The Daily Beast Podcast - The Devious Reason Trump Announced His 2024 Run Now

Episode Date: November 18, 2022

Donald Trump’s 2024 announcement may have felt like a flop, but dig deeper and you’ll find the most interesting part. Jose Pagliery, political investigations reporter at The Daily Beast, tells The New Abnormal host Andy Levy that there is no way to look at this announcement “as anything other than an attempt to mar any prosecution as a political persecution of him.” It “could be viewed as him trying to seek further cover so that if he does get indicted for one of the many things that he’s being investigated for right now, he could just say, ‘oh, look at this, they just indicted me because I announced, they were just trying to stop me from winning for you in 2024.’” Speaking of Trump, also on the podcast, former Missouri Secretary of State and the host of the podcast Majority 54, Jason Kander, explains that Trump could be his worst enemy, becoming overexposed in American culture. Also on the podcast, Kat Abughazaleh, who covers Tucker Carlson for Media Matters for America, describes how Carlson has been relatively quiet since Trump’s announcement. 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. And I'm producer Jesse Kennan, 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 great guest co-hosts, as well as some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try to make some sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. A fascinating show today.

First, we're going to be joined by Daily Beast Political Investigatives reporter, Jose Pallieri. He's going to tell us about all that he's seen with Trump's recent legal jeopardy. Then we're joined by media menors Kat Abu Ghazila, who has the unfortunate task of watching Tucker Carlson every single night. And she'll talk to us about what she's seen there. But first, we're joined by former Missouri Secretary of State and the host of the podcast Majority 54, Jason Kandor. Jason, thanks so much for being here today, filling in as guest co-host. I'm happy to do it. This actually turned out to be sort of a perfect day to have you on because there's a lot of big political news.

Let's start with the fact that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is going to be stepping down from a leadership position. She's going to stay in her seat in the house, but she's going to step away from the leadership. And it looks like it's going to be Hakeem Jeffries taking her place, right? Yeah, that's what it looks like. I mean, everybody is sort of like, this is the next guy. So I guess he's the next guy. Good for him. Yeah, I watched some of Pelosi's speech, and I think my two favorite parts were when she did, first she did the preamble to the Constitution, which just brought me back to my schoolhouse rock days.

And I was sitting there actually saying it along with her. Like, man, that show, that little schoolhouse rock thing really worked. But then she talked about how she enjoyed working with three presidents, and she gave examples from Bush, Obama, and Biden, and pretty conspicuously left someone out there. Well, I don't think it's any mystery that she didn't enjoy. working with Trump. But the other thing is, I don't think anybody in the room wants to revisit Trump except like the Freedom Caucus. I've been saying for a while that Donald Trump is the Iraq War of Presidents. Like, there are a lot of people who pushed really hard for him to happen who are going to spend the next rest of their life acting like he's just a thing that happened all on his own. And so

it's not like everybody wants to revisit it anyway. Yeah. Like you said, you know, no one in that room wants to revisit it except the House Freedom Caucus. And ironically, the House Freedom Caucus wasn't mostly in the room when Pelosi was speaking because they decided not to show up. And even Kevin McCarthy couldn't be bothered to have like the minimum level of even just respect for the office, if not for the person, to be there on a day that regardless of how you feel about Nancy Pelosi, was pretty historic. Yeah. And it shouldn't be forgotten that all of these human beings, not all, but most of these human beings, like went through being under attack together, right? Like, like, I mean, they went through January 6th together. So, I mean, even if you put away, put aside the politics and

you put aside the moment, which is, you know, the first woman speaker deciding to hand off the baton, like, put all that aside. I'm sorry, I just don't understand not feeling some sort of warmth, some sort of connection to one of the, you know, few hundred. people in the world who went through this thing with you. Yeah, and we saw, you know, in some of the January 6th video that was released not that long ago, we saw Nancy Pelosi in the House, I think it was, or in the Capitol, calling Vice President Mike Pence to make sure he was okay. Yeah, like a human being would do?

Right, no, exactly. And, you know, that's what I'm saying. Like, you don't have to be her biggest fan to be like, okay, as you said, we all went through something halacious together. except of course they want to pretend now, you know, that they didn't go through something halacious. And so I guess that would, you know, work against them. So I don't know.

There was a lot of thought, you know, there were rumors or not rumors. There was speculation that Pelosi might do this, assuming the Republicans got the majority. And there was a lot of speculation that Steny Hoyer might not step down. And I remember reading a quote from someone basically saying he would have to be taken out of a leadership position on a stretcher. But he did, he announced also that he is going to step down, as did Jim Clyburn. So it's looking like it's going to be Hakeem Jeffries for Minority Leader and Catherine Clark as number two and Pete Aguilar as number three, I guess. Do you have strong thoughts about any of them?

I've met Jeffries and I've met Aguilar and I have not spent a lot of time with Jeffries. He seemed reasonably impressive when I met him. When I met Pete, I just thought he was one of the easier hangs. I mean, like, for lack of a better way to put in, but frankly, that's like pretty important in politics, right? It's like, yeah, absolutely. I don't know that much about his politics. I don't know that much about his background, but the couple of times have been around him, the guy's a good hang. I just think in those leadership positions, that's important.

I had a friend recently who he is a member of Congress and I was discussing the whole concept of leadership races with him. And, you know, I've been in a legislative body before I was in the state legislature. And I remember saying to my friend, I said, you know, I can't imagine anything worse than having to go out and get votes from other politicians. I said, in fact, I think it's my worst nightmare, and I have some pretty bad nightmares. So, like, it takes, you've got to be not just a good hang, but you've got to be infinitely patient, incredibly strategic. And one of those people who can keep like a thousand balls in the air at the same time, because you've got all these personalities that you've got to motivate, but you've also got to sort of keep in line or like keep in their lanes. And nobody in my lifetime has done that

better than Nancy Pelosi. Yeah, and it's interesting because I was, you know, I was reading up on Jeffries, and I was reading some articles that talk about how he likes to talk about radical Republicans. He likes to talk, he called Marjorie Taylor Green, the titular head of the Republican conference called Paul Gosar a disgrace, talked about Republicans being a cult where they're still bending the need of Donald Trump. The interesting thing will be, does he temper any of that once he's speaker? Because obviously, you know, he'll be in a wholly different position. And I'm honestly, I'm not sure whether he should or not, but I think it'll be interesting to see once he gets into this leadership, as he's not speaker, but a House Minority Leader, it'll be interesting to see if he sort of tempers that or maybe he doesn't.

I don't know. I think it really is going to depend on what's required of the Democratic Caucus by the Biden administration. I mean, if they have things in the next two years that they think, you know, really, we've got to shove this through. You know, like if they don't get the debt limit done during the lame doc, stuff like that, then that's going to affect the rhetoric. But if you just think about the very nature of being the minority leader, being in the minority party, you know, it's kind of hard to think about it as just a straight minority party position when you have the White House in the Senate. But it still is a minority party position. You, especially in the House, you have no power. Like they can do, they can do, they do, they can do, you know, they can just run over you. Now, it's a little tougher with the slim of a majority. But really, like, they put what they want on the floor. They do what they want. They put, you know, who they want in charge of committees. So those basic elements don't dictate. holding back a lot on what you really believe. And it's also, I think we've seen pretty important to make sure that we properly portray what the threat is that we're up against. And those people who are, you know, the tail wagging the dog of the Republican caucus in the U.S. House at this point, they are running the show. Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. And again, I'm not, I am certainly not saying

he should stop saying those things once he's the leader. I just will find it interesting if he does because, you know, as anyone knows who has been in a position where you're just one of the gang or one of the troops or whatever. And then when you get moved into a leadership position, sometimes you're like, oh, I can't do that anymore. And this may not be one of those times. Well, you know what I think the rule is on this, Andy? I think you've got to look at this if you're him and you got to go, how would I talk about this if I weren't on TV, right? And because that's going to be the most genuine, you know. What you shouldn't be doing is going out there and looking for opportunities all the time to land punches,

and score points on the other side, because sometimes that's not productive. But when you're in a situation where it is the extreme nature of the opposition or of your colleagues that is keeping stuff from getting done, then there's no reason to be shy about saying that. And you just very plainly stated. Look, in the reality we're in, it's not like you have to characterize things that aren't extreme as extreme. I mean, there's just no shortage of extreme stuff out there. Right. And, you know, he doesn't have to say anything that's not true, basically.

Exactly. Exactly. I mean, it's literally like you could just basically be a newscaster in that role and people are going to be like, that's pretty extreme. Yeah, right, exactly. So the other thing he's going to maybe face is there's not a lot of love lost between him and the more progressive Democrats in the House, like the Justice Democrats and things like that. And it's not necessarily even over policy. I guess a little bit of it is Jeffries didn't sign on to the Green New York. New Deal. And apparently there's maybe bad blood between him and AOC because of that. But it does feel like he is to the left of Pelosi. So am I wrong about that? No, I just think it's funny, like, how American politics works, right? And like, how sort of the echo chamber works, like, in the social media world, right? Like, where I live in Kansas City, if you were to explain to anybody here that there's a new leader of the Democratic Party and his name is Hakeem, and he is to the left of Nancy Pelosi, the last conclusion on earth that they would ever reach is that he's going to have

a problem with the left. I know. I mean, it doesn't mean that what you're saying isn't real. It's just we all have to keep in mind as we think about messaging going into 2024. We have to keep in mind that what you and I are discussing right now, and I know you know this, is not something that's going to matter in elections. Like when people in swing districts and swing states, when they look at Democrats, they barely see a difference between Joe Manchin and name your Democrat. I'll tell you, living in Missouri, I'm frequently asked about like the public disagreements between like AOC and Claire McCaskill, particularly now that she's, you know, opining regularly on MSNBC. It always is interesting to me because I guarantee you that people in Missouri who have been through a bunch of Claire McCaskill campaigns see no daylight whatsoever between Claire and AOC.

I'm not saying there's not daylight. I'm just saying the brand is the brand, and we all have to live with that brand, so we really got to figure this stuff out. No, that's really well said, I think. So let's sort of move on to talk about the other side of the aisle, and we're now in a situation, it's been confirmed that the GOP will have control of the House. And we've already seen, you know, just today, we had a press conference with James Comer and Jim Jordan,

saying that they're going to be opening up an investigation into Hunter Biden, and as they seem to think into President Biden's involvement in Hunter's business dealings, and we had the House Judiciary GOP Twitter account referring to the Biden crime family, which always makes me laugh. Yeah. It feels like this is what we're in for for the next two years, doesn't it? Yeah, it absolutely does. And I feel like two different ways about this, right?

Like, on the one hand, I feel like we have to be, we can't dismiss this stuff, because they do this for a reason. I mean, they poll this stuff, they focus group this stuff. They want to, you know, jam so much of this junk into the system that it really bloodies things up by 2024. I get that.

It also, you know, weakens Biden as he goes along, which makes things easier on them. So we have to be wary of that. And that means we have to defend this stuff. We have to get, I don't know what the line really ought to be, but to me personally, it's like, yeah, you know, that guy seems to have been through a lot.

I'm glad he has a father who loves him and cares about him. Right. I hope things work out. You know, like, I mean, because like, clearly Joe Biden is not a crime boss, you know. So, like, I don't even think we need to address that part. But then the other part of it is, like, man, they got nothing. Like, they got nothing to go on.

They're going to go try and run the Benghazi play over again. And I'm not saying the Benghazi play didn't work a bit. It clearly did. But I think they are underestimating, as we are seeing with the tepid reaction to Trump right now, how difficult it is to make a sequel successful. in this country. That's why most of the sequels that have done really well are like Terminator 2, or they're like totally different movies, right? Because what they're doing is they're running the exact same play, and it is harder to run it and have it be really effective the second time.

And so I think that that could end up being good for us if that's where they put a ton of their energy. Yeah, no, that's an excellent point. My thing is, or my worry, is, and I think this is obviously one of the reasons they do this is, so they hold a hearing, it's going to be insane, it's going to be ridiculous and most likely nothing will come of it. But that what happens is you get a lot of people who don't, you know, who have lives and don't pay attention to this stuff every day. And God bless them. And I'm insanely jealous of them. So in their mind, what they see is, well, so, okay, the Democrats went after Trump and now the Republicans are going after Biden. It's all the same thing. This is just what they do. And so what it does is it diminishes, you know, actually going after Trump

because Trump actually is the head of a crime family. Right. There was a seminal moment in the 2020 campaign in one of the few moments in the Trump versus Biden debates that really you can remember well where nobody was shouting over each other or anything like that. And it's where Trump was clearly, he was bringing all the stuff up and he was trying very hard to bait Joe Biden. And Joe Biden is a man who he takes a lot of pride in his family name.

You know, there was every reason for the Trump camp to believe that they could have baited him into making the debate about this. But he had the discipline to say to the camera, look, he wants to talk about my family. That's what he's interested in. I'm interested in yours. And that is, I think, exactly the approach that has to be taken to this.

It shouldn't be dismissed. But it's where if the Biden administration and if Democrats generally can continue to pivot back to what we are doing to try and make people's lives better, that just has to be louder, which is not always going to be easy, but it has to be louder than whatever, you know, BS is coming out of these committees.

Yeah, it's just sometimes it's hard to get the sane heard over the crazy. It is, but think about the reverse, right? Because there are lots of investigations of Trump and for good reason. And they were loud, but they didn't really resonate, except in the times when Trump was really messing up something substantive, right? So like when Trump, when the economy was improving and people were feeling good, like the investigations, it didn't seem to move the needle. But it really moved the needle when he also.

so wasn't doing his job well, which, you know, thankfully, not thankfully for the country, but, you know, politically was a lot of a time. So, like, COVID is an excellent example of that, right? Like, when on a day-to-day basis, he was clearly tripping all over himself and messing up COVID and, you know, hurting people badly. It didn't matter what else he may have done that some people may have liked because now that, now all that other stuff was resonating because they're like, this guy's messed up in every different way. It's a good point. And since you, you know, since we've moved on to Trump. Let's move on to Trump. And it's interesting when we knew Trump was going to make what was supposed to be his big announcement on Tuesday. And we obviously thought, okay, well,

that'll be, we'll spend the majority of the podcast talking about that. And it really didn't turn out that way. His speech was so, I mean, it was boring. There's no other way to put it other than boring. And nobody seemed excited. It was, you know, it was very low energy. I hate to say it. Yeah, it really was, man. It feels like the coverage of it across the board has referred to reflected that. We thought, oh, here he comes, here comes Trump again, sucking up all the energy and, you know, making all the news about him again. And so far, at least, mission not accomplished. I think that's right. I think it's a combination of two things. I'm not sure which thing is bigger than the other, but in no particular order, it is some in the media being pretty

embarrassed about their role in what happened in 2016 and recognizing that they hadn't really learned how to cover Trump properly by 2020, right? And then, you know, in the wake of 2020, in the wake of the insurrection, when, and hopefully it stays this way, but I don't know, like when he was basically banned from social media, then I think it shifted the paradigm. And it helped people realize, you know what? This guy doesn't follow any norms. I don't have to follow old, outdated norms. I don't actually have to acknowledge this person that is objectively bad for my country, right? So that's a huge factor is, and I do think they should get some credit here, because, you know, while they would have got a lot of backlash, MSNBC and CNN, also would have got a lot of

eyes had they covered it. Because, you know, same reason you slow down at a car accident. The other piece is exactly what you're talking about, which is anybody can get overexposed in American culture, right? I mean, we get tired of people. That's why somehow the Rock has staying power playing the same guy in every movie. I don't know how he does it. Good for him. It also explains why he also has a tequila line and is so active on Instagram and is always trying to do all this other stuff because he knows you got to keep producing new stuff. You got to keep changing. You got to be interesting. And Trump knows that too. But Trump's way of doing it is he has to constantly top whatever crazy thing was said last. And his problem is the most crazy thing that was always most recently said was said by him.

So he has to keep digging into the bone in order to come up with anything. And now that's where you arrive at a place where suddenly you're going Duarte and you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, talking about how you want to execute drug dealers, because otherwise how are you going to get anybody's attention? Yeah, no, that's an excellent point. Two points I just want to make quickly. One, I don't want to make it sound like I am already... Oh, I don't think that.

No, no, that I'm already dismissing Trump completely, because as we all know, he, for many years, he's had this cult leader like power, and there's nothing that says that one bad speech, you know, eliminates that completely. Yeah. Yeah, no, nobody's dismissing him. I just think we're like, oh, We know what this is now.

No, I think that's true. And then the other thing I wanted to bring up was a smart guy that I follow on Twitter. After Trump's speech, he tweeted either they nominate him or he sabotages them all the way to election day. They are so fucked. What do you make of that? That guy also sounds very handsome. He does sound handsome. There's a handsome cadence to his sentences.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, pretty sure that guy was me. Yeah, well, look, because I'm probably like you are, I'm so skittish about seeing what seems to be the clear likelihood that this doesn't end well for them. But, you know, I mean, we all thought that in 2016. So I'm really skittish about it. But it's really hard to see a way where it's not the case. And here's what it comes down to. Like, there's the simple stuff of like, look, if he doesn't get the nomination, nobody thinks he's just going to politely take his ball and go home. Everybody thinks he's going to be on the sidelines, you know, heckling and throwing, you know,

tax in the road and all that. But and then I think, well, no, maybe they'll find a way to keep that from happening and find away for him to save face. But then I realize, wait a minute, if he like runs in these primaries for president and he doesn't win, what are the actual chances that he's like, oh, that election was totally legitimate? Right. I think zero, right? Yeah. So if that's the case, then how is there any option other than he either gets the nomination or he just tears them down out of spite? I just, or just tears them down out of just saying how how corrupt the whole thing is. So whatever is left of his block at that point, 20, 30 percent of the Republican Party, if it's, you know, small, that's still pretty significant. Yeah. You know what?

I hadn't really even thought about the whole possibility that, you know, he pulls his election shit with, with the primaries. And if he, like, focuses his fire on, on DeSantis for stealing elections and stuff like that, man, that's going to be, that could be insane. Yeah. And, you know, maybe he'll have a new creative way to do it. He's, you know, wise enough to know, like, it's probably not going to work to claim that a bunch of Republicans running the election were, like, faking ballots, but he'll come up with something else if he has to. I mean, he may just say that, but it may just be like, oh, well, you know, they did this, which slowed down this kind of voting, which kept my people home. He'll, you know, zero in on some little kernel of election irregularity that's completely

accidental and blow it up into this huge thing. And the next thing you know, the whole country, the election in 2024 in November of 2024 could look a lot like the runoff did in Georgia last time around, where you've got Trump loudly telling a big part of the Republican base that there's no point in voting because the election is rigged and they should be mad. And boom, they're in a big trouble. See, now the problem is you've got me kind of excited for this. It's okay to be excited. We just won an election. We had no business winning. But if it doesn't happen, then I'm going to be in a deep depression and it's going to be your fault. Andy, if it doesn't happen, we're all going to be like in the gulag. So, I mean, this is the

least you need to worry about. I think that's a good way to end it. Good. Perfect. That was great. Thanks so much, Jay. You bet, man. I had fun. Thanks for having me. Joining us now is the Daily Beast Political Investigations reporter Jose Palieri, who has been doggedly reporting on Donald Trump's countless legal jeopardies. Jose, thanks for being here. Happy to do it. As we know, Trump, has announced his 2024 presidential run in a speech that left viewers very tired. But I imagine, as someone who knows better than most, how many legal woes the disgraced former president is facing, do you sort of agree with the idea that even if his heart isn't in it that this is the best thing he can do to keep the fundraising coming in,

play the victim card, etc? It's interesting, actually, because to play the fundraising card, sure, although, I mean, he was raising a ton of money. beforehand and before running, he was free to spend it as he pleased. And now he's got to start actually filing advocacy report. So in some way, this is worse because now we're going to get some transparency. Or maybe we won't get transparency and just criminal charges, that he's not being transparent, right? Like he did last time around. Right. But what's interesting here is there's, there is no way to look at this announcement. If you can even call it an announcement as anything other than an attempt to mar any prosecution as a political persecution of him. Because that,

in essence, what he's had for the last two months is this cover of the DOJ's 60-day rule that says that, you know, they're not going to openly announce an investigation or indict somebody to avoid seeming as if they're trying to meddle an election. Before that clock was up on election day, Trump telegraphed that he was going to announce. And we've written about this at the Daily Beast, about how that plan was underway just before we realized that there was going to be a Georgia runoff, which essentially set that clock again, right? So in the current time period, the DOJ would probably be breaking its own rules if it took an action on Trump because he is very much involved in that Georgia election. But once we get past December 6th, there's nothing that stops the DOJ from making a move.

And Trump announcing is going to run could absolutely be viewed as him trying to seek further cover so that if he does get indicted for one of the many things that he's being investigated for right now, he could just say, oh, look at this. They just indicted me because I announced. They're just trying to stop me from winning for you in 2024. Right. And you wrote a great piece on this about how, you know, Trump seems to have this, I don't know if it's a wish or a belief that he can't be indicted while he's running for president. And your piece, you know, you spoke to a lot of legal experts who were like, yeah, not so much, Donnie. Right. And you know what? In that piece, I talked to lots of different lawyers, one of whom actually was the attorney for Spiro Agnew, the vice president who resigned in absolute disgrace when he himself had criminal charges brought against him. And even this lawyer said, this is not going to work. This is not how the DOJ does this. As with everything Trump, right, it's completely unprecedented. He's trying to turn our institutions upside down. He's trying to turn our law and order society against itself by attacking the rigidness of that system. I mean, it's almost, I can think of no better example than, you know, those Batman movies where Bruce Wayne is asking, why is the Joker doing this? It's like, well, some people just want to use that system against us. That's what he's doing. He's using that system against us. But I'll tell you where it's not working. It's not working at 100 Center Street in Manhattan right now where I'm covering this trial against his company where the Manhattan DA's office is aggressively going after them for what is just blatant tax avoidance for more than a decade. So yeah, so you're covering this trial as we speak. I think you're standing outside the courthouse.

So Alan Weisselberg, who was the accountant for the Trump org, he was originally the guy, a lot of people had sort of pinned their hopes on for flipping on Trump, but obviously he never did. And that trial, as we know, is going on right now. And you discovered, you wrote a piece about this, that he is still on the Trump organization's payroll. That is just bananas. So on Tuesday, we found, through his testimony here in court that the story that we had all heard that after he got indicted, the Trump organization had pulled him off the books. He was no longer CFO. He was no longer a signatory to their dozens, even hundreds of bank accounts across the world for entities across the world. They were distancing themselves from this guy who was being accused of dodging hundreds of thousands of dollars

in taxes. It was a whole lie. It was all complete crap. Immediately after no longer being CFO, he essentially became an advisor to Eric Trump. And his current duties involve cash management, analyzing bank loans, mortgages, figuring out cash flow. I think that's what a CFO does. He just does it without the name. And so he does the same thing. And he actually earns the same salary, $640,000 a year with his $500,000 year bonus that he, I mean, this is just, I almost last in court, that he says he eagerly anticipates still getting this coming January. He's the same dude. So if the DA's office thinks that they've got, a witness that will help them in this case. He might because he's admitting to all these crimes,

but he is still very much in it for the Trump organization. He refuses to even flip on them in court. He won't say anything bad about anyone whose last name is Trump because he's a trusted insider. I mean, we also found out earlier this week that the very same day that he secretly cut a deal with the DA's office to plead guilty and testify against the company that wouldn't come out for another four days. The day he did it, that very night, he goes over to Trump Tower and celebrates his birthday there with the people that he's presumably going to testify again. It gets insane. So at the trial itself, what's it been like? How are the Trump lawyers? How is the judge's relationship with the Trump lawyers? Is there some, are there some shenanigans going on?

It is not as divisive as other judges have been. Other judges have come down really, really hard on the Trump organization and just called on their bullshit immediately in court. This judge has been reluctant to do that, but he's still pointed out to their lawyers at times that they seem to be portraying a fiction, saying things that didn't happen that actually did. But what's important at the moment at this trial is that we have gotten past sort of like the low players in this game. And now we've got Alan Weisselberg on the stand, and he's admitting to all of his financial crimes. And very interestingly, something that really, really jumps out at me this week is that in going through the documented evidence and going through his testimony,

it's absolutely clear that the top executives at this company have used this company to enrich themselves. They don't care what the tax code is. They move their salaries around so that, you know, roughly half of what they make is as an independent contractor, even though they're full-time workers at the company, but they're quote-unquote independent contractor so that they don't get taxed for it. They divert huge sections of their salary to pay for, luxury cars, really nice Manhattan apartment, to live in Central Park, which for anybody who doesn't live in New York,

if you could see Central Park in your apartment, you are a boss, okay? That is, no one gets that, okay? They get that. So they use this company to rich themselves, and they run it like a mob, and yet only Alan Weisselberg was charged in this case.

Alan Weisselberg and the company. Alan Weisselberg could face jail time. In fact, by taking a guilty plea, he faces, I think, four or five months of time in prison. But you don't imprison a company So where does this go? I mean, I can't help look at this trial and think, no matter how easily they're proving all of this,

why don't they jail any other executives? Why didn't they need anybody whose last name is Trump? Well, that was my next question. I was going to ask you to remind me again why it happened this way. It's interesting. This is now the only trial that we know we're going to get, whereas we were promised this was going to be season one in a fantastic series that you needed to watch.

Because what we knew was that the Manhattan DA was trying to go after Trump himself. And that would have included his kids. that would have included as executives. And instead what we got is this sort of like lame criminal trial against the company, which is paper. And that's mostly, as we've covered at the Daily Beast, it's mostly because the top prosecutors who worked on the case against Trump himself, they quit.

Right. Because the current Manhattan DA didn't have the backbone to actually indict Trump. The evidence was there. He didn't feel comfortable with it because he thought there was a chance, somehow, somewhere that he might lose. But that's what the criminal justice system is. is. This is Alvin Bragg we're talking about here. This is Alvin Bragg we're talking about. Interestingly, the former DA that initially brought the case quit. And he decided not to run for

election, so he didn't stick around. So there are some questions about why it is that the previous DA, Civance, didn't stick with it to the end of the case. But this new DA wasn't having it. So we have yet to see an indictment, a criminal indictment against Trump in New York. But whatever this is will be against the company. But in the background, we still have all these other potential cases against Trump. We've got the one in Fulton County and Atlanta. there's two potential federal cases that could come out of the investigations there. One about the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and the other one about the way he tried to kill off our democracy by engaging in a fraud across the country. So those cases are very much alive, but I can't help but find

it hilarious how in this courtroom, just as Alan Weisselberg is admitting to being guilty of financial crimes that lots of people knew about at the Trump organization. At that very moment, I got an email from the Trump campaign saying that they just got endorsed by the agent. in Texas, who is currently under indictment for the last, what, seven years? There's just criminality everywhere you look with you. That's unbelievable. So you literally walked out of the courthouse to talk to me today. What's the very latest that's going on as of us recording this, which is Thursday afternoon?

So what just happened right now, just after 12 o'clock on Thursday, is that the prosecution finished asking Ion Wesselberg questions at their first go. I mean, they'll get another bite at the apple, but they just finished asking questions. now there's a cross-examination by the lawyers representing the Trump organization. And you can tell what the strategy is here. Their strategy is to make it seem like Alan Weisselberg was a lone wolf. He did it on his own. He hurt the company. He lied to everybody. It was all him. He acted alone, despite all of the signatures from Don Jr. and the fact that he entered Eric Trump and, you know, he let Donald Trump know everything he was doing. Despite all of that, no, it was only him. And the way they're getting at this is by, asking Alan Wesselberg a series of questions that makes him look like a horrible person. So the last round of questions that they asked him was, did you honor the trust that was placed in you? And he goes, no, and his voice gets very weak.

Did you betray the trust that was placed in you? And he nods. You could see his eyes are getting really red. And you did it for your own personal gain, correct? And at this point, he's on the verge of tears. He goes, correct. So this lawyer is going over the fact that, you know, Alan Weisselberg joined the company in 1986. The Trump kids were like toddlers, you know, Eric Trump was two, Ivanka was about four,

Don Jr. was five. They grow up. He watches them grow up. He's at their parties. He plays with them. They come back from college. They join the company. He tells them all these stories about how hard it was in the 80s. And he almost mentors them and lets him shadow him. He teaches them about the company. He's a family friend. He's a trusted family friend. And damn it, he betrayed. that trust, that evil lone wolf all by himself. Isn't that convenient? That's where we're at now. And in about 45 minutes, it'll start up again in court. I mean, the question, of course, is going to be whether or not the jury's going to buy that, right? I mean, like, this guy is on the verge of tears in court, and they might be real tears. I mean, he did some pretty terrible stuff and, you know, dodge a bunch of

taxes. And it's true. His actions absolutely betrayed the trust. The question is of whom? The Trump's or the taxpayers. I guess we'll see. Right. Amazing. It feels unbelievable that the jury would buy that, but we know how that goes. In addition to the trial going on now, there's other Trump legal trouble. You mentioned some of it. We have the E. Gene Carroll case. His kids being deposed. What's the timeline on all of this? Interesting. So realistically, the very first thing that could come up, if it will ever happen, is a potential indictment over his taking of classified documents out of the White House and over to his personal state in Florida. That could happen December 7th. I mean, it could happen today, but it could happen at any time. I mean, he took them. They're classified. He's no longer

president. What do you have to wait for, right? The other case, which is a lot more complicated, is asking whether or not he engaged in a fraud to lie to people about election fraud and broke the laws and trying to stay in power. That is a case that could be brought, and again, at any time. He's been investigated for that. There's a federal judge in California that's already reviewed some of that evidence in a related case and said that there is evidence of a fraud there. So that could come at any time. There's also this case in Georgia where, I mean, again, the evidence is clear. Trump made a menacing, intimidating phone call telling an elections official there to fake votes, to just flip them. Look, what's amazing is if I made that phone call, I'd be arrested tomorrow, right? Right. So the evidence is

there, the phone calls there. Now the DA in Fulton County, which is in Atlanta, she'll have to put together yet another grand jury to actually indictment. Well, that's currently underway is just investigating the matter, but they could end up producing a report that says, go ahead and pursue an indictment. And then the Eachin-Carroll case, which will be taking place at a courthouse that I'm standing in the shadow of right now, is, again, in New York City, that is a matter that because it's already been investigated, it's a long-running lawsuit to fight between this journalist who said she was raped by Trump at a department store in the 90s. He's already been deposed. They already have the evidence they needed, So that could very well go to trial early next year.

She's going to file that lawsuit. We're anticipating in a week, I think, or two weeks, which is where this New York Survivor's Law kicks in and allows you to do that. So she'll be suing Trump personally, and then it could go to trial in just a few months. And in the midst of all of this, of course, is that he's running for president again. And again, I got a stress. If we view it through that lens, because you can either view this as a good faith attempt by a man to go back into the White House,

or the final chapter of a desperate man who's trying to do anything to not die in prison. Well, honestly, I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt and shame on you for suggesting otherwise, Jose. You've been doing yeoman's work for the beast on all of this Trump legal stuff. Keep it up. And thank you so much for taking the time to come to talk to us. I know you're in the midst of a very, very busy day. Absolutely. And, you know, on this beat, it's going to stay busy for a long time. Happy to do it. Thank you, I do. Joining me now is Media Matters Kat Abogazella, who as her Twitter bio states, watches Tucker Carlson so we don't have to. Kat, thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me. First of all, I have to ask, does doing this job come with mental health benefits? Besides our normal benefits, no, but I think Twitter helps somehow. Okay, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say Twitter actually helped their mental health before. You've got to be a masochist. It's fine, though. It's true. It's true. So I want to talk about what dear old Tucker's been up to, but before we get to that. Can we talk about the lovely guest host he had earlier in the week, Tulsi Gabbard? Can't say I watched, but the reviews I saw weren't pretty. Yeah, this is actually her second time

hosting for Tucker when he's been out, and it was just as bad as the first. She's not good at being a host. She's auditioning for Fox, and she's just not good at it. It was a bunch of robotic, nothing, and screwing up on the teleprompter, regardless of her political affiliations. She's just not good hosting. Yeah, I mean, it'll be interesting to see if they keep trying her at that or if they'll just use her as a guest. So I'm assuming that Tucker has been chastened by how poorly his candidates did in the election and there's a lot of soul searching going on. You would be wrong. Wow, really? Surprise, surprise, right? Man. So what has he been doing? Well, the fascinating thing is the day after midterms, he had this Chiron that said Tucker's message to GOP leadership. And for the past couple months,

has been explicitly directing the GOP, telling them to run on replacement theory and crime and attacking homelessness and having anti-trans people on almost every single night. And then he has the audacity after all of his candidates lose to come on and give a message telling all these people to step down or stay out of politics. Sir, you were the one that did this. Yeah. And he kept saying, I saw him say that, oh, they kept telling me there was going to be a red wave and so I cautiously believe them or something like that. It's like, no, you were the one leading all of this. It's literally the meme of like, we're trying to find the person who did this. And it's you. It's you, buddy. I know. Yeah. I know. Yeah. No, it is. It is literally that brought to life.

How muted has he been about the big Trump announcement that he's running? Basically nothing. Yesterday, which was his first day back since the Trump announcement, This week, he's been out until Wednesday. The only thing he mentioned was saying that you might like Trump, you might not like Trump, but he deserves to be on Twitter. But he had no explicit endorsement of anyone. That seems to be like a Fox thing right now, right? They're all kind of muted about it.

Yeah, it's super weird. They're all tripping over themselves. The Uber Trumpers don't know what to do. Do they say that the GOP is split together? Do they side with Trump? Do they side with DeSantis? No one knows what to do. It's chaos.

Yeah, I guess they'll wait to find out from Rupert. Are you down in Hollywood, Florida right now for all the big live shows? Oh, God, I wish I could be at the Patriot Awards. As much as I wanted to be, I just couldn't make it this week. Thanksgiving was more important. Well, obviously not a true patriot. Is it true? I saw this on Twitter, that Tucker went after beloved Paddington Bear on Wednesday night.

That's your fault. Come on. That entire segment was so funny. Just having that picture of Zelensky being like, we need to stop sending this guy money. You can just put whoever. I can't believe he targeted Paddington Bear. I can't believe he targeted Tom Nook from Animal Crossing. I didn't even know if he went after Tom as well.

Wow. Yeah. Boy. Tom Nook, Musk, everyone. I know he's been off until last night, but, you know, it's a lot of the same people, obviously, the producers or whatever. What's been the main focus of the show this week? It's been, and I'd say since midterms, doing a lot of election fraud stuff,

saying that there is fraud or last night. He said blanket statement, we don't have the evidence. But, you know, it certainly seems like the system is rigged. He's been comparing Maricopa County and any place that has had delays in the results to third world elections and asking how Las Vegas could build a replica of the Eiffel Tower but not have all of its votes counted in one night. So he's just been going, you know, those things are totally correlated. They're completely connected. Absolutely. Yeah.

They chose to do the one knowing they wouldn't be able to do the other. It's one or the other. You've got to pick. I think they made the right choice. That's what he's going for. And last night, he had his favorite, you know, thinly veiled threat of people will be dangerous if they think the system's rigged. Very cool stuff.

Yeah, God. So I got to ask you something about something you tweeted last week. It was a little thread that was highly entertaining. And it started with you tweeting, what if I told you that I managed to trick a conservative influencer into inviting me onto the right stuff and am about to post all of the ridiculously cringe shit I found on there? So tell our listeners what the right stuff is and what exactly you did. So the right stuff is a conservative only invite only dating app.

It's basically Tinder for people who like having pictures of fish in their bios exclusively for that. Let me be clear. It launched last month, but they didn't actually. open it to the people who were invited or who had invited others until this past week or last week, I suppose. So basically all I did was go onto the right stuff's Instagram page, look at people who tagged it for promotional material, and then message every guy who seemed dumb enough to invite me. And it works extremely easily. I'm not on Instagram anymore. So is your Insta not, does it not make it clear who you are and what you do? It doesn't make it clear what I do.

But you could literally just look me up and you could reverse image search. My Twitter profile picture is on my Instagram. Oh, God. All I did was I put Katie instead of Cat, which is what I went by when I was younger. And then I put Southern Rays with like a little sparkly emoji on my bio. Oh, perfect. And that's all I did. The bar is solo.

So someone invited you, you managed to convince one of these guys to give you an invite? Yes. Yeah. Not really convinced. I just kind of said give it. to me and then he went, sure, and messaged it to me and was like, you know, there are liberal spies here, so be careful. It all took about an hour. You tweeted to describe the guys on there, you said, imagine a lot of white dudes holding fish standing next to Charlie Kirk or shaking hands

with someone from the Trump family. Yeah, that's pretty much exclusively all of the pictures. And I couldn't post a lot of the profile pictures because everyone made it extremely easy to dox them based on candidates they were shaking hands with. were places they were working. But it's exactly what you think it is. You think conservative dating ad, like dating out for Trump people. Whatever you're thinking, that's correct. That's, yeah, that's what I'm thinking is not good. So yeah, no, you're right. Yeah. So did you end up going out with any of the guys and have you set a date for the wedding yet? God, I was so tempted to. I really wanted to go hang out in maybe R. in D.C. really bad. But decided to skip out on it. The fun thing is

is that no matter where your location is on that app, it will just show you everyone. So there were, there's like a section where you can set up dates that people can just show up to. And there were like a bunch in Idaho or El Paso. There's no location services, really. So my options were kind of limited. Oh my God. So wait, how do you set up a date that anyone can show up to? So that's more of like a meetup than a date? I guess it was everything like one guy said, I want to go on a Veterans Day river cruise and like shoot shotguns or something, which is always great for a first date going on a boat with a man I don't know alone who was a gun. And then there was another guy and it just said church.

But the date wasn't even like for this week. It was for a Wednesday like at the end of the month. So I guess you really wanted to plan ahead. A lot of people the night after the election that were like, do you want to go out and drink because we're sad? And that was extremely funny. Oh, man. That's great.

So after you fucked around on the app for a while, what? conclusions did you come to? I don't want to date anyone on that app. And I hate dating apps, but I hate this one especially. I have no idea what the women on this app or if there are any actual women on there. You can't put your preference to the same sex. But I can't imagine it's much better. Yeah. Oh, well, of course you can't put your preference to the same sex. That would be wrong. Immoral, yeah. Immoral, yeah. Yeah. I know you said Thanksgiving was more important than being down in Hollywood with the Fox people, which makes me question your commitment to the work. I'm not even sure how to ask this. What exactly do you do for media matters? So I work on our rapid response

team and we watch Fox News at night and we all have different shows that we watch on a regular basis, although all of us are well versed in the different shows. I watch Tucker specifically a lot. I do a lot of videos on him. I'm a video editor as well. That's a big part of my job. I have to say, as someone who worked there for 10 plus years, I don't know how you do it. I honestly have no idea how you watch that absolute shit every night. It's kind of satisfying. You know, you build up this very deranged internal monologue where you just know all of this shit. It's like that it's always sunny meaning with Charlie in front of the whiteboard. But that's just my brain all of the time. As I explain like all of these deal, it's like the Fox lore, the background lore, like who Brian Kill Me and Dan Bongino are to people who don't watch Fox. That's a lot. That's amazing. So that you actually have like, because that is basically what Fox viewers do because Fox viewers tend to have. have that channel on 24-7. And it really is like an unbelievable closed community. I can't believe

that people watch this for fun. Or I see people on Twitter that are like, iTunes in just to see what they're saying. And I'm like, no, don't do that. If you're not being paid for it, don't subject yourself to that. But some people keep it on 24-7 because they like it. And it's just, I don't see how anyone's blood pressure can be good if you do that. Yeah. And that is really funny. The way you describe it is like the Fox News lore. It really is like Lord of the Rings or something where there's canon and, you know, I could just see people getting there. Well, that's not, that's not Fox News canon. No, that's so true, though. It's like, this is the fanon, you know? Like, but then you have all the rumors in the background and, ah, it's so much, so many side characters and they don't matter

in any other sphere. It's great. Yeah, it is really a world unto itself. Kat, thanks so much for being here. That was so interesting. And I love what you did with the right stuff. And by the way, are you banned from that app yet? Oh, yeah, I'm super banned. Oh, you are? Okay. Yeah, I'm super banned. But thanks for having me. I'm either happy or sad for you, I guess.

But yeah, thanks for being here, and I'll have to have you back on to see, to keep up with what my old friend Tucker is doing. Jesse Cannon. Andy Levy, who is your fuck that guy today? My fuck that guy is going to be the woman who is not the governor of Arizona, Carrie Lake, because instead of just gracefully admitting that she lost, she has decided that she's going to run with Trump's playbook, and she put out a long, incredibly stupid and lie-filled video saying she's still on the fight and alleging all kinds of shenanigans from Katie Hobbs,

all of which is not true. The funniest part of it to me was at one point she says something about, I am here and I am working hard gathering information. Meanwhile, she's in Mar-a-Lago. So go fuck yourself, seriously. Like, you can't even be honest with your own state people and you claim you're here working hard for them. And meanwhile, you're out hobnobbing with Trump at his idiotic hotel.

I'm so tired of these people. And Carrie Lake, just fucking go away and get your Fox News contract and leave the rest of us alone. Fuck her. But if she goes away, I can't laugh that she thinks it's. cool to put that filter on where it makes her look like her ethnicity is C3PO. The filter is so good. I mean, she's basically the disappearing people in the photos in Back to the Future. She's, I mean, there's, that's really good. I, by the way, I am fairly certain that I saw

that somewhere. I don't think I just made that up, so I don't want to take credit for it. I think someone on Twitter said that, and I remember I said the other day she looked like every woman in the original Star Trek series. Oh, you know, every picture of Barbara Streis. and it's just, oh my God, just stop, you're terrible. Would you like to know who my fuck that guy is? Yes, I would. So Governor Youngkin down in Virginia, he has a press secretary by the name of Macaulay Porter. And the thing that really makes me angry about this is these people are legislating,

which should be in history books, while clearly demonstrating they have no grasp on history. And I get so tired of what I know has been a part of. of American history throughout time, but thinking that you are a final word on all of this when you demonstrate you know nothing. And the way he demonstrated by that was he tried to do one of those, here are the receipts tweets when somebody said that they were removing Martin Luther King from the history books. But this bright, bright man pointed to a bunch of examples of Martin Luther, who you may know from the 1500s, you know, a guy who translated the Bible, you know, I think most people know.

in history who've ever casually browsed it or just listen to like a hardcore history episode or something. You know, it's very easy to gain this knowledge in this modern era. Yet this know-it-all blow-hard idiot does that and you know, the tweet is now deleted, but in Betty Hassan's replies to it, it's been archived with a screenshot to just show what an absolute idiot this guy is. And I really just wish these people would grasp some humility that maybe they shouldn't be the arbiter of what goes in history books when they clearly. know none of it. It sounds like he's got 95 theses and the truth ain't one.

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