The Daily Beast Podcast - Pour One Out for Jared Kushner’s Ghostwriter

Episode Date: May 3, 2022

According to New Abnormal podcast host Andy Levy, literally, nobody cares about what Jared Kushner has to say. On this episode, Andy and co-host Molly Jong-Fast break down the latest GOP book announcements, Jared’s included, and The Nation columnist Jeet Heer tells Molly why he thinks the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is a bad idea. For one, this dinner was the start of Trump’s villain origin story, he jokes. Plus! If you’ve ever wondered how a person like Trump was elected in the first place, University of Minnesota’s Dr. Larry Jacobs has an answer and explains why primary elections will be the ruin of us all. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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with Shopify. Empecia to start your period of month in Shopify. coms bar records. Hi, I'm Molly Jong-Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic InVo. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector.

And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart, conversations with the wisest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it. What a great show we have today. First, we're going to talk to our pal Jee here, who's, of course, a columnist at the nation, an author of the substack, The Time of Monsters. Then we're going to talk to Dr. Larry Jacobs, who's the director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. And he's going to talk to us about why we shouldn't have partisan primaries, instead only have open primaries. But first, let's have some fun.

Andy? Molly? John Fest? Levy? Mark Esper. I mean, I don't even know what to say anymore. Love him. He's a delight.

I don't even know what to say anymore with all of these, like, allegations that are, you know, it's two years after. And, like, I worked in the Trump White House, and he told me to shoot people. I'm going to use that for. for my book excerpt. Like, I mean, I say this as someone who has written many books before, and I know how hard it is to sell a book, and I know how, you know, you save stuff for the excerpt.

But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, like, you know, the president of the United States told the Secretary of Defense to shoot people. Yeah. So what we're talking about here is, so Esper's got this book coming out next week, I think. and in the book he says that when protesters were surrounding the White House after the death of George Floyd, Trump said to him, can't you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something, which I got to say that sounds like the Trump I know. Right. It's important to remember that Trump has actually said things about shooting protests. This is not the first time.

That's true. Right. I mean, I feel like with all these like shocking revelations, there's always some part of it that it, that is. is in fact, you know, we did actually see him tweet about this or say it on Fox News. Right. So, but to your other point that, you know, or to your main point, that this happened in June of 2020 and it's now May of 2022 and this is the first time we're hearing of this from Esper. And it's like, you know, is this not something the country needed to know at the time or shortly thereafter or as opposed to two years later? but, you know, every, like you said, every time someone in political has a book coming out,

you get these revelations of things that happened years ago that would have been nice to know at the time. And then, you know, like also, like you're, so you're the defense secretary and the president of the United States says this to you, you just keep on doing your job. Like, that's, I mean, I guess I see the sort of like, well, I got to stay here because I got to stop, you know, if I leave, he might put someone in there who'll say, yes, sir, we can shoot the protesters. So I guess I kind of... That's always the excuse, though, right? That's always the excuse.

Yeah. But the fact of the matter is, I say this as someone who stayed at Fox News for a very long time. Right. Is for a while you do sort of, you sort of say to yourself, well, but I'm here, you know, I'm saying stuff that might not get heard if I'm not here. Let me just say, by the way, I'm not egotistically putting myself. on the same plane. No, but I mean, it's the same thinking that is worth.

It does run through your mind. And then, you know, at a certain point, you're just like, it doesn't matter what I'm saying. And you're like, I got to get out of here. Right, exactly. When the president of the United States is saying, can't we just shoot the protesters? Can't you shoot them in the leg or something?

But that's something we should know about. And that's... I mean, speak for yourself. I just... No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, no, I mean, it's completely crazy. And I think that it's a really good example of how we got very used to being ruled by an autocrat. It's true, because the thing is, in the past, like, you would get these books and they'd come out a couple of years later.

And it would be, like, I feel like it would be stuff where you're like, oh, that's interesting. You know, that's good information to know. But you wouldn't read it and be, like, necessarily like, we needed to know that at the time. Right. If you looked back, though, and you saw, if when this had happened, Esper had said, like, no. And he had, you know, recorded the conversation and played it on the news. And, I mean, like, there were all these moments when we look back on the Trump administration where somebody could have said no. Like, it's like, it reminds me of, like, when you see a humanitarian disaster or president abusing a group of people, like, with the Yeagers, what's happening in China.

Like there have been all these moments where someone could have said, no, it's enough. And no one did. Right. Well, although I mean, Esper at least argues that or says that he told Trump no in this case. He didn't make it public. But he did say to the president of the United States, no, you can't just shoot the protesters in the legs. That's not how this country works. Right.

I mean, which is just scary that you have to say that to the, you know, the guy who has the nuclear football right next. to him. We do know that Trump fired Esper, I guess, was after the election, I think, but he was not happy with Esper because Esper did not want to use the Insurrection Act to go after protesters. So Esper does seem to have a pretty good track record of at least pushing back and explaining to the President of the United States that you can't just shoot people who are peaceably and legally protesting. That, you know, again, not how this country works, despite all its faults. We still we do allow people to peaceably protest without shooting them. And that's not something we should lose, in my opinion.

I'm going to go out of the limb and say we should continue to allow people to peaceably protest without shooting them. That's my America. You may disagree. You may strongly disagree with me. Yeah. But I'm standing by my principle here. Yeah. Speaking of book deals, there's also the illustrious Jared Kushner who is who is, who has raised.

written a book called Breaking History, which is a little bit ironic. Accidentally a great title. You know, I mean, these books are like amazing because they don't say anything. So you have books like this where people from Trump World say they're going to like tell you everything that happened. And if you just buy their book, I mean, I think a great example of this was Chris Christie, right? Like, if you buy my book, I will sort of like lay bare what it was like. And then you'd see this interview and he says, you know, he did this, he did that. And then the person says, so you're going to, would you vote for him in 2024?

And he says yes. Yeah. They always say yes. They always say yes. I mean, they always say yes. Do you think Kushner will say bad things about Muhammad bin Salman? Yeah, the guy who gave him $2 billion to manage. Yeah, probably.

Yeah, I mean, I don't see why not. After killing a journalist, yeah, I kind of feel like we're not going to get a lot of inside scoop from Jared on a lot of these people because he wants their money. I don't know what you're talking about. That's obviously not true. Who is going to read this book? I mean, I assume somebody, like the R&C will just buy, you know, I mean, I think it'll be like Don Jr. They'll just file the copies. Okay, so let's play devil's advocate.

I could see a bunch of idiots thinking I need to read Don Jr's book. I love that guy. He is the greatest. I want him to be president. So I can see people saying, you know, of a certain bent saying, okay, I want to hear what the defense secretary under Trump has to say. Who the fuck cares what Jared Kushner has to say about anything? Like, who is the audience for this? I don't get it.

Again, I'm not sure who the audience for any of this is. I know, but again, I can see it for some of the other people. Like Chris Christie also, I agree. Nobody wants, nobody gives a shit. Nobody wants to hear Chris Christie. But literally nobody cares what Jared Kushner has to. Like, nobody worships Jared Kushner. Nobody is sitting there going, I love that guy.

Like, again, I know there are people out there who think Don Jr. is like the greatest thing in the world. We know there are people out there. Right. You know, who think he's just absolutely fantastic. Nobody. There are no Jared Kushner stands out there who are just like, I got to see what this guy has had to say. You know, there's just nobody.

So I have no idea who this book is for other than, as you said, others than like the R&C or whoever buying it and probably somehow using some kind of fraudulent scheme to. sell a bunch of books under the guise of fundraising or something. I'm going to go out on a limb and say anybody who actually gets a copy of this book will never read it. Like this book will never be read. Yeah. I wonder if Jared's ever read it. I would wager that he hasn't.

Yeah. But let us pour one out for poor Jared Kushner's ghost writer because that is probably... Yes. Oh, my God. What job? Oof. So Andy Biggs, Ronnie Jackson, Mobile. Brooks, the three amigos, January 6 wants more information from them.

I would love to bring up that Mo Brooks has recently been unendorsed by Trump. Yes, yes. So remember when that unendorsment happened, there was a, there was sort of a sense then he had said, well, maybe he would participate in timing out Trump. So, I mean, hope springs eternal. And you'll remember Ronnie Jackson was Obama's doctor. I think you're, no, you're right. I forgot that. Yeah, he was Obama's doctor.

So, like, thanks Obama. Like, that's something we could actually be mad at Obama for. Right. You didn't have to have that guy. Like, you could have checked out the doctor, man. I mean, Obama gets blamed for a lot of stuff that isn't true. But on this one, I think we may have it. Yeah.

The committee has sent, they've sent letters to these three congressmen asking them to appear before the committee. My guess is none of them will in the same way that I guess Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan have declined to share their information with the American people. I think you're right. The only one that there's a chance of appearing, I think, is Mo Brooks because he's been unendorsed by Trump. But I have a feeling the Republican leadership is going to tell him that he needs to not, that he can't do that. But it's interesting why the committee sent these guys letters. And for Andy Biggs, it's that he was in a bunch of planning meeting.

for various aspects of, for the January 6th stuff, for the Trump speech and all that other stuff. He had made an effort to see if Trump would pardon him for stuff. So they want to ask him, you know, what exactly did you think you need to be pardoned for? So, yeah, my guess is he is not going to, none of these people are smart, but you've got to have at least enough sense of self-preservation

to know that you are not going before a committee to explain to them what you thought you needed to be pardoned for. I mean, the whole thing is amazing, right? Yeah. We are in this kind of cross the Rubicon. I mean, I still think it's amazing that we are, you know, we still have Democrats pretending that everything is normal and Republicans trying to cancel democracy. But then again, you know.

Yeah, I think what we've learned in the last two years is there are, there's a fairly large number of Americans who do not really. really care that there was what amounted to an attempted coup in an event and an attempt to subvert a lawful vote. That's not the kind of thing that makes you feel confident about the future of the country. And speaking of not feeling confident about the future of this country, the New York Times did this. They did some in, I have to say, it was really Yeoman's work by Nick Confessori.

Yeah, really. A bunch of super long, super interesting, super detailed articles about Tucker Carlson and his show hit over the weekend. Boy, there was a lot of stuff in there that makes you feel not great also about the future of this country. Yeah. You know, if you're even half paying attention, you knew a lot of the stuff already, but it really does lay out an amazing picture of the sort of the white nationalist stuff that Tucker gets up to and how they've noticed how that stuff rates really well. and talk a lot about how Tucker looks at the, they have minute to minute ratings that you can look at for stuff like this as opposed to quarter hours

or just, you know, the overall, overall rating of the show. And you can get really into the weeds and see like what your viewership was like during a certain segment. And they have very clearly learned that doing stuff that is, you know, flirting with or outright white nationalism and talking about an anti-immigrant and talking about the great replacement theory,

rates really well with the Fox audience. Yeah. And that's one of the reasons they hammer on it. In addition to another one of the reasons being that Tucker does seem to be a true believer on this stuff. And I think one of the things these articles did was put to bed sort of the, is, you know, is Tucker a grifter or does he really believe this stuff? And it seems pretty clear that he really has drifted to the point where this stuff is all, it's all his actual beliefs. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't even matter.

I mean, who cares? You know? No, of course. It's actually, I almost feel like it's worse if he does, if he, I don't know, it's all bad. But I do think it's so interesting because it's like, think about how bad it must be for the times to have done this. Like, you know, this is a newspaper that is the paper of record and tends to be, you know, it's probably the most important media outlet in the world. I mean, it's certainly the most important media outlet or at least the most important newspaper in America. if not the world.

And we'll criticize them sometimes. You know, they'll say, like, they don't want people to tweet. I mean, they kind of can set, they can do whatever they want because they're the most powerful newspaper in the world. So the fact that they had to, they found it necessary to run a three-part series on Tucker Carlson and like, as opposed to other far right figures where you might feel you're elevating them, you actually feel with this, at least I do, that this is just very necessary. Yes. No, I totally agree. And look, the Times did a thing. I mean, like there's a part of the article where they actually call the show the most racist show. I think it might say in cable history or something, which is like not something the Times generally does. And that's a lot of the time why we get on them because they won't say, they won't say someone is actually lying and they won't call someone a racist and they'll kind of soft pedal it. They did not soft pedal it here.

They do not stop them. No. And yeah, I think I agree with you. That's really interesting that the Times took this tack. Yeah. I mean, I just thought it was like for the Times to do the three-part series on this shows how bad it's gotten. Because they thought it was necessary. They felt they had to weigh in on something like this.

And I feel like media on media coverage is a fraught world, really. And, you know, it's an opportunity to really make mistakes too and upset people. and it's a, you know, it's a really hard beat. But in this, I think they felt that like because Tucker Carlson, you know, it's the highest rated cable show in America, cable news show in America. I mean, he's setting the table for a lot of discussions and a lot of behavior. Absolutely. And as I'm reading it, I just kept thinking, I hope they got security for confessory. Yeah.

No joke. Because once those articles came out, I was just like, oh, he is going to. And I guess, you know, we'll see. what happens as we record this on Monday. We'll see what happens on Tucker tonight if he talks about it. He did post a picture of himself holding the newspaper with a big smile on his face. Oh, Jesus. It looked very much like a hostage picture where you have to show proof of life. And so you hold up the newspaper with today's date on it. But obviously he was posting it to show that he thought the whole thing was funny as hell. Jeet here is a columnist at the nation, an author of the substack, The Time of Monsters.

Welcome back to the new abnormal, Jeet here. Always good to be here. I was so excited to have you because we haven't had you in a while. And also because I wanted your sort of hot take since you're in Canada, you're seeing American media perhaps in a more clear-eyed way than the rest of us. And I was curious, since we just had the White House correspondent stuff, do you feel that those kind of events undermine the media's seriousness? Yeah, I mean, you know, to give the devil his due, I thought that the one good thing Trump did was killed, at least for a few years, the White House Correspondence dinner.

Largely because he didn't want to be there. It's perhaps even worth remembering that it was the Trump's super villain origin story as he goes back to the previous dinner with Obama making fun of him on stage and saying, you know, Trump's saying, I will get my revenge. That's right. So, yeah, I mean, it does seem like it's a very curious affair. And I'll also mention, like, the Al Smith dinner. I mean, there's a lot of these things in the United States. And I don't see. Grid iron, too.

Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, the whole sort of roasting and, you know, making fun of, but showing that we're all in this together, right? And like, in 2016, they had the Altsmith dinner. And it was like such an awkward affair. because clearly, you know, Hillary Clinton and Trump hated each other. And Trump in particular was making these very nasty jokes, you know, sort of like lock-em-up-style jokes. And there was like the sort of cream of New York society, you know, including like the Cardinal Dolan.

Yeah, Cardinal Dolan. Yeah. And they're all supposed to be there laughing. And you're watching this. What is this? Maybe the larger take is, I mean, all these things are sort of predicated on like an older view of American society of a sort of of elite comedy. You know, you have Republicans and Democrats and politicians in the media, but at some point, everybody puts aside differences and gets together. You know, it's the old story, Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan going for a beer or whatever. But I mean, like, that was

never really that true. And certainly it's not true anymore, like to any real degree. Like, you know, like once you have a situation where, you know, like, you know, one party, you know, has a large number of people that supported the insurrection, you know, that, you know, What does it mean to have, you know, like, Trevor Noah and Biden going up there, you know, gently ripping the Republicans? I mean, it just seems like the whole thing is like just like it seems anachronistic. And also it seems like it's sort of fostering illusions that, you know, things haven't changed when they have changed. Yeah, you know, it's such an interesting thought too because there are so many things where the Republican Party is not normal.

And any of this kind of business as usual stuff tends to sort of normalize them. Absolutely. Yeah. I don't mean. I think that this is the whole problem with, you know, to some degree, Biden's whole enterprise, which is that it's, it has these two old competing missions, one of which is to defeat Trumpism and then thwart the Republicans. And the other is, you know, to return to some sort of normality. And I don't know. I don't know if it can quite work. I mean, I think the White House courts. one in dinner maybe kind of illustrates the some of the problems with that. And to some degree, it even like feeds into the very problems it's supposed to solve. Because, you know, like, let's say you're someone who's alienated from politics. And then you see all these people, you know, at a dinner together. Then it sort of feeds into the Trumpian, you know, conspiracy. Like they're all in it together.

And it's us versus them. I just feel like it's a very ill-conceived event. And I wish Trump had killed it. So maybe this is to rectify my previous statement, you know? Like I used to say like Trump did one good thing. He killed the White House correspondent dinner. And he didn't even do that. I mean, it's funny to me because I was in D.C.

and I went to some of the parties. So I have to full disclose this. But I always feel that for me, because I'm on the opinion side, I always feel like with the kind of straight news, you're constantly puzzling over the bias, right? Like, is this bias for Republicans, is this bias for? Democrats, right? So I feel like on the opinion side, you're a little bit better off. But I do think that the optics of a, you know, remember, there's been so many attacks against the media. And so the optics of the media going to a party together is really what Trump wants. You know, that's what they

want to run against. Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I know. I think that's, that's the real kind of danger of this. And yeah, I just feel like it would be, I think it actually be better for Biden himself if there's like, if there's no chumming up with the media. Right. And that he could, because I think sometimes the media, I mean, not just sometimes. I think it's often like unfair to Democrats. And I think it's better for, you know, like Democrats to not think of the media as something that's on their side and just say, you know, it's an institution. It's part of our society. We can be criticized. And its role is to be oppositional. And this whole chummy-chemy thing is very, it's a real problem. Yeah. And it's funny because we're in this time right now with Ukraine, where on Thursday,

another journalist was killed in Ukraine. So there really is a real, I mean, and again, in the Philippines, I mean, we're seeing journalists under siege in many parts of the world. And Russia. I mean, like, you know, like, you know. Well, yeah. And what I thought was interesting was Trevor Now, I mean, you actually see how hard it is to be a comedian because to be a really good comedian because he ended with this beautiful, but also sort of, I thought moving moment where I talked about, you know, think about these, that you have these journalists in Russia who are being run out of business or murdered and think if they had their chance to write, what would they be writing? And you should sort of keep that in your head. I'm butchering it. But I do think that's a really important point when we're seeing that. No, absolutely. I thought like Trevor Noah's part of it was excellent and like really. But again, it sort of then highlights the problem with all the other stuff that was in the show. I mean, yeah, yeah, I know. I mean, his point was very well made. And I mean, I think there's a lot of issues now.

I think that Trump era and its aftermath has really tested a lot of American institutions and that includes the media. And the White House correspondent is one thing. And the other thing that we're now really seeing is like, you know, all those journalists and figures in the Trump administration who had like, you know, really important information about him that they decide to keep for book deals. Save it for the book. So now we've hit this, save it for the book segment of the podcast. That's a really good point. And I think it's interesting because so there were a number of book deals announced this morning.

There's the Jared Kushner, if I did it, book deal, right? You know, where he's not going to tell us anything. And then there's the Mark Esper. Trump told me to shoot the protesters book deal, which is coming out. I mean, that seems like an important data point. Absolutely an important data point. And I mean, I guess in his defense, you know, like, well, his option at that point, you know, the president tells you to, you know, shoot people, shoot civilians, you know, like your option is maybe like to like go public at that point and resign. And then he puts in someone worse. I mean, I think that that's probably the

rationale or logic that S-Qaeda and people like him did. But I honestly think, yeah, that's what they should have done. Yeah, I mean, it's no brainer to me. Like, he should have resigned and been like the president's been telling me to shoot people. That's right. Yeah, I honestly feel like I don't see any logic. In his case, it's even worse than me a journalist. You're a public official.

Like, if you're a public official and the president is telling you to do wildly illegal, unconstitutional and frankly vile things, then yeah, I mean, like, I think you should resign. And I think that the rationale that people came up with that, well, it's my job to, you know, stay here and people lit on the crazies. For me, it just doesn't work because I think actually at some

point, like, if enough of people had to resign and spoken out, you could have actually had some other solution. You could have had a 25th amendment solution or, you know, had Republicans be forced to, like, you know, impeach or something. Like, it's just like, it's such a huge dereliction of

duty. And he's not alone. I mean, I think there's a lot of people. Right. A lot. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting because we have also this reporting from last week about how Mitch McConnell said that he was giddy after January 6th because he was exhilarated. I felt exhilarated by the fact that this fellow finally totally discredited himself, McConnell said. Like, imagine had that come out the day of. I mean, imagine. You know, like after January 6th, what the Democrats should have done was immediately pushed for impeachment. We saw this again and again in the Trump era where something awful happens and then like the sort of the right wing is taken aback. It's the same thing with the George Floyd killing. It's like the Terminator and Terminator 2.

Like it's blown apart and then it takes like, you know, like a couple of minutes to reassemble, right? So it's that moment, you know, where the Terminator has not reassembled yet. A couple of days. The Terminator had not reassembled. So then, of course, you have to push for, like, the impeachment. And then they said the Democrats waited. And then that meant that, you know, Tucker Carlson and all the other terminators came back together and came up with, you know, well, it was really no big deal. Or, you know, it was FBI entrapment.

So that was a real lost opportunity of, like, you know, like just immediately trying to get the Republicans on record as condemning. January 6th. So that's just all I'm going to say about that, I think. Yeah. So let's talk about, according to this poll, where Jesse just sent me one of your tweets. According to this poll, Dems are more popular with white people than with Latinos and more popular with old people than with young people. I mean, obviously, this is something we have been talking about and talking about and talking about, but why? This goes back to what we had said about, you know, Biden's back to normal kind of policy, always look on the bright side of life. He solved the problem of the Democrats and old people.

You know, like he's like, among the silent generation, he's popular because they also want to return to normality or return to. And he's kind of like operating on that level. And I think that people who are, and Latinos tend to be younger. I mean, I think these two things are actually intertwined, right? Like they're actually considerably younger than white people like on average. So people who are younger, they look at like this stuff. And I don't think it's so much that they, you know, have soured on the Dems and are now Republicans.

I think it's actually like they just don't see the Democrats fighting. The thing is the White House is operating out of a strategy, which is like, you know, keep the temperature low. Don't go in for culture wars. I don't think it's working. Yeah, yeah. I mean, people, yeah, I think that there's a lot of those young people who are a big constituency in the Democratic Party, they want to see you like, you know, doing something. I mean, again, like we were talking about Trump, to give the guy credit, I mean, even though he was hugely unpopular personally, he was able to, like, stay competitive and, you know, came pretty close to winning, like, the electoral college in 2020. Let's not forget that, because he kept giving things to his constituents, right?

Or at least pretending. He pretended to be doing things. And, you know, sometimes symbolic, but, you know, sometimes real. Like, he did give tax cuts to the rich. He gave more military winning to the last. Nationalist, you know, like he did a lot of very bad anti-immigration things for the Tucker Carlson white nationalist fans out there. You kind of have to be seen as doing something. Fighting.

Yeah, fighting. And I think it would help him with Latino voters too. Yeah, I think he's always had that kind of problem. If you look at like the primaries, he was like very poor among Latinos who like generally went with like Bernie Sanders. I think one big thing that would help him is if he was seeing taking strong stances. I mean, that's why, you know, that video from Michigan, Mallory McMurro, I mean, that felt like 12 million hits. The other side is saying, like, you know, you're pedophiles or your groomers. And, you know, like Biden is saying, well, you know, let's come together.

And I don't want to hear that. They want to hear somebody say, like, you know, go to hell. You're bigots, you know. I think that's a good point. During the White House correspondence dinner, she was flying to Kiev. We should say that's Nancy Pelosi. And so on Sunday, more. morning when all these people are reading the media coverage, there's a picture of her in a little

suit and high heels in Kiev on Sunday morning shaking hands with the president. And I thought, in my mind, I thought that is like some really smart politics. I agree with you. I mean, it's just, I mean, I know, there might be strategic reasons that they don't want to bring Biden out there. But I mean, it is notable that a lot of European leaders like Boris Johnson. Prime minister went. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so, you know, it's more about, and it doesn't have to be Biden. I mean, if you want to say the president should be above it all, don't make it Biden, but have someone else, have Kamala Harris. Right. You know, that's often the role of vice president, like, to be the kind of like a tack dog or have someone else.

I mean, that's why I think this whole student loan thing. I mean, like, you know, like, I mean, their policy issues like, you know, is this the best policy Democrats could have? Are there other policies that are better for helping poor people? And I just have to say like, you know, like what world are you living in? Like, you know, there are like all these ideal policies that might be better, but you can't get them through Congress. This is actually something you can do by signing a piece of paper and it would really show that you're doing something, you know?

Like, just like the very act of like it shows that you have agency, that you're in control. Right. I think the hymming and hawing is really hurting Democrats. It absolutely is. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's just like, I don't know. I mean, I think a lot of, if you look at the numbers, the Biden's polls, I mean, the whole Afghanistan thing first heard him. And I think it wasn't because people thought they should stay in Afghanistan.

It was just like, it seemed to show a loss of control. And I think that's really stuck with him. And I think that's the real problem. And you really have to get a sense that the president is in charge. It felt like Trump spent too little time thinking about things. And Biden spends too much time thinking about things. And, you know, the truth is like it's the way it looks. It's not necessarily true.

but again, optics are super important, as we see from this polling. I wanted to just talk about one other thing, which was you are in Canada. Are there more truckers coming up there? Like, it seems like that has not ended. Yeah, there's like another like rally of like having bikers, which I think is like kind of strategic mistake because like trucks take up a lot of room and get like, I don't know if like the biker rally is important. is going to have the same kind of impact.

But yeah, I mean, they are. But I don't know. I mean, in polling sense, you know, like this is like very much a minority phenomenon. Right. It's kind of unpopular. I think the real danger is that, I mean, this is where the parallel with America is. And this actually might actually support you, something that we talked about earlier. The conservative party is weak.

They've lost two elections in a row. And now they're having a leadership race. And it looks like, you know, the more kind of Trumpist candidate could win. I think a lot of this, like, these truckers and bikers are more to, like, change the politics of the conservative party. And so, you know, in a democracy, like, if you can take over, you know, one of the major parties, then it's almost, almost just a matter of time before you get your ideas implemented, right? Now we have to have two seconds on Le Pen.

That's what happened in France, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The pen has become the kind of face of the right in France. I mean, Macron's victory was, like, sizable, but it's also been. a shrinking victory. If you look at, like, her father, you know, was really trounced the first time you ran. There's something like crazy, like 80% to 20%, right?

And then last time in 2017, Le Pen got 33 to 66, so a third. And this time it was, I think, what was it like? 41% I think. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we have 41.59, which is, again, like, it's a sizable victory for background, but it's still, like, it's a shrinking victory. And so I think, like, Le Pen's calculus, and the cost. because the French right is, you know, as long as, like, they keep doing this, you know,

like one year you're going to get a recession or a scandal or her emails or whatever. Right. And then you're in, right? Like, you, it seems like, it's like Russian roulette, right? Like, you know, you just need to get lucky ones or unlucky ones. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's what I think we're all really worried about here. And it's true in America and it's true in France.

and it sounds like it may someday be true. It's true in Canada. It's absolutely true in Canada. Yeah, I mean, you'll get a Trumpist conservative party, which is a real change for them, actually. I mean, like, conservative-considerate party, they used to call themselves progressive conservatives. And Brian Mulroney, you know, who is the conservative prime minister,

he once said the American politician he most admired was Mario Como. Like, can you imagine that? But now, like, you know, they have to. people here who are like in the party who are going to win who like just watch fox news all the time and like you know talk about build a wall or whatever make Canada great again in a democracy it's just a matter of time before you can win right like because people like to alternate governments the liberal parties get demoralized you have scandals you have recessions it's it's Russian roulette we're all playing Russian and left and on that note thank you so much i hope you'll come back

soon. Dr. Larry Jacobs is the director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. Welcome to the new abnormal Dr. Larry Jacobs. Thank you very much. You sound great. Yeah. Well, that's all I have.

So, Larry, you have an idea that we should redo the partisan primaries that we have now and make all of our primaries open. Can you tell us about that? Well, you know, I was looking around when Donald Trump was elected, like I think all of us. And there's so much about Trump. selection that was shocking and appalling and terrifying. And the question that I started to ask is, how in the hell that the Republican Party, which has moved to the right, allow this guy who is so destructive, such a racist, sexist, and irresponsible? How could they have allowed him to get on

the ticket? And I went back to the nomination process. And what I realized is there really is no Republican Party. There's no there there in terms of like central communications. committee command. If you get support in the nomination process through picking up delegates by winning primaries, you're the candidate and no one can stop you. And we can see that right now. You're just looking at, for instance, some of the Secretary of State candidates who are blatantly opposed to free and fair elections. They buy the big lie and they are all set to put into practice what appears to be illegal and inappropriate rules. Now, how in the heck can the Republican Party be nominating people like that?

And the answer is there is no Republican Party in control. It's a very small number of far-right ideologs who can mobilize in low-turnout elections and get their candidate on the ballot. Then, once you get to the general election in November, we are so clustered up in our parties that all sorts of, Republicans who, if they paused and thought about it, wouldn't necessarily vote for these extreme candidates, but they sure as heck are not going to vote for the Democrat. And so you've got a process where the nominations are putting out renegates and radicals

and people who want to topple our democracy. And there's nothing the Republican Party can do about it. By the time it gets a general election, Republicans are just rallying around their candidate without thinking it over. Right. There was an article in the Atlantic with Jonathan that I read this weekend where he talked again about how these party primaries really reward the most radical. Yes. And I think there's certainly, you know, liberal or progressive candidates to come through the Democratic Party. But, you know, Bernie Sanders has been in government a long time. He's a guy who abides by the Constitution, who supports the rule of law. What's happening in the Republican Party right now is something entirely different. And we're powerless.

There's nothing can be done at the moment about it. And I think that's the radicalness of this moment. Can you talk a little bit about how the states where they don't have party primaries and what happens there? Yeah, almost all states now have party primaries. There are some states that have caucuses and other sorts of mechanisms to decide who the party is going to endorse. But usually the party faithful. will follow the endorsed candidate. There are more and more states, though,

that are just kind of giving up on that and saying it's inconvenient or it doesn't allow enough people to participate and they're moving to primary. So I think the primary process is with us. It is locked in and it is terrifying. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you would go about stopping having party primaries,

like how you could do that, how that would happen? You know, I think the first step in taking on party primaries and stopping this threat to our democracy and frankly our way of life is simply to recognize the problem. We have embraced the myth that primaries is the core of our democracy, that the primary results or the democratic results. And you hear this from Donald Trump.

You've also heard it from Bernie Sanders. And it's just not true. Right. The turnout for primaries, even when we have the kind of festival around presidential elections, it's still only a quarter to a third, in midterm elections, half that. And all the other elections, it's like a fraction of people. So there's a tiny number who are turning out and making these very important decisions about who's going to be put on the ballot in November for either party.

And then we ask, well, who are those people? And they tend to be the most pure sort of voters. In the Democratic Party, it would be folks who support, I don't know, single payer. They would support, you know, very aggressive action on climate change. In my view, those things are all within the realm of political debate. In the Republican Party, though, we're talking about people who accept the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen. some of them support the idea that we may need to turn to violence. And so there is this, you know, really, I think very dire threat from the nomination on the Republican side.

Right. It's just a super interesting kind of solution. I feel like we have these problems with democracy, right? We have these problems that our system is not able to hold up against this kind of pressure. But let's just talk about like the sort of nuts and bolts of it. What would you do? I'm a pragmatist. So I think, you know, we could spin up some really beautiful reforms.

And I think some of the people coming up with these reforms, it's like the equivalent of like figure skating in the Olympics. Oh, look at that. It's a triple axle. You know, it's and people get scored on how beautiful and profound the idea is. I go the other way and ask what will work. And I think one thing that would be very effective, is if we take on the idea that the superdelegates in the Democratic Party and what are known as unpledged delegates in the Republican Party were actually a helpful peer review.

And all the criticisms you can make of each party's leaders have some merit. But the one thing about them is those party leaders want to win elections. And if you want to win elections, generally, you move to. towards the independence. You move towards those who reflect often the majority opinion. And while that may be obnoxious to folks who are purists, for the rest of us, it's a check on these radicals, particularly in the Republican parties. I think we need to first take on the myth that primaries are Democratic. They are not. They are the source of inequality and the potential for demagogues. Secondly, we need to revisit the superdelegates, unpleged delegates, and make a serious

effort to increase their number so that there's a kind of pure review of the candidates before they get on the ballot and before, you know, we click into our party mode of it can't possibly vote for a Democrat. I've got to vote for a Republican no matter who it is. And that is a terrifying idea. Right. Can we just take this bigger for a second? Could there be no political parties? I mean, I guess you couldn't ever do that because of the House and the Senate, but you could do that for the presidency, theoretically. Sure, you could do it. I think practically, parties have become very important for mobilizing voters. If you go back to beginning shortly after the Constitution, a really interesting period. You've got George Washington that serves two terms. And then he says,

I'm not going to do this anymore. So there's an election between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in 1796. And very close election, Adams wins it, a controversial way. Thomas Jefferson is furious about this. And even though he had previously warned about political parties the source of faction, he now saw it as a necessary evil and weaponized political parties to mobilize voters. And ever since then, we've seen the use of political parties to mobilize voters, like in 2020, when we saw a record number of voters turning out. The fact that people were identified with one party, the fact that you had political parties organizing the get out the vote campaign or steering it, and that they organized the debate itself.

Here are the big issues. That's kind of locked in. And I don't know of a mass democracy where you don't have political parties. So I think this is with us. The question is, what are we going to do with our rules to discourage the nomination of really dangerous characters? Exactly. Thank you so much for joining us. This is great.

Okay. Swell. Molly Junkfest? Yes, Andy. We come now to part of the show that I like to call the segment. Tell me more. It's also known as Fuck. that guy.

Okay. If it's okay with you, I would like to go first only because I want to save yours for the end of the show because I think it's important. Okay. Okay. So my fuck that guy this week is, if I remember his name correctly, it's J.D. Vance and he is running for Senator. Well, we'll see.

I think it's J.D. Vance. I could be wrong. And if so, I'm sure someone will correct me. He has just, you know, he's gone full batchet in an interview. a couple days ago, he basically said that Joe Biden is trying to kill MAGA voters. And what he said was, quote, if you wanted to kill a bunch of MAGA voters in the middle of the heartland, how better to target them in their kids than with this fentanyl? It does look intentional. It's like Biden wants to punish people who didn't vote for him. There's nothing to even say about this other than

fuck you because you are just an absolute shithead for saying something like that that you know is not true and what a waste of a Yale education is all I can say about J.D. Vance. So fuck that guy. But also, I just want to make sure I got his name right. Jesse, is there a clip of former President Trump talking about him? Sure is. You know, we've endorsed Dr. Ross. We've endorsed JP, right? J.D. Mandel, and he's doing great. They're all doing good. So my fuck that guy is Glenn Greenwald, perhaps you've heard of him. He has a stub stack.

He lives in Brazil. He hates me. I said last night on MSNBC, when I went on MSNBC, that wealthy older men complaining about young people, the way that Bill Maher does and the way that Elon Musk does is a pretty old trope and that it comes back to the 1960s, even way before that. But, you know, the idea that young people have ideas,

that are too radical is a pretty old notion. And a conservative guy who clips video posted the clip. And I actually think I'm right. Like there's, you know what? There's a sort of interesting phenomenon that happens where this gotcha culture wants to dunk on you for being wrong. So they'll take a clip and they'll be like, look what this person did. And maybe that's true sometimes.

But on this one, I actually think I've got a really, really good point that Sally. and that people haven't brought up. And it's funny because on this podcast, we talked about early on about how when Republicans call Democrats groomers, that's like a QAnon trope. And we were also dunked on mercilessly on the internet for that.

And we were actually just right on it. We were just right. So I think it's hard sometimes in this media environment to wonder what is like me being wrong and needing to feel bad about it and what is me being right and people on the world.

right being angry about it. But on this one, I'm going to stick to my guns here to say, I'm right. And this is a really, you know, and also this is like, who cares? I mean, these people are all defending Elon Musk because they want him to give them money, which I guess maybe that'll work. But I'm going to say that, and then Glenn Greenwald has gone on to post numerous tweets about me and how I'm a rich person, and so I shouldn't be complaining about Elon Musk. You know, whatever. But he gets a hearty fuck you from me today,

and for that, I say fuck that guy. Yeah, couldn't agree more. And it's just, it really sucks what he's turned into. And, you know, I like, like, I had a lot of respect for him for the Snowden stuff, and he's definitely done other things in journalism that were good. And he was kind of like, he's always been an asshole, like everyone. He was an asshole, but he did some good things.

Now he's just an asshole. He's just a run-of-the-mill, boring, tedious, friend of the alt-right asshole. And it's just, it's an absolute shame what has happened to him. But it has happened to him. And, you know, that's who he is now. So, fuck him. 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, will 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-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a daily beast subscriber.

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