The Daily Beast Podcast - Marco Rubio Needs Body Language Work to Stay in Trumpworld

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

The New Abnormal hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie tear into President Donald Trump’s “toddler tantrum” in the Oval Office. Then, journalist Erin Reed talks about the Trump administration’s attacks on trans rights from federal erasure to military purges and immigration bans. Plus, Brooke Shuman and Eric Vasquez dive into a video they co produced for More Perfect Union detailing how Elon Musk’s Texas playbook explains the moves of the Department of Government Efficiency. 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. goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

What an excellent show we have for you today. Aaron Reed, journalist and publisher of Aaron in the morning, joins us to discuss the Trump administration's escalating attacks on trans rights, from federal or atager to military purges and immigration bans. Then, video producer Brooke Schumann and freelance journalist Eric Vasquez are here to tell us all about their video they co-produced for More Perfect Union, how Elon Musk's Texas playbook explains Doge. All about Elon taking over a small Texas town, seizing length.

not delivering on jobs he promised and why this all sounds so familiar. But first, let's have some fun. So I don't know if anyone's heard any of the things that have happened. But apparently we are now, America, the most hated country. And that's saying a lot because they're still Putin in Russia. But being as how Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, Lindsay Graham, and the rest have decided that Putin is now our father. To watch this all happen in real time, Andy, the crumbling, the toddler tantrum, you know, people saying that Zelensky was humiliated in the Oval Office coup that we all watched in real time.

I don't think that Zelensky was humiliated. I think that America was humiliated. I think that the world has finally seen and the mask has slipped who America is under Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and J.D. Van. And it is disgusting. It is abusive. It is toxic. It is, I don't even know. I need a thesaurus to run through all of the terrible things that it is. But it is clear now to our former allies that it's time for them to get their militaries together, which they have announced, to rally and link arms because the United States not only is no longer their ally, but they are now seeing us as a threat. It was very clear who was humiliated in that Oval Office meeting, and it absolutely was not Zelensky. And it's a good marker, although it's generally the usual suspects, but it's a good

marker to find out who is really not a serious thinker. And if they are going to sit there and tell you that Zelensky was the one who was humiliated, because you have to be fully involved in the cult, like, I don't know, level six. level seven to believe that. Look, it's been good to see Europe kind of rally around Ukraine, and we've seen it from so many different leaders, from Kier Starrmer in Great Britain, to Macron in France, to the European Union's commission president, saying that Zelensky's dignity honors the bravery of the Ukrainian people. And a whole bunch more, Spain, Latvia, Norway, the Czech Republic. The list goes on and on and on and also Trudeau in Canada. I mean, it has been pretty damn close to

unanimous support for Zelensky and unanimous disdain for Donald Trump, which unfortunately because we live here means unanimous disdain for the United States. It was one of the most embarrassing moments that I can remember as an American in terms of foreign policy. It really was. I guess to truly understand the, I don't know, the disassociation that like Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham are having, there's like this split screen that was done of Lindsay Graham from Valentine's Day, which was only like two weeks ago, saying that he couldn't think of a better ally and partner than Ukraine because not one American life has been lost in their battle and they're kicking. Putin's ass to literally below split screen February 28th, where he says, I don't know if we'll ever be able to trust Zelensky again. I mean, the whipblash that that motherfucker must have has got to be something that doctors should study. Because my God. Then to Marco Rubio, I mean, Saturday Night Live did this entire meeting justice with having Marco Rubio slowly sink

back into the couch like Homer Simpson into the bushes, only to go on cable news and have an absolute meltdown when he's confronted with all of the thank yous that President Zelensky has offered the American people over the last three years of this horrific war. And so when Lindsey Graham says, you know, the American people saw a man that couldn't be trusted, I was like, yeah, we're just not looking at the same man. Yeah. And look, Rubin. is going to have to get better at his body language because he really was sinking into the couch. And there was a picture going around and people were having all kinds of fun with it. And I posted something like, when you're watching a movie with your parents and a sex scene comes on.

Mm-hmm. Because that's what he looked like. He wanted to be anywhere else. He was mortified. He was embarrassed. And then, as you said, he goes on TV right afterwards and tries to play cleanup and tries to suck up to the boss. It's just very obvious for what he's doing. and it's absolutely pathetic

and it's completely on brand for Marco Rubio. I have to say, I think J.D. Vance might actually have been more embarrassing than Trump. And that's not something I say lightly, but for J.D. Vance to sit there and say, you never said thank you. Like, who the fuck are you? And Zelensky got him back,

you know, Zolenski said, have you ever even been to Ukraine? And he said something like, I've seen pictures, I've seen videos or something. Yes, he's been to it on Google Maps, evidently. Yeah. It's so embarrassing. And shout out to the people of Vermont who, when J.D. Vance, pretty soon after that meeting, flew up to Vermont to do some skiing, as all hillbillies do, they protested the hell out of him, made him change plans. It was a beautiful thing to see. But, man, J.D. Vance is rapidly becoming, like I said, even more embarrassing than Trump. And I don't know if that's because I feel like he, he kind of knows better and is choosing them. whereas Trump just can't help being the asshole that he is.

I don't know if it's that or what it is, or maybe it's just the blatant sycophancy of Vance that makes it even worse. But my God, he is an embarrassment. I agree. He was very honest in what he said. Why were they so pissed off? Because Zelensky campaigned with Kamala Harris. Right.

He showed up with Kamala Harris on the campaign trail. That's what the rabid J.D. Vance was screaming about. And then you went to Pennsylvania, right, as the foam is coming out of his mouth. Because the audacity, what an insult, right, to Maga. Now, it was Zelensky showing up where the vice president of the United States of America at that time was to thank her, to thank the country. But no, for them, it is like they're mobsters. You're either with us or you're against us.

And in that moment, Zelensky showing support and standing with Kamala Harris was like, you are against us. Jady Vance, I'm so tired of saying that people know better because like you clearly fucking don't. What he knows is who signs his check. That's what he knows. That's why he has the job that he has. Because he is a certainly didn't earn it MAGA candidate who no one would have voted for if he had not had the backing of a billionaire Peter Thiel.

So like, you know, I look at him and I also, I'm not so sure as to why he needed a vacation because ain't nobody's seen him for 40 some odd days. You've seen Elon Musk everywhere. When was the last time before that meeting had you seen J.D. Vance? And the fact that Donald Trump even needed the backup just shows me what a chump Donald Trump is as well. Yeah, for sure. Look, I do want to correct something I said earlier when I said there was like near unanimous support for Ukraine. Russia, maybe not surprisingly. We had Dimitri Medvedev, who is not a tennis player, but rather the head of Russia Security Council,

calls Zelensky an ungrateful pig and said he got a good beat down. Much more interestingly, just on Sunday, a Kremlin spokesperson talked about how, here's his quote, the new U.S. administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely coincides with our vision. Mm-hmm. Once again, Danielle, we've talked about this before, there are just a lot of insane coincidences going on in the world right now.

Shocking. Shocking. And then Trump posted on his broke down social media platform this yesterday. Quote, we should spend less time worrying about Putin and more time worrying about migrant rape gangs, drug lords, murderers, and people from mental institutions entering our country so that we don't end up like Europe. Yeah. Look, everything that has been going on since Trump was inaugurated has been, I want to choose my words carefully here, because I was going to say in service of Russia.

Again, I've said this before, I want to make clear, I do not think that Donald Trump is some kind of agent of Russia. I just think that everything he does is no different from what an agent of Russia would do. And we're seeing it over and over again. We're seeing it. Secretary of Defense, Pete Higsev has ordered the Pentagon to stop cyber operations against Russia. We're seeing it over and over again. We're seeing it more and more, as Trump would say. It's just very, very clear that there is absolutely nothing they would be doing differently if they were agents.

paid or otherwise of the Kremlin. And that's not going to stop and that's not going to go away anytime soon. And look, there are, there's a handful of Republican lawmakers who are pushing back on this a little bit. My guess is when push comes to shove, they will fold. But it is starting to show the tiniest bit of a crack in the Republican Party. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out going forward because it ain't going to get any better. Trump is going to continued to do things that coincidentally work out very well for Vladimir Putin and for Russia. It's a question of, I really think, how many Republicans are going to realize what the hell is going on? And we'll also have the backbone to actually do something about it. I'm not optimistic,

Daniel. Who has a backbone? They're all spineless, stingless jellyfish. None of them even matter. My whole life, if there was one country that you knew, not to align yourself with. If you knew nothing of the Cold War, if you knew nothing, there was one country that Hollywood, right, would tell you not to align with in every like political fucking thriller.

It was Russia. And now Donald Trump is telling us, don't mind Putin. Hexath just said, you know that cybersecurity, those threats that we've been monitoring intensely since 2016 and probably before? Don't trouble yourself now.

We're shutting that shit down. And someone said, he's inside the house now. He's been inside the house. The first time that we allowed Donald Trump into the White House, his shadow followed him and his shadow's name is Putin. Yeah. And look, Danielle, at least thank God we have the Democrats. I want to vomit.

Because as Politico reported, in early February, a group of moderate Democratic consultants, campaign staffers, elected officials and party leaders gathered in Loudoun County, Virginia at a retreat. And this gathering was organized by third way, which is an absolutely idiotic, centrist, democratic think tank. But these were some of the takeaways from this retreat based on a document that Politico obtained. Let's see. Among the causes of the disconnect with the working class, according to this conference, weak message. in communication. Okay, I agree with that. Failure to prioritize economic concerns. We can talk about what that means in a minute. Over-emphasis on identity politics, allowing the far-left to define the

party and attachment to unpopular institutions such as academia, media, and government bureaucracy. What they want the party to embrace are, quote, unquote, patriotism, community, and traditional American imagery. Democrats should ban far-left candidate questionnaires and refuse to participate in forums that create ideological purity test. They should move away from the dominance of small dollar donors, push back against far left staffers and groups, get out of elite circles and into real communities, for example, tailgates, gun shows, local restaurants and churches. The list goes on. Basically, what we're seeing here is a group of quote unquote Democrats who really, really, really want Mitt Romney to be the nominee in 2028. What on that list?

is for the base of the Democratic Party. What on that list was directed towards actually expanding the base of the Democratic Party, the base of the Democratic Party, which is black and brown people? So what Third Way has decided is that they are just going to run and scurry behind Maga and pick up the crumbs of people that are being left behind. because I don't know what fucking Democrat in mass is going to gun shows. I thought that we were against children being murdered in their classroom and people being murdered in their places of worship in mass

because of AR-15s and magazine-style bullets. I thought that we were against those things. So now we're going to gun shows to go get Democratic votes. Miss me with the fucking bullshit here. If you want to know like where democratic leadership is, they are nowhere because they can't see because they have their heads so far up their ass. These people were not built for this moment. They are not for this moment and they are not for this movement. So if people are looking for leadership, they need to look from the grassroots up because the grass tops don't know their fucking ass from their elbows right now.

Yeah. And I want to go back to the whole need to prioritize economic concerns. thing because to me, that is fairly obvious code for throw gay people under the bus, throw trans people under the bus, throw black and brown people under the bus, all in the name of capturing this so-called working-class vote, which they never say it, but they always mean it, white working class vote. And look, all you have to do is look at the other things that they talk about. They're talking about things as if Kamala Harris ran a campaign with the help of Karl Marx. But didn't she, Andy?

Well, apparently, because when I look at these things, I think to myself, you know when the Democrats did well? The Democrats did well in 2020 and 2022 when they pushed the fuck back against anti-trans stuff and book bans and all the other supposedly non-economic reasons, abortion. Let's not forget that. That to me is when Democrats did well. Democrats did not do well in 2024 when they, in large part, forgot about those arguments, forgot about those people. So I look at this and I'm like, what are you saying here? Like, you think there are ideological purity tests that somehow groups are having that are hurting the Democrats at the polls? Like, what are you talking about here?

Are you talking about people who want trans people to be treated with dignity and trans rights not to be thrown in the trash? Is that some kind of purity test? Okay, then I guess I'm a purist. I don't understand all of this stuff. It's not operating from a world that I'm familiar with. Move away from the dominance of small dollar donors to what? You want to go back to the days of you want just the millionaires and billionaires to control the party? Because that's what that sounds like to me. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I have to say, though, there are a lot of people who might not be opposed to that because they wouldn't be getting 20 damn text every day asking for $10. But that aside, move away from the dominance of small dollar donors whose preferences may not align with the broader electorate. Again, in favor of what?

The large dollar donors, the millionaires and billionaires, because they have preferences that align with a broader electorate? Like, what are you even talking about? Part of me feels stupid for even getting so angry at this because it's third way and they are fucking useless. The problem is, this is, This is the kind of rhetoric that we have seen from a lot of Democrats since the election. It just strikes me as completely misinformed and the idea that what people want is for the Democratic Party to be basically the pre-Trump Republican Party. That to me is what all of this sounds like. I find it very hard to believe, considering that Barack Obama beat John McCain and Mitt Romney, who are both pretty good exemplars of the old Republican Party.

I'm not sure where they get this logic from. It's not logic. This is what happens when you chase extremists off of a cliff. You lose the foundation of your argument when you continue to move in reaction to what Republicans are doing as opposed to build out your own fucking plan. Democrats did not lose because of identity politics. That's the only politics that there are. We lost because there were millions of people who said.

sat home who didn't think that Donald Trump was going to be a threat or who thought that in order to, you know, make their stance on Gaza known that they were not going to support Kamala Harris. So there's a combination of reasons, but running away from your values and small dollar donors, small a dollar donors show who's engaged with you and who isn't. Otherwise, you become a pawn of corporate billionaires. We already got that party, don't? Yeah. transgender rights are very much in the crosshairs right now with new iterations of bigotry issuing what seems like every damn day from the Trump administration along with state and local Republicans. Joining me now to speak on this is Aaron Reid.

She's a journalist and transgender rights activist who publishes the very necessary newsletter, Aaron in the morning at Aaroninthomorning.com. Aaron, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me on. So I'm not even sure where to start because seeing the daily attacks on trans rights and trans people is so fundamentally dispiriting for me, a cis head guy. And I can't even really imagine what it's been like for you, except maybe to the extent that I'm Jewish. And the whole thing really does have the horrific stink of 1930s Germany for me. I guess my first question to you is, how are you doing? It's very difficult right now as a transgender person. As somebody that covers all of the news on transgender issues, you know, I write on this topic every single day and I've been doing this for five years. This has been the hardest time to write on transgender issues. issues since I've started. The hits keep on coming, the ways in which transgender people are

under attack throughout the United States. Our lives are being curtailed in ways that I didn't know was possible until this month. Yeah, absolutely. Let's start maybe with the anti-trans things that are going on on the federal level. Obviously, all the attacks we're seeing from the administration are heinous, and I do want to talk about a bunch of them. But I'm wondering if there's one in particular or maybe a couple that are just straight up category five, DefCon one for you. At this point, Are they just all at that level? And this is maybe a really stupid question. Well, so, you know, you opened up with 1930s Germany. And actually, I want to bring your listeners back into a moment in history that happened back then. In 1932, the Institute of Sexology was

looted and burned. This was the place where the first 30 years on transgender research was done. And many of the book burning pictures that your listeners will have seen in their history books, people learn about it all throughout the world. Those books that are in all of those pictures come from the looting of that institute. It comes from the very first 30 years of trans and trans and queer research being burned. 30,000 books and all were burned. So the reason why I mentioned that, besides the fact that we opened up with it, is that the thing that's the most alarming to me right now is President Trump issued an executive order that essentially wipes out the word transgender from all government websites, but it goes way further than that. And so, you know, if you go on to

the CDC health data, you're not going to see the word transgender. If you go on to the passport data, you're not going to see the word transgender. The travel advisories no longer have advisories for transgender people from the State Department. In the Stonewall National Monument, they have removed transgender people from the monument webpage. So whenever you go to the web page, you can't even see the history that we helped create. Transgender people were at the forefront of the Stonewall Movement. That's how we got pride. And in fact, the transgender activist Sylvia Rivera, the one who was one of the most active in the Stonewall Movement, her page now reads that she fought for gay and rights. It used to say for gay and trans rights. They just

removed the word transgender. So this mass digital burning of the word transgender, that would be one thing if it were just on government websites. But let me let you know how this is actually impacting people, because this is not just a esoteric, like, we can't see the word anymore. As bad as that is, it gets way worse than that. Hospitals that receive federal funding are being told they have to remove the word transgender from all of their websites. And in fact, a local LGBTQ hospital clinic here in D.C. had to remove the word transgender and gender identity from their websites to not offer care to trans people. It goes further than that. Let's say that you're a nonprofit like the National Center for the Missing and Exploited Children. They were told that they have

to use transgender kids old names. They have to use transgender kids old pronouns. They cannot even refer to them as transgender. So if you are, if you're a missing trans kid, like we can't even call you by your name at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. That is not a government agency. That's a nonprofit. Like there are so many of these organizations that are being told, you have to pretend that transgender people don't even exist. And if you say that we exist, then we're going to take all of your federal funding. We're going to sue you. We're going to, we're going to take away your right to exist. It's a scary, scary moment that we're in right now. And as a trans person, seeing so many organizations just roll over and comply with this edict.

And that's what it is. An edict. It's not backed by statutory authority. He does not have the right to do this is very dispiriting and harmful in very real ways to people. There's so much more that we can talk about, like I can talk about trans people being denied passports right now. I can talk about, you know, trans people being kicked out of the military being told that they are inherently dishonorable. There's so much to talk about here. Let's talk about some of that because one of the things that seems like a very big deal is both the passport issue and couple that maybe even with the immigration issue. Talk about what's been going on there. Yeah, absolutely. So that same executive order that banned the very mention of transgender people also,

says that it is the government's policy that transgender people don't exist, that transgender is not a thing, that you will never be acknowledged for who you are. And what this actually means in practice, because they've sort of promulgated this throughout the federal government, is that if you're a transgender person who has your updated birth certificate, you've got your driver's license, like everything is up to date and you've got your gender marker on there. And you submit that to the passport agency to get your passport under your correct gender marker, your documents are going to be held. Like right now, there are so many transgender people who are waiting for their passport and like their birth certificates are being held by the federal government. They're not being

given back. So this leads to transgender people being unable to, unable to freely travel. I mean, this is a pretty extreme travel restriction, but it goes further than that. The Trump government just said a week ago that if you are a person who is seeking to enter the United States and you want to get a visa, if that visa, gender marker does not match your assigned sex at birth, then they can deny you the visa and perhaps ban you from entering the country permanently. So this is essentially a travel ban on transgender people entering the United States. I can't say that I ever saw this coming. Why would you do that? Like, what is the purpose of banning trans people from entering and making it harder to leave? Yeah, and I want to talk more about

this because it's being done under the guise of quote unquote, keeping men out of women's sports. That's how they always love to frame it. It's been obvious to, I think, the vast majority of trans people, as well as cis people who actually take a minute to look at what's going on, that the whole trans people in sports thing has always been a smokescreen. And that's really what you're saying here, because I've seen a lot of the reporting on the thing about the visas, and it's all being talked about with regard to, say, trans athletes trying to come here for the Olympics.

And your point is, and it's such an important one, that this is not just for athletes. Right. And this is how they've done this for so long. Look, if you want to go into why we are even experiencing this right now as a trans community and as an LGBTQ community, because these attacks are moving to the broader community now by far. And we can talk about that later. But the way that they're doing this is immediately after the Obergefell decision that legalized gay marriage. They held a conference in Phoenix, Arizona, the Alliance, spending freedom and a couple other organizations. And in that conference, they sort of formed up this new strategy. They were going to start with sports to get their foot in the door to say, hey, if we can put our foot in the door with sports, if we can get people to accept a little bit of discrimination, then we can use this to like get everything.

And that's what we're seeing. And actually what you see now is you'll see bills across the country that are like, this is about transgender athletes. And then you actually look at what the bill does. And it's like it's a total bathroom ban on trans people, ends all legal recognition of trans people. It makes trans people, you know, not be able to get their driver's licenses. updated and like it does all of these things that have nothing to do with sports. And they're doing this right now with the passport thing. The passport thing was announced or the visa thing was announced

by Trump as being used to keep athletes out of the United States. But then you actually read the cables, which I published the cables and you'll see it. It applies to everybody. Like it's, it's not just about athletes or sports or anything like that. That's exactly how they're trying to use an issue that is admittedly a complicated issue. But they're using this issue to like erase all transgender rights period. I'll also lastly say about like the whole sports thing, you know, we've had executive orders on sports and the NCAA is complying and stuff. The sports bands, by the way, don't only just apply to like things like women swimming or something like that. We're talking bands on darts, on billiards, on pool, on chess. Like, we've seen bands on transgender

participation in chess. It's ridiculous. Yeah, it really is. And look, there's a bill this week that is going to come to a vote in the Senate called, I hate even reading the name of the bill, but it's name of the bill, protection of women and girls in sports act. I believe there's a procedural vote planned for today. And then Thursday, I think from what I've read is when the actual vote on the bill is going to take place. And look, I cannot think that even the handful of Republicans necessary to break with their party to stop this, that's too much of an ask right now, isn't it? So the interesting thing about the vote today is it is a Senate vote. And so it's going to go for a cloture motion. I'm going to be watching this vote very closely because actually it requires

is a 60-vote threshold, which means that seven Democrats would have to break for this bill to go through. I don't know what Democratic senators are going to do. I do know that when this bill was heard in the House, which the companion bill was just heard in the House a week ago, Democrats did hold pretty strong on the bill because specifically, and what they called out of the bill was that it would allow for things like exams, inspections, genital inspections of young people. And in fact, we have seen those very same inspections actually in place about a week or two ago, there was a coach who essentially looked to the other team and demanded proof that, you know, these 11 and 12 year old little girls were actually, quote unquote, little girls. And like,

you wanted them to drop their pants. Like you can't sugarcoat this. This is exactly the way that these bills actually impact people in the house. You know, many Democrats railed against the bills saying, you know, this, this is actually going to put women and girls at more risk because it's going to cause them to be more under challenge. It's going to cause people to challenge their gender more. And actually, what you find is that there are so few transgender people that are actually playing sports. Like, I think the last note was like 10 in the NCAA that the most common people that are impacted by these laws are cisgender young women who are gender nonconforming. And, you know, we've seen these investigations on cisgender women often. Yeah. And yet the NCAA could not wait to jump on the bandwagon for this.

I don't think I've ever seen them react so quickly to something and just show exactly where they're. hearts are. Well, and that's what we're seeing not just around trans issues, you know, and I want to make it clear that what we are seeing in terms of trans issues is sort of a microcosm with the volume turned up to 11 of what we're seeing in a lot of issues in the Trump government right now. And that is not only are we seeing draconian actions taken unilaterally by the president under powers that he does not have, but we're also seeing organizations roll over. And I just, you know, I've got this, I've got this book. Many of your readers have probably read it. You may have read it. It's on tyranny by Timothy Schneider.

And specifically, the first thing, the very first page of that book is do not comply in advance. Do not over comply because you're teaching power what it can do. And what we are seeing is these organizations like the NCAA who are not impacted by the executive order. They are not a federal facility. They are not a college. They are an independent organization. And they're just rolling over. They're just, you know, complying and saying, we're going to go above and beyond.

So yes, we are seeing that. And it's very sad. We see it with the NCAA. We see it with organizations and a ton of other issues. You know, with immigration, I've seen hospitals say that they cannot accept immigrants anymore because of the fact that one of the executive orders would implicate it. Yeah, it's really, it's frightening. It's absolutely frightening. I want to ask you about something that ran in the opinion section of the New York Times over the weekend. There was a piece called 10 colonists and writers rate what mattered in Trump's first full month. And one of the things they quote unquote rated was transgender issues.

One of the people involved was a Times contributing writer named Megan K. Stack, and she wrote the following about transgender issues. She wrote, it's mind-blowing that in the Year of Our Lord 2025, the president has declared that an entire cohort of people simply do not exist. The outsized and outstandingly cruel obsession with transgender Americans, a small vulnerable minority already targeted with disproportionate violence, is blatant scapegoating and a serious overreach on the part of the federal government. So far so good, right? And then her very next sentence is, I can't say it's exactly consequential since so few lives are materially affected, but it is a shameful mark on our national conference. So I guess my question to you, Aaron, is how do you feel about being told you are part of an inconsequential group?

Yeah, you know, we make up around 4 million people, according to the latest Gallup poll. That's 4 million people in the United States. We're small. We don't make up a huge population in the U.S., but we still, like, there's a lot of us. around. Most people know at least one transgender person at this point. And so to say that, you know, we're inconsequential, it kind of hurts, but also it ignores a lot of ways in which attacks on the trans community do ripple across the LGBTQ community and do ripple across society writ large. And so a really good example of this is the very same attacks that are being used to target transgender health care

are now being used against birth control, abortion, against antidepressants. You know, we recently just saw RFK Jr. come out and say that, you know, maybe antidepressants are too dangerous for people to have. And we saw in the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. They used the same exact arguments that they used in the Alabama case to ban transgender health care in order to target gender affirming care. We're seeing the same attacks on Mifiphristone, the abortion medication. To say that it's inconsequential ignores the reality of what happens whenever you target a group like us and set the precedent for denying medical care to any group of people that you don't like. But I'll also go above that it's not surprising to me that the New York Times writers, the 10 New York Times writers that they

select would rank transgender issues as like the least consequential and the least bad thing that Trump has done. Because the New York Times has for the last two or three years now been a continual detriment to transgender rights and healthcare and more. They do not platform people who are notable on this issue. Transgender writers are often shut out from their opinion page. Meanwhile, they'll give two page full spreads to writers who will just write disinformation about transgender health care nonstop under the opinion section. That way it doesn't get fact checked as hard. We have had issues with the New York Times for a very long time. There's a reason why Glad parks a little video billboard right outside of the New York Times saying that the New York Times is harming

transgender people. And in fact, there's a reason why their own writers came out in mass and demanded it better coverage of transgender health care issues. The New York Times is becoming extremely complicit in the attacks on the LGBTQ community. They've got a long history of that, by the way. This goes back to like the 1980s. They've had a long history of being poor on LGBTQ issues, and they're continuing to be that way right now. Yeah, and I guess I'll give a little shout out to the two out of the 10 writers that were part of this who did list transgender issues as having both a negative impact and being consequential. And that's Ben Rhodes and Tressie McMillan caught them. I don't want to tar them with the same brush as the other age. Several of whom did think

it was consequential, but in a positive way, which is truly, truly frightening. Before we get out of here, I want to ask about what's going on in Montana right now. Your partner, Zoe Zephyr, serves as a member of the House of Representatives there, and they, the House of Representatives, have been in the news lately for the opposite of good reasons. Can you briefly talk about what's going on there? Because it is absolutely disgusting. Yeah. So my wife, Representative Zoe Zephyr, the first transgender woman elected representative in the state of Montana. Many of your listeners might remember her from whenever she stood up on the house floor and she was silenced, she was censured, kicked off the floor for basically arguing for transgender health care access in her

state that made major news a couple years ago. So right now this year, we are seeing a mass attack on transgender people in the state of Montana. We have seen bill after bill. I think there were six bills heard yesterday than six bills heard today. And the news that's currently going on right now in Montana is a bill that they just pushed that essentially has an indecent exposure law for cisgender people that requires intent, which is the way that indecent exposure works. You know, you have to intend to have some sort of indecent exposure in order for you to get charged with the crime. And then they actually made a separate indecent exposure law that only applies to transgender

people where they remove intent. They say, intent doesn't matter if you expose yourself as a trans person without intending to even, like, you're going to be in trouble. And it's, it's a very clear case of, like, one law for cisgender people and then a separate law for transgender people. But it also has, like, a lot of weird impacts. So, for instance, a transgender man who has had top surgery, who has a flat chest, who has a beard, who, you know, passes as a man. If he goes to a pool and somebody knows that he's trans or sees his top surgery scars, they can call him out and say that he's doing indecent exposure, and he could get arrested and put in jail, potentially charged with a sex crime.

Like, this is a major issue. It's basically saying that transgender people have a separate indecent exposure law that only applies to them. And, you know, Zoe stood up. She delivered a scathing speech. I highly recommend all of your listeners go listen to her speech. It was a really strong speech. It's been hard for her. It's been hard for me. And like watching what's going on in Montana, there's even worse coming in there. Like, there's a bill that's moving today that specifically says that if you've got a trans kid and you're in a divorce, the parent who doesn't accept the trans kid's identity gets the kid. Like that's the bill. That's what it says. It's. says that being trans is not in the kid's best interest, and therefore it's like child abuse to have a trans kid. The one thing I will say is that Montana has a strong constitution. And thankfully, many of the laws that have targeted trans people in Montana have gone down in court in the state. I would even say that the constitution in Montana is stronger than the United States constitution in terms of being protective. But all that said, like these bills and these laws, they do very real harm right now. And I anticipate that it's going to accelerate in Montana. So keep your eyes on it. Yeah, absolutely. Aaron,

Thank you so much for joining us. I would love to have you on some time when we can talk for 20 minutes about all the good news going on with regard to transgender rights. That'll be the day. Yeah, sadly, I feel like it's going to be a long time until we get there. But, Aaron, again, thank you so much. People go to Aaron in the morning.com. Just absolutely essential writing on these issues. And thanks again, Erin. Thank you so much for having me. Folks, I want to welcome to the show, Brooke Schumann, who is a video. producer at More Perfect Union and Eric Vasquez, who is a freelancer but is a co-producer on

More Perfect Union's recent video on Elon Musk and how he is used to town in Texas as a testing ground for Doge. Thank you both for joining us. Walk us through what has happened in this small town in Texas. And I'll start with Brooke. I'll start with you. Yeah. So I had been following this story for a couple of years. There's been a lot of great reporting about Musk's arrival in Brownsville, Texas, which is in the southern part of the state. And I think this last year has been a real mask-off moment for Elon Musk, where he's come out in support of Trump. He's now rapidly deregulating and defunding the government. But this is actually part of a larger pattern that has been going on for most of Musk's career. And I think that communities like

Brownsville have really seen it firsthand. And essentially in South Texas, Musk has taken over what used to be a very large wildlife preserve of state and federal parks and a public beach that was locally known as the Poor People's Beach that's called Boca Chica Beach and made an enormous campus for SpaceX and where he launches the largest rocket ever built called Starship. So he took, he was given public land that the people had access to and was given the ability to build this large campus. And I just want to understand this because when was this land presented to him? Because both Republicans and Democratic administrations have been funding, providing Elon Musk with billionaire welfare in the form of government contracts. So can you speak to when on this timeline this happened? Yeah, Musk came to Texas about a decade ago. He was already starting to buy up small patches of land.

But he really made a show of creating a bidding more between a couple different states, sort of saying like, this is going to be a huge undertaking. This is going to bring economic growth to the area. This is going to be the leading edge of space exploration. And kind of pitting these states against one another, he was looking at Georgia and Florida and Puerto Rico and Texas. You know, state and local officials really wanted to give Musk whatever he wanted. And they gave him a lot. Not only did they give him a 10-year waiver on county taxes, they also gave him 20 million in tax incentives, and they also amended the state constitution, which I think is really incredible.

They amended the constitution to allow the closure of this public beach, which might sound like a minor thing, but it was part of a long pattern of Musk slowly overtaking this region. No, the closure of a public beach is not a minor thing. It is not a minor thing. Building on wildlife preserve, not a minor thing. So Eric, you are a freelancer down in this area. Talk to us about this community and the impacts that these moves, that essentially their representatives have turned on the people in order to turn on the faucet of money for Elon Musk. So talk to us about the impacts that this has had. From my perspective, as a resident of the region and lots of family and friends in the region, I think it's, unfortunately, it's more of the same of what we've seen over the decades of the Rio Grande

Valley's development. Like in the early 1900s, this region was sold to land developers and company owners as a place with a lot of land for agriculture and the development of the railroad for transportation and a lot of, like, cheap labor being the people who are living in the region. And so it's more of that concept of like development for extraction purposes, right? Like when Musk was first moving in, there was a lot of excitement about, you know, the prospect of the launch facility being there and the quote unquote like economic development that it would bring in regards to jobs and infrastructure. But from the ground level, from what I've seen, like the jobs that are more of the high paying jobs at SpaceX aren't necessarily going to local residents. And we've seen that evident in all the residential properties that are being bought by SpaceX and then leased and rented out to out of state and out of town SpaceX employees.

It's that ongoing struggle of corporations and larger capitalist entities promising economic growth and development to the region and to its residences. But ultimately, it's just going to result in cement parking lots and shopping centers. Mm-hmm. Cement parking lots and shopping centers and what we know as the climate is heating up, as we are watching in the state of Texas as quote-unquote super storms rage through, whether it's hurricanes or it is significant droughts and then significant freeze that is happening, that this is because of hyper-industrialization in a way that, does away with protections like wildlife reserves that produce greenland, oxygen. I just want to add that Boca Beach is like a really unique ecosystem because it's on the Gulf coast right there. It's home to 500 different species of migratory birds. It's home to

endangered and protected species. It's like a very diverse ecosystem. And again, was many, many acres of wildlife preserved. And it's really hard to overstate just what a big imprint Musk has there. When they initially applied to the FAA to build this facility, and when they presented this to the community, it was really supposed to be like one little launch pad where they would be launching this one rocket, the Falcon 9. And over the course of the last six years, it's just exploded in this area. And the rockets have also exploded many times. And that's what I think about. You know, we see these videos and we see these images for people who are not living in these areas.

You don't think that when these things are exploding, what is happening down below? What is being harmed? What is it causing? What are they releasing? The fumes and toxins. What is being released into the atmosphere so that he can play space traveler? Talk to us about why this kind of helps to provide a window and why it wasn't brought to our attention or brought to our attention earlier. What is it that people really need to understand

that this town, this space, this area was a microcosm for what Elon Musk's plans are now for the country that he is running? There are a lot of lawsuits underway with the DOJ, the Fish and Wildlife Service against Musk and the NLRB. But the FAA in particular has been very lenient with Musk over the last few decades. And it really started in the Obama years. It's been going on for for a while. He has been able to slowly ratchet up his operation in South Texas. And he's also just been able to secure these enormous contracts with NASA and the FAA over the years. The main thing is that a few years ago, when he first wanted to launch the Falcon 9, the FAA had to go through a very involved environmental impact assessment. And that was to figure out what this rocket

was going to do to the region, both in economic terms, but also in environmental terms. And when Musk decided that, no, he was no longer going to launch this Falcon 9, he was going to launch the Starship, this enormous profit. The FAA just did not choose to do another assessment. Now, is this before or after he had the FAA administrator fired? Right? Because was there not a lawsuit that was underway or at least maybe not a lawsuit? Maybe it was an investigation. Like you're saying into the safety and regulations that seem to have slipped his mind as he was going through these launches. But this is why many had said now after we've seen a series of crashes around the country that it was Elon Musk and the FAA looking into SpaceX that he had that

gentleman fired. So Michael Whitaker did step down much earlier than his term was allowed. He was supposed to be there for five years and he stepped down after a year and a half. And really, Musk and his fans had like a bullying campaign against Michael Whitaker and against the FAA. Because what would happen is Musk would launch a rocket and he would have avoided some very basic, simple, you know, safety regulations. The most famous one is his very first launch of the starship, the launch pad exploded because he did not have a water deluge system set up, which is just something that you need when you launch a rocket. And so the FAA had ground SpaceX. And they ended up doing that a number of times over the course of these launches, just to, like, get the rocket up to code. And each time, Musk would go on Twitter, and he would just be saying, like, at this rate, humanity will never get to Mars, which is really just his excuse for getting away with whatever he wants to do.

I think that he came to Texas originally, in part, because when his headquarters were in California, he was just facing a lot of more. regulatory burdens. He was violating labor laws in the state. He was violating environmental laws. And so I think that he moved to Texas in part to sort of get around some of these regulations. Eric, I want to ask you this, because as a resident, as somebody, you know, with family in this area and living in this area, what does it mean that your representatives and leaders have created a climate that dismisses, I guess, the needs of the community in service? to what they, I'm assuming, lie to the public and say, oh, look at these, we're creating jobs. Like, jobs are going to be coming in. So don't you worry, like, you're going to be a part of building

out this campus. Those are construction jobs. Like, how have they sold this to the community over the last several years? I think it's been sold as that as a promise that a young high school student could apprentice at SpaceX and then go into an entry-level position. And then in that same sort of like company man concept that used to exist in America, where you could just move up the corporate ladder in a company. From what we've seen, that isn't necessarily happening in regard to, you know, the corporations that Musk oversees and is in charge of, that's not how it works at a lot of Musk companies, like, you know, as we've seen from his activities with X and like the mass

and all the sort of chaos that he's brought to that company. But on a local level, we've seen it before. Like, our city leaders cozying up to corporations and promising jobs, but a lot of the times, their low, low-wage jobs, not a living wage, could be made from the service industry or construction. And unfortunately, it's more of the same. I think, like, the ideal version of maybe what everyone hopes in the region was that SpaceX would partner up with the local school districts to form some sort of educational

programs. In that way, that could have been amazing if SpaceX worked with the school districts and the local colleges and universities to have an employment funnel from education, training, skills learning, and then going into the SpaceX employment ecosystem, but that hasn't happened. And it's more of the same where lots of money is poured into the region through government contract with SpaceX, government contracts with border militarization, high concentration of law enforcement presence in our region because of its proximity to the Mexico border. It's a border region. And ultimately, it doesn't really do anything, but deregulate, destabilize the region, and just over-police it.

The way that you just laid that out, Eric, is so extraordinarily clear. And what it makes clear is that Elon Musk, SpaceX, but largely like how, I believe, and I won't put words in either of your mouths, but what I believe is that Republicans in these areas do not care about creating any type of pipeline, about saying, okay, Elon Musk, we're giving you billions of dollars and millions of dollars that we're opening up to, but written into this contract is ensuring that a portion of the money goes into building out STEM programs in this region of the state, that a portion of the work. workers that are coming into work on either the buildout or actually inside of the building

need to come from this state. There are things that can be written in. Absolutely. Yeah. And we've seen that over the years with the Texas Workforce Commission, partnering up with community colleges. In the region specifically, there's South Texas College and there's one in Harlingen, I forget the name, Texas State Technical College, I believe, TSDC. And Texas Workforce Commission, they do have those partnerships where they can help fund these skills trainings programs in order to get trade jobs, well-earning, living wage jobs for the community members. So I think like the blueprint is there.

Like we've seen it happen many times. And those programs have data that say they work. And, you know, it's possible. And with the richest man in America coming to the poorest region of the United States, you would think that there would be some. sort of effort to help its citizens, and we're just not seeing that. Well, we will have to leave that there today, but I can't thank the both of you enough for your work on this explainer of how we got here nationally is that Elon Musk started

with using Brownsville as a petri dish, as a tester for what could be done. And folks, the video that is out now is how Elon Musk's Texas playbook explains Doge and it is up on More Perfect Union's YouTube page and I highly recommend it. Thank you, Brooke and Eric, for making time for the new abnormal. Really appreciate you. Thanks, Danielle.

Thank you for having us. Thank you. Andy Levy. Daniel Moody. Andy, how are you kicking off the state of our despair this week with your fuck that guy? A bit of a funny story here, although there's nothing funny about this guy. So this morning, social media was sending around a thing is a letter from a Wisconsin Republican congressman named Derek Van Orden.

He decided to post on LinkedIn a letter that he wrote to a former employee of the Veterans Affairs who was not happy about the government cuts that Doge has been ramming through in the VA. So this employee took the time to write to his congressman. and here's how Derek Van Orden replied. Mr. Ruiz, I am a member of Congress on the VA committee. I have absolutely no say in the employment status of any individual in the executive branch. However, I will be referring you to Doge as it seems that on 146 p.m. on a Monday, you should have been working for veterans not posting trash about your boss, President Trump. There needs to be accountability now.

If you want to talk about an actual piece of shit human being, look no further than Derek Van Orden. For him to pretend to be outraged that a Veterans Affairs employee wrote him a letter or sent him a little note during working hours. By the way, it was at 146 p.m. could have been his lunch hour. We don't know. And for him to pretend that this guy now is the problem, what an absolute garbage human being. The funny part of this story is the Bullwark just this morning ran a really good piece called The Sorry Truth about Representative Derek Van Orden. This piece came out before we found out about this LinkedIn post. So it's a very long piece and it covers in detail all the various disgraceful things that

Derek Van Orden has done. And it wasn't even about the one that happened on the same day that this piece came out because the piece came out before it. So I read the whole piece thinking, okay, I'll get more information because I saw it after I saw the news about this disgusting letter, LinkedIn post, and I thought, maybe there'll be more information about that here. It's not even mentioned. Again, not the fault of the bulwark or the author, because the piece was published before that.

But just struck me as really funny that they put up this piece, and it was like, damn, this thing's outdated already. It's a really good piece. And if you read through it or look through it, you see that this is far from the first time that Derek Van Orden has beclowned himself. Again, just an absolutely disgusting human being to write a LinkedIn post like that to a VA employee, or I guess now a former VA employee, because we're firing people who are in the government working to help veterans and other people.

To think that that is in any way okay just reveals everything about your complete lack of moral fiber. So a huge old fuck that guy goes out to Wisconsin Congressman Derek Van Orden. So basically what these MAGA Republicans in Congress are saying to their constituent is I don't give a fuck. I don't care what is happening to you. You had at one of the town halls, people angry who have been fired now wondering where they're going to get their next check from, how they're going to be able to pay their rent and their mortgages being told. that, quote, God has a plan for you. That's what their members are saying. And so here, again, we don't.

And for folks that are still wondering, if you live in a democracy, you do not. Because if you are unable to direct your frustrations towards your representatives, who you put in office to represent you, and can rely on them either reading, helping you, and instead in turn get you fired because you should just be sitting at your desk praising Donald Trump all day every day. That's not what you do in a democracy. That's what you do in an autocracy and in a dictatorship. So anybody that still is confused about this, look no further. Fuck that guy. Yep. All right, Danielle, it's Monday. We got a long week ahead of us. So long. We're probably doing an extra episode.

after Trump's joint address. My point is, Danielle, we have a long week ahead of us. So I'm hoping that you're a fuck that guy will actually be something nice. Yeah, Andy. And don't let me be the pin for your bubble of hope, but pop pop, pop, you know what I'm saying? Pop, pop. Do you remember when former president Joe Biden was giving his final State of the Union address where he told the American people very clearly that if Donald Trump became president again, that Republicans were hell bent on gutting Social Security. I do. And if you recall that moment, then you recall what?

All of the booze and the lies and the you lie and this is not the truth and, you know, the groans and all of these things. Because how dare former president Joe Biden defame this moral group of people who would not think about taking away your parents and your grandparents, Social Security, their money that they have put into Social Security, that is their money, their hard-earned dollars, that you only receive a portion back when you hit 65 and can begin claiming your Social Security. Well, well, well, well. Common Dreams.org posted what has happened at Social Security administration. And here is the title of their article. Bloodbath. Social Security Administration

begins mass firings. What is being described as a total annihilation of Social Security Administration. So let's say this. The American prospect, which first reported earlier last week, that acting SSA Commissioner Leland Dutick was weighing staff cuts, get this, folks, of up to 50%. 50%. And that the email that they all received said, quote, that folks have until March 14th, which is 11 days from now that we're recording this, to decide a number of options about their future. They can seek voluntary reassignments or separate from federal service through retirement or resignation. All employees at least 50 years of age with at least 20 years of service are being offered an

early out, voluntary early retirement. Folks, grandma, grandpa, your elderly family members, aunts, uncles, your parents, I hope that everybody has this magical nest egg folks talk about because social security is now gone. And Democrats were clear in this messaging and said this, but 80 million Americans decided to believe the used car salesman that has lied to their faces for a decade. And so here it is. Your elderly family members will no longer receive a social security check because that is what this is going to result in. I have visited what we refer to at times as underdeveloped countries that have no social safety nets, where I've watched as people bathe in fountains because they have no agency

or place for people to go. And I'm talking about people in mass. The crisis that is about to hit this country is going to be worse than any type of depression I think that we have ever seen. And for that reason, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, J.D. Vance, all of these horrible, spiritually bankrupt, morally bankrupt people. Get my hearty, heartfelt start of the week. Fuck those guys. Yeah, this is really grotesque. And Ron Wyden, the senator from Oregon, made an excellent point. He said, a plan like this will result in field office closures that will hit seniors. in rural communities the hardest. Think about who a large number of residents of rural communities voted for for president.

And think about what that guy is saying to them, because what he is saying to them is fuck those guys. And so what we are saying to him is fuck that guy. 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 lot. 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? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts.

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