The Daily Beast Podcast - There's Some Weird Sh*t Going On With Trump's VP List

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

This week on The New Abnormal, hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy react to the surprising names being asked to submit paperwork for Trump’s VP list. Plus! The CEO of the Ms. Foundation for women, Teresa Younger, joins the show to talk about her organization's efforts to empower women to achieve equality, equity, and opportunity. Then, filmmaker and professor at Loyola University, Stephen Ujlaki, spills about his latest documentary, “Bad Faith.” 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 Kedinan, 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. We have such an excellent show for you today.

Teresa Younger, the president and CEO of the Miz Foundation for Women, joins us to talk about her organization's efforts to empower the voices of women to achieve equality, equity, and opportunity. Then filmmaker and professor at Loyola University, Stephen Uzziaki, is here to tell us about his new documentary, Bad faith in how Christian nationalism is the biggest threat to our democracy. But first, let's have some fun. Danielle, there is some actual good news to kick off today's podcast to close out the week with. And that is that Mr. Popped Collar, Mr. Collar Under the Collar, Steve Bannon has been ordered to report to prison on July 1st. This is for contempt. and it will only be a four-month sentence, unfortunately, as we were discussing before we kicked off recording.

That means he will be out right before Election Day, which seems like a really, really bad idea. Yeah, I had to be reminded because I was just like, oh, what is he going to jail for? Because I remember not too long ago, Steve Bannon was found guilty for ripping off people with his lie, his grift, of building the wall, right? I guess you could buy a brick from him or some bullshit. And he was pardoned by Donald Trump, of course. And so when I saw Judge orders him to prison, I was like, yay. And then I realized the timetable.

Personally, I know that the sentence for contempt is four months. Kind of would love him to report around September 1st. Yeah. Just saying, I want Steve Bannon off the fucking airwaves. I want him out of our lives at least until, you know, sometime in mid-December. So, yay, happy he's going to jail day. And as Jesse said, maybe he'll wear, I don't know, three jumpsuits so that he can keep his collar trend going.

But I think the timing could be better. Yeah, I wouldn't have minded extending it a little further and having him be in prison on the anniversary of January 6th. I don't think he needs to be spouting off on his pocket. podcast slash radio show, whatever the fuck it is leading up to that date. Anyway, at least he's going to jail and he and Peter Navarro, who I think is also serving a four-month term for contempt of Congress. I guess they can get together and plot another coup. Yeah.

So good. But look, at least there's four months where hopefully we don't have to see his incredibly disturbing face. Unless, of course, you know, they do podcasting in prison, which I will say this before we move on. Like, how many of your friends have been to jail? When Donald Trump says that he only has the best people around him, I'm like, if you were in Donald Trump's like wingspan, there's a chance you've gone to prison or are headed to prison or are trying desperately like Rudy Giuliani to stay out of prison, but you've definitely been indicted.

And that is just something that is not lifted up and discussed. enough that literally every person around Donald Trump over the last eight so on years has been either pardoned, serve jail time, or is indicted. What the fuck does that say to people? Yeah, it's like the end of Goodfellas at this point. You know, we're just like everyone that you've been following through the whole movie in their rise in the in the mafia, then the mob and whatever. and then at the end, it's a bunch of them in prison. It is absolutely looking like that. But look, when you run a foul of the Biden crime family,

this is what happens to you, Daniel. Yeah, you're right. You're right. It has nothing to do with Donald Trump just employing and being a serial criminal. Speaking of serial criminals, would you like to see the lineup of Donald Trump's VP vetting? Yeah, I'd like to see a list of future inmates. that's what we should call them that's exactly what we should call them future inmates you know and i guess

they have gotten over the mike pence test of who do you think won the 2020 election i'm certain is one of the first questions and if you were mike pence in his position in 2020 would you have allowed certification to go through of the legitimate win by joe biden i'm certain is question number two So would you like to do the honors of rolling out the future convicts one by one? Yeah, I mean, and we should say that this is probably not a complete list from here going forward. I'm sure more names will be added to this. But according to the Associated Press, the names of the people who the Trump team has requested information from so that they can do vetting. It's North Dakota Governor Doug Bergam, Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance and Tim Scott from the Senate.

and it's Byron Donald's and Elise Stefano from the House and then somehow Ben Carson is also on this list. Do you guys hear that sound? Is it like crickets? It's crying. I'm hearing it from the governor's mansion in South Dakota and a weird CrossFit gym in Georgia. Yeah, again, I do think more names will be added,

but I guess that my pick and also your pick, Jesse, originally Governor Nome, I guess the Trump team decided that dog don't hunt. Because it's dead. Oh, shit. Oh, boy. Oh, shit. She murdered a puppy is what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah.

Got that one. Got that one. I also see that, oh, our other friend whose complexion apparently is too deep to be on this initial list, Nikki Haley, Nimrata, is also not on. this list right now. Oh my. So I guess she decided to full-throddly endorse Donald Trump and she doesn't get a cookie yet. Yeah, I don't think she'll ever be on the list. I think I think there's like hatred there on the Trump side at this point. The two weirdest things about this list to me are Ben Carson because who in the world is clamoring for Ben Carson to do anything? I don't think

he'll be the pick, but just the fact that they're even vetting him is weird to me. And the other one is just like I don't understand where Doug Bergam came from. Did anyone outside of North Dakota know who this guy was before he launched his sub 1% polling presidential campaign? I don't think so. Bergamania never happened. But I see him out there all the time now as like a Trump surrogate and now he's on this list. Like how the hell did this happen? Because he has the look, Andy. I guess. He has the look. He has the hair. He has that kind of. of, you know, mobster-like face. He literally fits the description of somebody that Trump likes and would want standing

behind him. It has nothing to do with policy. It has nothing to because, again, we have to remember that whoever Donald Trump picks, he doesn't want this person out shining him. He doesn't want a real, like, notable person that can be seen as the future of the Republican Party because there is only one future of the Republican Party. and that is Donald Trump to serve a lifetime appointment as a First American dictator. So the person just has to look the right way and then parrot whatever he says.

So you don't want somebody to outshine you and Doug fits that bill. No, I guess that's exactly right. It's just amazing to me that he has managed to get himself a national profile based on a presidential campaign that went absolutely nowhere. And speaking of presidential campaigns that went absolutely nowhere, where probably the funniest name on this list is Marco Rubio. I remember Trump mercilessly savaging him in 2016 and then, you know, little Marco, as he became known, trying to fire back and just failing miserably, making jokes about hand size at the debates

and as it related to penis size and stuff like that. And it was just like, Marco, what are you doing? And here we are eight years later. And he's being considered for the vice president. ship. That to me is just funny. All of these people, Donald Trump has dissed, has slighted, has humiliated at one time or another. And all they do is say, thank you, sir, can I have another? It's embarrassing. It's pathetic. But this is what it takes to be in Trump's good graces. You had Tim Scott, you know, standing behind him, who literally ran a faceless presidential

fucking campaign. If you remember his faceless black logo, I mean, if that doesn't speak volumes about what the Republican Party thinks about black people, just be there for color alone, but we don't need you to like be defined in any type of way. But Tim Scott sat there and chuckled behind Donald Trump as he was ripping apart Nikki Haley and said, but I love you. Like nobody asked him to do that or say that. So they're like willingly embarrassing themselves willingly suckling off the teat of Trumpism because they want that access to power and they don't care how they have to minimize themselves in order to do it. And it's gross.

But that's what this list to me signifies. No, absolutely. And Tim Scott, to me, is the saddest name on the list because he actually, until recently, at least, had a really good reputation in Washington from people of both parties as someone who was a good dude, someone you could work with. And he has just torpedoed all of that in the name of, as you said, you know, he's erased himself in the service of serving Donald Trump. People like that are always just really sad.

He's just basically erased his reputation and people's view of him in order to be of service to Donald Trump. Who, by the way, according to a new poll, nearly half of Americans think should end his campaign after his conviction on 34 counts in New York court last week. You're hitching your star. I get that Donald Trump is the only choice in the Republican Party, but the fact that this poll actually, I don't know if it shocked me,

but there's still way too many people who think Trump shouldn't drop out. But the fact that 49% of the respondents to this ABC News Ipsis poll said that Trump should drop out was actually a pretty good number, I thought. I think that it's a great number. I was surprised by it because given the coverage that we've seen, which is all the questioning of, oh, will this matter? Does a felony matter? I have never heard that stated anywhere ever in life when somebody is convicted of a felony. And here you have Donald Trump, not the main story about does America want a criminal leading the country, but, oh, does it matter?

I guess it's not that big of a deal. It's outrageous, but what this poll tells me, and I'm not necessarily a believer in all polls, but what this states to me is that more people were paying attention than we thought, right? That even given Fox News's blackout and the sycophants that marched down to the courthouse in their matching red ties to make the case for why Donald Trump is a victim, that more Americans see this and say to themselves, yeah, he should step down. But of course we know that that would take character, none of which he actually has. Oh, yeah.

I mean, there's absolutely no chance he's stepping down. I agree. I mean, there was another poll that I think was Reuters that showed that 10% of Republicans said that they were less likely to vote for Trump following the conviction. And look, again, that number should be 100%. And it's nowhere close to that. But 10% of Republicans is kind of a big deal when we're talking about electoral politics. And in an election that is widely considered to be very close and that, you know, we'll come down to a handful of states in November, 10% of Republicans is not an insignificant number of people.

It could be the margin that decides this thing. I don't know. It's too scary for me to think about. But I do wonder if we're going to be surprised, dare I say it, in the positive way in November, that all of the polls, all of the closeness in terms of what is being said. between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, if there aren't more Americans as time goes on that are reflective of this poll that are just like, no, we don't want this man. Like, this is not the reputation that we want in the world.

Like, this is not just about us here in America. It's about what America's role is in the world. And for us to decide as a country that this, this criminal enterprise, is representative of our values is crazy to me. And I wonder if there aren't more people who did not drink the Kool-Aid, who don't want to wear the matching ties, who see all of their rights being eroded, and think to themselves, yeah, I don't want this. And I may not be answering the polls right now, but like I'm definitely showing up in November. So I hope that

is the case. I think there's absolutely something to that. And I do think that there are probably a lot of people out there who weren't paying too much attention before and knew that the Trump trial was going on and didn't know the details. And I think the fact that the jury unanimously found him guilty on 34 out of 34 counts, I think that means something. I think that means to a lot of people, this was not a political trial and this was not the system being rigged against Trump. This is a guy who, if a jury is going to find you guilty on all 34 counts, either. you're probably guilty of committing felonies. So we'll see going forward.

And I think there's some reason for cautious optimism, but I ain't breaking out the James Brown and dancing just yet. And look, speaking of people who are definitely guilty of something, an organization called Fix the Court just released new data on the value of gifts that Supreme Court justices have received and reported over the past 20 years. It's kind of a funny list if you look at it, because it starts way down low with Justice Souter, and it's one gift for $349.

And it kind of slowly works its way up, and you get eventually to Scalia, who had 67 gifts for $210,000, which is a bit, you know, a bit of a jump. And then at the end, you get to your favorite Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, who had 193 gifts totaling $4 million. $4,000. That's out of a total amount of value for gifts from 18 Supreme Court justices. That total was $4,755,000. So Clarence Thomas accounted for $4,042,000 of that. It's just, it's just absolutely unbelievable. I mean, and do you know, like, what I believe that the Republicans' response to that would be is just like, he's just well-liked. I don't know why you're hating on him, right? Like, people just seem to like Clarence Thomas, right? I guess they hate everybody else. I don't know how you see this chart.

Like, and I encourage people to like look for it. I don't know how you look at this and you think that this is okay. Okay in the sense that one, these motherfuckers somehow get to write their own ethics rules when they clearly are. unethical. And then two, out of all of the gifts, Clarence Thomas accounts for $4 million worth of them. Yeah. And we think, you know, he's just got a side hustle. Like, he's not a fucking Uber driver. Do you know, like, what is happening here? And if you read further into this report, there are other gifts that they haven't been able to confirm yet what they call likely gifts. And

there's another $1.8 million there for Clarence Thomas. So it's just absolutely unbelievable. That includes round-trip flights on private planes to the Top Ridge Resort and all the meals and lodging he got there for his little things that he did there, travel to the Bohemian Grove, the scholarship for his grandnephew that I think we've talked about that the New York Times reported on a while back. So he's the $6 million. man. Mm-mm. He really is.

It's absolutely unbelievable, yeah. What should make people sick is that that's just what we know. Right. That's just what's been investigated. That's just what's recently been uncovered. How long has this man been on the bench? You're talking about, what, three decades? Yeah.

We have no idea how deep this grift is, but just what we know? How is it possible that he is still? allowed to be on the bench? Like, how is it possible that there is absolutely no recourse? Like, I appreciate the journalists that are doing this work right now, the investigative reporting that is happening, because no one should be looking away from this. This isn't like, oh, what a nice, cushy position he has. He's being paid to overturn the 20th century advancements that have been made. And he's doing so gleefully and on a PJ. Like, it is just, wild to me that we see these numbers and oh it's up to him to decide if he's going to recuse himself

from cases that his sugar daddy is on it's so disgusting like you want to talk about like the american oligarchs and what has happened to our justice because i look on here too like let's not overlook roberts it may not be as steep as four million dollars but you're looking at about 50 000 yeah for sure first of all you made a great point this is gifts that were received and reported. Like you said, this doesn't even get into shit that Clarence Thomas didn't report. And as we know, a lot of this was only reported after organizations like ProPublica and the New York Times dug them up.

And the other thing is, if you look at the top three gift receivers in terms of total amount, it's Antonin Scalia, it's Samuel Alito, and it's Clarence Thomas. Gee, what are all three of these people have in common? I can't imagine. Folks, I am so very excited to welcome to the new abnormal, my friend, and the CEO of the Ms. Foundation for women, Teresa Younger. Teresa, well, first of all, we're coming off of last month where the Ms. Foundation celebrated their gala, women of vision, awarded some brilliant, brilliant women activists, awards. for their courage, for their commitment to lifting up women and girls across various industries and in spaces. And so I just want to give you an opportunity to tell the listeners about the

Ms. Foundation, an organization that is a legacy organization that they may have heard about, but don't necessarily know where you have taken it over the last 10 years of your tenure. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Danielle, for having me on. It's always so great. to be in conversation and community with you. So I really appreciate that. And as you know, last month's Women of Vision Awards was really filled with exactly what you said, a lot of energy, a lot of community, a lot of commitment around how we can actually work together to build and save a democracy. And from understanding what is happening on the grassroots that many people don't even know is happening. And we have these wonderful activists whose name many people don't know. Yeah, the Ms. Foundation

is legacy organization. What people don't understand is when we say we're a legacy organization, we've been around for over 51 years. We were started by Gloria Steinem and Marlowe Thomas and Letty Pogerman and Pat Carbine as an idea that Ms. Magazine would make so much money that they would have a foundation. Unfortunately, Ms. Magazine didn't make that kind of money. And the foundation itself spun off so that it could start working with activists in the field more directly. And, you know, that was second wave white feminism and it was doing the job it needed to do at the time. And about 10 years ago, I came to the MIS Foundation with a background in having done grassroots organizing and policy work and litigation and policy strategy. And I came to the MIS Foundation with an

eye on how do we change philanthropy to move more money to women and girls in the United States so that we can have the greatest impact and build the greatest democracy. And 10 years later, what we have at the Ms. Foundation is we are a public women's foundation who moves money to grassroots organizations that shapes the narrative for how we talk about the critical issues facing women and their families and who understands through data, and we're going to talk about it later, I know, through data that women and girls of color are the most underinvested group in this country. and they are the most critical to lifting up, calling out, and holding the democracy together,

and they have done it from the beginning of time as this country was being developed. And so it's really an interesting time to see how much work is being done in local communities on regional levels of groups coming together and doing work together and recognizing some of the critical things that need to happen. And the MIS Foundation is here to support those grassroots organizations, to work with philanthropy, to change its practices and really trust women, and then to ensure that we're bringing folks together to learn from each other so that we can move forward together. And it's really about not being lonely when you're doing this work.

It's about building communities so that we can fight together. I thank you so much for providing our listeners with a detailed understanding of what the Ms. Foundation has been doing over the last 51 years and also the reason why it started. When we look out at where this country is in this moment, where we have seen a rollback of abortion rights, where we are seeing attacks on birth control and other forms of contraception, where we are seeing attacks on IVF, it is an attack on women. Yeah, absolutely. It is an attack on the advancements that women have been able to make over the last 50 years since being able to have bodily autonomy, that bodily autonomy has been very much connected to the economic

upward mobility of women. Absolutely. Talk to us about what you believe these unrelenting attacks mean about the future power of women and girls in this country and what people have to understand that is at stake. Because I think, too, that a lot of us focus on the national. headlines and really are not paying attention to the state and local headlines that are doing more damage at this moment to the progress and power of women and girls than anything else. Yeah. First off, when you are being threatened and attacked, particularly white men,

you attack the thing that you think is the biggest problem and the power that they are growing, obtaining, and developing. And so, you know, this, this research, attack, I think people have to put all the pieces together. They're seeing it from their one point in life, but we have to put all the pieces together. The attacks on women's bodily autonomy, bodily autonomy is what we are seeing in this country. The attacks on black and brown people and the inability of Congress to function effectively and pass actual voting rights, these are all connected, and we've seen it, because it's written out there in paper saying, this is how we actually create a fascist state. So we're going to take those who are seeking equity and equality.

We talk about women seeking power, but we are not even nearly there. We are just seeking equity and equality in the work we are trying to do. And so if they say, no, you need to be barefoot and pregnant in your home, in your kitchen, and we're going to make it as hard as possible for you to leave that home. We're not going to provide national child care. We're going to cut back on public education. We're going to do all of these things that would provide. women the opportunity to go out and not just earn an income for their families, but for their

lifetimes. We also, you know, don't put all of the pieces together. We talk about pay equity and the wealth gap. But, you know, what happens and how many women as they get older are living in poverty, right? And we know that the wealth transfer for women of color to the next generation is about a dollar, right? And so, you know, we're talking about the fact that this is a conscious attempt, and I say this clearly, this is a conscious attempt to annihilate black and brown women and women from an educated conversation and part of our democracy. And they are doing it piece by piece by piece. And we have got to decide that we are going to take this back. We're going to run for office from every level, not just Congress. We're going to do it on local levels. We're going to

run for school boards. We're going to run for finance boards. We're going to run for mayors. And we're going to actually start changing on the local levels so that when we get to the broader levels, we are organized to fight. And not just once every four years or once every two years, every single day. You know, it's just, it's so shocking to me. And I think that when you look at the kind of stages of grief, the first stage is denial. Right. That then like moves into anger. And, you know, and you go all the way down until you get to a place of acceptance.

And I think that there are so many women in this country that are still in a place of denial, but also shock, that this is kind of happening, that they never thought in their lifetimes that their daughters and their daughter's daughters wouldn't be able to have access to an abortion, right? That their daughters and their daughter's daughters wouldn't be able to have bodily autonomy and be able to choose when, where, and how and if they want to have children, that that fight was over. In this time when we are about five months away from an election, presidential election, when we are looking at headlines where just recently, you talked about how the most underserved

and under-resourced group are black women and girls. Well, the Fearless Fund was just a venture capitalist fund that is primarily organized by women of color for women of color entrepreneurs to provide resources, financial resources to them, because when you look at funding by venture capitalists to black women and girls, I don't think that I have enough time to air out the number of zeros to get to that like percentage point of how little money goes to black women and girls. And now this U.S. Court of Appeals and in the 11th Circuit has just said, oh, no, this is discrimination. And this comes off of the heels of the Supreme

court decision that overturned affirmative action. So when you see this and your focus is women and girls, the Ms. Foundation for Women's Focus is women and girls. What does that signal to you? And what do you think the role is of philanthropy in this moment when every advancement of the 20th century that we've made is under attack in the 21st? Oh, Danielle. Yeah. So I have to tell you, I want to call bullshit on all of it. And I want to do it because it was told to communities for years, particularly in philanthropy, get us the data. If we have the data, then propose solutions. If you have solutions and you can show results at the end of it, we will continue to fund it.

That's what we heard. So we proposed, we got data just like the fearless fund, right? We got data. We said there's an underfunding. what's the solution? Let's be intentional and explicit about who and what we are funding and why to address that disparity, right? And now we see not just the 11th Circuit and not just the Supreme Court and the affirmative action decision, but we are seeing philanthropy roll back its funding on women and girls and particularly women and girls of color. We are seeing corporations who made big commitments in 2020 around the race, uprising that said, oh, yes, we're going to support it. And then philanthropy is a fickle friend, and they just pivoted away. They are not doubling down on ensuring, like, we talk about bodily autonomy and abortion access and the right to determine when and if you want to have a family. And yet

we don't tie that to everything else that is going on. And philanthropy needs to stop funding in silos. It needs to fund across issue areas and across movement space. You can't just fund access to abortion and addressing issues so that we can get rowback, which wasn't even enough, the Dobbs decision and everything else. We actually have to look at environmental justice. We actually have to look at economic justice. We have to look at why abortion isn't still considered just part of health care. Why are women having to discuss with an employer around IVF treatments so that

that they can get covered. Like this is an insult to our intellectual ability. And philanthropy has a greater process. For the good of humankind is the definition of philanthropy. And it doesn't mean that humankind's responses are three years or six years. We did not get to this moment. And wealth was not created by those who are moving money in philanthropy overnight. We need to make more than three year commitments.

We need to be making 30 year commitments because guess what? on the other side, they are making 30-year commitments. Philanthropy who is funding on the other side of what I call progressive and humanity, those that are funding in that space, they are funding for 50 years. We are not surprised by what we are seeing and we can't be surprised by what we are seeing. I remember when the Handmaid's Tale came out. Everybody told me it was that's so far away, is it? The Handmaid's Tale was a whole recognition of white men determining what was going to happen for society

and women lost all rights in that conversation. And women who supported that then understood what they were giving up also. And so we all have to wake up. And this is an opportunity. We actually have two generations right now of households, of young men and boys who are seeing their mothers go to college, get jobs, work inside and outside the home, have levels of independence. Like, we actually need to figure out how to engage them and not let Congress be the end result of everything because they don't want their sister to get paid less than them.

They don't want their mom to get paid less just because she's a girl, right? Quote unquote. And so I think there's like a whole bunch of ways we need to be talking about this strategy to get us down the road. And guess what? If hope is a discipline, I'm going to stay hopeful and I'm going to do it every day. But it is a battle that we're going to have to go for. And we have to talk about it in all the ways that make everybody uncomfortable all the fucking time. And you know what? That to me, that to me, Teresa, that call to, to action that you just laid out is so critical to this moment. Because I do not believe that folks recognize that the Handmaid's Tale was pretty much a documentary.

That when you look at how hard it is to get to the place that women, people of color, queer people, trans people got to in this country, in this moment in 2024, how easy it is to take it all away because of the complacency that happens when you believe that the other side isn't consistently working with a 50-year strategy to get back to a place of full and complete white patriarchical power. Absolutely. How do you tell people in this moment to not only hold on to hope, what to fight. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that I keep in mind, nothing ever happens when you're comfortable, right? So you just mentioned that. And so I'm like, I'm going to make you

uncomfortable and uncomfortable enough to get up and move. This is not a slow burn and we're going to like fall into complacency. That has happened. Now we need to turn the flame up and people need to hop out of their seats and take action. And we need to take action for a long time. We have entered a long-term marathon. And we will need to fight on every level. And we need to trust on every level. There are those who are doing the work. Let's trust them to do the work. They might not do it the way you do, but they are doing it. And let's trust that that is happening. And guess what? We got to get up. We got to get up not just one day, not just March one day, not just vote one day. We need to do this on a consistent level. Pace yourself. Call your friends. Call your family. All of us are

trans-mobile people, we are all over the place. And if we look at what's happening in the rest of the world, we will see that we are not the only country experiencing this kind of increased movement and that we need to be inspired by our sisters, our brothers, and our siblings across the globe to do the work that needs to happen in the United States because we are falling behind being a leader. And you don't have to be in the front of the room to be the leader, but we are no longer leading in anything. And when I travel globally, I have people who say to me, what's happening there? What do you mean? When Catholic countries can have abortion access and the United States, we have this abstract

nomenclature that we're going to do it on the state level. States can decide so where you live determines if and how and for your economic security because of pregnancy. Like this just makes no sense at all to me. So what I say is take a look at a plant. It needs some seating. It needs some watering. We actually have had that.

We filled it out. And then we dried it up and nobody saw. that it was drying up. And now I'm saying to everybody, just like your like plants, water them again, let us bloom, let us get out there and let's like actually spread our tentacles a lot farther than they've ever been. Oh, Teresa. Always so inspiring, always amazing. I can't express to you how hopeful I am because of women like you that are activated and whose job it is to activate the rest of us to our own power. I appreciate you so much as I do the Ms. Foundation for Women, which I am a very proud board member of. And just thank you. And I hope that you will come back and see us again soon.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. And everybody get out there and not just vote. Activate yourself and activate your friends. Stephen ULocky is a professor of film and television studies and longtime movie producer, who is the co-director and co-writer of a searing new documentary that takes a look at Christian nationalism's unholy war against democracy. The film available now for purchase or rental on multiple streaming platforms is called Bad Faith. And Professor Yulaki joins me now to tell us about it. Thank you so much for being here. Pleasure to be here. So before we get to the film itself, I want to ask you why. Why did you decide that you needed to make a film about Christian nationalism? Well, primarily because when Trump got elected and in the world that I lived in, there was no chance that was going to happen.

It was very clear after he was elected that I was living in a bubble. And the reason everything I read and everybody I talked to, they didn't really know what was going on. I determined that I needed to fight out. I needed to know what was happening in the country that I was completely unaware of. And so it was just a research. I hit upon, I started with the evangelicals because they were obviously the key factor in his winning the election. And it took me through this whole long history of the evangelical involvement with the Republican Party that was started in 1980 to elect Reagan. It's an incredible story and it's an incredible transgression against a separation of church and state that was noted by a few people at the time, but then simply became normalized.

No, for sure. And you lay out that history so well in the film, but you start bad faith with images from January 6th, which I think is fitting. And as you say in the film, Christian nationalism was the galvanizing force of that day, right? That's right. I mean, and also a lot of people have pointed out that the media never picked up on the fact that there were so many Christian symbols and flags and Bibles and crosses. And that, I mean, people have asked me why. And that's because the mainstream media. is terrified of doing anything that they think is going to be perceived as being anti-religion or anti-Christian. That's a huge problem because that's an opening that they get into and they get away with everything because of that. I couldn't agree with you more. And in fact, you know, and we see this time and time again where white Christians who still make up the majority of this country act like they are an aggrieved minority party. And they get away with it in large part, like you said, because the media doesn't want to hold them accountable.

Yeah. And they've managed to pull this trick and Trump does the same thing. As somebody said the other day, that every accusation that they make is really a confession of what they're doing themselves. It's total projection. I mean, the notion that they're an agree party is a total joke. And yet they, amongst their own, they've created this alternate universe that we're very aware of now that has more and more power and is very frightening for lots of reasons,

which we can get into. No, for sure. Let's talk about how Christian nationalism is defined in bad faith. You have Ibu Patel, who's the founder of Interfaith America. He says basically that the overarching theme of Christian nationalism is that God made America for Christians. And not all Christians, but a particular kind of white Christian with a particular theology and a particular worldview.

And that group is supreme in this nation and everyone else is subordinate. And that really does lay it out, doesn't it? It does. It's absolutely the truth. And it's, again, it's one of those truths that you're not going to get anybody talking about. I mean, here it takes somebody who is of another religion to point this thing out. Because a lot of Christians sort of feel, well, it's not to a bad. Hey, I'm Christian. You know, I guess I benefit from it. I'm white. I'm Christian. Looks good to me. You can see where it's headed because that is this notion that Christian nationalism, and I'm sure we'll get into this, has nothing to do with Christianity. It's a completely. complete exploitation of the symbols, which are, you know, basically have been used to seduce a lot of Christians into thinking that the way they can truly be Christian is to attack our democracy and replace it with a theocracy. And that, of course, is the secret juice behind the power of Christian nationalism, that it uses people's belief in order to engage in treasonous seditious behavior. and makes them feel that they're doing it because God wants him to do it.

Yeah. And, you know, I think it's Steve Schmidt in the movie, the political operative of Steve Schmidt, who says that Christian nationalism, it's nationalism, yes, but it has nothing to do with Christianity. It's not that he's incorrect in saying that, but I do feel like most Christian nationalists would disagree with this, right? And I'm talking about the rank and file here. I'm not talking about Trump who drapes himself in the pretense of Christianity or the leaders of Christian nationalism themselves who know exactly what they're doing. But the rank and file really does, like you said, you know, they really have sort of been conned into believing that what they are supporting is Christianity. Yeah. No, it's true. And in fact, in all the research that I did,

and it took me years before I could finally try to get into the mindset. But this has been going on for 40 plus years, and you had to be able to decode what was being said in churches. For example, when the pastor said that we have to recreate the kingdom of God on Earth. An outsider might be tempted to think, okay, well, gee, they're talking about spiritual matters. They weren't talking about spiritual matters. They were talking about replacing democracy with a theocracy because God is over man.

And therefore, God's rule is more powerful and more meaningful than majority rule. And that incredibly anti-democratic, seditious, these sermons have been going on for 40 plus years and have resulted in the January 6th, you know, and potentially much worse to come, that mentality. And those people really have been taught to believe that a true Christian is going to take up arms in order to create God's kingdom on earth.

That's the problem. For sure. And, you know, as the documentary points out when it gets into the history, and I think you have, it's the great Reverend William Barber the second, who says that, you know, hey, we as America, you know, as Americans, we have to own the fact that Christian nationalism, it's on the rise right now, but it's not a new thing in this country. And it goes back centuries here, the most well-known example being the Ku Klux Klan. It comes to the fore when white Christian men feel like their power is threatened.

It really is amazing how racism has always been such a huge component of it. Ken Burns calls it the nativist strain. Ken is a very good friend. And he's the one who suggests that, hey, if you're going to tackle this subject, make it a history. The reality is it goes back to the whole notion that, you know, that blacks were not full people. Right.

It goes back to the fact that even though the North won the Civil War, they actually lost the whole cultural war because they allowed the Southerners to go back to treating blacks. I mean, they were in worse condition after no longer being actual slaves, but they became economic slaves. And you had a situation in which at every point of the way, when there was a threat to the complete domination by white Christians, this would come up.

When the immigrants arrived in the late 19th century, early 20th century, you know, who were not Christian or who were, you know, who were not the chosen people, there were marches in Washington. There were five to eight million members of the KKK and the 20s. It was unbelievable. And yet, and then, of course, when integration began, it rose again. And one thing that I think people don't understand, because they don't know the history of their country, they've oftentimes read. or been taught a very whitewashed version of it. But the back and forth in the dynamic and the tension and conflict between trying to realize the American dream and the reality, every time there was some actual progress toward that ideal, that has been overlooked in history. So people are surprised that it's coming up now, but it should not be a surprise. Probably the thing I learned that I was the most surprised about from watching bad faith

was Randall Balmer, the historian, he talks about what he calls the durable myth that the religious right was galvanized in the 70s leading up to the 1980 campaign, that this galvanization happened because of Roe v. Wade and that it was all about abortion. He says, in fact, that's not true. And that it was actually court rulings that said that racially segregated private schools should be stripped of their tax-exempt status and that the contributions to these schools will no longer be tax exempt. That's what really fired up Jerry Falwell and people like that. Absolutely. Absolutely. And Randall, we didn't have it in the film. We once had a larger segment on this. But Randall personally asked Wyrick in the 90s, early 90s when he was attending a conference.

That very question. And Wyrick said, absolutely not. It took me years to figure out to come up with something that would get them interested. It was only when they did not want to integrate their Christian academies, and they did not want to accept the fact that they would no longer be tax exempt. That's what drove them into politics, and that's the reason that they made this deal with Wyrick to become essentially charter members of the Republican Party. And of course, part of that deal was like having to convince the faithful that the Republican Party was the party they should vote for. Easy, said Wyrick. Call the Republican Party the party of God. Yeah. And call the Democrats, the party of the devil, because that fit into their whole theology, that fit into their

whole notion that the world was divided in the good and the evil, you know, God and the devil. And they transpose that to our political arena. And we see the result of that now. When people like Trump, it's like gospel to them. Every other word out of their mouth is the fact that the Democratic Party is demonic. But it was all part of a business deal. It was all part of a way to come up. I mean, I mean, that part was the business deal. How did they cover it up? To your other question, Wyrick knew that birth control and abortion was an issue that the Catholics were very opposed to. And he was a Catholic. He was just kind of extreme as Catholic. The Catholic Church wasn't extreme enough for him. He went into some Greek subsect of Catholicism. He knew that that was something that really pushed the buttons of Catholic voters.

And he told Falwell and Robertson and the others, if you can get your people to believe that abortion is not biblical, that it's not in the Bible and it's a really, really bad thing, then we'll have something that we can all be against. And that would make the moral majority work. Otherwise, we don't have a lot in common. Now, of course, the Southern Baptist conference in 1973, when Roe v. Wade was issued, they were enthusiastic. They were very enthusiastic. about it. Frankly, from their point of view, they thought abortion would keep the black population down. But that became, as you said earlier, that became the rallying cry because this bomber points out in the film, it wouldn't really work to create a powerful mass protest, mass movement, attempting to roll back integration in the late 70s. So what could be better than the rights of the unborn, a completely bullshit term that they came up with that has now become, again, gospel. Well, and in many ways, Paul Weirich, who you've been talking about, he felt like the main

character of bad faith to me. He's not as well known as Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, the guys he started the moral majority with. But talk about his manifesto and the reach he had, and he's no longer with us, but the reach he still continues to have. Yeah. Well, it's very interesting. Wyrick was absolutely focused on creating a totally Christian nation. He realized that Falwell and Robertson had lost interest in it after a few years. They had become incredibly wealthy. They were powerful. They were all that stuff that they really wanted. They weren't interested in going that extra mile. And Wyrick, who was perceived as a fringe character for many years within the Republican party because he was such an extremist. You know, nobody took him that seriously. He antagonized

everybody because he kept pushing the Republicans to do things they didn't want. Right. So, which is why, of course, we say in the film that he, he created. created the Council for National Policy in 1980 as a parallel structure. Okay, come the Bush administration, and there were a bunch of evangelicals who were in government. A lot of people thought, gee, this is really wonderful. Wyrick was aware of the fact that the culture of the country was not getting better. It was getting worse. The country was getting more secular.

There was more progress being made by women, by blacks, by other minorities, gays. it was becoming worse and worse from their point of view. Therefore, he realizing that they would never get a majority of people to want to vote, to turn over their rights to an elite group, wrote or had commissioned a manifesto in which in black and white, it says, we will weaken and destroy the democratic institutions. And when they are gone, we will create our own structures, our own institutions to replace them. When I read that, and I was doing research reading Ann Nelson's book, The Shadow Network, I couldn't believe it. I mean, this to me was a smoking gun. I mean, this was an example.

They categorically decided to attack democracy because it was not going to work for them, you know. And when you think about where we are today with the divisiveness and this, the thrust of institutions that we're dealing with, guess what? Their plan worked extremely well. We're living out the results of the success of their plan. The other part of the plan, of course, is that once you've caused this distrust of institutions, that people don't believe in elections, they don't believe in democracy, you've created a vacuum. Into that vacuum comes the need for the strong man. And there you go. Here we have it.

So it's just the thing about the movie, and I want as many people to see it as possible, is it does connect the dots. It does explain why we are in this incredible situation in this country today. No, it really lays out the case that when Wyrick Fowell and Robertson create the moral majority around 1980, that's when we really start to see the overlapping in sort of the Venn diagram of Christian nationalism and the Republican Party. And then in 2009, the Tea Party brings that Venn diagram sort of closer to just a circle. And Trumpism has pretty much completed that process. Absolutely. Absolutely. And once again, going back to the whole notion of Christian nationalism and the threat to the white power structure,

for many, many people having Obama, Barack Obama in the White House was terrifying, was a sign of things to come. This was something they could not get over. And there was this upsurge. The Tea Party was extremely an example of Christian nationalism. It was racist. Trump audition for the part with this whole birtherism bullshit. And Trump is very much a creation of the Christian nationalist movement.

and the upsurge in the Christian nationalist movement is the white supremacist reaction to the election of Barack Obama and eight years of his presidency. And that's what we're dealing with. No, absolutely. The movie is bad faith. Again, it's available now. Apple, Amazon, wherever you rent or buy your movies from. And yeah, this needs as wide an audience as possible. Stephen Yulaki, thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure. My pleasure. Again, the thing that's important, And people don't understand that we're going to become like Iran if we don't do something about it. If we don't fight back and use our democracy to reclaim our rightful place and defend it. Thank you.

Thank you for having me. Andy Levy. D-Mood. It's literally a throwback to high school. How are you ending this wonderful Bannon's going to jail week in? America with your fuck that guy. I'm going to go with the Republicans in the Senate this time, as opposed to the Republicans in the House or in the various state houses across the country. But I'll stick with the ones in the U.S. Senate. And they have blocked a bill that was called the

Right to Controception Act that would have stopped both the federal government and state governments from passing laws that limited access to birth control. And their excuses were kind of funny. not funny ha ha but funny Joni Ernst according to vanity fair she called the bill fearmongering and John Cornyn said this is a phony vote because contraception to my knowledge is not illegal

and it's not unavailable so in other words the law wasn't necessary I sort of contrast this with the Speaker of the House running around touting a bill that will stop people who are in the country illegally from voting which is something they already can't

do legally, but somehow that's important, but this is not important because contraception is not currently illegal in this country. The fact of the matter is right. Contraception is not currently illegal in this country, but we know damn well that the Supreme Court is working its ass off to change that. And we have Clarence Thomas saying as much in his concurrence to the Dobbs opinion written by Sam Alito that the right to birth control and the right to gay marriage, among other things should be up next for investigation by the court. So to say that a law is not necessary because something's not illegal yet when you know damn well that people are working their ass off to try to make that illegal and they're already doing it in the States and we're seeing it

with Miffa Pristone and none of this is coming out of nowhere. The Democrats didn't just sit down and say, hey, let's pretend that there's a chance contraception is going to be made illegal. No, they actually looked at what's going on across the country and said there is a real chance that contraception is going to be made illegal. And let's get out in front of that and pass a law that will prevent that from happening. These Republicans want to get up there and they want to pretend like they're voting against this because it's not necessary, as opposed to the fact that they're voting against it because they actually do think birth control should be illegal. And they need to be called out on that. And it needs to be made clear to everyone in the country,

particularly to women, that this is the future Republicans want. And, And that the only way to hopefully prevent this from happening, if it's not too late because of the current makeup of the court, but the only way to make it maybe at least less likely that it's going to happen is to vote these fuckers out in the cases of the ones who are already in and not vote these fuckers in in the case of Donald Trump and the rest of the MAGA ilk who are running in 2024. So yeah, let's get this message out, Democrats. and fuck these guys. I mean, I just think that Republicans are writing the Biden campaign's ads for them. And that's exactly how they should be used. And I'm so happy that you brought up Mike Johnson and his piece of legislation to make it illegal for people who are not American citizens to vote, which is already not a thing. But like, that's what Republicans do is that they are a hammer looking for a nail when.

when the nail is like in the draw neatly. Like it's unnecessary. And so to say, oh, women don't need protection right now so that they have access to contraceptives, when you are seeing them be eroded, state by state by state is a lie. And that is exactly what the Biden campaign needs to run with, which is that the only thing standing between us

and the nationalizing of anti-abortion laws and IVF and all of these things is a Democrat in the White House. That's it. So you like your life, you like your bodily autonomy, and you're living in a state that hasn't eroded it yet. The only thing that's helping you right now is a Democrat being in the White House. God help us.

All right, Danielle. I know you've been waiting on this one for the entire episode. So go ahead. Bring it on. Who's your fuck that guy? My God. When you think that things couldn't get worse, that someone couldn't say that, for instance, let me look at Ron DeSantis when he

came out with his, don't make white kids feel bad about themselves, Bill. So let's not teach them about the truth of their, you know, ancestors and their role in trying to deny progress and, you know, dehumanize black people, because if we teach the truth, then it'll hurt their feelings. Well, according to representative Byron Donald's, who is from the god-awful state of Florida. And I say god-awful, not because of it not being lovely, but because of all of the people that you all vote in. I just don't understand. Listen to what Byron Donald said recently. And I just, and by the way, this was at an event, a black Republican event, which is like jumbo shrimp, a black Republican event called Congress, Cognac and Cigars, pandering much. But here's what.

what he said. God. Quote, you see, during Jim Crow, the black family was together. During Jim Crow,

more black people were not just conservative because people have always been conservative-minded, but more black people

voted conservatively. Let me just stop right there. I don't know what the fuck Byron Donald's is talking about. Number one,

the reason for the civil rights movement was because guess what and the voting rights act guess what was because during jim crow no one that was black was able to fucking vote easily let alone fucking conservatively no one in that era if you didn't guess the amount of fucking marbles in a jar do a literacy test we're able to fucking vote so what are you talking about do you know also what would not have happened if we had continued with the Jim Crow South, you having a fucking job, you moron. Like, I think that Byron Donald's would be so content with his job as a fucking valet shining

Mike Johnson's shoes, because that's what the fuck he would be doing if the Jim Crow era had persisted longer than the hundred years that, like, that people had to exist under that kind of oppressive fucking apartheid regime, which by the way, was used as a model for every horrible thing that we've ever seen around the globe. They used the Jim Crow as a model for the Holocaust, for apartheid in South Africa, you name it, this was the blueprint. So the audacity of this motherfucker to stand up at an event with other black people and talk about what good was in Jim Crow for black people, are you dumb, sir? But you've already answered that question for us. Let me remind people that not all skin folk are kinfolk,

not all people actually care about the communities in which they have come from. Not all people actually recognize that without the courage of black folks throughout history, but particularly during the civil rights era, that they would not be in the positions that they are. That includes Nikki fucking Haley, whose family would not have been here,

if not for immigration policies that allowed for folks to come in from Asia and India and all of those. Like, it is beyond me, the ignorance, the willful ignorance, because of their proximity to white supremacy they believe is going to save them. So he makes this statement and then he arrives on Donald Trump's VP list. You don't need to do a lot of work to connect the dots here. It's disgusting. It's despicable.

It is an insult to those that died and fought. so that he could even have the position that he's in. Fuck that guy from here to infinity. Byron Donald's, you are an embarrassment to black people, to black men, to the position of representative, and to your state of Florida. How you put this man in place, but you know what? He's the Herschel Walker that can actually put sentences together. Bravo.

Yeah, I have nothing to add because I don't think it's my place to speak about a black man's lived experience. Are you sure? because you could write a book about it and make a lot of money. Wait, can I get a pass? No, fuck that guy. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday.

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