The Daily Beast Podcast - Kyrsten Sinema’s Ex-Friend Has Proof She’s ‘Calculated’

Episode Date: December 13, 2022

Kyrsten Sinema is no stranger to burning bridges. She’s in the process of doing just that with her former Democratic colleagues now that she officially switched her party to Independent, and according to David Shapira, a former Arizona politician and ex-friend to Sinema, she burned a bridge with him, too. Shapira wrote a now-viral Twitter thread about the ordeal but came on this episode of The New Abnormal to break down exactly what happened—and the half-assed apology she allegedly gave him after—as well as some reasons he believes his “calculated” former pal cares more about “notoriety” than her role as a servant of the public. Also Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Spencer Ackerman, and author of the Forever Wars newsletter, joins the pod to share what he thinks will happen with the Yemen-Saudi ceasefire resolution Bernie Sanders recently proposed, which calls for the United States to stop the residual aid that it’s giving to Saudi Arabia. Plus! Danielle and Andy make an extremely strong case for why Marjorie Taylor Greene needs a mute button after her latest comments on trans kids and Jan. 6, and ponder the idea of Kevin McCarthy retiring. Hey, co-hosts can dream! 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're going to be joined by Spencer Ackerman, who writes the newsletter Forever Wars.

And he's going to talk to us about the war in Yemen and the tough road of decisions Biden has ahead with it. Then we'll talk to David Shapira, who's a former Arizona politician, who has a lot of experience with Kirsten Cinema, which she'll tell us all about and shed some light on her recent decision to become an independent instead of a Democrat. But first, let's have some fun. How are you? You know, I'm great, Andy. How are you? That's good to hear. Yeah, I'll say I'm great, too.

I don't want to be outdone. Let me do an incredibly professional seg here. Do you know who's not great? Marjorie Taylor Green. So Marjorie Taylor Green speaking at, I think it was a New York Young Republican Club dinner on Saturday night. She said a couple of ridiculous things. One is kind of funny, so we'll get to that in a minute. But the other one is kind of not so funny.

And she basically said that if she had organized the events of January 6th, quote unquote, we would have won. She said, I want to tell you something. If Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention we would have been armed. So there's a couple of interesting things here. One is, well, the fact that that's a fucking insane thing to say. But even beyond that, there were armed people on January 6th. You know, I guess this is that fiction that Tucker Carlson and

others have tried to spread that there were no guns involved on January 6, which is a flat-out lie. I mean, we have video that proves otherwise. And the other thing to me is we have her text messages from that day when she was hiding, when she was cowering. So for her to now suddenly act like she is this, you know, tough fighter who would have won January 6th is kind of hilarious. And here's the thing. This to me is she's a coward. She's an absolute moral. moral coward. And I don't call her a coward because she was cowering on January 6th. I don't blame her for that. There were armed insurrectionist vigilantes storming the Capitol. And while I have no doubt that 100% of them were fans of Marjorie Taylor Green, maybe they wouldn't have recognized her,

or maybe she would have gotten caught in crossfire if things had gotten worse. So I don't fault her for that. That's a fairly normal human reaction. And they were told to, you know, hide, basically. Where I call her a Howard is because she did all that. And now she has like the nerve to get up there on the stage and say, I'll tell you what. If that was me doing that, we would have won and we would have been armed and talking like, it's just a version of the chicken hawk thing. I hate this shit to no end. It's like we saw from your actions.

It's not like you didn't acquit yourself with bravery on the actual day of. You did nothing. You let the Capitol police save you. And then, of course, you bash them. But you didn't pull a Gerard Butler in what. White House down or anything like that. You did nothing. She's a punk.

She's a punk. She's a punk. Please speak to that, Danielle. Marjorie Taylor Green is an embarrassment to Congress. I get so fucking angry every time she opens her mouth, every time that she is allowed to speak. Marjorie Taylor Green is somebody who attacked a child who had already been a victim of gun violence and stalked them on the grounds of the Capitol, right?

People don't bring that up often when she talks about, you know, the harming of children. They don't talk about the way in which she threatened David Hogg with a weapon that she was carrying in her purse at the time before she became a member of Congress. Like, I just find everything that comes out of her mouth to be fucking disgusting. And if Kevin McCarthy or any Republican for that matter had any sort of backbone whatsoever, they would have shut her down a long time ago and not have waited for Nancy Pelosi to do it to remove her from her committees because she has no business being on anybody's committee and come to find that in January, I'm sure she'll be leading one of them. The things that she says about our nation's

teachers, the way that she disparages at this event, she disparaged transgender people, like, I'm just so sick to death of their white fragility, of their tough girl, tough guy talk, knowing good goddamn well, that when the action actually got underway on the day of the insurrection that she was under a table just like Josh Hawley was. They're so quick to pump their fist, right, on stages and in places that are safe for them, but then when actual danger happens, they're nowhere to be found. And then to boot the people who actually put their fucking lives on the line to protect their cowering asses, they didn't even fucking vote to make sure that those people, right, would get the Congressional Medal of Freedom, to get the recognition for the protection

that they gave our democracy and those people that are supposed to be representative of that democracy. She is a sham. And I really wish that like somebody would just pull the plug on her ability to speak because all she does is damage

our democracy, the legacy of congressional leaders, and she should be seen as an embarrassment to the Republican Party instead of one of their, you know, their new brand of far right voices. I can't stay.

her, Andy. I'm sorry. I think it's okay to not stand her. I don't think that's going to get you in trouble with our listeners. And if it is, they're going to have to go through me because I am a tough guy. I do want to correct you on one thing. You said that she cowered under, she sat under a table with Josh Hawley when in fact Josh Hawley, as we know, bravely ran away. Oh, you're right. I just want to correct you on that. But yeah, you're absolutely right. She gets up there and she says these things and she is an absolute coward. She speaks at an event run by Nick Fuente. She stands on stage with him, you know, with her arm around him. And then she pretends not to know who he is when people say, you know, hey, this guy is basically a Nazi. She's like, well, I was not aware of that. You're a liar. You're a

coward. And as you said, you know, in this same speech, she went after trans people, which she does all the time. And she's a bully. It's 2022. We should all know by now that bullies are cowards. And this is who she is. And you're right about Kevin McCarthy and we'll get to him about something else later. But it's, you know, it's profiles and cowardice all the way down and all the way up in the Republican Party, particularly the members of Congress. So, yeah. But the other thing that she said at that dinner that I want to talk about because it's actually, it's equally stupid, but it's at least a little bit funny. She was going after transgender children, which is, you know, a normal thing for an adult to do and not at all psychopathic. And she made a claim that teachers can pass around dildos, butt plugs, and lube.

And then she said, you can pick up a butt plug or a dildo at Target nowadays. And I just, like, what? I mean, I'm not in the market for either of those things. So maybe, and I'm not shaming anyone who is, you know, do your thing. Maybe I'm not aware of this. But I was not under the impression that you could just walk into a target and buy a butt plug. No, you actually can't. why would you allow a lie to get in the way of a good story so that you can continue to demonize

an already marginalized group of people, right? And, you know, here's the thing. Again, this is the party that is supposed to be the party of family values, right? This is how they have always talked about themselves for decades and decades. But they have no problem making sure that they put a target on the back of trans kids who have a suicide rate that is in the upwards of the 50% well above the national average. But you don't care, because if you care about it, kids, then you wouldn't weaponize them. You wouldn't use them as a political football in order to score points. But her, you know, it's like the Republicans' obsession with sex and like sex toys and all of these imaginative things that they think are happening or that they're

trying to stop from happening. None of that shit happens in K-12 school. We don't even have basic, thoughtful sex education in our schools because of right-wingers like Marjorie Taylor Green, right? Who would rather us have high cases of sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancies that are off the charts because God forbid that we talk to children about like their bodies and what is okay and what is not and how they care for them, right? No, that's not what the Republican Party wants. And so they go on these tropes and, you know, while we want to say that these things are funny that she says, this is how shootings happen at Club Q. This is how violence increases against that are marginalized because you demonize them the way that she does. You talk about the danger

that they pose to your children and what teachers are doing. And so teachers then are afraid to tell kids anything, afraid to act as that support for that LGBTQ kid that wants to come out, that wants to find a safe space. That's what they are doing. And so, you know, while I want to just laugh and say, yeah, she's crazy and, oh, can you imagine Target and Target needing to come out and say like, this isn't who we are, this is how violence occurs because of people like her and because of the interpretations of her rhetoric. Yeah, it's also, let's be honest, it's what she wants. I mean, it's foolish at this point to even say that, oh, well, she's not calling for actual

violence. That's what she wants. And I'm fully comfortable saying that. Switching gears, I guess I was going to say to a Democratic woman, but we can't say that anymore. And I'm talking, of course, about Kirsten Cinema, who is no longer. a Democrat, she has taken herself out of the Democratic Party and become an independent. Yeah, I mean, somebody remind me when Kirsten Cinema was an actual Democrat.

The woman is a thorn in the side of our democracy. Kirsten Cinema loves her name and lights. She should have gone to Hollywood instead of going to the U.S. Senate because all she cares about is herself, the attention that she gets from playing the quote-unquote denim jacket-wearing Maverick, this entire theme and narrative switch to say that I'm an independent and this is what the people of Arizona want. No, the people of Arizona actually voted for you because you said that you were a Democrat and shared their values. You pulled a rope a dope-a-dope on them, right? Like that's what Kirsten Cinema did. And she says that she's going to still caucus with Democrats,

but Andy, from reports, she doesn't show up to those meetings. Yeah. I mean, she barely caucused with them when she was an actual member of the party. The thing that sucks about this is that the Democrats sort of have to put up with this and have to keep her in her committee assignments and all that stuff because they have such a narrow majority. It's 51-49. In a much better world, the Democrats would have 55, 60s, well, 100, but let's not get crazy. But in a much better world, the Democrats would have 55, you know, 60 seats, whatever. And they could basically tell her where she could, you know, stick her stupid classes, but they can't. And that's just the reality of the situation. So they have to continue to let her have her committee seats and they have to caucus with her instead of just saying,

you know what? No, we have no interest in you. You have no interest in us. Let's call it an amicable separation. But they can't do that. And of course, she knows that. So all she does, you know, she knows that really this changes nothing for her. Yep. In terms of day-to-day life in the Senate, but what it does is maybe give her a clearer path to being reelected her next time up, because I think her hope is that the Democrats won't want to run a Democrat against her and possibly split the vote between that person and her and thereby elect a Republican. This is pure calculation on her part. And I think, and like everything else she does, it is strictly about her and it is strictly about keeping her name in the spotlight and getting idiots like us to talk

about her because we can't help ourselves. But we sort of have no choice because this shit is important. And it sucks because she's just so obviously just a classic narcissist. A hundred percent. Yeah. So we're doing exactly what she wants, but, you know, we sort of have to. It's our job to cover the news. And unfortunately, that is news, but it really doesn't change anything at all. So switching gears again, Kevin McCarthy, speaking of things that never change, which is this man who talks out of both sides of his mouth every fucking chance that he gets. Kevin McCarthy caught on audio again. People love to tape this man. Like Kevin McCarthy really should pat people down before he allows them in his space. Because he's caught, he's caught on video following the January 6th attacks saying basically that he

wanted Republicans' Twitter accounts to be taken down, that they were dangerous, that they were saying some hot shit and can't we can't we get rid of them it's like yeah kevin mccarthy i wish that you would use your voice you know when you were on the floor of the house to talk about the insurrection to talk about how these people were trying to overturn our democracy but instead a couple of weeks after the insurrection what did he do he flew down to marlago to kiss donald trump's ring and it's the same shit he's been doing so i'm like if i were a republican which thank god i am not but if i I were, Kevin McCarthy would be the last fucking person on my list to vote for speaker. He is, he's just such a piece of shit.

Like he has no spine and no backbone and no value and he will move with the wind. He will move with the wind. Yeah. And again, like, so he was caught on tape saying those things about getting rid of the Twitter accounts of the, you know, the various Republicans who seemed sort of, you know, pretty pro coup. And then just the other day, he decides to wade into the current Twitter. controversies, and he says, through coercion, coordination, and influence, the federal government

has used Twitter and other big tech as it stick to silence speech it doesn't like. We will bring accountability and Americans' free speech will be protected, which of course, as you say, it's exactly the opposite of what he was saying back then when he was like, can't Twitter take their accounts down. So this is what he does, and he does this time and time again. And you're right, he has absolutely no spine. I mean, I compared him to Senator Jellyfish from the X-Med movies. That's exactly what he is. And he will say or do anything because all that matters to him is power. And he has no moral compass. He has no ethics. If the truth walked by him in a building, you know, he would not recognize it. And then, but you're right, though, he does always seem to get caught on tape. And I'm now just

picturing him like sitting at home and accidentally saying, uh, Alexa before he says everything, so that it just gets recorded. And so that there are all these recordings out there because he's just so fucking stupid that he doesn't realize what he's doing. And it's just like, how can you keep getting caught on tape saying these things and then acting like they never happened? Because that's what he does. That's the craziest part of it all is that he just denies it. Oh, I didn't say that. It was taken out of context. Bitch, it came out of your mouth. Right? Like, it came out of your mouth. Like, I just don't understand. But then we, you know, the rest of the Republican Party falls for it. He's not powerful. He's a puppet. And that's why I think the freedom calls.

wants him because then they'll get their way at the end of the day. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's clearly what they're hoping for. And I mean, look, we've said this before about him that, I mean, I have said I don't see any way he's not going to be speaker. I don't know. I'm a little, I might be willing to backtrack that on that a little now because it does seem like in the past week or so, there's been more and more expression on the Republican side of, you know, ah, maybe we don't want this guy. I honestly don't know what would be better. I mean, I would, First of all, I would love to see him not be speaker just because it would be hilarious, because that's all he's ever fucking wanted in his life, it seems like.

Mm-hmm. But on the other hand, we can end up with, I mean, Andy Biggs? I mean, good God. There is no one that is better than the other. They're all terrible. Right. I don't know that we end up with anyone better. If it's not him, we probably don't.

But I'm still sort of on the side of if he doesn't get it, it would be so fucking funny that I could put up with however bad it is. Do you think that he would flip-flop after? Like, he doesn't get Speaker. It's the only thing that he's been angling for. It's why he backtracked about Trump and the insurrection. It's why he, you know, kisses the ring of Marjorie Taylor Green and the other extremists in the party.

Like, if he doesn't get Speaker, does the real Kevin McCarthy stand up or no? I kind of feel like if I were him, if I didn't get Speaker, I'd fucking retire. That's it, man. Like, how do you show your face? The one thing that you wanted this whole time that you've been. angling for that if at any point in your life you did have a spine, you had it surgically removed so that you could get this job and then you don't get it? Like, how do you not just at that point, just tuck your tail between your legs and go back to whatever swamp you came from? But I don't know.

I don't think there is a real Kevin McCarthy anymore. Maybe there was at one point. I don't, I don't think that person exists. Yeah. And you know what? You can't shame the shameless. So I can imagine him quitting either. Like that. I don't. He's not quitting. Yeah. Oh, God. 2014 saw the beginning of a civil war in Yemen, when Houthi rebel forces gain control of the capital city of Sanaa. And in 2015, the Yemeni president asked Saudi Arabia for help fighting the Houthi,

beginning what is now eight years of what has widely been viewed as a proxy war between the Saudis and Iran, with numerous human rights atrocities being perpetrated against the Yemeni people. And of course, America has been involved, providing material and financial support to the Saudi side, beginning with the Obama administration, escalating during the Trump presidency, and continuing under President Biden. Is this about to change? Here to bring us up to speed is the publisher of the Great Forever Wars newsletter, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Spencer Ackerman. Spencer, thanks so much for being here. Hey, thanks for having me, Andy. So Spencer, before we get to what might happen in Congress as soon as this week, a quick question about Joe Biden. During his campaign for the

presidency, he said he would make Saudi Arabia a pariah nation. Oddly, I feel. I feel as though he hasn't quite done that? It is almost like the last year has seen a giant psych placed on that quote. I'm not really seeing much in the way of parieting, especially given that, you know, we're recording this a couple days after Xi Jinping got the red carpet rolled out for him in Riyadh, which is not the sort of thing that you would really expect to see with a pariet nation. Yeah.

As of right this second, we are still providing support to sound. Saudi Arabia, weapon systems money that's being used in Yemen. And I would remind you that you are under oath. Yes, correct. Okay. So getting to what's going on now, in 2019, Congress passed a resolution calling for the end of military assistance to the Saudis for this war, and it was vetoed by then President Trump. Now the intercept is reporting that Senator Bernie Sanders may introduce a similar measure again, possibly even this week we're hearing? As early as this week, Senator's office said, tell me about this resolution. From what you know, will it be pretty much the exact same one? as the 2019 one? Let's back up a little bit. The 2019 resolution was kind of an easy thing for

Democrats to propose. Jamal Khashoggi had just been murdered. A ton of recrimination had spread throughout former senior officials in the Obama administration for supporting the Yemen War when they were in office, a war that was prosecuted by then Defense Secretary of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman. So enormous amounts of recrimination happening around 2018, 2019. The Saudis appeared during the Trump administration to really rather decisively take sides in domestic politics. They were extreme backers, not just of Trump, but financial backers of Jared Kushner. Trump's children got kind of involved in bilateral diplomacy. And so there is enormous amounts of uproar within democratic circles about what had also become

one of the most punishing, emiscerating humanitarian catastrophes in the world, the support that the U.S. was giving for Saudi Arabia in Yemen. The Biden administration, having initially come into office, as you said, saying they were going to make Saudi Arabia a pariah, cut off direct Yemen relevant intelligence support, material, support and paused some arms sales that would also have been relevant. Afterward, they kind of came to the conclusion that there is no alternative for them but to deal with Saudi Arabia under MBS, particularly after the Russians invaded Ukraine. And the Saudis, especially MBS, who had seen support from Vladimir Putin personally since 2018 and the Khashoggi Imbrilio, decided that they would have

really no interest in listening to the United States when it came to their cooperation with Yemen, really famously in the summer, President Biden visited Riyadh and did that kind of abject fist bump that MBS kind of laughed at. And in particular, we saw how that translated that laughter when he rejected the president's call for a boosted oil production in order to cut off Russian oil revenue and thereby kind of slow down the Russian war machine in Ukraine. OPEC plus decided not to do that. And that has left the United States under President Biden kind of, you know, fuming, talking a bit about increasing consequences and then just not doing any of that. So now into that breach, two months after a ceasefire in Yemen expired in early October, Senator Sanders has kind of come back with

substantively, it is a long way of answering your question. a very, very similar resolution that now puts pressure on the residual aid that the United States gives Saudi Arabia. Principally, what the Saudis fear this will impact is intelligence sharing that has to do with incoming Iranian supplied munitions to the Houthis, incoming missile attacks and drone attacks that the Houthis have waged against the Saudis. What's kind of left sort of shoved to the side in that description is that, none of those things would be happening had Saudi Arabia not invaded and continued to invade and bomb

Yemen in the first place. So the Sanders resolution enormously similar to what pretty much the entire Democratic Party in Congress voted for in 2018, 2019 is back. And now this is an enormous dilemma for President Biden. Is he going to pocket that resolution and say these are the consequences we talked about? in our system, Congress gets a say on foreign policy, or is he going to say, as we kind of saw with this recent decision to stop the lawsuit from Jamakashoggi's wife to grant Saudi's MBS sovereign immunity? Is he going to instead start working on the hill through his allies to stop the Democrats from, and Sanders in particular, I should say, from bringing that resolution forward and all the way up to fighting it to a veto should it reach his desk? I mean, just in terms of

raw politics, you know, we're talking about a resolution that was passed in 2019 by both houses of Congress and then vetoed by President Trump. And then if this comes to the floor this week, which we don't know for sure. I know the Intercept is reporting this, but they're saying as early as this week, so who knows? But if it comes to the floor this week, this is a democratically controlled Congress. So if it passes, we're looking at the possibility of President Biden vetoing a resolution that is passed basically by his own party. Fundamentally similar to the resolution that he and nearly everyone in a significant senior foreign policy position up to and including the National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, the Secretary of State, Tony Blinken,

the Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haynes, on and on down the line, supported when it came up in Congress under the Trump administration. And specifically, those officials said that they felt their support in the Obama administration for the Yemen War was a mistake. to veto it, wouldn't that make him a hypocrite? Which my understanding is you're not allowed to be in politics. Not only are you not allowed to be a hypocrite in politics, it's an automatic disqualification. Joe Biden would half would step down. Every member of Congress who voted for it, the first time around and opposed it this time, particularly in the Democratic Party, oath bound to leave office. Hypocrisy, as we all know, is, you know, not just a cardinal sin, but an unrecoverable one in America.

and politics. Yes, absolutely. You know, you mentioned the possibility of him sort of talking to, whether it's Bernie Sanders or other Democratic leaders and getting them to, I guess, not bring this resolution to the floor, which to me seems not entirely different from vetoing it in terms of hypocrisy. As you point out, he supported what we think will be basically the same resolution in 2019. So if he does that, you know, it's the same ballgame, isn't it? Yeah, it's just a subtler way of doing it avoids a kind of public moment where Biden would have to issue a veto, should he veto it. He hasn't taken a position on this. The White House has not issued one yet, but it would be something that should he go that route, they would probably seek to avoid having the embarrassing spectacle

of Biden vetoing it and would probably see the Saudis prefer to have this kind of quietly go away on Capitol Hill. So one of the things you go into in your piece about this at Forever Wars is that all of this may be complicated by our involvement in Ukraine, or at least that something that's been floated, that that makes this all more difficult. Can you speak to that? Because I thought you very succinctly explained why that makes no sense. Yeah. So the geopolitics of Ukraine slash Yemen slash Saudi slash Russia are very different from a kind of consistent picture of who is an aggressor where. So, for instance, this is oil politics, basically. The United States under Biden sees just no alternative to working with Saudi Arabia if it's going to have any impact on

reducing Russian oil revenue. That strategy doesn't seem to be paying many dividends right now anyway, but it's nevertheless a factor for them. On the other hand, you and I might look at pretty much now 10 months of Russia in Ukraine, seeing unambiguous aggression of a small state against a neighboring weaker one. And then you would look at, you know, perhaps Saudi Arabia in Yemen. And we see unambiguously aggression of a larger state against a weaker one. And in one case, the United States opposes that. And in the other case, the United States materially supports that. It would be an interesting thing to see the president of the United States desolves. that that really is an awful geopolitical hypocrisy and then decide, well, I guess if we're against

it, when the Russians do it, we shouldn't support it when our allies, the Saudis do it. But not a whole lot of people I've talked to who follow this issue closely have a lot of faith that that's going to be what Biden does, principally because of the oil politics, of the Ukraine war and how that fundamentally strengthens the Saudis. Right. I read this, I guess in The Intercept, I read the part about, you know, know, people think, well, the Ukraine situation complicates it because we're there, we're involved. And I was like, but it's the exact opposite in Ukraine. Yeah.

There is an element in terms of the politics of the resolution that may be complicated in the sense that it would seem on the face of it to say that American intelligence support constitutes material support, you know, a military action undertaken by a foreign partner under the 1973 war powers resolution, which is to say, it's a military conflict that the United States is involved in, and ultimately Congress has to authorize it. And the idea sort of floated there would be, well, if it's like that for what the U.S. is doing in terms of intelligence and military hardware support to the Saudis in Yemen, perhaps it's the same thing for what the United States is doing in terms of, you know, counting as conflict for the war powers resolution when the United States provides those things to Ukraine. It may in fact be that sort of political complication, but the war powers resolution that Sanders is bringing up, it's not a legal precedent.

It's not binding in any way on any other conflict. And if one wanted to go into the question of consistency, probably wouldn't be a terrible thing for Congress to make its voice heard and just vote for the continued support for Ukraine that way. Is it possible that makes too much sense, though? That's what worries me. It's possible, I suppose. People I've been talking to about the resolution just say like, you know, that might be a bit of an awkward complication if asked in a press conference, but the language itself of the war powers resolution, you know, in the Senate does not create any kind of binding fact on U.S. material support to Ukrainian resistance.

Right. So now, is there a chance that the resolution itself wouldn't pass, even though it passed in 2019? Yeah, I think there's a significant chance it wouldn't pass if the Biden administration opposes it. If the people in significant positions in the Congressional Armed Services and Intelligence committees and foreign affairs committees, all of whom supported this the first time around, Bob Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who said that after the Saudi rebuke at OPEC in October, said there needed to be greater consequences on Saudi for this, it will be very interesting to see if he and and other senior Democrats decide they can't support this because of the increased reliance in

U.S. foreign policy relative to Ukraine on Saudi Arabia. It's not an automatic thing that because this thing passed in 2018, especially with Democratic support in the House, that it'll see that again during the lame duck session. Right. So can we talk for a minute about what exactly we have been supporting in Yemen? The figures I have seen are staggering, like tens of millions of people either in famine conditions or on the verge of famine conditions because of this civil war? The emergence of cholera. Basically, what the U.S. supported Saudi and Emirati, who were also part of the coalition, tactic in Yemen, is to punish the Houthis through punishing the Yemeni population.

The closure of the port of Hodeda had severely complicated people's access to basic necessities, food, you know, heating oil. and so forth. And that was all before a global pandemic that disrupted supply chains around the world. There's also an additional horrifying disaster waiting to happen if nothing changes off the coast of Yemen, which is an enormous super tanker filled with oil that's been moored off the many coast is rotting. It's physically deteriorating. Oh, God. Yeah. And if nothing changes, you know, the,

tanker isn't removed. Right now, it's a consequence of, as I understand it, both the blockade and the complex politics of that blockade, which the Biden administration's envoy says is not truly a blockade. Then four times the amount of oil as was dumped through the Exxon Valdez catastrophe will seep into the Red Sea. In a important international forum in Bahrain last month, a former British foreign minister said that this is so dire and will happen, again, if nothing changes, that the Red Sea could become the Dead Sea if all of this oil is introduced. So between the human catastrophe, which is the thing I think we have to focus on primarily, and the environmental catastrophe, as well as the general political and economic catastrophe

of strengthening a guy who runs Saudi Arabia through chopping up people who are mildly critical of him. It seems that this is a compounding disaster that continues with U.S. support, even despite all of the ways in which people in the Democratic Party, when they're out of power, have talked about needing to end it. So how did we find ourselves in this situation? Is it, I'm assuming it's twofold. It's one is the Saudis are our quote unquote allies, so we back them. But is the main reason that the civil war has become to be seen as a proxy war or a proxy geopolitical struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran? Oh, Andy, it gets so much worse than that.

Oh, no. We sort of knew this at the time, and this came out, you know, after the Obama administration ended where officials were willing to be somewhat more candid. But as you mentioned, the Houthis are backed by Iran, which the Saudis and the Emirates see is their prime geopolitical enemy. And in 2015, the United States and its allies primarily in Europe, along with China and Russia reached a nuclear accord with the Iranian regime. And the Saudis, the Emirates, and the Israelis were furious at this.

One of the ways in which the Obama administration sought to placate and enraged Riyadh, was to let Mohammed bin Salman continue or rather give the green light for Muhammad bin Salman when he was defense minister to invade and bomb Yemen. This was essentially the way that the United States. States repaired or thought it was seeking to repair its relationship with Saudi Arabia at the consequence of the Yemeni people. And so this kind of 2022 version, even after all of the horrific humanitarian consequences manifested to include famine and cholera, now the United States is tacitly working at a second sacrifice of Yemen precisely the sort of thing.

that all of those Obama-turned-Biden officials wrote in a 2018 open letter that they regretted once they saw those consequences manifest. You know, I listen to you talk, Spencer, and it's got me thinking a little bit that maybe we are not always the good guys, and this is a lot for me to have to chew over, I think. I'll give you a minute. You can compose yourself. No, Spencer, thank you so much. This was fantastic. You are the best at what you do, and thanks for breaking this down for us in ways that make it easy to understand. I really appreciate it.

Sure thing, Andy. Thanks for the invitation. Folks, I am very happy to introduce David Shapira, who is a former Arizona legislature, worked as both an Arizona state representative and Arizona state senator between the years of 2007 and 2013. And David, you went involved. The other day, your thread was picked up by Newsweek and other outlets about Kirsten Cinema and her recent announcement that she was going to be leaving the Democratic Party and moving to register herself as an independent.

She put out a video and went so far as to say that this is what the people of Arizona would want. They want an independent thinker. That she will continue to caucus with Democrats. But as we know and as we've heard, she doesn't show up for caucus meetings. and that nothing will really change. And so there have been a lot of questions, obviously, knowing that we had a big win with the U.S. Senate, with Reverend Warnock being able to become the 51st Democrat in the Senate.

And then you have this announcement by Kirsten. So I wanted to get your thoughts as to why, first off, you offer it up your intimate knowledge now, after so many years between the time that you and Kirsten Cinema worked together, in Arizona to kind of bring people's attention to her character and to her political calculus. Yeah, it's a hard question. You know, one thing you didn't mention is we ran against each other for Congress. In 2012, after a six-year friendship, you know, she moved into my district and we ran against each other for Congress.

And one of the oddities of that race that I had never seen in any other race, nor have I seen really in any race since, was she and I talked at the outset of that campaign. and we agreed that we would not go negative against each other because we were friends and we didn't want to make the other look bad. I'm sure she thought she was absolutely going to win and I thought I had a chance at winning. There was a third candidate in the race who we anticipated was going to go negative. He had gone negative in all of his prior races.

And she and I just didn't want to do that to each other. At least that's what I thought. I didn't bring out anything about her character. I didn't really talk about her. I talked about my own vision for the future in that campaign. and I kept my commitment. And she in the early polling was up 13, 14 points and pretty much everybody's polls.

It looked like I had no chance at winning. So it was kind of a win-win situation for her. I wasn't going to go negative. And so I wasn't going to be able to bring her down in the polls and I'm going to be guaranteed a congressional seat. Well, then, you know, we ran a pretty good field campaign and we, you know, spent a lot less money than she did or the third candidate. And in the late polling in the last two months, I pulled ahead.

and she started going negative. She spent probably half a million dollars on hit pieces, and I kept my commitment. I kept my promise, and I didn't reciprocate, and she won the election. Quick question, as you tell this story, so as her campaign starts to go negative, you all are still friends, right, during this time.

So did you reach out to her just, you know, friend to friend, person to person, and say, what's going on here? I thought that, you know, we made this public commitment and we both agreed on it. What's happening? I did. Yeah. I mean, you won't be surprised to hear.

There was no response. But yeah, I definitely reached out to her at that time. Okay. So the campaign continues to go negative. And then what happens? So she wins. And there's a unity event the day after. And I came to the event.

The third candidate did not. And I had a chance to speak with Kirsten. And, you know, she comes over, gives me a big hug when she walks in. And the first words out of her mouth, like in my ear, she's hugging me where I'm sorry. And I said, well, what are you sorry for? She says, well, I'm sorry for breaking our commitment and going negative. I said, well, why did you do that? I mean, you know, I've always felt like if you're going to apologize to someone, it should be because you genuinely regret what happened.

And I was interested to hear if she had any regrets about it. And she's like, oh, well, you know, my campaign manager, he came to me three times. You know, the first two times he came to me. I said, no, you know, we made a commitment. And the third time he said, well, Kirsten, you're going to lose if you don't go negative. David's going to beat you. And she's like, I finally just gave in and, you know, we did what we did. So, you know, her answer basically was, you know, I wouldn't have broken my promise to you except I was going to lose unless I broke it. So I certainly could have said something after that.

And my Twitter thread was about this situation. We obviously have a longer, more in-depth history than that. And I have other thoughts and insights about who she is and why she does the things that she does. But I didn't say anything about any of that in the campaign because of the promise. and I didn't say anything about any of that after the campaign because my thought was, and again, as I said in a Twitter thread, like, I've always kind of looked at candidates who did that kind of thing and just thought, well, this is, even if it's true, this is just sour grapes. Like, that's not interesting, right? And, you know, I'm going to take everything this person says with a grain of salt. It's just not newsworthy. And so I just never thought, not that I didn't

think to say something, I just thought it wouldn't be appropriate or well received. You wanted to be a team player. What it sounds like to me is when Michelle Obama said, when they go low, we go high, this was you having integrity, making a promise to not only your constituents, but to yourself, about how you wanted to operate in an election. And I think that that is admirable. I really do. I think it's problematic, however, given the type of person that Kirsten Cinema has shown herself to be since she's entered the U.S. Senate. And I think that you're so, story, the reason why the thread caught so much attention is because, and I just said this recently, she has been a thorn in the side of democracy since she entered the U.S. Senate. And I believe that

with this move once again, and I want to, you know, get your thoughts, that this was a political calculus on her part, as you mentioned in your thread. This has everything to do about Kirsten Cinema and has nothing to do about what is good for the people of Arizona. And so, you know, I wonder, David, like, sometimes you have to meet people where they are. And so if they go low, you sometimes need to meet them at that place. And so I'm curious as to how you think that this latest move to have her name in the headlights and the narrative shift to be talking about her as opposed to the Biden administration series of wins as we end the year, what that says about her character and what people really need to understand

as we move into this new Congress in January. I don't disagree with you. I mean, I think the Michelle Obama strategy of going high may not be an effective strategy at the end of the day, but my integrity is more important to me, I guess, than, you know, the effect. But also, I just want to say two quick things about the thread that I think are important in response to your comments. And the first is the historical context I gave in that thread of what happened in

campaign, all of that's public information. Right. Anybody who followed that race knows that she made a public commitment to not go negative. And everyone who follows that race knows that there were mailers paid for by the Kierston Cinema campaign that were attacking me throughout the last two months of that race. So there's no historical context I provided that's like some big revelation. The only revelations that I think that got people's attention are we knew each other, we were friends and I expressed my opinions about her motivations. And these are opinions, as you said, that I think have become pretty readily apparent

to people, maybe just not being said by people who know her well. And the reality is that Kirsten's driving force is and always has been what is going to give her the most notoriety, what does make her appear important, what makes her relevant, politically relevant, what's most politically expedient. Those are her motivators. It has, like you said, it has nothing to do with policy. It has nothing to do with what's best for Arizona. She talks about her constituents. I finally listened this morning to the rest of her interview with Jake Tapper. It's like that line from the latest Star Wars movies, like everything you just said is wrong. There was virtually nothing that she said in that interview that was true and accurate. She said, this is not about politics. This is

not about the election. I didn't consider the next election. None of that's true. Right. Anybody who knows her knows, this isn't something she just decided. People who think that this was a reaction to Warnock's win or that, you know, she wanted to steal back the headlines. She didn't just start thinking about this last week. She's been plotting and planning this, I'm sure, for months or years. She is too calculated. She thinks too long term for this to have just been a recent decision or a spur of the moment decision to grab back headlines. And I, you know, I also said in that thread, people are going to call her stupid. They're going to call her crazy. She's neither of those things. Oh, she's neither of those. And I agree with you. I say a lot of things about her, but stupid and crazy are neither of those comments that I make. She's a political monster. And I think that that is an important thing to recognize that when you're trying to create policy that is based on shared values and understand that if someone else's values, right, are either up for sale or up for grab just so that they can get a headline or that they can get a corporate donor, right? Like you're not negotiating in good faith.

And she has shown that time and time again, holding a press conference to share her opinions before the president of the United States has an opportunity to address the Senate. That is not a move that is about the best interests of anyone outside of yourself, right, to show how powerful you are. The question that I have, David, because you know the people of Arizona, because you represented them for several years, you know, what is it about their relationship with, Cynema now, as we know that her seat is going to be up in 2024. We know that if a Democrat runs against her, that we are most likely going to be splitting that vote, giving the seat to

a Republican. So I want to get your thoughts on where the constituents of this really interesting state now in our political map kind of stands in terms of their feelings for her. Yeah, you know, I mean, all the recent polling has shown that she would lose a Democratic primary. I have friends of mine now who I work with in California politics and across the country who have asked me just because they know my history and relationship with her, like, what's her long-term plan? And like if she's so smart and calculating her popularity among Democrats, like, how is she going to win her next primary? And I kept telling them, she has a plan. There is no chance that she has looked at the next election and thought, oh, yeah, I can beat Ruben Gallego in a

primary or I can beat Greg Stanton in a primary. She has contemplated it. She's thought about it. She's pulled it. She has seen the same numbers that the rest of us have seen, and she knew that there's no way she wins a Democratic primary. So that was a zero chance scenario. So she looked at that and she calculated and she figured, all right, well, what are the other possibilities? What if I run as an independent? What happens in that scenario? I'm certain she's pulled it or at least focus grouped it to find out what people's reaction would be. I'm not saying that it means she's going to win, but it certainly gives her a chance. And frankly, I think we're about to see a really interesting game of chicken. And people, I don't know, familiar with Ruben Gallego, who's a South Phoenix

Congressman, or Greg Stanton, former Mayor of Phoenix, who's a congressman representing the East Valley of Maricopa County, Phoenix area. But both of them are angling to possibly run for the seat. Right. Ruben is a fire brand, very outspoken, known for using swear words on Twitter in his tweets. People think he's a very bold, upfront, in your face, progressive. And I think that's true. I've known Rubin for a long time. I've known Greg for a long time. But I think the calculus she's playing is, in part the same calculus she played in the 2012 races, which is there's these two guys that both want this seat. They're going to fight it out amongst each other, whether it's behind the scenes before

the election or in the election, possibly even in the primary. But the other thing I think she's thinking is they are both, whatever their outward personas are, they're both very politically cautious. Neither one of them has ever really wanted to run in any race where they thought there was any chance of losing. And if they look at polling right now, they're going to see. probably that there's no definitive answer as to what will happen in that race. If it's Kirsten and let's say Ruben Gallego and Kerry Lake or whatever Republican,

the Republicans decide to field, there's no clear answer there as to whether Rubin has a legitimate shot at winning that race. And so I fear that he and Greg will look at the math and say, you know, this is not a safe bet. And so maybe we don't run. And maybe just a token Democratic candidate runs. And it's a token Democrat and Kirsten and a Republican. And now all of a sudden she seems like a genius because she went from having zero chance at winning to having a decent chance of winning. Now, I got to say one more thing.

I hope that Rubin and Greg hear this message, whether it's from me or from anybody, and they say, you know what? I'm going to defy those expectations about me being politically cautious. And I'm going to do it. I'm going to just jump in and run, which is what Rubin did when the, at Pastorcy came available. He immediately went on Twitter and said, I'm running. There was no calculation. There was no polling. It was just he jumped in. I would love to see one of them just jump in at this point and just be bold and take a chance and call her bluff. I don't think that's going to happen. You know, I don't know whether or not that's going to happen. I wish that they would, to be honest,

because basically what you have laid out and what she has laid out is that she's going to hold the state of Arizona hostage. Right? Whether they like her or not, whether she's actually good for the state or not, right? It's either it falls into the hands of a nefarious type of Republican like a Kerry Lake, or it's mine. And that's how I feel that her calculus is moving. And so it would be great for somebody to say, no, I'm going to show you what a real Democrat, somebody who actually cares and shares your values, who you don't need to worry about doing you dirty when they arrive on the strength of your votes into the Senate, whether or not they're actually there to represent you or just represent themselves. and they're going to have to run that type of thoughtful and strategic campaign that to me is not negative. Let me just show you who she is and what she has done for you as opposed to, you know, what she has done for herself since you've sent her to the Senate. And I think that somebody needs to do that because she is holding the state hostage.

Arizona, much like Georgia, is really interesting in terms of the infrastructure that has been put in place, in terms of who has moved there and how the state has been moving into shades of purple. And I think that her calculus is one that is selfish, which I have said on many of airwaves. And I think that in the long run, it is not going to work for her. Last thing, David, just real quick, what do you think her long-term plan is? What does she want? I think there's an interesting anecdote that answers that question, which is when I first announced I was running for Congress and she called and said that she was looking to move into the district and run as well.

I've never said this publicly. She offered me a deal. And she said, if you can wait four years or so, I will give you the seat, essentially. Like, I will endorse you. I will support you. I will use my campaign war chest to help you get elected. I was just kind of surprised, like, why? Why would you only want to serve for four years?

And she said, well, if the most important thing I ever do is serve in the youth, U.S. House, I'll be disappointed in myself. That's what she said, which was shocking to me, because, like, for me, it would, it would have been an honor and a privilege to serve representing my home state of Arizona in the United States House of Representatives. It's a, it's a small club of people that get that opportunity. And I would have seen it as an honor. And even before she was officially in a campaign to run for the U.S. House, she was telling me that that would not be enough for her, that basically, if that were the most important job she had, she'd be disappointed in herself. And she basically said she was planning to run for the Senate when the next seat

came up. And so I don't think her political ambition has any bounds, but I also don't think that she has her eye on something in particular. I mean, maybe the one true thing she said, and this would be a stretch, but maybe the one true thing she said that Jake Tapper interview is that she's not interested in running for press. I don't know. Maybe that's just because she doesn't see the math or a road map to that, given where she is. All she cares about is how relevant she is, what her level of notoriety is. And as long as she can maintain that, I think she'll stay where she is if she's able to, if the voters of Arizona allow her to stay in that position. But, you know, whatever she does next, whether she gets offered a job at Fox News, which I think they would offer and she would accept, or whatever it is.

She, you know, takes a seat on a Fortune 500 company board or takes over a CEO of a company, wherever she thinks she can have notoriety and importance. That's where you'll find Cerson Cinema. Yeah. Ego is a hell of a drug. David Shapira, thank you so much for making the time to join the new abnormal. And thank you very much for the thread that you offer it up. We appreciate it and you. Happy to talk with you. Thank you. Danielle Moody. Andy Levy. Oh, Andy, the list so long, the welds so deep. Who is your fuck that guy of the beginning of this week? Yeah. And as we say every time, you know, it's an honor just to be nominated. It's so hard to pick a winner. I originally looking to go with a guy who wrote a piece for the New York Times, but I think I'm just going to go with the New York

Times overall. Not overall. I'll say the op-ed section of the New York Times. A piece came out over the weekend by a guy named Jeremy Peters. And the headline was, critics say Musk has revealed himself as a conservative. It's not so simple. Yes, it is. It absolutely is so simple. And the article, like the piece says, you know, well, at times he's made it hard to argue with that. And he mentioned stuff like, you know, suggesting that Paul Pelosi was lying about the attack at his home when he retweeted a story that sort of made it seem like it was a gay spat gone wrong, which he eventually deleted. And there's 8 million other things that he's done. And the thing is, the article kind of lays it out.

But then it has the balls to say, it's true Mr. Musk certainly sounds a lot like a Republican and sometimes a lot like Mr. Trump. But then they give it a but. And they say, but he has seen most in line with the GOP of Trump. in the tenor of his political commentary, which, if anything, seems more spiritedly anti-left than ideologically pro-right. They need to understand this. Being anti-left is what the right is about these days. Owning the libs is what they live for. This drives them. It is part of their ideology. You cannot divorce the two. You know, because this is the shit we went through with the anti-anty-Trump people

who pretended that they didn't like Trump, but they were so against the people who hated Trump that they were forced to side with Trump. No, you weren't. You just liked Trump. You just didn't want to admit it. You know, that became more and more obvious over the years. And it got to the point where you could not at all distinguish a so-called anti-anty Trump position from a pro-Trump position.

But the media seems insistent on not learning any lessons from the Trump era and making the same fucking mistakes again with Musk. And it drives me fucking insane. we've just been through this and there were tons of us, you know, who at the time knew what was going on and we're like, no, these people are, they are what they say they are, which is not anti-anty-Trump. They're pro-Trump. Just take them at the things they say and stop beating around the bush and trying to act like they're not that. And I think some of the media finally came around to it and we see it, you know, there are now places that will actually call Trump a liar who would not call

Lema liar two, three years ago, but they're doing the same exact thing with Musk. And I don't want to wait until 2028 for the media to get on board with this and to realize what's going on here. Get it through your skulls that Musk is, he really is a carbon copy of Trump. And if that doesn't put you on the conservative side of the political spectrum, I don't know what does. So my fuck that guy is the New York Times op-ed page. Get your hat out of your ass and stop printing. This is just a latest in a long line of shit that they've been running anti-trans stuff and whatever. But get your head out of your ass and stop pretending that Elon Musk isn't what he is. So who is you or fuck that guy, Daniel?

I'm sure it was an easy pick. It always is. You know, it always is. And, you know, last week, the Respect for Marriage Act was passed by both the House and the Senate and President Biden is getting ready to sign it this week. And lo and behold, 12 Republicans in the Senate vote. voted for the passage of this piece of legislation that not only makes it so if the weaponized Supreme Court decides to overturn a same-sex marriage that LGBTQ people who are married are

still protected, as well as, because in 2022 nothing should shock us, we also have to protect interracial marriage as fucking well. So only 12 U.S. Republicans come out for this, and Senator Todd Young was one of them. And get this! The Cass County Republican chairman has decided to censure Todd Young with a letter. And this is what he says because he is just, you know, David Ritchie, who is the Cass County Republican chairman, is just outdone. He's outdone with equity. So here's what he says. Dear fellow county chairman, it does not bring me pleasure nor eagerness to write to you this evening. Like also, what century are we writing this in? Nonetheless. In our last recent meeting, Senator Young's decision to break with 11 other Republicans and vote in favor of the Marriage Protection Act was brought up and discussed.

During that meeting, the Cass County Republicans felt that waiting until the next election cycle to share how upset they were would not accomplish anything and therefore choose to write this letter of censure to Senator Young. What is wrong with these people? I don't understand how people having the ability to marry who the fuck they want has any bearing on your goddamn life. Marriage equality passed, right? Was legalized across the country in 2015. Did something happen to heterosexuals during this time that I don't fucking know? Did everybody else's marriage that's in a straight marriage? Did it implode?

Did the divorce rate like double what it was? No, it didn't. Nothing actually occurred whatsoever. except for people to be free to marry the person that they want and have that marriage recognize and have the protections thereof. And so it just, it kills me. We had a Republican representative that was on the floor last week, fake crying, Karen, was fake crying because, you know, queer people being able to marry was hurting her heart. Now you have this, a senator being censured by his party for standing up for equity. It's like the one bare minimum thing that

they fucking do? I don't know. Between their their conversations around dildos and butt pucks and their pushback against people being able to marry, you're like, the question people should ask is what the fuck is wrong with the Republican Party? Honestly, what is going on? Is it QAnon? It's not just Trumpism. It's not just Magadam. It's so much deeper. The repression, the self-hatred. Like, I just don't get it. But my fuck that guy is the whole of the Cass County Republican Party. You all are in a And also in your rejection of this, you clearly just rejected interracial marriage as well. So, well done. Danielle, I have to say now you've got me thinking that is it possible that the reason I'm not

married is because gay marriage is legal? You know, I think that you should sue. I think you should sue. Sue the gays. Oh, man. I have a red pill and I haven't taken it, but I think I'm about to. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Thursday.

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