratives out there that he has no plan for these and there isn't you know he just wants to be an entertainer and get Twitter followers and that ultimately is the problem in our country today is that no one is serious about the business of actually getting some of these things accomplished so I would absolutely agree with you there Molly we do need

a path to citizenship. But at the same time, we need to ensure that, you know, this nation is kept safe. Part of that is securing this border. Even though I'm a big liberal, I am a big idealist. So I love the idea that we can have Republicans in Congress working hard and standing up for what's right. And, you know, a lot of liberals say that they want to see a strong Republican Party, too. I mean, so if you were to get elected and stranger things have happened, you live in the district, you're working hard. You know, if you were to get elected, what would you do differently to a MacGate? As you well know, what's happened in the house now, there are serious people in the house. There are people who have done things that are very, very brave. And then there are people in the

house who are, you know, sort of ruining themselves for MAGA. So how would you do that? Absolutely. It's obviously an uphill battle running against an incumbent, but I'll tell you, I think we are, we have a path to victory here and, uh, and, and things are trending very well. think people are tired of the entertainer that we have here that is not serious about the people here in northwest for it in fact he's everywhere but here right i mean he's you know campaigning in ohio in georgia and arizona and uh and it's forgot where where he's come from but uh ultimately you know to answer your question you know i do have some concern about you know people who stake either their campaign and their time in office based on uh you know a single person what happens when that person

is no longer around right and that that's they don't have anything anymore right of substance. That's where we need real leaders. You know, my first and foremost, tie, is to the district here that is not being currently represented. Like I said, we have more veterans and military folks here that just can't get the help that they need because our, our congressman is too busy being an entertainer and trying to get on TV and, you know, build a brand, a fire brand, which, you know, it's been related to me recently, you know, it's a, you only play with fire so much before you get burned. And I think people are starting to come around to that. What could you do as a of Congress to support people who have been in the armed services? First and foremost, I'd like to see

more veterans run for these offices. There's a hindrance to people getting involved in this and myself personally right on the, you know, the financial side, the amount of money and politics and things that are necessary that are in place to benefit incumbents and that go against the values of a representative democracy by allowing people the opportunity to run for these offices is number one. Like I said, we have 17 percent of veterans right now currently in Congress and I think that needs. needs to change. But more so, you know, the veterans is the hot potato that gets passed around and when it's convenient to people. But I think, you know, just like we didn't learn anything from Vietnam and as we're, you know, coming off the tail end of the global war on terrorism,

we can't ever forget the people that, you know, lay their life on the line and their family sacrifice for our country. And we need to ensure that they're always taken care of and that remains a, as part of a volunteer force, we have to set the precedent. Those people will always be taken care of. And war needs to be done. What are the crises? Mental health, drugs and alcohol, homelessness. I mean, what are the crises, PTSD? I mean, what are the things that affect veterans that could be if you had more veterans in government legislated to solve? Specifically, it's the mental health crisis of veterans. I mean, I'm sure you've heard of the statistic. There's, you know, nearly 22 veterans every single day take their own life. I mean, that is probably an arguably the greatest travesty of our. generation and this generation of members who served in the global war on terrorism is 22 veterans a day. And there's not enough being done about that through veteran affairs services, through more VA

clinics for more outreach programs, more, you know, candidly funding for some of these charity organizations that are veterans themselves that know how to talk to veterans and know what veterans needs. You know, the bigger government isn't always the answer, right? I mean, in my time in the military, I've yet to see the government do something efficient. effectively on time or on budget. So just telling the government to fix this isn't a problem. But there's a lot of really smart veterans out there that are working really hard and charitable organizations that I think could stem the tide of the mental health issues we have the veteran. They just need the help and support. And what about substance abuse? I think that's part and parcel

to it, right? I mean, veterans, myself included me, we're a proud, it's a proud group. We're proud to serve this nation and we're proud of our time. But we also, you know, have a facade and, you know, myself being in special operations that we don't like to ask for help. And what happens, what I've seen even with good friends and colleagues that I've served with is because they don't feel comfortable asking for help or they don't feel like there's somebody that they can go to, they turn to these substances to dull and block in the pain that they're suffering. And I think, you know, it's a chicken or the egg argument, but we need to get ahead of that to let them know that there are groups and there are people out there that are deeply concerned about them

that want to see them continue and want to see see them continue to do great things like run for office and be a representative that people can be proud of to try to avoid getting into those. And then, of course, if they're into those issues, then we need to show them that there's a path away from that. Thank you for joining us, Brian. This was interesting. No, thank you so much, Molly. I greatly appreciate your time.

And please continue doing what you're doing. An informed voter base is what this country needs. And so I'm grateful for the work that you and the team are doing. Andy Levy. Molly Jongfest. No, I would like to know. You want to talk this time? I want to talk.

What the hell is going on, man? I want to talk. I paid for this microphone. That's right. Did you, though? Well, the microphone, yes, the rest of it, no. I would like to know who you're fuck that guy is for today. And I know that this is unusual for me, especially because the Republican Party is so disgusting and degrading and horrendous.

I usually pick a Republican from fuck that guy. But for today, I'm going to talk about one of New York's worst mayors. Is he even one of New York's worst mayors? I'm not sure he is. We've had some really bad mayors. I'm not even sure which one you're talking about. That's how bad things are here. So one of the really shitty things that happened this week is that the New York, the special master who is not elected, but who is super powerful because,

the way of this all works, redrew the Congressional House map to completely fuck over the Democrats. Once again, he's a Cuomo appointee, who is theoretically was, at one time a Democrat, and this map really sucks.

And one of the things that this map does, they combined, I think they combined a couple districts. I don't know what they're going to call it now, but so basically what's happened is that this newly drawn 10th congressional district, which will cause Jerry Nadler to run against Carolyn Maloney. And if that wasn't bad enough, you'll remember that Bill de Blasio, our worst mayor, he's not even our worst mayor by even a little bit. But one of our many bad mayors is going to also run for this seat. I don't know, this is like a death off.

But these three will compete for that seat. I have nothing else to say. Bill de Blasio famously, I think, fair to say, hated by most New Yorkers by the end of his last term. Yeah. First term? Yeah. And yet all he talks about is running for some kind of like higher office. How do you do that?

Someone give me the self-esteem of a mediocre white guy. Yeah, I guess. but it's like if you're a horrible radio talk show host and you have horrible ratings and people don't like you, you don't then throw your hat in the ring to replace Howard Stern. Speak for yourself, man. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough.

Apparently someone does have the confidence of a mediocre white man. That's right, baby. Shit's already fucked up enough that you've got, you know, two long-term Democratic representatives now having to face off against each other. And then de Blasio decides, well, I got to make this even worse. Just incredible stuff all around, real lot of fuckery, not what we need right now in a country where one party no longer believes in democracy. Andy Levy, who is your fuck that guy? Well, my fuck that guy, I know you went with the Democrat, but because I believe...

I know. I feel bad doing it. I'm a vote blue no matter who kind of guy, as everyone knows. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And unless they're one of Molly's neoliberals. Yeah, exactly. The House of Representatives on Wednesday had a resolution come up for a vote condemning the rising anti-Semitism in this country.

And I read through the resolution and there's literally nothing problematic in there. There's nothing controversial in there. It passed by a vote of 420 to 1. And if you were wondering who the one is, that would be one Thomas Massey from the state of Kentucky. And he decided that I can only assume from this vote that he does not condemn rising anti-Semitism. He hasn't even given a reason for voting against it. He hasn't commented at all. And look, it's a resolution that is essentially meaningless.

There's no legislation attached to it or whatever. It does a lot of, you know, there's a lot of, we call on people to not be anti-Semitic and stuff like that. Fine. Like, okay, it's performative, it's whatever. It's also harmless. Like, I don't know, you know, like, there is literally no point in voting against it other than to just announce to the world, I am a dick. Yeah. So my fuck that guy is Representative Thomas Dick Massey.

for voting against a resolution that condemns anti-Semitism. Yeah, that's a good one. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics and science. We'll help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you again on the next episode. more great listens, check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast

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