The Daily Beast Podcast - Sen. Schatz Says Yelling at Hawley Was Like Yelling at ‘My Brothers’

Episode Date: April 24, 2022

Hawaii senator Sen. Brian Schatz joins the show to explain why he let Josh Hawley have it on the Senate floor this month and what he thinks his colleague Joe Manchin will do, or not do, about climate change. Plus, Molly and co-host Andy discuss Dr. Oz, listen to clips of Tucker Carlson saying that the “Libs of TikTok” account is real journalism and break down Fox News star Jesse Watters’ creepy meet-cute with his wife. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Zhang Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic Invo. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart, conversations with the wisest and funniest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down And on the new abnormal We'll talk about the people who got us into this mess And how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it

Hello and welcome to another bonus episode Of the new abnormal We thank you so much for being here Today we have an excellent show Senator Brian Shots of the great state of Hawaii Is going to join us and he's going to talk to us about Well, why this Senate is a pretty bad place to work these days But first, let's have some fun

You guys ready to listen to some clips? Hell yeah, I am I can't even wait for you to finish that sentence. I'm so excited. Holy moly. Yeah, let's do this. It's a lot of enthusiasm. Let's go. Let's fucking go. I know we've been receiving some complaints because we've not been talking about the most Prussian political

scandal of recent times. But here we are. We're going to learn all about Bunnygate. Oh, yeah, the best. The trip comes on the heels of a bizarre incident, as Brian just alluded to, yesterday at the White House, when an advisor, a White House official, was

dressed as the Easter Bunny and pulled the president away as he was answering a question about Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yeah, don't talk to the press, don't talk to the people, don't talk to the kids. Alexandria Hoff has all the details for us. Good morning. Bunny Gate. Bunny Gate is right. And first I'll say yesterday, while it was cold, it was rainy, it really was a welcome return to a very longstanding tradition here at the White House. The Easter egg role had not been in person in two years, but it does seem that in that time,

the Easter Bunny has gained some authority. It was an interesting moment the president was greeting reporters and visitors. And at that point, the fluffy character physically stopped the president from answering a question about Afghanistan. Take a look at this. Pakistan should not in Afghanistan should be. All the Easter Bunny is the president. I'm so glad that they're so stupid because God for fun, I mean, And by the way, it's tan suitgate.

It's the seven almonds. It's the trope of Fox News, which is the stupidest crap all the time. Discussed. Okay. You want to say this is stupid. If indeed, as the video seems to show for people at home, you should check out the video and decide for yourself. You know, don't listen to the corporate media like Molly Johnfest on this one. Ask your own questions and do your own research and decide for yourself.

Because it really does appear as though the Easter Bunny is running things at the White House these days. If you want to say that that's not a big deal, that you're happy with that, fine. To me, this is a violation of the separation of church and state. I don't like that. You know what, I can't keep this up anymore. This is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever seen. I think it violates the 57th Amendment. It absolutely does.

Anti- Bunny governance. I'm worried that Big Bunny. that it's possible. This Joe Biden works for a big buddy. I'm going to call bullshit on your concern here because I don't know one who loves Easter candy and in feeding that industrial complex like you and I, but I think you have some investments into this sector.

Listen, all I can say is that I really, that I'm just happy that peeps have gotten popularized. Oh, God, you like peeps? She loves all of it. I mean, I don't like circus peanuts, but pretty much everything else. And black licorice. They're awful.

Yeah, well, you're wrong. Oh, man, we're going to really have a fight on this podcast now. Yeah, let's go. Take it down. Mini-eggs team for life, though. Yeah. Oh, Cadbury eggs are so. Okay.

So speaking of really, really stupid things, there's lots of theories on why you should be a politician and while you're qualified for office. But Dr. Oz, who's running for the Senate in Pennsylvania, has one, too. I have the ability to walk into the knife fight of the culture wars with more than just an index card. I know exactly how to play on. the biggest stage there is network television to get my ideas across and make sure that

that we are never pushed back on it. I didn't understand that clip because Dr. Oz makes no sense. He says he doesn't need an index card to know how to play the culture wars and he's experienced at doing it on TV. It was the TLDR. Yeah. Thanks, Oprah. Thanks, beloved Oprah.

To be fair, he's not wrong with regard to the Republican Party in 2022. Like, that's what it is. You know, it's people who want to go on TV and own the libs and or go on Twitter and on the, it's Madison Cawthorne. It's Marjorie Taylor Green. It's Dr. Oz. But there's no, if they're qualified, I'm not saying they're qualified to be in the government, but if they are, then he sure as hell is. Because, you know, what's the difference? I mean, I would argue that I hate everything and we're all going to die. But other than that, I mean, look, there are definitely stupider people in the way.

the Republican Party than Dr. Oz. I mean, he's a doctor. He also is a total charlatan, and I get like 500 pieces of email junk mail every day from him. So, but you see why he got the Trump endorsement because he of course. The very Trumpy. Yeah. No, that's exactly what I'm saying. Like his answer is of course stupid, but in the context of the, you know, Trumpian Republican Party, it makes perfect sense. I can see why he said that and thought to himself, well, this is going to work. People are going to vote for me because of this because they've been doing it since 2016. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, he sucks.

And I agree. He's not stupid. And that's what makes him even worse. Like, you know, he's like that's the same thing with Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlton is not stupid. So when he says stuff that is clearly stupid, it's not because he believes it. It's because he knows it's what his viewers want. And it means he has no soul.

And the same goes for Dr. Oz. Andy, I can't thank you enough for giving me that great tee-up because now we have Tucker Carlson to talk about what real journalism is. Oh, good. I had been wondering. Okay. So let's say you're paying $45,000 a year to send your kids to some overrated, mediocre private school in the District of Columbia.

You think everything's fine. You pull up lips of TikTok and you find out what's actually happening in your kids' classroom. What's wrong with that? This is journalism. No news organization in America has done more to reveal the reality within American schools than lives of TikTok. We heard a number of their videos on the show, and we are grateful for their reporting. It was far more straightforward than anything you're going to find in the New York Times or the Washington Post, because it wasn't accompanied by a lot of bloviating that it showed you the tape and you could decide. That's journalism.

Here's another piece of tape that lives of TikTok unearthed that amazed and horrified us. I mean, I love when he's like, this is journalism. But going to somebody's house, that's not journalism. Right. No, that account is just, it's just that woman is a fucking awful person. And she is transphobic. She's homophobic. And just put any fob you want on the end of that.

And I'm sure she is. I managed to stay out of this whole thing on Twitter the whole week. And now you guys sucked me in. And I hate you for it. But this account is awful. And there's this big lie going around that all it does is repost videos. No, it doesn't. It does add commentary.

It does call for things. It basically, it wanted a teacher fired. It said any teacher that comes out to your kids should be fired. Yeah. And basically all the teacher did was it wasn't like some huge gay pride thing. It was just like a matter of fact kind of thing that, by the way, they would have no problem with if a straight teacher did it. And yet they still claim that all these bills aren't homosexuals. You know, like the Don't Say Gay Bill and all the copy clones that are going around, you know, and it's just, it just reveals that of course it's homophobic and of course they're transphobic. And, you know, it's not shocking that Tucker said, you know, he said, this is real journalism. We've used a lot of their clips as if that backs up what he said. Like, you know, that's the exact option. You just prove that they're not real journalism because you use their clips on your show.

Right. And remember Tucker had this legal defense. Right. The lawyer said that he actually, that he's entertainment. He's entertainment, yeah. Right. Yeah. So that makes sense. Yeah. Fuck those guys.

Yeah, fuck them. I know we've been listening to a lot of Fox News and, you know, they're pro to talk about the culture wars. But sometimes they give a very interesting dating advice. So this one comes from Jesse Waters and for some background for everyone. This is talking about how he met his second wife who he was cheating on his first wife with, allegedly. When I was trying to get Emma to date me, first thing I did, let the air out of her tires. She couldn't go anywhere. She needed a lift.

I said, hey, you need a lift? She copped right in the car. Did she know this story? No, she doesn't know this story. Does she watch the show? You're basically the Zodiac Killer. It has a happy ending. Really?

Yes, we're married. Did you really do that? Is that the first time he did it or did you use that before? It works like a charm. Oh, okay. Kathy Lee Gifford joins us now. I love Judge Jeanine. Okay.

I'm four boxes of wine in, and I have a few things I'd like to say to you, people. No, I think we can all agree that misogyny is hilarious. First of all, okay, so not only did she work for him, she was an intern, so there's that. Of course, she was. Then he was married at the time. Why wouldn't he be?

Remember, these are the family values people. It's Fox News, baby. It's important to keep. that in mind that this is a guy who did that while he was married to his first wife. And then I do have to point out that, you know, when you hear Greg Gutfeld say, did you really do this? I know what Greg is doing there. I know Greg well enough from years ago. He's throwing Jesse a lifeline for Jesse to say, no, I'm just kidding. Because Greg knows that, oh, man, you shouldn't have just said that on the air. When your co-hosts know that you just shouldn't have said something on the

air. It's just that he's too, he was, Waters is too stupid to recognize what that was. So he just went right ahead with his story and then making it sound, even, I don't know if he's joking or not when Puro asked him if he'd done that other times and he just said it worked like a charm, which is sort of a cutesy answer. Like almost violent misogyny. I mean, the truth is like, imagine if she had said no. Right? Like imagine if she'd been like, no, fuck you. She wouldn't have been able to get home. This is not a meat cute. Like, I don't know.

This is not a meat cute. I mean, this is a sociopathic meat cute. This is like... Well, it's no, it's a sexual harassment lawsuit. I mean, it happens to be what Fox News is known for, but I mean, that's what it is. Yeah. I mean, look, she married him so that, you know, I don't know her at all, but that obviously raises questions. Not great.

And he literally says, first thing I did, I let the air out of her tires when he wanted to date her. while he was married. It's a move. Family values. It's a bad move. It's a bad misogynistic move. Brian Schatz is the senior senator of Hawaii. Welcome back to New Abnormal Senator Schott. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me. I wanted to have you on for any number of reasons because a lot of the stuff you're working on is in the news.

But first, we got to talk about Josh Hawley. I'm sorry. Yeah, it's okay. You did what so many of us want to do. Is that fair? Yeah, I suppose so. I mean, I sort of was a bit surprised at the extent to which, you know, my remarks in response to Josh Holly went viral, as I say. But I'm thinking back on it, yeah, I do think it was sort of cathartic. Will you paint a picture for our listeners who are not as fundamentally online as I am?

Basically, Josh Holly is blocking the confirmation of senior leaders in the Department of defense because he's mad about Afghanistan. And, you know, the thing about the Senate is that we all have this incredible authority to slow things down to a near halt. And with that authority, with that power, you know, normally comes some discretion, some restraint, but he's shown none. And basically, he's mad about the Afghanistan withdrawal. And his demand specifically was that Secretary Austin resigned, that the Secretary of Defense resigned. or I will not confirm any of your nominees. That's just like not reasonable.

You know, so he went up and gave a, you know, his sort of set piece remarks about, you know, what he viewed as the shortcomings of the Biden administration's foreign policy, which is, you know, I think he's wrong, but that was fair enough. But normally the power of a senator to give a speech is just that. Like, that's an important aspect of our jobs. The floor is, is a place where some of the great debates of American society have been conducted. but he's gone beyond that. He's actually harming the Department of Defense.

So I went in and tried to make him relent on this one person who is in charge of logistics chains. And I think, like, you know, what we've all learned from watching the Russia war against Ukraine is how much logistics chains matter, right? It's usually only DOD thinkers that care about such things, but we're seeing in real time in three dimensions what happens if you don't have fuel and, you know, meals ready to eat.

and the protection of your transportation lines, all of that is kind of really technical, but now everybody gets it. Oh, yeah, logistics really matter. That's why Russia is having unexpected failures. So at a minimum, the person in charge of making sure, like, our NATO alliance and our presence in especially Eastern Europe has tight logistics is the kind of person you want to confirm, and this person is like a longtime DOD leader. And, you know, he's not saying he's not qualified.

He's just saying, I've taken this person hostage. I've taken the DOD hostage. So I just kind of yelled at him. My family in particular kind of got back to me. It was like, oh, we know that version of you. I'm one of four boys. You know, I kind of felt like I was yelling at one of my brothers because I was just, I was that irritated that I didn't have prepared remarks at that point.

And I just started shouting. And I really do think that we Democrats and the media and the public are failing in a very specific way, which is that. I think anyone who opposed the certification of the election, anyone who participated in the coup either as a white shoe lawyer or a politician or whatever, has lost their public policy license. You don't get to have an opinion about DOD stuff or, you know, Section 230 and Tech or the child tax credit. If you don't accept the basic premise that the person who gets the most votes gets to be the person who is in office. And here's Josh Hawley, like, giving a floor speech like a senator in good standing and it just pissed me off. I want to drill down on that for a minute because I think that some of what we're facing these midterms, a lot of the mainstream media narrative is Democrats face headwinds.

What I hear when I heard that speech and what I felt when I saw the response was people are very pissed off about. what the Republicans have been doing. And it feels to a lot of us like Democrats are sort of being nice and bringing a stuffed animal to a knife fight. And there's something about having someone stand up and say, like, listen, man, that actually is very gratifying to a lot of us. Yeah, I think that's right. And I, you know, to be charitable about it, because I'm a Democratic senator, so I can't pretend like this is someone else's failure. I think what happened with voters was they really did pick Biden. And, you know, like, I'm not a poll person necessarily, but there was a really interesting poll that they said,

where they asked people open-ended questions, say, what do you like most, what one word comes to mind when you think of a Biden presidency, right, or a Trump presidency? And the open-ended answer on the Trump side was chaos or fear, right? And the answer as it related to Biden was calm. That was the most common, unprompted one-word answer. And I think that's really true. I think for people who are not continually online and plugged in politically, they just wanted things to be somewhat normal.

And so it wasn't completely unreasonable for us to say that that was like a, you know, as they said, they used to say in marketing, a primary selling proposition, right, a mandate from the Biden Canada see was like, hey, things were going to be like, you get to not worry about politics, you know, every three hours. You get to get offline. You get to stop watching, you know, the cable shows and freaking out about everything. That's part of the promise of the Biden administration. And I think, unfortunately, that's not true. And that's not Joe Biden's fault. It's actually the Republican, fascist, authoritarian movement, which we have seen march on under the sort of

shadow leadership of Donald Trump. But we've also seen a new generation of American fascists, right, who are very well educated, very clever. A lot of them used to be anti-Trump. And now they've just figured out that, you know, fascism is their ticket to power and they're going to ride it. And so unfortunately, I think part of what we have to start telling the Democratic base and swing voters is, you know, the threat's not gone. That's the pure fact of the matter is as much as I would like to say, cool, democracy's back, and now let's expand the Affordable Care Act and make sure people have like dental coverage under Medicare, which is all super important stuff. We do have some more foundational fights that we still have to get through.

And I also just think midterms are generally speaking one by the party who seems less terrifying. And especially like when you get the trifecta, the tendency among voters is going to just like almost automatically assume you're going to overreach. and that the job of the moderate voter so called is to make sure that, you know, one party rule doesn't, you know, move us too far in one direction or the other. I don't agree with that analysis, but it's an understandable way to look at a midterm election. And I think one of our best cases to be made in this election cycle is if you are worried about things swinging too far in one direction or the other, you should be very, very, very, very, very, about the Republicans taking one or both chambers. Like that is way more terrifying than like the idea that

Cuddy Murray as chair of the Health Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, is going to like do too much for working families. I mean, one of the things I like to tweet, which, you know, is it's getting to the point where I have stopped tweeting it because I don't want to repeat myself too much. But it's like their crazies want to overthrow the government. And our so-called extremists are just like, Everybody should have health care and we should act immediately on climate.

Glasses, dental work. Yeah. So let's talk about climate. There are a lot of us who feel like Joe Manchin has been able to stymie the climate initiative. Tell us that that's not true. Well, look, if Joe Manchin were the senator, you know, we're like a third senator from Hawaii, right? And we had 50 votes, then we would have already enacted. some climate legislation. I don't think there's any doubt about that. I don't even think Joe

would disagree with that. But the truth is that without Joe Manchin, we don't have Contagy Brown Jackson. We don't have the American Rescue Plan. We don't have all of these judges. So like Joe is our majority maker, whether people like it or not. And the job in politics is to try to get to a majority. And so we're going to do that. I am still in conversations about climate action. And, you know, the interesting thing about Manson's objections to, you know, what was previously called Build Back Better, which I don't call build back better anymore, was that for the most part, we had a deal on the energy part of the bill.

And so, look, my job is to be an optimist, and so I don't want to be completely naive about how difficult the task is in front of us, but I guess the way I view the climate issue more generally is like all you can do is everything you can do every day, every year. This is a unique opportunity to make non-incremental progress, but this is a fight that I'm going to be in until I'm out of office, whenever that may be.

And so, you know, even if we passed the big bill last fall, we would still have, you know, most of the road remaining to travel. And so I did the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative in the state of Hawaii. And we had some years where we barely made any progress. And then we had some years where we made tons of progress. And so I think on climate, we just can't allow ourselves despair because, I mean, just make no mistake. That's what the fossil fuel industry wants. They want us to throw up our hands and say, all is lost. we're not voting and all the rest of it. And so, you know, my determination is even more serious than ever.

And I would also just say, like, I haven't given up my optimism. We are still in dialogue and we're, you know, trying like hell to try to find the bill that can get, you know, 51 votes in the Senate and a majority in the House. Do you think that members of Congress shouldn't trade stocks? I do. And I co-sponsored that legislation. I just think that's not a close call. It seems like that would be something that if people have to vote against it, that would look really bad. I mean, can that help you get that passed? I think members of Congress shouldn't trade stocks. I think people's reasons for having, you know, a view that's not the same as mine on climate, generally speaking, do not have to do with their own particular pecuniary interest. But, you know, Joe Manchin comes from a state that, that at least historically... I'm not implying that.

I'm merely asking that. Are you not? I am not. Yes, I'm merely just asking about that. Let's talk about marijuana. I feel like I'm sober 24 years, so this is not something that affects my life in any one way. But it seems to me like this is a very popular thing that Democrats could do to go into the midterms with something that, I mean, the two things I think of it that are like easy wins in my mind are marijuana and insulin. Talk to me about what you're doing with federalized marijuana legalization potentially.

Yeah. So I basically co-sponsor any bill I can get my hands on to either decriminalize or legalize or make it easier to research the medicinal benefits, whatever they may be. On public policy, I'm all the way there. The only sort of caveat I offer is like, I think we still have to respect the FDA's process in terms of determining what is clinically proven to be medicinal. that's not to say that this stuff won't eventually be proven to have some benefits for some people. But I think that's a separate question from the kind of moral and public policy question around, why are we still incarcerating people? Why are we still arresting people for something that is now a multi-billion dollar industry? And by the way, there's another thing we do. The Coast Guard still spends money interdicting marijuana over the high seas. He's like 1970 and we're chasing down boats and having these big drug busts and these big, and this happened in Hawaii, I think, a month ago. And so, and it's a waste of resources all the way

around, including that the Coast Guard could be, you know, preventing illegal fishing or up in the Arctic or whatever else. Okay. So that's the public policy side. The political side, I think, is I think what you're probably most referring to, Molly, which is this thing is like not close. Right. Republicans, Democrats, independents, especially our voters who can sometimes be, you know, low frequency and kind of bummed out voters, you know, see us correctly as on the right side of this issue. And this can be a real motivating and polarizing issue, you know, in a positive way for us. And then on insulin, I mean, it's basically the same thing. Like, people are paying extraordinary amounts just to stay alive. Yeah. And we don't think that's right. I think the best

thing to do would be if we could enact something, right? But we know, given that the filibuster still still exists, that, you know, we need 10 Republicans to cooperate with us. And so there is an effort to try to get 10 Republicans to cooperate with us. But frankly, if they won't, then at a minimum, we need to lay down a marker and say, we're for this. Are you guys? And let them vote against cheap insulin. That one is not an abstraction. Like, people die because they can't get it or they go broke because that thing they prioritize over, you know, other other financial necessities. There's no way that Biden could do an executive order on insulin? I don't think so. It's a creature of law.

Executive orders are interesting because sometimes they have the force of law, and sometimes they're like Trump executive orders, which are essentially, you know, have all the power of a tweet. I mean, look, I think he should obviously do whatever he can on the, you know, executive branch action side. Like, that's just a straightforward proposition. But I also think that I worry a bit about people kind of just essentially getting frustrated with the legislative process and saying like, power of the pen. And it's like, well, listen, man,

I mean, maybe if someone wants to do that, that's great. But I'm a legislator and I'm, you know, I'm here to make laws and not just to demand that someone else write a bunch of long memos to the agencies. So that's all good stuff, but it can't replace what the Congress is there to do. Senator, thank you so much for joining us. That was super interesting. Thank you. Nice to hear from you. Happy. Everybody's not healthy and love your podcast. on that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from The Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics, and science.

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