The Daily Beast Podcast - NJ Gov. Phil Murphy Has Two Thoughts on Andrew Cuomo and That’s It

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

New Jersey governor Phil Murphy shares his thoughts on the sexual harassment allegations and report against fellow Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) and whether he foresees another COVID lockdown. Plus, Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and author of the new expanded edition of Endgame: Inside the Impeachments of Donald J. Trump dunks on Republican colleague Mo Brooks and Atlantic writer Anna Applebaum, author of Twilight of Democracy, explains how Hungary’s horrible Trump-y prime minister paved the way for Tucker Carlson. If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Jong-Fast and welcome to The Daily Beast, The New Abnormal. I'm a left-wing pundit and an editor-at-large at the Daily Beast. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. Our world has been turned up to down. On the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and figure out how to get ourselves out of it. And I'm producer Jesse Kenon. I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. Well, we sure have a hell of a show today.

Congressman Eric Swalwell from California's 15th District is going to talk to us about holding Donald Trump accountable for his failed coup attempt. Then Anne Applebaum, the author of Twilight of Democracy, is going to talk to us about Tucker Carlson's flirting with Victor Orban's authoritarianism. But first, we're going to talk to New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy about his battle with COVID and anti-vaxxers. So my first question is really, really like the question we have to ask all governors, back to school, it's happening.

You have just cleared a mask mandate for schools, which obviously smart people agree with. You have states like Texas and Florida. I think Texas is the worst where they are sort of like rejecting contact tracing, say, you know, masking. You know, you're in the, you have this weird situation where you have anti-science and pro-science governors. I mean, how does that feel? I mean, it's very frustrating, but it plays out less for me looking at Florida and Texas, and I pray that the leadership in those places do the right thing because it's quite clear that vaccinations and masking and doing the smart things actually do work.

But where I do get frustrated, it plays out in New Jersey. As you rightfully point out, Molly, most people, I think the significant majority of folks, understand when you, even when you take an unpopular step, I don't want to mask our kids when they're back to school as much as anybody. I mean, it's just not fun for anyone, but it's the right thing to do, at least as the school year starts. Most people get that. Some people don't. And it's been allowed, the whole thing has been allowed to be politicized. It began in the Trump administration. And now it's out of control. I'm not sure we can put the toothpaste back in the tube, frankly. But notwithstanding the folks who are not with us on this stuff, and they have no right not to be, but they aren't, we're going to continue to do it at every step of the way as best we can the right thing and make the calls based on the facts.

But Fox News came after you for masking. I mean, I've interviewed so many people who've been in the crosshairs of Fox News. Do you find it particularly infuriating? Yeah, I do. I mean, the fact that Fox News is coming after me, I didn't realize that based on masking. wear that as a badge of honor. They're wrong and I'm right. And I hate to be so blunt. But we are making the call based on the facts. It does frustrate me. And here's the problem. Right now, we've got about 650 people in our hospitals. And Molly, I can't say with absolute certainty,

I can tell you rather that virtually every single one of them is unvaccinated. And that also is incredibly frustrating. Some folks, I mean, the unvaccinated, I think, break down into two categories. One category is legitimate for whatever reason. They think it will impact their immigration status. They don't speak English. They work three jobs. They think it costs money, whatever it is. And that's why we're knocking on doors every single day, including today, in several dozen communities to give people the facts.

But then there's the other block, and I think they overlap meaningfully with the anti-mask crowd, that just are believing stuff that are complete lies about the science and the data. And it's really frustrating. And sadly, and tragically, they're paying with. their health and in some cases with their lives. Yeah, it is crazy. And you have parts of your state where you have this kind of, this kind of anti-mask, anti-vax world. Yeah, I mean, in certain places, it's more pronounced than others. You don't see a lot of it, for instance, in our urban communities, because communities that are, in communities that are majority, communities of black or brown residents, they understand that they have paid a disproportionate price in this pandemic.

and you see compliance with things like masking to be significantly higher. We're still having to make a lot of progress as it relates to vaccine rates in black and brown communities. Again, for a lot of the reasons I went through a couple of minutes ago where there's legitimate reasons that have held people back. But in other parts of the state, it's very frustrating. And I just, I pray, I literally pray that folks come to their senses and do the right thing for themselves and for their families. How do you think we got to a place where Republicans decided that

masking and vaccinations were wrong when every other scientist, you know, every scientist, every, I mean, there's no, you know, no legitimate doctors or scientists say that maxing and vaccinations are wrong. How do you think Republicans got here? I'm going to speak out of both sides of my mouth, Molly. On the one hand, the Trump administration was there for us in our darkest hours in March and April and May of last year. Ventilators, beds, PPE, et cetera. And I will forever be grateful. But how did it get like this? President Trump allowed it to personally. And then leaders, somewhat in Congress, but especially in statehouses around the country, aided and abetted that. He allowed masking to become political. I don't lay the vaccination myths as much at his feet because he himself was vaccinated.

He didn't publicize it the way that Democrats did. Yeah. So that's the thing. I'd like to see him be more positive on vaccinating. But he's been, you know, he allowed this to happen on masking. And it's people have been sickened and people have died. And I fear that it's by it's by the thousands, if not tens of thousands. at this rate. And it's just unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable. It's frustrating. It's tragic. I pray that it gets back.

What about the reporting that Jared had governor's sort of fight for resources? Did you experience that? I mean, to some extent, we were all trying to get the same stuff, but we had a very good working relationship with Jared. He was, you know, he always answered the call. And in our direct relations, my chief of staff and I, who are on with him regularly, had a very good, professional relationship. Did we have to go out and scramble for stuff? You bet you. That's a reality. And thank God we're not doing that today. So we've got sufficient PPE ventilator vaccine masking supplies and beds and manpower. But there were times when we had we had either none of that or very little of that. And we had to scrape for it around the world. So Governor Murphy, I'm a former New Jersey business owner and a native son of the state. Jesse, we need you back.

Yeah, Jesse, it's time. I just said to my team that, where the hell is Jesse gone? Well, Brooklyn called. Oh, man, we need you back. So I'm going to pay you the compliment that I was very skeptical that a Goldman Sachs employee

could govern New Jersey the way I wanted, but I've been very pleasantly surprised with what you've done there. So one of the things I really admire is I think you made some of the best marijuana legislation. I feel like when I return home to New Jersey, everybody's wanting to see the effects of that a little faster? Can you talk about the rollout of that legislation and what people

should expect? So I got to supporting this because of social justice. I know it's going to create jobs. It'll allow an industry to spring up from scratch. The state will get some revenues. I'm happy about all that. But social justice is the driving force that got me to support it. And it took us longer than we wanted, but we got there. When folks look at quote unquote progress, I think they define it, Jesse, in two ways. Number one, where are the rules? When are we going to have retail cannabis, adult use cannabis locations, etc? The commission is working morning, noon, and night. They've got an end of August deadline to promulgate the bulk of the rules. My guess is it'll then take a number of more months

until you start seeing evidence of it. I do think the medical marijuana dispensaries, assuming they can convince the authorities that they have adequate supplies, for their patient customers. I think they'll probably be the first ones into the retail space, but it is coming. And I'd rather, you know, folks say rightfully, boy, it's taken a while and I agree with that, but on this one, we want to get it right.

And that's more importantly, particularly on the equity piece, that the folks who get the licenses, the folks who benefit from this are the same ones that we're serving in our state and that it's similar to the communities that have paid the enormous price from the war on drugs. And the other way,

the other dimension, Jesse is we need to see more progress. We're doing everything we can, but I agree with this on the expungement reality. Automatic expungement is our holy grail objective. It's hard to do that just because a lot of the records in our state continue to be paper-based, but it's both the look forward and the look-back progress that we're pushing and pushing really hard to get, again, do it right, most importantly, but get there as fast as we can. That's really great. I really have to say I've been I'm very impressed that you included so much of that in that legislation. On to a less fun topic, you obviously share a board or with Andrew Cuomo, who you've called for

resignation. Did you ever see him do any inappropriate behavior or abuse of power in your interactions with him? Yeah, I'll say two things, and I probably won't have a lot more to add to this. I did not, number one and number two, reiterate, just you alluded to it. When this report came out, I was appalled by the treatment of these women. they deserve to be heard at long last. They have been heard, and he has no option but to go. Yeah, I mean, it seems I've written about this like ad nauseum,

and it just seems impossible that he could conceivably ever stay at this point. Yeah, I mean, again, I don't have a whole lot more to offer other than I was, I was appalled. Appalled probably understates it, but I was shocked and appalled probably maybe better by the report and the treatment of these women. So what are the culture wars that I think has happened out? You have all these Republican governors who say now they're anti-lockdowns, but the Delta variant is obviously spreading.

Are you preparing for in case there's a huge rise in New Jersey again? And what are you doing to stay up on that? Yeah, two things, Jesse. One is the rhetoric has become jaw-dropping. Like I'm told Hannity the other night was talking about the reason why the cases are up, It's because illegal immigrants coming over the border. No, but that's a real, that's a real Fox News talking point. I've heard that endlessly.

And a friend of mine who's very educated said to me, why is Biden bringing immigrants to bring us COVID? And I was like, what are you talking about? Then they talk about buses going to states. I'm running for reelection against two people. And they're starting to say this nonsense. So it's just unbelievable. They're starting to say a lot of things. It's just crazy.

So that's the general point. The more specific point, our numbers are up. Now, the good news is we are among the most vaccinated states in America, and we are the most vaccinated big state in America. And that's the best thing that you can have. We strongly recommend everybody wear a mask indoors when you're not able to tell people's vaccination status. We've mandated at least for the beginning of the school year. And I hope that's not forever and always. But we still, we are the most densely populated state in the nation and the variants are all over the place.

I think the Delta variant right now based on sequencing is probably 95% of our cases. So our hospitalizations are up. They're in the mid-600s. But compared to spring of 2020, we peaked at 8,270 hospitalizations. So we're up, but we're not remotely close to running through the running over the health care system. And our ICU and ventilator numbers are up, but they are still, ICU, I think, is 110 or 115 patients and ventilator use, maybe 40 or 50 vents in use. So those are all, so people are getting it.

Overwhelmingly, they're unvaccinated. And if you are vaccinated and you're getting it, it's very unlikely you're going to the hospital and even more so that you'll pass, thank God. So getting more people vaccinated is our job number one right now. It strikes me that we now have enough between the vaccinations and the masking and we sort of know how it's spread enough so that we won't have to lock down again. What is your hot take on this so far? That's my hope as well. I don't anticipate that happening. Please God, it doesn't happen. But you're absolutely right. The vaccination rates in New Jersey plus the largely good behavior on masking and just using common sense. The other piece of this, if you look at where Delta has raged elsewhere, I spent a good chunk amount of time this weekend

looking at Jakarta in Indonesia. If you look at Jakarta, if you look at India, Although India is now bumping up again a little bit. I'm not sure why that is, although they are very under-vaccinated. Right. And Modi is a lot like Trump. Yeah. If you look at the U.K., the Delta variant takes a number of weeks where it looks like it's going to go to the moon and will never relent. And then all of a sudden it does.

And I'm hoping beyond the compliance and the high vaccination rates that the epidemiological curve, that the same thing happens here in New Jersey and in America. One of the big Fox News talking points besides the immigrants fear is inflation, that Democrats are going to, you know, that Carter and inflation. And right, this is like a big thing for them. You worked at Goldman Sachs. So you spent a lot of time thinking about inflation. Talk to me about why we shouldn't be worried about inflation or why we should. Yeah, there's going to be some inflation.

There's no question. And you're seeing it. And I'll give you the specific example in our state, probably in every state, but certainly New Jersey is the labor. market. The economy is, thank God, and the labor market is gasping to keep up with it. And there are a lot of reasons for that. They've got another talking point that it's entirely because of the $300 supplemental unemployment benefit. And that might be a factor. And I've never said it wasn't, but it's certainly, and a lot of evidence suggests it isn't, by the way. But it's among many factors. And I'll give you one which doesn't get enough attention. And that's confidence. People, when an

economy is taking off, unlike one that's falling into the ground, when it's taking off, people leave their jobs with a confidence that they can upsell themselves to a more value-added, higher-paying position. So if you've got that sort of dynamic, our businesses, and it's real, by the way, the labor market disruption is real, and I'm not making light of that. But what's one of the remedies in a restaurant, a bar, a small business, they're paying their workers more money, and they're probably passing that onto the consumer. And we should expect that as a natural reality. But are we at risk of the sort of stagflation, late 70s, early 80s, extreme persistent systemic inflation? I do not see that. I do not see that. But it is a great

Republican talking point. And they are very excited about it. I would just say this. The Republicans, and particularly the Fox News, Republicans, never let facts stand in the way. Let's just always remember that. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us, Governor Murphy. Molly, Jesse. I'm honored. Thanks for having me. We'd love to do this again sometime. Yes, we must. Thanks. Hey folks, if you haven't heard every single week, we do a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast membership program. Sometimes we interview senators like Corey Booker or the folks who explain what's happening behind the scenes in media like Jim Acosta or Soladad O'Brien.

Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner. And sometimes we just have friends around to analyze what's happening in the news. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a beast inside member where you'll support the beast fearless journalism, as well as getting full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member, head to new abnormal. That's new abnormal.thedailybeast.com. Congressman Eric Swalwell represents California's 15th district and is the author of the

new expanded edition of Endgame inside the impeachments of Donald Trump. Welcome back to the new abnormal Eric Swalwell. Hey, Molly, thanks for having me back. Can we talk first about your lawsuit about January 6th and where that is? We actually are getting a lot of help from Mo Brooks. Congressman Mo. He admitted that on the 6th, he was wearing body armor. And I don't know if he thought that helped him.

But I'm no big city lawyer, but where I come from, if you go to a violent mob, wearing body armor, you kind of knew what was going to happen. And so when you pour gasoline on the fire, kind of responsible. So I don't think that helped him. But he also, interestingly enough, this is a guy, his whole career has been to take any government benefit from any person who needed it, wanted to shrink government as much as possible. But in this instance, in this lawsuit, he's asking the court for a government lawyer. Right. I know. It's, it's. It's, It's a bit ironic. My favorite part of the Mo Brooks defense is that he said that he was just doing what the White House told him to. That's also really interesting. Well, one, it reminds me kind of

of, again, I don't want to date myself here, but. No one should know that we're old. Many decades ago, tragically, the mayor of San Francisco, Mayor Mosconi was murdered by a member of the board of supervisors. And the defense was this kind of a twinkie defense that, you know, he had two many Twinkies and then acted that way. And this is kind of like the new Twinkie defense that he only went there because Donald Trump told him to go there. And but for Trump telling him to go there, he never would have read from prepared remarks that a violent mob should storm the capital. Yeah. It's clearly, what does that do for a case? I mean, obviously we're just sort of spittballing, but I mean, what's the sense there? Yeah, you know, I'll leave it to the judge. You know, we believe that

when you act that way, you are well outside the bounds of forming your official duties. And that's not only for Mo Brooks, but that would also be for the president. Because really, the only defense they have here is not to say that's not what I meant to do or that's not what I said. They're essentially saying, I can say what I want because they have this shield of immunity. And if that shield is pierced, well, then I think there's no more defenses. Let's talk about your book. Endgame is out. Talk to me about what is in the expanded edition. It's a paperback, but you've added stuff. Yes. Not a book that I wanted to update. It was called Endgame Inside the impeachment of Donald Trump. Right. You thought that would be done, but no.

I thought one impeachment was enough. He led an insurrection. So we added four chapters and we put an S in the title. So now it's end game inside the impeachments of Donald Trump. That's good. But, no, Molly, it really, it looks at how we all thought the 2020 election would resolve the match between Trumpism and democracy. And instead, we've found ourselves, you know, sort of in overtime right now where democracy is on life support. And as we go into the 22 midterms, it's going to take the same activism that helped us win the House in 2018, that helped us narrowly, you know, win the Senate and the White House. in 2020. And again, we should never, we should not assume that, you know, this match is over because not much has really changed. This guy thinks he's coming back, you know, in August. He's going to be reinstated. You know, all of the supporters out there in his party, you know, still believe he's a

legitimate president. So we can't take anything for granted. So it's a call to action in many ways. Democrats seem really worried as well they should be about the midterms. Are you worried? I mean, where are you with us? What stage of anxiety are you at? I see the path to victory. What worries me, though, is that Republicans are doing everything they can to take away almost every voter's freedom to vote, whether it's in Texas or Georgia or Arizona. They're making it a lot harder. We've got the work ahead in the Senate. If we can find a way to break the filibuster, you know, to really inoculate against those voting rights abuses that would help. But Molly, I'm optimistic in that. Look, we've got success. us to tout in the America rescue plan. We've got a country that was on its way to fully reopening and being vaccinated until the second big lie started to be told, right? And so I think we need to make the Republicans own this, which is that, you know what, if you're pissed off and outraged that your kids may not be back in school this fall or that you may be back, may not be

back at the workplace, or that vacation you planned may be canceled, well, it's because those guys want to lie about the vaccine. And their lies about the vaccine are keeping Americans from getting vaccinated and creating more and more dangerous variants. And so we need to really make sure that those guys, and I say those guys, because this is essentially, you know, all men, those guys continue to lie.

And so make sure that they own the consequences of a backslide. I think that's important. I think the American people understand that. But just functionally, you know, Donald Trump's not on the ballot. But he is not, his party has not performed well when he's not been on the ballot. So I see the pathway to victory. And I think it could look like we're down all the way to election day. But I really believe we've got successes to tout. We have people to blame for where we are with COVID. And as long as we keep showing, you know, progress and responsibility, I see us, you know, keeping both houses. Your state is like literally right now on fire. And there was.

today this huge UN climate report that just came out. Spoiler, it's not great. Where are you with this? And what can we do? It feels like California is going to be the first state to go all of a sudden. Yeah. And eerily, you know, the report was essentially characterized as a, quote, final warning. And really, I think we're beyond warning, right? Because it's here. And the last four years now in California, We've had the price in wildfire season as far as the California experience. And that not only affects, if you're in the danger zone, that affects your livelihood, your safety, but it's affecting businesses all around. And here's the damn curse, Molly, is that we have to kind of shift again because of the

unvaccinated and the lies about the vaccine. Restaurants, again, are having to plan for what their outdoor seating model is. but there's no outdoor seating plan when you have, you know, ash literally falling from the sky. So, you know, the economy is really hurting because of climate chaos. So climate chaos is here, and it's really just a matter of what investments are we willing to make, especially in this upcoming, you know, reconciliation plan to address it. Do you feel like it's too late? We have a lot of climate people on here.

It's hard not to look outside and think that these predictions were, you know, the predictions are not accurate and that things are going to be a lot worse than we think. It's not too late, but the hurdles that we have to clear are getting higher and higher, which means we need to invest more and more rapidly to be able to clear them. And so I don't think we can do enough as far as when it comes to carbon capture sequestration and making sure that we have investments, whether it's, you know, in taking cars and the methane they produce, you know, off the road and replacing it with rail where we can, or continuing to move toward, you know, wind, solar, and electric. And that's all a part of this, you know, in part the bipartisan

package that will be voted on tomorrow Tuesday in the Senate, but also a part of the reconciliation package. But a lot of the polluting, like I recycle all my bottles, but Exxon, you know, I can't make a in the kind of polluting that Exxon does? And I understand, like, do you feel that Democrats are doing enough to really hold these oil companies accountable? Well, I do believe we need to have a carbon tax, that that would certainly, you know, put a price on the damage that's being done and shift, you know, how these companies, you know, are emitting and what they're admitting.

But I also believe that, you know, we should, you know, try and deploy as many of these carbon capture, carbon sequestration, and carbon storage technologies to really invest in them, scale them up as much as possible, deploy them, you know, to the dirtiest emitters where we cannot yet cross to the green Rubicon. And in the meantime while, make sure that they're at least not emitting as much carbon. So there's a lot we can do, but we're going to have to pay for it. Otherwise, we are truly going to pay for it. And the way that we've paid for it, you know, in California or unseasonable floods,

from the Midwest to just recently this summer in Western Europe. So let's talk about Trump. Let's just get back to Trump for a minute because you've really been involved in all of this as a plaintiff and in the impeachment. What do you think is the idea? I mean, it strikes me that Trump is just going to keep doing this. Like I've been writing about the coup today. You know, every day we see more evidence that he really did try a coup. It strikes me that Trump is going to keep doing this.

until he's held accountable. Do you see a world in which he's held accountable? Trump's going to trump. Yeah. Again, I do think, and I wrote this in the book, with how did he get impeached? Well, it was like this line in Hemingways, the sun also rises. When one character asks another character how he went bankrupt and the character said two ways, gradually and suddenly.

And so how are we going to impede? How are we going to hold him accountable? Well, gradually and suddenly, gradually as we have the January 6th commission, gradually, you know, as we put in place, you know, oversight to make sure that what he is capable of doing is never able to be done. Again, gradually as these lawsuits, whether it's me, myself, or Eugene Carroll, and others as they reach a crescendo. And gradually, hopefully, is the Department of Justice, whether it's in New York or the Federal Department of Justice, looks at all his acts. ensures the rule of law is held upheld. And then hopefully, suddenly, you will see him held to account. So it's not going to happen in one hearing or one witness flipping. It's going to take time. But I do think there's going to be a reckoning for the most corrupt president we've ever had. We can't hold him accountable enough. So do you think there's a world where he, like, actually goes to jail? It's not, I guess, in my issue box. Right. I can hold him accountable. And that's for. right you know, prosecutors to decide. And Molly, I, and maybe this is the problem with Democrats,

because I, I don't want him treated any better or worse, you know, than any other defendant, but I want him at least his crimes to be looked at and considered anywhere he may have committed them. But again, one thing I know about this guy, and I wrote about this also in the book, when you check him, generally he backs down. That's why he's actually a failed dictator, right? Like, he's not actually a successful. He wants to be a dictator. But he wants to be a dictator, But he's actually a coward. And he backs down. And no who doesn't back down, Putin.

That's why Putin is pretty, like, terrifying in his consolidated power. But Donald Trump, what we should be encouraged by is that his instincts are to be corrupt, but he's just not competent enough or he doesn't have, you know, what it takes, you know, to be a dictator to go all the way. So the example with Ukraine was that, you know, he wanted to have the Ukraine. put dirt on Joe Biden, leveraged foreign aid to try and get them to do it. And yes, we did not convict him and remove him from office. But what we did was Ukraine ultimately got the aid, right? Like he backed down and the right result ultimately happened. And that scheme, you know,

was zapped especially, right? Like he wasn't, he didn't try and do that one again. So he's kind of like the Wiley Coyote, I guess. And I want, maybe I'm saying that as a parent who, you know, watches a lot of Looney Tunes with a four-year-old and a two-year-old. But his instinct started to be corrupt. He's just not competent to, you know, ever succeed. But he will get better, right? Like if the Wiley Coyote is chasing the roadrunner a thousand times, like I don't want to bet that, you know, a thousand, it's going to be a thousand to zero for the roadrunner. So the Trump will get better. Do you think he runs again? I think he at least has to appear to run again because the grift he's got going right now is to

pay for, you know, his legal defense out of his campaign funds. He has to have an actual campaign set up. And so it seems like he'll take this all the way. He'll run this down to the clock and not make a decision until he has to because he also ices out. And this is the best part about this is he ices out, you know, Pompeo and Haley and DeSantis, all these people who don't have enough courage to just jump in now. They're going to all wait for him. So I actually love watching him ice, you know, all of these other wannabe trumps. No one other than, you know, a Liz Cheney or a Larry Hogan, I think, would really have, you know, the nerve to get in regardless of what he does.

Or a Kinsinger. Or a Kinsinger, yeah. So you formed the Rare Earth Caucus. And for the listeners, this is materials used often to make weapons and surveillance. And cell phones, right? Yes. There is this shady Trump dealing, though, where, like, the only rare earth. company in the U.S. sold to China that they approved.

Could you talk to us about why this is important and if anything weird was on with that deal that you're investigating, anything like that? Yeah, well, what I can tell you is this has been a nine-year crusade for me. I read about the United States losing to China in a San Francisco Chronicle profile piece nine years ago and thought, well, this is really hurting American businesses if we're dependent on China. And so I wrote legislation to essentially create loan guarantees and a Department of Energy program to harvest the rare earths in the United States so that we didn't have to rely on China. And it wouldn't surprise you that it was Club for Growth and Heritage Action who killed my bill when it was actually put up for a vote on the floor and convinced a bunch of Republicans not to vote for it.

But we did get it passed just within the last year. And so not with loan guarantees, but we have a program stood up. But the bottom line is that we need to work with India and Australia and Japan and other countries that have rare earths. Because China has figured out that they can be requiring us to either move companies to China or just gouging us in the costs for these rare earths go into our defense systems where we would not want to be reliant upon China. So that's my interest in the game. And actually, I've got Don Young, the congressman from Alaska, Republican. He's the co-chair with me of the Critical Elements Caucus. So we do see this as a bipartisan issue.

So I'm encouraged that, you know, this is something we can make progress on. But yes, I would be concerned about any administration that would enable China to gobble up, you know, any of our resources because we know what China would do with it. So are we not going to be able to get cell phones? Because this part feels relevant to my life. It's funny is we were, my wife and I were contacted a couple weeks ago about a car that we leased, said, hey, like, would you be willing to, you know, trade in your car to us? We would actually pay you more than like what you leased for and find you even another car that would work. It's just that your car is in demand because of the shortage of critical elements out there right now. So this is actually a real thing.

Yeah, the chips. Yeah, that's exactly right. So, you know, we can't not have a car with two kids and one on the way. So we need as much as possible. But it was tempting. And again, this is a real world problem that's only going to get worse unless we get on equal footing with China. Yeah. Okay.

Good. That is so great. It is always so much fun to have you. Of course. Of course. Thank you guys. Thanks, Jesse. Thanks, Molly.

Thank you so much. Anna Applebaum is the author of. of Twilight of Democracy, as well as a writer for The Atlantic. Thank you so much for joining us. Welcome back to the new abnormal and Applebaum. Delighted to be back. I was dying to talk to you about, and you wrote about this so well. I mean, oh, such a good piece this week in the Atlantic,

but to talk to you about Tucker Carlson's magical mystery fascism tour. What's going on? So he's actually not the first to make this pilgrimage. The Prime Minister of Hungary, who has been suppressing one by one all of the democratic institutions in the country, most notably and most successfully the press, something like 90% of the press, it's not just the question of him influencing the press. His colleagues actually own it. There's a holding company that owns most of the newspapers and websites in the country. But he also, because he used, uses this very loud anti-immigration, anti-gay, anti-feminist language. He's also been attracting for a long time a kind of parade of right-wing conservative intellectuals from the UK and the U.S.

to Budapest. And so the way was paved for Tucker previously by many others. Orban also puts a lot of money into English language publications and English language think tanks. There's one in Budapest called the Danube Institute run by a former speechwriter for Mrs. Thatcher, John O'Sullivan. He puts a lot of money into this because he thinks it's part of what protects him from, both from the ire of other European countries. And also it's, of course, promotes him in the eyes of his public. So Tucker going there was absolutely playing into his propaganda at home. It was, it will be used at home and broadcast at home in Hungary as part of Orban's portrayal of himself as a great leader on the world stage. I mean, of course, Hungary is a very small country. Size of Michigan,

right? 10 million people. Maybe it's a little less than it now, actually, because it's actually a country in demographic decline because so many young people leave in order to work somewhere else, A, because they can get paid more, and B, because the politics are unbearable. I've met lots of young Hungarians outside the country. But Orban makes a good, you know, he's one of the few people who's willing to say it out loud, you know, I'm against gay rights, I'm against feminism, I'm banning gender studies from universities. I'm banning some universities. He banned an American university that was probably the best university in Hungary. And he's willing to say all that and encourage, you know, so-called fellow conservatives in other countries to cheer along with him. And Tucker going to do that was really just the latest sign that the American right is more and more happy to align itself with openly authoritarian ideas and ideas. deals. So this conference was put on by Victor Orban's government, right? So Orban uses, you know, they have their, this can be hard to follow, you know, kind of government funded think tanks or right-wing

organizations of various kinds. And usually one way or another, the funding comes from the Hungarian government, yeah. You know, they don't happen without Orban's okay in Hungary. Oh, no, no, no, this whole trip was organized, would have been organized by Orban. One of the biggest supporters of Orban was this conservative writer, Rod Dreher, who, it turns out, was also being paid. I don't know Rod Dreher, and I find him mystifying. I can't explain to you what he stands for, what he thinks. But he also seems to be someone, he seems very naive, and he seems to have fallen for a lot of lies. And because he is a very fervent Christian, he seems to imagine that Orban's language about Christianity and the reconstruction of the Christian state and so on is all true.

Actually, very few people go to church in Hungary, relatively few. Nothing about Orban and nothing about his behavior would lead you to believe that he's terribly Christian in terms of his morality or his ethics. It's an extremely corrupt state. When you undermine your press and you destroy the civil service and you politicize the judiciary, one of the side effects of that, aside from keeping yourself in power, is that it also protects you from any kind of scrutiny. And the Hungarian ruling party, Orban's party has been very, very good at stealing. You know, there have been multiple investigative reports on how it's done. They steal money from the EU. They control businesses. I have actually a friend who's a former, quite an important Hungarian businessman who was effectively chased out of the

country. People came into his office and said, either you sell your company for this price or, you know, guys are going to come smash your car up. And he got the message. Sounds like Russia a little bit. It is, in that sense, it is like Russia. I mean, it's not as violent as Russia, and he's managed to do this without real violence, without killing people so far. But the techniques are very similar. Again, using state companies to take over the media, you know, using, you know, pressure, whatever it is, a fake tax investigation or, you know, other fake kind of regulations in order to control business and the media. That's very much like Russia. He's one of the few very smart hosts on Fox. So I always. You know, he's not like a Sean Hannity, right? There's real thought that goes into some of the things he does, which I think makes him all the more despicable. But do you think that he is like purposefully trying to desensitize his audience to autocracy? Or do you think that he just got paid to go and speak? I mean, can't both be true? Right. He is seeking to promote a vision of autocracy to encourage his viewers and, you know, others in the in the Republican Party and the conservative, what used to be. the conservative movement. It's not very conservative anymore. But to encourage them to think positively about autocracy. I do think it's part of that. And I have no personal knowledge of whether

he was paid or not. Right. But Orban does pay people. And he does pay people to promote him in English. So it's highly possible. I mean, we spent the entire week talking about this country that's, you know, this size of Michigan. I mean, it works. And so you just did this really great piece on the My Pillow guy. who seems to be, let's call it not plotting type and more just religious zealot for Cheeto Jesus type follower, whereas there seems to be some people who are plotting authoritarianism of Steve Bannan's. Do you have any distinction and any thoughts on like the coordinated effort versus just the bumbling idiot followers into this world of fascism and authoritarianism?

It's very hard to pick apart. Yes, there are people who are both because they're paid and because. they believe it. There are people who are promoting, whether it's sometimes it's Orban, sometimes it's even Putin directly. There are people who are promoting in a conscious way, this kind of authoritarianism and who are seeking to link the Republican Party to other, you know, far right or would-be authoritarian parties in Europe. And so there is, I mean, Steve Bannon talked a lot about doing that. I'm not really sure that anything he did was very effective. I don't think these parties really want an American to be the link between them.

I have talked to some, you know, some people on that side of the political spectrum and they're very dismissive of Benon. But yes, I think there is a, there are some people who would like to see that kind of coordinated effort happening. I mean, and then at the same time, I mean, it's, but it's very hard to pick these things about. I mean, so Mike Lindell, who believes that any minute now, probably this month in August, Trump is going to become president again because it's going to be proven that the Chinese stole the election through some internet hocus pocus, which can't have, actually can't be true. He believes that. And, you know, does he believe that because he's crazy? Or does he believe that because lots of people have been feeding him stuff, which I suspect might be the case?

Do his followers follow him because they're crazy or because they also have been watching Tucker and, you know, other, you know, there are lots of people saying similar things at the same time. And if you live in that echo chamber, if you live in that part of the media, internet, social media, spectrum, then you hear these things repeated all the time. You hear various versions of why it was that Trump won the election. It was the Chinese communists. It was the Venezuelans. It was this. It was that. I mean, there's a lot of different possible explanations that you hear. And so you hear that repeatedly, you know, over and over and over again. And which version of it you choose to believe and which conclusions you come to, you know, it doesn't really matter. I mean, either you believe that Trump really won or you believe that democracy has failed in America and we need a dictator. you know, or, I mean, there's sort of different versions of where you might take this. Unfortunately, they're all pretty negative. You know, and I want to stress because I really think this is important that it really, it still isn't the whole Republican Party. I mean, it's certainly a lot of the Republican media. It's a lot of Republicans in Congress. It's not the whole party. It's not everybody

in the Senate. Because they're passing this bipartisan infrastructure. Yeah. And the reason why I'm saying that is I don't want any Americans to give up on the Republican Party or say, you know, it's just an authoritarian party and it can't be rescued because we are stuck with it. It's one of our two parties. Sooner or later, they will win the White House again, you know, finding some way to help the Democrats inside, I mean, the small D Democrats inside the Republican party beat the authoritarian is actually quite important. Yeah. I mean, you see with the Senate, with this bipartisan Senate infrastructure bill, that there are certainly sane Republicans in the Senate who do not go along with everything Trump tells them.

No, I mean, there are sane Republicans in the Senate. There are some same ones in the House. I am told that there are some people in the House who don't say anything who are sane, you know, who haven't, who've been too cowardly to vote to impeach Trump, for example, but who are very nervous about the parties, a lot of the party's agenda. And, I mean, it doesn't speak well for them, but at least they haven't been hoodwinked. You know, and I have to believe that a part of the party out in the country out in the country, whether it's paying attention or not, doesn't share Tucker Carlson's vision of a

Hungarian America, even if that thing were such a thing were real or possible. So I don't think all is lost. An interesting punchline in your piece was that actually, and it's funny because it was like prescient, because you say, actually, someone like Tucker Carlson couldn't exist in Hungary because he's too free in his own way. No, there's no such thing as a loud television pundit who's anti-government, you know, who has millions of viewers. There's no such thing in hunger. There are tiny numbers of opposition journalists who mostly write for websites, but there is no equivalent of Tucker Carlson in reverse. And the irony, of course, is that then when he did the interview, the transcript was censored

because he asked a tough question about China. That was actually very musing. I mean, because the other truth about Hungary is that Hungary has really has very poor relations with the United States. Even in the Trump administrations, it was a little dicey. But it has very excellent relations with China. It's very concerned about its relation with China. Orban tried to, was very close to opening a branch of a Chinese university in Budapest. There were huge protests against it. Budapest, the city, is very anti-Orban. And so Orban censored the part of the interview that was about China because he doesn't want to anger the Chinese, whom he can't, you know, and the idea that the right has that these authoritarian are somehow anti-Chinese, of course they're not, you know, in a way, China is their ideal. I mean, okay, it's called the Chinese Communist Party, but what is it really? It's authoritarian capitalism with an, you know, attached to a huge surveillance state. And that's, you know, that's the dream of the autocratic right. And also concentration camps for Muslims. And concentration camps. For Muslims and for people who, you know, people who are different. I mean, by the way, Hungary is not a mono-ethnic state either. I mean, it also has a big Jewish population, has a big Roma population. It actually has a lot more foreigners than you would think, partly because you can buy visas there. So the idea that Hungary is some kind of white Christian national state, I mean, it's as stupid as the idea that that's what Russia is. I mean, you know, Russia has an enormous Muslim population. But anyway, that's a separate issue. Are you hopeful about

what's happening right now. Do you mean in Europe? Yeah. Some things are going better and some worse. Trump's loss in 2020 was quite important for liberal and anti-authoritarian parties and movements in Europe. People were quite inspired by it. If elections were held tomorrow, then the kind of authoritarian populist government in Poland would probably lose. It's lost a lot of popularity and attraction. There's a sense of revival. I mean, actually that what what Biden does in the U.S. and whether he can prove that he can bring back the economy and he can, you know, begin to repair some of the internal conflict inside the United States. I mean, that will have a big impact on the rest of the world. One of the things that I worry about Biden is that he's not, you know, and I understand the reasons for this, but he's not enough aware of how important America still is in the world,

just by the power of example. You know, he had a good trip to Europe, you know, a few weeks, some weeks ago, but he hasn't been that engaged yet in European politics. But, you know, a lot of people are hoping that he will be. They don't seem so focused on foreign policy. I mean, what's going on in Afghanistan, I mean, while not Biden's fault is a complete and utter disaster that we probably all saw coming. Completely predictable. And I think it was unnecessary. I mean, we weren't suffering huge casualties in Afghanistan. We could have preserved a base there. There were lots of things that we could have done it. This seems to be some be in his bonnet that Biden has had. had for many years. He seems that he wanted to get out of Afghanistan a long time ago. I think it was a

mistake. There was no need to do it right now or this quickly, except to make some kind of point, I imagine, to some part of his party. I mean, it does seem like American foreign policy has sort of shifted in this straight, like it went from, you know, sort of global to absolutely in a way, isolationist. And that was true in Trump. And it continues to be weirdly true in Biden. In some ways, it's true. I mean, again, I think it's partly a function of the genuine crisis inside the U.S., which is both economic and also political. I mean, this, you know, the extreme division, this emergence of an authoritarian wing in the Republican Party, the possibilities of violence attached to even as soon as the 2022 elections or the 2024 elections, certainly. I mean, I think all of that has focused people

on the U.S. and U.S. policy. I understand why that is. But I actually think that it could help Biden to be seen with and to be seen reinforcing democracy in the rest of the world because that's part of his message is that this is a better system. And it turns out he needs to convince some Americans as well as some Afghans and some Hungarians. Yes. This was so, I could literally talk to you all day, but Jesse keeps texting me to close. 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 pushing to retake power. Every Wednesday hosts Swin Tsubisang and Will Summer, checking in on the movement of the radical right.

Head to the DailyBeast.com slash podcasts or your favorite podcast player to catch the first episode and get subscribed. That's fever dreams, which you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Jesse Cannon. Molly Jong Fast. What is the deal? Rand Paul has naturally curly hair, or that's a perm?

I think that that is like, as they say, from the horse. I don't think they say that. That's a thing. That's what you say about a toupee. It's from the horse. Oh, it's a toupee. That makes a lot of sense. So, Rand Paul, if it's not a toupee, you're welcome to call.

or even better come and we'll interview you about your fascinating, fascinating theories about science. So Rand Paul has decided that the mask mandate is, quote, anti-science in a sort of two-and-a-half-minute tirade. He talks about how drunk with power Joe Biden is for his want that people don't die of COVID and his instruction that people wear masks. I don't know. I think that that's a pretty stupid thing to do when Republicans are already pretty vaccine hesitant. I mean, not all of them,

but there's a large percentage of the Republican Party that's anti-vax. And now you have someone who is a member of the Republican Party from the great state of Kentucky, encouraging people to sort of strike back against COVID restrictions. This is a member of our government. We pay his salary. And he's decided that he wants to speak to his constituents

and say, don't do the things that we desperately need people to do to stop the virus. So for that, a big hearty fuck you to Rand Paul. Fuck you. I mean, still not as bad as Mitch McConnell, but working hard to try. Jesse, who is your fuck-that-guy? So bye fuck that guy is actually an organization. There's some great reporting from Roger Sullenberger from The Daily Beast today about this Win Red pack, which is kind of like most listeners of this podcast, I imagine, have donated to Act Blue.

But not to Win Red, let me tell you. One would hope that you haven't donated to Win Red. So the point being, though, it seems there is fuckery as always because this party of grifters is always going to grift and do fuckery. and really also a thing that is allowed because our election laws barely penalize people when they do fuckery with them. But it seems that they're basically deciding we don't really need to report what our artics are. We can slosh this money around any way we'd like and we're not going to pay the peltie because most likely they're doing some serious fuckery and donating things to places where people did not donate to. I'm shocked. Absolutely shocked.

I tell you shocked. Roger got all these election experts to, weigh on this flooring of former FEC commissioner, and they're all like, we never see to anything like this. And it's kind of just that thing of like what we see over and over again with this party is now the party of the rules don't apply to us just to you when we need to dunk on you. And I think we're going to be seeing a lot more of this because this is not the type of thing they're going to get away with.

Yeah, I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you. Shocked that there is fuckery. 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 app and share the show on social media.

Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you again on the next episode. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studied The Daily Beast podcast at the DailyBeast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.