The Daily Beast Podcast - Mary Trump on Whether ‘Despicable’ Ivanka Could Be New VP

Episode Date: August 27, 2020

Mary Trump, The New Abnormal’s favorite guest, is back for the third night of the Republican National Convention. Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast want to know if it’s too late for Trump to drop Mike Pence as his running mate and bring in fresh blood. “Pence is a total drip and his only value to Donald is that he sucks up to him,” says Mary. “Do we seriously think that Mike Pence could not be convinced to step down?” Rick admits it would be incredibly tough to bring in a new vice presidential candidate at this late stage, but can see why Trump would do it. “It's a difficult enterprise. Although, I think Donald would be tempted don't you, Mary? Because it’s like a reality TV play. It’ll be dramatic. The ratings will be yuge.” Molly was taken back by the sheer scale of dishonesty at the convention tonight. “Those were C-PAC-level lies, not RNC-level lies,” she says. Rick suggested Richard Grenell, who was briefly Acting Director of National Intelligence, was making a strong entry into “the Trumpian liars Olympics” with his convention speech. Mary says he was the undisputed champion. “It was the worst, most damaging performance of the evening, if not of the entire convention, because of the things he was lying about with a straight face. Everything he said was a lie.” Rick selects Trump as today’s ‘Fuck that guy’ for his defunding of FEMA as a hurricane makes landfall in Louisiana and Texas, but Mary says: “You know, that money stolen from FEMA that may not have been needed if Bannon hadn't stolen it from the GoFundMe…” Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi folks, it's Rick Wilson, and welcome to The Daily Beast's The New Abnormal. Hi, I'm Molly Jongfast, a left-wing pundit, an editor-at-large at the Daily Beast. I'm also an editor at The Daily Beast, a former Republican political strategist, bestselling author, and full-time troublemaker. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, business, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. I'll try to keep Rick to the minimum number of F-bombs and try to keep our... kids, pets, and other wildlife sounds from invading our respect.

Night four of five, night three thousand. Night three of the Republican hellscape. Yes, and night three of Fuck That Guy Week, and we have pretty much the best guests ever. Mary Trump. We do indeed. And folks, don't you worry a bit. We've got some excellent fuck that guy action view later this evening. I mean weapons fucking grade.

You will enjoy it. It will not be over quickly. What did you guys think tonight? I have to be honest, and I think it was deliberate. It was sort of this flat affect the whole night and sort of strangely, almost a little defensive feeling. Yeah, I mean, it was incredibly boring, but I agree. That was my hot day, too. You know, I agree to you, Rick, that it was, I think it was deliberate.

And as hard as it is for me to believe, I think it might have been. a bit of course correcting, but what worried me about it is that I think it made their message, their completely fictitious and mendacious message, more effective. I think you're right. I mean, there was a certain degree tonight of, and it was very much the stuff sort of vomited out of a focus group, like very talking to suburban, the suburban Republican women that they've lost. It seemed like a lot of it was devoted to trying to say to them, hey, we're not as crazy

as you think. Right. Well, wasn't a majority of the speaker's women tonight? Probably, yeah, I think that's probably a good bet. The thing I'm always struck by, I mean, I guess, right, night one was like this insane Ava Perone sort of like Banana Republic show, right? Like, you expected them all to, like, pull off their clothes and, like, be in ice skating outfits doing the cha-cha, you know? Right? And then she's screaming and gesticulating, like, madness.

I wasn't expecting that, but okay. Yeah, but it was like, you know, it was like the producers. And then night two was like a sort of retraction, right? And it was like Tiffany and Eric trying to convince you that their dad loves them. But night three was like this weird kind of heritage foundation pantomime of what a normal Republican party would look like. Yeah, I think there was a lot of trying to fake it till you make it tonight with the old GOP. But the fact that you brought up the producers, all I could think of was springtime for Donald and Germany. Winter for Mike Pence, it's true.

But that speech by Kimberly Guilfoyle, like you could definitely see her like taking off her hat and like things exploding off the stage, you know. The feather boas. Right, exactly. I mean, it just. And then the floor opens up and she does a dive into a pool. I'm sorry. Esther Williams or Esther Merman or whatever the hell she was. Esther Merman.

But the thing that was most disturbing about her speech is that it was recorded. This whole week. This whole week. It's like that's the best take you got. You've got a million dollar crew there with every camera in the world, the lights, the makeup, everything's perfect. And you, what, did you only do one take? You don't do one for a safety at least? I mean, come on.

It's just so horrifying. I mean, but it was interesting. I mean, there's so much bullshit at all of these. And tonight, Mike Pence, like the line, you won't be safe in Biden's America. That's what Pence said. Pence is the head of the coronavirus task force. 180,000 people have died of coronavirus. And he's saying you won't be safe in Biden's America.

The same thing about the economy. Biden and Obama presided over the slowest economic recovery. But we're doing great. Great. Like we, what, a million jobs last month, leaving aside the fact that we've lost 40 million, you know. They promised at the beginning of this campaign, oh, this is going to be uplift. This is going to be, we're going to show the optimistic Donald Trump and the future is going to be bright and shiny and gorgeous. And it's turned into this, you know, apocalyptic. Every other speech is like, unless you vote for Donald Trump, the Marxist will be here like Mad Max ravaging your neighborhood. R motor cycles all up and down your streets. It's going to be a terrible.

Well, it's all I've got, right? It's true. Culture Wars, the last. It's their alamo, as my friend Reid Galen calls it. It's interesting to me that we're in this, like, strange world of, like, the president's family and then a few people who aren't brave enough to say no to him. Joni Ernst must know this is not a smart move for her. I'm not sure.

She seems not terribly intelligent to me. No, seriously. Like, who can say with a straight face that anybody is going to take our cars and our farms away from us? I mean... Well, you know, and obviously the bigger threat than COVID, of course, is cancel culture. I mean, because, I mean, good Lord. I mean, nothing could be more deadly than cancel culture. I wouldn't kill 170,000 people or anything.

I mean, good Lord. But also, Biden wants to regulate puddles is what Joni Ernst said. Oh, my gosh. Joni should have stuck to her old line about castrate and hogs. Yep. Because, let me tell you something. Her whole campaign predicate and her ads were very slick. I know the guys that did them.

She played this folksy, country badass, former army, blah, blah, blah. And she's like, I know about, I used to castrate hogs. I'll get to Washington. Well, she's gotten to Washington, and she's basically carried water for Donald Trump like a champ. There hasn't been any hog cutting of any hog genitalia or any other thing since she got there. Tonight, Joni Ernst just sat there and with a straight Trumpian-style face told not just lies, not just like political exaggeration or rhetorical flourishes. It was flat out bullshit. And there's no penalty for it in our political culture anymore.

And that's Donald. I mean, he has given them permission to go forth and lie with dispatch. I thought those were CPAC-level lies, like not R&C-level lies. Oh no, Mary. Sorry. Wait, I'm sorry. That's Molly's fault. You promised not to let our creatures and crude.

You failed. Mary, what do you think about Mike Pence? Like, how can anyone love Donald Trump that? Their relationship must be some kind of. I mean, what do you, what's the, like, psychological? I don't even think they have a relationship. Pence sucks up to Donald. and Donald lets him.

Like that's their relationship because Pence is a total drip. And his only value to Donald is that he sucks up to him. He is, to me, sort of the embodiment of everything that's wrong with white evangelicals in this country and the problem with allowing

the erosion of the division between church and state that is supposed to exist and is enshrined in the Constitution. You know, it's one of the big reasons were where we are. There was a school of thought of people who believed that Trump would dump Pence for like a Nikki Haley.

Yeah, it still might happen, though. Let's see how bad the next couple weeks suck. Do you think so? But he can't do that now, can he? Why? Because the posters have been printed. Yeah, there are rules now about who the nominee is. Although there is in the RNC rules a contingency for,

If the guy gets hit by a bus or, you know, loses his mind or something. But it's a difficult, it's a difficult enterprise. Although I think Donald would be tempted by it, don't you, Mary? Because it's like a reality TV play. It's one of those things like, it'll be dramatic. The ratings would be huge. Right. And he'd think that he'd be one-up being the Democrats, although I'm not entirely sure how.

And do we seriously think that Mike Pence could not be convinced to step down of his own accord? Like, people think that Mike Pence has something. Trump or that... Please. No, right? It's just that he's just a sycophant. Look, you could present photographs of Donald Trump in a Moscow hotel room with a pair of highly trained, specialized...

I'm worried. Specialized Russian sex workers who employed dropcloths, tarps, and a series of sluces and pipes for the specific speciality of their show. And Mike Pence would say, well, that's interesting plumbing they have over there. Yeah. I mean, the guy, the guy, the guy, he, he's one of those guys where you want there to be like a Jerry Falwell secret to him, but the dull truth is it's probably not. He just is that like paint-drying hypocrite. Yeah, I think you're right. Mike Pence after dark.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Here's a question for the panel, though. If Pence got replaced, is it a vankar or Nikki Haley? Oh, Nikki Haley. It's Nikki Haley. Yeah. Vice President can't be from the same state in the Constitution. So Trump lives in Florida now, so she could do it, no matter if she lives in D.C. or New York.

But I think Nikki Haley would be more likely in some weird ways because being VP would actually give Ivanka even like a tiny bit of agency. I don't know. What do you think, Mary, you know the psychology here a lot. Do you think Trump would ever give, would ever elevate Ivanka like that? No. Well, first of all, I think it's too soon for her. Right. And she does not play to the base in the same way somebody like Donnie does, for example. Yeah. Or, and Nikki, as despicable as Ivanka is, you know, she's still not, she's still a little too measured and reluctant to go all the way with the insanity.

Right. Because I guess she's protecting her brand in the event that she has to go back to New York, which is hysterical. Nikki Haley has shown herself completely willing to go all in. Plus, she's a woman of color. And right now, Donald certainly and other people believe that voters are just that stupid. That, you know, well, one of color is the same as any one. Well, it's the same to Donald. Yeah.

Exactly. So, well, it's true. It's a weird conundrum. I do think, do you think anyone of the. Those speakers really, like, move the needle one way or the other tonight, though, for an undecided vote. I mean, it seems insane to me. There are undecided voters. It's a smaller pool than usual.

But remember, what else? The other thing Donald's trying to do, he's trying to get to low propensity voters who didn't even vote in 16. They're looking for non-college white men and women in the rural and ex-urban areas because that's why this whole thing is culture war, culture war, culture war. That's it's cancel culture. It's Fox. It's, it's, you know, all the dangers lurking in the, working in the wild against you. Like, I was feeling the last three nights, there were some speakers where I thought, tonight there was a guy who was very elderly, who was a sports coach. I don't know much about sports. That was Lou Holtz. Oh, my God. I don't know. Is that someone famous? Yes. There was a period of time when Lou Holtz was one of the most famous people in America. Now he is a cranky old fart. He did not seem like he totally knew where he was. I don't think Lou is known where he was since the mid-90s when he was the coach of Notre Dame.

Like there is that North Korean style kind of like, and that is why we love Dear Leader. And honestly, as I said yesterday, I think there are parts of this where the North Koreans would be like, ooh, ease back, Donald. That's a bit much. It's a bit much. I mean, the only thing they haven't done, I mean, I guess because of COVID, they haven't had like a giant stadium full of people with flashcards to do displays. That's true. But the denial to me is like kind of striking.

The cancel culture is more important than the pandemic. Yeah. No, that seriously, it was as if we were still in 2019. And none of this had happened. It was really just excruciating. You know, I think we all commented on Rich Cornell tonight, who as well as being the former acting temporary provisional sort of five minutes, Director of National Intelligence, is now also in the Trumpian liar

is Olympics. I mean, Mary, what did you think of that performance tonight by that guy? It was the worst, most damaging performance of the evening, if not of the entire convention, because the things he was lying about with a straight face, everything he said was a lie. And because Americans know nothing about foreign policy, you know, they figured this was the former director of national intelligence. He knows what he's talking about. Nobody knows, probably, or very few people know, as Tara Stembeyer reminded me, that he was not Senate approved because he would never have been able to get Senate approved. Correct.

Because he's so unqualified and incompetent. I think, he said that he was like a professional troll back in the day. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. You know, the lies he told about how Obama and Biden spied and how the Russia hoax and the Democrats' evidence, quote, unquote, evidence about Russian interference made him sick to his stomach because it was such a lie. Meanwhile, the Rubio report comes out saying exactly the opposite, in addition to Mueller, you know, that's the kind of stuff they're going to keep resurrecting.

You know, it also exemplified the thing I found most troubling about the entire evening. Everybody lied through their teeth, knew they were lying. Yeah. And felt perfectly comfortable doing it. It's, there aren't words to. describe how that's pernicious. It's pernicious. Yeah, that's the word. What did Rick Garnel do before he became like this CIA head of internet shopping?

He was a press guy in the Pentagon for a while. I ran into him over the years a few times. And I always thought he was kind of a funny troll. I mean, he was kind of a witty, you know, right-wing troll. And he wasn't particularly ideological. You know, he was just one of those two, one of those bros in Washington. But now he's, he's a, you know, he was just one of those bros in Washington. But now he, he's, is, you know, bought in so thoroughly to the Trump situation that, you know, he is, he will go down in infamy, I think, for a lot of this stuff. And he's going to be a big part, I keep telling people this, he's going to be a big part of the October surprise. They're going to trot him out and say, well, he was the director of national intelligence. He knows exactly what's going on.

Do you think the radical leftist talk is actually because Republicans are preparing for Q&ONN to sort of make a parallel there. As with most of what they do, it's projection, because the truth of the matter is that the Republican Party, as it's currently constituted, is incredibly radical. And the Democratic Party is lucky if it's a little bit left of center, you know. So radical leftists have no place in the mainstream Democratic Party. Right. You know, so, and that's been the case for a long time. So I've always said if Barack Obama was really truly, a socialist, Kenyan Muslim sleeper agent. He was terrible at his job. Also, like, Barack Obama would have been a Republican 40 years ago. Yeah. Sure. No. Mary, that's, the Obama folks have said it before.

He won in 2008, in part, because to a lot of suburban Republicans, he looked like one of them. Exactly. He was meritocracy guy. He was calm of affect. He wasn't out there screaming to seize the means of production from the oligarchs. It was just, you know, check. And also, he was. He was anti-marriage equality. You know, he had some, and he was, he still believed in bipartisanship because... I was pro-gay marriage before Barack Obama. Oh! Wow.

You're the radical. Truth. The new abnormal is going to release a limited run series of bonus interviews over the next few weeks. Starting in August, we'll release a new one each Sunday. But listen carefully. Only Beast Inside members will have access to these. So head over to new abnormal. Dot the DailyBeast.com to join now.

Your Beast Inside membership helps support the great reporting at The Beast and podcasts like The New Abnormal. Thanks. Well, folks, it's that time again, as it will be every night this week for our special Fuck That Guy week. Tonight we have some spectacular Fuck That Guy content, including a selection from Mary Trump, a selection from my co-hoes Molly John Fast, and I'll be bringing the heat in the follow-up.

So let's go with you first, Molly John Fast. Who is your fuck that guy? So I have long hated Tucker Carlson and he has also long hated me. I have long hated him for his misogyny and his racism and Tucker Carlson's white power hour. Tonight there was this vigilante who killed two people who were protesting in Wisconsin after this, you know, an unarmed African American man who was getting into the car with his. children was shot seven times in the back and is now going to be paralyzed forever or it's been in surgery and this vigilante who was 17 years old cross state lines bought an AR 15 50 50 is that what it's called? Yes, it's called an AR 15 and murder two people.

And so instead of reporting this as a normal person might, Tucker Carlson, he said, well, what was the guy going to do? The police aren't doing their job. So he was basically saying that it's okay. It wasn't basically. He was saying that it's okay to murder people and it's okay to murder protesters. We got your back, white nationalists. And anyone who knows about Tucker knows that Tucker speaks a lot of white nationalists speak in a prime time hour in a way that's made to sound a little less white nationalist.

But he really is like the biggest white nationalist on Fox. And it's so dangerous. And this is Lockland Murdoch's fault. Because now Tucker doesn't have advertisers anymore. It is really, this is Lockland and Rupert Murdoch are keeping this man on air and people are going to die. And we understand that he's making you money and getting you whatever ratings. These people have to look at themselves in the mirror and ask, is it worth it? Oh, and it is for them.

That's the problem. And one of the great ironies, it's certainly not the most important one. But the truth of matters, the cops weren't during their jobs because the guy who murdered, the two peaceful protesters was let go by the cops. Right. They didn't even stop them. But Tucker Carlson is like, fuck that guy, take him off the air. It's time to stop the madness.

People are going to die if they haven't already. Like, it's not just rhetoric. It's really human lives. I've been seeing like the mentions of it. I haven't had 30 seconds today to watch the tape or anything. But Tucker has poked his nose into these things far too many times for anything to ever be a coincidence with him. Yeah.

All right. Now we have our special guest, Mary Trump, or by the way, the favorite guest of this podcast ever. And she's going to tell us her fuck that guy. Mary, who is your fuck that guy? Well, first of all, I thought the favorite guest was my bird, Sebastian.

Anyway. And the cat together. Yes, Lyndon. My fuck that guy is whoever was responsible for putting that none in the position she was put in this evening to be at a political convention as a person of faith, which was utterly inappropriate and it never should have been allowed to happen. So fuck whoever that was. I wouldn't be surprised if it was Stephen Miller. You turn over a greasy rock and Stephen Miller's going to be there. You can never be surprised

by that. But that nun did seem like a character out of a horror movie. Yes. Although I saw on Twitter, somebody's like, what is Mike Pence doing there? All right, Rick Wilson, who is your fuck-that-guy? My fuck-that-guy tonight is Donald John Trump, President of the United States. My reason for that this evening is that as we are recording this at 1246 AM, a 150-mile-an-hour hurricane is crashing into southern Louisiana and east Texas. It is going to cause untold devastation. It is going to cause flooding. it is going to cause deaths.

And this hurricane is now then predicted to go up to about Arkansas, take a right and drive through D.C. Oh, is it? Yes, it's going to take a big old, it's going to do a big old L. It's crazy. That's crazy. But the reason Donald Trump gets to the fuck that guy is that in this last year,

they have been robbing FEMA emergency disaster relief funds to build his stupid fucking freedom fence. Oh, yeah, freedom fence. And so FEMA's short now. They're going to come into this crisis, short $200 plus million just in the last few months that was stolen to use for building the scam wall. And furthermore, fuck Donald Trump because this is a guy who, if you're a president and you see a cat four, cat five hurricane coming at a place where we know does not function well when cat four cat five hurricanes come ashore. Right. And rarely has them.

Right. Right. I mean, call me crazy, but we had one called Katrina that, name, you ought to heard of it. This administration has been as laxidaisical as it always is about every other goddamn thing, and no Sharpie is going to erase the damage this storm does. Yeah. You know, that's money stolen from FEMA that may not have been needed if Bannon hadn't stolen it from the GoFundment. On that note, we'll wrap up this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking with 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. We're just getting started and don't want you to miss an episode.

If you'd like to follow us on Twitter, I'm Molly Jongfest, and he's the Rick Wilson. 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 DailyBeast.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 DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.