The Daily Beast Podcast - The REALLY Shocking Moment From the Jan. 6 Hearing

Episode Date: July 22, 2022

The news from Thursday night’s Jan. 6 committee hearing that really struck Molly Jong-Fast was that instead of trying to stop the violence, Trump wanted to call senators and pressure them to throw out the election results or delay the certification. And of course he talked to Rudy Giuliani.“Rudy's always the first call you make because you gotta get the bad ideas from someone,” says co-host Andy Levy. “I would not let Rudy Giuliani pick a pair of shoelaces for me. And this, the president of the United States, is turning to him for advice on elections.” Also on the show NBC's senior reporter Jon Allen & Mark Lobovitch on his new book Thank You For Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Zhang Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic Invo. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objective. 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 the wisest and funniest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it. What a great show we have today. First, we're going to talk to Atlantic writer Mark Leibovich about his new book, Thank You for Your Servitude, Donald Trump's Washington and the price of submission. And he's going to tell us all about the enablers in the Trump administration.

Then we're going to talk to NBC News Senior Politics Reporter John Allen, who you of course know is also the best-selling author of Lucky, how Joe Biden barely won the president. and he's going to talk to us about all this hoopla about stock trading in Congress. But first, let's have some fun. Andy Levy. Molly Jongfest. We stayed up late tonight for you, dear listeners. We watched the whole thing from 8 o'clock to 1046. One of the great moments, not a surprising moment per se, but a great moment was that it was

revealed that Donald Trump watched about two and a half hours of Fox News. By the way, let's talk about this second. So no official phone record. Right. No trace of anything. Right. But today we hear that while he was watching Fox News, he wasn't just watching Fox News, which is what I kind of thought he was doing. Or he was actually calling senators on the phone to try to get that.

to throw out the election results or to delay the certification. Yeah, and also calling or talking to Rudy Giuliani. But Rudy is always the first call you make. Because you've got to get the bad ideas from summary. So he's not coming up with that stuff by himself, okay? I would not let Rudy Giuliani pick a pair of shoelaces for me. And this, the president of the United States, is turning to him for advice on elections.

It's just... I mean, I think that both, you know, the president's lawyer calling Tommy Tuberville, leaving messages. I mean, also, I would like to say the senators he picked to call are just the ones you would think. Yep. Marsha Blackburn. Yep. Tommy Tuberville. His little pet, Lindsay Graham.

the Freedom Caucus of the Senate, as one might say. What would you guys expect him to do? Take a shower like Jared did? Well, Jared had just come back from bringing peace to the Middle East. Right. It's easy to forget that. It's easy to forget because of all the war in the Middle East. But Jared actually did bring peace of the Middle East.

I love Jared. By the way, the Jared deposition videos, I don't know what they did to his face. But like, he looks like a sort of, a ferret. Like they did something to his, I mean, maybe he's exhausted. I don't know what happened.

And then I always love the appearances from Ivanka's chief of staff. Because what presidential daughter who has no job doesn't have a chief of staff? Tiffany. Right. Exactly. That's right.

So cruel. I do assume that we taxpayers were paying for that chief of staff, right? Well, yeah. I mean, Ivanka was a presidential advisor. She was on the payroll, right? Right. Aren't we all?

But yes, I mean, I do think just a delightful group of sycophants and grifters. I was impressed with how little Pat Chiparone, Chipaloni. Cipollone. Cipollone. He was just disparaging by New Jersey roots. Sorry, I will not. Pat Cipollone really worked hard. not to say anything that would incriminate him.

He kept sort of looking at his lawyer. Yeah. Right. Like, I can't, you know, God forbid. I mean, I understand he is a lawyer and privilege means things to him. Sure. Sure. But you're a lawyer for the fucking mafia kingpin.

And you know, I mean, by year four in that administration, he had done like a million racist, horrible. You know, this is years after they're, you know, locking up, you know, separating the children, and gassing the people at the border. I mean, just a continual, I mean, by the time you've gotten to year three, it's really only the worst people who have continued to stay. Anyone with any sort of grain of conscience has run for the hills years ago. Well, and that's the thing. Like, I thought Sarah Matthews was very good.

Which one? That's the other one? As one of the witnesses tonight. Yeah, the gray-looking Fox News host. Yes, she did. What? The what? They all have this look of like a sort of.

Yes, I don't. They look like. They look like. Yeah, they sort of look like bored and distressed. No, no. I actually, I think that I think the same thing when I see them. Yeah. No, I agree.

I just, it was the gray part that threw me. But anyway, I thought she, you know, she did a good job and she said the right things and whatever. But at one point, she said, you know, I had been with him since the campaign. And I'm like, really? So the whole fucking time, you didn't do anything. that rang, you know, set off an alarm bell, a tiny hint of an alarm bell, like maybe in the distance where you're sitting there going, what is that noise? Like, it's driving me crazy. I can't see anything, but I hear it. Like, at least that. And then it's like all of a sudden they're

like huge patriots. And so, again, like, it's, it's the same things we say about, you know, on a lesser level. It's the same things we say about Mike Pence and, you know, and, and, and, and, and, and, and Liz Cheney to some extent where it's, it's like, it's great that, you know, Mike Pence found a little bit of honor on January 6th. And, look, I've said this before. I'm glad he did. He did the right thing, which, but it's also, as I've said before, it's very easy to do the wrong thing when everyone else around you was doing the wrong thing. And he didn't, on that one day. And so few people did do the right thing.

That's what I'm saying. So few. Yeah. Very, very few. Right. Yes. So same thing for Sarah Matthews. Good for her for resigning the night of January 6th saying this is enough. But you have to wonder, like, where was this for the four years, five years, if she worked on his campaign previously? Like I, I...

Yeah, these people are not good people, but at least they're not doing, yeah. I mean, they could be worse, you know. Right, exactly. And again, you know, we're not putting Liz Cheney on Mount Rushmore. You don't need to send us letters about that in the mail. You can send us letters. It's definitely Andy's fault. I blame Andy. Why are you elevating Liz Cheney? I am not elevating.

I would elevate Adam Kinziger before I would elevate Liz Cheney. But that's because I've gotten drunk with him. I've gotten drunk with him. I have gotten drunk with him. Okay. Did you sleep with them? I mean, what does this mean? I think I have to bring.

this up. How do you guys feel about the other secret service that they were going to die? Well, yeah. I mean, that was the VP detail thought this was going to get very ugly. And then another moment was the members of the VP detail at this time were starting to feel for their own lives. I mean, that was pretty intense. And they started calling their relatives to say goodbye. Never a great sign, especially when, you know, you're a law enforcement guy. So you have some, You know, you have some sense of when things are really going badly. That was some pretty interesting. Yeah, I thought for me, in, you know, in all seriousness, the radio transmissions were the most compelling, you know, serious stuff in this episode or whatever you want to call it, of the hearings.

That was just, I'm on the edge of my seat, like, afraid for these guys. And, you know, it might be nice to be able to see some of the text. too, but I guess that's asking. Oh, but sadly they disappeared. Because they were, it's all secret. But no, that radio stuff was, was compelling and extremely

disturbing. I mean, you know, and the next time I hear someone on Fox News or some member of Congress call those people tourists, it's just like I don't want to say what should happen to the people who refer to what happened to what happened. I don't know.

as a bunch of tourists. It's just, you listen to that radio traffic and you're like, this, this shit came very close to being so, so, so much worse. Yeah. And, you know, it was like a skin of our teeth that it didn't. You know, it's just, I'm just tired of hearing that the tourists. I'm tired of hearing that, oh, these people were too stupid to pull off a coup. We saw how, as stupid as they were, they got damn close.

And again, the people, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the vice presidential detail, the Capitol Police. They're lucky it wasn't worse than it was because it really, really could have been. And the country is lucky. It wasn't worse than it was, even as bad as it was. Yeah. I mean, I think that's right. I also think that it's still going on.

I mean, that's the thing. It's not like Republicans were like, that was close. Now we need to embrace democracy. Republicans have been like Trump was right. This whole system needs to go. So, I mean, the thing why this is so important is not. just because whatever, it's because it's still going on. And democracy is not, you know, it's not like there are a million Mitt Romney's running. It's like there are a million little Donald

Trumps that have been birthed by this. And this could be our sort of last ditch effort to remind the electorate what the country was founded on. I mean, you know, we really do need voters to get how important this is. So I do think, like, luckily, for us, Liz Cheney, the liberal, the queen of liberal values. I'm kidding. Of course, terrible. Bolshevik. Right, Bolshevich.

She is willing to take him down. And I think that ultimately that's what's needed. I mean, the thing that I thought was interesting was those Kevin McCarthy clips because like the man wants so desperately to be speaker. And every time those clips air, he becomes a little less likely to be speaker. And you know what? You can almost see like the wheels turning in Liz Cheney's head. Like I do wonder how much of this is like Cheney doesn't want Trump to run again. Cheney doesn't want McCarthy to be speaker.

Like you do see like there's clearly they're sort of sticking it to people. And you know, with good reason. I mean, and then that Mitch McConnell video, I mean, you know, Mitch McConnell versus Mitch McConnell where he's saying, you know, Trump bears responsibility for that. I mean, it's pretty amazing. And, you know, and then Sean Hannity threatening the 25th Amendment. I mean, you know, like, you never want the conscience of the administration to be a Fox News host. No, you don't. But, yeah, I thought to sort of get at a bunch of your points, I thought Kinzinger did a good job in his clothes talking about how this threat is not gone.

And that how all these people who were activated by Trump are still. out there. And I do think that's incredibly important. I also, I completely agree with you that I thought, in addition to Cheney, I think Kinsinger also, they are definitely sticking it to McCarthy. And they seem to, they seem to take, you know, sort of a vicious type of pleasure in going after him, particularly tonight. So I thought that was really good. And they're also, you know, we saw they played a bunch of outtakes from Trump's little speeches. And some of the outtakes were important because they showed what Trump refused to say, like basically refusing to say that the election is over, you know, and stuff like that. Some of it was not important at all, except that it made him look like an ass. And they clearly did it for that reason. Like he wouldn't say the word yesterday. He kept, yesterday is very hard for me to say or yesterday is a hard word for me or something. Why, can you explain that to me because he's an idiot or is there another reason? I don't know.

I just took that because he doesn't understand how to speak, but it could have had something out. It may be, but it's also, there are, you know, there are words, when you read off prompter, you learn that there are word combinations that are tougher to say. And it may be that that word in conjunction with the word that came earlier was throwing him off. I don't know. Either way, we didn't need to see that, like for national security purposes. I'm glad we did because it was funny. trying to stick it to him.

But yeah, that's my point is that they were clearly, like, they put that shit in just to show Trump being a buffoon. And, and again, I'm all for it. And, you know, it may be that stuff like that has a bigger effect on Trump's popularity than the actual crime. You know, if people see him being a buffoon, this guy that they think is this big, strong, tough leader, that may affect, you know, his popularity more than, you know, actually Trump. trying to subvert the Constitution and overthrow a free and fair election. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really good point. You know, you don't want to, you know, there really is a certain amount of them just trying to sort of stick it to him. I mean, that is the case for Republicans doing hearings, right?

Because, like, you'd never have a Democrat be like, we're going to stick it to it. You know, we're going to make sure that none of these guys ever end up in leadership again. You know, you'd have Democrats being like, well, that seems morally wrong. You know, we shouldn't be doing that. That's not okay. That's not our job. Right. And the truth is, like, this is much more effective.

It really is. It really is. And I wish, you know, I think there are younger Democrats who know, like, I think AOC knows that. Right. And people like that know that. But they are also, you know, they're not the ones in power the way the Pelosi's and the Schumers are. And those people, they still think they're in. the 80s or 90s, and they haven't figured out yet that the rules have completely changed.

You could actually say Katie Porter, maybe like the one that has learned that lesson that's not in the squad. But I do have a more pertinent question to close us out. I give you to $1,000. Do you bet against yourself or Josh Holly in a marathon? He's not that fast. You know, he's just tiny. He's just a little guy.

It's very thin. He's just sliding by on the screen. I don't know. I love. I love. I love from... Molly, I ask the question again. Do you bet on yourself or him?

In a marathon? I bet on him, for sure. Yeah. For him. I'm running no damn marathon. But I think that the great... The point here is that Holly went from fist bump

to flight very quickly. And Liz Cheney had it for us to see. And I think, like, by the way, that Josh Holly video, in no way, was relevant to anything in the hearing. Except Liz Cheney's amusement. I mean, right?

It has nothing to do with anything, you know, but it just delighted the audience. And by the way, you saw that reaction of the people in the hearing laughing hysterically. Yeah, if you, if listeners, if you haven't seen that yet, I mean, it's on Twitter, you know, and I'm sure it'll be all over the place tomorrow, but seek it out because it's amazing.

and just watching the hearing room erupt in laughter is just a beautiful thing. But they did such like they showed it. Then they slow-mode it and they spotted him. They put a spotlight on him. I mean, my God, it was just brutal. It was absolutely brutal. I know none of these people have any shame whatsoever, but I don't know how Josh Hawley leaves his house for like the next six. months at a minimum.

And Josh Holly is up in 2024. I mean, I'm just saying, you know, someone will run against him. I mean, he's in a pretty red state. He did, you know, he took Claire McCaskill's seat and certainly, you know, it's a pretty red state,

but it's certainly worth following up because he really did embarrass himself mightily tonight. You remember when he was going to be president? Yeah. Bye-bye, honey. It literally was not that long ago that everyone was talking about him as one of the serious contenders in 2024. I still think more likely that Ted Cruz becomes president than Josh Hawley.

And I think it's pretty unlikely that a Canadian becomes president. Yeah. I mean, that video was just, it was so beautiful. I mean, I gifted. I had to make a gift of it just so I know. You sent it to us. I did. I sent it to you guys. It's the most, I feel like it's the most emotionally vulnerable I've ever seen you. Like raw. Spiritual almost.

Yeah. Oh, it was spirit. It was and is and always will be spiritual for me to watch that. Yeah. It's incredibly moving. Mark Leibovic is a writer for the Atlantic and the author of Thank You for Your Servitude, Donald Trump's Washington and the price of submission. Welcome to the new of normal, Mark.

Thanks, Molly. Good to be here. I love your book. A lot of times, and I feel like I read a lot of political books or I try to get through a lot of political books, by the time you get a book, usually you know much of what's in it because it's been reported. But like the writing is so much fun. Thank you so much. I mean, do they get mad at you? You know, I've been getting that question for a long, long time across many different beats and stuff like that. No.

I mean, not really. I mean, maybe they're all going to sort of, you know, convene at one point and they'll come after me all at once. But, no, when you have a book come out, you just hold your breath. And I don't, you don't know. It's, yeah, I mean, so the last couple weeks before the pub date, and it was sort of embargoed. So no one really saw it before. I was sort of alone with this thing for a long time. And very few people have read it. And, you know, you just expect the chandelier to drop on your head, right? I mean, bad reviews, terrible mistakes, you know, hell to pay left and right. Legal letters. Yeah, but it's very nerve-wracking and so far, so good. Tell our audience what the book is about. Otherwise, you could think we were talking about anything theoretically. So the book, thank you for your servitude. They tell us, we always have to mention the title, although I think that's dumb because, you know, you'll find it if you want it.

Basically, it's a book about the Trump years in Washington, but it is not a Trump. Trump book necessarily. I do not focus, you know, very much on Trump himself. I'm not trying to be like, you know, Mr. Great White House Intrigue guy. I'm not trying to be Bob Woodward. I'm not trying to really psychoanalyze him in any way that hasn't been done before. I don't think that would be that interesting. I wanted to focus on the enablers. I wanted to focus on the putative leaders of the Republican Party who allowed him to happen and who could have stopped him. And, you know, the people like Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan and Lindsey Graham and, yeah, the people who are supposedly, you know, leaders of the Republican Party just sort of were dormats for six, seven years. And because of them, he is still viable. He could come back. He'll probably, if he wants to be, be the Republican nominee. Again, in a couple of years, that's all on them. And I think it's an undercovered aspect of this story. And it's also, I think they're open to a great deal of scorn and ridicule that they have not been subjected to. So I try to. to fill in that gap for the historical record.

I think that's a good, good gap. Let's talk first about Mike Kevin because a wise man once said everything Trump touches dies. Mm, yes. My Kevin is, you know, we're like in, we're on the way to a midterm election that could mean Republicans winning back the house theoretically, at least mathematically. I'm curious what you're, I mean, he does seem in my mind. like sort of one of the worst enablers of Trump world? Yeah, I mean, he totally is. I mean, first of all, he knows better. I mean, they all know better. I mean, that was kind of the working title of the book. But Kevin McCarthy, why I think is really a chief enabler among enablers is, for one, he works so hard at it. You know, he is the Republican leader in the house, right? A leader is supposed to know what is right, stand up for what it's right. And he has just repeatedly turned the other cheek. He has coward. He has. has flattered. He has just like, he's just been the ultimate lap dog. And what makes him even more of the ultimate lap dog is that he is not only the leader of the House Republican caucus,

but he will probably be speaker of the House, which makes him all the more powerful. And, yeah, my feeling is you're only as powerful as you sort of decide to exercise it. And when you sort of subjugate yourself completely to the whims of this, you know, this guy, you know, this maniac who could be president again, it's really not worth much. But no, but Kevin McCarthy is, is like, he's the alpha lapdog. Who's the beta lap dog? You know, that's a great question. Lindsay, Lindsey Graham, definitely the beta laptop, which is, you know, beta is, you know, it's subservient, but let's not diminish that it is a very large and powerful role. Will you explain to us what happened when you sort of asked Lindsay about this? Yeah, I mean, you know, I asked them all of this.

It's amazing that you can get away with this. No, I believe me. I share your amazement. I say this with like enormous respect and really, you know, just delight. You know, I say it with incredible surprise over and over again. No, it's been, it's been true for years. I don't know why. But no, Lindsay Graham, I asked him, I said, you know, Senator, why do you do this? You know better. I mean, you were just a few years ago. You were saying he was incompetent, he was unfit to be president on and on. He trashed your best friend, John McCain, all the way to the grave and beyond. And Graham just said, look, anyone who knows me knows that it's important to be relevant. Relevant. What does that mean? He said, well, relevant. You know, know, I want to be like in the room. I want to be in the mix. I want to, I want to be at the dice table, he said, meaning, first of all, to be relevant, you need to be reelected. He said, if you don't want to be reelected, you're in the wrong business. And so Lindsey Graham represents South Carolina, which is a very red state. And he needs Donald Trump's blessing to be

reelected, which he was in 2020. He also needs to be a U.S. senator, much more so than other U.S. senators need to be U.S. senators. He doesn't have much else in his life. And so, you know, He just needed to stay there. So he did what it took. But he just gets a real adrenaline rush. And frankly, just his real starstruck, like a lot of politicians are to be invited to play golf with the president, to be invited to his clubs, to be in the Oval Office. I mean, to him, you know, sometimes the analysis doesn't really go much deeper than just it's cool, you know. So that's what Lindsay says.

And there he is in the golfing frame. Unbelievable. I mean, and totally fascinating. Is it just that the people who were. in power in the Republican Party were so profoundly incapable of man. You know, like it's a weak party, right? I mean, that's how Trump sort of rose to power, right? Yep.

He said as much, too. I mean, I spent a fair amount of time with him in the 2016 campaign, and he looked at me at some point. He said, you know, I'm going to win. I'm going to win because these people are weak. I'm like, oh, okay. And if Trump has one developed skill, it is to identify weakness in people. to exploit it. And he finds people that he can basically get to do his bidding. And as long as they're

nice to him, he'll be nice to them. It's sometimes very basic. You know, it's just like childlike. Be nice to me and hell, be nice to you. And sort of, and so yeah, but that's weakness. And when the stakes are this high, it's very, very dangerous. And, you know, it's like, I think power reveals the most about the people who enable it. And I think this is kind of a classic case. in that. Let's talk about Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan weeping. Explain to us what the hell is happening there. So a few months ago, you know, pretty late in the process, probably I think maybe February March of 2020, I went to have visited Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House, or former Speaker of the House, who had two pretty miserable years as the Speaker of the House when Trump was president

during his first term, his only term, you know, he kind of did everything he could to sort of tiptoe around Trump to keep his Republican caucus happy to get his tax cut through to just sort of get by. So brave. Yeah. And I spent a fair amount of time of them in 18, 2018, and then he left and sort of went away and joined some corporate boards and did a bunch of stuff and made money. The Fox board. Yeah, he's on the Fox board. So anyway, I'm talking to him. And he doesn't love Trump. And he's horrified by what happened. And he told me about January 6 and just watching on TV. And he said, Yeah, and there I was. I just burst into tears. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I saw my old friends, my old security detail, you know, just in the middle of this incredibly violent chaos. And I just was overcome and I was sobbing in front of the TV and I wrote a note to my security detail. And I was really, yeah, I was really just overcome. And so finally I broke in. I said, you know, Mr. Speaker, that's how, you know, one of the reasons you, I ingrati, I, I appreciate myself because I'm still very good about formal titles, right?

Honorariums even after they're done. I said, you know, were any of these tears of complicity? How does he not, how do they not hear you? You know, he basically said, no, I mean, I don't want to talk about this. He basically wouldn't go there. But I think that these are all questions they asked themselves later. As well, they should. Yeah, I said, you're on the Board of Fox News.

I mean, what about that? And he wouldn't go there either. But I don't know. I guess they can live with themselves somehow. Part of why Trump was so good at this was because he wasn't a politician. Yeah, exactly. I mean, he didn't, well. He didn't care.

He's a nihilist. I mean, he does not care about norms. He does not care about rules. And, you know, one of the sort of more insidious things that the Republicans do to enable him is they say, oh, he's new at this. I mean, Paul Ryan explicitly, you know, himself said, oh, he's new at this. How could he know that you're not supposed to, you know, talk to Russians during campaigns, right? And, you know, Lindsay Graham would say that kind of stuff all the time. Like, he couldn't collude with his own city council.

How could he collude with Russia? So, you know, there was that. But no, he doesn't have a lot. He has a few superpowers. I mean, he doesn't have shame. He's a bully. I mean, and, you know, a bully will take what, I mean, first of all, a bully is quite often a coward and is susceptible to being completely punched in the face.

But, you know, a bully if unstopped, unchecked, is very dangerous and we'll just keep going as far as he can. And in his case, that's what he did, because no one stood up to him. And that's to this day why he is still viable in the Republican Party. Unbelievable. I mean, like all of this conversation in my mind about whether or not he'll run again, of course he'll run again. Like, he'll run until someone stops him. Totally. 100%. That is precisely my view on this. Yeah. And I talk to someone else who's quite well-sourced in Trump world who said that it's possible. And again, this is the only only thing I've seen that has made me slightly less worried, that it's possible that the death of Ivana will really derail him.

It's probably wishful thinking. I don't know. I mean, it seems like wishful thinking. Yeah, it doesn't seem. I'm not sure Ivano was the thing we've all been waiting for to stop it. His rosebud. Yeah, but who knows? I mean, you know, that's, that is a complicated and perhaps warped psychological picture there.

Yeah. I think we're stuck with him until. someone stops him. And look, the voters stopped him in 2020. I guess Mike Pence and Bill Barr did the bare minimum after he tried to steal the result. Bravely. Beats the alternative, I guess. It's weird. I kind of go back and forth on how much credit they deserve. But ultimately, I mean, the Republicans need to do something, I think. And ultimately, they won't because that's what history shows. And, you know, God knows the Democrats have a bunch of problems. And Joe Biden isn't in the best shape politically and there's no spring chicken.

So who knows? I mean, get Trump into a general election. Anything can happen. Do these people stay with Trump because they see him as like the recent polling has showed he's certainly diminished? It would seem. Yeah, absolutely. The tweets they have to email to you.

Like there's certainly a sense in which, and you know, a large percentage of people went to jail. Yeah. Do you think that the sort of Liz Cheney's singularity? in trying to destroy Donald Trump could work or now? She certainly made a dent in him. I mean, I think the January 6th committee has been much more successful than I anticipated. Yeah. You know, unfortunately, there's only one Liz Cheney.

I mean, there's Adam Kinsinger. I mean, there are a few people, but. I mean, she's really willing to, like, handcuff herself and throw herself off a cliff to him. Yeah, absolutely. She's probably going to, like, lose her job over this. I mean, she has sacrificed a lot to me, which to me is the essence of, of conviction and the essence of leadership. And unfortunately, it's in very short supply in the Republican Party. I mean, if there were 12 Liz Cheney's, I mean, it would probably be a much different situation.

But no, I mean, even like you see these polls, it's like, oh, well, half the party wants to see someone else. And Ron DeSantis is, you know, close to Trump in polling. And it's like, all right. I mean, first of all, if Trump has half of like the Republican Party on its side, he's going to win the nomination. That's the primary, yeah. On the primary, yeah, like, he's going to, he's going to win. And DeSantis is, first of all, a very Trump derivative candidate. I mean, he might not talk about him now, but he really kind of made his name as like a absolute kind of comical suck up to Trump. And so that got elected governor of Florida. And he's Trump derivative. He's, you know, I don't know. I can't imagine people like Mike Pence or whoever else would just sort of step aside and say, okay, I'm going to just put my career on. hold for Ron DeSantis and let him have the field to himself. And then I can't imagine Trump wouldn't just utterly destroy him because, you know, DeSantis is a weird dude. Right. No, I know.

I can't imagine he'd scale very well, you know, and it's not as if like to know him is to love him. And he's not all that popular in Florida either. So I don't see it. I think if he wants, I think if Trump wants the nomination, he can have it. And I can't imagine a world where he doesn't want the nomination. I can't either. Neither of us are going to sleep for the next three years, two years. I mean, what's bizarre about it is just like apparently he's going to announce soon, right? I mean, that's what everyone says.

I mean, that's weird. That's just really bizarre, and no one announces this early, and it's ridiculous. It doesn't need to happen. And you sort of have to ask why. I mean, is it just he has this pathology where he needs to be running right now in an off year? Like, you know, how many months out are we like? But don't you think the why is that he? continually needs to raise money.

Yeah. And he also doesn't want to not be the center of attention. Yeah. And then the legal defense thing. I mean, apparently, I mean, I don't quite understand this, but apparently, you know, if you're running for president, it's harder to prosecute you or at least you have a built in defense that, like, this is a political context. So therefore, you know, I can't be indicted.

I mean, I don't understand that, but I also don't buy it. But there is an argument that that is a protective measure. So maybe that's what he's up to. But she's, I mean, first of all, it would piss off Republicans to the nth degree if he did this because it would probably not help them win the midterms. No, agreed. So, you know, but I don't think, I mean, look, Trump runs on his own schedule on his own calendar and marches to his own gold-plated drummer. Drum, drum, drum, how's that? I mean, the thing that's interesting to me, you know, George Conway, who's my friend.

And, you know, he's a never-trumper, but he's, but. he's really a conservative. Yeah. And he'll say Trump is going to bring down, is going to kill the Republican Party. Yeah. I mean, the question is, who's going to bring down with the Republican Party? I mean, yeah, I think he can do a lot of damage to the country. I mean, first of all, the Republican Party is a big portion of the country.

I'm definitely one of these people that thinks that the country is better with a somewhat responsible Republican Party that doesn't, you know, go around trying to steal elections and just do. And by the way, it's not just Trump. I mean, it's McConnell. I mean, you know, it takes a village to steal Supreme Court seats and to change election laws and do all that. So, I mean, but I mean, Trump is like the ultimate kind of strong man at the top of whatever empire this is. We haven't talked about McConnell and we have like three minutes left. So just talk to me about McConnell. You know, McConnell's a survivor.

I think he doesn't get enough blame for Trump still being in the, I mean, you know, they could have impeached him. I mean, McConnell apparently wanted to impeach him. But McConnell then said, oh, he's, he doesn't get enough blame. Oh, wait a minute. We don't have time to do this. We only have two weeks since. Oh, okay. Right. But, like, everyone knew what happened. It's not like, you know, they weren't living through it. And so, said, okay, we'll wait until after the election. And then everyone had their built-in answer. Like, we cannot convict him because he is a former president. And why impeach a former president? I don't know.

Right. To me, he's the ultimate coward in this. You think that he feels he has any capability or no? Yeah. I don't know. I mean, you know, I don't know what he tells his therapist. Not sure if culpability is one of the issues they speak of. I don't know. I mean, I don't really. I've certainly given up trying to sort of peer into the soul of the Mitch McConnell's and Kevin McCarthy's of the world. But, you know, maybe on some level.

But look, they've survived a long time in this game with whatever stories they tell themselves. It's really true. Thank you so much. This was so interesting, Mark. I hope you'll come back. Thanks, Molly. John Allen is a senior politics reporter for NBC News Digital, as well as the author of Lucky, how Joe Biden barely won the presidency.

Welcome back to the new abnormal, Jonathan Allen. Molly Jones asked my favorite person in the world, except for my wife and kids. Yeah, I was going to say. Yeah, I want to make that quick. Some caveats needed there. Why shouldn't members of Congress trade stocks? Well, look, I'm not going to take a position. I would say is I've never heard anyone make a cogent rationalization.

or explanation for why people who are in positions of power over companies should be able to invest in those companies. You know, there have been rules put in place to require disclosure of trades. But that doesn't mean that the members of Congress aren't able to make the trades. And of course, they sit on these oversight committees. They sit on appropriations committees. They sit on tax writing committees. They vote on the floor. And what we've seen over time is many members of Congress getting and their families getting wealthier from investing in companies that they oversee. And, you know, for the American public to have faith that decisions are being made in the best interest to the public rather than in the best interest of the individual member and their

family and feathering their nest, somebody would have to make some sort of good argument that that's necessary, that they shouldn't have to give up that ability in order to have the high privilege of being paid to represent the American people in Congress. So the most recent case of this is Nancy Pelosi's husband. Can you talk a little bit about that? Sure. I mean, her husband is known aside from, you know, DWI arrest recently, certainly accusations of DWI. I don't know where that is in the process. Other than that, he's known as an investor. And he has done very well, you know, he was wealthy before she got to Congress, but he has certainly done even better since she got to Congress. And Pelosi is being pushed not just by Republicans on this, but by Democrats, certainly people progressives who don't see this as something that's reasonable, that even if the cases that nothing she has done has been done in the interests of making him wealthier. He certainly has become wealthier and she has a result has become wealthier. And it boggles the mind at some level that in 2022, you would have people in high positions

of power and elected office in the United States of America, this free society, this democracy that are able to make those decisions. And so she's taken quite a lot of criticism, you know, sort of around the spectrum. And I think we live in a different area today. in terms of what progressives you're willing to put up with within the Democratic Party from people that think, you know, I think some of them go too far in times in saying that, you know, sort of everybody is owned by everyone that has ever donated to them or who's stock they invest. But at the same time, you know, to be able to have faith in the system, it has to be not only transparent but clean. Right. I mean, that is, I think, ultimately the issue there is that we just, there's not really, it's interesting. It's like the corruption. of Trumpism presented Democrats with an opportunity, but also a conundrum, right? You can't be just a little less corrupt than Donald Trump. Not that I'm saying Nancy Pelosi is. I'm just saying that if you trade stocks

and you make money, or even if you lose money, it makes the public start to wonder why you're in government. Right. And there are all sorts of people in our society who have restrictions on what they can invest in, you know, for all kinds of reasons. And, you know, that members of Congress would have a lower standard than, uh, than some others seems kind of ridiculous. Standards for people who hold public office should be the highest standards. Right. I mean, it's worth thinking about at the beginning of the pandemic, you saw Kelly Laughler, the appointed senator from Georgia, got into real trouble with stock trading. And she was not alone, right? Because wasn't Purdue also? trading stocks? There are any number of members of Congress who have traded stocks and done well. Some

have done poorly. I recall the episode of Spencer Bockis, who was the Congressman from Alabama and the chairman of the Financial Services Committee during the financial crisis of 2008, who was day trading, which would have been more of a scandal had he only been better at day trading. So for him, the sort of proof of a lack of corruption is that he wasn't guileful enough to make money off of his stock transactions as chairman of the Financial Services Committee. But we've had a number of people there's one congressman from upstate New York

who's Chris Collins, who was a big Trump supporter who had an insider trading scandal with I think a pharmaceutical or health related company that was involving members of his family and other members of Congress and investing. And the opportunity

for corruption is so ripe there. And in some cases, we've seen corruption. Right. And so as a result of that, you have to ask, if you're thinking about, like, what are the balances between the rights of individual members of Congress to, you know, sort of live their lives and what are the interests of the public? It's hard to see how the right of a member of Congress to make money off of stock transactions on things they oversee is it's hard to see how that would outweigh a public interest in them not doing that. The thing that's important besides the fact that these people are not putting their job first is that it actually, it does create a sort of false equivalency that, you know, you're corrupt, I'm corrupt, right? So even if it's not true, I think it creates this or it muddies the water in a way that's really, really bad. Yeah, I think at a time when Congress is an institution was seen in such poor light held in such low esteem by the public, the fact that you can't have faith in one number of Congress not to feather their own nest.

It means that you can't have faith in any of them. Right. And that just weakens the institution. And most of them are not, you know, sitting there figuring out how the next vote or the next committee meeting or the next letter to a regulatory agency is going to make them wealthier. But at the same time, because some of them may be doing that the public thinks that they're all doing, to your point. Yeah. It's really interesting. Come with me to a perfect world where we could get this law passed.

What would that look like? Well, again, you know, I would take a position on any particular legislation. but I think in a perfect world, certainly for the advocates of the ban on stock trading, like members of Congress simply wouldn't trade stock in the way that, you know, most or the way that a lot of people do. I mean, maybe they have a black trust or mutual fund, something like that where they're, you know, you really couldn't figure out any, you know, a connection between a particular action and them getting wealthier. It's not that they shouldn't be able to like plan for their retirement in the way that most Americans do. It's that they shouldn't be able to, you know, make themselves

wealthy or decisions they make. And that's not, it's not hard, right? It's not hard to figure out how someone puts something on a blind trust or chooses to invest in index funds rather than, you know, say Apple or Coca-Cola. Right. So we haven't seen any legislation about this yet, right? We haven't seen a law passed. There have been, there are bills circulated. For two seconds here, because you do really know about Congress, it looks like Nancy Pelosi may not stay on after the midterms, right? Right. She has no incentive to do this.

Right. Right. Yes. Like, the incentive for her to do this would be that, like, you know, that maybe it would cost her the speakership in the future. But the odds are that she is going to retire after this term. And the odds are that Republicans are going to be in the leadership in the house after this term.

So, like, you know, if you're, if you're her, you really just have to like kind of run out the clock. By the way, she is standing up for some members of Congress who would prefer not to articulate that they don't want to see a change. Right? Nobody wants to go out there and be like, yeah, I'm totally for all of us trading stocks. But a lot of them feel that way. And so in one level, she's exercising a form of leadership on behalf of others who feel the way that she has expressed, right? That this is not something that you have to know. But the polling on members of Congress, not trading stocks, is extremely good. most Americans do not want their government day trading.

I think that's right. The one thing that the one caveat I would put there is that like whatever you would ban members of Congress from doing, almost up to breathing, I think most Americans would ban them from doing. If you could hold people on whether members of Congress should be locked in sensory the operation chambers for hours at a time, they'd probably be like 90%. So wait, is it just that Americans hate Congress? I think that has something to do with it.

I mean, I think if Congress were in better stead with the public, there would be less energy behind the idea of restricting their ability to do whatever it is, including traded stocks. That said, I also think it's a potent issue with the public because even in good times, even when people are happy with Congress, it doesn't make a lot of sense that they're trading stocks, individual stocks. Like, I mean, this is like sort of basic anti-corruption stuff. Has Congress ever really been popular? I mean, not to get too far off topic here. But, I mean, thought experiment with May here. It's usually not very popular. The history has been that people like their individual member of Congress and hate Congress as an institution in part because the individual members campaign against Washington and they campaign against Congress and all the evil that they say is done there, right?

So it helps bring Congress down. Congress is not able to make decisions unilaterally, right? They have to make pass laws with the President of the United States. There's a whole lot of reasons that Congress is, you know, generally unpopular and has been for decades. And there have been jokes about Congress for, you know, the entirety of America in terms of its inability to get them scum and whatnot. But, you know, there are times of words, which it seems particularly in poor esteem. And now is one of those. John Allen, any chance Democrats hold the House in November?

Seeing a lot of polling got a generic ballot with two, three, four points ahead. Yeah, I think number one in a generic ballot, that's usually the Democratic. have to be up several points to break even. I think it's too early to look at generic ballots. Too early in the cycle. Most voters aren't paying attention until later in the year. Is it possible that the Democrats hold the house? I mean, I guess everything's possible,

but it would take some sort of political earthquake for that time. Why do you hate joy? No, I'm sorry. Thank you, John. Which joy are we talking about? Joy in general? I love joy. Thank you, John.

I love Joy almost as much as I love you, John Fess. Oh, thank you. Thank you, John Allen. That was great. Andy Levy. Molly Jongfest. Who is your fuck that guy today?

My fuck that guy today is a guy that sort of, much like Onan, he keeps fucking himself. It's Alan the Dershowitz. Tell me more. And he cannot stop. It's been years now. He cannot stop talking about how everybody hates him and that he has no friends. I think he started this back in it was either 2018 or 2019.

He was talking about how he was like banned from Martha's Vineyard. And now he has jumped right into this again in case people have forgotten that everybody hates him. He needs them to know again. and he is not allowed to speak. He has been going all over cable news. He did a really misjudged interview with Isaac Chottner. Amazing. Pretty much the best thing I've ever seen in my life.

Yeah, it was unbelievable. And he basically is now, his whole thing is he's not allowed to speak at Martha's Vineyard. He's been canceled by the synagogue. He's been canceled by the library. He's been canceled by the community center. he says, this is a quote. He says, people refuse to attend events if they know I'm going to be there. And that's why several friends of mine who have invited me for years to events in their homes or concerts that they've sponsored have apologetically said,

we're sorry we can't invite you because if you come, everyone will leave. The idea of going, he can't stop telling people how much everyone hates him. And it's, I mean, first of all, fuck this. guy because everybody hates him because he's, you know, been supporting Trump and whatever. But also, God bless him. This is truly the summer of Allen. And he just is all over the place telling people that he's hated. And obviously no one's giving him this advice. But you would think, I guess the problem is he has no friends left, because if he had any friends left, they would probably be telling him to stop doing this to himself. But it just keeps going. And it's so much.

much fun to watch, but also fuck that guy. I don't know if he doesn't have friends. Something is clearly quite off there when you're like, I'm people in Martha's Vineyard are being deprived of my voice. Yes. Oh, he said they're being deprived of their First Amendment rights because they can't hear him speak. Yeah.

That is some amazing stuff. Oh, it's so much fun. Yeah. Do you want to know who my fuck that guy is? I do. Is it fun like mine? You know, what I like is that the one time I ever wrote anything nice about anyone was when I was having Stockholm syndrome and worried I was going to die of COVID. I wrote a piece at the time about how I liked Cuobo.

I quickly recanted and apologized, but that piece will fucking be with me to the end of time. You know, I can't even talk about how annoying it is. It turned out he was doing every sleazy thing in the book. And, you know, even in that piece I did say that I knew he was doing some sleazy stuff, though I don't think I knew the full extent of it anyway. What I think is totally worth talking about and also is just completely depressing is that, in fact, Cuomo is the reason, along with other factors, but is one of the reasons why we have, I mean, he is the reason why we have this nonpartisan. which is actually just Republican redistricting in the state of New York. And that is why we are all fucked up. And nobody knows what district we're in.

And every district is having a death match. And my district is become a brutal and bloody throwdown. And New York 10 is a disaster. And so as we Democrats very likely will lose the house in the fall, not even because of, you know, own actions, but merely because of this, you know, the gerrymandering, Andrew Cuomo gets a hearty, hearty, fuck you for me. I was just going to say that's quite a turnaround for you, Molly, as, you know, as you said,

you were probably Andrew Cuomo's biggest champion in the state of New York. That's all I'm going to say. Probably for eight to ten months, I remember every day you started off every morning by tweeting I heart Andy Cuomo. And then I put on my quomosexual. sweatshirt. Yes, exactly. Exactly.

And went out and put those all over the trees and and lampposts all over the city. I just wish there were another Cuomo I could marry. Well. 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. will help us understand what's happening to our country and the world.

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