The Daily Beast Podcast - The Man Who Was Trump Before Trump

Episode Date: June 18, 2021

The president’s adviser is falling all over himself to kiss his boss’ ass. “Mr. President, we’re all so proud to work for you. You’re saving the world!” It sounds like something you could imagine Jared Kushner would say to Donald Trump. But the groveler in question is none other than Henry Kissinger, and the occupant of the White House is Richard Nixon. Yes, Trump is a descendent of Nixon’s, says former Spy magazine editor and Studio 360 host Kurt Andersen, whose new podcast is called Nixon at War. Also on the episode, New Yorker writer Susan Glasser joins Molly and co-host Jesse Cannon to dissect President Biden’s trip to Europe and summit with Vladimir Putin, and whether Democrats’ hopes for their Senate majority were all foolishness. Finally, on the episode, hilarious viral phenomenon Crackhead Barney and Drew Rosenthal join Jesse and Molly to break down their approach to MAGA rallies, how she was committed to a psych ward in Staten Island, why they think they’re going to get beat up one day, why they want to interview Thomas Markle, and how the Proud Boys greeted them. If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Jong-Fast and welcome to The Daily Beast, The New Abnormal. I'm a left-wing pundit and an editor at large at The Daily Beast. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. Our world has been turned up to a down. On the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and figure out how to get ourselves out of it. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon. I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails.

What a wild ride of an episode we have today. Kurt Anderson, who's the former spy magazine editor and host of Studio 360, has a new podcast called NixNet Orr, which he'll tell us all about, and I've been absolutely loving. Then we're going to talk to Crackhead Barney and friends. And if you aren't familiar with what I'm talking about, you're going to want to stick around to hear this wild interview about her combative interview style that's going viral all over.

over the internet. But first, we have New Yorker writer, CNN Global Analyst, and co-author of The Man Who Ran Washington, The Life in Times of Jim Baker, Susan Glaser. Welcome to the new abnormal, Susan Glasser. So great to be with you, Molly. I am very excited to have you. And when I was watching the summit yesterday, I was thinking, you are the person I think of because not only have you covered this, but you've also lived in Russia. Well, really what you were thinking was that, my God, she's been around forever. No, I was not thinking that. Because I have actually seen all five U.S. presidents that Putin has interacted with going all the way back

to Bill Clinton and seen and watch the story of, you know, each of them trying and not necessarily succeeding figuring out how to deal with Vladimir Putin. How do you deal with, but, I mean, it's been so interesting because they built up very low expectations, which I think was the right thing. But have you seen a president who's done it better than other presidents? And do you feel like Biden did this the right way? I mean, you know, it's interesting because I think that Russia hands were very skeptical before the summit, that it really was worthwhile. And there was some real controversy inside the Biden administration for that reason. What was possibly the rationale? There's one thing that American diplomats have seen very consistently for two,

decades from Putin, and that is that he craves the approval and the stature accorded to him by meeting on the world stage with the American president. Why would Biden choose to do that so early in its administration when they're not interested in Russia policy, you know, trying to pivot to Asia and to focus on China. And also when Putin has engaged in this series of very provocative actions, including 100,000 troops on the border with Ukraine, lots of people genuinely worried that he really was threatening military action again. And so I think in the lead-up to the summit, they dialed down expectations, but there still was an uneasiness. Why is Biden choosing to do this? I think, frankly, what you saw yesterday is they're just going to let the air out

of the balloon and that that in some ways was their goal not to make it a big deal. And it wasn't. I mean, you know, there is no transformative meeting to be had at this point 20 years in with Vladimir Putin. I mean, that seems like the lesson he's learned is that there can never be a reset with this guy. I think that it is the very strong conclusion of certainly all the Russia experts I know that there's not going to be a meaningful shift in U.S. Russian relations until such time as Vladimir Putin has gone from the stage. And remember that Putin is still a relatively young man, even though he's already been in power for more than two decades, which makes him the longest serving Russian leader since Joseph Stalin, at the same time, he's only in his late 60s. And he's extended, changed the Russian

Constitution to extend his life in power to be essentially the whole of his life. And he could still be there when he's in his 80s. If you were able to sort of control the world, what could you do to dislodge Putin? Well, luckily, you know, any journalists get to simply criticize that we don't actually have to do anything, which is probably a good thing. think journalists are not famous for their organizational skills and managerial skills. Look, the thing that's interesting is that, you know, Americans tend to have a very caricaturish notion of democracy or autocracy, dictator or Democrat, small D, you know, all or nothing, right? And of course, every country in the world has politics. Myanmar has politics. And Vladimir Putin definitely has politics. And a lot of the

reason he often focuses on international issues. And, you know, the world stage is because it's a way of distracting from the political developments at home. And, you know, the arrest of Alexei Navalny, the crackdown on independent political activity inside Russia has been met with a lot of protest and a lot of concern, especially by the younger generation that has known nothing but Vladimir Putin, you know, essentially for their conscious life. And so, you know, Putin has politics. And so, you know, Putin has politics too. However, the thing about Navalny is that he stands out because the rest of the opposition, frankly, has been very weak. And Putin was masterfully able, especially in his early years when I was based there as a correspondent, in, you know, sort of playing this divide and conquer

role with the opposition and worked. And it was one of the reasons that he was able to relatively quickly reconciledate power in the Kremlin and to eliminate the vestiges of a, you know, small D democratic system that had been created, however, imperfectly in the 1990s. Do you think that this was a success, this trip for Biden? Well, the trip overall, I think, in some ways it was politically low risk for Joe Biden, and therefore it was rewarding in that sense. Absolutely. The goal of this trip was to go out on the world stage and remind people that he was,

was not Donald Trump, that America is back, that America is respected again, and that we have allies and partners, and that we can do stuff on the world stage. And that was literally the goal of the trip in some way. And so he more than accomplished that. You look at the numbers. The Pew Global Attitudes survey came out while he was on the trip to Europe. And it showed, not surprisingly, that attitudes have basically flip-flopped and that, you know, essentially 75% of those surveyed in a dozen countries around the world were, I believe Joe Biden would do the right thing around the world. And that number was under 20%.

I think it was something like 17 or 15% for Donald Trump. The ability to not be Donald Trump has been a huge asset for Biden. I think it is. Now, of course, it has limits. Remember that every president comes into office. And especially at the beginning of their tenure, when they haven't yet assembled a record of their own, when there's no continuity, they tend to want to be the un-person.

And frankly, our elections have again and again in sort of recent history, basically veered in the direction of picking someone to succeed a president who's quite different than the person who came before. And so, you know, Obama was certainly spent a lot of time being the un-Bush, you know, and George Bush, you know, before 9-11 sort of, reshaped his presidency, he was, he ran as an un-Clinton, he ran as an un-Clinton, you know, talking about things like restoring dignity, the Oval Office, things like that. And so it's not that much of a shocker. I mean, the difference is that Trump was so cartoonishly over the top in so many

respects that in some ways it's just easier for Joe Biden to be the untrump. I mean, it definitely seems like there's a journalistic reset when it comes to Biden, right? I mean, Trump, Trump is not, you know, Trump is not a normal politician, right? He was, I mean, we see all these leaks coming out now that he was really quite close to having a successful coup, right? I mean, just every day there's another piece of, you know, something from the DOJ or something from, you know, some kind of crazy thing we never even thought possible that it's worse than what we knew. So do something about the coup thing actually? Because please, believe me, there's no one who is, you know, on some level more on. armed about what's happened to American democracy than I am and Trump and the threat that he represented you. However, I actually think it's kind of dangerous. I don't believe that Donald Trump was that close to a successful coup. And the bottom line is what happened, first of all, the Capitol on January 6th was outrageous and beyond anything I ever could have imagined, but functionally irrelevant in terms of, you know, the actual transition of power. And it wouldn't

have mattered. Number one, number two, I think you saw very strong. resistance from military leaders, which has frankly gotten muddled. And honestly, Democrats have really muddled that clarity by this sort of obsession with the TikTok of, you know, who said what to whom and the National Guard and bringing them out. Like the Congress of the United States in their security system screwed up big time, right? And they do seem to not want us to focus on that Whether the National Guard got there at 5 p.m., you know, which is when they were actually sent out, it appears, on that day, or 3 p.m., they never would have gotten there in time to prevent the breaching of the U.S. because the Capitol Police screwed up and those and the Justice Department and those who were responsible for the security that day had failed to activate them in advance. But the reason I'm mentioning this, though, is the point being, the bigger point, which I think is a very important.

very important point, which is that you can't have a successful coup d'etat in this country, you know, or in any country, really, unless you have the power ministries on your side. And that wasn't going to happen to Donald Trump. Now, what we've seen is incredible and terrifying weaknesses, first of all, in many individual states where it came down to a handful of office holders with integrity, who, you know, insisted that results be certified in the proper way and all of that. You know, certainly the weakness inside the Congress, I think, is something that perhaps we didn't realize when we think of the separation of powers and, you know, if one branch isn't exercising

its powers, right? You know, that seems to be a dangerous thing. And then, of course, the politicization of the Justice Department in a very disturbing way. But in the end, by the way, and, you know, again, it's not like I'm some cheerleader for Bill Barr, but, you know, we had not one but two attorneys general, Bill Barr and his appointed successor, you know, who both said, no way to Donald Trump, we're not pursuing your fraudulent claims. And we had a Supreme Court that was never going to go there anyway. Right. Listen, I'm always happy to feel better about things. I don't believe that we were. I believe that we had a president who would have considered it if he could get into it. Yeah. Do you worry now about the sort of these partisan recounts,

and the way they're sort of politicized. I mean, it feels like the kind of conservative legislative interests like Alec and groups like that have really zeroed in on legislation that focuses around voting. Absolutely. And I think it's very disturbing. First of all, imagine what a more competent version of the Trump administration or one that merely learned from the failures of this post-election attack on the system. right? So, you know, like, absolutely, you iterate, you get smarter and smarter about how to attack the system. I do think that, again, that's why I'm saying, like, it's not that my alarm, you know, is any less than people. Because, in fact, I do think it's a fair characterization to say you've seen a radical shift in one of the two parties in the Republican Party to have not 100%, but, you know, a large, if not dominant faction that has turned anti-democratic small deep.

and is attacking the very system and the legitimacy of it and is fueled by a series of voters and very cynical leaders like Donald Trump who are spewing, you know, kind of lies and attacks on the system that are actually now being believed that what are the numbers? Like over 50% of Republicans are saying that they somehow think Trump is both the true president and is going to be reinstated. It's madness. So again, you know, I don't want to, I'm just saying that. like, let's tell people that, you know, we came this close to a coup when that actually happens.

Right. But that is also worrying. Yes, absolutely. It's terrifying, honestly. Can we talk for a minute about Joe Manchin and what's happening right now in Congress with the voting rights bill? You know, the question is, can some version, some facsimile of the system as a previous generation understood it, be resurrected or reinvented for this moment in a way that can enable a version of regular order to proceed. Are there enough good faith actors? Obviously, a lot of people have already come to the conclusion on that. And they think that Manson's being played. The flip side is, were these people deluding themselves? Like, a 50-50 Senate is a 50-50 Senate. I'm not that good at math. And even I knew, like, you don't get from 50-50 Senate to LBJ in one small step. And I, I, I, I, I,

always wondered this spring, like, have people kind of lost it a little bit? Right. No, I agree. I mean, he has to, he has to operate in what he is given, right? I mean, there's no, you know, there's not 10 extra votes. But, I mean, it does seem to me like the voting rights, there are a few Republicans who seem like they could be on board with the voting rights. If the situation were reversed, Mitch McConnell has been able to maneuver with very slim majorities in previous iterations of the Senate. And I just think it's a bit, it's like Democrats really, you know, they sort of do fall apart. Yeah. That could be the story here again.

I wouldn't rule it out. Look, the thing that's so fascinating to me about Mansion, right, is that he's essentially a dinosaur. And I actually don't mean in policy terms or anything like that. In the recent past, the not so distant past, there were a whole category of elected officials, you know, national political figures like Joe Manchin, who came from states that were dominated actually by the other party. And in the Reagan era, I think it was something like 24 senators came from states that had been gone the other direction at the presidential level, right? So tickets first. And that meant there was a whole category of people.

like Joe Manchin. Right. Claire McCaskill. Right. He's a caucus of, you know, not that much more than one. The numbers are extraordinary in West Virginia. What, you know, is one of the highest states for Donald Trump in the country. Yeah. Some of the things that you hear criticism of him from, you know, the left is almost foolish. Although, of course, it's very politically beneficial to Joe Manchin back home, you know, to have the party's left wing attacking him. That's useful for him. well, and of course he knows that, and I suppose they know it too. We can't get to deals like we did in the past because we don't have that category of person anymore. Yeah. I mean, we've had Congresspeople on the show attack Joe Manchin.

And as well, I mean, he doesn't do what I believe in, but he could easily become a Republican tomorrow. It would only help him. Well, and not only that, but I wonder how much those folks who are attacking him pay attention to recent history. What happened the last time there was a 50-50 Senate? Well, ask George W. Bush how long it lasted. It didn't even make it to the midterms. Right. You know, that's what a party switcher can do. Now, Joe Manchin is comfortable in his skin. He's been in this party, his whole life. You know, he's certainly used to the criticism. And again, it's somewhat politically useful to him. So, you know, for whatever reason, at the moment, people don't seem to be that worked up about it. And remember that Joe Manchin voted not once but twice to impeach and convict Donald Trump. You know, he, on many of the litmus test type issues for today's Republicans, and certainly when it comes to slavish devotion to Trump himself, obviously there's, I just don't see Joe Manchin getting on board. Do you see an infrastructure bill passing? Isn't that, I mean, to me, that is one of the most interesting things. Obviously, as a, you know, veteran Putin watcher,

I'm fascinated by the Geneva Summit and what did or didn't happen there. But I think the other thing this week, that is most compelling and fascinating to watch is, can there be a bipartisan bill on infrastructure? Because frankly, if they can't do that, I don't know what kind of bill they could do in a bipartisan way. Right. I have one more question, which is, do you get the sense that the media is harder on female politicians? Yes, I do. Absolutely.

The media is harder on women in every position of leadership. And that includes politicians, period, full stop. Yeah. I was trying to think of, like, one. politician who's sort of a beloved female politician, and I really couldn't. So thank you so much, Susan, and I hope you'll come back soon. Hey, folks, if you haven't heard, every single week we do a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast membership program. Sometimes we interview senators like Corey Booker or the folks

who explain what's happening behind the scenes in media, like Jim Acosta or Soladadad O'Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner, and sometimes we just have friends around to analyze what's happening in the news. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a beast inside member where you'll support the beast's fearless journalism, as well as getting full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member, head to new abnormal.com. That's new abnormal.com. That's new abnormal. t the daily beast.com. Kurt Anderson is the former editor of spy magazine, author of evil geniuses, the unmasking of America, a recent history, host of Studio 3.com.com.

And today he's here to talk about his new podcast, which you can hear now, Nixon at War. Welcome back to the new abnormal Kurt Anderson. Hello, Molly. It's such a pleasure to be back with you and Jesse. So today we're here to talk about Nixon at war. Nixon at war. It's this podcast, this seven-episode podcast series that I've just created and that is just momentarily about to start in weekly episodes. And it's about, yeah, the Nixon presidency, but specifically Vietnam and how he egregiously, he and Henry Kissinger, his pal, his buddy, his wingman, extended the war for many thousands and tens of thousands of deaths beyond what it needed to be done. and how his politicization of it really, you know, opened the fissure politically and culturally that became the chasm in which we now exist. So, and it's, that's what it is.

And it's based on all kinds of archival tape that my producers and I have unearthed and put together in a kind of, I don't know, audio drama of real history of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Okay. I want to ask you a question, which is my generation and even like really, really, the people were a little bit younger than I am, really, really, really hate Henry Kissinger even more than my generation did. Is it deserved? You know, it is, I think, highly deserved. And it's funny, you know, because I've been around New York and the high life for a while, I've actually met Henry Kissinger once I've had dinner with Henry Kissinger. He's like the party guest. He's at every, you know.

Well, he is. And so, because, you know, you're a dinner with him. Oh, how bad was he? well, doing the research for the last year for this book, yeah, he and Ann Nixon were very smart guys who did very, very bad things in Southeast Asia. And hearing them talk as we do in this podcast, listening to, for instance, Henry Kissinger kiss ass to Richard Nixon unbelievably and repeatedly. And it's clear, you know, he's always trying to keep in Nixon's good graces. so he can keep being Henry Kissinger. And it's amazing to hear these tapes as we put them together to hear Kissinger saying,

yes, Mr. President, we're all so proud to work for you. You're saving the world. It sounds really Trumpy. Well, it is a little bit. And there's lots of ways. I mean, doing this in the late days of Trump, which we did, you know, in the end days of Trump, making this and listening to all these tapes, I realized that it's unfair to Nixon to say that Trump has some, bears some, is a descendant of his, but man, he is. I mean, in terms of

the paranoia, the, the weakness for flattery, the amorality, all of it. I mean, I've heard tapes of Nixon speaking, and it is eerie how Trumpy he sounds. Yeah, and there are some, there's some, again, because everything was taped, of course. And when I did, one thing I didn't know about the white, the Oval Office tapes, the Nixon installed. the system because Henry Kissinger was going out in the world with his fancy Georgetown friends and his Washington Post friends saying, oh, Nixon is a crazy man, he's terrible. It's me. I'm doing all the good stuff. I'm doing the opening to China. Nixon knew that. And so installed this taping system for the sake of history so that he could prove that, no, it was he, Richard Nixon, who brought peace

to the world, which is such a perfect, you know, noir karma twist. Talk to me about I mean, this is about the Pentagon Papers. There's a whole episode that's mainly about the Pentagon Papers, and of course we're coming on the 50th anniversary of that right now. It's how he got elected, actually, this shockingly little-known story of how he basically put pressure, using the intermediary to put pressure on South Vietnam to say, no, no, no, no, don't go along with these peace talks.

We don't want a big, happy peace breakthrough before the election. Just wait until after the election. And that has been kind of suppressed, and Nixon, denied it to his dying day, but in this show, among other things, we really show the receipts for, no, he did that. And in addition to being highly immoral, it was almost certainly illegal. So there's that. But then how he extended the war, and finally, you know, by 1970 or 71, yeah, okay, he was withdrawing American troops and all that. But he was, he and Kissinger talked very explicitly. We have, again, have the receipts, have the tapes of them saying, you know, it doesn't.

point, we're not going to win. South Vietnam is going to fall. The communists are going to win. We just have to make sure that doesn't happen before November 1972. They were just absolutely brazenly explicit about that as thousands more Americans were dying and, you know, hundreds and thousands and eventually millions of more people in Southeast Asia. So, yeah, they're bad guys. One of his biographers, this guy, John Farrell says, yeah, Watergate was bad, but, you know, this stuff he did to get elected and then extending the war in Southeast Asia, that is the morally reprehensible thing that Richard Nixon ever did. If you were going to make Kissinger Trump world, it sounds like he's like a little bit Stephen

Miller and a little bit John Bolton. But again, he's 10 times smarter than they, and not evil in the way that they, that certainly than Miller was evil. He's a super smart, you know, strategist. All that things, all those things he's given credit for are true. There's nobody, nobody in Trump's world like Henry Kissinger. Nobody that brilliant. Nobody who controlled Trump as much as well and, you know, as perfectly as Kissinger controlled Nixon. So really there's no person like that.

I mean, Dick Cheney in recent world probably comes closest to being what Kissinger was to Nixon. But again, this anti-Semite, Richard Nixon, and he's on all kinds of tapes, being anti-Semitic, has, as his. main guy, this Jewish fella. You know, it's, it's an extraordinary story. It's really, it's really Shakespearean. I think, though, that there is, it did set the trope of anti-Semites using Jews. I think that had happened probably before this, but yes, indeed. Right. I mean, he was good at that. No, he was. And so many of his, you know, William Sapphire, his speechwriter,

you know, there were plenty of Jewish guys were his closest conigliari. Henry Kissinger being chief among them. Right. I want to talk about the Pentagon Papers for a minute. Alaskan politics is one of my weird obsessions. Me too. So talk to me about the Pentagon Papers because that's sort of so fascinating and curious. And I mean, it's not curious.

We know how Nixon figures into it, but talk to us for everyone who isn't. So the Pentagon Papers really are about this, they're this secret history of the U.S. war in Vietnam for a 40-year secret history that the Pentagon put together in the late 60s before Richard Nixon was there. Richard Nixon, as president, as what he did in Vietnam, isn't in the Pentagon Papers at all.

He gets off Scott Free. It's Kennedy and Johnson, really, like, the lies they told and the misguidedness that led us to that horrible catastrophe and tragedy. So they come out, Vietnam's actually going pretty well for Richard Nixon in 1971.

They're winding it down, Vietnamization, getting out, you know, is doing pretty well in the polls, people, you know, approve of how he's doing with Vietnam. So this thing comes out. He, it just, it just unhinges him. It sets him off the rails. He, who is this paranoid character who has, for instance, this secret about meddling in the war that could bring him down that he knows about, but he's such a paranoid. He's suddenly like, oh my God, these liberals, these peace knicks, they're going to bring me down, just the same Pentagon Papers people are going to bring me down.

So you can just see it in the tapes. You can see it in the memos. You can see it in everything that happens in that summer of 71. He goes fucking nuts and starts, you know, putting together the enemy's list, ordering, you know, a break in of Daniel Ellsberg psychiatrist in L.A., all of it. That's when he goes off the rails because of this secret history of the Vietnam War. That didn't hurt him, but he was so paranoid about the bad. stuff that he'd done before being elected and while present, the secret war in Cambodia,

the secret wars in Laos, all the expansions that he'd done that he thought, oh my God, they're going to get me now. I've got to break in. I've got to stop them. I've got to break the law. So it is very sort of Shakespearean, right? Oh, totally. No, I, in fact, in one of these episodes, we have a little bit of Lady Macbeth talking, you know, it is absolutely Shakespearean. And I, you know, there's a little bit of, Iago is could be Henry Kissinger. Yeah. And Nixon is Richard the second and Lady Macbeth. You know, yeah, sure. Just talk to us about Mike Gravel. Alaska Senator Mike Ravel? Yeah, well, and also because he is the man who gets the Pentagon papers released and then he's now, you know. Yeah. There's a lot of Daniel Ellsberg

in this podcast, too. Who was an interesting character, right? He was this, he was the guy who copied and leaked the Pentagon papers. So he copies him and leaks them and he's figured he was going to prison for the rest of his life, which Richard Nixon, as we have him talking to Jay Edgar Hoover and Henry Kissinger and other people about in this show, wanted to do. He was obsessed with him. And, of course, hmm, Jewish is part of it, but Jewish intellectual who the press loved, like Alger Hiss. He, the other thing, I mean, kids, Alger Hiss was a guy back in the 1940s before any of us were born. But he was this, you know, former communist state department, deep state guy and Nixon made his career persecuting and prosecuting him. And then he saw, oh, this is happening

again. Daniel Ellsberg is just Alger Hiss. We've got to destroy him in the press. And these tapes, again, I got to say, I mean, they're just like, it's, it's like a spooky drama of him saying, mixing up Alger Hiss and Daniel Ellsberg and now and then. I need to add in a little historic aside here, Alger Hiss, friend of my grandfathers. Oh, you're a communist friend. Yes. Yes. I have to tell you, Henry Kissinger, in like 2000, he was like the Salman Rushdie of Dinroport. Like, he was everywhere. Yes. You couldn't shake a stick without hitting a war criminal. Yeah. The other thing I didn't know about all this is, is that, is how, you know, I thought of Watergate, okay, that's, that's what everybody knows about Nixon. I was, you know, whatever, I was a teenager,

and it was happening. Okay, he's gone. I didn't realize that what Nixon and Kistner did in Vietnam was, led directly to Watergate. As I said, this Pentagon Papers, 1971 freak out, like, we can do anything, we can commit any crime because it's all national security. Vietnam really, in so many ways, led directly to Watergate. And we try to tell that story here. And then, of course, thinking about this, deep into this, I realize that how he politicized Vietnam, right, is, oh, you know, silent majority, you're all with us. You don't like those liberals and those elites and those protesters. It was it was the first run of of course, you know, what we've seen, especially in the age of Trump, of that of that us versus them, cultural political divide. Richard Nixon, you know,

trying to get Americans with him on Vietnam really has invented that in 68, 6970, you know. So, Kerr, I saw that you discussed the story of Anna Chenalt a bit. Could you tell our listeners a bit about what they'll hear in this about that? Yeah, Anna Chanel should have her own podcast. She should be the star character of her own biopic. She was this, this glamorous, rich Washington, born in China, widow of an Air Force General. They had started an airline in America, cargo airline. He died quickly. She became this anti-communist, right-wing activist, the biggest, one of the biggest contributors to the Richard Nixon's campaign and other Republican campaigns. his chief female fundraiser.

Nixon, in the summer of 1968, makes her his intermediary with South Vietnam, whose ambassador to the United States she was close pals with. So he uses her in this fantastically noir movie way, calls her the Dragon Lady, to get South Vietnam to screw up this peace talk breakthrough that the Democratic president was about to announce, was announcing.

It's an amazing story with ins and outs and twists, and Nixon denied it the rest of his life. Even the Nixon Library today really waves it away, nothing to see here, and kind of suppresses it. But we really put it together, and I think make it in this very dramatic way convincingly show how that worked and that that was a real thing. And, you know, there's something, there's the X-File that Lyndon Johnson kept until he died and there's all this, you know, CIA and FBI surveillance of her as she. was dealing with the South Vietnam, South Vietnamese. It's a fantastic story that, you know, I've asked 10 of my friends, do you know about the Annerchald story? One of them did, kind of.

So it's a really, even among journalists and, you know, people who read the paper and no history, it's a very little known story, partly because Richard Nixon and the Nixonites have successfully covered it up, suppressed it. And then Watergate became a bigger thing, so it kind of got lost in the dust. But it's an extraordinary story. And it's worth the price of admission. And, of course, the price of admission to this podcast is free. That's right.

You've piqued my interest for sure. Good. This was fantastic. I really appreciate you. You know the interview is over when my dogs start having a total nervous breakdown. They tell you to quit. What's crazier than QAnon, more outlandish than Pizza Gate, and scarier than a Mexican getaway with Ted Cruz?

The answer is, what the American right wing has planned next? Be one of the first to listen to Fever Dreams, new podcasts from The Daily Beast, tracking the conspiracy slingers, orange acolytes, and straight-up grifters pushing to retake power. Every Wednesday hosts Swin Subisang and Will Summer, checking in on the movement of the radical right. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash podcasts or your favorite podcast player to catch the first episode and get subscribed. That's Fever Dreams, which you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Crackhead Barney and Drew Rosenthal are the duo behind the Instagram, TikTok, and internet phenomenon, crackhead Barney and friends, which has produced a few amazing viral moments in the past few months.

And we're happy to say they were our first guests for an in-person podcast we've had on the new abnormal. I saw, I think you did the best interview with Andrew Giuliani I've ever seen. Oh my God, stop. It's true. Stop complimenting me because I may believe it. You do something that is something that I always struggle with, which is how. do you interview people who you know are garbage?

Oh my God, maybe because I'm a garbage too. So I could see like it's a mirror image of like myself. So I, you know, I'm known to be a piece of shit. So I look at myself and we're like reflections of each other so it's easy to mirror

their trash. Andrew Giuliani was actually a really fun interview because I hate his dad. And I actually, and I hate his father. His policies were super racist and it seems like his son wants to continue in this racist bullshit and ideology. So, like, that was super easy.

Actually, two days, like, that Thursday... So we met Andrew Giuliani, like, Sunday. Yeah. Thursday night, I was manifesting seeing his son because I was like, I fucking hate Rudy Giuliani. Yeah. I remember Amud Diallo. I remember the stop and frisk.

I remember, like, his father was, like, elevating the officers that shot him. He was promoting them. They were getting, like, fire of FDNY. They were getting promotions, desk duty. And I was like, fuck, I want to see his son and, like, tear him to shreds because his father is a piece of shit. So I saw him on Sunday at the Zionist rally.

And I was like, wow, I got to get him. What I think is interesting about, by the way, you at the Zionist rally is amazing. And you are, you do really, like, bring out people who they are. I do? Because, like, when you had that interview with the guy who was, like, just being degrading to you. Which one? But you know, like, you're able to bring out people as they are, which is the point of interviews. Yeah, yeah, you know, you want that, yeah, let them speak.

Like, the worst, the better. Yeah. You know, they feel like they're, like, insulting me. But I'm like, no, you're giving me better footage. Like, hit me, beat me, fuck me, like, call me a slut, call me a nigger. Like, I don't care. Like, this is, like, really good footage. It is, like, you do capture, like, the connection you feel towards people you interview.

Yeah. Because, like, when I was watching it, because I was having trouble, because I, just want people like me. And that's a really bad quality. Yeah, don't know. Fuck all that. Fuck all that. I mean, so I thought it was interesting.

But it is interesting when he was like, we're going to clean up New York. Yeah, what does that mean? So we should back up, though. How did all this happen? How did you two get started doing this? Okay, so I'm a weirdo. I'm a performance artist. We're all weirdos.

Yeah, but you know, like, I used to do like subway performances, like rolling on the floor. A lot of my performances went viral. And I didn't speak. I didn't speak at all. So Drew took interest in me and I didn't trust them. I'm like, why is this white boy in my face? Why does he like want to work with me? What does he want?

Does he want to like own me or, you know, you know, all my shit. All these like negative experiences came back to me with white men. But then, you know, I was like, you know what? Let me try something different. So I was like, okay, Drew, what's your idea? He's like, let's do a documentary on you. So he did a, he was doing a documentary on me. So during the documentary, we started going to like these, we went to Staten Island during a Maga rally.

Yeah. Very bad situation. Yeah, very bad. I learned a lot from that. Just saying that puts chills on my body. I mean, Staten Island is really interesting because it's so close to here and it's like another world. I almost got killed. They almost stomped me to death.

What? Yeah, the cops had to take me and I got chained to like a psych ward. She got brought to a hospital like a psych ward. and they had to do like an evaluation on her and everything. But yeah, no, she probably performed for like, what, like five, ten minutes? Not even, what, seconds? It was like, probably like... Seconds!

Yeah, it was like seconds before she was, like, surrounded by MAGA people. I'm pretty sure a lot of them were off-duty officers. That's what's really scary. Our other, our co-star, he's white and he was scared. But I was like, nah, nothing's going to happen. Because I'm thinking about New York City. Right, all right. Like New New York City.

And then I was like, whoa. Yeah. I was like, we were scared when we got there because we saw like all these just like big angry men with MAGA hats. And it was like you heard like roaring audiences in the background. Like, you know, like it was like, what was it? And like it was like a mall complex. Yeah. And Trump, and they're playing Trump was.

Who was talking? Was Andrew Giuliani? I don't know. We got there near the end of it. Yeah. And we were like, we were like, let's scope it out. Let's just scope it out. Like, let's see if it's safe.

Like let's not jump in there. And we're walking towards there. And all of a sudden I see Barney put on the mask, the Trump mask. the Trump mask, right? And she just goes ahead. She has like a baby stroller. She has this whole fucking get up. And that's stuffing the Americans

drive down my path. Yeah, exactly. And that's when all hell broke. Like this guy came and he like grabbed the flag away from her. And then she was sitting on the ground with the stroller and a baby doll. Right?

Yeah. I had a black baby. Yeah. And people were screaming at her. And then the police came. They were like, you're not well. You're not well. That's my bad accent.

It's pretty good. Yeah, they brought her, they essentially, they picked her up. They actually kind of paraded you around. My tithy fell out. It was pretty messed up. People were, like, shouting at you, and, like, she had the Trump mask on, and her boob was out, and she was being paraded around by the police, and they brought her to a psych ward. So we had to go find her.

And, of course, you know, what do they find? What did they find? Did you have trouble finding her? A little bit. I'm not really sane. I just played it very well. I mean, that's kind of like 18th century stuff. Did they have trouble finding me?

They called the precinct. Yeah, actually, I mean, usually they, like, if you just are a random caller and you call the precinct, like they don't give you a straight answer about those types of things, but for whatever reason, I called the closest precinct, and they were like, oh, they brought her to so-and-so hospital. We've all heard the story already. But you really, it really goes to show how fucked up Staten Island is. I think that's the message here.

Yeah, we don't go to St. Like, we'll go to D.C. We'll go to, like, other, we'll go to other crazy stuff. I mean, it's scary out there. Like, the stuff we do is crazy, but, like, Staten Island, I'm not sure about that. Yeah. We haven't been back since, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Your video where you're rolling around the soldiers, everything, like, I literally, like, fell down crying, like laughing. It was so funny. I don't know. What would you say is, like, a safe situation versus a dangerous situation out there? Like, if they try to, you know what we don't want, like, when they try to break his camera? Oh. That's a new thing.

They started the new thing because usually they will go after me, but then they're like, no. Since he's like enabling me, we'll go after the... I'm enabling. You go up this camera. That's the new tactic that they do. We had a couple people recently try to attack me. Yeah. And they're like, how expensive is that camera?

Yeah, how much do you like the camera? Yeah, exactly. What are your dream interviews? Oh, we want to catch Yang again. Yeah. You know what I want to do? Like, so these politicians, like, I want to get them, like, jumping out of a bush while they're like, dance.

you were campaigning. You know what I mean? I'm like hobbling on my crutches. Like, you know, like, yeah, popping out of a trash can while they think, like, everything is safe and they're, like, doing their little campaign speech. Dream interview? You know what I want to interview Thomas Markle right now?

Oh. Because Thomas Markle, Megan Markle's father, is saying that nobody is giving him a platform. He's like, Oprah ignored him. Well, I can be here Oprah. I can be your fucking Oprah. Like, come on. Watch the hell out of that.

Yeah, yeah. I would love, fuck Buckingham Palace. everything. And we'll talk shit about Megan. We'll talk shit about Prince Harry. We'll talk shit about the royal family. Like, let's do this. And you know his sister, the daughter is an attention whore, the Megan Markle's sister?

Well, I would like to know, though. So what in your past do you think enabled you to do this confrontational stuff? A lot of people don't have this in them. Yeah. Rejection? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, rejection. I'm like an art world reject. Yeah. Art world reject. I don't know.

Everything reject. But the art world sucks. I mean, it's like Basquiat was a world reject. Oh, but he got Andy Warhol. Well, eventually he wasn't, but he wasn't. Yeah, so it didn't have a lot of time where he made a lot of the paintings that people love today,

with people totally shunning him, telling him he was terrible. Do you psych yourself up before you do these interviews? I have to mentally prepare myself a little bit, like, okay, you know, I get like my outfit ready. I get like thinking, like, what's the theme for the day? Yeah. Like, you know, like St. Paddy's? I was like, okay, green.

Palestinian Zionist rope I don't know Like yeah So like maybe the outfit Has something It channels like Sort of like the energy

Or the manifestation of what I want But yeah like the outfit like Sort of like gets me going But yeah I have to mentally Tell myself Also Drew has to calm me down Because if I get too angry

I can't perform I can't Because like Like something I get like Ah fuck you Fuck you Fuck you And like you know

I get like crazy And I can't like Do anything It's like What do you call We build We're building So, you know, I like to sort of like have, I reach my zenith in like two seconds.

But you have to like, you have to like build. Yes. What do you think about this mayoral race? Who have you interviewed in the mayor's race? Yang and Giuliani. And Julianni's running for governor. And then we are, it was Curtis Sweila. Oh, yeah.

Curtis, yeah. America's oldest, uh, cosplayer. Yeah, man. He's been around since the 80s. I remember when I was like a little girl. Yeah, he just dreams of stabbing someone. It's basically, yeah. It's a whole career built on his hope.

He thinks he's like a Batman archetype, right? He's like a vigilante. He's not a billionaire, but he's a vigilante, and he acts on the behalf of law and order. Not a billionaire. Did you see the article the other week about how he lives? He lives in a 420 square foot apartment with 17 cats. Oh, God. Oh, he's always posting pictures of his cats.

Yeah, he loves cats. You know, I try to find out where he is, but he just posts pictures of his cats. So it's a little... You should interview the other ones. Yeah, Yang is the easy. I know from some friends in the media that like Yang is like at least used to just give out his schedule to everybody But Eric Adams like apparently not like he like is very careful about who he gives the schedule to So he's a lot harder to figure out we had one opportunity to see him, but I think I was injured that day

Yeah, we were running from the Zionist in past destiny Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, oh gosh that was one of the ones in Times Square and what happened there? We couldn't even Footage was a mess that day. It was like a just a mob we went to three rallies Zionist rallies in Times Square. And I think the second one, a lot of counter-protesters showed up. And they, like, broke through the barriers. Like, you probably saw about it on the news.

Yeah, but they broke through the barriers. Like, I was just standing there and shot. I was, like, filming some of it, but I was like, we should get out of here. Like, it was a situation where I was like, I don't know what could happen here. And at one point, the police were kind of just, like, rushing all the Palestinian, like, counter-protesters.

And, like, we ran. Like, we were running through, like, through Times Square. And we like, I think we, we didn't shoot anything that day. We were just like, yeah, we stayed safe for a little bit because we, you know, we can't help from. That adrenaline rush. Yeah, this is the only way we know how to have fun. Yeah. I've seen interviews with you where you, it feels like you know some of these police.

Yeah, because of the, we're in our protesters. We're in our Black Lives Matter protests, black trans protesters. And they like, they do extensive research. They'll scan their badge number. Look up all their allegations. and they know them by like name, by face, the priest. They'll do like extensive research. The Black Lives Matter people will?

Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, they'll do extensive research. They'll, like, have this app. They'll scan them. They started calling me by first name. Yeah, they all know her. Like, all the MIPD watches it. They're probably the biggest fans of our show right now.

Like, crackhead Barney. I kind of love that. That's cool. It's a little scary. But they're fans. There was one lady at the, there was one police house said jumping. She's like, oh, my God, you're the green lady.

And then her cops told us, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that, don't do that. Maybe it's a love-hate thing. What do you think about the police? Because it seems like, from what I've seen, they have not gotten any better. It's just that de Blasio was scared of them

so he didn't do anything. It's just like a mess. Like, look at the fucking curfew at Washington Square Park. Yeah. Which was just crazy. Were you there? Now we shot in D.C. You're going to see the episode.

Okay. We did like a Christian. We were coming back from D. Where'd you guys down? Oh, gosh. We got a cursed out. You know, Beth, Bevelin Bedey?

No, I don't know. She tarred up the Black Lives Matter in the summer. Oh, thy duty. You know her? Bevelin Bele and Behdi? Yeah, with the... She rolled over the Black Mali Plaza

painting. With black paint. So we went to her rally of that June 5th. Spoiler alert. She's... She's a right-wing Christian woman, but she's black.

So all the white-ring Christian people love her. She's a... Candice Owens. She's like a smaller Candace. A little bit more ferocious. Scandis Jones is more like, she's more like a little bit more,

she's polished. Yeah. Brethren Beauty is not really polished. So she gave me, she gave me how many exorcisms? Yeah, I don't know. She got tons of exorcisms. She got tons of exorcism by Bevelin,

her followers, then she cursed me out, she called him my slave master. She went in. It was great footage. She went in. She was like, you're not even getting paid for this.

You're a monkey. That hurt, though. That hurt my physical. I'm not getting monetized. I'm not. Is you will be, though. Is an exorcism like a massage? I mean, what is that?

It's more like a verbal beating. It's like a mixture of prayers and speaking in tongues. They put their hands up. Verbal abuse. No spinning heads and vomiting. No massage. No, no.

Massaging. Um, I wanted them to. Remember, I was like, touch me, touch me. I was like, give you consent. I think they were. I'm not like, don't touch her.

Don't touch her. I think there are, some of them are putting their hands on your head and speaking in tongues. I was like, do it, do it. Yeah. And I was like backing up on like the, um, I got to review that footage. It was wild.

She had the Trump mask on. She was pulling red yarn out of the mouth of the Trump. What are you doing? And for context, this was a rally. Get this for formerly LGBTQ people. So pretty dark. But that's where we were. So we started interviewing them about their experience with that,

which led quickly to an exorcism, which was ideal. Yeah, that's what we wanted. So let me ask you know, so when Sasha Barrett Cohen or Eric, Condre do these things. They have a security team. Oh, God. Is it just you two? Yeah. I've kind of accepted that we might get beaten up one day. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

You know? Well, I was gonna push during the Zionism and someone like, was, yeah, people were pushing me too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just us. I try to cut our losses if it gets too dangerous. The guy from, um, that owns Max Public House, you know that, the autonomous zone? Petrie, what's the name Petrie? Oh, no, it's no problem.

Danny Presti. Okay, so there's an autonomous zone. There was an autonomous zone. So when the lockdown happened. This was the gym. It was a bar called Max Public House. Oh, not that guy. That's the guy in Jersey. No, no, not him.

So wait, there's an autonomous zone in Staten Island. There was. I think the police broke it up. Max Public House. Yeah, but it was like headline news and everything. And it was like a symbol of like an anti-lockdown kind of like protest. So everybody was in there with nomad, all these conservatives in this bar in Staten Island called Max Public House. And the owner of it was just like,

becoming this big, like, kind of leader for, like, the anti-lockdown movement and everything. And we almost, like, went to film there, but we realized, like, no, we'll get her ass beat. Like, no one will give a shit. Yeah. Last time that happened, you got stuck in a psych ward. Maybe we don't go there yet. And they're probably, like, undercover. They're, like, off-duty police officers. Oh, no, a lot of them are.

Yeah. We saw Danny Presti at an anti-masker, anti-vax rally recently, and, like, he was the one person. He was the first person to come at me and try to attack me and, like, break my camera. so like so like yeah like stuff out there is getting real have you done the proud boys oh yeah

the boogaloo we don't know it was the proud boys were there too we went to a gun rally it was called it was called it was a gun rally in Richmond Virginia

and there were all sorts of right wing extremist groups there yeah so the booglu boys were there we had an interview with the booglu boys and then we did the proud boys there too

Barney's famous with the proud boys yeah this is like we were just getting started like no one really knew about her show and I went out there with Barney to DC for the first time and like people knew her like we saw like like

proud boys like marching the street saying like fuck Antifa fuck Antifa and then they see Barney oh hey Barney how's it's good that's really good do you think there's a performative element

to this like do you feel like they're performing too a little bit? Yeah you know what so I think they are performing because I think that they have like a love-hate relationship with us been doing recently is the one Angel Stanton, she's another black right wing. Oh, you know, exactly. I wrote about her, yeah.

So what she does is she reposted our episode. She's not related to Martin Luther King at all. Oh, that? Fuck no. That is like she took the name of the friend who was related to Martin. Oh, not surprising. Okay. Yes, so she'll reposted the episode. All of her

followers are comment and say they hate it, they hate it, they hate it, but then why are you looking at it and why are you reposting it? They reposted like, they posted a clip and post a full episode and then they come to our comments and crest us out. Like, I think that's the Performative Act, that they have to do what the, you know, what the crowd

is doing. Yeah, I hate it, I hate it. I think they actually like it. Tell everyone where they can find you guys. Oh, Instagram at Crackhead Barney and Friends. Twitter, CHBAF, or Crackhead Barney and Friends. We have a www.cad Barney and Friends.com.

I'm Crackhead Barney is back on Instagram. Don't forget about the TikTok. Our TikTok's a little funky. It's instead of and it's ND. So our TikTok is crackhead Barney, crack, crackhead N.D. Barney and friends. Hi, Jesse Cannon.

Hi, Molly Jungfast. So, steep competition today. He has a lot of fuckers doing a lot of really fucked up shit out there. Who's the one today? He's been in this category before, representative

dentist. This is representative Paul Gosar. We're talking about it. Paul Gosar. yes, and there are like five dentists in Congress. I don't know if you know this. There are five dentists in Congress. There are many dentists in Congress, though none of that. I mean, I don't know. But his family has continually disavowed him except for his mother. He represents a very rural part of Arizona, and he sucks. But what's interesting today was, you know, Republicans have been working really hard to downplay the Capitol riots. You know, we've heard they, It was tourism. We've heard all sorts of different kind of insane excuses. The new one is one-six was an inside job by the deep state. Yeah, that's Tucker Carlson's. The FBI was involved, which is preposterous.

It was MTV's Instagram yesterday, too. Yeah, exactly. It's basically the same thing. But what was interesting, I thought, was that this is like taking it one step further. And Representative Gosar is now. saying that in fact, you know, he doesn't even admit that Ashley Babett was, you know, breaking a window to get into the Capitol and she was leading a group of insurrectionists. Instead, he has put it, he's sort of turning it around and he's saying actually she was murdered.

She was shot while committing a crime. And the idea that this is somehow... That the officer was lying in weight was his guilt. Right. And that is why I say to you, representative dentist, go fuck yourself. Jesse, who's your? Fuck that guy for today. I'm sorry.

I don't want to go by Jesse anymore. I'd prefer if you call me by my preferred nickname, which is pipe hitter. Tell me you don't have any gay friends. Telling me I don't have any gay friends. The listener does not know. Secretary of Pipe. Mike Pipeo. He's a pipe hitter.

He tried to make Fetch happen with this new pipe hitter thing where he was going to say that this is a new type of patriot he was going to try to do that thing that all the Republicans are trying to do now, which is they're saying, let me get a little bit of that Trump

juge of influence and try to rattle up the hogs and really like get them going. And unfortunately, whoever was helping with this must really hate him. and whoever said that pipe hitter was going to be this, they're like, great idea, Mike, take that one out to the people.

Yeah, you know, I don't, it's interesting, but Mike Pompeo has, you know, he wants to start a group called the pipe hitters, but as we all know, what? I mean, I've never even heard of that. It's like some kind of weird 1950s crack reference. You know, Balia, I just realized, though, maybe we're pipe hitters in a different way. Should that be Crackhead Barty's fan club, Dave?

And then we are pipe hitters. But yes, I think that's right. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics, and science. We'll help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app, share the show on social media.

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