The Daily Beast Podcast - Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine Needs to ‘Grow a Pair’ and Stand Up to Trump

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

Co-hosts of The New Abnormal Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy are steamed that Gov. Mike DeWine and Springfield Mayor Rob Rue had only a mild message for former President Donald Trump after he took to the national stage to spew a disproven conspiracy theory about their residents. Then, investigative journalist Radley Balko joins the pod to talk about Trump’s promise to carry out what would be the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. Plus! A conversation with David Rothkopf, CEO of the DSR Network and regular Daily Beast contributor, about his latest piece. 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.

Author, journalist, and publisher of the Watch Substack, Radley Balco joins us to talk about Trump's promise to carry out the largest deportation operation in the country's history and what such a plan would look like and how it would affect America's cities. Then we'll talk to David Rothkoff, CEO of the DSR Network and Daily Beast contributor, and he'll tell us about his recent piece, the worst point. political violence of 2024 may lie ahead, thanks to Trump. But first, let's have some fun. So, Danielle, the mayor of Springfield, Ohio, would prefer that Donald Trump not pay a visit to his city. As we all know, Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and their little cult members on the right have been making up stories about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, kidnapping people's pets. and eating them.

And that has led to numerous bomb threats and stuff like that to the point where schools had to be closed and all sorts of things, all of which were extremely predictable. As proof of that, I offer the fact that we predicted them. The mayor now says, it would be an extreme strain on our resources for Trump to visit. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said similar things. he said it a little more cowardly, though. He said, well, a visit would generally be very, very welcomed, but resources are really, really stretched here. So this is a governor in which residents, these Haitian immigrants, are being unbelievably

slandered by Trump and Vance, et cetera. And Mike DeWine is still saying, well, they would generally be very, very welcomed. But not right now, fellas. Yeah, I understand why the mayor and the governor don't want Trump to come there. but grow a pair. I mean, come on. I'm sorry. It's just so disgusting to me because, one, the lie that's being spread that these immigrants, Haitian immigrants are illegal, is being parroted not only by J.D. Vance and Donald Trump, but by, you know, Republicans across the board. We know that nothing of note was happening in

Springfield, Ohio. In terms of nothing of note, I mean bomb threats, school closures, municipality buildings closing, people needing to keep their children home from school. All of these things have been happening, Andy, over what? The last two weeks? And what happened two weeks ago? Oh, a Donald Trump at the presidential debate told 60 million people a lie that then just ricocheted around the fucking internet. And instead of these elected officials saying outright,

Donald Trump and J.D. Vance and the Republican Party that I am a part of are lying about my town and causing great havoc and harm. They just make it seem like this generalized thing that has been going on and that they refuse to connect the dots on. And I think that they're not only doing their town a disservice, they're doing themselves and their constituents a disservice by just not telling the truth. And look, I get the fact that standing up to Donald Trump and standing up to violent white supremac puts your life at risk. We understand that because there have been a series of threats and assassinations in this country throughout the fight for civil rights for the dignity and respect of black people, people of

color, queer people, women, so on and so forth. But like, if you don't stand up, this kind of shit continues and goes unchecked. So I'm confused at the tepidness that these politicians are displaying when any town in America can look like Springfield if Donald Trump and J.D. Vance get their hands on it. Like at some point, like you said, you have to fucking grow a pair. A pair of ovaries, a backbone, something, something that lets the people know in your town that you actually give a damn about them and their safety. Yeah. And the wild thing is like the Springfield mayor, Rob Rue, is on, record as saying there are absolutely no credible reports of any of the animal kidnapping slash eating.

Governor DeWine went on ABC's Sunday show this past weekend and said of yet another baseless story, i.e. lie that J.D. Vance has been saying, which is that the influx of these Haitian immigrants has led to arise in communicable diseases. And Governor DeWine, said, quote, this is a piece of garbage that is simply not true. They can't say they don't know. And the idea that you can look at a ticket of J.D. Vance and Donald Trump, who are spreading these vicious lies that have led to by Governor DeWine's own count, 33 bomb threats. That was as of earlier this week, so it may be higher. But at the same time, you can't bring yourself to say, you know what, we shouldn't be voting for these guys.

It's just, it's such a symbol of the Republican Party in 2024. And it's just, it's absolutely pathetic and cowardly. And I'll stop there before I start using words that I shouldn't. This is the new abnormal. You can use whatever fucking words you want. It continues to be a sign of the times. It continues to be a sign of the times that there are no Republicans who are currently in office. This goes beyond what, the 200 that have come out that have said in public statement

that they are voting for Kamala Harris, the 200 Republicans have come out and said that, that previously worked for other Republican administrations. There just seems to be no one that is sitting currently in the jobs, though, that are willing to take these people head on. They leave it to, you know, the volunteer poll workers. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like the two women in Georgia who are left to fight for their name and their character on their own because those that actually have platforms and power refuse to do so. You have random students being doxed for standing up for their rights, but these people who were elected officials to represent their constituents

won't stand up for their towns. It's just, it's wild to me that, like, I look at the toxic masculinity that comes out of the Republican Party, but when anyone is saying like show some courage, so some bravery, they're not even last in line, Andy. They're like hiding under a desk like somewhere. Our children in the classrooms that are learning to army crawl because of active shooters show more fucking courage and are forced to than these politicians.

And so it just makes me sick. It really does. And it makes me sick that we continue to allow J.D. Vance and Donald Trump to parrot these lies that are actually hurting real people. Like real people are being traumatized. Children are being forced to stay home. Vice President Kamala Harris talked about it in a recent interview with black journalists. It was picture day in Ohio, she said, for the elementary schools that were then forced to shut down because of bomb threats. Just put those images in people's minds so that they understand that these are not caricatures in the Trump Vance play that they're trying to create.

These are real people with real lives that are being disrupted and children and people who are being traumatized because of it. Yeah. And now we've got J.D. Vance out there saying that he is going to continue to refer to the Haitian residents in Springfield as illegal aliens, even though the vast majority of them are not in the country illegally. They are, in fact, as the New York Times reports, they're here under a program called temporary protected status, which is granted by the executive branch, by the president, whose home countries are in crisis. Vance's claim is that this program itself is illegal. It's not. It was a program created by Congress. Back in 1990, it's been used by presidents from both parties since then. And it allows people

to live and work legally in the U.S. for 18 months, and that can be reviewed. And a lot of these Haitians came here after, I don't know if people remember, the huge earthquake back in 2010. There have been other times since then that the status has been granted or renewed because of other crises in Haiti. And it is perfectly legal. The people who are here under that program are not here illegally, but J.D. Vance has decided he's going to keep calling them illegal. aliens because he knows exactly the image that conjures up in the minds of the people he wants to vote for him. I don't even know what to do here. I just can't stand Jady Vance. I can't stand him and I want the mainstream media to keep calling him out. He's a liar. He didn't just create stories.

He's lying to ruin people's lives and continuing with the narrative that is about conjuring hate and fear. That's because that's what they're about. So, oh, God. Another story to turn to. So we know that not only are Republicans trying to do everything that they can to throw obstacles in the way of this 2024 presidential election that of the time that you all will be listening to this is 46 days away, which just let that sit with you. But we also know that there are outside influences that are also trying to do the work of, I don't know, towarding our free and fair elections. So apparently, Iran tried to do their best to send over some documents on Donald Trump to Joe Biden.

Andy, do you know what Joe Biden did with those documents? It's very weird because I thought that documents had to be stored in your own personal bathroom. I thought that that was like part of what presidents, you know, when they swear on the, like, I thought it was, yes, and I will hold documents in the shitter. Like I thought that that's what it was. but lo and behold, you can actually, when a foreign group, a foreign country is trying to get you to do something illegal, you can turn that over to the FBI. Did you know that?

Did you know that you don't have to hold it yourself? Yeah. It's an interesting way of doing things where, you know, you first of all, don't call on the country to keep hacking. Right. To get more stuff, as I seem to recall Trump doing in 2016. And not only that, but as the feds reported, that the recipients of this information of these emails do not appear to have replied. So, of course, none of what we've just been talking about, that the Biden-Harris administration,

the Harris campaign, any organization involved in this, immediately reported it to the Justice Department, did not reply to any of the emails they received. This has not stopped Donald Trump from saying that Harris needs to resign. in disgrace, I believe were his exact words. We can sit here for the next three hours discussing all the ways that Donald Trump eagerly sought and took information from foreign governments. And we could sit here and say, guess what? Donald Trump is a hypocrite.

But you all already know that. Yeah. I mean, resign in disgrace. I wish he would have. Like, my God, the sleep I would have gotten. Like, you know, Donald Trump. imagine had he been impeached, had Republicans showed any backbone then? What we would have done in the meantime, live peacefully.

So as Trump is saying that people need to resign, clearly projection, clearly just the hot mess of it, how dare he even bring up? He should even utter the word documents, frankly, like ever, with all that we know. But now, apparently, like Joe Biden, I may agree with Donald Trump on this. So apparently Donald Trump said that both, and this is according to the Hill, that both President Biden and Vice President Harris were, quote, so nice in their calls following an apparent assassination attempt on Trump over the weekend. This is just wild. But again, just shows you just so starkly the difference between Donald Trump and people

with hearts. He said this, quote, he was so nice to me yesterday. In one way, I sort of wish the call wasn't made because I do feel a little, he's so nice. I'm so sorry about what happened and all that. Trump said at a campaign town hall in Michigan recounting his call with Joe Biden. I wouldn't have made the call. Let me just tell you, though. But that's me.

I'm not as nice as I wouldn't have called. Yeah. And then Trump said, same with Kamala today. She could not have been nicer. And then he, of course, added. But the fact is we have to have people that are respected by the opponent. And again, that just gets exactly to your point, Danielle, that, you know, he views the fact that someone called him to say, I'm sorry that there was an attempted assassination on you. That somehow that's a sign of weakness and that that's something that America's enemies or America's opponents, however you want to describe it, however he wants to describe it, that they will take that as weakness.

And look, again, that's his worldview. that's always been his worldview. He thinks that bluster and false shows of strength are the way to deal with people. And unfortunately, there's a large segment of America that agrees with him. But honestly, I'll take the side that is decent. I think that's the perfect word that you use to describe the phone call from Biden and the phone call from Harris. And look, I would expect nothing less from either of them. You know, I would not expect Donald Trump to pick up the phone.

if the positions were reversed. And we've seen instances where, you know, he has not done things like that. And look, he, you know, this is the guy who threw his vice president under the bus and did not tell people to stop chanting hang Mike Pence. So we know who he is. And we know who Biden is. We know who Harris is. And, you know, how anyone can vote for Trump is. as we've both said time and time again, it's a mystery to me.

Donald Trump is heartless. It has no decency, and that's what we want back. And frankly, the bars just dropped so low that we're surprised that the phone calls by Biden and Harris were made when that is what was expected at one time. But that's what Donald Trump and the Republican Party has done to decency and political norms in this country. Yeah. Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to carry out the largest deal.

deportation operation in the history of our country if he's elected in November. And he throws out numbers like 15 to 20 million as the amount of immigrants he intends to forcibly eject from America. Here to talk about how an operation like this would look and what it would mean is award-winning journalist, author of the essential book Rise of the Warrior Cop and publisher of the excellent substack, The Watch, Radley Balco. Radley, thanks so much for being here. My pleasure. Thanks for having me So you wrote about this first back in May in a piece at the watch called Trump's deportation army. And you referred in that piece to Trump's plan as the cruelest, most illiberal, most openly authoritarian campaign promise in modern U.S. history. Upon reflection,

do you think you undersold it? Yeah, I think I probably did. I mean, the number of immigrants that Trump wants to deport keeps growing. I mean, it was 11 million, then 15 million, then 20 million. And then in this latest round of xenophobia, J.D. Vance claimed the other day that Kamala Harris has personally allowed 25 million illegal immigrants into this country. So, yeah, the number keeps growing. So the number of troops in this deportation army and the cost is going to keep growing as well. So let's talk about how this would work, because you laid out a bunch of scenarios in this excellent piece. How do you go about deporting 15, 20, 25 million people? Yeah, well, I think the first thing we need to sort of acknowledge is that even the most sort of hawkish anti-immigration groups put the estimated number of undocumented people in the U.S. at somewhere between 11 and 13 million. So they're going to deport 20 million people. They're going to deport a lot of people who are either legal residents or are U.S. citizens. You also can't really deport that many people in any sort of way that is judicious or fair or affords any sort of due process. So basically,

they're going to deport a lot of people who have every legal right to be here and our citizens as well, which means, you know, how are they going to distinguish who's legal and who's not? It's going to be based on what they look like. Right. So people who aren't white, basically, which is what Trump, both Trump and Stephen Miller have explicitly said that they want, you know, immigrants to be, you're going to be under suspicion constantly and you're going to be in danger of being deported. And if you are deported illegally, it's really, really difficult to get back into the country to assert your legal rights, even if you're a U.S. citizen, we know this because it's happened. It happens every year, but on a much smaller scale. But just in terms of like the logistics, I mean,

it's insane. Basically, the ICE right now has about 20,000 employees in order for Trump to carry this out, given the current rate of deportations, it would have to grow to about 530,000 employees or basically Trump would need about 530,000 officers to carry. out these deportations. That's about 70,000 more personnel than there are currently active duty troops in the U.S. Army. The overall ICE budget would have to be about twice what the current Department of Homeland Security budget is. You would need, you know, currently there are about 70 immigration courts and 650 judges, assuming that, you know, they still want to go through the formality of actually, you know, giving people due process and taking them through immigration court.

actually has made it pretty good. He has no intention to doing that. But that would need to grow from 650 judges to about 17,000 judges to keep the current pace. But there's also just things like, where are you going to put people? You know, Miller has said he wants to set up camps, which, you know, ought to raise alarms immediately, just that term. He wants to bring in military planes to fly people from, you know, various cities to the border into these tent camps. But also, you know, deporting that many people would be highly contingent on the countries they came from allowing the U.S. to send them back. And, you know, right now Trump is openly talking about bombing Mexico if he becomes president. So Mexico is not going to cooperate with a deportation plan like this.

And frankly, just this sheer sort of racism and ugliness of it all means, I think most of these countries aren't going to. So now what do you do? Now you've got millions of people sort of festering in these tent cities. their home countries don't want them back. So what are you going to do at that point? You're just going to sort of fly them around. Are you going to pay some developing country to take them all?

Are we going to send them to Sudan? I mean, the UK had a very horrific, sort of xenophobic proposal at one point to send migrants there to, I can't remember what was some developing African country to be processed. And that, you know, was shot down. But that was like 20,000 people. I mean, we're talking millions. There's no way they're going to do it. It's not possible, but any project to forcibly remove this many people that's ever been

undertaken over the course of human history has resulted in mass death. And I'm being a little bit flimping about it because it's such an unbelievably fucking stupid idea. Yeah. But it's horrific. I mean, people are going to die. A lot of people are going to die. There's only been, I think, one other, other than World War II, there's only been one other

forced migration on this scale. And that was the partition of India that Britain undertook. And in that case, literally millions of people died. So, you know, he's not going to do it in terms of being able to deport however many people he wants, but he can, you know, kill a hell of a lot of people in the process. Yeah, you know, I was thinking as I was reading your piece and writing questions for it, you sort of, you hate to talk about the logistics or the monetary cost of something so morally reprehensible. And you kind of feel like you're putting your Vonsei conference hat on, you know, the one with the death's head.

And you start looking at the, well, in order to do this, they would need, you know, X number of vehicles. And the thing is, though, it's important to lay out how an operation like this would be undertaken. Because even, as you say, if they probably couldn't do as many people as they want, they could certainly do this to a lot of people. And as a side effect of that, a completely wanted side effect, absolutely terrify anyone in this country who isn't white. It would cause, you know, mayhem. I mean, you would see little mini civil wars bring up. Yeah.

You're talking about deporting a population about twice the size of New York City only spread out across the country. And so Miller has said clearly ICE isn't nearly big enough. Border Patrol isn't really clearly big enough. They're going to bring in the military. They're going to bring in local police. That still isn't going to get you anywhere near. So I think what they're going to try to do is start deputizing groups like the proud boys and other militias to do this. And they're going to, you know, one thing Miller has planned was to send National Guard troops from red states into blue states to make.

these arrests. Well, governors of blue states aren't going to stand for that. Police chiefs and blue cities aren't going to stand for that. So what happens when National Guardsmen from Virginia or North Carolina try to go into Baltimore and start arresting immigrants and the police stand in their way or the Maryland National Guard stands in their way? Who wins that face off? It's a recipe for all kinds of bloodshed. I mean, yeah, here in Nashville, we had what I thought to be a very sort of heartwarminging story where I just tried to deport somebody and their neighbors basically formed a human barricade around the house and prevented it from happening. And I would think you would see that a lot. I think you'd see it all over the country. And so what are

they going to do then? Are they going to shoot people? Are they going to shoot people who are trying to stick up for their neighbors? I mean, is that where we're headed? It sure seems to be what Trump wants. I mean, Trump has openly stated his desire to shoot protesters. Yeah, for sure. I think you're absolutely right when it comes to the governors of blue states. I don't know that I share your view about the police departments in blue states, not going along with it. I think it depends on the police department. I think there are some progressive police chiefs who are by this. And frankly, there are a lot. I mean, what we saw in Trump's first term is when he started going after sanctuary cities and started trying to impose penalties on them, police chief spoke out because it makes it

difficult to fight crime. When you have entire immigrant communities that are afraid to cooperate with the police or just pissed off and don't want to cooperate with the police because, you know, they're deporting people. It makes it more difficult to actually for police to do their jobs. And so I I think you see a lot of resistance from, you know, more sort of progressive police chiefs around the country. Sheriff's no. Right. Sheriff's absolutely not. I do want to talk about something that you touched on a little bit earlier because as I was reading your piece and you were talking about how well, they would need to beef up things like the immigration courts.

And I kept thinking, well, no, they wouldn't. They just do it. And then sure enough, a little further in the piece, you're like, yeah, they probably would just do it. And you wrote, you know, if there's one thing we've learned from the reporting on Project 2025, it's that they have no intention of letting laws, rules, or procedures get in their way. And that to me is kind of the crux of it. Once the moral objections are out the window and they have absolutely no moral objections to doing this at all, then the practical ones simply don't matter to them.

And here's the other thing, too. I mean, I would hope that the sheer sort of inhumanity of this would shock people and make them opposed to it. Unfortunately, latest poll I saw show that over half the country still supports this insane idea. I don't think everybody knows the specifics of it and how horrible it would be. But even then, I mean, on Twitter, when I posted this piece, a lot of people were like, particularly, you know, blue checks and verified people, crazy MAGA people, were like, oh, yeah, we know all that.

And that's why we support it. We support it because it's inhumane because that's how they want to treat these people. But here's the other thing. I mean, let's say Trump puts this massive deportation, half million strong force together and, you know, carries out however many million deportations. he's now got an army at his disposal. These are going to be people who joined whatever force he's going to call this, specifically because they're excited about the fact of deporting a bunch of people,

you know, and throwing them out of the country. He can do whatever he wants with that once he has it, right? I mean, he's the president. He's the executive branch. And one thing we know from Project 2020, I also is, you know, they believe in sort of unlimited executive authority, as does apparently in the current Supreme Court. Right.

So you've got, Trump's now going to have this army of people who specifically, signed up for the purpose of carrying out one of his most extreme policies. I mean, are they going to do other things for him? Do you think if he asked him, they would object if he told them to start, you know, arresting journalists or pundits or its political opponents? I mean, I mean, this is the kind of proposal that you see. I mean, I don't even think, I can't even, I don't even think you could say this is the kind of proposal you see, you know, when somebody, when an authoritarian is running for office, because most of them are smart enough to try to hide something like this until they get an office, right?

Trouble is openly boasting about wanting to do this and over half the country is behind him, which I think, you know, we're in a very scary place. Yeah, absolutely. Before I ask this question, I will say once again that nothing matters in this as much as the human cost and the suffering that human beings will go through because of this. But like I said also earlier, if you're going to talk about something like this, you have to talk about what else it would mean. And this would destroy our economy, wouldn't it?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the sheer cost of it, multiple billions, probably hundreds of billions of dollars it would take to carry out this plan. But then, yeah, now you're also talking about getting rid of, you know, a major part of the labor force. You're talking about deporting 6% of the country. So, you know, immigrants help with our produce. You know, if you think your grocery bill is high now, wait until there's nobody to pick the, you know, fruits and vegetables from the field. xenophobia is Trump's entire platform at this point. I mean, when he was asked about childcare, he said tariffs, right? When he's asked about housing, he says deportations. Immigrants build our homes. If you deport all the immigrants, you're going to see the cost of new homes is going to skyrocket. So we're going to have, you know, huge problems in housing. And housing is one of the biggest causes of inflation.

The inhumanity of this plan, the cruelty, the wants and sort of bigotry associated, those would be important things. But this would absolutely wreck our economy, particularly though, even pair it with Trump's, I don't know what the hell number is at now. He's gone from 10 to 20 percent to 200 percent now tariffs across the board. He will plunge the U.S. and the world into a global depression. I mean, there's no getting around it. You can't get rid of 6 percent of your labor supply and not have really dramatic economic

ramifications of that. I want to get to this because you touch on it on a piece you wrote just Wednesday that was titled what J.D. Vance and Donald Trump don't want you to know about Springfield, there's a sentence you said in here that Vance's claims are worth debunking, not just because he's putting Haitian immigrants at risk. He is endangering the entire city of Springfield. And then you say, and the long-term goal of his rhetoric is to snuff out the main thing that's giving slowly dying cities like Springfield, life and hope, immigration. And I think that's so key, because all of this is even if they don't implement this or they don't implement it to the degree that they want to, the other goal here is to

discourage people from coming here. And it will absolutely work on that end, won't it? Yeah, probably. You know, I think people still continue to come here regardless of what the current policies are, to some degree, just because, you know, there's still this myth. Unfortunately, it's now a myth that, you know, there's a place where you can build a life for yourself and achieve your dreams. But, you know, I think this is an important point. You know, one thing I learned in researching the piece about, I wrote about Vance and Springfield is that it's not just Springfield. immigrants are, particularly refugees, migrants are revitalizing dying cities across the Rust Belt. I mean, the Akron economy has been revitalized by Conjolese and Bhutanese immigrants, who,

the Bhutanese immigrants, by the way, were given protected status by George W. Bush, show you how far the Republican Party has come. But all across the Rust Belt, I mean, in Utica, New York, places in Long Island, a lot of upstate New York and western Ohio, I'm sorry, eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania. We're seeing immigrants sort of congregate in these small cities and towns that are dying, basically, and bringing sort of entrepreneurship, bringing, you know, energy, revitalization, bringing young workers who are really eager. I mean, you know, one of the things that really stuck out in the whole Springfield discussion clown show is that when, you know, journalists interviewed the people who run the factories in Springfield, new factories that open, they talk about how industrious and hardworking the Haitian immigrants are and how they're. They prefer them to the local population because they are always on time and they always put in hard, you know, hard days work. And the Republican Party used to call itself a pro business party.

You know, businesses should be able to hire people who work hard for them. And, you know, I'm sure there are long-term residents of places like Springfield that also work hard. And clearly there are problems, you know, that come logistical problems when you have a huge influx of immigrants over a short period of time. But there's no question that immigrants are turning these communities around. I mean, wages have gone up in Springfield, annual income has gone up, poverty's gone down. So what Trump and Vance want to do is going to kill huge parts of Red America, parts that have been struggling for a long time. It is from the piece. I mean, it's a little bit of cliche, but I mean, immigrants are what are making Red America great again.

And Trump and Vance are going to kill that. But that can't be true because J.D. Vance wrote a book called Hillbilly Elegie that was, you know, he's supposed to be the guy who wants to revitalize the Rust Belt. Yeah, it was a different guy than what. whatever weird demonic force is occupying J.D. Vance is in these days. Yeah. No, you had a good line in your piece. He said, as long as there's clout to be gained by lying about the immigrants, he'll keep lying about them. It really does just come down to that, doesn't it? I mean, yesterday he flat-out said that he knows that they're here legally. He's just going to continue to call me illegal anyway because he doesn't like them and he doesn't like

the policy that got them here. I mean, he's just basically, you know, he's just openly, brazenly, admittedly lying and they don't care. It's crazy. I mean, it's, I tweeted this or our post on Bluska at this at one point. I mean, fascists, you know, when fascists have taken over other countries, sort of by using the democratic process, they have at least sort of hidden their fascism while they're running for office. I mean, what we're seeing now is, what would happen if a candidate openly campaigned on fascism? And what we're finding is, you know, 45 plus percent of the country would vote for them anyway. And I don't know what we do with that.

Yeah. It's not a thing that makes for easy sleep at night. Radley, thank you so much for being here. And as always, for your excellent writing over at The Watch. And I absolutely love your work and I love talking to you. Thanks, man. My pleasure. Thanks for having me again. Folks, I am very happy to welcome back to the new Abnormal, David Rothkoff, who is the CEO of the DSR Network and a writer for The Daily Beast. David, your recent piece had the hairs on the back of my neck stand up because it's something that I have been saying about political violence and it getting worse as we get closer to the election. The article is entitled, even worse, political violence may lie ahead thanks to Trump.

David, I want to start off with asking you about your thoughts on the way that the media has covered the two alleged assassination attempts on Donald Trump. Has there been a difference from July to now September? And if so, what do you think that it's been? Well, I think, you know, the July event was covered much as you would expect a shooting event like that to be covered in the sense that, you know, it became round the clock news for a while. And then, you know, there was some follow up. The flaw in the coverage, frankly, to me was, you know, there's a missing piece of the story still to this day, which is what happened to Trump. he was allowed to say, this is what my medical condition was. And unlike every other assassination

attempt ever of any senior official like that or any other medical situation of any official like that, there was never a discussion with an independent doctor about what happened. I don't minimize the threat that he faced or the gravity of him facing the threat or the problems that probably existed with the Secret Service. But I do think it was a gap in the coverage and we still are at this day. The only reason is because they made a big deal out of it. If they hadn't sort of gone around and handed out gauze bandages to everybody at the Republican National Committee, I wouldn't be bringing it up. But, you know, he then went and did this sort of melodrama about facing his life flashing

in front of his eyes. And he's talked about it ever since. The thing on the other day, with regard to the golf course, you know, got a certain degree of coverage. But this is the sort of thing that happens much more frequently, right? It happens with regard to Biden. It happens with regard to a lot of. officials, which is somebody has a crazy plot and they get apprehended long before they're able to do any

damage. And that's roughly what happened here. The worst part of it is that the media has presented in an unfiltered way, the Trump and Vance and mega comments that followed it saying this is because of the Democrats. Right. Calling Donald Trump an enemy of democracy is the reason this is happening. And of course, that's utter nonsense. First of all, he is an enemy of democracy. Secondly, the party that has been infusing this race with political violence, the party that uses political violence as a tool is not the Democrats. It wasn't the Democrats marching in Charlottesville.

It wasn't the Democrats storming the Capitol in January 6th. It wasn't democratic operatives who were going into. the BLM demonstrations and trying to turn them into riots and exacerbate the situation there. It wasn't Democrats saying that this race would be a bloodbath like Trump has done. What happened after Trump got shot? What were his first words? They were fight, fight, fight. Yep.

And it was not an effort to reach out, to be introspective, to promote healing, which is the message, by the way, that you got from the vice president, from Tim Walls, from President Biden in the wake of both of these attempts. You know, there is an imbalance here. There is one party that's actively calling for and using violence. And when the media presents it in a kind of both sides way, they're misleading everybody. Because I think that even in elevating both Donald Trump and J.D. Vance's comments with regard to, well, it's democratic rhetoric that is causing the situation, as you mentioned,

is problematic because you're presenting it. The media is presenting it as if it's something that we should think about, like believe the words that are coming out of their mouth, knowing that J.D. Vance just said most recently, sometimes you got to create a narrative. I create stories, a.k.a. I lie. You know, I think about the ways that political violence continue to be framed in this country as we have been watching over the last eight years under this maga cloud that it has continued to escalate like you pointed out to so many different tent pole moments that resulted in 130 officers being injured on january 6 and one being killed property damage death threat all of these things and yet even right now in springfield ohio where attention

has been put because of the lies that J.D. Vance and Donald Trump have been saying about the legal Haitian immigrants that are in Springfield, Ohio. We have seen schools be shut down for multiple days. We have seen municipality buildings shut down for multiple days. We have seen colleges go to remote learning. We have seen Haitian families sheltering in home because they are afraid to go out because when they are met with vandalized homes and cars and all of these things are happening. And yet, David, the Republican politicians in that state, in that town, want to de-escalate the situation and say, we don't need you coming here, but they are not actually naming J.D. Vance and Donald Trump. So what do you make of their rhetoric around what is actually?

actually happening and what has happened to their town because of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, but them not uttering their names and making it very clear that they know that this has happened because of these two men. There's only one thing you can make of it, right? It's cowardice. The Republican Party has been paralyzed since Trump first came down that escalator with cowardice. You know, occasionally somebody will stand up and speak out, Liz Cheney, Dick Cheney. It's good to see that group of national security. Republicans have, you know, put out a list, 110 of them this week. That's good. I'm glad to see it. George Bush, absolutely silent. Most of the Republicans in the Senate, absolutely silent. The vast majority of Republican political leaders, absolutely silent.

What we're talking about here is outrageous. It's not more outrageous than being convicted 34 times on felony counts. It's not more outrageous than being found liable for rape. It's not more outrageous than stealing national security nuclear documents and hiding them away in your bathroom in a building that you know is a den of foreign spies who are just trying to find anything they can out about these things. It's not more outrageous than, you know, causing an insurrection and violating the peaceful transfer of power, which has been a hallmark of the United States for a couple of hundred years. And they are silent in the face of all of it. And if I may, I don't want to put too fine a point on this, but I think it's really

essential because I think we're at the beginning of a period where we can see much more violence because, frankly, they don't have a heck of a lot of cards to play. They don't have any new ideas. They don't have much except the grievance and anger of the candidate and their followers right now. But what we see in a place like Springfield, Ohio, with the rhetoric, of Vance and with the rhetoric of Trump is not similar to what the Nazis did in 1930s Germany. It's exactly what the Nazis did in 1930s Germany. And if you look at the handouts that were being distributed in Springfield, Ohio, they were done in a type font that looked like Nazi 1930s type font.

They used language like calling the Haitians filth that is Nazi language. When Trump calls immigrants vermin and animals, that's Nazi language. He has embraced and dined with Nazis. He's defended them in Charlottesville. And he called them into action here. The proud boys showed up in Springfield, Ohio. We can only imagine who's behind these threats. That's why the Haitians are hold up in their homes, afraid to go out. Because essentially, the president is doing what he did in the days before January 6th. He's calling on the mob and he's saying, what I want is violence. I want to target these people. I want to go after the scapegoat. The only difference between 1930s Germany and 2024 America is that the scapegoat.

are different. And we saw what happened in 1930s, Germany. And we in 2024, America, have not seemed to learn anything from that. And that's what makes this even more nauseating and shocking. You know, and I think, too, when you go through the list of people, I can't help but harken to Martin Nia Mueller's poem, first they came for. Because the first people that Donald Trump, came for were Mexicans coming down that golden escalator. He's calling Mexicans rapists and drug dealers. Then he comes for people from African nations, their shithole countries. Then it is the Muslims and the Muslim ban. Then it is COVID. And so now it's the quote unquote China flu. And you see the attacks against Asian Americans across the country. Then it is the LGBTQ people and drag stories.

times getting bomb threats and trans people being a target and they're the ones that are targeting your children and then you see violence happen there now it's Haitians and what I realize is that and what I want Americans to realize is that it's always somebody and eventually it will be you from a group that is not yet named but is in the queue and so I'm wondering what you think then is the responsibility that media has to connect those dots but also Also, you know, we know that the Harris Walls ticket has been focused on bringing a breath of fresh air to people that have been holding their breath for the last eight years. But at the same time that we are rallying around joy, we can't actually forget the real life threat. And I think that Springfield, Ohio is a very clear indicator of that that Donald Trump presents.

So what is the role of the Harris Wall's campaign to elevate this? these acts of violence as well as the media? Well, I have to say I don't have any criticism for how the Harris Wall's campaign has handled it. They've called it out. They've put it in perspective. They have not let it dominate their narrative. They've come out with their own agenda about her, about him, about their policy agenda, about an American in which people are lifted up and about the future.

They're behaving like a responsible political party. What my problem with the media is that there's only. one responsible political party in this race. And they are covering it like it's the same old two-party contest that we've seen in America for most of our history. And that's not what we've got here. We've got one party that's led by an insurrectionist that doesn't want to see democracy anymore in the United States that wants to deport 10 to 20 million people that has his top advisor on immigration, Stephen Miller, saying he wants to denaturalize American citizens that has Donald Trump saying he wants to suspend the Constitution of the United States that is taking serious money

from the Kremlin to some of his spokespeople out there in the new media universe, including people like Tucker Carlson, who sat next to him in the booth at the RNC, and who was one of the people who helped him pick J.D. Vance, who's one of the most pro-Russia sympathizers in the United States government. And by the way, he is also surrounded by people like RFK Jr. and Elon Musk, who are also pro-Russia sympathizers and is seeking to benefit from Jill Stein's third-party candidacy like he did in 2016. And she has, you know, been pictured seated next to Vladimir Putin and is a pro-Russia sympathizer and won't condemn Vladimir Putin as a war criminal. And so you've got insurrectionists, criminals, convicted felon, traitor to the United States, supported by our

worst enemy. That's not a normal political party. And then, you know, the New York Times will go, well, you know, Kamala Harris said this rational thing. And, you know, Donald Trump said something that meant this. And what I'm getting at there is they tend to get into this thing where they auto-tune his speeches, where he says, He says a bunch of garbage. He vomits out a bunch of words that have no relationship to each other, but they are, they are indicative of complete mental breakdown that's going on between his ears. They try to translate it into a normal position, you know, and say, well, you know,

Trump made a statement which says that in the future he'll be for a strong economy. And you're like, say what? This is an incoherent enemy of the country who's proposing lunatic policies, you know, tariffs that would increase the cost of living for the average American by $6,000 and send the world trading system into a spin of, you know, totally ignoring the climate crisis, you know, guns for everybody. Let's pull out of Ukraine so Russia can go take a shot at the rest of Europe. It's lunacy.

And so, you know, at a certain point, I think the mainstream media, if it continues to do this and cover this as though it were something that it's not a normal campaign, people are just going to tune them out. And, you know, my final point on this is you're covering this in a direct way and able to have an open conversation about it. And I think new media is stepping up to cover this thing properly. And I think, if I may, you know, direct this to, you know, all of our friends. your friends, my friends out there in regular media companies. The reason she is not going and doing a lot of interviews with you guys is you're over. You lost the opportunity. Yep.

You know, we are moving on to a new media format because you can't do it anymore. Yep. I could not have stated that better, David. And I had said as much on X and other social media platforms that, you know, there is a reason why the campaign has decided not to do the quote unquote normal sit downs with mainstream media is because they've proven themselves to be inept. They've proven themselves to be irresponsible. And so people are looking for other outlets, other places, other platforms to actually be informed because they no longer have faith in the legacy institutions that they once did,

which is why I'm grateful for the platform that you've created and the ability for us to be able to be in different places and spaces. Well, we've all ended up what you're doing, what I'm doing, what people are doing on TikTok, what people are doing on their YouTube channels, what people are doing on Instagram Reels, what they're doing on other social media platforms, even those that have been degraded by bad ownership like Twitter, is we're inventing DC. coverage because we need it and we can't find it someplace else. I have a lot of friends who work at the New York Times and they go around and they're good friends of mine, but they feel pretty good about themselves for working at the New York Times. That's not the media today. And I don't know about you and, you know, but let's take all your friends under the age of 40. My guess is that they get the bulk of their news from social media. And if you broke down their use of media, you know, during the course of the day, something like 40, 50, 60, 70% of it would be TikTok,

Instagram, or YouTube. It's not even these other things. Facebook's gone. It's for olds. And Twitter has been co-opted by a white supremacist tool of the Kremlin. And so they go someplace else. That's the reality. We will have to leave it there today, David.

But I thank you so much for continuing to inform us at the Daily Beast and with the DSR network, really appreciate you making the time for the new abnormal. Thanks a lot, Dana. Andy Levy. Danielle Moody. How are you closing out this week, good, good week with your Fuck That Guy. Well, my Fuck That Guy is a Fuck That gal, and it is a judge you may have heard of. She's a federal judge.

Her name is Aileen Cannon, probably most famous for dismissing the case. against Donald Trump regarding the Moralago documents. ProPublica, which has done ridiculously good work in uncovering repeated patterns of both Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito, but Clarence Thomas in particular, patterns of them receiving gifts from conservative organizations, from conservative billionaires, and not reporting them as they are, you know, supposed to, has uncovered something kind of similar for Judge Cannon. In May of 2003, she went to an event in Virginia that was honoring the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. And she sat with members of Scalia's family. She sat with fellow federalist

society members. And she did not disclose that she attended this thing. There is a 2006 rule that says you have to file disclosure forms for a trip like this within 30 days and make them public on the court's website. She did not file the forms, so obviously she couldn't then make them public. And according to ProPublica, it's not the first time that she has failed to fully comply with the rule. In both 2021 and 2022, she took week-long trips to the Sage Lodge in a place called Prey Montana for legal colloquiums. A sponsor. by George Mason University. George Mason University, of course, has its law school named after Antonin Scalia and has received

over $30 million in gifts from Leonard Leo, et cetera, et cetera. Cannon did not report that these trips were paid for by George Mason University until NPR reporters asked her about the emissions this year, i.e. until she got caught. So again, we are seeing it's this pattern with conservative judicial appointees where they get these lavish gifts that are given to them by people of the same ideological bent, which is bad enough. But then they, because I guess somewhere in the back of their head, they know that what they're doing is unethical. They don't report them. and she just seems like she's right there. You know, it's a difference in degree,

not a difference in kind with, say, Clarence Thomas, who has taken many, many more dollars worth of freebies from Harlan Crow, et cetera. But it's the same principle, i.e., neither of them has any. So for that reason, I hearty fuck that gal to judge Alien Cannon. The reason why they don't disclose is because they don't give a fuck, because they do not have to abide by the rest of the rules that us normal human beings have to abide by. They have ethics rules, but not laws that they're in any violation of. It's just like, well, maybe you shouldn't do this.

And they're like, nah, I like it. So I'm going to keep doing it. And then it's like, okay. And we just all continue to go along with it. And by the way, the number for Clarence Thomas, I think is around four and a half. million dollars that he has taken in gifts and trips and tuition and mortgages over his two decade plus career. So they're fucking disgusting. Fuck those guys. All right, Danielle, the week is about to be closed out and you are just the person to do it. Who should

fuck that guy? Well, speaking of gifts that people love to take and give themselves and fuck those disadvantaged people or underserved people. Story in the New York Post. Let me read you the title. What happens in Disney stays in Disney. New York City educrats took own kids to Magic Kingdom on trips meant for homeless students. Yeah, that's right. According to the New York Post, six Department of Education employees used forged permission

slips to take their own kids and grandkids to Disney World and other city-funded trips meant for homeless students. These trips cost upwards of $66,000 for 50 or so adults. And this happened between 2016 and 2019. Linda M. Wilson, a queen supervisor of the Department of Education's students in, quote, temporary housing took her own two daughters on trips and encouraged colleagues to take their sons, daughters, and grandkids, but tried to cover up the shady practice when she was questioned about it. I mean, like, honestly, you really can't get just more depraved. Yeah. Look, I know city employees don't make a lot of money. I know that there are no, you know, no real

perks in those jobs, whatever. You chose the fucking profession. You chose the field. So you're supposed to be in a field and industry that is about educating and helping young people. And to rob those that are most disadvantaged in temporary housing from an opportunity to experience like the lightness and joy of being a kid that maybe they don't get to experience because they have so many other big.

critical, you know, critical things on their plates like housing and, you know, and money and economics and things that you wish that young people didn't have to think about and they could get to just be kids for a weekend and you decide instead to take your own fucking kids with the money. I don't often say that I hope that people go to jail because of our carcel system, but like you robbed poor children. You robbed underserved. children. Like, you can't get more disgusting and selfish than that. So for that reason, these six Department of Education employees are my fuck those guys. Like, just gross. I was a little skeptical of this story because it's from the New York Post, which generally cannot be trusted when it

comes to journalism. But I looked up the actual letter that the Special Commissioner of investigation for the New York City School District sent to the New York City Public Schools Department of Education Chancellor. And everything in the post story was completely accurate. It is absolutely grotesque. You had at one point, woman in charge, Wilson, she said at a meeting that she had to cancel a trip she was taking with her kids of Philadelphia because somebody had spoken about it. And then she said, what happens here stays with us. And I mean, like, how great gross are you to be doing this to the most disadvantaged people? I just, I can't, I can't get past it.

It's just, it's absolutely horrible. You know, I don't know if there are any kind of charges that are going to come out of this, but fuck those guys. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Kemp. Canon and Seamus Calder.

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