The Daily Beast Podcast - Sam Bee on Biden's Big Fail, John Avlon on His Own

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, co-host Samantha Bee has some tough talk for President Joe Biden and his team. Former Daily Beast editor-in-chief John Avlon joins the podcast to discuss the lessons learnt from his own run for Congress, and comedian Michael Ian Black has news for everyone. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, just pop it in to share an excerpt from the newest episode of the Daily Beast podcast hosted by our chief creative and content officer Joanna Coles and late night legend Samantha B. We're joined now by comedian and beast contributor Michael Ian Black, who nobly dropped out of NYU to promote the teenage mutant ninja turtles on stage reenactment. Well, someone had to do it. Thankfully, things got better from there. And Michael is now a beast of an actor. He's a comedian, a writer, he's a regular contributor to The Daily Beast. And beyond his work on shows like wet, hot American summer, the state, and have I got news for you, he recently penned a very popular column on The Daily Beast called Here's What I Learned from Trump's Victory.

I'm the problem. It's me. Michael, thanks for coming in. Can I ask how you know each other? Because you've known each other for a long time, yeah? No, we met at The Daily Beast, actually, because Michael has been writing a column that appears on Wednesday. I know. I read it. We're work colleagues. Yeah, we were colleagues. And then I did the thing that you're going to do, which is I got shot out of a cannon on. Have I got news for you?

Fantastic. It felt fine because Michael Ian Black was our team captain. That is fantastic. I thought you knew each other for 39 years. Neither of us are 39 years old. I know. How could that be so impossible? How could that be? So Michael, thank you for joining us this morning. Your column, what I'm I learned from Donald Trump's victory, I'm the problem, it's me, was our most red piece. I think maybe this week, it clearly hit a nerve with everybody. Do I get a bonus when that happens? No. In fact, you get less money for that. You get to be on the podcast. Isn't that prize enough?

It's a price enough, thank you. So talk us through this piece. I mean, obviously, I was moving to you, but it's like we fight meaning people like for the qualities and attitudes and attributes and principles that we believe in. And then to be repudiated so soundly those very same attributes, great qualities and principles makes me feel like, you know what? For the entire Trump era, people in my Twitter feed have been telling me that I'm the problem. And people like me are the problem. And I think maybe they're right. Maybe I am the problem.

Maybe these things aren't what I should be fighting for or at least putting my attention to. If we take the Trump voter at their word, they're disbossessed and economically insecure. And I have no reason not to take them at their word. It's just that when they decide to accommodate blatant racism, misogyny, anti-democratic attitudes, and let's say lowercase F fascism along with it, it's like, I don't know what to do. And so for me, I just feel like, okay, I'm the problem. I'm just going to step back. And you're not even an urban elite either. I mean, you're living in Savannah, Georgia. What is the temperature in Savannah? Do you feel aligned with the community of people around you? Well, Savannah's a very liberal town.

I mean, there's a big old school here. It's a very kind of creative, offbeat community. It has its old southern money, too. And so there definitely is like a, you know, a Trump presence. But it's a majority of black city. It's very diverse. And it makes me, yeah, I do feel more aligned here in a certain way that I did when I was in Connecticut for the last 20 years,

which was very Connecticut-y-in, as you can imagine. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I've always thought it was the least sexy state in the nation. Connecticut. Connecticut? Sex is for good in Connecticut. How dare you?

There is all the key parties, all the best key parties take place in Connecticut. To my point, the least sexy place in the nation. Have you not been to Arkansas, Indiana? But at least Arkansas, you've got that kind of southern, you've got trees dripping with Spanish moss, haven't you? Is there anybody running a ghost tour down there who needs a new host? Because I'm without a hosting job. And I think I could really kill it.

Oh, I think you'd do great. And it is known as the most haunted city in America every night when you walk around. There's dozens of ghost stores. And so there's like converted hurses that people make where they chop off the roof and people sit in the back of the hearse looking around. Sam, I think you'd be great. Thank you so much. Do you feel like there's any value in the finger pointing? Is there a value to be had in assigning blame?

Are we, do you foresee us on a path of kind of weeding out toxins, as it were? No. No. Okay. Toxins will remain. In fact, they will dominate. At the moment, no, I don't see any need for finger pointing. I think there's a way to look at your data and analytics, let's say, in three or four,

four, six months and do a more sober assessment of what. happened. But this idea that X is to blame or Y is to blame, no, America is to blame. The people who looked at Donald Trump and thought that they wanted a reprise of the four years that he was president they are to blame. The one thing I don't want to do is blame the Kamala campaign. I thought she ran just a great, inspiring and yes, I will say the damn word, joyful campaign. It rescued what was a more abundant presidential season and turned it into. to a cost for hope and optimism, and I'm very grateful for that. I thought Tim Walls was a fantastic vice presidential candidate.

I thought she worked her ass off. I don't know that we could have expected anything more or a better candidate, but she had some structural problems. One, a vagina, and two is the wrong amount of melanin content in her skin. And I'm sorry, I just believe that. Somebody treated that night if she had run the same thing. campaign but she was a white dude you need you want walking you make. It's hard for me to argue that. I feel like that's probably right. Yeah, I could that could not take issue with that either.

I totally agree with you. And I do think that there is a really critical misunderstanding or just everybody underestimated the power of people's desire for change of any kind. Well, I think they think this is changed, don't they? Isn't the point of Donald Trump that he is a change? No, that's what I'm saying. They underestimated. Oh, I thought you meant they wanted change with her. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I think everybody underestimated how much people were willing to throw the deck of cards up in the air to achieve change. But, I mean, we did it.

We did it once before. And we've all memory whole chaos and banality of incompetence and drifting. And somehow he was able to project this narrative that it was a time of peace and prosperity, as opposed to incompetence and chaos, which is what it was. When the results were rolling in and you could kind of see the way things were going, how did it sit in your body? I'm so curious because I had a lot of people come up to me the day after and like touch their hearts and look at me mournfully.

And I was like, you know what? I'm not even, there's no tears. There's no tears. This is the choice. I don't feel good about it. This is not what I want it. But I can't. I'm not going to like tear my heart.

out of my chest on the street. I mean, this is the choice people made. It's the overwhelming choice. It's a full mandate. Unlike you. My son, his 23, was kind of spiraling. And I spoke to him, which is true. In 2016, I was exactly where you are. I was like devastated. I was freaked out. I was scared. And as difficult as those four years were, as was penuous as they felt, we got through it, I don't have the same level of confidence that we're getting through it. Now then I depend for all the reasons that have been talked about ad nauseum. What am I going to do? I mean, you still have to get up every day. I still have podcast obligations. I mean, my God. You do have podcast obligations. And I sort of feel like, you know what? I'm willing to check out

because like I said, if I'm the problem, okay, so let me just hang back. And we've got everything that you want it. You've got a compliant Senate. You've got a compliant house. You've got a Supreme Court. You've got immunity. Have had it, dude. Maybe you'll make it so much better. I don't think so, but I'm wrong about everything else. Maybe I'm wrong about things. Are you going to stay on Twitter for the next four years? What's the four days, two minutes? I'm out. Every day is a fight to stay on or go off. But I've got the benefit of addiction. Right. So talking of X or Twitter, Elon Musk appears to be a player in all this.

For now. Do you think it's good? I mean, last week we had on the show Michael Wolfe who predicted that it would end in tears, Elon and Donald Trump, probably Donald Trump's tears. I think it will end in tears because you can't have two people who want to be king. You can't have two people who want to be boss. King of the world. King of the world, king of the universe, king of the galaxy.

You cannot have that. that doesn't not work. That ends in bitterness. I mean, but again, what do I know? Maybe it'll be great. Every person he brings in, it ends with tears. I mean, it always ends with tears, except for Ben Thompson. He was asleep for four years. Right. Well, tears or jail.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Or maybe tears in jail, tears and jail. Yeah, I mean, I think we can take jail off the people for anybody we can know next to their name. And of course, you and Donald Trump have something in common because his younger son goes to your alma mater, NYU, which you dropped out of to promote the teenage mutant ninja turtles.

That's right, Joanna. The stage show. I love it when people bring up the stage shows that I participated in because I was in the live stage production of Sailor Moon. So you and I have quite a bit in common, sir. What's Silver Moon? What is that? Sailor Moon, the anime classic?

I've never had a bit. I've never had a bit. I danced and sang on a stage for just thousands of extremely bored children. I'd love to hear one of your numbers. Well, when I'm down in Savannah, it'll be part of my, it'll be the kind of the end. It'll be the big finale to my ghost tour, the ghosts of my former jobs. Kate, I want to ask you about have I got news for you because I think it's a great show. love it. I think Roy's a great host. You're a great team captain. I love Amber Ruffin. It's really

fun to watch. Like, is everybody sitting down, I guess you're off. I guess you're dark this week. That was a wise choice. It was smart. Yeah. I think everybody thought it was going to be election chaos as it's supposed to elect a depression at that stage. Yeah, yeah. I guess how do you reassess, do you, I guess the show doesn't need a reassessment or will you all sit together and have a kind of an all hands and go, oh, okay, now we carry on, just do things the way they were. What's the tone? Is there anything that will change in the show? We're all, we're going to go pro maga. I mean, yes. Oh, okay. Great. We're fully pro magas starting next week. Mm-hmm. Wonderful. I guess that's probably the biggest change.

Yeah. It's a subtle change, subtle, but important. The purpose of the show and, you know, I think any comedy is to make fun of people and make fun of people in power. And we'll certainly have our hands for the next, hopefully four years more on in four years. Well, I would appreciate if you give me all the answers to the questions in advance. Well, that's the beautiful thing is we don't prepare. You know, you're just, you're going to, you're going to show up there at five o'clock. You're going to get a talking to from the producers and then we're going to send you out there into the lion's then. And because you're such a smart, cogent, articulate young woman, you'll have no problem.

I didn't miss everything in that sentence, except when you said that I was a young woman. Yeah, and that was nice. That felt good. Yeah, Michael, keep writing. Your columns are very good. And when you say that you really don't understand it at all, how do you stay engaged with it?

Oh, I think I've decided to disengage from it because I don't understand it at all. I mean, that's maybe more cynical than I intend, but there is a third. it's feeling like I'm just wrong. They clearly don't reflect out of my country. I mean, that there's not enough of them to elect somebody highly qualified, competent and competent as opposed to somebody who's just going to tear through the country like I'm going to China shot.

So I'm wrong. And I need to understand better why I'm wrong. Well, I'm still impressed that you've got a son who's 23 because you don't look old enough. You're a delight. Yeah, Michael, thank you. And we want to invite you to be more frequent. contributor to the podcast. We need our southern correspondent.

You're our Georgia correspondent. Can you bring me a pint of ice cream next time? I can. I will. Thank you. Peach cobbler. Thank you. Peach cobbler. Delicious.

Green beans. Oh, fantastic. Okay, Michael, you are released. Thank you very much. Want to hear more? Subscribe to the Daily Beast podcast, wherever you're listening to this to catch a new episode.