The Daily Beast Podcast - Julia-Louis Dreyfus: We’ve ‘Talked About’ Making More ‘Veep’

Episode Date: December 4, 2020

The gods of comedy have heard your prayers—and just might make them come true. “Veep,” the greatest political comedy of all time, could return, somehow, some way, in some form, if only for a short while.  “We've certainly discussed it,” star Julia-Louis Dreyfus tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “Everybody's sort of gone off now and everybody's doing other projects and so on. But I don't rule it out entirely, doing some sort of ‘Veep’-related thing. I mean, there's an area that we could jump back into. I think [showrunner] Dave [Mandel] and I have talked about it.”  Mandel adds, “We left just enough sort of like there's some time jumps in there that you could definitely—” “Go back into,” Dreyfus offers. “Yeah. You could kind of color in and answer a couple of questions. So I think anything is possible,” Mandel says. Not so long ago, Mandel and Dreyfus were wondering aloud how possible it was to do political satire with Trump in the White House. How do you parody a parody? Now, Dreyfus says, “There's always an opportunity for satire and we're hopeful that with the Biden administration, you know, things will sort of settle down and then we can be the outrageous ones.” “Yeah. It requires a baseline of normalcy. And if we can get back to that, if we can get back to a time where you're not thinking about the president every six minutes, I think maybe we can get back to some good old fashioned political satire,” Mandel adds. “But [the Trumpists] made it difficult. They raise the bar on stupidity on a daily basis. So it was very hard to out-stupid. You know what I mean?   In the meantime—this weekend, in fact—the ‘Veep’ cast is getting back together to recreate one of the craziest, most prescient episodes of the show. In it, The Beast’s Kevin Fallon noted, protesters are planted [who] “alternately chant to ‘count every vote’ and ‘stop counting the votes’ as new information trickles in, changing their message based on which strategy would be more advantageous to them.”  Sound familiar? But here’s the truly crazy part. That’s "an episode from the fifth season of ‘Veep,’ so many years back," Dreyfus says. 2016, to be exact. "Yes, ‘Veep’ is real. It's a documentary. And it's about real life," she jokes. The re-read of the episode——featuring guest stars Patton Oswalt, Kumail Nanjiani, Mark Hamill, and Stephen Colbert—is a fundraiser for a group looking to boost turnout in the upcoming Georgia special elections. Dreyfus thought it’d be cool to "read the very script that seemed to become reality the last couple of weeks. Let's read that, a sort of an uncut version of it." The cast did a similar thing in advance of the general election. Maybe they’ll get used to being back together. Maybe it’ll become a habit. Maybe, maybe, just maybe…  The gang also talk to Matt Tyrnauer, who produced Showtime's limited-series "The Reagans," about the myth of "Saint Reagan" and how he held the press in a "fog of war" to earn him his esteemed reputation which the crew find undeserved. 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, an 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. Rick Wilson. Molly Jongfast.

What the fuck is going on? That's a question that's so broad and professional. I think we have to narrow the, narrow the aperture here of our inquiry. Let's talk about the Mango Mussolini. Must we? I guess we must. Yes, we must. Just for a minute. Just for a minute. Just because he is continuing his maniacal quest to be the most embarrassed present.

to lose Georgia for an 85th time. Did he lose Georgia again today? I think he lost it again today, or maybe it's tomorrow, but they're doing the final, like, final doubles, two super secret probation, extra hand counter, machine count, or whatever it is. But I guess the thing about it is, at some point, the bullshit stops,

and there's no more chairs. It's over. And no one's going to get out of this thing with some Deus X douchebag Rudy Miracle. Or he or, oh my God, did you see that bat shit, bug fuckeroo event with with you're talking about rudy juliani's magical mystery tour oh i'm talking about the people that are even crazier lyn wood lyn wood and uh sidney powell and c j pearson on that stage yesterday

okay so that was in michigan right or no that was georgia that was georgia that's them trying to ruin republicans chances to take the senate are even bright bart is bashing linwood it's amazing and the Trump fucking rapid response, dorks are bashing Lidwood. It's just like, serve me more of this delicious shot in Troy now. I just am curious to know, so in Michigan, Rudy Giuliani, the president's free lawyer. And worth twice the price. Right, exactly. The president's free lawyer had a hearing where he brought with him a woman who needs no introduction.

Jenna Ellis. No, yes. Jen Alice, but also the woman, the special witness with the enormous hair. You mean the Victoria Jackson clone with Michigan's version of Texas high hair? It was amazing. Who was amazing. But you've got to say, that catalog of people was so bonkers. It felt like an S&L skit from the very beginning because, you know, the one woman's like,

they were wearing rhinestones. I didn't, they made me feel nervous. Rhinestones? What the fuck are you talking about, lady? and these people were just giving these speeches, and it just shows you there's a possibility that the entire right-wing media bubble could be written by like fairly primitive

artificial intelligence programs that just jam words together. And so they come out, they're like, socious, gay, sharia, abortion, pet lovers, Benghazi, deep state, fart. She was drunk, right? Have we had any conversations about this? We have not talked about this,

but I believe the technical term of the youth is crunk because she was both crazy and drunk. Yeah. I mean, who lets himself go out in public like that thinking, wow, this is going to be a successful day for me. I'm going to defend democracy by coming out and acting like I'm 27 Cosmos to the win. Yeah, well, I don't think Rudy noticed, shockingly. I think Rudy's alcohol cloud may have already, she may have got a contact drunk off of the whole thing.

You know, they say drunk doesn't recognize drunk. Yeah. That was my take. So Trump is not at all deterred by this. Detered? Are you making a joke about Donald Trump's long-running set of comments about massive dumps? And welcome to the new abnormal where we're going to have 12-year-old potty humor. I'm trying to keep a classic here.

And if you have me trying to keep a class of humor, we're all in a lot of trouble. But Trump did do a Christmas party where he... Said crazy shit? Yeah. And said if he doesn't, he'd like to stay in January. But if that doesn't happen, it's not going to happen. So I don't know how that would happen. He'll be back in four years.

And to which I say once again, not great. To all those young geniuses in the U.S. Senate, who believe they're going to be president of 2024. Looking at you today, Tom Cotton, Marker, Rubio, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee. Josh Hawley, come on down. You're all fucked because Donald Trump's going to run for president again. And when Donald Trump finds that he's not going to be president,

president. The next time, he will immediately transfer the mantle to oldest son, and he will then run for president. And all of you guys that have been acquainting yourself with the scent of Donald Trump's ass and claiming it smells like huckleberries and rainbows for the last five years, will understand that he fucked you. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. It seems like there's no world in which Trump doesn't, if Trump wants it, he's the nominee. Absolutely. One hundred percent, Molly. One hundred hundred billion percent. Unless he's in jail. Unless he's in jail. But then again, you know, Lyndon LaRouche ran for president from jail several times. Right. And Berlusconi, I mean,

there is a long and there's a long-instroyed history of politicians running for jail, running from jail. Oh, very much so. No one is going to mistake Donald Trump in jail for anything more than a dying force in the political universe, except for all the Republicans. who will think he's a political prisoner. He's being held. It's worse than Gitmo. Donald Trump deserves so much better than this. Our greatest president.

So her name is Melissa Calderon. Coron, right? The woman with the enormous hair. And she will ultimately be president. She will ultimately be famous. I have no doubt she's probably already up for her own show on O-A-N. You want to know how you know it's bad? If you just type M-E-L, that's the auto-complete.

That sucks. Yeah, that's not good. Her hair is amazing. I got to say, her hair is quite fabulous, but it's also attached to all that crazy. Yes. Well, there's that. So, Molly, in the list of the most surprising betrayals of Donald Trump, who would you have put on that list above Bill Barr? I can't think of anybody.

No. I mean, Devin Nunes. Maybe. Eric? We always go back to this. Eric's too dumb to be treasonous to his own father. He's too slow. Tell us what happened?

Well, what? Bill Barr has apparently just gone ahead and refused to throw people in jail randomly or to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Obama's tan suit or whatever the fuck it is that's in Trump's wacky brain case every day. And because of that, and because he said the fatal flaw now, as he said, GEOJ has not found any evidence of widespread voter fraud. Well, what's really happening here, The reason he's really pissed is not that Barr told the truth.

It's that the truth interferes with the current Trump scammerama fundraising operation, which has raised $170 million, not for legal defense fund, but for a Trump family's super pack. You go, Magus, you go. And by the way, my friend the Nigerian prince would like to speak to you about a briefcase full of money he has. All you need to do is send your banking information to... And your social security.

Right, to scam me at Nigeria.com. How do you think this keeps going? Well, this is the spinal tap line, okay? They're deliberately playing to a smaller and more selected audience. It's more curatorial now than performative. They're going to keep shrinking this pool of people that believe that Trump is going to be president to – it'll shrink from – in fact, let me actually be more serious about this. Initially, it was Republicans who felt, you know, Trump needed to fight.

Then it shrank to Republicans. who believe that Trump actually won, but their eyes were open. Then it shrank to the Rube demo who believes Trump actually won and actually believes it for real, despite all evidence to the contrary. And then it's going to shrink to the conspiratorial people who say, it was stolen. Donald was robbed. George Soros and the lesbian robot lizard people were all there taking the votes, man. And that's where Rudy's clown show is.

That's where, that's where women, people like this, this Melissa Caron, woman come into this equation now. There's no one who seriously believes this at all. And Barr saying it, unfortunately, there were a lot of people in Trump world who had come to believe that Bill Barr was going to be essentially a suicide bomber for Trump at the end and do something miraculous to save him politically. And they also believed that he was going to have John Durham forever pursuing the malfeasance of the deep state cabal.

Sorry. That little leak about Durham was sort of interesting. Well, we're in kind of a hybrid reality now, where Tom Fitton and Steve Bannon and Breitbart and the Federalist and the Gateway Pundit and all the fuckery-earnel, they still believe that Durham is going to come out with some report that exonerates Trump for everything and proves Obama did it and undo his presidency by. by what? I don't know. I put Obama and Clinton in jail. This is a fantasy that is pernicious, but it is also broad. This is not something that's just like a little bit, a few people in that Trump media space are into this.

They're all into it. You know, it also, I'm going to ratchet back another 10,000 feet here. One of the things about Trump promulgating this was that he had an expectation for the beginning. remember, I want my Roy Cohn. He wants his Roy Cone to prosecute his political enemies. The same thing he is claiming, falsely, of course, that happened to him. And it speaks volumes about both Trump and the current Republican Party that there are people in that space, you know, Matt Gates and Jim Jordan and dumbass Nunes and all these other people who truly think that if only the DOJ had been more corrupt for Trump that we could have solved these,

solved these pesky political problems of people who were investigating Trump's obvious ties to Russia. It's very telling about who he was as a man and a president that he believed that the Justice Department, quote, quote, worked for him and should do his political bidding. And now that Barr, who has done a lot of Trump's political bidding, by the way, I'm not forgiving Bill Barr for any of his shenanigans. I think it's fair to say that he has really ruined himself for Trump. Someone should write a witty aphorism about it, but there is a degree to which my theory, which is now an iron law of the political universe, certainly applies to Mr. Bilbar. Right. It'll be curious to see if it applies to Trump's children.

Well, I think Trump's children will be hunted down like wild animals for their careers. They will never have a night of rest in terms of being able to run for office or have a business. I think they're going to be hunted down forever. Explain to me. You don't think they're just going to run for office and take their place? They are going to run for office. That's what I'm saying. The only path out is for them to run for office and keep up that particular grift. I have said this before. I think you're going to see Ivanka move to Florida and Don Jr. will move to Montana or Wyoming or somewhere out west where he can run safely or a Dakota. Yeah, Dakota seems right. Exactly. It feels like there's going to be a stimulus spell getting done. Do we think this is possible? Well, I think Mitch McConnell is playing Stump the Chump once again.

I think he is going to let it get to the near the finish line and go, ha ha, fuck you. Really? That's what I'm hearing is that this is just one more, this is one more negotiating tactic for Mitch McConnell to try to train wreck the economy before Biden takes office. Right. It seems impossible that Mitch McConnell will go along with this, but it also seems possible that like Trump will blow it up at the last minute. He very well could. That's really grim. America weeps for young. Brad Parscal.

You know. Prince of domestic violence. The tragedy of Brad Parscale. A Jacobean revenge play in three acts. Brad Parscal was doing what Trump world people have learned to do when they fear legal consequences for something. And

what they've learned to do is to go on television and abase themselves to Trump and weep and cry about how awful it is not to be able to see the golden glow of his ethereal glory, not to be able to touch the hem of his robe, but to feel the scruffula and leprosy leaving my body,

as Donald Trump allowed me to drink his spittle. In this fucking act that he was doing the other day, I'm just like, dude, have a little fucking dignity. Have like a shred, a microscopic shred of honor and dignity, because going out there and like, I love that family, baby, everything. Fuck you. con artist, grifter,

scumbag. Tell us how you really feel. Half naked jackhole getting shoved to the back of a police car. You know what? I've had some shitty times in my life, Molly. I've had some days in my life where I'm like, what the fuck am I doing? But I have never been tackled

shirtless in the street by the cops and then shoved into a cop car while I was weeping about not getting sex. Never had that day come. Hopefully never will. And I'm a much more OG Florida man than Brad Parzcal ever will be. Where do we see this Brad Parscale interview going? What was the goal there just to get back on television or?

It was twofold, I think. It was to get back on television and to get back on Trump's radar screen because unless it happens in television, it's not real for Trump. I think that his desire to signal to the president that he was continuously loyal and would never, and would never betray the family was also a little bit of a play to get back on Jared's radar screen. Because remember, Jared, he was Jared's pet. Right. But it hasn't been, like, we don't know where all that money went in the Trump campaign, right? And nobody, and that investigation hasn't started yet. That I am aware of it has not started. Although the other investigation with Ivanka and the misappropriation of inaugural funds apparently has started, and she has been deposed.

Yes. She's not happy. She seemed very mad that they made her sit for five hours. They don't know how busy she is doing whatever it is she does. She's very busy being Ivanka Trump. Right. And not doing anything. So this makes a lot of sense that she was very mad, that she had to sit there and be deposed. She's a person who should acquaint herself with long depositions and legal proceedings. That's just my theory of the case. Yeah. Well, we'll see, right. Well, Rick Wilson, you're in Georgia. What the fuck is happening in Georgia? I'm not in Georgia. I could throw a rock to Georgia from my house. You're basically in Georgia. I seriously, I'm not kidding you.

If I got in my car right now, I could be in Georgia in about four minutes. It's that close. Really? Yeah, four to six minutes. I could be in Georgia. I could be in New Jersey in about an hour and a half. That's not true. I'm sorry.

There's a question of purgatories. Yeah, exactly. Well, they're both the same. So what's happening in Georgia besides the fact that every day there's another story about Dave Purdue and Kelly Lafleur trading stocks. I mean, the two of them, really, they both have, you know, hundreds of stock trades. He has thousands of stock trades, okay? Process that in your head for one minute.

He's a goddamn day trader. How does he have time to be a senator? I know. Sadly, a lot of corruption stuff like this in the minds of most voters is now baked in the cake. Right, because Trump has normalized corruption. Oh, yeah, we're going to drain the swamp. It really worked out well for us. Yeah.

And the idea of saying, they're corrupt is correct and appealing. However, it is also the era we live in. No voter can afford to, like, waste too much time thinking, are they corrupt? They think they're all corrupt. And so we're in a situation where there's a, I don't want to say there's an undertone to it, but there's a sort of deeply held belief that every politician is corrupt. And when you see it exposed, a lot of voters are like, you know, of course, of course he's doing stock trades. Of course she's buying stock in a company with body bags. Of course she is. Because they just hate politics. Can you blame them? No. I mean, yes, you can blame them. But they've been trick. I mean, I feel like there's a high level of trickery. There is. There's a lot of trickery. Are you seeing anything new in Georgia? Is there polling? Are we just never going to look at polls again? Are you seeing any movement on the ground? Right now, from what we're hearing on the ground, the number of absentee ballots that have been requested so far should very much concern the lawful and Purdue campaigns.

Right. However, it's still a hard race. Yeah. It's still Georgia. So everybody's got to have their eyes open on it, which is, this is a pure turnout race. And all the groups they're doing turnout in Georgia on the Democratic side need to keep that in my little free advice. They need to focus on a couple of underserved areas communications wise. Georgia has 750,000 veterans who've retired in the state of Georgia. 265,000 approximately those are either African American or Hispanic. They are not pro. Trump or pro-Republican voters. And probably be good to reach out to those people. Just saying. Just a little nudge, a little hint, a little clue. And as we look at the structure of this race, there's been a ton of money spent. It's going to be a ton more of money spent.

And we're probably going to be $300 million in this race by the time it's all over, which is a crazy town for two special elections and what is now an off cycle. That is nuts. It also should not surprise you just how passionate. and how high the stakes have become. Well, it's the control of the Senate. We put out an ad today from Lincoln Project that said, you know, you won't see Mitch McConnell's name on the ballot, but it's there.

And it's true. It's there. His name is on the ballot. This is a choice between, you know, do you give Mitch McConnell full control of the Senate and where he has promised to block COVID aid and block Biden's appointments and block economic relief and block tuition reform and block every other thing in the world? And Mitch McConnell is the master of the political cockblock in the Senate. He is the master of it.

And he will exploit that to the absolute outer limit of human imagination. Or do you split the Senate, which is tougher. And a lot of people are not going to be happy about that. But, you know, that's really where it all comes down to at this point. It's a tough place to be if you were not acquainted with the fuckery of which Mitch McConnell isn't able to achieve. It's depressing. Julia Louis Dreyfus is known for her roles on Veep, Seinfeld, and Sarah Live, among other things, and our returning guest Dave Mandel is the showrunner of Veep.

My first question, Julia, maybe you'll go first and then, David, Veep is real? Yes, Veep is real. It's a documentary, and it's about real life. Were you just shocked that it all came true or now? Well, you know, we actually, from the very beginning, there was a lot of weird overlap with VEP from the get-go. I remember, for example, I think it was even in the pilot. I think if I'm remembering this correctly, my character, Selena Meyer, was trying to green up all federal buildings. That was part of her sort of idea of a plan. And then, of course, she pisses off the plastics industry, etc. And then, And so it became problematic for her. And then shortly thereafter, if memory serves, it was either Barbara Boxer or Nancy Pelosi tried to do exactly the same thing. This is after we had shot it. And I don't even know at that point if we had actually been on air yet. And thus it began from the very beginning, the overlap with what was going on in the real world was true and real and

completely strangely coincidental. Didn't you find that to be the case, Dave? Yeah, it's also kind of horrifying because what we were setting out to do was always, you know, from a VEP standpoint, it was always the worst politician and the worst staff possible. And so you're kind of trying to aim for this is possible but shouldn't happen. And then it turned out it was more than possible and it did happen. And then in some cases in the last couple of years, they kind of outdid us. They kind of, they kind of yes and us, like great improv.

They kind of would, they took what we did, and then they added to it on top and just made it worse. I mean, really just kind of incredible. And again, you're starting from a standpoint of like, this character is the worst preck secretary ever. And then it's like, no, it isn't, you know. Did you ever think that you would see, I mean, Kaylee McInney, I mean, any of these people, were they beyond satire even four years ago? I'll just say, the funniest thing is, is we're only up to Kaylee McInerney now. It's like, do you remember when we thought it can't get any worse than Sean Spicer? Like, just even within the administration, they keep outdoing themselves.

It's kind of, it's incredible. Like, you're like when you... When you say Sean Spicer, do you mean dancing with the stars? Sean Spicer? Sorry, yes. And then soon to be dancing with the stars, Kelly McAnerney. Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's just insane. You're like, this guy is the worst.

They can't find any worse. Oh, yes, we can. And it's just, it keeps going. So what is the project you guys are doing now? When there was an issue about counting ballots and not counting ballots, it's all coming out of the Trump White House. We got, of course, a lot of... Because it's an episode of Veep. It's an episode of Veep, yeah. It's an episode from, by the way, the fifth season of Veep, so many years back. Yes. And during the election, leading up to the

election, Dave and I worked together a number of times raising money for various, you know, the Wisconsin Democrats, the Texas Democrats, various candidates and so on. But we did these reunions of sorts. We did it with VEP and then we did it with the Seinfeld friends. And anyway, now we've got this big election coming up in Georgia and we thought, oh, let's do it again. And what a golden opportunity to read the very script that seemed to become reality the last couple of weeks. Let's read that, sort of an uncut version of it and raise funds for America votes in Georgia, which is all about informing, educating voters and encouraging voters to request their mail and ballots because that's something they have to re-register for this election.

So they're on the front lines of getting out the vote, and we thought, oh, there's no better way to support them by doing this, and we'll have a good time at the same time. Yeah, I was going to say the Trump administration sort of picked the episode for us. Yes. They helped us choose. We were like, which one should we do? And they were like, how about this one? So we did that, and it's been really fun because we've got the entire VEPCAST back together, and then we've thrown in a whole bunch of extra special guests, so like Mark Hamill and Stephen Colbert, Pat and Oswald, a whole bunch of people are jumping in, Kumel Nanjani. They're all jumping in to kind of play like these small little extra roles just to be a part of the thing.

And it's a, you just go to Show Up for Georgia.com, and you can sign up for it. It's Sunday at 8 o'clock Eastern time. And it's going to just be really fun. It's just honestly, I think it's going to really amaze people when they actually watch or I guess rehear the whole episode about how much of it did come true because it was really not just the count, don't count, but the district or the region that we name in Nevada, it just got really specific in a really almost creepy way. So it was kind of great.

Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say it has an eerie. quality to it actually. But anyway, yeah, it'll be fun. Do you think that you guys will do more political satire? I mean, how, and also how would you even do it since the real world has sort of eclipsed the satire? Well, there's always an opportunity for satire. And we're hopeful that with the Biden administration, you know, things will sort of settle down. And then we can be the outrageous ones, I guess. Yeah, it requires a baseline of normalcy. If we can get back to that, if we can get back to a time where you're not thinking about the president every six minutes. I think maybe we can get back to some

some good old-fashioned political satire. But yeah, they made it difficult. They really, they raised the bar on stupidity on a daily basis. So it was very hard to out-stupid. You know what I mean? Yeah. Were you guys happy with the last episode? Very. Because I thought it was so interesting. Like, you always want, as an avid television watcher myself, I always want. want to know what's going to happen. So I was sort of thrilled that you kind of really showed us what happened. Good. I'm so glad. But I'm curious to know, you don't think you'll ever, that it will come back for us, please. Oh, V? Yeah. Oh, well, I mean, you know, it's something that we've, we've certainly discussed it. I don't know. Everybody's sort of gone off now and everybody's

doing other projects and so on. But I don't, I don't rule it out entirely doing. some sort of VEEP related thing. I mean, there's an area that we could jump back into. I think Dave and I've talked about it. Yeah, we left just enough sort of like there's some time jumps in there that you could definitely... Go back into. Yeah, you could kind of color in and answer a couple of questions. So I think anything is possible.

That's amazing. What do you think's going to happen now with politics? Where do you see this universe going now? It's all going to work out perfectly. And that's what I want to hear. I feel super, super helpful. I don't know, man. I mean, I just, all I can tell you, actually, from a hope point of view,

every time Biden speaks and he just, speaking for myself, just hearing him speak like an adult in the room and putting people in his cabinet who seem to actually have a skill set that applies for the job. they've been given. It makes me feel more calm. And I'm glad he's in charge of this hideous pandemic once he becomes in charge because that's, I mean, obviously the top order of business. And I don't see Biden running off to play golf in the middle of all of this. I just don't think that that would square with him. So I actually am hopeful, although I realize that there are 70 million people out there who voted for Donald Trump. And that's problematic.

for us, but hopefully somehow things settle down. That's all I'm good. It's just the most stupid answer ever. I've been on the internet a lot lately, and my understanding is that there was a lot of corruption and illegality in this last election. So I'm hoping that Republicans never vote again because these are very illegal elections. Again, I've been told by the president, these are illegal. Do not vote. Do not vote in Georgia. especially. And we'll see what happens. But that's, I think, what everyone's plan should be, especially if you're a Republican. Yeah, you and Lynn Wood. Yeah. Deep state operative Lynn Wood. I was curious if you guys have ever had, like, somebody in politics come up to you and say, make a suggestion or say you didn't go far,

oh, you should do this. Is there ever been a moment where they tried to inception in something to you guys? It must have been, right? Well, I can tell you that we've had people all the time to this day, up to us and say, oh my God, my boss is Salino Meyer or that, the chief of staff is, is Dan Egan or what, I mean, they're always identifying a character from the show that they work with. But I don't remember anybody actually pitching, do you, Dave, pitching stuff to us about not a lot of pitching. I mean, it's funny. This is, this is a thing I think maybe that's just true about comedy in general is anytime you're sort of talking to like a real politician, The stuff that they think is funny is not particularly funny.

Exactly. But then when they're just telling you the stuff that they don't think is funny, that's when they actually tell you really interesting funny stuff. You know what I mean? Like, we'll go on and on on. This is hilarious. And you're just like, no. And then they tell you about like some bill they pass.

And you're like, wait a second, that's the story. You know what I mean? And it's just that's how it kind of works. That's amazing. There have always been rumors that some of the characters are based on, like, some stories actually happened. Yeah, we get into a lot of trouble with that one. There was, I won't get into names, but we did a, we did a joke about, uh, the leg shaving. The leg shaving, exactly.

Yeah. It seemed to get a lot of people very angry in a very funny way. That's so fascinating. All right. So the event is, will you give us the website and everything? so people will go to it. Yes, it's showupforgeorgia.com. And you can just go on there and click on it and donate any amount.

And then you can be a part of the very exclusive VEP uncut reunion table read on Sunday. That is so cool. Yes, Sunday 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time Showup for Georgia.com. And you can literally give a dollar if you want, although we hope you give a little more. Are you guys going to do it like as a real table read with people all together? of room? No. We're going to do it all on Zoom, everybody in their own spaces, but we're going to... But full-on table read, script top to bottom with a little break in the middle, but the full table read, and in fact, the reason we're calling it V-Bunkut is I've been going over the

original draft that we shot and kind of adding back a couple of little things that got cut for time that were really funny, but just, you know, you're trying to make a half-hour show, and our shows, our rough cuts were always, you know, like 45 minutes, so there's some extra stuff, which will be really fun too. So if you know the episode really well, you'll get some bonus stuff. Oh, cool. That is very cool. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, thank you so much, guys. It's always really fun. Yeah. 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. dot thedailybeast.com to become a beast inside member now. That's new abnormal. The Daily Beast.com. Matt Turnauer is the director of the Showtime limited series, The Regans. He's also directed documentaries like Where's My Roy Cohen and Valentino, the Last Emperor. Hi, Matt. Hi. So excited to have you. So, So how did you decide to make this documentary on Reagan? Because it feels so apropos, but it's interesting.

Something that's been on my mind for a long time, I've always thought that Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan, the series is called The Regens, very purposefully, were misunderstood, misinterpreted by the media, got a free ride in the media, and were master manipulators and myth makers. And they were also great salespeople, especially Reagan was a great salesman.

So media star salesman president, that equation should sound familiar to most of your listeners. So it seemed like an apropos time to look at something that happened in the 80s that I think laid the foundation. I was really, really surprised at how well Ronald Reagan Jr. came off. Isn't he wonderful? Yeah. Can we talk about this for a minute?

because it's just so interesting to think of, like, a kid of a president, like, actually pushing back against them. I don't think it's ever happened, frankly. You know, Patty Davis, his sister was rebellious in the moment. But not in a politically targeted way, the way Ron was. That's right. So we did an eight-hour interview in Seattle. It was on the eve of the pandemic. The first cases in Seattle had been heavily reported, and we went up there was among the last in-person interviews who were able to do. And we set up in a hotel, and he came and stayed for, I think we were sitting in the chairs for eight-plus hours. And I just found him astonishing then, and then when we started to cut it in, his insight, his candor, his analysis are staggering, but you're right. I don't think a child of a president has ever been so candid about their parents, but I think his parents are really confusing.

And I can imagine being their child. He wrote a very good book that gave me some clues as to where he would go with this. It's called My Father at 100, which is kind of a sentimental title. But the book is not that sentimental. And it seemed to me, I mean this is a compliment to him that he's had hours and hours of psychotherapy. Yeah. work through what he experienced and who they were. And that's really was my mission as well, the who they were part.

And he gave us the best insight. Yeah, it was totally fascinating. It's funny because we spend so much time thinking about like what Trumpism is. And then it and it's always Nixon is the closest comp. But you really see in this that actually in a lot of ways, Reagan engaged in a lot of fuckery. Yes. Well, you know, Nixon is a villain in a box. And the American media loves to pigeonhole in caricature.

And they love a narrative. And Nixon is turnkey, obviously. Reagan was everything Nixon wasn't in terms of the media president. And he was turned key for the media in that way. He was an experienced movie star, radio star, and television star. and he knew how to play to the media. I spend a lot of time in the first part of this going over the fact that he was tutored at the elbow of Jack L. Warner, the founder of Warner Brothers.

He was a Warner Brothers contract player. Then he was taken up, and this is forgotten history by Luella Parsons, who was one of the two most famous powerful gossip columns of the time, and she made him a kind of special project. They were from the same small town in Illinois, and Reagan had a lot of good luck in his life. and that was one stroke of blood. And then Nancy Reagan was out of MGM.

She had a contract with MGM. So I call the first part the Hollywood Myth Machine because they were tutored by either the studio heads or the publicity department or the publicity mavens of Hollywood at that time. There was no more discipline image factory than that. So they came fully packaged for the media. And the media was very susceptible to it.

In a congruent way, Trump performs the same role. The media cannot stop. They cannot stop and they cannot figure out how to frame him. And the Reagan's were a much more simpler and less immediately dangerous situation for the media, but they definitely flunked. And Leslie Stahl, who is all through this series, I think, is quite candid and quite good in her analysis. Yes. what was happening to her at the time.

But that's the origin of what happened. I do want to add one more thing about that Nixon versus Reagan and the way the media talks about it. I mean, really historians talk about it and the context of it all. It frustrates me still and has for the entire Trump period

that Reagan is not called out for his dog whistle racism and for the tendencies that he abetted in the Republican Party toward authoritarianism, which were very much present there, and also his absolute wreckage of the American economy and the invention of what we now call the 1%. All that's really on his shoulders.

But it's very, very common for historians and media figures of great authority and impeccable credentials to absolutely pass over Reagan and his legacy. And it really baffles me. And it's absolutely okay still for pop figures in our culture to worship Reagan. Yeah. That's astonishing.

It's baffling. I want to just pay you the compliment for the listeners to hear, too, that the way you illustrated his dog whistle racism in this, I am a very unmoved man and I stood up and applauded alone in my living room because you did it so well. It was truly incredible. In his own words. Yes, that's what was so good. I'm curious to know, I thought Leslie Stahl was really amazing, too, and totally fascinating.

I know Kitty Kelly for a long time because she was friends with my mom, and I thought the use of her was sort of brilliant. Well, I'm a big fan of hers. You know, I think if Kitty Kelly had been Keith Kelly writing those books, I think she would be venerated, and I think it was part of the sexism of the time. I think she was very ahead of her time. in terms of journalism. She was doing what Vanity Fair, and now, frankly, the New Yorker does, and a lot of

long-form outlets do, where they put the human story and what might be called the good stuff, you know, things that are slightly gossipy, but really contribute to the portrait in the book. Yeah. And it's nothing really that Edmund Morris, who was Reagan's Starkey official biographer did in his own way. So Kitty Kelly speaks wonderfully in this and has incredible insight, and she's the most amazing researcher. If you look at her books, she has, because she was under so much fire, I think, and so much criticism for the type of journalism that she was doing,

which was really, I think, in a form new journalism, but it was always pigeonholed as being too gossipy, but I reject that characterization. Anyway, her books, the footnotes in her books are more voluminous than they are in a David McCullough book. I mean, so they're wonderful resources, and she was completely photographic in her memory of all of the insights she had first to Nancy Reagan, because her biography came out right after the administration and ended. Now, Leslie Stahl, I don't think a lot of people realize that Leslie Stoll such a superstar now. She was already a superstar in the 80s, but in the record I was looking at in all the footage from the administration, she was in the front row for everything.

I mean, she was there every minute of that, and as the lead White House correspondent for CBS News. And her analysis, I think, is quite candid and very valuable because she admits that they weren't quite realizing what was happening to them at the time. But the manipulation of Reagan and his peculiar talents, which at that time were new, the performer president, they're the movie star who then transformed into president and was playing the president. It really was, I think, a kind of fog of war situation for the press. Yeah. She depicts that so brilliantly. Related to that, a lot of people are prescribed that we live in this age of authenticity and that, like, you can't have the facade of Reagan anymore,

that he was just such absolute acting bullshit, whereas Trump is this authentic Fox News grandpa who raged tweets the television all day. Do you have any feelings about, like, the evolution of that and, like, what you see with Reagan with that? If you want to quickly understand Reagan, look at 30s and 40s Hollywood movies. That's a really good point you have in the movie. I think it's essential to understand. And, you know, Americans, no one likes old movies.

You know, as a while I love old movies. The America that was invented in Hollywood in the 30s and 40s is a fake America. But that's Reagan's America. And Reagan is a confounding figure in many ways. And one of the ways he's confounding. is that he actually believes this bullshit. And in a certain sense, it's rather quaint. But if he had stayed in Hollywood as a kind of B-list Jimmy Stewart in retirement,

the old movie star, TV star, whose career slowly faded, who actually believed all the hokom that Jack Warner and Louis B. Mayor was producing that entertained billions over the years would be a wonderful, quaint little story. But this man became president of the United States. He takes a belief system that's based on Andy Hardy movies and Frank Capra movies and the really bad movies that were the B versions for the most part of those movies. And he starts applying it to the body politic. This is a terrifying story of what can happen here.

And then what we get and why I think it's especially fascinating to, to, to, to, look at this now through the prison of then and vice versa, is someone who's a fading media star in the new forms of media, reality TV and the web, and playing a particular part that's obviously much coarser, but is absolutely playing into the needs of the media consumer at the time. So I think in context, they're both interesting. I think they're both very influenced by the media industrial complex in which they had to live and operate and succeed. You grapple with this, and I'm curious to know what your hot take on this is. I always thought that Reagan was just dumb.

I love that question, and I love how it's boring. Right? Can I lead it, though, that you just said that he believed the bullshit, but there's times when I watched this documentary that I was like, oh, he knows better than this bullshit, that this fucking, the worst thing. the government could do is how can I help you thing that he played up? In the movie, you sort of implied that maybe he doesn't, that he doesn't totally understand what he's doing. Yeah, that's where I was going to. Yeah, we're going to let you talk now. Yeah, it's interesting.

Well, this would be a great back and forth to have. First of all, the first question you asked was Reagan dumb? Yes and no. Right. Have you ever seen the movie being there? Yes. Of course. Yes, of course.

Okay. Well. What do you think we are? I mean, we're educated folk. So, you know, Peter Sellers plays a sort of, I don't know what the PC term for it is anymore, but he's a slow man, a special needs person. I think the proper term is Dan Quayle. Peter Sellers is Dan Quail.

That's quite a mindbender. But he is an empty person who people read into, and eventually they read into him so much that they start to contemplate a run for the presidency for him. There's a bit of that with Reagan where he knew what he knew. And I think he was of probably average intelligence. And I think as he got older, he became more and more lazy and uncurious. So I think that's where his intellect was. But that is one type of IQ.

You know, the emotional intelligence of Reagan, I think, was off the charts. and the ability to relate where it counts for an important national politician was total. So he could make friends with the camera. His technical skills and his delivery was impeccable. And he had 30, 40 years of experience doing that, kind of connecting through the fish-eye lens of the camera. and his marks for that are off the chart. So, you know, you have to take all the different types of intelligence and put together. I think Reagan had a fixed belief system that was School of Jack L. Warner.

Right. And you could not break him out of that. And his own son told me, in off-camera, he, or it's not in the film at least, he knew what he knew. But he does, Rod Reagan, Jr. does this extraordinary scene, if you will, where he talks about how if you tried to talk sense into your father, Ronald Reagan, he would hold up his hands and kind of push, make a pushing away gesture after listening for way too short a time and say, well, all I know is, and he pushes the way physically and Ron Jr. says he's trying to push away reality and push away what makes him uncomfortable. And if you look at Reagan through that lens

and you look at his belief system in his little world from which he controlled everyone's world. That's the truth of Reagan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's absolutely, I mean, that was a totally fascinating scene and incredible. Do you have any tips on how to avoid how the media sort of failed covering Reagan? You see that in the dock. Yeah, so I think the, Failure was structural in a lot of ways because the timing of the segments on the evening news.

Now remember, there are three networks, basically, kind of four, if you count, emerging CNN at the time. And CNN really was in its infancy, so I don't think you can fully count it. The length of the stories on the evening news, which captured the attention of almost every viewer in America, became shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter throughout the 80s. And the analysis and the quality of the analysts on television with a few exceptions became worse and worse and worse. So those people didn't exist anymore. People like Eric Severod, who was the kind of godhead of CBS News, even above Walter Cronkite,

you would do a commentary every night on the CBS News. That all ended in that period. What you're left with are very short soundbite-filled evening news segments, which bear a relation to what we have now. But if you look at them in the 80s, they seem interminable. They seem like they're three and a half minutes. Now a TV news segment is a minute, if you're lucky, a minute and a half. So this dumbing down of the information funneling that went right into the brains of every America played in, perfectly to the Reagan media strategy because they were very consciously making pictures.

And they were cutting in the camera, if you will. So Mike Deaver and Nancy Reagan and Ronald Reagan himself were all determined to package the evening news segment and just let the cameras roll. And by the time the network editors were done, the Reagan message got across in visuals. And the televised presidency of Reagan was something that the networks have been waiting for since JFK was shot. The TV news was in its infancy at that time. So Reagan's timing for that was absolutely perfect.

And I think that that naivete and that stage of the development of the network news formats helped Reagan enormously. There's one thing I'd add that I noted, which was, this is entirely related to today, that Cronkite did a news segment. in 81, I think, very early in the Reagan period, where he said that Reagan lied and that his consistently lied and that his economic figures were lies.

Now, they didn't use the word lie and Kronkite framed it in the term a little short on truth, which was pretty good for the time, but they let him get away with Lyme every day. And that should remind you of now as well. So have we not learned how to corral these deceitful figures who rise to the highest levels

of our politics? It's fascinating. A lot of people see Trump's embrace of the alt-right in QAnon as a new decline, but Bush embraced anti-gay and anti-abortion wackos. And you show Reagan's embrace of the John Birch Society. Could you explain to the audience? Because, like, I just could not grasp. even though you show it clearly why he did that?

I think he was a right-wing crazy person. Okay. Is that your scientific hot take? That is my political science take. I think that's a great question. And again, you know, Gorbidal, my mentor, used to call this the United States of... Well, yeah, so Gorby Dal called this the United States of Amnesia. And, you know, I worked at Vanity Fair for years, and, you know, I worked at Vanity Fair for years,

and Gorvidal wrote stuff. I added in him at Vanity Fair. And I remember great and harder Vanity Perry. He's like, I hate this United States of Amnesia thing. Like, get him off that. He keeps using it. I was like, yeah, it's a little woolly, but okay. But now I'm thinking, my God,

what truer words wherever, what truer phrase was ever coined about the United States now that we're living in the, let's hope, post-fascist corrective era of Trump? But what people must realize, as we start to try to grapple with the really dangerous mass hysteria of Q&ON, is that PAS was utterly prologged. The John Birch Society was the 1.0 of Q&ON.

It was a right-wing fever swamp of conspiracy that had captured the soul of the conservative rightist movement in this country, much so the horror of a lot of ambitious conservatives at the time. And there were efforts to drive them out of the party. And Bill Buckley took a lot of credit for this. But the conservatives who were intent on winning elections always nodded and winked to the John Birch Society. And Reagan was one of them. He never renounce the John Birch Society. And footnote, he never renounced the CluClex Klan endorsement until at least a month after it.

And Trump did the same thing. Now, Reagan was, if you think he was stupid, he was, I think, on many levels, not intelligent, but he had a great instinct for politics, and he knew how to win, which is why Republicans love it, because they love that he knew how to win. And the way he knew how to win was by playing to the worst instincts of people, their racism, and their conspiracy fever-swab fantasies, and later on in the 1980s, 80s to the wingnut religious right to which he pandered utterly and invented the, as Ron Reagan Jr. calls, an unholy alliance between the moral majority and the Republican Party. This was all

under Reagan. So you have a Q&on equivalent. You have dog whistle, what we would now in many contexts called foghorn racism on this part. You have that type of flirtation, with the Klan, all these things that we say are norm-shattering under Trump, Reagan was absolutely doing and doing very effectively because he built a new Republican Party coalition that way, which is why the respected pundits on the right, I won't name names here, but they know who they are, who became never Trumpers and are wonderful in the media on it. I mean, they're much better than the Democratic spokesman. Right. But they did build it.

Yes, but they embrace it, and they never cite Reagan ever. Right. As a norm breaker, they're shocked at Trump's norm breaking. And Richard Nixon gets dragged through the mud, obviously deservedly so. But Reagan is in mute. It's so fascinating. Rick Wilson. Yes.

Who is your fuck that guy? Hold on, I will tell you. There's so many good choices. You know, that is the problem. Okay, mine's going to be Newt Gingrich. Is it a returning favorite, but always a good one? Yeah, Newt Gingrich. Newt Gingrich tweeted this morning,

Lynn Wood and Sidney Powell are totally destructive. Every Georgian conservative, who cares about America, which, of course, none of them do, must vote in the runoff. Their don't vote strategy will cripple America. This from the man who crippled America, who quite literally crippled America, right? Indeed.

The fuckery level of Newt Gingrich just never stops. I mean, I love that he's still, like, terrorizing the Pope. Right? Like, what kind of subversive asshole do you have to be to send Newt Gingrich and his 27th wife to the Vatican? Like, oh, yeah, let's do that. Yeah, the wisdom of sending the family Gingrich to the Vatican was, look, I get that Newt played a valuable role for Trump in 2016 by going on Fox and saying, why, of course he's a normal Republican. Why wouldn't he be?

Look at me, I'm a perfect judge. What? The guy who spent his remaining campaign money to make a hit commercial on Mitt Romney not being a good Republican. Right? I mean, Jesus, right. Right. Rick Wilson. I would like to extend a hardy,

fuck that guy. To the clown car of idiots who came out in Michigan yesterday on behest of why a former boss, Rudolf Giuliani. But these people are now going to be a group addition to our mandatory formation, required by, as I love to say, until you're tired of it, state and federal law and international treaty, to today's fuck that guy. These people, on the one hand, you don't want to discourage civic participation.

On the other hand, civic participation is not going out and screaming crazy shit at the top of your lungs and hoping to make it real. The earth is not flat. Bigfoot is not real. UFOs do not put probes up your ass. None of these things happen. Nor are there wildly lavish and baroque conspiracies to steal votes, to have thugs, throw people out of counting rooms, et cetera. And the performative nature of Trumpism is expanding. And these people now feel perfectly free to go out in public and say completely bad shit crazy things. And while their First Amendment rights completely cover that, they are absolutely entitled to the First Amendment to do that. I am entitled to say, fuck you guys. 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 an episode. If you'd like to follow us on Twitter, I'm Molly JongFest and he's the Rick Wilson. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you again on the next episode. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studed 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

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