The Daily Beast Podcast - Jake Tapper and Dana Bash’s Debate Performance Was an Embarrassment

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

President Joe Biden had a rough night Thursday at the debate, but CNN moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash also turned in an abysmal performance of their own, according to The New Abnormal co-hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie. Then, Parker Molloy, writer of the Substack The Present Age, joins the program to talk about the fact checking site Snopes’ recent determination that Donald Trump actually didn’t call the white supremacists and neo-Nazis at the infamous Charlottesville rally “very fine people”—and why the site is wrong. Plus! Investigate reporter Katya Schwenk, a reporter at investigative site The Lever, discusses a particularly egregious Supreme Court ruling recently which allows politicians to accept monetary gifts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

What an excellent show we have today. Writer of the newsletter of the present age Parker Malloy is here to tell us about the fact-checking site Snope's recent decision to say that any news about Donald Trump calling white supremacist and neo-Nazis very fine people was false and why they're wrong. Then journalist at the lever, Katia Schwank, is going to talk to us about a recent Supreme Court ruling, legalizing politics. accepting monetary gifts, or as there more well-known bribes? But first, let's have some fun.

So just in some other news before we wrap things up here, the Supreme Court, finally, I guess they realized that it's the end of June coming up to early July and they need to actually, you know, put out decisions. So they've been dropping them left and right. And we'll just focus on one right here for a little bit. And that was a decision that basically, they sort of punted. The issue is emergency abortion access in Idaho. And there is a federal law that requires treatment for emergency room patients. And that law includes if a woman is pregnant and is having,

you know, really bad complications from her pregnancy and may require an abortion. And Idaho had an active estate law that sort of conflicted with that. And in a total ban of abortion, in the state. And a lower court had ruled that doctors did have to perform abortions in emergency situations because of the federal law. Idaho had appealed that case to the Supreme Court. But the court really didn't rule on it. It basically just sent it back for the courts to rule on. It's one of those situations where it could be worse, but it's definitely one of those decisions where it could have been better and actually reached a decision that would permanently save people's lives. So I want to read a piece of Justice Katanji Brown Jackson's thoughts today on the decision.

This is what she said. So to be clear, today's decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho. It is a delay. While this court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a precarious position as their doctors are kept in the dark about what the law requires. This court had a chance to bring clarity and certainty to this tragic situation, and we have squandered it. And for as long as we refuse to declare what the law requires, pregnant patients in Idaho, Texas, and elsewhere will be paying the price. Because we owe them and the nation an answer to the straightforward preemption question presented in these cases. I respectfully dissent. This is essentially Katanji Brown Jackson,

saying what all of us think, which is that this Supreme Court is fucking wayward, lawless, and a disaster for pregnant people. I posted this on social media earlier today, and I was just like, the fact is that we now live in a country where pregnancy is no longer a blessing or a miracle, but a potential death sentence or jail time, all depending on the whims of nine black robes. And so right now, what this Supreme Court just said is that the women in Idaho get to live for the moment. How nice. I cannot imagine the fear. Like, I have said this before. I don't know where the men and Connie Barrett, where they think babies come from. Like, they think that they are delivered from storks that come neatly wrapped

and smelling like fresh flowers and are just put into the arms of adoring parents. It is bloody. It is dangerous. It is when a pregnant person is the closest to death that they will ever be. And the fact is that this Supreme Court doesn't give a damn. And that's exactly what this opinion did today, which is just tell us, once again,

following the two-year anniversary of the overturning of Roby Wade, that they could care less about pregnant people. Yeah, I do just want to point out that this, decision only because you mentioned Amy Coney Barrett and the men, Elena Kagan joined the majority decision on this to basically punt it back. It was kind of a weird outcome, and you had Justice Jackson's dissent was fantastic, but you had Justice Alito agreeing with her in the sense that he thought the court should have determined the case. Obviously, he would have determined it in the way that would cause women to die, because that's what he do. But it was a weird sort of combination

of justices in the minority, it was a 5-4 decision to send it back to the courts and to and to not come up with any actual doctrine. But it was a weird 5-4, not the usual split that we see. I couldn't agree more that, you know, I think Justice Jackson is dead on. And the idea of sending this back down, like I said at the top, it could have been worse because we could have had an Alito 5-4 majority decision saying that it's okay for Idaho to allow women to die from a complication in a pregnancy where her life could have been saved. So at least we didn't get that. But all this is doing is kicking the can down the road. And then, of course, all it's going to take is a Trump victory in November to make it even more of a slam dunk for on the next go-round for the Supreme Court

to rule in favor of Idaho. Danielle, before we leave, is it okay if we talk about something that's actually good news? Are we allowed to do that? Yeah, I think so. I think Jesse may be away from his microphone. I'm sorry, you ran out of time. There it is. There it is. Well, Danielle, let's record this and then we'll see if it makes air.

Yeah, but let's see. Please, go ahead. On Wednesday, President Biden issued a pardon for all American veterans who had been convicted of engaging in gay sex during the years when that was illegal to do while in the military, that's from 1951 to 2013, and he pardoned, according to New York Times, 2,000 people. And that's pretty incredible. And, you know, we were talking before we started recording. And I think all of us had kind of forgotten that there were a lot of people who got thrown out of the military with a less than honorable discharge, which fucks you in so many ways in terms of future employment

and also denies you any benefits that you might have received if you had gotten an honorable discharge. And we've kind of forgotten about them because since 2013, it hasn't been a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice to engage in gay sex. But they've been out there. So good for Joe Biden for doing this. And it's a bit of a shame that it wasn't done earlier. Would have been nice if President Obama had done this. But good for him for doing this. And it's at least some small measure of restitution for people who were drummed out of the military or in some cases court-martialed simply for having a sex drive. What is so astonishing about these pardons is that it never occurred to me that people were

dishonorably discharged, that they lost their livelihood, that they lost their ability to have insurance, to have coverage, that they're not. names were stained because of who they are in relationship with. And I always think about people who decide to serve. And they have a level of patriotism. And I think and courage in ways that a lot of people do not. And so I've always found it extraordinary that because you're queer, you would not be able to showcase your patriotism, your courage, and defend your country. And then in doing so that you could lose everything. And so I, you know, the fact, you know, Andy that you bring up that Obama didn't do this is kind of shocking to me. I want to also lift up. There are a lot of things

that Biden has done in the last four years that Obama did not do and had the opportunity to do so at least in his second term and didn't. And we miss all of that because it's, It's always wall-to-wall fucking Trump and fuckery. But this was something that really deserved attention because those people deserve their honor restored to them in a way that these pardons will do. Yeah, absolutely. And I just want to reiterate before we end that if you have a dishonorable discharge from the military, there are so many lines of employment that are closed off to you. You could be turned down for a stockboy job in a Walmart or something like that. Because if you honestly answer, you know, forms will ask you if you have military service and if you have an honorable discharge.

And if you don't, there are tons and tons of companies that simply won't hire you. So again, this is really late. But I'm so glad they're doing this. And hopefully that will expunge all these discharges. And, you know, I don't know how the process is going to work, but we got to get these people honorable discharges so that they can go ahead with their life. As you said, without that stain hanging over them. Listeners, I have cut Danielle's primal scream from the introduction of the show. Now we will resume commentary on that note.

Okay. So, listeners, because we care about you, we subjected ourselves to watching Thursday night's presidential debate. And we are recording this segment late Thursday night post-debat. None of us are in a good mood. At least one of us is of questionable. sobriety. And it was 90 minutes of of of shit. I honestly don't know what other word to use. Trump just, you know, one of the things we've been saying on the show a lot is it's very easy to lie if you have no conscience. And that was the Trump strategy for this debate was just lie.

Just lie about everything. I'm not saying that's a surprise. But he literally, I don't think he spoke a single word of truth, whether he was saying we have a border that's considered the most dangerous place in the world. I think there are a lot of people around. I'm sitting here, like, I'm not going to fact check him because what's the fucking point? He said, you know, about Roe v. Wade, he said, well, everybody wanted abortion to go back to the states. Everybody wanted that. Liberal's conservative, obviously completely not true. He talked about post-birth abortions. Everything he said was a lie. Which we expected. The problem is, I have to say just briefly, and then I'll pass it to you, Danielle,

I was wrong. I thought, and I said this on the show, I thought Biden would actually do a good job of this debate. And I will say that he got a lot better as it went on, but his opening five minutes was, I would have to say, as bad a presidential debate performance as I think I've ever seen. This was the most excruciating shit I have ever had to ingest in my. life. I will say that the first five minutes will run on replay ad nauseum on Fox on every single right-wing platform and program from now until election day. I understand that live TV difficult, but the refrain that I kept seeing on social media was where was the Biden from the state of the union? And while, sure, he got better towards, you know, towards the end and he was the only one up there that was actually answering questions.

I mean, I don't know what the fuck Donald Trump was talking about most of the time. But you don't have time to waste here. Like you don't have five minutes to give up. This is a fucking championship bloodbath. We're in the fucking arena, you know, with gladiators that are and lions right here. Like you don't have five minutes to fuck up because it was one thing, I guess, if we were in the 20th century. And if you missed the debate on the radio, well, then, uh, you know, whatever. But the fact is, is that those kind of mistakes live on.

I don't understand what happened, you know, yes, sure, Biden is sick, you know, whatever. I also don't know why the fuck this is happening at 9 p.m. at night, like for anybody. But they should have put Biden in like literally no one talk to him. No one. Like let the man rest. Feed him bone broth. I don't know what it is that you have to do. But like what I didn't need was laryngitis and like him looking older than his actual fucking age.

I want to go on record as saying I have always said that presidential debates are a complete and utter waste of time. And the only reason I bring that up is can confirm you've said this many times. It's true. It's true. I don't want it to sound like I'm saying this now because Biden wasn't great. And this is exactly why I think presidential debates are a waste of time because all that, for the most part, all that we are talking about, all that anyone is going to talk about is the optics, is Joe Biden, you know, completely trailing off in the first five minutes and forgetting what the hell he was talking about. And that's unfortunate. But the optics, look, Joe Biden's optics were not good. There were a lot of split screens. of Joe Biden staring at Trump. And a lot of them, unfortunately, he had kind of an open mouth. And he just, he looked really old. And that is just, I cannot imagine that's going to play well. Look, I don't know how much these debates matter. And I don't know how much people will, you know, I would like to think that they will care, at least, that Donald Trump just, I have to say,

I mean, you expect lying at presidential debates. I don't think. I've ever seen the lies flow, even in 2020 or 2016, I mean, the way they did from Trump tonight. It was just from start to finish. Everything he said was an outright lie. But I really do think it's, you know, we've said this on the show. Donald Trump is clearly sundowning, but Joe Biden just looks old. And I don't know what you do about that at this point. I don't know what you do about it.

But I want to switch gears for a moment because fucking CNN. Oh, here we go. Like, what the fuck? Yep. Do I hear foam in your mouth? Oh, my fucking God. Go ahead, Danielle. I'm sorry.

I don't understand. Like, are they journalists? Like, how do you call yourself a mod? Like, they're basically, whatever her name is. Bash and Tapper, taper, taper. Do you know what they were? They weren't moderators. They were fucking mic stands.

Like, doing nothing. doing nothing, offering nothing. How do you let someone lie like that? And you don't have the ability to mute? You don't have the fact checkers sitting next to you, handing you papers once, like offering anything. They weren't literally the worst moderators I've ever seen. And I think that that's saying a lot. Because to have that job to moderate in it of itself is bullshit.

I think that the only person who ever did it well probably was Gwen Eiffel. I think that she may have been the only. person who moderated, I think it was a vice presidential debate and asked real pertinent questions. But them and Donald Trump being able to spend any time talking about golfing? Instead of funding to poor children. I was just going to ask you. I'm like, I don't even remember what the fuck the question was. It was about giving money to poor children.

And so the question is about giving money to poor children. and this inflated, privileged, rich bastard is up there talking about a championship that he probably is lying about or, you know, everyone else just, every, everyone else just like didn't show up that day on his golf course. Like, oh my God. Yeah, I mean, look, him winning a club championship is the equivalent of when you see Putin playing hockey and he scores like seven goals against a bunch of guys in their 30s, you know, and 20s. But I'm of two minds about this. CNN did a horrible job. And we are now eight, nine years into CNN normalizing Trump. And it still just, it still blows my mind that they continue to do it.

I thought Danabash and Jake Tapper were worthless. The only thing I will hedge on that is, I think, you know, to use the old excuse, I think they were just following orders, you know. CNN had said there was not going to be any fact checking. and, well, they weren't lying about that. You had at one point Trump was, you know, the question was about Trump being a convicted felon and, et cetera, et cetera. And Trump basically was like, I did nothing wrong. The system was rigged against me.

Joe Biden is the criminal. He's going to be a multiple time felon. And he finished. And Jake Tapper said, thank you, Mr. President, and then moved on. And I'm like, that is not, you know, shame on me, I guess. I did not realize that debate moderation meant asking questions. and then sitting back and just letting the lies flow. So shame on me.

I apparently don't understand what the word moderator means. I didn't know what meant question asker. I think the distinction is they were hosts, not moderators. Well, they shouldn't. They weren't even hosts. They weren't even hosts. A host in the sense that they were susceptible to the parasites on stage. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Jesse. Very good. At one point, Gannabash asked a question to Biden. She asked him if he supported any restrictions on abortion, as if that's the issue that this country is facing right now. And of course, that allowed Trump to then talk, just straight up lie about both late-term abortions and the so-called post-birth abortions, lie unchecked, except by Joe Biden, who the best thing he did tonight was consistently say that Trump was lying. I don't know how effective it was, but at least he did it.

because Dana Bash and Jake Tapper weren't going to. And I mean, oh, my God. Can I read you guys a tweet that just came out? Please. Brian Stelter just tweeted this. A CNN exec in the control room text me. Quote, we are very proud of Jake and Dana. Our job was to make sure candidates were heard

so voters can make informed decisions, and we are pleased we were able to do that. Sounds like CNN. Yeah, that is part of the normalized of Donald Trump, that we have a candidate here who is so far beyond the pale in terms of the lying that politicians do, where he just makes up things out of whole cloth. He tried to take credit for the $35 insulin. He tried to claim that happened on his watch. It absolutely did not. That happened after Joe Biden took office and made it a priority. I could not give you an

accurate tally. Somebody probably, you know, with a stronger stomach than me may have kept a tally, but I lost track. Within like five, six minutes, I was like, I don't know how many times this guy has even lied now and we're only five minutes in. But CNN has completely normalized this behavior and has basically said, it's okay. It is okay to come on a debate and say things, not that are shading the truth and not that are arguable, but things that are just outright fucking lies. And as far as CNN is concerned, it's not their job to do anything about that. It's, you know, they just, oh, we let the candidates be heard. We let the liar be heard as if he and Joe Biden even deserve to stand. And again, on the same fucking stage.

And I am not, listeners of this show know that neither of us is a huge Joe Biden fan. Nope, not at all. But Donald Trump and Joe Biden standing on the same stage as if they're equivalent human beings. What a fucking farce. It's a fucking farce. And, you know, and the entirety of CNN is a revolving. door of liars, right? They bring on former Trump staffer on their shows, on their net, all the time. And they sit there and they lie to the American people over and over and over again. But that's CNN's version of, well, both sides should be presented. They should come with a fucking warning, right, on all of their programs. Because it is not for your information. Because information is when you offer people analysis and thought and criticism of,

the system that they are looking at. How do I learn? How do I understand this? I go to the news. What the fuck is CNN? It's not the news. What are they giving you besides a camera directed at Donald Trump's plane? What are they giving you other than like whatever goon of his is coming on the television in a red tie to just match and spread the lies as far as they can? And then you have CNN people that say, oh, don't talk about our colleague like that. Because these are these are the people you want as your colleagues. Fresh-faced liars that use cable news as a way to wash away, to whitewash themselves out of the stench of Trump and be reborn again as commentators and people to be taken seriously. CNN is one of the reasons and mainstream media that has never learned over nine years how to check

Donald Trump, how to challenge Donald Trump in any which way. All they needed to do was ask that motherfucker a follow-up question and watch his head explode. But then they would, you know, oh, we don't want to be looked at as we're giving one favor over the other. It's, you know, we get what we deserve at this point, honestly. I don't even know. I know. Okay. I have one last question for you, too. Okay. The mic muting tonight. Some people are saying it made it much more substantive. Some people say it didn't show the psychosis of Trump, even though it seemed Biden talked over it almost as much as Trump? What do you two see there? Look, the only mic muting that annoyed me was the host's being muted when Trump was lying. Like, was that the mic muting they were talking about?

I don't know. I don't know if it made a difference. I don't know if not having an audience made a difference. There's an argument to be made that had there been an audience there, Trump might have acted more unhinged. And if his mic hadn't been muted, you know, when he wasn't answering, maybe he would have come across more unhinged. But ultimately, I mean, when his mic wasn't muted, all the guy did was spit lies. And so what difference does it make? I don't really think anyone should be patting themselves on the back for any part of this debate. And that includes Joe Biden's prep team.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't think that it matter. The only thing that I do think made any bit of a difference is the audience. Like, that's the only thing that I will disagree on is that, like, I didn't want to hear a bunch of Maga, C, clapping at nothing that Donald Trump said. Like, I'm asking you about, again, child care, and you're talking to me about your golf swing.

Like, and then people and people laughing at that, like, I think that I would have needed to go to Best Buy and get a new fucking television because it would have ended up, like, against the wall. So, like, you know, so I, I appreciated that, but the muting, I think it made no difference one way or the other. Counterpoint, I would have really liked to hear a hick yell, oh, shut the fuck up when they were.

arguing about who's better at golf? That was just the fact that we had two presidential candidates talking about their golf handicap was just, I mean, that was a low point. But just before we go, I do want to say one thing. If this debate is a preview of the next four and a half months or whatever, Trump is going to run very heavily on immigration. And by that, I mean on a platform of immigrants are murderers, rapists, drug mules. He tried to bring everything in this debate back to brown people invading our country.

It has got to be, I was sitting there thinking, this has got to be the darkest language from a major party candidate that I can recall regarding immigrants. And that includes even Trump in 2020 and 2016 and a number of Republicans and some Democrats who have said awful things about immigrants in the past presidential candidates I'm talking about. But this was just, it was unbelievable. He basically, he blamed everything in the world on immigrants. And if that's what we're in store for for the next one and a month, I am personally very thankful that I am Lily White right now. Oh, my God. But I guess, you know, I guess this is the new abnormal.

On August 15, 2017, then-President Donald Trump called neo-Nazis and white supremacists who attended the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Very Fine People. This is a claim that fact-checking site Snopes recently rated as false, prompting many people on the left to say, uh-what? And conservatives to run headlines like the one at the blaze saying, left-leaning fact-checker finally admits Trump never called neo-Nazis very fine people

after seven years, falsehood spread by Biden. Among the, uh-what people was writer Parker Malloy, who wrote a great piece at her, present age newsletter, which you can find at readtpa.substack.com, explaining why Snopes's false rating fails to recognize the intricacies of Trump's rhetoric, which serves as a prime example of double speak. A version of her piece was also published by the New Republic, and she joins me now. Parker, thank you so much for being here. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Absolutely. So this Snopes rating got so much blowback from people like you that they eventually appended an

editor's note to it, and I'll get to that in a bit. But first, I want to go back to 815-17. Donald Trump is speaking in the wake of Charlottesville, and a reporter says, the neo-Nazi started this. They showed up in Charlottesville to protest. And then Trump interrupts him and says, excuse me, excuse me, they didn't put themselves. And you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group. Excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures you did, you had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of to them a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name. So that's the extended version of the quote. Explain why this is part of what you call

Trump's equivocations that allowed him to condemn and defend the same group of people simultaneously. Right. So, I mean, right there, Trump is talking about two groups. He's not talking about three groups, not four, not five, two groups. He split it into the, you've got your neo-Nazis, you've got your, as Trump calls, the alt-left. He goes, what about the alt-left? At a different point in this. You know, so right there, he understands that there are two sides to this. There are two sides in this whole ordeal.

And I think it's important to remember that the reason that Trump is in this conversation right now is because three days earlier, on the day of the Unite the Right rally, Trump was giving a press conference at the White House in which he placed blame on many sides, which horrified people. And so he was there trying to play cleanup. And the goal there was to place blame where it belonged and place blame on the neo-Nazis. And that's all he had to do.

And he just couldn't do it. He had to try to spread the blame to everyone. I think that what happened here is, you know, as writer AR MOX and, you know, wrote on social media, you know, the article chose to answer the question, did Trump call neo-Nazis and white supremacists very fine people? You know, it's the wrong question, you know, which is what's done when the goal is avoiding the actual questions. Because Trump at another point does say, no, no, no, I'm not talking about neo-Nazis and white nationalists. He does, but when he gets specific about who he is talking about, he says he was talking about people who were there the night before. And as we remember, the night before was the infamous Tiki Torch March where you had people chanting blood and soil and Jews will not replace us. You know, I don't think that makes it better.

If anything, I think that makes it worse, you know, that those are the very fine people he's referring to. You know, that is what just boggles the mind, why Snopes decided to respond to. What was essentially just some right-wing account that posted something saying, because this has been going on for, you know, more than six years. Yeah, sure. I mean, this effort to try to rewrite the history of Charlottesville, you know, it was just some right-wing account that was basically saying, hey, you know how people always say Trump said Nazis are very fine people?

Well, actually, he specifically denounce Nazis in white national. Because Trump, he talks and double speak. He says one thing while equivocating and speaking in riddles. Yeah, no, for sure. The Trumpian claim, which you sort of put out there right now, is that he had clearly condemned the neo-Nazis earlier, so that when he said there were very fine people on both sides, he was clearly referring not to the neo-Nazis on the right,

but to the people who were simply there to peacefully protest the taking down of the Robert Elie. statue. And that, to me, is essentially what Snopes is saying. To quote them, we found that while Trump did say there were very fine people on both sides, meaning both the protesters and the counter-protesters, he also condemned neo-Nazis and white nationalist outright and said he was specifically referring to those who were there only to participate in the statute protest. So your point is that's not even what matters. Yeah. And I think that one thing that's worth keeping in mind here is that initially everyone seemed to be horrified by this.

It wasn't until about a year later that this effort to rewrite the history of it, the effort to try to change the perception of what Trump said really got into motion. You know, it wasn't until about a year later that you had places like the Daily Caller, that you had guys like the Dilbert creator, Scott Adams, really pushing this idea that actually Trump,

Trump's response was perfectly fine. It was, he was talking about these, people who were there for the right reasons, who were just trying to defend the Robert E. Lee statue. I mean, if you remember, this rally was organized by white nationalists and neo-Nazis. It was promoted using neo-Nazi iconography. Yeah. It was not, it was not just some nice little protest to defend the Robert E. Lee statue. It was explicit to end up there to protest against taking down the,

Robert Ely statue, which wasn't in imminent threat. It wasn't going to be taken down soon at that point. There were all sorts of hurdles that still had to be crossed in order for it to be taken down. The reason for the rally was that it was happening because you had white nationalists and neo-Nazis calling for this rally to happen. And just seeing that, seeing this all play out, it's so frustrating because, you know, you may remember that Joe Biden's 2020 campaign announcement, you know, his video was built on that. Right. And for the Trump campaign now to come out and, you know, they're doing kind of a little victory dance about Snopes doing this, you know, in Biden's campaign announcement, you know, candidate Biden called Charlottesville home to a

defining moment for this nation in the last few years, you know, and he said, and that's when we heard the words of the President in the United States that's stunned the world and shocked the conscience of this nation. He said there were, quote, some very fine people on both sides, very fine people on both sides with those words that the President in the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. And I don't see where that contains a lie. Yeah. Even if you're talking about people who were there to defend the Robert E. Lee statue, you're still talking about Robert E. Lee. Exactly.

I mean, this is not some figure who is just neutral. He's Robert E. Lee. Right. You know, let's remember who we were talking about. You're talking about people who were standing there quietly protesting next to people who are marching around saying Jews will not replace us, and blood and soil and, you know, watching guys march by with swastika's tattooed on their chests and, you know, all of this happening. No, those were the very fine people, the ones just sitting there going, oh, man, I'm surrounded by Nazis, you know, and they're all on my side. I guess I guess I'm just, I'm just good.

I'm fine. Well, that's the thing. Like, as I was reading the Snopes thing and as I, you know, as I was thinking about the very fine people thing, it's like, look, even if you, let's concede for the point of argument that, there are in this world very fine people who think Robert E. Lee is a hero and should be commemorated with the statute. Let's even concede that, which is to me insane on its face, but let's concede it. But like you said, if you show up at a rally that is put together by white nationalists, put together by neo-Nazis, and you are standing side by side with them on the same issue, and you're okay with that, I'm going to feel free to say you are probably not a very

fine person. Yeah. If I show up and those are the people who are there with me, I'm going to go, oh no, I shouldn't be at this rally. Maybe this is not how I show that I want to save the Robert Ely statue. Maybe I express this in a different way. Maybe I'll come back a different day to make this same point. You know, maybe I don't have to hang out at the Unite the Right neo-Nazi rally to make my voice heard on this issue. You know, that, that is what, what really gets to me here, as if this was the only possible way to make your voice heard on, on that. There were all sorts of different avenues people could take to express their support for the Robert E. Lee statue that didn't involve going to a neo-Nazi rally. You would think, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's not a, maybe this is not the best

language for the it's not a black and white situation like you said there are there are other ways you could go about this other than consorting with neo-nazies so in your mind how should snopes have rated the claim this is the claim they rated that trump called neo-notsies and white supremacists who are at the rally very fine people sure i think you know honestly in complete fairness to snopes if they're going to rate this this is one of those situations where snopes specifically has a rating for things that are very confusing. And this is something that I think Snopes could have given them rating of mixture, which is a rating that it uses when a claim has, in quotes,

a claim has significant elements of both truth and falsity to it such that it could not be fairly described by any other rating. I think that that would have been fair, because this is something where it's a big, messy situation. You know, you could say, you know, it's true that Trump did condemn neo-Nazis during his speech. Sure, he did. You know, it's true that he did not directly say neo-Nazis are very fine people. That's true. You know, if you want to go address that very, very specific technical question, sure. However, the rest of the context there,

the fact that it was a neo-Nazi organized rally. Yes. You know, all of this other stuff there. I think that that is what needs to be factored in there. And when I wrote to Snopes asking for comment, which I never received, I brought that up. I was like, you have this claim there. You have this rating there that you can use mixture that seems to fit. Why didn't you use that? And I really wish I would have heard back because that I think could have been really interesting. The other thing here that's really frustrating is just the fact that Snopes felt the need.

nearly seven years later to rate this at all. This is something that it just kind of shows how the right has really gamed the fact-checking sort of industry as it is. And I've seen this happen a lot with like Politifact, especially, where the right will take something and just boil it down to such a little technicality and just point at that and go, see, it's technically, if you word it in just the right way, not quite true. And, you know, it's like, well, I suppose, but when you look at what we all heard and what we all saw, this is very much a don't believe your lying eyes kind of situation.

We all know what Trump said. We all know what he meant. Because this was not Trump being smart and calculated. This was him just speaking off the cuff. he was not being careful about what he was saying that day. He was just kind of saying whatever was popping into his head. He really wanted to talk about infrastructure that day. Right.

And, you know, he did at one point say infrastructure question next. And that the reporter did not ask an infrastructure question. Yeah. And it also seems, you know, it's fairly obvious in reading the transcript, even if you don't remember watching it at the time, that what he sought to do and to me what, you know, like, this Snopes thing and other things give him cover for is he sought to draw an equivalence between whatever you want to call the left-wing protesters who were there, whether you want to call

them Antifa or whatever. But he wanted to draw an equivalence between them and actual neo-Nazis. And in a lot of ways, you know, as this, I think this Snopes thing shows, he kind of succeeded, unfortunately, in painting that picture in a lot of people's eyes. Absolutely. And that's another defense that's been brought up that guys like Scott Adams have brought up. They've said, oh, if you think that Trump was saying that neo-Nazis are good people, then you must think that he was also saying that Antifa are good people. Do you really think that he would say that? So he clearly couldn't have been talking about neo-Nazis. He must have been talking about people who were just there to protest peacefully. It's such a mess.

Yeah. It takes so much more energy to push back against this. Like, I didn't want to spend time writing about this six and a half years later. Sure. I would rather not do that, but here I am doing that. Thanks, Snopes. Yeah. You know, that's what's so frustrating about trying to fight back against bad information as it comes out. You spend this energy, this time and energy that you could be using to make the case for something you care about. Make the case for, you know, for better health care or for policies that are important to you. But instead you have to be sitting there going, okay, so you know that thing. that we saw in the news seven years ago that we all know what he actually said, you know,

let me break it down word by word, you know, you end up having to do that. And it can, it can drive you crazy. Well, and that's the thing. And I've brought this up a bunch of times on this podcast. It's part of the strategy because it's so easy to lie. It's so easy to just say something that's completely outlandish and divorced from reality. And I think I used the example of, I was Kelly Ann Conway saying there were like eight. thousand people in the black church in Detroit to hear Trump and the church only can hold like a couple hundred people. But it's easy for her to say that. If you have no conscience, it's very easy to do that. But to fact check something, you then, you have to, as you said, you have to spend

actual time going through it and showing why the lie is just absurd. Again, if you have no conscience, it's a great strategy because it forces people like you and other media people and whatever to take time to point out the obvious truth when they could be doing something else. And along those lines, I want to ask you, you mentioned that you emailed a Snopes editor and that, you know, you never heard back. They did eventually, I think this was several days later, but please correct me if they have the timeline wrong. They did put an editor's note on their post. And, well, I'll just read it quickly. Some readers have raised the objection that this fact check appears to assume Trump was correct in stating that there were very fine people on both sides.

And then they go on to say that, in fact, that's not the case. They were just confirming what Trump actually said, not whether what he said was true or false. To me, that just, again, that just plays into all of this that we're talking about and leads to the headline from the blaze that I read earlier and leads to the Trump campaign seizing on this as well. And I'm curious if you think that Snope should have taken the obvious fact that the right would seize on this as a reason not to run it or whether as a fact-checking organization, that shouldn't play any part in their case. decision. Yeah, the editor's note really seemed to misunderstand the nature of the criticism. I don't care if there were actually were very fine people on both sides. I don't think that's what anyone was criticizing. I think people were criticizing what Trump actually said. And that's what when I wrote to them, I was criticizing their interpretation of what Trump actually said. And if they were

taking my question into account when they were thinking about that response, then I think They missed the point of what I was asking is kind of my thought there. Yeah, it was a little disheartening to see them do this. And like you said earlier, to be fair to them, I get that there are things that are complex. And again, like you said, they could have simply given this a mixture rating, but they chose to do what they did. Parker Malloy, thank you so much for being here. And thank you for doing the heavy lifting of actually breaking down, you know, what Trump said. and showing that the Snopes rating, at the very least,

does not paint a completely accurate picture. Yep. Thanks so much for having me. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal journalist Katia Schwank, who has been covering the Supreme Court, and a case in particular, the Supreme Court case Snyder v. the United States, which would and which did basically make it legal for public officials

to accept rewards for. their corrupt actions. Katya, look, I look at the Supreme Court as this unelected body of nine robes that are wrecking havoc on this country. It is great to be a corporation and it is great to be a white cis heteroman. But for anybody else, you know, and it's great to be a criminal, but for anybody else, it is pretty much turning into a hellscape. Talk to us about Snyder v. the United States, which was recently decided and why people should care about it. Yeah, Danielle, thanks so much for having me on. Yeah, so let's start with the facts of the Snyder case because I think sometimes it gets lost

in the chatter about this case and about corruption and bribery and you forget the case at the heart of it, which in my view is pretty egregious. So this came before the Supreme Court because a mayor in Indiana and a small city in Indiana was convicted in 2019 for a bribery. Why was he convicted for bribery? Because, you know, prosecutors alleged that this mayor, while he was, you know, in kind of a financially struggling place, had pushed city officials to rig the procurement process

to award a town contract to a local garbage truck company who, you know, this mayor had a relationship with. This garbage truck company gets this contract for more than a million dollars And shortly thereafter, like within a couple weeks, one of the co-owners of this company cuts this mayor a check for $13,000. You know, they claim it's a consulting expense later on. It's, you know, pretty clear that the mayor has not done any consulting work for this company. There's testimony at trial that he demanded money from this company who he just gave this big favor to. I mean, I think most people would look at this kind of case and think this is a pretty clear cut example of bribery public corruption.

But what's at the crux of this case, the issue that the Supreme Court took up, and they decided it on Wednesday of this week, was, what question of, you know, because this check, this $13,000 was given after the favor was given to the company, this was technically a reward, a gratuity, and not a bribe, right? And essentially what the Supreme Court said is because this was a reward, a gratuity, this is not covered under this major federal law that prohibits bribery. Wait, hold on one second. So let me get this straight. The only time that I think about gratuity is when I'm going to a fucking restaurant and I am tipping said server or I'm in a Uber or a Lyft and I'm tipping said driver, right? Because why do I tip? Because a portion, a large portion of that check is going to the restaurant owner or in this case Uber or Lyft and not necessarily to the person that was taking care of you, right? That's what I think of when I think of when I think about gratuity, right? I think about house cleaners or hotel workers, right, that receive tips. Tell me why in God's fucking name would I need to tip a mayor? Exactly. What am I tipping him for? Exactly. I mean, I think maybe the company thought they were tipping him for, you know,

corruption for an illicit service. Yeah, I mean, gratuities are, it's an important concept because it covers this whole range of corrupt activity in the legal sense of you can't just do this. You can't just give a politician, you know, cash reward to that extent for taking some action that's favorable to you. You know, I mean, you can in lots of different ways, but one of the ways we try to prevent this is calling it an illegal gratuity, banning it under the law. And now that's all in question. It is just wild to me. You know, we just saw a case in Atlanta with the former mayor who was facing 40 years for using her own money to buy a condo. And because she was a black woman was up on trumped up charges by Republicans. No one saw this as a crime. It was her own

money. But somehow if you are taking payoffs, whether you're a member of Congress or a mayor or a president of the United States, apparently this Supreme Court is saying, that's fine so long as you're what? A white man. What was the rationale in this decision that would lead me to believe anything other than, this Supreme Court is bought and sold by corporations and crooked politicians. Right. I mean, I think that's a fair conclusion. We have Clarence Thomas taking gifts from billionaires throughout this whole time that he's been deciding these cases. But, you know, to get into like what the stated rationale, the pretext was and how they sort of form their argument for Snyder, you know, they're essentially saying, well, you know, if we have this law

that bans these illegal gratuities, these illegal rewards, it could end up going too far. And then you'll get to a place where you have like, you know, someone buys the mayor, Chipotle bowl or something like that. And they get the teacher like a gift basket. And then suddenly they're being charged under, you know, by federal prosecutors, which is important. This has never happened. This is never how the law is used. And there are, you know, distinctions in the law to make sure that it is not getting, you know,

you're not getting charged. for doing something like that. But that is the way that some of the justices justified it. And, you know, again, this is, you know, the other important thing here is this is the latest case and a series of cases that have limited this scope of laws that prohibit bribery, that prohibit corruption, that prohibit this kind of reward given to public officials.

I think it really shows you where the interests of this court lie, where their loyalties lie. What recourse is there? Because this Supreme Court has just opened, Pandora's box as it pertains to corruption. While we are sitting and talking here, we're still, still waiting on the decision about presidential immunity, whether or not a corrupt president while in office committing crimes can be held accountable. When you look at this decision, what can you hypothesize about where you think that this court is going to go with regard

to the handlings of Donald Trump? I mean, I know, like I, I know. Like, I, I know no one has a crystal ball, but it's just like the patterns that we've seen come out of this court don't lead me to believe that they care anything at all about people, that they care anything at all about corruption. Like they're just providing more and more cover for corporations and the very wealthy to get over on the rest of us. Yeah, I mean, it's exactly right. I mean, we've gotten to a place where you have sort of the perfect court for someone like Donner. Trump, you know, for big corporations to, you know, take more and more power. And you can look at how, you know, I mean, look at this case as an example, you know, big conservative groups, you know, big business groups like the Chamber of Commerce. They were all lobbying the justices on this issue.

They were, you know, submitting briefs asking them to rule in this way. And then they did. And I think, you know, time and time again, we get these big cases where you really see the people are pitted against corporate interests. And the corporate interests. And the corporate interests, work really hard through their big, you know, legal apparatus through think tanks and business groups to ensure they get the kind of ruling that they want to ensure the right justices are in place. And I think that's led to where we are today. I'm running out of words because it's not shocking. We are seeing how corporatized this Supreme Court has allowed this country to become. I mean, the damage that this will cause, what what will do you see as the domino effects that will come

from this. Yeah, I mean, when I spoke to attorneys and asked them that question, you know, they said it is undoubtable that we are going to see fewer cases, you know, fewer prosecutors going against, you know, whether it's a corrupt mayor, you know, other corrupt politician, you know, business interests. We're just going to see fewer and fewer attempts to hold them accountable because people under the law will just be less able to do that. And that's what we've seen, the trend that we've seen over the past two decades, you know, you used to see far more, I mean, not that it was ever perfect in this country by any means. But you did used to see far more instances of cases, you know,

white-collar crime cases, cases being brought against corruption, people having to stand trial. And, you know, we're just seeing less and less and less of that. You know, there's been a string of Supreme Court cases that have limited the ability to even charge people with bribery at all, you know. And then that's paired with, of course, you know, the dark money in our politics, you know, Citizens United ruling, which allowed a, flood of dark money to enter our elections, you know, more than a decade ago now, that same,

you know, the same interests that push for that ruling are the ones that pushed for this ruling in the Snyder case that are pushing for other, you know, Supreme Court cases that are being heard by the court. So, so yeah, I mean, it's leading us in a very scary direction, not that there's nothing that can be done to stop it. We could see some kind of congressional intervention, you know, with this case in particular, there are a way, you know, the laws could be changed. But it doesn't seem like there's a political will to do that right now. And so, yeah, the result is really concerning. I look at the actions that the Supreme Court has taken. They just had the decision that came out about the Sacklers, the opioid crisis. In that case, they had reached an agreement

where the Purdue company was going to pay, I guess it was like upward of $10 billion in damages to indigenous populations, to people, to states, you know, all of these things. But the caveat was, so long as they're not going to be able to be the family members, they're not going to be able to be personally sued. They'll be fine. The Supreme Court has decided to put in jeopardy the $10 billion payout because they've ruled that, no, the Sackler family is not going to be protected. But like, they were able to file the corporation, able to file for bankruptcy, able to clear themselves because of dubious laws that are in place that allow these companies that allow people, wealthy people, powerful people, like this politician, to be able to protect themselves from any damages.

And that's what it seems that this is all about. Like that, in your opinion, is it that, you know, Republicans and this court, they just want to have as much protection around the powerful as possible so that they can cause as much damage. And then people, states have no recourse in the way. because you say like, oh, we can change these things, but there's no political will. I don't know if they'll ever be political will. Because essentially what the Republicans wanted the Supreme Court to do, which is what they did, was ruling their favor because they know that their people are dirty. I'm not saying that there aren't dirty politicians on Democrat side. You have Menendez that is, you know, that is and his wife that are, you know, that are on trial right now for gold bricks

and the, and, you know, and hundreds of thousands of dollars that they've taken. Like, this is not new. But I feel like the ability to manipulate the law to protect yourself, like they're coming at it from all different angles. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, that's the question is, you know, what determines whether there's political will. And I think you can see the way that corporate interests through, you know, the millions and millions and millions of dollars, they spend lobbying on Washington, the way they've bought politicians on both aisles, but obviously the Republican Party is playing its own special role here. They've really worked hard for, you know, years and decades to set up these kinds of guardrails that we get to this place where the Supreme Court comes down with a

ruling. And, you know, not only do we have this ruling now, they've made it pretty certain that we're not going to see changes into the law after or the other kind of action that we might need to in the wake of such a ruling to prevent it because that's part of their plan, right? The same people who have worked to get these Supreme Court justices on the bench are the same people who, you know, are out there in Washington lobbying, you know, lawmakers to make sure they don't vote on legislation that would hold big corporations or powerful people accountable. So pretty scary stuff. What else are you looking at as this session winds down? What else do you have your eyes on? And what can people anticipate that you'll be covering? Yeah, well, we're definitely looking out for, you know, we're

expecting a ruling pretty imminently on the Chevron doctrine, which is basically a big, slate of environmental protections, this legal precedent for environmental protections that the Supreme Court could be voting to undermine. So we're definitely paying close attention to that. We, you know, we've seen other. I think we're also going to be looking at the impacts of rulings like the Sackler ruling, which actually may have some benefit to, you know, victims of the opioid crisis and of other asbestos victims and other people who are looking to seek damages. You know, hopefully that ruling will be beneficial to help prevent the kind of bankruptcy. liability shield the Sacklers had. And then we're also looking at the kinds of cases the Supreme

Court is taking up for the next session, which should provide kind of window into what they'll be doing. What is the scariest thing that you have seen that they're going to be taking? I mean, I can tell you that for me, I can't remember the title of the case, but the case that they, I know that they have decided to take up is with regard to transgender people and access to medication. That is a case that they are now going to take up in here, which I think is going to be disastrous for the LGBTQ community and trans people in particular. Yeah, yeah, that was when I had my eye on too. There's another, you know, abortion-related case, I believe that they're going to be looking at. Yeah, I mean, it's, I don't think there's anything good in the future.

I think this, what we've seen in the last like week or two from the Supreme Court has really given us a preview of the years to come. And I think a lot of, you know, right-wing groups and corporate groups that have been bringing these cases and have seen the kind of success that they've seen this year are going to feel really emboldened to keep working these cases up to the high court and making the kind of like really extreme arguments that they've been making because they're seeing that it's landing. Well, Katia, I thank you so much for the coverage that you're doing, for the reporting that you're doing and for making time for the new abnormal. I think that there are so many things that people are trying to keep their eyes on. And this was definitely a case I feel like slip through the cracks. So I really appreciate you coming on and putting a lot of context around it. Yeah. Thanks to you, Danielle.

Thanks so much for the time. Danny Moods. Oh, dear God. Andy Levy. DDM, who is your fuck that guy to end this week to end this month of June? I guess my fuck that guy. is going to go to the state of South Carolina. I don't understand how people continue to vote against their best interests.

But if you all remember, there were three women GOP state senators who filibustered the Supreme Court abortion ban and did so, you know, in coordination with the Democrats of that state because they did not want to see a statewide ban on abortion. Katrina Shealy, Sandy Sen, and Penry Gustafson all lost their primaries. They were all primaried and they lost to three male candidates. And, you know, they were at the time nicknamed the sister senators because they really locked arms to do what they thought was right for their state. This is what was said in this article with NBC News.

Quote, during the filibuster, each of the five lawmakers took turns, describing the complexities of pregnancy and the reproductive system, the dangers of lack of access to contraception and inadequate privacy laws. In the immediate aftermath of their filibuster, the sister senators were heckled and harassed by anti-abortion activists. The three Republicans were also met with strong opposition from their own party, including censures and promises of primary challenges in 2024. So when we say that people in power need to speak up, they need to do the right things, when they do, right, this is what happens.

And so I think that it is incumbent upon the people that are in South Carolina to have rallied behind these three Republican women who were trying to fight for their access to bodily autonomy. And now they're replaced with men. who don't give a fuck. I just don't understand why we don't care about women. I don't understand why it's okay for women to die or be forced into pregnancies

and have children that the state doesn't even want to help them to take care of. I'm certain that I disagree with these women on a whole host of issues, but on this one, they stood their ground, they did what was right, and they weren't sitting up there like fucking Ted Cruz reading green eggs and ham. they were actually trying to educate their colleagues and, you know, frankly, the state on the fact that I say it again.

Pregnancy does not happen by a stork delivering a perfect baby to your fucking doorstep, right? It is dangerous. And what these men in this country are doing are making it increasingly more dangerous to do so. And then for those that don't want to go through the struggle, they're also trying to rip away your ability to even have contraception to prevent pregnancy in the first place. So for the state of South Carolina, the fucking Republican Party that primary these women, fuck you, fuck the state, like, and for people that continue to vote against your best interest, I guess it won't be suffice until somebody you love has to die and bleed out. Yeah, I mean, my God, I think it's fair to say I did not have a high estimation of the South Carolina Republican Party before this.

but, you know, one of these women lost her primary. Her opponent got 82% of the vote. I mean, that's nuts. You know, another woman, it was close. I think it was only 30 votes. She lost her primary by vote. One of them lost. I mean, her opponent got 82% of the vote.

And just this past week, Katrina Shealy only got 37.5% of the vote losing her primary. So in two out of these three cases, it was, like, overwhelming. That sounds to me like it doesn't break. down along gender lines or anything like that. That says to me that Republican men and Republican women both voted against the people who want to protect women's reproductive freedom. So yeah, fuck those guys. So, AL, as opposed to L-L, how are you closing out this week with your blackback guy?

I would like to point out that ladies love cool Andy. This has been known for a while. My fuck, that guy goes to 13 states, 13 whole states. And by states, I of course mean the government and the people that voted to put them into place. 13 states have decided that they are going to opt out of a federal food program that helps to feed low-income kids in the summer. It's basically a program called Sunbucks, S-U-N-Bucks, that the Department of Agriculture runs. And it's the, you know, it's to help out low-income families whose children get school lunches during the school year. But obviously in the summer, there's no school.

It literally gives families $120 per child for the entire summer. It ain't buying them surf and turf if there's any kind of like five-star steakhouse in Oklahoma or whatever. It ain't being used for that. It's $120 per family literally to help feed. kids. And 13 states have said, no, we don't want to be part of that. And they've come up with all kinds of reasons. My favorite one, and by favorite, I mean, I can't say what I really think about this person. In Idaho, one of the 13 states, surprise, surprise, a state senator named Cindy Carlson said approving the program would be sending the wrong message to parents and kids. Quote,

I believe that the message we need to be sending is we all need to work for what we get. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. Tell that seven-year-old that they need to work for what they get. These people are so sick. Yeah, I just like, I hate using the word evil because it's such a manichean word. It's so black and white. But I don't know what is more evil than saying we need to teach kids a lesson that you have to work for what you get as they sit there and their parents can't afford to put food on the table. And this goes on and on. I was a lot. I was. Governor Kim Reynolds said, no, she doesn't like the program because they would do nothing to encourage nutrition. Like what? Again, this is to help families who literally need the help to feed their children.

Mississippi is another state, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Wyoming, Florida. A lot of the usual suspects, I was surprised to not find Louisiana on this list. You know, I don't know that it's an oversight by their governor. It's just wild to me that 13 states all. Republican governorships, and they are declining to participate in a program to feed kids that need to help. Alabama, just one last stat, and then I'm going to turn it over to you. This is from Business Insider. Alabama is one of the states that turn this down. According to their own Department of Health in Alabama, one in four children in Alabama faces food insecurity.

25% of the kids in Alabama face food insecurity. and Alabama says, oh, well, we had already finalized our state budget when they became aware of the program. Really? Do your fucking jobs. Fuck these guys. This is the thing that needs to be on billboards and needs to be called out all of the time. These are 13 states that, again, have severe abortion bans, right? Want to talk about, oh, life happening, you know, at conception, bullshit. But when you're actually talking about living children, their responses, fuck them kids. They should go out and get jobs in kindergarten so that they can afford vanilla wafers and

fucking milk in class. Like it is really sick. It is depraved. It is disgusting. And it is something that Democrats in these states should hammer down every single day. They don't care about you. So why do you keep putting these people in fucking office and letting them. look at children and say that they're undeserving of food.

Just fuck those guys. Like, don't even let me get started because I won't stop. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast

podcast at the 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.