The Daily Beast Podcast - Kanye’s ‘Presidential Campaign’ Is A Complete Mess

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

Kanye West’s 2024 presidential campaign is extremely unofficial (he hasn’t even filed to run, New Abnormal podcast co-host Danielle Moodie reminds listeners on this episode), but that hasn’t stopped right-wingers from clamoring to be part of his team, and it’s a shit show. Daily Beast reporter Zach Petrizzo, who exclusively reported that right-wing figure Milo Yiannopoulos left Ye’s campaign after infighting, joined the show to tell Danielle all about the drama. Also in this episode: Daily Beast senior editor Andrew Kirell (a former Fox News staffer many lifetimes ago) chats with TNA co-host and fellow former Fox News staffer Andy Levy about how the right-wing media is handling anti-semitic Kanye, including which figures are changing their tune on the rapper. Plus! Danielle and Andy discuss an obvious truth: Conservatives really want to see Hunter Biden’s dick pics. 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 pretty 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 Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with 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.

First, we'll be joined by Andrew Corell, who's a senior editor at The Daily Beast, who's going to talk to us about the selective editing Fox News did around Kanye's anti-Semitism. Then we'll talk to Daily Beast political reporter Zach Petrizo about all the turmoil inside Kanye's campaign. But first, let's have some fun. So, Andy, it seems as if Elon Musk is in general. a disappointment to, you know, all of us and all of us that new abnormal and all of us who are progressive, thoughtful people with brains in our heads. It turns out he is starting to be a disappointment to the radical right. As he said that he was going to drop this massive Twitter file that was going to show all the ways in which Twitter has been gunning against Republicans

and all in the bag for Democrats, except guess what it turned up? A whole bunch of bullshit, a whole bunch of nothing. And that is from the mouths of Republicans. who are saying, this is a nothing burger. We expected more. Yeah, I've seen that from some Republicans. There are definitely those that are sticking to the script, though. And I guess for those who don't know, so the Twitter files are this whole thing where back in 2020, the New York Post put up a tweet promoting its bombshell story on Hunter

Biden's laptop. And Twitter took it down. They took the tweet down because they couldn't verify that the story was real or that it was accurate. And this became a huge sort of cause-seleb for the right. And there are people who have been claiming for the past two years that this cost Trump the election. Those are at least the people who actually believe that Trump lost the election, have blamed it on this in no small part. And it was always bullshit. That story was everywhere. Anybody listening to this right now is well aware of the Hunter Biden laptop story. And the fact that Twitter took down a tweet or several tweets about

it made absolutely no difference. So the whole thing was fucking bullshit to begin with. And then on Friday, they released this part one of the Twitter files, which is just, that's just a threat, because now we have to sit through more parts of this bullshit. A journalist named Matt Taibi was sort of put in charge of releasing this file. And what he did was he did like a, I think it was like 20,000 tweet thread or something like that, or maybe it was only 70. I don't know. I got bored really quickly. But it revealed basically nothing. It did not reveal any government suppression, which is not a surprise because Joe Biden and the Biden campaign didn't suppress anything. Well, and they weren't the government at the time. Right. The White House was run by the Trump administration at the time.

And these files actually showed that the Trump administration had also sort of jumped in to ask Twitter to take various tweets down. And many of the tweets that got taken down at the request of the Biden people were actually, let's not to put too fine a point on it, they were Hunter Biden dick picks. Oh, okay. Uh-huh. And conservatives seem very upset about that. And it's like, I just, you know, if you want to see Hunter Biden's dick that badly, I mean, go with God. But, you know, I just don't think it's necessarily the end of democracy if we don't get to see that. I don't know. You know what's amazing to me. When I think about Republicans and you just said dick picks, you know, in the same. goddamn sentence. I think about what is their

obsession? You go back to the Clinton era with blow jobs and that was going to bring down democracy but who can actually bring down democracy like Donald Trump, his criminality is, can you do me a favor though? Can you find me 11,760

some odd votes though? His threatening of government officials his outing of nuclear secrets. None of that can possibly bring down democracy according to Republicans. But the golden goose of Hunter Biden's dick and laptop can somehow be the fault in our stars. Like, what the fuck?

I mean, first of all, kudos to him for having a new nickname for it. I mean, you know, I'm sure if he hears about this, he'll be thrilled. But no, it is kind of amazing. And it's just, this is everything with Republicans. They're obsessed with sex. And, you know, we see this with their sudden outcry over drag shows and stuff like that. Like, everything. I don't know how these people were raised, but on the one hand, they seem to associate sex with, you know, being sort of evil and dirty and we shouldn't, you know, oh, it's just this thing that shouldn't be talked about.

But at the same time, they need to see the dickpicks. So I'll leave it to actual trained psychoanalysts to get into that more. But the thing about this story, to me, is there's actually, there is an interesting story buried in this Twitter files thing in that it is an inside look. at how people at Twitter dealt with moderating the site and how they dealt with requests from the White House, from the Biden campaign at the time, and how they debated internally what to do. And that stuff is actually interesting, but it just doesn't show what they wanted to show. It shows that there was actually fairly healthy debate as to what to do with regard to stuff that politicians or actual government officials were asking to be taken down.

And that's kind of interesting just to see, you know, sort of how the sausage, was made. It just doesn't show any conspiracy. It doesn't show any attempt to help the Biden campaign would become the Biden administration. And there are Republicans who are actually, they're aware of that and they're sad about it. And, you know, Sebastian Gorka of all people was like, this is no big deal. But then they're the ones who are, you know, again, they're trying to stay on script and they're calling this, you know, like the biggest attack on the First Amendment in the history of our country. And so, which it is, first of all, it's not even an attack on the First Amendment period. And so it's certainly not the biggest one in the history of the country. But it's just absolutely insane. Like the lengths they will go

to to make the conversation about Hunter Biden. And obviously this all just plays into, you know, they want hearings and we're going to have hearings about this. And we're going to hear the phrase Biden crime family a lot more, which is still one of the more hysterical things that I can hear. They want everything to feed into that and they want everyone to be on board. Just going back to the puritanical nature and lies of the Republican Party and their clutching of their pearls. And these are the same people that will uphold the photos of a Lauren Bobert and a Sarah Palin and their bikinis holding AR-15s, right? These are the same people that will excuse Matt Gates, you know, who was let off the hook for trafficking a underage woman to have sex with.

Like, these are the same people who are wrapped up in so many fucking sex scandals. You need a Wikipedia page just for them to go through the people they've gotten caught up with. And then you look at the ways that they contort themselves. I mean, it's certizole levels of the contortion that they do around looking for Hunter Biden and looking into the Bidens, but looking so deftly away from the Trumps that have a myriad of lawsuits against them. Their foundation was shut down because it was filled with lies and fraud and the ways that they were taking advantage of people.

You look at the university. It was shut down because it wasn't giving people a real degree. But they look away from that and they're like, it's like Looney Tunes over there. You know, around this whole Twitter file, like what it shows once again and the deep concern from those of us who care about this platform and care about how important it is to journalists,

how important it is to activism, is the fact that you can only have moderation on this platform when you have the people, the staff, right, who are directed to do that job. But we know what Elon Musk did when he came in and decimated the Twitter workforce and decimated all of those departments that were directed at ensuring that Twitter was a space for all people and not just the alt right. Or should I just say the mainstream white supremacist Republican Party?

So I think, yes, you're right. There is a story inside of a story. And I think the other one is around. what it takes to uphold moderation and safety and what it is that Elon Musk did to ensure that that's not the case. Yeah, that is spot on. And another way you describe them as alt-right and then you describe them as mainstream Republicans. And the other way to describe them is Elon Musk's friends because that's who he is clearly, you know, that's who he is sort of turning over moderation of the site to.

He's getting rid of people's accounts because he's been asked to by some of his alt-right but he's, that's what he wants. And yeah, it's his sight. He can do what he wants, but he should be honest about that. And going back to what you said about the sex stuff and the hypocrisy, yeah, I mean, we're seeing that now with, you know, there's no better example of that now than Herschel Walker. I mean, we're seeing all these quote unquote pro-life people who do not give a shit that Herschel Walker wanted them to have abortions because it was not convenient for him to have other children running around. And they don't care because they're not, when push comes to shove, they're not. not pro-life and they're not particularly abortion. They just want to control women's bodies. And to me, that's all on the same sort of continuum. It's on the one hand, they want no mentions of sex anywhere. On the other hand, they want every salacious detail of democratic stuff made public. And they, you know, not to put too fine a point on it, they get off on it. So it's just, the whole thing is just very, very bizarre. And it's never going to stop. Yeah, the Republican Party is literally one big circle jerk, like of just

bullshit. Like I just I don't even know. It's like, we'll clutch our pearls. No, let us see. No, we don't want to. Give us more. Like it's just, it's just too, it's honestly, it's too much. But the most important thing is still the fact that the

global town square is being run by a bunch of right-winger, white supremacist, conspiracy theorist, Q and on fools. And how dangerous this is and how dangerous we've let it become. So, but my understanding is that at least Donald Trump had a sort of sane reaction to all of this? Oh, totes. Yeah. Who does not look to Donald

Trump for his sanity, for the clear path forward, Andy? I don't know who. Because when Donald Trump decides to tell everyone on his fake ass, broke ass Twitter site, truth social that, you know, we just need to burn up the Constitution. Throw it all out. Get rid of everything. The articles, the this, that, everything, you know, mix it together with catch up and throw it against the wall. Who doesn't follow his lead? Yeah.

So Trump went on his, like you said, his busted ass Twitter, known as Truth Social. And after these so-called Twitter files were released, he wrote, a massive fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles. even those found in the Constitution. And what he's saying there is that the 2020 election results should be thrown out and the Constitution should be thrown out and he should be installed as president. And the response to this from Republicans has been, what's the opposite of deafening? Whatever that is. He's the leader of the Republican Party, whether the Republicans have now decided they don't like

that or not. And he is calling to sort of set the Constitution. Constitution aside and install him as president, and the response from them has been pretty much to just ignore it. And, you know, there have been maybe a couple of people out there, you know, on the Republican side who have said, I think Dave Joyce from Ohio on ABC's Sunday show this week, said that Trump says a lot of things, but that doesn't matter. It's never going to happen and that he will support whoever the Republican nominee is. So he just, he's like, oh, it doesn't matter. This is the whole we can't take him literally thing, even though he's the head of the Republican Party and he's talking about shredding the Constitution. I mean, there's a couple of Republicans who have actually, you know, Mike Turner from Ohio on CBS's Face the Nation, said that Trump's remarks were not consistent with the oath we take, so good for him. But in general, Republican reaction has been to not react at all and to just be quiet about it.

And, you know, you have Trump himself now trying to weasel out of what he said and saying that, you know, he never said he wants to terminate the Constitution, that this is fake news, disinformation, and lies. It's his own information. How is it disinformation? He literally typed it and sent it out. So he is saying that he cannot be trusted to inform because he doesn't know the difference between actual information and disinformation.

Does that make sense to anybody? Because it sure as fuck doesn't make sense to me. It kind of does make sense, though, because he shouldn't be trusted. No, he shouldn't be. But the fact is, is that you have Republicans that are like, well, I'll just vote for, you know, whoever the Republican nominee is. The man just said, in his own words, from his own fat fingers, that he is going to hair up the Constitution because he wasn't installed as president.

How do you have somebody run again for election to be president of the United States in 24, who has no vision for the future. Donald Trump is absolutely stuck in the past. There is nothing that comes out of his mouth, even if, take away everything. Let's suspend my own logic. Let's not talk about white nationalism, misogyny. Let's not talk about the anti-trans and the anti-LGBQ. Let's not talk about the anti-blackness, right? Let's just talk about his vision. He doesn't have one. There is nothing that Donald Trump has. set in front of a podium and a microphone since he lost the election that is about anything that has to do with the future of this country. Not one thing. And so it's amazing to me that as the

Republican Party tries to regroup after the red wedding that never was, after they try and regroup that they're looking to this man who can't find his way out of a paper bag. He can't find his way out of 2020. We're looking for quantum leaps here. And he is making none of them. So how they're looking to this man to guide this party, to guide this country? I don't know. It makes absolutely no fucking sense to me. No, it doesn't. But we've been hearing this, you know, I'll vote for whoever the nominee is shit for, like, Bill

Barr, who was the attorney general under Trump and who, you know, has testified before the January 6th committee that, yeah, you know, he had to keep advising Trump that you couldn't do that, if that's unconstitutional and you shouldn't do that. And then he says, well, I'll vote for him. again if he's, you know, if he's the nominee. And it's like, what, what is fucking wrong with you? Like, you're sitting there saying you will vote for a guy who you know has, you know, violated the constitution in the past, we'll do it again without even a second thought. And you're saying you will vote for him because he has an R next to his name. If that's not a definition of insanity,

I don't know what is. These are the same people that are standing by Herschel Walker. These are the same people that are on a tour right now that are telling the people of Georgia that Herschel Walker will be, their representative and that this man is capable. The Vampires versus Werewolves Man is capable of being their representative in the state of Georgia when I'm sure that if you ask Herschel Walker to spell Georgia that he couldn't. But so it's like there is absolutely no bottom for these people. It doesn't matter what Donald Trump says out of his own mouth, tweets out of his own like lackluster broke social media page.

It doesn't matter. They'll just support it regardless. And I'm like, how do you combat a party that just they have no self-awareness? They have no desire to have any self-awareness. They have no desire to do any autopsies. They have no desire to look towards the future. I just, there is nothing more dangerous than this, than the gaslighting that the Republican Party continues to do to the American people.

There is just nothing more dangerous than it. Yeah. And I just, before we go, I just want to point out that Kevin McCarthy, who is you know, more than likely going to be Speaker of the House, made a big, pompous show of saying that the first day when the Republicans have control of the House, they're going to read the Constitution on the floor. And he has said not a word about President Trump or former President Trump wanting to shred that same document. Are we sure Kevin's not going to have to take it out of the toilet after Trump makes the Constitution one of his big giant dumps?

So back in October, which somehow wasn't three years ago, Tucker Carlson, posted Kanye West for a fawning interview that aired over two nights on his primetime show, Tucker Carlson, he lies. And unsurprisingly, this led to many of FNC's on-air personalities, joining in to declare their love for Yeh, whose music they'd undoubtedly been fans of for decades. And then it happened. Yee put up an Instagram post in which he talked about the Jews controlling the media. He tweeted about going DeathCon 3 on the Jews.

Vice obtained leak outtakes of his Carlson interview in which he made anti-Semitic statements. And of course, just last week, he brought his Nazi buddy, Nick Fuentes to dinner with disgraced former President Trump, and then went on Alex Jones's dumb show and went full Hitler. Heater talked to us about what Fox News's reaction to all of this has been is Dalybee's senior editor, Andrew Carell. Andrew, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me for such an amazing topic. So I guess first talk about what various Fox personalities said about, yay, like right around the time of the Tucker interview. Both of us have worked to Fox, obviously, and you know the

experience of the full court press they do for every single thing. They're really good at just like hyping up like a circus show man, every single thing that they do that they think is interesting. And so the Tucker Carlson interview got a couple days worth of pretty uniform across the board, people hyping it on their shows individually saying, you know, this is going to be real interesting. And a bunch of them really stood out. You know, there was resident media critic Joe Concha, who is like a relentless cheerleader for all things Fox, a total sitcom. He was on there, you know, a guy who obviously never listened to Kanye in his life, but it's like Kanye is why. eyes. He is unique. He is certainly fearless. And this is like a must watch interview tonight.

And it's like he has no idea what the content of the interviews. He probably had no idea that Tucker edited out of the anti-Semitism. And even if they did, these people tow the line anyway. But, you know, people were lining up like Ainsley Earhart. I think another person who clearly is probably never listened to Kanye in her life and very likely was offended by him just a couple of years ago was saying you'd have to love him because he's not apologetic. And people listen because he's interesting. And we're glad he's strong enough to deal with the adversity and to speak. up, you know, because it became clear that those two days, especially, that Kanye was becoming this folk hero for the Fox News universe where now he is this brave truth teller in the vein of like, I guess, similarly quote unquote canceled maga converts, especially those who are of color and therefore become useful tools for Fox News to then say, look at these guys. You know, so he became suddenly this guy who they used to cry as being, you know, a provocateur and crazy. and he has dirty lyrics and you write songs about modern slavery or whatever. Now, all of a sudden, he is this modern day hero for Fox, and everybody needs to tune in to see this truth teller.

And then, of course, as you said, a couple days later, it was revealed that the most newsworthy parts of the interview were cut and left on the floor, you know, him dropping anti-Semitic tropes and him going, making a very, very bizarre and kind of hilarious conspiracy theory, that there are children. I think it was like there are a crisis actor children brought into his home to strip him of his children or something. It's just like he's a brave, you know, brave truth teller.

Yeah. Not somebody they're exploiting amid a, you know, a crisis. No, not because Fox would never do that. So have any of them copped to the idea that maybe there was a teeny tiny chance they had been wrong? Like, as you pointed out, like their alleged media critic Joe Concha or any of the anchors or anyone? Mostly not. Joe Concha tweeted the day that Ye went on Alex Jones's show was like, this is, you know, he's hitting rock, And a lot of, you see, if you go in the replies, a lot of people have responded being like,

is this you just a couple weeks ago saying he's wise and brave and fearless? And then he just blocked everybody who did that. And, you know, I'm sure Ainslie, you know, people like Ainslie Earhart and Will Kane, and I forget, oh, Janine Piro's another one who was really singing Kanye's praises. I feel like they don't really have any need to ever correct themselves because, you know, they're so far into the Fox bubble. I will, I will say that Kennedy, originally the night of the interview said he's, you know, he pushes boundaries and he's, you know, he's making people mad.

means he's an artist doing his job and he's expressing his opinion so clearly as an artist or whatever. And then a couple of days later, I think she said on her show that he's gone crazy clearly. So she's, you know, walked it back a little. But for the most part, yeah, you know, Fox doesn't need to to correct itself here because their audience is, you know, going to go along for the ride no matter what. So what about Tucker himself? Has he said one word about yay since all this stuff started coming out? Nothing that would be remotely construed as critical and or remorseful about the edit.

And, you know, Fox really went to lengths to sort of, you know, You know, they hunted down the mole. I don't even know if we figured out who the mole was publicly, but whoever leaked it to device, the deleted footage. But they've gone to great lengths, you know, as a ruthless PR unit and as a network to sort of memory hole, the fact that they were ahead of the news cycle. The biggest story about Kanye West now is that he is fully embracing anti-Semitism and Nazism. And at the time, it would have been the first time he was publicly dropping anti-Semitic tropes like that in such a brazen way. And Fox edited it out and then pretended it wasn't news value. But it is funny how it's just like he became this, like the conservatives are so desperate for a celebrity that they were willing to embrace the guy who was pretty much their mortal nemesis for a good couple of years before Trump became president.

Yeah, you can't dine out on Kid Rock 24-7. Yeah, and Kevin Sorboe and I'm trying to think of Elsa. The woman from Clueless who became a Fox News hero for a while. She became a contributor. What was her name? Stacey Dash. Who then now renounced it years later. She's like, I don't know what I was doing.

Yeah. Has FNC even covered Ye as a story these past? few months. Like, as far as I can tell, they didn't really talk about the fact that he had dinner with Trump with Nick Fuentes. They haven't really talked about the Alex Jones stuff. They just sort of are now pretending he doesn't exist, right? Yeah, exactly. They're memory holing, you know, their own role in this, too. The fact that, you know, Kanye brought Nick Fuentes, an avowed white supremacist, you know, one of the most notorious guys and habitual nose picker on air, they brought him to dinner with Trump and Milo Gionopoulos too, another like vile, you know, far-right role.

You know, that in itself advanced the narrative about him kind of going fully unhinged. And also now he's, you know, apparently running for president. And there's this whole narrative of, you know, there's division within the MAGA ranks. You know, that was not covered by Fox News, of course. They don't pay much mind to like the true, true far-right ranks that are like the base of Trump, the real leftover base of Trump. They don't pay at real mind. They pretend that it's just, you know, real normal Americans out there that are just MAGA.

Right. So they didn't pay mind to it, but then they got really, really pissed off when reporters dared ask Kevin McCarthy about the fact that Trump was sensible, the party's leader, dining with Nick Fuentes. You told 2017 me that Nick Fuentes, it's absolutely nuts. But, you know, the fact that Kevin McCarthy, that, you know, he's the GOP leader, like it or not. The fact that reporters asked him about that, you know, Fox spent a whole, like, the outnumbered show, you know, supposed in straight news reporter Harris Faulkner was just, you know, clutching pearls over the idea that reporters would dare ask him, you know, disguised. your leader and he is dining with Nick Fuentes and Miley Annapolis and Kanye who is in the middle of a anti-Semitic breakdown. You know, what's going on with that? And that was basically the only coverage of it was complaining about the fact that there was coverage of it instead of, you know, whatever Republican or conservative cause de Jure was. And then the Alex Jones thing, I think it was given a couple of news briefs, you know, obligatory coverage during the day because it was obviously the biggest news or it felt like the biggest news that day. But other than that, you know, they're happy to memory whole it. So how does this translate, like,

moving, I guess, a little larger to like the right-wing media echo sphere. I like to call it the Fox News cinematic universe because it all sort of revolves around Fox News. But what have we seen from like other people? Because there were a lot of people who were, you know, there was Candice Owens. There were people like that who were championing Ye. I mean, Candice Owens, the big thing was after the anti-Semitic stuff came out, she was defending him basically saying, oh, you can't even say the word Jewish these days. And then, of course, there were reports that Ye was going to buy Parlor, which is the social media site,

that just coincidentally happens to be owned by Candice Owen's husband. And now that's gone away. But has she, like, publicly come out and distance herself from him or have any of these people? No. And then also, Connie said Ben Shapiro has her on a leash or whatever. Right. Ben Shapiro, a Jewish, you know, Boy King, Media Mogul on the right, has Candace on a leash because she works at the Daily Wire and has a podcast on his network.

She has not come out and said, you know, I am not on Ben Shapiro's leash or whatever. But the interesting thing that, you know, the repercussions that you're kind of alluding to is in the sort of right-wing media ecosphere, there's a lot of cognitive dissonance, a lot of people that were championing him as a folk here, like I said, who are now having to be like, oh, yeah, yeah, he's just, he's crazy, this is bad.

We must denounce him, but I guess it's furthering the narrative that there is this growing division on the right, because, you know, I genuinely, I'm curious, what are the conversations like between Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens about what's going on with this? I'm sure we won't find out because they don't talk to reporters, but that is indicative of

some fracturing that is going to happen. It's kind of actually funny that Kanye is accelerating the sort of right-wings cleaving among Maga. In addition to Fox News, you know, basically turning its back on Trump after the midterm. Yeah, it's always interesting to me. I talked about this. I think I made Ben Shapiro my fuck that guy on it. I think it was our last episode because I, for one, do not want to hear someone like Ben Shapiro who is routinely bigoted against gay people, against trans people, et cetera, now complaining about anti-Semitism because to me it's all the same thing. It's bigotry is bigotry. I don't need Ben Shapiro out there finding a line in the sand. And oddly, that line is that now it's about him.

But when it's about other people, he's fine. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's not only fine with it, but he pushes it. Calls people bad Jews and accuses them being a capos, you know. Yeah, he's just like the worst of the worst. But no, you're right. When the whole thing happened and Candace Owens was defending yay and Shapiro's big thing was, well, we at the Daily Wire host a variety of different views, trying to act like he's Mr. Free Speech guy as if, you know, as if you or I would be welcome at the Daily Wire. Yeah. But I wonder if, like, as you said, Candice Owens has not responded to what Yeh said about Shapiro

having her on a leash. Do you suspect that that's coming from the top or do you think she's just trying to pretend none of this ever happened? I think my general assessment with most of these, like, right-wing media stars is they don't really ever need to be held accountable because their audience just, you know, laps up everything they do. And part of their shtick is we don't answer to the media. and we don't answer to these, you know, these nerdy, these dweeity reporters in their ivory tower,

you know, trying to corner us with gotcha questions. So she has no obligation to ever answer or say anything about it because people are going to lap it up. The other thing I was going to say that this exposes too is, you know, the cognitive distance. It's like, you know, among Candace and Ben, but also Elon Musk. Ben became that click-hole meme about like the one guy you hate is actually right about something when he said, right? Maybe it's a little weird. It's a little wrong for Elon Musk to just randomly ban.

Kanye for posting that logo that was the star of Davy with, you know, the swastick and or the, you know, the swastick assemble within it because it's just, you know, that's freedom of speech, right? But it's exposing that Elon Musk is basically counter to everything he claims is really just running Twitter on a whim based on like people who personally offend him or make him mad or attack him, then they get banned versus actually, you know, being crying free speech and wanting to make this, you know, some sort of free speech haven like he claims. Yeah. And I mean, that was fairly obvious to anyone with even half a brain from the start, but that

leaves out a lot of people. Yeah, it's just fully in vivid colors now. You can see it, right? It's funny how Kanye is unwittingly exposing a lot of people for just being full of shit. So there's a couple of people at Fox I want to talk more about. They're not necessarily the biggest stars. But I want to talk about someone like Will Kane, who is now a Fox and Friends guy, used to be on ESPN.

I knew him back in the day. He was a fairly sane person. He was funny. He was a box standard conservative. And now he's become Fox News guy. And after the original interview with Tucker, Kane said, of yay, he is authentic, he is unfiltered, and he is independent. Once again, not a word from Will Kane on his authenticity, his independent nature, his brave unfilteredness since all the other stuff has come out. Am I correct on that?

As far as I know, yeah. Yeah. It's just amazing to me that people like that, like to me, that's almost more interesting than like the Tucker's and stuff. like that because we're just, we're watching people just go against sort of everything they used to be. And we're watching it in real time. And we're watching them do it for a paycheck and to be part of a club and stuff like that. And it's just, it's amazing to me because, you know, there's that sort of longstanding thing that if you want to know what right wingers are doing, look what they accuse the left of doing. And this to me is the perfect sort of like the exemplar of that because they love to talk on Fox about, oh, you're doing this to get access to the cocktail parties. and stuff like that. But meanwhile, it's exactly what they do. It's just they do it for a different audience.

Oh, yeah. So much of like right wing media criticism is just projection. It's almost always their view of like what they think that average, like the average reporter sitting around doing, you know, drinking children's blood or whatever. And then they end up being the ones who do that. They end up being the ones who are doing all that because that's their, that's your view of what journalism is. Journalism is, you know, to that they claim journalism is just liberal activism. And like literally every single right wing media outlet is, is. literally just an arm of the Republican Party. Like, there is no reporting. So they're the ones doing all that. And I think it's just, yeah, it's projection. Or, yeah, just look to what they accuse the left of doing. And that's often what they're just doing. Yeah.

And then there's someone like Joe Contcha who, you know, not a household name, but he's made a nice little career for himself on Fox, got himself a book deal. And this is a guy that I, you know, I can say in my years of being on cable news for my sins, there were a few people that stood out to me who just even you know back then I thought to myself oh this is a person who will do anything to be on TV yes yeah and Concha was one of them like he was probably top five for me yeah local news sportscaster energy big like I want to be on TV yeah and I will do or say whatever you need you know in order for me to do that and I know we've I've gone sort of far a field from the from the Kanye stuff but it's just amazing to me that these people can live with themselves

I just, I don't understand it, but, you know, that's between me and my shrink, I guess. I think it's when people are so far removed from the consequences of the politics they advocate for. You notice a lot of people left and right in cable news, but especially at Fox where they just view it all as like this fun game or it's like infotainment or entertainment because they're so far removed from any consequence of the politics they advocate for. They're so far removed from having to experience any of the policies or any things they actually complain about. You know, they talk a lot about my side or their side, stuff like that. where it's just like they clearly view it as like a game of like color war in summer camp or something instead of actual life or death consequences here or important matters of importance. No, absolutely.

I mean, as long as they can go on a book tour to the villages, they're happy. Before I let you go, there was something you said earlier that actually struck me as probably the most important point of this whole thing. And that is that Fox had this story. They had the story of yay just being a full on anti-Semite and they let it go because they put ideology before journalism. They actually could have broken news and been out front on this, and Tucker could have sat down with Yeh, thinking the interview was going to be one thing and getting the other thing

and then being like, holy shit, this is gold. Like, we got to get this on the air ASAP. And instead, they left it on the cutting room floor. Yeah. I mean, you know, Fox's own lawyers have argued. I think David Fulke and Filk reported this last year or a year, two years ago. I forget what lawsuit it was, but Fox's own lawyers have argued that the viewer shouldn't take Tucker Carlson literally or believe anything he says because he's basically enter.

Yeah, that's right there. That's what it is. It's partisan entertainment. It's grist for the mill or whatever other idiom you want to use. It's slot for the trough or whatever. His job is not to, as much as they want to criticize reporters in their style of breaking news, his job is not to break news. It's to, you know, feed you, you know, how brave Kanye West is because he wore

a White Lives Matter shirt to a Paris Fashion Week event. Right. It's just unreal. Thank God neither of us ever worked there. Andrew, thank you so much for. being here. I appreciate it and we'll talk to you again soon. Thanks for having me. Cheers. Folks, I am very happy to bring on to all of you for the new abnormal, our conversation with Daily Beast

political reporter Zach Patrizo to talk about nothing other than, you know, the latest and greatest with white supremacy and Kanye West, you know, the artist that now goes by Yay. Let's talk about Milo Yanopolis is out at Kanye West campaign after infighting your titled article at the Daily Beast today. Give us the rundown because Ye has not actually done any paperwork whatsoever to say that he is legitimately running for president for 2024. So tell us about this campaign apparatus and team that he has going on and why is it news that Milo is out. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, first things, first. Kanye West, now known as Yeh, he's running a very informal campaign, as you noted, right? No paperwork has been filed with the FEC, and everything is kind of, you know, very haphazard at best.

And about, I don't know, something like a week and a half ago, two weeks ago, first we saw kind of some rumblings and then we saw people kind of be slowly hired on, right? Milo was the first cast, you know, the first character hired on to this informal 2024 Kanye West exploratory type presidential campaign. And he was kind of the first person. Then we saw, of course, Nick Fuentes, who is the United Right rally attendee, white nationalist, Groyper leader hired on. And then most recently at the Daily Beast, we reported that the informal campaign hired on this racist YouTuber named Sneako, who his big claim to fame was trying to get random pedestrians to say the N word on video. Well, that sounds like a fun game. Yeah. We're talking about, I mean, just the lowest kind of scum in the barrel to make notes here. So, of course Kanye West has associated him with all these people. And then of course he goes on to Alex Jones's show, praises Hitler. I mean, just a ton of wild stuff. But quite frankly, that's kind of the tip of the iceberg here. As we reported over the Daily Beast behind the scenes,

you know, the campaign is a mess. People are trying to get people tossed out of the campaign. People are trying to hire their friends. I mean, there's just so much backstabbing naturally among these cast of characters because there really is no honor among thieves here. I mean, I mean, it's really like everybody wants kind of that top campaign job. And I think, you know, as we report at the beast, Nick Fuentes saw Milo in his way, quite frankly. I know when I was texting with Milo over the past two weeks, Milo, you know, made a bunch of references, even in our on-the-record text exchanges to the effect of look, you know, matters relating to Nick Fuentes are below my pay and was kind of looking down upon Fuentes.

So there was a lot of internal conflict there. And then as we reported on Sunday, you know, of course, Milo is now, you know, he's been fired. It's just created a ton of drama on the right and especially among kind of this far right contingent of folks. You know, what's so fascinating? I mean, right, first of all, there is no honor among thieves.

And there's no honor among white supremacist, right? To me, they are at the bottom of the barrel, the sewer of the sewer when it comes to even discussing politics at all. because I think that if we're not framing how dangerous these people are and how dangerous their ideology is in the entertainment aspect of what it is that we believe that Kanye West is doing and is up to, right? Like, much like Donald Trump, Kanye West has never met a microphone or a camera that he did not like. And so in your opinion, you know, to be honest, what makes someone like Kanye West begin to create a camera? campaign infrastructure, a black man from Chicago that is filled with a known white nationalist. And what do you make of, Milo stating that, oh, well, we only tagged on Nick Fuentes to go to Mara Lago because we wanted to, quote, unquote, give Donald Trump some hell.

Yeah, look, I think there are a couple of components to all this. First off, Kanye is clearly, you know, kind of on the decline, right? When you see a list stars kind of on the decline, ultimately, you know, the far right sees it as an opportunity, right? An opportunity to write the coattails of these individuals, and quite frankly, to ultimately profit. You know, there isn't much upside for somebody like Kanye West besides, you know, possibly there being some other concerns there to hire on something like Fuentes. But for Fuentes, it gives him a lot of credibility, quite frankly, right? Just like how associating with Marjorie Taylor Green gave him certain credibility and legitimacy

that he didn't have before. I mean, this is a guy that marched at, you know, Charlottesville in 2017. This is a guy that was there on January 6 that told his followers to destroy their phones after January 6th to try to mess with potential evidence in criminal trials. I mean, this is a guy that is really and has been denounced by so many people kind of on the right, right? We saw Kevin McCarthy. We've seen others, you know, for example, Breitbart, Sebastian Gorka.

I mean, both of these, you know, outlets individuals hate Nick Fuentes. So ultimately, you know, working with someone like, yay, you know, getting the backing of Marjorie Taylor Green at one point, really legitimize these people. So I think for them they see motivation in terms of profit and ultimately riding the coattails. I don't think they legitimately believe that Kanye West is going to become president. I genuinely think they see it as an opportunity for themselves. Let me ask one other question before you answer my second one, which is this. When you say that we see that Kanye West is on the decline, do you mean what many have speculated, which is his mental health is on the decline? Is it that his star, right?

Like the way in which he has been illuminated as a musical genius that that is on the decline, because there are so many people that are calling for his collection, his musical portfolio to be removed from streaming services. what do you when you say on the decline what is that signal for you yeah you know i think for me it's like i never watched the shows over the weekend i i caught up on it's called catching up with the cardassion i never i'll be honest i've never watched any of these shows but i really when i when i jump into topics like this i really try to to get a full picture of who these people are right and looking back i mean kanya west has always been a bit sporadic on different things But at one point, you know, he was marching for racial inequality, you know, shooting him on unarmed black men in America. Mm-hmm.

And something to me at least just doesn't make sense about those very conflicting kind of political ideologies. So I went back and tried to dig through the archives. And I do think, even if you watch him, it just seems like he's very different. Look, I'm not a medical professional. Right, right. Yeah, neither am I. It doesn't seem right. And it definitely seems like not only is something not right there in terms of just his overall mental state, but quite frankly, I think, you know, he's lost so many people in his life that, you know, kind of maybe would pull him back from an edge or a cliff, right?

I mean, you know, I don't know who I saw. Maybe it was Mark Cuban talking about this, the billionaire, but he's like, look, when you're such a public figure, you have people kind of around you advise and you're just like Donald Trump, right, that can possibly pull you back from these cliffs because, A lot of these people are just insane and ridiculous and racist. And it seems like Kanye doesn't have any of that. I mean, it literally sounds to me like the people that are talking to him are anti-Muslim activist Laura Lumer and white nationalist Nick Fuentes. And when you have those two as your only kind of people that you're talking with and just on your phone, I think you go down these ultimately really dark rabbit holes.

Yeah. You know, there's no end in sight. To that point, I think that Kanye West in so many ways has been emotionally on the decline like we have seen with a lot of stars. The issue with him, though, is that it's not just about him personally. It's about who he's trying to bring down with him at the same time. So when you're tweeting things like, I'm going to go DefCon three on Jewish people, when you're deciding that it isn't just about you and your own decline, it's about this entire explosion and what communities could possibly be collateral damage from that. I think that.

think is what is the most troubling versus, you know, when we witnessed Britney Spears in the early 2000s, that was about her person and us watching this kind of mental unraveling happening in real time because of paparazzi. With Kanye West, it's something much more to me, much more nefarious. Zach, before we move on to your next piece, and I give you an opportunity to answer the last question, do you think that there is something that is almost eerily perils? to the Republicans' treatment of, let's say, a Herschel Walker character in Georgia and the way that they're propping this person up who many, including myself, have said, is not fit to serve as anybody, Senator, and the way in which white nationalists now are seemingly propping up, Kanye,

as everyone else has left him. Yeah. No, absolutely. I think, look, you know, perhaps on the left, there's a sense of, you know, understanding kind of like, who's a good candidate for this role? You know, who's somebody that we can really get behind? And I think the left has their own way of kind of weeding out bad candidates. But I think I think the right, and especially in the post-Trump era, where you have just the craziest of crazies, there's just no guardrails at all. And ultimately, kind of the most extreme perspectives and ideologies ultimately get amplified in right-wing media to a big extent in public. locations like the Gateway Pundit, for example, in other places. And ultimately, you know, these voices emerge as kind of leading thought leaders with a lot of clout. And I'm not talking about kind of like street clout. I'm talking about, you know, right-wing media cloud. And I'm talking

about a presence on these podcasts that are becoming increasingly popular and kind of this whole right-wing media apparatus, you know, that ultimately makes its way up to Fox News, right? I mean, we've seen people like Sean Hanby, you know, get behind Walker in these light, fluffy interviews almost every night on Fox News now, right? And I do think they're always to go to bat for one another, no matter kind of not bad and how crazy these things ultimately get. And I think, quite frankly, the same thing goes with Kanye. I would ask you, do you think there's any saving of Kanye now? It's so funny to ask me that because I think before the overt, disgusting, anti-Semitic comments and like the embracing of Hitler,

I would have said that if Kanye went, you know, off the grid for a bit, right? That he could come back and there could potentially be an opportunity for rehabilitation. But when you take into collection that Hitler comments, the slavery was a choice, comments which did not get as much heat, frankly, in my humble opinion, as it should have gotten, because that was the first inclination, right, that something was awry here. And then mixed with the fact that I don't read any books is deeply problematic for somebody that has a platform with tens of millions of followers. But now I really don't think that there is any true running from this.

And I don't think that he wants to be rehabilitated, right? Because I think that that's the other thing too. And maybe we'll see something different in several years. But I don't think that Kanye wants to be rehabilitated. And frankly, I think that this may be one of the reasons why the Kardashian-Gener clan was just like, okay, so we've met our kind of limit on how we want to engage. And so Kim Kardashian's moving forward with a divorce because you're not going to taint my billion-dollar brand by virtue of association.

So I don't know. I honestly don't. And I just, I'm so, it's so deeply disappointing as somebody who was once a fan. of Kanye West's music to see how far he has fallen. Yeah, at least for me, it's, I mean, like, it's shocking because, you know, I went back, like I was mentioning, and it's like, this guy, you know, perhaps, you know, we all have a few screws loose at the end of the day. But like at one point, there were some things where he was against Bush, right?

Right. And he called that out during Katrina. Right, right. So it's like, well, some things he was like, and it seemed like maybe he was in a different mental frame there or whatever, but still, it's quite a big fall. fall from grace, I will say. Yeah. So I want to switch gears now to another piece to another questionable character, which is Elon Musk.

And your piece entitled Deeply Underwhelmed Right Wingers on Musk's overhyped Twitter files. Tell us a bit about what these supposed Twitter files were supposed to provide for the right wing that now they're saying is a quote unquote nothing burger. Yeah, so the Twitter files, quote-unquote, Twitter files were released on Friday by kind of this independent journalist named Matt Taibi with kind of the helping and guiding hand of a gentleman named Elon Musk. You might have heard him. But of course, this guy released this long Twitter thread that basically unravels Twitter and Twitter employees kind of work in trying to, you know, allegedly kind of cover up the Hunter Biden laptop story, which is, of course, the story that the New York Post broke, kind of about how a Hunter-Bident laptop. Biden's old business deals had seemingly grown and influenced father and others. So look, the Twitter files were kind of a big deal. They were supposed to kind of show that Twitter was inherently biased towards suppressing of conservative voices on the platform, et cetera. It was supposed to show a ton of things.

But quite frankly, it kind of landed with some folks on the right with a big dud. Of course, you had the Musk shoe shiners, the Musk fanboys, if you will, who of course praised it. But there were some notable voices including right-wing radio host, Sebastian Gork. A reporter from the Free Beacon was one of them, and I think there were a few more folks in there as well that were like, look, this is kind of deeply

underwhelming. It was kind of over-hyped. And of course, since then, we haven't seen the release of the second batch of Twitter files, which of course Elon Musk has promised. So I think, you know, quite frankly, when the right is kind of saying, look, this isn't everything that it promised. I think

Elon Musk has some problems there, because, you know, ultimately he promised a lot. And now, you know, he's facing some blowback. There were some critics on the right that say, look, this is all a big ploy to cover up, you know, his censoring of Kanye West. You know, of course, Kanye West was suspended from Twitter. So I think it's always interesting.

And I think one thing that the Beast does well is kind of cover, you know, the way in which there's sometimes unintended blowback among some people in power. You know, last question for you, Zach, what do you think happens, though, if in fact the right doesn't see Elon Musk as this grand savior to free speech and their ability to be as racist and misogynist and disgusting as possible. If he no longer has that camp in his corner, how does he fare?

Yeah, I think ultimately you're forecasting this exactly as I think it might play out. Quite frankly, I think Elon Musk is going to have an issue because he, you know, spent a lot of money. Critics say above market value on Twitter, and now he has to kind of pay for his investment. And she's not going to make back his money with $8 a month through monthly use. user fees. That just doesn't equate to kind of the millions and the billions he has to make back. The way he has to make this back is with advertisers. And quite frankly, a lot of advertisers have already pulled out. We've seen overall media trend markets falling ahead of next year and projected declines. And I think advertisers are really hesitant to kind of put their brand out

there with a toxic site. So ultimately, balance the two. And it's already blowing up quite frankly in his face because there are advertisers pulling out and then he's kind of going to war with the advertisers. So it's not going well. And I do foresee this being pretty contentious as it kind of continues between the Oh, what a shit show. And we all have front row seats. Zachary Patriceo, politics reporter at the Daily Beast. Thank you so much for making time to join the new abnormal. We appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me. Danielle Moody. Andy Levy. Andy, Andy, tell me because I don't. I don't. know how we make this decision each and every week because there's just so much to choose from who your fuck that guy is this week.

My fuck that guy this week, or at least for today, it's sort of one person, but it's also almost an entire section of a newspaper because it's Pamela Paul who writes opinions for the New York Times op-ed pages. She's one of these people who just, and she consistently has to write about this stuff, but she had a piece up over the weekend called Free to Be You and Me or Not, which, by the way, is just a horrible headline. I don't blame her for that because she probably didn't write it, but it's a terrible headline.

But anyway, so the thesis of her piece was, for those of us who were old enough to remember, there was a big thing back in the, I guess it was the 70s. There was a big album and TV show called Free to Be You and Me, and it was Marlowe Thomas, and it was Rosie Greer, and a whole bunch of other people. And it was sort of a, it was sort of a crunchy granola, liberal, full of songs and stuff like that. But basically just telling people, you know, hey, it was telling kids, hey, be yourself, you know.

And it's okay if you're different and stuff like that. And it was, you know, a lot of us sort of, if you had liberal parents, you grew up listening to that and watching it on TV. So she writes about this and she writes about how great it was. And then she somehow turns that into, we've gone too far on trans rights. And it's just, it's the most bizarre change you can imagine. And, but it's typical of what these people do. She writes that stuff like FreeW and Me helped liberate kids. And she writes, now we risk losing those advances.

In lieu of liberating children from gender, some educators have doubled down, offering children a smorgas board of labels, gender identity, gender role, gender performance, gender expression to affix to themselves from a young age. Some go as far as to suggest that not only is gender assigned to people at birth, but that sex in humans is a spectrum. And she goes on and on and talks about in her mind somehow saying that things like that there's a spectrum, that gender is a spectrum and that it's fluid, that somehow that reinforces stereotypes. If you're trying to figure out why that makes no sense. It's because it makes no sense. Oh, good, because I thought I was missing something. Yeah, no, I don't really know how else to put it. But this is typical of the columns that Pamela Paul writes.

This is actually, sadly, this is typical of stuff that the New York Times runs where they often try to both sides things like trans rights and they'll do it by, you know, well, doctors say X, but some Republican lawmakers say why. And it's like, those are not the same things. Why are you equating them? But this is what the New York Times does and it's pretty gross. You know, I sort of hate that I'm pointing this out because I am a cis man. But it is the reason I'm aware of these things is because of trans writers like Parker Malloy and others who have raised these issues. So if I can use a little bit of my cis privilege to chime in on their behalf, I'm happy to do so. So it's just fuck these guys.

I'm just sick of it. Oh, my God. There's so much I want to say. But Andy, you know, you're a. model in how people should use their privilege, whether it's cis, whether it's white, male, to actually elevate topics of fuckery instead of hiding from them because it, quote, doesn't have anything to do with me. So thank you. I am a model ally. I think we can all agree on that. I mean, I'm giving you deep applause. I know. So Danielle, who is your fuck that guy for today?

You know, so let me say this. Alvin Bragg is somebody who, I have called for on a number of occasions to be removed, to be investigated, because here's the thing that I didn't understand about Alvin Bragg, and he is obviously indeed my fuck that guy for a number of reasons. When he came into office, he was given an entire team of people that had spent the previous, at least two years, investigating Donald Trump. After Alvin Bragg enters into the role of Manhattan District Attorney following Sy Vance, he decides that he is no longer going to really investigate Donald Trump. He's going to ease off the gas, unlike, right, Fawney Willis in Georgia and unlike Tish James. And so many people, including the two high-profile prosecutors that quit and did so

publicly because they said, we have a they're there. We have everything that we need to start rolling out indictments and Alvin Breg pumped the brakes on it and dismantled or allowed to lapse the special grand jury that was put together once again by his predecessor in order to really delve into the years worth of research that had been going into investigating Donald Trump and company. So now this MFer turns around and decides that he's going to hire a former senior Justice Department official with a, this is according to the New York Times, a quote, history of taking on Donald Trump and his family business as the office seeks to ramp up its investigation. Let me tell you something, Alvin fucking brag. You wouldn't have to ramp shit up if you hadn't to pump the brakes in the first fucking place. You might have wanted to be in first place as we were looking to roll out indictments against the twice impeach criminal ass motherfucker that we know from his work in New York, from the fact that he got, what, third.

13% of the vote in New York because everyone who has grown up in this state has known that the Trumps are criminals. In fact, you can date back to their denial of black people from being able to rent in their buildings to their tax shelters and all of the other things that they've done. So tell me why on this great occasion, I should applaud Alvin Bragg for a almost a year delay in work that had been being done to deciding to. ramp up now. And I want to know, why did he decide to ramp up now? Right. And the things that I continue to say, and I am not a conspiracy theorist, but something that I always say and deem to be right, follow the money. You tell me why it seems so coincidental that when Alvin Bragg was elected,

that he decides to pump the brakes, then he gets all of this negative attention. And he says, no, no, no, we're still moving forward. You hear crickets for over a year. And now, Now, when you have the Department of Justice bring in Jack Smith to start to be the special counsel over their investigation, Fawney Willis has gotten the rights to her grand jury, and that's rolling. Tish James is like, I'm looking for hundreds of millions of dollars and we'll probably get it if, in fact, that Trump's haven't hid or lost all of their money. Now Alvin Brag all of a sudden wants to come out of the dark and say, oh, but look at me, I'm doing work too?

Miss me with it. Alvin Brag, fuck you, fuck that guy all day long, because you had the goods. We know that you have the goods. And you decided to sit on it. And the real question is, why? Yeah. Besides co-signing all of that, I just want to say that I've been referring to Trump as the disgraced former president, but I'm going to switch to what you called him, which is a twice impeached criminal-ass motherfucker.

Yeah, I like it. It rolls off the tongue. I think that's much better. It really does. It's poetry. It's Shakespeare is what it is. Yeah, shake your shoulders with it. It's good.

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