The Daily Beast Podcast - Laura Ingraham Is Mad at Everyone But Hershel Walker

Episode Date: December 11, 2022

Laura Ingraham is mad. The Fox News host is mad about shadow banning and, in a recent news clip, she disclosed she’s mad about Herschel Walker’s loss and mad at everyone involved but Walker himself. In this bonus episode of The New Abnormal podcast, co-hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie hilariously break down (read: tear apart) her grievances (along with other wild GOP arguments made by conservative darlings John Kennedy and Tucker Carlson). MSNBC columnist and law journalist Chris Geidner also joins this episode to walk Andy through a few important Supreme Court cases, including the one involving a wedding website creator who wants the right to refuse same-sex couples her services. There’s two big problems with her argument from the get-go, says Geidner.  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. Hello and welcome to another Sunday bonus episode of the new abnormal, and we thank you so much for being here.

Today we have an extra special episode with Chris Geithner who writes the newsletter Law Dork, and he's going to tell us all about all the fuckery with the case scotis has just taken up. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready to listen to some clips? Yes. Yeah, man, let's do it. Well, as I mentioned last week, our segment, what the hell is Herschel Walker talking about, has to come to an end now that he has lost his bid to become a senator. Thank God.

But that does not mean that there's not a lot of fallout because people are big mad, particularly the queen of Big Matt right now, one Laura Ingram of Fox News. Let's take a lesson. Was on the part of the Democrats. I felt it. You felt it. But we don't change anything. We have the same people in place in leadership.

Same people in place. Apparently at the RNC, that's not, perhaps that's not changing. We just keep doing the same thing over and over again. I'm pissed tonight, frankly. Go ahead. Yeah, it's really offensive. I'm mad. For Republican voters, for Republican donors who have put so much. Not the candidate, though. The people she should be mad at are her fellow Fox News primetime anchors.

Who does she think pushed Herschel Walker on people? Like, she pushed Herschel Walker on people. Yeah. I'm so confused about her talking about the leadership and not talking about the quality or lack thereof of the bullshit candidates that they ran. Like, why do you think that you lost? Because Herschel Walker was a magnificent candidate and people just didn't come out to vote for him

or he was an embarrassment of a fucking human and people were just like, I think I'll stay the fuck home. What? It's Sean Hannity who pushed Herschel Walker, like, harder than anybody and had him on as a guest, like, God knows how many times and kept telling people what a great candidate he was. Like, she just doesn't want to. call out her fellow anchor by name, so she's pretending this is someone else's fault.

I don't know who to fault for this, but like I do. Somebody owes me my time and energy back from having to scream at my TV and listen to these fucking clips of Herschel Walker. Embarrass everyone. Van Jones just apologize to you, Danielle. We'll have a previous episode callback. Okay. But I have a really.

big news flash here. It's always big news when a man can grow. You know, we're very handicapped in that department. Never mind. A conservative man. And Tucker Carlson has experienced growth. Well, one thing I learned, Geraldo, in the midterms two weeks ago, is I'm really not good

at predicting political outcomes at all. So I'm never, I'm never doing that again. Either looking ahead or retrospectively, I'm never going to tell you what might have happened or what may happen ever again, because I'm back. I don't believe him. Yeah. He could have just ended by like, I'm just bad at it, you know?

And we would all say, what's it? Just all of it, right? Like, just stop. I mean, everything else he says is made up shit. So what's different about this? I don't get it. I have said that since 2016, when I thought that Hillary was going to win, and the only thing I can say in my defense is that I said,

I think it's going to be closer than a lot of people think, but I think she's going to win. But I was wrong, and it definitely made me a little gun shy, and it's why I, like, refuse to count Trump out now or anything like that. But come on, Tucker. Seriously? I mean, honestly, like, polls in just in general are, like, reading the fucking tea leaves. And you're right. I would rather shake a magic eight ball than listen to pollsters ever again tell us things that they have no idea. It's not science.

but like neither is anything that comes out of Tucker Carlson's mouth. So I wish that what he had said was, guys, because of the midterm elections, I'm just ending my show. Right. You know, because I can't be counted on to deliver any type of news or analysis to you ever, and I have embarrassed myself. So I'm bowing out. Yeah, but he'd have to have some sense of shame to do that.

I keep thinking of like the humility. Like, you know, if Federman had lost, I'd have to be modest and say, you know, the stroke really did not do him any favors. That's really sad. But you ran the worst candidate of stumping in the history of mankind. And you're this shocked about that your outcome, you thought this person was going to win? Like, how stupid do they think that their voters are?

I mean, that's really the question. Is that like, how stupid do they think that their voters are? But they think very little of them. So there's that. Yep. They're voters. They're viewers. They think pretty much nothing of them.

Well, I have news. There's more old white men who are conservative having growth. Rick Scott, favorite of this podcast, he's grabbed a clue as well. I think we do have to have a message that when Republicans run, you say this is what Republicans are going to get done. Every state rate, every race is going to be a little bit different, but we've got to have an agenda. We've got $31, $30 a debt, we've got inflation 40-year high, we've got crime, we've got

open border, we've got to show the American public that we have to have to have to have the American public that we have a reason. There's a reason to vote for us and we have to tell them why they vote for us. What a novel idea. A platform. And an agenda, a platform. You mean, you don't just run it like a fucking rerun like they did the 2016 RNC agenda and then ran it again in 2020 and they're like, oh, here's looking at 2024. Yeah, people want a plan. I just want to point out that Rick Scott came out with, I don't remember if it was like 11 point or 12 point plan to save America. That was so bad that even other Republicans were like, what the fuck are you doing? Just shut up. And they like just threw it in the trash and we never heard anything about it after

that. And this was supposed to be like his big thing as the head of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee. But the plan had stuff in it like getting rid of the Medicare and Social Security guarantees and stuff like that. And Republicans were like, we can't run on that. Like, yeah, it's what we want to do, but we can't say that. So for Rick Scott to be out there saying, we need a plan, it's like, well, you tried that. And your entire party told you to fuck right off. So, I don't know.

Also, epic fail on his part. First time in 80 years that a party that has the president defended every single seat in the Senate that was up for re-election. Wow. I mean, you know, bravo dark, Brandon. Bravo. Okay, but we're not done. We have the grand pooh-bah of having no fucking clue, as always. One Charlie Kirk does not get why people think their vote might not count. He doesn't realize that maybe he had a hand in that. Now, I know the thousands of you that have told me that you're done and you're going to give up. That's fine. Actually, it's not fine. Have a nice day. Gee, Charlie, where did they hear their vote? Didn't matter.

They're so dumb. Yeah, I mean, they walk around saying that everything is fraud, and then they wonder why there are people that listen to them who stay home and say, well, my vote's not going to be counted, so I'm not going to bother voting. It's like they think that everyone is going to read between the lines of the bullshit sandwich that they're offering, and people don't because they're gullible. And if you spoon feed them bullshit every single day, then you know what? They start to develop an appetite for it.

So you've told them for years that the 2020 election was stolen, that everything is rigged, like you're saying, Andy, everything is fraud. And then you're going to tell them, no, no, no, but take two, three hours out of your day to go stand in line for a rigged fraudulent election in a system that you think is corrupt. How does that work? They're suppressing their own votes and they are dumbfounded. when the outcome is this. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's

not to defend Charlie Kirk, but, uh, his IQ is roughly 36. So it's not too much of a surprise that he doesn't really understand what's going on. So, you know, there are others like Tucker, as we said before is just like a huge grifter. But Charlie Kirk is so stupid that he just has no clue what's going on in the world. I think I've said before. I just always picture him like trying to get dressed in the morning and just being absolutely defeated by buttons. Like having no cons. Like, what do I do? How does this? Can I just have the Velcro shirt?

It's like take the socks off of your hands. They go on your feet. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So, I mean, that's how I picture Charlie Kirk every day. Well, we're going to now move on from the Herschel reacts. We have one last one.

One Senator John Kennedy, Louisiana, who I notice, you know, his state borders Louis Gomer's district. And I know Louis is stepping down. So it seems like Mr. Kennedy is really trying to step into the big shoes to fill of Louis of being the biggest fucking moron in the governing body. So let's hear from him. We have to buy fossil fuels from foreign countries. And a lot of those foreign countries, like Venezuela, hate us. And so we're buying oil from Venezuela, so Venezuela will have more money to buy weapons to try to kill us. It just makes no sense.

And in terms of the economy, overall, it's even worse. I mean, I don't know if you want to talk about this, but there's an old saying, you've heard it. If you're going to have a party, you've got to pay the ban. Guys, I stay up all night thinking about the Venezuela, a missile crisis that's coming our way. There was a time when I entered into politics and I, you know, I was so insecure that I wasn't smart enough. Right. You know, so insecure that I didn't have a law degree, you know, like, you know, could I really tough it out in this world of politics? And yes, yes, a Muppet.

can, you know, like a Muppet can do it. I just, like, if someone put Kennedy's resume in front of me, just the education section, and I looked at it and I'd be like, well, he graduated Magna Cum Laude from Vanderbilt, Phi Beta Kappa, got a law degree from University of Virginia, got a Bachelor of Civil Law from Oxford, I would think, wow, this guy's a fucking genius.

Like, and I would be like you, Daniel, I'd be like, oh, I, you know, probably can't even have a conversation with this guy because his head's so far up in the clouds. And then he speaks. And then I weep for the educational system in this country. Yeah. Because I can't explain it. Yeah. You know, he's like one of those guys. You're good on paper. Right. You know what I'm saying? The good on paper guys when you're like, you're straight and you're going to date. It's like, yeah, he's good on paper. And then you get there at the blind date and he starts talking and you're like, oh my God, check please. Like that, that's him. Well, you guys, I think, just need to really do some studying about Venezuela, and you'll really see that they're really gunned for America. He's really in the know.

All right. I'm ready to stop, drop, and roll. It was a big week in oral arguments for the Supreme Court, and here to give us some insight into the cases it heard is the law dork himself. Former BuzzFeed legal editor and former deputy editor for legal affairs at Grid News, and current publishing, of the excellent legal newsletter law dork, Chris Gidner. Chris, thanks so much for being here. Hey, Andy. So let's start with the arguments that the court heard on Wednesday around the case known as Morvee Harper. This is about a concept known as independent state legislature, which you perhaps charitably referred to as a scam. What is this and why is it absolute nonsense? Yeah, I'm not quite sure how, I mean, I think I am sure, but how we got to this point, but

this is where we are. And I mean, the independent state legislature scheme, scam concept, I refuse to put in writing that it's either a theory, let alone a doctrine. Right. Is this like fever swamp idea that because the Constitution says that legislatures set the time, place, and manner for, federal elections, they therefore do that as a free-floating entity, and nobody else in the state system is able to overrule that. And specifically, what we're dealing with is basically state judicial review. Going to state courts when a state legislature does something with voting laws with redistricting, and the independent state legislature theory would say, you can't do that.

You can't take them to court for what we got into yesterday at arguments for any substantive dispute over that. So basically this, again, not to call it a theory or a doctrine, but this idea is that the state legislature, they have a blank check with regard to state election law. This is the problem when you get to these sort of like totally outside of reasonable debate theories is that even arguing with them becomes difficult. Right. You would be able to, and this came up in arguments on Wednesday, you would be able to challenge them in federal court. But the federal courts have limited what challenges are allowed in recent years. and that's why people are going to state courts.

And then the other option is you can go to Congress and have them pass a law, federal law that would apply to all 50 states that would somehow get through this House and Senate and president and would be some way of dealing with, like, a decision that here, North Carolina has made. Like, I mean, it's almost an absurd argument. argument, but that is what the proponents of the independent state legislature scheme say is the like the escape valve if things go wrong, as opposed to what we do now, which is if you have a problem with what your state legislature does, you go to your state Supreme Court and say, look, we've got a constitution that governs how we operate in this state and we think the state legislature has violated. So as you alluded to,

The case was brought by the Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, who was represented by Attorney David Thompson. My understanding from reading what you and others wrote about it is that, at least from the tone of the questioning, even this court didn't really seem willing to go along with this bad shit theory? Yeah, there was not a lot of support for Mr. Thompson. Now, he did sort of go as far as this theory could go. He even said, and this could have consequences. for how the case is decided, but he said we're not even challenging whether the North Carolina

Supreme Court correctly interpreted the North Carolina Constitution. We're putting that aside. What we're saying is they didn't have a right to take the case. Right. And that was so far that even Justice Kavanaugh and Chief Justice Roberts were sort of like, doesn't that go further than we've ever gone and even more than them, Justice Barrett, by my reading of the arguments, was almost in the same camp as the three Democratic appointees with her fairly consistent skepticism across the arguments of this scheme. So I noticed a name you left out there. So talk to me about my old college buddy, Neil Gorsuch. And in particular, he had a bizarre exchange with Neil Katyal, who is the attorney on the other side here. Something about the states and three-fifths clauses? Yeah. So you've got the last three

are Thomas and Alito and Gorsuch. And they had in the past sort of suggested that they thought this theory could be legit. They wanted the court to take a case to resolve this issue. So those were the trio that we thought were most likely to support it. And Alito, I mean, like, what I wrote at Lodork was, like, Alito normally comes into arguments with like, I know what my position is and I'm going to make sure you do too. Right. He's not really inquisitive at arguments. He's more directive, and that's the nice way of putting it. And I was even told I could swear. I don't know why I'm being Nice. He in arguments, like, sort of did bring skeptical questions, both to the lawyer for the North Carolina Republicans, but also to the three lawyers, the trio of lawyers who were arguing against him. To there was a set of private plaintiffs represented, like common cause was the main plaintiff. And that's who Neil Catchell was representing. Then there was Don V. who was representing the leaders of North Carolina, the statewide electeds who are Democrats,

and then General Preligar, who's the SG, was representing the United States. And Alito had skeptical questions for both sides. So I think he could be open to sort of a middle ground. And even Thomas asked some questions that suggested maybe not on the theory itself, but he asked some questions about, like, well, why is the case even he? hear, should we be hearing this, that suggested maybe even he thinks this has gone too far. Right. But not Gorsuch.

Gorsuch was all in. He was the only person sort of giving the like softball attempted questions to Thompson during his arguments. And then at one point, he was trying to get Neil Cadill to agree that their theory would allow state Supreme courts and state constitutions to basically override the legislatures and override federal efforts and could lead to really bad circumstances. And there were a few examples that he could have pointed to. There was an example of Maryland trying to avoid implementing the 19th Amendment. But for some reason, he went with the Virginia effort to constitution. under its state constitution, the three-fifths compromise, the racist initial founding stain

on the constitution that was only overturned after the Civil War with the Civil War amendments that said that enslaved persons would count as three-fifths of a free person for purposes of congressional representation. Neil Gorsuch was trying to get Neil Catchell to defend this. And there were reasons why Neil Catchell didn't even need to because he could distinguish it. It just became this really icky moment of Gorsuch trying to press his point in an unseemly way with an awkward question that wasn't even necessary. It really left a bad taste in my mouth at arguments. And then when I reread the transcript last night, as you noted, on Twitter, like, it read even worse. It was like, this wasn't just like something that he pulled out of his hat when he like was like thinking up questions on the bench.

Like he clearly came to the arguments ready to ask Neil about this. Yeah, that's just bizarre. If I may name drop here, I used to work for the great Pete Williams. And we were always told not to read too much into the tone of oral arguments. But it sounds like the feeling here is that as you put it at Law Dork, democracy might survive the war. case scenario here. Yeah. It's hard to imagine where five votes would come for Thompson's strong independent state legislature argument. Right. Okay. So let's jump back to Monday. There was the case that the more I read about it, the stranger it seems. It's called 303 Creative v. Alainis, I think it is. Yeah. And on the

surface, this involves a web designer named Lori Smith, who says her Christian beliefs mean she can't design wedding websites for same-sex couples and that the state of Colorado has to be stopped from forcing her to do so, which, okay, at least seems like something that Skodas, you know, should take a look at or could take a look at, but none of this is real, right? None of this has happened. Yeah, this is a two-sided problem. What you're saying is right. She doesn't even have a wedding website business yet. Right. We're not even talking about she's worried about a hypothetical denial. Like she's got a hypothetical business that she's worried about a hypothetical same-sex

couple who's going to come to her. And then a hypothetical denial of them that's going to lead to hypothetical enforcement from Colorado. None of that might happen. Right. I mean, I guess she could say that like she's going to start the business. But any of the other hypotheticals beyond that, we don't. We don't know if they're there.

So there is a way of looking at this that we just shouldn't be here yet with this case. Yeah. Now, the other side that I'll give you of that is we do like pre-enforcement challenges when we're worried about a state law violating somebody's constitutional rights. Okay. That is something that we do believe there is standing. there is a reasonable fear of state action against you for exercising a constitutional right is traditionally a time when the courts have allowed a pre-enforcement challenge.

Now, the problem with that in this era is it really seems like the Supreme Court is only okay with that when you're on one side of the fence. Right. If you remember, the court didn't even rule on a pre-enforcement challenge to Texas's SB8 vigilante enforcement abortion restrictions until a day after the law went into effect. And then, of course, they let it go into them. Right. Even though, like, now we know, fast forward, the court overturned Roe, but under Roe, that Texas law was clearly unconstitutional. It was a six-week abortion ban. So under Roe v. Wade, that law was unconstitutional.

And yet the court didn't allow a pre-enforcement challenge. They let it go forward. And it was in place for several months before Dobbs came down and tossed out Roe. And so you've got this situation where standing, which is the principle underlying this, Justiciability is being enforced very strictly when people on the liberal side of the fence bring a case, and it's being enforced in a less stringent way when somebody like Lori Smith comes to the court. Like, that was hardly a part of the argument on Monday. And then the other part of this is, like on the surface, it seems like you could make this a free speech case.

Well, that's technically what it is. Now, keep in mind, like, the other part of the fact that there is no actual case here is that, like, her lawyers are Alliance Defending Freedom. They were also the lawyers behind Masterpiece Cake Shop. Right. Like, they helped draft the Mississippi abortion ban that was at issue in Dobbs. Like, they are all in the mix. And I think that they were very, very, very happy to have a case like this that Lori Smith brought where she was the only person to be interviewed. There was no same-sex couple that could get on TV and say, look, we live in this small town, and Lori is the only person who does wedding websites within 50 miles of us. And so this like causes us great damage because we have to. to like go to Denver to meet with this guy who does websites, like whatever it would have been. Like we don't know because she's the plaintiff. There is no same-sex couple on the other side who

was denied services. But isn't it also like unlike the masterpiece cake shop thing where you can at least make an argument that if someone is that opposed to gay marriage, they shouldn't have to bake a cake and write a message on it for a gay couple. That's an argument at least. But in this case, No one was even going to force her to specifically design a website for a gay couple. The state law is simply that if she was selling a website design, like a template for a wedding site or whatever, she can't then not sell that design to a same-sex couple. So it's more about commerce than speech, isn't it? Or am I wrong?

That would be the line that some are hoping the court draws to make it very clear. She and her lawyers are trying to argue that she is doing speech, that these are personalized. I mean, again, this is the ridiculousness of they're not being an actual case, an actual website. Right. Like, she is arguing that, and this is what Justice Sotomayor got into at arguments. Like, Lori Smith and her lawyer, Kristen Wagoner, from ADF, is arguing that this is a personalized website that she sits down with the couples, again, hypothetical couples. She sits down with couples and talks with them about how they met and she then goes and writes it up and she makes sure

that the website looks perfect and tells their story. And at the bottom of the page, it says, like it has the little like footnote, like the little footer on the website that says like, designed by Lori with love, 303 Creative in God We Trust, or whatever it said. It says some little line, and then it has a link to 303 creatives website that says more about her faith and her religious mission with her company. And sort of Sotomayor was looking at the mock-ups of the website, and she was sort of saying like this looks kind of wrote. Here's a paragraph on how they met.

Here's a page on the directions to the wedding. Here's a page on the hotels in the area. Here's a page with a link to the registry. She was trying to make the point that you're making that like, this doesn't actually seem like we're talking about a lot of speech here. Right. This looks like you are wanting to put a product into commerce. And that's kind of the fear about deciding this case without having an actual case

to look at is that you could end up with a decision that tries to draw distinctions but doesn't have facts underlying it. And so you end up with the thing that I mentioned earlier discussing this case elsewhere was we all know what happens when the Supreme Court issues a decision. We all know exactly what ADF is going to do. They're going to look for where can we push this further. They're going to look to bring their next case. And they're going to go somewhere where they can get a judge to say, I mean, the example that I said before is like I like spend a lot of time making my

barbecue and my mac and cheese. And I am a artistic chef. And this is expressive speech when I am bringing together. a family to the table. And I'm not going to do that. I can't be forced to send that message if the false family coming together for a meal is a same-sex couple who is celebrating a marriage that I think is fraud. And then you're going to end up with a Trump appointee who says, yes, that's exactly right. and that's clearly what the Supreme Court meant. And we're off to the races with another three years of cases at appeals courts and potentially up at the Supreme Court again.

So I have to get out, but before I do, like 10 seconds or less, can you just give me a gut feeling as to how this is going to be decided? It would be shocking if Lori Smith loses. Wow. I think the contours of the decision are where we're going to see how they handle this. And the other thing I do just want to quickly say we didn't get into it is like because this is a free speech case and not a religion case, it doesn't have to be based on religion even. They just can say I am opposed to the message that this would send. And so this could go in all broad directions and that's why so much of the arguments focused on totally non-religious reasons like I'm just a racist. And I don't want to send the message of.

interracial couples should exist. Like, I just, I don't want to show that. Right. And this is the problem with creating an exception to non-discrimination laws based on the First Amendment. Yeah, there's just, there's no bottom to this slippery slope, it seems like. Based on speech, specifically, based on speech within the First Amendment. Chris, thank you so much. Go to law dork.com.

Subscribe now. It's an absolutely fantastic newsletter. and I really appreciate you coming on. Thanks a lot, Andy. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going.

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