The Daily Beast Podcast - It May Take This Long for Election Results to Be Official

Episode Date: November 3, 2020

This isn’t your typical election in any way. We may know who wins today, or at least this week, says Rick Wilson, but as far as getting those results certified? That can take a lot longer. Like, more than two weeks longer. In this special recorded episode of The New Abnormal LIVE, which took place today on Zoom, as things do in 2020, Rick and co-host Molly Jong-Fast spoke about what’s to come today, and beyond. Of course, it all depends on who wins and who loses. If Biden wins, Rick predicts Trump will play “fuck around” for 60 days. It’s definitely a possibility: “Biden is a lot better positioned than Barack Obama was. And he’s a lot better positioned than Hillary Clinton was.” Then the duo answered fan questions, including what the future holds for the Trump family. Sorry to say, a Trump family reality show is also a real possibility. They also discussed the two biggest things Biden needs to tackle if he wins, which of Trump’s sycophants will jump ship if he loses and the ‘eruption’ of lawsuits against Donald that will almost definitely come—and as Rick says, “will bankrupt him.” Plus! In true TNA fashion, a good, curse-laden game of Fuck, Kill, Marry with Trump, Rudy or Jared (aka the “impossible question”) and the ULTIMATE Fuck that Guy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi there. This is new abnormal producer Jesse Cannon, and we have a nice little surprise for you here on Election Day. Rick Molly and I just did a Zoom chat with Beast Inside members who were able to ask us questions on Zoom. So we were able to hear from our audience and discuss some of the things you're thinking about on this election day. And we had a whole lot of fun doing this. And we talked about the election, what their predictions are, will the podcast keep moving forward, and all sorts of other fun things. So give a listen to this. It starts about two questions into the live stream since the live stream people got a little extra. And after that, you get to hear some fun answers from Rick and Molly. And we hope you have a great election day. And if you haven't already voted, get out there, grab someone and get someone out there to vote. Thanks so much for your support listening to us. We hope you really enjoy this. So the next question that's getting a lot of upvotes is, why didn't Bush come out against Trump?

Can Republicans not see that Trump is the end of the Republican Party? Yeah, I want to know that too, Rick Wilson. And why not Jeb? Please clap. Well, Jeb's not going to run. Jeb's not going to do it because his son is, you know, active in politics. I have made this point to that group that whatever you do, whether you endorse him or you don't endorse him, you're going to have to eat a shit sandwich one way or the other.

If you endorse Donald Trump, you shit on the book. you shit on the Bush brand forever. That idea of public service, of noblesse oblige, of courtesy, of dignity, of the things that George H.W. Bush tried to pass along and that legitimately shaped a lot of the people who are working with me today. We come out of that George H.W. Bush era. And that was something that meant a lot in terms of how you behave toward people as a person with political power.

So if they endorse Trump, they're besmirch that legacy forever. If they don't endorse Trump, they have the Trumpers screaming out, you're a Rano, cook, shill, and I hate you. Guess what? They're going to do that anyway. Yeah. And I wish that Jeb and I wish that W had taken a different path. Now, W has a different set of reasonings behind it, part of which is, like his father,

He believed that once you were out of politics, you were out of politics and you were into the public service phase of your post-presidential career. I disagree with that assessment. I think that Trump was an existential threat. I did not prevail in that argument. But you will note there is a presence that is off the campaign trail that George W. Bush never went out there and said, he's a Republican, therefore I must support him. And I would lay informed odds that a certain House law. in Texas will not be casting any ballots for Donald John Trump this year.

I still wish they had come out and said something. Well, I wish they had too. And the problem that we face here is that the idea of preserving the political viability of the next generation, I think was what drove Jeb. I haven't talked to Jeb directly about it, but I've heard from other people that said that. And I will say this, it is, it is something I think they will regret in the end. But, you know, that's not a place that I think would have changed a ton of votes.

Because I think if you're a Republican already, you're looking at, in that demo, you've already decided to vote against the guy. Okay. So I'm going to next say a sentiment that's being expressed, which is getting a lot of upos, which is from Rebecca, which says thanks to both of you. The pot has helped keep me sane, and we see that a lot in the Twitter things. I think that's very much appreciated. It's true for us, too.

I mean, it's kept us saying. It really is. And we've had a lot of great conversations in the last year that have really meant a lot from people on every part of the political spectrum and in every, you know, attitudinal position on this president. and it has been something that, you know, we enjoy sharing it. We enjoy having a little bit of fun with it. And there is an element of human psychology,

especially in a time when you've got a guy like Donald Trump who just eats up everything around him, who just consumes the world around him. There's an element where, you know, being a couple of smart asses helps us, and we're glad that it helps other people as well, because, you know, there's nothing, there's nothing an authoritarian, hates more than mockery. Okay.

Nothing. Authoritarians cannot abide being made fun of. We are pretty good at making fun of Donald Trump and his minions and his allies and his little you know, his little horde of

sycophants. And I was talking to Steve Schmidt this morning. We were out having a conversation. And it was like, what kind of presidency ends up having people like Seb Gorka? and Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiac and Dan Bongino these people, what kind of presidency ends up attracting

those people as it stars? And you know what it is? Shit tear. And we try to like call the shit tier people out as often as we can, I have a little bit of fun with it. And if that is helpful, God bless and we're happy to do so. I think that's right. I also think like, you know, it's so absurd that it's impossible.

not to call it out because of how it is. Right. And it's so crazy that when you watch this guy in action and you're people like us who do basically observational politics and writing, you can't not take the swing. You have to punch this guy. It's just that simple. I have a question. Can I ask a question?

Sure. ask a question. Who is the first, if Trump gets defeated tonight, which we all pray and hope, who is the first of those sycophants to abandon Trump? That's a good question. Well, listen, there's going to be a, here's how to work, okay? Here's how to work. Lindsay Graham, if he wins re-election, will go into Congress and he'll make a speech on his first day back, say, we tried with Donald Trump and we loved him so much. But now is it for bipartisan unity. And he will be the first one to come out and do that.

And it is just, it's all horseshit. But they will one by one fall into two categories. You will have the true believers who want to run for president as Trumpists because they realize the Republican base is still going to be pretty Trumpy. So the guys that hold the line, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, one you will see break off very quickly is the suddenly enlightened Marco Rubio will say, I tried very hard to make the president's administration successful, but now it's time for us to look to the future and to come together and sing kumbaya as one people once again,

to reembrace basically all the things Marco used to say he believed in, okay? But he never did. It was all expedient. It was all bullshit. and just as his fear of Trump led him to be, you know, the Bible-quotin sycophant that he's become today. So you will also see Susan Collins, if she survives, Lisa Murkowski, if she survives, a bunch of the other, you know, Rob Portman-type's call for a moment where we look hard at what we've done, except for not taking any responsibility for what they've done.

Not one of them will say, I promise you this, not one will say, God damn it, I should have fucking impeached him. Not one, we'll say that. They're still afraid of Trump. He will still have a Twitter feed. The large adult sons will still have a Twitter feed. Trump TV will be emerging here very shortly as a major force in American politics. You think Trump TV is OANN?

Do you think they buy OANN? I think they buy or they or they or they or they or they capitalize just enough off of whatever they grifted on the campaign to form their own. Look, it doesn't take as much resources as people think to form a streaming network. Trust me, I've done it. And, you know, we did it, we did it in a way with Lincoln Project. We formed a streaming thing because we did a lot of research on where voters were at, where they were getting their information.

And they told us podcasts, hey, we have a podcast, a podcast and streaming video from trust. I'm cheating another podcast or your podcast? I'm cheating on you with another podcast, Molly. But I'm only an infrequent guest. I'm not a host yet. But what we've done, you know, what we've seen is it's pretty easy to do that. And as you may have noticed, the standards of Trump folks for, say, production values and graphic design are not high. So, you know, you could put Donald Trump up against a, uh, a, uh, a, green screen in Trump Tower, and his people would declare it the greatest television since

madmen or something. I don't know. But yeah, I do think there will be Trump TV out there threatening and intimidating these people, and Trump's Twitter feed will still be there. And look, I try to tell Republicans this for a long time. A Trump voter only hates Republicans about one scintilla less than he hates Democrats. They're about Trump. They're about Trump and Trump and also Trump. And in addition to that, they're about Trump. So none of that should surprise anybody

that some people will flip back, try to get back in the middle, and the ones that are going to run for president, and you can tell which ones are going to run for president because they will stay with Trump. So go ahead, Mom. No, go on. Let's go to regular questions and not just to need-mail. So there's a popular question in the chat from Queen of Yee about this,

but somewhat phrased it in a fun way named Jerry Beard that I want to read from, which is up. Can you discuss plans for the Trump presidential library? Should it be housed within the Bureau of Prisons? Leavenworth? Let me let me get to the somebody else had, though, a better way of asking this, which is as well. SDNY, do you guys have any predictions for if he loses?

What SDI-Y does? Do we have any information on that? My feeling on the matter is that Donald Trump's legal future is enormously problematic and costly and also expensive. And it will reduce whatever remaining money he has and also will bankrupt him. Because I think he's in a river of shit so deep you can barely see his nose. And I can't predict which. What's that? Is that a legal opinion?

Well, I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on TV. But I will say this. There is a degree to which Donald Trump faces, you know, tax fraud case, bank fraud cases. A lot of the things that will emerge from the truth and reconciliation era of the post-Trump world will also be, I think, legally damaging and dangerous for him because we're, we're going to see no Bill Barr to protect you anymore, Donnie. Bill Barr has been really, has been sort of missing for the last week and a half. I think Bill Barr has made a very careful political calculation that he's saving his powder.

And when Trump needs him the most, he's going to do the big, he'll do the big lift. But between now and then he has been sort of on the down low. and you know I'm not saying that when Bill Barr disappears for weeks or days at a time that you could map his travels and a string of serial killings around the country I'm not saying that

I don't believe that is true but some people theorize that I'm just reflecting what I've heard I don't know what you guys are talking about he's taking selfies with those Qadon people outside his house that's a busy busy job no one ever explained to me why the white horse was there We did not get to the bottom of that.

We did not solve the White Horse mystery. But there are many things that we will, there are many things we will have to face in the future that will require either the numerological approach of Q&N or some more scientific angle. So I'm going to dig a little into these questions because some of these we have answered on the podcast before. There's so many good ones in here that are not things we've done.

discussed. Rick, I'm going to hit you with an interesting one. Will Lincoln Project Support Election Reform? Yes. In what way? Tell us some more. Well, we believe we need a new, we actually believe we need a new Voting Rights Act in this country. We also believe we need a foreign election interference legislation that has real teeth that not only punishes the people that engage in it, but the people that accept that help knowingly. We believe that bill should also include strictures and sanctions and legal consequences for the social media platforms who knowingly amplify and allow those foreign propaganda efforts and foreign information warfare efforts to influence American elections. We believe we need to do a basic national ballot security and election upgrade. so we provide grants to the states that let them deploy the most secure version of elections,

which is pencil or pen and paper ballots that are hand counted. A lot of the risk factors we've taken on in this country in terms of our big picture problems with worrying about foreign interference in our elections are the fact that these voting machines are about as secure as a zipper. They are not, they are not immune to foreign interference. So we need to do a lot of the things. This is not a policy organization, okay? We are not here to argue about how many carbon parts per billion in the atmosphere or what the marginal tax rate ought to be or a whole bunch of other policy things that people think are the most important. We are an American pro-democracy organization and we believe in strengthening the, the, the,

the fundamental underpinnings of our electoral system and giving people, you know, a sense of confidence in that. We also do believe that. I mean, there's, if you want to edge into policy a little bit, Americans are woefully uninformed about civics and about our government and about our election system. And bad actors, like Donald Trump exploit that very frequently. And Tucker Carlson. Well, and Tucker Carlson. I would should say that one was from Kelly Thompson. So I now I'm going to hit you guys with, I mean, I don't want to answer this because this is horrible from Stephen Jeringer. Fuck Mary Kill, Trump, Rudy, or Jared.

I'll go first. Okay, okay, okay, okay, you go. Wait, Trump, Rudy, or Jared? Fuck, Mary, kill, Trump, Rudy, or Jared. This is, this is truly, truly cruel. No, no, this is the impossible question. Honorable, honorable suicide. is the answer.

Right. Sapuku. Right. That's it. You know, I cannot. I no longer. Yeah. Oh, Jared.

I think you marry Jared. Because at least he has good relations with, you know, foreign countries to flee to. I don't know. That means you're having sex with either Rudy or Donald. Now, on the one hand, with Donald, it wouldn't last long. Right.

Well, I think. He made me too about Rudy, too. On the other hand, with Rudy, you'll know he's ready because he'll be on the bed with his hand on his pants. He was just talking about. He was talking to bed. Okay. On that note, since I don't have the censor button

much to the audience's delight. So, and I apologize, since I'm probably butchering lots of these names, but this one's probably going to be worse. Samathie Sabaya is asking, does phone banking, work to get people out to vote, or does it just annoy people? Yes, it works.

So explain to us that are annoyed by it. So, for example, at the ripe hour of 8.30 today, I got my call to vote in New Jersey where I haven't lived in two decades or something. Still happens. Not every state's voter file is as up to date as it should be. But listen, especially in the COVID era, and I don't want to go too deep into like, election nerd stuff. But we know that a personal contact of any kind,

a dock on the door, a phone call from a live human being, a note, a personal letter or a personal note or a postcard, we've studied it. It works. It's crazy. It's also very hit or miss. It's also when the target gets the message, it works. But there's many a slip twigs the cup and the law.

lip, as my grandmother would say. So, yeah, I mean, we're in a, we're in a situation where, where in the COVID era, having somebody call you on the phone, it's really a pretty good way of getting a message across and motivating someone to come out to vote. And we also have a rule in politics, okay? It's my advertising rule. When you say to me, Rick, I saw your TV ad for your candidate.

I say, cool. when you say Rick, I see your TV ad all the time for you, Canada. I'm like, cool. When they say, Rick, your TV ads on too much for the candidate, I say, cool. When they say, dear God, shut that fucking ad off and get it off my TV, I'm striving me insane. That's when it works. Saturation, saturation, saturation. You have to hit the target over and over and over and over again.

So. What do you guys think is going to happen tonight? Well, I think a blood moon will rise. The dead will come from the Earth. Good. I saw this answer I had been looking for. I know, right? I've been missing the Walking Dead not being on personally. It's Halloween season. You know, it's been on for 10 years. Yeah, I've watched every episode. I'm the one person who still watches.

So what happens tonight, Rick Wilson, go? What happens tonight is that Joe Biden wins. more narrowly than we want, but I think he still pulls it out tonight. And then we enter into 60 days of Trump playing fuck around and trying to declare himself the winner. And it's going to be, I would like to tell you, well, I'd like to tell myself that after today I'm going to sleep and unwind for a little while and unspulled from this five-year journey for a little bit. but I'm not because we're going to have to be in, we're also going to have a bunch of other Senate races. We will have at least at the minimum one runoff in Georgia,

maybe two. We may have a runoff in Mississippi. We may have a runoff in Louisiana. And so I've told all of my, I've told my editing teams, yeah, go take a day, but by Thursday we need ads up in Georgia. So we're,

you know, the fight is going to roll on here. And again, I hope that, that Joe Biden wins a substantial victory tonight in the electoral college that is undisputed. Okay. I fear that Florida, being fucking Florida, my home state, will do what it does, and it will be either too close to call a recount or a narrow Trump win.

It's just a hard place for, it's a hard place for Democrats to win, as I've written about extensively. It's a hard place for, for, you know, any progressive, thinks they're going to play statewide to play anything. North of the I-4 corridor in Florida is about 40% of the population. It is also about as conservative as the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan. It's a tough state. And while the senior number has been dropping off dramatically in Florida, we don't know what election day turnout is going to look like.

It's modeled to be very Trumpish. Right. But we don't know if the fact that the drop off with seniors and our ability, we managed to get the Puerto Rican number up. We think pretty effectively to offset the Cubans. We're going to see how this rolls out. But you're going to know by 8 o'clock tonight, East Coast time, how Florida looks. If Florida goes for Joe Biden, folks, it's an easy night. It's over.

That's the ballgame. Biden, we are very confident now is going to win Arizona. Michigan, Wisconsin, Nebraska, two, Maine one, Georgia. Yeah, Georgia seems like game on Bermuda Mae if he wins. Yeah, and look, if he wins Georgia, it closes out a whole bunch of the potential pathways for Trump to win. That means Trump has to win Florida and Ohio and Pennsylvania and one of the other big upper tier states or Arizona, which he's not going to win Arizona.

He's not going to win Arizona. He's not going to win Michigan. He's not going to win Wisconsin. So, you know, at least by every number out there. And folks, look, I know people are very, very nervous right now. I don't believe it. I'm just so relaxed. I feel great.

Okay. I certainly don't think I'm going to grow up right now. No, no, I should my stomach, none. That's right. Yeah. Listen, here's the thing. The early voter turnout in this country will almost hit 100 million people. Okay.

That's amazing. That's a sign of something bigger happening, okay? Because those people were not Donald Trump's voters. Okay, they just weren't. Now, a lot of them are from big blue states like California, in New York, and Washington, and Oregon and Massachusetts. That's fine, is what it is. But when you see record early voter turnout in Texas at 110% of its normal early vote,

there is something happening in this country for certain. And there is something happening with the emotional state of the American people that matters. So, look, Joe Biden is better positioned to win this than Barack Obama was in 2008 and in 2012 in terms of the overall numbers. He's a lot better position than Hillary Clinton was because Hillary Clinton's campaign went off the air in key states in 2016. They did not, they had gone on. off the air about two weeks in advance of the campaign, of the end of the campaign in Wisconsin, because they thought they had it in the bag. Simple lesson, guys. In a campaign, die broke, run out the clock, run through the tape, never shut off your TV advertising until the last,

shit, leave them on the air the next day, just in case. Because you need to pound the message home all the way down. The other thing that hasn't worked for Donald Trump and his little flying monkeys, is they have tried to produce the dumbest October surprises and the history of dumb October surprises. I mean, the degree to which... Rudy Giuliani is not... ...laptoe's laptop show has failed to move the voters is insane. How many laptops does Hunter Biden have?

That sounds like a commercial of some kind. But I'm sure there's also finding Hunter Biden laptops in landfills 100 years from now and saying, see, if we'd only have that one, the race would have been different. They have really, the October surprise, they really, you know,

last time they really derailed Hillary with the help of James Comey. This time, they really did not move the needle at all. Nope, nope, nope, not a bit. Not a single bit. And I got to tell you, there is a degree to which their failure to move the needle has led to a sense of unease and a sense of of, let me try and how I can phrase this about busting out a source of mine. Inside Fox, there's a lot of shock that this didn't move their people.

The Hunter Biden laptop story? The Hunter Biden story and all the other, you know, all the other Hunter cocaine stories, all that other BS. It didn't move the needle. It didn't help them. It didn't accomplish what they thought it was going to accomplish. And in some ways, there has been a drop-off in the degree to which the Russian bot armies are pushing out the conspiracy stuff. It's still there, but it's just not as effective now. They're not as into him.

I feel like Putin doesn't love him anymore. He doesn't love him anymore as much. And, you know, Vladimir Putin is always going to go with the strong horse. Right. And they made an investment. They got a great payoff on the investment for four years. But now some, you know, now some people are asking is, was it worth it? Clearly not.

But for Putin, it was worth it. Right. But he's not going to throw good money after bad at this point. Look, they're still trying to help him. Putin's still trying to help Trump. but it is not to the degree it was in 16. And there has been enough sort of immune system growth in American political culture to say, well, maybe this article from Eagle Forum 9,000 Patriot, you know, Eagle Patriot American Flag, Palin Patriots.com isn't real.

You know, there may be a little bit more public skepticism by those kind of things. Do you, is there a Senate race? Okay, I'm sorry, I'm going to stop. Actually, let me do one thing first. So over in the chat, we're going to have a poll about whether you voted or not already. So if you all could answer that, we would really appreciate it. Wait, host and panelists can't vote. A host of panelists can't vote.

Well, my answer was fuck yes. Yes, yes. Fuck yes, two days ago. I'd like to give a big shout out to the Leon County, Florida Supervisor of Elections, Mr. Mark Early for finding my, finding my lost mail-in ballot and for personally helping me make sure that I got, they FedEx went out to me and I FedExed it back and they got it in their system. And big shout out to Mark Early. Good dude. Thank you, sir. Might you say?

I did learn, by the way, I'm not the only person they did that for, but that is good service by a supervisor of elections. When somebody calls you and says, hey, you sent a ballot somewhere that it didn't get delivered. It's only, and the deadlines coming, can you help me? And they said, yes. I mean, that, that, it saved me from having to get on a plane, fly back to Florida and fly back to the secret undisclosed location in a matter of hours. So I was very happy about that.

Well, we have results from this poll already, which is 90% fuck yes. We have 1% not yet, but I promise I will, which is eight people. And shockingly, we have 8% of, I'm not eligible, but I wish. I could, but I imagine that's some international audience, I'm hoping, and not other disenfranchisement. So with that, let's talk about another polling question or voting question. David Goteeb is asking a question for both of you. How long will it be until the election results are certified? 16 days.

16 days, okay. Because the Trump people are going to be playing fuck around. and they're going to try to disqualify state certain ballots. They're going to try to not count military ballots that arrived. They were postmarked on time, but arrived later than whatever. And the states have to still do a lot of counting and a lot of, a lot of, you know, there's a lot of paperwork from the counties up. We'll know the winner very quickly, but there will be some difficulties in the situation.

So let me ask if I remember, and I may have the date wrong because I'm on bad sleep, but I want to say it was around December 12th that California is certified last time. Do we think there's been, is there any evidence that there's been work to make these votes get counted faster this time? Are states allocating funds towards that? Anything you've seen there? Well, in most states, no. And a lot of Republican states, they're going to go, they're going to start a slow roll this thing. and run the clock out

and hope for some deus ex-dushbag thing for Trump to win. Deus ex-dischbag. Hell yeah. I like that. So we think, though, 16 days is informed from what, Rick? 16 days is

essentially most states take about 10 business days to grind through all the paperwork. So that's counting weekends and whatnot. That's just an old political hack experiential estimate. So I got one here that's a little buried, but I think it's a good one and not one we've discussed. Nathaniel Watson's asking, if Joe Biden wins, who do you think will be in his cabinet?

Oh, that's a good question. Jilla Brand. My, my, uh, wait, Molly, why? Because. And what? I'm giving you the, the interior of the interior and to get rid of her. I'm going to tell you one that's going to be in his cabinet, Doug Jones. Yeah.

Yeah, that sounds true. I don't think Doug's going to make it, sadly, you know, the Alabama being what it is, a Trump plus 35 state. well, and actually this year it's only to be about a Trump plus 15 state which for Alabama means it's as progressive as say, you know, the Upper East Side, but it's still going to be

a tough road for Doug I think he'd be a great member of the cabinet in some capacity and look I think you're going to see Joe Biden assemble a bunch of smart people. You're not going to have people who had their

cabinet official, their cabinet applications decided on whether or not they or whether or not they had the right tweets about Donald Trump

during the year. So, the other part of this is he essentially has to assemble a wartime cabinet right now. And that war is COVID. And a lot of people

that are supporting Joe Biden right now, the most important thing he can do both for the country, for his legacy and for himself is to spend the first two years working on two things, COVID and the economy.

Those things are top of mind with the voters right now. That's what's driving the whole election is that Trump failed on those two things. So I think he needs to focus on those areas and assemble a team of people, which he can easily do who are going to provide an integrated approach. So we have somebody smart at HHS.

We have somebody smart, you know, who's running all the social sub-cabinet of positions like CDC and Medicare and Medicaid and all the things so that we integrate a science-based approach to trying to defeating this disease as quickly as we can. He can't rely on miracles or bullshit as Trump tried to do. And so he's got to assemble a really top-flight team. And maybe those people are to the left of the spectrum or the right of spectrum. But if I was in Joe Biden's position, I'd find the smartest possible people.

to talk about those two issues, to face those two problems head on. And then you have some time to think about what you want to do on the wish list beyond that. But if Democrats and Biden go into this thing and say, well, we'll just treat COVID as one of the list of things. I think that's a bad position to be in both for the good of the country and for his future political strength. I'm going to pivot off that and ask a question that's similar to something somebody has asked, but do my own spin on it. So, Rick, one of the things you've talked about that has stuck in my brain, particularly when we interviewed Katie Porter, was radical competency. A lot of people talk about with, you know, the dialectic that for a successful presidency, you've got to do something that is a reaction to the failures of the last presidency. How do you see that radical competency playing into this? You're kind of hinting at that. COVID. Deal with COVID. Address COVID. Restart this country, not just. just like in the Trumpian, open the economy, restart the country's institutional character. Restart the things, do the things with COVID you have to do so that a grandparent can go to

their grandchild's graduation. Do the things you have to do to address COVID so that schools can truly reopen so that people can go and sit down in a restaurant, in a busy restaurant some night and not fear that, you know, they're going to get, they're going to get killed by doing it. Restart the society where people want to go volunteer at a food bank or want to go volunteer in animal shelter or wherever. It's not a life or death proposition. You know, these things that he can do, and again, radical competency is, is in a lot of ways, something we haven't tried in a long time in this country. The technocratic approach to fixing these problems is one that we're going to have to face right now.

Look, I know a lot of progressives would love like the first thing out of the gate with the Senate and the House is a Green New Deal and a gun control bill. What they need is a COVID relief bill for American families. Did you see Molly's smile when you said that? I heard that smile. I heard it. I saw that smell. And look, if you want to do those things, do them. But first you got to do COVID.

And you've got to fix the big problem before you do the thing, before you indulge yourself. And people who think right now, oh, we can do all these things, we can walk and chew gum. COVID is the most complex multivariate problem this country is faced in forever. Well, and as someone who is in the vaccine trial, as I can attest, as someone who's in the vaccine trial, you know, the probably our most likely vaccine that's going to get this emergency approval, hopefully in the end of November, is the Pfizer vaccine, which needs two doses and needs to be stored at negative 80 degrees temperature. So a non-trivial.

What? A non-trivial problem. Yeah. And is also, I mean, and is also packaged in doses of 800. I mean, there, there's like a calculus problem there that is going to be nightmare fuel. It really is. And no one, no one should underestimate. the goodwill of people working on the problem now.

And I do truly believe that with Trump gone, there will be a better ability to have the information out toward the public that they need to see and hear about this. There will be better coordination between government agencies who are not looking at this as, oh, God, if we say something wrong, Trump will screw us, or they'll send Michael Caputo to run our agency. But it's still going to be a long, hard road.

This is not a trivial problem at all. And Biden, look, he can have a permanent legacy of greatness if he goes in there and straps this problem down and works the shit out of it. And we get not only the vaccine and the public health measures to mitigate it, but then he also faces and looks at the economy and says, how are we going to restart this? How do we fix this? And as a, it'll freak out some of our listeners. as a conservative, I'm ready for Joe Biden to take very hard steps that reduce a lot of other federal spending

because Donald Trump has spent like a drunken socialist sailor on a binge for the last couple years. We're going to have to focus on where we put resources. And Joe Biden needs to move some resources from the indulgences of Donald Trump into restarting the economy. and frankly, you know, grant in aid to families right now, this whole fight we've had about $600 additional payment a week for unemployed Americans when there's 45 million people unemployed, get the fuck out of here. Just do it. Just get it done. That's not. We defer the F-35 fighter for a couple more years, the buy size of it. We claw back some of, and again, as a conservative, I say this, folks, the 2017-tenth-

bill was the most anti-conservative piece of tax legislation in history. I know the people who sat in McConnell's office and wrote the bill. I know who did it. I called one of them during this. I've written about this before. I called one of them during the process and said, hey, is there any middle class tax uplifted? He goes, what fuck do I care?

I work for hedge funds. That bill was built to service about 95 super high net worth individuals and about 150 hedge funds. hedge funds and Wall Street banks. So no one should be fooled that there's not some money out there that can be gotten to and clawed back, especially if you say we're going to directly devote this to the mitigation of COVID and the assistance of two American families right now. But I also think that a lot of the military spending we've spent on is not relevant to American life right now, right? Like we are getting a...

attacked on the internet. America's getting attacked. You know, there are things that military spending should be addressing that, you know, building tanks is not solving, you know. Well, and look, there's other things that we've taken money out of the military to spend on, like the freedom ditch and the Trump fence. And there are, and there have been a lot of crony capitalist giveaways from this administration that there are pools of money out there.

Yeah. So we're getting close to the end of this. So I'm going to ask one last fun one before we get to some super. And then I have a question. Okay. Why did I ask this and then you ask your question? So Greg Pilske is asking once he's out of office, what is Trump's next big thing?

But I'm going to put a spin on that. Is there anything aside from the Trump TV thing that we've discussed so many times that your brains have wandered to the of like, oh, God, what if he does this or maybe he's going to do that? once he gets out of office. Any bad nightmares dash weird thoughts you've had? Cam girl, Jared? This is why I need the beep.

This is why. I was just about to say, this is why we beep him. I mean, but he has such solid skin. Right. I think you're going to see a lot of the Trump enterprises

collapse. I think you're going to see a return. to the Trump scam economy of Trump state, Trump vodka, Trump clothing, blah, blah, blah. Trump infomercials. Yeah, Trump infomercials. And let's be real here for a second. There's going to be a truly hideous eruption of lawsuits and bullshit, you know, that we've never even imagined before.

in terms of how deeply the rabbit hole goes with this family. We're going to see the deals that were made overseas. We're going to see the banking stuff. We're going to see Deutsche Bank. All these things that have made them such crappy human beings are going to be things they try to redo. The other thing you should prepare yourself for is Mark Burnett is doing a Trump family reality show. No. It's the buzz of Hollywood at the moment.

And that will be a way. Who stars in that? What's that? Who stars in that? Donald, Don Jr., Ivanka. Look, they will do something. My other idea that they might do is shadow president, where they build Trump and Oval Office and they build him a cabinet room.

And he second guess is Joe Biden every day. It is entirely possible. I just hope Tiffany's in it because she really has charisma. See, my guess for who stars it is, the only commercial is going to be the My Pillow guy, so he's going to be the main star. Right. There it is. Mike Lindell sent on a final fundraising email for Donald Trump yesterday, and it said, your donation will match 945% of thinking, really? I'm going to worry.

Exactly how's that man for. Bolly, what was your question? Okay, my question is what Senate... Tell me a Senate race that's going to delight me. Senate race that's going to delight you. Mike Espy, Jamie Harrison. Well, I think Jamie Harrison has run the best Democratic campaign in the country. It's going to be close.

We've invested a lot there. We're hoping we're going to be able to push it over the line. It's still a Republican state. I think that Maine will delight you. I think that Arizona will definitely delight you. She's going to get spanked so hard. Second time in two years. Yeah.

Does she get just the same concession speech? You know, I think she should just come out and say, the past is yet to come. And maybe she can get a girlfriend for non-Trump Jr. any time now. Wait. But there was good polls for Greenfield yesterday. Oh, yeah, Iowa. I was looking great. We're very confident about Iowa. I think Gary Peters is going to be fine in Michigan. He's a two-time new have normal guest. John James. John James was a good Republican candidate. Don't make any mistake. He was not a bad candidate. I don't know how he's as a candidate did a pretty good job, but Trump just drags him under. Trump drags all these people down.

That's good to see, though. And Tillis, it sounds like Tillis is out. Tullis is out. North Carolina's done. done. I mean, look, guys, tonight you're probably going to hear not only President-elect Joe Biden, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. With the rotting hands. I told him that practicing necromanic sorcery was dangerous. I told him. Is Mitch McConnell going to have a terrible rest of the year? Oh, yeah. Now, I will warn everybody, by the way, you may expect Mitch McConnell to jam through a jigillion judges in the coming weeks. Just prepare yourself for that because they're going to try to have a special session

where they basically pass a slate of judges and they will probably get away with it. Yeah. It's going to get loud. So to wind us down, I got two more. James Tiddle asks, who is the overall 2020 campaign? fuckiest fuck that guy.

And I'm going to say, and can you give your choice a fuck that guy? Wait, Tate again? We want a overall 2020 campaign fuck that guy for who's the fuckiest of the guy. Could you do it in your form of a fuck that guy? Yes. My overall fuck that guy this year, even though he's been quiet the last couple weeks, is Bill Barr, the interior minister of the Trump administration. And I think he has been a pernicious and dangerous figure in American political life.

And it has been he has been somebody who is deservedly going to be reviled in history as someone who reduced the nonpartisan nature of the Justice Department. And he's going to be seen as somebody, you know, beyond every boundary of legitimate institutional behavior. Right. Molly? Mine is Mitch McConnell. I'm sorry. I mean, he, you know, Obama didn't want to push all those judges through because he felt it was the wrong thing to do. And so Mitch McGonnell took that as an opportunity to push all the judges through.

And then, I mean, Amy Comey Barrett is like, you know, I mean, I mean, me and RBG have been dead for two days. And all of the Republican senators were like, we're going to support whoever the nominee is. And we're going to hold, you know, this turnaround during the time when people are actually voting. And you're not allowed to question the fact that she's in this crazy sect of Christianity because that is attacking her faith.

And how dare you do what you've done to Cabinac, Poor Brett Kavanaugh, who only had sexual assault allegations against him. How dare you question him? I mean, it was just so much conservative outrage set up in a way that Democrats couldn't possibly win. And, you know, he did it because he doesn't want to, you know, Mitch McConnell did it because he wants to block Democratic spending. He wants to keep Democrats from being able to fund COVID relief. And that is why he pushed her on the court to change the makeup. and so Mitch McConnell,

fuck you. Okay, one last question here from Mindy Laugh. Will the podcast continue if Biden wins? Brick Wilson? Yeah, of course. Are you kidding me? Get the fuck out of here.

We have a lot. We're actually, I think if Biden wins we're going to fight a lot more and it's going to be hilarious because there's going to be this re-division in the Democratic Party, Right? Nome Chomsky and Bill Crystal are not on the side.

And I think it's going to be fascinating. And then there's going to be a reconstruction in the Republican Party, which is going to be amazing. Think the discussions we've had, we have a lot of fish to fry. Yeah. Look, and here's the thing, guys. I may have spent 30 years a Republican political operative, but I truly am a guy who does not like corruption, oppression, oppression, crony capitalism.

Trust me, I'm an equal opportunity, motherfucker. I will go after these people, right or wrong. And look, I'm not going to just, I'm going to tell you personally, I will say when Joe Biden's doing the right thing, and I will say when he's doing the wrong thing. The thing with Donald Trump is he never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever did the right

thing, ever. I mean, there were so many opportunities for this guy to not be a dick and then not be a corrupt scumbag and to not. be an idiot. It is truly astounding to me where we are in this country. And I think there is an opportunity, does the Republican Party die now? Sure, it ate the poison pill. There will be something in its place. This country is, this country has too many people who are largely center-right and not in a malicious way for there to be a one-party state. The Democrats have also learned a lesson this year that sometimes the guy that you think is not the progressive dream day

actually works out pretty well as a candidate. And I think he'll be a good president. I truly believe Joe Biden would be a good president. Because I know from his history, and I know from his record, he's a liberal. He's liberal on a million different issues. I'm going to disagree with him on a bunch of policy things, but he's a good man.

He's good American. He's a good person. and he's a good father. So I think we're in for an era where there'll be a lot of hard work to come. There'll be a lot of struggles. We'll have a lot to do to put this country back together after this era of Trump. And if by some horrifying circumstance tonight, Trump wins, we have a lot to do to build the army of Wolverines and to try to mitigate the damage

that motherfucker would do in a four-year term after this. but I think we're going to have a good night tonight. So thank you everybody for joining us today. Thanks. Thanks so much. We really appreciate this and it really does. I will say that one of the things we all talk about when we're not taping is seeing all your response to it

always makes us happy. We're always reading things and we're always laughing at what you said. And folks, when you share us on social media, you know, we all see it. We're all social media natives now. And it's great to see when people say, you know, I need to laugh today. and or you guys taught us something serious,

but you made us laugh at the same time, or that was a weird perspective to see from the left or the right, where you guys met in the middle and something. So it really is, we really deeply appreciate everybody who has been such a fantastic supporter of the podcast and of the Beast. It has been a wonderful journey on this, and we're going to keep causing trouble

and hoping to exercise Jesse's beeping finger every show. Yes. Very well exercised figure. Okay. Thanks so much, everybody, for tuning in. Go out there if you haven't voted or bring somebody to vote, and we really appreciate the sport.

We look forward to seeing you again tomorrow with another episode. You bet. Thanks. Thanks, everybody. Talk to you soon. On that note, we'll wrap up this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking with smart folks from The Daily Beast and beyond for media, culture, politics, and science who will 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. We're just getting started and don't want you to miss an episode. If you'd like to follow us on Twitter, I'm Molly Jongfest and he's the Rick Wilson. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you again on the next episode. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studied The Daily Beast podcast, at the DailyBeast.com slash podcasts.

If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.