The Daily Beast Podcast - Kellyanne ‘Glorifies Trump’ but Skewers Jared and Her Hubby

Episode Date: May 24, 2022

Kellyanne Conway’s new book makes very clear the people she has a grudge against, and the ones she doesn’t, according to Daily Beast media reporter Zach Petrizzo. He read the former Trump aide��s book and tells The New Abnormal podcast host Molly Jong-Fast that there are two people she goes after the most—Jared Kushner and her husband, George Conway III. Plus, Washington Post political enterprise reporter Robert Samuels talks about his new book with co-author Toluse Olorunnipa, ‘His Name is George Floyd’ and Molly and co-host Andy Levy analyze the right-wingers who attended CPAC in Hungary and why they (jokingly) think the Twitter user retweeted by Trump, ‘MAGA King Thanos’, will lead the next civil war. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Zhang Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic Invo. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. 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 the wisest and funniest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it. What an excellent show we have today. Daily Beast reporter Zach Petrizo is going to join us, and he's going to tell us about the first look at Kelly Ann Conway's new book and all the exciting things inside of it, along with whatever happened to those truckers and the convoy driving across America. Then we're going to talk to Robert Samuels, who's a national political enterprise reporter at the Washington Post, as well as being the co-author. of his name is George Floyd.

And he's going to tell us about his new book on George Floyd and systematic racism. But first, let's have some fun. Hi, Andy Levy. Hi, Molly Jongfest. We're going to talk about CPAC today. Oh, my dogs are not fans of CPAC. That was a dog whistle.

That's right. Irony dies. They've heard the whistle. So, Seaback has decided that they've been trying to find the most sort of racist and oppressive place. First they moved to Florida and now they've moved to Hungary. Because when you can't get more oppressive than Florida, you got to go somewhere else. Ergo, Hungary. Yeah, they really covered themselves in glory these past few days,

sucking up to Victor Orban. And it was like, it was a great headline in The Guardian. Trump shares CPAC Hungary platform with notorious racist and anti-Semite. And I was like, oh, well, you could have just said that at CPAC America. I mean, I don't really, you know, you also could have just said that of someone who shared the platform with Trump. One of the major speakers there referred to Jews as stinking excrement. Yeah, the best. Yeah.

You had Jack Posobiac there. Pizza Jack. It's sort of like a lot of, how a lot of people have been wearing masks now for COVID, where it's not over their nose anymore. It's just over their mouth. It's like half on. Right. And so they've sort of taken the.

mask half off with regard to like fascism and and all that, but they still get mad if you call them fascists. Like they still won't fully embrace what they are and truthfully say what they are and where they want this country to go. So we're in this sort of mask half on phase, but it's getting closer and closer to just being around the neck, much like the nooses that they probably want to bring back. And it's just, it's absolutely disgrace. It's, And you had Tucker Carlson, of course, spoke there. And you had, I believe, Victor Orban saying that what a country needs is Tucker Carlson on the air 24 hours a day? 24-7. Yeah. Yeah. So if you want a good example of what they think the press should be and what they mean when they talk about free speech, we know exactly what they mean. And it's just the amazing thing is, like I said, they're not even close to hitting bottom yet. They, you know, they get closer every day. But. They're not even close to where they're going to end up.

It's just incredible stuff, the whole thing. They're like trying to learn fascism, right? Like they're like, let's go to a place that really does fascism well. Oh, we'll go to Hungary. It's funny because you'll see the reporting on it. Like, Hungary is not like some huge success story as a country. Like, it's not. It's like just a sort of, you know, fine country that has a fascist leader who doesn't have

democracy and doesn't have a free press. And even like what's super interesting about this, right, the U.S. think tank Freedom House downgraded its assessment of Hungary to being partially free. That's what they want. Right. This is the goal. But, you know, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBT Plus and curbs on independent universities and NGOs because of course. But I think that what's really interesting about Hungary is it's a complete fantasy of these Republicans that they're going to have a country where, you know, where they can just sort of go wild and do whatever they want. I will also say, like, Orban has in the past brought conservative journalists over to publicize him. So we have seen this before.

This is like part of his playbook. Yeah, absolutely. And then you have Matt Schlapp, who, of course, is the head of the group that puts on CPAC. And Robert McGuire happened to tweet about, you know, the Pope not being a big fan of, of Victor Orban and what's going on in Hungary. And Matt Schlapp tweets back, in his mind, he combats a charge of being anti-Semitic by accusing someone of being... The Pope of being owned by George Soros.

George Soros. So these are the people we're dealing with here. And it really is, I mean, you can't parody them. It's just bizarre to me. The issue is, like, George Soros is, an anti-Semitic trope. If you are trying to criticize the Pope while using his connection to George Soros, you might be an anti-Semit. I feel like that's a good way to know if you might be an anti-Semite. Yeah, no, that's a perfect way to put it. But of course, they just, you know,

they continue to put stuff like this out. And it really is. It's a competition. It's like the Ohio senatorial primary just writ large. It's a race to the bottom, as we, you know, always called that between Joshy and J.D. This is what they liked about Trump, too. There was a fascination and sort of a need in the conservative mind for this strong daddy figure. Look, I'm not a psychologist. It's not up to me to say why they have this thing, but they do. And you see it throughout history. It's not like it's not even a, you know, it's not a new thing. I mean, you see it all the time, particularly in Western history, this need for a strong man and this love of a strong man and this worship of, you know, what they view as strength. And that's, they view people

like Orban as like saviors of their nation. And, and that's what they want here. And that's not compatible with, you know, a democratic system of government, a democratic republic, whatever you want to say we are. It's just not compatible. But they don't care for as much as they talk. about, you know, loving the Constitution, they don't. They don't really like any part of it. The only part they like have been gotten rid of through amendments. And I don't know what's left that they even like, except I guess, the Second Amendment. Yeah, they love the Second Amendment, you know, and they love fascist autocrats. So we'll see how this plays out. It hardly seems like it's going to end in tears and likely ours, but who knows. And I would say, like,

Trump didn't go to Hungary, probably, because he's, you know, doesn't want to, God forbid, he missed a golf game. But he did tweet about Civil War. Molly, Molly, Molly, we have to correct it. He trothed about Civil War, not tweeted. Oh, I'm sorry. He trused about Civil War. He retweeted someone called. He re-truthed.

He re-truced someone called Maga King Thanos. It just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Because I had worried that things weren't going to be any stupider than they are now. And he retweeted and it said Civil War, again, thank God he's not on Twitter because only 10 people are on truth social, so no one saw it. Well, except that everyone put it off to Twitter after it did. Yes, well, then there was that, yes. Yeah. You've got the guy who is, I think at this point, you still have to consider him sort of the presumptive nominee in 24.

You know, maybe he won't win, maybe he won't run. But I think right now you have to consider him the odds-on favorite. And he is, I can't even say retruthing. It's a dumbest fucking thing. He is quoting. See, man, I love it. Retruthing. He is quoting someone calling for civil war in the country.

Right. A very serious person. and Maga King. Thanos. Thanos. Theranos is a blood company. No, it's actually a character who tries to destroy the world. Well, Thanos is much more than that, Molly.

You don't want to get me started. Okay, all right. All right. Oh, yeah. I'm going to end up on a 4chan Reddit board. Yeah, you are. Because I'm going to put it there. Thanos wiped out half the universe,

half the life in the entire universe. Molly, and it was only through the exploits and heroism of an intrepid band of Avengers that things were restored. Why did I open the door to this? And this is King Thanos. Oh, good. King Thanos. He's not even Thanos.

He's King Thanos. Maga King Thanos. So who knows what he'll get up to. Okay. We've already, I've already gotten stupid. I'm just glad he's not retweeted cat turd anymore. Yeah. We're going to have a big primary tomorrow.

It's Georgia. It's because it involves Trumpism. It's completely crazy. We have Warnock and Abrams. It looks like a Democratic ticket that's pretty sane and normal. And then on the Republican side, Hershey Walker, many allegations of numerous things from, you know, he does a schick where he talks about his multiple personalities. He's got the domestic violence claims. He's got the business.

these sketchy business claims. I mean, if you're going to be a Trump candidate, you have to have a sketchy business claim. And then you have this runoff for who is going to win the Republican primary for the governor. Will it be Kemp, who committed the cardinal sin of not throwing the election to Trump? Or will it be Purdue who looks just like Kemp, but is more Trumpy? Right? Yeah.

I mean, can you even, if you put those two next to each other, would you be able to which one was which, no. No, I looked at an article beforehand, and I've already forgotten. Yeah. If you did it to me right now, and this is literally a half hour ago, I looked at an article, and I have already, I couldn't, I couldn't tell you now. I wish I had forgotten. But, you know, two old white guys who like to play golf, and both of whom are probably

pretty bad individuals, but one refused to throw the election to Trump, and so he's slightly less terrible than the other. Right. One pulled, he pulled a pence is what we refer to this as. Pulled a pence, yes, that's good. Whereas you sort of, you don't make up for a miserable life by doing the right thing on the right day. But at least on that one day, on one day of your life, you did the right thing. And so that's Pence and that's Kemp. Dan Cuell was the person who told you to.

It still counts as doing that. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Even if you did it for the wrong reason, you did the right thing. Right. Exactly. And there's evidence today that there is likely to be a Pence Trump showdown in 2024. Yeah. I just don't think that's going to be much of a showdown. You know. I mean, there are a lot of people in this Republican Party who think that they are great candidates. They themselves are great presidential candidates, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Oh, yes. Of course. Of course. The governor's race in Georgia does seem pretty set, right? I mean, as far as the Republican side goes, it's Kemp. It's Kemp versus Abrams, yeah. You know, on the senatorial side is Herschel Walker, and you mentioned that he's got the business, you know, problem because... He's a very Trumpy candidate. It's a ticket where you have a Trumpy Senate candidate

and a quote-unquote normal, and again, normal. He's still terrible. Republican candidate, it's an interesting thing because you have that in Pennsylvania. too, right? You're going to have this zealous Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate who is, you know, he funded buses to go

down to the insurrection. Right. Remember. And he is going to be the candidate and then you have a sort of less zealous, though still very likely Trumpy candidate in either and they're going to recount TB Dr. Oz or

Tina Powell's husband. But I want to get back to Walker for a second because he's got this whole thing with this veterans group where he's been out saying that he started a program called Patriot Support and he said it multiple times. And then the Associated Press, you know, took a look and it turns out that he didn't start this program and that he's only been a celebrity spokesperson. And then it further turns out that the organization itself is, first of all, it's a for-profit program.

It's not a charity. It has done some shitty work and has had like veterans. have ended up committed against their will because of this, because they went to this program to help them. And they found themselves held in, like, inpatient care. So not only did he lie about starting this program, it turns out, the program itself is really bad. Just everything about him is just awful. And then you mentioned the multiple personality thing, which again, you know, nobody's here to make fun of mental illness, but he basically used it as a defense for domestic abuse. He basically, what did he say? He said, he said, you can't blame him for

that or he doesn't remember that because that wasn't him. That was a different personality. I mean, I think that a lot of people would consider this person not to be a good candidate. Yes. I mean, I'm just saying, like, a lot of people would say that a candidate who has questions about his business questions about his mental health questions about domestic violence might be a bad candidate. Going to go out on a limb here.

Except that those people are not Georgia Republicans, apparently. Well, and I think also this was Trump's pick. And we'll see. But I mean, if, you know, Reverend Warnock was the Reverend of Martin Luther King's church, he is extremely popular candidate and an extremely popular senator who has really worked hard. He's also raised a lot of money. So, I mean, again, we're months away from this race. The primary isn't even over. But it'll be interesting to see how people cover this. And I hope that they won't make false equivalencies because the difference. between Reverend Warnock and Herschel Walker is enormous. So you're saying there's a difference between being the pastor of Dr. Martin Luther King's Church and making up stuff about businesses and having domestic abuse charges against you. Yes, I'm saying that there is a difference. Okay, I just wanted to make, I just wanted it to be clear to our listeners that you were saying those are different things.

You were taking a stand for once. Zach Petrizo is a reporter at The Daily Beast. Welcome to the new abnormal. Hey, thanks for having me back. So we got to talk about the book. The book by the worst person in the world, Kelly Ann Conway, discuss. Yes. Kelly and Conway is, of course, releasing a book on Tuesday of this week.

The book is, of course, kind of in true, you know, Kelly and Conway fashion, kind of glorifies Trump at every turn. I think we can tell our listeners safely they don't need to buy it, and it's not the kind of book they would like. We can film in on all the important parts, of course. I read the whole thing on Saturday night and an all-nighter to make sure I, you know, I got in every last word. I do have to say, you know, over at the daily beast.com,

we have the best part of it, which, of course, is this part about how she alleged that Trump asked her if he should quit. It was after the Axis Hollywood tape came out, and there was a lot of controversy at the time on that same. day, you know, in this book, of course, as we reported the Beast, she alleges that, you know, Trump asked her, you know, quote unquote, will I lose? Will we lose? Can we still win? And then at a different point, Trump kind of turns to her and asks her, according to what she writes in the book, should I get out of the race? Right. And this is kind of the most interesting part. Now we know,

through a Trump spokesperson, they have denied that Trump even uttered these words. So it shows a lot of tension happening there. I just want a full disclosure say that I'm friends with George. So, I mean, and I also think that Kellyanne is absolutely the worst. But I want to point out, so if this is true, and again, Trump has said it's not true, and you can do with that nothing because he's a serial liar. But if that was true, then Killian Conway is actually responsible for keeping Trump in the race. And our national nightmare could have ended with those access Hollywood tapes, had she said, yeah, you shouldn't run. Yeah, exactly, which is really interesting now.

I mean, here we have Kellyanne Conway, who, you know, kind of has alternative facts, I guess we could call them, right? And we, you know, kind of facing off against Trump and Trump world now, who, you know, Trump has always had kind of what I call a kind of sticky relationship with the truth. Tenuous. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, I mean, here we have two people with credibility that are kind of questionable, both kind of going out of each other, kind of behind the scenes, as we've,

kind of learned at the Daily Beast. So look, I think there's a lot of tension. Of course, the book is meant to be kind of this big respect to Donald Trump, praise Donald Trump. But, you know, sometimes I think, you know, depending on what happens here, if this is the truth, just still kind of up in the air, it's really interesting, right? Because these tapes were definitely a big deal back in October of 2016. And people were talking about them. And it was, you know, kind of the hot conversation I will note, as we noted at the beast that publicly, Trump was saying he wasn't going to quit. If he did say this in private, it's just another example of him saying something, one thing in public and another thing in private. Yes, in liar versus liar who lied.

It's very hard to know what is going on there. But I do think it is pretty interesting. There is like a philosophical question of like how do you write a book, which is interesting enough for people to want to read but still sycophantic enough for Trump to still take you back when he runs again in 2024, God forbid if he does. Yeah, I think that's a good question. I know, look, in the book, there are also some mentions, you know, she kind of hangs Jared Kushner out to dry. And of course, Jared Kushner does, he still, you know, as we can't know at The Beast,

he still has a big pool in Trump world. And to kind of dish on Kushner in the way she did in the book and kind of disparage him, Look, I think that's kind of another strike against her in Trump World. So, you know, I wouldn't say she's totally on the outs as of now. But I would say that, you know, there are plenty in Trump World that are that are more upset. Kushner is an easy one to criticize because a lot of Trump's face doesn't like him for any number of reasons, right? And they're suspicious of him because he's, he's Jew like myself. So I think it's easier for her.

And her person inside Trump World has always been Melania. Right. Kushner has ties to a lot of folks, you know, in the media and a lot of folks elsewhere and does have a say. And I think especially kind of, you know, in Trump world, there are, you know, kind of captains, lieutenants. There are a lot of people and kind of, you know, I would say he's, he's definitely up there. And I would say disparaging him definitely isn't a good look for Conway and definitely raises a lot of eyebrows in Trump land. Who else really gets it in the book? George, right? Yeah, of course, George. I mean, I think at one point, you know, she says,

something to the effect of George Conway, you know, his actions were sinister, quote unquote, right? And really doesn't hold back. You know, of course, as the Dilley be subtened a copy, this is kind of a little bit of it. But, you know, she says that she would be tending to things like dishes, dogs, laundry, managing children, dramas. And she compares this, quote unquote, George would be steps away from me, tucked away in his home office, plotting against my boss and me. Oh, very. She would go on to stay on television that day. he was constitutional law expert George Conway. So really poking fun at him in a way

while also taking some pretty big shots that kind of their tenuous relationship, I would say, would be fair there. This is pretty bad. So ultimately, really, the people who get it in this book, since we're not buying it, are George and Jared Kushner. Yeah, say those are the two big ones. I would say the people that don't get a lot of heat

are, of course, Trump. But it's kind of interesting, of course, it sounds as though Trump isn't too mad because he's claiming, you know, some of the things that were quoted in the book of him saying, turns out, you know, he's claiming are false. So the book meant to praise Trump is now, you know, really ticking Trump off. This week we had CPAC Hungary. Oh, just a little more cautious than the state side hungry. Is that kind of the... I have questions. Yeah, I mean, for me at least, as a media reporter at the beast and as a politics reporter, I can look at things through a lens. And I would say my media lens on this whole thing

is like, okay, journalists were barred from covering, like, what are we hiding? First of all, is like my first question. Like, why is there even press access or question about that in the first place? So the whole thing just reeks of kind of suspicion to me, like everything. Because, of course, when we're barring press, I know people like, you know, a bunch of outlets like Vice News and Rolling Stone and others, you know, had a ton of press credential issues. So, of course, that's a big concern just right off the bat. You have been covering the truckers. You'll remember the truckers.

They protested in Canada. What did they protest? No one knows. Yeah. Have you been able to figure that out yet, Molly, or just anything? High gas prices, right? Right. It's like, what are they in town for?

Of course, they went out to California. You know, I should preface this. They came to Washington, D.C. area in early March. They hung out for like a month. Then they went back across the country to California. They hung out in California, ran up to Portland. It's a way to complain about gas. Yeah, exactly. Ran up to Portland. There is a police investigation outside of Portland going on now because there are some people that alleged that they shot at, and there's some video to back some of these claims up, but shot at protesters. So of course, they were armed. We know that at least one of these trucker convoy members

was armed. So, of course, pretty dangerous group. They came back across the country recently, was back in Hagerstown for a couple days, which is an hour 30 north of Washington, D.C. area, hung out for a while. And then, long story short, they were going to plan this, like, overnight siege attack on Washington, D.C. Long story short, I think, you know, some people kind of thwarted that effort, meaning, you know, local law enforcement was like, kind of like, if you guys go in here and do this, you know, your CDLs, your licenses are going to be revoked, and that kind of scared them off. Well, that's good.

Yeah, and now we just have a bunch of random people running around in D.C., yelling about things like national sovereignty for no apparent reason. Oh, good, national sovereignty, yes. Yeah, yeah. That is amazing stuff. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Zach. I feel even more depressed than I did. Now, I'm not depressed.

I'm thrilled, and it was great to have you. Thank you. Robert Samuels is co-author of his name is George Floyd, and a politics reporter at the Washington Post. Welcome to the new abnormal Robert Samuels. Thank you for having me. I appreciate being here, Molly. Well, we are excited to have you. So this is like a very big topic, and I'm curious how you got here.

Yeah, explaining systemic racism in the context of one man's life. It's not a walk in the park. But we started at the Washington Post with a series that we did in October 2020 with a host of really fabulous journalists. us trying to be able to show readers how tangible systemic racism can be that it wasn't just a theoretical thing that was hanging out there, but it had real impacts. And so we decided that maybe the way to show it was to look through the life of George Floyd. And what we knew after that series was there was so much work to be done because we were all

kind of amazed at just how tangible and how real those forces were in his life and how they shaped his ambition up until the day he died and long before he was born. And so we were hoping to be able to tell that story about who he is as a way of helping readers understand who we are as a society. That is a big job. So explain to me how this became a book. We interviewed more than 400 people over between. October 2020 and December 21. Just speaking with not only friends and family of George Floyd, of which there are many, he comes from a big family, he had a lot of friends.

But we also spoke with a bunch of experts who are much smarter than Tolu and me in terms of how they've been thinking about the country and the research they've been doing and trends to look out for. And then we spoke with people who did not know George Floyd, people who are moved by his story and took up the cause on the streets and as well as people who tried to take up the cause in elections and legislators. There are a lot of lawmakers in this book. Mayor Fry from Minneapolis sat for a number of interviews. Governor Tim Walz is a part of the book. Amy Klobuchar sat for some interviews. Joe Biden was also participated in hopes of being able to tell this story in its

fullness so people could understand kind of this moment in time that we lived in and put it in the proper context. Were there things like we know a lot about it, but there's a lot we don't know. Can you sort of tell us what surprised you? Sure. I mean, there are twin things. Tolu and I, we were really conscientious that we did not want to write something that felt exploitative or like a black pain novel or a black pain piece of text.

And we found out the solution was George Floyd himself, who was a gregarious and godly man. He was interesting to learn about. He was a friend that everyone has, that you look back and you wonder about those times. There are so many times you talk to people, and they just feel like, man, Floyd. You know, we all have that kind of person in our lives. Right. But the other thing is we were there occasionally spending time with the family and spending a lot of times with his friends and other loved ones as the trial unfurled for Derek Chauvin. And during that trial, there was another black boy who was killed by the police. And racism for me, I always used to think about it as kind of the dark cloud, the original sin, the stain on the fabric of America.

But when I saw this encircling so many people who were trying to fight, I realized that it was more of a force. And I got why people who had lived humble lives like the Floyd family and so many of the families I met in Minnesota had decided they needed to fight because it was a force that would continue to move if it was not acknowledged and confronted. And I began to feel convicted and said, again, saying to myself that if we did not write this book as fully as we can, it would consume me too. We had to find a way to be able to help tell this story and allow readers to understand the pernicious and insidious value of racism on every human spirit that it can corrupt all of us, black, white, yellow, red as the Bible songs I used to sing in. Church used to go. And so that's what I learned. It deepened my sense of mission as a journalist. That's such an important thing that you just said.

I myself am sober 24 years. So I think a lot about the struggle and the way we treat addiction. Was there a component of addiction there? Yes. So we talk about drug dependency in the book. And we have a really robust discussion about how it operates and how it differs, how the country treats it differently and sees it differently. What we know is people turn. to substances for a very similar way.

There's an escapist aspect to it. There's a feeling of coping that comes with it. And the conditions that would inspire a black person to turn to a substance as opposed to a white person have to do with the different ways they grew up in life and what they're what they're seeing. We also know that how it's treated has been different. And we go through the history of this in this country, in this country about when, When it came to African Americans using substances and creating habits, it was often seen as something that should be criminalized, lock them up, keep them out. It's too dangerous.

And this happens in the book when George Floyd, he is caught up in the snare of mass incarceration in this country. And he is also in a state that is moving away from rehabilitative services in prison. And so he does not get the opportunity that people have to heal. And we know this with the opioid crisis now, right? When it started flurrying up in white suburban communities, billions of dollars were sent and continue to be spent to focus on healing those people. And you know, we looked at the numbers.

And even though during that period of mass incarceration, they said they were going to put money into treatment and education and research from the federal level into urban communities, which in that time, at black communities, that money never came. And so George Floyd was trying to heal himself in a world and we go through the scientific research and the lack of scientific research. He was trying to heal in a world that did not know how to heal him because there was no scientific incentive to look into the research on how to best heal a person who's dealing with systemic racism in this country. I want to drill down on Minnesota a little bit because what you're saying about their incarceration

moving further away from rehabilitation is super important. And I'm curious for someone like me who lives in New York and just didn't have a, you know, I never thought of Minnesota as a place that, you know, you don't think of that as a state that's going to have this terrible policing problem, but they really do. And can you talk to us a little bit about that? The lack of rehabilitation happens in Texas. Oh, right, where he's jailed. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's because of the lack of help and support in Texas that George Floyd moves to Minnesota because it's known as being a more progressive place and because there's a treatment center there that caters specifically in helping to treat black men. And it works for George Floyd. We talk about this all in the book. It's fascinating to think about the difference between how a substance use program centers itself when it focuses on the black experience as opposed to the white experience. But then in Minnesota, they call it the Minnesota paradox, right? It's this progressive place, a very progressive policy.

And at the same time, it hosts some of the widest gaps between living life of black people and white people. The economic and educational gaps disparities are wider than almost any other state in the entire United States. Now, why is that? Well, African Americans and black people, there's a large immigrant population to make up about 7% of the state. In Minneapolis, they make up about 19%. And this was a state that when we talk to people, they believed they needed to do the greatest good. for the greatest number. And so they'd be surprised when these statistics would come out. And of course, the greatest, most immediate threat is with police filing. What we know about

Derek Chauvin's precinct, and we spoke with the former police chief and people who used to run that precinct and people who are in the precinct who actually knew Derek Chauvin, as well as people who are watchdogs in the community, they will tell you that Derek Chauvin was not an unusual police officer in terms of his use of aggression in the community. A lot of officers acted like him. But the distinction is that when people complained and they were able to track more than 30 complaints about Derek Chauvin, that there was little recourse done about the complaint that came from the public. We also know he started using what we call a series of techniques that restrained the neck, right? That cut off the breathing. The first documented in like use of that that we found Molly happens

18 days after he's trained on how to use it. So he deploys it pretty fast. And over time, his use of neck restraints becomes more aggressive from the ones we know about. There might be others we don't know about. But these are the ones we know about. And in a number of those instances, he does it when he says, he justifies it by saying, this guy is a big guy. So when he encounters George Floyd on the 25th of May of 2020, he sees a man of great size. He suspects he's on drugs and does not know how that operates because we do not fully appreciate what substance use can do to a black body. And he acts in a way that is more aggressive than he has when he first learned the technique, but no one stopped him. There was no public documentation of police

officers watching or thinking about how Derek Chauvin used this technique. And so it was a recipe of two Americas and both people in that incident. I mean, there are other officers, but both Mr. Sheldon and George Lloyd and Mr. Floyd, they're both shaped by their experience and the residue of racism in this country. Jesus. Why did this police department not respond to the complaints against the officer? That's a question for the police. Right. I mean, I know that's a hard question. I'm sorry. No, but what we were able to find was that the process was incredibly complicated. There was a civilian review board in Minneapolis, but they didn't have subpoena power to get documents.

And they didn't have enforcement power either. So there was a very complicated path. And we describe it in the book. And so, you know, we have abbreviated time, but we go through just how complicated it can be for a complaint to come from Molly and get to someone who could actually enforce the complaint. And there's also an incentive that if you say, don't do that again and you move on, there's no record of it. So there's a bureaucratic incentive not to take these things to the fullest extent. It's just so disturbing. What would you leave our listeners with, what do you think is sort of an important thing you learned writing this book?

What I say to you, Molly, and people who are listening to your podcast, right, is that there's a lot of pain in this book. It's indisputable. And we want people to have a deeper understanding of pain in America and what happens when we don't acknowledge systemic racism. But there's also something else that I think is really important. And that is George Floyd, despite all of the things that had happened. in his life. Despite the mistakes he made and the system that seemed completely unforgiving, he never stopped fully believing that this country could be a better country, that people could be able to see him in his fullness. He had a spirit of persistence. And he'd say, you know,

we can overcome this day through faith and we can overcome the darkness. The people who took up his cause, largely black people, they also made this bet with America. that if they told their stories and if people can see the wholeness and the fullness of the picture, the proper context, that we might be able to move something in this country. We might be able to change it. They never gave up believing in the future of the American promise. And I hope readers take that away. And I hope then they ask themselves why and how to square those ideas that come from other people in the book that hate might never go away or we might have missed the shot to fix this. And so a lot of this, what happens in a line with people who make decisions, we cannot do as

journalists, but we hope that we help to shine a light so that people can think about every day how they can contribute and how they can see people in their fullness. Oh, incredible. Thank you so much. This is such an incredible interview. I really appreciate you giving us the time. Thank you. Thank you, Molly. I really appreciate your work. Andy Levy, who is your fuck-that-guy?

Molly Jong-Fast, my fuck-that guy is self-described liberal Bill Maher. He has a show on HBO, which, if you're extremely unlucky, you watch, Jesse. He's one of those people who has decided that the Democrats have gone too far to the left, as exemplified by electing Joe Biden as its candidate. But he did. Yes. Far left. Yes.

Joseph R. Biden. Joseph R. Biden. It's Robinette. Yes. It's a middleman in case you're wondering. So Bill Moore on his god-awful show over the weekend or Friday night whenever it airs, I guess Jesse can answer that for everyone. He basically.

intimated that we're seeing more transgender children, as he says, because they're being created. And this, of course, is a full-on right-wing talking point, a full-on turf talking point. That's trans-exclusionary radical feminists, for those who don't know. The little clip that he decided to put out on Twitter of him doing this whole thing, he had the honor and the privilege of getting a retweet from someone who's simply said, thank you, Bill Maher. And that someone was representative Marjorie Taylor Green. So you know you're doing well and you know you are, you know, the committed liberal that you claim to be when you're getting an appreciative and thankful retweet from Marjorie Taylor Green. And I just want to add, like, the line for all of these people that they always use is that, you know, oh, well, I haven't, I haven't changed.

haven't changed. It's the, you know, it's the Democrats have changed or the left has changed. Well, yes, because that's sort of the definition of being progressive that you keep moving forwards. If you stay the same, you're a conservative. I would just add that he is a 66-year-old multi-millionaire who's been famous for 30 years. Perhaps he doesn't have his finger on the pulse. No, he absolutely doesn't have his finger on the pulse, but he doesn't want to. That's the thing. He believes that the stuff that he has thought for the last 30 years, he has never had to interrogate any of that and see if maybe he needed to change any of it. And there's absolutely nothing progressive or liberal about that. That is as conservative as it gets.

This is what I thought 20 years ago. So this is what I think now. Instead of looking at the world around you and thinking, oh, you know what? Well, hey, maybe I was wrong. Or, hey, maybe things have changed. and I should look into that and be open-minded and see if maybe I need to make some changes. None of these people are liberals is what I'm saying. They're not liberal-minded.

They're not progressive in any sense of the word. They are conservatives, regardless of whether they happen to believe in a welfare state. They are conservatives. And for that, I say fuck Bill Maher and fuck those guys. Now, Molly. You want to know who my fuck that guy is? I do. I was thinking about it.

I was trying to decide if I wanted to know or not. And I do want to know. So my fuck that guy is one Madison Gawthorne because I still find it very interesting. He lost and there was no like election interference. No, I was robbed. No. Like, so I guess that this like the vote was rigged. That only happens when you lose to a Democrat.

Is that how that works? Also, he lost, but he lost bigly. Trump lost bigly in certain states where he decided. He also still won. And, I mean, I think it's interesting that he has decided that, like, I think the playbook here, interesting, too, that Oz, Trump told Oz just declare you won and tell them to stop counting the ballots. I mean, like, Jesus fucking Christ. So Madison Cawthorne gets my ire for saying that now he's going to go ultra dark maga, whatever that means.

Like, sorry, guys, it can't be worse. Like, I'm making a rule now. No more. You can't be worse than you already are. Like, your party has held us all hostage for, like, seven years. Like, it's enough. There's no ultra-maga. It's all bad.

Like, there's no degrees of, like, the worst. It's the worst. And so he gets a hearty fuck you. And then also now he's under investigation for having a, quote-unquote, relationship with his staff. And for that, he gets a hearty, healthy, fuck you to Madison Cawthor. Amen. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from The Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics and science.

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