The Daily Beast Podcast - Mediocre White Men Love Trump. Nobody Likes DeSantis.

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

Things aren’t going so well for Meatball Ron [DeSantis], says Andy Levy in this episode of The New Abnormal. He and co-host Danielle Moodie unpack the ways that DeSantis seems to be flubbing his presidential campaign with the Florida governor’s personality, and general robotic weirdness, taking the top spot as a reason why. Then Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) joins the show and makes it very clear how he feels about this Supreme Court and Andy chats with David Slack, a veteran writer and producer who’s worked on shows such as ‘Law and Order’ and ‘Person of Interest’ and was a member of the WGA West’s Board of Directors from 2018 to 2022, about the differences in demands of the people on strike and those in power, and what it was like to be in a negotiating room with them. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Congressman Jamal Bowman joins us to talk about what the Democrats can do moving forward to gain a majority in the House. Then we'll talk to screenwriter David Slack about the latest developments in the entertainment world strike that has now been joined by SAG. But first, let's have some fun. So, Danielle, as we start another beautiful and glorious week here in the U.S. of A, there's some trouble out of Tallahassee. Ron DeSantis, aka. Meepall Rob, seems to be having some problems with his presidential campaign. He's cutting staff. He's switching media strategies. And apparently, even though he did rank in like $20 million when he first launched his campaign, the donations have dwinded. And all of that seems to be an indication that things aren't going so well for old meatball Rob.

I guess my question for you, Daniel, is how bad do you feel for him? Let me hold on. Let me think about it. I don't give up. Fuck. Okay. So that was quick. Lack of empathy.

Yeah, definitely. My thing right here about Ron DeSantis is one, I feel like the media wanted to inflate. him, inflate him to create a cage match type of environment between him and Donald Trump, because we know what do they care about. They care about ratings, not our democracy. And the thing that we've been saying about Ronda Santis is that while he has all of the cruelty in every bit of the policies that he has rolled out in the dwindling state of Florida, he has absolutely none of the charisma. He has no stage presence. He has no likeability. He has nothing. We watch him in these little moments because he's also afraid of the press. So he's not open to taking questions. He's

not open to putting himself in situations that his campaign can't control. And when we see his nervous, weird, crazy laughter, when we see basic, you know, questions coming from reporters, he snaps. And I think that what folks are, are recognizing particularly big donors, even though there are folks, there are other reports that say that big donors are leaving Donald Trump and they're going to DeSantis. I don't want to put the cart before the horse here, but I really do not think that Ron DeSantis has a shot in hell to become president of the United States. I think that he has about a good of chances as Mike Pence does, right, as Tim Scott does. When you look at these people, but mostly when you just hold up the state of

Florida right now, and you are watching insurance companies flee, you are watching businesses flee, they have a teacher shortage, their inflation for the state is incredibly high. You look at all of these things, and Ronda Santis can't manage his way out of a paper bag right the fuck now. So he can't manage his own state. How is he going to manage the country? Yeah, it's interesting that you brought up Kim Scott, because the New York Times had a piece about which presidential candidates are leading the money race. And Donald Trump is in first place. This is in terms of cash on hand. He has 22.5 million. Tim Scott is second with 21.1 million. And he seems to be raking in the money. I mean, look, some of this is suspect. Like, I was trying to figure out how the Times separately had a list of

candidates, how much money they've raised from April 1st to June 30th. And North Dakota Governor Doug Bergam somehow had raised $11.8 million. And I was like, how the hell did he do that? And then I read and it said he loaned himself $10 million of that. So that was kind of funny. But the interesting thing is DeSantis is down in, well, he's third among Republicans. They put Joe Biden in there, but that doesn't even seem like Biden is not running primaries. And that's a whole different story.

And I don't even know why they bothered including him. But the fact is Tim Scott has $21 million on hand. Ron DeSantis is down to $12 million on hand. And, you know, it's never a good look. when you're laying off campaign staffers. And I know they're trying to spin this and they're doing whatever it takes. There really is no way to make this look good. You know, you mentioned that he snaps at the media and kind of runs from the media in general.

One of the more interesting things about this is that he's now going to be doing an interview on CNN with Jake Tapper. And that is, you know, something that even two weeks ago would have been considered a non-starter. Like, he was just refusing to talk to the quote-unquote, you know, mainstream. media, he probably calls it the woke media. And I think he's actually, speaking of woke, he's waking up to the fact that you can't really run a campaign like that, even in the day and age of the internet and, you know, YouTube and rumble and Twitter and whatever. If you want to make news, you got to talk to the media. It'll be interesting to see how that interview goes.

My guess is he'll be completely adversarial because he thinks that that's the way to do it, which is something that Trump does. But as you noted at the top, it's different for Trump because DeSantis just, he never, ever comes across as likable. And I think it was Alex Shepard in the New Republic sort of said it perfectly. He said Ron DeSantis has a Ron DeSantis problem because nobody likes him. The thing is that mediocre white men love Donald Trump. They love Donald Trump because Donald Trump for them has always symbolized the type of man that they have wanted to be because they fall for the and the facade and the smoke and mirrors, the gold toilets, the blonde women on his arm,

the money to spend, the I can do whatever the fuck I want attitude. There has always been this white male bravado, grab them by the pussy, take what you want, attitude that Donald Trump has exuded that has been catnip for mediocre white men to aspire to. And this is before he was in politics. He always had that kind of allure. When you take that kind of persona, even though now we know all it is is smoke and mirrors, Ronda Santis is the mediocre white guy.

Do you know what I'm saying? Like there isn't anything that these slubs are looking to aspire to when they look at Ronda Santis. He's not the cool kid. He's not the one that has been in the room with models and millionaires. And like he doesn't present the lifestyle that they all have imagined for in the. their heads or the persona, the bigger-than-life persona that they all wish that they had. That I can stomp on people type of way. And even though Ron DeSantis does that in a policy way, I can stomp on trans youth.

I can stomp on black people. I can stomp on the Latino community. I can do those things. There is no suave element to that. And so what I think is important for folks to understand is that, like, while big donors, may be going to him to try and help him, you know, fix his broken campaign machine, the fact that he lacks small donors means that he lacks the enthusiasm of the people who are actually going to vote for him.

And that's why I say, like, when I look at this and I'm like, didn't he just launch a couple of, like, weeks ago, if we really think about it in the grand scheme of things? He's already firing a bunch of staff. He's already redoing his media campaign. like he hasn't been out that long to have had so many different stumbling points to need to fix at this point. He should have been like smooth sailing and rising in the numbers since his announcements. And he basically has an anvil tied to his ankles. Yeah. I mean, even Hollywood tends to wait a little

bit before they come out with a pointless reboot. But you're right. This is like incredibly quick considering when he launched his actual campaign. And, you know, I mentioned that Alex Shepard piece in the New Republic. He made a very good point, I think, which is that, you know, he's saying, Ron DeSantis is this election cycles Ted Cruz. And I think there's a lot of truth to that. You know, I remember back in 2016 when Cruz was sort of, look, a lot of people thought this. And I think even I thought this because I, you know, didn't know much about him.

But you hear, well, it was on the Harvard debate team. a super smart guy. You know, he's argued cases before the Supreme Court. And you think, well, that's a guy who could maybe, you know, show up and clear the field. And then it just turned out that, oh, my God, he was unbelievably unlikable. And then you started seeing a bunch of stories come out about how nobody likes Ted Cruz. And we're sort of seeing the same thing with Ron DeSantis. You're seeing a lot of these sort of weird stories about him. And as you said, we're seeing these weird little clips of him maniacally laughing. you know, and he's doing these little speeches where he says woke 37 times in 10 seconds or whatever it is.

He's super off-putting. I think a lot of people who thought that DeSantis could be a serious challenger to Trump are sort of rethinking that because it turns out, you know, the more you see of him, the less appealing he actually is. I mean, he is so unappealing, right? Like, in so many different ways. I don't know outside of not being Donald Trump, I don't know what the allure to Ron DeSantis is. But to think that you could get even 10 million people to vote for you, let alone the 75 million that voted for Donald Trump

in his last failed attempt at the White House, I don't see it. You know, and again, I don't want to put the cart before the horse because there's a lot of fucking time between now and the real election season kicking off. But if I were inside of his DeSantis's bubble, I would start looking for other employment. Yeah, maybe not the worst thing in the world to have an exit strategy.

Even though, look, again, it's early and we have to keep saying that. But you know what? It's not even that early anymore. Like, shit is happening now. You know, the candidates are declared. They're out there. They're in Iowa. Look, DeSantis was just in Iowa.

And I think it was ABC News report. reporter Will McDuffie tweeted out. Desantis was in an Iowa dairy queen and he ordered a blizzard. And he said he's not worried about anything. And he said, we've got a plan, which all right, good for you, man. But then the funniest part was, I guess someone asked him about blizzards. And this is, DeSantis's response was, I've known what blizzards are for a long time. It's a really important part. Happy to do it. What? What? No, seriously, what? I don't know. What was that? What does that mean? Like, he does not seem human.

That is not a human response. Like, even when Trump says something ridiculous at McDonald's, like, I probably know this menu better than anyone here, like, you can, you know, he's a buffoon and he's dangerous and whatever. But you can kind of laugh at that. It's just such a, it's stupid in a funny way. This is just stupid in a, you are a fucking freak, man way. Is he a robot?

Like, is he like the first, like, real life AI? I don't know, but it's definitely not. The intelligence here would, in fact, be artificial. But, like, when you say, I've known about this for a long time, like, actual blizzards? Or, like, the food? Like, what are you talking about? And happy to be a part of it? Like, you're happy to be a part of the Dairy Queen experience?

Or, like... It's a really important part, Danielle, the blizzards. Mm, hungry. Yeah, so we got, you know, weirdo descent. weirdo Rob kind of dropping in the polls. And you would like, like in a perfect world, that would be good news because he's such a loathsome person with loathsome policies. But all that does is increase the ever more likely chance that the Republican nominee is going to be Donald Trump. And we got some news from the New York Times about that on Monday. Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage,

and Maggie Haberman all writing together to let us. know that Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if he gets back into the White House. What does this mean? Basically means giving the president more and more power. It means getting rid of the idea that the Justice Department is independent of the White House, which is something we've had in place since Watergate, you know, maybe for reasons like Watergate, I don't know. But basically, As the article says, the goal here is to alter the balance of power by increasing the president's authority over every part of the federal government. And he tried to do a little bit of this the first time around.

And now he really wants to get into it. He wants to make things like the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, all of these sort of independent bodies. He wants to bring them all under direct presidential control. Now, I'm going to go out on a limb, Danielle, and say, I don't want to be. like this. I mean, not a fan. That's probably the understatement of the year. And I could have made a better headline than the one that they put out by the New York

Times, which is Trump and Republicans go full fascist. It has a ring to it, right? Like, and it's a lot more fucking clear. And I'm sure more people would click on it. But I guess education is not the point here. The reality is that the Republican Party and Donald Trump, are doing out in the open what they've been accusing Joe Biden's administration of doing. So according to them, Joe Biden is a full-blown authoritarian.

He has weaponized to the Department of Justice. Oh, you mean by appointing Merrick Garland, the legal sloth, and then who then appoints like, you know, special counsel on top of special counsel to put so much fucking room between him and decisions that are being made, around prosecution of Donald Trump, and so went so far as to slow the role for a fucking year. But yeah, that's what weaponization looks like. But they are telling you out in the open that they want a Republican president to have all power and authority and there be not a check or a balance.

And this goes in lockstep with what they are planning for the remaining open seats in federal courts. Like what the Heritage Foundation is doing, what Leonard Leo is continuing to do with the Federalist Society. I mean, they have a full-blown plan to institute and lock in American fascism, while at the same time accusing the Biden administration that is holding onto democracy by their fucking fingernails as doing exactly what they're planning out and doing. And I'm just like the irony here. the hypocrisy and the lack of journalistic integrity to ask these questions out loud. So, hey, Trump and Republicans, you're referring to Biden as an authoritarian, but you're putting together plans for an all-out takeover and reconstruction of the executive branch. Care to weigh in on this.

How does this make sense? You're robbing the American people of their voice. You're robbing agencies of their independence. How does this not look like authoritarianism and fascism? and then wait for the fucking response. Yeah. And again, like you said, they're not even trying to hide it. There's a quote in the Times piece from Russell Vaught, who ran the officer management

and budget under Trump. And now he runs a policy organization. And he says, what we're trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them. Mm-mm-mm. I mean, I don't know how you get. Like, this is like the Putin playbook is what this is. And, you know, he goes on to say the whole point. in them talking about this openly now before the election is to be able to, as they say, shift the

debate and later to be able to claim a mandate. And that second part, I think both of those parts are important. But the second part particularly is because they're talking about this stuff now. And what he means there to be able to claim a mandate is this way, if Trump gets elected, he can do all these things and say, this is why the people voted for me. I told them I was going to do this. This is what I'm going to do. So that anticipates the pushback saying the American people don't want this. And he can just sit there and say, no, I very openly said, this is what I'm going to do. And I won. So this is what the American people want because I am the American people. That part is very important. And the shifted debate part is very important, too, because that gets to

what you're saying is that it's great that the Times is covering this stuff. It's great that it's, I believe, actually fairly upfront in the paper today. It might even be on page A1, because they did an article a couple months ago that we talked about because Danielle, you came across it and you were really hot about it about the fact that all of this is part of a Heritage Foundation campaign that's called like Project 25, which basically lays out that this is what Republicans want to do. That article was on page A17, you know, so it's nice to see them being a little more serious about this now, but they still sort of put it out there as if, like you said, as if, well, you know, this is one way to look at America, like as if it's a normal.

thing to do as opposed to, you know, hang on. This is not, we don't elect a king. Like, we're not led by a king. The whole point of the fucking revolutionary war was to not have a king, I thought. Now here's a guy basically saying, I would like to be king. I want all of the government under my control. And it's just put out there as if, you know, well, that's what he says. Other people may disagree, but, you know, we got to hear both sides. They would both sides heaven and hell at this point, right? Like, you know, I think that the difference between, you know, heaven and hell is really just a matter of weather, you know, like one is a little warmer, you know, the other one is a bit breezy. So it's really just up to you. But I think that there are good people on both sides of that

option. That's where the fuck we are. They're laying out one clear plan that wipes away democracy, government foreign by the people. They are instituting not a monarch, but a dictatorship. And they are doing so in broad fucking daylight. And instead of this being a time when we are ringing every single alarm to wake people the fuck up, they're like, well, it's just a different way to govern. Yeah, one that caused world wars. Like, I don't understand their perspective here. And I mean, I don't just mean the times. Like, I mean literally every media outlet that is not calling this what it is because it isn't a matter of personal opinion. It is facts. When you put control over every agency under the power of the president and they're no longer independent, what the fuck do you

call that? It's not a democracy. No. It's not. Yeah. I would just say that to sort of maybe make you feel a little better, I have every faith that the Supreme Court will stop this. Wow, Andy. Wow. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal congressman jemal bowman who represents the 16th congressional district here in new york and has become one of the most outspoken members of congress pushing back against republican opposition congressman first of all thank you so much for making time to join the new abnormal i wanted to jump right in and get a sense from you as somebody who is going to work every single day on capital hill what is the energy right now with the Democrats and the Republicans.

It is wild these days to watch committee hearings and see the back and forth or just the imaginary thinking of your Republican colleagues. So what is the energy there? You know, it's interesting. On the one hand, we're consistently disgusted and appalled and blown away by their method of governing,

which is simply rooted in fear-mongering, for power and to continue to build their base of who was just rooted in racism, sexism, discrimination, anti-trans, sentiments, and the like. And so that's who they are. We're consistently disgusted by that. At the same time, we're excited by the possibilities because it's on us to continue to tell America the story of who they are while also sharing what we're about, what we done what we've tried to get done and how we got to organize at a grassroots level to win big next year. So it's just, it's constant frustration, but not really confusion because, you know, they are who we thought they were. And so it's on us, though, to go out there and do the work to

make sure they never come back into power in the House, at least for the foreseeable future. What do you think is the most important message that Democrats need to get out as we head into the 2024 presidential cycle. What is it that Americans are not getting about the current iteration of this Republican Party and how not just two sides of the same coin, that it is a completely different party than their parents or grandparents Republican Party? You know, we have to reiterate, you know, what happened during COVID with the horrible leadership and mismanagement of Donald Trump led to many more deaths estimated based on studies. Over 200,000 additional deaths that needed to happen.

So that's one. Two, the first attack on U.S. soil by U.S. citizens since the civil war, right? Like, I mean, insurrection happened. January 6th, 2020, sparked by Trump and his big lie. And oh, by the way, we had hundreds of Republicans in the House vote. in support of that big lie because they would not certify the election results. And now they continue to govern through the big lie and fear. And that's why they lost in 2022.

Yesterday, won the House, but it was supposed to be a red wave that never happened. On the other side of that, we have to be crystal clear. This is a country for all of us. Our party is representative of the diversity of our country, and we need everybody. We haven't been perfect as a party, but we've got some really good things done. The Inflation Reduction Act, you see inflation is coming down. The infrastructure bill, historic investments in physical infrastructure, which would expand broadband, rural and urban communities,

as well as fixed roads, Brisbane tunnels and great jobs, the Safer Communities Act, which is not nearly far enough in terms of gun reform, but it goes further than we've gone in many, many years, and it really invested mental health, which is a crisis, particularly among our kids, and the Chips and Science Act to bring back semiconductor manufacturing here to our country, taken away from many of the Asian countries who aren't always our allies. So we did those four things. And then we responded properly to COVID with the American Rescue Plan that invested billions

into the most vulnerable cities and school districts and got us to reopen schools and got us back on our feet and got shots into arms and do those things. So those are the facts while Republicans. continue to roll back affirmative action, roll back Roe v. Wade, make it okay for businesses to reject you with your LGBT-2, make it easy to carry concealed weapons. Mad does try to go backwards. Democrats are moving forward. One of the things that I also wanted to talk to you about as a former educator, and I too am a former educator, are the decisions that came down from the Supreme Court with regard to affirmative action, as well as dismissing, President Biden's debt relief for students. What do you make of these decisions that have come down

and how do you think that it's going to affect our economy moving forward, our ability to innovate, and then black indigenous people of color and their ability to move outside of our economic caste system that we have in this country? Great question. So first and foremost, the Supreme Court is corrupt and the Supreme Court is illegitimate. And it's important to say that because It's not just about, you know, many of their decisions being more conservative than we would like it. Not just about that. It's about members of the Supreme Court receiving gifts from billionaire donors and then making decisions that support those donors. Because of that, it is corrupt.

It is illegitimate. We need ethics reform. It needs to be expanded. And we need term limits. There hasn't been an expansion as 1869 when a country was one-tenths of one-tenths of law. what it is that. That's number one. Number two, to your other point, our country and our society is about growing and evolving and making sure we are taking care of the general welfare of all people and giving all people access and opportunity. The reason we needed a formative action in the first

place was because of consistent discrimination against people of color, particularly African Americans, with regard to higher education and in the workplace, even though people we exemplify, excellent in what we were doing. We're talking about, and that's the thing. This is not just about letting people into Harvard because they're a person of color. This is about exemplary people who would have not gotten the opportunity

in the first place. So because that lack of diversity in Harvard and because businesses are now making decisions on whether they will continue to exercise, not just affirmative back to the AI practices, we are now wandering down our capacity to grow and develop. develop as human beings, but also outward capacity to be creative and innovative and do things

in human history that have never been done before. I mean, when you look at the harm of separation, segregation, and economic inequality, and wealth inequality at the level it is, what it does, it doesn't just concentrate wealth in the hands of the one-tenth of one percent while the 90 percent of the rest of the country scratch and fight clawed die for scarce resources. It doesn't allow us to manifest the dream that is America. And it's a manifest a humanity that I think can take us away from war and hunger and suffering, senseless suffering and move us towards a place where we solve climate change and figure it out. We make sure everyone has exemplary health care.

We work in cooperation across nations to solve the world's biggest problem. That's where we should be going as opposed to what's happening now with the Supreme Court. So it's the degradation of our humanity and our emotional, spiritual, and human capacity when we make these decisions that continue to separate, segregate us. Generation Z, Congressman and Alpha that is coming behind it, they are inheriting a country and a world that is vastly different than that of their parents and grandparents. They are inheriting a society that they are going to be worse off in. And because of that, they're looking at our generations and the generations above and saying, you know, why should I vote? Why should I be involved?

Because clearly you all did not do well by us. And clearly government does not do well by us. We need this generation. And we've seen in pockets in Tennessee after the mass shooting taking over the Capitol building in Florida, walking out of schools, because they are fighting for their lives. because the prior generations did not fight for them. How do we keep them engaged? How do we keep them activated at this time when they are exhausted

and seeing the world literally crumble around them? You know what's awesome? I work with young people all the time. I just had a brief meeting with David Hogg from March for Our Lives the other day. I work with organizations like Gen Z for Change, New Deal for Youth, Civics Unplugged, voters of tomorrow. I work with young people all the time as a former educator. They are bed up and inspire and excited to build a new world.

And what they are looking for is people like us, you and me and others, who are, you know, have a little bit more experience, who can support the brilliant work that they want to do. But they are ready. And it's on us to be ready with them. And they are so done with us. And when I say us, I mean older people, quote, unquote, right? They're tired of, and they don't understand and rightly so how a mass shooting can happen in a school.

And a Republican who has control of the house comes to a microphone and says there's nothing we can do. That's like cognitive dissonance. That's like an equilibrium malfunction. They're like, what the hell are you talking about? There's nothing you can do. They're there to do something. So the young people I talk to are ready. They're like, we wish we had a better candidate than Biden right now, but we're going to do this last run with Biden.

And then after that, we're going to remake the world. So I'm excited about that. And I'm excited to work with them and be a part of that because they have the heart and the mind and the will and the talent and the capacity and they're building coalitions to build the new world that we're all going to be a part of. So I always encourage everyone to lean into that. Because to your point, it's not just younger people who are disenchanted and apathetic. It's tens of millions of Americans every year who don't vote in elections. And it's because we don't even go talk to them and have conversations that pull them in. And they don't meet authentic legislators like Cory Bush and others, right?

So being in Congress as a principal, as an educator, as a person who's working class, I ain't got much money, I don't come from a silver swam. I try my best to engage with vulnerable communities, vulnerable people, marginalized people and young people because I need them to help me govern and I need them to build the new world that we're all going live. Absolutely. Representative Jamal Bowman, thank you so much. Thank you for the work that you're doing.

Thank you for taking on your Republican colleagues that in videos that I have watched go viral, that I have shared time and time and time again because I want the passion. I want the anger that I'm feeling. And I see that in you and some of your colleagues. so I deeply appreciate it. Thank you for making the time for the new abnormal today. Thank you so much for having me. I've talked to you still.

Have me on again, please. As I'm sure you all know, back in early May, the Writers Guild of America declared a strike against the movie and television companies and networks, which are represented in negotiations by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television producers, or AMPTP. And last week, the Screen Actors Guild joined the Writers on the picket lines after their own negotiations with the AMPTP,

failed to produce a new agreement. pointing me now to explain what the issues are here and what it means to have two of the three major Hollywood guilds on strike together is David Slack, a veteran writer and producer who's worked on shows such as Law and Order, person of interest, which, by the way, is one of the best network shows of the 21st century and the McGiver reboot among many, many others. He also served as a member of the WGA West's board of directors from 2018 to 2022. David, thanks so much for being here. Thank you for having me. So you've been on strike for over two months. Now we've got the WGA and SAG on strike together for the first time since 1960. How did it feel when SAG voted to join you? Was there a sense that sort of like the balance of power had shifted? And what was it like on the picket line this morning?

Well, you know, the biggest change on the picket line is I'm no longer the most attractive person there, which is it's been hard. But really it's just incredible. It's a huge shot in the arm, you know, today. Like it's day 77 for me, but it's only day four for my wife and her SAG After colleagues, my wife's in SagaFra. And it feels a lot more like day four in me than it does like day 77. So it's really, really amazing.

And, you know, the last time we did this was in 1960. It was a huge moment wherein we gained residuals for TV and our pension and health plans, both of which are arguably some of the biggest wins we've ever gotten. So we're in a moment like that again. And one thing I will add, you said two of the three major. Hollywood unions. They're actually about five or six major Hollywood unions. In addition to the DGA, there's also Yatsi and the Teamsters and the laborers. And there's old that IBEW. I don't want to, you know, leave anybody out. But yeah, so it's a really a huge moment for our two unions to be, you know,

standing together in solidarity and really a enormous unforced error by these corporations that could have just made a deal with us. But instead, you know, you want to put famous people on the picket line talking about how badly you treat all of us, I guess that's a business strategy. So, you know, okay. Yeah. I do just want to say for the record that I said two of the three major Hollywood guilds. Oh, guilt. Oh, then you're right.

As a writer, David, I choose my words carefully. I don't. Maybe something you could learn here. Maybe we wouldn't have a strike right now. Yeah, yeah. I've put the sun for three hours, so I'm not on top of my game. Let's talk about the issues here. Is it fair to generalize and say the main ones for both guilds involve basic pay rates, residual payments, mainly right now for streaming services is what we're talking about, and the use of AI going forward?

Yeah, I mean, there are a number of issues, and those are three of the big ones. I would put it under a larger single umbrella issue, which is, you know, I can't really speak for the SAG AFRA as an institution. But for writers, this is about saving writing as a viable career that you can support. yourself, you can support a family, you can pay your rent, you can buy a house, you can send kids to school for, you know, decades. This has been a way that people who do what I do, who create a very, very valuable product that makes these companies $30 billion in pure profit every year. It's been a way to make a living. The companies have decided that the enormous share of the pie that they get isn't enough, and they're using every contractual,

means they can get, including taking advantage of historic inflation, to try to grind us down. Our incomes are down 23% over the last 10 years, maybe four years even. 10 years ago, I think about a quarter of our members, we're working at minimums. Now it's 50% and a lot of those people are showrunners. So we're still making the same product that brings in huge profits for them. They are just increasingly unwilling to pay us what we're telling them that we need in order to have a middle class life. And that's my understanding from what I'm hearing, you know, from members of SAG after as well,

that it's a very similar thing. And this, by the way, is happening not just in our industry. You know, we're visible because some of our members are well known and, you know, some of the after people are famous. Everybody across our country is being ground down by companies that are making decisions based on what's good for the people at the top and what's good for Wall Street. We're having to fight harder and harder just to get a living wage. people are having to work two, three jobs just to make ends meet. It's insane. So we're fighting for our

way of life because it's a good way of life. And it's also the only thing I'm qualified to do. I used to joke it was this or the counter of Blockbuster for me and Blockbuster is fucking closed. So, you know, like, you got to pay us. That's all it's too late for me to pivot, guys. This is the only thing I know how to do. Is it correct to say that the shift to streaming has really caused the system to break down? It didn't have to, but I would say the shift to Cory Doctro calls it the inshittification cycle. I would call it the hedge fundification of Hollywood. You know, that we have people coming in like David Zazlov who are basically seem ready to break up these companies and sell them off for parts. You get a perfectly good movie that you shelf for a tax write off.

You got Michael Keaton to play Batman again for crying out loud, you know, and they didn't even release. the back girl. They released the Flash instead. They're making bizarre business choices, and it all seems to be driven towards ever-increasing shareholder value instead of running a business in a way that's smart and responsible, that delivers a quality product that people are willing to pay for. And yeah, I mean, I mean, I have a BFA in theater. So, you know, I'm not necessarily the guy who's going to get deep in the nuts and bolts of the economics. But it seems like a lot of these companies that launch streamers, I don't know that they had a business plan other than Netflix is doing it. So, you know, they're, they're, you know, it's been

kind of haphazard. But as they've moved to streaming in the simplest terms, they're making still very, very, very good money. We see that because we, you know, get a look at their, uh, their profits. But we're not getting the residuals that we used to get. A residual payment is a type of royalty. And the residual you get is when they reuse your work that, you know, that you created or you start in whatever, they have to pay you again. And for decades, that was a plan that worked really, really well for everybody. And it was, by the way, it wasn't just good for actors and writers and directors. It was good for the industry.

Just like loggers will replant a forest after they've cut it, or farmers will, you know, rotate crops or let a field life fallow by giving residual payments to writers, to actors, to directors. They were creating an ecosystem of people who lived within easy driving distance of their studios, who were ready to work at a moment's notice. and when we weren't working, we're doing everything we could to come up with new products to sell. They are killing that ecosystem. They want us to only be paid while we're working because the streaming residual is very low. We're trying to drive it up. We're trying to drive it up in foreign. We're trying to drive it up in what we call AVOD, which is ad supported video on demand,

which is where I think a lot of this stuff is going to go. And they're extremely, extremely unwilling to pay us what they paid us for decades that worked very well for everybody. It's really, really frustrating. I think Fran Drescher did an amazing job expressing that frustration. I've been on negotiating committee for our union. I was on the negotiating committee for the WGA in 2020. And that was a Zoom room. I wasn't in the physical room, obviously, because the pandemic. But when you get in that room and you see that the people that you're negotiating with, it's not just that they don't want to pay you. It's not just that they don't respect you. It's kind of that they despise you. Yeah. It's that they so loathe that you, have the leverage that you have and that you can do this thing that they think is easy. But if it's easy, why aren't they doing? Right. So it's really, really disillusioning to see the degree to which our employers at a really fundamental level profoundly resent us.

And I think Fran did a really good job expressing that. And it is. It's crazy. Like she said, it's really crazy because we love what we do. We love working for them. We love making a product that millions and billions of people around the the world up. All we're asking is to be able to do that for a wage that can sustain us. Okay, but Disney CEO, Bob Eiger says your demands are unrealistic. Are you calling Disney CEO Bob

Iger a liar? Bob said that on a golf course at a continentaires that he flew to on a private jet. It is unreal. He makes, there are various figures. I at one point saw 45 million. I think 27 million is perhaps the more accurate figure. He makes millions and millions of dollars a year. David Zazlop makes $250 million a year. And by the way, neither of these guys, none of these guys, can star in a movie. None of them can write one.

I fucking defy them to try it. It's a lot harder than it looks. So, you know, I'm sure they're doing things that are very useful, but we are the people who make their product, the only product that they sell, the product upon which all their other things, theme parks, et cetera, all that stuff, consumer products. It's all based on the stories that writers and actors tell.

And if I was in their shoes, I would maybe think twice before being so profoundly disrespectful to the people who make a product that I don't know how to make. Yeah, because the weird thing is, like you say, like David Zaslov could never write or star in a movie, but you could run a giant company into the ground as well as he is. Probably, yeah. And I mean, well, I mean, look, AI is going to replace guys like that. long before it's going to replace me. Exactly. By the time you've got an AI that can write a screenplay that makes you reflect on your life experiences and laugh and cry, you're talking about an

artificial general intelligence, which within like, you know, two hours to three days is going to be an artificial super intelligence. And like copyright law is your last concern. Just hide the nukes. Whereas a CEO's job is just an optimization out. Yeah, but getting back to the thing, though, about what's realistic. Our demands are incredibly realistic. We're at, asking for about 0.2% of their revenues. It comes out to 2% of their profits for the WGA's ask. That's a reasonable cost of doing business in a market where they've, you know, reap the benefits of how they've been able to grind us with the move to streaming. It's not that much to pay. So I think our asks are extremely realistic and reasonable. I think that

perhaps Mr. Eiger's stance on what the people that create the product are due and what they'll be able to get through a collective action. I think maybe that's a little unrealistic. I think everyone's jaw sort of collectively dropped the other day when we saw that incredible quote from the unnamed studio exec in deadline. For those of our listeners who haven't heard it, the quote is, the end game is to allow things to drag out until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses. And it was just like, a thing I say on the show a lot is like there's no quiet part anymore.

Like everything is just said out loud. Yeah. And I just, I was thinking like, can you make it part of your demands that this executive be named? I, from what I heard the studio executives were on a Zoom the next day, screaming at each other about where that had come from.

So I think they're probably in the process of figuring that on their own because it was a, it was a, you know, yet another massive unforced era. all of this stuff is their cheapest way through this was to find the writer's bottom line the shitty deal that we would have had

to take. They made no effort to do that. They wouldn't even counter or negotiate on many of our proposals. Same thing with the actors. The actors gave them 12 extra days to try to find their bottom line. Instead, they canceled negotiations day after day because they're throwing a temper tantrum. It's not

smart. You know, if I was somebody who was an investor of money, I would be looking very close. at how these companies are run right now because I don't think they're making wise financial decisions. I think they're deciding stuff based on control and power and ego. No, I think that's absolutely right. And there's something to me, and maybe I'm just wrong about this, so I'm curious what your take is, this strike feels different from the other Hollywood ones in the sense that class issues have really been pushed to the front. And I'm not talking here about the actual

issues on the table. I'm talking about the rhetoric that we're seeing, pointing out just how sized and absurd CEO salaries have become. You know, the quote I just read about breaking people to lose their houses, Ron Perlman, the actor, putting up a response video to that, talking about, hey, be careful. There are various ways to lose your house. I got to say, I was lucky enough to work with Ron for four years on Teen Titans. He was the voice of Slade, our main bad guy on that show. Ron is, you know, I don't know him well, but he is the kindest and funniest guy I've ever with and I absolutely believe that Ron would burn your fucking house. So I don't advocate that.

Right. It was a moment. And whoever said that, that's unconscionable. That's unconscionable. You know, they've marked about it. They cruel but necessary evil. And John Rogers, who's a mentor of mine who's on the board of the Writers Guild right now, said something that is cruel is by definition not necessary.

This is all solvable. They could call the Raiders Guild today. We'd be in a meeting this afternoon. We are happy to sit down and negotiate on the terms that we have deemed important, which are the things that you're outlining, our initial compensation streaming residuals, the abuses in many rooms, the endless free rewrites in screenwriting. And the potential that AI has to frankly rip us off because it's a plagiarism machine. Of course.

We do, but there are ways that they could try and abuse the contractual structures to, to make it so we're doing the same job for a fraction of the pay. All they have to do is call. We'll sit back down. We're, believe it or not, reasonable people. We just also know our own work. And we're demanding to be paid what we're worth. And that's the thing that ultimately they're so angry about. There isn't undercurrent or real anger here. And I don't even mean on the studio side, because honestly, I don't give a shit. But I mean on the part of the writers and the actors. And this is sort of what I was getting at. And you said this earlier when I said, oh, this is about residuals and pain. You said, no, it's about much more than that. And you basically laid it out as this is

existential. This feels more like an existential strike than the 88 strike than the, was it 97, I think, strike. Oh, 2007. 2007, I'm sorry. That was arguably existential as well, but it was a different time for labor. Exactly. I think you're getting at something very important here, which is let's talk about what the two sides here are angry about. Because, you know, in that interview, Bob Eiger didn't seem particularly comfortable talking about this stuff. His arms are folded. He's leaning back. So let's talk about what the two sides are angry about because we're angry that you can be a recognizable actor in a hit show and still not qualify for insurance that year. We're angry that you can write on an incredibly acclaimed show like Handmaid's Tale and later that year

the driving lift to make ends meet. They're angry that they might have to buy a slightly smaller both this year. That's, I mean, so I think they know where they can put their rank. Yeah. No, exactly. You know, it's just, it's absolutely absurd. You know, we work, I don't know if you remember when Yatsi was contemplating a strike in 2021. There were all these stories about the hours. We work insane hours. I was a very good student. I never pulled an all night or in high school or in college. I have routinely stayed up all night for this job for the only purpose of hitting the production deadlines. I get paid the same, you know, whether it's on time or whether it's late. But I stay up all night because I care about having a script on the first day of prep so that everybody else gets a

chance to do their job. We work 15, 16 hour days on set. And with almost no guarantee, as soon as that job's done, you're on the hunt for the next one. It's a way of life that all of us have chosen and that we all love. But it is a hard way of life. And so when the people who work that hard for you are saying, these are the reasonable common sense things that we need and protections in order to be able to make this career sustainable for us. I don't know why you wouldn't listen. It's genuinely baffling, but I guess you just need a big boat sometimes. Or you need five boats, not four. Yeah, well, I mean, you don't want to have to wait for your boat to get all the way. Like, you should have a boat, you know, even least around the globe. Of course, of course. And part of the boat. You've got to take

you're playing to the boat. You can't take a boat to the other boat. And boats break down, so you've got to have backups. David Slack, thank you so much for joining us. Good luck on the picket lines. And I hope you get everything you're asking for. We will. Thanks. Danielle, Moody. Andy Levy. Danielle, who is your fuck that guy for this lovely, not at all humid day?

Okay. Well, as we chew the air, I want folks to chew on this, which is, you know, since the Dobbs decision, which took away bodily autonomy for people in this country with uteruses. There has been an alarming trend that is being tracked by the National Domestic Violence Hotline, which has seen, prepare yourself for this, according to Business Insider, a 100% increase in calls about reproductive coercion. And what is reproductive coercion for folks who are just like, I have no idea what this means? Well, it is a form of domestic violence in which an abuser attempts to control their partner's body and reproductive agency, like hiding a partner's birth control or sabotaging their contraception.

And this is being reported by PBS. PBS has noted that the hotline, the domestic violence hotline, has been receiving upwards of 3,000 calls per day, a volume that they have not seen since 1996. So basically what has been happening is that since the Supreme Court has done away with bodily autonomy for women and people with uteruses, that partners have been deciding to sabotage as a form of control, as a form of abuse, their partner's ability to hold on to that what's left of their autonomy by hiding contraception. This is where the fuck we are. The ripple effect, the tidal wave effect that has been happening since Roe v. Wade has been overturned is extraordinary. Because what the Republican Party, what toxic masculinity and what patriarchy wants is full and complete and total fucking control.

You want to talk about an abusive partner and abusive relationship. Women and people with uteroses in this country are back in an abusive relationship with America. that they broke with 50 years ago with Roe v. Wade. And this has given their partners carte blanche to do whatever the fuck it is that they want. Because apparently we don't own ourselves anymore. And it's just like for that reason, the Supreme Court, the Republican Party, every single person that is running to be the Republican nominee in 2024, fuck you, fuck those guys.

Yeah, this is just an unbelievable story. And sort of going hand in hand with this is we're now seeing like various states that have basically outlawed abortion, now looking for the authority to get a hold of people's travel records and things like that to see if they've gone out of state for abortions. And every time I read one of these stories, it's like how did we get here or how did we get back to here? Because let's not pretend that everything was always golden in America. But it is just mind-boggling that in the year 2023, we have governors of states and legislatures of states talking about wanting the right to seize people's travels records. And they're also scouring, by the way, for those of you who don't know this, they're scouring your social media. And that includes messages you think are private because they can subpoena stuff like that. And generally, a social media site will hand them over.

And they've already done this. They used Facebook to put one girl and her mom in jail. I believe for the crime of going out of state to have an abortion. And now we're seeing this on an individual level where you've got, let's just say it, men, sabotaging their partner's birth control. This is just like the mindset that is needed to do this. I can't wrap my head around it, but this is where we are. This is exactly where we are.

And let's face it, this is where Republicans want us to be. I'm sure Mike Pence thinks sabotaging your partner's contraception or hiding their pills or whatever. He probably thinks those guys are heroes. Yep. That's what real men do. Yeah, exactly. Because, you know, the country needs babies or, you know, whatever little fascist reason they'll come up with. But it, yeah, fuck all these guys. So, Andy, how are you starting off this good, good week in the freedom country we call America? Oh, God. I hate even talking about this guy because he doesn't deserve it, but I'm going to talk about him anyway. It's Robert Kemp. Kennedy Jr.

Oh, dear God. Listeners have probably seen this story, but I still think it's worth bringing up. Some video that came out of a dinner he was at here in New York last week picked him up saying that COVID may have been a bio weapon deliberately targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. And then he pointed out that the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese. And it's just he sort of backpedaled from me. that because he got, the interesting thing is he got called out for anti-Semitism. He did not get called out, really, that I've seen for also mentioning the Chinese, which is equally disgusting. He says, we don't know that it was deliberately targeted like that or not. Yes, we do. It wasn't.

That's how these people get around. This is the whole, I'm just asking questions thing. And that's his whole thing is like, you know, oh, this was taken out of context. And by the way, it was off the record, which shut up. No, it wasn't. You were out of dinner. You were in public. He tries to apologize by saying, oh, I never implied that the ethnic effect was deliberately engineered. You did. You absolutely implied that. And you implied it knowing damn well what you were saying. The bottom line is there is zero evidence that COVID was a bio weapon. This is not even a topic for debate. This is just a made up thing. But now we're forced to talk about it. And now we have to sit there and go, no, COVID wasn't a bio weapon. And it's just an absolute waste of everybody's time, including mine, quite frankly. And I just, this guy is so bad.

This guy just needs to be heckled wherever the hell he goes. And by the way, I feel like people are cutting his wife a lot of slack. Cheryl Hines, the actress, because she's sort of said things like, well, I don't agree with it. I don't give a fuck. You married this guy. And you are standing by him. And this guy, this is not like, I prefer Jiff peanut butter to Skippy peanut butter. This guy is spreading absolutely dangerous and 100% untrue conspiracy theories and you're married to him.

Yes, this is guilt by association for you as far as I'm concerned. But more importantly, fuck that guy to RFK Jr. I mean, like, what does it say about her that this is your man? You're claiming this one? That's what I'm saying. That makes absolutely no sense to me. Like, so if that is your husband, then you are aligned with his thinking because don't tell me that you don't sit around and talk about his campaign. Like, give me a fucking break.

So no, you don't get cover. And RFKJ, like, he is a idiot. He's a dangerous idiot because of his beliefs about COVID and vaccines and is clearly an anti-Semite is clearly discriminating against AIDS. Asian people. He's trash. He is fucking trash. And for that reason, he gets all of my fuck that guys. And I don't want to talk about that MFER because he is not worth our breath. Amen. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder.

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