The Daily Beast Podcast - The Simple Signs That Show Trump’s ‘Dam Is Breaking’

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

The New Abnormal host Danielle Moodie and guest host Jesse Cannon weigh in on President Donald Trump’s record-low polling and how the Democratic Party can capitalize off the small wins showing that his “dam is breaking.” Then, Sarah Hinger, the deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Racial Justice Program, stops by to discuss the Trump administration’s attacks on DEI. Plus! Bible scholar Daniel McCLellan is here to talk about his new book, “The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) About Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

What a great show we have for you today. Sarah Hinger, deputy director of ACLU's Racial Justice Program, joins us to break down the Trump administration's attack on DEI programs in schools and how lawsuits are pushing back against that chaos. Then, Bible scholar and host of Data Over Dogma podcast, Dan McKellen is here to tell us all about his new book, The Bible Says So, what we get right and wrong about Scripture's most controversial issues. But first, let's have some fun. Folks, we have a special treat today that the wizard behind the curtain of the new

abnormal is stepping forward and turning on the microphone for the entire show, which is the one and only Jesse Cannon. Hello. Hi, Daniel. It's somewhere regular. So we should say, I got a note from Andy. It said something like, Fuck you, Mr. Producer of a ton of podcasts. You think this job is seal easy. Let's see you do it. No, I'm kidding. Andy had a very abrupt scheduling change with a life event that he had to take care of today.

So we wish him the best while he deals with one of the most annoying things in New York life, aka dealing with other people's shit. Yes. But with that, I'm very excited to chat today instead of just occasionally chombing in. And I want to say, happy voting. to our friends in Canada. Yeah, good luck. Try not to fuck it up. Funny enough, I was with a bunch of Canadians last night, which is not a thing that usually happens to me. And they assured me that they're going to do good. And from the polling I've seen, I'm feeling good for them unlike us.

Okay. I mean, I'm just saying, like, you know, you're watching Black Mirror USA Edition right now. Try not to want the Canadian edition, just saying it's not good. You can't fast forward. All right. So breaking news. We've seen Congressman Jerry Conley resign from the Oversight Committee Chair, and this is very big news. He's unfortunately doing it because his battle with cancer is unfortunately not going well. And as a survivor, I want to extend my heartfelt sympathies for that. But I think, Danielle, this is going to be a huge test of where the Democratic Party goes in the future. What are you thinking?

You know, here's my thing. One, I also want to extend, you know, my well wishes to him. My mother had a brain tumor a couple of years ago that was removed. And thankfully, all was well. And she is in really great condition. But we know what that takes to fight cancer. And my thought, you know, initially was I didn't understand why Conley threw his hat in the race to begin with. That was number one. But number two, Democrats, every time that they are given an opportunity to read the room, they slotkin us. Every time they're given the opportunity to say, huh, let me put my ear to the ground and see what the people want and what the people are talking about. You know, they come back with the Republican light, which was Slotkin saying just last week, we need to take our the wokeness, you know, deal with that. We need some more alpha energy and dropping F bombs and thinking that being Trump light, but a Democrat is somehow going to work. And so here, we know that AOC was in the running, Jesse, for this position. We know that AOC has, I don't even know how many

millions of followers. We're watching her with Bernie Sanders bring in tens of thousands of people to their stop the oligarchy town halls. So what do I think that Democrats do? Whatever it is, I want them to do. They will most likely do the opposite. So let me give you an update on where they're going so far. So they've tapped Representative Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts to fill his seat. He's 70 years old. Oh, so he's younger. Yeah. Yes. I was talking about this just this week, that I'd really like a baby-faced 50-year-old to just sometimes come around, which is still sad since that's still older than you and I. And I think you and I are feeling a little longer in the tooth than usual these days. But the point being, I think this is very interesting.

So the last time this happened was when Chair Elijah Cummings stepped down. And then he tapped then Representative Carolyn Maloney, who then ultimately became the committee chair and then was ultimately defeated in Congress after a gerrymander when she had to go up against. the representative Jerry Nadler, who as always full disclosure my wife works for. But so that's the history. And so I'm betting this is not going to be a sure thing for AOC and they're going to do everything they can to yet again make sure to silence the most progressive voices in the party. Honestly, I want to know what it is to be in these rooms, what they say the fear is from having an AOC as the ranking member of this committee.

like someone who knows how to form a narrative, someone who's questioning during committees is laser sharp. Like what to them, Jesse, is the downside here of actually giving a microphone and the space to what is the future of this party? If only Nancy Pelosi was as good at reading her room as she is at investing in stocks. Okay.

I'm going to go contrary to both of you. I'm going to say, I'm going to do a thing that you both know I love to do, which is I'm going to spill some inside tea. So I was saying exactly this to somebody who rakes in a lot of donation dollars from Democratic donors. Many of the biggest donors, they have to take phone calls from and hear what they think. And a lot of people say it's because Hakeem Jeffries doesn't want to piss off the donor class. Now, Hakeem Jeffries has been known to be very hostile to the left of the party. Here is a really interesting thing, they told me. The donors want the people who are fighting.

The donors aren't pissed off at the far left for fighting. The donors aren't as scared as some of them are. They said that they are mostly aside from the richest ones and some that fall into some categories of what's called mass wealth, really don't have that much against them elevating the more progressive people. but for some reason the leadership at the top really sees it as bad for the brand is what I was told. I mean, it just then here's the thing. We know that what runs both of these parties are the donors, is the donor class. So if they're not afraid and they want fighters, then they need to speak with their wallets and their purses and say,

so this is who we're backing. Because continually to say this shit in private and not put money where you're mouth there, and not shut down the establishment who has a losing track record right now, then you're not helping the cause. I could not agree more. So we should talk about this. Mr. Trump has an 80-year glow in his approval ratings. Which I don't think shocks any of us,

but I want to just quantify this really, really quick, that according to the New York Times ABC, he's at 42% the Washington Post, he's at 39% in Fox News at 44% respectively. Do you think this triggered the snowflake known as Donald Trump? I think it would have had to. And just so folks understand, because I think it's important to like people to understand why we track the first 100 days in the way that we do, because you were never as popular as president than in your first 100 days.

You're still riding the high of your election win. So in that first 100 days, you had the most power to get your agenda done without considerable pushback. To put that into context, Obama at this time in his presidency had the approval rating in the 60s, 60%. Joe Biden in this same timeframe was in the mid-50s. George W. Bush was in the low. 50s. So the fact that Donald Trump is literally circling the drain at 39% only to best himself as the worst because the initial worst was him in his first term, where at this time in his first term, he was at 44% in approval rating. And now he's at 39 for the love of God.

Yeah. So here's something I thought was interesting that I decided to do because I'm a fucking nerd. So for people not familiar, there's this thing called Google Trends where it will show you a graph of how much something is Googled. Okay. So what I noticed is in Trump's statement and in many, many other things and something we'll get to in the fuck that guy segment, that the words Trump derangement syndrome are all the sudden going fucking crazy again.

So, Danielle, if you will, if you open your text app, I just set you a graph. Yes, you did. So let's follow along with me for a second. Mm-hmm. I'm looking. There is no mention of this really until 2016, which is not a shock. And then it spikes in July of 2017. So what went wrong in July's 2017?

So if you go to Wikipedia to Trump's presidency here, that's what the wheels really fall off the bus. Like it is unbelievable how long that entry is in the timeline of just, you know, Scott Pruitt having to resign for stupid things. like the Russia stuff, all sorts of stuff. And so you see a spike there. And then the spike is pretty high up. And then it disappears during Biden's presidency. And now it is double that it's ever been. Yeah.

I wonder what that could mean. I mean, the man fell asleep at a funeral. He fell asleep at a funeral, not to mention wearing a blue suit, bright blue. But the fact is you're having, oh, I don't know. How many marches have we had since his election now? How many mass turnouts have there been over the course of these weekends? It's been considerable. Millions of people coming out over the course of the last 100 days.

And every single area, even immigration, which was their like peace, their resistance for this administration, they're in negatives in the polling. A majority of Americans disagree with Donald Trump on immigration. and more importantly, specifically, the case around Kilmar Obrigo-Garcia is like at a negative 21. That's how negatively people view the actions because they know, because they admitted that this man is innocent, that he was protected and not to be deported, and that Donald Trump refuses to bring him back, not to mention, oh, we also have seen him deport children with cancer who are U.S. citizens. So all of these things on top of the fact that over the last 100 days, I couldn't tell you, Jesse, what he's offered to the American people.

I can tell you the list of a barrage of things that he has taken away. But what has he added? Absolutely nothing. So it's like you look at that spike and yeah. I think this is the funny thing of that. Like we see them having to play cover. But I think that the dam is breaking. Like I said it this week, like usually what we've seen is that the people who are most in touch with their audience usually are the ones who break.

Now, I did think it was very funny that as I say this, one of the Republicans who's been most critical of Trump is representative, Don Bacon. And then, of course, on Friday we see that he's most likely to announce his retirement because, of course. But we did see the damn break. Like Candace Owens broke with him and said she regretted her vote this weekend. And I think that there's a very interesting thing here, too, that the defenses of him, you see, like, the Charlie Kirk's when they have to defend it to even like people like Bill Maher, that they do this grin right before they have to do it because they're like, Jesus Christ, I cannot believe that, like, I put up with trying to defend the idea of states rights and things like this, and that all they're doing is usurping sanctuary cities and just basically saying none of this stuff we ever said matters. we just want our agenda push through. I mean, like, when you say, though, that the dam is breaking, what does that mean in a fascist state?

Because to me, the dam breaking would matter if this party was interested in going after votes. If we were going to have our regularly scheduled midterms, if Donald Trump hadn't already posted merch about Trump 2028 and trying to figure out how to, oh, I don't know, dissolve of our Constitution. Okay, I could answer. So, one, there was a really big rescinding of students visas this week that they had done the actions. When I say a damage breaking, I see there's this trend in the Republican Party that was

crazily enough. Everybody loves to rehabilitate Mitt Romney. I'm a very anti-rehabilitate Mitt Romney. He wrote this book called No Apology. That has been the ethos of the Republican Party, is that they don't back down, they don't give in, they don't rescind. Whereas Trump acts so recklessly all the time. There's even this meme where it goes in a circle of like,

I do something fucking stupid. I see the reaction to it. I have to back down on it. I tell my people that the crisis has been averted. I repeat it again. And I think there's this interesting thing is that the pushback and protests against all of this do have some wins. And I think if we keep doing the wins, we do weaken this. And I am with you that like I have a lot of.

skepticisms. I have a lot of skepticism about how it's going to work. We're about to start talking about what Democrats are doing towards it. But I do think that harm reduction is important. And I do think that weakening them, even if it's just chips away at the skin of the Achilles heel, is super important. Yeah. And look, to that point, it's not that I don't think that it's important because there are plenty of folks who, you know, are scholars of autocracy, right? The Fiona Hills and the Jason and Stanleys and folks who are saying that the beginning of autocracy, the very beginning where we are right now is when the people have the most power to weaken the strength of the Trump administration. Like we have the most power that we will ever have right now.

To that point, I do think that, you know, having to say like, oops, we have to give these visas back, having to say, oops, we need to bring these children back, having to continue the pressure of, oops, we sent innocent men away. They need to be returned. Like, all of these things matter. And then to me, it's like, right now, okay, so Donald Trump is having some significant losses combined with his gutter poll numbers. What are Democrats doing in this moment to capitalize on where he isn't? Well, with that, you cued me up perfectly because Governor J.B. Pritzker has some words for that. Never before in mass.

Protest. Brilliant. It's about fucking time because we are hearing more and more people say that we need mass protests. We need national strike, which, you know, not one to toot my own horn, but toot-toot. Been saying that for the last couple of years. Yep, same. And Pritzker, I think his voice matters. I think that that was essentially him saying, yeah, 2028, I got.

my eyes on it because I'm actually listening to the people and what they want and I can deliver on what it is that they need. 100%. And I think there's an interesting thing is J.B. has to be much more choice in his words than we do. I think it's interesting because he's speaking to what the people could do. And, you know, a lot of people try to always diminish what protests do. But as somebody who went to Occupy Wall Street on day two, a thing I always remember is the number one word of the year, the year before, was austerity. And we changed the conversation to the 1% and we have sustained that now.

And that has become a very big discussion in this country. And that was because of protests. And when people like the aforementioned Alyssa Slotkin say that oligarchy is not effective communication, the polling has showed otherwise before and after that what Bernie and AOC are doing is very, very, very effective and that the people are smart enough to understand it. But there is also an interesting thing that I would love your thoughts on is that minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, and Senator Cory Booker have started a sit-in on the Capitol steps. And I kind of personally, and I would love your feelings on this because I haven't discussed

this one anybody, I kind of feel like they should be sitting there in law books, figuring out how to gum up the works, Tommy Tuberville, holding up judges style. We should be the ones doing sit-ins. George Clooney, sit on the steps. You guys go with your fucking AIDS, read some law books with your fancy degrees, and figure out how to slow these fuckers down. There is a distinct part of politics that is absolutely performative, right? Like, we understand that, that there is the razzle-dazzle and the pageantry that is politics. At the same time, how was, to your point, Tommy Tuberville, the stupidest fucking person, able to hold up. We're not talking about like a handful of judicial. We're not talking about a handful of appointments. We're actually talking about hundreds that one man was able to hold up. So when we talk about gumming up the works and people's responses to that, to me, at least all over social media is like, we don't have any power. You know, like, what do you want people to do? It's like you know that there are folks that understand all of the loopholes, all of the ways to slow the process.

us down. You know, to your point, look, a George Clooney or a bunch of A-list celebrities who decided not to attend over the weekend the White House correspondence dinner, them orchestrating a sit-in, you know, the massive folks with TikTok followings that are into the millions that are that are Democrats, like them ushering and spearheading that kind of action incredibly important. But our legislators actually need to figure out how to slow this executive order train, this like overwhelm that the Trump administration is doing one executive order, one piece of policy at a time and figure out how do we stop this from happening, even if it is for a month, six months. That's buying really precious time here.

So I agree with you. look, when I say that I want action to be taken, I wanted them to do a massive walkout at the joint address. Representative Al Green shouldn't have been standing alone. Corey Booker, when he did his 25-hour marathon speech, that should have been one Democrat after another, after another, after another, right? Holding the floor. Those type of actions matter, but they need to work in conjunction with the power that you have as a legislator to be able to see and understand where are the loopholes. How do we stop this?

How do we slow this train? And it can't just be spectacle. There has to be some strategy. I agree with everything you said. And here would be my one cap on it is when you hear people say organize, I think we have a little bit of loss on what organizing actually means. What organized often means as somebody who does a lot of strategy is find everybody's strengths and find everybody's exploits.

Exploits for people not familiar with the term are where you have a certain skill set or access to something where you could do a job better than someone else. Use the fucking exploits to your advantage. And that is not sitting on capital steps, in my opinion, for those guys. It isn't. It isn't the only way. I think that, again, we need a both and strategy right now. And you need to be able to take hold of the media narrative, which,

sit-in and that kind of, but who is doing the sitting in and how is that spreading around social media and in other spaces and places? How are you getting, now it's growing from five people to 5,000, to a million, you know, like, what's the long term here? But in the meantime, who's taking over the ranking member of the oversight? Who is slowing down the Senate? Who is making it so that it can't operate at all? How are we thinking in that way? And that, this is where I go hoarse over the fact that Democrats are consistently, consistently disappointing in this space because when Republicans have the numbers that Democrats do now, you would think that they have all the power in the world. So how are we still behind the eight ball here?

I don't understand. Folks, I am very happy to welcome on to the new abnormal Sarah Hanger, who is the deputy director of the ACLU racial justice program and is following. the myriad of lawsuits that are put up against this administration, particularly last week there were some rulings with regard to the anti-DEI directives that Donald Trump and his administration are trying to place on K through 12 as well as higher ed institutions and basically acting as, I don't know, I continue to use the word. terrorists, where they are threatening to withhold funding if, in fact, quote unquote, illegal

DEI is not removed from schools. So Sarah, first, there are so many court cases right now. We're obviously focused on the education piece, but there are so many that are there as well. Talk to us about the illegal DEI and how we got here into these courtrooms. Yes. Thanks so much, Danielle. So less than a month, into the new Trump administration. The Department of Education issued guidance, what it called a dear colleague letter, but it's a letter of guidance directed to schools and educators across the education community, telling them what the Trump administration will consider to be unlawful under civil rights laws that it enforces. And what it said is broadsided conclusion that

schools have been engaged in widespread discrimination through the use of DEI practices. Critically, the letter doesn't define what it means by DEI programs or any of those terms. And it also accuses schools of indoctrinating students that the history of the United States is one of systemic racism and says that having DEI programming unlawfully stereotypes students, and fails to include them in their education. So these are all conclusions or accusations, but they don't describe any sort of conduct that the Department of Education thinks is actually happening.

And that letter attached to stiff penalties. It told schools, we know you are engaged in discrimination. We are ordering you to cease all of these practices. And if you don't do that, within a matter of 14 days, we will take action up to and including the law, of federal funding. So that, as it was intended, sent a chill across the education community from pre-K through higher education and including the many different contractors and service providers that work in close coordination with schools. And then not only that, but the

administration followed that up with a requirement that schools and state education Association certify that they were complying with this vague, undefined requirement, not only on penalty of the loss of federal funding, but subjecting them to the risk of what's called a False Claims Act, cause of action, which means that the government could sue them, but now also inviting private parties to file suit alleging that any school district or individual had falsely certified that they did not have these, again, undefined illegal DEI practices. So this put educators in a real bind and it put real and immediate consequences on them, which I can talk about in detail. But what happened then is a series of lawsuits were filed. So the ACLU and I'm a representative

on this case filed suit on behalf of the National Education Association teachers, union along with their local New Hampshire N-EA branch and the Center for Black Educator Development, which is engaged in creating and reviving pipeline to the education profession for black teachers to be and ensuring that all black children have access to educators who are well-equipped to teach to them and understand their needs. So that's one suit that was filed. Another major Teachers Union in the U.S. filed suit, AFT American Federation of Teachers. And then more recently, the NAACP also filed suit on behalf of their student members and their right to access education. So these three lawsuits were all filed challenging the Department of Education's actions.

They all involve somewhat to a certain extent different, but very similar claims that get into the constitutional and other problems with the department's actions here. So we have judges in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and New Hampshire. According to Education Week, all found that the Trump administration's anti-D-EI efforts didn't pass legal muster. So you just named the three different lawsuits respectively and who is represented on each. But how the judges, the three different judges all found that in some instances, one, you You tell me if I'm wrong, that the Trump administration did not clearly articulate what are illegal DEI practices, meaning that their whole purpose here, in my humble opinion, Sarah, is to be as vague as possible. Because the idea is to do exactly what you said up at the top. Send a chill through the education system so that everything just halts because you don't want to overstep in doing anything that is going to detract from your institution, being.

able to get funding. So you'll just stop all together. And what the loss, what these lawsuits are being brought up and saying, well, how are children and how are educators and administrators actually supposed to teach if in fact they don't know what they can and can't do? And I think like you tell me, because I think that that's the whole point of the Trump administration. Everything that they're doing is on the instance of being as vague as possible to deter any action whatsoever. Yeah, that's, it's, Exactly right, Danielle. So there's three courts and three decisions, each moving really quickly to address this before the certification requirement penalties would come into place. And so for that reason, the reasoning and the ways that the judges got to their opinions are a little bit different on this quick timeline. But a fundamental issue here, as you pointed out, is the legal problem of vagueness, which creates a lack of due process. When a rule like this fails to define what it says is illegal. So illegal DEI, but we don't know what kind of program, what sort of reference to diversity would amount to being an illegal reference to diversity.

That fails to give people who have to follow the law any sort of guideline that they can use to say, okay, well, here's how I need to change my practices to ensure that I'm on the right side of the law. I just can't know. Can I teach my history class that talks about the Jim Crow era and the civil rights movement in a way that doesn't risk being found to illegally indoctrinate students that the United States has a history of systemic racism? That's a hard conundrum to figure out how to do. But then the other critical component here is that a law that is so vague and undefined leaves unchecked power for enforcement. And it allows, enforcement based on one person's viewpoint, an individual assessment of what they believe to be illegal and without any sort of uniform standard for application. So that's, I think, the real crux of the problem here. The administration can pick and choose and decide as it goes which programs it thinks are unlawful and subject to these massive penalties. And that also ties in with the First Amendment concerns, which courts also recognized here, because it chills the

conduct of education, what teachers and students can talk about in classrooms, the research that they can do, the types of conversations that can happen in a higher education space. So, for example, teachers and professors were told that their public talk about their research on the history of lynching was canceled at Georgia State, an entire program about DEI practices related to education was removed from the college's website and then inaccessible to students and educators who had been using those resources that had been developed and presumably the university thought served were the educational goals. And so it's that broad chill and fear that means that the Department of Education's proclamation that things are unlawful extends far broader than they could

even directly engage in enforcement. I say this often to the listeners. I'm a former educator and I understand the importance of education at all levels, K through 12 and beyond. And really being able to, the reason why I went into education was to create a thoughtful global citizenry, like of critical thinkers. And when you take away the opportunity to ask questions to really think critically about this country, like, what do you think, Sarah, is like, what is the, I mean, we know it is a, it is a white, and I won't put words in your mouth, but I will say it is a white nationalist agenda that the Trump administration is putting forward in all walks of life to absolutely erase and suppress and gaslight the public on any wrongdoing that America has ever had, right?

So from dismantling of the Smithsonian, so that there's no understanding and context with regard to history, to taking over education, these are all things that Hitler did in Nazi Germany to subdue the masses. What do you see as the end goal here? And do they have any real legal footing? Because, again, the idea is that every. they want to end up before the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court which Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell stacked. The Supreme Court who, you know, unfortunately, you can already decide. You don't need to

have a crystal ball to say which way they're going to rule on a lot of things these days. So is the goal just to get this up to the Maga stacked Supreme Court so that then basically Brown v. the Board of Education and all of these major civil rights cases are just like null and void? Is the thing or just to continue with this lens of confusion so that it works that way. Because I don't feel like there is legal standing, but what I notice with this Supreme Court is that legal standing doesn't actually friggin' matter. Neither does precedent. Yeah. I mean, I do think the intent here is to chill people beyond what could legally be permissible, certainly. So there's an effort to malign and to cast doubt and general skepticism on the value of education, to place fear on even

talking about any aspects of history, of diversity, equity, inclusion. And when we really break that down, you know, that applies to a wide range of races and cultures, people with disabilities, across gender. Diversity is many things. And that is really. what's at stake here is a fear to speak openly, to discuss, to debate, to engage across differences that I think this administration very much does want to shut down and perversely in claiming to seek to end indoctrination, in fact, to introduce its own indoctrination in the classrooms. But just as you said, that's really not something that is not only not required by the law right now, but is strictly prohibited. And it's exactly the importance of education that is at

stake and that a number of Supreme Court cases historically have found why it's so important that we cannot have a pall of orthodoxy cast over education, that it's critical that people be able to engage in conversations, think critically, explore ideas in order to be able to participate in our democracy and have those effective, healthy debates that keep our society moving. The administration has said that it can prohibit all of this based on the Supreme Court case students for fair admissions, which held that higher education colleges could not consider race as a part of college admissions to look at an individual student's race as a part of giving them credit on their college application.

And they have used that holding where the Supreme Court. Court looked very carefully at that particular practice to argue that any reference, anything that could be considered to relate to diversity, equity, or inclusion in education is unlawful. And I think that's what we're seeing these courts now, 201 in different ways, but three different courts, judges appointed by the Trump administration, have found that the law just simply does not allow that. And that's not based on a question about whether or not the Constitution permits preferences or prohibits diversity, equity, or inclusion. It's about very basic, fair process and the requirements that people have notice and fair rules to follow and that people

be free to engage, debate, discuss different ideas. Those are really core fundamental issues of the Constitution. Yeah. Do you believe that this administration is going to respond accordingly to rulings by federal judges? Because what we're seeing across the board is that they're taking what these rulings are saying, whether it is the Supreme Court or lower courts, as like suggestions that they don't need to really bother themselves with. Yeah. I mean, I think that is the critical question right now, certainly within the legal field, for all of it. of us, how the administration will respond to these legal rulings. But certainly, you know, it would be a big step to disregard the orders of the judicial branch. You know, that would require

numerous employees, political and non within the Department of Education to decide not to comply with the judiciary's orders. I think that is quite a big thing. And so I certainly hope and expect that they will comply with the courts here. I mean, we shall see, Sarah. We shall, we shall see. We'll leave it there today. Really appreciate you, you know, as always for making the time for the new abnormal, but really appreciate the work that you all are doing at the ACLU to like, I don't know, hold on to our democracy with like, you know, your fingernails and some tape at this point. Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate you. Thank you so much, Danielle. Dan McClellan is a scholar of the Bible and religion whom I first came across several years ago on TikTok,

where he posts informative explainer videos and takedowns of people spreading false information about the Bible. He quickly became one of my favorite people who I don't actually know, as he calmly exposed people such as Jordan Peterson and Charlie Kirk for the misinformation they peddle. Dan also co-hosts the Data Over Dogma podcast, gives online lectures, and is the author of a great new book, The Bible Says So, What We Get Right, wrong about scripture's most controversial issues. The book is out Tuesday and he joins me now. Dan, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate your time. So the name of your podcast is data over dogma. And as you say in the intro to the book,

that's sort of, that's your aspirational motto. What exactly do you mean by data over dogma? Or if I may, all right, let's see it. So it kind of arose organically as I started on TikTok. I didn't really know what my channel was going to be. I didn't get on TikTok with the intent of becoming, you know, an influencer or whatever. I just saw a lot of people talking about the Bible and religion. And I didn't see any credentialed experts there that were there to call balls and strikes. So I thought that might be a gap that I could fill in the social media content that was on TikTok. And so I started off responding to some stuff. And my approach to scholarship is a little different from what a lot of people are used to in the public discourse, where you have one team that is fighting against another team. And a lot of scholars try to let the data kind of bubble to the surface and let that dictate their positions rather than leveraging data and rhetoric to try to advance their own interests, whatever they may be. And this is one of the reasons I didn't think that my channel would attract an awful lot of attention, because when I come into an argument where there are two sides,

and I go, you're both wrong. Here's what the data say. And I basically just muddy the water and run away. That doesn't really attract a lot of support. So historically, the kinds of positions that I've promoted have not really have a great deal of interest to people on social media. But then this started gaining interest and I found the need to do like intro videos and explaining who I was.

I think I just made a video and I just on the fly was like, I try to put data over dogma. And the idea there being that rather than trying to make arguments that serve my own personal interests or are going to make me money on social media or are going to attack people I don't like or anything like that, I'm just going to try to let the data do the talking and dictate the positions and the perspectives that I'm going to share. And those things that are dogmatic, that are arbitrary, that are things people support because they were raised that way or because their livelihood depends upon it or because the social identities that are important to them. incentivize them to promote those things. Those are the things I refer to as dogma, and those are the things that I am shoving aside in my social media content in favor of saying, here is what the data indicate about this, that or the other research question. So you say that when it comes to the Bible, there are three dogmas that are very widespread and deeply embedded. Can you briefly tell us what those three dogmas are? Yeah. The main ones are inspiration, inerrancy, and univocality.

In inspiration is kind of the root of it, that the biblical texts are the product of inspired writing, that God is puppet master and dictating what is going to be written in these texts. And that leads to the dogmas of inerrancy and univocality. Inerrancy is the idea that the text is free from error. And there are a variety of different perspectives on that. For some people, it just means free from error when it comes to questions pertaining to salvation or things like that. And then there are on the other side of the spectrum, there are those who say, it's free from any and all errors of any of all kinds. So historical errors, errors of logic, errors of spelling, errors of whatever, it's free from all of that. And then you have people say, but only in the original autographs, which is the reference to the actual text that was physically written by the original author.

And of course, we have none of those. And then the other dogma that I think is even more widespread than the other two, but it is the product of the other two is univocality, which is the idea that every last syllable of the Bible must agree with every other syllable of the Bible. The Bible cannot contradict itself. It cannot disagree with itself. And thus you can take a passage from this side of the Hebrew Bible and that side of the Psalms and that side of the Gospels and you can bring them together and they have to agree. and so they become the building blocks of all different kinds of answers to all different kinds of questions. But those three dogmas, virtually anything I respond to on the part of someone who is a Bible believer on social media, at least one of those dogmas is going to be undergirding their arguments.

And if you take one of them away, the argument is just going to fall to pieces. They're so deeply entrenched in how they think and talk about the Bible. You know, because this is a political podcast, I want to take. talk about one of the big problems with these dogmas and that they are used both by religious people, religious leaders, and also by politicians to, as you say, weaponize the Bible against people. Yeah, absolutely. And you see that right now, particularly with like trans folks, there are an awful lot of politicians who think they're going to make their career hay off of demonizing and oppressing trans folks because, you know, they're a tiny minority who's not hurting

anybody, but if there can be some political advancement gained off of hurting those people, an awful lot of people seem to think that's just fine. They're using the Bible to talk about things like gender identity to demonize homosexuality. That's something that's been going on for a long time. And it seems like we thought the Supreme Court had kind of settled the question for some, but now a bunch of people want to revisit it because, you know, they're awful people. So I have a chapter in there where I talk about the claim that the Bible says homosexuality is an abomination. And I point out what the Bible seems to be saying in the context in which it was written. And this is something that tends to be missing from the rhetoric of those who had leverage the Bible against homosexuals and members of the LGBTQIA communities.

They don't care why the Bible is saying what it's saying. They don't care exactly what the Bible seems to be trying to say. And so in that chapter, I try to go into great detail about what exactly is being prohibited or condemned and why and why they think it's a bad thing. out that that's not really something that's fully transferable to today. They didn't understand sexuality the same way. They didn't have the same kinds of same-sex relationships anciently as today. And I kind of conclude by pointing out that the Bible doesn't seem to like same-sex intercourse, but if you leverage the Bible to try to condemn members of the LGBTQIA communities today, because the Bible says so, you don't know what you're talking about. And you're also probably being

wildly hypocritical because the Bible says all kinds of different things about sexual activity that pretty much everybody just forgets or rejects, doesn't care about it anymore today. It's all negotiable in the end. And so in that chapter, one of the things I point out is we've negotiated away so much of the Bible's sexual ethic that the only reason to hold on to this one little piece of hatred is because it functions as a handy little identity marker around which you can rally people to oppose other politicians or to oppose the human rights of members of our nation. Yeah, so I come down pretty hard on folks who would leverage the Bible to attack gay folks. It's a problem. It's something

that is not going to go away anytime soon. And hopefully people who are wondering what the data actually say about this can get something out of that chapter. Yeah, and in that chapter, and I've seen this in your videos as well, you talk about how at least some of the Bible verses used to support the view that homosexuality is an abomination are actually based on a mistranslation from the Greek? Is that accurate? I start off the chapter talking about a documentary movie that came out recently, 1946, where it was talking about a new translation of the Bible from 1946, called the Revised Standard Version, where there are a couple of words. One of them is Maliki and the other is Arsinochite, and they are plural nouns in Greek, but they were just lumped together

and translated homosexuals in this Bible translation. And the argument of that documentary is that that is a mistranslation, that those two words together or alone cannot be translated homosexuals. And I point out that if you understand homosexual, the word homosexual, according to the majority usage today, overwhelmingly is used to refer to people who have a homosexual orientation. If that's the way you're using it, is 100% of mistranslation because the texts are not referring to that at all. They're not referring to that at all. referring to a homosexual orientation. They're not referring to people who might have an attraction to members of the same sex, but don't actually act on it. That's 100% of mistranslation. If someone

understands homosexuals to mean anyone who engages in same-sex intercourse, it's not as inaccurate. It's still not a great translation. I kind of, again, muddy the waters a little bit, but that's the way I start off the chapter to say, this is more complex a question than a lot of people acknowledge and then kind of get into the weeds of just how complex it is. And then conclude by saying, and having said all that, don't be a dick. It's really what a lot of the Bible comes down to and what a lot of my book comes down to is don't be a dick. Yeah, it's weird how that has to be actually said to so many people these days. But what about abortion? Surely the Bible explicitly forbids abortion and condemns it as murder, right?

Yeah, this is an odd claim that I see people make because this is one where the Bible never talks about abortion at all. The only thing that you could leverage as any kind of grist for the mill of this debate about abortion is the Bible's position on the personhood of a fetus. And as I point out in the Bible, in the Hebrew Bible, a fetus is considered property. It is not a person. And we actually see legislation where if a crime is committed against a fetus or results in the death of a fetus, the penalty. is that the husband gets to assess a fine, whereas if the exact same crime results in the death of the mother, it's the death penalty, which shows pretty clearly there is a binary conceptualization of one entity having personhood and one entity not having personhood. But I also talk about

how things changed and how once we get into the Greco-Roman period, Greco-Roman Judaism, and then into Christianity in the New Testament, that Greek philosophy is beginning to influence their understanding of personhood, and particularly a few different takes on when the spirit enters the body, what they call insolment. And you have some folks who said it happened at conception, some folks who said it happened when the fetus was fully formed and could move on its own, the quickening, and some folks who said it happened at birth. And early Christians seem to be kind of taking different positions on this, and then by the time of Augustine, our end of the fourth century, beginning of the fifth century CE, they all settle on the consensus view that,

okay, we're going to understand the soul to enter the body once the fetus has fully developed and can move on its own. So the quickening and you have Augustine saying, we don't like abortion at any point, but it's not murder until the quickening. And that was the majority view up until the 19th century, up until the 1800s. And so folks who think the Bible condemns abortion don't have a leg to stand on. There's no part of the Bible that condemns abortion as murder. And there are part of it that would suggest, based on the way this is debated today, that at least the Hebrew Bible seems like it would be okay with it. And then by the time we get into the New Testament and into early Christianity, while they didn't like it, it wasn't murder until around the threshold that

Roe v. Wade established until we get around halfway through, around 20 weeks or so. That's when, probably a little before that, if we're going by the quickening. But yeah, the position that seems to hold for the longest period is that once the fetus seems to be moving on its own, that's when it becomes an actual person and attempts today to try to retreat to this argument of whether or not it's a human life are pretty recent, pretty new, pretty innovative arguments that don't have anything to do with the Bible's position on fetal personhood. So it's, again, I'm here to muddy the waters a little bit and make it a little difficult to understand. But at the same time, in this case, at least, the folks who are most belligerently waving their Bibles around have it well off target.

They don't really know what they're talking about. Yeah. A phrase you use a lot in your videos is negotiating with the text, and you've used it in this interview as well. Explain exactly what you mean by that. This starts from a principle that I've held to for a long time as somebody who did a lot of graduate work in cognitive linguistics. Texts don't have inherent meaning.

When a reader or a viewer or a hearer engages a text or a linguistic experience, they're generating the meaning in their own head based on their understanding of the relationships that have become conventionally associated between certain symbols and certain semantic content. And that can get really complex. But in short, when we read the Bible, we're creating meaning based on what we think the author was trying to say. And there's kind of a negotiation of back and forth when it comes to things that are important to us, like abortion, like homosexuality, like all different kinds of things that I talk about in the book. And if we're in incentivized to endorse a certain position, we're going to, that process of negotiation is going to nudge us in the direction of interpreting it in ways that serve those positions. We're going to want to the text to say the things that make us feel good, make us feel like our identities are good, make us feel like we should be advancing those social identities. And all that results in a lot of different people coming up with different interpretations of the Bible. And so it's not a perfect metaphor, but the idea is basically that we're kind of going back and forth with the text to figure out a meaning.

And if we're not careful, what we're going to be moving in the direction of is a meaning that's going to serve our interests, irrespective of what the authors may have intended. The whole abortion issue is an example of that. They look in the text and they're like, I need to find something somewhere in here that supports my belief that abortion. as murder. And so they're going to go to Jeremiah 1-5 or they're going to go to Luke or something like that. And this is just ways for them to give certain texts priority and marginalize or ignore other texts. That's that process of negotiation. Let's move the pieces around. Let's take these Lego blocks and let's build what we want to see. That is why there's so many different ways to read the Bible and so many people disagree on what the Bible means.

And like I said, text don't have any inherent meanings. There's no paper we can rub on it and say, see, we got it. right or acid you can dip the Bible in to say, see, this is what they were trying to say. It's all up for debate and it's all negotiable. It's all just so fascinating to me the way people do their negotiations. One of the most famous Bible verses is Revelation chapter 13 verse 18, with him that hath understanding count the number of the beast for it is the number of a man and his number is 66. Yes. I am not a scholar of the Bible, but I am a lover of religious horror movies. and among other things, this verse is used as the epigraph for the movie The Omen. But it doesn't mean what many of us have been led to think it means, does it?

No, it does not. These days, people have thought this is some kind of prophecy about the future, some kind of warning. Be on the lookout for whoever bears this number, because that's kind of the sign that this is the main bad guy. This is the final boss. And the reality is that this is late first century CE Jewish apocalyptic literature. It's kind of a revenge fantasy slash bit of performance art. It's not trying to say, look, pay attention. These things are all going to happen.

It's using grotesque and bizarre imagery to evoke emotions to try to exhort followers of Jesus to remain faithful in the face of all this persecution that they feel like they're experiencing. And the 666 is obviously Gametria, and that's this idea that every letter of the Hebrew alphabet has a certain numerical value. And so you can take somebody's name and reduce it to numerical value. And then that's a way to encode that name. And, you know, one numerical value can be a lot of different things. So there is some, you know, plausible deniability baked into it. So if you want to, you know, give the elite a hard time without letting them know, you're talking this,

specifically about them, you can use Gamutria. So most scholars think that 666 is an encoded reference to Roman emperors and specifically Emperor Nero, because if you take the name Nero Kaiser and you transliterate that into Hebrew, if you transliterate it from Greek, the name is Neron Kaiser, and the Hebrew letters all add up to 666. If you translate it from Latin, there's no N on the end. It's just Nero Kaiser, and the transliterated Hebrew letters all add up to 616. which is what the number is in one of our earliest manuscripts of Revelation. And so a lot of scholars agree this is basically saying, ooh, Nero's out there. Like he had died many years before, but there was a rumor that he was going to come back from the dead

and take back over the Roman Empire. And boy, the followers of Jesus were going to get it then. And so it's kind of scary stories to tell in the dark where they've got this encoded reference to Nero to kind of freak you out and keep you on your toes. You've got to keep that head on a swivel. watch out for Nero who's coming back and then they're going to get you. And it's all about how Rome is evil. They're the plucky little band of outcasts who has to try to survive so that they can make it until God peels back the fabric of reality and exacts their revenge against the enemies of their people. And then now, you know, very soon after that, Christianity took over the Roman Empire and became the Roman Empire. And so now Christianity is in the position of power and privilege and is being oppressive to others. but they want to find themselves in the book of Revelation. And so to do that, you have to find somebody who is your oppressor.

And unfortunately, when you're oppressing most everybody else, you just pick other victims of your own oppression and say, they're my oppressor now, which is going back to the whole dehumanizing, demonizing trans folks who are some of the most vulnerable groups in our nation today, trying to turn them into the big, bad dragon of the book of Revelation is just turning the tables of systemic power asymmetries and saying, we're in control, but we need. to feel like you're the big bad guy, even though we're oppressing you. So we're going to make you the big bad guy sucks to be you. Yeah. Well, you heard it here first, folks. Dan McClellan says Damian Thorn is innocent. There's so much more in the book. Absolutely fascinating stuff about

the history of the Bible, what we mean when we say the Bible, the question of whether the God of the Bible lies or is married or has a body, so much more. And I don't have time to cover it all today, but I encourage everyone to go out and buy this book. It's absolutely fantastic. The book is called The Bible Says So, What We Get Right and Wrong about scripture's most controversial issues. Dan McClellan, thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate it very much. Thank you. Danielle Moody. Jesse Kennan. See, that's the energy I want from you two at the future. Tell me, who are you kicking this week off with as you're, fuck that guy? Oh, God. So, you know, folks, it's really hard to have your eyes on everything bad that this administration is doing.

But when I say that this next story to me, again, is one of the most egregious, which is that the Trump administration is deciding to defund the suicide and health hotline for LGBTQ youth. This is a hotline that went from having a long one-eighthundred, number to a three-digit number because members of Congress recognize that the quicker that youth are able to access the help of a clinician, a health worker, the better off their outcomes would be to deter them from suicide. And we know that LGBTQ youth are more likely than their straight peers to commit suicide, particularly if you look at the numbers of trans and non-binary youth, those numbers are through

the roof. The Trump administration has decided, fuck them kids and is pulling the plug on a life-saving program, which is 9-88, that the Trevor Project, which is a national LGBTQ organization, is in charge of making sure that kids, youth, that call in, receive the help that they need. So this is also something, by the way, that in 2020, Donald Trump signed into existence and approved. was a bipartisan measure under his administration that he is now once again going back on because what did I say? Fuck them kids. And so for that reason, I say, fuck Donald Trump and this administration for saying that they are pro-life when you are literally deciding to cost kids their lives. Yeah, this is so depressing. I years ago started to do some training to be a suicide hotline counselor.

and a lot of what you learn is like every instance of these vulnerable people getting through really can help save a life and have somebody go on to live a fruitful, better life because they're just in a very low, low moment. And I am always struck by how little people realize that these are often moments in people's lives where they're living very happy, productive lives. and that if you just intervene and equally as sickening along with this, we heard that they're going to also no longer fund Narcan, which is rich when you have an administration filled with a person who is addicted to heroin for well over a decade who's in charge of health and human services. So I find that really particularly sickening. It's gross.

So, Jesse, how are you kicking off this week with your fuck that guy? I will be honest. I've been working on developing a new podcast where the host will discuss that we should not trust our tech overlords. Coincidentally, last night, a Semphor's Ben Smith dropped a blockbuster article that is booklong about the group chats that are changing our world. And particularly in this, what we see is that there's a lot to unpack, but particularly that some of these tech bros are people in the chats wonder how they even have a job they're in there. so much just chatting away about the culture wars and things like that, but also that mega operatives like Chris Rufo are trying to radicalize them to the right and have done so, and that this is how a lot of the right word shift towards Trump win. A lot of what's detailed in this is they got

tired of discussing their opinions in the quote unquote public square of Twitter and the text apps because they worried they would be canceled for their very stupid thoughts. Now, I wrote a book on creativity many years ago. And one of the things you learn in it is that when you close off feedback and you start to be afraid of what you're saying, there's usually a reason you're afraid of this feedback. And a lot of them will say, you know, these are NPCs. They're not thinking. Well, but there's a really interesting thing that this is rooted in science. And there's tons and tons of science around this. Jim Collins wrote one of the best books on being a leader called Good to Great. It's one of the most respected books in business. And he showed that all the

leaders who sustain things best are those who are open to criticism and can hear two sides of an argument. What we see in this article is literally once they show that Trump is not the prophecy God that they were promised, they leave the group chat and say, like we talked about at the top of the podcast, Trump derangement syndrome. And I have to just say, Like, I talk to a lot of people who believe that these people are smart and their intelligence can transfer over to management of government and all these things. Economies, leadership, government, all doge and all these things have proven to show is that just because you are very good at one thing does not mean you can transfer it over infinitely. And the real thing is, is when you get into group think, that's how you get Kanye West level madness. Oh, God.

That's how you get all this stuff that makes bad decisions. And that is the root of what's in all that science is the second you close off and stop discussing in the public square and being afraid, you descend into madness and you start drinking your own piss like Howard Hughes. Mm-mm. Dear God. Drinking your own piss. That's it, no. I mean, it wouldn't be me doing a co-host without going a little too far. A little too far.

No, but I mean, like, that's the thing. That is the problem. And every book, to your point, every leadership counseling that is offered up tells you that criticism and diversity, those two things allow for businesses to thrive. It is healthy for the bottom line and it's healthy for the advancement of business across the board. So why you would then create an entire administration and an entire space around. yes boss that's a great idea boss aren't you the smartest guy boss and think that that is going to

advance us in any type of way no what what they have done is just careen us back into the dark ages and think that they are doing a great job at it regardless of what the polls say when i'm agreeing with steve bannon when steve bannon is saying you know maybe those should show us the fucking numbers like show us what they're saving show us all the brilliance you know something is wrong when I'm like, huh, maybe he's right. And that big audit of Doge this weekend showed. They're barely saving anything because these people had no idea what the fuck they were doing. But they do need to make sure that Palantir can get into the government.

So they're doing the work that they need to do. Fuck those guys. Fuck those guys. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder. Want more great listens?

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