The Daily Beast Podcast - Lauren Boebert’s ‘Stone’ Gaffe Proves She’s Dumb as Rocks

Episode Date: April 6, 2025

On this episode of The New Abnormal, Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert’s attempt to throw sticks and stones embarrassingly backfires as she confuses filmmaker Oliver Stone for conservative political strategist Roger Stone in a congressional hearing on the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy Jr. Plus! Author Chad Lewis examines how foreign interests have influenced Trump’s inner circle in his new book ​​The Persuasion Game. 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.

Welcome back to another bonus episode of the new abnormal, and we thank you so much for being here. Today we have author Chad Lewis, and he's here to talk all about his new book, The Persuasion Game, the influence peddlers to the Trump administration who jeopardized America, which examines how foreign interests used Trump's inner circle, especially America's mayor, Rudy Giuliani, to influence U.S. policy for their own gain. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready to listen to some clips? Clips.

Clips. Well, I'm going to warn you. This is a really stupid edition. Let's say it something since there are usually some pretty stupid editions of this show. Brace yourselves. Okay, we have a guy named Representative Self, which, yeah. It feels like a thought experiment, but there's no thought going on here, I assure you. He's going to do an interesting quote, and then,

Representative Johnson is going to reply. I'm going to leave you, and I'll yield back a little bit of my time, a direct quote from Joseph Gerbiltz. It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion, and I think that may be what we're discussing here and yield back. Gentleman yields back. With that, the representative from Texas, Ms. Johnson is recognized for five minutes. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.

I want to respond to what my colleague from Texas just said. When you're quoting Joseph Goebbels about state, the role of state and the public debate, we have a big problem. In that right, Ms. Chekowitz. I mean, that's alarming as hell to me when that becomes the gold standard of Hitler and all that was going on in Russia, I mean, in German atrocities during World War II, when that becomes. Mm-hmm. Mm-mm-mm.

The role of the state is to, what did he say, mold public opinion? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's not the role. I'm pretty sure it's not. I'm pretty sure that public opinion in a democracy is supposed to be, you know, open. You can have an opinion. Like that, I think that we start and end there. But what do I know?

So my take on this was that this idiotic question. quote, was actually meant to try to claim that this is what the Democrats had been doing. And the confusion here is because this is obviously in no way, shape, or form what the Democrats had been doing. But it's exactly what the Republicans are doing, what Trump is doing, what Elon Musk is doing. So it's very easy to get confused. And to think that he was quoting Goebbels approvingly, I think. think his intent was to quote him disapprovingly, but it's impossible to tell because it's the same policies that he and his fellow Republicans are doing. So the whole thing is just so fucked up.

I also want to point out that I think self was the, he was the one that misgendered Sarah McBride and then the Democratic congressman jumped in at the hearing and started yelling at him and he ended the hearing. I have a feeling with this fellow. There's going to be some journalists who are going to Look around. Yeah. The term milkshake duck is just swimming through my brain right about now. Yeah, for sure. So anyway, yeah, God, these people are so stupid.

Well, speaking of our very stupid Congress, one member who we've profiled before is one representative, Victoria Sparts, who, who, when we're trying to pinpoint the categories of, I don't know what the fuck is going on in their brain, hers is many planets away from the one I live on. Let's hear an example of that. All right. So what she's saying there for you not being able to hear it over the hooting and hollering is,

if you violated the law, you are not entitled to due process. That's exactly when you're entitled to do process. Yeah, I was like, I didn't go to law school. Yeah. But I read and can. That's what I think due process is. Again, these people are just so stupid. I don't know where to start with them.

I mean, I assume what she is saying here is. if the Trump administration accuses you of breaking the law, you are not entitled to due process, which of course is also wrong. But I can't with these people anymore, Jesse. I can't with your clips. I really can't. Yeah, I love some good totalitarianism. Now, because we've decided that the archman figured out how to get elected by turning us

against immigrants instead of class war, that due process and everything we formed this country on No, I was thrown out the window. Yeah. Well, now we have the more safe and cuddly version of stupid. This week there was a hearing on the JFK assassination papers. There were expert witnesses from Director Oliver Stone, one Jefferson Worley, and they were talking to Representative Warren Bobert, and it goes about as well as you can imagine from what I'm about to play. Wrote a book accusing LBJ of being involved in the killing of President.

Kennedy. Did these most recent releases confirm or negate your initial charge? Being involved in the assassination of President Kennedy. No, I didn't. In the film, if you look closely, there's no such

evidence. No, no, I didn't. If you look closely at the film, it there's no, it accuses the President Johnson of being part of a complicit and a cover-up of the case, but not

in the assassination itself, which I don't know. What do you think that he was complicit with? Yes, sir, I'll get to you. The cover up. Well, how about, for starters, appointing Alan Dulles, the head of the CIA, was fired by Kennedy to the commission itself, to the Warren Commission. And he goes to almost every meeting, and he's pretty much in charge of the Warren Commission from the beginning, Alan Dulles.

That's part of the evidence that points to President Johnson's either incompetence or involvement. Mr. Morley, I think you had something to add on that. I think you're confusing Mr. Oliver Stone with Mr. Rogers Stone. Sorry. It's Roger Stone who implicated LBJ in the Assassinators of the President. It's not my friend Oliver Stone. I may have misinterpreted that and I apologize for that. She didn't misinterpret anything.

She got it wrong. She's just fucking dumb. Yeah. Right? Like there's a difference. You are dumb versus, oh, I misunderstood. Yeah. Roger Stone wrote a book called The Man Who Killed Kennedy, The Case Against LBJ.

And she, because again, she's dumb, she confused Roger Stone with Oliver Stone, who I believe in the movie JFK has Kevin Costner, as Jim Garrison says that LBJ was a, I think, accomplice after the fact. I hope that's the exact quote because I've seen that movie so many times. It's so many words at least, if not exactly. Yeah. It's just one dumb member of Congress after another with you, Jesse. Is she going to interrogate an actual stone next? Like an actual stone? Right?

Like a pile of fucking rocks. Like, is that coming in next? Guys, I got news for you. She is dating Kid Rock who's a stoner. Also, rock, stone. I mean, close enough. Oh, that's a good, good, good point. Wow.

We've got puds of steel over here. This just made me feel. stupid. All right. I will stop punishing you guys. Shut up, Jesse. All right. Well, I do have one more punishment.

Here we have Elon Musk talking. Oh, God. Just him talking. Come on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's just, that, that's enough of an introduction to punish just about anyone. Does that help Tesla? I mean, you have term waltz.

It was a huge jerk, you know, running around on stage with a Tesla stop price, where the stock price had gone in half. And he was overjoyed. What an evil thing to do. What a creep. What a jerk. Like who derives joy from that? This is coming from a man who went around on a stage with a chainsaw.

This is coming from a man who has gutted global aid. for countries that desperately need medicine and food? Does he understand what the word fucking evil is? Because I know that you can't spell it without using letters of his fucking name. So, Elam, he can fuck the entirety off. Yes, I'm done. Yeah. Throw in destroying Social Security and, you know, everything else that he and that stupid doge are doing.

Yeah, for him to sit there and call. Tim Walls, a jerk and evil for rejoicing that Elon's billions are getting smaller. I mean, he is such a sad, pathetic little man. Fuck him. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to The New Abnormal. Author, Chad Lewis, who is the author of the book The Persuasion Game, the influence peddlers to the Trump administration who jeopardized America. Chad, thank you so much for making the time today.

I think that what is really interesting about your book and unpacking the people around Donald Trump, but also the regimes that we have seen that they want to emulate, is that Donald Trump really is easily persuaded, in my humble opinion. I literally said this like an hour ago in another interview. Give us the 50,000 foot view. Why was it important for you to kind of dig in? to these different countries like Turkey, like Venezuela, like Hungary, as a way to kind of give us a window and a picture into the people in Donald Trump's life and how they got there and why

they're there to begin with. Not just for him, but for their own sake and their own grift and their own proximity to power. Yeah. So at a macro level, the book looks at individuals, namely from Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, and Venezuela that were seeking favor from the Trump ministry. At a micro level, the book focuses on those neighbors, one of them being Rudy Giuliani. And the reason why I got into the book in the first place is because a lot of the questionable activity between Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani that took place during the first Trump impeachment in which Giuliani and Leibonis were part of a plot to conspire with the Ukrainian government to stop Joe Biden from becoming a presidential candidate

for the 2020 election. The reason why I got into the book was not just about the activities. that we knew about, but activities I later found out about in which Giuliani and his associate Lef Partners were both connected to Turkish lobbying in September of 2020 in an article I read. And that article actually kind of made me question whether or not Giuliani and Lefarnas who had worked together both on the Trump impeachment stuff and on Venezuelan stuff, were they also working together for the Turkish government in the years prior. So ultimately, this was me having a quest as you can determine.

whether or not Giuliani and Left Pars were acting as foreign agents during their first Trump administration. I'm going to ask a very rudimentary question, but I think that it is important, which is, tell us what it means when you say acting as a foreign agent. Is like what that actually means? And is this something that Donald Trump would be aware of and not care or was not aware of that they are working not only for his advancement and to ensure that Biden doesn't get in, but that maybe the interests of this country that they're working for won't always align with what it is that Donald Trump wants.

So let's step back and define what a foreign agent is. It's a legal definition by the Department of Justice in the United States. A foreign agent is someone who registers with the U.S. government and is paid to lobby for foreign interests, usually government interests in the U.S. government system. What happened is in the 1930s, the U.S. government created a law called FARA, or a foreign agent registrations act. And the reason for the law was that both Soviet and Nazi agents prior to World War II were trying to get into the U.S. political system and to get favor from the U.S. governments during that time period. In essence, they were trying to suburb the U.S. government for their government's interests.

So that's where the definition of foreign agent came. As it relates to Rudy Giuliani, the law is about lobbying. So if an individual is lobbying for a foreign government, they have to register with the DOJ, or else they'd be going against the law itself. So the foreign agents in question here is whether or not Giuliani was working for an individual that was representing the Turkish government or for individuals representing the Venezuelan, Ukraine or Russian governments. And the book ties together painstakingly plots that started in foreign countries and then were

enabled in the United States by Giuliani and associates. What is the benefit to Donald Trump to, be linked with these nations? The personal benefits, there's many questions about whether or not his business interests or personal interests or if it's just about his proclivity towards authoritarian governments. But ultimately, my question in the book is, why was Rudy Giuliani acting as the president's private lawyer and not getting paid for it? And at the same time, having clients on the outside where they would pay a hefty sum in order to be so close to the president of the United States. Wouldn't the truth then be that Rudy Giuliani was acting as Donald Trump's personal attorney because he didn't need Donald Trump to be paying him because other people were paying him?

Exactly. Is Giuliani a loyal to the president of the United States or the U.S. government or is he loyal to his clients? And so now, I mean, we have, you know, watched over the course of what, I guess I would argue the last nine years, the last decade, Giuliani's entire career blow up because. of his association with Donald Trump and his desire, or willingness, I should say, to thwart the laws of this country in order to advance whatever agenda he is working on. He's lost his ability to practice in New York. He has multiple lawsuits that he's facing. He has lost a lot of money in terms of civil suits. So he's not in favor with Donald Trump anymore. What is your Like your thoughts on the risk versus reward of Giuliani's moves over the last decade?

Well, I think the same risk versus reward is the same that applies to anyone that goes to work for Donald Trump. Anything that Donald Trump touches, eventually dies. So Giuliani thought he could take advantage of Trump and frankly did so. I think actually the rift between Trump and Giuliani goes directly back to the first impeachment. and Giuliani's activities of acting as a foreign agent, i.e. Giuliani was doing activities on the side that Trump was acquiescing to, but he was doing it because Giuliani was supporting his attacks against the Russian investigations. And so, like, for Giuliani, he gets a reward of being close to Donald Trump. For Trump, the reward is that I have got a person who's willing to say anything that I wanted to say in order to get past the next political problem.

I mean, it's just so wild. Like Giuliani, again, not the only character inside of your book. So talk to us about who else put a spotlight on that we know in the Trump sphere. But again, you know, it's not a Bond movie. So I'm not going to say working as like a double agent, but literally people who, people who have placed themselves in Donald Trump's orbit, not only because of like their desire to be close to him. but really what that was going to result in for them in terms of finance, in terms of power in these other places. So who else is like a character that does essentially the same as Giuliani in terms of placing themselves inside of Trump's orbit?

Okay. So there's a number of different interesting characters. One of them is a guy by the name of David Rivera is a former U.S. Republican congressman from Florida. He is currently charged with acting as a foreign agent, money laundering, and I believe, embezzlement. And what he did is he was acting as a foreign agent for, or allegedly acting as a foreign agent for Venezuela, in which Venezuela was trying to get out from underneath a layer upon layer, upon layer, sanctions that had been placed upon it by the United States for, we'll say, bad human rights and frankly obstructing justice in Venezuela, as well as the rule of law itself. So David Rivera was paid indirectly by the Venezuelan government to act as a lobbyist,

but an unofficial lobbyist in which he didn't register. He was paid in excess of $50 million to do this. I'm sorry, what? 50 million. Okay. I just want to make sure I heard the number, right. We are not even to the big numbers yet, Daniel. There's big numbers.

Okay, okay. Keep it going. But, yeah, he was paid $50 million to lobby L. of the U.S. government, including Donald Trump, to drop sanctions against Venezuela. And in doing that, Venezuela gets out from underneath those sanctions and the Venezuelan dictator gets to stay in power. So there's another, there's one example. In the case of Mike Flynn, perhaps you will bribe him.

Yep. Trump's first national security barrage, if I recall correctly, lasted something of a total sum of 22 days, give or take. He is known for his lies to the FBI and later his pardons, as it was. relates to the Russian investigation. What people don't realize or seem to have found a way to forget is that Mike Flynn, when he was coming in as Trump's national security advisor, he was also acting as a foreign agent for the government of Turkey and admitted to it in court. So yeah, it goes around and around. There's also in the book ex-Ci directors that are involved in it,

ex-energy moguls that are involved in it, billionaires connected to money laundering schemes that are connected to it and the Turkish government itself, which was also connected to a money-wander scheme. So let me ask you this, too. Back in 2016, Hillary Clinton, during one of the infamous debates that she had with Donald Trump, referred to Donald Trump as Putin's puppet and had said that this man, like whoever throws favor in his way, form of flattery and the form of money, he will bend in that direction. is it that the people that place themselves in Donald Trump's orbit know how malleable that he is

and know that there is not a lot of substance there? There's not a lot of pushback. They know how to manipulate a very easily manipulated man by you're the best. You know all the things. You're the all great powerful Oz. And in doing so, are able to easily ingratiate themselves with him. Is it that they think that he is so malleable and stupid, or is he like a useful idiot? Or is he also in on all of it, pulling the string? Because in one hand, we love to either compare Donald Trump to a mobster, a mob boss. But a mob boss is somebody that is calling all of the shots that is kind of pulling back and looking at the map and putting the strings in place that all come back to them. That's one way to look at this. Or you're a useful fucking idiot, which is how I see Donald

Trump. And I'm just curious in your research with your book, or what is the third option if neither of those two work for you? Yeah. So I can't for the life may consider Donald Trump an idiot. You become the president of the United States, not by idiocy, but by skills, skills of persuasion, skills of marketing, skills of advertising. I firmly believe he knows what he's doing in terms of actions. What I don't think he understands is that his actions have consequences, i.e. He reads one step in advance as opposed to reading 10 steps in advance for his actions. Does he understand what he's doing? Yeah.

Does he enjoy calling the shots like a mafia gangster? Yeah. But does he actually understand the manipulations he's doing in geopolitics? Probably not. I don't know which one is more terrifying, Jeff. To be honest. Yeah. Yeah.

Indeed. It's amazing to me that people can think he's either crazy or an idiot at this point because he's president for the second time. So first time, you can. Right. You could say it was a little bit lucky. The second time, there's a lot of skill built. Now, whether or not you like that skill and what that skill announced to, that's another story. No, and I think that that that is fair. And I think that when I say that he is a useful idiot, I mean that while Donald Trump, he is Oz in a lot of ways. He has convinced people of his enormous power. He's convinced people that he is this all-knowing being. But I truly believe. that to your point, he only sees one step in front of him, which makes him extremely easy to manipulate. And when you are easily manipulated, you're not that powerful.

If I am powerful, I'm the one that's doing the manipulating. Whereas Donald Trump can sit in the Oval Office, somebody can come and whisper in his ear, and he'll just turn around and parrot what it is that they said. So long as they led with, you know, you look pretty today. So that to me, like, that's what I find so dangerous is that the people that put themselves in his orbit and have orchestrated his second regime, to me, I think are a lot savvier than Donald Trump is himself. I don't know if left to his own devices, Chad, I guess is my question. If left to his own devices, is he as great and powerful as the smoke and mirrors images that has been created around him? Or better, would he even have run for president if he didn't have a certain text of individuals around him at the time when he was running for president? Let me give you a case and example that I focus on the book.

In Turkey in 2016, there was the beginnings of a rumbling of prosecutions of a Turkish bank in the United States. And that bank's prosecution started in Turkey originally. And what happened is that bank was accused of laundering in excess of 20 billion. dollars of illicit Iranian will funds from Turkish banks changing into gold, then routing it back into Iran. And during this time period, the United States is starting to prosecute this case in 2016. And as that is happening, Trump is entering office. And the Turkish government turns to the U.S. government, specifically Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and starts to ask them about closing the potential prosecution of the bank, individuals involved in this money laundering scandal.

and the matter how high the levels go, and to fire the prosecutor and the judges, just like it had been done in Turkey. And Trump is thinking about, hey, Turkey is an important ally of the United States. I need to make favor with them. And at the same time, what they're talking about is obstructing the prosecution of a bank that was money laundering for the Iranian government. What this really amounts to and what Trump wouldn't have known is that this was the Turkish president's original sin.

he was aiding and abetting the money laundering going to Iran. And so when you think about that original sin, Trump is trying to have a tough Iran policy for their nuclear program, but is forgiving of someone who was money laundering for the Iranian government and willing to do favors for the Turkish government who was doing the money laundering. Then you have a question of yourself, does Trump fully understand the ramifications of his actions? If he blocks the prosecution of this bank,

how does it change American foreign relations, geopolitically. How does it change foreign relations within NATO? How does it change U.S. Turkey foreign relations? I mean, it's truly bizarre about how big of the deal of these cases and how very few people are even aware of the case existing. But yet, it's a $20 billion money laundering case. At the time, it was the largest money laundering case in existence. Well, we will have to leave it there today. Folks, the book is The Persuasion Game, The Influence Peders, to the Trump administration who jeopardized America. Chad Lewis, thank you so much for making time for The New Abnormal.

It was great. Thank you, Dene. Take care. Hope you enjoyed 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. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder. Want more great listens?

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