The Daily Beast Podcast - Republicans Are Trying to Steal Your Vote, and Dems Are Snoozing Through It

Episode Date: May 18, 2021

Republicans all over the country are pushing hard and pushing fast to make sure as few people vote as possible. In 11 states, they’ve already passed laws restricting voting rights, and more laws are coming. It’s not just a response to the Trumpist lie that the 2020 election was rigged. It’s basically an extension of the Capitol riots, argues Mother Jones’ Ari Berman—a way to “accomplish the aims of the insurrection through ‘legal, legislative’ means.” Plus! The Nation’s Jeet Heer talks UFOs. And New York City mayoral candidate Kathryn Garcia details her vision for “a more livable city.” If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Today we have a great episode for you. Ari Berman, the author of Give Us the Ballot, the Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, and a writer at Mother Jones is going to talk to us about the latest fuckery with dark money in voting. Then, former commissioner of the New York City Sanitation Department and CEO of the New York City Housing Authority, and present NYC mayoral Canada,

Catherine Garcia is going to be here to tell us about her platform. But first, we have returning guest, and nation columnist, Jeet here, who's here, and boy, does he know a lot about aliens. Welcome to the new abnormal, Jeet. Thank you for having me back. Yeah, welcome back.

I should say welcome back, but it's hard to keep track, even though you were here like two weeks ago. So aliens are real. Well, first of all, we don't call them aliens in my household. Okay. Two of my daughters, who are twins, age six, have reprimanded me for using the word aliens,

because they watch a science fiction show. It's very clear on the show that the creature that's supposed to be referred to by the name of their home planet, that if you call them aliens, you're othering them. And so my daughter's threatened to cancel me if I use the phrase aliens. Uh-oh. Oh. That's not good.

Okay, so let's say extraterrestrial life forms, ETs, life from other worlds, UFOs. Right. The conservatives are going to be so mad when we have to learn their purpose. That's right. Why do you think this is coming out now? Well, actually, it's a very interesting story. There's a long history of this, which a recent piece in The New Yorker went into, and it's kind of worth rehearsing a little bit because right after World War II, there was a lot of sightings of unidentified flying objects, the famous Roswell thing, but that was just one of many. At that time, the Pentagon ordered the investigation, and there was a concern.

that too many people are seeing these things and that this could actually harm America's national security. In the literal sense that if people are looking out for space aliens or ETs and they see too many ETs, we won't know if this Russian missile is incoming. Right. Makes sense as much as any of this makes sense. That's right. So the Pentagon, I mean, pretty, the New Yorker documents, as they very systematically made an effort to like clamp down on this sort of talk. They got friendly journalists, which, you know, I hate to disillusion people, but they're, you know, the military industrial complex does have journalists who are kind of assets. Yes.

Don't you think more back then than they do now, or you think the same? Probably about the same. Yeah, I think. Okay. Which actually will get to, because that 60 Minutes thing is kind of interesting. Very. But, I mean, they basically got Walter Cronkite to go out there and say, you know, this is nothing. And they published a series of reports headed by people who, you know, really.

explicitly had a mission to say that there's nothing to see here, move on. Famously, the Blue Book of 1969 came to that conclusion. It's not just the matter that they didn't want the public to know. They didn't want to know themselves, in a sense. Right. You continue to have, both in the United States but all over the world, especially pilots, seeing things and sometimes recording things that we can't explain. Like, 90% of the time, you know, they investigated and they find out it's a weather balloon or something.

but there's always a small set of cases that we don't know what it is. And so this continued around 2004, I believe, at the beginning part of this century, Harry Reid. Yes, I'm glad you brought this up. But having you said that, this is inside the Pentagon, and they collect information. And there's a few of these cases that they find, which are really hard to explain. These are like naval pilots who see and record, with the most complex recording instruments that we have,

objects that are flying in ways that are not natural, they're not like birds or anything, and are not the way that any flying objects that we know of do it. And so they kind of collected these reports. That program was shut down. Some of the people involved with that program, before it was shut down, they declassified some of these videos. and then later they made these videos available to the New York Times.

And there was a big story in the New York Times. And when the Times reported, the first report, like, was actually really, it was all mostly about Harry Reid. And it was Harry Reid. Yes, I remember that. Do you a boondago. Yeah. But it also included the videos.

And that's what really started this whole thing off, because the videos, you know, the fact that the Air Force has these videos that really, you know, there are people who try to debunk them and, you know, say that they're like the glare of lights and stuff like that. And it's just, but they're not acting like anything that we can explain. And they also were seen by radars. So these are actually like physical things, right? They're not optical illusions.

Having said that, I also think 60 Minutes did a big report on Sunday night that some of our listeners might have seen. And having seen that report, like, it's pretty clear that there are people in American politics and in the military who kind of see this UFO thing as, you know, it's a good way. to get a bigger Pentagon budget, right? Right. Even in the spring this was, well, could this be the Chinese? Could this be the Russians?

Could this be ETs? And then you had various people, the constant drumbeat, this is a security threat. And they ended with Marco Rubio saying, you know, well, if it's like anything in American airspace is by definition of threat. Right. You'd just think that this is just a push to get them to fund the Space Force. Yeah, that's right. to fund the Space Force and to fund other things.

And I have to say, okay, I think that the American elite, and this is a bipartisan thing, you see this in the Biden administration as well. Like there's a real hunger for some sort of adversary that can unite America. Because, you know, as we know, America is kind of fracturing. And there's all these internal divisions. And, you know, you have half the population that won't accept the last election results. And so, you know, like my always worry was, well, you know, they're going to stir up a new Cold War with China.

of which there are legitimate issues with China, right? But there's going to be a push to, like, make this the focal point of popular anger in a way that, like, unites the United States. So if that's the case, then, you know, like, I would say probably the UFOs are a better way to, like, kind of to unite everybody. They're like, well, you know, there's like these space aliens. Some of your, our listeners might have read the graphic novel, Watchman, the movie. And then that is the kind of spoiler alert. the plot point, which is this kind of creation of a fake extraterrestrial menace as a way of creating unity, in that case, around the world to get, like, prevent a nuclear war by getting everybody

in the world. And Ronald Reagan used to talk about that. He would like talk to Gorbachev and said, you know, gee, Gorby, if the Martians ever invaded, you know, you and I would be friends and we would work together. So you guys like Marco Rubio doing the same thing. You know, Joe Biden and I could work together. I like this theory a lot better than mine, which was this was just to sell more Blinkini 2 records. So I really am into this. I mean, I'm like into the idea that they are advertising,

the U.S. government is somehow advertising aliens as a way to get people interested in the Space Force. Yeah, I think that could be it. I mean, one of the theories out there is that they could be like advanced. technology that one part of the government has that isn't like universally known. But that's still kind of improbable to be just based on like what people, what the pilots themselves have described these things is doing, which like really does suggest technology that is, you know, these things can travel very fast without visible means of propulsion. So something's going on here.

Something's going on. Yeah, yeah. You know, okay, so the theories are, yeah, it's like a secret government program that we don't know about. It could be a foreign power, China or Russia. These are very advanced countries in terms of science and technology. They have, in the past, like with Sputnik, you know, leaped ahead of the United States. But still, like, it's almost like too much. It's too much of a leap. Like, yeah, so, so, so, but there is something there. But I mean, even if there's something there, I mean, it's like going back to the China issue, right? Like, yeah, they're human, there are genuine

human rights of business in China. They're genuine concern about Chinese power. And then it gets mobilized or used to justify a new Cold War by people who have other interests. So it could be, you know, there is this unexplainable thing. And then it's being mobilized. Right. And used. Right. Speaking of crazy fucked up shit, what the hell is happening with the Republican Party?

And more formally, they voted out everyone's favorite liberal hero, Liz Cheney, our favorite. And now, you know, when the Cheneas aren't fascist enough for your party, you're in a lot of trouble. Well, no, exactly. There has always been a kind of like school of like old media pundits and Washington types who are very establishment, who have a sense of like the Republican Party as an institutional party and who always thought that Trump is a passing fad. They thought this even after he got. the nomination and they thought this even after he won the presidency. They always thought like,

well, you know, like it's just a series of bishaps that this buffoon has to become the president and the standard bear of the party. Right. They're going to get to, they're going to come to their senses eventually. Yeah, people will come to their senses. Yeah. As a writer, I get a lot of things wrong. But I think one thing I will say for myself, which is that starting in 2015, 2016, I have always said Trump was going to get the nomination because he's popular among the Republican voters because he says what they want to hear and he's in touch with them in a way that no other politician is and that the party is going to become Trumpified and that this will last longer than his presidency. And I think I wrote an article for the New Republic before he was

president saying forever Trump. Like it's not never Trump, it's forever Trump. Right, right, right. He managed to take the over. old Nixon-Ragan formula, but like updated and make the crucial discovery that in 21st century America, you can be shameless. And you don't have to do dog whistles. You can just say it right here, say, you know, Mexican rapists and people will go wild, and the Republican voters will reward you. And so that fundamental popularity of Trump, I mean, you know, let's sort of categorize it. Like there's 40% of the GOP loves them and will die for this man. There's another 40, 30% that like, you know, they know there's some flaws, but they basically like him.

And, you know, there's another 20% that have like a little bit graver doubts, but we'll probably vote for the GOP anyways. And given that reality, like Trump dominates the party, dominated it, and got the party to constantly surrender to him, like, not only by getting the nomination, but like, we always saw this again and again, where like he would say something outrageous, something that one would think goes against Republican norms, you know, like praise Vladimir Putin, attack the FBI. You know, these are like issues where the GOP, one would think, would have, by their own politics, some standards. And it'd be like one or two days of people saying like, well, I don't like that,

but they always come around. And they come around because fundamentally he is popular with the GOP base, really popular with 40% of them. And they can't win without those people. So the party is continuing the trumpification. You know, for his own personal reasons, he can't admit that he lost, right? Like he doesn't have the psychology to admit, you know, there was a presidential election, it was hard fought. I did better than people expected, but I lost. He can't admit that.

So he psychologically wedded to the lie. But because he's so popular, the GOP base, you know, hears him. There's enough people to accept him. And then GOP lawmakers have to accept that. Which creates this really horrible situation, which is that, you know, you have one of the major parties that, like, not only worships this buffoon and this criminal, but is like also goes along with lies that are fundamentally destabilizing of democracy. Yeah, but I do think that the larger lie here is that this isn't who the Republican Party is. Oh, yeah, no, no, no, this is who they, this is who they is, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, that is the basis of Trump's appeal. Like, it's not like, you know, if I looked at it just in terms of policy terms, he's a kind of subpar GOP president, like George H.W. Bush, right? Like he kind of gave him, you know, some court staff, some judges, some tax cuts. Although, you know, Bush didn't, but Trump did. But I mean, but, but the more fundamental thing is, like, in terms of cultural politics in terms of, you know, playing to grievances.

grievance policy, you know, nastiness to liberals. You know, he really understands the psychology of the geo. I mean, it's because it's not even a cynical thing with Trump. He is a Fox News watcher. He is like your average septuagenarian who watches Fox News, or if he doesn't watch Fox News is now starting to move on to newsbacks. Right. And watches Fox News and plays golf and complains about. Yeah, exactly.

And it doesn't like, you know, these kids with their pronouns and, you know, like he is, like everyone's rotten grandfather. Yeah, do we, not my grandfather, let me tell you. But here's a question for you. So there's a lot of anxiety on the internet and with our listeners about the midterms and how Republicans are sort of like, we're going to take it back. We just had a guest on who was talking about how, you know, the sheer math of it is bad. And, you know, usually if a party control is all three.

branches, they get fucked in the midterm. Give us some good news here. No. Come on, man. Mala, you're asking way too much of a guess. This is very rude. Just, yeah, just make us feel better. I think we have to not be Republicans and we have to kind of start trying to see the

world as it is. I do think that there's a few silver linings. One of which is that the Democrats for the last three elections have done like really improved with college-educated voters. Yes, that is true. I read that this weekend. 2016, 2018, 2020. And that looks like it's really solidified as a part of the Democratic Party,

these new suburban voters, college-educated voters. And they are people who are more likely to vote in midterms. I mean, they're kind of the weakness of the Obama coalition that was very top-heavy with young people and was more working class, which made it a little bit larger than the Biden coalition, but they included a lot of people that normally would come out whenever Obama's on the ticket, but would not necessarily come out in midterm. So I feel like that's something the Democrats can kind of build on. The sort of insanity or, you know, unhinged nature of the GOP will help the Democrats in the sense that they can go to a lot of these voters and they can go to their broader base and just say like, you know, like this is a party that, you know, will want to impeach Biden on day one.

like, do you want that? And so they can really make a pitch. I think we're still in the early days of like the pandemic, the beginning of the end of the pandemic. But I mean like if the pandemic is, you know, truly under control and if there is a kind of economic boom, which, you know, like, you know, Biden and the Democrats have put a lot of money into the economy to juice the economy. I think that if there is that kind of resurgence, that will help a lot. I think that, you know, we're actually seeing signs of that with something. that's used against Biden, which is a lot of 12 business owners are saying they're having trouble finding people. But I mean, that kind of, I think that's why she's still because the pandemic's still here. And who wants to go, you know, work in a kitchen. You know, we had an economist on last week who said with the inflations, you know, with you got Larry Summers complaining about inflation all the time to anyone who will listen. And you have this like, people won't work bullshit. And the truth is like inflation was coming because we had shut down the economy. I mean, when you reopen the economy, there's inflation.

And then with the thing about people won't work, I feel like, you know, there's still no childcare. There's still no setup. Life is, you know, public schools aren't back on, largely, or they are in an abbreviated way. Like, these Republicans have a narrative. Yeah. And they'll put it on anything. That's right. That's right.

That is the kind of narrative that people won't work. But I want to, yeah, and I think it's largely just because the pandemic is still on. I think we have to be, you know, like, it's only. very, over the last few days that a majority of adults have had their first shot, which means, but I mean, even as only still a fraction of adults have

both shots. So the pandemic is still very much there and so people are reluctant to work. That's for a very good reason, especially since, you know, like there's a very strong class dimension to the pandemic where the working class got hammered the hardest. But I also think that there are signs that it's going to be a

tight labor market and that if people are a little bit more pickier, are going to be able to negotiate higher wages. I think we're already seeing that. Some employers, because they're having trouble finding people, are starting to offer more wages. So if you have a tight labor market and rising real wages and an economy that has recovered, you know, then whatever Larry Summers might say about inflation,

like, that's a pretty good place to be. And I think that that will help the Democrats. So I think normally one would expect the Democrats to be in a tough spot, and it's going to be hard. It's going to be a fight. But I don't think it's all bleak. I think that there's genuinely good news, and I think they can play on their strength with college-educated voters who do vote in return. I think it's highly likely they'll be able to play on a very strong economy.

I think there's a way of avoiding 2010. And I also want to – the third piece of good news is I think the Senate looks a little bit better than the House. Like I think that they can either hold the Senate or increase their in the Senate. If that's the case, I think one could maybe limit the damage to losing the House but keeping the Senate. So there'll be some good luck, but Biden will be in the White House. And then we'll see 2024 where I think the Democrats, you know, if the GOP continues to Trumpify, continues to be, you know, that party, I think that the Democrats will be in a very good position in 2024. I think there's a real possibility. I mean, that Trump will run again.

I think, you know, obviously age is a factor. but that guy has grievances. That guy has issues. Really? He'll want to prove a point. I think we can put his picture of the dictionary next to grievance at this point. Do you think if he runs again that it's very good for Democrats? It's a mixed thing.

I do think I think that he brings out people to the Republicans that would not otherwise vote and that makes it a little bit harder. But on the other hand, I do think that, like, Like, I think Biden or whoever the Democratic nominee will be in a good position to run against Trump. Trump mobilizes people. More people voted as in 2020 than, you know, like ever before, not only in absolute terms, but in percentage terms. This was amazing. We really appreciate you.

And it's good news to know that the Democrats are going to win the midterms. We can quote you on that. Thank you. You heard it here first, team. Hey folks, if you haven't heard every single week we do a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast membership program. Sometimes we interview senators like Corey Booker or the folks who explain what's happening behind the scenes in media like Jim Acosta or Soladad O'Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner. And sometimes we just have friends around to analyze what's happening in the news.

You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice. by becoming a beast inside member where you'll support the beast's fearless journalism, as well as getting full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member, head to New Abnormal.com. That's New Abnormal.com. Ari Berman is the author of Give Us the Ballot, The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, and a writer at Mother Jones.

Ari, can you just explain, Republicans have just decided they can't win, so they're going to cheat? Basically, yeah. I mean, the way I think about it is they've just totally given up on trying to win over a majority of Americans. And so basically they're just constantly scheming for ways that they can entrench power through anti-democratic means. And of course, one of the easiest ways to do that is to try to decide who does and doesn't get

the right to vote. And that seems to be one of, if not, their main overriding project in the wake of the election. How are they doing that? Well, the main way they're doing it is they're changing the country. voting laws in all of the states in which they control. So in very short order, in Georgia, in Florida, in Iowa, in Texas, they either have passed or are close to passing pretty sweeping rewrites of their election laws that target the methods in particular that Democrats used very successfully in the last election. Honestly, a lot of Trump supporters and Republicans use these methods to,

but they're viewed as being something that helped Democrats more. But I think they looked at the last election and we had the highest turnout in 120 years, highest turnout since 1900. And that's something that a lot of people would celebrate. And they said, that's a bad thing. We don't want that to happen again. And so they're doing everything they can to make sure it doesn't happen again in 2022 or 2024. One of the strange things, though, is they say this Florida voting law may actually hurt Republicans.

Do we think this is about rewriting the history? for Trump or more that they really think this is a winning strategy? I think they believe this is a winning strategy. I mean, do you really think they'd be putting in so much effort to pass these bills if it was only to mollify Trump? I mean, I do hate to say it as much as I don't want to believe that. Do I think that they will do anything to please him? I think Liz Cheney last week really made me think that that could be a thing.

Yeah, for sure. But I'm saying if you look at the Georgia legislature, they spent an incredible amount of time introducing these voting bills, holding hearings on the voting bills. This was their top priority for the entire legislative session. And so I don't think you'd do this purely to Molify Trump. I think it's a twofer for them. I mean, this is my thing. It's both molifies Trump and they believe it's going to help them in future elections. So like they get to check the quote unquote election integrity box, right? And you know, Brian Kemp rushing to sign the bill and then arrest the black female legislator that knocks on his door while he's doing it. I mean, yeah,

that's box checking for Trump. Ron DeSantis signing the Florida bill as a Fox and Friends exclusive. And that's clearly meant for an audience of one. But at the same time, I mean, they think that Democrats used mail voting in higher numbers. Democrats use drop boxes in higher numbers. Democrats registered young voters and voters of color in higher numbers. So if we if we target those things, that's going to give us a level of advantage in future elections. Who knows how much an advantage it will get them. But I think in Georgia, they're saying, we only lost by 11,000 votes. In Arizona, they're saying, we only lost by 10,000 votes. Can we change that number of votes by changing voting laws here and there? And I think absolutely you can. So talk to us about

this leaked video and this piece, because I think this is infuriating. We got a hold of leaked video from a Heritage Foundation event in April 22nd in Tucson, Arizona for their big donors. And it was both the Heritage Foundation, which of course is sort of the premier conservative GOP think tank. And then also their sister group Heritage Action for America, which is like their more political arm. Hard to imagine there's a more political heritage, but continue. I guess Heritage was sort of thought of as a little stodgy. Right, that's true. And so Heritage Action for America were the people that basically linked up with the Tea Party back in 2010.

And they kind of got all those people rolling. So it wasn't, it was just, it was the kind of. It's their turning point USA. Yeah, exactly. And so they basically say in this video, the executive director of Heritage Action for America, says, you know, we're writing model legislation, restricting voting rights for all of these states. and she basically says we're either writing the bills for them or we have what they call a seteno, which is their handmaid in term for their, I guess, supposedly grassroots lobbyists,

that they say we give them the bills. So it has what they call it a grassroots from the bottom up five. Jesus. But this was pretty revealing to me because I've thought all along that someone has to be coordinating this effort because such similar bills are passing in Georgia and Florida and Arizona and other states that, I mean, either states are just doing a really good job of copying other states or it's clear that someone's promoting and pushing this effort. And I think Heritage isn't the only group doing it, but what they said was very revealing about the extent to which they're doing it. And to the extent they basically just admitted it's a vast right-wing conspiracy. I mean, they're literally on tape bragging about doing all this stuff. I don't need to, you don't need to

listen to me, like just listen to what they're saying. And that's kind of the whole article. The other day, there was a pundit who was saying, like, politics has gotten so boring. And I'm like, come on, man. Like, one party is trying to make it so Democrats can never win elections ever again. Yeah, I think for a lot of people, they just checked out after eventually Joe Biden was declared the winner. And they're like, okay, we don't have to worry about this anymore. But for those of us that actually follow, it's gotten even more disturbing since the election. I mean, we went from an attempt, by the way, to undermine free and fair elections before the election, right?

The hobbling of the post office, all of those other things. Then we went, then we had an attempt to overturn an election, which I don't think we've ever seen in our country history, our country's history in the same way. Then we had an insurrection at the Capitol. And then after all that, the first thing they did in all of these state houses was change the rules to basically accomplish the aims of the insurrection through quote unquote legal legislative means. And so to me, it's just a doubling down, a doubling. I mean, I think what are we at, at this point, we're at a quadrupling, or a six-toupling down, I think at this point. But I think some of us were hoping, okay, you know, we'll see the light, people will celebrate high turnout. We'll try to institutionalize the things that worked really well in the last election.

The fact that people had mail voting, early voting, and in-person voting on election day, the fact that we had so many options to vote, I think is one reason why we had such high turnout. And, but the exact opposite thing is what the Republicans are trying to do. They're trying to take away those options that, by the way, a lot of Republicans used quite successfully as well. Can we do anything or are we completely screwed here? The big test is, will Democrats pass any federal legislation protecting voting rights? I mean, to me, that's the only. That's HB1 and 4. Yeah, H.R. 1 or H.R. 1 seems pretty dead, thanks to Joe Manchin, saying you won't support it. So, I mean, we have even got into 50 votes in the Senate, let alone trying to get rid of the filibuster. But he seems more open to HR4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would basically restore, expand, and modernize

the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court struck down in 2013, the key provisions of the Voting Rights Act. And Manchin actually says he wants to expand it and have the requirement that you have to approve all of your voting changes apply to all 50 states. Now, I don't think he's necessarily thought this through. But nonetheless, that bill still has a chance. Do I think it's going to get, 60 votes and 10 Republican votes, like, no, I don't. But Lisa O'Cowalski has co-sponsored it, so there's at least bipartisan support for it. And I think that that bill might resonate a little bit more because it's both the Voting Rights Act and John Lewis. So, for example, if Mitch McConnell was going to stand on the Senate floor and filibuster a bill, I think the optics would be a

lot worse for him filibustering the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which at least people know about John Lewis, than the For the People Act, which is popular, but most people don't even know what it is. Right. Like Texas, That hasn't passed yet, right? It hasn't passed yet, but it's going to pass any day now. I mean, bills have already passed both houses of the legislature. Just the question is, how bad is the final bill going to be? But, I mean, 11 states, as of this recording, have already passed new laws restricting voting rights.

And I think when you look at the next election in Florida or Georgia, there's going to be some major differences. I mean, people are still going to have a lot of options to vote. I don't want people to come away thinking about this and thinking, I don't have a lot of of options. They're just going to have fewer options. There's going to be fewer drop boxes. It's going to be harder to get absentee ballots. It might be more likely your ballot is thrown out. Things that were done to boost convenience, for example, things like mobile early voting buses that just made it really easy to vote in places like Georgia. Those things are no longer there. The fact that election officials could accept private funding so they could open more polling

places and have more drop boxes and have PPE and recruit more poll workers, they can't do that anymore. So they're going to be more stress. You can see longer lines of the polls, things like that. I mean, it's not a wholesale change, but it's enough of a change to potentially swing a close election or just create a process that people have less faith in. It sounds like

Brian Kemp is doing everything he can to not lose. Oh, yeah. I mean, this is as much about 2022 as it is about 2024. Right. With Stacey Abrams running for governor again. And I will say, Molly, it's very possible. this has a backlash effect in Georgia in particular, where you have a Stacey Abrams-like figure that can rally the troops and say the fact that they don't want us to vote makes it more important

than ever that we do. So I think, and I think also in Georgia, they were able to stop some of the worst policies from passing. The legislature wanted to get rid of no excuse absentee voting. They couldn't. They wanted to get rid of automatic registration. They couldn't. They wanted to eliminate weekend voting. They couldn't. So in Georgia, they were able to get some real victories. The thing I really worry about is you look at Texas, for example. And Florida. Yeah, Florida. But Texas is already one of the hardest states to vote in the country. It already ranked 44th in voter turnout. And now it's like they're going to make it even harder to vote in a state that has no online registration where you basically can't vote by mail if you're under 65. I mean, the laws are so crazy there that that's the thing I worry about. They need to keep Louis Gomer in his seat. And there's only so many ways you can do that, right? Yeah. I mean, there's the only way that,

you have a state, which is a majority-minority state, but every significant person in control is a white Republican. There's obviously a disconnect between what the electorate could be and what the electorate is. And I think part of the reason that is is because it's not an easy state to vote. It's not an easy state to register voters. It's a state that's heavily gerrymandered. So there's not a lot of competition.

I mean, that doesn't explain everything in Texas, but I think it explains why the state not only remains redder than it should be, but also just so much whiter and more male and more Republican than it should be. Do you think there's a chance for Democrats to pass this other bill? And also, aren't you worried that the Supreme Court's just going to undermine it like they did with Citizens United? Sure. I mean, of course. Everyone's worried about it. I mean, I will say if you read the 2013 decision gutting the Voting Rights Act, Shelby County v. Holder, John Roberts says very explicitly that Congress has the power to write a more modern voting rights act.

So, I mean, it would be pretty hypercritical for him to strike it down because Congress didn't update it. And then for Congress to update it and then for them to strike it down again, I absolutely could see that happening. I'm not saying, I mean, I think it's a very cynical court. And by the way, Roberts isn't even in the swing vote anymore. So, I mean, you have to convince Justice Kavanaugh, Justice Barrett, to go along with this. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't try. And I think they probably are on even stronger ground with this than maybe even the For the People Act. because, again, the Supreme Court said explicitly there was an opening for them to do it. So it's possible the Supreme Court would do it again. But I also think that there's a precedent they can point to to say, we're doing exactly what you told us to do when you struck down this part of the law.

Right. I feel like Democrats, they're not anxious about doing it. I don't think there's enough of a sense of urgency right now. I mean, I don't think that Democrats are aggressive in trying to protect voting rights in the same way that Republicans are so aggressive in trying to undermine voting rights. Why is that? Well, I mean, just look at Joe Manchin right now. I mean, he's saying any voting law has to be bipartisan at the very moment that Republicans are trying to make it so that Democrats can never win a fair election again. I mean, there's such a disconnect between what Mansion or even Cinema is saying we should be doing in the Senate and what Republicans are doing at the state level. And I think that why would most Republicans come to the table and support voting measures that are completely at odds with what their party is doing at the state level? I mean, it doesn't make any sense why most Republicans would sign on to it. Now, a few might. I mean, Lisa Murkowski, someone that's won, for example, with significant minority support. There, they might be totally open to a John Lewis Voting Rights Act. But you know sure as how Mitch McConnell is. And I mean, his entire project has been to try to entrenched Republican control through anti-democratic means. I mean, that has been his overriding project of his 30 to 40-year career. And so I think that Democrats basically, need to use the power they have in a way that Republicans are using the power they have where they have it, and not really worry so much about what the perception might be about it.

And I worry that if they miss this window, it's going to be incredibly hard for them to do it again, because I think there's a very good chance that Republicans take back the house just by virtue of the fact that they control the drawing of districts in states like Texas and Florida. I mean, that could be in Georgia, that could be enough right there to take back the house. And so then it's like, I thought it was really, ultimately we don't, Democrats would only lose one seed. Well, that, okay, there's two different issues. There's the issue of congressional apportionment, right? Which states gain seats and which states lawsuit. But then there's just a fact of gerrymandering itself, like, which hasn't happened yet.

And basically, Republicans are going to draw the districts in Texas, Florida, and Georgia to fuck over as many Democrats as possible. And so it's not just about, it's not just about the seats they're gaining, which also, by the way, could be enough, but it's also that they're going to try to eliminate districts. They're going to try to get rid of democratic-leaning districts in suburban areas, for example, that they thought would be Republican areas, but are now democratic areas in suburban Atlanta or suburban Houston,

things like that. That 10 years ago might have been GOP districts, but because of demographic change and other political shifts, they're now democratic-leaning districts. And so, I mean, if you listen to Dave Wasserman and other people that follow this more closely than I do, they believe that through redistricting alone, they could take back the House. Not to mention that, who knows with the Senate, but Democrats are at a disadvantage in the Senate

every single election just because of how rural and how white the Senate is in terms of every state getting two senators versus the map in other places. And so it's very easy to imagine Democrats not controlling one or both houses of Congress in 2022 and having no ability to respond and pass federal legislation. So it's almost like if they don't do it now, when are they going to have the chance to do it again? Bryant. Oh, so bad. Thank you so much. This is great. Thanks, Ari. Thanks so much for having me. What's crazier than QAnon, more outlandish than Pizza Gate, and scarier than a Mexican getaway with Ted Cruz? The answer is, what the American right wing has planned next. Be one of the first to listen to Fever Dreams, new podcasts from The Daily Beast, tracking the conspiracy slingers, orange acolytes, and straight-up grifters pushing to retake power.

Every Wednesday hosts Swin Subisang and Will Summer Checking in on the movement of the radical right Head to the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts or your favorite podcast player to catch the first episode and get subscribed. That's Fever Dreams, which you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Catherine Garcia is the former commissioner

of the New York City Sanitation Department and former CEO of the New York City Housing Authority, but she's presently a New York City mayoral candidate. For this interview, we're joined by Harry Segal, who's an editor at The Daily Beast and host of the podcast, FAQ, NYC. Hi, Catherine. Thanks so much for joining us. You worked for de Blasio for years and cleaned up, sometimes literally, as his sanitation commissioner, a lot of his messes before weaving his administration.

Was de Blasio's problem in your view that he couldn't manage, that he lacked vision for both? And speaking of vision, what's your vision for running New York City? I know a big part of your pitch is running things more efficiently. And how does it differ from what New Yorkers have experienced over the last eight years and with the blase? That is such a great question. What I am running on and what I think is really important moving forward is that we have a more livable city, that we have a city where you can really raise your family, that we have a greener city, because that means we get to do everything else.

That means we get to have an economy that's really growing, that we have people coming back, people visiting, people wanting to stay. And that makes it so that we're such a dynamic place to live. And obviously, I think the best city in the world. And it does mean that you've got to get core city services right, that people feel good about the education their kids are getting, that people feel good about the state of cleanliness, that people feel good, that they feel safe in their community. And the real difference in management style has to do with having a vision, but also building a team that you really trust to deliver on that vision. And I've consistently done that in each of the roles that I was given, not only as sanitation commissioner, but as the interim chair of NYCHA and being responsible for reducing childhood lead exposure, as well as during COVID delivering literally. a million meals a day and distributing another 500,000 because failure was not an option. You know, we at the campaign are super excited about both the New York Times and the Daily News

endorsements because they identified exactly what we identified. What's important to New Yorkers right now is being able to get the work done. When I think about this mayor's race, I think of like having any kind of association with de Blasio as a negative. Can you tell us the many ways in which you are different and that you are not, that this will not be anything like that. And explain to us, I don't even, you know, what is interesting to me about de Blasio is it's like a car wreck. Like, I don't know how it went so wrong, but it went so wrong. The real reason why we have gotten such traction on this campaign is New Yorkers know my work. They get up every day and they judge whether or not their streets are clean over the last

seven years, whether or not their snow got plowed, whether or not the meal showed up. That was very tangible, whether what I put together was working and keeping an open line, particularly during COVID, everyone from the labor unions that worked for me to the nonprofit organizations that were in touch with seniors, to elected officials, to grocery store owners who were completely confused by the different guidance that was coming down during COVID, and an appreciation for all of the frontline workers who make it happen every day, which is why we got endorsed early on by all of the unions that had worked at sanitation. It's not normal. You know, labor management can be a fraught place. But if you have the shared goals and want to work together, you can work together.

Are you going to be able to negotiate with the police union? At the end of the day, people join the police department because they want to serve. That is what drives them to do this. They want the public to think that they are valuable. And they are. We need to feel safe in our city. But that still means we need reform. And you know what the most immoralizing thing is for a police officer is a bad police officer that gets away with it. Why should I bother do the right thing when that doesn't actually benefit, like benefit me? That's why literally digging in on the management and measuring what you're looking for, community engagement, respect for community, not just eliminating the heinous acts of violence, but the day-to-day respect.

we need for everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, has to be something you are focused on and promoting people off. The fastest way to get culture change is I do well when we all do well, when we are seeing safe communities that have respect. I know you have a plan for this that includes among other things that are raising the recruitment age to 25, trying to get Albany to require officers to live in the city, which I'm not sure Albany's going to do. But I wanted to ask you specifically about the George Floyd protests this summer with a mayor who you work for and was elected on police reform, where Attorney General James and others say the police were frequently running riot and roughing people up, responding aggressively to peaceful protests. And just like a sense

of how that would work in a Garcia administration and what would happen to officers or a department, that they continue to behave that aggressively. I was out during the protests almost every night, and I saw things that were egregious, and first and foremost, cattling doesn't work where they surround a peaceful protest. If you want to get an escalation of tension, surround people. That raises the temperature pretty quickly.

That's a strategy we shouldn't be using. It makes no sense. I honestly was like, it's hot. People are getting in time. they'll just go home. Well, that was the thing that struck me with the, with the, um, curfews. We had curfews and we had terrible clashes with the police. We lifted curfews and the clashes went away.

Right, because it didn't work. Some of those strategies that got put in place were just incredibly ineffective. And looking at how we approach peaceful protests, like what were we thinking? Being super aggressive with a people with a group of people. who are rightfully pointing out that we just all watch someone get murdered on video. And we need to respond to that and demand justice. That is something where I was not clearly in the room when these strategies were developed, but very problematic and not what we should be doing.

And I don't actually understand why the current mayor went in that direction. because, like, there is video, and it's not video any more, videotape, like, there was actual video. Yeah, that's like there occasionally, I reference, like, Memorex, and I realize that my young staff has no idea what I'm talking. Clearly, it seems like there's an issue with police, which is that bad police are allowed to remain on the force. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, how do you even, and I mean, we've interviewed a ton of different legislators who have said, like, the fundamental, problem is you can't get bad police off the force. How do you get bad police off the force?

And this is where you're going to have to, in some cases, just walk the walk of tough discipline and tough discipline up and down. Like, why were you not wearing your masks over the summer? This is what I have done. I had a uniform force. If you were late, you got Dr. Day's pay. If you took a bribe, you got fired. It wasn't a lot of, I mean, we of course had trials and due process, but you knew that there would be discipline. And I don't think we should step away from the fact that that needs to happen in the police department as well. At last week's debate, you talked about giving restaurants notice for inspections. I turned to two of my friends who own bars and restaurants, and they said this would immediately result in conditions they even would be concerned with. You also said no one

gets sick eating out. Doesn't the system we have now create the environment in New York where no one gets sick and that's because we don't give them notice? Look, inspections are an important necessity, but we need to fix the process so that businesses and workers don't lose an entire day's pay, and it's not just the Department of Health. It's, you know, it's DOB who comes in.

It's FD and Y. You know, it's DEP. And we've been doing scheduling through COVID in many cases, consolidating and allow for what we've done during COVID. They, restaurants do a good job in the city of New York. And they need to be held to high the highest safety inspections and standards. But we need to make the process better for workers and restaurants at the same time. You've said that you're open to opening up the top public schools to the top 10% of students from like every middle school, which is a model some other cities had.

But you also said at the debate that you'd keep the test, the SHSAT, the right now is the only thing that determines admissions to New York City's elite schools, including Stivisard, which you and I both, attended, if you graduated from, I did not. How do you square those two things? I want to stop talking about a scarcity model for our high schools. So this is about opening new high schools and using the top 10% of any middle school's GPA. So you're not judging, oh, you come from this good middle school or that good middle school or standardized tests. And go big and go bold on that front and leave the test in place for the current schools. we're not talking about the 90% of schools that we need to change and make it so that people are really excited about sending their kids there.

And then you were one of several candidates of the debate who in the lightning round was asked, would you require vaccines for kids going back to school? And then yourself and the other four candidates who said yes, were asked, would you require vaccines for teachers and for staff? And all the hands went down. So I know kids can't vote, but can you help explain that distinction? It is completely normal for us to require vaccination for children. We do across a wide spectrum of illnesses, you know, lots of childhood illnesses,

including, you know, measles and mumps and all of those other things that we've all been vaccinated for. Okay. And just one more question for you, just reading the daily news this morning. There's a story, sick initiation about these young men and boy, a 19-year-old, 18-year-old, and a 16-year-old who just went out and were stabbing a whole bunch of middle-aged men mostly on the trains in the middle of the day last week. Something that jumped out at me here, the Manhattan DA says that this was a gang initiation thing. One of the victims lost one of their eyes.

And the 16-year-old, they're not really robbing anything. like you're getting a backpack out of all this, admitted that he'd fled from a group home in Brooklyn before hooking up with this gang. This seems like it touches all these different nightmares around crime, around the trains, and around ACS and children's services and foster care. And I just wanted to get your sense of what this might tell us and how these things would work in your administration and given your own familial experience with foster care and adaptation and so on, adoption and so on. This is a very personal issue for me because I was adopted as were two of my siblings who are black and one of them was in foster care for seven years and headed to a group home before she was adopted by my parents. And we do an absolute terrible job being responsible for these kids. First and foremost, we need families to stay together and we can't equate poverty with neglect. The second is we have to. to do race-blind removals, which means what we know from the data is that if someone is making a decision based off the facts, fewer black and brown kids get taken away from their families.

The third is to continue for those kids who are permanently separated to find them forever families. You need a mom and a dad past turning 21 because we know that folks who age out of the foster care system are 50% more likely. to get involved with the criminal justice system or to get pregnant very early. Not taking care of these kids and feeling that we all are their parents until we find them new parents

has to be our focus because if you don't deal with these underlying issues, you end up with terrible outcomes. But it is both the long-term and a short-term solution about having police officers and violence disruptors in these communities to understand what's driving the violence and to be able to stop it and protect people in every neighborhood and on the subway. Andrew Yang said he wants to hire you for his administration.

What would you hire him for your administration? You know, I am not at this point going to jinx myself with hiring the administration before I wouldn't race. Thank you. Hi, Jesse Cannon. Hi, Molly, John Fass. So tell me in this lovely Monday, who is your fuck-that-guy? So my fuck-that-guy is the state of Mississippi. I didn't know we fucked states, but I'm here for it.

I'm here for it. Mississippi has long been a source of fuckery in my life, and I'll tell you why. One is that it's a state that has some of the worst southern white Republicans representing it, despite the fact that the population is way more African-American, but that they've been disenfranchised. So you have these terrible, terrible, really terrible white Republican electeds. And one of the things that I truly hate about this state is that there recently was a big push to legalize marijuana.

They voted. It won. And then the legislature and the judiciary overturned it. Truly, whenever they overturn these ballot initiatives and basically say no to democracy, it really is one of the most disheartening things about our system right now. It really makes me furious. So you can almost say that Mississippi is not a democracy. And besides this, now Mississippi has a 15-week abortion ban, which is going to get kicked up to, as I like to think of it, the Handmaids Court or the Supreme Court. where Amy Comey Barrett, Miss Life Begins at Sperm, is going to say that you can't ever get an abortion, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.

So fuck you, Mississippi, you fucking suck. As you know, we had Latasha Brown on from Black Votes Matter, and she talked about how they're going to work hard to register voters so that they can have a real representation in their state, real representation. Let's hope so. So my fuck that guy is two of reoccurring characters, Rush Aron Johnson and of course the Queen of the Magamombs, Marjorie Taylor Green. Marjorie and Rush Aron are spreading disinformation about the vaccine. Marjorie took to her lovely Instagram, which I don't know why I follow, and said that vaccine rollout was rushed and the FDA hasn't approved it yet

and all the usual things. And it's just so funny to me because these people are like two of those people who love to talk about business thriving. And it's like somehow the cognitive dissonance that business is not going to go well if this virus keeps mutating never gets into their stupid fucking brains. Yeah, exactly. Well, they don't care, right? Antivaxers are an easy mark and they can mark them. And that's, you know, antivaxers are, you know, they're a step away from Q and on. So it's a perfect constituency for today's Republican Party.

And there you have it. Yes, and as we saw from that graph this week, it sure is Republican, and it sure leans that as you get a little younger in Republican, that's who's not taking the vaccine. Yeah, so. Oh, fuck them both. 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

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