The Daily Beast Podcast - Right-Wing Group's Unbelievable New Tactic to Tackle DEI

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

On this episode of The New Abnormal, the right-wing American Accountability Foundation is ushering in a “McCarthy-style” era with its diversity, equity, and inclusion “bureaucrat watch list.” Plus! Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, breaks down the Trump administration's attacks on public education, and Tax March executive director Maura Quint delves into the fight for tax justice. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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with Shopify. Empecia to start your period of month in Shopify. coms bar records. Hi, I'm 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. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. What an excellent show we have today. Randy Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, joins us to discuss the Trump administration's attacks on public education in the fight to protect school, students, and democracy. Then we'll talk to Mara Quint, organizer with Fair Share America, who will discuss the fight for her tax justice, the new Families Over Billionaires campaign, and her grassroots activism.

But first, let's have some fun. I'm not quite sure why all of these right-wing foundations have titles like this one. American Accountability Foundation, which does anything but provide accountability for anything that is good. So whatever you see and it's right-wing, just know that it's doing the opposite of what the title says that it does. And so right now, we have this pseudo-accountability foundation that has decided to draw up a McCarthy-style list of federal workers who worked on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

And evidently, this is going to bring down the price of eggs. It's going to bring down the price of everything that Donald Trump said that he would handle. But guess what? It's not. It is actually just putting together a list of people who care about diversity, equity, and inclusion and somehow saying that they are, what, criminals? I have no idea what the point of this is. But this is a small right-wing nonprofit that was founded in 2020 to oppose Biden's policies and his nominees. And now they've turned their attention over to federal workers, 50 of them right now, that they have put on this quote unquote watch list. What are they watching exactly? No one knows. But this is the beginning of what the red scare is in 2025 under this

new white nationalist regime. Yeah. And look, what they're doing here is by putting these 50 plus people on a quote unquote watch list, which by the way, they're calling it a watch list. This is not even like something that people are short-handing. That's their term. What they're doing is making a list of mostly black people who work in government, who they have decided don't deserve to have jobs. We keep talking about DEI and I guess we sort of have to, but this goes so far beyond DEI. And DEI is just, you know, as we've discussed many times on this podcast, DEI is just the latest term that the right has seized on to roll back any gains that were made from the 60s on with regard to civil rights and with regard to fair employment and an end to employers being allowed.

to discriminate on the basis of race, et cetera, that they're mainly focused on race right now, but the others are coming. They themselves are saying they're putting these people on a watch list and it's people who have done things, evil, evil things like supported diversity or tweeted or posted any criticism of Trump on social media or if they've made donations to Democrats. None of those things are fireable offenses. None of those things are. None of those things are are, well, they shouldn't be. We'll see how long that lasts. But it's absolutely unbelievable what they're doing. It's not unbelievable if you look at the history of the country, but it is, it's a little unbelievable, A, that they think they can get away with it. And that B, they are getting away with it.

And the New York Times had an article on Thursday about people on the left who didn't support DEI and are glad to see it go. Get your heads out of your asses. And these were like former Bernie staffers and people that work in like the think tank space, et cetera. And it's like, are you that simple that you don't understand what they're doing here? I know tons of people who thought DEI was kind of a joke in the sense that it really didn't do much. And okay, fine. But to actually sit there and and sort of go along with what's happening now and just shrugging and saying, ah, it was a bad program anyway. I don't care if they get rid of it. You are being incredibly naive. And this really is, this is part and parcel of a rollback of civil rights that,

again, is going to take us all the way back to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I mean, here's the reality that the purpose of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives was to create a perspective in hiring that was more inclusive, that we weren't just hiring from the good old boys' white networks and country clubs. And the idea around it was for, it to be integrated into hiring practices, not to be this standalone kind of fucking elective that you can just do away with when, you know, you're done with your, you know, race internship for the fucking summer. And that is what, that's why during the summer of 2020, after the disgusting public murder of George Floyd, all of these companies came out and said that they were

going to be instituting these diversity, equity, and inclusion measures when in fact, like, what they needed to do was look at their mission statements, look at their policies, look at their hiring practices as a whole, and integrate into them inclusion practices, not create these standalone departments. And so that's, I mean, that's the thing that, that's why I get pissed off around it because it was all performative. And everyone knew that it was going to be performative. It's like, oh, let me change my avatar to like, you know, a black fist and let me show my solidarity, but you don't actually think about your practices moving forward and how diversity is good for your bottom line.

Every fucking report says that. So, you know, for those that wanted to, you know, institute these performative measures, you're seeing them with these rollbacks. But the idea that you have these right-wing groups that are coming out and putting people on black, for caring about inclusion. And this is why I say, we need to stop just short-handing and saying DEI and actually say what they are eliminating, which is diversity, equity, and inclusion with the goal of whitewashing everything. You're not, if you are a black person, a person of color, a queer person, a person with a disability that happens to be in any position whatsoever,

in any organization or company, the only reason why you're there, according to this Trump Maga regime is because of your color, your race, your disability. It has nothing to do with any of the obstacles that you've had to overcome in order to get into these spaces. So exactly what it was that one of the bros that was just fired said, oh, we need more white competent men in places of power. Who was it that said that? Darren Beattie?

Yes, him. And so what they're trying to create is this. Again, this permanent underclass where black people, people of color, anyone that is not white, cis, and hetero don't belong anywhere because you're not deserving. Meanwhile, you're putting in the most unqualified comical fucking puppets into positions of power that they don't even know how to do these jobs. But that's not the point. The point is to destroy, not create. Yeah. Just one last thing on that is the other thing they're trying to do here is put these workers in danger.

And I'm choosing my words carefully here, and I'm saying that they're trying to do this and not that it's an unintended consequence. Because at this point, to me, that's what they want. They want these people's lives to be in danger. 100%. Speaking of putting people's lives in danger. So Elon Musk and his gang of what, 19 to 20-something-year-olds stormed into the Department of the Treasury. having the ability to not only read codes, but change codes, now have access to, oh, I don't know, these little thing call our social security numbers, the payment schedule that the federal

government has to organizations and individuals, all in the hopes and obviously successfully, going to be able to raid the Department of Treasury. This is a coup. That's what it is. I don't know what else you would call this. When you have an unelected person that literally busted into the doors of the Department of Treasury, sat his goons down at a bunch of computers and shut out civil servants from their jobs. I don't know why there isn't more outrage around this, why there isn't more action being taken around this. But the fact is, the richest person in the world now has access to all of our information and can do with it what he may. Yeah, there's no precedent for this, I don't think, in America anyway.

I have like a couple of thoughts on this. One is, you know, we talked for a while and people were talking about it now is at what point does Trump get tired of Musk getting all this credit and he gets rid of them? We may have passed the point where Trump can do that because honestly, side by side, yes, Trump has the office of the presidency. Musk right now is slowly but surely, maybe not even slowly, taking control. of the systems of government, the computer systems, the personnel systems, et cetera. And that is a tough person to get rid of. He's got his own guys, like you said, these young guys, which I posted

this on Blue Sky the other day. If you're a fan of the TV show community, this is very much like when Ken Jong took over Greendale with his little army of a middle school, sycophants. It's literally the same thing. But Musk is installing his people. These people are are by some accounts now rewriting code that underlies a lot of these places operations, a lot of monetary operations, et cetera. I don't know how you get rid of that guy. That guy has a lot of power and maybe even more power than you. So I don't want to say it's going to get interesting because it sucks.

But I really do just wonder if we haven't passed it yet, if we are rapidly approaching the point where Trump can't get rid of money. and it will be a lot easier for Musk to basically sideline Trump and make Trump a figurehead with Musk wielding the real power. Hasn't he already, though? Well, that's the thing. Yeah, to all of the things that you just laid out. Like, I mean, basically, for $270 million, Elon Musk turned Donald Trump into a figurehead

and a puppet. Because all Donald Trump ever wanted was a get out of jail free card. He had no interest in actually governing. Elon Musk is the one with manifest destiny aspirations of global domination. So like the only way I would ever see Donald Trump being able to get rid of Elon Musk is to reopen all of the federal investigations into Elon Musk, go at him full throttle, seizes assets and kick him out of the country. That's the only way that you would actually get rid of him.

But the damage has already been done to the point that you were making. Yeah, absolutely. Although Danielle, there is a bit of good news because, people have raised the, you know, the whole idea that Musk is supposedly leading these cost-cutting efforts with his made-up Doge organization, that there's going to be a lot of conflicts of interest because Musk has a lot of federal contracts, et cetera. But like I said, the good news is there's a system in place to deal with this, as the White House press secretary said on Wednesday, if Elon Musk comes across a conflict of interest with the contracts and the funding that Doge is overseeing,

Elon will excuse himself from those contracts. Oh my God. So, you know, for those of you who were cynical and were thinking this is unbelievable, this guy is, you know, tearing apart these agencies, you know, and taking control of these agencies that oversee many of his contracts, don't you feel stupid now? Because this has all been thought of ahead of time. And we have a plan, Daniel. Yeah. Okay. Great plan. Kind of like Donald Trump's plan to turn Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East.

Watching that presser between him and Netanyahu, the faces of the reporters in that room, as Donald Trump said that America, like, was going to take ownership over a sovereign country and then level it and turn it into. a vacation destination for what he named as, quote, world people. I don't even know where to begin with this, but even Netanyahu, who had started out smiling and giddy, because we all know that he played Biden for a fool on the national stage and was just eager to get Donald Trump back into office so that he could have his way and continue unabated as if Biden showed any obstacle to anything that Netanyahu was doing over the last year plus. But to say publicly, I have this great idea and I've run it by all of these people, all the people in his head, I'm assuming, who all clapped like seals and said, what a wonderful idea. And this basically is the brainchild of Jared Kushner,

who sat down and said, oh, you know, what would be great. It's great beachfront property. Like they see the world like a monopoly board, like real people with lives and families and tradition and like connection to mean absolutely nothing to them. They are just people to wipe out, remove and then build something gaudy and disgusting like every single other one of Donald Trump's properties. It was mind-blowing. It was a mind-blowing. It was a mind-blowing to watch. Yeah, it's unreal. And of course, Netanyahu thinks this is a great idea because he belongs in a cell next to Trump.

You know, it's interesting. I, you know, I get newsletters from various news organizations because I'm very well-read, Danielle. Yeah, you're very good at your job. I am. And I try to keep up on what I like to call current events. And I got an email from Ha'Aritz, which is a huge newspaper in Israel. Every single headline about this is completely opposed to this insane idea. Expelling two million Gazans, Trump forget your American Riviera, whether it's Trump or Cahain, or Cahani, however you want to pronounce that, Israel must reject Gazin population transfer.

It is headline after headline of talking about how insane this plan is. And these are, again, this is a newspaper within Israel. So the idea that this is being taken seriously and the idea that it's the old, you know, don't take him literally. Well, he doesn't literally mean he's going to turn it into a casino, you know, or waterfront property and build Marlago Middle East. You know, well, he doesn't literally mean he's going to displace every single resident of Gaza. First of all, he does. And that's, you know, yes, they tried to walk it back and soften it a few days later. but this is what they do.

He comes out and says this absolutely fucking outrageous thing, and then they walk it back a little bit, you know, and people sit there and go, oh, see, so that's not so crazy. When in fact, the thing they walked it back to is so crazy. Oh, God. I don't know. I don't know how, like, none of it makes any sense. But the thread here is this desire for America somehow to continue to expand.

Like that's like the under. So it's it's Greenland one day. It's the Panama Canal the next day. It's Gaza the day after that. It's Canada. This is what they want to do. The funny thing is and not funny at all is that Donald Trump has not said that he's not opposed to using military action. It's either the threat of tariffs or military action on these places in order to expand America's footprint all for like.

their ambitions of what, being trillionaires at this point, it's sick, it's dystopian, it's wild, where we are. I'm just like, I know that there's an asteroid headed here in 2032, and I'm just wondering if it could speed the fuck up. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randy Weingarten. Randy, we are in an extraordinary moment. I'm running out of words to use to express the danger that this country is in, but most importantly, our education system is in. And so I just want to give you an opportunity to talk with us about what teachers are dealing with right now. We have a situation where schools are no longer considered sanctuary safe spaces for undocumented children. And we are seeing teachers

literally lock ice out of buildings so that they cannot then take children out of their classrooms and frankly out of this country. We are hearing from this current regime about defunding and shutting down the Department of Education. So I know that your plate is full. Please, tell us the state of things from your vantage point. We are in uncharted, unprecedented borders. I don't think that there's a time that one can say, this is like this or this is like that. What Donald Trump has done is he has attempted since January 20th to basically say that the country is going to be a fundamentally different country than what it was on January. 19th and that they are going to take huge executive power to remake the country in the way in which

Project 2025 envisioned. So this is literally, for anybody who watched or listened to Project 2025, this is literally a takeover of the country in terms of that. Now, what does that mean in English? What it means is that they want to have a power elite of the rich and famous, basically running the country and basically having all of the power. And they want their trying by creating this level of fear. They're trying to say that the opportunity for all and the way in which we have dealt with our democracy where everybody has a voice and people have a vote, that there are winners and losers. And that essentially, except for the billionaire oligarchal class and his mega voters, the rest of everybody doesn't have a voice or a vote. And that's what he's

trying to do. And it's scary and it's despotic and it's oligarchical and all of that. But it's not America and it's not what people voted for. And so this is what we're trying to do. We, in the face of the chaos, we're trying to restore community in the face of the cruelty. We're trying to make clear that we need to have compassion and we need to have strength. So three things. On the issue of children, those of us in education are going to do everything we can to protect our children and to fund our future. On protecting our children, they took away what has been longstanding policy that ICE is not, you know, not supposed to go into sensitive areas like hospitals, churches or schools because it creates fright, anxiety for everyone when these areas we have pledged,

you know, as a community that these are safe and, you know, welcoming places. So we have said to our members that the only way that ICE can come in to snatch a child or to deport from a school is they have to have a judicial warrant. And absent that, you cannot let ICE in and you must call the principal, you must call the superintendent, you must call the powers that be, you know, the people who are supposed to get the big bucks, because we have an obligation to all children. That's number one. Number two, and notice how simple I am trying to make these messages.

Yes, yes. Because it needs to be in the face of this kind of fear and anxiety, it needs to be that simple and that directed. Number two, we are going to fight. You know, I don't personally, whether there was a Department of Education or whether it was part of health and human services, that's not the issue for me in particular. In fact, my union actually was, you know, thought that we shouldn't have a separate Department of Education. They thought we should at the time stay within the Department of Health, education, and welfare because we thought children should be situated with their families. But having said that, what Musk and Trump are trying to do is take the money, the money that goes for kids.

So this is protect our kids and fund our future. So we are fighting back on the 26 million kids get Title I.5 million kids get IDEA. Title I is the funding for poor kids. IDEA is the funding for kids with disabilities. Five and a half million kids get funding for English as a second language. 13 million get Pell Grants so that they can go to college. So that, you know, when you start adding this up, this is millions and millions of kids that directly get funds from that have been appropriated by Congress, meet it out by the Department of Education. And you need a department to make sure that, you know, the funds are not being stolen

or actually going for the intended purposes. So we are going to fight district by district, making sure in red, purple, and blue districts that Congresspeople actually know that parents and teachers want to make sure that our kids actually get more funding, not less funding. This is not about states controlling schools. States control schools, states and local counties. This is about, let's be clear, they're trying to take the funding so that they can create tax cuts for people like Elon Musk. So all of this is about protecting our kids, funding our future, and actually fighting. back and say, this is not what America voted for. They did not vote for a king. They did not vote for Donald Trump to have all authority. They wanted to have a normal life, the life that they thought

that they had pre-COVID. That's what people wanted. They wanted less inflation. They wanted America to be, you know, they wanted America to be strong here and abroad, not one that is reviled by the world or one that is actually smashing cruelty from who we should be as compassionate Americans. You know, what is extraordinary to me is that I'm a former educator and one of the reasons why I went into education so many years ago was because I understood that that stood between young people having possibility and access to a future and not. Exactly. And what I realize is that education has always been. Our schoolhouses have always been on the front lines for justice. The development of the public education system came about because black people gathered and said, we need education. We need robust education. And so

births out the public education system. And this has been something that has always been a target of the Republican Party. We have seen the privatization with charter schools and diverting funding. from public schools into religious institutions and so on and so forth over decades. And so I'm wondering, you know, now when you had listed out the millions, the millions of children that are going to be affected by the decisions that, one, an unelected person Elon Musk is making. And then two, Donald Trump had campaigned on gutting the Department of Education, how do we message to the public that everyone is, you know, is going to be affected by this?

That this is not, you know, the fights of the 20th century of charter versus public or religious versus public. Like, this is about the decimation of the future possibility of America. So I think you just said it. We need to be in communities all across the country talking about public education is the foundation for a democracy and a society actually caring about its kids. And the moment you try to defund it and you try to defund it and you try to. to make it a nullity is the moment that society gets completely eroded, period, full stop.

And so you have to make the, you know, you have to make the bigger, broader argument, but you also have to really create the direct correlation and connection to individual children. And I've seen that teachers see that and parents see that throughout the country. I was bemused when Donald Trump said yesterday that the only people who are against getting rid of the Department of Education with the teacher unions. When I know every single parent who gets an individual education program for their youngster understands what the purpose of the Federal Department of Education is. You know, what has happened is it is the opportunity agent.

It was the way that we leveled up. And we're not going back. And we may have to be the fighters for the promise of America. and that's what we're doing. Teachers actually go into schooling as you did to teach, to try and help kids have the skills and knowledge they need so that they navigate a complex world and a diverse world and they have those practical skills. That's why teachers become teachers and that's why teachers stay as teachers. They see that as their purpose in life and, you know, I just adore that about teachers. It's their purpose in life is not, you know, like Elon Musk to become rich.

or to subjugate others. Their purpose of life is to lift up others. And so education is the opportunity agent that we give our kids both in America and elsewhere. But in America, we have said that it is available for all. And it is the root and the foundation for democracy and for generations of society to thrive. So we're going to do those two things. It's not simply about protecting public education. It is about protecting our children.

and funding our future. And we will fight tooth and nail on both of these things, regardless of what happens. I want to go back to the situation around ICE, which can become extraordinarily dangerous. And what directives are coming down to school districts in order to, one, understand their rights, the rights of their students and what to do when ICE comes to the door. Can you walk us through that? So we have 16,000 school districts in the United States. They all have different protocols and procedures.

And states and localities actually run schools. So everyone has different protocols and procedures. But what I'm suggesting to every person who is listening is you go to your principal, if you're a PTA, you go to the principal that way. If you're a parent, you go to the principal that way. Or you go to a superintendent at a school board meeting that way. Don't go alone. Go with people.

If you're a teacher, you go either through your union or if you're not organized, you go with a group of teachers. And what you want is you want the written, you want protocols to be written when ICE comes in. And the root of that is that a child is not being given over to any immigration official unless there is a judicial warrant signed by a judge. We are in Locus Parentis. We have an obligation to all of our children. parents rely on us being in place of a parent during the school day. So therefore, unless somebody can prove in any way, form or matter that they are an official and a judge has basically said they have a reason to do this, then we actually not only have no obligation, we have a responsibility not to give a child over to a big burly guy with a gun.

They have that responsibility. So that's why from every different direction, if there is not that, we cannot and we cannot and we should not be giving children over to anybody who pretends or says they, I mean, anybody who says they are what they say they are, because we have no idea if they're pretending. We have no idea of who they are. I mean, think about it. If we weren't in this ICE situation, it's part of the reason why you had that longstanding policy. see, so you wouldn't have this. But let me just say separate and apart from the operating principles of this, think about what this does.

Just think about what this does to every child and every family in the school. If you are a third grader and your best friend is taken away by somebody and is not there anymore, think about that trauma to that third grader for the rest of that third grader's life. And think about what that third grader thinks in terms of, Well, is it me the next time? Think about what that family then has to do for the rest of that third grader's life and that family's life. How do you explain it? Oh, he was my best friend yesterday and now somebody with a gun is taking him somewhere?

Why? How? What? Because of an election that was basically, you know, a point and a half difference between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump? Do you think that most families who voted for Donald Trump voted for this, that children would be taken by ICE agents? Because they're trying to make, you know, because they're trying to make immigrants, not billionaires, not price gougers, the people who have caused inflation. We are a country of immigrants. Anyway, don't get me started.

No, but I appreciate the imagery because I think that what happens is that we have a lot of, of these things that happen out of sight and out of mind. And, you know, partly by what you just stated and what we saw, you know, in the city of Chicago, with them banding together organizers and elected officials and teachers and parents and say, you're not coming in here. Right. And we're doing that in other places as well. So Chicago has a collective bargaining contract where this is embedded in it. In New York, for example, this was the policy. I mean, we have no idea what's going on now because it appears that, you know, our current mayor is trying to work out his, you know, criminal justice exit strategy, and this may be a part of it. But up until now,

we had a policy in New York that it didn't require, you know, the sensitive areas policy. There was a policy in New York that ICE didn't go into schools. And we have that in a lot of different places. But what we did last week is we had over 2,000 people join our We Protect Kids Town, last week, if somebody wants to listen to it or watch it, it's on our share my lesson website. And, you know, we want it. We want part of our job right now is to educate people in as direct and in as simplistic matter as possible. One of the things I learned as a school teacher is it's not what's said.

It's what's heard. So, you know, you know me a long time. I'm not normally this directive. But it's a matter of we got to make sure that people. know that it's not how do we, we have a responsibility to all children. We can't, as school teachers, change the law. The law used to be that you couldn't do this in schools. But if it, God forbid, somebody is so cruel to all the people in America and all the families in America to want to make an example in a school. And it's that cruel. And is that counterproductive to create that

kind of anxiety in a place that's supposed to be a safe and welcoming place for all children, then they still need a judicial warrant, period, full stop. And I wrote, look, I'm not beyond begging if that's what it takes. I wrote to Donald Trump the day that this policy was lifted. Of course, he never wrote back. I wrote to him the day the policy was lifted. And I said, don't do this. I know you don't like immigrants, but you are hurting immigrants and non-immigrants alike. you are basically making schools war zones. And that's what I think they want. They want to create this chaos, this confusion, this everybody that in a sense of anxiety,

because that's what strong men do. It's like they alone can fix it then. And what we need to do is we create the community that fights for our children and fights for our values and fights for opportunity for all and dignity for all and for a better life for all. And that is what we are doing in the face of all of this. Well, Randy, I cannot thank you enough for your continued advocacy, for your continued work, for your continued passion, particularly in this moment. I greatly appreciate you, as I know millions of families do. And we thank you so much for your time today on the new abnormal and hope that you will come back and join us again.

Thank you, Daniel. Of course. We talk a lot here on the new abnormal about some pretty awful stuff going on in Washington, D.C., and around the country. And we realize it's vital to also shine a spotlight on some good things, people who are fighting back, groups that are working hard, organizations that are standing firm, all in opposition to what Trump Musk and their cronies are trying to do to America. So joining me now is Mara Quint, organizer for Fair Share America, to talk about what FSA does and why they've become a partner organization of a new group called Families Over Billionaires. Mara, thanks so much for being here. Thank you for having me on. It's really nice. Absolutely. I'm excited to get to talk about this stuff. I mean, I'm sure you are too. You want to talk about taxes, right? Oh, when don't I want to talk about taxes? Good.

Yeah, I don't know what that means. All right. So start with Fair Share America. What's y'all's mission? Fair Share America is an organization that is working to coordinate between the federal tax fight and activities and on-the-ground actions that are happening in the States. So there's a lot of times that like econ stuff kind of like gets relegated to a Wall Street Journal page or something or, you know, an op-ed. Like it's sort of the one of those things where you go like, all right, well, I know that I can't afford stuff. I know I can't buy a house, but like I don't really know what the economy means. And so people kind of like go about their daily lives and they deal with things that are much more or that feel much more pressing to them. But the econ fight, the tax fight, is the big fight.

It is the thing that is happening federally in a really, really specific, hardcore way. It's like the one thing that Republicans are fully aligned on. Right. And it's the driving thing behind all of this bullshit that they're spinning up. Like all of the tornadoes of bullshit that they are pushing out, all of this ridiculous idiocy with Musk and with freezing payments. and we're shutting down all of the, you know, organizations and we're going in and we're, you know, stealing all your data. And all of that is to serve a singular end, which is they have a big budget resolution that they need to put forward. And they want tax cuts for billionaires.

And if they can shut everything else down, then there's money to give to billionaires. That's the driving modus operandi that they're working under, which is ridiculous. But that's it. That's at the heart of it. Well, that's the thing. There's so many insane things. going on right now with, I mean, every day we're hearing things that people's rights are being taken away. Various minorities are rightfully scared about what's going on. But it really does, in the end,

for the people we're talking about, the money aspect is so important and the way that they, you know, it's not an accident that Musk is going into all these organizations and trying to get hold of all their computer systems so he can control the purse strings, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is like, you know, Project 20, 25 days, but long before that, this has really been what they have stated outright they want to do forever. What they want to do is they want to cut all of the services that people rely on. They want to cut everything that we are paying into the system and we deserve, and they want to use that money and turn around and give it to tax cuts for billionaires.

They specifically want you to pay for the tax cuts for billionaires with your own life. That's what they're looking to do. And they have no problem throwing anyone into the chipper. it. And so, yeah, they are sowing very real fear. They are wreaking tremendous, real harm, actual physical harm. But it is really to serve a single thing. And that is their own bottom line. They want more money. They want tax cuts. It's absurd. Yeah. I don't even, I mean, it's one of those things when you like stop and think about it. It's just a sickness. Like, these are people who already have more money than they can spend in multiple lifetimes. But it is

an absolute sickness. They are completely driven to it. And so getting rid of all of these things, all of these services, all of these organizations allows them to save money, allows them to give their tax cuts to billionaires. It also allows them to create a system where they can start to privatize everything and charge us for it. So they're able to make money twice over. And that's what they want to do. And they are happy to ruin everyone's lives to do it. So talk about the kinds of things that Fair Share America gets up to fight against all of the things that you have just talked about. Yeah. Well, as it turns out, people don't like that. It's not a very popular thing. And also, as it turns out, even though this is Republicans driving mission, and even though they are just wreaking a tremendous amount of havoc, they are not as organized and mastermindy as they come across. They are still subject to actual real pressures. And we saw that even just like recently when they did this whole like we're doing all the budget freezes. And then everyone rightfully took.

to the streets in various ways, whether it was calls or emails or literally on the streets, there was a huge outcry and they reversed it. They shut it down. They were like, oh, well, maybe we won't. But maybe we will, maybe we won't. They were very confusing about it. But they did have to respond. And there are, I mean, like, look, they're dismantling a lot of the checks and balances that we've had in place. But that doesn't mean they're all gone. There's still a tremendous amount of ability to shut this down. But unfortunately, we have to be really, really loud. And the louder we are, the more of a difference we can make. So Fair Share is coordinating the loudness. We are trying to make sure, because again, everything that they're doing is serving

these tax cuts for billionaires. But like, that's easy to get lost in. It's really, really easy to like kind of overlook that because of so much of the direct harm that they are putting upon people that people rightfully want to stand up and speak about. So Fair Share is trying to make sure that they recognize, that Republicans recognize and that Democrats recognize that we are also very aware of this con. We're totally aware of this grift that is being pulled, and we are going to hold them accountable for it. And the louder and more visible we can be about that, the better off we are. And that means screaming at Republicans. It can mean screaming at Democrats because they're not all in line, unfortunately. It can mean backing Democrats. It can mean simply putting pressure on to

urge action from either party. There are some Republicans who don't love being in the crosshairs of your taking my grandmother's social security. So there are some movable Republicans, believe it or not. These things exist. So we're coordinating actions. We have quite a lot of planned events that we're going to be doing. We're going to be doing events during all of the house recesses. So people can go and speak directly to their house representatives and let them know what they want to happen and what they don't want to happen. We're coordinating groups on the ground to speak out about this. We're putting a bunch of different events and actions together. So we also have letter writing and email and days of action. And so people can do things if they want to leave

their house and people can do things if they don't want to leave their house because, I don't know, I have both days. So we're accommodating all the various things that people might have the energy to do as they rapidly try to deplete our energy. So that is what we are doing. I was going to say I felt a little targeted when you said people who don't want to leave their house, but that's okay. I don't actually even believe you exist. I think you're just an idea. I'm a voice. I am just a voice. I am the original AI. It's Andy Intelligence. You lost corporeal form a long time ago. Yes. Thank God. No, I'm jealous. Talk about this Families Over Billionaires. This is a new thing, right? Yes. And FSA has become a partner organization of this new group, right? Yeah. So Families

of billionaires is not an organization. It is a campaign. This is all like DC complicated speak for like how the money goes and who's doing things. But it's really just that families over billionaires is meant to last the length of this budget fight and it will be around for the next year, year and a half. And it is the group that we are working alongside and with. So fair share America is partnering as part of the families over billionaires campaign, which, you know, is meant to do a lot of trying to get this message out. We believe that we should be placing families over billionaires in all of our policy. In all of our federal, state, local policy, we should be prioritizing families over billionaires. Real straightforward, real simple. But families over billionaires is going to be running quite a lot

of ads, paid media, and doing a lot of commons on this to try and really permeate the culture and get through. Because again, I don't expect anyone to like get home from working multiple jobs and sit down and like try and parse through what the hell is happening in econ policy. But if we can make things really simple and straightforward and just let people know the things that they need to know, we're going to be a lot more successful. Yeah, that's great because I do think one of the problems here is that the sort of infamous Steve Bannon line about, you know, throwing shit against the wall and flooding the zone and all that stuff.

And it is, you know, it's hard enough to keep track of this stuff when you're like, you know, ensconced in it the way you are or or I am to a little bit of a lesser degree maybe, but not much probably. But for people who are, like you said, this is not their job. Like they have their own jobs that they have to deal with. They have families they have to deal with. And it is really hard to just figure out which of all these things are the ones that I need to prioritize and what all are they doing.

So the idea of simplifying the message and sort of explaining in simple terms, what's going on just sounds like such a necessary idea. Yeah, you know, part of all of this is, you know, how D.C. and how our government operates, which I still learn every day because it's such a mess. But part of it is, you know, all this stuff that Trump is doing with like executive orders and the Doge stuff, which isn't even real, that it's not vetted, all of that is just this stuff that can be shut down. Like, it can be legislatively shut down.

He can kind of spin up whatever the hell he wants. but the next person coming in or there are other actions to remove those things. The legislation that gets passed, that is much harder to change. That can stick around forever. I mean, we're still suffering under legislation that Reagan passed, right? Like that stuff has long-lasting effect and is very hard to reverse. And so all of this stuff that is being spun up is the, I don't want to say easy per se, But like, is the stuff that you can get rid of with a bit more speed?

And what, again, they don't want you to pay attention to is this legislation that is major legislation that they are super duper focused on. And that is the budget stuff. That is this money bottom line. And it's the legislation that is going to reorder. It's a absolute redistribution of wealth. It's just the other way around, right? Like they want to steal from the poor to give to the rich.

That's what this legislation is. And they want it institutionalized in. legislation so that we can, you know, have Reagan, too, electric bugaloo. I mean, like, I don't know who will be left 40 years after that, but that's what they're gunning for. Yeah, on Urban Dictionary, we call that the reverse Robin Hood, I think. There you go. I want to talk to you about something that just happened recently. Wednesday was hashtag 50501 day. That stands for 50 protests, 50 states one day. I believe you were part of that. I jumped in. I mean, it was a really, really interesting thing. So as I said, as part of the fair share America and families over billionaires, I'm doing a lot

of organizing in states with a lot of groups, a lot of people on the ground, grassroots, various different organizations. And I think last week I'd say, I started hearing from some of these individual groups, like, hey, what's going on? People like, we're hearing some sort of thing about this, like 50-51. What is this? Is this legit? Like, who's behind this? And I started hearing it enough that last weekend, it was like, well, I mean, someone's got to figure it out. So I just started diving in trying to like parse out, what is this? Where is it coming from? Who is it? And it turned out it was a Reddit thread that became a subreddit that grew and grew. I was there Sunday morning. I think there were 20,000 subscribers to it. By Sunday night, there were, I want to say,

50 or 60,000. It was like snowballing. So I parsed that through and then found from the Reddit thread that there were people who were organizing this over Discord. So I got connected into the Discord and found that those people were doing stuff on TikTok and on Signal. So I launched into the signals. So just tried to like figure out what was happening. And it was just this really organic, true grassroots, decentralized action of somebody had an idea, let's do this.

And a ton of people went, all right. Yeah. Oh, okay. Sure. I live near State Capitol. I guess I'll jump in and started organizing these things. And by my count, because I started doing counts yesterday, there were probably about 25,000, most likely more. I'd say I'm undercounting, but 25,000 people across the country.

And there were, in fact, protests at every single state capital, all 50 state capitals yesterday, which is pretty incredible, especially for something that came together in the manner of days. It was so quick. And it was really impressive. People are upset. People are scared. people are really want to do something and here was a thing that people could grab a hold of and come out and do. And I was like utterly fascinated in these Reddit threads, in these discords. Just looking at how many people were saying things like, I've never done this before. I'm scared. Is this safe? What do we do? I mean, they were really scared. I mean, they were, they were having conversations of like, what do I keep on hand in case we get tear gassed? There was somebody sharing for gunshot wounds. There was somebody like people were, let's be as careful as we possibly can. It was amazing. And yet they did it. They came out. Like, they did it through their fear. And it was really impressive. Yeah, that's fantastic. And I have to say,

Mara, it must be nice to be in your 20s, as I have to assume you are, to be able to track all this stuff down online. Oh, I'm 16. Oh, okay. Sorry. I forget you're a cool teen. But I do want to ask you about something you posted on blue sky. Skeeted, some would say, not me, though. And I'm going to paraphrase it because you phrased it in a very online way, complimentary, but the gist was that when it comes to protest, there may be a bit of a disconnect between some of the established organizations and the kind of stuff you were seeing that was this really organically grassroots stuff that was going on on TikTok and Reddit and Discord. Yeah. So, I mean, as I said, I work for a national organization. And I will say to their credit, we're a real small organization. I told everyone that I

work with at Fair Share and at Families Over Billionaires, hey, this is what's happening. I'm jumping in. And they were all like, awesome. Let us know what help you need. Like they were cool. But then I started taking it out to other groups being like, hey, this is happening. And the response I started getting back was so much like, this is, this is a sci-op. This is happening badly. This is, they're disorganized. At best, they were saying, this is so disorganized. We can't be part of it. At work. worst, they were saying, this is actually like a honey trap. They're setting people up to come and then they're going to shoot you. Like, I mean, really intense levels of fear and conspiracy. And like, it was really, really frustrating to see because so many of the people that were saying, like,

we're telling our people not to come. We're shutting it down. We're telling, we keep getting asked if people should attend. And we're saying, no, don't, you don't attend. Because who's funding this? Who's behind it? I kept jumping into these being like, hey, I've spent some time. trying to figure it out. No one's funding it. No one's behind it. It's grassroots. People, people are. That's who's doing it. And like in the, I live in Harrisford, Pennsylvania, and I came out, there was a woman who was just like, hey, I volunteered to show up with granola bars and water for anybody who needs it. And somebody else say, you know what, I've got some medical training. So I'll be on hand. I'll have like some first aid stuff in case anybody needs it. It was, you know,

somebody else was like, I've got a speaker. I've got a sound speaker. Everybody jumped in. I jumped in and said, hey, I do some company. Jeannie, we need media press. Okay, great, I'll do an advisory. Like, it was the most communal grassroots activity I've ever been a part of. It was amazing. And it was so disheartening to see all of these, like, more institutionalized people who, you know, like, you think about, like, when did you get into the movements? How did this happen? Like, really? Do you think that, like, Coca-Cola was sponsoring your first outing? Because I don't. I think you came in exactly these ways. And it's really upsetting to see that you. you have grown so frightened and distrustful of real true activism and grassroots.

And additionally, I mean, like, through the last election, all I kept hearing from these places was, you know, where we have to reach the young people. We have to find, like, they're not going through the normal channels. And we can't just, like, place a TV at and get people anymore. We have to, like, find them where they are. We have to meet people where they are. We have to, like, encourage youth and all that. But they want a campus Democrat. Club, right? Like, they don't want a bunch of scared kids going, I got to do something and, like, talking to their friends on Discord or the places where they play video games. Like, that's frightening to them. And that really bum me out. But I did continually try to like counter this with

like, hey, this is a good thing. We should be encouraging that. And I think seeing that this happened, I'm definitely now starting to hear from some people being like, oh, can you connect me? Like, can you link me in? Great. Which is another fun thing where I'm just like, no, I can't because it's not a per. Like, you're talking like there's like a guy. There's not a guy. Like, what I'm telling you to do is go join Reddit and hang out. Can't you put them in touch with the CEO of Antifa?

I mean, he's asked not to be named. So, you know, I can't, unfortunately. It's a real bummer that that's still the mentality. And it definitely made me go like, oh, yeah, okay. I see why we do. The Dems have been struggling. This could maybe have something to do with it. Yeah, for sure.

Well, it's good to see that maybe they're waking up to this, even if they don't seem to fully get it yet. I'm trying to slap them awake, let me tell you. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. You could also try putting their hands in warm water. Interesting.

I feel like someone's going to have to clean that up, though. Well, it's probably you, though. Hey, look, before I let you go, Mara, I know you're doing some protest organizing yourself for the week of February 17th, is it? Yes, that is through Fair Share. We are going to be doing. In recess events, so people can go to fair share usa.org, sign up just to get more information. We're pulling together a lot of events that are going to be focused on this economic message.

Of course, people are welcome to bring all of the other things that they are upset and angry about, but that will be the overarching message is families over billionaires. So the more the merrier, we would love to have people come out. And I assume they can also bring granola bars and water. Yeah, I mean, like as long as they offer me some. And they're good granola bars. None of the raisin bullshit. Okay.

No raisin granola bars, people. Mara, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate the work you do. And I'll be keeping an eye on what goes on February 17th or the week of February 17th. The week of. Thank you, Andy. Thanks, Mara. Andy Levy.

Danielle Moody. So it's been another week. That's all I'll say. How are you ending it with your fuck that guy? Man, honestly, this might have been the hardest one. Picking a fuck that guy for today. We could have built the whole show out of just a huge fuck that guy's segment. But I ended up going with Mark Andreessen.

And he is, of course, the venture capitalist tech bro dipshit who runs a firm called Andresen Horowitz, along with Ben Horowitz, who apparently I went to college with. I didn't know him. Just a little fun fact. Anyway, they announced on Tuesday that they were hiring Daniel Penny. For people who don't remember who Daniel Penny is or who were saying, oh, that name sounds familiar, but I don't know. He's the guy who killed a man named Jordan Neely on New York City subway by choking him to death and then was acquitted by a jury of

someone's peers, I guess not Mr. Neely's. And that's his claim to fame. And Mark And Andresen announced that his venture capital firm was hiring him because, as we know, Danielle, hiring the most qualified people is what they're all about. Yeah. Is the job choking people to death? Well, they're not hiring for security. Oh, fuck. I'm not really sure.

I want to read a guy named Ryan Broderick, who has an excellent newsletter called Garbage Day. He got a copy of the email that Andresen Horowitz sent out to its limited partners and investors announcing this hire and trying to spin it because apparently the investors are, as a source told, Broderick, almost universally pissed. So I want to read little excerpts of this email because it's unbelievable. Here we go. We don't judge people for the worst moment in their life. I've decided to bring Daniel on to the American Dynamism team as an investing partner where, like many other early in career hires I've made over the years, he will learn the business of investing. Okay, so again, he's hiring someone who's not qualified, just to point that out.

And then this is the part that really got to me. This is how the email describes what happened on the subway. Daniel was involved in an incident where a homeless person with mental health issues threatened numerous passengers on the subway. To protect his fellow passengers, Daniel subdued Mr. Neely with a chokehold. And here's the part that really is chef's kiss. And Mr. Neely eventually. died. What?

Daniel subdued Mr. Neely with a chokehold and Mr. Neely eventually died. As we all do, Daniel, we all eventually die. I mean, they might as well have said it was natural causes at this fucking point. Yes. So I read that and I was just absolutely

just gobsmine. I mean, Mark Andresen is a horrible, horrible human being. There is absolutely no doubt of that. He's one of the worst we've got. He's just maybe slightly below Musk only because he doesn't have the power. But if he had the power of Elon Musk, he would be equally awful. But man, just reading Mr. Neely eventually died.

I don't think I'm ever going to forget those four words because they are so reprehensible and just so fucking exactly what you would expect from a tech bro who doesn't really think of most other people as actual human beings with lives. And so hiring Penny is bad enough. And again, puts not that we needed it to, but it puts the lie to the idea that these people are always about hiring the best and the brightest. And that's why they don't like things like DEI, et cetera. All of that is a lie. But here it is in action. And then to say that on top of the hiring, fuck that guy forever. even know what to say here. I don't understand what the job is that he's hiring for. And why out of,

I don't know, I'm assuming like a desk full of resumes, you would think to yourself, do you know what would be really good for my company, a murderer? And think that like your shareholders and the other investors are not going to be like, maybe this is a step too far. The celebration that these people do of white vigilantes that murder black people and people. It's just like, it's so fucking sick and depraved. And we need to just call that what it is. Not like there, there's no euphemism to use here for the depravity that these motherfuckers exhibit. Just wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Okay. I need a better phrase for fuck that guy. Well, until we come up with one, and we'll workshop it.

Yeah, let's whiteboard this, please. Until we do, Danielle, who's your fuck that guy? You know, it's bountiful. We are living in an abundance of fuck that guy. So it's becoming very difficult to narrow things down. But today, because I do believe in diversity, my fuck that guy is going out to a woman, the newly installed attorney general of the United States of America, Pam Bondi, who has decided that her first actions that she's going to be taking leading up the Department of Justice

is going to be to send out a flurry, according to Slate, a flurry of memos within a 15-minute span where she is directing several divisions inside of the Department of Justice to suss out private sector workplaces that are utilizing diversity, equity, and including. and accessibility initiatives, folks, because diversity, equity, and inclusion and accessibility is also about people with disabilities. Right. People with disabilities being able to have accommodations met so that they too can thrive in the workplace.

This is what Pam Bondi is directing the Department of Justice to go after. This is not their federal witch hunt. This is now the federal government, the party. of quote unquote small government going into the private sector and dictating to them how they can put together their business practices. I don't know what constitution they are reading. I don't know if they've ever read the constitution at this point or even know how to spell it. But basically, they are going and utilizing the recent decision that came out of the students for fair admissions versus Harvard, the 2023 decision that rolled back affirmative action and using this as their reasoning

to go after private companies in saying that it is quote unquote, I guess, discriminatory. So if you, in fact, have black people, people of color, people with disabilities, women, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, anyone who I guess is not going to be a white straight male in the workplace, then evidently you're up to criminal activities. And this is what our Department of Justice is going to be doing. Again, I will say it. This is McCarthyism 2.0 in 2025 during the 1950s. It was under the guise of going after communists, right, and sussing them out. And now it is anybody that actually believes in diversity, equity, and inclusion and that everyone other than white, straight cis men have earned their place in our society. So for that reason, Pam Bondi and just all of them, all of them get my fuck that guy.

And friends, I need a better phrase. I need a bigger word. I need a bigger word other than fuck. I don't know what it is. A couple things here. I'm not really an I told you so kind of guy. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

But Danielle, I have to say that, you know, I kept telling you, Pam Bondi, she's not good. And you kept saying, no, that's my girl. That's my girl. And I was like, I don't think she's your girl. And you told me to, if I remember correctly, you told me to take several seats. Oh, is that what I said? Is that what I said? I think so.

Jesse, run this back. Run this back. The fact check's saying, no, Andy. I'm sorry. I think this was a few. We don't have that clip. We don't have that clip. I think this sounds to me like, Jesse, you're just, you're too lazy to find this clip.

So you're pretending it doesn't exist. And this is workplace discrimination. Oh, God. And as a white man, I am not allowed to be discriminated against by order of the United States Department of Justice. Yes, basically. Sounds about white to me. That's all I have to say about this. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal.

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