The Daily Beast Podcast - Some Americans Are Already Living in Trump’s ‘Purge’

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

This week on The New Abnormal, why Trump’s version of horror film “The Purge” has been happening for decades. Plus! The Stanford Constitutional Law Center's Matthew Seligman joins us to discuss election law, disputed presidential elections, and why JD Vance's comments on such things might be extremely dangerous. Then, Edith Olmsted, associate writer for the New Republic, is here to tell us all about her recent piece, “Trump’s Idiot Son Feels ‘Totally Vindicated’ Over J.D. Vance Pick.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current Campbell News conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits 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 Kenned, 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 a great show we have for you today.

The Stanford Constitutional Law Center's Matthew Seldman joins us to talk election law, disputed presidential elections, and why J.D. Vance's comments on such things might be extremely dangerous. Then, Edith Olmsted, Associate Writer for the New Republic, is here to tell us all about her recent piece. Trump's idiot, son feels totally vindicated over J.D. Vance pick. But first, let's have some fun. Folks, as we come on air today, we record this, it is estimated that nearly 100 people have been killed by Hurricane Helene. And what I'm finding, aside from that number to be astounding, is the fact that there are areas of the country that have been completely destroyed,

that are hundreds of miles away from any COVID. Coastline. Asheville, North Carolina is described as a, quote, mountainous city at an elevation above sea level at over 2,000 feet. And if you see the images right now of Asheville, North Carolina, it is horrific. Tens of thousands of people are without water or without power. The entire, what looks to be like the city center, the town center is completely destroyed. And as the waters recede, we are just seeing the amount of devastation that was caused by what is being referred to as a once in a century flood. But Andy, I feel like we've said that before, once in a century, once in a century every time that these hurricanes hit land. Yeah, it really does

feel like this is happening more and more. And, you know, it's going from once in a century to once in a decade, and sometimes it even feels like it's going to, you know, once in a year at this point. I guess we're not quite there yet, but there's two answers to this. One is, wow, what a coincidence. We've just been really unlucky. And the other one is, of course, climate change. I don't think we've been really unlucky. I think it's very clear that this is climate change. And this is how bad things have gotten. I was reading up on Asheville the other day, and I came across an article from last year from 2023. And the headline was Asheville ranks on list of cities most likely to see impact of climate migration. What that means is people migrating to Asheville because of

climate change. Because it's further, it's not coastal and because it's elevated. And in just over a year, we've gone from Asheville being on, it was on the list of top 12 U.S. cities most likely to see an influx of residents because of climate migration to a city that has been absolutely destroyed because of a storm that is 100% fueled by climate change. And if that's not a sign of how bad things are getting slash have gotten, when a place that just a year ago was thought of as sort of a sanctuary is now in ruins. And I mean, look, obviously my heart goes out to all the people there. And And I, you know, I don't know that I personally know anyone in that area, but I was astounded to find out how many people that I'm, you know, like social media friends with who have family there, who didn't, were unable to contact them for a good 48 hours because there was no cell service, et cetera, et cetera, no electricity, obviously. And what an absolute nightmare.

And at some point, do the deniers wake up, Danielle, or do they just keep spouting, you know, I guess the alternative. that I gave earlier that we've just been really unlucky, and this is all just a big coincidence. Honestly, I don't know. I think that it is wild that while Ron DeSantis, for instance, should have been focused on climate change in the state of Florida, instead turned the attention of his constituents to drag queens reading books and to trans kids needing safe spaces in schools, and that being apparently against God to provide sanctuary and sense. safety to children. And so when you look at these instances, this is when I think that these people who vote against their own best interests all the time by voting for representatives that live in

complete denial while patting their pockets from corporations who they know are polluting the environment and creating the problem to begin with. And so like, I don't know. You know, sometimes I do want to ask the people who are picking up their lives and say, like, are you a Democrat or Republican? Like, did you vote for somebody to represent you that actually believes in, you know, that this is not an act of God, that this is actually like the misconduct and mishandling of humans? This is climate change is human error, not godly error. Honestly, I don't know. I really don't.

I just saw the other day a white woman say that she's fine with voting and losing her vote because Donald Trump knows better. Like I, you know, so I don't know, Andy. I don't know. Yeah, no, it's unreal. And just lastly, before we move on, I want to say, you know, a lot of people have been pointing out that because there's been, there's always the people on social media who are going to be like, you know, well, they got what they deserved.

See, they voted Republican. No, fuck that. Nobody deserves this. A. And B, also people pointed out smartly that North Carolina in particular is one of the most gerrymandered states in the country. Really, the way the system is set up now is you get Republicans in power and then you gerrymander everything so that it's almost impossible to get Republicans out of power. And so what happens is a lot of people's votes basically don't count.

And so, look, I want to also make clear, I'm not saying that this is what you were saying. This was not what you were saying. But I do want to address that issue because we do see that sometimes where it's like, well, you know, Republican states get what they deserve. No, these are people and they don't deserve this. Yeah, I mean, they don't. No one deserves this. And, you know, the fact of the matter is that if Donald Trump and J.D. Vance become president and vice president, this will be the norm. Because what I remember is Donald Trump throwing people in Puerto Rico paper towels for their massive devastation from a hurricane during his administration. What I remember is the last time that he was president of the United States, he denied North Carolina federal funds for. two weeks while they were dealing again with the impact of a hurricane. So in my mind, like, there are some people, Donald Trump's base and constituents that don't care what they don't have access to so long as Donald Trump is denying the same people that they hate. And that to me is

fucking wild. But that, but that's where those, that's where those folks are. This is one of the many things that will become that, well, it's the norm now. It will become much, much worse if Trump and Vance get into office. And along those lines, I'm assuming you are familiar with, even if you haven't seen, the series of movies called The Purge. I don't watch horror films because being a political analyst is enough. But please, please, go ahead and tell the audience what the purge is. Okay. I watch horror films to cheer me up, Daniel. But so the conceit of the purge is that for, I think 12 hours, basically all laws are suspended in America. And you can do whatever you want to anyone else. You know, it's dystopian. It's not portrayed as a good thing. So Donald Trump,

over the weekend, decided that what he thinks will solve crime. And again, he was spouting his nonsense about crime and violent crime being up when the exact opposite is true. But what he said was that he was speaking of Pennsylvania and he said, Pennsylvania, Republican, Congressman Mike Kelly should be put in charge for, quote, one really violent day. And then he went on to say one rough hour. And I mean real rough. The world will get it out and it will end immediately. End immediately.

You know, it will end immediately. So he basically wants a version of the purge. And that comparison has been drawn by a lot of people. But I think it's also important to note that in the purge, this applied to all Americans. Any American could go out and loot and murder and do horrific things. What Trump is saying here is basically he wants one person in charge of this and then basically it would be like the purge, but only for law enforcement. So basically giving law enforcement one really violent day to do whatever they want, which is some might argue that's not. That's pretty much what we have right now.

I was going to, I'm like, I'm sorry. Give me a headline that's different from where law enforcement is now without full immunity. I'm confused. Yeah, but no, and Danielle, I'll toss it over to you, but it is basically he wants to give qualified immunity. He wants to basically or replace that with complete immunity for law enforcement for six hours or, sorry, for one day or one rough hour, whatever it is. Danielle, does this remind you of anything besides the purge movies? Yeah, actually it does. And thank you so much for giving me that softball toss over here, which is, you know, while, while folks are comparing

this to a horror film that they want to believe could never possibly happen in these United States. Let me remind you that over the course of history in this country, there have been a number, and I mean a number that we couldn't even imagine of white supremacist led mobs that would storm into segregated areas, black towns, black cities, and destroy them. Murder, rape, lynch, beaten, killing children, babies. And it was all okay because black people in this country for nearly 100 years lived under Jim Crow. And no, this was not just in the South. This was everywhere in the United States. Some places were more segregated and more terrorized than others, but let's not create this narrative that the North was somehow some utopia for Black people. It was just less bad. And so when I think

about what Donald Trump is saying, I think about the Tulsa massacre that people in Oklahoma just learned about in the last couple of years. But black people in Tulsa have always known the story of what happened in the middle of the night where over 300 black people were murdered, an entire prosperous town, black town was destroyed and that they never received any reparations, any money back from the government. And basically, it was pretty much government sanctioned. So black people in America and indigenous people in America already know what the fuck the purge looks like because it has happened time and time again. So for folks that want to compare this to a horror movie, it's not a horror movie. It is very real American history that continues to be

swept under the rug as if people can't imagine the horrors that people have done at the hands of white supremacy. So when I heard that, Andy, like I didn't chuckle as some people did on the social media. I didn't shrug and just say, oh, he sounds insane. He sounded like, he sounded like, like Bull Connor. He sounded like every other racist that was in a position of power to actualize their white supremacist fantasies. That's what that was like to me. Oh, absolutely. You know, I think I've said this before, but it's insane that, look, I am a, I would never claim to be the smartest person in the room, but I am what would be considered well educated and I read a lot and all that stuff. I had never heard of the Tulsa massacre until I'm sitting there

watching an HBO show called Watchmen. And then I immediately just started reading about it. And I was like, how was I not taught any of this? Or how did I just not even come across it in, like I said, I read a lot. It is amazing to me what we don't teach in this country. And like you said, what we sweep under the rug. And, you know, which also ties directly into what Ron DeSantis and other Republican governors and Republican-run localities are trying to do or are actually doing in our public schools is trying to prevent people from learning about stuff like this. But Yeah, no, I agree with you. I didn't, I mean, I don't have a problem with people making purge comparisons and saying Trump is insane because yes, to both of those. But also, this, as you said, there's nothing funny about this. Like, I mean, this is fascism. Like, this is, I don't know what else to call it. I mean, even if, even if you want to take race out of it, which I don't think you can, but even if you want to, the idea of giving cops a complete immunity to act for one rough day, one rough hour, whatever it is, that's pure unadulterated fascism.

And I don't want to go off on a media rant here because we do that a lot. I know maybe too much. But cover this shit. Like, stop, again, stop with the sanewashing and everything else and report that this is what this guy is saying. And don't say, well, he was just joking or he was exaggerating. I don't care. He's running for the president of the United States.

There are certain things that I'm sorry, you don't joke about if you're running for President of the United States. Also, I don't think he's joking. Also, can we have the media stop saying, like, oh, it was a joke. Oh, it was a, he's not a fucking comedian. Like, he's not a comedian. So the only person that I give a shit is somebody that is actually paid to do fucking stand-up. That's not what this is. And it is a lie and it is just an abdication of duty for journalists to turn around and not report on, like, and all I'm saying is just report on what is being said. This is what Donald Trump said. You don't want to add your fucking opinion into it.

You don't want to, you know, provide any deeper analysis. Then just run the goddamn transcripts for the love of God. There were so many of those just in this, just over the weekend. You had Trump saying that Joe Biden became mentally impaired. And then he followed up by saying Kamala, although he mispronounced her name because he loves to do that. He said Kamala was born that way. And I mean, again, Like, this is a Republican nominee for the president of the United States saying this about the Democratic nominee.

And I'm tired of being told that, like, oh, that's Trump being Trump. Like you said, Danielle, or, you know, that's just Trump. He needs to be held accountable for shit like this. There were so many other things. He was talking in, I think it was in Pennsylvania. And he was talking about immigration. And then there was a fly. He saw a fly.

And he was like, oh, I wonder where that came from. Two years ago, that fly wouldn't have been here. and he was talking about an influx of immigrants. And he was basically saying, look at these dirty immigrants. They bring, you know, flies and disease, et cetera. This shit is not funny. This shit is not acceptable. It is stuff that has to be countered.

It is stuff that has to be denounced. And yeah, I get it for the media and for people who cover politics. It's like, it's a full-time job to do that. Well, that's the job you chose. Right? It's a full-time job. I'm like, ain't that your job? I mean, because that's where we are now.

that is the political situation. I don't want to read about Harris is up one in Wisconsin or Harris is down three in Wisconsin. Reporting that is not journalism. You know, reporting what the candidates are saying is journalism. And this is the kind of stuff. I mean, those are only a few of the examples of the nutty things he said over the weekend. That comparison of human beings, human beings to flies when Donald Trump then said a couple of months ago that they were vermic. German. This is the language of a dictator and a fascist. And that is why you just had recently a group of hooded mass fucking cowards show up in Springfield, Ohio with a banner that said that Haitians are not welcome here. Meanwhile, there was a very brave woman who was driving in her car, stopped her car to scream out her window and say, you are not from Springfield.

Like, we love all people here. The Haitian population is welcome here. Like, take your hate and go someplace else. And it was a non-black woman who was doing that. And I was just like, that's what we need to see more of. More people who live in these areas, who are from these towns that J.D. Vance and Donald Trump are lying about, are creating hysteria around, are turning into dangerous places because of the escalation. of bomb threats and school closures and buildings closing down, that the real people who are being impacted of all races need to link arms and say, not in our town.

Like stop using our town's name for your political points and your like hate mongering because that is the only time that people are actually going to see that they're full of shit. And not only are they full of shit, but that they're dangerous. Yeah, I don't know if you saw, there's the, I guess he's a factory owner or businessman in Springfield. And he spoke out in an interview, he said of the Haitian immigrants, who he employs, he said, they come to work every day, they don't cause drama, they're on time, I wish I had 30 more. Take a guess as to the responses he got. Here is, as reported by the New York Times, because this is actually a case of the New York Times doing journalism.

People were leaving messages on his company voicemail. The owner of McGregor Medal, that's Jamie McGregor, they're going to. guy who said this. The owner of McGregor Medal can take a bullet to the skull, and that would be 100% justified. Another one said, why are you importing third world savages who eat animals and giving them jobs over United States citizens? Another one said, stack all 20,000 Haitians inside Jamie McGregor's factory at once and force him to praise the benefits of foreign labor while being crushed to death by black bodies themselves being crushed to death. And he is sitting there and he's basically saying, I have to buy a gun now for my home. His exact quote was,

I have struggled with the fact that now we're going to have to have firearms in our house. Like, what the hell? And he said they're now taking classes. They're going to shooting ranges. This is unbelievable because he said that, hey, these people that he has hired have been great employees. So this violence and so this traces back all the way, you know, we can go back to the quote unquote purge comments to like you said, the constant description of immigrants as vermin, as animals, saying that they're bringing flies and bringing disease with them. That's where all of this leads. And Donald Trump knows this. And J.D. Vance knows this. And this is what they want. I mean, this is the America of

their wildest, you know, white supremacist dreams. This is what they want people living in fear. And what's sad about what you said with regard to that man who needing to buy a gun, this is what the NRA wants. Because this type of fear mongering is, great for sales for them. So we already have more guns in this country than we do people. And every time that there is a shooting, every time that there is an act of terrorism that is done by the same Republican Trump, Vance base, people feel in fear. And what happens when people are in fear, they feel like they need to protect themselves. And we in this country have told you that the only way to protect yourself is to arm yourself like a fucking soldier. And the cycle just perpetuates

itself over and over again. When will it end? I really don't know because we don't have two political parties in this country. We have an organized terrorist cell and then we have the Democrats. Like that's what this is. And it's like until we start having real conversations about what has happened to the Republican Party and it's devolving, we're never going to figure out how America actually does move forward. Because we keep pretent. that somehow inside of this domestic terrorist group lies people who care about policy and collaborating on a way to make America work for all people. There is not that party anymore. And so then what do you do?

And to me, like, that's the real question of this election, which is, like, what do we do? Because Donald Trump and J.D. Vance and the Republican Party are not hiding what their goals are. They wrote them down in a 950 plus page manifesto. They are not pretending to be something other than they are, which is misogynist, which are racist, anti-intellectuals, anti-humanitarian, anti-climate, you know, anti-black, like just go on and on and on. They're telling you.

So the fact that this race is as tight as it is because of the electoral college, because this is the only race that we have for an election that isn't about who has the most votes wins is crazy to me. But it's not indicative of like the majority of Americans, but we are literally being held hostage by a terrorist organization. And that's like the real conversation. Yeah. I mean, look, this is the new abnormal.

More after this. The Stanford Constitutional Law Centers, Matthew Seligman is a lawyer and legal scholar whose academic research focuses on election law with a particular emphasis on disputed presidential elections. And he joins me now ahead of the vice presidential debate to explain why things J.D. Vance has said with regard to the vice president certifying election results are not just factually wrong, but actually extremely dangerous. Matthew, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. So this all stems from Vance saying that if he had been vice president on January 6th,

2021, he would have done what Mike Pence refused to do and referred electoral votes back to the states, right? Yeah, that's correct. So since J.D. Vance has had his conversion to Trumpism after having been a pretty, I would say, strong anti-Trump, never Trump or voice for the first couple of years of his political career, once he recognized that the Trumpism was ascendant in the Republican Party, he's undergone this transformation. And one of the culminations of this transformation, along with so many other aspects of his political identity right now, is his commitment, he said it publicly many times now, that he would have done something different than Mike Pence on January 6th of 2021.

It's not clear exactly what he's saying he would have done differently, something like delayed the count or send it back to the states. But what's absolutely clear is he's saying that he would have intervened unilaterally. As the vice president, who presides over the electoral count on January 6th, as the president of the Senate, he would have intervened unilaterally to try to do something to protect Donald Trump or to further Donald Trump's political interests. And that's a stark departure from what we saw from Mike Pence, who, whatever else you may think about him and his politics, didn't do that. And I think it's important to recognize that J.D. Vance is running to be vice president. And so he is

demonstrating his lack of allegiance to the Constitution and the rule of law. So he claims that there is historical precedent for what he's, he's saying he would do for acting unilaterally as vice president slash president of the Senate. Is he right about that? He's absolutely wrong. So a little bit of background about my experience with this issue. So I'm a legal scholar. And I also was an expert witness who testified against John Eastman in his disbarment proceeding in California.

Now, John Eastman was the lawyer who was the one who in the Oval Office told Mike Pence and Donald Trump that Pence had this power. Now, Eastman was disbarred for the law. legal theories and for the factual conspiracy theories, he's been disbarred. And so J.D. Vance is trying to grab onto a legal theory that is sanctionable. Attorneys cannot keep their license if they advance this legal theory. And in some states, there are people who are being criminally prosecuted for proceeding with trying to reverse the results of the election on the basis of this legal fiction, this idea that the vice president has these unilateral superpowers. And there's absolutely no historical whatsoever to support this theory. So I want to talk about the fact that, as you brought up, you were an

expert witness in the proceedings against John Eastman. And I looked at the report that you filed with, I guess, with the Bar Association. I'm going to bar prosecutor, yes. Okay, yeah. And I want to talk about the legal issues as you described them in your report to those proceedings. First, does the vice president in his capacity as president of the Senate have unilateral authority to resolve this disputes about electoral votes or to take other unilateral actions with respect to the electoral count. Yeah, that's right. And so what the report does is it goes through the history from the very first electoral count when George Washington was elected in 1789, all the way through the middle and end of the 19th century. There was an obscure law that nobody had ever heard of until 2020 called

the Electoral Count Act. The Electoral Count Act was enacted in 1887 and it asserts Congress's complete control over the electoral count. And that's the way it's been since then. Now, what Eastman argued, and it seems like what Vance is trying to argue as well is, well, before that, back in the original, the founding era, the vice president did actually have this power and did assert this power. And so they're trying to grab onto a supposed history and as conservatives and as originalists, they would say, they're saying, ah, you know, whatever's happened in the 20th century, in the 21st century, the original meaning of the Constitution is that the vice president has this power. What it seems that Eastman never really did was he never went back and looked. He didn't read. You know, it's on the Library of Congress website. You can go and you could read these scanned versions of the parchment's papers where the congressional records are just there and you can read them.

And so he did. And there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the vice president ever wants in American history has exercised any kind of unilateral power at all. from the very, very, very beginning Congress exercised complete control over the electoral count. They appointed these members of Congress. They selected a couple of them from each house, which were called tellers. And they were the one who did the count. And so that was true from 1789 all the way through American history.

And every single time there has been a dispute about electoral votes, the vice president has played no role in the resolution of that dispute. And that happened as early as 1817. And so if you actually go back and look at the history, It turns out it doesn't support this theory at all. And what about the idea that the vice president can even delay the electoral count? No, there's no support for that either. So no vice president has ever asserted any kind of authority like that.

And there's no historical evidence whatsoever that the vice president can do anything other than the ministerial act of literally opening the envelopes where the electoral certificates are and then handing them to Congress. That's it. And so the history here is absolutely clear. And that history comports with logic. If you think about it, from very early on in American history, the vice president has been a candidate for president. And even when the vice president isn't a candidate for president, often, as in 2020, the vice president is a candidate for vice president. And so designing a legal system where there's some kind of unilateral authority to resolve disputes in any kind of way, whether that's rejecting electoral votes or deciding

which alternate electors to count or even just delaying the proceedings. It's like giving one of the candidates in the election the authority to resolve a dispute about the election. There is no way that any sane person would design a legal system that way. And indeed, our founders, for all their flaws, were at least sane enough to realize that this was something that shouldn't happen. And so they didn't design a system that way. It would be nuts to do so. And so they didn't. Yeah, I was going to bring that up because obviously, as you say, we've had many times in our nation's history where the sitting vice president is one of the candidates for the presidency, and obviously that's the case right now. And no one is saying that Kamala Harris will have to

recuse herself from that position for the certification of the electoral count, are they? No. And during the disbarment trial, the bar prosecutor asked John Eastman this question. Well, okay, so now Kamala Harris is the vice president. Are you saying that she has the authority to send back to the states to lay the count or reject electoral votes. And he sort of gave a non-answer, a non-reply. The only consistent way to hold that theory is that the powers of a constitutional office don't depend on the political affiliation of the person who's holding it at a particular time. So the only way to consistently hold this position is to say that Kamala Harris has the authority to resolve the election in her favor, which, of course, I don't think that anyone on

the Trump side of the aisle is, going to say right now. And indeed, if you really thought this theory was true, then, you know, the other disputed presidential election of our time was in 2000, where there was a very, very close election, both in the electoral college and in Florida. It came down to 500 and something votes, and there was a recount, and there was a big dispute about it. And so the Supreme Court resolved that dispute, stopped the recount. The next day, Al Gore said that he disagreed with the Supreme Court's decision, but he accepted it. And then a couple weeks later, in a proceeding that nobody really noticed at the time or even since, Vice President Al Gore presided over the electoral count

on January 6th of 2001. And Vice President Al Gore did not intervene, did not send it back to Florida, did not reject Florida's electoral votes, any one of which would have resulted in him winning the presidency. And so the theory that J.D. Vance is advancing right now is that Al Gore made a catastrophic political mistake, that he had the authority to count himself into being president. And so the entire Bush era should never have happened because Al Gore could have decided that election dispute in his own favor. You know, it's really interesting that, as you say, no one even noticed this at the time or remarked upon it. And that's because, at least in my lifetime, it's never been a thing. Really, until 2020, 2021, no one had ever thought about this,

Had they? Not in a serious way. And I think that reflects the new era of election disputes. Of course, there have been election disputes throughout American history and vigorously disputed elections, like in 2000. But the terms of engagement have been understood that, you know, courts, at least for 150 years or so, that courts are the right institution to resolve election disputes, that you file a court case. And then the court case is resolved. And as Al Gore said, He may disagree with the results of the court's decision, but he accepted it. And the idea behind that is really a fundamental commitment to the rule of law because, you know, courts are the appropriate stewards of the rule of law in this circumstance.

And the reason is because politicians can't be trusted to resolve the results of an election. You have to ultimately put those disputes at the hand of judges. Now, you know, there are a lot of complaints that people have about the Supreme Court and understandably so. But the judiciary is at least nominally independent. it's better than Congress or the vice president deciding the results of an election. And so that was just the rules of how these engagements went, how the battles were fought. And there's been a shift starting in 2020 trying to take those disputes outside of the judicial system and then put them instead in the hands of political actors, politicians.

And the most obvious example of that was the pressure on Mike Pence to intervene in the electoral count. but of course the objections on January 6th from members of Congress were also politicians trying to substitute their own view of how the election should have turned out over that of the actual count of the vote and the resolution of disputes by courts. And we're seeing that, I would say, metastasize even beyond where it was in 2020 as we approach this election in 2024. We're seeing movements towards, oh, saying the county boards of election composed of politicians have the authority not to certify the election results or to alter the results. And that's

just not a legal authority that they have. It's not a legal authority that they've ever had. And so what we're seeing is this broader push to take the resolution of disputes about elections and put it in the hands of politicians where there isn't the same requirement to base your decisions on provable fact, but rather conspiracy theories that you see online might be enough to reject an election result. And I think that's extraordinary dangerous. Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to ask you about that. As you say, we're seeing this a lot at the county level. You know, we're seeing it a little bit at the state level. And in your mind and in the mind of people that I've talked to who know about these things, the role of these boards, et cetera, when it comes to certification is supposed to be, I guess the word is what, ministerial? That's exactly correct. And there's a perfect parallel between the role of the vice president and the electoral count and the role of these county boards. All they're supposed to do. is sign a piece of paper saying, we received the returns from the precincts, you know,

they've been added together and here's the total and pass it along. That's it. And from this tiny, tiny paperwork role in the process, partisans who want to try to undermine the results of our elections are trying to inject this incredible power to completely reverse the results. And that's just not the way the law has ever worked. And I am confident that the courts will prevent that from happening. But we're putting enormous amounts of stress on our legal system by doing this. And it's metastasizing beyond just vice president to really every nook and cranny of the American political and legal systems. And so, yes, I do have faith that the courts will order county boards of election to certify election results. But suddenly we're going to have these fights everywhere in

the country. And that just undermines our faith in the system so profoundly that I'm not sure how long it'll take for that damage to be undone. Yeah, I have to say, I'm not entirely sure I share your, I'll call it optimism about the courts given a number of rulings, particularly down in the Fifth Circuit and a number of rulings from the current Supreme Court. What gives you the confidence that ultimately they will rule in accordance with the law? Well, I want to be careful about how I phrase what my optimism is and the limits of that optimism. When it comes to something that's really clear, cut. The state statute says the county board of elections shall certify the results by such and such state. Do I think the courts will enforce that? Yes, because it's so clear cut. There's just no

wiggle room whatsoever. However, when there are legal questions which aren't so clear cut, where there's a lot more room for interpretation, where it's never, an issue has never arisen before and the courts are going to have to, and ultimately maybe the Supreme Court has to sort of make new law to figure out how to resolve a dispute that's unprecedented in American history, do I think that court can be trusted there to do the thing that is what the law really requires without fear of favor, without a view towards the partisan political implications? Well, there I'm less sure. And so I think it's important to understand that there's really a spectrum of legal issues,

some of which are really, really clear cut and some of which are much more in the eye of the holder. And it's the ones in the second category where you really have to be afraid about what the courts might do. And I think the Supreme Court's decision in the immunity case in Donald Trump's January 6th trial is a good example of that. There was no precedent for this because no president had ever been criminally prosecuted for for anything, much less actions that he took while he was in office. And so there was, you know, there were principles involved that could be balanced against each other. But there wasn't hard law. Not that existed. already. And so the Supreme Court had a lot of leeway about how it was going to balance the

principles at stake. And those are the sorts of cases where there are degrees of freedom that you might be worried that the Supreme Court is not necessarily going to make the decision that you think comports with the rule of law. Thank you for putting it like that because it was the immunity decision was front of my mind when I was asking you the question. One last question for you before I let you go. What in your mind would have been the ramifications had Mike Pence not done his job. Chaos, a constitutional crisis, the likes of which we haven't seen at least since the middle to late 19th century. Ultimately, I don't think it would have worked. And that's one of the important aspects of understanding what happened in early January of 2021 as well. Because if Mike Pence had

stood up and said, well, you know, Congress, I'm going to, you know, assert this power to reject electoral votes or set it back to the states. It's not like Congress would have just laid down. It's not like they would have said, oops, okay, you know, Pence has said this, so we're all going to go home. There would have been an extraordinary confrontation between Congress and the vice president. Now, and I hope the courts ultimately would have stepped in and resolved it. And so there was a bit of hopelessness about this. It was frantic in a way that I think is revealing about the internal mindset of the political movement that led to it.

And an even clear illustration of the hopelessness of this is the objections in Congress. there was literally no chance it would have worked. And the reason is because as things played out, you would have needed both chambers of Congress to vote, you know, to reject electoral votes on January 6th of 2021 under the law that existed at the time. And Democrats controlled the House of Representatives. There was no way that Nancy Pelosi was going to lead House Democrats in rejecting Joe Biden's electoral votes.

But they did it anyway. They tried. They objected. And so there was a certain frankness about this just to throw stuff at the wall to see if anything might stick. And so it really was a chaos move. And to quote, Game of Thrones, you know, they viewed chaos as a ladder. And so I think that's one of the things to try to understand about what this is.

There was no grand plot that was carefully thought through. It was people throwing stuff at the wall. And it's kind of like, so in the national security context, there's this concept of stochastic terrorism, where it's not like there's a grand plot, but just a lot of things happening all over the place and they try to provoke different cells to do this and that. And then somehow out of that chaos emerges, you know, a terrorist movement that can actually change things in really horrific ways. And there's a way in which this is stoicastic election manipulation where they're just trying a whole bunch of stuff and then out of that might emerge, maybe some set of circumstances

where the legitimate and legal results of the election could change. And so there is no grand plot is just frantic people trying anything, and that alone is extraordinarily dangerous. It's so fascinating, and as you say, it's so dangerous. And Matthew Seligman, thank you so much for explaining it in terms that even my fairly pea-sized brain can understand. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for coming on. Well, thanks for having me so much. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal. an associate breaking news writer at the New Republic, Edith Olmsted, whose recent piece, I just think, first of all, Edith,

Bravo for the title, Trump's idiot son still thinks picking J.D. Vance was a great idea. I love a woman that doesn't mince words. So let's talk about J.D. Vance, because what I've been saying for a little bit of time is that I actually think that J.D. Vance is more dangerous than Donald Trump. And the reason that I say that is because J.D. Vance, while I think he's a repulsive human being, and I think that his policies are absolutely misogynistic and toxic and have their teeth and body in white supremacy, he's not an idiot. He understands policy. He actually

knows how government works. And I feel like he is laying low in waiting, knowing that the egg timer has been on Donald Trump for quite some time, but that this on ramp into the vice presidency is what will set him up and what will set up the federalists, what will set up the Heritage Foundation, what will set up Project 2025 and their larger aspirational goals. So I want to get your thoughts on him, my perceived seeing him as a threat and dangerous and whether or not you agree. Well, first of all, Danielle, I love the imagery of an egg timer on Donald Trump. You know, you got to manifest. You got to manifest what you want to see.

I know. I feel like I completely understand your fears about J.D. Vance. He's definitely more conventional of a politician than Donald Trump. And so I feel like in that way, when he does things that are outlandish like Trump, it carries a different weight than when Trump does them. When Trump does them, he's like a showman or an entertainer who's just trying to rev up a crowd. But when Vance does it,

you can tell that he actually sees the political value and everything that he's doing and is a pretty ambitious guy, as it would seem, from his meteoric rise to the Republican ticket. But there's a lot about his rhetoric that is just absolutely abhorrent. I think, as he pointed out, specifically the, like, misogyny. And he's gone all in on being anti-immigrant, both legal and not legal, which is just absurd. And when J.D. Vance says he doesn't necessarily care about the distinction between

legal and illegal immigrants. That is like, to me, that's the beginning of fascism. That is like the outlining of mass deportations. That is exactly what we have to fear about a Trump presidency to the maximum. And it's also just an incredibly strange, hypocritical statement coming from Vance. And it makes you wonder, does this guy, is he even aware of the things that he says? Or does he just say them? Which is such a disturbing quality for a politician to have. You know, and you say that, like, you know, particularly for somebody like him to say it. But there is, I mean, there is a very clear disassociation that the Republican Party has with immigration. While you have Donald Trump, who has an affinity for Eastern European women, who Melania,

former first lady of the United States, came to this country through a visa. Her parents came through a visa program that would allow immigrants in and we can dig into whether or not they should have received those visas in the first place, but that's neither here nor there. You have J.D. Vance is wife, who is of Indian background. Her family came to the United States through a visa program, but they don't see the irony in the things that they say. And I think that it is because, like, they like to pick who they perceive as, quote unquote, the good one, like as Donald Trump will point to a black person and say, that's my black. Like, they're one of the good. good ones, right? And see nothing at all racist. And for those people, they see nothing as racist.

Like, look at me. I'm the chosen one. And so I think that what is really eerie about J.D. Vance is that when he says these things, particularly around immigration, when he went on television and said, sometimes you have to create a narrative, aka lie, in order to get the media to quote unquote pay attention, he's not afraid of saying all of the quiet parts out loud. He doesn't have the showmanship of Donald Trump, but he's saying all of the same things. And so how do you think that that lands and plays in the Midwest where right now, for the love of God, I don't understand, but this race is razor thin. I think it's so interesting the way that he, he doesn't have the showmanship that Trump does,

but he does have the same tendency to contradict himself within the same speech. it's almost like artistic the way that he is able to complain about the sort of Orwellian administrative state and then in the same breath say, but I don't care if these Haitian immigrants are illegal or illegal, they're illegal to me as if that doesn't have more reaching impacts on who is actually a legal immigrant in the United States because he thinks it's up to him. He thinks it's a matter of opinion, clearly. But when people are under a temporary protected status, that is legal. The way that he has been mindlessly slandering, I would say, these groups of people in the Midwest trying to create the illusion of a widespread conspiracy of just like, well, Donald Trump is the one who's tweeting it. He's saying that all of these droves of immigrants are taking over these Midwestern cities.

He said hundreds of cities have been taken over. What in God's name could that mean? It's, it's, they're creating a fabricated image of the Midwest to scare people in the Midwest. It's beyond what one could even comprehend. And so I can't imagine it playing well. We've seen people like the mayor, Rob Rue in Springfield, Ohio, obviously isn't really entertained by Vance's shenanigans. He says that Vance hasn't even reached out to him yet.

And when they were going to talk, Vance said that he could only talk with a group of constituents instead of one-on-one. And I think that just shows that Vance isn't actually willing to own up to anything that he said or anything that he's done. He's just willing to come in with the, sort of crowd that he wants to come in with. I think it's all about creating the perception of an issue, creating a story, like you said. And that is what Vance is there to do. He's there to add legitimacy, to add detail to Donald Trump's insane spinning. I think there's a reason why every time Trump makes an

outrageous claim on during a speech, the next day, Vance has tweeted like 500 words about like whatever it was that Trump said. He's, he's there to flesh out Trump's like inane ideas. And unfortunately, that just makes him seem sycophantic and maybe even just like that's his role. He's the interpreter for Trump. I thought that was the New York Times' role. I think that one of the things that also gets me about Vance and I kind of want to focus on women and focus on his commentary around women, childless women, the role of postmenopausal women and the spree of right-wing, toxic, masculine.

podcast junket that he went on in the early 2020s. It is very clear to me that J.D. Vance hates women, that J.D. Vance believes that women have really no place or role outside of mothering. And that if you do not take on that role, then as he has said, you should be punished, taxed more because you really have no stake in society. I just saw right before I came on a report that said by 2030, 45% of women, I think it was like, it was something wild. And I like need to say this because I was just like, can't possibly be. But then I'm like, oh no, this is exactly why they want women back in the kitchen.

45% of American women ages 25 to 44 are projected to be single. And mostly because they want financial independence and really don't need men. It doesn't mean that they don't want to be partnered or don't want to have like romantic relationships of any sort, but that they don't need marriage. How do you think that J.D. Vance's rhetoric is playing with women where last week I saw on another poll that 50% of white women are still in the pocket for Vance and Trump? Wow. I'm surprised to hear that honestly because he's not pulling well with anybody as far as I can tell.

And so I feel like it's one of those in spite of him kind of sentiments. But I always have to remind myself that he was picked basically to shore up support among Trump's base. And Trump's base is mostly white working class men. And so he was supposed to shore up that specific demographic. And so he basically has no appeal to women of any kind. And part of that comes from the community that he came up through, like this like techno authoritarian like broey atmosphere where they basically just do in their own.

conservative vitriol and then sort of pop up as politicians later on. And I feel like Vance is not equipped to deal with the actual concerns of female voters or to appeal to them. And so it's just shocking that he has any sort of reach in that way. I was always really adamant about the fact that when we watched in 2016, 52 or 53 percent of white women decided not to vote for one of their own in Hillary Clinton and instead voted for Donald Trump, who right after the Access Hollywood tapes come out, 2020, that number goes from 53% to 56%. And so here we are in 24. Another woman is at the top of the Democratic ticket. And when I see these poll numbers of 50% of white women, while that may be down, like technically down from 2016 and from 2020, it's still half. And I'm just like,

what is it going to take? Because you lost abortion in a majority of states in this country. You're being told that you can't form a family through IVF in a lot of states in this country or any type of technology and scientific aid. And so I just like wonder, as you say, Vance doesn't have like this grounding with women, but Donald Trump is still out there talking about he's going to be folks as protector. And they're applauding. Right. I think what we're noticing, with Republican, like voting women is generally that issues like immigration and national security have overwhelmed what's important to them or their priorities. Something that I thought was really interesting is that with all these JD Vance leaks, something that was left out of a lot of the

Republican sort of oppo research on him were these really egregious comments about women and cat ladies and childless cat ladies. And the reason for that is that Republicans just don't care about misogyny in the same way. Like they could have been aware of those comments, but not thought that they were important enough to include in their file on their own candidate. And I think that just speaks to a lack of care for like these kinds of issues, especially when it comes to the Republican candidate. I feel like Republican voters are much more interested in immigration and much more interested in national security.

And so Trump is trying to expand that argument by making crazy statements like saying he'll be the protector of women, but then only talking about like he had a speech recently where he went up and was like, I can't believe that. that female voters don't like me. I'm the one who would like keep their neighborhoods safe when they're at home. He's trying to connect two points that don't make sense together because he really only can talk about immigration. He can't actually talk about women's issues.

As for getting like completely destroying the rancher abortion in this country, I feel like Donald Trump has been totally wishy-washy on. I mean, to be honest, Edith, he can't honestly talk about immigration either. And this is why I'm like, I want him to continue to try and talk about immigration so that the vice president can continue to hammer him on it. We would have had an immigration deal that strengthen, you know, our our borders and gave more resources to border patrol. But he tanked it. You know, so how is it that he can continue to stand on this idea that, oh, he's going to be tough on the border? And I see the poll numbers, you know, have him trending higher than Vice President Kamala Harrison.

I'm like, he's the one that tanked the deal. That is so true. I feel like when I, say he talks about the border. You're totally right. He actually can't talk about the border. He can only sort of make up stories about the border, which is why he goes on all of his insane rants about weapons that immigrants have that not even the military have seen, like, quote unquote, that doesn't make any sense. And this weekend, he went on a long run about how you couldn't even find actors who are macho enough to play some of these undocumented immigrants because they are just so tough, like you could never possibly portray them on screen. It's like he doesn't actually care about policy. He cares about the story and the perception that he's

creating to voters. He's fearmongering. Like it's, I would say blatant fearmongering, and I've said it a thousand times. It's like not enough of a platform for a presidential candidate. But it is working among these Republican voters who only care about immigration. It's just a really complicated, I feel like, issue. And I don't think that Republican voters only care about immigration out of like nowhere. I think he has formed the Republican Party in such a way that they are so afraid of, of this existential threat, but it's complete nonsense, of course. And every time he tries to point out a specific case where it wouldn't be, it's legitimately nonsense.

I think that Springfield, Ohio is a really good window into the Republican mindset. You take a town that was rusting out because of the lack of workers and the disillusion of industry that had made that area vibrant, like factories and, and what have you. And you bring in an influx of workers who people were happy to have because prior to four or five years ago, that entire town, that area was on its way out. And so even the employers are like, please stop with this rhetoric because we need these people here. They've helped reshape, you know, and reimagine our city to be economically viable that we didn't think could happen.

And so your last thoughts on, we know that this race is going to be basically decided by a few thousand people in a couple of states. And I wonder how you think that the reality of the people who are actually living in these areas in the Midwest is going to pan out against the fiction that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are creating. I think a lot of that depends on,

a high quality, genuine reporting on what's going on in these towns. I think that the media shouldn't let J.D. Vance and Trump off easy and sanewash their absolutely unhinged rhetoric about these places, these very real places and very real people. And they're fictions about the like dangers of undocumented immigrants in this country. I feel like there's a lot more at stake here than they could possibly realize when they promise mass deportations. It just seems like it's obviously everything that they think about immigration. I mean, yeah, everything they think about immigration is wrong and they want everyone else to be wrong too.

So I think that in these key battleground states, it's going to come down to whose story do you believe and elevating the stories of actual people with their actual experiences in those places. Well, we will leave it there today, Edith. Thank you so much for making time for the new abnormal folks. Edith's piece is up right now at the New Republic. Trump's idiot son feels totally vindicated over J.D. Bant's pick. Really appreciate you and your investigative reporting. Hey, thanks so much, Danielle.

Andy Levy. Yes. Oh, Danielle Moody. Hi. How are you kicking off this week with your buck that guy? Oh, God. It's Elon Musk. He really is just, it's absolutely unbelievable.

He posted this super long tweet because on Elon Musk's Twitter, you can write essays as one post, which is stupid, but whatever, small point. And it started off by saying, very few Americans realize that if Trump is not elected, this will be the last election. Far from being a threat to democracy, he is the only way to save it. And then he went on a whole thing, all of which is, by the way, completely untrue, which should go without saying, because Elon Musk was saying it, but he was basically talking about the Great Replacement Theory. And his whole thing was that, here's a little quote, the Biden-Harris administration has been flying asylum seekers who are fast-tracked to citizenship directly into swing states like Pennsylvania,

Ohio, Wisconsin, and Arizona. What? I mean, none of that is even remotely true. But his whole thing is that, again, all he's doing is pointing out the Great Replacement theory, which is that. that the Democrats want to bring not or the Jews want to, which is really the origin of the great replacement theory, want to bring non-white people into America to ensure a Democratic party majority. He also claimed that this has already happened in California and that California

is now a one-party state, which would be of interest, I think, to the numerous Republican governors of that state over the past decades, et cetera, et cetera. But again, Musk is just, he's just, he's just not smart. If you want to talk about immigrants who are a net negative to the United States, I think we can start with him. Fuck that guy. I don't think that anywhere else wants him. So I would say go back to, you know, where you came from, but I don't think that they want him either. Where I'd like Elon Musk to go is just to take that trip to Mars and report back in a hundred years. You know, like, let us know how it goes. Like, he's really concerned with the vice president becoming president. because then guess what?

No one's going to get to go to Mars. And I'm like, like who? You know? Like who was lined up ready to do that? No one. You fucking rich turd. Fuck that guy. All right, Danielle.

Close out this glorious Monday and tell us who you're fuck that guy is. Well, from the dangers of Elon Musk to just dumb. To just dumb. from the Republican Party, like, whoa. So there is a man. Mm-mm-mm. Where do I begin? He is a former Green Beret,

and he is running for Congress in Virginia. And he seems, Andy, to be normal enough. He's a white guy, red shirt, collared, you know, shirt, running for office. and like most candidates posting pictures with their family to show like how connected they are. Look at my wife. Look at my kids. I'm in this instance a wife and three daughters.

But oops. Derek Anderson doesn't actually have any fucking kids or a wife. That's right. He has borrowed his longtime friend's wife and three daughters for his campaign, photo ops and video ops. Because the Republican Party, namely J.D. Vance, has led so heavily into childless Americans and how we are, quote, disorienting and disturbing, end quote, that this POS has decided that instead of posting with his dog or whatever it is that he has, that he would rather lie to the very people that he wants to represent because who cares anyway? If you're voting and you're a Republican these days,

you have no morals, you have no values. And like, we all know it. And so do the people that are running to represent you. So why would somebody do something like this? Because who the fuck cares? But it's just wild. Come to find out that supposedly he has said that he is engaged to his girlfriend, Maggie, but weird, Maggie don't show up nowhere. Right. And yeah. So this just goes into the like the lane of what the fuck? Just, huh? But I'm certain, you know, people will vote for him and see absolutely nothing wrong with this. And I don't know. But yeah, Derek Anderson, fuck that guy. Because you're just pathetic. Like you're pathetic. Like that's basically like going into Target, seeing the picture of, you know, like the families that they put

the frames that you want to buy. Right. And then photoshopping it and putting yourself in there and putting that on your mantle. That's what he did. Yeah, he George Costanza did. What's wild is, like you said, he has posted on social media pictures of him with his apparent fiancé Maggie. By that, I mean, he posted a picture of him standing next to a woman.

But what are you doing? And also, there was a time not that long ago when all you had to do was say, I'm a former green beret. And every Republican in the country would vote for you. Like, why does he think he has to do this? And I'm not even saying he's wrong in thinking he has to do this. I mean, he shouldn't have done it, although it is hilarious. But how much has that party changed where this guy's sitting there going,

I'm an ex-green beret. I was special forces in the army. But I'm afraid these people aren't going to vote for me unless I borrow my friend's wife and kids. Like, that is so bizarre. And this is a really, really funny story. but it also is like, as you said, this all comes from, it comes from J.D. Vance and all these people, you know, complaining about how unsettled they feel by the notion of people who don't have children or whatever.

So, yeah, it's just, I think the word you used was pathetic and that's the best one that there is. Fuck this guy. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. The podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts.

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