The Daily Beast Podcast - There Is Some Good News About Trump’s South Carolina Primary Win

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

This week on The New Abnormal, co-hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie discuss the positive news of Trump’s South Carolina presidential primary win. Then, Monica Simpson, executive director of Team Sister Song, joins the show to discuss the fight for reproductive rights in America. Plus! Chris Geidner points to the three biggest stories of the week, and how they are directly related to Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito. 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 Campbell 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. Monica Simpson, the executive director of Sister's Song, joins us to discuss the ongoing assault on reproductive freedom and how attacks have been happening strategically for over a decade. Then publisher of the Law Dork newsletter, Chris Geithner, will break down the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision regarding the legal status of embryos and other rulings that are targeting reproductive rights. but first, let's have some fun. So Danielle, over the weekend on Saturday, South Carolina held its presidential primaries. It's surprising nobody. Donald Trump won the Republican primary with 60% of the vote to Nikki Halley's 40%. It's a big win. And the thing is that even though it's a big win, it's a little under where he was polling. As Nate Cohen at the New York Times points out, this has become a pattern for Trump. We've seen.

in both Iowa and New Hampshire. In Iowa, it was within two points of where the polls were, same in South Carolina. And, you know, so you could just say, well, that's pretty close. In New Hampshire, he, in the polls, was up 18 percent and one by 11 percent. That's a pretty big swing. So now you've got three primaries, and Trump has underperformed the polling in all three of them, primary slash caucuses. So it's a pattern. And even if two of them are only slightly underperforming, it is absolutely a pattern. And as Nate Cohn points out, he says even a modest Trump underperformance in the polls is worth some attention. And so the question then becomes, why is this happening? And, you know, Cohn throws out a lot of good theories, motivation from anti-Trump voters, the fact that there were undecided voters and maybe

they swang a little more towards Haley. But he says none of this is a complete explanation. And he goes in some other things. But before we get into that, what's your take on this, Danielle? Is this good? Are we, are we happy about this? Do we think it'll matter come November? Or is it just too early? And we're doing the fool's game of talking about polls as they apply to a presidential race that's still many months away. I mean, I think that it's still obviously incredibly early. Like, we are months away. I think roughly what, nine, eight or nine months away from the election. What I think is interesting here is that basically what Donald Trump and his campaign team have been able to do, do is a razzle-dazzle. They are very good at tricking the media into believing that he has more

power and more followers and more excitement than there actually is. And I think that what the polls are revealing at this time is that sure, if given the choice between Donald Trump and Nikki Haley, he's still coming out on top, but not by that much. Like, I was honestly expecting him to clobber Nikki Haley in South Carolina. She performed a lot better than I thought. And I think that, you know, the question keeps going back and forth, which is why is Nikki Haley still in the race if you can't win your own state? And I think that she did herself a disservice by not actually going after Donald Trump from the beginning and acting like she was a real presidential candidate. But I think that she may be doing something with this long game, which is the longer that she's in the race, the more people see that Donald Trump is a liability.

And I don't think that there is as much excitement and energy about Donald Trump in 2024 as there was in 2016 even. Because 2020, the voters flat out rejected him in a very big way. So I'm thinking. Allegedly. Don't you allege in me. But so I think that this is something that, yeah, folks like us should be paying attention to because, you know, the polls, you know, So it's like reading the tea leaves. But I think that what the question is, are people as excited and interested in Donald Trump

as their spin masters make us believe? Obviously, neither one of us is saying that Donald Trump is not going to be the Republican nominee. He just is. And this race will be, I mean, it's over now. Let's face it. But after Super Tuesday, it will definitely be over. And now the, you know, the Koch family has pulled their money out of Nikki Hall. But I think you're right in your point that the longer she stayed.

in the race, the longer it gives people a chance to express their dissatisfaction. And look, he won her state by 20 points. That ain't nothing. On the other hand, 40% of the voters in that primary didn't vote for Donald Trump. And that also ain't nothing. And, you know, we don't know how many of those voters were Democrats, because there is crossover voting allowed in South Carolina. And, you know, Democrats really didn't have a reason to vote in the Democratic primary. So there's a lot of unknowns. As Nate Cohen says, there's a lot of unknowns involved here. It is all very interesting, at least to the extent that it shows that while Donald Trump has absolutely captured the Republican Party, and look, we've been saying this, you know, in every episode for the past, what feels like 35 years.

So neither one of us is going back on that. I mean, the Republican Party is the party of Trump. But at least this does show that there are Republicans out there who aren't enthrall to this man, who aren't part of the cult. And 60%, again, is what he got in South Carolina. At least it wasn't 90%, I guess, is the takeaway from this, you know, or 95 or 100%, for that matter. And it at least does show that there's at least underneath it all, there is an element of discontent. and there are a significant number of Republican voters who are looking around and saying, you know what, maybe we don't vote for the guy with 90 indictments.

And maybe we don't vote for the guy who a judge ruled did sexually assault E. Jean Carroll. And maybe we don't vote for the guy who owes at least a half a billion dollars to the state of New York for fraud. I don't know if we're struggling to find a silver lining here or if this is actually something like, I said, that we should be, you know, it at least gives you pause and makes you think, all right, maybe it's not quite as bad as we thought, even if it's still bad. On the other hand, Daniel, the conservative political action conference was this past weekend down in Maryland. And we have to reset the years since Nazis openly appeared at CPAC calendar to zero. because that's what happened.

And it ain't the first time, but it does seem that every time CPAC holds one of these events, it becomes just more and more obvious that, I don't want to say it gets more and more obvious that the alt-right slash Nazis are part of the conservative movement Republican Party right now because we all know that. I think what becomes more and more obvious is that they become more and more obvious. This goes back to the thing we always say about the, there's no more quiet part anymore. And whereas in the past, CPAC might try to distance themselves from these elements, at least a little bit, even if it was just vague hand-waving. Now it just seems like, you know, they've just pretty much openly embraced it.

I mean, you had Jack, Subiac, on stage, giving a speech, one of the most well-known alt-right slash white supremacist slash neo-Nazis. I can call them what you want. I don't really care. It's just the mask is completely gone and the hood is completely on. What I find really like astounding is the fact that every time I go on cable news, I'm asked about whether or not I think that Republicans are racist. And I'm like, why don't you just keep asking me if the sky is blue and water is wet? Like how much more fucking information do you need in order to just not say racially tinged, not say like, racially highlighted, like, to just say what it is that they are telling you, which is that

they are openly racist, white supremacist. They don't mingle with Nazis, the Republican Party. They are a part of the Nazi group. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, we keep saying that there's like this part and parcel to make. Like even the headlines, NBC News says, Nazis mingle openly at CPAC. Or how about they have badges and are attendees of the fucking conference? So why are we like part and parceling this group out? They are part of the Republican Party. They openly said, oh, well, we thought at least Greg Conti, who they say, quote, attended the deadly 2017, Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. He said that his group attended and he was expecting to get ejected from CPAC and that never happened.

So they're going, these different, like, rise above the movement and, you know, these different Nazi groups are attending this event, attending this conference with the sole, you know, idea and focus of talking to media, of making their presence known, of spreading their theories of white supremacy and anti-Semitism, dropping the N-word freely, giving Nazi salutes in the lobby, and ain't nobody kick them out. Why? Because they are a welcome part of the Republican Party. They are not the fringe. They are sitting there and shaking hands and taking pictures and posting on social media with people from Turning Point USA and others and other prominent Republicans. So how is it that Democrats still want to say, I don't know what's in a motherfucker's heart? They're telling you. So let's just reiterate to the public what it is. that they are no longer doing in private. You know, if you're online a lot, there's a sort of famous series of tweets that a guy posted. I don't even remember, but a year or two ago maybe. And he talks about the story about he's sitting in a bar and it was a punk bar and a guy sat down next to him. And the bartender says, no, get out to the guy. And the guy, you know, eventually leaves.

And the guy writing a tweet says, what was that about? What did you kick him out? And the bartender says, well, you didn't notice. You couldn't see it from where you were sitting. but the guy they had Nazi shit all over his clothing, you know, on the front, Iron Crosses and stuff like that. And the bartending explains to him, he says, if you don't kick guys like this out, I'm obviously paraphrasing it. The first ones come in and they're nice and polite and they get comfortable there and nobody kicks them out and then they start bringing their friends around

and then their friends start bringing their friends around. He said, before you know it, you've got a Nazi bar. And that's exactly what we're looking at here. It's the same exact thing. You let these people in, you don't kick them out. And the first year, maybe it's a handful. But then they see that, hey, I'm welcome here. And so they tell all their Nazi and all right buddies, hey, CPAC doesn't have a problem with that. And more starts showing up. Exactly. And before you know it, CPAC is a Nazi conference. And that's where they're headed right now, if they're not already there. And it should be pointed out. Also, I don't know why this isn't a bigger deal. Look at the list of speakers at CPAC, up to it including Donald Trump.

All those speakers spoke at a conference that welcomed Nazis. Elise Tephanik, Wama Swami, I think, spoke. All these people spoke at a conference that welcomed Nazis, that did not kick out people who were openly Nazis. As you said, this gets to exactly what you were saying about, you know, people asking you if people are racist or whatever. It's like, I don't know, man. If you spoke at a conference that openly welcomed Nazis,

you might not be the most open-minded person in the world when it comes to things like race and religion. This needs to be talked about a lot more, in my opinion. I just want to say this too, because Jack Posobiac, right, according to this NBC News article, had one of the viral moments from the conference where he, quote, called for the end of democracy and a more explicitly Christian-focused government.

Of course, later on, Posobiac says, oh, the statements were partly satire. CPAC attendees embraced his and others invocations of January 6th, 2020. So mainstream media wants to lie and say that these people are the fringe calling for a Christian focused government. And what did we cover last week? What the Alabama Supreme Court justice used quotes from the Bible in order to decide to outlaw IVF.

So tell me, where is the line that is between the Nazi fringe and the rest of the Republican Party when we're actually watching their hopes and dreams play out in. legal case rulings and policies. Yeah, 100% what you said about Jack Posobiac. Yeah, he, like, so later he says, oh, my statements were partly satire. Which parts? Which parts were satire, buddy? Like, I don't understand that. Is it, you know, is it the part? So do you not want an explicitly Christian nation? Do you not want an end to democracy? Because you do want all of those things. You can be at a conference with people and they can have slightly different ideas and you're not responsible for them. But, Like you said, where is the line here? Because I don't know what do you have in common with Nazis and with fascists where you think, oh, that's a good thing to have be a part of our conference. You know, that fits under our umbrella. And no, not everyone agrees with this. But it's all part of our big tent. If your big tent includes Nazis, again, it's a Nazi tent. And I don't know how else to say it. And you brought up the Alabama Supreme Court Justice's ruling on the IVF case that we talked about where he's, He explicitly talked about this being a Christian nation, et cetera, et cetera.

And, you know, this is one of those issues where we're now seeing a bunch of Republican elected officials trying to distance themselves from this ruling. This ruling that, by the way, they 100% have no problem with. But they're out there pretending that they want to protect in vitro fertilization. And you have people like Byron Donalds from Florida, Congressman from Florida. He had said to a reporter that he agreed that embryos were children. When he was asked about it later, he completely backpedals and said, oh, I only heard half the question. I do actually support IVF.

It's like, no, you don't. You just, you know, maybe you got some calls from people saying, hey, man, you can't say that. So you're backpedaling a little, but you gave up the game when you said embryos were children. And I don't care what you claim to now have not heard the question or not heard the full question, which, by the way, is like, that needs to be retired. I mean, come on. Nobody in 2024 believes that you were giving an interview. You didn't hear the question, but you gave an answer instead of saying, I'm sorry, I didn't hear it. If I'm the reporter asking, let me play it back for you.

Right. Let me roll it again. Stop with the bullshit. Greg Abbott, to that point, goes on CNN's state of the union. And when he's asked about the Alabama state ruling on IVF, he says, oh, quote, because this is a relatively new issue, we're just going to have to find ways to navigate laws and facts. situations that are very complicated, relatively new. This shit has been around for 40 fucking years. Four decades, IVF has been in practice, relatively new.

So I guess in that case of how his math is mathing, you know, I must be a teenager. Like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, you sound stupid. And that, like, and this is, that's the thing for me is that, like, stop letting politicians and these people play it off like they don't know the questions, they don't know how long something's been around, they don't know whatever. That's exactly the point.

You know why? Because you're not a fucking doctor or a scientist. So you should shut the fuck up about what you don't know about. Yeah, I think these are the same people that I guess think the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act are fairly new and therefore should just be done away with. So I guess that's not a surprise that they think something that's 40 years old is fairly new. And, you know, we were talking before we started recording. Michelle Steele, who's a Republican congresswoman from California, she tweeted that IVF allowed me,

as it has so many others to start my family, and I do not support federal restrictions on IVF. Well, as Toriottin at the New Republic pointed out, Steele is a co-sponsor of the Life at Conception Act, which establishes that life begins at fertilization, and this would have, as Toriottin writes, restricted, if not effectively banned IVF treatments as well because it grants equal protection to quote unquote preborn humans, including embryos. So you have all these Republicans who are trying to distance themselves from this while working every day to try to bring about exactly what the Alabama Supreme Court said. So take that for what it's worth. But I think maybe, Danielle, they're not being fully honest. Maybe. Maybe. At least Tommy Tuberbill was honest. He said he was all for it.

Didn't agree with it? And supports Ivy off, but he needs to read the bill when there's no bill. God. Dumbest member of our body. I'm saying. Oh, my God. Folks, I am so excited to welcome to the new abnormal, the executive director of Sister Song, Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, a Southern-based national

membership organization that is about building effective networks of individuals and organizations. And I can't think and thank Monica Ray Simpson for joining the new abnormal, but just, I mean, my God, your body of work over the last decade plus is just extraordinary. And like I said, before we even started recording, your name is in so many spaces and rooms. I cannot believe that this is the first interview that we're doing together. But I'm just so honored and excited to talk to you today. Thank you, Danielle. I am, the feeling is so mutual. I am so excited to be in conversation with you. And I've been in the room with you where I've been able to experience your flyness. I have to say that because, you know, I love to be a fine-ass auntie. So when I have my fly

folks around me, I'm excited. I'm really excited for us to be able to just talk about this work and what's really happening right now and what's at stake. Yeah, Monica, where I am right now, which is every week since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, it feels. like there is another horrific headline draconian piece of policy that is being passed to control women and people with uteruses. I have never seen, and this is what I wanted, my first question for you, in your time as the executive director of Sister's Song and working in the reproductive justice space, have you ever experienced this just outright assault and barrage?

against reproductive freedom? I have to answer that, unfortunately, with a yes, right? I stepped into this movement, you know, coming out of doing a lot of LGBTQ organizing and, you know, civil rights work and different things of the sort. But stepped into this work, you know, realizing that there was this movement that allowed me to bring all parts of myself together and to center what has always been my core work,

which is around the ability to make my own decisions about my families, It's about my body, about my own future. And as I stepped into this work, well over a decade ago, we saw the attacks beginning to mount in a very strategic way from our opposition. We saw these incredible attacks at our state legislatures. It was insane. It was like hundreds of anti-abortion pieces of legislation running through state houses. We saw an attack through media.

We saw an attack through just propaganda with billboards saying the most dangerous place for an African-American child is in the mother's wound. We saw that back in 20. So we have been seeing this strategic attack and this chipping away at Roe for quite some time. And so they knew it. They knew exactly what they were doing. They knew how to do it. They moved it from the states to the courts to the Supreme Court. And then they built a culture all around it to keep them relevant. And so it's sad to say yes, but they've been mounting this their defense and pushing this forward for well over. for a decade. You know what I think is really interesting is that a lot of times in mainstream media, particularly after the fall of Roe v. Wade, the conversation was around complacency, right? Had women

and people with uteruses become complacent? Had we believed that this right that had been enshrined for nearly 50 years, that it wasn't something that needed to be protected, that scaffolding didn't need to go up around it in order to ensure that it would last for 50 plus. years. And what I think about, though, when I think about you and I think about Sister's Song and I think about the repro justice movement is that black women never stopped talking about the importance of reproductive freedom. Black women never stopped talking about the ways in which the state had been in our uteruses and controlling our bodies. And I just wonder when you hear things to the effect of, well, women have become complacent and now an alarm has gone off. What is your response

to that? I want to first say that you're right. Black women, we have always had to fight, you know, for our ability to control our own fertility and our bodies. And we have our history with this country in terms of bodily autonomy is a dark one, right? That's history that we all know. It's history that's deeply embedded in our hearts, in our minds, and our spirits as we think about this work. So there is absolutely a move. There has been a constant move from black women to not allow us to just get complacent in this moment. And I think that what happened for a lot of folks, whenever we started to see the news cycles rolling in, that there was like this possibility that we're going to lose Roe and then ultimately losing it,

that folks were like, wait, what? What did that come from? And for those of us who have been in this work and for those of us who have been, you know, committed to this work of sexual and reproductive health rights and justice in this country, for so long, we knew this was coming. And what we also knew was that Roe, and we've said this in so many ways, that Roe was the floor for us. What people had to understand was that Roe gave us the federal right, which we did not deserve to lose. That may be very clear. But it gave us a federal right. It did not grant us access. And so that's why we could never stop the drumbeat in the

ways that we needed to because access was constantly an issue. The Hyde Amendment was still in place, even with Roe. We still had state that only had one clinic like Miss Mississippi. We still were dealing with the fact that most states in particular in the South had not expanded Medicaid. So hundreds of thousands of people were falling through the cracks. We had to admit that we were still in the middle of a maternal health crisis in this country. Right. So all of these issues, that's why reproductive justice is so important. That's why black women created it. That's why black women named it and created this framework so that we could talk about how all of these things are interconnected with each other and that we have to be on top of all of them

in order to make sure that our legal rights are not rolled back from us and that even if when they are tried to be rolled back, that we have enough organizing and enough energy going into all of these other issue areas that we're able to take care of our communities that are constantly in need. You know, what I think too is the idea of criminalizing women and people, with uteruses who have abortions or who have miscarried. This idea of criminalization came out of white supremacy of the treatment of enslaved women, but it came out of the way to control black woman. Can you talk about because when you say we all know, I think it is fair to say that actually we all don't know. And the little bit that we do know, we choose to ignore because the truth is

actually incredibly painful. And the truth of this country and the treatment of black women is incredibly violent and bloody and just depraved. And so I want you to, the space, to be able to talk about the kind of roots of criminality as it pertains to reproductive freedom and rights. You're so right on point. And I think that you were right to say that it isn't the norm, right? That everyone doesn't know. Because for a lot of people, when Roe v. Wade wasn't exist. if they thought we were good, checkmark, right? And they didn't have to think about it so much, right? And as we've now seen the roll back of that

and how folks are having to really think long, hard, and strategically about how they get access to care, this notion of like criminalization has become a very serious part of this conversation. We know that our communities, black communities, black and brown communities, are over-savailed, overly, you know, policed in so many ways.

And we've seen that since the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement to, you know, and going even further back to civil rights and beyond. Right. We've seen how our communities are overly policed and overly surveilled. And so now we're adding this, we're adding this issue of like, I'm just trying to make my own decision about my body and to be able to make it to a doctor's office and to a clinic to be able to get access to health care because reproductive health care is health care, access to abortion. is healthcare. And now I'm having to worry about whether or not I will see a cop on the other side of that door or if my information is going to be, you know, taken out from the cyber world that we're in and then used against me in some way because the criminalization and the surveillance is not just happening like in person. Like that is absolutely something that folks are really worried

about. We've seen even in Texas how they had like added to legislation like almost like giving people the right to hunt people, right? Right. Yeah. Right. So I mean, they're being very blatant in their attack and they're like whether even if we're going to take row away, we're going to make it even more difficult for you by having this additional layer of fear being driven into our communities with this issue of criminalization. And again, not just in person, but also thinking about how our information is safe or not too, right? And then using that as a way to potentially criminalize folks. So it's coming in to folks from all different angles, and it's a scary place for folks to be in,

and no one deserves to live in a world where they are in fear of going to get access to health care. That is an inhumane world that no one deserves to live in. I mean, it's just wild because the ways that technology is being utilized, like you said, to essentially create a hunting database. Because who is looking at that information? Who is going to have access to that information? much in the same way that we saw cyber terrorists trying to bring down a energy grid in Texas, right, by shooting it up or what have you?

What do we think can happen if hackers from the right wing get a hold of that kind of database that has women register themselves or be forced to register whether or not they've had an abortion? We don't really think about those darkness that the Republican Party is really trying to rein down on women. And I'm wondering for you, the Democrats, up until the overturning of Roe v. Wade, have been very arm's length away from abortion. Oh, it's not a major issue. Like, we'll talk about pro-choice, we'll use these euphemisms, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but it's not the issue we're going to run on. And now they find themselves in a place where every time that abortion has found itself on a state ballot that Republicans have lost. And so how do you think the Democrats need

to utilize this messaging about freedom, right? And the danger that women and people with uteruses are in if in fact, and I say this, any Republican becomes president of the United States ever again. Because this isn't not just about 2024. This is about every election following what kind of free and just society do we want to live in? Absolutely. You know, what we know now is that no one can deny an abortion, about the autonomy, that it's on the ballot. It is.

It's something that no side can run away from. It's something that people have to address head on. And I think that what I'm hoping, our more progressive side of the aisle, is committed to doing is educating themselves more in this reproductive justice frame and understanding that they can't just talk about this from the very single issue lens that so many folks have been taught to do, right?

Like that is why reproductive justice was even created by black women in 1994. Because the way that we were talking about reproductive health care before then was again from this pro-choice, very single issue frame. And what our elected officials need to understand is that, you know, Audrey Lord said it best. We do not live single issue lives.

Therefore, we cannot have single issue movements. And we can't have legislation even done in this very single issue way. And so what we need them to understand is the fullness of folks' lives that that's at stake when they are moving these policies or when they are trying to run on these platforms, right? And they have to be able to say these things very clearly, very blatantly. I mean, they can't dance around the issue anymore. You can't not say abortion. Like it's a word that you have to draw in your mouth.

You have to say it. You have to talk about, you know, how this country needs to, if it's saying that we're the most industrialized country in the world and we have all of this and all of that, then how can we say that? And in the same vein also say that our maternal mortality rates are like those among countries who have issues with running water. Like they have to be able to make these connections so that people understand that they really get it and that they can trust.

that who we're putting in office isn't just using this as a way to move their agenda, but they're actually invested in this work enough to know that they need to move policies that are going to proactively and positively impact the way that people are able to live their lives every single day. We have allowed, I think, for so long, Democrats to be able to tiptoe and kind of whisper when it came to their support of abortion and of abortion rights and access. And so I think that now it's not even enough to just say the word abortion, but you have to have a full-throated response to what it is that the Republican Party is saying that they'll do. Just I saw last week, 125 Republicans signed on to legislation in the House

that would nationalize an abortion ban, that would nationalize a ban on IVF. So I'm saying to folks who are telling me that they are on the fence right now. Oh, I don't really know. how I'm going to vote. I don't really know I may sit this one out because I have a lot of feelings about other issues. I'm saying to myself, then don't pretend that these people are not telling you who they are. Don't pretend that they are whispering, that they are using code words. They are outright there passing legislation and also in Alabama using the Bible as a part of their opinion in a legal case. Well, you know, they're good at using the Bible.

They didn't use that for every piece of oppression in this country, right? Like, I mean, that's what they do. But you're right. Like, it's fascinating to me that this is the moves and how blatant and how like the audacity that they're moving. My last question for you, Monica, is, you know, again, you like me, black queer woman, unlike me, living in the South and living inside of a body that is, you know, again, you like me, black queer woman, unlike me, unlike me, living in the South and living inside of a body that is. at the intersection of everything. And I'm wondering, you know, for you, how are you finding hope in this moment?

I'm going to answer them in two different ways. I think, you know, I'm a very proud auntie. I love my babies. I love the children, you know. And I have an opportunity to just be able to touch and to be with young people, like just have them in my care. And when I look into their faces and I see the joy that they get to have every day,

because they don't have to think about what I'm thinking about, it does give me hope that what I am doing is going to make a difference for them. And that that's just very, very real. And it's necessary to keep my heart in that particular posture. The other way I would answer that question is what's giving me hope is that I have seen time and time and time again, even in the most harsh, hard, dark moments that the power of the people will prevail, right? that the power of the people, when moved collectively, with intention, makes change happen, right?

I think we have a lot of work to do. I think that we have a lot working in our favor and on our side. Like so many folks have been ignited by these issues. So many folks are like ready to share their stories. They're ready to like come to the forefront about how these issues are impacting them. And that is giving me hope for how we're going to be able to move beyond this moment. that we're in and to get to the other side of that. And I'm not saying that's not going to take a lot of work because it is.

I'm not saying it's not going to take a lot of us not agreeing and, you know, moving through process and some really hard ways. It's going to take all of that. But that's what movement building is about. If we're all committed to that, but I think our collective power will win. Oh, you have just, you know, restored my mustard seed that I carry around with me. Maybe it doubled in size. Monica Simpson, thank you so much. Thank you so much for the work that you do in leading sister song.

Thank you for making the time for the new abnormal. And I please, please, please do come back again soon. I would love to. And thank you so much for including my voice and creating space for so many voices in perspectives to be heard. And for trusting this black woman right here. So thank you. Thank you so much. This week, we faced all that the Dobbs justices unleashed. wrote Chris Gidner last Friday at his most excellent legal newsletter, Lawdorck, at Lawdorcom. And Chris, the former BuzzFeed editor and deputy editor for legal affairs at Grid News, joins me now to explain. Chris, thanks so much for being here. Thanks a lot, Andy. So, Chris, you say that three of the biggest stories in the news last week were, quote, more or less directly the result of Justice Sam Alito's

Dobbs' opinion for the court. Let's talk about those three stories, starting in Alabama, where that state's Supreme Court by a 7-2 vote ruled that wrongful death's lawsuits could proceed against a lab where frozen embryos were destroyed because, according to the court, these embryos are actually children. Explain what the hell happened here and why this is tied to the Dobbs decision. Yeah, I mean, this is the one that is sort of directly is the Dobbs decision, part Alabama. Alabama has a long history before Dobbs came down of basically saying, you know, we want to do as much as we can and go as far as we can to, in their words, protect the sanctity of fetal life and of unborn life. When we had Roe, when we had Casey, there was a limit on how far they could go. When you get rid of that, when Dobbs comes down, basically you have these laws, precedent, and constitutional provisions in Alabama that all of a sudden, everybody in Alabama was like, oh, what do we do without Roe?

There's no limit here. And this case was one of those, what happens when there's no limit? and the justices of the Alabama Supreme Court, who had already extended the wrongful death suits in the state to allow in utero deaths to be subject to the wrongful death suit. What they said in this ruling now two weeks ago is that it also applies to in vitro. So in this case, there were some embryos that had been. frozen, that basically somebody took them out of the freezer and dropped them. And so those embryos were destroyed, and three different sets of plaintiffs sued the hospital. And the court said that they framed it in a really tricky way to say that there's no exception to the wrongful

death suits coverage of embryos. So therefore, in vitro or in vitro or in. utero, we have to allow this lawsuit to go forward. So one of the things you wrote is that the court went far afield of what was necessary for its ruling. What exactly do you mean by that? The big thing that I think is going to have some fallout effect is that they decided that the statute was unambiguous, that it says child and in Alabama, we've said that that includes anything beyond conception. And an embryo is beyond conception and there's no exception for in vitro. So therefore, the statute is clear. That should be the end of the case, even if you're going to decide it.

Right. But they go further and say, even if it were ambiguous, we've got this constitutional provision about sanctity of life that says we're supposed to interpret all statutes and rules to protect life. And so therefore, even if it was ambiguous, we would use this constitutional provision as a sort of canon of statutory interpretation, of constitutional interpretation, to err on the side of protecting life, as they put it. And that's going to have fallout effect because even though that technically wasn't required for this ruling,

and we would call it dicta, it's obviously the Alabama Supreme Court. And so therefore, lower courts, lower court judges, trial court judges are now going to start using this and say whenever there's any statute that they can further protect life by interpreting an ambiguous statute in a certain way, they can now point to that. And there were two dissenting justices. And at least one of them pointed out how ridiculous that was, that that's not what the Constitution. provision does, that it would have said that if it wanted courts to do that. That's not what it says. And yet, here we are. And they didn't even need to do that. And then I pointed out at the end of the majority opinion in the case, they also talk about the fact that there might have been a waiver in this case, waiver or stoppage sort of principles of basically like these parties in their contracts, these plaintiffs who were suing had treated these embryos as property because they had talked about, like, what happens when you dispose them, how you should dispose of them, when you should do that.

And there's an argument that, therefore, they can't bring these wrongful death lawsuits because they had already sort of waived the potential of treating these embryos as life. And so if that's the case, the court didn't even need to decide that. And we have lots of times where what courts will do is they'll say like even assuming arguendo is the fancy way. They'll say even assuming arguendo that this is a right, these plaintiffs can't bring the case. They could have avoided both the statutory decision and the constitutional decision if they wanted to do so. But, of course, this is sort of the overarching point of my piece. The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that we shouldn't do that if we don't want to anymore.

We can reach whatever issues we want to reach when we have the votes to do it. And that's what the Alabama Supreme Court did. Yeah, it does sound unreal to me. And that was, you know, honestly, my first thought when this, when the case first came out was like, well, don't they have other, like, ways to sue about this for just, you know, the improper handling of. the embryos or whatever, just a way that doesn't involve a wrongful death. Well, there was. The one set of plaintiffs did bring an alternative litigation of basically negligence. Yeah. I mean, what did actually happen? I don't know the specifics, but somebody who wasn't supposed to get into the lab, got into the lab and grabbed these embryos and they were

coming out of deep freeze and he burned his hand and he dropped them. And that destroyed the embryos. And so there was an alternative cause of action brought by one of the plaintiffs. And that was actually the difference between the two dissents is the one dissenting justice basically said, like, I would have gone the other way on the negligence claim if I didn't allow the wrongful death. Gotcha. The one justice said, you get one or the other. Right. And so if I'm going to pull back this ridiculous.

wrongful death argument, I'm going to allow the negligence claim. Which makes perfect sense, to me at least. Okay, let's shoot up I-65 North and head from Alabama to Tennessee, where that state's Republican governor, Bill Lee, signed into law HB. 878. What is HB. 878? It's like two sentences, right? I mean, it's really one sentence. A person shall not be required to solemnize a marriage.

It's one of those things that it's like it deserves attention because we could look back in five or ten years and say this was the beginning of overturning Obergefell. This does not affect the issuance of marriage licenses in Tennessee. There's two steps to having a valid marriage in Tennessee. You get a marriage license from the state and then you get it solemnized. either by a government official or a number of other sort of religious officials and other people authorized by the state. And this does nothing to that first part. This does nothing to the issuing of marriage licenses. It just says that nobody has to solemnize a marriage who doesn't want to. Now, I think that's ridiculous. If you go to a government official, they shouldn't be able to say,

no, I don't want to do my job because they don't like you. So ridiculous, yeah, bad. Let's not create exceptions to what government officials have to do based on whether they like the people coming to them or not. It's sort of like governmentalizing 303 creative, the wedding website case. But it doesn't necessarily have an immediate impact unless you can't find anyone who's authorized under the law to solidize your marriage. which I suppose we're going to find out in the coming months if somebody creates that sort of a case,

but I don't know if you'd want to because do you want the types of people who would be doing that? Do they want to bring a case back to the Supreme Court to strike down this Tennessee law that really has no effect on marriage licenses? But since we're allowed to swear here, it's really like a key example of dick move. For those of our listeners who may have forgotten, Obergefell was the Supreme Court ruling that basically said the 14th Amendment was due process and equal protection, I think, means that same-sex marriages are, in fact, legal. That states can't ban the same-sex couples.

Why this is worrying is that we don't like it when people try to start trying to find sneaky ways around Supreme Court ruling. Like, oh, Obergefell was only about marriage. license is. And so therefore, we're going to make a law that makes it so that what was her name, the Kim Davis of Tennessee, doesn't need to solemnize. She still needs to issue marriage licenses. But if a same-sex couple comes in and gets their marriage license and then says, we also want you to solemnize this so that we can get done with this because we're not going to a church to have like our pastor solemnize it. Do we want a government office to be able to say, no, we're not going to do that?

And that could lead to problems for some people. And it could sort of in the reading of this as a problematic law beyond just the facial reasons why it's problematic is that it is sort of that first step to what we saw conservative states do with Roe over the 49 years. It was in a fact. It is let's keep finding ways to chip away at this right. Let's keep finding ways around this Supreme Court ruling until you end up at 48 years later with a Texas SB8 where we're hiring vigilante forces to enforce a six-week abortion. restriction that would clearly otherwise be unconstitutional under Rowan Casey. And that sort of like that would be this. You could not have passed a law that said a person shall not be required to issue a marriage license.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more that this is a very worrying first step. And then you point out that there was an example. I think the day before Governor Lee signed this into law, the Supreme Court denied cert in Missouri case. How does that tie in? It ties in because Sam Alito is Sam Alito. I mean, Sam Alito used this case about a lesbian who was suing for discrimination based on sex discrimination in Missouri against the Missouri Department of Corrections where she had been an employee. And she was claimed discrimination based on her gender presentation based on the fact that she She was too manly.

And, I mean, it was basically like a Pricewaterhouse, like a seminal, like, archetype of a sex discrimination based on sex stereotyping case. And her lawyer, understandably, didn't want people who thought being a lesbian was a sin on her jury. And the courts said that it was a discrimination, a statement based on beliefs, not on status and that they were allowed to be kicked off of the jury because of that. And Sam Alito said that this is what I warned about in Obergefell, that these people who are wanting to maintain traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct are going to be treated

like bigots in the public square and by the government. And he said, like, while Obergefell insisted that that shouldn't happen, I'm afraid that cases like this are showing that it is. Now, that that's absurd. It is not saying you can't sit on, even saying that you can't sit on juries. It's saying that if you're going to say that you think that the behavior that makes this person who they are and is the basis of their lawsuit is a sin, you can have to serve on other juries and not this one. Yeah, I mean, again, that just seems like common sense.

But just so I'm clear, so the court denying cert on this and letting the lower court decision stand, I guess, is a good thing. But it's what Alito wrote in sort of a dissent. He wrote a statement respecting the denial of cert. There was a state law procedural reason why they also shouldn't take the case. And he basically said, like, I agree we're not taking the case because of this state law procedural question. but I also want to let you all know that I'm mad. Right. He's very mad that people who are bigots will be labeled as bigots.

Yeah. And let's finish up, I guess we'll hit I-40 West and drive over to Oklahoma. And we had there the absolutely horrific story of a non-binary teen named Nex Benedict, who was attacked by their fellow students and died a day later. How does this fit the Dobbs pattern? This is, I think, in some ways, I mean, it's obviously the most. disturbing case because there is a child who is dead at the end of this story or the beginning of this story in some ways or right in the middle of this story, I think most accurately.

And it is a part and parcel of this idea of what has happened in the aftermath of Dobbs that these lower courts are being told both directly and indirectly that the understanding of what is acceptable has changed. And what I looked at is the fact that before Dobbs and even in the immediate aftermath of Dobbs, any of these challenges to these anti-trans laws were succeeding across the board. We're not talking about just like in liberal places. We're talking about in Arkansas and Alabama. We're talking about in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

We're talking about from a Trump appointee in Indiana. We're talking about there were district court rulings in Tennessee and Kentucky, and one of them was a Trump appointee. It was a Trump appointee who struck down the Tennessee drag law restricting drag performances. All of these laws were being struck down because they're so obviously unconstitutional on several grounds. And it wasn't until Dodd, that all of a sudden, when some of these laws got to the appeals courts that both the Sixth Circuit and the Eleventh Circuit issued rulings over the summer and into the fall, upholding these laws as likely constitutional for the first time. And in both of those decisions, the judges, Judge Barbara Lagoa in the 11th Circuit and Judge Jeff Sutton in the Sixth Circuit, cited this one.

paragraph in Dobbs where, I don't know if people remember it, but Justice Alito, very dismissively, I know, surprising for him, rejected as almost an aside, this claim that abortion bans might be sex discrimination. And he essentially said, like, oh, we've got this old 1970s precedent that the Supreme Court said that, like, if there's something that, like, if there's something that, that only one, some sort of medical thing that only one sex faces, it's not sex discrimination necessarily if the state treats that thing differently because it's about the medical difference, not about sex discrimination. And all of a sudden, after Dobbs, in addition to sort of the bigger picture of these appellate courts feeling like we should treat these laws differently now, they

also cited directly to Dobbs and said, oh, we're not going to treat these laws as sex discrimination because these are courses of treatment that only one sex would engage in because obviously a trans boy is only going to be getting testosterone and a trans girl is only going to be getting estrogen. It's an absurd argument that was not even fully briefed, let alone argue. at the Supreme Court. It was an aside in Alito's opinion. But here we are that these laws are being upheld. And a federal judge in Oklahoma at the start of the school year last year then applied those to the Sixth Circuit and Eleventh Circuit rulings to Oklahoma's ban and said, I'm not issuing an injunction. I think it's likely unconstitutional for these reasons. And that's

the state that NACTS and other trans and non-binary and all students are going to school to under the astute direction of Ryan Walters. Chris, it is always a pleasure to talk to you, even though it's usually about not pleasant things going on in our court system. But as always, I thank you so much for coming on and sharing your expertise with us. Everyone go subscribe to Law Dork because it really is. I think I've said this before. It's essential reading for following the Supreme Court and the court systems across the country.

Chris, thanks so much. Thank you, guys. Andy Levy. Danielle, who is your fuck that guy to kick off this? I won't call it a glorious week because you always get me shit when I do. It's true. So I'll say this fabulous week. This fabulous week.

Okay. I like my fuck that guy is to come in hot. I'm saying to come in hot at the beginning of the week. And let me tell you something. The pickings that Jesse and Seamus provide, you know, it's hard to choose because everything is just so fucking bad. Sounds a lot like the people feasting are blaming the hunters for the ones that type. Just stay in here. Well, I mean, when the food is bad, you blame the chef.

Right. But I'm starving, so I have to eat. So here we go. The state of Missouri, check this out. I just, I don't know what year we are living in. I don't know what year of our Lord, the Republican Party thinks that we are living in. But as it stands, Missouri judges cannot legally finalize a divorce if a woman is pregnant. Let me just say that again.

If you are pregnant in the state of Missouri and also there are similar laws in Texas, Arizona, and Arkansas, if a couple files for divorce and the woman is pregnant in the state of Missouri, they will not finalize the divorce until the woman gives birth. And supposedly this is about finalizing child custody and child support. And oh, by the way, just to make sure that people understand that this is once again not about giving a fuck really about kids or giving a buck about women and people with uteruses, there are no exceptions, by the way, for domestic violence. So a recent bill was introduced by state representative Ashley Ayoun, who represents the 14th district in Palak County. And she says, quote, I just want moms in difficult situations

to get out if they need to. I don't understand y'all, you need to lay it out for me. Why any woman any person that has a uterus would vote for the Republican Party. Why anyone would give these rabid, religious zealots, these like misogynist control over your courts, over your states, and now like in a couple of months potentially over the country again. It makes no fucking sense. They think so little. of women so little. All we, all we are are incubators. That is fucking it. And then they want to control how you get pregnant. And then if you are and something is wrong with the fetus,

then they want to control what you can do about that. Like it's so fucking sick. It's so sick. So for that reason, we're starting off this week with, oh, my fucking God, Missouri, the entire state, followed up by the other three. Fuck those. guys like everybody needs to check the law books because everything that is old is new again and not in an 80s style way you know what I'm saying just in a fucking horrific way yeah I did a little bit of research and I guess this law was passed in 1973 and I don't know if there's a connection but I feel like there was a big Supreme Court case that year oh oh dear God but yeah fuck those guys get this law off the books it's absolutely insane so Andy, since the week is fabulous, how are you starting off your fuck that guy? All right. Granted, my fuck that guy is the opposite of fabulous. And in fact, every time we talk about one of these guys and then I see a picture and I'm like, yeah, of course that's what he looks like. This is a guy named Tom Woods. He's a Republican state senator from Oklahoma.

He was asked a question about the horrific death of Nex Benedict, who was a young. young non-binary teen, who was attacked by a bunch of other students at their high school and later died. And this is what he thought was the right thing to say. He said, we are a Republican state in the House and Senate. I represent a constituency that doesn't want that filth in Oklahoma. Sometimes it doesn't matter how cynical or used to the shit. You are, your jaw still drops. And this was one of those moments. Going back to something you said earlier in the show, he continued by saying, we are a religious state, we are going to fight it to keep that filth out of the state of Oklahoma because we are a Christian state, we are a moral state. So a teenager was viciously attacked and beaten by high school classmates for daring to be non-binary. They later died.

And your idea of a moral state is to say that we want that filth out of our state. And by the filth, you're talking about, the person who died and not the people who beat the crap out of them. I don't even know where to go with that. Obviously, this is just a horrific person with no moral core whatsoever. I'm Jewish. Obviously, I have a lot of Christian friends. I have a lot of friends who are very religious. I cannot imagine any of them uttering the words, we are a Christian state as a reason for wanting to call a young kid who just got killed filth. I just cannot imagine. anything more, quote unquote, un-Christian than that. Yeah, I have nothing else to say about this.

Just we need a 10th circle of hell. And this guy needs to go there. Fuck him. This isn't just this one guy. This is the Republican Party. This is all of the Republican primary candidates that are now, you know, whittled down to just two that stated their hatred for trans and non-binary youth. the LGBTQ community at large.

This is Ron DeSantis' Don't Say Gay Bill. This is stripping teachers of their positions for creating a safe space. This is hate speech. This is hate speech that is leading to physical acts of violence. So the fact that we are not legally holding these people accountable for what it is that they are saying and how they are utilizing their positions of power

to weaponize their hatred and cause this type of harm. You know what I love is that in Tulsa over the weekend, there was a massive, beautiful vigil that was held for necks. So there are people. This is not a religious state. It is a state of people that actually give a shit. And they turned out to remember the 16-year-old who lost their life. So we need to continue not to just name out

these individuals and the words that they say, but the movement of hate that they created and are a part of. Fuck those guys. And just worth pointing out that at least as of now, Woods has faced absolutely no censure or anything like that from his Republican majority state. So fuck that guy. 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? 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,

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