The Daily Beast Podcast - These Trump DOJ Subpoena Revelations Are Like Watergate on Crack

Episode Date: June 15, 2021

Attorney General Merrick Garland has been busy lately. In this episode of The New Abnormal, Molly Jong-Fast chats with FBI agent Peter Strzok about “Watergate on crack” aka these Trump DOJ subpoenas. Plus! Journalist Francesca Fiorentini takes on America’s hypocrisy and Sen. Alex Padilla (CA-D) drops the mic about the immigration debate. If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Jong-Fast and welcome to The Daily Beast, The New Abnormal. I'm a left-wing pundit and an editor at large at The Daily Beast. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. Our world has been turned up day down. On the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and figure out how to get ourselves out of it. And I'm producer Jesse Kennan. I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. Today we have an excellent episode with California's junior senator and former California Secretary of State Alex Padilla. And then we will have former FBI agent Peter Strachan to talk to us about the fuckery around the surveillance of Trump's enemies.

But first, we have the host of the Bituation podcast, Francesca Furentini. Welcome Francesca to the new abnormal. Thank you. We're very excited to have you. I feel very safe. I'm vaccinated. That's right. And we're doing this on remotely, so you're even safer. Indeed. Microphones transmit a lot of droplets. Oh, yeah.

I'm a stand-up, so I've definitely contracted a few things. Maybe that's not from the mic. Maybe that's from sleeping with comics. Just kidding. That's right. Edit that out. Edit that out. So it's been a very exciting week with Joe Biden trying to sort of mend fences at the G7, and now he's at NATO. What? And he saw the queen yesterday, a lot of really powerful imagery of him and her walking around the garden. Is that where we're calling it?

I get in trouble whenever I mean about the monarchy because people are like, you don't understand. And I'm like, yeah, you're right. But the hats. What did you think? I mean, you actually sort of know things and have lived places and done things. What do you think about how the G7 is going and NATO and the state of America in the world right now? I haven't been super up on the G7, but I will say the fact that the only photo op that came out of it was Angela Merkel smiling. I'm like, okay, I think we're good.

I think we're fine. We'll be okay. I mean, things aren't great, but I need to see her smiling because she's trying to, you know, hold up the free world by herself. And so now she's got help. And of course, we are raging hypocrites when it comes to where we, you know, democracy and where we uphold it and where we uphold fascism. But we're trying to get better. Look, we're trying to be our better selves. And Merkel's trying to retire. So I'm like, let's. the woman retire and also can she run for president in the United States? She's way too smart to ever get elected here. I'm sorry to tell you. Like our electorate would be like, wait, what does she do? No way. But I do think it is true. She does seem to be like the last person. You know, there was that time during the Trump administration where it would be like Trump and, you know, the British guy with the bad hair and Merkel looking at them like, we're all going. going to die. Yeah, exactly. The infamous him just like arms folded. So,

and everyone else leaning in, like, you did not just say that. First of all, I don't even know if we know what he said other than like, well, we're all killers, Putin, you know. Who isn't a killer? Who among us? Right. But no, look,

I think that it's good to reestablish diplomatic relations and especially around things like climate change, which once again, we're so woefully behind on. And so I celebrate the move in the right direction, but I also think that like the details, especially when it comes to, you know, really like, oh, well, we need to help poorer nations. That's our goal is to help poorer nations, you know, in order for them to not burn coal.

It's like, honey. Someone in like the DRC built burning coal or whatever in the year 2021, that's not the problem. You could have, everyone could just be burning trash throughout the entire continent of Africa. and it would not compare to the amount of fossil fuels that first world countries and, you know, the United States and China, you know, and they admit. So it's like, we need to kind of get our house in order first. And yes, I think just directly pay other countries to, yeah, transition,

but we need to actually fork over the cash. So, you know, I'm not super hopeful when it comes to internationalism around climate change, but it's better than literally nothing. So one of my favorite things about the climate, climate situation right now is it's like the Republicans are on a completely different planet and we're in a country where like for example the state of texas which is this state that has you know a pretty enormous economy has a boom of blue state people moving there because they want to cheat on their taxes

and i'm sorry not pay income taxes which isn't cheating on your taxes of course not you mean be free Right, be free. You have states like Texas where 103 people froze to death this winter because they did not want to regulate their energy company, but let's talk about abortion. So I do think we are in this truly weird world where we have a Republican Party that's like in the Stone Age. Yeah. And I think that world leaders also kind of know that. I mean, they're like, look, you guys are unstable. You could you could slip back at any moment. And there's a lot of leaders around the world who are like, I hope you slip back because it's much easier to buy off the Republicans and throw down with them. I will say that my only, look, I believe in internationalism and diplomacy firmly, but I am also annoyed that we have to go back to the, you know, we must demonize China and Russia. Right. The sentiment, like, yes, we need a certain amount of firmness. And, you know, like, I wouldn't necessarily say sanctions, but, like, I don't know if that's the way to bring him to the table. We know the ways that, like, going the militaristic and sanction route, how that affects populations over governments.

And even though Kim Jong-un, like, is slimmed down, like, my man never went hungry, you know? Sanctions never hurt him. So I do just wonder, like, knowing that China and Russia are pissed. pivotal to peace in a lot of regions. Like, how can we bring them to the table rather than be like, no, we got to do better than them? We're going to just, you know, either it's redoubling on NATO or in China. Like, we're going to create, you know, light rails and, you know, more renewable energy in the United States only to stick it to China. And you're like, no, we need it because of for us.

Well, we're not going to do it. So the good news is that China is not going to be stuck to because America can barely, I mean, you can barely get an Amtrak to Washington, D.C. No, I know. And meanwhile, China's building railways in, you know, in the Himalayas. But I want to, you know, what I think has been such an interesting conservative talking point all for the last two weeks, conservatives. And Matthew Iglesias have all been obsessed with this lab leak, lab leak, lab leak, lab leak. It's a lab leak. The COVID's caused by lab leak.

Yes. Again, and they're like, and why won't Democrats investigate the lab leak? And I say to these people, yes, let's investigate. Let's do it all. Like, if you want to not have another terrible pandemic that kills millions of people, you need to get to the bottom of, like, what the fuck went wrong? Yeah. Like, I feel like Democrats are not aligned with China the way Republicans are aligned with Russia.

In terms of, like, being homies. Right. I mean, it's like, you know, these are two enormous nuclear. Did I say it right? Because otherwise everyone's going to put from me. Oh, God. Nuclear. powers or power, you know, and they must be treated as such, right? Like, we can't, you know,

you go to war with either of these countries and the world is over. But in the same sense, I don't think there's an allegiance there. And we have seen through Donald Trump that Republicans have been very pro-Russia, not to get into that whole hysteria, but I do think that's an important. No, yeah. I mean, I don't know if we need to, I mean, we've been cozy with China, but just on the economy. And now we want to take it all back. I mean, I'm coming, I come from like a late 90s global justice movement, rah, ra.

We should, you know, let's produce things in the United States and have good union jobs and not, you know, devastate the world and choke it with Coca-Cola. And I think we lost that fight, you know, so it's weird now because the populism that, the fake populism that Trump employed around like making stuff in the United States is actually, it is an important, you know, point. Right. People want that, too. People want that. And it can be better for labor.

It can be better for the climate. I mean, just a sheer fact of like importing, exporting and the amount of fossil fuels that burns. But we're so ass backwards when it comes to like, I'm trying to print a T-shirt from my podcast. You literally can't find a single shirt made in the United States. You just can't. You can't find any company that will, that is very difficult.

And, you know, the ones that are like headed by, creeps like dove charnie whatever the hell is he was terrible i always thought in 2016 part of why trump won was that he kept saying you know he kept offering people something you know he'd say i'm with you i'm going to do this for you and it wasn't necessarily bound by the truth the way democrats are you know but he did offer them something whereas hillary was like come with me you're with me you know and people want something I also think that there's a, and this is something that people differ on, but there's a rage, you know, there's an anger, no matter what side you're on, no matter if you know how to articulate what the rage is, a matter if you blame immigrants or you blame late stage capitalism. Yeah.

Right. Like, there's in the same place. Right, exactly. You know, there's a rage there. And I think that we are so taught, especially, you know, of the Biden ilk of Democrats of, like, rage bad, you know, like, buttoned up, perturbanes, good. And people don't respond to that. And so I think having some sort of vision, and this is my,

I really feel scared for the way that it doesn't feel like Biden is laying out a vision that he can actually make good on. I mean, what I mean is he's not going to fight for that vision. I think in that not state of the union, state of the union speech, we did hear a vision, but now we know that there's not really tooth and teeth behind. behind it. I mean, he does wear dentures.

I'm sorry, but like, you know, we don't need to. There's, I think he's got to. That look of teeth, I think your, I think your hypothesis is correct. You're looking at a nice set, or veneers, yeah. Okay. Why don't I take the subject somewhere else?

To another person whose looks were not going to comment on, what Mitch McConnell is basically now saying that he doesn't care if he's majority leader. A Democrat is never confirming a Supreme Court justice ever again. What are you guys thinking about that new

Rubicon we've entered of this? Fuck him forever. And fuck him, honestly, like, I do think, I mean, and Democrats not believing these people when they tell you over and over again who they are and not believing them and still thinking that bipartisanship is what it was in the whenever's.

I mean, like, it's dead. The guy said, I'm sure you're talking about this radio interview where he's basically, Well, in 2016, it was an election year, so we couldn't confirm. And in 2020, we were in power. So we had to. Like, utter hypocrisy. He relishes in the hypocrisy, and he must relish in the idea that bipartisanship is possible

and that Democrats somehow still believe in it. And the guy is just clowning us all. And to be clowned by someone with that much neck meat is very, I brought it back to looks, but it doesn't even matter. I was going to say very naughty. Very naughty. No, but really, like, when do we understand that they're never going to work with us? And again, this is all stemming from AOC agreeing with Mondair Jones, right, that Stephen Breyer, Justice Stephen Breyer should retire. Yes. Can we talk about that for a minute?

Yeah. So I was watching that interview yesterday. And I thought it was interesting. It was, what was it? It was on CNN. Dana Bash on CNN. And she said you support Mondare Jones. Mondare Jones has been on the pod.

We love Mondare Jones. He's the best. But she didn't have to answer that question. She could have just said, like, a Republican would never have answered that question. A Republican would have just punted. And look, I think she's right. and I believe the same thing. But it's curious to me,

she didn't have, you know, like, I think Democrats really do give interviewers and the media and, like, just too much power. Like, she could have just said, this is, like, absolutely not something I've thought, you know, have enough information on. Right? Like, why does she need to be

answering this fucking question? Like, I just was like, I almost felt like she was sort of trying to gotcha with her a little bit. To your point, Molly, I think people respect especially politicians when they do say, I want to know more and weigh on something. I think that that's actually,

people always compliment us on the podcast when we do that. Yeah. Molly, you admitted you don't know things like three times now. And I'm like, God. It is a very smart. You know a lot more than most.

No, and you're right that like, but that's a testament to someone who's very difficult to lie for. You know, like, that they, she does not have that, like, sort of Pavlovian lie standard mansion response that says nothing. And she, it was like, the headline was so much stronger than what she actually said, which was like, maybe it could. Yeah. But, yeah, I do think, though, here's, that interview to me was painful, actually, because I felt like here you have someone who's actually being a leader who is, despite what. But the right and some people on the left make of AOC and her outsized power does not have that much power within the Democratic Party. For sure.

And is very sidelined. And yet, here you have her actually naming Mansion, telling, saying, no, it's the dark money of the HR1 bill. Is the reason why a lot of people don't want to sign on to it, including Mansion. Like, ooh, you know, like nobody says that. Here's a question for you about that. No, I agree. And the other thing about AOC, the reason why she's so powerful, even though she's not powerful in her caucus yet, is because she is very charismatic and people respond to her and millions of people follow her. So like this is, there is something she is doing right, the Democrats, and it may not be her policies, it may not be her politics, but she is definitely doing something right that other Democrats should be taking note of.

Yeah. Being honest, I think. Right, being, and also just, but also being very charismatic. Like, she's a really a good politician. Like, I know she's not a politician in a certain way, but she is very, you know, you either have it or you don't. But my question for you is this, because I want to talk about this and I want you to explain to me why this is okay. In H or not, in HB1, this is like my obsession now. Part of HB1, which gets me crazy, is that there is this thing that will federalize elections, which is what we have in New York City.

So you donate $1,000. You get a match for $10,000. So basically it ends up taxpayers or paying for elections. I understand the theory behind this. I actually fought with, I fought with the congressman about this recently. I understand the theory behind it, but should tax dollars really go to fucking ads? Yeah, if it's like the same, if it's like, no, you get $500, you get one spot. Right.

$500 will pay for, like, not even a YouTube ad. Right, but I'm just saying, like, why not cap it and be like, everyone has to survive on, you know, $2,000 city council campaigns. Sorry, guys. Like, this is what it is. Oh, yeah. I mean, I do think, though, that it was really interesting last year. I mean, something that I think we all took away from it was like, oh, wow, we have no federal. response to a national health crisis,

a coordinated federal response, obviously who was in power was a big problem, but that we could allow ourselves to be so gutted when it came to an emergency response that was just not able to snap in a place. And it was so patchwork. And the same thing with the election where you're like, oh my God, our elections are so patchwork. And I don't think it's protecting democracy. In fact, we know it's not.

It's doing the opposite. So, federalizing elections does feel like a just a big ass, you know, weight lifted. At the same time, I'm like, my mind goes like 30 years in the future and you're like, well, now we can stuff ballot boxes from the Oval, you know, like what, you know, do we, anyway, I don't know enough about that part of the, of the bill,

but I will say that I just got, I just had interviewed Stephanie Kelton, who, you know, believes in modern monetary theory. She's an economist and she's like, oh, we can print all the money we need. Right. Like, the idea that taxpayers pay for anything is kind of BS. And the idea that we have to wait for Bezos to get text

before we can have things like rail systems that work and, you know, solar infrastructure or whatever else, healthcare, that's also BS. So the other thing is like, if there's one thing we should print money for and not worry about inflation, it's our elections. I mean, yes, I think, except, I mean, I would say I agree with you, and I actually am a big fan of modern monetary theory, though, again, it's, it's, I mean, we've, we've had other people to talk about it, too, because it is so, it's, it's interesting, and it's definitely a lot of people are coming around, and even, like, Krugman is now for it. Oh, man. Yeah. Where Krugman goes.

That's right. Woke Krugman. But the question I have for this, is. like, fucking corporations should pay their motherfucking taxes. Oh, yeah. Like, fuck those fuckers. Like, taxes are your responsibility to live in society. And this gets me so, I mean, I pay a lot of taxes.

It is a pleasure to get to pay them. And, like, this is what we do here. Like, and so this gets me so crazy. And they lower, you know, the Republicans lowered the tax rate, preposterously low because they said they would grow the taxation base. They never did that. I do think the one thing I am very excited about with this, what is happening in NATO right now and the G7, is that there is hopefully going to be this minimum federal tax. You know, a minimum corporate tax, not federal tax, a corporate tax that could, in effect, really stop places like Apple from moving to Ireland, right?

I mean, if this works, and again, this is the brainchild of Janet Yellen, you know, the idea, but corporations should pay their fucking taxes. Like, we pay our fucking taxes. Like, this is what you do to live in a society. Absolutely. And the idea that corporations are, like, not paying taxes and then not paying their workers and then need it, you know, and then workers don't, you know, this is, you don't get to, like, not pay your workers and not pay your taxes. Like, if, at least in a place like Canada, you would have, like, health care.

So if you're paying your workers a little less and you're paying your taxes a little more, there's some kind of balance. But here are there, these corporations are really just fucking. overworking people. They privatize the profit and they make public all of the losses and all like meaning that if they're not paying workers enough, workers then go on welfare, workers go on food stamps, and that is what the government pays for. When you don't provide health care, you have to go on Medicaid, right? So that's the government provides for it. You know, so again, I forgot exactly the phrase, but it's something like that, like privatizing the profits and publicly and making public like

just all of the negatives that you've created. And yeah, no, I mean, I also think, like, the fact that anyone who is a working person votes Republican ever again is just mind-boggling to me. I mean, this party is out to fuck the poor. And I'm not talking about the poor. I'm talking about the middle class. Like, I mean, they are out to get you, and they don't even give a shit. Hey, folks, if you haven't heard every single week we do a special bonus episode for Beast Inside,

the Daily Beast membership program. Sometimes we interview senators like Corey Booker or the folks who explain what's happening behind the scenes in media like Jim Acosta or Soladadobrian. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner. And sometimes we just have friends around to analyze what's happening in the news. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a beast inside member where you'll support the beast's fearless journalism as well as getting full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member, head to New Abnormal. That's new abnormal. That's thedailybeast.com.

Alex Padilla is the junior senator from California. Welcome to the new abnormal senator. Thank you. Feels like this new job of mine is a new abnormal. Talk to me about, like, I see that you're on judiciary. Were you there during the insurrection? So I was not in the capital of the day of the insurrection. I didn't get sworn in.

until January 20th. Oh, wow. Right. About that moment. But watching the insurrection, you know, play out live on television from Los Angeles. I remember conducting staff interviews, my wife interrupts me and says, you may want to take a pause on that and watch what's happening. And unlike 97 of my colleagues, I had the benefit of sort of the split screen watching both what was happening inside the Capitol and what was developing outside the Capitol. and what was developing outside the capital in real time.

Very helpful perspective as one of the first things I participated in once I was sworn in as a senator was the impeachment trial. Here we are months later, and the trauma from that is still fresh. Oh, yeah. There was a pretty interesting. The hearing was made public with the ex-president Trump's lawyer, Don McGahn. Do you think that there's more to happen there? Oh, absolutely. There was an initial report put out by the Rules Committee on some of the public safety matters of how January 6th happened with recommendations how to better secure the Capitol. But that's just the beginning. You know, we can address the threats to the Capitol. We've got to address the threats to our nation and our democracy. The Rules Committee report with, you know, recommendations on how to improve the Capitol Police and, you know, intelligence handling things.

things like that. That is the equivalent of after 9-11 saying that we just need to buttress airport security and that's it and not really get down to the root causes. We know that January 6 was not a spontaneous event. It was an insurrection with the participants invited by Trump and incited by Trump. So we've got a lot more digging to do and investigating to do an accountability to dish out before we can move on. Do you think there's going to be hearings?

Because it seems insane to me to not have hearings. Well, absolutely insane that Republicans would not vote to establish an independent, bipartisan commission, just as was done after 9-11, you know, just to use that analogy once again. So we're going to continue to press forward, maybe take another crack at an independent commission. If we can't do that, then certainly additional hearings and investigations by multiple committees in the House and the Senate, because we still got to get to the bottom. What do you think about the mansion situation? Like, it seems to me that there's no world in which we get 10 Republicans to vote for, if they won't vote for keeping themselves safe, what are they going to vote for?

Exactly. So don't get me started. I've been saying that, you know, repeatedly, it's time for the filibuster to go. It's time to eliminate the filibuster and move on with the business of the people. Yes, for starters, let's move forward with a commission to further investigate the January 6th insurrection. But let's also move quickly on investing in our nation's infrastructure in a way that also tackles climate change. Let's move forward quickly on criminal justice reform, immigration reform, and so much more, the business of the people, we know the policy that work, We know the public supports it, but all this progress being held up because of the abuse of the filibuster. Let's get rid of it. Yeah.

So here's a question for you. You have a situation where you are from Mexico or your family. You were born in this country, right? Yeah. My parents immigrated here from Mexico in the 1960s. My brother and my sister and I were born and raised in Los Angeles and just trying to live the American dream. I think the Republican messaging on the border has been really, really. really, really helpful to them, not in the service of help, you know, a path to citizenship or

solving the issue, but more in the service of like using these, you know, immigrants as a sort of boogeyman. So I'm curious to know, how can Democrats message on the border better? Yeah, but look, you got to give it to Republicans. I wouldn't say experts at messaging, but there's certainly experts at misinformation. When you go to the border, use it as a prop and they come to the capital and offer zero solutions. You know, that's malpractice. When we're elected to office and we take an oath, you know, it's to govern, it's to lead with thoughtful policy and that's not what we're saying from our Republican colleagues.

You know, immigration is complex. That's why are updating our immigration laws is long overdue. Hasn't really happened since 1986. So we have to restore the asylum system at the border. We have to, you know, frankly, bring justice and opportunity to the millions of people who have been living here undocumented for so many years, not just dreamers, but the nearly 12 million people who have been living here, working here, paying taxes here, and deserve a pathway to citizenship and to live without fear of deportation. There's a lot that needs to be done. It seems to me like, from what I've read, the American population is not growing at the rate it needs to in order to keep the economy going. And yet, Republicans are still messaging so effectively on this idea that people from Latin America, South America, Central America, Mexico are coming to take your jobs.

Why can't Democrats explain this to the American people, that you need immigration? to grow and that if you don't have that, you become a country like Japan. I think in most parts of the country, people do get it. You look at places like California where, yes, there's more immigrants in California than any state in the nation. And we also have the largest economy of any state in the nation. And that's not a coincidence. You know, we need to continue to replenish and grow the workforce. And frankly, take that talents, take that creativity, take that work ethic and translate it into economic growth. But not all parts of the country have seen that the demographic shift over the last couple of decades like California has.

The evidence is there when you welcome immigrants. And yes, we need to do it in a way that's structured and responsible adults going into critical industries, but also young people. And putting them on a path to academic success and economic prosperity in the next generation. We know that it's good for the country, not just good for those individuals and those families. And that's what needs to drive the policies that needs to be acted on. What do you do about the situation with Mansion, though? If you can't get 50 Democrats, I mean, and also I saw, you know, I've seen that Senator Rosen from Nevada, like, there's definitely a real pushback on getting rid of the filibuster. You definitely see that you don't have the votes for that.

How do you keep going? How do you pass legislation if you don't have that? Yeah, well, I'll tell you what we don't do. We don't give up. You know, we've got to keep trying each and every day on all the critical issues. When it comes to the filibuster, I'll tell you, I definitely think there's some softening amongst Democratic centers who haven't been open to eliminating the filibuster or even reforming the filibuster in the past. You know, it doesn't get any more blatant than the refusal of Republicans to go along with establishing the January 6th Insurrection Commission.

And so if you can't do that, you know, how genuine and honest are they being when they say, we want to work with you on a bipartisan basis? No shortage of effort on behalf of Democrats to work on a bipartisan basis. But I think we've learned this much from Mitch McConnell over the last several years. You know, we try to work on a bipartisan basis, but we can't afford to wait until they come around. Because, you know, if we wait and wait and wait, before you know it, it's going to be, quote, unquote, too close to the next election. We need to hear from the people. And then nothing gets done. So we try, we try.

But if they refuse to reciprocate, we move on. Who are you seeing softening from? You know, I think there's a different softening from different members. and at a minimum, if we're able to go back to a, what do I call it, Mr. Smith goes to Washington type of cellibuster where you can't hide out anonymously and not know who's holding up a measure on the Senate floor. You got to stand at your desk and I'll speak your peace. If you can talk for 24 hours, more power to you.

But at some point, it's got to come to an end and we've got to put up the votes and we've got to move forward with the business of the people. How do you message, like the thing that we saw in 2020 was that Democrats were not, good at picking up Latino voters in the way that they should have by all rights been. You have one president, a guy who was running for re-election who said all Mexicans were rapists. Like, this should be a no-brainer. Democrats should be able to pick up, and they couldn't. Yeah, look, I think Latino votes were up and more democratic in some places and not quite well

was hoped for in others. And it was, you know, maybe it was the first time that others saw. saw what Latinos have known all along. You know, we're not a monolith. I grew up a proud son of immigrant parents in Southern California, but my life experience and outlook is very different than Cubans in Miami, for example, you know, or Central Americans elsewhere in California, or, you know, fourth, fifth generation, Mexican Americans in Texas and, you know,

Chicago, New York, very different perspectives as well. So you can't approach the Latino community as a monologna. with when it comes to voting. And just like everybody else, if you're not communicating with them at all, they can't expect them for you to be there on Election Day. The relationship building and true involvement in the community has to start long before it's time to get out the vote. Do you think some of this is that Democrats don't do enough Spanish language interviews,

advertising, engagement? I think that's part of it. But again, the Latino community is not a much. monolidif, as many monolingual or primarily Spanish-speaking voters that there may be in any district or in any state, you know, second, third, fourth generation, Latinos are at least bilingual. In many cases, monolingual or primarily English-speaking. So, you know, just Spanish language, radio ads, and television ads, and newspaper ads, and social media is necessary, but that's not the magic bullet. It's got to be more comprehensive than that. Talk to me about California

has a problem that we have in New York, too, which is that there is some amount of people leaving because of the taxes. How do you deal with that? The exodus from California that I've been hearing about for several months now is definitely overblown. COVID-19 pandemic has really upended people's lives in every imaginable way. So in California, the population overall hasn't run as much as other states. We learned that through the census, but the population has been growing. We've seen a shifting of the population from certain cities or regions of the state to others, primarily driven by the pandemic, right?

If you didn't have to come into the office or show up to the work in person, depending on your career, and you can live in a more affordable place that maybe it was safer for the pandemic. People were doing that. That's why you saw population surges in places like Bakersfield, California, or Lake And now real estate prices are reflecting that shift as well. So it'll be interesting to see as the economy reopens, you know, how much of the shift back happens. But, you know, taxation, it's very real.

It certainly didn't help that the Trump administration targeted states like Newark and California when it came to their tax reforms, the giveaway to corporations and billionaires from the last administration. Yeah, that seems to be a real problem. And we see that in New York a lot that we're losing people. And I mean, with the state taxes, they really do go to schools and roads and things that are really necessary in these low tax or these states with the lower state taxes. That's exactly what's driving sort of these infrastructure negotiations. If we can get corporations and the wealthiest families in America to pay their fair share,

let's take that and invest in the economy, invest in people in a way that solidifies our economic strength for the next generation. That's a no-brainer. So let's talk about the decision that was made in California, the assault weapon band and this judge trying to overturn it. Where are you with this? I mean, you have a state that's practically the size of many countries and has a GDP. I mean, isn't it the fifth largest GDP in the world? Exactly, exactly. So where do you go with that?

First of all, the ruling is way off base, absolutely offensive and clearly dangerous. The good news is it's not the final say. The state of California is appealing that ruling. So I still have hoped that the higher courts are going to do the right thing, maintain the assault weapons ban. We've shown that it works. California prior to its assault weapons ban, frankly, it was one of the more dangerous states in the nation when it came to gun violence. And today it's one of the safer ones. What we ultimately need to do is reinstate the national assault weapons ban the decade that it was in place. We saw gun violence go down.

So it's not rocket science. Folks, look at the data, look at the statistics. Common sense, Guns state theory reforms work. And we obviously need to do more than just that. We've got to strengthen background checks, for example, and so much more. But the type of measures that we haven't been able to achieve because of the F word, the filibuster. We keep coming back to them. Let's get rid of the filibuster and save lives. I mean, I've written about this a lot, and it definitely seems like there's a world where the Supreme Court either overturns row or kicks it back to the states or goes in with Casey and makes it so that women in red states can't get abortions. And that's going to, as you and I both know, you know, that's not going to stop.

women from having abortions. Exactly. And so we're going to have to, you know, fight tooth and nail to try to prevent that scenario and let every single one of those examples that you just laid out be a reminder that every election matters because elections don't just have results and consequences in terms of our representatives.

But how is it that the Supreme Court is made up of who it's made up of today? Because the president gets to nominate and the Senate has to confirm. So we have to keep the White House blue and we need to not just maintain, but grow our Democratic majority in the Senate. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us. This was great. I hope you'll come back and talk to us about what you're working on next. I'd love to. I'd love to. Thank you so much. What's crazier than QAnon, more outlandish than Pizza Gate, and scarier than a Mexican getaway with Ted Cruz? The answer is what the American right wing has planned next. Be one in the first of

listen to Fever Dreams, new podcasts from The Daily Beast, tracking the conspiracy slingers, orange acolytes, and straight-up grifters pushing to retake power. Every Wednesday hosts Swin Subisang and Will Summer, checking in on the movement of the radical right. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash podcasts or your favorite podcast player to catch the first episode and get subscribed. That's Fever Dreams, which you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Peter Strzuck is a former FBI agent and the author of Compromised counterintelligence and the threat of Donald J. Trump. Welcome back to the new abnormal Pete's truck.

Thanks, Molly. It's good to be here. It's been a very leaky weekend. Let's start with that. And we're seeing more and more reporting coming out of the Merrick Garland Justice Department, and more and more of it is sort of different little stories that put together paint a kind of even more crimey picture of the Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, Bill Barr Justice Department. So the most recent thing was on Thursday or Friday, we saw that these two justice departments had been spying on Barbara Starr from CNN and different, you know, New York Times reporter, this one, that one. And then we saw, now there's more sort of metadata stuff about Trump spying on his own people, too, maybe.

Yeah, so there's a lot going on. And some of that, I think, the reason you're seeing a lot of that right now are in many of these cases, the government got a gag order in different circumstances, essentially compelling the people who were being given subpoenas or orders telling them they couldn't notice anybody. So if I go to Google or if I go to whoever that provides Verizon or Apple, the government can get an order saying, not only do you have to give us this information, but you can't talk about it or notify anybody. And for some cases like the media, there's mandatory. reporting. Like if you were going as the government to go and get information, you're required to disclose that. So did you get one of those? I haven't yet. We'll see if, see if one comes. But anyway, so these things are, they're sealed, right? Or the gag order goes to an effect, and they can be renewed. And at some point, they expire. And typically when they expire, and particularly with the media, you see all these companies, you know, like Google and Apple, affirmatively reaching out and telling organizations, hey, you were the subject of an order. So these things, came up and were not renewed by the Biden administration. And so you're seeing these notifications

coming up. And of course, then the media outlets are going to turn around and report it. Now, what makes it really confusing is there are a couple of things going on. One, there appear to be, and this is all me talking about what's been in the media. This is not me talking in my old official capacity to be about what I did or didn't know, right? So this is all talking about what I've seen reported. There are a lot of investigations that took place, and that's clear, that, you know, the government has said we've notified every reporter. This is a Trump government we're talking about, not the Biden government, which is important to specify.

Right, although, although what's important is in some of these cases, you know, these notifications didn't happen on, you know, January 23rd. These notifications took place well into the Biden administration. So it doesn't appear that any of these were sought during the Biden administration, but there is some possibility that they were renewed during the current administration. And you just need more information. Well, a lot of that goes to, I mean, there are legitimate reasons for the government to investigate leaks. I mean, there are two bad things that could go on, right, at the same time.

One bad thing is that somebody in the government who has lawful access to classified information breaks the law and gives that to a reporter. The other bad thing that can happen is a reporter doing their job, protected by the First Amendment, doggedly seeking out some national security story, tries to get information and publish it or otherwise is chilled because they come into contact with this classified information. So you, at least in my mind, I hold those things kind of together at the same time. They're both bad, right? We need a vibrant press. We need, in the media context, a First Amendment which isn't chilled where journalists feel free to pursue stories of national interest. At the same time, the government has, a real compelling interest. If classified information is classified, that means if it's disclosed

without authorization, it can cause damage to the national security. So it's important for the government to say, you know, if we've got some source in Beijing or we've got some super secret satellite or whatever the case may be, it's really important for the government to have a secret and keep a secret. These things are at odds with each other, but they both can exist legitimately with each other. And so what you're seeing here is like really, at least in my experience, in my career, a very broad and aggressive campaign into journalistic activity, the scale and scope of which I've never seen. So it's like Watergate on crack or meth? The concern is, right, that a lot of these people who are saying, hey, I received, noticed that I was the subject of a subpoena or a court order

line up with Trump's enemies list, right? I mean, you've got his, you know, the enemy of the people, right? The CNN and the New York Times and the Washington Post and Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, The problem is, there may be, in fact, a legitimate government reason to have an investigation that wrapped up these people, but the minute it overlays with all the nonsense you saw spewing out of Trump's mouth, with all the shenanigans that Barr was constantly up to, it immediately throws the legitimacy very much into question. And getting to the bottom of that, and that's the problem you see right now with, with, you know, AG Garland's Department of Justice. It would be possible for DOJ to say, here's a bunch of information explaining why we did what we did. But that isn't regular. The DOJ wouldn't normally do it, right? I mean, if DOJ and the FBI investigated somebody and they decided they weren't going to prosecute them in a well-functioning DOJ, they wouldn't talk about it.

So this is where you see all the conflict about why is Merrick Garland, you know, going after and continuing to try and defend Trump against E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit? Why aren't they releasing the OLC memo talking about the decision not to prosecute Trump? All these things speak to the institutional drives of Attorney General Garland and how those are coming into conflict about people wanting explanations and or reassurance about what did or didn't happen in the abuses of the Trump administration. So again, we see Democrats protecting institutions and Republicans trying to overturn democracy. And two sides. that's true in this case. I don't think it is always true at all times. Right, but it's often true in the Biden administration. Yeah. And then the problem is, you know, where do you, where do you want to draw that line? Because you've got to take, it's a very difficult call. I don't envy Attorney General

Garland and, you know, like Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and their senior staff about how they make the decision about what represents the public interest in knowing about abuses versus what is the public interest in returning the Department of Justice to a rules-driven organization that obeys the law regardless of party, that there's one law and one set of procedures for all people. That's a really tough call. Personally, I think we need a little more information. You don't get reconciliation. I mean, there's a reason they call them truth and reconciliation commissions, right? You need the truth before you can get to reconciliation. I mean, unless we have public hearings. Yeah, I think we may, though. I think from what I've seen, it sounds like the, you know, and it's, you know,

some, some in the, in Congress and Nancy Pelosi and Schumer and others have made statements saying, you know, we're going to have testimony and other people I've seen like, I think Nadler and some of the House Democrats and the judiciary saying they defer to the IG and if it, you know, if that runs its course effectively that perhaps they would defer. But I think there'll be some sort of hearings. I think there's probably a little more to come. You know, I think certainly the IG will reveal some information, but it's not going to be, the IG will take a long time. And it's going to be very much, you know, here are the procedures and whether or not the procedures were followed. It's going to be tougher to say the political aspects of.

10,000 pages that no one will ever read. Right. Did Trump and Barr at a high level push politically for something to be done? That starts getting into a much more political debate that's kind of outside the sweet. spot of what IGs do. Is someone who has spent just in your own personal experience so much time being targeted by the Trump administration, doesn't it make you feel a little bit, and I know you're a professional and you're in the FBI and so you're like a real grown-up? So I'll just say it for you.

Don't you get very fucking pissed off that we have like now Democrats are in power and they're like, you know, sort of slow walking this? I mean, so clearly the response is different. I mean, you look at how many goddamn Benghazi hearings did we have for how many years? And that was a bullshit. Four people died. Issue, right? I mean, yeah, and don't get me wrong.

I mean, that was a tragedy. It was horrible. And there were mistakes. Trump killed 600,000 people. The longer I live, the harder it is for me to come down on the issue of do I believe in the institutional good and institutional procedures being the greatest good when you've got one side who isn't playing by those rules. One side who's utterly disregarding them, not acting in good faith. And so if you go in, it's, you know, every single day to be Charlie Brown expecting

that one more time Lucy isn't going to pull that football up. And everybody knows she's going to pull up the football each and every single time when you tries to kick it. At some point, you'll stop being goddamn Charlie Brown. And then on the other hand is like the minute that happens is, you know, do we lose everything? That at least we have one side pulling for more. and for established past precedent. And it's really tough. I don't know. I just got it.

I don't know what the right answer is. And I am angry. I mean, there was all kinds of abuse during the last administration. A ton of it we don't know. I'm certain of that. It's tough. We have talked before you and I, when we socialized socially, about how, as someone who spent their lifetime in the FBI,

it is, and who trained many, many, many FBI agents, that there's a feeling there that the, and Lisa's talked to me about this before, that these agencies have really been decimated by Trump. Do you have a sense now that things are coming back? What do you know? I think they are. I mean, some of this is just simply the tone that is set at the top and how that trickles down. I think, you know, in general, my experience was agents and investigators and prosecutors,

even under Trump went out and did their job pursuing the truth, trying to work towards justice. What really upsets me with this episode is, you know, some reporting that the perception that the investigators and attorneys, the prosecutors had gotten to the point of understanding that like, look, we've investigated this and there isn't a case to be made. And that then Bill Barr came in and said, well, I'm going to select this attorney, this U.S. attorney or this senior attorney, and I'm going to put them in charge to shake things up and take another look. Well, you know, that's how he explains it. But the fact of the matter is I'm bringing in my, you know, political goon that's going to sit there and whether it's the guy in these cases or, you know, Jeff

Jensen over Flynn or the things you saw going on with Walking Back Stone sentencing that time and time again, you know, Bill Barr's MO is he wasn't personally getting involved, but he would pick somebody who he knew would pursue kind of putting their political thumb on the process and whether that meant redoing investigation, you know, making all kinds of outlandish allegations and turning over material like Flynn, you know, turning over all kinds of stuff that was not discoverable in any way, shape, or form. And, you know, filing things that the court found to be highly irregular and, frankly, dishonest. That's the sort of thing that upsets me because that's, you know, and if you're an agent working a case and you do your work and you figure out what

happened, and you're like, okay, there's not a case here. And then you get the attorney general swooping in and dropping somebody in charge who's saying, no, we're going to redo everything. I'm going to have a whole new team look at it. You know, not only is it a slap on the face. It kind of, you know, the writing is on the wall about the way things are going. So, but again, you know, agents aren't dumb. Investigators, analysts aren't dumb. Prosecutors certainly aren't dumb. And I think they understand that a lot of this was a function of the administration.

I'm curious to see how fast, you know, particularly on the January 6th side in the domestic terrorism front, there seemed to be a lot of focus on during the summer of 2020 or whenever it was, the post-Floid, George Floyd, protest about Black Lives Matter and Antifa and some of the very aggressive investigation that was done there and whether or not that was matched by investigating folks on the right and

white supremacists and if not, why not. And those are, I think, hard questions that still need to be asked. Good luck getting those answers. Pete Strick, thank you so much for joining us. This was awesome and I hope you'll come back. Yeah, of course. Happy to. Happy to you. Great to talk to you.

from the pandemic. Well, right now the vaccines work on the variants. This will not always be true. Hopefully it will be, but likely it won't be. So today, we are seeing now this information coming from India that the Delta variant, which is now in England. But as we know with these pandemics, they go to Europe and then they come to us. England is now staying close for another month because Delta went to them. So I think it's really a sign. that we're in a lot of trouble because even though we have states like Vermont and Connecticut, which are 70% vaccinated, we have a lot of states like Mississippi that are 30 plus percent vaccinated. That's a really low number. What's going to happen when Delta comes here and we're already, Delta's like 5, 10 percent of the COVID right now in America, but eventually because it's a more dominant strain, it's going to be 100 percent and we're going to have a situation where a lot of more people are going to die because they don't believe in vaccines. And so like on Q, Alex Berenson, who is a person who matters,

not at all except that he goes on Fox News and he goes on Twitter, has been posting like every story of everyone who's ever had a vaccine and something has happened to them. Again, like without real proof of causation. And so for that, I want to say we have these people we desperately need to vaccinate them so they don't die from this Delta variant. And we have people who are actively working against it in the form of Alex Berenson. So to him, I say, Twitter, what the fuck is going on? Take this man off your platform. Fuck you, Alex Berenson.

Every time I see someone citing stupidity, they're citing Alex Berencin's willing ignorance towards this virus and the facts around it. Yep. Who's your fuck that guy? It's almost like one horrible man's actions make another man's. actions even worse. I guess my fuck that guy is Mitch McConnell for saying, end I quote. It's really like the most ghoulish thing I've ever, ever, ever, ever, ever seen.

On Hugh Hewitt's show, which is already a curse sentence in it of itself. But perfect. Yes. McAdle says it's highly unlikely he'd allow Biden to fill a Supreme Court vacancy in 2024 if he's the majority leader. He also doesn't commit to allowing a vote on a nominee if a seat opened in 2020. He says, well, we'd have to wait and see what happens. Yeah.

And for that, he's horrible, but also for that. Pack the fucking courts, motherfucker. Pack the fucking courts, motherfucker. And for that, Joe Manchin pretending this is a party that acts in parody. And as Adam Gentleson has said on this very podcast, like Mitch McConnell's not going to nuke the filibuster. The second he's a majority leader and push anything through when there's a Republican president is a fucking delusional idea.

Yeah. So for that, fuck you, Mitch McConnell and fuck you, Joe Manchin. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast.

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