The Daily Beast Podcast - Navalny Pal on What’s Next for Putin If He Wins—or Loses

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

The attack on Ukraine isn’t going how Russian President Vladimir Putin thought it would, co-host Molly Jong-Fast posits in today’s episode of The New Abnormal. Vladimir Ashurkov, a colleague of anti-Putin opposition leader Alexei Navalny, joins the pod to explain what’s next for Putin—whether he wins or loses the war. Then, NBC News’ Jonathan Allen talks about what he saw at CPAC (the The Conservative Political Action Conference), including a screaming match at a bar where two men argued about Ukraine and one called the other a “shrill for the Queen.” Plus, co-host Andy Levy has a message for Marjorie Taylor Greene: “It’s OK to cancel Nazis.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Zhang Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic Info. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objective. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart, conversations with the wisest and funniest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it. What an interesting show we have today. First, we're going to talk to Vladimir Shirkov, executive director of Alexei Navali's Anti-Corruption Foundation. He's going to talk to us about Russia's invasion of the Ukraine.

Then we'll talk to NBC News, John Allen, about all the fun he had attending CPAC. But first, let's have some fun. Andy Levy. Molly Jongfest. Since everything is always 2016 and we are trapped in that horrible year forever and ever and ever, we find ourselves in the middle of this absolutely heartbreaking conflict where Vladimir Putin is trying to take Ukraine. Nobody even knows why, though there are many theories. And Republicans find themselves very much on the wrong side of this.

Well, found themselves very much on the wrong side of this. The Republicans, to a large degree, started off as either pro-Putin or sort of anti-anti-Ukraine, I guess. I don't know. How else to put it? You had the Tucker Carlson saying, why should I hate Putin? What has he ever done to me? And Laura Ingram basically echoing that. And a lot of the Republican politicians do and likewise.

And then they all assured us, by the way, that Putin was not going to invade Ukraine. And then what do you know, Putin invaded Ukraine? within a day or two, we started to hear a different story. And we started to hear how Putin was a bad guy. And this was Joe Biden's fault. They quickly pivoted to this was Joe Biden's fault. And we've heard a lot of this, you know, well, this didn't happen while Trump was president.

And Molly, I feel like there's maybe a reason for that. It's interesting because it seems like none of these Republicans remember Trump's first impeachment. And I know once you get to the second impeachment, the first impeachment feels like, you know, a little bit ancient history. But I would like to say his first impeachment, we would like you to do us a favor, though. And then he goes on to ask Zololinsky, who at the time, none of us really knew who he was. He had just one.

It was a Jewish comedian in his early 40s, like you and I, except without the comedian part. You know, we didn't really know, right? That Trump got on the phone with him. He blackmailed. him, he held up the aid. You know, there was a whistleblower. A lot of people came forward and we saw that Trump was trying to get dirt on Joe Biden. Now, the rest of Trump's administration, he spent praising Putin and talking about how great he was and how smart he was and how handsome he was and how intelligent he was. Now Putin is a bloodthirsty autocrat and is killing all of these civilians.

Republicans are yet again covering for Trump. And it's important to remember that what Trump held up was to be this aid package that included like javelin missiles and stuff like that. And Trump basically said, well, we need you to dig up this dirt on, you know, this is where the Hunter Biden stuff came into play and stuff like that. And he held up the sale of the javelin missiles, et cetera. You know, now he talks about, well, I'm the one that I sold the missiles to Ukraine. Well, he did that after all of this came out. And basically he had no choice. and he then had to just go ahead and do the sale without the quid pro quo that he was that he was searching for.

But the only reason he did that is because it leaked, as you said, there was a leaker. And that's why he sold them. And now, you know, like you said, this is all being memory hold. And now it's, you know, Donald Trump's staunch defender of Ukraine, which no, not quite the case. And in fact, we know Donald Trump worked pretty hard to hinder NATO throughout his term and to hold up this aid to Ukraine. and then people say, well, why didn't Putin invade while Trump was president? It must be because he was scared of him. No, because he was getting everything you wanted under Trump's administration.

And also Putin was a little busy adventuring in Syria. But it is interesting that you see Don Jr., perhaps you've heard of him, the ex-president's large adult son, who was deemed too stupid to collude with Russia, as you remember from his Trump Tower meeting. Who among us could forget? Like, talk about white privilege. We're sorry. you can't, he didn't do crimes because he's too dumb. Okay.

Like, talk about giving the benefit of the doubt. That guy said that the reason that Putin didn't invade when his dad was president was obviously because he knew that his dad had balls. Yeah, it's the constant memory holing. And this is, you know, again, and we're seeing that now with Tucker Carlson and with a whole bunch of Republican politicians who are now, Ron Johnson, who was Putin's best friend in Congress. basically is now talking about how this shows that Joe Biden is weak and all the stuff. The thing is they all know they can get away with it. That's the most troubling part is that all these people know

that they can turn on a dime and switch their position to the literal opposite of what it was. And the Republican base will just sort of nod along and act like this has always been the case. It's so frustrating because they keep getting away with it. I don't understand how. I don't understand how you watch these people change to the exact opposite of the position they held like a day earlier and you nod along and say, yeah, he's right. This is, this is Biden's fault. Thank God for the Republicans being strong. But, but they do. Yes. And it is pretty unbelievable that again, the thing that I'm really struck by is the GOP messaging arm is so organized and so set up. And there is nothing like that in the Democratic Party. Obviously, there are people who will say to me,

the mainstream media. But again, I would argue that the mainstream media is trying to get to the truth and not the narrative that works to support the party. In this case, you see that the Republicans, you know, there was a minute, you know, it started out with a lot of people on Fox News and that crew saying, you know, Vladimir Putin's our friend. He gave lots of money to the NRA. Let's not overreact here. And then it gets harder in our world of internet. It gets harder and harder to a. ignore war crimes as Putin is, you know, sending in miles and miles long columns of troops and bombing civilian buildings. These guys had to pivot, right? Because they can't say Putin's a good guy. And then, you know, he's killing these Ukrainian children. So now they're pivoting to this never happened under Trump, which I guess is true. But, you know, they're sort of ignoring the hours and hours and hours of Trump telling Putin how great he is. And remember when intelligence services said that the election had, you know, had been interfered.

It was the Russians and then Trump stood up. He told me he didn't do it. And I have no reason, you know, to think he did. Right. And then tried to blame Ukraine. Right. Yeah. I mean, they're definitely on the wrong side of things.

I mean, I think there's a lot of guile less reporting that is sort of keeping on with it that, you know, I think we have to be more critical of what we're seeing from the GOP. Yes. Obviously, we have to keep pointing this out. Again, the problem is, and the frustration lies, is that we're, in sort of this post-factual era where there's a large segment of the American populace that doesn't care about if you point these out.

So Jennifer Griffin was on Fox News and she is actually in Ukraine, right? Yeah, but she's, you know, they're having these guests on who are basically parroting Russian talking points. And then she's coming on and saying, this is ridiculous. None of that is true. And then if you look at the response, some people, if you follow Popat on Twitter, he was posting these. tweets from Fox viewers and they were just going after Jennifer Griffin and calling her a Biden supporter and saying she was lying and that why is she giving other facts than the original guest? She's not supposed to do that and all this stuff. And you just realize that's why people like Tucker and whatever

can get away with whatever they want. Because these people just, they only want to hear what they want to hear. And they don't want to hear anything that contradicts it. And it's this unbelievable, impermeable bubble made out of Kevlar or something. But they don't. don't want anything getting to them, any kind of information getting to them that contradicts the way they feel. But if Tucker Carlson says something one night and then said the exact opposite, the next night, well, it's Tucker Carlson saying it. So it must be how he always felt. And so, therefore, this is what I feel too. And you just can rail against it. And I agree with you that it's important to point out and to constantly be on the side of fact. But it's just getting through to

these people. You watch CPAC and these people talk. And they are very clearly living in a world that is completely divorced from the real one. I think it's a, yes, it's a post-fact kind of world that these people are inhabiting. But again, it works with their people. So they're not being called out for it. I want to ask you a question because you have done military service unlike me and have really sort of seen what is happening. You know, I'm very conflicted because I am rooting for Ukraine.

I think we're all rooting for Ukraine. I mean, this is a terrible story. my family, you know, my Jewish family has all been murdered, but the ones that didn't get murdered came from Ukraine. So I feel very, and you know, this idea, this Jewish comedian generation acts, it's very exciting. I really hate war. I mean, watching this unfold, I don't want to do anything that glorifies war or kill. And so it's very hard for me because I really believe what's happening that all of these countries are doing the right thing in Ukraine and they're supporting them in any way, but there really is a line and we don't want to glorify war.

And I think that it's important when we talk about this, like on both sides, a lot of these Russian kids are not going because they know what's going on. They're going because they have to. That's what separates this from, I don't know, let's say Iraq, which was a war of choice. Iraq didn't attack us, but we went into Iraq. In this case, we are on the side of the country that invaded,

that was sitting there, and the country next to it, we want you as part of our country and sent troops in. So there's a strict isolationist argument for saying, hey, this is not our problem. This is the other side of the world. We shouldn't worry about it. The problem is you can't really do that when it comes to a country like Russia. There are instances where you can absolutely say, well, this doesn't involve us. Of course, by doing that, you are also tacitly saying that, yes, the one side is going to suffer horrible casualties and maybe we could mitigate that, but we shouldn't. War is always, it's a lose-lose situation.

Like there's no, sometimes you have to do it. World War II obviously had to be done. When I was in the Army, I was stationed in 1991, I guess it was. I was in Korea and my infantry battalion was stationed on the DMZ for 90 days. Back then we did, we did 90 day rotations on the DMZ of infantry battalions. And then actually I was part of the last 90 day rotation. And shortly after that, we just turned it over to the South Koreans. But I was there when, I don't know if anyone remembers this. Gorbachev was in charge. in Russia in the Soviet Union, and he got sort of kidnapped. Everything was like, oh, my God, are we going to lose all the gains we made? But we were sitting there on the DMZ, Korea, and we got put on full alert. Like, we had to wear what's called mop gear, mission-oriented protective posture. And it's this anti-nuk, it's nuclear biological and chemical weapon gear that you have to put on. And it's this unbelievably uncomfortable suit. I hope by now they've got a better one. But basically what it does is it, you know, it's not breathable at all, which is the point. But that also makes you sweat.

Like you just, it is so uncomfortable. And we had to wear the suits full time because nobody knew what was going on other than Gorbachev had been kidnapped. And this is a nuclear country. And the only reason I bring that up is it's still a nuclear country. And we've got Putin now talking like basically putting nukes on the table, putting the use of nukes on the table. And that is fucking frightening.

So the question becomes, yes, war is horrible. It's possibly the worst thing on the planet. If not the worst thing, it's close to it. There are times you have to do it. And in this case, it is a purely, it's a defensive thing. Nobody's trying to take over Russia. We're just trying to defend the country that was invaded. But you've got a guy who is rapidly becoming isolated, which is good in a sense. But also you've got a guy who's rapidly becoming isolated who's looking around going, is my only friend left the nuclear button. And that's terrifying. And so we've got to sort of walk this fine line. And I've seen people saying, look, you know, this war is obviously not going the way Putin planned. I mean, I think he thought this was going to be a cakewalk and that, you know, be sitting in Kiev right now

controlling the entire country. And it's not. And you start to worry when someone like that doesn't get what they want easily, how quickly they'll go to what you would hope would be an unthinkable option, but maybe is not. Is there any kind of off ramp you can give him? I've heard people starting to talk about this. We've got to give Russia an off ramp here. I don't know what that thing is. And part of me is like, fuck that.

You know, this guy started a war. You don't give him an out. But the other part is he's got, I think, more nukes than anyone else in the world, including us. I don't know. I don't know what you give him. You're not going to give him any part of Ukraine. That's not fair to Ukraine. But it's just the whole thing is terrifying.

And I remember feeling on the DMZ when you just walked around going, what the hell is going on? are we, at that point, everything had been trending in the right direction in the Soviet Union, and it was perestroika, and, you know, and then all of a sudden it was like, you're sitting there thinking, could this all be wiped out in like over a weekend? You know, it's terrifying. And I also think it's important to just think about a lot of these Russian citizens who are not the enemy of the United States or even of Ukraine. They live in this very scary autocracy and they are as responsible for the election of Vladimir Putin as, I mean, even less so.

than we American citizens were for the election of Donald Trump. Oh, yeah, far less so. Yeah. And I think it's important to have a lot of compassion for that. I worry what happens in war is that people get excited. And certainly there is a lot of heroicism. And we don't want to lose our humanity. And we don't want to lose that the Russian people are also softbrying,

Ukrainian people. And there's just a lot of people. So, guys, speaking of horrible, horrible things, did you guys happen to notice that two of our worst congressmen attended a nationalist white-powery conference adjacent to CPAC this weekend? Yeah, it was Marjorie Taylor Green and Molly's favorite, Paul Gosar.

The worst dentist in Congress. Yes, exactly. But not the only dentist in Congress. No, no. And that's actually a tough fight for the worst dentist in Congress. You know dentists have disavowed him because I wrote a piece of business.

I have seven out of ten dentists disavowed him because I think that's the metric of most commercials. I think once you, Once the American Dental Association decides to address it, you've lost. You know, they tend to try to stay out of politics. Yes, they're not generally known as a political organization. So they spoke at this conference that was organized, I guess, by Nick Fuentes, who is as white nationalist, neo-Nazi as it gets.

And, you know, and they gave their little speech to thousands of white power morons. And of course they have, at least as of now, they have faced no censure from the Republican Party, which is not even a surprise at this point. I mean, the RNC issued a little statement saying that this goes against everything we stand for without even, it didn't even name the names of the people of Marjorie Telegreen or Pearl Goldsard. They didn't even have the courage to mention them by name. And it's just, like, it's just unbelievable that they're just, again, they're going to get away with it. Marjorie Taylor Green knows that Donald Trump has Kevin McCarthy's balls in a safe at Mara Lago and Rana McDaniel Romney. Mitt Romney's niece is just as big of a shill as it gets.

And so they know they can get away with this. The unbelievable thing. And look, Marjorie Taylor Green, I don't know if Gosar did. She also spoke at CPAC. They don't have a problem with it. And then when you say to them, you know, what are you doing? Speaking at this thing, they say, well, we don't believe in cancel culture. We're not going to cancel these people.

They're fucking Nazis. It's okay to cancel Nazis. It's interesting. We're seeing a new and insane talking point coming out of the right, which we saw with this Rick Scott plan for America thing, which was his Mitch McConnell decided not to have a platform again because when you're, when you have ideas that unpopular, it's important not to publicize. Right. But Rick Scott did a plan for America because he's, he's trying to rise up in the. the Republican Party. And one of the kind of fascinating up is down, left, his right talking points was Republicans don't see color. They want to treat everyone the same. And in this Marjorie Taylor Green

thread where she defends her going and speaking at a white nationalist conference, she again says she doesn't see color. It's so craven, but it's, you know, they are like three steps ahead of Democrats on messaging. So even though it's craven, and even though no Democrat in their right mind would believe such stuff, it's working for them. Well, and the other thing is, like, they give up the game. Like Marjorie Taylor Green, when she finally spoke about this, said that, oh, well, I don't care what some other speaker said. I'm not defending what some other speaker said. The other speaker that she was talking about was Nick Fuentes, the organizer of the event.

They try to play it off like, oh, I was a speaker just like that person was a speaker. And I'm not accountable for what another speaker says. No, that was the event organizer. That's the guy behind the old thing. And it's very well known that he is a white nationalist and neo-Nazi, whatever. And all you're doing is your best case scenario there is you're saying, I'm stupid. I didn't bother to look at what this conference was before I accepted, you know, a speaking role. And that's like your best case scenario there is this is how dumb I am.

And the thing is, nobody even believes that, even though she could be that dumb, but nobody believes that's the case here. She knew exactly who she was speaking to. Again, she knew she could get away with it. And it really is she speaking to her people there. It's not like she doesn't believe the same stuff as them. She does. We've seen it. We've seen her anti-Semitic comments, seen all the things she said. And, you know, people say, well, you shouldn't take her seriously. She's just this, she's this outlier and congressperson. No, she represents a large segment of the Republican base. She's just, she more than a lot of the

others, she does say the quiet part out loud. And it's important to combat that. It is important to point it out. and you can't just say, oh, she's a very junior congressperson. Molly, have you pointed out, yeah, she's a major fundraiser, you know, as a Republican. So you can't pretend this stuff isn't happening or just roll your eyes and say, oh, that's just MTG doing her thing again. No, this stuff is important. Vladimir Shurkov is the executive director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation. Welcome to the new abnormal, Vladimir. Thank you, for having me.

This must be a moment in time when the rest of the world sees. what you've known all along. It's true. For years, our organization has been exposing corruption and human rights abuse of Russian state. And we indeed were pointing out to the situation where Putin is unconstrained by anything internally. And we have pointed out to his continued assertiveness over years.

But nobody really expected that this brutal invasion will happen. So give us a little. little bit of background for our listeners who do not know exactly how you got involved in this anti-corruption foundation that you are involved in. Sure. So most of my career has been in finance investments. I got an MBA from working school at the University of Pennsylvania. I worked in Russia in variety of executive positions in finance. And in 2009, I started reading blog of a young lawyer, Alexei Navalny, who was focusing on fighting graft and corruption in large state-owned enterprises. And I was always interested in politics and government, but I never

was a member of any political party or anything like that. But his approach resonated with me. So I wrote him an email, said, well, I like what you're doing. I have a lot of experience in finance. Let me help you in my spare time. And I did that. We registered the Anticruption Foundation, which became the platform for Navalny's political and civil activities. And then a couple of years after that, I had to leave my corporate job. So I focused full time on civil activities. And then a couple of years after that, it became not safe for me to be in Russia. So me and my family moved to London.

The UK gave you asylum in the UK. Political asylum, yes. I continue working with our team, even though Alexei is. prison. We have about 50 people working in our organization outside of Russia in different part of Europe. So explain to us what has happened with Navalny now. Navalny's story has really been epic. Over years, he grown into the most prominent opponent and enemy of Vladimir Putin. He was poisoned by Novichok, by this nerve agent in August 2020, and he miraculously recovered. He returned to Russia in January 2021, despite all the threats.

He was incarcerated, so he has been in prison for a little bit over a year. Trump up charges. So basically, the bizarre charge against him is that he did not check in with the local police authority, which he had to do as part of his suspended sentence during the time that he was recovering in Germany. And now he is undergoing another trial, which is. set in the prison where he is right now. It's about 200 kilometers from Moscow, which can give him a sentence of up to 15 years. I've heard a lot of smart people say that now Putin cannot go back to what he was pre-invasion of Ukraine. Do you think that's true? Even if everybody wanted to

go back to that point, it would not really be possible. So many lives have. So many lives have been lost so much has happened in Ukraine. So many properties, infrastructure, et cetera, have been ruined. I think a realistic scenario is some sort of cessation of fighting, pull back of Russian forces to pre-invasion positions. What will happen next is really difficult to forecast now. But you know Putin and you know his cruelty, so you have a sense of what you think is going to come next. Right. Well, the fighting is continuing. Despite the overwhelming military advantage of Russian forces, Ukrainians have put up probably unexpected level of resistance, both the military and civilians.

Armaments increasingly flow from the Western countries to Ukraine. So militarily, I don't think this conflict is really decided. And even if Putin is successful in capturing large parts of Ukrainian territory, even the capital, Kiev, I don't think he can put together a sustainable sort of government in a country that is so hostile to Russia. You've sort of seen Putin in action so you can weigh in on this in a way that others can't. I don't have to tell you, the Russian economy has cratered because of these sanctions and because of the being kicked out of Swift. Do you think this dissuades Putin or now? It definitely is a factor in his calculations, in the calculation of, you know, the Russian government.

I believe nobody expected the level of sanctions that we're seeing now. So there are no flights outside of Russia in the Western direction. There are sanctions against Russian and international reserves. So this is quite unprecedented. So I think Putin didn't really expect that the West would respond with such force, not military force as in putting boots on the ground, but with such economic sanctions that indeed are devastating for the economy. Will the oligarchs stand up to Putin at some point?

Do you think they have power to stand up to Putin? And do you think they will? It's not an easy question. We have seen some voices from the most prominent Russian businessman against the war. Nobody said anything about Putin and this regime per se. I think even though people are seeing their fortunes decimated as Russian stock market tanks and the access to international capital markets is frozen, I see that most people with significant business interests in Russia,

most so-called oligarchs, are keeping mom on this. Because they can't influence Putin or because they're scared for their own lives? I think because they think that it's pointless, that it's not going to change anything. I think it's just like an ostrich hiding his hand in the sand. They think that if they are silent, the risks to them and to their business will be smaller, but I don't think this is the case. There are a lot of Putin watchers who believe that Putin has kind of lost his mind, of COVID. Do you think that's true or do you think he's always been there?

There are political scientists and analysts that will offer you all sorts of explanations. I don't like to deal in theories and guesses. I deal in facts. It seems like he has changed somewhat from the video footage that we've seen of a week ago, the security, Russia's Security Council. It was a different dynamic between him and his cronies. Macron also on his return from Moscow about a week ago said that he saw a different Putin. But to say that he has gone mad, I don't really have the basis to do that. Right. That makes sense. But you have seen behavior like this from Putin before. We've seen aggressive behavior from Russian authorities before.

We've seen the war in Georgia. We've seen annexation. of Crimea meddling in eastern Ukraine. We've seen cyber warfare. We've seen political assassinations. We haven't seen wild scale use of military force, which is televised by everybody as we speak. We haven't seen this conflict that has resulted in thousands of casualties for Russia, thousands of casualties for Ukrainians.

So this level of aggression is, of course, something that we haven't seen. yet. There's a lot of talk that Russia's military might not be quite as good as Putin is pushing it to be. Do you think that that's possible? Again, it's not black and white. Whatever deficiency, Russian strategy and hardware may have, it's still, I think, the most capable army in Europe. It's militarily, it can overwhelm and overthrow Ukrainian forces. I wouldn't underestimate Russian military at this point, even though its advance in Ukraine has been slower than Putin might have expected. How popular do you think that Vladimir Putin actually is?

It's difficult to say about Vladimir Putin per se, but this recent escalation, this war that he started with Ukraine, is indeed unpopular. We are saying negative reaction from many celebrities, business people who were silent before. You can see it on social media. Nobody wants this war. And frankly speaking, I think not that many people expected this to happen. So majority of Russians, of course, don't support this war. We're seeing anti-war protests in Russia. We're seeing people arrested. And now with the cratering economy, I mean, do you see a world? where Vladimir Putin finds Russia impossible to govern?

I think that's a possibility. It's its probability is growing day by day. This is sort of a black swan that can lead to a wide-scale political crisis in Russia that can lead to the beginning of change to a gradual liberalization of political regime. It's not guaranteed. But I think the chances of that today are higher that they have been in the last decade. I have one last question, which is in a world where there is no more Putin, Navalny would be

the heir apparent, or at least in some circles, is he okay? Are you more worried for his safety now? Indeed, Navalny has grown as the most prominent politician in Russia. So they say that there are two politicians, Russia, Putin and Navalny. And if Putin is, somehow out of the picture, of course, Navalny will enter the political field. And his movement is probably, if we talk about right now, is the most powerful independent political force in Russia. Indeed, he is in prison now. And given this situation with this turmoil and upheaval internationally within Russia, it's indeed the risk for To Alexi's life is high. But we as his allies, as his colleagues, we try to do what we can to keep his situation in the spotlight for international public opinion and for global media.

Navalny has defied odds many times in respect of his life. We believe that he will do this this time around again. Well, I hope that you both stay safe. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. John Allen is a reporter at NBC News and author of Lucky, how Joe Biden barely won the presidency. Welcome back to the new abnormal John Allen.

I'm so excited to be here, Molly. You were at my, what's the opposite of a spiritual home? Your nightmare scenario. A spiritual nightmare. Your nightmare hotel. CPAC in Orlando. America unwoke. Discuss.

Well, I think it was awake, not one. was the mantra for the conservative political action. You know, it was interesting. This group of conservative activists, it was calmer than normal. You know, I feel like some of the most aggressive and zealous folks either didn't attend or perhaps there was a distraction from the nearby America First Political Action Committee, the white nationalist group that Marjorie Taylor Green spoke to, was also having a conference in Orlando.

So I felt a little settled compared to most feedbacks. And I've been going to them off and on for almost 20 years. Why do you think that is? I think there are a couple things. You know, first of all, there's not a lot to argue about, right? This is a very pro-Trump round. And I think we're going to get into some of the numbers later. But, you know, while he won the straw poll with 59% of the boat, you know, I saw a number from some of the straw polling that they were doing that said there was a 97% approval.

So CPAC used to be a meeting of people with a lot of different ideas. This time around it seemed like folks were waiting to hear what. Trump said he spoke Saturday night, so really toward the end of the conference, which wraps up around midday on Sunday. But, you know, he was basically the grand finale. So there wasn't a whole lot of different ideas being heard. The one exception to that is both on stage and behind the scenes, there were some fighting over Ukraine. Some folks very supportive of Putin and some folks very supportive of Ukraine. In fact, I watched at the outside bar, there was a patio bar, these two guys screaming profanities,

accusing him of being a shill for the queen and for NATO. But it was a bona fide screaming match at the bar after the session one night. No fists. No fist. Okay. Good. Good, good. Just verbal.

Just the two guys screaming at each other. Hard to imagine what a shill for the queen would look like. A show for being loyal? Yeah. I don't want to comment on the public relation effort. at Buckingham Palace. Seems like a rough patch of land to dive into. It's interesting.

So what I saw Marco Rubio, who is like a broken shell of a husk of what once was a man, on there talking about how the true enemy was Marxism and 9 o'clock on Saturday morning, I feel like for Marco Rubio, the true enemy is Trumpism. I mean, by the end of that, night, Donald Trump was on stage blaming Joe Biden for the violence in Eastern Europe. You know, and that's what the, you know, the sort of Trump view of this is one that does not blame Putin, one that calls Putin smart. Right. And Biden dumb. In fact, that's what Trump did. And at no point did he issue any criticism of Vladimir.

But it was careful it seemed not to take sides other than that Joe Biden is that. Let's discuss this for a minute. Ex-President Trump on stage, his hot take while Russia is invading a sovereign nation and very likely soon to be committing war crimes, if not already, is that Joe Biden is bad. You may have seen this from former President Trump before, the desire to blame victims. Never seems to be on the side of the victim or to believe that someone has been too aggressive in any way, shape, or form. rather that whoever was victimized, whoever is under assault, is to blame for not being strong enough to stop the assault. Or in the case of Biden, you know, a little bit of a bank shot here,

that because Biden is weak in Trump's estimation, that could go ahead to Putin to go forward. And, you know, he made an argument, I think you're going to hear a lot of, which is that in the 21st century, we've had President Bush, President Obama and President Biden, and under all of them, Vladimir Putin, has invaded a neighboring country. But under Trump, Putin did not do that. Of course, the counter to that, which I think Democrats will probably at some point try to explain, even though it's a little bit of a two-step, right? It's maybe a little harder of a communications issue is that Putin didn't have any need to invade other countries while Trump was in office because the things Trump was doing were dividing NATO, which is ultimately, you know, what Putin effectively wants, right? In the view that he is acting for the security of his own country, and of course that is. only partially the story to the extent that it's true. But in that view, if NATO is not able to expand, if NATO is divided, if those countries are fighting each other over how much they pay for defense and which countries they will defend, that's all good for Putin. And that was the case

during the Trump. You really didn't hear Trump criticize Putin. I did not. I mean, I think there was something about, you know, how sad this is, right? Like, that's his take. It's sad, right? Like the very sort of passive take for somebody who's normally pretty aggressive in what they're saying. But this was not a case where he was saying, you know, Putin's a bad guy. Putin's a madman. It's an autocrat. Territorial expansionist. None of that stuff.

Much more Joe Biden's to blame for what's going on. So it's not even clear that Trump thinks this is a bad thing. Maybe a sad thing, but not clear that he thinks it's a bad thing. So let's move on to the future of the Republican Party, Donald Trump. Jr. Oh, I think it would work. Donald Trump, the elder is the future of the Republican Party right now. Well, Donald Trump Jr., I want to talk about that speech because in that speech, he said he didn't like crack.

I mean, you know. I mean, how do you get there? I mean, you're giving a speech at CPAC. How do you even get to saying crack is not for me? I mean. Republicans have always been the party of cocaine over crack. crack is for Democrats. This is a culture war as old as the 80s. What was that speech like? Was the crowd loving it or was the crowd sort of baffled by it?

Molly, I'm not going to lie to you here on the air. Yeah. I did not. That's a speech I did not watch. You skipped Don Jr.? I skipped Don Jr. I had to get to the airport. Do you have any sense of what Tulsi Gabbard said? I do. I mean, this is interesting. I talked to Matt Schlapp, the, um, chairman of the American Conservative Union and the head of this CPAC conference about that. And I asked if he had invited Gabbert, if he had reached out to her first. And he said that actually

was Christy Nell, the governor of South Dakota that had arranged for Chelsea Gabbert to speak. And what he said was, effectively, he doesn't have to agree with everybody on 100%, but that what 100% for them to be somebody who's featured at CPAC, but if there's a point that they want to make, that is something that fits in with what the crowd wants to hear, then they should speak there. What does the crowd want to hear from Tulsi Gabbard? The Democrats are bad. I mean, that's her take, right? I mean, I don't know. I mean, that cults are good. I mean, I don't know. Sometimes it's hard to follow the logic. I mean, you know, but that's been Tulsi Gabbard stick for a long time, right? Like the Democrat, uh, who, who has turned on all the other Democrats. But she also is

pro Putin and pro-Assad, right? She wouldn't say it quite that way, but certainly her critics look at what she says and what she's done and, you know, that's their assessment. So top line, you've been to other CPAC. The state of CPAC is... The state of CPAC is, you know, relatively strong and it's super Trumpy. But oddly subdued. Oddly a little subdued. You know, usually there are a little more fireworks. Usually the crowds even a little bit more into it. They were pretty excited for Trump himself, but, you know, everything else seemed like a little bit of a prelude. Ronda Santis, the governor of Florida, you know, basically playing on the home field there in Orlando,

was certainly somebody who was very well received by the crowd. He threw a lot of punches at Democrats, and they applauded him lustily, some standing ovations. But for the most part, it was pretty secure. Do you think that the white nationalist conference next door, does that help CPAC or does that hurt CPAC? Well, I think it hurts in the sense of that those folks aren't clambering. for time and it helps in the same sense, right? I mean, it makes CPAC less fringy. And it means that they have to do less defense of themselves for who's at their conference

or speaking at their conference. I think certainly there were people. There were obviously people who attended both, you know, Marjorie Taylor Green spoke at both. It's not that there's no cross-pollination, but I think having that separate event means that there's less eagerness among the white nationalist group to attend CPAC and try to influence it. But it's also they can go to both. Sure.

Yes, you can register and go to see that. I mean, it's not like a terribly exclusive event. So can you talk to us about, was there anything interesting you learned from this straw poll? Well, I think there were like sort of two big takeaways from the straw poll. The one is that Donald Trump is still dominant among the field. In his home game, Ron DeSantis stood out as the giant among the dwarves beyond after Trump. You might, if you were Ron DeSantis, look at the numbers and say, well, you know, I'm in the teens, even with Trump in the field. And maybe there's maybe there's a possibility of running against it.

But more likely what we're talking about is who's out there in front for the conservative activists if Trump doesn't run. And, you know, again, with the caveat that this was held in Orlando and easier for Ron DeSantis's supporters to get to than anyone else. He definitely stood head and shoulders above the rest as somebody who could really unite conservatives. in the event that Trump doesn't run. It really is Trump's party, even aids to him who are sort of, yeah, maybe he'll run, probably he'll run,

you know, just a few months ago or now in the category of, he's definitely running. And, you know, the only question is if he stops run. Of course, we can see that, Molly. Like, we can see he's got a full campaign schedule. He's going to North Carolina and he's going to Alaska.

He's going to Washington State. You know, he's supposed to go to Wyoming at some point. All these events are, are filling up on his calendar as he campaigns for the midterms. And really, as one source told me in Mark Cuto, you know, the campaigning is ostensibly for the midterms, but it's really for 2024. And also, you know, there was a golden idol of Donald Trump at this thing.

So, I mean, if you want to know where the activist stand, it's not necessarily, you know, if they have to choose between the Old Testament and the old president, they're going with the old president. Yeah. Sure sounds like it. It should not make false idols before God, according to the Ten Commandments. So unless you believe that the old statue of Donald Trump is not a false idol,

then you are contradicting the dictates of the Ten Commandments in order to support it. Oh, I'm sorry, not in order to support it, but in order to support the gold statute. Do you feel like what happened to Marco Rubio is kind of what's happened to all the other non-Trumpy members of the Republican Party, like this sort of hollowing out? I mean, absolutely. If you've been around in Republican politics for a little while, you're not even interesting to these folks, right? You know, if you look at the numbers for like a Ted Cruz

in terms of the straw ball or Marco Rubio, they're pulling those single digits. Now, that's not the whole Republican Party. And this is the folks that come to CPAC. So it's not scientific, but then it's not representative. And at the same time, like the most ardent activists, the folks that go to Orlando for this conference are, they're still super Trumpy.

And the other guys have fallen away or become old news. I don't see Mark Rubio being a legitimate contender for the Republican presidential nomination anytime in the next dozen years. Now, he's a relatively young guy, so maybe he comes back at Joe Biden's age. I mean, who could have predicted that? Biden ran in 1988, and then he ran again in 2020. So, you know, you think about that 32-year gap for Rubio is young enough that he could, you know, perhaps resurrect himself at some point. but I don't think he's trusted by the conservatives. Do you think that the Republican Party, and now that you're just coming out of CPAC,

do you think that the Republican Party goes, you know, will go like fall anti-Putin pro-Ukraine, or do you think that they'll do more of a Trumpie, they'll sort of take their cues from Trump? I think there's a divide. I think most Washington Republicans, you know, have been and will be pro-Ukraine. But I think outside of elected officials in Washington, there's more support for Putin, or to put it differently. There's less support for U.S. engagement on behalf of your own. Thank you, John Allen.

My pleasure, Molly John Fass. What's crazier than QAnon, more outlandish than Pizza Gate, and scarier than a Mexican getaway with Ted Cruz? The answer is what the American right wing has planned next. Be one of the first to listen to Fever Dreams, the new podcast from The Daily Beast tracking the conspiracy slingers, orange acolytes, and straight-up grifters

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which you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Andy Levy. Molly Jongfest? Who is your fuck that guy? fuck that guy is someone I think you're familiar with. He, at one point, was the Attorney General of these United States. His name is Bill Barr. He is one of many Trump officials who looked like a John Goodman character. He has a book coming out. And his book is highly critical of former President Trump and says that the prospect of Trump running in 2024 is dismaying. You know, so you

would think, well, why fuck this guy? It sounds like, you know, sounds like he's welcome to the resistance, Bill Barr. But the fact of the matter is that he didn't say any of this stuff while he was in the administration. And he's just another Trump crony who has read the tea leaves and is now deciding, oh, I, if I publish a book that criticizes Trump, people will be interested in it. And it's just another person who at the time did nothing. And now they end up with, you know, CNN contracts or they end up all over TV in general. And they publish books. And Bill Barr is one of these people.

I would never, I want to make this clear, I would never encourage anyone to torrent a book that is illegal. It's a violation of copyright law. And you shouldn't do it. I'm just, if you need to read this book, there are alternate ways to do it. you take it out of a library, you know, but I'm certainly not saying you should torrent it if you need to read it. Ultimately, you don't need to read it. You don't need to hear from this guy ever again. So to him and all the other John Goodman characters who populated the Trump administration, fuck that guy. That's a good point. And I think that it is, yeah, fuck him. I think it's a little too late. Like he had the chance to do the right thing and he chose not to and now he wants to sell a book on it. Who's your fuck that guy, Molly? My fuck that guy is, This sort of Tucker Carlson, right-wing industrial complex that is targeting Joe Biden's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brown, Jackson. I think that there's been a lot of really coordinated Republican messaging about how it's not. I mean, this is like so Republican messaging.

It's racist to nominate a black woman because it doesn't give opportunities to, you know, white, mediocre white guys because they haven't had enough opportunities. I thought they didn't see color. Right. They don't see color. But the color they do see is they want to see white. So they're very mad about the idea that Biden wants to nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court. There have never been any black women to the Supreme Court, right? So you would think that this might be something to the important. And Biden has picked an incredibly qualified candidate who also has this, you know, has this incredible career trajectory, but has also been a public defender,

which is a little bit unusual and also quite exciting because a lot of what they do in the Supreme Court is the law. So it's nice to have people who have worked on other parts of law. And of course, Tucker Carlson had attacked her because she is black and he is a racist. And so for that, he is yet again, my. fuck that guy. He's got to be in the lead, right? I think he's a pretty frequent flyer at this point. Yeah.

Definitely post Trump leaving office. He's one. 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. We'll help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast, and share the show on social media.

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