The Daily Beast Podcast - RFK Jr.'s Nomination Is in 'Serious Peril': Dem Leader

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz, vice chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and Chief Deputy Whip, joins The New Abnormal to talk about Trump’s controversial cabinet picks, including who he thinks won’t make the cut. Then, New York Times bestselling author Adrienne Maree Brown talks about Octavia Butler's prophetic book, “Parable of the Sower” and how its themes eerily resonate today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse 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 some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

What an excellent show we have today. Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz, who's the chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, joins us to talk about Trump's controversial cabinet picks, including who he thinks won't make the cut and which one he think will be most detrimental to the American people. Then we'll talk to New York Times bestselling author, Adrian Marie Brown, about Octavia Butler's prophetic parable of the sorrow. Now its themes resonate today, as well as her latest book, Loving Connections. But first, let's have some fun.

So it's bye-bye Biden. Wow. Wow. On Wednesday, President Biden gave his farewell address to the nation. And among other things, he called for Supreme Court reform, 18-year term limit, a ban on stock trading by members of Congress, amending the Constitution to say no president is immune from crimes committed in office, getting rid of dark money, a whole bunch of things. and the general response that I saw was, hey, that's all good stuff.

You should run for president and then do all of that. Man, I don't know. Look, Biden did some good things while in office, and it's foolish to say otherwise, but he did not exactly cover himself in glory in the past year or so, whether it's not getting out of the race when he obviously should have, which was way before he actually did, whether it's not really doing a hell of a lot in the last part of the last days of his term, post Donald Trump's victory over Kamala Harris. And I mean, look, why are you calling for these things?

Like, yeah, an 18-year term limit, any kind of term limit on Supreme Court justice would be a great idea. I'm fairly certain that you commissioned some sort of panel to look into Supreme Court justice reforms and then never did anything with it. So I don't know. Danielle, how do you feel about this? Like, I don't disagree with anything he's calling for. It's like, why are you telling us? That's exactly how I felt. I was like, sir, were you not president for four years? Were you not vice president for eight years at one point?

Were you not a sitting senator for basically my entire fucking life? I think to call out these reforms and things that you think are troubling several days before the apocalypse hits America is just, I mean, I don't want to say that it's out of touch, but it's not fucking helpful at this point in time. I also believe that Biden talking about the oligarchy that is getting ready to take shape in America and saying how dangerous it is and how we need to, I think it might have been the first time that he uttered the word oligarchy. And I'm just like, what have we been doing for the past four years? Because had you done a good job about talking about this incoming regime

in ways that the American people could actually understand that their lives are about to radically change. Maybe everyone in the Oval Office yesterday wouldn't have been dressed like they were going to a fucking funeral because that's what it felt like. And that's what it feels like. So I appreciate Joe Biden telling us all of the things that we already know now, five, four days before Trump's inauguration. But at this point, I'm just like, keep it to yourself. I want to respect him for his 50 years of public service. But sadly, I truly believe that his legacy is forever cemented with Donald Trump's. And I hate that for him because of his lifetime commitment to this country, but it's sandwiched

between a grifter, a racist, and a misogynist. He was supposed to be the answer and the antidote to the first Trump term. and now he's the welcome wagon for the second one. Yeah, I mean, look, the stuff about the oligarchs, to me anyway, and probably to most people, very much echoed Eisenhower's warning about the military industrial complex. But also kind of like Eisenhower, he didn't do much to stop the rise of, you know, the thing he talked about, the oligarchy. I mean, yes, he talked about the fact that there's about to be a dangerous concentration

of power in the hands of a very few. ultra wealthy people. First of all, this ain't the first time, and this ain't even particularly new. It's just particularly bad right now, I think. But your administration has how many dollars in contracts with Elon Musk? Your administration has how many dollars in contracts with Peter Thiel and Palantir and other companies that he is a part of? I mean, I'm sorry. You did nothing to check this. to come out now and talk about this as if it's just happening now when you leave office, that doesn't fly. It doesn't fly at all.

And, you know, I agree with you. I think there are, again, I think Joe Biden did some very, very good things for this country in the four years he was in office. I don't know what his legacy is going to look like because of, as you said, because of the fact that he was succeeded by Donald Trump. And look, let's be honest, also by Gaza and some other things. But to sit there as if he was powerless for four years is just it's a slap in the face to people that voted for him to people that voted for Kamala Harris. And I can't back this speech at all.

I just can't. You know, and the thing that I'll say, this has been the hardest, I think, for Vice President Kamala Harris. We have to understand that she was given 107 days to convince a racist, misogynist society that we live in, that a black and Asian woman could become president of the United States. When Donald Trump had had a full stereo blasting for, oh, I don't know, the last three years, about all the ways that he was going to bring grocery prices down and gas prices down and all the things that he was going to do and all the lives. that he was going, that he was going to convince the public and did convince them that he was going to be their

savior, their redemption. She had 107 days. And I blame Biden for that. Biden came in to office and he could have from the jump been like, I am a transitional president. I am coming in here to be the bridge to the democracy of America's future. And I am, you know, wholly about insurance. that I get shots in arms for people that for you know for for for for for for for COVID he came in we had no vaccines he got the vaccines rolled them out shots and arms for everybody he lowered prescription drug prices he you know took on student loan debt bipartisan infrastructure so many things and we would have all been cheering yeah every single moment of the way knowing that he had hit the ground running but he was very clear eyes

about the danger we were still in. And I feel like even that speech, to me, left me like, are you just waking up to the danger that we're in now? On your way out the door telling us that you've done your job, so now it's our turn? The speech left me wanting, and it left me, honestly, angry. And I don't want to be angry at Joe Biden

because I do believe that he did a lot of really good things, but I don't think that we're going to remember any of them. Yeah, a couple of things. I'm not giving him credit for the COVID vaccine. I mean, to be perfectly honest, it was Trump with Operation Warp Speed that got the ball rolling on that. And I have no problem giving him credit for that, especially since he seems to hate the fact that he did that now. And the other thing is you're absolutely right about Connell Harris being stuck with 100 days. And I'm with you as far as Biden could very easily have said, look, I'm going to be a caretaker president. from the jump, but he didn't even have to do that. He could have after the midterms in 2022,

he could have said, I shepherded us through the war, you know, through COVID, we got the vaccine program rolling, which yes, credit to him for that, absolutely. And the midterm elections, uh, weren't actually all that bad for Democrats. And it's now time for me to announce that I will not be running for reelection. And that would have given two years, which is basically at, at this point the normal length of a presidential campaign. He had multiple opportunities, I guess, is what we're both saying, to do the right thing. And instead, he fought it tooth and nail. And there were people around him who need to be held accountable for that as well. But you're right. Look, the guy has served his country for decade upon decade upon decade. And it's not a

perfect record. It's far from a perfect record. You can say that pretty much about any politician. There's good stuff in there is the point. And to your point, I agree. I don't know. And look, it's, you know, 20 years from now, 50 years from now, he said, laughably assuming there's still a country and or a planet, things may be different. And maybe he will be looked at, you know, differently by historians. But right now, I am with you.

It's really hard to look at his presidency and not have a lot of the good that he did feel overshadowed because Donald Trump won in November. I just feel gross. Do you know what I'm saying? I just, you know, I just feel awful. And I will say this, watching the confirmation hearings thus far of these holy, unqualified sycophants who they're coming in to destroy the agencies that they are leading. That's the whole point.

it's just like the oligarchy mixed with the idiocracy, mixed with like all of the bros, and it is, it's a lot to take in. It's, it's a lot to take in is what I'll say. And I, and that's, again, that's what I believe. You know, people are going to be suffering greatly. And while they expect little to nothing from Donald Trump, I think they expected Biden to be more. And I know that that is unfair, but that's the reality. Meanwhile, as Joe Biden was giving his farewell address, confirmation hearings for various Trump nominees continued in the Senate. And one of the big ones on Wednesday was Pam Bondi, who Trump wants to be Attorney General. And she is the former Florida Attorney General, and she was part of Trump's election-denying team in 2020.

She, among other things, right after Election Day, she went on Fox News to talk about evidence of cheating and fake ballots. She declared that, according to the independent, she declared that Trump won the state of Pennsylvania before all the ballots were actually counted. And guess what? He didn't win the state of Pennsylvania. and she basically, she dodged questions about 2020 when she was asked by Dick Durbin, whether she could say that Trump lost in 2020.

She said, quote, President Biden is the president of the United States. He was duly sworn in and he is president of the United States. Obviously, she refused to answer the question, no, when, you know, the actual question was that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. And it just kind of went on from there. And look, here's the thing. If I don't sound too agitated about all of this, it's because it's a done deal. She's going to be attorney general.

Democrats did some good questioning. Maisie Hirono from Hawaii hammered her on the 2020 election. Durbin, as I said, also did Alex Padilla did. Adam Schiff asked her if she would investigate Jack Smith and Liz Cheney, as Trump has been calling for. She referred to it as a hypothetical. and refused to answer it. And it just went on and on and on. And not to sound defeatist,

but in this particular case, none of it fucking matters. Yep. I mean, not to sound. It's not defeatist. It's the reality. We don't have the votes to be able to push back on this. You know,

people ask me all the time, like, what's the point of confirmation hearings? Knowing that, what is it? Over 90% of the people that go through confirmation hearings, hearings get confirmed. And I said, you know, the point is to educate the public about who is going to be in this top position. But at this point, like with Donald Trump's picks, it's like maybe ignorance is fucking bliss, right? Because I'd rather not know. And the fact is she's dodging these questions because she knows exactly what she's going in there to do. If we think that Liz Cheney isn't going to be investigated, that Nancy Pelosi isn't going to be investigated,

like it may not happen in the first 100 days, but I absolutely believe that it's going to happen. I think that Donald Trump and these folks are sizing up who they're going to make an example of, and then they're going to go forward full throttle on that. Whether or not they come up with anything is not the point. And so I think that we have to remind ourselves that these people are being put into positions of power,

not because they are qualified to do the job, but because they are loyal to Donald Trump, they will do whatever he says, there will be no separation between any of these agencies and the White House. And this is the reality. This is, I'm sorry to say it, the new abnormal. Wow.

Yes, I know. I took, I stole your thunder. So hazy. This is what this is now. And her sitting there, when asked very clear, straight questions provided, by Senator Horono. Like, here's Donald Trump's exact words.

Here are quotes. Do you agree with this? Oh, I'm unaware of it. I just made you aware. Oh, I'm unaware of it. Okay. Like, it's a waste of our fucking time, frankly, you know, at this point. Like, I would rather Democrats be spending their energy thinking about coordinated strategy

around trying to hold on to something that looks like America in the next couple. of years, but I put very, very little into their ability to do that. I'll just close with a little story about Pam Bondi. Back in 2005, she adopted a dog that had become separated from its owners in Hurricane Katrina. And in early 2006, the owners, a couple from Louisiana, tracked the dog down to her home. and she refused to return the dog. And she did a whole thing where she accused the couple of neglecting the animal, which, again, had been separated from them during Hurricane Katrina.

And it ended up with a very long legal battle, and they settled before trial, and she returned the dog. But that's the kind of person she is. She would not return a dog to its owners after it had been separated from them. by an unbelievable natural disaster. Good luck, America. Good luck. Brian Schatz is the senior senator from the great state of Hawaii.

He chairs the Senate's Indian Affairs Committee and serves on the Appropriations Committee, the Commerce Science and Transportation Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, and the Select Committee on Ethics. He's also the Democratic Party's chief deputy whip. He joins me now. Senator, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. So I know right now a lot of confirmations are going on.

in the Senate. And Pete Hegseth, I'll be shocked at this point if he isn't confirmed as Secretary of Defense. Is that your sense, too? I think he's on a glide path. I think the MAGA influencers targeted Joni Ernst, which I think changed everything. And Pete Hegseth understandably, or I should say predictably, you know, he performs reasonably well on television. I think substantively he's got nothing to offer the Department of Defense. And there are lots of reasons to reject him. But, you know, as far as like whether or not he, you know, blew it in the hearing, I don't think he gave Republicans enough of a reason to get rid of him. If it were a secret ballot, I think he probably loses by 10 or 12 votes, but it is not a secret ballot. And the Trump team is, you know, making this a question of

loyalty to Donald Trump himself. So I think the best the Democrats can do here is lay down a marker about putting someone so manifestly unqualified to run the Department of Defense. And then when, and if he makes major errors, at least we're going to be able to go to the public and talk about how we opposed him. Yeah, it's annoying that that's the best you can do, but it really doesn't seem to be the best you can do. And it's also, you're not the first member of Congress to say if this were a private vote, secret ballot, then he wouldn't get in.

And it's just, it's amazing what that says about the congressional GOP, isn't it? Yeah, I think that's right. And I'm, you know, I think there are still a number of. of nominees who may not make it all the way through the process. But even the Republicans with whom I work relatively closely and who I think, you know, have their reservations about Trump, they can't actually go there and vote no on half of his nominees. Like, they're not in a position to do that if they want to stay in office. And so they're going to have to pick their spots. And I think they've just made the judgment that Hegseth is not the hill to die on politically.

So let's talk about another nominee who sat before a committee that you are on, and I'm talking about Sean Duffy, who is nominated to be the Secretary of Transportation. What was your sense of him? I mean, I think it's pretty benign. I think, you know, I never knew Sean Duffy, and my understanding is he's quite a conservative guy, but all I needed from him was an assurance that he was going to play it down the middle as it related to transportation. And, you know, the Department of Transportation has a pretty long history of, you know, Obama appointed Ray LaHood, who was a Republican congressman and Bush put in Manetta, who was a Democrat. congressman. So this department, I think, is relatively easy to steer clear of partisanship. And,

you know, I had a private conversation and a public conversation with him about just that. And he said all the right things. Now, you know, that's not a guarantee of how he's going to perform in the job. But he seems to want to just run the Department of Transportation. And I also think just the way the law operates, the way the appropriations process operates, there's very little ability for the White House to actually mess with transportation projects. you know, using, it's not like Tammany Hall, right? They can't like withhold money from certain states or certain counties. And so, you know, I'm not overconfident, but I'm somewhat confident that that's one place where things are going to be done pretty much on the level. It's probably one of

the only departments where I can, you know, feel somewhat reassured. So which of the nominees do you think might not make it? Do you have a sense of any particular ones? I think RFK Jr. is in serious peril. I think there are a number of Republicans who have grave, grave reservations. And this is not one where, you know, obviously the MAGA crew is going to try to put pressure on everybody about everything and everyone. You know, my judgment is that there are a couple of people who have personal and professional objections to RFK Jr. And just to be clear about RFK Jr., like, there are people on the left who are kind of attracted to some of the things that he says. And here's my thing. If you think the food system is broken, if you think that the farm bill provides excess subsidies for corn syrup and ultra-processed foods,

and we are on a systematic basis making our whole society sick and diabetic and sedentary, all of that is true. None of that is where HHS is concerned. That is all in the United States Department of Agriculture. So if you want to do food system reform, awesome. Count me in. I think our food system is broken. I think our agricultural system and policies are broken. And there's a lot of bipartisan momentum behind that.

But this guy's in charge of some very specific things. And what he is saying is that it's not just about the COVID vaccine, which I think, you know, both from a public health standpoint and from a political standpoint is a little bit more of a close call in terms of vaccine mandates. He is talking about withholding federal funds from any school that has any vaccine mandate. So what does that mean as a practical matter? That means that local school districts, some of whom get 30 to 40% of their funds from the feds, would have to choose between a vaccine mandate for Rubella, for the measles and the mumps,

and cutting 30 to 40% of their budget. They're not going to cut 30 to 40% of their budget. But the practical impact of that is literally measles, the mumps, rubella, coming back to the United States of America. So to me, this is one of the most consequential votes we are all going to take. And I think this man is super, super dangerous. Like, you know, Democrats, I think, can rightly be criticized over the last four and eight years for sort of crying wolf too many times about, you know, the end of democracy, the end of everything, right?

Everything is an apocalypse. Everything is the most important vote, the most important moment. But let me tell you what, people really will die if this person is in charge of HHS. Yeah, I'm so glad to hear you say that. Obviously, I won't be glad if people die because he's the head of HHS. Yes, but I'm so happy to see you put it in such stark terms like that because I'm with you. I think it's just so important that he not be confirmed. I want to pivot and talk to you about some legislation that's going on right now.

The Lake and Riley Act is this sort of horrific Republican immigration bill that, among other things, will compel ICE to detain any undocumented immigrant arrested for minor theft. That's arrested, not convicted or not even necessarily charged. And will also allow state officials to sue the federal government to. block visas from countries if those countries won't take back individuals being deported. It's currently being considered by the Senate after a motion to proceed was passed last week by a vote of 82 to 10. You were one of the 10 and you broke with Democratic Party leadership to be so. Why? Well, I mean, I think the first thing is I just want to give a little credibility to my colleagues who did vote to move on to the legislation. Some of them are going to vote no on final passage because

the vote at hand was, hey, should we even consider this bill? And so some of them said, sure, we'll consider it. And then if it's amended and improved, I will vote, you know, yes on final, but if it is not amended and improved, I'll vote no on final passage. So not all of them disagree with me on the bill on substance. But look, it's a diverse country. And it is a diverse Democratic caucus. And there are some people who are just, frankly, more hawkish on immigration than I am. They come from red and purple states. They have a different perspective. But I think you've describe the infirmities in the bill accurately. This is about an accusation, right? This is not about a conviction. And I think from a due process standpoint, that turns the process on its head. The other

practical implication is that, you know, detention beds are a limited resource because they cost so much and they take so much time to build out and staff and do it all properly. And so right now we're talking about mandatory detention of people for shoplifting. And the There may be, in order to detain shoplifters, you probably have to make room within the existing detention bed inventory. And you are going to be forced as a matter of federal law to release more dangerous people out on the street in favor of detaining shoplifters. Because the particular fact pattern regarding the terrible tragedy of Lake and Riley, you know, happened to be a person who was accused of shoplifting. And so, you know, this is one of those situations where I think the Republicans, did not expect to succeed legislatively. We're expecting to get blocked. And now we're, you know,

and I think this is a lesson for the next four years. Like, we're using, you know, live bullets, right? This is legislatively, like, we're in the business of enacting things. And so one of the locuses of power for Democrats federally is going to be in the United States Senate because we are able to block bills utilizing the filibuster. And so we need to use that power, you know, as efficaciously as we can. And, you know, this is not the legislative result that I wanted, but one of the things I've said to both, you know, people on the kind of center left, as well as people who I would characterize as more left than me is, you know, we lost this battle when we lost the election, right? And we are in for some very bad policy outcomes. And that's because we lost the presidency and both chambers. And so I'm not trying to be dismissive of what's about to happen, but I think we need to wrap our minds around. The loss is what didn't happen. this week. The loss happened on election night when the public across the country decided to put Donald Trump in charge. And Donald Trump had a very, very clearly articulated view about immigration, about immigrants, about communities of color, and that he wanted to terrorize them. And I think we are

about to see some, you know, very bad outcomes in that space. Yes, agreed along those lines. And correct me if I'm wrong, my understanding is that the changes made to Lake and Riley so far, a good change that would have been made was shot down and one, a bad change went through. Am I right on that? Yeah. I mean, look, part of my role here is to help support all Senate Democrats, including those with whom I have disagreement. So like I said, it's a diverse caucus and people voted their conscience and they voted

their home state. But I'm, you know, certainly not happy with the law that's likely to be enacted by probably sometime next week. I want to ask you about something where I actually disagree with you. The Kids Online Safety Act, or COSA, which you co-sponsored in the Senate. The ACLU has said of COSA, this bill would not keep kids safe, but instead threaten young people's privacy, limit minors access to vital resources, and silence important online conversations for all ages. And many LGBTQ groups have voiced fears that COSA would actually be harmful to queer and trans kids.

Given all of that, what is so important in this bill that you support it? First of all, the bill that I have authored is called the Kids Off Social Media Act. And I just want to describe that for you because we also think, that can become a law sometime this year. My own judgment is that on balance, social media for kids 12 and under is a very, very unhealthy influence. And because you're talking about very young children, the government has a pretty compelling interest in protecting them from a bad mental health outcome. And so my own judgment is that there's no safe cigarette. There is no particularly strong use case for an 11-year-old being on TikTok or Instagram.

and being fed through a filter bubble or an algorithm, you know, content that makes them increasingly anxious and angry and isolated and sedentary. So my bill does a very simple thing. It just says 12 and under kids may not be on social media. And 13 through 16, the algorithmic boosting of the feed is impermissible. This passes constitutional muster and it kind of avoids some of the difficulties of the bill you're talking about. And the real problem with the Kids Online Safety Act, There are a lot of provisions I like with it.

But the part that I really don't like is that there is a provision that basically allows the FTC or States Attorney General to determine what is, quote, unquote, harmful content. And that's the part that is like, well, according to whom, right? Is that going to be, you know, the Trevor Project online? Is that going to be, you know, it could be anything, right? And I think you could be right wing or left wing or anywhere in between and just go, I'm sorry, who's determining what's harmful, right? I mean, we should be talking about illegal content. We should be talking about pornographic content or drug trafficking or human trafficking. All that stuff should be impermissible on these platforms.

But just like harmful content is too vague and leaves too much discretion to states' attorneys general and federal district courts and circuit courts to like ban certain kinds of speech online. So my preference is the kids off social media act. It's also, it's a little bit more straightforward, but it's a bit of a radical tool. I will say that this thing cuts a little bit generationally. The people who like my bill tend to be the parents who want a tool to be able to go to their kid and say, I'm sorry, it's against federal law. You may not get on Instagram until you are, you know, basically after puberty or halfway

through puberty. And so I like that bill better. I think it's cleaner. I think it evades the constitutional questions. And our bill also, we've at least got most of the organizations who track civil rights and human rights online to be either positive or neutral on it. Is there any way you can raise the age of your bill from 12 to 90? Yeah, yeah.

Sometimes I delete an app and then I find myself like just re-downloading it like a jackass. So I'm with- We all do that. Last month you made some headlines by telling Politico that the 2028 Democratic nominee needs to quote unquote talk like a normal person and not sound like they just got their postdoctoral thesis. in sociology. Can you expand a little bit on that? Yeah, and like I think there were a bunch of people, I mean, this is online, right, but there are a bunch of people like, Brian Schatz can fuck all the way off. You know, I'm like, listen, like I'm just, I'm just saying we need to be plain spoken, right?

I'm not suggesting, and I think people thought normal meant, you know, some certain gender or ethnicity or like, you know, geographic or political orientation. That's not what I'm talking about. Everyone can speak plainly, right? And that's all I'm saying we should do is that when we communicate, we should remember that we're kind of in a world and I'm in a world, right, where half of my meetings I'm using jargon I didn't even understand 13 years ago because that's the job, right? But if you're an auto mechanic and you work for Toyota, like if you want to explain to your customer what you're doing to the car, you can explain it to them in a way that they understand or you can explain it to them in a way that they can't. And I just think we need to be cognizant of the fact that not

everybody is tracking politics so closely and not everybody wants us to sound like we are like, you know, in political theory, right? And so I just think all of us know how to speak plainly, but we, once you get to the Senate, you get trained out of it. And I just think we need to sort reground ourselves in that way. Are there ways in which you think Kamala Harris didn't, quote, unquote, talk like a normal person? And I mean, in the way you're talking about, I think anyone who thought that you were saying it had to do with race or gender or anything like that is way off base. That's clearly not what you meant. Yeah.

I guess the answer is, yeah, sure. The vice president did it, but so did I and so did, like, so did everybody, right? And so to the extent that I'm saying that about the vice president, it'll sound like, this is the reason we lost or that's not what this is. This is about every elected Democrat, every activist, every organizer, every communications person, just remembering how they talk when they go home for Thanksgiving. right, which presumably is not in a way that is indecipherable to their family members, right? And that's all I'm saying.

Did Kamala do a little bit of that? Yes. Did I do a little bit of that? Yes. Like, we all did it. And so we all have to take some responsibility for just remembering that one of the things that became difficult for us is that if you sort of go through an issue battery, people mostly agree with us.

But then they at the same time can't relate to us at all. And part of that, it's not the only thing, but part of that is language. Fair enough. Before I let you go, I want to ask you about the Los Angeles fires because obviously being from Hawaii, you went through the awful Maui wildfires in 2023. Congressional Republicans are now making noise about conditioning federal aid to California, knowing from experience just what those who lost everything are going through. Can I assume you find this to be as grotesque as I do? Yeah, it's grotesque, but I've sort of calibrated my response because, you know, and this is like a new discipline I'm trying to develop, you know, contra Trump. 1.0, which is that like, I could easily go freak out on this. My judgment, though, is that we're

going to pass disaster rate in the same way that we always pass disaster rate, which is a Democratic state will get hit with something. And we basically need to wait until there's a big enough coalition on a bipartisan basis for disaster rate. So that kind of only with strings attached lasts all the way up until Florida or Louisiana or Texas or Alabama or North Carolina or South Carolina need help. And so I'm not very worried that they're going to be able to effectuate this. It's a shitty thing to say, especially while the fires are still burning and people are still trying to like collect their, I mean, find their loved ones, collect their belongings, figure out where to live. It's just an awful way to be as a leader. And I think it shows that sickness in the Republican

party. But as a practical matter, I think there's almost zero chance that they will be able to go through with it. Because at some point, there will be a Texas problem or a Florida problem, and those members of Congress are going to go, look, I'll cut my deal with California if it means that my people get help. And frankly, that's the way we passed the last batch of disaster rate is that the initial tranche of states that needed help were both small and Democratic. It was Hawaii in Vermont. And so we simply had to wait until the accumulation of disasters became sufficiently large and bipartisan that the pressure was on, and then we passed something on a bipartisan basis. We will do that again. I'll just make it.

make one final point, which is climate inaction is costing us tons of money. It is costing the private sector money. It is harming individuals. It is dangerous. And it is now increasingly a budget issue. It's a fiscal issue. We just dropped $100 billion in aid, as we should have for Maui and other places. And, you know, it's very hard to know what the dollar amount will be for the LA wildfires. But if it's true that it's something like 8,000 structures burned, that's roughly four times the size of the Maui tragedy. So we are talking certainly in the tens of billions and probably somewhere between 50 and 100 billion. This thing is not going to get less expensive. And so part of, I think, what climate action people need to start talking about is that this is an ongoing crisis and it's

going to get worse unless we force climate action. So every time there is a severe weather event that is incredibly made worse by a climate inaction, we have to call it out and not be a afraid of, you know, so-called politicizing this issue. This is not about birds and butterflies. This is about people's livelihoods and their lives. Senator Schatz, thank you so much for being here. I really, really appreciated talking to you. And thanks again for coming on. My pleasure. Thank you. Folks, I am so, so excited to welcome to the new abnormal New York Times bestselling author, writer, poet, podcaster, all around just incredible badass, Adrian Marie Brown. To talk today about an author, a visionary, who is now seemingly getting every single headline imaginable

following the horrific and devastating L.A. fires. And that is Octavia Butler. Adrian, you are a scholar, a student of Octavia Butler, so much so that you alongside one of our mutual friends, Toshi Regan, brilliant musician, Toshi Regan co-hosted Octavia's Parables to kind of unpack her work in your podcast. And I guess I want to start out with what does it feel like right now watching these devastating fires and making the connection or how people are making the connection to Octavia Butler's 1993 novel, sci-fi novel, Parable of the Sower, which eerily talks about February 1st, 2025, and the fires. in Altadina, which we know was just absolutely destroyed and how eerie it is, the connection and why people are grabbing her work right now. How does it feel? You know, when you ask me that, the first thing that happened in my body was like that feeling just before crying of like, oh, I think Octavia was trying to give us a warning.

And she was writing this text and, you know, she really wanted people to not have to live through the reality of what she was writing. You know, she was like, this is something that we can easily foresee is going to happen. And she did her research. You know, she was like, this is what 30 years of not changing is going to lead to. And she wrote it as someone who had been born and raised on those streets in Pasadena, California. So it's been very emotional for me to watch everyone being like, oh, now that everything is burning down, now that all the things that she wrote were definitely going to happen are happening.

now we're paying attention. So there's a little emotionality for me that's just like we didn't have to be here. And there's also gratitude. You know, I think what she wanted was for as many people as possible to be reading her work and to realize that this is something they can do for themselves. We can all look at the world around us and come to conclusions about what's going to come. And we can all prepare ourselves for what's going to come. And we can meet the transformations of the earth with a sense of agency and with a sense of

partnership, like, oh, I can help shape the changes that are coming. I'm not fully in charge of it, but as things start to change, I can decide to move with community. I can decide to have myself prepared with a go-back. I can be hyper empathetic and I can be someone who's actually really tuned in to what's happening to the people around me and not think of it as something separate from me, but as something that's happening to us. So I'm really grateful that people are paying attention because there's so much more than just her prediction. in there. There's so much guidance and wisdom for how we actually survive this. I read parable the first time 10 years ago, and it was Toshi. Yeah. Who told me, she said, girl,

you need to sit down and you need to read this book. Go on and read it. That's why I tell everybody now still, I'm like, it's not too late. Go ahead and read it. Read it multiple times. Go ahead and read it. I started a little book club right now with my girlfriend and a couple of friends who have not read it for them to read it. And I think that what disturbed me, aside from the layered crises that bring the America in her book to this place, the place, frankly, that we are in right now, where there is a rise of Christo-fascism. There is a president in the book whose tagline is Make America Great Again. There are fires everywhere. People are living behind walled off communities. Thinking they'll be safe. Thinking that they'll be safe because why? All of the measures that are taxes at one time paid for,

firefighters, police officers, safe roads, all of these different postal service, all of the health, schools, they're all gone. They're all gone. And it's left up to the people to create these small enclaves of community. When you now see where we are and having been this student of Octavia Butler, why do you think that we ignored the signs for so long? And even now, I find that people are still in this belief system that what is unfolding isn't actually unfolding. And I don't know if it's pure, I need to stick my head in the sand because ignorance really truly is bliss.

or they're so terrified of what's in front of them that they can't actually allow it to be true. Yeah, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah, I think it's that latter one. You know, I've been working in various ways on climate justice and getting people to turn and look at what's happening to the earth and realize it's an impact that humans are contributing to. And that means that we could also contribute to other outcomes. We could contribute to health. We could contribute to partnering with the earth. But I've been doing that work for a long time.

And what I see is that people get really overwhelmed by the scale of it. Like it's like, well, everything would have to change. Our entire economy and how we think about the earth and how we think about animals and how we think about the impact of one life and how we think about jobs, how we think about transportation. There's so many things that actually need to transform and shift. And I think what happens is people get overwhelmed, like what can I do as an individual? It's all too much. And then, you know, how do I as an individual or I as a group of people who don't have as many material resources come up against the millionaires and the billionaires and the huge corporations

that are pushing these changes? And so a lot of the time, what I appreciate, and this is one of the reasons I kept reading Octavia's work over and over again, because in the books, they aren't able to just stop the corporations by getting everyone to be like, aren't we furious about this? They're in the same boat that we are, which is, oh, we're going to have to really attend to our survival at a smaller scale, even if we have a very big vision. You know, her vision in the book, the character's vision, is that Earth is a womb and that our destiny is to take root amongst the stars and that there's something much larger calling for us.

And I think now that taking root amongst the stars would actually be being in right relationship to the Earth. I'm like, we are amongst the stars. We're a planet. We just need a like root here. But I think that that's part of the work is helping people figure out what is something I could do that would be meaningful. And right now, I think what the fire is happening or, you're going.

or, you know, I live in North Carolina. We just had this hurricane come through and the best slides everything. What people are seeing is, oh, if I tie in with my community and we think together about how we prepare for disaster, if I tie into my community and we think together about mutual aid and how we're going to care for each other, if we tie in and we invest in the things that we do want. So I see a lot of people saying, oh, we need to be investing in the fire department. Like, they matter. We need to get fired up about the people who are our first responders who are actually going to

protect us, and we need to learn those skills ourselves. That's much more tangible, and it's much more of like a bite-offable morsel, right? That's like, okay, maybe I can't take on the entire climate catastrophe of this era, but I can tie in with my community, and together we can figure out how we survive and what we want to set our sights on as a vision. You know, every time these crises happen, as devastating as they are, there's also a way that they are unhooking us from the existing systems, and they're shaking us awake and saying, look, this system is not. This system is not going to save you. There's no amount of privilege you can have within this system that will keep you safe from its impacts. So are you ready to change? And I think that we have to be ready to

harness that energy and take that invitation and be in some different practices. You know, and I think too, and I really appreciate that so much because I have been calling on people in different ways to recognize that community, community building in real life, as well as online, is more important now than it's ever been, because you're getting ready to be faced with a regime whose entire ideology is around turning us against each other, is about solidifying this hierarchy of who matters and who does not. And I feel like at a time when you're being told to not trust your neighbor down the street, at a time when you're seeing states create rewards for vigilantes and vigilanteism, that now is when people need to tap in.

but to your earlier point, they feel like the problem is so big. And because of that, what sets in, Adrian, is this level of apathy and hopelessness. And so what do you say to people who are feeling at this very moment? I mean, we just watch Joe Biden's farewell address where he left Americans with a very stark warning about everything we already know that is unfolding. and so many people's responses on social media has been like, I want to give up. Yeah. I mean, I always try to start my interactions with people around this stuff from a place of like, it is a totally reasonable, sane, grounded response to feel some hopelessness.

Like, it makes sense to look at how much is changing and to feel grief, to feel longing for what was, to think that things were better before. A few years ago, I said something that went around a little bit. I said things are not getting worse. They're getting uncovered. And we have to hold each other tight and continue to pull back the veil. And I think that was true in that time. I think now for most people in the U.S.

we can experience that things are getting worse in one way or another. But the same thing is true, which is these are conditions that have existed a long time. And if you haven't been feeling them, that has been a function of your privilege, right? So you're like, oh, I've been so privileged that climate change hasn't been impacting me. I've been so privileged that the economic fallout hasn't been impacting me. I'm privileged in my identity. So no one's going to come try to stop me from going to the bathroom safely. I've been privileged, right?

And so I think for a lot of people, part of the waking up that's coming in these next few years is whether or not you're depressed about it, your privilege is not going to save you from the changes that are coming. That time is past. Now we're in a new time. Can you prepare? Can you get yourself ready to be in this world? In this world, the changes that we make are all going to be relational. It's all going to be about who you can connect with and deciding that you want to survive together. And, you know, not everyone will make that choice.

And it's been really devastating for me even since the election. There's been so many young people who are taking their lives or making attempts on their lives. I mean, they really are taking in, like, is this a world that I can live in? And I think part of our responsibility, especially those who've been through some crises, right? Like, I'm like, we've been through some wars. We've been through 9-11. We've been through some things that felt like the end of the world. and then the world continued.

And it continued because we loved each other and we cared for each other. And we didn't listen to stories that were divisive. We started to pay attention. Something is creating these tensions. And it's not us. It's not us. We don't actually hate each other. We don't actually need to turn on each other.

And I think that our job is always to make it more compelling to be together and work together and survive than it is compelling to be isolated, turning against each other, battling to the death. You know, and in speaking of that, one of your latest books, Loving Corrections, really speaks to the intersections of the turmoil that we're in, the obstacles that we're facing, but the opportunities inside of them. Can you talk a bit about that and what you mean, what is meant by the term loving corrections? Yeah. Thank you for asking about this book. I really love this book. And, you know, it came out in August. And so I've been getting to tour it. So I wasn't really surprised by the election results because I was like touring and out in the world and being like, oh, we really, you know, have lost our capacity to be in relationship with each other. So so much of what loving corrections is is a course correction that brings us back into relationship with each other, even if we have different opinions, even if we have different worldviews.

I think part of what we've allowed to happen is we've begun to believe in the divisiveness that we're being socialized with, right? We're like, oh, I really can't speak to my uncle anymore. I really can't cross over and talk to someone who is racist or transphobic or I can only see them through that lens. And I really can't let them see me. And I think part of what has happened with our social mediaification of our communications is that we have reduced ourselves to trolling each other, to being bots, to blocking each other, to thinking that the way we operate in those social media spaces, yelling at each other,

asking inauthentic questions that are just trying to instigate more conflict, that that's a way to communicate. And it's just not. That's not how humans have ever been functional. So a lot of what Loving Corrections is about is how can I be accountable with my speech and how can I be relational? How can I argue with someone, but we're holding hands. We are face to face. We are recognizing each other's humanity and each other's dignity. And we believe that each of us has the capacity to change. And I think this is one of the gifts of humans is that we are impossibly adaptable. I mean, every time it seems like that's it. There's no more.

There's no recovering from this. You know, even I think about this, when we look back at the history of genocides and Holocaust in the world, we're like, there's no recovery. There's no coming back from that. And yet people do. Humanity is able to recover, even from the darkest places that we go, or I call them the palest places. But no matter how far we get from our hearts, we can come. back. And we have always been able to do that in the past. I think we can do that now. But it means really looking at someone and saying, how can I have this conversation, this fight, this argument,

in such a way that you can feel my love for you and you can feel like we could stay connected and move forward. You know, there's so many people who have been tricked into voting against their interest, tricked into speaking against their interest, tricked into acting against their interest. And part of what our job is, if we can see that, is to be an invitation back to their humanity. And they may not accept that invitation right now, but as conditions get worse, it'll be more and more important for us to be open doors and to be contactable and relatable and to be leaders of bringing us back into relationship, rather than leaders of creating more and more divisions. An invitation back to our humanity. Yes, and to belonging. My goodness.

Right? So much of what pulls people into those vortexes of conspiracy theory and hatred is the longing to belong to something. And so if someone's saying to you here, come belong to this white, fascist male path and they're saying, it's easy. You can come in the door no matter who you are and what you're wearing and what you do. You can come on in here. We're going to welcome you. And over here, we're on the other side saying, no, get out. You said the wrong word. You did the wrong thing.

You know, we hate everything you're doing. then hey, they're going to make a choice and they're going to go where belonging feels possible. I think we have to make a very compelling case that there is a belonging that is possible to the earth, to community, to people who love each other and care for each other and want to survive.

You are just extraordinary. Oh, honestly. Thank you. Had good teachers. Octavia is really the extraordinary one. I'm just like, go read her. What do you want people to know about Octavia Butler and her work in this moment?

I want them to know that she wasn't a prophet and she wasn't some impossible brain that no one else could ever recreate. I want them to know that like Octavia was a human who was paying attention, who loved the earth, who was introverted and quiet, but wanted our people to survive. And you can be like Octavia, just start to pay attention to the world around you and believe that you can do something about it, that you can imagine a different way and write it down. and tell your friends, even if you only imagine with the kids in your life, imagine, reactivate the part of you that looks at the problem and imagines the solution. Amazing. Adrian Marie Brown, folks, the book is Loving Corrections. I implore you to pick it up, particularly now, and make it a companion with Octavia Butler's all too real,

a sci-fi novel, parable of the sewer. I thank you so much, Adrienne, for making time for the new abnormal. really appreciate you. Thank you. And stay safe and stay connected, y'all. Amen. Danielle Moody. Andy Levy. Close us out. Who's your fuck that guy, Daniel? So for God knows how long on this show, you and I have been speaking ad nauseum about Project 2025. We've highlighted so many parts of Project 2025 to try and make people aware of the dangers that were going to be faced with if Donald Trump were to become president again. And voila, they are here at our doorstep now.

And one of those policies that was inside of Project 2025 concocted by folks at the Heritage Foundation and folks from the previous Trump administration was a little item around no-fault divorce. So all of this attaches itself to, if you followed the best, bouncing ball and all of the dots is Maga believes that there is a masculinity problem in America. They believe that women have basically gotten too big for their britches, you know, a little too lippy, a little too much power. And one of the first ways to restore what they feel like is the right gender dynamic is, of course, to roll back Roe v. Wade, which they successfully did. Next up on their agenda, which I believe is solely targeted at women, is to roll back no-fault divorce.

And in Oklahoma, Oklahoma now being the first state to introduce since Project 2025, a piece of legislation by Senator Dusty Devers, Republican, Senate Bill 1958, accurate in the number, accurate in the year, that would no longer. allow Oklahomans to file for divorce on the grounds of incompatibility, also known as no-fault divorce. According to the Oklahoman, critics say it would make it more difficult to end a marriage and make the actual reason for a divorce open to public scrutiny. Now, before no-fault divorce, you used to have to provide evidence of abuse in any, in any, in any, format as to the reason that you needed to get a divorce and then a judge would get to decide whether or not that evidence was sufficient. No fault divorce was introduced in a way to be like, I don't want to be married anymore. And that should be enough to say, I don't want to be

married anymore. Who gets to decide that other than the two people inside of said marriage? Well, the folks in Oklahoma, namely Dusty, thinks that that is a problem and that divorce rates are way too high and that we need to bring them down so we need to make it incredibly difficult for people to get a divorce. And the funny thing is, if there is any funny part, which there really isn't, but when I was looking at this on social media and some of the comments from people are like, oh, they're not. just making it difficult to get a divorce, they're almost ensuring that people don't get married. And I thought that that was a really interesting way to look at what could be one of the many outcomes of this. We already know that right now, we in this country and we're not the only country in the world that has very low birth rates. Again, this is going back to Maga's desire to pump out more white babies, you know, make men, men again, and cement.

white supremacy. But the fact is that if you take away abortion rights, if you take away the ability to get a divorce, then you get to go back to basically the title of this legislation, 1958, and go back to the place where women were literally and figuratively tied to their husbands, tied to them financially and tied to them legally with the inability to the inability to actually break free. And of course those that are against this believe that we'll see domestic violence rise, which fell when we introduce no fault divorce in this country, fell dramatically. But this is the future. And I think that Oklahoma may be one of the first to now introduce this legislation, but sadly, I do not think that it will be the last. And for that reason, Dusty Devers gets my hearty,

Hardy, fuck that guy. Yeah, I was unaware of this thing called covenant marriages before today. And one of Deaver's bills is called the Covenant Marriage Act. And what it does is it requires the man and the woman. And I use those words because those are the words they use. And they enter into a lifelong covenant made before God. And you file a declaration of intent. receive premarital counseling. And then once you're in this covenant marriage, there's no,

no-fault divorce. And the only way you can get a divorce is for abandonment, abuse, or adultery. And any of those things would have to be demonstrated, quote, by a preponderance of evidence that their partner committed one of these acts. So when you say that all this stuff is aimed at women, you are obviously 100% correct. The sole purpose of these covenant marriages is to make it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for a woman to get out of it, even if she is being abused or if her husband is cheating on her, because you can't just say, this is why I'm doing this. You would have to basically go to court as if it were almost a criminal trial and prove it. And that's a lot of work.

And you have to hire lawyers and it costs money, et cetera, et cetera. So in essence, you're trapping a lot of people in horrific marriages. So, yeah, fuck dusty Divers whose name is so close to being a strip club or porn star. And I feel like if you just replace the D's with B's, you would have an incredible strip club name. Or a great sequel to 1,000 Beavers. Yes, exactly. Yeah, fuck that guy. So, Andy, as we close out the last week of democracy with a bang, how are you ending it with your fuck that guy?

Well, I'm going to go down to Washington, D.C., but it's not going to be a politician. It's going to be the management of the Washington Post. They have, as reported by the New York Times on Wednesday, they have come up with a brand new mission statement. And their mission statement is titled Rividing Storytelling for All of America. I think at this point, we pretty much know what they mean when they say all of America. They mean straight, white Christian dudes who probably live in, you know, Kansas or Missouri and whose wants and needs are very much more important than other people. And it means further attempts to quote unquote appeal to this audience.

And it means things like, oh, I don't know, not endorsing a presidential candidate. And then endorsing people like Pam Bondi. And most of the other of Donald Trump's nominees, very weird how they didn't want to endorse a president, but they have no problem endorsing the vast majority of Donald Trump's nominees. Look, they say. they're keeping their slogan, democracy dies in darkness. I think they should just change it to embrace the darkness because I feel like that's what they're doing here. And, you know, it's just, this is on the heels of a whole bunch of people leaving the Washington Post, a long time reporters,

going to places like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, because they just don't want to work there anymore. And Jeff Bezos don't care. He's got all the money. And I think it's pretty clear that he sees the job of the Washington Post going forward as being sucking up to Donald Trump. And I feel bad for the good reporters who continue to work there and try their best. But boy, that's got to be just not a fun place to work for those people at this point. So to the Washington Post management team, fuck those guys. 3,000 percent. You know, it's, oh, God.

It really is very dark right now. And to even keep that moniker, even keep that democracy dies in darkness, like what's the point? Like this idea of quote unquote all of America, I can't wait to see what their heartland fucking columns are going to be covering. You know what?

Fuck them. I'm done. It'll be nice to do this show from Mexico. And rip to David Lynch. I'm so gutted by his death. It's very sad. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday.

If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at thedailybeast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcast as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.

Convierter your passion in a business with Shopify and bathe records of ventas with the form of pay with a better conversion of the world. Has you heard it. The incredible system of Pago of Shopify facilitates in your site web, in the networks, in the radio social and in