The Daily Beast Podcast - Nikki Haley’s Jenga Tower of Anti-Trump Positions Is About to Crash Down

Episode Date: February 13, 2024

The Daily Beast political reporter Jake Lahut joins this week’s The New Abnormal podcast to discuss Nikki Haley’s dwindling shot at the 2024 Republican nomination. Plus! Media Matters senior fellow Matt Gertz joins the podcast to discuss Special Counsel Robert Hur’s incendiary attacks on President Joe Biden’s memory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Media Matters Matt Gert steps by to talk about the press's awful handling of the Robert Her partisan attack on President Joe Biden in the classified documents case. Then we'll talk to Daily Beast reporter Jake Lhut all about Nikki Haley's flailing campaign against Donald Trump in the Republican primary. But first, let's have it. have some fun. So Danielle, big win yesterday for the CIA, the Pentagon. Really, all of the deep state, as the Kansas City Chiefs came back to beat the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl, to give listeners a sense of what I have to deal with, Jesse Cannon put this in our stories document.

He just put, stupid bowl. This is what I have to deal with, people. This is the hostile work environment. Just a little peek behind the curtain here. Anyway, ordinarily, the Super Bowl would have absolutely nothing to do with politics, but we don't live in ordinary times. I won't say exactly what times we're living in, because I'll get yelled at for that, too, but we do live in the new abnormal.

Because the right made such a big deal out of not liking Taylor Swift and being pissed that her boyfriend, Travis Kelsey, has done ads for Moderna. And suddenly this whole thing became political. And Magger was very upset with the way this game turned out. And it really was one of the dumber episodes that we've lived through. And we've lived through a lot of dumb episodes. Yeah, fair point. I watched the Super Bowl because I wanted to see Usher.

Sure. But I will say it was a very good game. I was voting against Maga. I had really no team that was in this game, but I was voting against Maga. And, you know, I'm glad that the deep state transcended in the way that I, they always do. Can I just say you can always tell when someone's not really into sports where they use the word voting?

Like a sports person would never say, oh, I was voting for the chiefs. Was I supposed to say rooting? Yeah, they would say rooting. But I always get a kick out of it. Oh, okay. I was rooting. Sorry, I didn't cast a ballot. But, yeah, I mean, the game was good.

And Usher's performance, it was too fast. He ran through, like, all of his music in two seconds. And so for me, like the moment that I would get a little shimmy in, it was on to the next, it was on to the next song. But I did think that his performance and the stage and everything and the roller skating, that was very cool. But I mean, if you're going to ask me who won the Super Bowl, I'm going to say Beyonce.

So there you have it. Even though, friends, I'm not a fan of country music. Beyonce won the Super Bowl. I know there were a bunch of people who tweeted about Usher's, performance and particularly I think when he took his shirt off. I saw someone tweeted he may have turned me straight. I think that might have been me. Yeah. I thought that was interesting. I mean, did you see it? I was looking at Alicia Keys. Oh, okay. Fair. Fair point. Who I just have to say is reppping her 40s quite nicely. Brilliantly. Yeah. Brilliantly. Yeah. Good performance. Usher is

he just looks good. God damn. He's 45 years old. Like he's been doing this. since he was 13. So it's impressive. I just, I wish that, you know, 13 minutes is not a lot of time. I think choose less songs and go more all in on them is what I'm going to say. But, you know, there were many people that tweeted out that last year Rihanna announced her pregnancy and with Usher's performance, a lot of people got pregnant. So. Yeah, in general. Very a habit. It was a big day for elder millennials and baby exorcists. and I guess we can just leave it there because apparently we're a political podcast.

Yeah. So let's talk about, if I want to seg into this, I could point out that Usher did bring on stage with him in addition to Alicia Keys and a lot of other people. He brought up her to play the guitar and she killed it. But we need to talk about a different her now. And that is Robert Her. This is the special prosecutor who towards the end of last week, he was assigned the case of Joe Biden and the classified documents. He put out a report saying that there was no evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Biden did anything criminal and that no criminal prosecution would be referred. So, end of story,

you would think, but no, because he decided to add that a sentence that said that, quote, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury as he did during our interview of him as a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with poor memory. And this just blew everything up. Danielle, I want to turn it over to you here because one of the interviews I'm doing later is about this. So I want you to get in here. It's the fucking audacity for me. Like we talk every week, multiple times a week, about all of the things that Donald Trump says, about every rambling fucking moment. And for whatever reason, none of that sticks. But somehow, you have this special counsel, which makes a lot of, you have this special counsel, Many are saying pulled a Comey, pulled a James Comey, where 2016, what was it, 11 days or however,

just a couple of weeks before the election wants to reopen an investigation into Hillary Clinton and give Trump all of the ammo that he needed. This was similar, right? Like, I just want to make clear once again. Joe Biden is three fucking years older than Trump, okay? He's not 30 years older than him. He's three years older than him. Donald Trump couldn't point out a picture of his ex-wife in a deposition when he was trying to get out of the fact that he actually sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll. Oh, that's not her. That's Marla. No, that's your ex-wife that you had children with. So it's just what Robert Hurd did was unprofessional, had nothing to do with the merits of what he found, which, by the way, was nothing. That should have been the crux of what came out of that.

report. Oh, after a rigorous investigation, Joe Biden was found to have no wrongdoing here whatsoever. And again, a reminder. When Donald Trump was told multiple times to return documents that he had, he fucking refused. That's why he is on trial. So when Joe Biden is said to have documents, it's not as if somebody said to him multiple times over, over a little bit. a course of a year, hey, President Biden, you have these documents, give them back. And he's like, yeah, no, I'm good. They're mine. So, like, again, it's just like the false equivalency, the lies that this Trumper, because that's what Robert Hurr is, put in his document to be on the record to give the Trump campaign ammunition should be grounds for, like, dismissal. Again,

but we're operating in this lunacy where these two. two things are somehow the same. I'm outdone. No, it's nuts. And I want to go further about what you were saying here, because let's set the stuff about Biden's age aside just for a second. And look, you and I have both talked about, we're not thrilled with the fact that the Democrats are running in an 81-year-old man, who seems to have lost a step. So I don't want to act suddenly, oh, we're not supposed to talk about Biden's age or mental acuity. I think it's a fair subject. It's the compare and contrast with Trump that is being missed here. To start with, Biden, when he was alerted to the fact that these documents were in his possession or in a locker or whatever, immediately was like, hey, we got to tell the Justice Department of this. We got to tell the FBI, whereas Trump did the exact opposite. And the reason we're here, we got this report from Robert Herr, is that Biden sat down with him. Biden made himself available and sat down with him and answered all his questions about the documents, how they might have gotten to be in his possession.

etc. Donald Trump is indicted for, I don't want to say the same charge, but in a similar case, because he refused to cooperate at all. So he's being charged with obstruction of justice because he did the exact opposite of what Joe Biden did. So we don't have a special prosecutor's five-hour interview with Donald Trump on this issue. Because Donald Trump said, fuck no. And fuck you. I am not talking to you about this. And I am not giving you the documents back. and that's why he's under indictment. That is just such an important point here is that Joe Biden's reaction was, I'm going to sit down with you.

I have nothing to hide. Yeah, as soon as we found out these documents were in our possession, you know, my lawyers told me and we said, well, we got to let the FBI know, you know, and we got to give the documents back. That could not be a clearer contrast with what Donald Trump did and, you know, has done in a similar situation. I'm just so tired of the lies. And I'm tired of the way that mainstream media continues to have these conversations that are not nuanced, that are not thoughtful, that are just about the horse race.

And the fact is, like, because of how fucking little of a backbone that Merrick Garland has, had Donald Trump just returned the documents when he was asked, he would have never been indicted. Do you know what I'm saying? like he was given so much fucking rope, so much leeway by this Department of Justice. Like, oh, we don't want to ruffle their feathers. Oh, you know, maybe if we play nice, they'll be nice with us. And it's just like, no, they actually said, fuck you, multiple times over. And then this is who you decide to appoint. And then don't go through, as I believe Eric Holder tweeted out, don't go through the regular process of the DOJ review of this report because he's like, if this had been reviewed, those elements would have been

taken out. So tell me, why wasn't it reviewed? Like, why are we pretending that this country is not under attack, is not under the biggest threat to our democracy that we've ever seen? I'm so tired of like these lackluster fucking sabotagers, because that's what they are. At the end of the day, if you're not going to do your job, then you are an obstacle to the just. that we are seeking. And that, I think, brings us to Merrick Garland. We do want to get to that in a minute, because, oh, I know you have thoughts, Danielle. Oh, I have tons. But before I get there, I just want to say one thing, and that is, I have concerns about Joe Biden's mental acuity. You know what I don't have concerns about? If Joe Biden gets somebody's name wrong, or if Joe Biden somehow succumbs to

full-fledged dementia and decides he's going to launch nuclear weapons at Moscow or Beijing, I have Every confidence that the people around him will say, quietly, will say, we can't do that. And they will prevent that from happening. Donald Trump, on the other hand, Donald Trump is not going to make the same quote-unquote mistake he made in his first term, where there were some people around him that would do their best to stop him from doing insane things. Donald Trump is going to be surrounded by people like, I don't know, what's your name, Elise Stephanix, who tried to cover for him when he very clearly mistook Nikki E. Haley for Nancy Pelosi and tried to act like he did that on purpose. That is the kind of people

that Donald Trump is going to surround himself with. There are going to be people who are going to say, sir, that's a great idea. Push that button. And that to me is the single biggest difference right now in this election coming up. Maybe not the single biggest, but it's a huge difference with regard to how I feel about their age and both of their mental sharpnesses. Is that a word? I don't even know. I don't care. That's how I feel is that I trust that. And again, I'm not. saying that Biden is surrounding himself with the best people in the world. There are people around him. I can't stand. I also know, though, that they are going to not let anything absolutely insane happen at the level that the people around Trump will with him. And let's bring Steve Bannon in to get his opinion, because that's exactly what Merrick fucking Garland would do.

Danielle, again, I want to turn this over to you because Charles Pierce wrote a good piece in Esquire, basically saying Merrick Garland needs to be thanked for his service and shown the door. I think that's absolutely right. Go ahead. Please. I wanted to read a part of it, which is like what we've been saying since forever. Like for the last, for the last four years. He writes, quote, as he's talking about Merrick Garland, quote, he is not equipped to use all of the tools. God gave the Department of Justice to thwart the genuine threat to the Republic. That is El Quidio del Marilago. And, the dangerous political climate he has created. That's just it in a nutshell. Merrick Garland probably would have been best served as a Supreme Court justice. Do you know what I'm saying? Like,

in the climate that we are living in, you need, as this author is stated, very clearly, as Charles Pierce stated, a wartime attorney general. That is not who Merritt Garland is. Merritt Garland thinks that if he follows everything, the rules to a T and dots every eye and crosses every T and straightens up his tie and doesn't raise his voice, that America will go back to the America that he has known. That's never going to happen. That is not where the fuck we are. You have an entire party that is single-handedly from the members in the House and in the Senate to their state governors to local officials that are still working overtime to undermine our democracy. And what Pierce writes in this piece is that like, you know what would have been great?

Had Merritt Garland actually, I don't know, instead of just going after the fucking foot soldiers of the insurrection and waiting his sweet fucking time, Merritt Garland waited for almost two years to take any type of action against Donald Trump. He was just hoping and praying that Trump would just go away so that he could go back to business as normal and protect the institution of the Department of Justice instead of protecting our fucking democracy from the members of Congress and the architects that are still trying to unravel it. I honestly feel crazy most days because I'm just like, are we the only ones that see this? And that the people that are actually in power and have the ability to do something about it are just shrugging it off, thinking that Donald Trump and all of

his sycophants will go away when they have actually mutated, like the fucking gremlin that they are. Yeah, and all of this, like, you know, this goes even beyond Garland, but it gets to the same point that you were making. Like, our entire system doesn't seem to be set up to handle a Trump. And we saw this most recently, I think, with the D.C. Court of Appeals taking, I don't remember if it was three or four fucking weeks to rule that the president doesn't have absolute immunity. They could have ruled that in 15 minutes. Ordinarily, in a different world, you say, well, what does another month mean? Another month means a lot because that month that they took to issue this decision has

the ripple effect of postponing trials, trials that involve Donald Trump. And it's already happened. We're already seeing court dates get pushed back. And what's going to end up happening because Merrick Garland took his sweet time and because the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals took its sweet time issuing its decision is these trials are not going to take place probably before the election. And if Trump wins, he's just going to make the charges go away, pardon himself, whatever quasi-legal measure he uses to make it all go away he's going to use. They might just be straight up illegal at this point. Who the fuck knows? But yeah, the one place I will disagree with you at is at this point, I have reoclequin would have been a disaster on the Supreme Court.

Yeah, you're probably right. Not as big a disaster as the people who ended up there after Mitch McConnell refused to allow his name to even be brought up. But we need to sit down. We need to get Barack Obama on this show and sit down with them and ask him what the hell he was thinking, nominating Merrick Garland. Because I think that that was just a mistake in the first place. It's very weird because as you get older, you're supposed to become more like, I don't. know, you're supposed to have more respect for institutions and for the process and stuff like that. And I find the exact opposite happening to me. And I have become so sick of, like you said, well, we have to bend over backwards to give them every, you know, indication that we're doing the right thing here. And, you know, I'm going to talk about this a little later in my interview with Matt Gertz from Media Matters. The fact that we always seem to end up somehow with Republican, you know, special prosecutors and Republican independent councils. Because Republicans,

are just going to go ahead and nominate Republicans. And then Democrats always feel like, well, we have to nominate. We have to make it a Republican so, you know, so we can show how fair we're being. And I'm absolutely just, I'm sick of it, Danielle, sick of it. Here's the thing. When the bully brings you out into the school yard, beats you up, and then you want to bring them cupcakes the next day,

and then they shove those cupcakes down your throat. There's no winning with Republicans. We got into this place with Merrick Garland being the choice, because Barack Obama was like, let me put up the person that Republicans will like to. And it's just like, when do you ever hear the Republican Party making moves and decisions with regard to what it is Democrats with stomach? They don't give a fuck. And it's not called being the adult in the room when you're the only one that is willing to bend over.

Do you know what I'm saying? Like, we're here because of a series of unfortunate decisions. were here in this place with a man that is not meant for this job. Merrick Garland is not meant for this job. And he should be shown the door. At the end of last week, special counsel Robert Herr issued his report on President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents. And while Herr said there would be no criminal charges, it was his comments about Biden's

mental acuity that have caused a stir. Here to discuss is Media Matters Senior Fellow Matt Gertz. Matt, thanks so much for being here. Good to be back. So it seems to me there are sort of two parts to this story. There's Her's own actions, in other words, what he wrote, and then the response by the media. I want to mainly talk about the second with you, but I think we have to at least touch on the first, well, first. So Her basically said that there would be no way to convict Biden of a crime here because, quote, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury as he did during our interview of him as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a point.

poor memory. In a piece for media matters, you called this facially absurd. Why did you say that? Yeah, I think it's not credible to think that the sitting president of the United States would argue in court that he shouldn't be convicted of a crime because he's a senile old man. That is not what would happen. I think it's just sort of on its face ridiculous to think that it would. But more to the point, I mean, this was sort of a side swipe that her throughout there after declaring that the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And so no criminal charges are warranted in this matter. He could have just stopped there, but kind of decided to throw in a partisan attack that just kind of happened to blend in

with what Republicans have been using to try to take Biden down for the last six years. And then from there, the media kind of seized it and were off to the races. Yeah. And as you and others have pointed out, Her's descriptions are unfalsifiable. Explain what this means. Joe Biden is not a young man, right? He is 81 years old. He has a long career of public service, but that is also colored historically by, you know, the fact that he is a self-described gaffe machine. Right. Someone who says a lot of stuff has a lot of verbal miscues. He has a well-documented stutter. And so it's impossible, I think, to tell whether any of those particular miscues are the result of some sort of early onset dementia or something like that.

You have to kind of accept the president's doctor's conclusion after reviewing him through like actual medicine rather than just watching little clips on TV. He says that Joe Biden can do the job as president. You can listen to people like Kevin McCarthy who have negotiated with Joe Biden and said that he's sharp. In addition to Democrats and cabinet officers, there's not really a way to falsify this. It's just something that the media can seize on and chew over and talk about at length and kind of hammer in the idea that any of the president's verbal miscues are because of his age. Before I get to the blatant media response to all of this, I want to talk about something that I sort of saw and that I think you also noted in your piece that when legal commenters

have been asked about this report, almost to a person with the inevitable. Jonathan Turleys aside, they are saying that what her did here wildly overstepped his boundaries. They used phrases like cross the line, totally inappropriate. That seems to be the norm for the legal commentators, at least. Yeah, that's right. That includes not only people like Andrew Weissman and Neil Kakiel, who are lawyers from the Obama-D-O-J era and who have been typically outspoken on issues like this, but also someone like Thai Cobb, who I was watching C.E. CNN after the report came out and he was on saying, look, I served on an independent counsel probe back in the 80s where we actually did decline to prosecute someone because of health issues,

but you're not supposed to like say that. That's not the appropriate role of the Justice Department due. And so her does seem to have acted inappropriately, exceeded his authority. I think it's not a coincidence that her is someone who served as a clerk to two right-wing judges, who served in the Bush DOJ, in the Trump DOJ, and then was appointed as a U.S. attorney. You know, this is something that Democrats love to do. They love to try to demonstrate how ethical they are by picking someone from the other party when they have to pick someone to go after a Democrat. You know, you saw something similar with the Hunter Biden probe, which is being conducted

by a Trump administration holdover. In this case, Attorney General Merrick Garland, probably thought that this would quell any complaints of political bias, that this would put this investigation, make it clear that it was above board. This is a function of Democrats trying to respond to the constant Republican claims that DOJ decisions that go against their political interests are biased, but it doesn't really seem to work. It ends up happening is you have Republican and Democratic administrations, both deciding to appoint Republicans to investigate both Democratic and both Republicans and Democrats. And that just creates a scenario that is really ripe for someone like her to just kind of throw in a political charge.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's a separate topic, but I am absolutely sick of the way they do business and that they haven't learned by now that it's a fool's game to begin with, because no matter who they appoint if that person rules against a Republican, it's not going to stop MAGA folks from arguing that, you know, it was rigged against them, regardless of the pedigree of that person. So I don't even know why they bother. But that's a whole separate subject. I see it as kind of an extension of the same sort of ref working that we've seen Republicans and right wing media use against the mainstream press for generations. They've just picked up that strategy and plopped it over into the criminal justice framework. And in doing so, have really shifted

all of the incentives and all of the reactions that you see appointees making in these cases. You saw it back in 2015 when James Comey came out and gave his big speech about how Hillary Clinton had been irresponsible, but oh, by the way, we're not going to charge her with anything because there's not enough evidence of crimes to actually do anything. This is, it's a similar sort of scenario. Oh, 100%. Could not agree with you more. It is the exact same playbook. And why not? It worked with the media. Why not do it with the Justice Department? So let's talk about the media's response to all this and how they framed all these stories. Because it ain't been great. I want to read some of the headlines, which thankfully you were

kind enough to compile in your piece, which saved me some more. I'll just read some of them. New York Times, eight words and a verbal slip put Biden's age back at the center of 2024. For Axios, one big thing, report questions Biden's memory. Washington Post, special counsel report paints scathing picture of Biden's memory. Wall Street Journal, Biden's age, back in spotlight. CNN, Biden tries to late arrest age concerns, but may have exacerbated them. ABC News, CBS News, Politico, it goes on and on, and it was all the same thing. What to you is the big problem here?

I think the big problem is that it is a case of not whether something is worth giving any coverage whatsoever, but the amount of coverage that is provided is just wildly out of step. This is a case where one guy, a Republican appointee, has made a critique of the president, and rather than viewing it through that lens and trying to compare it to what others have said about Biden, you have them really just kind of channeling it and using it to really rain down a ton of negative coverage in that vein. You know, I mean, those headlines were all from the first 24 hours. Jud Legum, over popular information, did a great study.

He looked at four days of coverage and found 33 stories from the Washington Post, 30 from the New York Times, and 18 from the Wall Street Journal, just on Biden's mental fitness just over those four days. That is a deluge. Part of it, I think, is that journalists feel like this is an opportunity to show that they're fair by giving some negative coverage of Biden to balance out their coverage of Donald Trump. Donald Trump, of course, unhinged authoritarian, facing tons and tons of criminal charges right now, including for trying to subvert the election. But you've got to be fair. You've got to give both of them some negative coverage.

And this is also a case where you don't need to do any actual research on, like, policy nuance or anything like that. You can just do hot takes. Everyone sort of has a view of the president that they can just kind of dial up and put out there without needing to do a lot of work. And so you have the situation where, of course, the president's regular critics sees on it, but also people who are generally either inclined to support Biden or inclined to, at least not like Trump very much in the case of a lot of these op-ed pages, are all. going in the same direction, and that just has much more impact. We also end up with cases where journalists, and this drives me more nuts than I think the rest of it, come out and say, like, well, yes, there are also critiques of Donald Trump having some of the same problems, but for some reason, one of these is becoming a major story, and the other one is not.

And it's because journalists are making one of them a major story and one of them not. This is not rocket science. Journalists play a role in, determining what are the stories that the public is concerned about and talks about. And if you do 30 stories in four days about the president's age and then turn around and do stories about how the public is very concerned about the president's age, like we're all trying to find the guy who did this. Yeah, exactly. It's like at some point realize that at least some of the time you are the horse, not the cart. That is the framing that drives me crazy too. And the New York Times does this a lot. It's the constant, well, this is what people are worried about. But,

about. And it's like, well, yeah, they're worried about this because, A, well, there's, first of all, there's Fox News and the whole conservative ecosystem driving some of it, but then B, because you're pushing it. And so Trump's gaffs of which there are, I would say, at least an equal amount to Biden's, if not more, they rarely seem to get the same level of media attention. And I think a lot of this goes back to what you said earlier. And it's that the media engages with the right-wing framing of a lot of issues. Yeah, I mean, I think part of it is that the right is just much more disciplined at establishing these frames than the left is. I mean, the right has spent a ton of time in resources dating back to 2019, basically making the case that any time Biden, a self-described gas machine

makes a verbal miscue, the reason is because he's old. You have all of these Republican operatives, you take these out-of-contact snippets and circulate them on social media, and then others on the right wing media and Fox News, pick them up and talk about them. And, you know, the impression is Joe Biden is a mentally failing dementia patient. That's the case that they want to make. Whereas when Donald Trump says something, you know, there are a lot of different ways you can take it. So one example would be when Donald Trump gets on stage and he says, like, where is Nikki Haley's husband? What's that about? Where's he gone? One way you could interpret that is, well, oh, Donald Trump. Donald Trump, he's forgotten that her husband is in the National Guard and on her deployment

to the Horn of Africa. Maybe he's, you know, he's got some memory issues happening because he's old. Like, that's one way you can interpret it. Another way is, wow, I mean, is Trump doing that because he's like a huge piece of shit and he's just being an asshole for no reason like he normally is? I mean, that's another way to interpret the same comment. Conservatives are more disciplined about putting everything into the same bucket, where I think liberals have a problem in that they need to figure out, okay, is Trump saying this thing because of his age or because he's a big jerk or because he's a liar or because he's kind of crazy?

And those stories get scattered when they sort of make it into the broader public and because of that are just less acute, I think. Yeah, absolutely. I agree. And then the other thing with Trump is people say, oh, he was joking. He was joking. That's the other big thing I hear is that, you know, he'll say something that is just wildly wrong or untrue, and it'll be defended as a joke. But you end up with people like Mara Liason on NPR saying Trump's misstatements, for some reason, have not risen to the level of Biden's. What do you mean for some reason? Like, we don't know what the reasons are. There's no way to, you know, it's like she's saying, well, there's really no way to know

why this is happening. Yeah. It's a total unwillingness to grapple with your own power and influence and, like, your own ability to shape the debates that are happening right now. Yeah. Is there any way to change this, or is this just what we're stuck with? I think that doing the sort of criticism does have an impact, not least because it provides some sort of alternate framing on what the media is doing. You know, if they are able to just kind of do this sort of thing without any kind of pushback, they're not going to course correct at all. I think there's at least so.

some opportunities to move the debate in a more productive direction just by pointing out how ridiculous some of this is getting. Yeah, I guess. It doesn't seem to be working to me. And Matt, you know that I have always been a huge fan of Media Matters from the start. And, you know, you guys have been at this for quite some time. Yeah, with the lotion. Yes, absolutely.

It doesn't seem to be getting any better. and the New York Times continues to do it. I single them out because they're the New York Times, but it's not like the Washington Post is any better. The Wall Street Journal, I sort of at this point don't expect to be any good. But it just does seem like so much of the political coverage is just perfectly encapsulated in this one story. And it really is a microcosm of what we've been seeing for years. And certainly what we've been seeing since Trump came on the scene and the way in which Trump has been covered versus the way

Democrats have been covered. Yeah, I mean, it's certainly extremely frustrating. And I am someone who bangs my head against this wall basically all day, every day. Yeah, that's your job. Yeah, no, absolutely. The way that I look at it is that this sort of thing is just a constant struggle, one that you have to continue doing every day, one that you never really win. There's no point, I think, in which everything changes and there's some sort of final victory, just like in broader politics, there's no point in which, you know, the Republican Party will give up and decide that they will no longer exist. You need to continue to put up the fight and make your case and try to make things just a little bit better as best you can. Well said, and Matt Goertz, thank you

so much for being here. Read Matt's work over at Media Matters. And in all seriousness, I do thank you for banging your head against the wall every day as a career path. It's an odd choice, but a heroic one. I've got a very hard head, but thank you very much. Folks, I am very happy to welcome back to the new abnormal politics reporter Jake LaHutt, who is politics reporter for The Daily Beast with a focus on Republican campaigns. My apologies, dear Jake, my apologies. Tell us where we are right now, because it seems to me with the changes that are being made at the RNC,

with everyone seemingly having lined up behind Donald Trump, there's one little snag. Nikki Haley still seems to be around. I'm not quite sure what she's doing or what she thinks that she's doing. So give us some insight into what your reporting is showing us. It's definitely closing time in the GOP primary and Nikki Haley does have a lot of money. She basically has this last stand going on in her home. state of South Carolina. And then there's a plan in place for a sprint to Super Tuesday, but the big caveat in that is if she suffers an embarrassing enough defeat in South Carolina,

dropping out of the race could become a very real consideration, even though her team has been very, very adamant that she won't. But like you mentioned, there have been these kind of like outside consolidating factors. A lot of these late arriving endorsements, the R&C chair, Ronna McDaniel, has reportedly told the Trump people that she's going to step down after South Carolina. At that point, that's basically like a customary thing that sort of always happens. Well, in a normal year, when you would have Matt. They clinch the nomination. That's when you sort of become the de facto head of the party.

And you're granted the custom of picking whoever you want to run the RNC. Obviously, this year is a little different. It'll only have been Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, the Virgin Islands, and then the weird, pretty much rigged Nevada caucus. You know, the Trump people got that to change for a primary to a caucus to benefit them. And, you know, none of that really mattered. So the question is basically like can Nikki Haley put up a respectable result in South Carolina and keep this thing going to Super Tuesday where it's really bleak looking at that point to,

which we can get into later. I guess I'm confused, Jake, with what is she getting out of this? You say that she has plenty of money. We know that not all of her donors were scared away by Trump. That when he said and made it very clear that whoever is backing her, he's going to be gunning for. And then there were a couple of those major donors that basically closed their wallets and went home. Because they're afraid of Donald Trump and what happens to them if he gets back into power. But I'm just confused about what her end game is.

because Donald Trump also has already said she don't have the complexion to be his vice president. So she's not running for the second slot because he's already said, oh, because she's a woman of color, like you don't fit into this party. I mean, I can go off on a tangent about that and clearly the self-hatred that she has, but I digress. What is in it for her? Yeah, she really hasn't addressed any of the birth of her stuff yet. And that's like the weird.

that's kind of like the weirdly, the last frontier for her to kind of, you know, go back at Trump. And she's ratchet up the attacks otherwise. And that's where, to your point on the next step, I think, and this is just from tangential conversations I've had about this with people who were either supporting Haley in the early states or they were kind of Haley curious at some point, but have now resigned themselves to basically be on the outside looking in of another Trump administration or just general election campaign. The one that makes the most sense to them is positioning herself as a candidate you can vote for in a 2028 primary you wouldn't have to feel too bad about in terms of like, you know,

touting to Trump. It's almost as if like her campaign kind of ended up in the same sort of almost like for posterity type territory as Chris Christie and Mike Pence, where you know, the end here is really a lot more about legacy and what her political brand is going to be in maybe a party without Trump in the future. That's the thing I always come back to whenever we veer into speculation about the future of the Republican Party is like, even if Trump just goes away tomorrow or, you know, whenever he dies, like, someone's going to inherit all these voters, you know, and they're not all old people. So, like, there's still, this is still going to be, like, the dominant coalition in the Republican Party. And it's going to be hard for someone to beat the non-Maga candidate

in those elections down the line, you know, if we have elections, all the usual caveats for 24 in there. But, you know, the old one that she's ruled out, at least for now, and she could go back on it. You know, wouldn't be the first time Nikki Haley's done that is the no labels ticket, where she would be, you know, that more moderate, appealing Republican to join someone like a Joe Manchin as the Democrat on their idea for a unity ticket. We've done a little bit of reporting on no labels. It's unclear that they really made any progress on that stuff. And again, I should make clear, Nikki Haley has said, like, I don't have any interest in doing the whole no labels thing. Yeah, and I guess like a unity ticket.

I mean, unity under what? They all spouse the same beliefs and ideology. And I think that to your point, the fact that she hasn't addressed the birtherisms, the fact that she hasn't even addressed the racism that she's experiencing, and misogyny that she's experiencing, to me, again, just signals that she's not a serious cat. Like, she was never a serious candidate to me. Do you know what I'm saying?

Like, if you're going to be serious, you're going to have to take on Donald Trump and Trumpism. And instead, I don't know about you, but it feels to me that she's kind of want, she's wanted to have it both ways. Like, I am both different from Donald Trump enough in the fact that, oh, I'm a woman and a woman of color, but I don't believe that slavery was the cause of the civil war. I also have revisionist history. This country isn't racist, but I can't be vice president.

into Donald Trump because he is racist. Like, it's, it's like, what are you doing? Yeah, it is a real, like, jenga tower of contradictory positions that are only held in there just so. The other thing that's, I think, tough about Haley, and this is what part of what I got into in a recent piece about where things started to go wrong for her in South Carolina, as told through this sort of new group of power brokers in the state called the South Carolina Freedom Caucus.

and she's just been risk-averse to a fault for a long time. And the one that came up in this story where, you know, we're talking to folks down in South Carolina who sort of saw the evolution of the Tea Party into kind of the MAGA version of the party under Trump. And then in 2022, this South Carolina Freedom Congress group pops up. And basically, they are the first state-level copy of the one we see in Congress, where, you know, they are willing to use more extreme tactics to halt legislation. They're interested in essentially an ideological purge of the Republican Party and launching primary

challenges to the right of, you know, more moderate incumbent members. And this is a crew that actually, like Nikki Haley, when she started out her career as a Tea Party type candidate, like they had a lot of common enemies and some genuinely shared ideological roots. But when the group really needed her help, we recounted a story about a year ago where it's January 2023, Haley goes to the South Carolina State Capitol, and she's meeting with the freshman Republicans who just got elected. And they're really worried about this new loyalty pledge that the Republican leadership in South Carolina put in. And basically, they just wanted to have Nikki Haley stick her

neck out a little bit for them and just publicly say, like, hey, I side with the Freedom Caucus, having this loyalty pledge where basically you're saying, you know, other Republicans can attack each other and no one can support a primary challenger to somebody else, that kind of stuff. We don't need any of that to be a good party. Just like some real milk toast public statement like that. And instead, these guys basically hear all of the right things from her in private about why they think this loyalty pledge is a really big, dumb idea and talk about how she could help them out.

Basically, they wanted her to expend political capital to help them out. And this is a recurring theme throughout Kaylee's career is like, she's missing. managed these relationships that could have paid some dividends for her down the line. Weirdly, another kind of pivotal moment in her falling out with this group in South Carolina came around picking Tim Scott for the vacant Senate seat there. And I mean, that's a move that I think you can tie a lot back to Haley's career. And you look at everything that kind of came afterwards. Scott not only runs against her, but endorses Trump very soon after dropping out.

And he endorses Trump at like the least convenient time. for Haley when she was in New Hampshire at closing that gap. Not that Tim Scott was going to move votes in New Hampshire himself, but it would have been an added help for her as she was trying to consolidate those people. Then she skipped over some of the original federal Freedom Caucus members who were South Carolina representatives happened to have an interest in getting picked for that Senate seat. People like Mick Mulvaney, who used to be Trump's White House chief of staff. So there was, from what we reported, some Agita there.

from Nikki picking Tim Scott over these guys, sort of she got the worst of both worlds. She didn't get any real loyalty return from Tim Scott, and it ends up being part of this longer arc of her alienating herself from, you know, the new power center of South Carolina. So it's always just been that caution and, you know, a bit of a kind of going alone mentality,

I think that when you really zoom out from the Haley campaign, like those have been the recurring issues all along. And I think, you know, you can't fix it. those if you're a campaign manager or whatever. I guess everything comes back to me that she's a woman and she's Indian American. She's never going to fit into their good old boys white male club. So I'm like, was there a way for her to manage relationships where in effect like a Tim Scott who I don't think matters at all in the grand scheme of things would have withheld his endorsement of Donald Trump and just not said anything and kind of allowed South Carolina to play out.

This is where I'm like, I would love to get inside this woman's head for like just an hour to understand where she thinks her own place is inside of a party that has told her over and over again. There's no place for her. And just said like, oh, suddenly you're the establishment now, even though you're actually not that like popular. It sounds like this like no insult. I think the most nuanced answer that there would be to that is basically that when she was governor of South Carolina, she did have the power to sort of basically bring these folks into line by fearing her. The complaint from the Freedom Caucus folks was they felt like she was sort of one of them at the beginning. And again, this is eventually what became that Freedom Caucus. But that by the

end of her governorship, they thought she was sort of doing these kind of cherry on top, large-based employer type things like with bringing in Volvo. And it was overall amounted to to a ton of tax subsidies for like only a handful of companies that were bringing in these new manufacturing plants and stuff. And one of the local papers down there, the state did an estimate that basically came out to like $800,000 spent her subsidized job. So it was stuff like that that kind of graded them by, I do think you make a perfectly, you know, sound point that that was part of her appeal to the beginning too was like, I'm not a member of the old boys club. And it sort of ended up being like one replaced the other.

and she was left to be outside both times. I also think that it's just that she never really made that next step to kind of have a true, like, national movement behind her. And that that's where I think the concern is that the peak was New Hampshire. And that that might be the best she'll be able to perform in any of the states going forward because of the share of independent voters and Democrats who just, you know, didn't want to, they thought the Democratic primary was boring. And they knew that it accounted for zero delegates. So they came and helped her out. So that's where she really has needed to convince just, you know, a decent chunk. Like we're talking 10, 15, maybe 20% of Republicans who don't love Trump, you know,

but can, like, live with the guy to come support her. And that just never happened. And her unfavorability has only gone up during it. And, you know, that's where I think, from to your point, like, it just may never have really been in the cards, even though, you know, she had the very polished some speech and she just, by comparison, you know, seemed like such a better. bait her throughout the whole thing. And, you know, those are the reasons why she was the last candidate standing. But I mean, I think that Nikki Haley would have been better. Again, I don't, I don't know if she

has a national constituency. I don't think so. But I still think that she would have been better served if she wasn't trying to be Trump light. You know, she came out with her thoughts on trans youth, right? Like she did, she did this whole stump at the CNN town hall attacking trans youth. And I was like, that was never part of your repertoire. are totally i saw her bomb a jillin malvaney joke you know in front of like a much more business oriented crowd and it was just like this is not clearly not how you talk right so it's like you look uncomfortable trying on someone else's set trying on somebody else's jokes trying on somebody else's suit and it's clearly ill-fitting and so i don't think that she has a national constituency because

i don't think she knows who the fuck she is right like she's been trying to fit in to the country club that when she was born, probably had a sign on the door that said, you are not welcome. And she still is trying to get in that front door. And so I'm like, if she had shown up as a real Republican alternative. And it wasn't just, for instance, it wasn't just Chris Christie, who was trying to be the anti-Trump. Like, if there was a collection of them, I wonder if she would have fared better. Yeah. And that's what these they'll try to spin. They'll say like basically the existence of Chris Christie proves that wouldn't have worked. But also it's like she's not Chris Christie. And maybe with her combination of skills, it could have, you know, in some alternate

universe that obviously we're not in. Yeah, we're not in. And again, I wonder that if a couple of them, just two of them, Christy and Haley had decided to offer an alternative if there would have been, I mean, I guess this is your beat. Like, if there had been a handful of them that actually had the courage, do you think that it would have moved the needle in all of, you know, the analysis of these Republican campaigns that you have done and understand like the base? I mean, this is my last question for you. Do you think that it could have potentially move the needle? Yeah, I do. Under the condition that President Biden was actually doing better during this stretch, I actually think that this is just on my end, like a bit of a 50-50 mix of voter conversations

and talks to the campaign people. But I do think that one struggle for all the Trump challengers, especially as we got into the fall and winter, was, you know, there was this real belief among Republican primary voters that, like, a ham sandwich could beat Joe Biden right now. I think especially when you look at the environment when DeSantis kind of peaked in those pre-campaign polls, you know, in like late 2022, early 2023,

that was when, you know, Trump seemed more on the ropes, given the emerging legal free. And that was like still expanding at that point, right? He hadn't been indicted yet. The midterm results were really bad. His real weak point was somewhere between those midterm results and, you know, around when Haley jumped in, maybe in February. And that's where one, I think it was smart for Trump to launch like right away, even if

it honestly, it probably hurt Republicans at the end of the midterms that it seemed more likely he was going to announce soon. I mean, I remember being at the GD. dance event in Ohio where people thought Trump was going to announce his campaign that night. It was like the night before the midterms. They just didn't help anybody. But I really think that the Biden electability thing is sort of the shadow to this argument where if they thought they had a more formidable challenger, I do think that voters would have kind of given the Trump alternative, the Trump skeptic, what have you, a much harder look. And then there's also just, there was never

the debate with Donald Trump. And I just remember from the 2020 election, there was this whole fixation in the Democratic primary of like, oh man, like, who's going to look the best next to Trump on stage in a debate. And the Republicans, I think there's a part of the sort of voter psyche that has that anxiety of like, who would the most strong Trump challenger be? But they never got that direct visual because Trump skipped all the debates. I think those are the two things that may have shaken something loose. But ultimately, it is just a, it's a reshaping of the party. And Trump brought in a decent slice of people who were sporadic voters, who are new to politics. And then he put out as many or more, you know, people who were your old country club, you know, moderate business Republicans.

And yeah, so we ended up in this really weird place where it might not be possible in the near future for a kind of non-maga candidate to really get any kind of a majority. Yeah. I mean, and that's why I say that in many ways, he is already won. Jake LeHutt, thank you, as always, for making the time to join the new abnormal. Always love our conversations. Appreciate you. Uplifting. Yes.

Thanks, Daniel. Appreciate it. Daniel Moody. Andy Levy. Danielle, who is your fuck that guy for this glorious start to a beautiful week? It's like I find that any time that you say that, the week ends up to be a total fucking like dumpster fire. So thanks so much for that. So my fuck that guy is going out.

to the Attorney General of Kansas, Chris Kobach. So Chris Kobach is a transphobic piece of trash who hates children. And that's how I want these people to be spoken about when they're coming for trans youth, which is the most vulnerable population. And this is what Chris Kobach thinks that he should be spending his time doing,

which is sending six different school districts, letters that accuse them of, quote, surrendering to woke gender ideology because he wants all kids who are either outwardly trans, are socially quote unquote transitioning or are non-binary to be outed to their parents and their families. I just want to tell folks that LGBTQ kids have the highest rate of suicide of any other group, particularly trans kids. And why is that? They also have the highest rate of homelessness.

Because generally, there have been unfortunate cases way too many where young people are either outed or come out to their families and they are thrown out or are physically assaulted and harmed and then they flee. But Chris Quebec doesn't care about facts. he doesn't care about reports. He doesn't care about young people. What he cares about is an agenda that makes LGBTQ kids the target and the boogeyman in the room that the MAGA folks need in order to look busy, look like they're doing something for their states. They're not giving people more jobs.

They're not making the school systems any better. Like they're not actually adding to people's lives. but what they want to do is subtract from the queer community. And so there's no law on the books in Kansas. Unfortunately, there are five states that do have laws on the books that require school staff to out trans and non-binary children to their family members, which is just as a former teacher, I can tell you that young people oftentimes struggle with finding adults that they trust, a safe place to be themselves.

School oftentimes can be that place if you have that safe teacher, that administrator, that classroom that allows you to be who you are. And now what the right has done is turn schools back into hostile bullying environments where the bullying isn't just taking place from your fellow classmates, but from your principals, from the school board members, it's this fucking gusting. And so for that reason, Chris Kobach and all of these, like, these people shouldn't be in these positions of power. This is not what you should be wasting your time doing.

But yet, I guess the people of Kansas want this. I have no fucking idea. But fuck that guy. Fuck all of these people. You are causing so much fucking harm. And you just don't give a shit. This is so gross. interesting you say, I guess this is what the people of Kansas want, except the people of Kansas,

there's no Kansas law that is requiring these schools to do what Kobach is telling them to do. So I don't even know if you can say this is what the people of can. It might, unfortunately, it might be, but we don't even know because he is just using some sort of executive authority that he's decided he has that he is telling these school boards to do it. You nailed it when you just talked about bullies. And that's what these people are. They're just straight up. They're almost like garden variety bullies.

Like it's almost like, except that they happen to have a lot of power. But it's the same exact pathology. They do the exact same things. They go after people who are marginalized who don't have the ability or the resources or the numbers to maybe adequately fight back. And that's what they are. They're just, they're straight up bullies. And they are the smallest. of people. And yeah, fuck those guys.

And fuck that guy. So, Andy, to begin what you are referring to as a good, good week, who are you choosing for your fuck that guy? I'm just excited because we're supposed to get snow. Why are you excited about this? Because I like to look at snow out my window.

Oh, okay. Yeah, my fuck that guy is a guy that at one point, believe it or not, was the president of the United States. Yeah, I know. And apparently he might be again. I don't know. His name is Trump, Dintel, Donald Trump. Donald Trump was on the stump the other day and he decided to relay this little story. He said, quote, one of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, well, sir, if we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia, will you protect us? I said, you didn't pay your

delinquent? He said, yes, let's say that happened. No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You've got to. You've got to. pay your bills. This was Trump talking about NATO. First of all, this story never happened. Let's make that clear. Yeah. So, okay, let's get that out of the way. But if it had happened, or even what he's relaying here is that he is saying, if a NATO country didn't quote unquote pay its bill, not only would the U.S. not participate in protecting them against an attack from Russia, but that he as president would encourage Vladimir Putin to do whatever the hell he wants. This happened right around the same time as the Her report came out on Joe Biden.

I guarantee you the media has focused way more on the little sentence in hers report about Joe Biden's age and mental acuity than it has on Donald Trump, who may very well be president at this time next year, saying he would encourage Russia to invade NATO countries if they haven't paid their bills, which, by the way, he makes that shit up too. You can argue about whether data countries should pay more, but they are paying their bills, quote unquote. It's a lie built on a lie using the foundation of a lie. That's what he does. And too many people let him get away with it. He is my main fuck that guy here. But I also, I got a, I don't know.

I know we come down hard on the media a lot on this show, but they deserve it. You know, and the fact that this hasn't been the banner headline for the last three days, the Super Bowl aside. and that instead we've gotten, I think it's 30 plus stories from the Washington Post about Biden's age being a problem. Not good guys. Get your shit together. So fuck all those guys.

All of them. Every single last one. Because Donald Trump is good for business. So that's what they'll continue to run with. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with

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