The Daily Beast Podcast - Media Exhaustion May Be All Trump Needs to Squeak Out a Win in 2024

Episode Date: January 9, 2024

Daily Beast media reporter Justin Baragona joins The New Abnormal to discuss how the news media is dealing with the former president’s repeated threats to upend American democracy. Plus! Daily Beast political reporter Riley Rogerson joins the podcast to share her experience reporting on Rep. Lauren Boebert’s falling political fortunes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Kedinan, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. What an excellent show we have for you today.

Unfortunately, Andy is still under the weather and unable to record, but we wish him a speedy recovery and we will carry on in his stead. The Daily Beast senior media reporter Justin Baragonia joins us to talk about Joe Biden's speech, in which, among other things, he called Trump a loser, and easy to tell us all about what was said, his messaging, and of course, how the right-wing media is reacting to it. Then Daily Beast politics reporter Riley Roderson is here to talk all about her new piece. Lauren Borbert can change districts, but she cannot run her pass. All about the controversial Congresswoman's decision to run in the new district and some details about,

well, all the other drama going on with her too. But first, let's have some fun. Folks, I am very happy to welcome back to the new abnormal Justin Barragona, who is a senior media reporter at the Daily Beast. To talk about a recent piece that is up now entitled Joe Biden swipes at Fox News while calling Trump a loser. Fox News's anchor Martha McCallum complained about Biden's pot shots while boasting that Fox is the most

watched network in America. Justin, paint the picture for us. Joe Biden decided to the day before what would be the three-year mark of the January 6th insurrection where an armed mob, took over the Capitol building. The Vice President ran for his life. And since those three years, you know, they have said it was a tourist visit. They have said folks are peaceful, except for hundreds have been sentenced to prison. Joe Biden kind of came out, I guess, swinging in a sort of way. Tell us what happened. Well, yeah, I think what he was doing was, you know, doing a whole contrast and compare framing his campaign now solely. on saving democracy while framing Donald Trump as a threat to democracy and using January 6th is sort of the catalyst here.

So, you know, the speech itself was symbolic to the point to where he had it, you know, set near the site of Valley Forge. So, you know, he's kind of, you know, putting it into the light of, you know, the founding of our country and Democratic principles and George Washington and fighting, you know, for our independence. And then he spent, you know, the majority of the speech basically kind of running down the attempts by Donald Trump to overturn the election and how he, you know, would be two times as worse if he were to actually win now because, you know, he would make sure that whatever guardrails or firewalls were in place before would no longer be there. And then, you know, along the way, he also did take a swing at Fox News pointing out.

debt, you know, their attempts to also help Trump overturn the election by parroting his baseless election lies, ended up costing him $787 million the same way as like, you know, Giuliani now has to pay a higher $48 million to the two Georgia election workers for all his lies that he'd which, by the way, we're also set a lot on Fox News at the time. Right. For Martha to say that these were pot shots, these are just facts. Pot shots to me is shit that people make up and try and undermine you or throw you off like this is facts it was tucker carlson who ended up losing his job because of the non-stop peddling of election denialism that was central to fox news's anchors from the time that Donald Trump lost the election and joe

biden was sworn into office and all of the time after that as 66 cases are being kicked out of courts peddled by Rudy Giuliani, who's now, I guess, claimed bankruptcy. What do you make of Joe Biden deciding to hang his election campaign on saving democracy in comparison to 2020, which was about the soul of the nation? I mean, they're kind of two peas in the same pot, I guess, you know? I mean, when he was running in 2020, we knew that he wouldn't accept the election results, but we didn't know that it would go so far as to then result in a storming of the capital if he were to lose. But now that we have that in the rearview mirror, you know, he's got visual and audio evidence to make the case.

You know, again, just swinging it back to Fox, they ended up having to spend nearly a billion dollars for kind of helping Trump make that case, you know, that the election was illegitimate going into January 6th. It was worth it to them to pay that rather than to go through that trial and to have to deal with like even worse PR nightmare from there. The thing with me right now with regard to the Biden administration and the shift from the soul of the nation to democracy, but you're right in saying that it's, you know, two peas in the same pod is that I feel like the sentiments of voters in this country have changed. wildly since the last election. And I'm not just talking about the 30% of, you know, Maga supremacist that we're never going to get back into the fold of wanting to live inside of a democracy. I'm talking about the 70% the majority of us who I'm wondering for you, do you think that Biden's call for preserving American democracy rings hollow? given everything that is happening globally.

That's like a really wide-rated question there. I mean, I do think that this message is not going to resonate as well as he thinks it is. Yeah, it's a wide-ranging question. But when he's setting the stage in Valley Forge, which is conjuring up ideas of history, in America being in this place and in this battle and winning and championship and all of these things, like he's setting up this battle, this stage. And I don't think that it is going to resonate in the way that after January 6th, when we all watch smoke billowing up from the Capitol building, glass being broken, a person being shot dead, officers being, like, the image of that and what transpired on that day and recognizing that people went in the middle of a pandemic before we had vaccines and ensured a Biden administration would happen that we would no longer have Trump. thinking at that time that they were a part of this battle and their vote was actually going to

determine the end of Maga supremacy. Here we are four years later. Donald Trump is still the front runner and things have gotten relatively in a lot of ways, not just because of the Biden administration, but in the world worse. And so as we're like covering this, do you see that the calls for strengthening American democracy and not throwing it away to Trump, will it be as a as tough as it needs to be in order for people to do what they did four years ago. I really don't know. You've got pundits saying, well, is he coming out too early with this message too? That by the time, like, he's pounding away at this same message about the, you know, the need

to save democracy and we can't backtrack into fascism or authoritarianism, will that just be falling on deaf ears by April May? You know, I mean, the thing is, you know, a lot of this is always going to be framed via cable news and podcasts and broadcast news, and it's going to be up to them how they portray it. And, well, they already have that fatigue, right? And they'll be like, oh, you know, why is he not talking about gas prices? Or why is he not talking about inflation? Or should we be focused more on what's going on in Israel or Ukraine?

They'll see this as like, well, is he just overstating this threat anyway? Even though we have evidence again that the GOP frontrunner is somebody who tried to run a coup. I mean, not only did he try to run a coup, but I mean, headlines in the Beast and in other places has restated what Trump has said, I'll be a dictator on day one, just for one day. I'm going to be your retribution. He's saying all of these things out loud. Biden is coming out and saying in another frame, like, I am about us, the country. Donald Trump is about himself, which is what you wrote out here in covering his speech. Donald Trump is about himself.

He is not looking out for America. He's not looking out for the country. But because there's just so much chaos and he says so many things that are so awful, I'm wondering if by April, May, by the summer, if people aren't just tuned out completely. What's the responsibility, I guess, at all if media still sees, you know, responsibility in how we frame it? I mean, it is about how we frame it. We're in such an odd time here. But at the same end, like, we're going to have this presidential election decided between two octogenarians, right?

And the way that it's going to be framed is about these guys being old, too. They're going to just not be concerned with the actual substance underneath. It'll just be about gaffes. and what did this person say this day? It'll just move on from day to day. You know, I don't know how a better way to describe that, but the substantive nature of this is not going to resonate, even with the average voter.

It almost feels like if there was a different messenger here, like an Obama doing this rather than Joe Biden, and then the other thing is if Donald Trump wasn't the challenger, and it was, you know, like a younger, like a Tom Cotton, or a Josh Holly, then the concern would be greater, it almost seems like. Like, we do treat Trump as if he's just kind of like a reality show host, which he, you know, he was. He could get away with things that no one else can't. Because it's like, I mean, the way that you just said that, it's like we're just watching a rerun.

And it's like, do you want to watch the rerun or do you want something fresh? But the threat is still fresh. Like the threat that Maga supremacy, we have this Speaker of the House who was an election denier as well, has very right-wing evangelical, you know, biblical ways. And I use biblical with like air quotes that he thinks about this country and how it should be run. Like it's all still there in resonant, but the messenger is just the same. And I'm like, for those that want to be responsible journalists. How do you reframe an old package, I guess? Well, that's a difficult thing. I mean, I would say if you're just trying to do a step back when you, when you watched that Biden speech

on Friday, it did seem like he was more energized. Like this was a topic and a issue that did resonate with him. And he was hoping that it would resonate with, you know, voters and that, you know, it would hit them that, you know, do you realize that this one party's presumptive nominee is the same one that tried to overthrow an election just three years ago? And what do you think he's going to do if he gets back in the office this time around? But when you're also talking about like reframing and how do you accurately cover all this, yes, you also have to think about how the political media is going to cover this. which you're going to feel like they need to still horse race this, right?

They still need to, I ain't using like, because it's such a cliche, but the both sides is, right? That you need to go, well, you know, you have, you know, half of the country are Republicans and half for Democrats and we need to give equal time here and portray these as, you know, similar-ish type of, you know, on one hand you have this and then on the other hand you have this person saying that, you know. You kind of saw that with Kristen Welker in that L.E. Stephanic interview on Meet the Press yesterday, where Staphanic is just parroting Trump's, you know, January 6 hostages language and, you know, going full election denial and, you know, saying that the last election was unconstitutional. And Welker is just like, you know, she offers the pushback. But it's like the poison is already out there. So it's like, you know, like you invite these people on that shouldn't be given the airtime and the attention because you're afraid of not providing a both side stance. But when one side is trying to destroy democracy and the other side is presumably trying to save it, I'm not quite sure like how it benefits the viewer. Do you think that the trials and the potential of some of them starting in the next couple of months, does they,

that have people tap into this election cycle sooner than they normally would? Or is it just, again, at this point, white noise because there are so many trials and so many indictments? I mean, honestly, if you're just asking me, my opinion, I don't think it's going to matter. It feeds into the exhaustion already of the never-ending Trump cycle. And, you know, people are just kind of tuned out. And then, or they've bought into the notion that, you know, why are they trying so hard to convict Trump? maybe, you know, there is something behind, you know, the deep state trying to keep them out.

Why are they trying to keep them out so bad, you know? The only people, I think, that are going to really care, you know, I mean, other than conservative media that will frame it in the way that, you know, it's the Democrats trying to unconstitutionally take Trump down. And that's the real threat to democracy. Other than that, the only other people are the ones that already are fully discussed with Trump and really want to see them go down. So, you know, it's like, you know, your basic liberal base, they're going to be invested in it. But I think there's a disconnect here. I don't know if the average person is going to care. And because the zone has been so flooded, what's the hope?

I don't know what's going to happen here. There's not going to be like that this actually makes a difference, you know, because, you know, because the die has already been cast. It's already been framed on the right a certain way. So him, like, is there some magical Trump voter that's going to be like, oh, well, they convicted him of these felonies? Man, I don't think I want to know. It makes someone to vote for him more because they feel like he's now been like, you know,

it's the two tiers of justice thing that they constantly talk about. They're only going after Trump, but they don't go after Democrats. and look how much the Bidens get away with everything, even though Hunter Biden's been hit with like multiple criminal account. Right. But let us not let reality or facts get in the way. Or Bob and Redmond, you know, his indictments, but, you know. But again, the justice system only cares clearly about Republicans.

Never let reality get in the way of a good story. Justin, thank you so much for making the time to join the new abnormal folks. Justin's piece is up right now. Joe Biden swipes at Fox News while calling Trump a loser. Appreciate you. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal politics reporter Riley Rogerson, who recently wrote a piece entitled Lauren Bobert can change districts, but she can't outrun her past. Carpet bag in Bobert is fantastic as a subtitle to your piece. Lay out for us, your article and this kind of shifting that this shifty person is trying to do in Colorado in order to hold on to her little bit of power.

Sure, Danielle, and thank you again for having me today. The story really dives into people in Colorado's fourth district where she's moving into their response to her switching districts. So Lauren Bobert is moving from Colorado's third district representing a huge swath of land in the western part. of the state known as the Western Slope. She's moving into the eastern part of the state, another huge district, known as the Eastern Plains and a lot of the South Denver suburbs. So it's a much more Republican district. A couple measures, some measures have it at R plus 13. Other measures have it closer to R plus 27 compared to, I think, her former district was closer to R plus seven. So she stands a much better chance of winning re-election in this new

district. In her old district, she was really up against it, against Adam Frisch, who almost beat her by about 500 votes. Last cycle, he's been fundraising like crazy. As Lauren Bobert has pointed out, he's raised some outside money from the likes of Ryan Reynolds and Barbara Streisand, in addition to all sorts of small money, local donations as well. So she was up against it. She's moved districts, says it's the best thing for her personally, the best thing for her politically. And yeah, I think people in her district have really mixed responses to that. First of all, like usually when people run for office, right, they are running to represent a place that they are from, largely,

that they are from, that they have ties to. And this just seems to be politically expedient. And I think that one of the things that you lay out in your piece is that she won by one of those hairs on her little head. 547 votes is about as narrow, I think, as you can. can get in terms of a congressional race. And this one, the district that she's moving to, there are, what was it, 11 other Republicans are running for this seat?

There might be more now, but at the time we wrote it, yes, about 11. 11 other people running for this seat. What makes her think that this is the right move? Because again, it doesn't, it's not, she's not moving districts because, oh, my God, this one is in such dire need of much support and attention, she's moving because she doesn't think that she can win in her own backyard. Well, she has this reputation of being a MAGA superstar, and I think she's betting on the fact that that will help her in this much more Republican district. I talked to a local county commissioner, a Republican who was not endorsing anyone in particular in

the race, but she made the point she was recently driving through Eastern Colorado and saw Trump flags and Trump banners and, you know, make America great again all over the place. And I think someone with Lauren Bobert's meme recognition, I think she's hoping that she has a better chance in this district as opposed to her much more competitive former district. One of the people that you interview for your piece, Denver political science professor, Seth Maskett, said that her addition to this race is a wild card. And quote, she comes in with some scandal that could actually hurt her in this district where Republicans will actually care about that sort of thing.

Can you expand upon what he was saying here and getting at? Because again, when we hear the numbers, you know, between plus 13 R to plus 27 R, you're talking about the reddest of reds. But with that, one would believe comes some, you know, and let me say this tongue in cheek, with some actual morals and values that Republicans still hold. I don't know what the fuck those are. but apparently some people do hold them. How could this play against her?

Like, what was he insinuating there? I don't need to tell you, Lauren Boberg, comes with all sorts of political baggage. There was the situation at the Beetlejuice musical where she was caught engaging in some hanky-panky, to put it lightly, behavior. She's gotten a lot of flak for her. She's been in fights pretty publicly that the Daily Beast is reported on with Marjorie Taylor Green. This recent altercation that she had over the weekend. She comes with so much, and she's known, I think, in a lot of the district for some of that drama.

Some Republicans in the district I talk to say that it's not a huge deal to them. They're more focused on having someone that represents firmly conservative beliefs. Let me pause right there. Some of these people that you talk to said that her groping and being groped at a basically a children's theater is not a big deal to them. It's not a big deal at all. They want somebody to uphold conservative values. How do both of those things hold in the same sentence? That's a fair question. And I think that's really the crux of what's interesting about this race is we're going to find out, is her baggage severe enough and off-putting enough that Republicans don't go for her and they pick someone else.

Like you mentioned, there's a lot of other Republicans in this race who have represented that district in the state legislature for a long time that don't come with that baggage. It's a question of does that counterbalance with her, you know, MAGA star power. She does have a super conservative voting record that she can run on in Congress on issues like the border, which Republicans told me is going to be huge in 2024. You know, she's been incredibly outspoken against the Biden administration. So I don't know how this is all going to play out, but I think that really is the question you're getting at, Danielle, and it'll be a question for these Republican voters is, do they trade that star power for the baggage. I don't know. It's just interesting to me just how deeply the

Republican Party has devolved in terms of how they on one hand want to still pretend that they are these conservatives with these conservative values. And like all you have to do is Google Lauren Burburt's name and put it with Beetlejuice and you get a full like soft porno. But then you want to go after people in the LGBTQ community and other marginalized communities and say that we're the ones that are a threat to your children, what have you. And it's just like the rationale for me is a wild one. But I want to go back to what you had mentioned with regard to her ex-husband. My colleague Roger Salenberger really was pretty amazing at getting this story first. And he reported that her ex-husband, Jason Bobert, called in a domestic violence incident.

to the local police in, I think, Silt, Colorado, alleging that Lauren Bobert had punched him in the face twice. Her camp is denying that that happened, says that the escalating tensions between her and her ex-husband is part of the reason for her moving districts. But it all around sounds like a pretty messy and dramatic incident. Did this happen in a public space? That's my understanding is it happened at a restaurant.

Yes. We're at the beginnings of this portion of her, long and sordid tail. But if I'm not mistaken, when the Beetlejuice incident became public, her camp said that she was wrongfully thrown out of the theater. She had done nothing wrong. You know, there was no vaping. There was no groping. There was no nothing. And then video emerged. And so if this happened in a public place, is there a possibility that there is footage that something else that we will see come out of this? I think that's possible. I think you make a good point that her camp does not have credibility on their side right now. Not to say they're not telling the

truth this time, but I think it's a fair question of whether they are being fully transparent in this instance. I think as outlets all over the country have picked up this story and I know reporters are digging in. So we'll see in coming days what comes out of this. And if there's video or more witnesses come forward about what happened. One of the things that you laid out in your piece, too, is that what the potential, I guess, strategy could be with this very densely packed field, which is basically collectively, as a collective going after Bobert as a way to remove her from the equation so that they can get back to serious business. Can you talk about some of the murmurings that you've heard from the other candidates running in this district and how. they think that they may go after Bobert and kind of remove her from the equation? Yeah, I would say from the state rep that I talked to, Richard Holthor, if he is not happy

about Lauren Boehbert getting in the mix, he was very explicit. He used the word chicanery, which was a new word for me, but I thought it was summed up Republicans' perspective on Lauren Bobert as just like a tricky politician kind of in it for the spotlight here. And they're saying that she's not in it for the constituents in her new district. Yeah, I think that she's going to be heavily attacked from these other Republicans in the primary. The Colorado House Minority Leader, Mike Lynch, is also in the race. I've been told he's a pretty heavy hitter. He recently got in the race after Bobert said that she was moving into the district, which is also interesting. Her getting in the race has not deterred other Republicans from throwing their hat in the ring. So, yeah, I think

that she's going to be the subject of attacks from both sides on this one. Because while you say, I don't want to refer to it as star power, but that she has seemingly national name recognition, how does the national name recognition and this fixture on Fox News, with the people that you're talking to in these districts, how does that actually play out locally? These are two completely different areas of Colorado, large districts, but does it matter that you could say her name in random states and people know who she is, does that matter to these people or does it matter that they actually have representatives who are representing them and not just hoping to hold on to a title that gives them a seat on Fox News? Yeah, again, I think that that

remains to be seen. A Republican I talked to in Lincoln County, which is like pretty firmly in Eastern Colorado. He told me he wasn't too concerned about the drama that she brings the table, but was focused on wanting someone to pay attention to local issues that are important to rural Colorado. That's what he told me. And he wants someone, I think the way he put it, was not a Democrat versus Republican thinker, but someone who's going to be focused on the issues. He mentioned a former state rep or state senator, excuse me, in particular that he thinks would do a good job with that, who's represented the district for a long time. So yeah, I think that this is the exact question that people in this new district are weighing themselves.

As you report on these, you know, different candidates in different spaces, I just wonder, do you sense any type of exhaustion from Republican voters? Is there anyone that is around that's like, I wish that we could get back to the business of actually creating policy and governing? Or is everyone just kind of hopped up on the reality circus that Donald Trump has turned this party into? No, I think that some Republicans I've talked to are tied. of the drama. I also talked to an unaffiliated voter in the story, and that was a big part of what she had to say is she's just frustrated by the drama that she's seeing from the local level at school board meetings to the national level with the presidential campaign and everything that's been going on in Congress. So I do think that some Republican voters are tired, but at the same

time, I think that they haven't ruled out voting for some of these candidates who bring a lot of drama. So it's kind of two competing ideas is what I've heard from voters. It's just so wild to me. The other day, I was in Washington, D.C. for the first time in a while, I used to live there and revered D.C. and working on Capitol Hill. And now I look at the capital whenever I happen to be in town, and I'm just disgusted. Like, I'm just, like, absolutely disgusted by the people that are inside of there and what they have turned, like, our government into. It's like, I wonder if there are even people, you know, who say that their independence are unaffiliated, if they too have gotten to the point of enough already.

Or if their entertainment value is still what is driving these people to the polls. What gives me a little bit of hope in the difference here is that Lauren Bobert's opponents in this crowded field are actually willing to go after her. Whereas in the presidential Republican primary, no one is going after Donald Trump. They're still like biting their lips and holding their tongues and not doing what anyone who wants to win would actually do. So could this be a bellwether for that kind of hard driven MAGA celebrity versus Republicans who are actually interested in governing? Yeah, that's a really interesting question. I think the important distinction to make, though, is Lauren Bobert is not herself Trump. I think these other candidates, at least the one that I spoke to, he is a MAGA.

conservative. He called out the former rep from the district. Ken Buck for being a rhino. He, you know, this is a very conservative guy. We're not talking about moderate Republicans who are going after Lauren Bobert. I think that they think perhaps, or at least he thinks, he can occupy that role better than she can. But it's not a matter of, oh, we're going to distance ourselves from this MAGA Trump's supporting position. I think that there are people running in this race that just think that they could do it better than Lauren Bobert. And I think, like, Trump himself, I can't explain exactly why he has the staying power that he does. I think that's a question a lot of people have on their mind right now. But I did a different story about the power of the former president's

endorsement in congressional races. It's remarkable. It's changing races. When he gets in, it can decide races altogether. I think that there's people in this race who are going to be courting President Trump's endorsement or former President Trump, excuse me, his endorsement. I think that he still will remain a massive player in this race, just like he remains a massive player in races all over the country. But his batting average is shit, right? Like, to be honest, like the candidates that he throws his weight behind, and I mean that literally and figuratively,

that he throws his weight behind, like, have lost and lost, like, deeply. While it made shift conversation and to some extent, it's not a golden ticket. Like, it's not a guarantee. No, it's definitely not a guarantee. and that's a great point. In the story that I did about Trump endorsements, I mentioned Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, he did Trump endorsed candidate

who did not win Blake Masters in Arizona is another good example of that. But what it does do is it gives Republicans a lot of power or Republican candidates a lot of power in the primary. So they're jockeying for his endorsement in the primary. And then for some, they do get to the general

and struggle because they're faced with strong Democratic opponents who can really cast them as, you know, quote unquote maga or extreme or trump supporters and i talked to strategist a democratic strategist who i think called it the devil's bargain and that's what a lot of republicans are up against right now well riley rogison thank you so much for making the time to join the new abnormal folks her piece is lauren bobert can change districts but she can't outrun her past it's up now at the daily beast thanks daniel hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal we're back every two

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