The Daily Beast Podcast - Ivanka’s BFF: Trump Gave Kids’ Friends Supermodel Nicknames

Episode Date: November 24, 2020

If you thought Ivanka Trump’s childhood best friend, Lysandra Ohrstrom, had enough to say about the First Daughter in her scathing Vanity Fair article, you’d be mistaken. Oh no, Lysandra isn’t finished yet. She came on the latest episode of The New Abnormal to talk about the president’s favorite kid and the offensive and crude things Ivanka and her dad would say or do when the two were growing up—and what finally made Lysandra become the “class traitor” many have been quick to call her on Twitter. “I have really been grappling with whether to do this for so long since Trump announced that he was running,” she told Molly Jong-Fast. In fact, “Ly” (as Ivanka called her) had been loyal to Ivanka over the last four years to the point where she forwarded her press requests as a heads up. But standing in line to vote early this fall, enough was enough. (“I just went home. I sat at my computer and I started writing a long essay about why her dad shouldn't be president. And it was very much pegged to my recollections of growing up with him.”) Some of the “recollections” include Trump calling out Lysandra’s looks and nicknaming Ivanka’s young friends after models like Cindy Crawford, behavior that she found “shocking as a kid.” (“Most dads didn't make comments about your weight. Most dads didn't kind of call all of my young friends after different models.”) She also addresses that necklace incident mentioned in the article, all of their friends who called to thank her for writing the article, and if Ivanka will ever be welcomed back in New York City. Plus! New York Times National Politics Reporter Astead Wesley joins to talk about an interesting call he had with AOC and the prediction about QAnon Queen and Congresswoman-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene that made Molly sick. And! Rick Wilson and Molly talk about “Coup-anon” and the ways Trump is basically “Kim Jong Un without the good hair.” Oh, and why Sidney Powell is “a complete whackadoodle,” in case it isn’t obvious. Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi folks, it's Rick Wilson, and welcome to The Daily Beast's The New Abnormal. Hi, I'm Molly Jongfast, a left-wing pundit, and editor-at-large at The Daily Beast. I'm also an editor at The Daily Beast, a former Republican political strategist, best-selling author, and full-time troublemaker. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, business, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. I'll try to keep Rick to the minimum number of F-bombs and try to keep our... kids, pets, and other wildlife sounds from invading our respective bunkers. Hi, Molly John Fast. Hi, Rick Wilson. Happy birthday.

Thank you so much. How was your weekend? My weekend was good. Mine was too. I got to go drill holes in the sky. That's right. A little fly on this weekend. So it was all good. That's good. Meanwhile, Koo-Anon. Koo-an. The coup that won't quit. The coup that won't quit. The coup that won't stop. It's like those things Donald Trump had in the 70s that required like extensive amounts of exotic antibiotics. That's right.

He just can't quit the whole idea that he's going to overthrow the will of the American people. The democratically elected president would like to not be democratically elected. He would just like to stay in power like an a hole. I think of him as like a sort of Kim Jong-un without the good hair. Yeah. I mean, look, I think if you put Donald Trump in one of those boiler suits dyed at black, he could look like Kim Jong's like dissipated a seedy older brother. He needs the bowl cut as especially.

problem. Dig the idea of him with a bull cut, though. I could. I can see it. It's all implanted wig anyway, so who cares what shape it is? Right. It snaps on or velcroes down or whatever magnetic strips they use underneath the skin to hold it in place. I don't know what the barfing sounds were, but it was nice. The question is, will Trump be able to steal democracy or is it too? Is it too? late. Look, the thing about these people is they're kind of like rats. And if a rat wants to get into something, that rat will chew and chew and chew. If it wears and breaks its own teeth, it'll keep chewing through that one area where it thinks is the softest spot in the metal

to try to get at the grain. These people are political vermin of the worst order at this point, and they're trying to steal a second term. At the end of the day, I still have an abundant faith in the American people that it won't work. But they're not. But they're not. They're the fact that we're still having to fight this thing down is so disappointing and so disheartening. And I have to say, look, I don't blame Donald Trump. Okay? Donald Trump is an amoral shitbird scumbag of the, of historic proportions. I blame the people around him, and I blame the people who in the Senate in particular, who could have a very immediate, loud voice and clear impact on this.

Feels like you're saying Mitch. I'm not really saying Mitch. I'm at the point of like no give a fuck about Mitch. He's always going to do the most amoral thing possible. But this set of tweets that Carl Bernstein put out, show favorite Carl Bernstein, whom we love, put out that said, hey, you know, it's Thune and Burr and Rubio and Collins and Portman

and Tim Scott. And it goes through this list of about 30 or, well, about 20 Republican senators, all of whom, quote, privately despise him complaining about what he's doing. And with very, very few exceptions, Mitt Romney's one of the few exceptions. Not one of them has come out. Portman. A little bit, though. It wasn't, it wasn't exactly like burning the barn down. And Ben Sass.

I mean, I'm not saying I like Ben Sass. Your boyfriend, Ben Sass. I hate Ben Sass. You have no idea. But there's a group of people who could end this bullshit. And they could stop the damage. They could end the damage this is doing to our country. They could end it right this minute today, right now.

If 20 of them or 10 of them or even five of them went out at the press conference and said, Mr. President, it's time to go. Yeah. You lost. It's over. You are hurting our country. You are breaking our democracy. You must cease these actions at once.

It is over. And unfortunately, not one of them. has the stones to go out and do it in a real clear, crisp way. And part of that is the very obvious explanation. The bunch of them want to be president. And they know that the MAGA base of Trumpism is not going away. Right. It's going to be there.

The percentage of the Republican base vote in 2024 for the presidential election is going to be high enough where they can't afford to have, to have, you know, Agent Orange on the sidelines, tweeting at them in 2024. saying, Rubio was never loyal to me. I didn't like the way cotton behaved. What happens when, you know, he's going to be out there sniping away at these guys for a long, damn time.

And it's just no good. It's just no damn good at all. And they're paranoid and freaked out, as they should be, on the one hand. But the only way you get away from that fear in the end is to burn the bridge down, is to be strong and to say, uh-uh, not me, not anymore, I'm done. but they won't because they do not have the moral courage that God gave the common slime mold. And so we're going to be here for the indefinite future in the next 60-odd days of Donald Trump trying to play games. You're going to hear a lot folks in the next few days about the 12th Amendment about throwing the election results into the House of Representatives.

Through a long and complicated story from 2016, I am actually somewhat of a scholar of this particular amendment and something of a paper. painfully educated expert on the subject. It is a very, very, very hard lift, but you never want to let it get there. But that's one of the, that's one of the Alamo things that the Trump people are doing right now is they're trying to say,

oh, well, we'll get it into the house because no one got 270 and therefore it has to go to the house. That's never happening. It's bullshit. It's never happening. But you're going to hear a lot about it because, as you may have noticed, and I'm not sure if you picked up on this,

the Trump audience, the true believers, the many millions of them, they're not always persuaded by, what's the word I'm looking for? Facts. Reality, the law, the Constitution, and also facts. So you're just going to hear a lot about that.

I'm trying to give people a heads up. You're going to hear a lot of that shit in the next couple of weeks. It's going to be kind of louder and louder. So be ready. You still think even though it's going to be, I mean, remember Georgia certified, on Friday, and Michigan is certifying today that will still be going on, you think?

You and I both know it's over, but the crazy lawyer team around Trump, which is only a slightly less crazy now that Sidney Powell has gone, they're going to keep up the scare as long as they can and try to make this thing run for a couple more weeks. They would love to get us past what they call the safe harbor dates for the electors. The safe harbor date is December the eighth for most states. That is the date where the electoral college certifications must be passed on to the electors in the states. If those electors don't get those results by that date, we enter a window from the eighth to the 14th where these state legislatures in some states, including Michigan, if they did it, could go back and look again and submit a different slate

of electors. And if the Republican-controlled government of Michigan got its way, they would select an all-Trump slate. Now, look, that is not going to happen if we keep our fingers on the pulse here. But the fact that it is even being discussed is an abhorrent affront to our democracy. It just is kind of nuts that we're even here. But he met with two Michigan lawmakers and about trying to get them to change the election results for him. and throw out. I mean, the thing that's scary about all this is like, it's a coup, but it's a stupid coup, but the problem is it sets up for a real coup next time. The problem was, and I'm going to get in so much trouble,

but here we go. Hitler's first coup didn't work out either. Yeah. Because it was a stupid, clownish, bumble-fuck operation. And this is why Trumpism as a movement is so pernicious. My big concern here is that the next coup will be engineered by a Tom Cotton. Yeah. Okay.

Or the next coup will be engineered by a Josh Hawley or a Ted Cruz. And while these people all have their limitations, none of them are as stupid as Trump, nor are they surrounded by a bunch of buffoonish dimwits like Donald Trump's legal and professional political team. Right. So, Molly, speaking of various dimwits, Yeah. In the Trump orbit. There's one thing, one mythical monster, one Leviathan of the Deep that was promised to us in the last few days.

The Kraken, if you will. I tried to channel like a Scottish fisherman on that one for you. It's the Kraken. It's coming off from the Deeps. Let the record state that Rick Wilson is trying to say Cracken. Right. Can I make my Scottish? No, I can't make that.

No, you can't. You didn't even know what it was. You wouldn't let me do it. Let me tell your secret. If you have to ask, if you think you might not be able to, then you should not. Right? Like if it's even a question, then the answer is no. How about if I just tell you the punchline and not the joke?

No. Okay. Their names were a b-h-h-h-you-just need to. You should just, Jesse, just beep the whole thing out. Okay. Please. Please. Okay, okay.

Back to the most boring woman on earth that somehow has turned into a monster. I think I had you explain this last week, too, but what the fuck is wrong with her? You know, that's a whole six-hour episode, a very special edition of the new abnormal. I get that if you are the lawyer for Michael Flynn, you have to be pretty wacky,

but it seems to me that she is, one might say, wackier than the norm. I think the phrase you're looking for is bat-shit, because she lives in a world of phenomenally complex, baroque, lurid conspiracy theories that have zero bearing on even the most tangential aspects of what really happened in the election. And when she's out there ranting, like, there were secret servers in Germany, in Spain, and Iceland. I'm like, get them.

What the? What are you even talking about? My favorite part of that was just like these servers are everywhere around the world. Well, so one of the vote counting companies uses Amazon's cloud services. Right. Which has services all over the world. Right. So the cloud services companies automatically distribute loads all over the world.

There's nothing going on. There's no like human programming these things over. They're just using the Amazon cloud as it gets used every day for a jillion other purposes. So that's one of her conspiracies. Then this whole programming thing. Then time traveling Hugo Chavez. Yeah, Hugo Chavez, that was pretty great.

She's just a complete whack-a-doodle. And, you know, in America, we're told to be sensitive to people who have, you know, issues. Sidney Powell needs help. She needs a legitimate, I mean, I'm not being facetious right now. That woman is suffering from legitimate delusions. Right. How bad must it be for Giuliani? The law firm of Giuliani, Giuliani and known associates.

Right. They keep on Giuliani, but, I mean, Giuliani sounds just as wacky as she does. Well, here's the thing. Rudy is playing the role, and she actually believes this garbage. Right. Again, in this culture, we're always trying to be so sensitive to people who believe strange things. Like, you know, flat earthers may have a point. No, no, they don't. Right.

They don't have a point. Anti-Vaxers. No, no, they don't. Right. These are not things where you have both, there's no both sides argument to the idea that Joe Biden has engineered a gigantic electoral fraud throughout the country involving tens of thousands of poll workers, involving major audited software companies. You know, look, I love Joe Biden. I'm glad he's going to be our president, but anybody who thinks that Joe Biden and the Biden campaign could organize a national voter fraud conspiracy, needs to get their heads examined. Conspiracies are hard. This concept from Trump world that is so top of mind for them right now is very simple.

The base of Trump world will always believe, by design, that they were cheated. That Donald Trump got robbed and that Sidney Powell was a hero and she was always right. and oh my God, how do we ever allow these George Soros run voting machines to be, you know, yada, yada. What I think is a truly dangerous and hideous problem with that belief set is that it does, by design, undermine the confidence of the American people in the election and justify going forward a set of behaviors that are going to be very harmful to this country. Because Republicans will say, well, the election was illegitimate, therefore, fuck you, Joe Biden. And they will say we can there take any actions we choose.

We can then do anything we want. Any opposition is legitimate, justified, and appropriate. And so this is a very ugly spot. And in part, the coup already had a success on the social basis of convincing Republicans that nothing is real. And that everything that happens now going forward is the fruit of the poisonous political tree. It is tragic. Right. Rick Wilson.

Yes. What are you seeing in Georgia? Talk to me about Georgia. The state that will control the Senate. Georgia is the state that will control the Senate. There is a rising tide of very angry MAGA folks who believe that Donald Trump was denied the election and that everyone in Georgia from Rapinsberger to the governor to Laughler and Purdue are not fighting hard enough for Donald Trump. They're saying that they should boycott.

the primary and I completely agree Republican voters should boycott the primary. I strongly support this outcome and I believe it would be the best way to show America and the Libtar media how angry they are because because they'll show those cuck chills once and for all by staying home on election day. It's the best way to MAGA. How do you think Lynn Wood got to this complicated decision that makes no sense to tell people to boycott the one of the most important elections that's going to happen. I don't have any direct knowledge of how this happened, but I'm going to speculate it involves a steady diet

of lead paint chips, deliberate head trauma, and drinking cheap vodka out of plastic jugs. Delicious. Yum. Let's go. Lynn Wood is not the sharpest tool in the drawer quite objectively. Tell me more. He is also on

the Maga Gryftrain, where he's going to try to raise money off of his stalwart defense of Donald Trump and yada, yada. He did raise money for Kyle Rittenhouse, $2 million in bail. Yes, and I want you to keep your eyes on this name for the future. His name is Anthony Sabatini. Right. He's a member of the Florida House of Representatives. Anthony Sabatini makes Matt Gates look like, I don't know, Alan Watts.

He is a hyperactive, Uber, ultra, super MAGA, loony tune, who tweeted yesterday, Kyle Rittenhouse for Congress. Oh, Jesus. You know, Lynn Wood is now one of these parts of the sort of the MAGA lawyer carnival freak show. Observe lobster boy, Lynn Ward. He'll be wrestling with Snake Lady, Sidney Powell. And can you imagine the amazing Rudy on a bed of nails?

What will leak out now? As Stead Hurdon is a New York Times reporter covering Congress. Thank you so much for coming on here. No, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. I have been dying to have you for like a million years, but you did two of like the most important, pieces about the new Congress. I feel like they sort of like of this season. And so I'd love to like,

if we can start by talking about that. Are you in Atlanta? I just left Atlanta. I am back in New York City. Oh my God. How is Atlanta? I mean, it's good. I mean, I think it's really going to kick up after the holiday. I think that's where most of the groups are going to start their like big investment. But I mean, I think it's a pretty clear recognition from all sides that like this will be the in at battle. I think we can expect just like crazy amounts of attention, people on the ground, and obviously money. It's going to be like the most expensive two months in like political history. But no, I mean, it's a great city. So always an easy place for me to go to. I just want to go back to Atlanta for one more second because it is so interesting.

When you see that, those two races, they seem real, like even though they're happening simultaneously, they seem like very different races to me. Yeah. I mean, the tone of, it is different. I mean, even when they're doing their joint rallies, they talk specifically about Warnick and they build Leffler up as like the final speaker. And Purdue, like, is kind

of floating above Ossoff. He like, think that he doesn't need to engage, he doesn't need to debate in that like, he'll be fine. I think that's just because he has a longer, more established brand in the state that he didn't come out of this like a knife fight with Doug Collins.

And I think they think of Osoph as kind of a light And so you're right that, like, they are running different styles. We don't super expect there to be, like, that big of a split. Like, we think Democrats will win both or lose both. Yeah. No, that definitely historically, that has always been the case. But just like, it strikes me. We had, we had Warnock on the pod. And I really thought he was amazing and was very taken with him.

I think that Warnock is definitely someone who seems kind of quintessential Georgia and like whose win would say a lot for like kind of the different rise of political power there. I mean, not only is obviously the church historic, but just like the embrace of a more progressive voice, I think, would be a historic one. And obviously he'd be the first black person elected the Senate from there too. So, I mean, I definitely think that like there is interest in energy around him. And he's been able to run like a positive campaign considering he did not have to do the kind of fight. go on the jungle primary side.

But I mean, it's still Georgia, and it's still a runoff. And so I think the thought is, like, they're still underdogs. Yeah. So you wrote these two very amazing pieces that I'm quite obsessed with. And first you interviewed AOC, and you just got her to say everything, right? I mean, I feel like sometimes you get people to say stuff, and sometimes they don't tell you stuff. And I thought it was, like, an amazing piece. And then you interviewed pretty much like the opposite of it.

in some ways. Can you talk to me a little bit about how that came about and you've sort of seen all the parts of the Democratic Party what you think is going on there? Yeah. I mean, it's funny because I think it's a lot more organic than people thought. You know, it's not like we, you know, it's, it was literally I was assigned to write a kind of what comes next for Democrat's story whenever we knew Biden won. Right. And the thing that lasted for something. It just dragged down for so long that like I had like a a couple extra days with this story done.

And I literally thought, oh, let's see if AOC is available. I look like how she kind of functions kind of informally. I just like hit her up. She called soon. And then she was clearly roaring to go. And I think that part of that was because of that house call that had happened right before, which we had seen kind of lately had heard the Spambergers and the comorbid moderates.

I really blamed the left for the losses. Yeah. And I think that she was like trying to hit back. and wanted a kind of voice to say, this is how we view the races, we don't see this as a repudiation, and kind of like letting the Democratic Party know that they're not going to just take the blame for this stuff,

you know, sitting down. And so I think that after that happened, though, of course we're hearing from a lot of people about what she said. You know, she mentioned Lamb on the record by name about what he was spending. And so with that type of specificity, when they reached out and said,

hey, we want to say how we feel also. You know, thinking, sure. You know, I think it ends up becoming a kind of starting point for divisions that we all know exist in the party. But, you know, I also think the ways in which they're similar was notable to me. The ways in which they both saw Trump's surge in white rural areas as a big problem for the party. The way that they both see the party's older leadership as a problem. And so they're identifying similar things, even if they come to big different conclusions. And I think that that is kind of what, you know, a president Biden is going to have to wrestle with.

Rick and I always have this fight because it's very easy to say that socialism is the problem. But really, they're not, no one is even talking about socialism, right? They're talking about different, I mean, they're really talking about bad messaging about policy. Yeah. And so that's the thing. It's like, the socialism is the Republican side of that attack, which can be potent, right? I don't know exactly how you defensive crouch your way out of that. And so I think that what you're hearing from a left is the kind of asking the party to embrace the kind of affirmative and offensive side of these things that they're pushing to say, hey, you know, what they're calling socialism is a good thing for you and your family and the like. I think at the same time, particularly when we talk about issues like race, which come up in here, it's not necessarily socialism when people are talking about the scare tactics of defund the police and the life. But just the kind of isms in general, the kind of a rising tide of multiculturalism and the like and kind of what Biden represents.

And so the thing is that that's not something that you can policy finagle your way out of. And people are scared about the type of voters who are electing you, you know, that's something you're going to have to deal with directly. So interesting. I mean, this Congress is going to be really like it's a very small, I mean, it's a majority, but it's a smaller majority. Nancy Pelosi is a complicated figure. Like, what do you, how do you see this even possibly working? And, like, Mitch McConnell has been such an obstructionist. Like, do you see good stuff or bad stuff?

What's your thinking here? I think it's really hard to know. I mean, so much depends on whether, if Democrats can win Georgia, then so much possibilities are expanded of what they can think about and dream about. If they can't, right? And we are talking about Mitch McConnell-led Senate. And that just drastically collapses the ideas of what Congress can do here.

So you would need a Biden administration that's really creative, you know, in some ways, kind of like Trump was, to use the executive power and to use kind of administrative branches to execute, you know, big policy changes without Congress. But if it is a united front, I think that that's going to allow kind of all sides to have a bigger say than they, than what we've seen. And, you know, Biden himself, for all the talk of a moderate, he's done his, you know, he's tried to act like his FDR modeling. He's tried to talk about build back better and all of those things. He hasn't just said, you know, kind of return to normal and nothing will fundamentally change like he did in the primary. He's tried to step away from it. And so the question is somewhat on that administration. It's how big of a scope are they going to take? How real is their commitment to those things? And so if it is the primary version of Joe Biden,

and it was about removal of Donald Trump and the return to normal, then you don't need the AOCs of the world, right? But if this is about kind of an expansive reclaiming of kind of big ideas and he thinks that he could, you know, become a kind of transitional figure for a bigger thinking Democratic Party, then that's going to have to include some of the progressives. Oh, yeah. And we just don't know to the extent that they're ready to do that.

It's interesting because, like, Corey Bush and we had Jamal Bowman on, And there are a lot of young, very exciting, I think, Congress people coming to Congress that are, you know, more in the shape of AOC. And I'm curious to know how you think that Democratic Party can more seamlessly. I mean, it's a big tent party. The job is just to be able to listen, you know, to represent all of its members. Right. And so that's the thing is, you know, who is prioritized amongst the tent. And so I think that there is a groups who, after helping Biden win, who are expecting to see to get some wins.

And I think that, you know, that's from all sides of the party. And so it can't just be, I think, you know, we have to prioritize moderates because those are the districts in which we have a House majority. I think that's one equation there of people who will be looking to hear some. But there's other places where I think that progressives will be looking to be heard and not even just that. We're talking about black voters. Latino voters across the spectrum. I mean, I think there will be communities that supported Biden in ways that will be saying, hey, we didn't do that just to get Trump out of office, but we want you to give us something back for that. You know, there's been some explanation of like, you know, oh, South Carolina delivered Joe Biden in the primary, which is how you lead up to a Kamala Harris. And that's one piece of the importance of representation. But I also think that folks are looking for a real agenda to come from that White House. You know, the purpose of that representation is that it leads to different actions from the administration. And so I think that people are going to expect that. And it's up to the Biden administration to balance that

because as AOC said in that interview, if they don't, going back to those groups to ask them again for their vote in the midterm or in the next cycle is going to be that much more difficult. Right. I mean, that is the big question. I also, my personal obsession is like the indigenous people who have, like, really shown up for Biden. Yeah, yeah, that was a big part of what we saw in Arizona. That was a big part of increases in Minnesota. I mean, I think that that's, you know, you can't say one group, you know. Right, no, no, exactly.

It's a lot of combination of these places, particularly in the States. Yeah, I'm curious if you think that Biden will be able to really, I mean, it does seem to me that he is a very earnest guy and that his intentions are good. What would it even look like to do that? To do what? To deliver for these, like, for example, like in the Navajo Nation or, you know, Georgia where, like, places where these groups have come out for him, how would he deliver for them? I think it depends on the community. And I think that folks are first off looking to be heard and kind of have a leg into the administration. So even right now, when we're thinking about transitions and appointments, I think people are looking for, you know, what the racial and gender diversity will be.

be like. But I think also folks are looking for people who are persuadable on these issues, right? It's like not necessarily that it needs to be the cabinet of their dreams, but that it needs to be people who not only have expertise, but have shown themselves willing to listen to a grassroots. And so I think that when we think about the way the next four years are going to go, it's not necessarily from where Biden starts, but where he finishes and if he is open to getting pressured by some communities that are planning to do that work. And so I think that that's a little early to say exactly what folks want and exactly what those pressure points will be. I think it will become clear one of those first crises about whether we're dealing with an administration that's going to say,

hey, we're not Trump and where you're better options or one that's going to be able to kind of think ahead and be responsive to what I think is going to be an engaged democratic base. It'll be so interesting to me and it's just a fascinating topic. Were you surprised by anything that Conor Lamb said? Because we had him on the pot, and I found him interested. You know, he is so radically different. You know, I was surprised if that makes any sense. Yeah, I mean, to win in these places, you know, you have to win Republicans. And you have to create a, and that's just the reality of how these maps are drawn

and the places in which Democrats have to gain back power in. And so I think that that does lead to a huge diversity of ideology and just types among Democrats. I guess I think that where I think he makes his best point, It's just when it's being like purely political. It's saying, hey, like, you know, I'm with you on the morals or I'm with you kind of on the larger arc. But what you have to just wrestle with is that you need me for a majority. And you need me to have space to kind of politically operate and how I win there. And so that could be a tough thing because how much is the party deferring to these people in these districts?

But the Conor Lambs of the world are the difference between, you know, a speaker Paul Ryan and the Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which made a big difference in the last few. So I think that those kind of like what seems like cynical political points are true ones, I think the party is going to have to acknowledge, like, is the bargain we're making one that is necessary and has worked out? So Alyssa Slokin said recently that there should be more Midwesterners in the leadership. What do you think about that? I was thinking about it because I was like, that's dumb. And then I was like, wait a second, that's brilliant. So I'm just curious to know what your hot take on that is.

I mean, I think that there should be more of a lot of things. You can go down the line. Like the fact that all three of them are 80s and are, you know, that's probably not very time. And so the thing about it is, should there be more Midwesterners in leadership? Maybe. Does the party and does the kind of caucus cater itself to a very Midwestern like type are those folks prioritized often by Democrats?

Absolutely. You know, we can imagine a presidential campaign they care more about the Midwest than what we just ask. As a Midwestern era, I don't think we complain too much about not getting enough political attention. But the leadership

of the Democratic Party is not regionally, ideologically, or age, or generationally diverse. So like, you know, to that point, everybody's got a point. Yeah. I'm so interested to see what happens with this Congress because there is so much talent. It's funny to me, like, the people that the right-wing media pick on are like these

incredibly talented politicians and young people. And then there's sort of people that the Democrats are horrified by in the Republican Congress are like literally terrifying people. You know, I mean, the thing about it is like, at some point, these circles have to square. You know, it's not just the core. Bushes and the AOCs of the world coming from the left, you know, what's the Marjorie Taylor Greens and Madison Cetherins coming from the right? Right, exactly.

And that's also a huge change that's happening too. And, you know, when people ask me about what we think about 2024 in a post-Trump era, I'm like, the Georgia Republican that has the brightest future to me is clearly Marjorie Taylor Green. No. Absolutely. I mean, in this moment, the base is wildly concerned with a conspiracy. unfounded about an elections deal that only certain people are willing to speak on.

I mean, it feels like birtherism where Donald Trump is able to actually gain some political points among the base by dealing in these terms that the establishment won't deal with because obviously it's a democracy bad point, right? But if I would have to place money on who in that Georgia Republican place has the brightest future, absolutely will put money on Taylor's way. I'm scared. Before we get into things, we have. a fun little treat. There are so many insane things happening in the world right now, and two episodes a week just aren't enough to cover it all. So, the new abnormal is going to release a limited

run series of bonus interviews over the next few weeks for Beast Inside members only. We'll release a new one each Sunday, but listen carefully. Only Beast inside members will have access to these. So head over to the new abnormal.t thedailybeast.com to become a beast inside member now. That's New abnormal. Dot the Daily Beast.com. Lysandra Orstrom is a freelance writer and vanity fair contributor. I'm very excited to have you today. First, let's talk about the article in Vanity Fair.

What was the thing that got you to the place where you felt like you could write about it? Well, I have really been grappling with weather to do this for so long, obviously, since Ivanka Dad announced that he was running. And I don't know if you guys remember, but this, I don't think this is the first time he's announced that he was going to run for president. I remember it happening quite a few times when we were growing up. Yes. I don't know if it ever got that far, this far, but it was very easy for me to dismiss it because he'd done it so many times before. Right.

And so in the beginning, actually, even though I was not close with Ivanka, and even though I found his racist rhetoric about, you know, Mexicans when he first went down. those escalators and did that terrible speech. Even though I found that abhorrent, I still, you know, prized my friendship with Ivanka over my political feelings. Initially, I actually refused all requests from journalists. So, explain to us what your, how your relationship with Ivanka. I think it's important we know. When did you start being friends with Ivanka? I know it's in the article, and I've read all about it, but just for the listeners. I moved from Greenwich to Manhattan in seventh grade. Yeah, and I had not fit in

in Connecticut. I was not athletic. I was a big dork there. So when I got to Chapin, I really wanted to be popular, quite frankly. You know, it was really an insane year. I can't express to you what Chapin's seventh grade class was like. I've heard. Yeah, it was really, I mean, it was all good,

clean, fun, except very entitled. You know, I shudder to think of the entitlement that I had in seventh grade. Anyway, Avonka, as I said in the article, Ivanka was part of this top six most popular girls. And I kind of made my way in from the bottom and got invited to her birthday party. And in seventh grade, we became friends casually. And then in eighth grade, we got a little closer.

And then we all went to the summer program in Paris, the summer after eighth grade, before ninth grade. I don't remember if Ivanka went to Choate that year or the year after. But that was when we really became like best friends. And when she was at Choate, we became even closer because she was always driving into the city for modeling gig. And she would always pick me up and I'd go sleep at her house. And we just kind of both had parents that didn't really supervise us very much. And so we were just always together. And then you both went to college.

Yeah, we both went to college. She went to Georgetown at first. I went to Trinity. We remained really close. I didn't really like Trinity, so I was always going into the city on the weekends, and we were hanging out in the city on the weekends. And she didn't like Georgetown either. I think she liked Georgetown.

I just think she kind of was always going to go to Penn. So you stayed friends. Yeah, we stayed friends. And then I actually, so then senior year of college, I was really over college at that point, and I came back to the city, and my mom didn't want me to live with her. So I got my own apartment. And Ivanka was always. at my apartment. And a lot of girls were always at my apartment that year.

Ivanka was always sleeping over. And yeah, so we just, we pretty much stayed very, very close, even though we were doing different things until I went to Bay Route. And even then, we remained close, but that was kind of when we started moving on divergent tracks. So in the piece, you talk about the conversation where you realized that she had become very conservative, right? Wasn't that sort of the moment? I wouldn't say it was one conversation. Right. And I also wouldn't even call her conservative.

The conversation when I realized that we had increasingly different values about life and agendas, one of them was the conversation about Empire Falls. But there were many. Wait, Empire Falls. Yeah. So Ivanka always used to get book suggestions from me. And I recommend it when I was in Beirut. The first of the two years that I lived in Beirut, I went to.

there to report for an English language newspaper and there was a pretty tumultuous time. A lot was going on there. There were a lot of political assassinations and there was a big war. So I just mentioned that to give the backdrop, which the comment was delivered. And she called me one day and I remember her saying, uh, lie, why would you tell me to read a book about fucking poor people? What would make you think I'd be interested in this? Yeah. Jesus. Did she call you in? In Beirut? Yes, yes.

I remember being on the street walking right near my office in Beirut and receiving the phone call. What did you say? I honestly don't remember. I don't remember other instances of her using, you know, such derisive words like fucking poor people. Right. You know, the general desire to not really socialize the people outside of your own socioeconomic segment was consistent throughout. our life. It does seem to me, though, that there's a, like, the thing that I've always noticed about Ivanka compared to, like, Junior and Eric is that Ivanka seems better at hiding

her general contempt. Yeah, until recently. Right. I think that's why it was so difficult to not say anything. I was in her wedding, and just to be clear, I've always been really pro-Palestinian. So this is not like a new thing, but it was not. Right. It was not. But that must have been a conflict with the Kushner. It was not. That's what I was saying.

It wasn't a conflict before the Kushners. But then when I got back from Beirut the first time, she was dating Jared. It wasn't such a big deal initially. But then as they got more serious, it kind of became a bigger deal, I think. And especially as she started her conversion. And as I said in the article, I wear a necklace that says my name and Arabic that I got made for me at the end of my first stint in Beirut, and I wear it every day, and she would, you know, just kind of make little comments about it. And at one point, towards

the end of our friendship, when we were really not seeing eye to eye on things, she looked at me and said, you know, how does your Jewish boyfriend feel when you're having sex and that hits him in the face? Like, that necklace just screams terrorism. Oh, Jesus Christ. And I think I said at the time, I would like, to think I said at the time. Ivanka, you can't ever say anything like that aloud again. Arabic is a language.

Like, that's a really racist comment. But I don't actually remember if I said it. So that was kind of one of the last instances. And then after her wedding, we just really stopped being friends. And part of it, I think, was because my pro-Palestinian

stance was not a publicly acceptable one. And I'm not someone who's not going to discuss these things. That's never been who I am. So then I moved back to Deerute for two years and really didn't speak to her at all at that point. Married a Lebanese dude invited her to my, we eloped, but I invited her to my engagement party because, you know, I invited everyone. Right. She didn't come because she couldn't.

She didn't really say anything to me much about that. She sent me a necklace when I had my son with his name on it when I moved back to the city. and then yeah, and that was pretty much it and I was very fine with not being her friend. You know, it was very clear that we had nothing in common anymore. And then I refused, I was fine refusing all the press requests. And even at one point, a former colleague of mine at the observer, a reporter got in touch with me via her.

So I responded and said, sorry, I'm not speaking about Ivanka. And he said, oh, well, her publicist told me to get in touch with you. So I forwarded the email to Ivanka and I said, is this true? And she said, no, it would be great if you could. And I said, okay, just so you know, I've refused all these requests and I'm not speaking to the press about you. And she said, okay, it will be great if you could forward me these things in the future so I know what kind of stories are being worked up about me. And I did that actually. Until her dad won, I even did that because I did not think he was going to win and she was my old friend. So when people say I'm being

disloyal, like please keep in mind how much I was not disloyal. Like that came from, me in the beginning. But as she stood by and watched what her dad did, it just became increasingly untenable for me to have that position. And Nellie and I discussed all the time, should I say something? But after the Axis Hollywood tape came out, it was like, what am I going to say that's actually going to change anyone's mind? If that can come out and it wouldn't make a dent in his support, then what's the point in me saying anything? Because I'm just going to get, you know, run through the cold. And then what changed? What changed is A, my case. kids are a little older. You know, I have a two-year-old and a five-year-old. So I'm, I just

started a daily writing practice and I've started working again for the first time in August. I've been freelancing and I wrote an essay that really meant a lot to me about the Beirut Blast. So I was in the habit of writing and I went to vote early at my polling place in Brooklyn. And I ran into one other person I know who went to Choate with Ivanka. And they were not friends. But we were waiting in the one-hour line together. And we were discussing how it was so surprising that no one from Chapin or Choate had come forward to say anything. And I just went home.

I sat at my computer and I started writing a long essay about why her dad shouldn't be president. And it was very much pegged to my recollections of growing up with him. Why do you think everyone has close ranks around her and protected her? Well, A, because I don't think you want to mess with them. I mean, it's very clear what they're going to say about you in public. But they're so gross. I mean, I'm just thinking about this, like, from my own personal opinion because I, you know, I didn't go to Chapin, but I went to schools, you know, adjacent to Chapin. Yeah, totally.

And I, you know, I knew a bunch of, I didn't know Ivanka because I'm older than you guys, but I knew Junior's horrible first wife and I knew this one and that one. And, like, I'm just curious because it is true. People have closed ranks around them, even though they were objectively not very nice people. And I'm just curious. Like, it almost feels like there's some kind of people are loyal to their class in a certain way. Yeah. I mean, one of my favorite Twitter comments on this article was by someone who called me a class trader. And I loved it.

Me too. To me, there's no higher badge of honor. And I'm not really one because I like nice vacations and stuff. But anyway, log story short, I do think one of the biggest things that happened in the aftermath of this article is that, and I was talking to the thing I was talking to you on the phone yesterday about was this huge gap between, I would say 75% of, you know, friends from the private school world, friends of friends who are writing me letters saying, this is so brave. friends of Ivankas who were writing me incredible, like confessional letters, some of them about their Jewish faith and how they were so conflicted about not saying anything because, you know, they'd spent their life thinking about complicity and regimes and just these very, some were just good job, but then some were very emotional and intense. And I wasn't expecting the breadth of those

from such a wide array of people and people who used to be friends with her who were saying, We're so glad somebody did this. We're so glad that somebody said something. However, there was also, I was expecting to get raked through the calls on Twitter, but I was not expecting this small cadre of close friends from the Chapin world to kind of not be into it. And just have the general sense that it was icky to discuss my private friendship with her. What? Because you're a doctor?

And it's HIPAA? No, I'm just... Yeah, what I said was, I think it's icky. to, you know, permanently separate 666 children from their parents. And if you guys promise to never do anything that evil, I promise that I will never discuss the details of our private relationship. And that landed with the giant fed. Yeah.

So that's kind of my attitude about it. I think that if you appoint yourself public official, you are the public's duty to hold you accountable. And especially as someone a journalist, you know, I went to Columbia. This is what they tell you at Columbia. You are there to hold the public accountable. This is the ideal of journalism. So it's very hard to kind of have been nurtured on this ideal and then have to be silent when you see such terrible things.

What struck you about Donald that was surprising, that wasn't sort of the usual of the dads, of the chaper dads? I mean, well, he was nothing like a usual chapered dad. I was with Ivanka and her dad. I don't even know how many times, like a hundred at least, I would say. And I don't remember many substantial conversations. You know, everything's transactional. Everything's about where you rank in the hierarchy of power and beauty and superficial characteristics. So I can't say there's anything shocking about, there was anything shocking about him from what we know now.

But it was definitely shocking as a young kid because that definitely wasn't what, you know, most dads didn't make comments about your weight. Most dads didn't kind of call all of my young friends after different models. Wait, what do you mean? I remember that there was always two girls that he was referring to. No, I remember there's always one girl that he was referring to as Cindy Crawford. Oh, gosh. I actually hadn't spoken to her in 18 years. and she called me after this article,

and we were just reminiscing about Mr. Trump stories. And I said, oh, did you recognize yourself as Cindy? And everybody thought she was Cindy. But she was like, no, I wasn't Cindy. Somebody else was Cindy. I was actually Christy Turlington. And then she started listing all of the model names. This is not my story.

This is a mutual friend story. So he was just overly familiar? No, but not to me so much. He ignored me because I wasn't very, I wasn't very attractive. And he almost never remembered my name. Yeah, I do remember one, I do remember one conversation that I remember he and I having about myself. It was the only time he ever asked me a personal question about myself was when we were on the way to the U.S. Open, I believe, in a limo with him. He had just bought 40 Wall Street, which my great-grandfather built. total coincidence.

And it was the tallest building in the world in the 1930s before the Chrysler and the Empire State Building. And so I thought this would impress him a little. So I just mentioned it. And he said, oh, built it. You mean he was a construction worker? And I said, no, I mean, he built it. And he said, oh, you mean he was the developer?

And I said, no, he was, you know, he financed the construction and was the anchor tenant of this building in the 1930s. And he said, oh, so your granddad. grandfather must have been a very rich man. And I said, not by your standards. But yeah. And anyway, but that was really the only conversation that we ever had about me. Do you wish Ivanka wouldn't have gone this way? I wish that Ivanka had the first, you know, rather than go with her dad,

she should have used all of her political capital and cachet among these people to start a super pack and like vocally oppose her dad. Throughout our friendship, there were so many instances where her dad would be behaving in a way It was so inconsiderate to other people. And I would just think to myself, if my father was behaving this way, I would say, dad, stop it in front of everyone. And I would challenge him to behave better. But I guess that's what separates us. Do you think that Ivanka can come back to New York?

Based on the number of people who will not go on the record about their comments vowing that she can't, I would say yes. She'll be right back here in five years. Interesting. You think so because you think people just don't, but they just don't care. Well, you asked before why people close ranks about Ivanka. I do think some of it is like that it's just seen as pretty tacky to talk about your friends. But I also think part of it is that she was really nice and fun and great to her friends sometimes amidst all the, I think I said in the article, Trumpian edges. Right.

I'll use as a euphemism. You know, she was super fun to be around and nice. So I think a lot of it is people just are remembering that, maybe. And they don't care about the larger. I don't see how you couldn't care at this point. That's where I am. Yeah, that's where I am, too. And I was there a long time ago.

I basically was there at the family separation policy. And then it just got worse and worse and worse. But I guess there are some people who just truly, we don't talk about politics. It's just not polite. In accordance with state federal law and international treaty, blah, blah, blah, blah, you guys know the rest. I know you're tired of it.

You're tired of it now. We're all going to die in the end. The actuarial tables catch up with everyone. Right. Let's hope. Actually, I want to be uploaded into the cloud. Did you see that show? On foreign servers. Oh, God.

I'm going to come back as a spam bot. You're going to come back as one of Junior's many bots that we tweets him. That's right. Who is your fuck-that guy? My fuck-that guy is soon-to-be former Secretary of State. Mike Pompeo, who has spent the week racing around Europe with a gas can, in the Middle East, with a gas can, trying to serve as the arsonist of state. He has gone to France, blown shit up.

He has gone to Saudi Arabia, blown shit up. We were suddenly parking B-52 bombers back in the Persian Gulf again here at the last minute, because what could go wrong with that? What do you think his endgame is besides maybe? Presidency. Yeah, that's what I think, too. Mike Pompeo. is going to run as the pure maga for president. He's also anticipating that, and this is not a

dumb, strategic view of the playing field, he's anticipating that sometime between now, look, because the last four years, we've actually had a fairly quiet foreign policy front. Nothing. Right. Except leaving the Kurds to die. Right. Well, you know, the little things, the little things they care so much about. But what they're, what they're thinking is, is that Mike Pompeo is going to establish this foreign policy cred in Maga world, and that he's going to punch the button on the Israel stuff until it is absolutely, you know, utterly clear in the minds of the Magas that he was the pro-Israel guy in the administration and that he did X, Y, and Z for Israel. See, I feel like Mike Pompeo is so deeply unlikable that it shouldn't, that he doesn't have a shot. But am I wrong?

You know, I don't think he has a shot, but deeply unlikable hasn't stopped people before from being elected president. Right. Trump is horrendous and a horrible, horrible person, but he is, people find him fun. His supporters like him. Whereas I don't think anyone thinks Mike Pompeo is funny at all. Yeah, I don't think Mike Pompeo's got a big fan club out there, really. He's not a very pleasant fellow. Yeah, my fuck that guy. And actually, I can have this, that guy, because I have that guy, because I have. seen his terrible movie unplanned which was funded by him about how abortion it was written by this insane woman who used to work at Planned Parenthood. Yes, I know who it is.

I know the story. And so I have seen that movie. I saw that movie in theaters. So I am really allowed to say fuck Mike Lindau, who is, you'll know, you may know him for his Hitler mustache. He is the My Pillow guy. dot com. And he is a major

Trump donor and a major C-PAC donor and I heard him speak at C-PAC twice. And a douchebag? One of the only advertisers on Fox News and also

he offered to he was going to have something to go where he was going to make masks. I don't know what happened with that. Mike Lindell, fuck you. But why, Molly?

He contributed with Ricky Schroeder. to Kyle Rittenhouse's $2 million of bail. As you remember, Kyle Rittenhouse is what we call a murderer. He murdered two protesters. He drove across state lines with illegally purchased firearms. It's this further lauding of Kyle Rittenhouse, who is a domestic terrorist and also a murderer.

Wait until Trump pardons him. You think that's going to happen? I don't think that's going to happen, really. I have heard a rumor that there is a gig. gigantic raft of requested pardon papers from the White House to the Justice Department. So we'll see what shakes loose. 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 from 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 it. an episode. If you'd like to follow us on Twitter, I'm Molly Jongfast, 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-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.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

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