The Daily Beast Podcast - MAGA OG Nick Fuentes Takes a Surprising Left Turn as a Trump Truther

Episode Date: March 16, 2025

On this episode of The New Abnormal, co-hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy are left scratching their heads over far-right political pundit Nick Fuentes’ surprising characterization of Trump as a ��demagogue.” Plus! John Hopkins University professor and historian Mary Fissile discusses her new book, Pushback: The 2,500-Year Fight to Thwart Women by Restricting Abortion. 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 edition of the new abnormal, and we thank you so much for being here.

Today we have an extra special guest with John Hopkins, Professor and Historian Mary Fissel, and she'll join the New Abnormal, discuss her new book, Pushback, a 2,500-year fight to thwart women by restricting abortion. But first, let's have some fun. You guys ready to listen to some clips? Clips. Clips. Daniel. Clips. All right. Here I'm going to play a very cursed broadcast from Pierce Morgan. We have a friend of the show, Medea Hassan, discussing with not friend of the show, Congressman Dan Crenshaw, the unlawful arrest of Mahmoud Khalil. Vague.

How is it false? How is it false? I just read to you the actual U.S. code like this. I'll tell you. Not true according to who. I can tell you how it's false, because according to the White House, Dan, according to the White House. The White House went to the free press yesterday. You should check your facts before you come on and defend the White House. The White House went to the free press and said, we're not accusing him of breaking any laws.

So Congressman Dan Crenshaw is coming on TV, making wild accusations of law breaking based on a quote that's not from Mahmoud Khalil. Not wild accusations. It's just referencing the law. They are. Well, hold on. Hold on. You're wrong, Dan.

First, except that you're wrong. The White House said to the free press, Barry Weiss's right-wing free press, this week, we are not accusing him of breaking any laws. In fact, if you want to understand the laws, you need to look at the Immigration National Act of 1952. They're actually taking him into deportation proceedings under Section 237A4CI,

which allows Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, to personally deport a migrant because he believes that migrant's presence has serious potential adverse consequences for U.S. foreign policy. That is the obscure act, which, by the way, was designed for Eastern European Jews to get rid of them because they were deemed to be communists in the 1950s.

That is what Rubio is using to get rid of a lawful permanent resident. Now, whether that's legal or not, Trump's late sister, Judge Marion Trump-Barry, said it was a violation of the First Amendment. We'll see if the Supreme Court gets involved. But the idea that we should live in a country where Marco Rubio or Anthony Blinken

can remove a green card holder because he doesn't like his views and they're against U.S. foreign policy, some nebulous aim. That's outrageous. And there was a time when the Republican Party would have been against that. You've added to my argument.

I appreciate that. Perhaps you should be defending the Trump administration. No, I'm pointing out to you as a broken law. You had an additional law. He hasn't broken any laws. You hadn't broken any laws. No, he hasn't broken any laws. That law, let me explain it to you again.

That law gives Ruby the power to do it. That doesn't mean Mambud Khalil has broken any laws. And I gave you another law. And I gave you, and I referenced another law. And you're wrong. And you're wrong. The White House disowned you, Dan. And the White House disowned you.

The White House said we're not accusing him a lawbreak. Your White House, Dan, it's embarrassing to you. It's embarrassing to you. You just quoted Rubio. You just quoted Rubio. referencing a law. Did you not? No, because you don't understand the law. What do you mean they're not? The law gives Rubio. Let me say it slowly then. Rubio has the power to remove someone he believes

is against U.S. foreign policy. That is not someone who's broken the law. That just gives him immigration power. Nobody is suggesting Mambud Khalil has broken the law. He hasn't been charged to break any line. He was disappeared to Louisiana. You say, you say, you say, but he broke the law. The White House is like a minute. Check with the White House on talking points before you come on TV. I can have... Oh, man. Thank God his show got canceled. Right?

My God. Can't have that level of competency on the national television. No. No. You gotta force the poor guy to go sit with Pierce Borgon. Good Lord, nobody deserves that. Not even Dan Crenshaw deserves that. And he sucks.

Medi is a national treasure. He really is. his ability to break down people with just facts and pure persistence. It's magnificent. I commend him for his patience because when he said, let me break it down again and slowly. Yeah. Right?

And then he's like, oh, I get what you're saying now. And I'm like, because you're dumb. Because you're like, you're in the, like this conversation, this level of intellect is too much for you. Speaking of very,

very poor intellect, a thing I think that is missed in here. two is I went back and read that free press article. And for those not initiated, Barry Weiss's free press, wets the bed over freedom of speech every day. But you'll be shocked to hear they're not very concerned about Mahmoud Khal because of one thing. It is that they are for freedom of speech except if it's against Israel.

And they would love, love to see all hate speech as is being a trend right now. These free speech absolutists love to do these new laws that say you can't. can't criticize Israel, which is just absolutely unbelievable that you could go anywhere near the word free speech absolutist when you're putting pressure on for laws like that to be enacted. Yeah. I mean, look, Barry Weiss got her start. She was a, I think she was a student at Columbia trying to get professors fired for not being sufficiently pro-Israel.

So for her to try this, the whole branding thing as a free speech warrior is ludicrous to begin with. And of course, she's not going to defend the rights of Mabud Khalil. Okay. Here we have Donald Trump doing his usual thing where he tries to move the goalpost on something. And, oh, boy, is this one bad? And Schumer is a Palestinian as far as I'm concerned. He's become a Palestinian. He used to be Jewish. He's not Jewish anymore. He's a Palestinian. Okay. What the fuck is that supposed to mean? What is that supposed to mean? You're using Palestinian as some type of insult? You know, I assume that Donald Trump was at one time born a human, but I'm not quite sure what the fuck he is now.

Like, I'm just so tired of this shit. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Andy. Yeah, no. Look, Chuck Schumer is as pro-Israel as it gets. I assume this had something to do with Israel or maybe Mahmood Khalil. I honestly don't know what to say about this either because it's just, I'm starting to feel like a broken record. But again, the fact that there are Jewish groups who have aligned them.

sells with Donald Trump, the fact that the ADL will put out a statement basically applauding the illegal arrest of Mahmoud Khalil. The fact that any of these people think that Donald Trump is in any way their friend is so absurd. We can get into the factual bullshit about what he said, because, first of all, there are Palestinian Hindus, but that doesn't matter. At this point, none of that matters. What matters is Donald Trump has set himself up, and he's done this before. And this is a thing on the right. This is a Ben Shapiro thing. You know, this is a thing where they talk about good Jews and bad Jews.

And the bad Jews are on the left. And the good Jews are on the right. And Donald Trump is now the arbiter of what a Jew is in America, at least in his mind. And that's just, I mean, it's absurd. The whole thing's fucking absurd. And I would like to just laugh at it. But I can't because it's obviously also very dangerous. So here we are.

I could just see him going, excuse me. me, I'm just hearing this for the first time. There's Palestinian Jews. Yeah, so stupid. Well, to follow up that stupidity, a reoccurring character encloses one white nationalist Nick Fuentes. And Nick has taken an interesting turn where he starts to tell the truth about MAGA. As I hate to admit it, liberals were right fundamentally about Trump. Whether he has good intentions or bad intentions, whether he means well or not, some people blame his advice.

Some people blame people around him. Whatever you think about his culpability, he is in effect, okay? Maybe not consciously or intentionally, but in effect. What he is is a demagogue. What he is is a populist demagogue. And directionally, what liberals said about him, which is that he was stirring up the rubs, animating the rubs with nativist rhetoric and ginning up resentment. against the system to empower himself and the people around him and then brought the swamp closer

to the periphery in his first and second administration willing to say and do anything yeah that all kind of turned out to be true is ketamine a truth serum like what if that is the thing that everybody's now moved on to sodium pedithal nick foentes welcome to the resistance Yeah, yeah. Not really. I mean, obviously, the funny thing about this is Nick is mad that Trump isn't Nazi enough for him, I guess. I honestly don't know what this means because Nick Fuentes next week could be patting Trump on the back again. It's an interesting thing to hear from a white nationalist neo-Nazi like Nick Fuentes, but yeah, fuck them all.

Folks, I am very happy to welcome to The New Abnormal, author and professional. Professor Mary Fissel, who is the Mario Molina Professor in the Department of the History of Medicine at John Hopkins University and author of Abortion, A History. Mary, it is wonderful to have you on the show. And I will tell you that your book, just by virtue of the title, I'm assuming, is on every band list right now. Because evidently, we can't have real conversations, even about our bodies, about medical. procedures about history in a thoughtful way. But I want you to kind of give us a 50,000 foot view of why this book right now in this particular climate, we are living in a post-Dob's world

that is steadily devolving for women and for people with uteruses and bodily autonomy. So talk to us about what it means to be going through this book in this moment. Thanks so much for having me. A quick note, a different title in America than Britain. Britain is the straightforward abortion of history. And in the U.S., it's called Pushback, the 2,500-year fight to thwart women by restricting abortion. So what I will say is banned book lists are gray-free advertising. That's the way it is. So I started to write this book in early 2022 when it looked to me like we were headed for dangerous times. And I felt, as a historian of medicine who often teaches undergrad classes that go from like antiquity to 1700 in, you know, 15 weeks, that a big, big picture was really important. And here's what I see when I take this really

long 2,500 year of view. People have always ended pregnancies for as far back in history as we can see as long as we can see this was happening. And prohibition rarely works. It just makes abortion more difficult and dangerous. What surprised me as I worked on the book was to discover that even when abortion is illegal, there's often periods of quiet toleration, long periods of quiet toleration. People look away. They ignore evidence. They don't ask questions that they could ask. In some senses, there's a quiet consensus that this will happen. There's a few people prosecuted maybe, but a general kind of looking away. And finally, what I found is that, These punctuation moments of severe restriction are often related to gender backlash.

Women have gained some measure of autonomy and it scares people and they try to roll the clock back. And one of the ways they do that is by having strict abortion restrictions. I think that one of the interesting things that I kind of want you to unpack it for us is kind of going back really deep into the history. And you're saying, you know, at the top that people have always ended pregnancy. right? Like this is actually nothing new, but the politics around it and the religiosity around it is what is fairly new, at least in the United States, becomes prevalent in the 20th century. Talk to us about, I guess, the indigenous practice of ending pregnancies. And then if you can, I know in this very short period of time. Bring us to why in the 20th century it now becomes an absolute religious

flashpoint and issue that we have continued with to the present. Sure. If it's okay, I'm going to spin that a little bit differently. I'll talk about indigenous, but I'll also talk about what I mean by this really long view. I'd give you an example. In ancient Rome, people were worried that elite women were too vain about their figures and they were ending pregnancies so that they were could stay slim or so that they could cover up adultery. And the emperor made an edict forbidding adultery and abortion. That's a clear kind of attempt to put women back in their place. What is quote wrong, and I do mean the scare quote, wrong about abortion over time, has changed tremendously. So we know, for example, in ancient Greece, they already knew abortion

was health care and abortion was not stigmatized. It was unproblematic. So it's very, very variable from place to place. In terms of indigenous Americans, the evidence we have is mostly from white explorers and has to be handled pretty carefully, but there are suggestions that they knew about local plants that could have effects on a female reproductive system and use them accordingly. That is fascinating. I think that also something that you lift up in your book, too, and I want to touch upon, is this idea of herbalists and quote unquote witches, this practice of herbalism, midwifery, and the negative tomes that then would turn into witches and the devil and Satan. Can you just kind of bridge that gap for us? Because again, it goes back to this knowing

practice, this connection with the planet, with our bodies, with plants, with medicine. that then becomes an abomination as organized religion is growing? Sure. We think medication abortion is relatively new sometimes, getting pills by mail, but actually medication abortion was the primary form of ending pregnancies for a really long time. People use the same plants. There's about half a dozen that are the most often used, but many others. I want to say right now, don't do this yourself at home.

There's a high toxicity level for many of these plants. It's not safe, but it may have been effective. And so those herbal practices were handed down both in written and oral form, as far as we can tell, for a really long time. When the voyages of exploration came to the Americas, we see a kind of hybridization where African knowledge that was brought with enslaved peoples, local indigenous knowledge, and European knowledge. they all kind of circle together and start influencing one another in a really remarkable kind of efflorescence of herbal knowledge.

For example, enslaved peoples chewed cotton root. The same plant that they were working hard in the fields to hoe plant harvest. At night, they were chewing the root because that was a traditional remedy for regulating fertility that came from Africa. And then it became imported to America. and by the 1860s, white folks start catching on, and druggists start selling preparations of cotton root. So the story of the plants is like woven through every chapter of my book because that's how people did it.

That was the way. Witchcraft gets associated with abortion in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the Middle Ages, believe it or not, many witches were actually men, not women. and then a pair of Dominican friars wrote this big book on witchcraft in which they reconfigured witchcraft. It was women who were witches, and they were witches because they had sex with demons. I mean, these guys' imaginations were working overtime. And so then you get to have this juicy bundle of, you know, sex, abortion, sin, witchcraft, all rolled up into one. And more important in the book, they created a template for having a panic about witchcraft.

There's like 80 questions that you ask, designed to get the answers you want if you're the interrogator. And so for two centuries, we see these terrible outbreaks of panics arresting dozens, hundreds, mostly women, et cetera. And because women were using herbs for lots of medical treatment, when they're interrogated, they start telling their stories. And that kind of healing is part of the fabric of their lives. And so that comes out and then these interrogators jump on it because they assume that witches know about abortifacient drugs, herbs, and are telling others to hide the fact that they're having demonic sex. Now, learned authorities actually debate whether demonic sex could result in pregnancy or not, but there was a sense that sex and

witchcraft were tangled up. And that's how abortion got connected in that way, although there weren't any witches, really, and there were plenty of female healers who weren't using anything magical even by their own standards. They were just healing. What it consistently comes back to is the fear of feminine power and energy, right? Like, that's my non-professorial and academic boiling down to. We'll come to, is that everything, and I want to bring us into the present moment now, everything that we see in history where there are attacks and murder, because, you know, it's easy, I think that when I was younger, when you're learning about, for instance, the Salem witch trials, and you, you know, and you're using this language of which and which makes it disconnected from woman in a lot of ways.

And what we don't say is that, oh, there was a rash of. femicide in this country for decades upon decades where women were killed because of their power and their intellect and their connection to earth and medicine. Do you think, Mary, that when we don't make that connection, that we're also losing the connectedness to our history in that way because we're disconnecting from actual people and turning in it into something other. Oh, absolutely. And I agree with you to call them witches is to make them some kind of alien, other scary being. When most of these women were poor, they were scrabbling out a living, doing multiple things. Maybe they were spinning and healing and doing this and doing that.

But they knew things. They had knowledge. They had limited amounts of power through that knowledge. And that scared people. I absolutely agree with you. We have to understand that in these spasms of, I mean, sometimes I want to call it state-sponsored terrorism. In these outbreaks, this is fear of women really strongly. Now, somebody will say, oh, but there were some men executed, and there were. But this largely the fantasies that are driving this are about women's sex and power. And we have to understand that as part of, like, how that world works.

I would pivot for a minute and say you had talked about today, and I would make a connection to today if I could, which is that I think that we're living through that kind of period of gender backlash, which is in fact very strikingly similar to the first wave of anti-abortion agitation in the United States. Back in the 1840s and 50s, it's first wave feminism. Women are starting to agitate for the vote. They're fighting for the temperance movement because they're already. arguing that men are drinking away their wages and not feeding their families. They're giving lectures to other women about how their bodies work. Some of them are becoming physicians. And that was a strong factor in these male physicians agitating against abortion. And in our own day, I see this very similar, you know, the results of third wave feminism are all around

us. And this is a very retrograde movement to try to criminalize abortion. I mean, it's strikingly similar to me. And then, like, you just saying that now pops into my head, this, and I can't, and you'll, you'll be able to pinpoint it for me, maybe in terms of time. But when women were talked about as being hysterical, there are fainting couches, there is women and, and, and, you're, and, and their nerves and being overly medicated because of this imagined frailty that women had. Was this like the Victorian era? I'm just thinking about kind of the story, the narrative that was created around women to disconnect them from their power, but to keep them in like this submissive place,

but largely around like medical treatment. The way I would cast that is yes. It starts in the 18th century, goes into the 19th century, what we call the Victorian period. And that's a couple of things. It argues this thinking is that women are fundamentally different to men. Their bodies are different, different, different. And they're ruled by their uteruses because women are made to be mothers.

And heaven forfend, they don't fulfill that destiny. All kinds of bad things will happen to them. They literally thought, like, the uterus could affect the brain. And men did not have an equivalent organ. Men could just do what they did. they weren't ruled by the same kind of aspects of parenthood. You know, you could be a father intermittently, but you were a mother 100% of the time. And that sense of women being fundamentally biologically different was used over and over again. That's one of the reasons that they said

women couldn't be physicians because they were just too unstable. They weren't capable of physicians of leadership, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And what's striking to me is that wasn't always seen that way. That's an invention of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Before that, men and women were seen as sort of more similar in their bodies. I mean, it's interesting because I think that, again, not being a physician, but obviously men and women and their bodies are different. Like there are different hormones. There are different chemicals that move through. There are different parts. And even, you know, now a certain facet of women are aging, we're actually having more articulated conversations about menopause in a very public way and how menopause affects

different women of different ethnicities and different groups differently, that it is not this whole one size fits all. And so on one hand, you want to be able to discuss the differences, but not in terms of it being a deficit, I guess. You want to be able to say, yes, men and women are different, but that doesn't mean that there is a deficit or a weakness in that difference. Absolutely, absolutely. There are differences. It depends on whether you want to emphasize the differences as disability or whether you see the differences as productive and as, well, there's just differences. So absolutely, absolutely. As we come to a close here, I want to ask you with just a minute or so left, what are your hopes for your book and being able to really tell the story of the history of abortion? What do you hope that people take from it? Thanks. That's a great question. Well, the book ends on an optimistic note, which may seem very strange, given where we are today in the United States. But what this long view of history shows is that these moments of restriction pass. They burn out. They don't last. They cause untold miseries while they're here. But this will not endure. And what I hope my book will point us towards or encourage us to do is to consider, like, legislation so that we don't have to swing back and forth between toleration and restriction

that we can be like most other nations on the planet and have the right to abortion ensconced in law where it cannot easily be undone. But I do think understanding that this is about gender politics and this will not endure gives us some energy to try to move forward to take action. Yeah. Well, we will leave it there today. Again, the book is abortion, a history. Mary Fasel, thank you so much for making the time for the new abnormal. And thank you for giving us this history, this book, this deeper understanding of an issue that is fundamentally natural and has been a part of our history for as long as humans have existed, I'm assuming, and we'll continue and endure. I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

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