The Daily Beast Podcast - The 87-Page Document That Should Have Sunk George Santos

Episode Date: January 20, 2023

On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, Robert Zimmerman, who lost in the general election to George Santos, describes exactly what happened. Then, Frederick Ingram, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers, talks about why Rhon DeSantis is trying to get African studies out of AP classes. Then, Frederick Ingram, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation's second-largest teachers' union, discusses Florida’s ban on an AP African American Studies class. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. 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. We have an excellent show today. We're going to talk to Robert Zimmerman, who lost in the general election to George Santos, and he's going to tell us exactly what happened there and how we can prevent it from happening again.

Then we'll talk to Fendrick Ingram, who's the Secretary of Treasure for the American Federation of Teachers, and he'll talk to us about why Ronda Santos is trying to get African studies out of AP classes. But first, let's have some fun. Okay, what the hell was that? Oh my God. Marshall Daylor Green and Lauren Boehirt. Oh, no, not again. Brawling. It's like World Star, but the Congress version.

So I guess they sort of had a little fight in the bathroom. Is that the deal? And in my life, I never thought I would see two women fighting over Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy. Oh, shit. Neither did Kevin McCarthy. I know. They have really turned Congress and the elitist, the elitist environment that it was, this environment in such a steam into a fucking high school bathroom.

It is wild. It really is the people's house now. I mean, this is who we are. This is America. It's the sewer people's house. But yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've got members of Congress fighting who used to be friends and were like hanging out together and we're sitting next to each other.

a state of the union addresses and stuff like that. And now they're fighting in bathrooms all because I guess Marjorie Green is pissed that Lauren Bobert wouldn't support Kevin McCarthy for Speaker. I guess she ended up at best she voted present. And Green thinks that Bobert is being disloyal. And apparently yelled at her in the bathroom. You are okay with taking millions of dollars from McCarthy, but you refuse to vote for him for Speaker?

It's just unbelievable. They're on some BS. And I truly don't understand. stand out all, like, where this is headed. But, you know, I love a good inter-party fight, particularly when it is the Republicans. I'm like, go ahead. Beat the crap out of each other. I don't care. Like, it's dumb and dumber up in that bitch anyway. So Lauren Bobert, you know, and her AK-47s and Marjorie Taylor Green and her lasers in out of space, like, let them have at it. Absolutely. You know, it couldn't happen to a couple of nicer people. And look,

Look, it's not like there weren't fights on the floor of the Senate and shit like that going back throughout history. And I seem to remember someone wrote a whole play about Hamilton and Aaron Burr. You can argue that this is really nothing compared to a lot of shit that's happened throughout history. But it's still just, like, unbelievable to me that this is over Kevin McCarthy. Like, it's over the empty man. He's just, he's a zombie in a suit. and the idea that anyone would fight over supporting him, it just cracks me the hell up.

The Fisher Price speaker and his hollow little gavel. So let's get to more serious stuff. And this is like really serious. And this is, of course, Solomon Pena, who was a failed candidate for the state house in New Mexico. And then did his little MAGA thing, where he refused to believe that he really lost. He sort of just basically followed through

on a lot of the Republican rhetoric that we've seen over the past bunch of years. And he hired four men, is the charge, to shoot at the homes of two New Mexico state legislators and two New Mexico County commissioners. And he is now under arrest and two of the co-conspirators are under arrest. The other two apparently are still at large.

And we've talked about this. Danielle, you've been really strong on this. I think I've been really strong on this. And this is nothing but following up on the language of Marjorie Taylor Green and people like that. Pena is basically Marjorie Taylor Green without a gym membership. Oh, shit. So, like, she at least has some place to go work off her excess energy and her hatred of Jews and her racism and her space lasers and all of that. And Pena, apparently, instead of pumping iron, he hired people to basically try to kill state legislators.

So this to me is all of a piece. I'm not saying the media hasn't been covering it. It has. But I think this is a much bigger deal than is being made out. I don't even want to say it's the culmination of the Republican rhetoric because it's probably not, unfortunately, because there's going to be more of this shit. But it is absolutely part and parcel of the rhetoric that we've been hearing from Republicans and with stolen elections and with people not being real Americans and all the just the

ugly stuff that we have seen from the right over the past several years. And it's all led up. up to shit like this? You know, what pisses me off, and I won't be as kind to mainstream media, because I think that their coverage from the beginning of these shootings that we knew were happening at Democratic offices before we knew who was behind them wasn't receiving the attention that it should. Mainstream media would rather talk and spend segment upon segment on documents that Joe Biden's team readily turned over, did not need to be badgered, did not need to lie about what was found. They would rather talk about 12 documents than they would gunshots in Democratic

offices and homes. And so what that says to me, Andy, is that the mainstream media has learned absolutely fucking nothing over the last eight years. Because this whole both sides, this whole like, oh, well, we don't want to be perceived as bias. This is rhetoric in action. You cannot listen to Marjorie Taylor Green at a white supremacist national rally, standing up on a dais, talking about Democrats as her sworn enemy. Right. You cannot listen to this party refer to Democrats as groomers, pedophiles. You cannot watch them on their social media put their colleagues in literal crosshairs or create anime that shows their murder and think that all of these insidious acts, that have been escalating over the last eight years does not then turn to actual violence.

And then when it does, fail to connect the dots purposely for the American people. Because that is exactly what mainstream media is doing. This is not like a lone wolf. This is not someone who is hopped up on drugs, which is what they love to say. The drug that they're hopped up on that Solomon Peña has hopped up on is Trumpism, is Magaism, is newsmen. Max and Fox News. I think all of that is true. This is exactly what we saw on January 6th. It's the same thing where the rhetoric leads to the actions. And particularly in the wake of January 6th, for the media to not make that fairly obvious connection. Like, I don't think I'm some sort of fucking Einstein

for making that connection. Like, that's just obvious. You look at every trial of every person who was actually put on trial for their actions on January 6th. And they've all said, you know, pretty much to a person that they were motivated by Trump's rhetoric and by other rhetoric and by, in particular, the stolen election stuff. If you legitimately think that there is a cabal of people out there stealing elections, it's not a big leap to violence in your mind because you think you are doing what is best for the country. And the fact that you are being lied to and manipulated, if you don't know that, you're going to go ahead and do shit like January 6th or you're going to go ahead and do shit like what Solomon Pena did and you're going to hire people to shoot at the legislators

and the county commissioners who you think have defrauded you out of a free and fair election. And it absolutely goes back, as you said, to the groomer shit and the sworn enemy shit and the absolute othering of pretty much anyone who's not a straight white Christian in this country. And then on top of that, you add, oh, and by the way, those same people are stealing. your elections. What do you expect to happen? Because this is exactly what fucking happens. I'm afraid to call this the culmination because I think it's probably unfortunately, and God, I hope I'm wrong, but I think this is probably just the beginning of the outright little, I mean, little in the sense of this wasn't January 6th. It obviously wasn't little to the people

who were shot at. I don't want to minimize that. But I mean these sort of more localized expressions of violence and shootings and God knows what else we're going to see all across this country if this shit doesn't stop and it shows no sign of stopping in terms of the rhetoric or in terms of everything else. Carrie Lake is out there still insisting that she won and there's a whole bunch of election result deniers who are now in Congress and this shit is going to get a lot worse before it gets better, I think. You know, and the thing is too, I want to remind folks that if you remember, Sarah Palin had on her website Democratic members of Congress in crosshairs, you know, the scope crosshairs. Just to remind folks that like, this didn't just begin with Trumpism,

Republicans have been ramping their violent rhetoric and violent actions for well over a decade now. And the problem that I have with mainstream media is that by not calling this out, by not showing the American people, no, this is not of both sides. You're not seeing Democrats speaking in the same way that Republicans do, using social media to terrorize people in the same way that Republicans do. And now you're not seeing their constituents act out in the way that Republicans are. And so without that accountability, Michael Phenone, the former Capitol Police officer, has an entire campaign now just to get Republicans to denounce political violence. Can you imagine? I could never, Andy, have imagined that 10 years ago that an act of violence would occur and everyone

on both sides of the aisle that Republicans would just pretend that it was just normal quote-unquote political discourse, which is what they said about January 6th. And so if the media does not bring attention to this with the type of outrage that it deserves and the type of coverage that it deserves, and I fear that what we saw with Solomon Peña is going to be what. what Columbine was, was just the first in a string of attacks that become normal that now we teach our children how to do active shooter drills. So is it going to be the norm that members of government, local city and state now are wearing Teflare, are needing protective details because political violence is just, you know, what we do here? We've seen this in Georgia

with the vote counters that Trump and Giuliani went after, those two poor women who basically had to go into hiding because they were accused of passing USB sticks that turned out to be like, what was it like a piece of candy, I think, or something like that? It was ginger. Ginger, yeah. It's all the same shit.

And I was thinking, you know, Republicans, they always love to bring up what they think is the both sides here. And they'll point to the guy who shot up the congressional baseball game. and they'll say, well, a Bernie supporter when, yeah, here's the difference. Bernie didn't encourage him with that kind of rhetoric. That guy was literally just a lone nut job. If you can't see the difference between people being encouraged and led on by the rhetoric of the people in your party and some asshole who just decides, oh, I don't like this Republican, you're beyond help. Because those are two completely different things.

You can't both sides this. There are no Democrats out there that I can think of using violent rhetoric the way that Republicans are. This is not a both sides issue. It's very much a one side issue. And it's a big issue on that side because the entire Republican Party right now is built on this base of hatred and lies. You know, again, until this bullshit election denialism stops, acts of violence are not going to

stop. And you're right. This is going to be like columnite. And we're now going to have to, in addition to, training students, you know, in how to avoid active shooter situations. We're going to have to train every family of every local official in how to avoid an active shooter situation. It's completely untenable. The country can't go on like this and it has to stop, but it's not going to stop as long as the Republicans are not going to stop saying the things that they're saying.

What happens? And just to make a point, Andy, the poll workers that you're talking about in Georgia, Shea Moss and Ms. Ruby Freeman. Thank you. We're the two women. And this is what drives good people away from public service. Of course. Because what will happen, right? Who is going, you know, it's one thing, particularly if you are a woman, a person of color, or somebody who lives at the intersection of multiple identities, and you're running for office. You already know that social media is going to be a sewer for you, that you're going to be attacked with rape comments and racism and all of these things. Okay, fine. Let's just say, which it shouldn't be, but let's just say that's par for the course.

Now, when you escalate to a place of physical violence, tell me what person is going to say, oh yeah, let me go run for my school board. Let me go run for my city council. Let me work at a poll like Seymoss and Ms. Ruby Freeman did. You're not going to. It's the same thing that drives teachers out of the classroom. Oh, yeah, let me go be a classroom teacher.

And now I have to army crawl. Now I have to teach my children how to hide themselves in a broom closet from an active shooter, this is the world that Republicans are creating for us. And the media is just not talking about it in that way. We just keep adapting to crazy. It's a great point. And I think it's even part of the point for the Republicans. And you bring up the school teacher stuff. And in addition to having to learn how to low crawl and all that stuff, what you're also seeing is in places like Florida and elsewhere, you're seeing a concerted effort to basically drive queer people out of that space. of teaching. And that's what they want. Because like, why would any queer person want to be a

teacher in Florida? I can't imagine. I could think of no reason. No, not under these circumstances. And it's the same thing that you're saying about the poll workers and the stuff like that. The only people who are going to want to be poll workers and who are going to want to be secretaries of state and county commissioners are the MAGA folks because they know that their opponents are not going to shoot at them. What you end up with is a world which is a completely exclusionary world where the only people who are running shit like that are the people on your side, if you're a maga person. And the only people teaching in schools are going to end up being, again, straight white Christians. And that's going to be it. I think that's part of the plan here.

And maybe it's giving them too much credit to say that, you know, this is all part of some master plan. But I don't think this is an unintentional consequence. I think this is working as intended. I think it's exactly what they want. This is what fascism looks like, a climate of fear. Exactly. A climate of fear and authoritarianism and people not being able to live. Like what Republicans are doing is erasing liberty and justice for all. It is liberty for some. So you have the freedom to be a bigot. You have the freedom to be a liar. You have a freedom to be a grifter. You have the freedom to carry a weapon and aim it at whoever you want. I mean, look, we talked about the celebrity that they turned Kyle Rittenhouse into. The kid is a fucking murderer. I don't care that it was dismissed in somebody's

court of law. He killed two people and injured another one. And this is who they bring to their conferences. This is who they lift up. So they're showing us who they are. And we know where this is headed if it's not stopped. And I just don't see any sign that Solomon Pena is not going to be the first and last. should be terrifying to everyone, because where does it end? Our next guest lost his congressional election to George Santos in November. And as we all know, since then, pretty much not a day has gone by without another lie, falsehood, or imaginary story told by Santos about his past coming to light. Here to talk about that and where things need to go is Robert Zimmerman.

Robert, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. No, it's really great to be with you. Congratulations to the podcast and the impact you're having. And what you've come into has been so important. And by the way, your coverage on the Santos story has been roundbreaking and very important, very important in terms of moving the story forward and exposing the crimes and fraud that he represents. So it's really very important work.

So let's talk about that because there's been, as you pointed out, there's been a ton of coverage since the election on Santos. But let's start with a question. And I know you've answered this before, but I want to ask it so that you can, answer it to our listeners. Why didn't your campaign turn up any of the stuff about him leading up to the election? Well, actually, our campaign turned up a lot of stuff. I want to talk about that. First of all, so much more has come out, and that's a discussion to itself. But just to put things in context, I became the Democratic nominee on the evening of August 23rd. It was a contentious five-person Democratic primary. In fact, the FTX Super PAC, Sam Backman-Freet Super PAC, put 700,000 in for one of my

opponents. So it was that kind of very tough battle with five candidates. So I became the Democratic nominee August 23rd. And on August 24th, I had 10 and a half weeks to election day. My campaign manager called me and said you got a raise between $1.5 and $2 million in 10 and a half weeks. And we had to start from scratch. Fundraising, because we'd spend our money as one dozen a primary at that intense, building our field operation, our direct mail, our reach to voters, our phone banks. The whole list, we built the campaign. And this was all. a close race. From our early polling, it showed it was close. The political analyst by Charlie Cook rated this as close, lean Democrat. Larry Sabato called it a toss-up, and so did Charlie Cook at the end,

called a toss-up. So this was always a close race contrary to the pundits. That being said, with all that we were facing in terms of rebuilding our campaign for the general election, we took opposition research very seriously. It was the top priority. And the way it was structured was the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee did the opposition research on George Santos. And that's what they did for highly targeted congressional races, did the opposition research for the opponent. And I paid for opposition research on myself. Now, Andy, I had been through two presidential background checks. So I've been through vetting for two presidential appointments. We took it so seriously, we spent, I think it was $15,000 to do opposite research on myself to make sure there were

no red flags or no issues. And fortunately, nothing came up. The Santos opposition research, the D-TCC, produced an 87-page document. With a number of issues, we were able to use. in the election. That polled very well and were very important to me in our campaign. For example, Santos, despite lying about it, was very involved with the insurrection movement. He was at the speech January 6th. He actually said on video that he wrote a check to get the insurrectionist out of jail, many of them out of jail, after they assaulted police officers. He tried to lie about his abortion position, when in fact he was for a national ban on abortion, compared abortion to slavery, and said women would use rape as an excuse to get an abortion. Lied about his position on Social Security,

the opposition research showed. He was trying to dismantle the system as we know it. So in that respect, the opposition research was very, very productive. It also raised a lot of red flags, issues pertaining to a charity they had that wasn't properly registered, issues about past evictions, personal issues in his life. And those were very critical to us. We knew, frankly, Andy, nothing about this guy added up. He only debated me a couple of times. They refused to debate me anytime afterwards. He refused to go in front of editorial boards. So we knew there was a lot here that was sketchy and scandalous about him. Our problem was, with 10 and a half weeks to go before Election Day and starting to raise money to build the campaign, we were not in a position to send a team to Brazil to check out his past or to see if there was something about his past we had to know. We weren't in a position to hire a genealogist to figure out whether he was Jewish or not.

One person called me very earnestly and said, how come you didn't do a facial recognition test on him? Well, no, people were frustrated and believe me, no one. No one, Andy, is more frustrated than I am. And then there were questions about his academics and about his employment history. And frankly, I spoke to other opposition researchers, and they told me that there's no way Goldman Sachs or NYU was turning over that data to a political campaign. But they were to members of the media. I don't know if that's true or not.

What I've learned since the New York Times broke their story is that everybody's got a brother-in-law or a cousin or a college buddy who's an expert in opposition research and could have cracked the case. Right. Yeah, I wish they could have called me earlier. My point to you is we turn to the media. We went to many investigative news organizations. We went to many news organizations on the tri-state area to try to get them to be engaged. And frankly, many of them were very tried and wanted to. But we got the same response across the board. They didn't have the money, the staff or personnel to deal with it. One guy said to me, we got 60 to 80 crazy people running. We can't investigate all of them. Frankly, opposition researchers are not journalists. They're not private eyes. In fact, many people in the media have come forward. and have said in podcasts and interviews that, frankly, the marquee races get attention, but there isn't the investment in local news coverage that needs to be.

One thing that has taught me this experience is the urgency for everyone who's listening to invest in local media, whether it's buying a subscription to your weekly newspaper, buy a subscription to your daily newspaper, supporting local TV, whatever it may be, supporting podcasts like The Daily Beast, it's critical because you're the front lines of our democracy. And so that was, now, I never envisioned, and frankly, most reporters have told me. They never dreamed that someone would fabricate every aspect of their life. But do I wish the D-Triple-C research was more complete? Of course I do.

Did we do everything we could to try to sound the alarm and get the story out? Absolutely. And it was incredibly sad and frustrating. Yeah, I mean, you mentioned that, you know, people are coming out and are suddenly experts on opposition research. And it's interesting because that phrase, opposition research, used to be just like a political term of art and it's now become so common that it's moved way beyond, you know, Beltway speak. Remember, Andy? People used to call it the dark arts. They used to put it down. Yes.

Something evil when it's important to do. We took it very seriously. And it's a continual frustration that, you know, frankly, most people really understand this. And you've had reporters on the air, like Errol Lewis or Maggie Haberman or the Daily, the Daily, discuss this issue, the New York Times podcast, The Daily. And they all pointed out that there isn't the local media market that covers these local races. And unless you're a marquee race, you're not going to get the attention. And that was an enduring frustration. I must give credit, though. I got to give a shout out to the North Shore leader. I got to give credit to blank slate media, which raised many questions. And Newsday actually raised many questions themselves. And we took the editorials and the articles.

And we texted it out to 80,000 people in our district. We gave it out door to door. We try to use this to create more, we put it on social media. We tried to, again, sound the alarm. through the editorials that were written. North Shore Leader was very direct and clear about this. And let me be very clear with you. I was the only Democrat they endorsed. It's a weekly newspaper that endorses only Republicans. So when they endorsed me, it got a lot of attention amongst many elected Republicans.

They read those editorials that North Shore Leader wrote. They chose to not ask questions. They just chose to keep campaigning with them. So I think there are a lot of questions elected Republicans have to answer. I think there's a lot of questions Kevin McCarthy's got to answer. And I would say to everybody, look, I could point fingers and it doesn't serve any purpose. and a lot of people can point fingers. But the bottom line is, we should be pointing our fingers at George Santos

and at Kevin McCarthy in the Republican leadership because their failure to hold George Santos accountable for the crimes he's already admitted to, for the fraud and lies he's already acknowledged, makes them accomplices to his crimes. And they've got to be held accountable. Yeah, and I mean, the New York Times has done some excellent reporting. Really?

Yeah, and they've shown that just how many Republicans were aware of at least some of the stuff that Santos was made, making up, or at least, you know, they might not have known all the specifics and all the stuff that's come out now, but they were certainly aware that there was something funky going on here. And I agree with you that a lot of the onus sort of lies on them for just sort of shrugging their shoulders and saying, hey, this is our guy. Well, by the way, I mean, the New York Times reporting has been brilliant and all the other reporting by the Daily Beast and all the other, Washington Post, newsday have all been

excellent reporting. And critically been, look, I'm not going to lie to Andy. There were a few occasions I shouted into my pillow. Couldn't this have been in October. Right. I've got invested interest in saying that. I'm not a journalist. Obviously, journalism shouldn't work around my calendar. More importantly, this is finally coming out. See, look, with all of my frustrations and sadness about this, I mean, running for Congress has always been the dream of my life since I was

a kid working on Capitol Hill. This is my congressional district. I've lived here since I was nine years old, educated here, built my business here, worked for members of Congress from this district that I represented. So it was very personal to me, and serving would be a great honor. But this is so much bigger than me. This is really about now, this is my commitment and my work, to build a bipartisan coalition to hold George Santos accountable for the lies and fraud and crimes he perpetrated on this district and for the way he's demeaned our democracy and really assaulted the House of Representatives with his conduct and demand that he'd be removed from office.

That's really what's most important. How do you think that this ends or where do you think it goes from here? We've got the Nassau County Republican Party is calling on Santos to resign. We've got four GOP members of Congress from New York saying the same thing. But meanwhile, we've got the empty man, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, saying, quote, the voters elected Santos to serve and that the voters can make another decision in two years. Do you see him being kicked out? I see him being forced to resign or being kicked out one of the two. The real story always has been about the money.

Right. It's always been about the money. And frankly, it's a story opposition research can't crack. But the media is being essential in cracking it. How did he get $700,000 to loan his own campaign? How does income grow from $50,000 to millions of dollars in just two years? The point simply is this, Andy. We all know George Santos has bought.

The question is who bought them? And the public pressure, the investigations that are going on now are going to reveal that. The links to relatives of Russian oligarchs. Yeah. Maybe Russian oligarchs themselves, which I think was reported, certainly reported early on by the Daily Beast. I think that is going to become a bigger, bigger narrative.

And I think you're going to find enough Republican House members already disgraced by their association with him, putting more pressure on McCarthy to get him out. And now that it's come out that Republicans knew and said nothing. And Kevin McCarthy admitted that had concerns but asked no questions. Now there's even greater accountability here. Well, and that's the thing that even beyond him resigning or possibly being kicked out of the House, he's got a very real possibility now of being indicted because it does feel, as you said, like we're just starting to scratch the surface of these potential financial irregularities

and improprieties that he may have committed. And look, I'm not going to say those are more serious than the lying he did to voters about basically his whole life because I don't want to minimize that because doing that is awful enough. But unlike that stuff, the financial stuff, could actually rise to the level of illegality. You know, that's an interesting point, Andy. I think I give Congressman Richie Torres and Congressman Dan Goldman extraordinary credit for the work they're doing. Because we have to make sure the Federal Election Commission is not just going to put a slap on the wrist and a fine in place. They have to have real teeth and they've got to be very aggressive and have real penalties for lying on federal election commission reports when you file your campaign finance reports. Likewise, every candidate for Congress has to file reports with the House Ethics Committee, Financial Disclosure Forms.

He filed his significantly late. We couldn't get anyone interested in that. People just literally rolled their eyes at us when we brought that up. But that series, if you're lying on your House ethics forms about your financial background, this should be very severe penalties and jail. I think the work that Congressman Torres is doing or Congressman Goldman are doing on this issue, amongst others, is really very pivotal, very important. Yeah, just to follow up on that, the congressman that you mentioned have released,

or they're releasing a bill that they're kind of cleverly calling the stop another non-truthful office seeker, which acronyms to Santos Act. and that would require candidates to under oath to talk about key parts of their personal history before they take office. And I'm hoping out of this travesty, we're going to have real strict enforcement of ethics codes, campaign finance codes. So the enforcement is very lax. And the House Ethics Committee is very ineffectual. But I do feel heartened by seeing the federal investigation launched, the state investigation launched by Attorney General Tish James,

and the Nassau and Queens District attorneys stepping up and bringing these investigations, I think, is very very, very, very critical. And let's go back again to, there's something you said, and I've seen you say it before, that somebody bought George Santos and the question is finding out who. Any speculation on your part as to who that might be? You know, unfortunately, there's too much speculation, but we see a lot of foreign, and I'm not, I am speculating a little bit here, but we see evidence of his engagement with Russian oligarchs and their relatives. I'd keep a close eye on that. We do know. We all know he didn't earn the money. No one's even debating that. We do know that someone put the money up. Now we've got to find out who bought him. That's the real challenge.

And I think that will become ultimately the deal breaker. It's always, look, the lies are so offensive and wrong. This was not a master criminal. Let's be clear. He got the nomination twice by the Republicans who never checked him out. As we now find out, Republicans in Washington knew about problems about the guy. He never spoke up about it. Kevin McCarthy never spoke up about. And the only time he was ever vetted or faced opposition research, we learned the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee did it when I ran. Now, I wish it was more extensive. I wish it was more comprehensive. But the point is, it did raise a lot of important questions, and it did also fortunately have some local media try to address it. We just couldn't break through it and a climate,

frankly, where the governor's race was taking all the oxygen, crime is the dominant issue. Marquis races, understandably, were getting all the national media attention. And so, that's just a reality. But certainly I think there's a renewed hope and engagement with local media, which I think is very important. And I think that's going to be very critical because how many other George Santos is are there out there? Had he not won, he could have gone on with the scams. And people would have been suspicious based about what we said, but nothing more would have come up about it. So if he does resign or if he is expelled for any reason, what happens then? What happens with that seat? Once the seat is vacated, the governor has their option we expect the governor would call

for a special election. That takes place within 60 to 80 days of the vacancy. As a result of that, the political organizations of the Democrat and Republican Party would pick their nominees, individuals could file to run independently, and there'd be a special election. There would not be a primary. And the good news in a special election, you know, in the election that just took place, we had a Republican landslide in New York State. Nassau, Suffolk, Northeastern Queens, all went Republican. The district I sought to represent, while I voted for Biden by 8 percent, it voted for Eldon by 13%. The district next to me was a district that voted for Biden by 15%, I believe, and the Republican won by 4% in the district next to me. We saw other Democratic seats lost in upstate

New York, plus, of course, countless legislators. So that being said, we won't have in a special election the issue about the state issues dominating. It'll be strictly about the national issues and how we can best serve our congressional district, and that would be very important. And would you stand in such an election? You know, I'm not even going there. This is, what we're facing right now is so much bigger than any dreams or aspirations I have. My only focus, my only focus is building a bipartisan coalition to remove George Santos from office. That's my mission.

And I'm not really even engaging in thoughts about what might happen next. That's an important mission for me. And it's very personal, not just because I lost the race. by 7.6%, not just because I lost race, but because this is very much my home, this congressional district, and a fraud and a crime was committed against my neighbors, our communities, and we're severely disenfranchised by his presence. I did everything I could to beat him in the election. I sounded the alarm as loud as I could as best we could, but now the challenge right now is to make sure he's out of office. Yeah, I have relatives in your district, and I'm saying this not for any

reason other than disclosure, all of whom voted for you. I'm grateful and I thank them. And I know that they're all sitting there and they just are like, they're sort of shell-shocked about this whole thing. They cannot believe that this happened in their district. And they're just sitting there going, how did nobody know this before the vote? Andy, they should be asking that question all the time because that's one of the real issues here.

And that's why I hope your relatives are buying subscriptions to the weekly papers, supporting their local papers. I hope they're demanding greater accountability from the political parties. Hope they're asking Republicans questions. How do they ignore the editorials written about George Santos, laying out these issues? Hope they're asking those questions. And I hope they don't hesitate to reach out to me because I'll be glad to tell them everything we did to sound the alarm. But the problem truly is when people just vote a party line and don't look at the candidates, you get results like this.

This was a Republican landslide in Nassau, Suffolk, Northeastern Queens. Northeast Queensland is a D plus 26%. Yeah. And it voted for Zeldon by 4%. And I carried it by 4%. I know. It's amazing. My point to you is when you have a landslide and people don't pay attention to the candidates,

you have these kinds of travesties. So I hope your relatives will join in demanding greater accountability and answers from, especially the Republicans who knew and did nothing. That most of all is the case. And demand that both parties engage in very scrutinizing vetting. I think it's essential. And very frankly, I'm hoping out of this travesty comes a great, a stronger or more accountable political process

and a reinvestment in supporting our local media because they're the front lines in defending our democracy. You've mentioned that several times and I think you couldn't be more right about it about local media. And I mean, I'm sitting here. I live in New York City now. You know, I'm a Long Island boy from Suffolk County. And I grew up reading Newsday. Sure. I just recently resubscribe to Newsday.

And look, I'll be honest. I did it mostly for the sports section. That's cool. Regardless, whatever the reason I am now supporting Newsday, we've seen a gutting of local media across this country. And it's absolutely sad. And most people just shrug their shoulders and think, well, what am I getting from local media? And then something like this happens. And it's like, there's your answer.

That's exactly right. And frankly, I don't fault the national media. I mean, they have to cover the national agenda. Of course. We went to a lot of local media, didn't have the staff and personnel. But hopefully out of this will come that renewed commitment for greater accountability. I still believe greatly in our system profoundly in our political process, inspired by what it can mean and what it does mean.

So my mission is clear, and we're making progress. We're having rallies, we're having demonstrations. We're out there every day. And in fact, we're seeing momentum building for George Santos to be removed. And now we're going to keep the pressure on the Republican leadership in Congress. Robert, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate your time. And I hope that this ends up with George Santos out of office

and perhaps you running again to hold that seat. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. And thank you to the Daily Peace and the excellent work you're doing. Folks, I'm very happy to be joined by Frederick Ingram, Secretary of Treasury for AFT, America Federation of Teachers. And Frederick, I want to start out with the absolute nonsense

that is happening in the state of Florida. And I say nonsense because as a former education, I taught, as I tell people, first and second grade, special education in Washington, D.C., and then I went to work and do education policy for the city of New York for a couple of years after that. And I believe wholeheartedly in education. And I believe wholeheartedly that our public education system is the biggest proponent of white supremacy in this country. that what is decided for children to learn in curriculum, you pretty much spend your adult years unlearning.

A lot of what was taught. You know, Christopher Columbus discovered America. These are things that I learned back in the day. The Native Americans and the pilgrims, you know, were best friends. Slavery wasn't that bad. It was, you know, more like an unpaid internship. You learn all of these things. And then when you get into college, if you attend,

you begin to unlearn. ask more questions. And so I want to start up by asking you, when you have a governor like Ron DeSantis that is passing legislation purposefully working to uphold white comfort, as an educator, what does that say to you? Thank you for the question. And I appreciate you having me here today. But let me say this from three vantage points. I'm a native Floridian. As a native Floridian, I'm embarrassed. As a parent of three children who have gone through and are going through the public school systems in Florida, I am appalled. And as an educator, concern. And so let me start there with the concern. This extremist politics, and let's not

misinterpret this as education. This is politics. Mr. DeSantis is running for president on the backs of these divisive politics that we've seen throughout the nation. But he's been the tip of the sphere for the last two and a half years because he wants to try and attract a certain type of voter to his side of the political aisle. He's willing to use this divisive types of politics and put black children, black teachers, black communities, Hispanic teachers, trans and gay folks right in the middle of a cauldron that is really, really getting hot. And he's playing with fire because he's using these tropes, these things that don't exist,

CRT. He's using things like an AP course for African-American history. You're going to push to the side because it doesn't fit in your political vacuum. And so in Florida, we offer several courses in AP. We offer right now we offer AP Japanese language and culture. We offer AP German language and culture. We offer AP Italian language and culture. AP Spanish language and culture.

And this, what he just did, is veto a pilot of an African-American history course that we'd like to offer that educators want and at our community's need. He's saying that it does not fit in the curriculum structure of Florida. Well, what he has done is just ticked off a whole bunch of people. And I don't think it's going to fare well for him. But he continues to do this because we've seen all of his backwards, nonsensical types of political angles that he's willing to take. And he's willing to say and do anything.

One of the things that I think is most damaging with regard to his rhetoric around the black AP classes is that he says that it doesn't have, quote, educational value. And what he's meaning by that is that he does not believe that the experiences of black people in this country and throughout the diaspora have any educational value, that we as people don't have any educational value. And what it is that Dr. Martin Luther King had said is that white people have so much to learn. And it is this decision, this belief that they know everything, right? And I want to know, is there any, and this has just happened. But in your mind, Frederick, do you think that there is any legal recourse to take?

And even if legal recourse was taken, would it succeed? I can't verifiably say that there's any legal basis at the moment. what I can say is that we have organizations who are going to explore that. Everybody from the NAACP to other organizations, other organizations who deal in civil and social justice. But what I will tell you is that in the public school systems in the state of Florida right now, we have 5,000 classes right this second that do not have a certified teacher. How many? I'm sorry, say that one more time. Well over 5,000 classrooms throughout the state of Florida. Do not have a certified teacher right now, right now. And so what he's doing is sending a message to young people and to those people who have given their lives to education, especially our black teachers, that we don't want you here,

that this is not important to you. This is not only doing damage to this class and those who would have taken this class, this is sending a wide-ranging message to those who undertake education as a passion, as a job and are committed to children that says that your experience does not matter, that says that your history, your ancestors, everything that we've gone through from the Middle Passage to Jim Crow laws, to the high inventions that we've had, to all of the opportunities

that we have afforded this country because of our intellect and because of our insight and because of our culture that has really helped define and redefine this country again in the best possible ways. This is an AP course. That's advanced placement. That means that the highest levels of children who can reach and write, if we feed them of the African American diaspora, Hispanics, or Asian, or white, everybody needs to understand the value of everybody else's culture. This is America. That's what we do.

And to say that black people don't matter because that's ultimately what he's saying. We forget all of the educational jargon. He's saying that black people's and black people's experience, just like you just expressed, that it really doesn't matter. And we should not be teaching that. Because what he undergirded six months ago was that he talked about CRT in the same vein that he talks about this. CRT is not taught in our classroom, but what he did say, he went one step further and said that if we're going to teach history in Florida and it makes certain students feel uncomfortable, we're not going to allow that. Essentially, what Ronda Santos has laid out, and I refer to Florida as the Petri Ditch for the Republican Party, between Florida and Texas, it is where they go.

to test out some of their most egregious, hateful, discriminatory policies to see how they stick, whether they are attacking LGBTQ people, as you as lifted up, whether they are attacking the Latinx community, women. This is where they go to see where things stick. And I think to myself, Rhonda Santis is somebody who has not announced his candidacy for the presidency for 2024, but certainly we know that this is something that he is thinking about. Talk to us about the ways in which something like erasing, right, the cultural experience and history, non-white people would do if it was nationalized. Listen, we're already looking at a rollback or potential rollback of our civic and social

justice kind of arena here in the United States of America. When people talk about make America great again, again, great for whom? And why do we say things like that as opposed to a push? forward. When we say things like America first, we know where that comes from. These are retreads of very racist, very fascist, very kind of divisive politics that we've seen before. And we've seen them recently, unfortunately, worked with folks. And so what it really does is further set our country back. But not only that, it divides our young people, which is going to cause a ripple effect that sets us back decades and we should be pushing forward in a way that our young people really want.

Our young people want to accept everybody and everything. I see it firsthand in our middle schools and our elementary schools and in our high schools. These young people in Generation Z are the most affectionate, are the most loving, are the most caring, but they live in a world that is socially, politically, and morally split between a camp of these over here and those over there. The haves and the have-nots, that's what this type of rhetoric does nationally. It will set us back not only in our education system, but in our health care system, where the disparities are already and always have been one that we should be concerned about. It's going to set us back in our financial departments because we have come from a history of redlining where banks won't

give loans to black folks, where, you know, it's very difficult for black wealth to be amassed because we don't give it back to our children and grandchildren because we're too busy paying the bills right now. These are the kinds of things that this kind of rhetoric enhances. And so we've got to stop it where it is because if we don't stop this now, then this will blow open the doors to something that I think can be very, very critical for this country. We talked at the top about also the fact that given all that is happening in our schools, and I don't even take into consideration the stress and trauma around school shootings, which have had a lot of teachers who would want to go into the profession,

leave the profession, or not join the industry in the first place. But there right now is happening a exodus of black teachers in particular, black teachers who are largely underrepresented in the profession as a whole. And I wanted to give you the opportunity to speak. to that and address this article that is in the San Diego voice and viewpoint that is entitled Black teachers are fed up and they're quitting in droves and why you think that that is. Sure. So let me first start by saying in the positive. Teaching and education, it is the best thing and the best job that anyone can possibly have to give back to a young person in your community,

to do it because you care about that community, you care about that family, you care about the block that their kid lives on. It is the most beautiful thing that you could ever do in your entire life. And so I encourage everyone within the sound of my voice to at least explore the opportunity of giving back through our educational system for our children because they need you. And if you're black, if you're a black male, we need you even more. We need you even more because these young people need to see black men and black women in positions of educational power that they know what's possible for them to become a science teacher or math teacher or band director or a principal. Those are the kinds of things that are young people seeing.

Now, our education system is not very kind to black teachers. It's not very kind to what we call Title I school. These are schools that would have 90 to 95 percent free and reduced lunch and a lot of poverty centers. And they're not all urban. And some of these places are rural places where young people, are trapped in food deserts, in digital deserts, where they don't have what they need at home to actually assist them what's happening in the school system. And so, you know, we need to make sure that we pour into these teachers, that we give them the resources. They are quitting because

the onus of and the weight of politics is starting to be too much for a classroom to bear. A teacher is losing control every day of what they're. They know that is the magic that happens between a teacher and a student, they're losing that control. Politicians are telling them what to do and when to do it, how to do it. Everybody else knows better than the classroom teacher. And that's not where we need to be. Teachers, they need to have a level of autonomy.

We need to have the proper resources in these schools. We need to pay our teachers what they deserve and like the professionals they are. We need to look at the working conditions in which they work in because students learning conditions are a teacher's working conditions. They're one and the same. And so those are the kinds of things that we can do to help stop this exodus of teachers because we already have a bigger teacher shortage than we have seen in decades across America. I want to quote a piece of this article as well so folks understand that according to the San Diego voice and there was a 2021 state of U.S. teacher survey that was done by the RAND Corporation. And they said this, that on

average, black educators are paid less than their white colleagues. They're the racial group least likely to earn more than $15 an hour and have higher student loan debt. Plus, there's the workplace culture with discrimination, hostility, and feelings of isolation, or being given more responsibilities as the representatives of their race. A Donors' Choose survey found that more than 30% of black teachers were tasked with disciplining students of color, teaching their school communities about racism and serving as the liaison between the school and families of color. Can you speak to that, Frederick, as well, essentially the additional work and the labor of being a black educator and how that leads to burnout and what you would like to see or what can be done

in order to create conditions that are welcoming and supportive to black teachers? Yeah. So everything that you said, you know, I've heard in one instance or another from coast to coast, from the middle of the country, from the Beltway to the south, that there are these issues with black teachers. And I'll give you a personal kind of story. When I was in the classroom, I was a high school band director. And we had a really big band award winning program down in Miami, Florida. But time and time again, I was saddled with the students that were labeled the troubled students that could not rest or abide with another teacher. And many instances,

these were white teachers. In some instances, they're black teachers. But as a black male, I was looked upon as the end-all, tell-all, be-all to helping our troubled kids get better. Now, one can look at that and look at it as a badge of honor. But when you're the only one in a school, it can be a burden that's too much to bear. And so what we need to do is expand the pool of our black teachers. We need to expand the responsibility base of our black teachers. What I always tell people is black teachers aren't just good for black students.

they're good for white teachers too, because they help transcend these misnumbers. And it is that it's the conversations that I had with my white colleagues and my Hispanic colleagues and my Asian colleagues that helped our black children. Because I would tell them, hey, this kid can learn. Don't judge a book by his cover. Just because this kid lives in the projects doesn't mean that this kid can't achieve the same thing that a kid, you know, who lives in a single family home. These are the kinds of conversations that happen as a result of you being.

at the table with your white colleagues. And listen, there are some fantastic teachers out there and they're white, they're black, they're male, they're female. I don't only say that all we need is black teachers, but we do need more black teachers because all of the research says that when a child sees themselves in a position of authority, of power, and of intellect, they get an innate idea that, you know, not only do I respect that person, but for another day, there goes me. I can do that as well. And so what we need to do about it, I think we need to double down on our historically black colleges and universities first. Yes, I agree.

We know where the children are. We know where the smart young people are. They're in these 101 schools. These are the schools that produce the most doctors, the most lawyers, the most judges, the most pharmacists. And half of all black teachers in America come from our HBCUs. And so why not pour into those schools even more, into the schools of education? tell them that, hey, you can not only get an education, but it's the best job in the world, and we're going to pay you what you're worth. And we're going to help you with your student

loans, you know, nod to the Biden administration, nod to AFT, that we have tried to help the student loan situations. It's not perfect, but it is far from where we were 10 years ago and 20 years ago. People are starting to get their student loans paid for and eradicated, that kind of thing. And so that's going to help the teaching profession, because why go into teaching? when you're saddled with debt. Correct. That makes the case right there. And yes, I do give, you know, kudos to the Biden administration because they are investing in HBCUs in a way that other administrations have not.

They are working to provide relief to the over 40 million people that are crippled under the weight of student loan debt. And just to close out, I want to remind folks listening to of this stat and why it's so important to have black teachers and invest in black teachers, why it's so important. that we invest in black AP classes and black history classes so that we do not continue to repeat and make the same mistakes that our society continues to make by neglecting the very real ills that our government and that society has oppressed upon black people. And the more that we know, the more that we can look to create a more perfect union, ignoring it or pretending it that it didn't happen has gotten us nowhere.

Just to say this, that black students, according to this article who learned from a black teacher in elementary school are more likely to graduate from high school and enroll in college, 13% more likely if they had one black teacher and more than double that to 32% if they had at least two. Think about what that can do for our society, for closing the racial wealth gap. So I think that this is an investment that is needed and worthwhile. Frederick, thank you so much for making the time to join the new abnormal. I really appreciate you, your work, and lifting up this issue and all of the issues that are beginning in Florida and can very well trickle across the nation. If someone like a Ron DeSantis is allowed to become president, we will see the legislation that he has in Florida nationalized and that cannot happen.

Thank you so much for having me. You're absolutely right. Danielle Moody Andy Levy Who is your fuck that guy for today? Well, what I'd like to start out with is that his name is George Santos

but unclear Sometimes His name is sometimes George Santos Sometimes George Santos But apparently in Brazil He goes by Qatarah And what do I mean by that? So according to folks in

Brazil, George Santos has reportedly dressed as a drag queen named Katara over, you know, more than a decade ago while he was living there. And I just, I want people to understand, this is not at all a shaming of drag queens. Like, this is not about a shaming of drag queens. It is about the fact that this fucking idiot stands for a party who is literally creating mob-style climates around drag reading times at libraries where they are referring to drag queens as pedophiles and groomers and, you know, referring to them as everything but a child of God. But George Santos, right? Their new representative out of New York, who is the most untalented Mr. Ripley, they keep going

a bat for this guy because he is the one of four votes that allows for Kevin McCarthy to have the speakership. The hypocrisy is so fucking wild. And the fact that this guy can literally change his story every other day. Another thing pops up and nothing. Republicans are mute when it comes to him. And I'm just like, God, fuck that guy. Fuck, George Santos.

I'm outdone by all of them. The worst part of this is Santos or whatever. his name is, jumped on Twitter to completely deny the Katara story. And it's like, this is literally the one cool thing you've done in your life. And this is the thing you're denying. All these lies, all these fake, my lost people in the Holocaust, my mom was in the South Tower of 9-11. Like, he's not denying that he said any of that. And all these, all this shitty things, making up jobs and stuff like that the one thing he's denying because as you said he knows what party he's in he feels like oh i can get away with all of that stuff but the one thing i can't get away with is the fact that i

was a drag queen in brazil to me that's the ultimate fuck that guy right there is because he felt like he had to apologize for that literally the one thing he's done in his life that he should not apologize for he is a pathological liar but it's hard to figure out if that's a bad thing and a party full of liars and grifters. It's true. It's true. Andy, who is your fuck that guy? So my fuck that guy is kind of a boring pick because at some point, I think we might have

talked about this last year at some point. We might have to retire some people and just put them on the hall of shame wall or whatever and say we can't do them anymore. But until that day, my fuck that guy is going to be, stop me if you've heard this name before, Ron DeSantis. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. He is, of course, the governor of the fine state of Florida.

And his latest thing is he is so pro-COVID that he now wants to indefinitely extend measures that he put into place in 2021, things that would find businesses if they required workers to get vaccinated. He says they were wrong about lockdowns. They were wrong about mask mandates. They were wrong about school closures. They were wrong about MRI shots. They were wrong about Vax passports and vaccine mandates. No, they weren't.

Nope. This is the new talking point on the right is, obviously there's no evidence of anything they say, but they have just started asserting as fact that all these things were wrong. And DeSantis is not the first to do this, which is not surprising because he's much more of a follower than a leader. But this is the new strategy on the right is to just say things like that. Like they were wrong about the vaccine. Every single piece of scientific evidence shows that, in fact, they, i.e. we were right and are right about vaccines.

But what is science, Andy? I don't even know. What is science? What are you even talking about? It's a made up thing. Right. It's a heart. It's part of the woke mind virus. I understand that. I hope he banned science next in schools. Yeah, no, exactly. Will he do that, you think? It's not going to surprise me if at some point teaching evolution is banned in Florida school. among other things. Mm-mm. You know, and this is why we can't quit Ron DeSantis for fuck that guy, because he really does.

Every week, it's another thing. It never stops. And it just gets worse and it just gets worse. And so for all those reasons, Ron DeSantis is my fuck that guy for the 300th time. He does the best drag of all because he dresses up like a human. But we all know that he's full of shit. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal.

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