The Daily Beast Podcast - The Longer They Wait to Indict Donald Trump, the Harder It Gets

Episode Date: June 2, 2023

On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy wonder what’s taking special counsel Jack Smith so long. Plus! The Daily Beast politics reporter Jake Lahut talks about the self-help guru who won't get help: Marianne Williamson. 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. goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

What an excellent show we have today. The Daily Beast reporter Jake Will Hutt joins us to talk Marianne Williamson's disastrous campaign and how her staff is leaving in droves. But first, let's have some fun. Well, it seems like we may have Andy averted disaster, you know, an entire economic meltdown with the McCarthy Biden or Biden McCarthy, depending on who you, you like more, debt ceiling deal. But there is one person who, and not one, but there are several, but one very outspoken person who is not happy with this deal, and it is Bernie Sanders.

And he has said that he is going to vote against the Biden and McCarthy deal because he says, quote, it's totally unnecessary. But the best thing about this bill, which many agree with, quote, it could have been much worse. Essentially, Republicans did not get all of the draconian cuts and all of the things that they wanted to happen inside of this bill. It was amazing that McCarthy was able to keep the clown car together enough in order for them to vote on it at all. But essentially, you know, what they were able to put in there was work requirements for SNAP benefits. Bernie Sanders has said that the fact that we are going to restrict nutritional benefits for people to be able to prove that they're working, again, goes along with the that Republicans have been telling the American people since the fucking welfare queen

when they want to talk about the fact that, oh, it's just a bunch of people sitting around that don't want to work that are getting these benefits. And we know that that is not the case. We have seen stats that tell us that that's not the case, but it doesn't stop the Republican Party from wanting to consistently punish the poor. And then they are going to lift the pause on student loan borrowers, which again goes back to the point where in order to get ahead in America, you need to put yourself into considerable debt. And we're not about releasing people under debt, of course, unless they're in the 1%. Then we want to give people breaks and as many discounts as possible. We were talking before we started. You know, we both were like, well,

Bernie ain't wrong. And he's not. I mean, he's simply not. Good for him for not voting for this. Also, we kind of got to pass it, I guess. So, you know, I think it's good that Bernie can stick to his principles and vote against it. I suppose it's also good that it's going to pass because something had to pass. Everything about this debt ceiling is such fucking theater. And it just, you know, a little peek behind the curtain here. We have talked for like, you know, at least a month, if not more. It's like, gosh, we do the debt ceiling on the podcast this week. And it's like, oh my God, I don't want to do it. It's so stupid. Like, that's me every time. And it's so stupid. and we go through the charade like every X number of years, whatever it is.

And it's just so dumb and so meaningless. And it always ends up with this way. It always ends up, as Bernie said, you know, not as bad as it could have been. But it always ends up putting more burden on, as I'll just quote Bernie here, working families, the children, the sick, the elderly, and the poor. That too always ends up with the burden when one of these things gets passed. It's never the billionaires. It's certainly never the defense contractors.

It's always people who are trying to make ends meet. And it's always some way of making it just a little more difficult for them to do that. Like you would almost start to think that that was the point. I know. Weird, right? It's just one of millions of things that are frustrating about the way our government works. But this one is just so egregious because, again, I think Bernie's right. I think the debt ceiling could have just been eliminated by Joe Biden.

I think the Democrats should have done more about this when they had control of the House, which some Democrats are now actually saying, you know, oh, by the way, yeah, we really kind of screwed that up, huh? It's like, yeah, you did. And it's not like people weren't saying that at the time. Democrats, there's still, there's this streak of this sort of, you know, go along to get along. And whenever they have a majority, they tend to take that approach on things like just like, well, we can't piss off the other side of the aisle.

And then the other side of the aisle takes over. And immediately, all they try to do is, oh, there's Democratic president. We need to destroy the economy. Yeah. It's so wild. But I think, you know, I want to go back to what you said with regard to, you know, who's not going to be affected by this, right? Which is the defense contractors, which is the Pentagon.

Like, their budgets get raised and passed and like, and it's totally fine. And I always think to myself as a former educator, what would it look like? If, you know, we have, what is it, the most powerful military in the world by like hundreds of millions of miles, right? Like the military that's coming in second to us doesn't spend nearly, nearly as much as we do. What would it look like if we took a quarter of that money that the Pentagon doesn't even ask for? But we continue to give them above what they're asking for in their budget and spread it around to the actual social safety nets that people need. every single day. And it just, it says to me all the time that like if the Democrats were to actually friggin' campaign on this, simply say, the Republican Party doesn't think you're deserving of

your own tax dollars back. That's it. They don't think that you're deserving of the supports that a democracy actually provides. That they are giving your money willingly to the rich. They are giving your money willingly to war and nothing actually benefits you because the things that would, like education, like, oh, I don't know, funding for the EPA so that we have clean water and clean air and making sure that the poorest among us are able to have their basic needs met. Like, I don't understand how it's so fucking hard to be able to message on these things. It's not that complicated, but they make it so complicated. And then the rest of us are left just rolling our eyes when they do make a deal because

we're like, oh, once again, you've made the deal on the backs of the most vulnerable people in this country. Yeah, and then you have, there are Republicans who are going to vote no on this deal because it doesn't increase the defense budget enough. Yeah. This deal, according to Politico, caps national defense spending at $886 billion, which is a 3.2% increase. We're at $900 billion now for a defense budget. And you've got, here's a quote from Michael Waltz, Republican representative from Florida. We need to make deeper cuts on the non-defense.

side. And meanwhile, we're accepting Biden's defense budget, which is actually a cut. First of all, it's not. Again, it's a 3.2% increase. Second of all, this is unbelievable. Like, 900 billion is not enough for defense. I mean, come on. I'm saying this as a veteran. This is insane. This is absolute insanity. We're making it harder for people to get SNAP benefits. And there were people out there complaining that $886 billion is not a big enough defense budget? Like, what world are we in? That's what I don't understand. It's like, when will there be enough?

When is the defense budget going to be enough? $800 billion, again, I say, as a former educator, what would a $5 billion investment into our education look like across this country? It's maddening. We could end so many ills, close so many disparities. But instead it's like, oh, my God, if we don't give them a trillion dollars, we're going to fall into the hands of Putin. It's like, that's not true. I mean, Republicans would like you to be in the hands of Putin, right?

Like, that's exactly where they're ushering you to. But again, if we were to slow the amount of money that we are giving to the Pentagon, I am telling you that the second runner-up would still be light years away from where our military is. we're not at risk for that. Speaking of things that are inflated, Donald Trump, let's just go there. So Donald Trump is on the 2024 campaign trail, as well as the fact that, you know, he's on a trail on his indictments,

and, you know, we're looking at Jack Smith and wondering when he's going to take spring into action. But what Donald Trump, one of his first now, I guess what is it, campaign promises that we'll say that he is doing, is that he, according to, rolling stone. Donald Trump promises to violate the 14th Amendment. And that is essentially saying that those that are undocumented that come to this country and happen to give birth, it has always been the case that those that are born on American soil are American citizens. Well, Donald Trump said,

yeah, nah, this is exactly what he said. As part of my plan, which we know this is, motherfucker doesn't have one, but I digress. As part of my plan to secure the border on day one, I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward, the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship. This is what he said in a campaign video on Tuesday. I mean, the 14th Amendment guarantees that all persons born in the United States are citizens of the United States. So if we begin by allowing Donald Trump, God forbid this man enter into the Oval Office again, the ability to designate who is a U.S. citizen and not. Do you think we're stopping with the children of undocumented people?

I don't fucking think so. No, of course not. I just want to read the exact language of the 14th Amendment because this isn't even like a Second Amendment thing where you're like, well, could mean this or it could mean this and you get into arguments in the dorm room about it until four in the morning. The 14th Amendment says all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. That's pretty cut and dry. There's no wiggle room there. There's no way to say legitimately that, well, but you're reading it wrong. What they meant was, I'm not reading it

wrong. I just read it. This is not the first time he's talked about this. He wanted to do this. You know, he brought it up when he was president the first time. This has become a big thing on the right. Again, I have to point out that these are the same people that, you know, pre-Trump were very much in love with the Constitution of the United States to a point of worship. Then Trump comes along and suddenly a lot of these same people are like, oh, you know what? The Constitution is not a suicide or whatever they want to say. And suddenly it is subject to interpretation. This is the same garbage we've seen at the Supreme Court where you have the so-called

originalists who used to say, well, we're just looking at what the actual text says. And now they still vaguely claim that, but it's almost impossible to take them seriously. And it's the same thing here. He can be upset at these, what's the term they always use, the awful term, anchor babies? You know, he can say, hey, I don't like it when people come to this country illegally and have children and their children are automatically citizens. I don't like that. That's fine. That's an, I mean, it's fine in the sense that that's an opinion.

You're allowed to have an opinion. Yeah, and you can be as racist as you want. It's America. It's a nasty opinion. But it's one thing to say that. It's another thing to say, I'm going to put a stop to it when the law of the land expressly says, no, you're not. I know this is going to come as a shock to a lot of our lives. Listeners, he lies about this stuff.

Really? Yeah. It's not like him to just make shit up. And it's troubling to me. It's not the Donald Trump I know. He has made claims that the U.S. is the only country in the world with birthright citizenship. It's not. It's not even close.

You know, again, he has been talking about doing this since he was actually president. He wasn't able to do it then because guess what? Yeah, there's that constitution again. So he can make this promise all he wants. And I'm sure it will get his base all rallied up because they don't like brown folks becoming citizens. We know that. But I want to say, thankfully, he can't actually do it. But then I remember the Supreme Court.

And I think, I guess I shouldn't say that. Here's the thing. Donald Trump loves to say that he can do a whole lot of things by just thinking about it, including, you know, declassified documents and apparently rewrite the Constitution because, you know, I feel like it. But you're right. we can't take it for granted that, oh, this could quote unquote never happen because everything that we think could never happen seems to be happening on a regular fucking basis. And he does. He owns the Supreme Court. But I'm telling you that if we step into this realm, we start having this casual conversations about, you know, rewriting the Constitution and who we define as citizens, then it doesn't be, it doesn't just end with those children of undocumented people. it goes to then, oh, well, we believe that Democrats shouldn't be citizens of this country.

Like, that's their mind fucking twist right now, which is that like, unless you adhere to who we are, our religion, how we love, how we dress, you know, all of those things, then you don't deserve to bear the title American. And, you know, just to end, speaking of not really caring about what the Constitution says or what the law of the land is, you mentioned earlier, that we're sort of waiting on Jack Smith to see what happens in terms of this Justice Department investigation. Well, now, as CNN has reported, federal prosecutors have in their hands an audio recording from a summer 2021 meeting where Trump acknowledges he held on to a classified

Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran. This obviously goes against everything he says where he's like, well, I declassified it immediately. You know, he claims. that every classified document he took was automatically declassified, which was never the case, but this tends to show that even he knows that. Because apparently the comments on this tape show that he wanted to share the meeting, but that he was aware of the limitations on his ability to declassify records, which, again, goes against everything he's been claiming since this story originally broke. So, yeah, we're still waiting on Jack Smith to file charges, but at a certain point,

And it's like you got everything you need on tape, don't you? I mean, like, how many times does somebody need to be caught on tape doing or saying something fucking illegal at this point? It's like candid fucking camera in this bitch and we can't get this man indicted. Yeah, between the perfect phone call in Georgia and they got him on tape, it's like, what are you waiting on? Like, definitely, you know, cross your keys, dot your eyes. But there is sort of a time crunch here.

Like there's a presidential election campaign about to start, and it's going to be increasingly difficult to indict someone who's in the middle of an actual presidential race. So there is sort of a time crunch here. And it's like, like, as you said, it's like, you know, at a certain point, it's like, we got them. Yeah. I mean, we have enough tape right now for at least two podcast series. So. Come on. Can me a fucking break.

I know. Where is cereal when you need them? Folks, I am. I'm happy to welcome back to the new abnormal politics reporter Jake LaHutt, who is on the trail, the 2024 campaign trail, which, dear God, I want to say it feels like a really long time from now, but it really isn't until the presidential election. And so, Jake, I want to start off today with talking about one of the many underdogs that are in this race, but actually on, I guess, the Democrat side, which is Marianne Williamson.

And a recent piece that you wrote for The Daily Beast entitled, why Marianne Williamson's staffers are running for the exits with the underscoring horrible bosses. So what is the deal? One, she is not gotten as much fanfare. And I guess play as she did when she ran, what was it, in 2020? You know, she was kind of this viral sensation at that time. She's not necessarily getting the same fanfare. I want you to comment on that.

But also, why is her staff quitting in droves? Marianne William Williamson really became a bit of a flash sensation in the 2020 campaign in those early debates we had in 2019. And I think it's important to remember that she was able to take advantage of a really big, earned media opportunity. It wasn't by spending a lot of money on flashy videos or her having these necessarily really compelling events that led to her having that kind of mini fame on the left. But last time around, her campaign was known for,

just being a real mess behind the scenes, especially in, you know, early primary states like New Hampshire. The war was through the grapevine, like, if you want to have career in Democratic politics in the future, you don't want to be involved with a mess like that. So flash forward to this time around, and there's pretty much no overlap between people who worked for her campaign in 2020 and now for the 2024 one. But basically the same issues that played the last campaign are happening again, which is mainly that Mary Ann Williams, and has a very short temper. She tends to micromanage in a lot of the basic day-to-day functioning of the campaign. The former staff I talked to said that, you know, this ranges from what one said was,

quote-unquote, you know, boomer behavior of kind of psychologically inept sometimes and having, you know, those interventions just cause headaches for people. Like one time she tried to give a talking down to one of her top advisors about, like, let anyone come to me basically is what she's saying. And if they have some sort of idea for a tweet or something that they want me to see, let me see it. I don't need you to be a gatekeeper. But the problem was she just like tweeted that on the main account.

Yes, I saw in your piece and I thought it was crazy. Also, this is, bear of mind, this is like 4.30 in the morning. Right. And this is just like a regular day for the campaign. So since it launched in March, our scoop was that at least 10 people have left the campaign and that are probably more on the way. And bear in mind, this team started out, you know, somewhere between like 21 and like two dozen people. So it's not a very big shop to begin with.

And the people who joined on are basically, you know, they were fans of hers either from the last time or from, you know, her myriad touch points in Hollywood. I mean, there are all these famous quotes that are often misattributed to people like Nelson Mandela when they were actually her. If you see the basketball movie Coach Carter, you may have heard of her famous quote about our greatest fear is not the way we are inadequate and we are powerful or measure. or something like that. The Oprah spiritual advising. I mean, I could go on. Ultimately, this becomes kind of a cautionary tale of, you know, celebrity having a bit of a malign influence in kind of blinding people

to the realities of what she's like dealing with as a boss. And, you know, one of these former staffers described her as a self-help guru who won't get help. Yeah. And that was, whoa. I mean, you know, it just sounds like, again, we're not talking about anything, you know, necessarily like physical here, just, you know, angry outbursts, yelling. telling people to go shoot out a colleague over the phone or, as someone put it, to step on someone

underneath them. And, you know, a lot of these people would feel guilty that, you know, Marianne Williamson, who's known as being this, you know, very even keeled self-help, you know, master of your emotions, telling them to just unload on someone who's a subordinate or outside the campaign because, you know, she doesn't want to do that herself or she wants to have this image of the campaign being tough when, you know, really it sounds like there's just no strategy going on here. And this thing is just kind of, you know, ambling along until either she drops out or there'll be this unofficial, unsanctioned primary in New Hampshire where President Biden probably won't be on the ballot. And she can get like a quick news cycle out of that sometime in January.

You know, what I thought was interesting too in your piece, and I want you to be able to speak to that is airing out the fact that, you know, oftentimes, particularly in politics, women bosses are held to a higher standard that men in politics, can get away with a whole lot. I mean, we've all heard the stories of phones being thrown and people being screamed at and, you know, that's just par for the course when it comes at the hands of a male politician or CEO. That kind of behavior not being deemed okay for women who are trapped into certain types of stereotypical roles. But one of the people that you interviewed spoke to that fact and said that this had nothing to do with her being a woman or not, that this

behavior is just something that is just so out of the realm of the norm, but particularly for somebody that has made a career off of being this kind of spiritual advisor, I'm about lifting people up to be their best selves. Yeah. I mean, it feels a little adjacent to maybe some of the Ellen DeGeneres workplace, you know, stories that are out there. But I mean, not just this, this one former staffer I talked to, but pretty much all of them said that like, yeah, if the campaign response to this, they will say that it's sexism, but they were pretty adamant that, especially when you're dealing with people who are rookies to political campaigns coming in and taking most of these roles, they don't really know where the norms are in the workplace. And, you know, frankly, politics as an

industry on a number of levels, I think, has, you know, working practices, particularly for the most junior staffers that would be considered insane in most, you know, private sector scenarios, just involving a lot of, you know, unpaid work or almost domestic adjacent type work of, you know, fetching things for somebody or whatever. This just being, you know, more of a straight up definition of a toxic workplace environment where she is, you know, either airing out people's dirty laundry among other staff or just simply, you know, dressing them down in a public forum, you know, in a way that is just unmistakably about, you know, a power dynamic there, right? Like, there's no flip that around. The one thing I did find interesting, though, is so Marianne Elling

does not use Slack, very adamant against using most, you know, technology. And like, like, what he said earlier has had some issues with the technological side of the campaign. But what that kind of left an opening for is all these people to, you know, eventually talk amongst themselves, eventually outside of Slack about like, you know, am I crazy or is this happening to everyone? And then, you know, they realize that, yeah, it's happening to everyone. So, I mean, I think now the issue for her is, is one, you know, there aren't going to be any of those. earned media moments like the debates from last time where she was able to take advantage of that, the DNC's not going to have Joe Biden go out there and do a debate with her and Robert F. Kennedy,

Jr. It's just not happening. So there's really not a viable delegate path. I mean, this is what you know, any common presidents do. And I think the question is, okay, she does have a continued appeal among, you know, some small dollar donors on the Democratic Party, people in the progressive movement who always are a bit agitated with, you know, how the mainstream of the party is doing things. But I think that some of these staff simply feel guilty that people are giving their money to a campaign that's, you know, really what they describe is just a vanity project at this point. And, you know, it's not going toward any, you know, coherent or sustained messaging against President Biden or for the good of, you know, the coalition on the left or what have you.

It's just kind of, you know, she's running for president because that's just what she doesn't have. I'm like, because I'm listening to you and I'm like, who is her constituency? No, a lot of people I know when Crown Heights love her, we'll say. A lot of people in that particular neighborhood. Okay. Switching gears, I want to talk about Ron DeSantis, who entered into the race last week via a failed Twitter space with Elon Musk. And this has been a campaign that many have deemed as a failure to launch, referred to

this launch on Twitter spaces as a quote unquote reset. And yet Ron DeSantis had just made it into the race officially. But the mainstream media has been looking at each and every one of his media moments, whether he's abroad in Israel or home, you know, ruining the state of Florida as these big moments. Can he go toe to toe with Donald Trump? But it seems right now he's on the trail in New Hampshire, where you are. And he refuses to take questions from reporters. So what is the vibe that you get around the Ron DeSantis camp and with the candidate himself? So there's a slight course correction going on here where they've gone from basically having a standard operating procedure of no access or day-to-day dealings with non-conservative news outlets. That's sort of changed.

But on this trip, the campaign just said, you know, we're not accepting RISF. for the press. And if you try to look at the event as a general member of the public, they'll say sold out. Most of these today when we're speaking are at a couple of VFWs in the northern and central part of the state. So these are pretty small venues to begin with. And the idea is basically to try to address the general critique that he's too stiff or aloof or not good enough at retail politics, but just kind of serving up an observable example of retail politics. In Iowa, they had essentially like a pre-picked list of outlets to call on in an impromptu press conference. It was held in a separate room also.

Today, though, in Hampshire, he hasn't been taking any questions. And he didn't even do any from voters. And I mean, often those are really easy. You know, it's like, tell us about, you know, how great you've been in Florida or, you know, whatever. I mean, especially the people who want to kick the tires on a candidate this early. I mean, it's often coming from a place of fandom. they're not looking to kind of catch him off guard. Although that is the great thing about New Hampshire and Iowa, you do have people.

Their sole person life is to do just that as an independent voter. You know, it's a small press corps that's there. I think they're more concerned about just getting, you know, what you call B-roll on TV, right? I'm just like, they want more images of him looking good with voters. And then there was this really sharp interaction he had with the Associated Press, this event in Laconia, the first one in the morning, where this reporter just asked like, hey, why aren't you taking any questions from voters? and he's sitting there, you know, trying to smile, taking a picture with somebody. And then he's like, he goes at this thing that I think might blow up in a bit of a viral moment where he asks the reporter, you know, are you blind? I'm here talking to people.

What are you talking about? And, you know, it's moments like that where, you know, I'm sure that it, maybe it looks very crowded and those VFW halls can get very, very stuffy. Like, it is not a comfortable space to be in for any person, even if you love social likes of people. But that being said, like, you know, there's just a bare minimum you need as a presidential candidate. it to seem like you are genuinely interested in and like the presence of other people. And that's and he can't seem to do the bare fucking minimum. You follow this as a politics reporter. How is it going to be possible for Ron DeSantis to campaign inside of a bubble? Like how is that, in your opinion, going to play out? Like the whole idea of a presidential campaign is that you are traversing the

country. You're going to the places where you may not be liked in order to convince said voter to like you. So how does that work if you are scared shitless of reporters and of your own voters? It's a great question because we're going to see this paradigm bring up a lot of tensions around this throughout the campaign. And mainly, I think the center of the conflict is this, is running for president in the 2020s basically just like airing. TV show. People were talking about this in political science for decades. I mean, really, ever since Kennedy Nixon, you know, it was a question of like, have things shifted where, you know, at the end of the day, in a country this big, your image coming across on TV and through

that medium is more important than anything. And the video kind of became top dog. Or is it this mix of storytelling and building key constituencies and giving a lot of face time to these voters in early primary states that you can, you know, build momentum early on. And, you know, the more traditional idea we have of how campaigns work. And I mean, I think just Donald Trump broke a lot of that and a lot of our assumptions in 2016. And then I still think the COVID campaign in 2020 is fascinating because Joe Biden, who is not a candidate necessarily well-adcliffed to that bubble or mainly TV studio style campaign, he loves the rope line. He's a major ropline guy. I've seen, I've seen people have borderline out-of-body experiences having Joe Biden push his forehead against their forehead on a rope line talking about, you know, a deceased relative or someone they know who has cancer.

And people are like consistently moved to tears in those scenarios. You know, so in the pandemic, you took away Biden's kind of number one tool for campaigning that he's leaned on his whole life. And yet, his team was able to find a lot of advantages to having him not travel. The main ones that DeSantis is doing some of these and not others are. You can do a lot of cheap, short form video and repurpose it for a lot of different formats and constituencies. You can also do way more local TV news hits than you might be able to do necessarily in a day of crisscrossing the country. So just doing like, you know, quick three question interviews with a local TV channel. That's a guarantee top of the hour segment for them in a

part of the country where you might want voters seeing you. You know, Desanis is not doing that necessarily. I have seen there is now a press inquiry and interview request form on their website. site. That's new. That goes anywhere. But, you know, I think that DeSantis and Trump are ultimately going to prove out what is the new normal for campaigning in U.S. politics? What's going to stay over from the COVID era? I just think with Trump, a factor that he has that DeSanis doesn't is he's kind of been able to always skip the conventions of Iowa and New Hampshire because people here feel like they already know him. Yeah. And that's what I'm thinking. I'm like, the reality is, like, as much as I loathe Donald Trump as a human being, he has more.

charisma and unfortunately in our politics charisma still really sells whether or not you're going to be doing that at a VFW or you're doing it on a TikTok video like I think that Obama and in the Obama era really showed how his charisma and style could translate when he was doing these micro hits on social media and putting out videos I don't see that translate with Ron DeSantis I've seen the mini clips I've seen the protective bubble that they've put him in voters outside of Florida don't know who he is. And what they do know for those that are in Florida is that he hates everybody, right?

It is just like the politics of hate. So if that is your bag, then Ron DeSantis is going to be your person. But when you're putting him up against Donald Trump and you're a Republican, are you really looking at Ron DeSantis and saying, oh, yeah, that's my guy. That's the backup. Yeah. And that's where I think that a lot of his support right now in the 20 to 30 percent range

is very squishy. We have a recurring section in our campaign newsletter that comes out every Friday on the Daily Beach called Trail Mix. One of the things that we'll have in there is a part called polling station where we'll try to give you an idea of some not just snapshots in polls or a one-off on something, but more an idea of kind of where the trend and the direction is going. And some of the most interesting things you look at this early aren't really the voter preference polls, but you know, more these empirical studies of like, who is actually making up the Republican Party based right now? You know, who is registered to vote in primaries? And how are the candidates, you know, doing among those coalitions? And basically, Trump has just remade the party to such an

extent that if you are now kind of, what would be called a, you know, quote, very conservative voter by standard polling metrics, where your priority issues are more or less in line with the Republican party. That group is totally Trumps. There's, you know, the new kids on the block that he brought to the party who weren't paying attention to politics before 2016. That's always been his most important asset is, you know, he always threatened to take those voters and leave. And then there's just not a lot left after that. You know, where the standards really seems to excel are with voters who are much more concerned about, you know, issues like education, domestic issues. they don't really care about funding for Ukraine as much.

They don't care about immigration per se as much. I think the issues that the other part of the coalition that DeSantis needs put together are, you know, your classic pre-Trump GOP voters who are, you know, your country club Republicans, your fiscally conservative, maybe a little more socially liberal Republicans. They still are registered and they still vote. They're not enough to win the primary on their own, but coupled with, you know, another coalition,

can. It's just the issue is evangelical voters and, you know, the typical base of, you know, you're over 50, over 60 voters are still so in lockstep with Trump that to pull off that kind of an opening, you need the fields to be way, way smaller. And, you know, I think you need an ability to get people excited in a way that DeSantis just hasn't figured out yet. Yeah, I think that we're going to be in for the long haul, but I do not see as many don't. Ron DeSantis be able to bring any type of smoke in any type of way to Donald Trump to have any type of impact. And I think that he would have been better suited to sit this one out, you know, and see where he was in 2028. So I think it'll be really interesting to watch. Jake LaHutt, thank you so much for making the time to join

the new abnormal. And folks, his pieces up now at The Daily Beast on Marianne Williamson entitled, Why Marianne Williamson's Staffers are running for the exits. Andy Levy. Danielle Moody. Who is your fuck that guy to round out this fucking week? This is a weird one because it's a story that involves Ted Cruz and yet somehow he's not the worst person in it. That is a weird story. I can't remember the last time this happened.

Uganda passed this absolutely horrific anti-LGBQ statute that includes things like putting people to death for having home. homosexual sex or however they define it. And it was apparently too much even for Ted Cruz, who tweeted, this Uganda law is horrific and wrong. Any law criminalizing homosexuality or imposing the death sentence for aggravated homosexuality, that's the language in the law, is grotesque and an abomination. Which, okay, so that was kind of shocking that he would say that. And I'm not sure that he understands a lot of the laws he supports here in the United States, but that's an issue for a different fuck that guy. This one time, you know, maybe for the first time in his life,

he's not the bad guy here. So the bad guy is a guy named Tom Askell. He's a pastor at the Grace Baptist Church in Cape Corral, Florida. He replied to Ted Cruz, or quote treated him, and said, tell it to God, Ted, and then put in a quote from Leviticus that says, if a man lies with a male is with a woman, Both of them have committed an abomination.

They shall surely be put to death. Their blood is upon them. I will leave it to people to actually listen to people who have read the Bible as it was originally written in the languages and to understand that even that, which has been used all the time, is a really bad mistranslation. But let's put that aside. The reason I bring this up is not cause some idiot preacher at some no-name church said something stupid because that happens every day.

Tom Askell, first of all, came in second, lost in a runoff to be the president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Oh, dear. Which is huge. He also did the invocation at Ron DeSantis' second gubernatorial inauguration. So this is a guy who is hip-deep in politics and is, I guess, a good buddy of Republican presidential candidate, Ron DeSantis. So this is not some no-name little preacher. You can just roll your eyes at or tell the fuck off and go about. your business. This guy has juice. He gets my fuck that guy for today. And I'm in as much shock as

anyone else that it's not Ted Cruz, given that Ted Cruz is involved in this, but the Lord works in mysterious ways. He does. What I just want to say about this is that it is wild to me. Ted Cruz's tweet was wild to me. Because I'm like, okay, so you don't outright support the murder of LGBTQ plus people. But you do support their erasure. You do support their criminalization. You do support every single thing that Ronda Santis is doing in the state of Florida. And yet, oh, you're like, oh, but death is just a step too far. It's bullshit. And yeah, so should he get applauded for this?

Not really. Because he still remains my fuck that guy because everything that you're doing is short of saying death to all the gays. It's just short of that. Just a hair over. No, look, I agree. And look, he has absolutely no problem creating the conditions and atmosphere in which gay people are in danger. Yep.

But this is a bridge too far for him. So again, it's not that he's not a fuck that guy. He just, in this story, somehow, is not the worst person. And that's what's amazing. That's a Republican party. I know. It's unreal. The good old days of Ted Cruz is what we're going to be saying in 10 years.

Oh, God damn. I know. So Danielle, who's your fuck that guy? Well, sometimes it's a person. Sometimes it's an entire fucking state. And on today, it is an entire fucking state. And once again, Texas. How are you fucking doing?

Well, apparently, not only do they not want the children of Texas learning anything about history, about civics, they now don't want young people to be able to actually speak to elected officials. Yes, you've heard me correctly. So in their new law, HB 3979, prohibits schools and teachers from requiring or awarding credit for, quote, direct communication between students and their local state or federal politicians. The bill prohibits schools and teachers from offering course credit or extra credit or making it a part of a course for students. They say political activism, lobbying, or efforts to persuade members of the legislative or executive branch at the federal, state, or local level,

to take specific actions by direct communication. So apparently the only people that have the ability to sway Texas politicians are their fucking billion dollar donors, but not the actual young people that will grow up to be voters in their state. Them, they're going to be barred from any type of interaction with those elected officials who are making decisions about their futures. What the fuck kind of country are we? But I'm so fucking sick.

of these states. And I feel so desperately bad for the young people that are growing up, that are in the K through 12 school system, because I don't know what kind of education they are receiving and who they're going to be able to compete against. Because what these governors in both Texas and in Florida are doing are creating a permanent underclass. These kids are not going to be globally competitive. They're not going to be competitive with their fucking colleagues in neighboring states with the kind of undereducation that they are receiving. Creating thoughtful citizens, those that have critical thought is important to the stability and the foundation of our democracy.

And this just once again goes to show you where the Republican Party is. They are not trying to create the next generation of voters. They are trying to create the next generation of the working poor. That's it. So for that reason, the entire state of Texas. Texas I wish would go to hell. Like literally in a handbasket, I'm going to make a t-shirt. Do you want one, Andy?

No, because I will once again, Danielle, I will be the voice of weenie centrism on this and say, there's a lot of people in Texas who don't agree with this and I don't want them to have to suffer and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. as this very thing that you're talking about gets to, they want those people to not have a voice. The only thing I'm hoping is that it is so far gone to have a civics requirement in your public schools and then make as part of that this law

that in a civics class you cannot have students try to persuade people in power on how to vote. My hope is that, enough young people actually learn from this, but they learn, I assume what is the opposite of what the legislators want, and they learn that their legislators are pieces of shit, and that maybe it'll inspire them to go out and get rid of these people. So I'm really hoping that this has an incredible backlash effect and just a whole chickens coming home to roost thing that the Texas legislators are not anticipating.

Yeah, I pray that you are correct because, dear God, oh, I hate that state. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at thedailybeast.com podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the

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