The Daily Beast Podcast - Marjorie Taylor Greene Is on a Hot Streak of Stunning Stupidity

Episode Date: February 11, 2022

The TNA crew considers who in the GOP is really a moron and who’s just playing one. Plus, former Rep. Max Rose previews his rematch with Trump-loving Nicole Malliotakis, and the Beast’s Zachary Petrizzo explains what it means to be in “Facebook jail.”  If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Zhang Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic Invo. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. 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 the wisest and funniest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it. What an interesting show we have today. Max Rose, who's running for Congress in New York City, will talk to us about his race and talking to the right-wing media. Then the Daily Beast, Zach Petrizo will give us an update on all the latest wacky stuff happening in Maguworld.

But first, let's have some fun. Andy. What's my full name, Molly? I don't want people yelling at us. I don't even fucking know it. Who are you? God damn it. I was promised a libertarian.

Wow. Wow. Wow. That's smart. Molly Jong Fest. Oh, you know, speaking of Jong's, Donald Trump stays in communication with Kim Jong. I think that's sweet. It's sweet, right?

Yeah, don't you think that's sweet? Yeah, it's a little bit of a sort of modern friendship, a kind of modern fairy tale, if you will. It's a you've got Mel for the 21st century. Exactly. I cannot believe we've gotten this far off the rails this fast, Jesus. So it occurs to me that Congress right now is the dumbest place to possibly work in America at this point. All right. So let's talk about this because I actually don't believe that Congress is the dumb. No, I'm just kidding. I do. But I want to say that Massey, Kentucky's own Thomas Massey, did actually go to MIT. So this is performative moronics. This isn't real moronics, right? Marjorie Taylor Green, I do believe Gaspacho, Gestapo. She is a fucking moron. But I want to get back to Thomas Massey and Nancy Mace, who today endorsed Donald Trump in the hopes of getting him to endorse her.

There are a lot of smart people pretending, or not even smart, there are a lot of relatively intelligent people pretending to be fucking morons, discuss. Let's start with Thomas Massey, who tweeted the other day that over 70% of Americans who died with COVID died on Medicare. And some people want Medicare for all. Okay, so Medicare begins at 865. And obviously, older people were more likely to die of COVID. So blaming this on Medicare, it's a bit of a leap to be charitable. So he's got a degree, I think, in electrical engineering. And look, I don't know anything about electrical engineering.

If I talked about that, I would sound really stupid. So it's possible that he only knows about electrical engineering and doesn't know how the world works outside of that. I don't know. Is he stupid or does he just have really specialized knowledge? And that's it. It's so hard to tell. Well, you know, look, we're in the Republican primary season, right? We're running up to it.

And we are in a Republican Party that has discovered that if you are as stupid and racist and awful as possible, as possible you can win. So I think that's, we're reaping the stupid benefits of this shittiness now. I think, you know, we've gone to the bad place. I think that's true. I'm sort of at the point where I don't care if it's performative. Like, I don't care if you're actually stupid or if you're just pretending to be stupid because either way you're stupid.

Pretending to be stupid as a plus? No, sorry. That's stupid. I think he means this, though. Like, do you think he's just trolling here? No. There are times when Republican can't. candidates troll the media and troll this sort of Democrats.

But this, I think, is actually Republican candidates realizing that the Republican base loves the stupid and can't get enough of it. No, you're right. I shouldn't have said trolling. It's more the, what I mean is. So you think this is performative is what I meant. I mean, I think they think our people respond to stupid racism. Let's go. And I mean, and I think what we've seen from Congressional gerrymandering, which is very boring, but the net net of it is red seats are redder, blue seats are bluer, ergo red primaries are going to get fucking insane because the only way to win them is to appeal to the basest instincts of the Republican Party and Democrats are going to want to give you free glasses, two sides. Right.

Yeah. Democrats want to lower insulin and Republicans want to kill all black people. Mario, are the glasses you're talking about the crack pipes that they were saying they're giving away? Okay, so one of the many lies that we're going to see shopped up to the midterm is something that Sean Hannity tried out yesterday with the dumbest. Actually, he's quite smart, which is more performative moronics, the junior senator from Louisiana. Senator Kennedy, no relation to the anti-vaxxer, said that Biden was handing out crackpice. Biden is not handing out crack pipes. To me, there's two parts of this story.

One is, you know, so the idea was to hand out these free, what are they called? They call them like drug kits or whatever. Right. And they're meant for harm reduction for drug addicts. And the idea being like, look, ideally you would want people not to be drug addicts, but as sort of a stopgap measure, you want them to at least be drug addicts more safely, which seems rational, actually, to me. I know. So the question is, were there glass pipes in these kits that would be used for smoking crack? And the administration says no, that there never were. And there's other stuff in them like lip balm and rubber stoppers and stuff like that. Put the pipes in there. Like, that's the second part of this to me. Like, I don't, I'm serious.

Like, I don't care if the pipes are in there. It's something like that has been shown to help people, stopping them from dying from using a contaminated pipe or whatever, then do it. Maybe I'm just off the wall here, but I'm a little annoyed now that there aren't crack pipes in the case. I think you do what you have to do. And I'm not pro-smoking crack or anything like that. I'm just like if you have to mitigate things, then you mitigate them. And if this is what it takes, and I'm fairly certain that studies have shown that doing stuff

like that is actually helpful and saves lives, then do it and own it and stop caving. That's what the Democrats do that really bugs me is they end up caving. And now, now I have no idea if there were ever crack pipes in this kit or there weren't. I just don't know what's going on because the Democrats, as far as I'm concerned, there could have been crack pipes or just glass pipes in the kits. And then the Democrats got nervous and said, oh, no, no, no, no, that's not true. So I just, I end up getting annoyed at both sides, more so with the Republicans, but stand by your convictions. Like, if you have science behind you, if you have studies that show that doing this stuff is helpful, then say that. Don't cower because Sean Hannity says, you know, this is bad. I'm just so tired of it.

Well, I would say this. We are in a situation where Republicans are genius messengers. They are geniuses at messaging. You don't have a Democratic messaging operation like this. You don't have, you know, MSNBC has people like me saying things that Democrats are doing wrong. And I say this is someone who is a Democrat, right? Right. You don't, but on the, on Fox and Fox business, you have people who are literally saying like Donald Trump is a genius. You should just watch what he does. He's amazing.

They're so focused and they're so on message. And they basically say continuously this, this same lies over and over again, until there is no truth. No, that's absolutely right. So the Democrats need to fight back on this. And sometimes they do. I'm not saying they never do, but sometimes they don't.

Sometimes they actually adjust their stuff to sidestep the lies on the right. I want them to stop doing that. I want them to say, you know what? Fuck you. Here are 10 studies that show that handing out these kits to drug addicts makes the country a safer place and prevents people,

unfortunate people who are drug addicts from dying maybe. Do that, like own it. That's all I want is just own it. The same way that the Republicans own the lies. And like you said, they repeat them over and over again and unfortunately, they're lies.

So what I'm saying is it would be nice if the Democrats did that with the truth. Just own the truth and own it and get out there. And like you said, hammer it home. What's being said on Hannity is not true. Or, yes, we are handing out glass, pipes as part of this harm reduction kit for drug addicts. And here's why. And then, you know what,

if there's always going to be people, like the people they're afraid of that get mad at this, they're not going to vote for you anyway. That's my firm view. And maybe I'm wrong. And maybe they feel they have to tack to the center or they're going to lose these independent voters who might vote Democrats, except they don't want addicts getting crack pipes. So maybe I'm just wrong about this. But I just sort of feel like you go down with your best shot. Like lay out your case I would just say that I think what's important here is that Democrats need to fight back. They should not go high. Exactly.

Right? This is the Michelle Obama problem. And I like Michelle Obama. She's incredibly smart. She went to law school. She's, you know, very accomplished. But the reality is this is a fantasy that we go high. We cannot go high.

When Democrats go high, they ignore the disinformation, misinformation, misinformation ecosystem that we're operating in. There is no high. There is rebut, rebuke, and, you know, attack. You say, that's fucking bullshit. We're trying to help addicts. What have Republicans done about addiction? Like, you go full throttle. And I think that that's a real big problem that Democrats have.

I guess the only thing I would take issue with you on, it's not really you I'm taking issue with on. I'm taking issue with the definition of going high. Because if you're speaking the truth, then you're going high as far as I'm concerned. If your tone is, fuck you, here's the truth. That to me is still going high. So I just, I agree. They need to mix it up more.

And I just don't think mixing it up more is going low, is seating the high ground, not if you have the truth on your side. Right. No, I agree. But with they're in this thing where it's like, it's all about sort of tone or decorum, this whole when they go low, we go high thing. And I'm sorry, but we are, as you said, this is where I completely agree with you. We are long past that time.

Right. There is no point in holding the high ground in that respect in terms of decorum because all that gets you is continually punched in the groin. So we need to talk about a Texas congressman and it's not Louis Gohmert. I'm sorry to tell you, I hate to bring up a Texas congressman who's not Louis Gohmert because he is the dumbest member of Congress. He was a judge. He's running for fucking aging. against Ken Paxton.

Ken, I was indicted, Paxton, but no one has brought up the indictments yet. It's been like five years. Again, this is all a supposition at this point. Troy Nell's breaking Twitter thread with lots of siren emojis and also a little thread.

Tell you know it's the good shit. Right, that's how you know that this is a serious intellectual here. Capital Police entered my office without my knowledge. and photograph confidential legislation, legislative products protected by the speech and debate clause enshrined in the Constitution. What's a legislative product? That's not a term I've ever heard.

Exactly. It ain't great. So anyway, this caused an entire conservative outrage cycle. They are outraged. But why are they outraged? Why? Why? Because the Capitol Police said the door was open.

And when the door is open, their protocol is just, should just go into the office. Yet another stupid news cycle. But I don't know where this goes. I guess this goes nowhere, right? I mean, basically, Republicans hate the Capitol Police because they tried to stop an armed insurrection on January 6th, right? That's what's happening here.

And so they'll just, right? I mean, that's what we're looking at. Well, yeah, look, what happened was, Molly, despite you carrying water for the Capitol Police. That's right. I'm a chill for big Capitol Police. You always have been. That's right.

What happened here is Nancy Pelosi is very upset that Congressman Nels doesn't support her. So she ordered the Capitol Police to break into Congressman Nels's office and probably just go through his drawers and everything and investigate him and try to come up with some stuff, some dirt that they could get on him in a very sort of Nixonian plan. I'm sorry, if you don't believe that's what's happened, you are not qualified. to host this podcast. You know, someone's going to cut this little bit, and we're going to end up hearing it. You know, right? Alex Jones is going to be playing it.

But yes, no one thinks that Nancy Pelosi controls the Capitol Police. Everyone thinks that this was a stupid mistake and an open door and what happens. But, you know, when everything looks like a conspiracy and all you have is a conspiracy, everything looks like a nail. That's a famous saying, by the way. I would just like to say that what you said is not true. There are people who believe this, including one Congressman Matt Gates,

who is demanding that the Capitol Police chief manager or manger, as Gates spelled it in his tweet, love that man. Preserve all Capitol Police records related to any investigations into members of Congress because he thinks these revelations are shocking. And if there's anyone that knows things about being under investigation, It is Matt Gates, so I am going to defer to his expertise here. Still under FBI investigation, the one the only Florida's first district, Matt Gates.

Marjorie Taylor Green, delightful, serious intellectual that she is, did yet another video where she was complaining about the, she wanted to stay Gestapo, but instead said gazpacho. So are you saying it's possible that she's even dumber than Louis Gohmert or the guy whose name, the guy, or Nells? I've already forgotten his name. He's so insignificant. Thomas Massey, there's somebody to choose from. Like, I know you always say Louis Gohmert is the dumbest member of Congress. And I really, I think that's true on some days, but I think it's like a sliding, it's like watching sports standings. Like one day someone's in first place and then another team gets on a real streak and then they're in first place. And I feel like it's the same thing here.

Like Louis Gomer is definitely like a preseason favorite to win the division. Right. No question. Yes. But you have people like Marjorie Taylor Green who go on these, they get on these hot streaks, you know, these hot streaks of stupidity and they climb up the standings. And next thing you know, they're like only like, they're only like a take out of first place. So she's out there now saying that Nancy Pelosi and her Gaspacho police. And the funny thing is beyond the fact that she said Gaspacho, and she meant to say Gestapo, you don't say Gestapo police.

Right. It would be, it's a little bit redundant. Yes, that is true. It's like even if she got it right, it would have been stupid. But of course, she didn't get it right. And then so here's the question for you on this, Molly. Like we all agree. I shouldn't say we all agree.

I have made it clear. I think she believes everything. she says because I think she's just insane and it's not performative for her. I think she is a true believer. But I saw a lot of people saying, oh, she said that on purpose because now people are going to make fun of her and she's going to

fundraise off of it. Do you think that? I never think that they're ever playing three-dimensional chess. I think they're always just making mistakes. But that said, I mean, I don't know, maybe. I mean, I just don't think that. I think gazpacha is really stupid. Like, sometimes they definitely

do really, really, really, really, bad stuff like fighting with Ilhan Omar or saying racist stuff where they're trying to fundraise off of it. But I think with this, she's just dumb. Yeah. No, I completely agree with you. But on the other hand, look, I will

say, when I saw the video yesterday of her saying that, I clipped it and just made a shorter video because it was like a 26 second video and I clipped it to just the part where she says gazpacho police and I could not stop listening to it. I think I killed like an hour of my day just

listening to that over and over again because it was so goddamn funny. Hey folks, if you haven't heard every single week we do a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast membership program. Sometimes we interview senators like Corey Booker or the folks who explain what's happening behind the scenes in media like Jim Acosta or Soladad O'Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner. And sometimes we just have friends around to analyze what's happening in the news. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a beast inside member where you'll support the beast fearless journalism, as well as getting full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member, head to new abnormal.

That's new abnormal.thedailybeast.com. Max Rose is a former congressman from New York's 11th district and is running there again, as well as a senior advisor to the United States Secretary of Defense for COVID-19. Welcome back to the new abnormal. Max Rose. Hey, thanks for having me. It's great to be back with you. We have a lot to talk about... Even though you make fun of me all the time.

No, not as much as most people. I'm telling you today, I saw the mayor walking down the street, and I screamed, Hi, Mayor Adams, and my daughter was, like, so mortified. And I was like, this is what elected people do. Don't people scream, hi, Congressman Rose at you? You know, I'm telling you, the only thing that... that would have upset Mayor Adams is if you hadn't. That's right.

Or if I had been shooting up some cheese. Or if you're holding a burger waving it on him. So, Max, you did a term in Congress. You lost your re-election. You were a very ruby, ruby-red district. And now your district has changed. Can you talk to us about what is happening with redistricting? Yeah.

So by the law of New York State in the event that the independent redistricting commission can't come to a consensus, the buck gets passed to the New York State Legislature. And the New York State Legislature has come down with the new district lines. It has added a certain portion of Brooklyn. Now, you know, a lot of people I'm giving this a lot of attention and, oh, Max, you know, the district has changed, whatever, whatever. I was running in this district well before this was announced. I've represented this district under its previous configuration. So district lines are relatively irrelevant to me. But we are certainly going to go to every community throughout the district,

from Carol Gardens and Boreham Hill and Park Slope on the Brooklyn side to Sunset Park and Bay Ridge as well on the Brooklyn side all the way up to the south shore of Staten Island. I'm just looking forward to this. There's nothing better than this. Nothing better. In this new Districting, Staten Island and Brooklyn will be together.

It will be more of what the city is like in the way that it goes politically. Is that correct? No, I would disagree with that. It was Staten Island and Brooklyn previously. Albeit some of the neighborhoods have shifted and the previous district was representative of, as Mayor

Dinkins once said, New York City's beautiful cultural mosaic. The new district certainly has its peculiarities. and it's quirks, every district does. This is by no sense of the word, like some type of knockout, home run for Democrats, blah, blah, blah. This is a, it is a competitive district.

It will be a competitive election. And this will be a seat and a campaign where, just like my other campaigns, I'm not going to shift what I believe, shift what I talk about, in accordance with, you know, what some district lines look like, what some polls look like. By the way, there's some stuff that I wouldn't have done last time around had I been someone that just followed polls. Right. Like what? I wouldn't have voted to impeach Donald Trump if I had just followed polls. What the hell is the point of doing this job if you're not willing to risk it all to do the right thing?

You know, here I am sitting here, Molly, right? I'm a former elected official. life is not bad. It ain't bad. It's like, what are you so afraid of, dude? And what is ironic to me is all this chat of political gerrymandering, this, and that, I had the opportunity to vote against political gerrymandering, and I did it. The only person in my race who has not, who has voted against or in support of gerrymandering, is my opponent, Nicole Malia Takas.

So it's laughable that now, you know, they're showing these crocodile tears in the face of this process. But this campaign will be in the end, very simple, all right. It's about beating back the pandemic. It's about taming inflation. It's about getting our damn lives back. And it's about finally putting government on the side of working people. You know, I see no reason why we can't unite this district, as diverse as it may be, ideologically speaking or politically speaking around universal child care,

around universal paid medical family leave, around things like ensuring that we don't send on men and women to needless, unnecessary wars. I don't see why we can't unite this district around things like a child tax credit. We should be encouraging families, this country, not the other way around. So I'm looking forward to this debate. I'm looking forward to this conversation. And I'm looking forward going door to door.

It's where I was last night. It's where I'm going to be tonight. So let's talk about your opponent. She's been pretty Trumpy. Yeah, well, it's fascinating. You know, in 2017, when she ran from mayor, she hated Donald Trump. She was against him and this and that. And then when she set her sights on a new district,

she became a fully owned subsidiary of Donald Trump. And who knows if there's ever. if there's going to be another reincarnation of my opponent. But what I find abhorrent and reprehensible is the vote that was taken on January 6th. When we saw that a big lie, this notion that this election was not real, catalyzed and inspired and fueled, literally a violent insurrection or the attempt at such. And then when elected officials were given the opportunity after cops were beaten, after an institution and a building that we hold so dear was desecrated,

when they were given an opportunity to finally stand up and say that this big lie was not true, they still voted, such as my opponent, to not certify the election. You know, I've watched, I've sworn an oath to the Constitution multiple times, and I've watched people I love get hurt right before my eyes in Afghanistan and after they swore that oath, there's some things that are more important than appeal into your base. There's some things that are more important than politics.

And our country and the future of our democracy is at the top of the list for me on that one. So talk to me, you are going to do a lot of campaigning, even if the district has changed, in very red places. So one of the things we talk a lot about in pundit land is how do Democrats sell red voters? Let's go. tell me how you sell yourself to red voters what's fascinating here and what i'm really making

an effort to do is to go on uh you know to have as many conversations as possible to go on as much conservative media as possible it's actually you know they don't always accept your invitation tell me what do you have you tried to go on fox all the time and trying to you know i'll go on Ben Shapiro, for instance, the dude doesn't return email. So like, it's a fascinating situation where, like, you know, I'm not quite certain that the people that are seeking to promulgate this, you know, this division in this country that are profiting from it. Right. That they always want to do it, that they always want to have a conversation. You're saying that Ben Shapiro won't debate you? Look, maybe who knows who's answering his emails. I have no idea what's going on. All I'm

trying to tell you is, is that there's not a conversation that I won't turn down. And I think that it was put politics aside for a second. I think that this is what our country really needs. I recently went on a radio station, Bernie and Sid. I'm not sure if you've ever listened to it. Now. You know, they're a bit more conservatively aligned, to say the least. They certainly didn't always had the nicest of things to say about me. But I went on for 30 minutes on their show, and the conversation was substantive. We disagreed about a hell of a lot, but it was substantive, and it ended on warm terms. Now, maybe there's political consultants out there that say that's the wrong thing to do, but it's the damn right thing to do for our country. If we build up

this media ecosystem where there are just two separate lanes that people operate in, and we're constantly just preaching to the, you know, the converted. I don't, I think that we are just going to continue to see our dynamics increasingly more polarized. You later on top of that, these social media algorithms that only feed you things that get you even more upset and furious. So, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I will go on and have any conversation possible because I think it's for the good of the country. And I'm certainly going to be campaigning in every, single community on Staten Island and in the Brooklyn portion in the district as well. Good luck to you. What is your kind of plan now?

Molly, it's actually very complex. It involves getting more votes than my opponent. We've put a lot of thought into this. Look, I'll tell you, let me start off, Molly here, first of all. We're not going to slice and dice the electorate. We're not about to say one thing, one place, and another thing in another place, and this and that. What this is, mostly about, in the end, from my perspective, what I look at politics as is as a trust-building process and a process of really deep communication that it can't just occur through intermediaries. And it can't just occur in those venues whereby people are supposedly who have the time to go and visit those venues. And we're going right to people's doorstep. We're going right to, you know,

people where they're going for transportation. When it comes down to it, it's about presenting a vision of America and a vision for New York City and a vision for Staten Island and Brooklyn, the centers around truly protecting that which we hold most dear, our public safety, access to justice, a really solid position for the working class and the middle class, and saying that, look, this is, this is goddamn America, right? There's nothing that we can't overcome. to include things like climate change.

And so no one is going to have any confusion about where I stand on things. I hear your Democratic primary might get interesting. Can we talk about that? You guys are a riot, man. There are rumors that our former mayor, Bill de Blasio, might jump in the race. The district now does include his home. We're going to let the former mayor go through his process. whatever process that may be, and irrespective of who jumps in this thing.

I'm very confident that we're going to have an extraordinary primary win, which will lead up to an extraordinary win in the general election. That's all that matters here. Can you imagine how insane it's going to be if de Blasio runs in the primary for Congress? Like, it doesn't even make any sense, Max. It's going to be raucous. I don't know, man. I don't know.

Look, politics is a crazy business. Thank you, Max. Thank you so much, Molly. I really appreciate it. Zach Petrizo is a reporter at The Daily Beast. Welcome back to the new abnormal of The Daily Beast, Zach Petrizo. Thanks so much for having me back. Jesse, Molly, great to be back.

Yeah. So let's talk about Hugh Hewitt, conservative podcast host. Actually, he's a radio host. He said the quiet part loud. He was an interesting case. I mean, he kind of said, said the quiet part out loud the other day when he was talking about January 6th

and he basically admitted to his now really conservative base at Salem Radio that he's not really into talking about January 6th because his listeners will quite frankly turn him off and so this kind of shows more and more that the

Salem radio base over there with other hosts like Sebastian Gorka and the whole cast of characters at Salem are just becoming increasingly pro-Trump, pro-Trump. pro-Trump and even, you know, Hugh Hewitt, who is kind of a holdout to some extent, has more, you know, journalistic characters on and more reporter types on, you know, it's like, look, I can't even talk because my own listeners won't even listen. Pretty sad. Right.

Zach, can I ask a question about Salem radio? Is it like themed that it's all like cultural witch hunts? Is that why it's called that or is it something else? Great question. You know, I'm not sure about the name, but I do know that Salem has become, you know, increasingly at war over becoming not even Trumpian enough, right? We saw Michael Lindell wage a war against Salem because they weren't pushing his, you know, kind of bonkers, conspiracies about the 2020 election. So they've kind of been put in the crosshair

because at the end of the day, the people that are paying Salem's bills for the most part are people like the fish oil snake company that promotes stuff with subcorka and also, you know, my pillow. Freedom ride, one, two, three, freedom dirt. No, but this is, anyway, Wait, let's talk about Marjorie Taylor Green.

Yeah, apparently she doesn't know the difference between a cold soup. The police during the era of Nazi Germany, it's an interesting little mistake there, but it seems like she's really kind of basking in the mistake and making kind of a way with it. I mean, she posted something on Twitter kind of mocking herself, so it seems like she's even kind of in on the joke. Was that an intentional mistake? I think it was not intentional. I think she just kind of messed up there and kind of, kind of,

turned it into something, you know, possibly as another fundraising opportunity or whatever, have you. She's always kind of quick with these things. I know at The Daily Beast, we reported that, you know, on Facebook. She claimed that she got a three-day ban. She was placed in Facebook jail. Turns out that never even happened. It was like one of her administrators. So I think she's quick with the words. Can you explain, though, what, like, Facebook jail would be like, I feel like I'm in prison that I have to keep using Facebook, but she's saying this is a bad thing. Can you explain that? Yeah. You know, Facebook jail, conservatives love to claim they're in Facebook jail anytime they kind of feel they're being censored. One of the things that keeps getting a lot of people on Facebook, especially in these right-wing

circles, is like them claiming that masks just don't work at all. And, you know, all these tech companies have pretty clear terms of service, you know, expelling all this and kind of being like, look, you can't say that. It's just not true. They direct them to their COVID-19, you know, medical information center, et cetera. And this kind of seems to have gotten Marjor Taylor Green kind of hung up on Facebook. and the post was taken down, but she was never put in jail. She was never put in jail for three days or anything like that. She remains kind of having one strike on Facebook,

and she has to violate the terms of service many more times before she'll actually be banned like she was banned on Twitter. Oh, interesting. Again, we get back to the question of, is this stupid? Is this performative moronics? Is this real moronics? And where is this more true than one with one Dan Bongino? Explain to us the newest Dan Bongino, quote-unquote, controversy.

Yeah, absolutely. It seems like every time we turn around, Dan Bongino is kind of, kind of, you know, falling into a trap in trying to own the libs, right? He lives by the M.O. One must own the libs every day, right? And he's going to sit on this voyage in terms of big tech. So, of course, we saw him launch Parlor, and Parlor really never worked out. He tried to, of course, you know, he got into a legal battle that he ultimately lost against the Daily Beast. I mean, it's just kind of like continual with this drunk world character, I guess. And now we're host a Fox News show on Saturday nights. And long story short, he put up a graphic this past Saturday night showing, you know, he was kind of going on a riff and claiming, you know, all these Democratic cities are the unhealthiest places. Turns out his Fox News staff and him misread this data within this website and extrapolated the complete opposite of what this research was saying. So ultimately, he had to, you know, kind of issue of attraction and doing so, Fox News had to come out and say, this is totally wrong, but it's kind of the latest face plant for Dan. Interesting. And with this far right, what are the ideas they're shopping for the midterms?

Yeah, no, absolutely. I would say, look, it's like we're coming up on the midterms, of course. We have a lot of pro-Trump, Trumpian characters trying to court the endorsement of Trump, right? So we saw, of course, Vermin Jones get an endorsement by Trump, which is kind of set off a lot of bells and a lot of anger on the right wing. For example, the gentleman running in Georgia. The far right is accusing him of a host of things. He used to be a Democrat, so they're bringing this back up. But he does have a Trump endorsement. So it's left his primary competitor, Collins, to kind of try to attack Vermin Jones over his old, you know, his old things.

So it's kind of reamping all these old rivalies in right-wing media. And more centrally, you know, especially as we come up to CPAC at the end of February, we see more and more people try to, you know, kind of get. on board with Trump, look for his endorsement, and, you know, in the process, get into plenty of heated wars with their fellow, you know, right-wing primary opponents. Right. So we're going to see a lot of Republican on Republican violence now. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I mean, you're going to see a lot of Republicans kind of go toe to toe, whether that's, you know, Roger Stone jumping in a bunch of races as this campaign advisor of sorts from, you know,

Yeah, up and down the East Coast, and he's involved in some big ones in Florida. Could you tell us who he's advising? I'm very curious. Long and short, there's this character up in New Jersey. His name is Mike Crispy. And this is a gentleman who used to be on Right Side Broadcasting Network, and he's running against another Republican congressman up there, posing himself as this more right-wing character. So there's a war going on up there. And then, of course, in Florida, Roger Stone is involved in countless races, including one going against Annapolina. who was a Trump-backed candidate, who they're trying to get Trump to kind of overturn, you know,

his endorsement of her. Why? All stemming from this dog-biting incident. They claim Anna Polina. Wait. What? Yeah. Dog-biting incident? Explain this to us because it's so stupid.

Yeah, yeah. Over at The Daily Beast, my colleague and I, Will Sommar, kind of reported this a bit ago, but there was kind of an altercation between, Anna Polina, this congressional candidate's dog, had actually bit someone in the park, and her opponents used this as an attack,

you know, to kind of levy against her. And they're also calling her, you know, support for the military fake. They're claiming she wasn't in the military, all these things. And they're trying to basically drag her down. She's a Republican and a Trump candidate, though. Yes. Yes. And Trump endorsed, I should add. And she's crazy, right, too. Yeah. I mean, there's plenty of tension there.

I know she's gone back. She's apologized for her dog biting this child. That happened. And then, of course, you know, I think Roger Stone and his allies saw the Susson. an opportunity to claim a whole host of things, including, you know, that she and her dog are reckless. Yeah. Whoa. Do they think that Trump will withdraw a nomination and give it to someone else? I mean, certainly, stranger things have happened. Yeah, this is what those cast characters are really banking on. I mean, from Anna Pauline, from that race in particular, they're hoping that he kind of pulls that endorsement and gives it to someone who's more Trumpian.

I will say that, like, people, you know, hate to go back to this, but Mike Lindell, of course, people, like, like Stu Peters, this far right radio host, even this guy by the name of Mike Crispy, they all kind of believe that, you know, Trump is is going to somehow get new advisors, and they think that he's going to turn into like the Trump of 2016, for example, and be more brass. And they think ultimately these kind of like deep state shills, for lack of a better word, are kind of surrounding Trump currently and having a big impact on him endorsing these candidates, of course, that they call, you know, rhinos or the new ones. re-bloodedkins.

So it's like a plan on like re-publicans, but re-bloodikins. Like they're out because they're pushing the COVID-19 vaccine. Oh, Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Re-blobicans? Rebloodicans. Yeah, I think I got that right. It's so stupid.

You know, it's increasingly, I mean, you saw, of course, Alex Jones get upset with Trump over the vaccines. There's still anger over that. I know Wayne Al-a-Root. this past week had an interview with Trump, who was the gentleman, who's the right-wing radio host, that said that Trump needs an intervention. Trump sat down with this guy. And I think Trump's trying to save his own behind from all these angry right-wingers who were,

you know, pretty upset that, you know, he was pushing the COVID vaccine during his administration and think that maybe he shouldn't be president again because he's so, you know, in the tank with a big pharma. Jesus Christ. I have to say this whole last section. I feel like I'm watching at HBO Bax trailer because Wayne Allen Root definitely sounds like a bad guy on Deadwood and Mike Crispy definitely sounds like a character on The Sopranos. He certainly does. I think 100% right there. Yeah.

It is. I mean, some of these characters you find, especially in Trump world, you just think to yourself, how in the heck did all this come about? I mean, it really makes you just, wow. Thank you so much, Zach, for joining us. Thank you for having me. What's crazier than Q&N? more outlandish than Pizza Gate and scarier than a Mexican getaway with Ted Cruz? The answer is what the American right wing has planned next.

Be one of the first to listen to Fever Dreams, new podcasts from The Daily Beast, tracking the conspiracy slingers, orange acolytes, and straight-up grifters pushing to retake power. Every Wednesday hosts Swin Subisang and Will Summer, checking in on the movement of the radical right. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash podcasts, or your favorite podcast player to catch the first episode. episode and get subscribed.

That's Fever Dreams, which you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Andy Levy. Molly Johnfest. So we have sort of a very nice fuck that guy where the two meet in a very secutious and interesting way. I was going to say we're both fucking the same guy, but that doesn't sound. Yikes. Oh, not good.

Who is your fuck that guy? My fuck that guy is someone you may be familiar with. He is a former president of the United States. He used to live here in New York City and now he lives in Florida. I am talking, of course, about Donald J. Trump. It was reported on Thursday, the day we are taping this, that the January 6th committee has found significant gaps in the official White House telephone logs from the day of the riot from the day of January 6th,

and that they found few records of calls by President Trump in these critical hours when investigators knew that he was making them. This is the New York Times reported this out. They're not saying that any records were deleted or were, you know, tampered with or anything. But what they're saying is basically, and that Trump was known to not use the phone that he, as president, was supposed to be using to make phone calls, and instead would, like, grab the phone of his aides

or use a private phone, which, again, not supposed to do that, So the committee is having trouble tracking down all these phone calls that they know he made. Now, hopefully they'll get them from the other end, from the people he called. Between this and we talked earlier in the week about the National Archives stuff that he took all these documents down to Mar-a-Lago with him in, you know, in contravention of the law. And this is all of a piece. And, you know, I hate bringing up the but-her emails thing because I do think Hillary fucked up. So I don't want to downplay that.

But considering how much effort was expended on his part and on Republicans' part going after Hillary, it is absolutely amazing that he did all this stuff, which is 500%, 5,000% worse than what she did. And nobody seems to care. And it's like it becomes this little story because he's done so much other shit that you can't keep hammering at every thing. Because the next day there's another thing. But all of this is really, really bad. And what I'm saying is he, his ass should be thrown in jail and fuck that guy. Yes, that's a very good point.

Yeah. And my fuck that guy is Donald doesn't know how to get rid of documents Trump, who Maggie Haberman has a book coming out. New reporting says that one of the problems with the White House plumbers was the White House plumbing because Donald Trump was Donald Trump was trying to flush documents. down the toilet. And there's also reporting that Donald Trump was also trying to eat documents. For that I say I don't fucking, what the fuck?

I mean, Marrick Garland, where are you? This would be illegal for anyone else. It's illegal for him. Yeah, but no, it's not. If the Justice Department decides it's too hot to handle, then that's where we go. I know, but it's just weird. We've gone from

like the White House plumbers, which was the group under Nixon, that did all the spying and tried to figure out who leaked the Pentagon Papers. And now we have the White House plumbing problems because Trump was ripping up documents and trying to flush him down the toilet.

Like if you're old enough, you really thought it probably could never get worse than Nixon. And then you learned that you knew nothing. That's right. There you go. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking

smart folks from The Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics and science, who will help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you again on the next episode. 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. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber.

subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline head to the daily beast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.