The Daily Beast Podcast - The Theme of Trump’s Existence Summed Up in Three Words

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, professor and author Jennifer Taub gives us all the details on Trump's fraud case happening right now in New York. Plus! Journalists and podcasters Jeb Lund and David J. Roth talk to us about Kevin McCarthy's, ouster, Ron DeSantis’ floundering campaign and which fictional character Matt Gaetz looks like the most. 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 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 Kedden, 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 an excellent show we have today.

Well, Professor and author of Big Dirty Money, Jennifer Toll, gives us all the details on Trump's fraud case happening right now in New York. Then we'll talk to its Christmastime host Jeb Lund and David J. Roth. We'll talk to us about Kevin McCarthy's ouster, Rhonda Santis' floundering campaign, and which fictional character, Matt Gates, looks like the most. That's a tough one. But first, let's have some fun. So, Andy, Kevin McCarthy, our Fisher-Price, Limp Gavill, ex-speaker, has made history. First, it was with it taking 15 votes in order to name him speaker. And now, only a handful of months into the job, he becomes the first speaker in the history of the House of Representatives to be ousted.

It is just, spectacle is not the right word. A head of lettuce lasted longer than Kevin McCarthy. I think that when you look at this and the fact that it was his own words that was his undoing. His head is on a swivel and did not know who to pledge his allegiance to. Was it to Donald Trump? Was it to the Freedom Caucus? Was it to Democrats so that he could get them to, I don't know, stop a government shutdown? because people within his own conference wouldn't even do that.

To then turn around and go on face the nation to say that the shutdown was all Democrats' fault and then want to come out again and say that you lost the gavel because of Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, he needs to be studied. There has got to be a special place in the DSM for him. The gaslighting, the disconnection from reality. the lack of self-awareness, the inability to know that you did wrong and just accept the consequences of that, it alludes him, as does intellect, as does grace, as does maturity. But that goes for him and the entirety of the Republican Party as we watch them implode at this moment.

Yeah, you said his head is on a swivel. I think that might be understating it. I feel like his head was more like Linda Blair's and The Exorcist. Just full, full rotation, 360 degrees. I mean, watching this yesterday and reading about it yesterday, and it's like, on the one hand, like you're sitting there like, how did we get to this? How are we stuck in this situation where we have an entire party that literally can't govern at all? And then on the other hand, I'm laughing.

And I'm laughing because it couldn't happen to nicer people. and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy in the case of Kevin McCarthy. To watch this unfold and to know that, I mean, Matt Gates, who is under an ethics probe right now, who was investigated for his little peccadillos with possibly underage girls, and to know that he was the guy that brought down the speaker of the house. And not because they were allies. Like, you know, you would expect something like that be like he was tarnished by his relationship with Gates. No, Gates opposed him. And somehow he was able to do this because that party is so ungovernable.

And yeah, the blaming the Democrat stuff was so obviously what they were going to do and what they're going to continue to do. And I've seen it. I cannot tell you how many people on the right. That's the line they're going with that the Democrats did this. This is the Democrats' fault. And the Democrats shouldn't have gotten involved in this. And the idea that the Democrats should have lifted a pinky toe to help Kevin McCarthy. is just that's, I mean, talk about a DSM situation, because that is as it's insane as it gets.

This is a guy who made excuses for January 6th. This is a guy who has done absolutely nothing to reach across the aisle in the 13 minutes that he was speaker. There is absolutely no reason in the world why a single Democrat should have lifted a finger to help him or to help out the Republican Party, which is just increasingly enthrall to its most extreme members. And that's your party, guys. You created this and stop asking other people to solve your problems. And that's the thing to me, because I got to tell you that there is an array of bullshit think pieces that have come out to say that Democrats have shot themselves in the foot by not trying to save Kevin McCarthy. And I'm confused.

I'm confused by the media narrative that always somehow cast. the blame of government dysfunction, not on the people that are literally anarchists to our democracy, but to the very people who are actually trying to get work done. I listened as this was unfolding, and cable news has on these Republican members of Congress and talking about all of the amazing work that they have done under Kevin McCarthy's leadership, those that were supporting him. And I'm like, here's a tip to cable news anchors. Maybe a follow-up like, what legislation are you talking about? Exactly.

Like what policy? Because you say that it's amazing. You use all of these adjectives to describe this thing that doesn't actually fucking exist. So what are you speaking on? I don't care about Kevin McCarthy. I really don't. You know, Nancy Pelosi also was speaker with a four-seat majority. You can't even compare those two.

They shouldn't even exist in the same sentence. But to again, that be the reason why it was so difficult to get things done. It's so difficult to get things done because you're a hypocrite and a liar and can't be trusted, not by the Democrats and not by people within your own party. And so now they're putting up Jim Jordan just through his hat in the ring for their next vote that will come up on October 11th to decide who their next. you know, anointed speaker is going to be. And by the way, they will still have to comply under the same rules of one person being able

to bring up a vote for their ouster, because that's what they all fucking agreed on. But the idea that Jim Jordan, of all people, Mr. like gaslight, liar, Hunter Biden laptop, denying subpoenas, just, oh, the rules don't apply to Jim Jordan. just like apparently he didn't care about, you know, the athletes that he was overseeing when he was a coach. This is who these people offer up. And it's just like, you think you can't get worse? And then they're like, no, no, no, this is how we're going to own the lives. This is what we're going to do.

And I'm like, at this, I don't give a fuck. Go ahead. Bring on Jim Jordan. Bring on Scalese. Bring them on. And show the American people who you are. Lift the last bit of the veil. Destroyed the white.

and let them see exactly who you are, exactly what you stand for. The Republicans are going to do what the Republicans are going to do. And I think for a long time, Democrats have said, well, if we don't support this, you know, a Republican who's only 80% crazy, we're going to get one who's 90% crazy or 100% crazy. And so they've supported the 80% crazy one. And I was happy to see them not do that this week. All you're doing at that point is normalizing the 80% crazy. crazy. I'm making up numbers here because McCarthy's probably higher than that, but relatively speaking, compared to like a Jim Jordan, yeah, he might be saner than Jim Jordan, but that doesn't

make him sane. And it's time to stop supporting this shit. And if the Republicans want a battle between Jim Jordan, who as you point out, turned an unbelievable blind eye to absolutely horrific things that were going on at Ohio State University. And if the other choice is Steve Scalise, who, according to a Louisiana reporter, early in his career, called himself David Duke without the baggage. And if those are the two people and, you know, we'll see who else throws their hat in the ring. I'm sure there'll be other people as well. But do it. The Democrats cannot spend their time holding Republicans' hands. And we always say this. Democrats are going to get blamed no matter what. We've used this analogy before. Oh, you can't nominate Bernie Sanders because they'll call a

Socialists. So you nominate Joe Biden and what do they do? They call Joe Biden a socialist. You cannot win that battle because you're fighting with crazy people. You don't want to get into a fight with a crazy person because they will do anything. And the only thing to do is to not get in that fight and to just, you know, be like the internet meme and just stand by and say let them fight. So I think, you know, the Democrats absolutely did the right thing in not propping up the limp gavel. And if Republicans want to present themselves to the country as a choice between Jim Jordan and Steve Scalese, then do it. It's not the Democrats' job to prevent Republicans from engaging in their worst instincts. It's a Republican's job to do that, and they failed. You're absolutely right, because it's as if the media thinks that Democrats are supposed to be the babysitters for the Republican Party. So they don't want to call out the Republicans because, God forbid, we don't both sides every fucking thing until it's over.

So Donald Trump has 91 charges for indictments. Joe Biden wears sneakers. You have, the Republican Party is imploding. Oh, my God. History is being made as the first speaker is being ousted. But what did Hakeem Jeffries say? And if Democrats decide to do what it is that they just did, which is say, you know what? We're standing with and for our own. We'll keep putting up Hakeem Jeffries for speaker. Right? We're happy. And Hakeem Jeffries released a statement. We will work with Republicans, traditional Republicans, that are interested in working in a bipartisan manner in order to be able to further the interest of the American people. But what we will not do is continue to try and work with extremists that we can't trust. Why are they considered crazy for doing that? Why is that out of step with what a majority, and again, I say a majority of Americans, see the Republican Party for who they are?

It's why they keep losing in every election and have to cheat, lie, and steal their way into office. No, I was going to say, let's get 10, quote, unquote, moderate slash sane Republicans to vote for Hakeem Jeffries. You want to teach the extremists in your party a message. You want to send a message to the American people that, hey, we're not all insane and some of us actually do care about governing. Take that extreme step, you know, vote for the other party and then go out on TV and say, hey, I didn't want to do this. I didn't want to vote for a Democrat for a speaker. But Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan, are you fucking kidding me? Do that. Why isn't the Republican Party called crazy for not wanting to do that? Like, you're absolutely right. It's this double standard in the media. It's this stupid, you know, let's go to a diner in Peoria and talk to Trump supporters mentality. And look, I have no doubt. I tweeted this and people kept replying saying, you're joking, but this is real. I'm like, well, I wasn't really joking. We saw on Tuesday, this whole thing started with the blaming the Democrats for this. And we saw a bunch of Republicans saying that. And in my tweet,

I said, you know, on Monday, basically there's going to be a poll that shows that 95% of Republicans think that the Democrats illegally forced Kevin McCarthy from office in order to distract from Hunter Biden. I believe that's true. I believe that 95% of Republicans are going to believe that because they're going to be fed a steady diet of that over the next week on Fox News and in all across the conservative media sphere. And that's going to become their reality because we are living in a world in which one party is, is not in touch with our reality. And they're just going to believe what they're going to believe. And we've seen this over the past eight years or whatever it's been since Trump. And that's just the reality. And like I said, the Democrats can't play that game.

They can't play this game of acknowledging a worldview that is not based in reality. It has to stop. I honestly, I don't know what is going to stop it. What I do know is that nominating Donald Trump for Speaker of the House is not going to stop it. but their own rules state that they agreed to state that if you are indicted for felony, you would have to vacate that seat. But, you know, what are rules? What is order to the Republican Party?

So folks are putting that up and saying, well, Donald Trump couldn't possibly become the speaker because in their own rules. And I'm like, okay, right? Give me a break. Who controls the rules too? Yeah. Right. So, you know, you look at this and you look at what they are doing.

and I just continue to wonder truly what the end game is. I really do want to know is the entire strategy just to blow up the country? Like, is the entire strategy just to destroy everything? And then I want to know, and then what? When you're standing on the ruin, is that when you finally have owned the libs? And then what? Then the theocracy, I think. There's been a parade of people.

who leave the Trump administration, who left the Trump administration, and they make their pivot for cable news, they make it for Fox, they make it for CNN, they write a book, some of themselves, some of them crash and burn, and all of them decide to come out at that time to say, oh, he was terrible, like this guy. John Kelly, who was apparently the longest serving White House chief of staff for Donald Trump, which does not say. much. But that's how the CNN article starts out. John Kelly, the longest serving White House, it's not like the longest serving White House chief of staff, just to Donald Trump. It came out following all of the absolute abhorrent things that were said about now the

former joint chiefs of staff, General Mark Millie, when Trump referred to said that he was treasonous, that he should be hung, and that was echoed throughout the Republican Party, throughout members of Congress saying the very same thing. Kelly has now come out to, I guess, set the record straight and to confirm a number of the stories that are so disgusting that are just, I don't even know what to say. But I want to read one of the quotes that John Kelly give. He said, quote, a person that thinks that those who defend their country in uniform or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat or spend years being tortured as POWs are all, quote, because, quote, there is nothing in it for them. A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because it doesn't look good for me.

A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family, for all Gold Star families on television during the 2016 campaign and rant that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America's defense are losers and wouldn't visit their graves in France. He goes on, Andy, to talk about a person who, a person who. Motherfucker, just say Donald Trump. Just say his name. He is not the candy man. He is not going to jump out of the window.

He is not beetle juice. He is not going to show up in front of you if you actually say his goddamn name. Like, let's just start confronting the fuckery, like, with the same might that Donald Trump puts out his bullshit. A person who, a person who. I'm over it. All right, I will say in John Kelly's slight defense, he does seem to be one of the few people doing this who isn't hawking a book or looking to get a job on CNN or MSNBC. So I'll give him that. Beyond that, I don't disagree with you.

And I am really tired of all these stories coming out. What is it now? Three years since he's been out of office, two years since he's been out of office. But also, all of this is like, we knew this. We knew this in 2015 when he's. He said, I prefer my heroes who don't get captured about John McCain. John McCain was not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured.

I like people who aren't captured. That's the quote. I'm a veteran, yeah. But I don't have a problem with people who don't think of those in the military as heroes. This is a trite thing to say, but that is absolutely your right as an American. You can sit there and you can make a coherent argument that, look, depending on the war, It was a bad war and, you know, I'm not going to call someone a hero who was part of a bad war. If that's your attitude, fine. Whether or not I agree with it, that's an acceptable argument.

The argument that Trump makes is he looks at the rows of dead soldiers and said that they were suckers. What was in it for them? Which perfectly sums up Donald Trump, by the way. Yep. And that argument to me is, that's obviously disgusting. That doesn't even have to be about war heroes. You could say that about anyone who did something and stood up against something. and paid for it with their life.

The idea that those people are suckers, again, it perfectly sums up Donald Trump. There's nothing more to say about it. But that's the thing with this John Kelly thing and the thing that everyone else is, you know, every time we hear one of these Republicans say, yeah, this was the last draw for me. I couldn't believe he did this, you know, or, you know, in Kelly's chance. What else can you say about a person who does this? Yeah, that's the shit we were all saying before the 2016 election. And it didn't stop you then.

It probably didn't stop you from voting for him again in 2020. And for half of these people, you tell them that Trump is going to be running against Biden in 2024. And they'll be like, well, I have to vote for Trump then because Biden is worse. Biden is not worse. I'm not even going to get into that argument because it's insane. But the point is, like you, I am tired of hearing from these people. Believe me, I am sympathetic to an argument that you stay at a place and you work at a place

and you think that, well, this place sucks, but maybe I'm making it a little better. not at all talking about my own past. At a certain point, you have to say, I'm not making this any better. And all I'm doing is adding to it just by being here and by propping it up. So, yeah, I'm really tired of all these people saying this shit. And everything John Kelly said is completely true. It's also stuff that anyone, even a functioning brain stem, I don't even think you need an actual brain in your head, knew at least from 2015 on, if not before.

If you're a New Yorker, you knew this shit about Trump way earlier than that. But if you were in the rest of the country and the shit that he said and did in the run up to the 2016 election, if that wasn't enough for you, then I don't know what to tell you. Folks, I am so happy and excited whenever I get to bring my friends on to the new abnormal. So I am so happy to bring back to the new abnormal law professor and author of big dirty money and other people's houses and the host. and the host of the podcast booked up. My friend, Gentow, hello, friend. Hey, Danielle. So your favorite topic all over the news right now

as we watch the civil suit that has been brought by Manhattan AG Tish James against Donald Trump for inflating his assets at over, I don't know, in some cases, $2 billion. In other cases, $3,000. billion dollars. Apparently all of his properties, Jen, are worth billions of dollars, exaggerating the square footage of his assets. And this is coming into a tune of $250 million that Tish James is seeking, a quarter of a billion dollars. And before we get into the details of the case and what happened

yesterday. I want you to walk us through why this matters. Out of all of the cases, all of the indictments, all of the things that we're seeing unfold, why this civil suit that doesn't come with criminal liability, meaning there's going to be no jail time, why this matters. Well, it comes down to sort of the theme of my research and the theme of Donald Trump's entire existence. It's three words. And they are follow the money. Mm-hmm. And that's how he has organized his life around the pursuit of money at all costs.

And he ironically, or maybe not so ironically, always has, what do they say, you know, a dollar burning in your pocket? I mean, he burns through money like it's water. And he is someone who, what is it, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars that he got from his father. And if he just put it like maybe even under a mattress or, you know, in an S&P. P 500 mutual fund, the dude would have some serious money. But he spends other people's money. He spends his father's money and he burns through it. He is not a, what we would say is a business genius. And yet, he still actually has plenty of wealth, or at least whether or not he's heavily indebted, has never really mattered to him, even the business bankruptcies, because the perception

of wealth and enough wealth and enough debt means that he has always been sort of too big to fail. And he lives in luxury and he can pretend like he is a business genius. And with this lawsuit, that all could go away. It would be like this lawsuit is the financial equivalent to a giant windstorm blowing off his crazy toupee slash hair do. It would reveal the things about himself that he tries so hard not to reveal, which is he is as his niece has said, a loser. And this would make him lose. That word lose, loser, he doesn't want to lose money. He doesn't want to lose status. And to you and I, I mean, a criminal complaint would be super serious. Right. And he doesn't, those are far away. If he can just put those off for another day, if he wins back the White House, I'll have his attorney general,

get rid of the ones from Jack Smith, the federal level. The Georgia one, I know you can't right now under law, get pardoned in Georgia by the governor. They could just change those laws. There's ways in which that is so far in the future, but this is immediate. Of course, there will be appeals. But when I say, immediate. I mean, the thought of this actually happening, it would keep him up at night. This is immediate in his mind and it doesn't look like it's going to go anywhere. And he has terrible, at least half of his legal team has done a terrible job representing him, not getting him a jury trial because he's got a no bullshit judge presiding over this, who's already ruled against him on the major claim. Let's go to now, Judge Engeron has already ruled that Donald Trump's

inflation of his value, he has done so fraudulently. So walk us through that ruling. And so now we have a ruling that says what Tish James brought to that judge, she was correct. He's inflated his assets. The judge says Donald Trump is a fraud as well as his sons because it's Donald Trump, his sons, and then a couple of other people that are a part of this civil suit. Tell us what that ruling said and why there was, I guess, a dissolving of LLCs. Talk to us about that piece and then we can talk about what we're sitting in the courtroom for right now. Sure. And we can forgive ourselves as well as anyone listening for this being complicated or confusing and also for sometimes information. People are using shorthand when they talk about these cases. So let's just talk about what's going on here.

So as you know, the civil case was brought last September and it's already going to trial less than a year, which is a pretty big deal. And what I, yeah, I think in Goren is his name, Judge Arthur and Goren, who is a state trial judge. They call it the Supreme Court ruled. There are actually several other claims, but the main claim that he ruled on summary judgment, which means there are no facts in dispute. Okay. There's no factual issue to be resolved that as a matter of law. This was a violation of what's known as New York Executive Law, 63212. And that is the law that says, essentially that if you engage in, it prohibits a persistent and repeated business fraud. And according to the precedent, that is a persistent business fraud that has the capacity or

tendency to deceive or creates an atmosphere conducive to fraud. That's what he ruled on last Tuesday, I believe it was. And why that's a big deal is he was able to rule on it because it's a pretty straightforward statute that doesn't require any kind of proof that he intended to actually deceive the banks. If you do things like have false and misleading financial statements and you do this audaciously and repeatedly and persistently, I'm adding audaciously in there for fun, such as ballooning your net worth up to $2.2 billion, what it's worth a fraction of that. Or when you do things like you say your apartment, you know, is, you know, three times a size that it.

is or you, you know, all this exaggeration where there's a discrepancy anywhere between 800 million and 2.2 billion, the judge can say that that falls into that law. So that has been decided, and you're right, that all the judge needs to do, at least on that claim, is determine what the level of damages are. And I'm going to put a pin in that for a second. There's still several other claims that are other statutes that were just sort of more like that was the main course and those were like the side salads or whatever. And those were things related to like similar business records fraud statutes that we've seen before. But as for this main ball of wax here, figuring out what he owes has many pieces because it's not just like you might think, okay, so what is the

damages? Is that just the amount of tax he didn't pay? Or if the banks weren't actually harmed, if they claimed that he didn't pay a lower interest than when he did, you know, how do you add it out? Well, this statute apparently is built with this concept of what's called disgorgement of ill-gotten gains. So there is the profits that he would have made off of these now fraudulent, now determined to be fraud, the profits he made might have to be disgorged. And the point that you made, which is more important even than disgorging the profits, because of that amount, the lawsuit says at least 250 million. It could be more. You have Michael Cohen saying he thinks it could be 600 million. I would not bet against Michael Cohn these days in his estimation. He was there helping create these

misleading statements. So, you know, anywhere between, let's say, $200 and $600 million, let's split the difference and say it's $400. That's a lot of money. And to get that money, the court can seize assets, you know, and can make them be sold until you get to that money. And then there's a separate part, which is even worse. You know, Donald Trump has lost and gained fortunes many times, especially for other people's money. But when you take away the golden goose, it's not laying any more eggs. And so the golden goose are these business entities that there is an order in New York to put them into a receivership.

And it's not like Donald and Don Jr. And Eric can go, oh, our bad, they're not worth anything. We get to keep them. There's going to be an actual receiver who can count the numbers up. And unlike Don Jr., I don't know if you saw his deposition where someone asked him, do you know what gap is? You said, yes, you know, it's generally accepted accounting principles. They said, do you know what that are? And he said, I think it's accounting principles that are generally accepted. You know, either he doesn't know what the accounting rules are, which, you know, he's not an accountant or he doesn't want to let people know he knows. He doesn't matter if he can count or if he knows what the reporting standards are. Someone else does. So we're going to, you know, it's a nightmare because there's a lot going on in those books that might not be on the up and up more than even the lies that were in these financial statements. So a receiver is going to come in. They may even find more fraud. And they're going to find stuff we don't know, which is a lot.

lot of these businesses are limited liability companies under a giant corporate umbrella, and they don't have to disclose who the beneficial owners are. He may have been in partnership and in bed with a lot of people because you know the comment Donald Trump meant the other day, which is my buildings could be worth anything because I can always sell them to the Saudis at any price I name. Huh, I wonder if they're investors with him. You know, we're going to, there's going to be a lot going on as a golden goose has been given to someone else. Yeah, I don't know how he's going to be able to stay in New York at all. So part of this is that his businesses will be dissolved or dissolving.

He won't be able to do business in New York. Is that for a specified amount of time? I think the idea, it might be permanently. By the way, something that, just to think about this, think about Trump Tower. You've seen the jokes that it says, you know, you've seen it with E. Jean Carroll's name on it or Tish James's team out. But the reality is most of the spaces in there are apartments, whether there are condos or co-ops, that people actually, oh, I think they're condos. He only owns the re-chondos. He doesn't even own the land.

And he owns his own space, whatever, however big that is. Right. So he is maybe one of his businesses is a management company that takes some sort of management fee for cleaning, you know, and keeping things done. But these are condos, I believe. And so everyone owns them just like they would own a house. So when we talk about that not being his anymore, that's quite likely because I'm not sure how much equity he even has in it.

And I don't know, I don't know which Trump organization owns the, you know, the retail space like you're saying, but that's not going to be in his control anymore. He will be living in a building maybe for the first time that he doesn't actually control the whole space around him, if you know what I mean. So talk to us, Jen, then, about people have said and who knows, right, that, and you said it at the top, this is the case that blows Donald Trump's whole lying-ass facade wide open. He was able to get to the White House, become president of the United States, and based on his business acumen. I alone can fix it.

I am the art of the deal. I own buildings and licensing all around the world. I'm a multi-billionaire so I can run a country. And what this is going to expose or what it is exposing is that everything about Donald Trump from his fake tan to his fake hair to the way that he lies about his weight to all of these things, everything is a lie. And I wonder what your thoughts are on if this is $250 million he has to pay out or more, does this substantially, do we think, if he's not a billionaire, which we don't believe that he is, this is a serious blow to his finances. Yeah, it really is. And I,

you know, I don't know how much he is actually worth in terms of liquidation. value, you know what I'm saying? You know, I don't know, and I don't know what properties outside of New York, you know, would have to be sold to pay this bill. It's hard to fathom the equivalent for any of us mere mortals who live more or less paycheck to paycheck, you know what I mean, what this would feel like. It might feel like our lives, which is, you know, it seems like it's also relative, right? Because at the end of the day, if you ended up with as much wealth as he will end up, and access to wealth is he will end up with, after this is over, you'd be much better off than you are now. Let's not kid ourselves. The guy isn't going to be walking around like a cartoon,

you know, guy with a barrel on straps on his shoulders, barefoot somewhere. That's not what we're talking about. He'll still have plenty of money compared to what you and I, you know, he'll still be in the top 1%, probably, if not 0.1%. But that's not what he's about. He's about domination. He's about being the smartest, richest guy in the room. He's about that persona. So, and he's about, let me say it differently, control. This is someone who has a huge need to control everything, even though, even as he creates chaos around him. And his chaos has worked for him to a degree, but the level of chaos now around him between, I can't even imagine what it's like to have this many lawyers, this many lawsuits, this many co-defendants. Did I mention he's running for president?

Yeah, just that small thing. I do think that there is even a point with him that even if you have all these people around you spitting plates, at sometimes they do all come crashing down and there's no one to clean them up. And I wonder whether that's what he's feeling. I mean, I think that at this point, the fact that his lawyers didn't even put in the paperwork to get a jury trial, which he could try and razzle, dazzle, and then say, oh, you know, they hate me. blah, blah, that they didn't even do that. And that's why he's going to be facing the judge that he is outwardly threatening,

calling names, doing a whole bunch of things to. I guess my last question for you, Jen, is on the threatening piece, on his consistent MO of wrongdoing, does the threats come back to bite him? Here's why they do, because they're not working anymore. Remember when everyone was so worried, you know, we had, you know, Alvin Bragg was the one who brought the first. criminal case and everyone's like, oh my God, people will hit the streets. Well, they didn't. And then it was like, oh, but when the real one comes when Jack Smith brings a case, crickets. Yeah, they're protesters. He wants to have people engage in direct violence against his enemies. That's what his MO is. It is not working. And in terms of threats coming back to bite them, I think the judges are going to be extremely cautious in terms of signing any kind of gag order in order to not create some kind of issue on appeal. And I think, you know, his screen. screaming and yelling and stamping his feet and throwing tantrums not actually working for him.

He is worse for him than a judge trying to gag him because then he creates sympathy. You know, the judges will do what they're going to do and it frustrates me immensely that he's treated differently. Yeah, because anybody else would have been in jail by now. Right. Judges have to be really careful about what they do in terms of using their authority because if you make an order and you say, if you don't abide by this, I will put you in jail. you better be willing to do it.

Right. And the one thing that I think it was Judge Chutkin said, you know, if you can't behave yourself, maybe I'm going to speed up the trial date. I think she's smart. The fact that she put off the hearing for so long after the government, this is Jack Smith saying, you know, this is dangerous. Look what he's doing, including amending it to say and he's threatening to kill these, you know, General Millie and all these other folks.

I think the fact that she's delayed it shows that she doesn't see it as urgent. I trust her. She's league smarter than I am. So I think she can fashion. something that will create the kind of discipline and good behavior that threatening to lock him up wouldn't do because he would love that if it were. He would just play the victim, I think, if that were. I just don't think that's going to happen. We'll see. Yeah, we will see. And we will have to leave it there for it now, my friend. But as we watch this, we will certainly call on you again.

Always appreciate your insight and analysis. Thank you. So great to be here. Today on NPR is all things considered I'm joined. Oh, wait, wrong show. What the fuck is going on in D.C.? Today on the new abnormal, I'm joined by two gentlemen who won't answer that question and many more. David Roth is an editor at and co-owner of Defector and co-host of the Distraction Podcast. Jeb Lund is a journalist whose writing has appeared in such places as the Guardian, Vice, Rolling Stone, Gawker, and the New Republic. He's also the co-host of the Quaid-in-Full podcast.

And when they put on their robes and chant Clatu Barada Nicto, they become. the co-hosts of the It's Christmas Town podcast and my next guests. Jeb, Dave, welcome. Hey. Thank you. Go, raise. I'm not endorsing that. They've gone.

It's terrific. That's true. Goodbye. They went. Okay. So my first question is, let's say Kevin McCarthy selling the minuscule portion of his soul that remained in order to become a house speaker was him sewing and him being ousted is his reaping.

And let's say Matt Gates leading the way for McCarthy's ousts. was him sewing, what is his reaping? I go to you first, guy who chimes in before the other. I got to let Jeb handle this one. I, they probably may take listeners inside the game for a minute. Jeb is actually living in Florida right now. He has a higher chance of seeing Matt Gates. I'm not going to see anyone that looks like Matt Gates unless I open up those old Mac Tonight videos that McDonald's used to have because he kind of looks like the horny moon character in that. So, Jeb, all you, what is the reaping? that awaits Matt Gates, is his head going to get longer?

I'm sorry, Dave. Are you hosting this podcast now? I just feel like I should help out. What is going on here? Okay, well, first of all, I like the Mac Tonight comp, but to me, it's basically if you fused Beavis and Butthead. Wow. There's a certain skull shape and then the color of it. Put if Beavis and Butthead were capable of driving while intoxicated.

And trafficking people who, well, you know. Allegedly. You know, look, I'm going to, I'll disclose this here. I've known Matt Gates since he was about 14. I was the, I was a volunteer coach for the drama and debate program at his high school because I had graduated. I came back and, you know, would ride on the bus and be a judge for their tournaments. And there are certain threads that run through a life that are pretty easily sort of detangled from the skein of whatever. You know, just wanting to be somebody awesome is kind of that guy's deal. And unfortunately, he's, he's, in a political position where just being a big obnoxious SOB and demanding attention is rewarded. And so I think he's reaped, right? I mean, he got, I think, what the general purpose of Matt Gates' behavior is, which is, please look at Matt Gates. And thankfully, you know, he has a subculture where just being an obnoxious little snot

is cool. If you had to chalk up anything that he's achieved in this, other than knocking off the most eminently knockoffable speaker of the house in the history of the institution. is that like millions of people who would otherwise have no reason to know who he is or have an opinion on him at all would push him down a flight of stairs on purpose without any hesitation now. Yes. Okay. But if I changed reaping and sewing to the chickens coming home to roost, would your answers be the

same? I mean, I don't know that I believe in chickens coming home to roost anymore. Really? I'm going to need to see it. I want to. I think that like to a certainty, but it's the sort of thing where, where are the consequences? for Matt Gates, right? Like, that guy was, I guess you'd have to say, like, involved in a human trafficking case, right? And that didn't necessarily come to anything. The only way that he could

lose his district is if there were somehow a worse version of him that ran against him. And that is, I guess you'd have to say, either a bug or a feature of how congressional districts are grown. But he's not going anywhere. He's not going to, like, go to jail for this. And his coworkers already all hated him. So this just seems like the sort of thing where, you know, I want to be a lot of the way. want to believe in consequences in a micro sense where he is concerned because I'd love to see something lousy happened to him. I think in a macro sense, it's pretty clear that he is maybe the most ungovernable and ungoverned part of a party that should not be in any way in charge of governing things. But, you know, I don't know that that's a new revelation either, is it?

Right. I think he is mortal even in that district. I mean, you can run a weekend at Bernie's candidate. And as long as he's Republican, he's going to take that district. But the state, GOP and local GOP and national GOP didn't have any real interest in ousting him. Whereas I think enough people now just hate him, which is the consequence of meeting him, I think. But you have McCarthy, who is a good fundraiser, who I think has really no governor on what he wants to do. If he wants to just screw this guy, he can. And Gates has alienated a lot of the people in that district. They will work with him because they've got to. And he's enjoyed the cover of his dad, who is a very wealthy and influential man in Florida politics. He was president of Florida Senate for a while. And now he has,

you know, his new daddy of Trump. But he hasn't really had to fight anything, right? There has been no real institutional power apart from the Florida Democratic Party, which is, you know, in terms of like relative power, kind of like unseeding Kevin McCarthy. Yeah. Right. It's like one of those like preseason NCAA tune up games where they're playing at school that's just like, it's in an office building, you know, like DeVry beats them every year. That's basically who he's been piling up wins against. Yeah, he's got 72 and O against Kaiser College. That's right.

But, Jeb, there's been so speculation that Gates is going to run for governor of Florida in 26 since DeSantis can't run for a third consecutive term. Do you think that this hurts him rather than helps him? I don't know as if it ultimately makes a difference. I think he would probably try the same strategy that DeSantis had, which is, you know, go on Fox News and get basically free advertising because the trouble with Florida is, You have to dump a lot of money into multiple major media markets. You have Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Pensacola to get the word out.

And DeSantis did that very well. And that helped to hide the fact that DeSantis has marginally more charm than Matt Gates, but that's it. The rest of the Florida GOP doesn't have to play with Matt. The power that he had in that district that entrenched him was his dad. And dad, I don't think has the flex in the Florida Republican Party anymore. The party has left him and gone. screaming to the right. So it's going to come down to how much sort of free advertising can get from

the same media apparatus that can make anybody else. They can pick any other candidate and make them a viable statewide candidate. You know, how much does he get from that and how much does he actually have to be out and be himself? Because as soon as he has to rely on that latter part, like, good luck, pal. Right. So on Wednesday night, a Republican senator from Oklahoma with the unlikely name of Mark Wayne, that's one word, that's his first name, Mark Wayne, Mark Wayne, went on CNN and said of Gates, quote, you've got to think about this guy. This is a guy that the media didn't give the time of day to after he was accused of sleeping with an underage girl. And there's a reason why no one in the conference, that's the Republican conference, came and defended him,

because we had all seen the videos he was showing on the house floor that all of us had walked away from of the girls he had slept with. He bragged about how he would crush ED medicine and chase it with energy drinks so he could go all night. Dave, first of all, what, or maybe who, is ED medicine. And second of all, is Matt Gates being Cawthorned? I mean, that would be, I guess, where the consequences would arrive. It is just funny to see that there is like an upper boundary or outer boundary for this sort of behavior that like you can show your coworkers a video of a Florida Atlantic University student that you slept with. And they'll be like, don't do that. But all right, sure, I'll watch it. But then if you're like, and you know, the other thing is if you snort Viagra,

it works much faster. And you know, you do get some blurring of vision and stuff. Because I think that's crushing ED medicine. Also, that's a very funny expression, the idea of like the way that I might, you know, like crush some dumplings for lunch. That's just. Right. Matt Gates going to town on a bucket of hymns.

Come on, man. They've got the fountain like at the golden corral. There's like the butterscotch hymns. Yeah. It's getting turned away from the all you can eat. bar where they're just sort of like, we're bringing some new ones out in a moment. We'd like you to put on this complimentary pair of restrictive pants for a duration of the time in the restaurant. Thank you. It is weird, though. I mean, I think that this is like, we've seen

this to a certain extent with Lauren Bobert and obviously Cawthorne is the one guy that's actually been sort of aced out in this. I think that the story of our politics in the last, you know, you don't want to say like since Trump descended the golden escalator because it's like, it kind of was a problem before that. But the search for like, how big an asshole is too big an asshole, personally speaking, to be allowed to, like, participate in our politics. I feel like it's going to be ongoing for, like, much of the rest of our lives. But if Matt Gates isn't the answer to that, then we're in worse shape than I thought. All right.

One last question on the house. So far, we've got Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise throwing their hats in the ring to replace McCarthy. A speaker, Jeb, I was surprised to see you tweet, I've always been a Jordan man. Yeah, explain that. Well, it's the Jordan rules. No, I don't. That is an interesting dilemma between those two. You've got the like, hear no evil and hile no evil options for the public party.

Jim Jordan's great, too, because first of all, it's like one of those guys where every now and then you'll get someone where you can just from the beginning of them talking. You're just like, oh, fuck, come on. Enough. And Jordan has this kind of unctuous dumb guy thing that I think is kryptonite for most people, even before you get into the, again, they said it was impossible that the Republicans would turn their caucus over to someone who had spent at least a little bit of time around child molestation this soon after Dennis Hastert. And yet I think they might pull it off. It might be twice in 20 years. Jeb, I'm going to do the annoying thing people do on Twitter and I'm going to reply to your excellent, hear no evil, howl, no evil joke by saying you can also. have gone with see no evil, seeg no evil. Yes, well played. I agree. Okay. So Jeb, a little while ago,

you wrote a great piece for Truthdig titled Ron DeSantis's Blitzkrieg to Looserville, in which you said it shouldn't be a surprise that Meatball Rob, as I call him, is that his campaign is going down in flames. My question is, Dave, what did you think of the piece? That was fine. I was unable to finish it. I'm very busy. It was long. So listeners may know that Jeb is my friend. Everybody has, as a muse or two if you're writing about this sort of thing. You don't necessarily get to choose who it is. And if you write about politics a lot, it's often not somebody that you actually like. But to see Jeb just get the assignment, I'm sure that you didn't pitch it as this. If you were basically like, I got like 2,000 words in me about Ron DeSantis, my eyes are

going to roll back like the guy in Dune for half of it while I just give him both barrels. It was an immensely satisfying post that I recommend to anybody. I guess it would be more fun if you didn't like Ron DeSantis. But that's kind of the same. same thing as recommending it to anybody. Jeb, you were mentioned in Dave's answers. You have 90 seconds to reply. Well, I think the thing with Ron DeSantis is sort of the thing that Dave had to wrestle with when writing about Trump and, you know, Dave sort of becoming the Trump whisper. And, you know, he had a very cogent thesis about Trump, which is that this is a man

who wants to be on television and he will do anything to stay on television and he's a hateful toad. And the media, and I mentioned this in the DeSantis piece, you know, the media kept trying to, not us, because we're the good ones. No. But, you know, they kept trying to find this more complicated reason why Trump was what he was. And by adding the complexity, it made it less ugly. And there was a mystery that could be pursued. And sort of a similar thing is happening with DeSantis where you've got just this hateful

bastard who's trying to ascend to the presidency by stomping on the most, you know, beat on and marginalized people within his state. And there's not a big mystery to that. He is a bully because he likes being a bully. And that is going to be a turnoff to people who are just exposed to the raw form of it. Trump for whatever else is wrong with him is funny. And so you do get that kind of, okay, it's a, you know, a rant where he's just degrading somebody who's already marginalized. But there's a good one-liner in there. And with DeSantis, there's none of it. There's just this pinched adenoidal sense of like bowel discomfort. Like, like, you know, the man cannot sit without experiencing pain. Maybe it's because of the lifts he wears. I don't know. But yeah, there's no winning aspect to it. What you're left with is the bald reality that like, this guy's just a, he's a dick. Right. Jeb, I just want you to recount. You had a great quote in the piece from a guy who played, I think it was baseball with DeSantis at Yale. Yeah. Well, I can't remember exactly what it was, but it ended with literally he was the biggest dick we knew. And the point was that he took pleasure in being nasty to people.

And if you've got a jock pointing that out, this is not like the most understanding culture that America produces. If you've got a jock who's reached not necessarily the show, but sort of the pinnacle of self-actualization, the self-made man, I'm the one who hit and fielded and ran and caught my way to this. And you've got somebody like you and you're like, this man is intolerable. He's going to be pretty bad. Yeah, it has that kind of, it's like with a baseball scouting in general that like,

it takes a lot to put an 80 grade on anybody with like just for one pure tool. And if you're at Yale and everybody that is on your team is like, even by the standards of everyone else that goes to our college, this man is unbearable. That is a generational talent. That is a pure 80 grade, ugh tool. Yes, that's a that's a five tool tool. Yeah, it is. The one that I wanted to add to that is I think that with Descent.

In kind of the opposite way is Trump, that he's like designed to flatter a lot of the weak spots in major national political media tendencies because of the fact that he's, you know, I guess in his way, been an effective governor and that he's been able to pass a lot of awful laws and consolidate power and stuff. And he has a resume. Like Trump was ridiculous and I think was sort of underrated as a result because people knew him as like the divorce guy from the Brookstone commercials or whatever, you know, was it not like. A serious person. With DeSantis, it's like if you, if all you're doing is like reading the dossier as you go up the May Kong, like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse now, you'd be like, damn, this Colonel Kurtz guy sounds pretty amazing.

And then you get there and it's just like a five foot seven man squinting at you and being like, I don't want why you came here. You're an errand boy sent by the grocer. All right. Final question for both of you. And at this point, I honestly couldn't give a shit. who answers. Taking some kind of medical incident off the table, is there any way next year's presidential election isn't between Joe Biden and Donald Trump? No, which will be interesting, because those are two guys that should only be allowed to go on TV at like three in the afternoon now.

Yeah. It's dispiriting. I don't love it, but I suppose it's hard to say that we deserve anything else at this point. Are you being paid by the RFK campaign to say that? Or perhaps the Cornell West campaign? As you know, yesterday, like many others, an emergency alert to my phone activated my MRI vaccine. Yes. The nanobots that are in it. Uh-huh. And I'm now much more sympathetic to some of Robert F. Kennedy's points than I was, even before lunchtime yesterday. So it sounds like it backfired.

You never know. This is the thing. Nobody tested the technology. And that's why he's so into safety for this sort of thing. Unintended consequences. Jeb, Dave, thank you both so much for coming on as always. ways, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. I don't know that I learned anything, but I feel okay with that. Thank you for having us. Thank you. I'm glad that we didn't teach anything. Maybe.

Yeah. No, that's right. I agree with Jen. Andy Levy. Danielle Moody. Andy, how are you closing out this Godforsaken week? Oh, man. Well, we spent a lot of time talking about the House Speaker travails, but since McCarthy has been removed, so now we got a guy who's acting as interim speaker named Patrick McHenry, And he has decided, like, this is the guy who has not been voted into anything. So let's start with that. Again, he is the interim speaker. And it's just some weird mechanism by which he is the interim speaker.

It's not like he was McCarthy's deputy or something like that. He has decided that there are these little offices in the Capitol. And senior ranking officials for both parties have access to them. They're called hideaways. So like Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker, she had her own office in the House office building, but she also had a little hideaway in the Capitol. And by a longstanding tradition, the high-ranking officials in both parties have these little hideaways. It doesn't matter who's in charge. That's just the way it works. Well, the Republicans have, of course, decided to change this. And McHenry's office has now informed

both Pelosi and former Whip Steny Hoyer that they need to vacate their hideaways and that the rooms will be re-keyed. So not only is this petty as hell, to top it all off, they sent this note to former Speaker Pelosi saying, please vacate the space tomorrow. The room will be re-keyed. Nancy Pelosi, when this message was sent, was not in Washington. Why was she not in Washington? Because she's at the funeral of Diane Feinstein. So, I mean, if you want to just, like, show how low of a human being you are, I can't think of a better way than this other than, you know, their voting record. But to not only send these petty, petty, petty little messages and to take this petty, petty, petty little action, but to send these messages when you know that these Democrats are at the funeral of a colleague and to say that they're, you know, they're going to re-key the office tomorrow and you got to get your shit out today. It just doesn't get any lower than that.

And again, this is coming from a guy who is the interim speaker. He's not even in an elected position in leadership. He's not going to. I haven't heard anyone. talk about Patrick McHenry running for the actual speakership because he's a fucking nobody. And this is just, there is a class of people, and this exists, I will say, across the political spectrum. But there is a class of people who should never be allowed anywhere near even the slightest bit of power because it immediately goes to their head and it activates some kind

of gene they have where they immediately have to start lording it over other people in ridiculous ways. And clearly Patrick McHenry is one of those people. So fuck that. guy. I mean, can they get any lower? No. Do they continue to show people who they are 100%? Are they the most disgusting, hateful, spiteful, petty, small group of people? Apps a fucking lootly. Because I think that to take this action while your colleagues are mourning the passing of another one of your colleagues in Congress is just, but you saw that man banged that gavel with such anger and dismay. And I'm like, that's them. And when Nancy Pelosi said, I've never seen a more miserable bunch, concur, agree, a thousand percent.

Fuck all of them, including McHenry, whatever the fuck his name is. Yeah, I was going to say something else, but I'm not going to. Danielle, who's your fuck that guy? It's to all of these judges right now who are giving. these limited gag orders on a man that they know is dangerous. So this week, Donald Trump received a limited gag order by Judge Arthur Engeron, who is overseeing the civil fraud trial that was brought by Attorney General Letitia James. Now, why is this happening? Not because Donald Trump has continued to threaten this judge himself, which he has, but because he took to his broke-ass social

media platform to post a picture of the law clerk working alongside the judge in the case, who had a photo on her Instagram of her with Senator Chuck Schumer, which, by the way, if you work in New York State and are a public servant, everyone has a fucking picture with Chuck Schumer. Right. Okay. That is just the norm. That being said, why did Donald Trump post that picture? He did it in the same vein that he was spreading lies about the two women, volunteers, right? In Georgia that are bringing a civil case against Rudy Giuliani for being defamed, for being harassed. Because what Donald Trump is doing with each and every threat that he is issued over the last few weeks, whether it is, threatening the former joint chiefs of staff, whether it's threatening his own vice president of the United States, whether it's threatening now this law clerk, is that every time that Donald Trump does this, he is hoping that one of his minions will take him up on his words and his directives,

which is to get rid of these people. That's what he's saying. They can't be trusted. That's the seeds that he's sowing. And so now, Judge Engeron has issued. issued a limited gag order that if Donald Trump does not keep his employees and his staff's name out of his mouth and off of his social media platform, he will begin to receive sanctions. I cannot state this enough. No one outside of Donald Trump would be able to continue acting in this manner and still be out free, not a fucking person. And so I truly believe that these judges are waiting for somebody to seriously be harmed or worse before they actually take the action that they should have taken the first time that Donald Trump opened up his mouth and threatened

one of the judges or the staff or the jurors. We had Georgia, by the way, change their judicial rules now over that case to keep the jurors' names presiding over that case and their addresses out of the record because of Donald Trump's mob boss behavior. It's ridiculous. And for that reason, these judges are getting my fuck that guy. Because I would like us to not wait for someone to be killed before we take action and muzzle this man. Yeah, I'm with you 100%. We've spoken a lot on this podcast about how Donald Trump has lived his life without consequences for any of his horrible actions.

and these little half-assed gag orders, and I get why the judges are doing it, but it's way past time for a full-on gag order and basically saying that if you do this again, you're going directly to prison and do not pass go, et cetera. He gets away with everything, and like you said, if this were anyone else, they would be in jail right now for this shit, and you are 100% incorrect in saying what he wants from all of this. And yeah, the judges need to start taking this shit a lot more seriously than they are. So I'm with you 100%. 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

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