The Daily Beast Podcast - Michael Cohen Went Down First—But This Trump Crony Should Be Next

Episode Date: May 21, 2021

Tim O'Brien, a senior columnist at Bloomberg, tells TNA host Molly Jong-Fast that there is one person who could actually get Trump behind bars. Plus! The GOP has no idea how to talk about Jan. 6, the new Texas abortion ban involves suing people and Andy Levy joins to explain why Andrew Giuliani is the most pointless failson of all the failsons (even Don Jr.) If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Empezae. And then you're a euro at mess in shopify.combeau records. Hi, I'm Molly Jongfast and welcome to the Daily Beast, the new abnormal. I'm a left-wing

pundit and an editor at large at the Daily Beast. We're here to have fun sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. Our world has been turned up to a down. On

the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and figure out how to get ourselves out of it. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon. I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. Today we have a jam-packed episode. Emily Sugarman, the gender reporter at The Daily Beast, will join us to talk about what's happening with reproductive rights, as well as the future of abortion in America.

Then Matt Fuller, a senior politics reporter at The Daily Beast, will talk to us about the January 6th commission and what else is happening in Congress. And if that weren't enough, then we will talk to Tim O'Brien, as senior column. almost at Bloomberg on the latest legal jeopardy for the former president Donald J. Trump. But first, returning to our program already is humorist Andy Levy. Welcome back to new abnormal Andy Levy. Thank you. It's been too long. I mean, we're great. We're no greater Idaho.

Well, why don't you allow me to get there and explain? So apparently, in Oregon, Washington, and possibly California, some counties are thinking about leaving to become parts of Idaho. I feel like that's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. Well, I just feel like if that's what you want, here's an idea. Move to Idaho. What's the problem here? If you'd rather live in Idaho, then live in Idaho. God bless. They want to reject the liberal values of Oregon. Look, I do not want to live in greater Idaho. I would live in greatest Idaho. Really? Would you? Yes, but until they achieve that level of superlative, I have absolutely no interest and I think they're half-assing this. and I think it's an embarrassment.

Yeah, I personally would like to not neither live nor visit either Idaho greater or lesser. I'm kind of confused why they haven't named it supremacist Idaho, since as we know, this is the state that the largest influx of white supremacists. But anyway, yes, God bless them. It's never going to work, but at least it'll give them something to do. I just thought it was interesting that, like, if you look at the names of the counties, you've got grant, you've got union, you've got Sherman. It's like these are the counties that want us to see. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Like, change the name of your fucking county before you do anything. Change them until, you know, Lee and Stonewall and whatever. It does get to the point where American and especially Republicans are racist to cut their, you know, they're cutting their nose off despite their face. Like, you know, there was this reporting from the Washington Post that said that Kevin McCarthy's district is actually a district toward 90s. plus percent of children will get these child tax benefits, that it's actually a very poor district in California that desperately needs the bailout that they will get from the Biden rescue plan.

And meanwhile, Kevin is doing everything he can to keep it from passing. The problem here, Molly, is that you seem to have started from an assumption that Kevin McCarthy gives a shit about poor kids in his business. And that was your first and possibly fatal mistake. We're living in a world where Mike Pence's brother doesn't care that they want. I mean, do you have siblings, Sandy? I do. I have a sister.

Yeah, I mean, don't you think she'd vote against, she'd want an investigation if a bunch of people were chanting that they wanted to hang you? Unless she were one of the people chanting, then I would like to think so. Yeah. But look, Mike Pence himself, has he said a word about this? I have not seen a word from Mike Pence about this. So if he doesn't care, why should his brother care? I mean, I feel like those heritage paychecks come with like an NDA, right? Like, you cash a heritage paycheck.

You're not allowed to complain about, you know, your constituents wanting to hang you. I think it's an NPA. It's a non-principled agreement. I have to tell you, when I used to go to CPAC before it became clear that I could never go there again, they used to have these ads for the Heritage Foundation. And they were like the most amazing ads you've ever seen. From these ads, you would think, you know, they were like the gas company ads. You know, they were like environment cleaner.

Right. You know, people better support heritage today. And you're like, actually, you guys are just like, you know, so it's pretty bad. So what do we think about the fact that there will be no January 6th commission through bipartisan support? They need 10 Republicans who aren't completely insane and there's like two. Yeah. 35, you know, House members, Republican House members, did the bare minimum of putting county over party. And like, the sad thing is that I think that's 10 to 20 more than I expected.

Yeah, well, the problem solver caucus. They came in. They saw a problem. They didn't solve it, but they thought about it. I just love this whole notion now that you hear from like Kevin McCarthy and John Thune and people like that, that, oh, we don't want to relitigate the 2020 election. Well, I mean, first of all, we wouldn't need to read. re-litigated if y'all hadn't litigated it in the first place. So like that, that's kind of on you. And but yeah, look, I agree with them that an investigation into an ignorant mob storming the Capitol will have to involve the fact that they did it because they believed a bunch of lies from Republican office holders and their hacky, unprincipled cronies in the conservative media. I agree. That sucks. I would much rather the investigation be that, well, a mob stormed the Capitol

because they were pissed off that baseball is still doing that stupid runner starts on second base in extra innings thing. But that's not where we are. We're in a world where they did it for the reasons they did it, you know, reaping sewing. It's like, I mean, a cigarette lighter is not going to vote for an arson investigation. Right. So like this is the same thing. I mean, you know, it's no different.

But I do think the idea that they're not going to relitigate the 2020 election, it's being relitigated right now. with the cyber ninjas in Arizona. Like, it is still happening. Like, they are recounting this fucking election. And Donald Trump and some Q&N people believe that this will, you know, overturn the election and Trump will be president if he's not already. Which, you know, there are Republicans like Lynn Wood who believe that Trump is actually president right now. Yeah.

I mean, look, who's to say that he's wrong? Exactly. I mean. A president generally sits in a gaudy. disgusting hotel and fires off, you know, little, right, fires off little missives to his crappy little social media site. And that, that to me, is what a president's function is. So, who is to say? And also showing people where the omelette station is. Right, exactly. I like that, you know, and I don't think it's going to happen, but, uh, because the Democrats never make things happen.

But, you know, Pelosi and others have suggested that the Democrats could just use one of their committees or set up a special committee to investigate the whole one-six thing. Would you not like to see a committee made up of like the squad and Katie Porter, just grill Kevin McCarthy and just put up quotes from his quotes from like right after one-six compared to his more recent ones and just go to town on that absolute miserable, unprincipled garbage person? Like I would like to see that. I know that's not the point and it's not if you do it like that, yeah, you're not convincing Republicans, but it would be at least enjoyable to watch.

There's the issue of history and truth and narrative. And as Mashigessen once told me on this very podcast, the only thing that fights fascism is narrative. So you do feel like, I mean, I just want them to go Benghazi on Trump's ass and just like, you know, do the full Devin Nunes, right? The full Tray Gowdy, you know, investigate hours and hours of investigations for everyone in the world who's ever. you know, get Don Jr. up there. Get Dan Bongino. Get, you know, fucking Allie, Alexander,

whatever his real name is. Get those guys up there for hours and hours and hours and make them spend money on lawyers and make them defend themselves. Because the truth is, like, you know, it's sure Republicans won't buy it. But if they don't do this, Republicans and Democrats will forget. Well, yeah. And Republicans will most certainly do it again. I mean, I don't, maybe, maybe not with the storming of the Capitol. But maybe. Look, but, but, but, of course, but maybe, you know. But they'll, they'll definitely do it again if a Democrat has the nerves to actually win, you know, a national election again.

They need to do something, but the Republicans don't want to do something. I mean, Mitch McConnell, you know, here's a guy who you thought maybe would want this commission. But of course he doesn't. He's an apparatchik. He's a party man. He cares. about nothing other than wielding power in the service of the glorious GOP. He knows what happened on January 6th was fucked up.

He knows there was no election fraud. He knows Trump is a raving idiot. He just doesn't care about any of that except as far as how it affects the next election. And in his mind, the way it affects the next election is... You could mess him up. Right. So the best way, the best thing to do is to pretend all of that is in the past. And it doesn't matter that it's not what's best for.

for the country because the Republican Party is the party of the Republican Party. That's the purpose of the Republican Party to help the Republican Party. And that's that's Mitch McConnell in a nutshell. It is amazing to me, though, that we all still keep thinking like, oh, well, there's a chance, right? Like, there's no fucking chance. Like, I mean, the idea that, like, Pete Buttigieg and Gina Romano are trying, you know, desperately to do this infrastructure bill, which includes child care. And, you know, at this West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore de Capo or Capito is going to,

Capito is going to, you know, make this deal and they're going to get 10 Republican senators like, of course they're not going to get fucking 10 Republicans. Who's going to, you know, you have Republican senators like Marsha Blackburn. It's never happening, man. Well, that's the thing. It would be nice.

It's not going to happen, but it would be nice if this would at least put to bed this ridiculously silly idea that there's any point in the Democrats trying to work with the Republicans right now. If you're not going to be bipartisan on looking into an actual attack on your workplace, an attack on you, you're not going to be bipartisan on anything. Why would you think that you could work with people on infrastructure, on jobs, on anything, if they won't even work with you on an attack that was as much on them as it was on the Democrat?

Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, I think the whole thing is just completely silly and I mean and just and like this kind of cock-eyed democratic optimism that we always see that never works right like we're going to bring them along you know they want fascism and we want bridges but we can find

a compromise a bridge to fascism that's the compromise and fucking bullshit why don't I bring a little bit of optimism to this it does seem like the people who storm the Capitol will be held to account because their defense attorneys seem to

really be giving up. I'd like to read a quick quote from the Q. Seanman's attorney. A lot of these defendants, and I'm going to use this colloquial term, perhaps disrespectfully, but they're all fucking short bus people. These are people with brain damage. They're fucking retarded. They're on the goddamn spectrum. Doesn't seem like the defense is going well. That's the QAnon lawyers. The Q&ONM's lawyer. The Q&ONM's lawyer. Shaman's lawyer. Yeah. Is going with the Dodd Jr. defense of too stupid to prosecute. Look, people are giving him shit for this, but what choice does he have? There is a lot of footage.

Exactly. I mean, it's on tape. What other possible defense is there other than, Your Honor, my client, is extremely stupid and, you know, does not have the mental capability of an adult and therefore cannot be locked up.

I think he's on to something, you know? He should clean up his language and join the 21st century. But, you know, but beyond that, I think, you know, I don't like, I think he sort of, you know, it's the old rock and the hard place thing. Like, what else was he going to say? Also, I would never hire.

Yes, yes. It's not exactly bolstering his resume with that defense. No. No. So speaking of other not very right people, one, Andrew Giuliani, son of Rudolph Giuliani, is running for New York governor to be the three of our governor. How do we feel? I just, I think I tweeted this like a week or two ago.

Like of all the miserable fail sons that we've had to deal with over the past bunch of years, and there are so many of them, Andrew Giuliani is the most pointless. Like, there is literally no reason for him to exist in the public consciousness. Nobody should know who he is. He has done absolutely nothing with his life. his greatest achievement in life is failing to make it to the tour as a pro golfer. And suing the Duke golf team. Right.

For throwing him off the team after he threw an apple at a teammate and did some other stuff. His only quote unquote real job was paid for by taxpayer dollars because Trump gave him a fake title so they could be golf buddies. Every meal this dude eats is a waste of food that could be going to someone who deserves it. more. He annoys me so much. But it mostly annoys me that I have to remember that he exists. And there is no way this guy has a single real friend. And he

probably has that in common with our current governor. Yeah, I was going to say. Well done. Yeah. Well, that's the other thing between him and Cuomo, it's such a bad time for people named Andy. And I do not appreciate it. You're going to have to change your name.

I don't want to be ashamed. I'm glad I go by Andy and not Andrew because both of them do the Andrew thing. But still, it's so, you know, just sort of defeating. And I like hours with my therapist because I'm stuck with the same name as these two chuds. Yeah, he makes me a shame to be a redhead. But one of the things I enjoy about him is that Andrew Giuliani says he's spent part of five decades in politics despite being only 35 years old. Can I partially defend him on him? How? Why? Why? It's because

he said part of five decades. So this assumes you take him at his word that at three years old he was in politics. So if you start from the late 80s, so you have part of the 80s, the 90s, the arts, the teens,

and now the 20s. That's five decades. So he is claiming that he has been in politics, not for 50 years, but for parts of five decades. So if you really want to get technical, that's what he's saying. So I partially, of course, again, you have to buy into this insane notion that at three years old he was in politics.

That's how I'm defending him on this, if you can call it a defense. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I've heard a lot of dumb stuff. But it means that, I don't know, you know, as someone who has my own, like, famous parent, though not as famous as Rudy Giuliani, thank God. I would never say that I have been writing books since 1973, you know, which was when her famous book was published because that I was negative five. My parents did not have Rudy Giuliani's book on their bookshelf. Yeah, but I wonder, I'm just talking about the topography of this race for a minute. So we have Andrew Giuliani and then we have like this sort of real fake candidate on the Republican side,

which is Lee Zeldin, who was like one of the dumbest congressman, but is also very good friends with Don Jr. A real selling point. So I'm curious. is to know who wins this totally wasted, pointless Republican nomination, which will never win. Yeah, it'd be a real shame if there was a falling down. That would really suck. And also, you know, Rudy is in real legal trouble. Yeah. Oh, of course.

Sweetens the pot. Look, again, I just, the fact that we've even talked about Andrew Giuliani for however long we've talked about him, if it was eight minutes, it was eight minutes more than he deserves to be talked about by anybody on planet Earth or if, you know, if you're into the UFO stuff that's been coming out lately than any other planet as well. Like, if aliens came here and ran across Andrew Giuliani, that's why they left. I'll take that as a hit to change the subject. So the party of personal freedom is now really, really into infringing on a lot of freedoms, particularly banning masks and banning abortion all over the place. What do you guys feeling about this?

So Governor Abbott from Texas banned abortion with this so-called heartbeat bill. By the way, six-week-old fetuses don't have a heartbeat. So already, and if you know the origins of this bill, which I happen to because I've written about it, it's like the dumbest, worst reactionary activist in the Ohio State House, which is already like the dregs of Republican fuckery. put together a heartbeat bill, which was basically set up to completely destroy women's reproductive freedom. So he signs the heartbeat bill, again, no heartbeats, because there are six, you know, it's two weeks past your missed period. I mean, it's insane. He signs a heartbeat

bill on the same day that he does an execution. Don't mess with Texas. Don't mess with Texas. So this is my question for you, Andy, as someone who's like a little more, I don't know, I think of you is more principled than I am. It's not a compliment, per se. What do you think about the possibility of a Matthew McConaughey? What if he's the only Democrat that could win? I don't know. I have absolutely no idea what kind of governor he would make, and it seems absurd to me.

It can't be worse than Abbott. The point is that, yes, that's where we're at, and we agree on that, you know, there's no way it could be worse. Right. So I would support my Texas. brethren and cistern voting for Matthew McConaughey, should he be the nominee. But going back to this so-called fetal heartbeat bill, I mean, you pointed out that there's no actual heartbeat. That's because there's no heart. And the other thing is there's also no fetus at six

weeks. It's still embryonic at six weeks. Much like Greg Abbott, what you've got here is a heartless embryo. You don't have an actual human being. So it's two lies in one. And the thing, and again, this is what annoys me more than any, not more than anything. I guess, you know, obviously what annoys me the most is all they want to do is control women's bodies. But at least, I got to say at least 80% of the legislators that voted for this bill know that not only is there's no heartbeat, there's no fetus. Right. And yet they voted for a fetal heartbeat bill.

And it's like, I don't even know, you know, we're in this. post-factual world, but I don't know how you compete against that because you can sit there and you can say, hey, there's no heartbeat because there's no heart and there's no fetus because it's still an embryo at six weeks, but they don't care. And once they don't care, they can do whatever the fuck they want. And that's what they're doing. And again, their ultimate aim is obviously, it's to control women's bodies. And they will do anything and say anything in the service of achieving that end. And that's where we are. If it takes Matthew McConaughey to write that ship, then yes, sure, why not? And all right, all right, all right. I feel like I'm open to it, man.

It's everywhere. And the truth is they're all really emboldened because the guy who, God knows how many abortions Donald Trump has paid for, has put two super, super Republican anti-choice, Trumpy nominees on the Supreme Court. So now, like, You think Justice Kavanaugh isn't going to, you know, it cares about a woman's right to choose. And then Amy Comey-Barrid isn't a very religious sect of Christianity. No, I mean, look, it's been the GOP strategy for decades, I guess, to the whole chip away at Roe thing. And they've been pretty successful at it. Yeah.

And, you know, and now, like you said, they've got the court kind of where they want it. And, you know, they can pretty much get rid of Roe without. getting rid of Roe, and that's what they've been doing. And it's, you know, unfortunately, it's been working in the States, and it may work, you know, and the Supreme Court's going to hear that case in Mississippi. As you said, I have no faith that that Roe will remain. Certainly, it won't be unscathed. It's already scathed. But that even if, you know, it's going to end up being completely gutted, even if it's not over time. Yeah, you know, it's so interesting because for so long, you know, there are these kind of tropes that people,

say to you when you're a woman on the internet. And one of the things they always say to you is like, don't, you know, this isn't about Ro. Roe is precedent. No one's going to overturn Ro. Ro is, you know, and then they, and then on the other breath, they say, well, Ro has some privacy issues. And maybe Roe wasn't a perfect,

and you know RBG didn't even like Ro. So, yeah, I think we're fucked. But, you know, fundamentally, this is about helping people who aren't wealthy, you know, who aren't upper middle class or middle class who can't afford to go to a different. state, you know, and take two days off of work. And so that is why it's so dangerous and scary.

Oh, yeah. This will affect rich people and, you know, Donald Trump's concubines, not at all. Right. Hey, folks, if you haven't heard every single week, we do a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast membership program. Sometimes we interview senators like Corey Booker or the folks who explain what's happening behind the scenes in media, like Jim Acosta, or Soladadad O'Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner. And sometimes we just have friends around to analyze what's happening in the news.

You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a beast inside member where you'll support the beast fearless journalism, as well as getting full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member, head to newabnormal. Dot the DailyBeast.com. That's new abnormal. The DailyBeast.com. Matt Fuller is a senior politics reporter at The Daily Beast. Welcome back to the new abnormal Matt Fuller. Hey, how are you guys?

We're so excited because what the fuck is happening over there in Congress? That's a daily question I ask myself. I mean, it seems even more fucking upsetting than usual. I was there on January 6th. All these members of Congress were there as well, or most of them. So it is kind of incredible to see people just want to sweep this under the rug in Filthy to Trump. Mike Pence's brother, Greg. voted against a commission, they were chanting hang Mike Pence.

The best part is I really think that Mike Pence would vote against this commission. Yeah, I think so too. Yeah. All right. So from the Republican perspective, I guess there's nothing really good that's going to come out of this for in their party. This is a fact-finding mission, an independent bipartisan commission. Yeah, they don't like those. That will raise the profile of January 6th and we'll come to probably some pretty damning conclusions about Republicans.

And, you know, there's also the point that Kevin McCarthy was in touch with Donald Trump on January 6th and could be subpoenaed and that could just be all awkward and terrible and bad things for Republicans. Yeah, we'd hate that. We'd hate that. On the larger point, though, like in the, you know, the sense of duty to your country and to the institution of Congress, there is no good reason not to have an independent bipartisan commission that examines this attack on the Capitol. Yeah, awesome. good reason. And Republicans are hiding behind this idea that the commission is slanted in some way or unbalance, and that's just, like, ridiculous. Right. I was going to say, you mean like Benghazi? Right. By the way, we still might end up with something like that, a select committee. But, you know, that was not the point of this. The point of this was to have like something with real credibility,

like the 9-11 commission, to not make this about normal politics and just go after the facts and and try to figure out how we prevent these things in the future, what happened. And like part of this is having some responsibility for people who deserve some responsibility. That is not where Republicans are at right now. Or ever. But it's sad. I mean, you know, we can focus on the 35 Republicans yesterday who voted with Democrats. And that's significant.

And like, that's one of the bigger, like, defections I've seen in the last decade. But we can also focus on the 175 Republicans who voted with their leaders. who voted just to obfuscate and hide and never do anything. I mean, really, there isn't a good reason to vote against this commission. It's a five-and-five commission. It's independent. Republicans have tried to have really strained to come up with reasons why this is an unfair commission, but nothing really stands up to any scrutiny here. It's a very fair thing that's modeled quite literally right after the 9-11 commission. And I'd add that there was a bill in January that would have done this, and it had over 30 Republican co-sponsors. And not just people.

people who, you know, like the Adam Kinsinger's of the world, but like Jim Banks, okay, he's the leader of the Republican Study Committee. I mean, these people who wanted facts, wanted to look at this, knew this was the right thing to do. And then as soon as Donald Trump and Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell got involved and said, oh, no, no, we don't want to do that. It became the sort of the Republican position that we can't look at January 6th. So this is like a victory for the problem solvers caucus in a certain way, isn't it? Well, we still haven't solved any problems. Right. It's true. they're not really, but at least they did. I mean, it's more than we've ever seen in this.

For sure. You know, I think that this is one of those instances where they got it right and you see the utility of something like a sort of middle moderate caucus with Democrats and Republicans where if you're a moderate, there's no real good reason. There's just no defensible reason for opposing an independent bipartisan commission on a deadly attack on the capital on the cradle of our democracy. There's just no good reason for it. Yeah, it seems not. Credit to them for standing. up and by and large voting with Democrats and saying, you know, drawing the line here. At the end of this, it still has to pass the Senate. If you don't have 10 votes there. Can you think of 10 sane Republican senators? It gets really difficult. And it gets really difficult once you start saying what, you know that Susan Collins is already a no. If Collins is a no, who else is a know that? And Richard Burr is a no, too. Right. Right. So like there's a lot of folks who it's very difficult. And if McConnell's outright opposing it, I mean, there was a, there was

definitely a world in which McConnell just kind of stands on the sidelines, which he was doing on Tuesday, and I'm undecided, and let's push the pause button. And frankly, him pushing the pause button and then getting 35 Republican votes in the House, I think could have translated to 60 votes in the Senate if he just sort of said, like, I'm, I don't know, I'm undecided. But him coming out against it, pretty forcefully coming out against it, actually, reversing himself in less than 24 hours because Donald Trump said so, it seems. Look, even Mitch McConnell, who was clearly outraged on January 6th, had a pretty nice little speech, right? Nice little resistance on the Senate floor that day. Had a nice little resistance speech right after voting to acquit Donald Trump of impeachment.

You know, he's not satisfied. He's pretty pissed off with Donald Trump. He doesn't want to lose the base. He doesn't want to lose the base. And that's the difficulty for Republicans is, and this is the other point I'd actually say is, I don't think Republicans by and large, have figured out how to talk about January 6th. They're all over the place on this. They, it's either total like fantasy of, oh, these are tourists and, you know, this is a lot of violent. Tourists who you regularly barricade your doors from.

Right. It's a normal day for Andrew Clyde. Any, any given Wednesday. The other tact seems to be just completely ignore it. I had a really smart senior GOPA'd say to me, Republicans go home and no one's talking to them about this. No one's asking them about January 6th. Republican voters just want to sort of ignore it as well.

It's not a very pleasant situation for them because I think it was really like the cows coming home on this. It was, you know, the reaping and sewing tweet. You've ever heard seen that? Like, oh, no, the sewing sucks part. It's the come up and having to deal with like those ramifications and just like the natural conclusion of your position for four or five years and what who Donald Trump is. Like, that's very uncomfortable.

And, you know, Republican voters, by and large, just like, let's just sweep that under the rug. Let's ignore it. Let's move on. And then, you know, you also actually heard the number two Senate Republican John Thune basically admit that this was political, that this, like, we don't want to drag this into the election year and we worry that it could. And they don't want to piss off Trump. And they don't want to piss up Trump. And they don't want to piss off their voters who still love Trump. Yeah.

I was reading a certain newsletter today. and they were like making a lot of excuses for McCarthy and how McCarthy was saying, you know, wow, we didn't really whip it, but they did actually whip it. This is actually bad for McCarthy, though. Yeah, it's certainly not a good day for Kevin McCarthy. I mean, they can hide behind a few different things

just to spell out a little bit more what Punch Bull said. Basically it was like, well, John Cacko was off on his own. Which he wasn't. Which he wasn't. And, you know, he was in close communication. He's made that clear to the conference that, like, he was updated McCarthy. McCarthy basically got everything he wanted. The only thing he didn't get was this like sort of insane demand that you'd expand the scope of a January 6 commission

all sorts of dates that aren't January 6th. Right. And sorts of incidents. Antifa. And and protests over the summer and just political violence writ large. And that that idea like it's really just avoiding accountability in any way. It's just a textbook obfuscation, both sides and that's all he wanted. And it's a ridiculous demand that he knows Democrats were never going to come to. Which is why he did it. Which is why he made that demand. Right. He can hide behind the fact that, oh, this isn't a good deal for Republicans or I never gave my sign off or whatever. But the fact is, Democrats did bend over backwards to get Republicans to this point. It's a very fair deal. It's a five and five committee. It's evenly split. They both have subpoena power to issue any subpoena you need

the Democratic chair and the Republican vice chair to agree or you need a majority of the members to agree. I mean, there's nothing here that's truly objectionable. And, you know, Republicans yesterday sort of stumbled around with this idea of the staff, the staffing, the chair is the person. Yeah. Security clearance. Yeah. And that's, none of that's really true. And by the way, this language was completely modeled after the 9-11 commission. These are just kind of fake things. And by the way, and if they were real, if they were truly like, oh, well, we want the staffs completely equal. like Democrats would be happy to make that change. That's just not the actual issue here. It's just fucker right.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Not to put too fine a point on it. I think that's a fine enough point. Can we go to infrastructure for a second? Sure. How can Democrats do anything if they can't get 10 Republican senators to agree to anything? That's a great question. It's one that they're going to struggle with mightily for the remainder of Joe Biden's term or the next two years while they have the House and Senate. The fact is for infrastructure, there's like a couple ideas out there. Number one, you just do it through

reconciliation. That seems to be the easiest way. Path forward. That is the most likely path. Another path is you split the bill in two. There's a bunch of things that you can't actually do by reconciliation. The reconciliation is a special process and there's certain things that gets stripped away if they don't have enough of a budgetary impact or, you know, we can get the bird baths and everything. But the fact is that some things can't be done by reconciliation. So there's a idea of why don't you make a package that's actually bipartisan that Republicans and Democrats can vote for that Republicans would like. And then you'd have the second package be that reconciliation one. That's a real gamble because, you know, once you do that one package, usually you only get

one bite of this apple. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Putting everything that's controversial into the second package and asking people like Joe Manchin to deliver that 50th vote is like, that's a real gamble. And cinema, too. Right. So I think most people kind of agree that. The best path forward is not trying to concern yourself with Republicans at all. Don't worry about the things that you can't do. Just go out and build a package that can get 50 votes in the Senate, 50 Democratic votes in the Senate. And if a Republican wants to vote for this, then more power to them. That first 100 days of Joe Biden, we always knew they were pretty successful.

And a lot of it was because you got the COVID deal done and vaccines were a great accomplishment. But we know that the next 100 days or the next 400 days or the next 400 days or the next next 1,500 days, they're a lot more difficult for Joe Biden than those first 100. I mean, he cleared sort of the things he needed to do. And now we're at that stage where, you know, if you want to get infrastructure done, you want to get anything done, you've got to either address the filibuster, which that's just not going to happen. There's really no reality where Joe Biden's going to give you that vote. Or you've got to do, you've got like a couple bites at reconciliation here. And those are also difficult because

you're dealing with, you know, 50 votes. And you have actually also a very small margin. in the House too. The voting rights bill it seems like the most important thing going, especially with the fuckery that's going on in Arizona. Do you have any sense? Does that go anywhere? Or are we just completely, is that?

In a classic Joe Manchin and Kristen Cinema fashion, they express support for that bill while also saying, I will do nothing to accomplish it, right? Right. So again, if you can't do it by reconciliation and that's the sort of bill that you can't, you'd have to blow up the

filibuster, they're not going to do that. They are very explicitly saying we're not, we're not touching the filibuster. If you're not willing to do that, you're not really willing to do anything to pass the bill. It's a statement of support. It's basically just a glorified press release. That sounds not so great. Not so promising. Yeah. Thank you so much, Matt Fuller. I hope you'll come back soon. Always happy to. What's crazier than QAnon more outlandish than Pizza Gate and scarier than a Mexican gout. head away with Ted Cruz? The answer is what the American right wing has planned next.

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

or your favorite podcast player to catch the first episode and get subscribed. That's Fever Dreams, which you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Emily Sugarman is the gender reporter at The Daily Beast. Welcome to the new abnormal, Emily Sugarman. Thank you so much.

So happy to be here. What the fuck is going on in Texas, those fuckers? That is certainly a reaction that people are having. I mean, what are they doing? So the Texas law is... Fuckery. It is kind of a new flavor of the six-week, so-called heartbeat abortion bans that we've been seeing for years now that these state legislators

are trying to kind of sneak in, even though they're blatantly unconstitutional, you know? Yeah. You can't have a pre-viability abortion ban under row. Right. And also, plasticists don't have heartbeat because they don't have hearts. Exactly. The whole term heartbeat abortion ban is something that was created by the right in order to kind of like drum up emotional support. They have said it's essentially a marketing tool. But you're at six weeks, it's an embryo.

This doesn't even have a heartbeat. So it's a total misnomer to call it a heartbeat abortion ban. But essentially the courts have recognized that banning abortion at six weeks and trying to criminalize a provider who does that is blatantly unconstitutional. So Texas got creative. And they said, one time they've ever got creative. But yes, continue. They decided, you know, they put on their thinking caps and they said, well, what we're going to do is we're not going to have the state enforce this ban. We're going to open it up to private citizens. So, you know, if you provide an abortion after six weeks or drive someone to their appointment after six weeks or you work at the abortion clinic where one was provided, you're not going to get arrested for that or charged, but literally anyone in the state can sue you for it. Literally anyone. Yeah. They can.

sue you for having an abortion? They cannot sue the person who had the abortion, but they can sue literally anybody else connected to it. Right. For a minimum of $10,000. And so this is just kind of like a sneaky way to get around the court challenges that have just completely shot down the other six-week bans that a handful of other states have tried to enact, because that's costing them a lot of money in legal fees, you know? Right. People are starting to see it's a little pointless and wasting a lot of taxpayer money. So Texas is getting creative. So this is the new version of when they were trying to say that you had to have an emergency room access or that the abortion clinic had to have certain dimensions and exits. This is the new generation of that. Yeah, there's kind of like two tracks that you can take for

restricting access to abortion. You can just outright ban it at a certain period, which is what this law would do. And then there's something we call trap laws or targeted regulations on abortion providers. And that's things like requiring you to have, you know, be an ambulatory surgical center or, you know, requiring you to have admitting privileges at local hospitals, things that are totally unnecessary from a health and medical perspective, but that just make it harder to be an abortion provider and have the effect of shutting down clinics. And what's the goal? I mean, the end goal here, as literally people who introduced this bill in the Texas legislature have said is to end abortion. Jesus. But ultimately, they want to kick it up to the Supreme Court because they know

that the Supreme Court is now the Handmaid's Tale. Right. So this Texas law is actually kind of interesting because I think Texas lawmakers knew that there have been a bunch of other, a bunch of other states got on this train faster and decided to introduce their six-week bans before Texas did. Those ones will probably go

to the Supreme Court before Texas's law does. This, from the legal experts that I've talked to, they're actually trying to avoid court challenges. They want this to actually take effect. And they want to, on September 1st, when this law takes effect, actually be able to have people filing lawsuits. So, yeah, there are, and there already is, which we can talk about too, there already is

a challenge to Roe v. Wade that's going to be heard by the Supreme Court in Mississippi. But when does that get heard? Yeah. So Mississippi, and you'll probably have to fact check me on this, but I believe that case will be heard like earliest in October. Yeah. I think. So that is, that's another abortion ban, like a gestational limit, saying that, okay, at 15 weeks of pregnancy and above, you cannot have an abortion. And once again, that's blatantly unconstitutional. That's pre-viability. That's before a fetus could survive on its own, which under Roe, you can't do. You can't ban abortion that early. And so a normal Supreme Court would say, okay, this is, a blatant contradiction of how we've ruled before. So they would take that challenge to

law, kick it back to the state courts and say, you know what to do. But this very conservative Supreme Court has actually decided to take it up, which is an indication that maybe they're interested in changing the rules around when you can start banning abortion, which would be a direct threat to Roe, because if you open it up to, you know, bans it at 15 weeks, what's to say you can't do it at six weeks? What's to say you can't ban it altogether? Right. And that's ultimately the goal. That is what these, you know, a lot of these legislators have said. is their goal. Yeah. So Mississippi will be the case that gets kicked up to the Supreme Court before Texas.

Yes. The Supreme Court has already said, we're going to allow, we're going to hear this. And so that is definitely going to be heard by the Supreme Court. And that is what has people really, really nervous right now. Yeah. For good reason. What a nightmare. And so do you see other states going the way of Texas and trying this? I think it's going to depend on, um, if the Texas ban gets challenged, which I believe several different groups are planning to do. They're planning to challenge it legally. So I think it kind of depends on what happens there.

We'll see if the other states decide that this is a good idea or not. So you've been reporting on at-home abortion and some of the startups doing this. Could you tell us about what these startups are doing and how this is going to be the new frontier of this? Yeah. What a lot of clinics have started doing as well is providing abortion pills. by male. So abortion pills, it's a two-step regimen of two different drugs that is 98% effective in terminating a pregnancy before 10 weeks and is safer than Viagra, safer than penicillin. You know, there is just extremely low history of complications with this drug. And so the idea

is that if you are, if it's before 10 weeks in your pregnancy, there's really no need for you to come into a clinic and just take this very safe pill. and have a provider just sit there and watch you take a pill. Why not? Just do what we do for so many other drugs, which is hop on a Zoom call with your provider, talk to them for a while, you know, go through your medical history, and then just have them ship you the pills. So you can take it in the comfort of your own home. And so that's what these startups and increasingly a lot of clinics are doing. What do we see happening with the states with this? Like I can imagine they're gnawing at the bit to get this band, or is this a federal thing because

it's the FDA? How does that work? Yeah, there's kind of two components to this. So right now it's super restricted federally. There's this thing called the REMs on Mitha pristone, which basically stops it from being distributed via telemedicine, and it restricts its distribution in a lot of other kind of pointless ways. That's been suspended by the FDA during the pandemic. So that's why all these startups and all these clinics can mail these pills right now is because the FDA has recognized, hey, maybe requiring people to come into a doctor's office. office when they don't have to during a pandemic is a bad idea. So after like a lot of legal back and forth, they've suspended it for the duration of the public health emergency. And they are actually going

to in this year probably ending in November, they're going to review the restrictions entirely. And, you know, advocates hope that they're going to lift them permanently going forward. So, but this is like a way to get an abortion that nobody even knows about. Exactly. I mean, like you don't have to go to an. office you don't need a doctor. How many weeks does this go till? This goes until 10 weeks. It's safe up until 11, but I think most of these online providers are going up until 10 weeks just to be safe. Right, which is still only two-miss periods. Exactly. So this is not a solution for everyone. And that's really important to emphasize is that you're still going to need abortion clinics. You're going to

need people who provide abortions, you know, as late as they can legally, because there will be be people who fall outside of this or who are, you know, prone to ectopic pregnancies or have some other contraindication where a medication abortion just doesn't work for them. Well, and I mean, the situation that I was in with my first kid where we didn't know if he was going to have this can ofance disease where he was going to, you know, die after birth. And we had to, you know, and that would have been a second trimester abortion. I mean, the whole idea is basically just it's a power thing. But it's so fucking. upsetting to me. Well, we appreciate you doing this. This is really important to keep watching.

And thank you. And I hope you'll come back. Of course. I'd love to anytime. Tim O'Brien is a senior columnist at Bloomberg. Welcome to the new abnormal Tim O'Brien. Hi, Molly. It's a treat to be on with you. That's right. One of my many favorite things about you is that you have this incredible encyclopedic knowledge of one former guy. And he has sued. All is true, I guess. I don't know if it's encyclopedic. You know, I first got exposed to Trump. I was Wayne Barrett's research assistant on his Trump biography, which came out in 1991, I think, 1992. You know, I was from the Midwest and didn't really know or care much about New York real estate developers. But I knew Wayne's reputation as this legendary investigative reporter. He had just written City for Sale, which was one of the

classics of urban political corruption. And it was a bestseller. And it did, the book did very well in the late 80s. And off of that book, he got this contract to do a deep dive on Donald Trump. And Wayne was the first person to ever profile Donald Trump at length in the Village Voice in the 1970s. He did a two or three-part series on Trump. And all of Wayne's work is sort of the foundational Trump work. And then when he was doing his book, Wayne was doing his book, we lived in his house, his beach house in Ocean City, and we're reporting on Trump's casino stuff in Atlantic City and his political and real estate stuff in New York and assembling these big brown boxes of paper documents about Trump's casino control commission hearings and division of gaming enforcement and security stuff back in the old days when you had to get it all by paper. And that was my first exposure to Trump. And then I wrote a gambling book. in the mid-90s, and I interviewed Trump for that in his office. He was in one chapter of that book. And then in the early 2000s, when I was at the New York Times, I wrote Trump Nation and spent two years, probably two to three years working on him for the paper and for the book,

three years in total, and spent an inordinate amount of time with him. He cooperated with the book enthusiastically, as he always does in these things, and then hated what the book said. Because he loves attention. He's an attention. He's a media addict, as you know. And he didn't like what the book said. He felt it misrepresented his track record as a human being and as a presence in New York and as a businessman. There's a lot in the book, but the thing he honed in on, which is interesting, is he said I lowballed how much money he had. And that's what he sued me for. He said I had libeled him because I said he was worth less than a billion at a time that he was saying he is worth $6 billion. We went to court. We shredded him in court. I was fortunate that I had

Mary Jo White, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, with my attorney. And he had Mark Casowitz. And she dribbled him around like a beach ball. Mary Jo and her great attorneys were also on the case, Andrew Suresny and Andrew Levine. Good for her, man. Well, he was dismissed in 2009, and he tried to go forward with an appeal and that he lost that in 2011 and I thought he was out of my life forever and then bam he rolls down the escalator at Trump Tower in 2015 and here here we are and you know one of the blessings of Donald Trump in my life is he introduced us to one another randomly Molly without Donald Trump we would know each other not that's certainly true so explain to me

this new reporting is interesting because it doesn't say a whole long right we know tish james is sort of has decided she's going to use the money and the taxes and go through weisselberg and maybe there's some attachment to the daughter-in-law giving them stuff we don't really know right but her announcing that it's gone to a criminal i mean does that mean anything really it means everything and it's you know it's it's one word speaks a thousand words and and and the word, where it is criminal. Donald Trump is going to be 75 years old next month. And he has spent the better part of 55 years flouting the law, human decency, responsibility, and a whole host of things that we've all come to recognize in him. And he's never really had to face the consequences

for any of his actions. He was insulated by his father's wealth. Then he was insulated by celebrity with the apprentice. And then he had this massive insulation of the White House, legal insulation, that the White House provided. And now he has two criminal investigations that are focused on the money trail. And that's never happened to him in his entire life. And the reason it's important that it's criminal is a civil case. If you're indicted and found guilty, there's a massive fine sometimes or a large fine attached as a penalty. On a criminal case, you get to go to prison. But it's a high bar because the penalty's so severe. The prosecutors have to prove intent. They have to prove that you knew you were breaking the law. And that's a difficult standard. So a prosecutor decides to say, I'm going to expand the parameters of my case to include criminal charges, isn't going to do that unless he or she is very confident. They have evidence indicating knowledge and intent. So this is hugely significant. Do you think there's a chance that Trump goes to jail? Yes, of course there's a chance. It's very tricky. He's an ex-president. So there's going to be, I think, environmental and atmospheric things are wrong. that that I personally think we should ignore because as the Supreme Court ruled, when they turned

over as tax returns to be put in play, no one in the United States is above the rule of law, including the president. But I still think it's inevitably going to become of political football. He's going to try to politicize it. So his chances of going maybe are slimmer than someone else's in his position. We don't know what evidence they have. Clearly, Alan Weisselberg is on the radar screen. They've now launched his his accountant, basically. Right. Yeah. No criminal charges, but a criminal investigation of Weisselberg. And if Weisleberg knows everything, he's been there for since the mid-70s. And if he flips and has records and evidence and tape recordings, anything like that that shows Trump had knowledge of anything these people think is criminal,

that it's, it will get tricky for Trump. Do you see a world where that happens? Yeah, these investigations are focused on bank fraud, tax fraud, insurance fraud. We know that. We know from court filings. They've gone in different directions. Tish James was focused on at least from court papers in terms of how her investigation intersects with the Trump organization more broadly for properties that she's named. Vance, his investigation began with the payments, you know, the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and Jennifer McDougall. And I think that morphed into looking at falsification of business records in the Trump organization. And that became a broader look at, have they, you know, played fast and loose with how they account for the things they own. And now the other unusual thing

about the Tish James announcement is that she and Vance are joining forces. And that's really unusual, you know, for these prosecutors to do that. It suggests that each of them has something special that the other doesn't have that they think is worth partnering up over rather than squabbling. Do you see a world where the kids go to jail? I mean, I feel like the kids are sort of more low-hanging fruit in a way. Well, I don't know. I mean, I do think ultimately, Vance and James will be guided by what the law tells them they can and can't do in these situations. Eric Trump has been deposed and put on this show of bravado around that that he wouldn't sit for a deposition before the election as if that was his choice.

That was last year. Right. And a New York state judge said, I'm sorry, Sunny, but you have to sit for this. And so he did. Right. And that pertained to what he knew about the valuation of Seven Springs, this estate they have in Westchester County. And that's one of the things that Tish James is looking at. So she sees, you know, Eric, at someone with knowledge of the problems she's looking into. So that makes him vulnerable. Does it make him culpable? I don't know. Right. You know, the other interesting, Molly, is that, you know, like Weisselberg now has lawyered up. He's gotten his own lawyer. And there's going to be this calculation going among all these folks inside the Trump Organization, which is neither organized nor a big business. The Trump Organization always struck me as an oxymor. They're all going to start

to have to figure out, is it worth it to continue to throw our lot in with Donald or to find our own lawyers and protect ourselves? Because he spent decades giving his children and his business associates money to retain their loyalty, but a prison term is a pretty ugly outcome. And money doesn't really keep people from avoiding that. So you could see loyalties start to fray. Michael Cohen did go to jail. Right. But, you know, Michael Cohn, in terms of the investigations that he was subject to didn't have enough information at the time to convince law enforcement folks to give him a break because he could get people higher up than him. Yeah, that sort of surprised me. Did that surprise you?

No, I think Michael Cohn's role of Trump organization has been overblown by the press in terms of Allen Weisselberg signed off on Donald Trump's personal taxes. He handles them. He signs off on the corporation's taxes. And every big deal that rolls through the Trump organization for the last 46 years has to get Alan's eyes on it. Michael Cohen was a fixer. He was this pit bull that Donald unleashed on people like me, right? Or you. Yeah. And you know, you and I never heard from Alan Weisselberg. Right, right, right.

But we heard from Michael, you know, and in fact, you know, I was on Michael's podcast a while back, I don't know, months ago. Yeah. And he said, you know, I used to call people, I'm not going to do Michael in person. But he said, I used to call people up and say, I'd call reporters up and say, you better not do this where we're going to do to you what we did to Tim O'Brien. What did they do to you? They sued me, right? We'll take you to court. We'll make your life hell. That's sort of, I think, what the implication was. But Alan Weisselberg wasn't making those phone calls. You know, he was making the machinery move and he had Donald's total confidence. And that wasn't Michael Cohn. Michael Cohn episodically moved in out of different things the kids and Donald needed done. But he wasn't a guy who knows where all the financial bodies are buried. I also think it's really interesting sort of in the whole historic sweep, an arc of Trump. Trump's life that Robert Mueller, you know, this big federal investigator didn't get him. And Congress

did two impeachments. And they couldn't get him. And you know who may end up getting him? New Yorkers. Right. New Yorkers who have come to loathe him. The taxes. Yeah. And he's turned his back on the city. Right. He's changed it. He's now a Florida resident. He's sort of dumped on the city. And at the end of the day, it's New Yorkers now who have his fate in their hands. Tim O'Brien, thank you so much for joining us. I hope you'll come back. It was great to be on, Molly. Thanks for having me.

Hi, Jesse Cannon. Hi, Molly Jong-Fast. What is going on? There's so much fucking stuff that I'm fucking mad about. A mass amount of fuckery, one would say. There's a mass amount of fuckery. You know, a substack bro that we both know said this week that politics is boring. Oh.

Oh, right? I just had desked. I mean, there's so. many choices for fuck that guy, right? Kevin McCarthy decided that he doesn't need to investigate. Mike Pence's brother doesn't care who wants to hang him. I mean, it's just a cornucopia of fuckery, but today's fuck that guy is someone who I think I've caught his eye. You know, you've been waging a long, long campaign to make people know about one Lewis Comer. Lewis Comer. Lewis Gomez Gomer from Texas's first district.

You will remember that we did have Hank for Texas on this podcast as we valiantly tried to dislodge him. His opponent that we just loved so much. But Texas's first district is an R plus 7,082. Yes. And not an easy lift for any Democrat. And today, Louis Gomer gave a floor speech bafflingly. Well, we'll just let you listen to the tape. More involved.

We were doing better on our S.A. until President Carter created a Department of Education. When I took it, did very well. It got me into the honors program at A&M. And I'm sure that shocks people that think I'm the dumbest guy in Congress. But, Molly, I have to say, you know, David Bowie once said it's not about who does it first, but it's who popularizes an idea. And you have popularized the idea that he is the dumbest man in Congress.

It's like he's coming for you. Yeah, I'm proud. I'm quite proud. So Louis Gomer, fuck you. And Texas is a particularly awful group and of Republican elected. This is one of the days we could say fuck you to all of Texas, but I will take an aim at somebody else today. A old friend of fuck that guy, one Bill Barr. Charles Pierce of Esquire has a piece out this week where he talks about how in the final days of Bedlam in the Trump administration, Bill Barr, was tasked the DOJ to find out the names of people who were mocking rep Devin Nunes on the electric Twitter machine. The DOJ issued a subpoena to Twitter to flush this miscreants into the open. Now, for those not initiated, what we're saying here is the justice department took the fucking time to try to find out who is running a Twitter account called Devin Nunes Cow. I'm so impressed that the Bill Barr Justice Department spent its time trying to figure out

who was coming after Devin Nunes. It reminds me of one of my favorite questions, which we no longer ask Congresspeople because they just don't respond to it in a way I had hoped. But what broke Devin Nunes' brain? And we know it was Twitter. And you know what I'll say I'm grateful for is that these people's brains were so broken

that they couldn't use their fuckery and their horrible lack of respect for government for things that were actually be damaging to it. Instead, they focused on this dumb shit. to the dumbest possible stuff. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics and science.

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