The Daily Beast Podcast - MAGA Host Alex Stein Can’t Stop Talking to Lara Trump About Anal Sex

Episode Date: April 28, 2024

In what can only be described as a race to the bottom, right-wing comedian Alex Stein appears obsessed with talking to the president’s daughter-in-law about sodomy. Plus! Danielle Moodie talks to Brazilian journalist Adriana Carranca on her new book Soul by Soul: The Evangelical Mission to Spread the Gospel to Muslims. 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 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 Kedden, 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 after the new abnormal, and we thank you so much for being here. Today we have an extra special guest in Brazilian journalist, Adriana Kahanka, who's here to talk about her new book, Soul by Soul, the evangelical mission to spread the gospel to Muslims. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready to listen to some clips? Not really, but clips. I have to tell you, with what we got today, I really, Don't blame you for the...

Oh, no. All right. Well, anyway, clips. So, former President Trump kind of known to occasionally be funny. But this one, I don't think, was intentional, but I was cackling. And I think we have a good chance of winning New York. We're going to give it a big blame. We're going to the South Bronx to do a rally.

We're going to be doing a rally at Madison Square Garden, we believe. I think we're signing Madison Square Garden to do it. Is Madison Square Garden in the South Bronx? Did he move it? You know, we have a long history in New York of naming party places after other New York monuments. I went to a lot of shows at a Shays Stadium that wasn't Shade Stadium. I can see that being a possibility.

Oh, okay. Well, look, famously in 1939, there was a Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden. Which is Pappy attended. Yeah. So why not? I mean, the history is there. I mean, the fact that he says he thinks they have a serious chance of winning New York. I mean, that was the funniest.

That was the first thing. Yeah, that was the funniest part of all of it. But, well, maybe going into South Bronx, that's pretty funny, too. Mm-mm. Did either of you attend the R and C protests when it was in New York? No. No. I'm just envisioning.

That wasn't a pretty scene those days. Watching my friends get beaten brutally by cops. Can you imagine Magas walking through the South Bronx and also how few will attend? I got to tell you, I'd love to fucking see it. You know what I'm saying? I would buy tickets for it. Do you know? Like so, I mean, by all means, it's always funny to me when these motherfuckers want to hold

like these rallies, they do so in the widest of places. Bring your hot shit to the people's doorstep that you're talking about. Bring it. A certain relative of mine just this weekend would not come into New York City because they watched too much Fox News. So we had to meet them at the American Dream Mall in New Jersey. And I imagine a lot of MAGAs have heard a lot about the South Bronx. And I don't think after watching Fox News, I don't see them attending.

You know, Donald Trump is alluring, though. They may, they'll run up to the old Navy, get their flag shirts, their teaky torches from Party City and just head on over. You never know. Oh, boy. Well, now I'm going to enter my plea for sympathy as producer of the show because it's hard to keep the writing original when the same people say the dub as shit week to week. Can I give you two, one guess which show we're going to play a clip from? Your best friend. My best friend.

All right. I mean, it's either Jesse Waters show or the Five. It's the Five. Okay. Oh, okay. It is also Jesse Waters on the Five, so. Oh, of course. Oh, dear God.

And they caught him. They trapped him in a cage. We called a courtroom, but it's a cage. And he's like King Kong. And they're sending Maddow down there, and she's looking at him like an animal. She's like, oh, man, his hair is really orange. Uh, look at his eyes. his lips. He's angry. He's mad. He's upset.

Watching him. They're not providing any sort of legal analysis. Joy Reid went down there and he's like, well, he's bigger than I thought he was. I mean, they're acting like it's like a zoo creature. And what happens with King Kong? You remember? Boom. It's not going to be good. So he's going to bust out of this cage eventually.

They're not going to be able to keep him down. They kill King Cougar. Yeah. He took a white woman on top of a building and it was frowned upon in the 40s. I don't think I don't think. Yeah, it was a big. Oh, shit.

And you know what happened to King Kong? You don't know what the fuck happened to King Kong. Dummy? Oh, he's so deliciously stupid. When you're getting corrected by Tyrus. Oh, my God. It's a bad day of your career. Which is really saying something for him.

Oh, my God. That was amazing. It was honestly, like, he's like, oh, God, they're looking at him like a zoo animal. Like now a courtroom is a cage and he's an animal. Like, they're so fucking fragile. Like the victimization, it's like they want to be both tough and then like the flakiest of fucking flaky people.

It's wild to me. Oh, poor Donald Trump, people are looking at him. He's made an entire career of look at me, look at me, look at me. Dehumanizing people is the bread, which also funny enough, What did Jesse Waters get his start in television doing? Oh, he was Bill O'Reilly's guy who would go out and do racist segments where he literally looked at people of color like they were animals. All right.

Well, I'm going to admit I haven't kept surveillance on former heads of the R&C and D&C's press hits during their tenure. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Reds Prebis and Howard Dean were not doing press hits like this one Lara Trump did on Alex Stein's show. Get back to Laura. Get back to Laura. We got in this correctly. Okay, Laura, you've been a great sport. You've been a great sport.

And I just, this last question, your father-in-law, he used to go on this show called the Howard Stern show a lot. And Howard Stern sucks now. And I got in trouble by a few of the executives here. We had a wholesome Christian comedian. Her name is Hannah Cruz. She has a big TikTok, and she has a great, lovely family, kids and everything. And I wasn't thinking, and this is a free speech network,

so I don't ever want to censor our guest, or you. I asked her if it was okay if you're married to have anal sex. And that was a big deal. I asked that. I asked that. Because I said, is that legal? And I would never, I just want to say, Lord, I would never ask you a discussing question. You never ask me something like that.

I would never, Lord, I would never say anything like that. This is a free speech. If you have a, you know, if you want to say, if you want to give your opinion on it, you're welcome. But I'm not, I would never ask you anything about that. Hold on. I have a question. Is it legal to do? Yeah, well, you know, as they say sodomy is illegal now.

Yeah, in the Bible. Is it legal in the Bible to do that? Like, with your husband, of course. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, once you were married, everything is legal and everything that everyone enjoys, whatever it may be. That's it. Laura, oh, my God, I love you. See, you're such a good sport.

Everything's legal. So my wife and her boyfriend, whatever they do, it's totally legal. But they're on a lot of drugs when they do that. So when they do drugs, that's legal too, even though my wife and her boyfriend? I mean, you know what? If they're in the confines of their own home and they're not hurting anyone else, maybe you should just let them do what they want. Then when you come home and kick them out, obviously.

What the hell did I just listen to? Like literally, Andy, you just beat me to. I was going to utter the same thing. Jesse, what the fuck did you just make us listen to? When I found this today, I was like, can I even put this on the show? This is so demented. And then I was like, no, we have to show the people. people who these people are. What the actual fuck did I just listen to? One of the other things I

appreciate is I couldn't find how long she was on this broadcast, but they were still calling her by the wrong name, which everyone does, calling her Laura instead of Lara. Yeah, I was actually wondering if I've been mispronouncing it all this time. No. I have never heard of Alex Stein before this, but that was horrific. Like, I actually, I need a pay increase for that. Like, that was on somebody's air? You know what I? Kept thinking of is the famous Paul Joseph Watson tweet that says, the left is very worried because the right is getting, learning humor.

If that's the right learning humor and edginess, I'm really not scared. Yeah. He should ask her about pegging. Oh, my God. Are we canceled? Like, are we allowed to say this? I don't think so.

Okay. Well, unfortunately, now we're going to take a much darker turn after the fun we've had. So I don't often put trigger warnings. in the clips, but at this point, if you're triggered by domestic and violence, I would skip to the interview portion of the show. Anyway, I think this is important because here we have white nationalist, racist, child virgin, and Selnick Fuentes, who you may remember from having dinner with Donald Trump and Cagiae and hanging out with Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Green. He's going to tell us what he thinks would make America great again. These toughest guys or those that pretend to be the most tough

or the most masculine, they've got their dumb bitch wife. right behind him in their ear. And we both know that guy is never going to punch her in the face. He's never going to kill her. It's just like the woman knows that it's not even in the cards. It's not in the deck.

Okay, she's going to open up that pack of cards and it's not in there. Zero percent chance. Okay? It's never going to happen. He's never going to cheat. There's no rape. There's no, in other words,

there's no, there's no actually male power coming from the man. Like the man is not a beast. The man is not an animal. He doesn't have power because he would never abuse whatever power that he has. And therefore he doesn't have it. And so because the woman knows the man totally, doesn't fear him, is completely comfortable and kind of bored with him, she doesn't ever really respect him.

And that's when the power dynamic, I think, changed. Again, what the fuck did I just listen to? This is disgusting. Yeah. Honestly, the fact that the, like, that this is even on anyone's airwave, and I say this all the time. I'm not a lawyer. But like, how are you promoting domestic violence? How are you promoting murder and rape?

And there is no FCC charge? How are you able to just go unregulated to the point. where there are people, there have been mass shootings that have been executed by these in-cell type of men against women in this country. And this is what they are listening to and just allowed to because what? Like this is the protective freedom of speech that we do here? That was beyond anything that I have, that I've ever heard. Yeah, I don't really have anything to add to that.

I don't even want to make a joke because that's just so. fucking gross. So I have the benefit of having the visual of this is his background is a fake skyline of New York as if he's broadcast from one of the high towers that Fox and NBC broadcast from. And the funny thing about these people is that they are always cosplay tough because, honestly, no one would recognize him as it is because no one pays attention to this fucking loser. But if he ever was walking the streets of New York and people knew what he said in these beliefs, It wouldn't go well for him.

No, I wouldn't think so. It's hard to believe he's an insul. I should also say the context of what was happening there before is he was extolling that he is a more tough guy than other men because he doesn't have a woman in his life. Oh. He's never going to have a woman in his life. He's not going to have a fucking like AI in his life. Do you understand? Like, not even a fucking hologram wants that piece of shit.

Like, so he don't have to work. There's nothing, no bit of fucking worry here that this man needs to have. Daniel, you just gave me the best idea for a sequel to the movie, Her. Oh my God. Not. Is it called him? Not him. Yes.

We're Scarlet Johansson goes, I can't even fucking do this and I'm a robot. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal Brazilian journalist and the author of Soul by Soul the evangelical mission to spread the gospel to Muslims. Adriana Kahanka. Thank you so much. Absolutely.

I think that we are all aware for, I mean, must be centuries, must be thousands of years at this point of the idea and the concept of missionaries, of Christians going around the world into different parts of the world to spread, quote unquote, the gospel of. Jesus Christ. I think that for so long it had been characterized as goodwill. We just want to spread the word. Talk to us about what you are reporting on in this book soul by soul and why it needs to be something that is on our radars. Yeah, like as you said, it has been on for millennium, right? More than a millennium, more than two millennia. The first missionaries were actually

the apostles, right, who started spreading the messages that they believed to have learned from Jesus, from the son of God, and they started spreading that in different directions. And sometimes we have an idea of Christianity as a homogeneous movement, but it has never been. It has always been a very ethnically diverse movement. So even the apostles, they went in different directions and they preached to different groups of people in the Middle East at the time who spoke different languages. And there were not a church at the time, right? It was just these people who had heard Jesus and started spreading the word. And for 300 years, it was like that.

It's like just people sharing this message. course the message was shared with different aspects, with different understanding. So you have, like, very early in Christianity, councils that were organized to decide on what directions the religion was going because there were actually disagreement about the message spread. So that was for the next 300 years until in Rome, the emperor became a Christian himself and then allowed Christian to spread throughout the empire and to the West. And then you have, in parallel to that, the rise of Islam in the Middle East. So you have a religion that starts in the Middle East but moves Western

and becomes very much linked with that advance of Western power, Europe and then the US. It was brought to the US by the Puritans, right, who were dissents of the, the Anglican Church in England, and they thought to reform that church, they couldn't reform the church as they wished. So they came here to the U.S. actually to, with the idea of founding this godly commonwealth, it was pretty much a missionary enterprise from the beginning. And then you have, in parallel to the advance of the United States as a superpower, the advance of the missionary movement as well, because those things are linked together. Talk to us about how and why they're linked together, right? Because what this really comes down to, as I understand it, and you

please correct me if I'm wrong, is about power. When we're talking about initially, let's say colonialism, you're talking about manifest destiny. You're talking about land grabs, right? And the expansion of land. But in the way that you're discussing this, this isn't. necessarily about land. It's about people. It's about masses of people. And when you look at the numbers, Christians don't have the same numbers that Muslims do. Islam has billions of people. So talk to me about the power and how that is interlinked. So if you look at the beginning of the missionary movement in the U.S., it was really following basically U.S. diplomats and troops. whatever they would go, missionaries would go with them.

Sometimes, U.S. foreign policy benefited from missionaries because they are on the ground. You know, they relate to people. They are among the people. Sometimes it was the other way around, or most of the times the other way around. Because if you think of, you know, the U.S. advancing territorially, these missionaries were under the protection of the power. that was advancing. And this happened in Europe as well, right? So the first missionaries went to Egypt under the British rule or to Pakistan or those areas to India, right?

The former British Raj, that's when the first missionaries arrived there. It's difficult to detangle the expansion of Western power from Christianity, you know. just as it's also difficult to detangle to separate the advance of Islam from the oil countries like Saudi Arabia, because those are the countries that are financing missions. And Islam and Christianity are basically the two missionary religion. Christianity was born out of mission. It's a central character of Christianity. since its beginning. In Islam, you have sectors of Islam that are missionary, like the Wahhabi

line of Islam that was born in Saudi Arabia is highly missionary. So they finance the building of mosques across the Muslim world or even in Europe, the sending of pastors, Al-Aram University in Egypt also does that. In more modern times, as Saudi Arabia and Iran began fighting for, they control the narrative and the culture and the power in the Middle East. Those are two countries that both are Islamic, but they follow different lines of Islam. One is Sunni, the other is Shia. And when they began, they fight for souls, if you will, began to intensify. They both started financing mosques and, you know, later we saw in Iraq,

Syria, even armed groups. And so Christianity is more or less the same. If you think of the U.S. as a superpower, the rise of U.S. as a superpower, was seen by protestants as a sign of God's power, God's choosing them. The Puritans, actually, they thought they were God-chosen people to build this kingdom of God here. So it's interesting that the U.S. was, although there is a diversity, a plurality, plurality of religion in the country, the U.S. was born out of a missionary enterprise, which was

the Putiton coming here and wanting to build this new Jerusalem, if you will. And the advance of the U.S. happened in parallel to the advance of America as a superpower. And then you have a turning point in beginning in the 19th century. Then you can mention, you know, technology, the advance of technology, the advance of transport, who allow these people to really reach out to the entire world. And then you began what we call the modern missionary movement, which has this turning point to this watershed moment, which is 1974, when Billy Graham convened a conference in world evangelization in Lausani. And Lausanne. in Switzerland. Why Lausanne? Probably because it was closer to the headquarters of the World Council

of Churches. And you began in that moment, what we call the modern missionary movement that was basically led by evangelicals, who are the majority today among the Protestant. The World Council of Churches was a more left-leaning organization. So you see during the Cold War, the World Council of Churches, they embraced revolution in Latin America. They embraced this very left-wing movement in Latin America that was head by priests. That's called the Liberation Theology. That happened in the Cold War. So Billy Graham started to see this division among, you know, conservative and liberals,

and he wanted to unite everybody under his own. which is evangelical and conservative. And then he convened this first major move Congress in Lausani. And from there, if you look at that moment in Brazil, for example, which is the largest Catholic country in the world and the largest country in Latin America, at the time, Brazil had 36 missionaries. Now Brazil is the second largest sending country of missionaries to the world behind only the U.S. That's extraordinary.

Yeah, and that's the moment. The turning point was exactly there. It's interesting how Christianity made a journey across the world. So it begins in the Middle East. It was officialized, if you will, in Rome, in Europe. It comes to the new world with the Puritans. And then you have the first clash of religions. within Christianity is the North America evangelical,

majority evangelical, protestant and evangelical. And you have the South, the largest Catholic stronghold in the world, the Catholic missionaries, the Jesuits began arriving in South America in the 1500. Let me ask you this about where we are in the present day, where you follow two newly, right, I guess, converted people, missionaries who are, right, Brazilians, Luis and G's, who are working in Afghanistan alongside two South Africans. Right. And Nigerians and all. Religion and politics and wealth and power are all intertwined.

And what I find really interesting is the mission. that are in these countries that have great conflict. And when the new refugees arrive, the rush to try and convert them. So can you kind of explain like, I guess the strategy that you uncovered in the profiles of these people? It all goes back to this watershed moment in 1974 where evangelical leaders from around the globe meet for the first time and perhaps for the first time they have a true sense of a global family. You know, as they call it, the global body of Christ. So you have this massive wave of evangelicals going to Latin America and to some extent to Africa and converting these people to evangelicalism. And then their goal is to convert the whole

world. And the way they see it, you mentioned how they go to these vulnerable places. The way evangelical see that is that vulnerability, war, and poverty has a single reason, and that is not knowing Jesus. That's how they see it. I'm not saying that I agree. I'm a secular journalist, so I'm not saying that I agree with it, but that's how they see it. So you have this Argentinian strategist who lives in the U.S. Louis Bush, who organized, he criss-crossed data about poverty and war in the world and the groups that hadn't heard from the gospel, hadn't heard the gospel yet. And what appeared in his computer was this window that was back in 89. It was this window that they called the 1040 window, the 10 parallel, between the 10th parallel and the fourth parallel,

where the majority of Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus leave, and also the majority of the poor. So the way they came to frame a mission was that you were saving these people from war and poverty by converting them to Christianity. And then you have a move, a turn to the East to convert the Muslim people, especially after the Cold War, because before the Cold War, they were concentrated in communist countries. After the Cold War, they turned East to convert Muslims. And then you have 9-11. And what happens after 9-11, was that the fields became too dangerous for American missionaries. This same man, Louis Bush, at a conference of the Lausani movement, said,

well, we have this massive number of people in Latin America and Africa who could go in our place. So instead of continuing sending American missionaries to the Muslim world, they started equipping, training, financing, mobilizing this army, if you will, to fight for souls in their place. And that's the reason why Brazilians became the second sending country of missionaries. And you have Colombia and Mexico among the five largest sending countries. So they went to fight for souls because it was too dangerous for America,

especially Americans, especially after the Iraq and the Afghan wars. But the movement is financed largely. still by the U.S. Your book, and this has been incredibly riveting, because I think, again, what it goes to show you is that the push for power really comes back to the numbers and really comes back to the masses and what areas. I personally say, I'm not saying that you're saying this,

but I'm saying where there may be vulnerabilities, there may be areas of duress and war and upheaval. and it's almost, you know, I will say, because we have to leave it here today, is incredibly opportunistic. But it's all intertwined into the push of what encases a superpower. And I think that your book really lays that out. And I'm just, I'm really thankful that you came on the show today to give us some insight. I really appreciate your time today, Adriana. Thank you so much.

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