The Daily Beast Podcast - The Fall of Steve Bannon, the Gristle Icarus

Episode Date: August 21, 2020

On the final night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson team up with The Daily Beast’s senior White House correspondent Asawin Suebsaeng, who thinks this week���s online convention felt like the best PBS telethon since they threatened to publicly execute Elmo. Joe Biden gives his big headline speech and sounds suspiciously like a U.S. president. “It blew up the bullshit trope from the Republican party and from the Trump campaign, that Biden is some doddering senile old man… he came out and he tore the goddamn bark off Donald Trump,” says Rick, who also had praise for an old adversary. “Michael Bloomberg went out there and just stuck a goddamn shiv in, Donald Trump. It was some sweetness.”   The team debated whether progressives in the Democratic party should fight harder to drag Biden to the Left, but they were united in their glee over the arrest of Steve Bannon.Molly describes it as “a moment I have long dreamed of.” Rick says this was his “favorite ‘Fuck that Guy’ of all time.” “It’s the gristle Icarus; it’s the whiskey necromancer; it’s Steve Fucking Bannon, the human skin tag, a gigantic sack of bile that walks on two legs.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi folks, it's Rick Wilson, and welcome to The Daily Beast's The New Abnormal. Hi, I'm Molly Jongfast, a left-wing pundit, and editor-at-large at the Daily Beast. I'm also an editor at The Daily Beast, a former Republican political strategist, best-selling author, and full-time troublemaker. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, business, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. I'll try to keep Rick to the minimum number of F-bombs and try to keep our... kids, pets, and other wildlife sounds from invading our respective bunkers. It's night four of the Democratic National Convention and we're all a little punchy. Rick Wilson thought. Look, I think that there were moments of weird adjustment to this new virtual conventioning thing that could be said to be a little

cringy here and there. But I think that they managed to get to the X, as they say, and produce what was a presidential address by Joe Biden. And he came out there and did a real speech that sounded like a president. It blew up the bullshit trope from the Republican Party and from the Trump campaign that Biden is some daughtering senile old man. You can't take him anywhere. And he came out there and he tore the goddamn bark off Donald Trump. He expressed more compassion for the American people in what they're going through than Donald Trump has managed, you know, in four years in office. I thought it was, I thought, I thought his speech tonight, you know, the guy waited a long time to get there, but he got there and he took, took his best swing, and I think he did very well. We have with us, Aswin Supsang, who is the senior White House correspondent for the Daily Beast, also known as Swin.

Swin is also the author, along with Lockland Marquet, of the book Sinking in the Swamp, How Trump's Minions and Misfits poisoned Washington. It is a great read, by the way. My general thoughts of the past four days is that it was the best PBS telephon I've seen since the one I saw when I was a kid when public broadcasting held an event to say, donate here or else will publicly execute Elmo. It was fine. I mean, yes, there were a bunch of cringy moments, but I mean, I don't think next week when Trump was. holds like a four-day maga fest to have like people come out to say why they brandished their guns incorrectly in front of a mansion they definitely did not listen nothing's going to nothing's going to be cringier next week than Donald Trump and milania doing a skydive in fat elvis costumes down

under the national mall that's going to that's going to be peak cringe i'm pretty sure just to get back to Biden for one more second because it was really a good speech and we were all really worried because the Trump has been able to shape this narrative, even though it's not true. And I think that we should be talking about that a little more. It's like Biden wasn't out there enough. I mean, sure, he's shaped a narrative. But to the degree to which it's actually permeated in natural consciousness, it's like, yes, every single person who watches Fox News or logs on to Facebook to see memes about why the Democrat pedophiles are taking away your children. Of course.

But poll after poll after poll is showing that if he has shaped the narrative for the majority of the majority of the Democrats, it's not. of Americans and polled Americans, the majority of them seem to consistently not care, at least up to this point. So there are certain times where the fear ingrained into certain people by the fact that Trump did manage to win in 2016 because Hillary Clinton shit the bed. I think they overestimate some of his persuasive powers. It's not as magical as the president thinks they are. He's been saying Joe Biden's shaky, he's senile, he's got dementia. If Trump goes out there and doesn't deliver, or we have another ramp moment or water moment, I think they've kind of set themselves a little bit of a minefield

if Donald goes out and does a Donald. But those are the only speeches where the president does deliver, when he goes out there and entertains the hell out of the crowd, and he's basically a bad stand-up comic from the names. Whenever he sticks to the teleprompter, I'm sorry. I would guarantee you just don't remember it a day after it happens. There's when, but and the thing is, when Trump is on the, when Trump is on the prompter, the only truth is in the asides, where he'll occasionally pop out of the speech and say, well, everyone tells me I have a gigantic penis. And that's true. And then he'll go back to the speech. It's like always this random, weird shit. I think he feeds off that crowd energy in a way that Biden showed tonight he doesn't really need it in the same way Trump does. Well, Biden's not a sociopaths, too. I mean, can we get back to, the most important news of the day now.

Okay, I will say this. Three things in the programming tonight, I think, really stood out for me. The John Lewis piece was as moving and as inspirational as you could hope for. Yeah, but he's very, I mean, he's a, of course. Civil Rights Hero. I mean, what are the Republicans going to do? They don't have any civil rights heroes. Diamond and silk, Molly.

I mean, they were not marching as Selma. Candice Owens is going to be up there to own the lives. But it's true. They don't have... Isn't that the peak of Martin Luther King's dream owning the lips? Now, I think the other thing that stuck with me was watching that kid Braden. Yeah. Donald Trump insults people with disabilities and mocks them on stage.

Right. Joe Biden recognizes a kid with a stutter and takes the time to help him based on his own painful experience. Right. It's true. I just have to say this. I mentioned this on my live stream a minute ago. I await the discovery of... whatever magas mock that kid online because I am going to stomp the ever-loving fuck out of them.

That kid, that 13-year-old kid had more balls going out there tonight than Donald Trump has played in his entire chicken shit life. I love that fucking kid. Yeah, no, he was great. And finally, I'm going to be really contrarian. Michael Bloomberg went out there and just stuck a goddamn shiv in Donald Trump. It was some sweetness. You've got to admit, you may.

You may have. I'm a little shocked because I feel like Bloomberg is not your man with the gun. He went out there tonight and he popped a cap in Trump's ass. It was a thing of beauty to watch because you know the one thing about Mike Bloomberg that Donald Trump hates and can never, ever get over is that Mike Bloomberg could lose his wallet and it would be more than Donald Trump's net worth. Mike Bloomberg has more fucking change in his couch than Donald Trump's net worth. You know that's why Trump was rage tweeting about him. I mean, I don't love. Bloomberg for any number of reasons, but I did think it would get Trump crazy, which is, I think,

certainly a valuable part of this exercise. But I also think Democrats need to listen to that speech that Bloomberg gave tonight, and that was a beautifully constructed indictment of Donald Trump. Right. It was a very well-written speech, which you would hope because he has a gazillion dollars. Swin. So much of what has dominated the past four days of the Democratic Convention has been warm and fuzzy feelings. I'm not saying that as a knock, especially. with regards to the kid who, as Rick pointed out, bravely went up there in front of a national audience of millions. But so much of it, and this is true with various Republican and Democrat conventions, it's not exclusive to the 2020 Democratic one, is about surface level arguments

and talks about kindness and the soul of America, which, fine, whatever, all well and good. I'm obviously not the target audience for that. But a lot of it seems to be divorced, at least to me, from larger discussions of actual policy, which, and obviously I am not saying that there was a discussion of policy tonight in Biden's speech and other people's speeches and other segments of Thursday and night segment of the convention. But at the end of the day, my interpretation of the passport, day is so much of what we saw and heard, is in and of itself an indictment of what a lot of progressive activists have been saying and still say to this day is a problem for them with Team Biden and the Biden campaign.

To get onto one area up. Not to be an asshole here, but I think, and I am much more progressive than Biden, but I do think the Democrats are not trying to appeal to the progressive base here. Well, which is strange. No, it's not. No, Swin, it's not. Those people, all the polling tells us the progressives will crawl over broken glass to vote against Trump.

The national numbers where the progressives live are not in the targeted electoral college swing states. They're trying to get to those white union male Democrats in Ohio and Pennsylvania and places like that. I understand that. I'm not making a tactical or strategic argument or why I think it is necessarily incorrect, especially if in a couple of months' time, Joe Biden is suddenly president-elect. I mean, I'm not making an argument as if I was trying to put on a strategist hat or anything. All I'm saying is that to zero in on just one aspect, when you talk about the part of Biden's speech where he mentions strengthening and preserving the Affordable Care Act. Okay. But as has been brought up numerous times, especially since the Democratic primary,

you do that and you will inevitably still have millions of Americans falling through the cracks of an atelated American healthcare system. And okay, I understand it. Joe Biden is not a socialist. He's not a Democrat socialist. He's not any type of all. I love it. People want a public option. that has been polled. There should be a public option. Sure. But when you talk about Biden's candidacy over the past a year or so, I don't think it's a controversial opinion to say that there has been a deficit showing how you will account for all of these people who various other campaigns, not just Bernie Sanders, but others have pointed out ad nauseum, could be left behind by your policy prescriptions. I hope I'm proven wrong if it does become president, but there seem to be

vast or structural changes that I'm sorry, but Team Biden and Joe Biden himself have not been willing to address or tackle that underscores why if you are a progressive or even if you are a liberal. It is important to hold his feet to the fire as much as possible because that is what gets Democrat presidents to lean further into

what we would call liberal or progressive or whatever Democratic policy. I mean, look at Trump during the 2016, team campaign. Right. He promised everything. He went around saying, oh, Planned Parenthood is also great in a lot of ways. And then a huge chunk of the rabid Republican voting base in the forms of evangelicals and Christian Ritvers came out and said, we will vote for you in throws if you, when you are in power, give us what we want. And lo and behold, he did. He couldn't be anything less of a friend of Planned Parenthood once he got in the Oval Office. And it's because a highly

energized part of the Republican base that was going to vote for a May, Wade held his feet to the fire. And I don't understand why. People say when liberal activists or leftist activists tried to do that to team Biden, that, oh, all of a sudden, they get accused of wanting Trump. That's not how politics works in this country and movement politics and never has been. The new abnormal is going to release a limited run series of bonus interviews over the next few weeks. Starting in August, we'll release a new one each Sunday. But listen carefully. Only Beast Inside members will have access to these. So head over to new abnormal.com to join now. Your Beast Inside membership helps support the great reporting at the Beast and podcasts like

The New Abnormal. Thanks. All right, folks, I know you've been waiting for this all day if you've been watching the news, and I've held it out as long as I can in the show. But I've got one, one quick announcement first that I think will make you happy. Obviously, I As you all know, we are required by state and federal law in every show to have our famous segment, Fuck That Guy. Next week, it's going to be Fuck That Guy every day of the week. Monster Fuck That Guy! Except Rick, if they do something, that's good. That's fine.

Whatever you say. Molly, Molly, can I ask you a question? Where were you this morning? I was in front of my television watching. a moment that I had long dreamed of. You know, you were in Manhattan, and I was in Florida, and Steve Bannon was in Long Island Sound, resting comfortably in a berth,

in a fabulous state room on a 150-foot yacht owned by a Chinese exile billionaire. And soon his slumber was interrupted by the sound of helicopters overhead, of fastboats approaching, of trained postal service inspector SWAT team members, fast roping down to the deck. Okay, I made that.

that part up. They went up a ramp on the back. But I like, but when I write the movie, when I write the movie version, they're going to fast trip onto the boat. He was shaken from his slumber, dragged from his, from his nest of newspapers that he had licked into a cocoon-like shape and wrapped around himself at night. Yeah, it's not sure that's what happened. It is typical hobo shit lord.

My favorite fuck that guy of all time is the guy who most deserves the fuck that guy, probably walking on the face of the earth. It's the Gristle Icarus. It's the Whiskey Necromancer. It's Steve fucking Bannon, the human skin tag, a gigantic sack of bile that walks on two legs. So today, Steve Bannon was arrested on Swin, can you talk to us about exactly what Steve Bannon was arrested for

and some of the sort of fascinating details? He was arrested in what the feds are alleging is basically, a fraudulent scheme to defraud donors who were contributing to an effort, allegedly trying to erect as a private enterprise as opposed to one of government or the Trump administration, a border wall on the southern border. And what the feds are alleging is that instead of actually raising a whole bunch of money from a large swath of donors, that that that might be Instead of going to actual construction of a wall between the United States and Mexico, it went straight into the pockets of the people leading this We Build the Wall effort,

namely people such as Steve Bennett, and it helped enrich themselves. I would just like to say, before we get into that, both junior and junior's girlfriend both endorsed to the build-a-wall chair. just the junior and junior's girlfriend. Donald John Trump endorsed the build-a-wall charity, according to Trump bestie, Chris Kobach. A piece of video came out tonight of Chris Kobach saying, I just got off the phone with the president,

and he wants the media to know this project has his blessing. Don't forget your best friend Louis Gomer, too. Oh, Louis is involved in this too? And Sheriff Clark, hello. Well, Sheriff Clark, we expect. But Louis, my birthday twin, Congressman COVID, I did not know that. And to be fair, if Chris Kobach is telling the truth, which is always, you know, a gigantic colossal if. But if he wasn't a thousand percent bullshitting there, I can't think of an easier thing to do than at the inception of this alleged scan to jump on the phone with your buddy, President Trump,

and tell him about an effort to build the wall and then to get him to say something to the effect of, Ah, yes, good. You go do that. Getting Trump to endorse. A reporter recently got Trump to basically endorse Q and on. Yeah, I know. I know. It's the madness. It's not hard. It's not hard, but this was clearly something that Team Trump World was really involved in. I mean... No, once Junior gets involved, there's...

It's not just some rando assembly of a couple of nutcases. It's... This felt very much like on-brand and semi-official. I'll quickly read you the statement Amanda Miller spokeswoman for Donald Trump Jr. sent over earlier today. Don gave one speech at a single We Build the Wall event over a year ago with a group of angel moms. And besides that, has no involvement with their organization. He never gave them permission to use him as a testimonial on their website and was unaware they included him as one until today's media reports about it. His previous praise of the group was based on what he was led to believe about their supposed intention to be.

build the wall on our southern border, and if he and others were deceived, the group deserves to be held accountable for their actions." End quote. I will remember you. So basically, he was just a coffee boy. He was a volunteer. They barely knew him. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, that is so on brand for these scales. It's just, it's so perfect that they really believe that anyone, any rational, any rap, person is going to buy that. It's striking. But you know what's interesting today? I don't know. Did you see that press conference

of whatever that was today that he talked about? I thought it was interesting. He, you know, he's so divorced from reality. He said, well, we have the wall. We have 300, but, you know, he just, I wonder, like, the whole thing now

is that he just pretends he's done the thing he never did. And I wonder if that works. The 500 miles of wall have been built. Uh, what? Yeah. That's what he said. You know,

No one's been better to the Kurds than we have. And we also, he said today that we seized all the oil in Iran. And now we have it and we're not sure what we're going to do with it. You know, look, this post-rational world of Trumpism where these folks really part of it, if you talk to these people, they'll say in part, yeah, it's bullshit, but, you know, fuck you, I'm owning the lips. And I think that's really kind of all he's got right now is the oppositional defiant disorder gang doing his bidding, even though they know he's going to lose or they feel he's

going to lose, and they're sick of defending it. But the only game they have left is to say, it's the Lib-Tard media. Like so much of the conservative movement nowadays is and has for a long time been devoted to Lib-O-N it, like, which is, yes, you have a patina of nobility when you get to say, no, it's in the form of policy or actual political act. where we want to try to make lives better for Americans on a whole host of issues, et cetera, et cetera. But at the core of it, there is a deep regard for making your enemies suffer, both on a political and sometimes otherwise level. And I'm not saying that's exclusively a Republican or conservative phenomenon, but the overflowing presence of liberal tears is, of course, a hugely

motivating factor and it's a motivating factor for the right that I can remember as long as I've been alive and able to figure out what politics are. I mean, who were the Republican heavy hitters? Was it Newt Gingrich who hosted barbecues and fundraisers that involved spotted owl meat? Spotted owl. I remember the spotted owl. Rick, you probably hosted some of those barbecues. No, I'm one of those Teddy Roosevelt Enviro Republicans. Molly, did you know what my other favorite thing after Steve Bannon being in federal custody today was? I think I do.

It's the fact that Donald Trump got his shit slapped in a federal court today in New York when he was trying to prevent the production of his documents that the Supreme Court has already ruled need to be produced for Sy Vance with a legitimate subpoena, which he has. And now Sivance is going to finally, after whatever agony, we should. We've had to go through. Get Donald Trump's taxes. He has seven days to produce the taxes. I expect a fire at Mazars anytime now. Swin, have you covered much of that? Yeah, I had a little bit of a breather today

where I got to dip my toes into covering it a little bit. And one thing that was sent our way to the Daily Beast was when I asked various Trump lawyers for their response to today's news. It took, I think, roughly six or seven hours or so, but finally, Trump attorney Jay Sechilo sent along this- Or the worst. Send along this comment, quote, a notice of appeal and a motion for stay or next, end quote. Boom. That's all I was able to get out of Trump's legal team.

What about his free legal team? Do you have anything? I think he went on Fox News somewhere earlier on Thursday to talk about how bullshitty he I'm sure thought it was. But maybe I'm reading into this too much, but it struck me only a little bit because usually even Jay Secholo, who is obviously more restrained and less extra than a Trump lawyer like a Rudy or Jenna Ellis might be. Yeah, Jay Seculo is usually not one. Is Jenna Ellis? I have just a quick aside. Is Jenna Ellis a real lawyer? I'm pretty sure she's barred and has a law degree somewhere. Sure. Yeah, that counts. And we can get more into Jenna in a moment if you would like. But, uh, and obviously.

Oh, God. You can't. No, I knew that was coming. It's in late night. It's Rick. It's Rick. It's Rick after dark. It's less restrained. I don't condone anything Rick Wilson says after 12 a.m. That's a wise policy. On that note, we'll wrap up this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking with smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics, and science. Who will help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media.

We're just getting started and don't want you to miss an episode. If you'd like to follow us on Twitter, I'm Molly JongFest, and he's the Rick Wilson. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you again on the next episode. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studied The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover

what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.