The Daily Beast Podcast - There Is Nothing Independent About Kyrsten Sinema

Episode Date: January 22, 2023

In this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie take jabs at Kyrsten Sinema and Ron DeSantis this week after listening to pretty infuriating clips of them talking. Plus! Daily Beast correspondent Anna Nemstova, who reported on Miss Ukraine’s harrowing experience while competing in the Miss Universe pageant, gives Danielle a behind-the-scenes look at what Miss Ukraine experienced during the contest, including a “shocking” interaction with Miss Russia. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of the new abnormal, and we thank you so much for being here. Today we have an extra special episode with Correspondent for the Daily Beast, Anna Nemstova, and she's going to tell us about Miss Ukraine, Victoria Abysenko, the terribly painful experience she had at the 2023 Miss Universe pageant. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready to listen to some clips? Yes.

Hell yes Need clips You're not going to be so excited Would you hear this one? No, no One Kristen Cinema has gone to Davos If people are not familiar with Davos It's where the elites go together

Then Tucker Carlson mocks them Pretending he's not one of them But Kristen Sinema is here to say She's protecting the status quo For you people The Davos people They go on my way or the highway did Pelosi did it

McCarthy's doing it this is this is not healthy for democracy. So I think that this is an opportunity for us as a country to look back and say, is this partisanship serving us? I would posit to you that it's not. And so while some would say that there were reluctant folks working in Congress in the last two years, I would actually say that that was the basis for the productivity for some incredible achievements that made a difference for the American people in the last two years. And we still don't agree on getting rid of the filibuster. That's correct.

Thank you. I should note Manchin Cinema high-fived after the saying that they don't agree with getting rid of the filibuster. I hate her. Do you know what I'd like to posit to all of you? I'm afraid. Kirsten Cinema should not speak. She is a waste of our fucking time. And to listen to her try and compare Nancy Pelosi.

Nancy Pelosi, the woman who got health care, the woman who got a majority of Joe Biden's agenda done for him before she handed over the gavel to Hakeem Jeffries, like to Kevin McCarthy. This whole both sides bullshit that she wants to do and then pretend in her fucking denim vest that she's somebody's independent. Like I just, I can't stand her. I think that she is a waste and I feel bad for the people. of Arizona. Daniel, I just want to make a quick note for you since I watched the video of this. She's wearing a very expensive what looks like a skinned alpaca dress. So just want to make sure

that we have that on the record. Don't get me started on her fits. No, let's do a fashion podcast instead. I'm practicing for TikTok. There is a difference between being independent and being beholden to like corporate interests. and she seems to confuse one for the other. There's nothing independent about her. She serves masters. It's just, you know, those masters happen to not like the Democratic Party very much. So she has decided that neither does she.

And she has gone from being like, you know, if anything, like a standard liberal, maybe even a little bit to the left of that to now being, I wouldn't even call her a centrist. I mean, I think she's just a moderate Republican at this. point if such a thing still exists. Look, I'm with Danielle. Every time she talks, it's just like, oh, shut up. It's like people like her and Tulsi Gabbard. It's just like you were never who you claim to be. Just go sign with Fox News the way Tulsi did, at least. Yeah. Then you can be yourself. Yeah. At least she did, you know, she followed through, I guess, at least you could say about

her. I don't know what cinema is up to other than getting some kind of cushy job when she gets out because she's deeply unpopular. Like, nobody likes her because nobody likes a person like that. And it's just, she can be as fake, quirky as she wants. But she's just, she is beholden to corporations and big donors. And that's all she is. Yeah, go get your cushy job, you know, and leave the rest of us alone. Yeah.

The good news is, is the polling is looking real bad for her and real good for Ruben Gaya go. Yeah. So, one, Governor Ron DeSantis, the king of operational defiant disorder, he has new policies unveiling on gas stoves. Yeah, we may even say no tax on gas stoves coming up this year. We'll do that. That's fine with me. I want you to be able to have a choice.

He's pro-choice gas stoves. I don't even know where to go. Go ahead, Andy. No, I was just going to say it's funny because I sort of used to have, I'm going to be careful how I say this. I used to have more respect for him as a politician, even though he was a deeply shitty human being. And now I don't even have respect for him as a podcast.

politician, and he just sounds like he just gloms onto whatever the latest little dumbass culture war thing is, whether it's a real thing or not. Like in this case, it's a totally fake thing. He sounds so pathetic when he does it. I don't know. I just feel like this guy is not, I don't think he's the guy to win the Republican nomination. I don't think he comes across as what he thinks he's coming across as. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. Well, he's coming across as an asshole. So, I mean, he's definitely coming across as something. Yes, which is a positive for the Republican Party. I get that. Here's my thing is maybe our strategy for America not going off a cliff is for Democrats to just say the opposite.

And then Republicans will actually do the right thing. So if we're like, yay, cigarettes, right? Then they'll want to ban cigarettes nationwide. If we're like, yay, you know, we're anti-gay. they'll then become pro-gay. Right. Let's just do the opposite of logic because they don't have an agenda. Their agenda is like Jesse said to just be oppositionally defiant. Like just whatever it is, we say the sky is blue, they say no, it's orange. We say science is real.

They say no, it's not. We say COVID kills people. No, it doesn't. It's just like one fucking thing after the other of just no agenda, just the opposite to own the lives. So it doesn't matter if gas stoves cause poison in your home and you can get money from the federal government to get a new stove and retrofit your home and all of these things. It's like, no, let's kill kids, right? And blow up our homes. But they, like, it's just so illogical. And he won't win the nomination because he doesn't have, for all the things that Donald Trump is, he has charisma.

He can gather people. And Ron DeSantis cannot. So that may be our saving grace. Yeah, that's a much better way of saying what I was stumbling over before. And it's like he really doesn't have charisma. And the thing about Trump is, look, obviously, I don't see it. I think he's a, whatever, we all know what Trump is. But there, I can see, I get why there are people who find him likable because he does have, at his best, he does have that weird kind of charisma. DeSantis has none of that. He just is boring and he just seems unlikable, like, without, the sort of the undercurrent of humor or whatever that Trump can sometimes get away with. He just is lacking that.

That's sort of what I was trying to get at. And you said it much better than I could. So I'll shut up now. We were all talking off air the other week because Jim Jordan called the defense budget woke. I think we take Danielle's idea here. We do a little fundraising, get a pack going. And we do the woke defense budget pack and really try to get that to happen. Our education system is going to be a great shape soon.

The woke defense act. I don't. The woke defense budget from the woke generals. My favorite, my favorite concepts. Well, let's call it the Woke America Protection Act. Hell yeah.

Make this the new abnormal think tank. So I was going to give you a choice of which clip to hear next, but because Andy demeaned Mr. DeSantis so much and compared him to the charisma of Mr. Trump. I got to go with Mr. Trump. We haven't heard from the guy in a while. he's inviting you to his latest event. It's not a rally.

Please join us on Saturday, January 21st, in Fayetteville, North Carolina. She loved that state, and so do I. As we celebrate the life of Diamond. She lived it in a credible way, and we're going to have a wonderful celebration and ceremony. All of Diamond's families and silk. We love Silk. Her sister, she loved her sister so much,

and they loved each other, and they really loved the world. They were with me from the beginning, and they never wavered. So we're going to celebrate Silk. We'll be there, but I'll be there, and we're going to celebrate the life of Diamond. See you in North Carolina. Thank you. Like, there's a reason you do impressions of Trump, and there's a reason you can tweet and do it in his voice that you can't do with DeSantis.

That's a great point. DeSantis is just a nothing. when he talks, he's just, he just sounds like he's parroting what he knows his crowd wants to hear. But yeah, I mean, look, go celebrate Diamond's life. I'm not going to be, I'm not going to, you know, shit on someone who just died, even though she probably died. No, I, I won't, but I wonder if she will also maybe have a resting place on the 17th hole at Mar-a-Lago. It's probably in her will.

It's probably our last request. I don't think so, Danielle, for one obvious reason. Why? The color of his skin. Oh, oh, oh. Yeah, you're right. Sorry. I don't think they, I don't think that's the kind of thing that they want to do down

at a good old Mar-a-Lago. Good old Mar-a-Lago and their paper bag tests. I do want to point out, he said that their support for him is unwavering. And I remember one time that they didn't support him when he said he got the vaccine. Oh, that's right. So Mr. Trump needs a little fact check there. That's the first time he's ever said something not true. We got him.

We got him, folks. Before we go, I'm going to go a little over time here. I couldn't not play you guys some George Santos. He wants to tell you that he's a very rich man. So I'm going to let him tell you about it. There's something you can count on me one thing. Money ain't moving me because it's not this job. It's not the salary I've been for.

I guarantee you that. No, I can guarantee you. If there was ever a pay cut in history that somebody took, it's definitely me. Oh, Katara. I think this goes back to when he was pretending to be Jewish and he probably saw Fidler on the roof. And the whole, if I were a rich man song, I think really stuck with him. And he just kind of ran with that. And now we can call him Tevia now.

We can add that to his list of names. That's his Jewish drag name, Tevya. Oh, my God. Amazing. Folks, I am very happy to be joined by correspondent for The Daily Beast, Anna Nemstova, whose recent article on Miss Ukraine and the Miss Universe pageant was very illuminating on how we go through kind of the norms and traditions of pageants during a time of crisis and war.

And Anna, I want to allow you to set the stage of your interview with Miss Ukraine and how that came to be. Well, I was in Ukraine during the week before the finals of Miss Universe 2023, when the photographs of Victoria Apanasinca, Ukrainian participant Miss Ukraine Universe came out, were published all over Ukrainian media. Here, people in Kiev were looking forward to her victory. Because she's Victoria, people thought it would be so beautiful if their beautiful, beautiful girl, who is 29 years old and who was a volunteer during the war, wins the pageant.

But in fact, she didn't make it even to the top 16 Miss Universe 2023. And that was a great disappointment in Ukraine. So I decided to look for Victoria. I reached out to the organizers of this contest. And they put me in touch with Victoria Apanasinka. When we spoke on the phone, she was still in the United States. And she was upset about the process, the pageants organizers misunderstood her feelings. I wanted to give just some context, which is that the Miss Universe pageant obviously had some

disruption following COVID-19, global health pandemic, and then is back up and running. And what I found really interesting, Anna, about your article, I mean, so many elements, one, we're used to as an audience, just watching and seeing the competition and the prettiness and the pageantry and not really thinking about what is happening with the women who are performing, who are representing their country and what is necessarily happening in that country. What I thought was one of the interesting elements of your piece was that Victoria was not aware of the fact that Miss Russia was going to be participating in the Miss Universe contest until a week before the competition, which I assume she was already in the United States. But can you give us some context and some

background to that? Exactly. She was preparing for this contest for eight months. And I need to bring you back to what was happening in Ukraine eight months ago. In the midst of the war, Victoria Apanasinca was washing the floor at a bar called Nuance in Kiev. She was working as a volunteer, helping to feed people in need IDPs in that bar. And she was also cleaning the place when she received the call from the organizers of Miss Universe Ukraine, who told her that you are our Miss Universe this year and you are to go to United States and use the platform for telling the world about what is happening in our country. And the message we are going to bring to the United States is quite strong.

We want to get with you to think about what it's going to be. She actually came up with the idea of representing the symbol of her city of Kiev, the capital where she lives now. And the symbol of Kiev is the angel, the city of that angel, is in the middle of the central square where the revolution happened. back in 2013, 2014. The angel is in the middle of the square. It is defending Kiev.

And by the legend, she says, the angel brought all his friends' angels together to beat the demons, the devil. So that was your idea, to become a warrior of light with this big wings behind her back and with a sword in her hands, to defend her people.

She's a very strong and very brave girl. She's an M.A. in psychology. She's dealing with a lot of people here in Ukraine who have psychological traumas. She's been helping in different regions of Ukraine. She's been helping people. And she's also acting as a United Nations ambassador. So she has many roles. She's a girl with a strong patriotic position and a strong voice.

She agreed because she knew it would be important for Ukraine. They started preparing for the contest. No designers were working at that time. There was a battle for Kiev during March. Right. All the designer shops closed down. And nobody could help them, but they were looking and looking. And finally, they brought together all the people who were still in Kiev,

who did not, you know, move to the West or out of the country. And she was working hard on learning her lines, even on the plane to the United States. She said she did not sleep during nights. She was learning by heart her English texts and her strong messengers. She wanted to have a microphone. She wanted to have at least 30 seconds on stage with a microphone, but she was not given that chance. And that was the most painful thing. A week before traveling to the United States, the head of the director of Miss Universe Ukraine

finds out that there would be a Russian participant on the same stage with Victoria Apanashnika. There were only two paths, she said. One is to just cancel the entire project and not go to United States. And the second is to go and bring that important message, be on the same stage with Miss Russia and speak for Ukraine, stand for Ukraine. They decided to stand for Ukraine and go. The organizers could not travel with Victoria. Victoria traveled all by herself.

She left Kiev. She traveled first to Poland, then she flew to New York, then she flew to New Orleans. And she was wearing her sneakers and her sweatshirt, while all the other participants changed on the plane. Yeah, we're landing in their, you know, gowns. and heels and all of that. So yeah, please explain the kind of reception that she received. Well, she was coming from Ukraine where a casual way of looking is very hip and very much in fashion. Even before the war, Ukrainian major airline decided to switch from flight attendants wearing heels

to flight attendants wearing sneakers. That was the first airline that came up with this idea. They had their orange suits, pants and jackets and sneakers. I met them. in one of the airports, I saw a group of Ukrainian flight attendants and there's sneakers. I came up to them and asked how are you girls feeling? They said, it's just great not to be wearing heels on the flight. That is Ukraine. Ukraine has that feature. But when she stepped out of the plane and people saw her wearing sneakers and sweatshirt, she was criticized for that. One of the interesting lines in that interview was your understanding of what Miss Universe is. She said, to me, Miss Universe is not a queen. It is just the girl.

Yeah. I want to get back to also the tension with learning that Miss Russia was going to be on the same stage. And in your piece, Victoria says this. Quote, I am more than grateful to Miss Universe for their support,

but I am not sure that organizers understood what it felt like for me to be standing and smiling on the same stage with Miss Russia who was wearing a red dress the color of blood. Can you speak to that a bit more? The message that your costume represented and brought to United States,

Archangel Michael the Angel, was very interesting. The costume was blue and yellow, the colors of the national flag. The wings behind her back opened up when she pressed some secret button on her costume. She had a sword in her hands, and she was defending her people and her country. That was her feeling. And when she was thinking about the final dress for the final part of the competition, she was thinking about the grief and sadness that her people are going through. So she brought a black dress that symbolized the grief of her country.

When she arrived in New Orleans and she met with all the participants, most of the girls were really nice to her and supportive. They absolutely supported Ukraine's course, but they were also nice to the Russian participants, and people were concerned that any sign of Russophobia would throw a shadow on the contest on Miss Universe. So everybody tried to balance between supporting Ukraine and supporting Russia as well because they said this Russian girl is going back to her country

where they arrest people and throw them in prison behind the bars for any anti-war statements. But behind the stage, behind the curtain, Ukrainian participant Abanatsinka was hoping until the last moment, she said, that the Russian participant would come up to her and say quietly, you know, I'm so sorry that this is happening. I'm so sorry that your people are dying and that you come from a city that was bombed. I need to explain.

Victoria Panasenko, 29-year-old volunteer and professional psychologist, she grew up in the city of Chernigiev, which is right on the border with Russian and Belarus. It's very close to the border. And it was under the attack from the first days of the war. Putin called for the army to go to Ukraine on February 24th. So Victoria's father was recovering after a major heart surgery. His chest was split open for that surgery. And he was just coming back from the hospital and recovery.

He had stitches on when they started bombing. And the family had to move the father into the basement. And he used scissors to cut the stick. teaches of himself. Victoria was in Kiev when it was happening and on some days she could get through on the phone with her father and some days she couldn't she didn't know if her parents were alive. She herself was in bombed Kiev and she had to be hiding in a parking lot which she tried to explain to other participants what it is like to sleep or try to sleep underground in the parking lot when the invaders bomb your country. And she said that many many people

helped her to get through that contest. They were supportive. Miss Poland, she said, was very nice to her. Miss Japan. But none of these supporters got them their chance to have a microphone. Oftentimes when, again, as an audience, as TV watchers, when we are watching these pageants, particularly in this time, so much has happened in the world, but particularly in Ukraine. I mean, when I think about the world, I think about COVID-19. I think about the global loss. during this health pandemic. I think about the war that is in Ukraine. And I know that Anna, obviously,

she's appreciative to the pageantry, to the organizers, but just as you're telling her harrowing story to make it to the United States, to make it through this eight months of training to get there and to not even have a microphone, to be able to express the difference in this moment of having to show up in this way

to represent your. country and have this weight as people are dying. Do they have remorse that it was a missed opportunity? She said that the organizers came up to her and they tried to comfort her, especially on the day of the final part of the competitions, which was the darkest moment in Ukraine. It just happened so that the final night coincided with a huge tragedy in Ukraine. They were bombing the city of the Nipro and one of the missiles hit. a multiple-story building and destroyed 72 apartments with people in them.

And their lives ended. They were under the debris. And she in the morning, she woke up and she saw the news. She watched the videos and could hear voices in the videos of people screaming, I want to leave, I don't want to die. So that morning, she was completely heartbroken. But experts and professionals said, Miss Universe, suggest that she would not watch the videos

before she goes on stage to smile to the audience and represent Ukraine. She tried not to watch those videos. She tried. So that was really hard for her that day and she was put in a line of participants. She was the very, very last one in the line. I learned that after the story came out,

I spoke with her again. So she did not even see what number Miss Russia was in that line. She was kind of finishing that line of girls she was in her black dress, she saw that Miss Russia was in her red dress again. The magic costume that Miss Russia brought was called the Crown of Russian Empire. The thing is, this war is about the Russian Empire. Right.

So all the violence, all the invasion and Russia trying to take over the territories, they're doing that under the protects that used to be ours, and we are taking it back. It used to be ours under the Crown, under Catherine the Grey, under the Russian Empire's power, and it's going to be ours once again. We're taking back this territory. She did not want to say anything bad about Miss Russia. She's a nice girl, but she was shocked that the only time Miss Russia approached her was to take a selfie together, not to say, I'm sorry that so many people are dying,

and your hometowns are being showered every day, but just to take a selfie, which Miss Ukraine thought was purely for propaganda, yes. Anna, I just first want to thank you for this reporting and the coverage of Miss Universe and of Miss Ukraine and all that kind of went down behind the scenes because I do think that it's incredibly important and important to understand to, I guess, we don't know, right, in terms of what Miss Russia knew, what position she had been put in. So I don't want to make the assumption that the selfie was just in pure grounded in negativity. I mean, it is likely, but just the idea that Miss Ukraine, Victoria would travel so far and not be given the opportunity to speak out, I think that your peace, at the very least, did give voice to her and to a situation that people should know about and should continue to understand the human cost of war and understand what it is like to live this day to day and still try to struggle. to represent your country in the best way possible under such terrible, terrible circumstances. So I just, I want to thank you, Anna, for making the time for the new abnormal and for this piece. Folks, you can check it out. It is entitled Miss Ukraine Slams Terribly Painful Miss Universe contest.

Thank you so much. Thank you very much for having me. I just want to add just for people to understand that we should not forget about Ukraine, to understand better. I would like to just give pure statistics. Every fourth Ukrainian child is not spending the night at home. 15 million Ukrainians have been displaced. So there's other figures.

Thank you, Anna. Thank you. Have a good day. 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 Jessica. Nancy Cannon and Seamus Calder.

Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.