The Daily Beast Podcast - This Is Not Kyrsten Sinema Just Pissing Off the Left w/ Adam Jentelson

Episode Date: October 15, 2021

On the latest episode of The New Abnormal, Molly sits down with Adam Jentleson to talk about the wayward Arizona senator. Jentleson, former deputy chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and author of Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy, says Sinema gallivanting off to Europe for fundraising and Boston for the marathon instead of legislating isn’t just her “pissing off the left.” Also on the episode, Ryan Busse, a former firearms executive and author of Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry That Radicalized America, talks about how the NRA and the firearms industry developed the kind of modern radicalization that we now see in our politics and HuffPost senior justice reporter Ryan J. Reilly, who talks about how he got started in his extensive reporting on the foot soldiers of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and where the investigations are headed. 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 Kenan. I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails.

Today we have an excellent show. Ryan Bussie, a former firearms executive, will join us to talk about his new book, Gunfight, My Battle Against the Industry That Radicalized America. And tell us how the NRA gave MAGA the blueprint for radicalizing the right. Then we'll talk to Huff Post Senior Justice Reporter Ryan J. Riley on what's going on with the January 6th seditionists and their jail time. But first, we have former Deputy Chief of Staff to Senator Harry Reid,

and author of Kill Switch, The Rise of the Modern Senate, Adam. Welcome back to the new abnormal, Adam. Thanks, Molly. It's great to be back. You're a frequent flyer here. And it's funny because it's like, I feel like you're a little bit of a congressional soothsayer. Yes, that was my title, actually. That's right. That's right.

I mean, it's a lot of the stuff you've been talking about all year is sort of, looks like we're at a kind of do-or-dye moment when it comes to the filibuster. And is that, is that gratifying? What's gratifying is how much progress has been made on the issue over the course of the year. And I sort of always, you know, feel two ways about it. I mean, on the one hand, it's obviously very, very frustrating that we are this close and we have very small number of senators holding us back. But I do take some comfort in sort of stepping back and looking at the big picture because, you know,

filibuster reform is an issue that people have been working on for basically 200 years. I mean, you know, Henry Clay tried to try to get rid of it in 1841. He was engaged in a debate with John Calhoun. The fact that there are, you know, somewhere around 48 Democratic senators who are ready to do this is pretty significant. And, you know, that that is progress. That's how things happen. It is do or die.

We've only got a short amount of time to try to get the other two senators to come around. But, you know, it's quite possible that happened. What the fuck is wrong with Kirsten, cinema. It's a really good question because nothing she's doing really makes much sense. I mean, there's, you know, new polls out showing that her numbers are just absolutely abysmal. I'm shocked. She's begging for a primary challenge, you know, you've got organizations.

Ruben Gallego, if you're listening. Yeah. I mean, you know, you've got like, you know, primary cinema pack. I mean, there are people who are doing this. It's only 2021, and she's not up until 2024, but already you have people ready to primary her and looking like she would be extraordinarily vulnerable. I mean, I don't think I've seen numbers like this for an incumbent senator. You know, I don't think even Joe Lieberman, who drove Democrats crazy. That's right. I think they had numbers as bad. It's astounding.

And so I think, you know, the only way it makes sense is if she's sort of preparing to maybe switch parties or go, I don't think she can switch to the GOP. I don't think Republicans want anything to do with her. No, I think the fact of the matter is she'd never win a Republican primary. She'd get crushed because, you know, with her voting record, she voted to impeach Trump. I mean, you you can't win a Republican primary with a record. Right. Yeah. So it's quite hard to figure what she's doing. I don't think that there is a grandmaster strategy.

I think even if she were to become an independent, that's a very difficult career choice to make stick and make work. Especially when at the end of the day, you're still just a one-term senator. You're not a well-known person like John McCain or Joe Lieberman. Right. You know, the party's vice presidential nominee in 2000. So I think it's, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Hopefully she realizes that all she needs.

to do is just back Biden's agenda. Nobody's asking her to support, like, Medicare for all. You know what I mean? It's like, do what Mark Kelly is doing. Right. Be a strong advocate for the president's agenda. That's the road to success. And I think there's still time for her to come to that realization.

It's amazing, but she's in Europe now. She also, I mean, she went to Boston. She ran the marathon. I mean, some of us have jobs. Right? Right. I mean, that's what's astounding about this. this is not her pissing off the left.

This is her just absolutely failing to do like politics 101. Right. You know, her constituents say they can't reach her. There's another story saying, you know, all of her allies, people who supported her in her election, haven't spoken to her in a year. And here she is popping up in Europe doing fundraising. It's just this is not good politics,

not just from like a lefty perspective. This is just like basic politics 101 stuff that she is just completely failing at. So it's very great. From not being an idiot perspective. But I just want to circle back to this for a second, because you know a lot about what happens in the Senate and what's legal and what's not legal. How is she allowed to fundraise in Europe?

Are you only allowed to take money from Americans? Yeah, you can fundraise in Europe from Americans who are, you know, living overseas. But how many people is that? Not that many, but it's like, so it's something that presidential candidates do because you can make sort of one stop and pick up a lot of cash, you know, in a quick stop because if you got all the Americans who are living in London to come to a fundraiser, you know, you can scoop up. It's worth an hour or two of your time if you're already traveling. It's more unusual for a senator to go over. And I think it kind of sounds like

it's more of an excuse for a quick trip than it is like an urgently needed thing that she needs or that the DSCC needs. Right. And I mean, obviously, like, why does she care about raising money when she's so underwater and she's not up for reelection for another four years? Like, that's, you know, two weekends ago, she said she was going back to Arizona for medical appointment. And then it turned out that there was actually a, you know, quote unquote retreat, which your listeners should read as a fundraiser.

Right. With high dollar donors in Arizona, I think, you know, there's a lot of medical care in Washington, D.C. A lot. had her medical appointment here, but the retreat was the real reason she went back. So I think, you know, in this case, the fundraising in Europe, you know, maybe she would argue she's sort of helping the DSCC raise a little bit of money, but probably she would go to Europe. So she did. Yeah, I mean, just madness. So, I mean, there's a lot of Dems and Disarray coverage a lot.

it sounds to me like it's more like Dems legislating, but I'm curious to know what do you think is disarray and what do you think is legislating? Yeah, I don't see this as disarray right now. I mean, look, the legislative process is always long. It's always ugly. I mean, you know, in 2009 when Democrats are trying to pass the Affordable Care Act, you know, we were in a similar state of disarray. It hadn't passed by now. It didn't pass until the following January. So this is all part of the process. I mean, I think it's one of those things where, you know, where we end up will determine how we look back and see this period. If ultimately, you know, Democrats pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill and a, you know, reasonably robust build back better reconciliation bill in the neighborhood of $2 trillion. And that gets done by the end of the year. I think people will look back and say, yeah, this was a rough period. But, you know, it's the sausage making and it's necessary.

and ultimately it served a productive purpose. If, however, things go off the rails and only one of those two things pass or neither of them passes, then this will have been a bad period and I think Dems will be in disarray. But if these things pass, you're going to have signing ceremonies at the White House,

you're going to have press conferences with all the Democrats together, and I think this will be a, you know, look back as people will barely remember this period and it will all have been worth it. It is a profound thing that you have things that have already passed that people don't think Democrats gave them. And I would like to talk about that for a minute because the polling on the child tax credit

is like people think Republicans did it. They don't know who did it. They don't know where it comes from. They're not even sure they want it. I mean, that seems like a failure of messaging at the highest level. Yeah, that's, that is true. I mean, look, there's a reason. People sort of made fun of Trump for putting his name on the check.

in 2020, but, you know, there's a reason you do that. And that, I thought that was actually pretty smart because you want to take credit. And, and that's, it's political. I mean, you know, we're doing this because it's good for families and it's, it helps people stay out of poverty and it helps families who are struggling. But politically, there's nothing wrong with taking credit because it is something you did. And in this case, it is something that Democrats only did because no Republicans supported these bills. So it's perfectly reasonable to brand it and to take credit for it. So I think it is a little bit unsettling that the poll show so few people understand this is something Democrats did for them. You know, the question is, what will they think

on election day, 2022? We had this wonderful senator on who I love, but he said, you know, if we do good stuff, the American people will give us credit for it. And clearly, that's not true. I think that's, that might be a little bit optimistic. Yeah. But look, there's a lot to be said for, you know, I think the range is more like somewhere between, you know, you'll get a little bit of a political payoff versus you won't have a lot of political cost. And I actually think there's a lot to that. You know, if the stuff that Democrats pass is very popular, maybe people will reward them for it at the ballot box. But also, as long as it's not terribly unpopular, it's not going to cost them at the ballot box. So, you know, the ACA is a good example. By the time it passed in 2010, it was really

unpopular. And it probably cost Democrats a good number of seats in the 2010 midterm. So, you know, But now they can't take it away. Yeah, exactly. Right. Now it's popular. It's so popular. There's a lot to be said for do no harm. You know what I mean?

So as long as the child tax credit is something people like or don't mind, it's not unpopular. Like, that's kind of a win. But I don't understand how giving people money is not popular. I mean, I don't understand. Like, it's $300 a kid. You're giving them money. You're taking children out of poverty. And they're like, eh, I don't know if I want this.

It's a lot. But, I mean, they literally, I mean, there is, they should. people should spend, and I think we'll probably spend millions and millions of dollars on advertising to try to make people understand that this is something that Democrats did for them between now and two. It's so hard to break through. You know, people spend a few seconds a day at most paying attention to politics. But I think there will be a really robust attempt to brand this as things that Democrats delivered before the 2022 elections roll around. And I think the effect will be somewhere between, you know, not costing Democrats a lot and then hopefully maybe

having a little bit of payoff. So Adam, I've seen this tweet. about the new updated version of your book and talk about white supremacist forged the filibuster. That quote particularly shocked me. Can you explain it? I think what's important to know about the filibuster is that its origins are deeply rooted in efforts to maintain white supremacy. And there's a lot of debate among historians over exactly when the filibuster started, who is responsible for first filibuster. You know, part of the reason there's ambiguity there is that it wasn't called, you know, the filibuster wasn't in the Constitution, they didn't have a name for it.

And so there were lots of sort of versions of obstruction that were happening in the early years of Congress that people sort of retroactively go back and try to say, well, was this the first filibuster or was this the first filibuster? Because nobody who was doing it at the time called it a filibuster because that name didn't exist until sometime around the 1850s or the 1860s. My take on it as I lay out in the book is that, you know, of all of the people who sort of dabbled in obstruction, John C. Calhoun is the one who most clearly established what we today would identify as the modern filibuster. And this is about linking not just the practice of obstruction, but also sort of principled

and rhetorical justification for what you're doing. And he is the one who sort of connected these two threads in terms of sort of lofty defenses of minority rights, vastly overstated from what the framers intended, combined with the tactic of standing on the floor, working with allies to. And Calhoun, you know, of course, was the leading advocate of white supremacy in the Senate at his time. This is a guy who, even by the standards of the time, was it was a particularly noxious racist. Well, I know because my husband lived in Calhoun in college and has made it and is absurd. with, you know, how he, there should be no, no dorms named after him. Yeah. I mean, look, nobody was covering themselves in glory in the 1840s on the issues of race, but, but he was, was bad even by the standards of time. So that's, that's, that's, uh, uh, why I say what I say

about white supremacy. Yeah. And it makes a lot of sense. And, and again, it's a way to stop progress, which is why Republicans love it so much. That's right. Right. Because I think, like, fundamentally, Republicans don't like to legislate anyway. Yeah, that's right. And I think, you know, Calhoun was the origins, you know, in the middle of the 19th century. And then under the Jim Crow era, after Reconstruction before the civil rights movement, you know, the tie to white supremacy was even more explicit because, you know, the filibuster was, every once in a while, it would come into play on bills unrelated to civil rights. But in all of those cases, whatever the issue was was resolved and the bills were gone to pass, the only bills that were stopped in their tracks that were never passed because they were forced, because they were forced. because they're defeated by a filibuster

were civil rights bills and that was the case for about a hundred years and the folks who were doing this were explicit about their intention to maintain white supremacy. Richard Russell of Georgia, who was the leading practitioner

of the filibuster during this period, testified at a Rules Committee hearing in 1949 that the main reason he wanted to preserve the filibuster was to block civil rights. So this was a time when people were very comfortable

talking about their desire to maintain white supremacy on the Senate. And so, you know, the tie got even more explicit as time. How disappointed are you in the Senate parliamentarian? Well, I think I'm not that disappointed because I sort of knew this was, this was what I thought was going to happen.

I'm sort of, in some ways, more disappointed in Democrats for not dissipating it. I mean, people often say, what would Harry Reid have done differently on this or that? And one thing that I do suspect he might have done differently was perhaps placed the parliamentarian earlier in the year. Like after January 5th, when it was clear that Democrats had won. Georgia and we're going to have a 50-50 majority, it might have been a good move to make sure that you had somebody in that position to be more favorable to your outcome. Well, you know that Mitch McConnell would have, she'd be out. 100%. And I think it's one of those things where you take a hit at the time because the sort of Beltway Press would say, oh, you're, you know, you're replacing this person,

you know, because you want to get more favorable rulings. And you say, yeah, well, that's, right. And you know, you take a hit for like 12 hours or something. But then, but then, and nobody really notices those stories anyway. But then, you know, for the rest of the time you're in power, you have the possibility of getting your stuff passed. So that is, I think, a missed opportunity there. But I do think there's Elizabeth McDonough, who's the current parliamentarian, is relatively conservative on a lot of these issues. And I don't think we're going to get a lot of favorable rulings out of her. Yeah. And meanwhile, the other guy, the guy the Republicans had was for Arctic drilling and reconciliation. But case, Saras, hurrah. Yeah.

Yes, it is all in the eye of the beholder. We just need someone who's eye is more favor. That's right. Thank you so much for joining us, Adam. This was great. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Hey, folks, in case you didn't know,

every single week, we do a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast membership program. This week, we'll talk to two Democratic candidates for Congress who are taking on some of GOP's worst congressmen and trying to win back those districts for the Dems. To hear this along with all of our past bonus episodes, and gain access to all the Daily Beast's fearless journalists, Head to New Abnormal.com.

That's New Abnormal.com. Ryan Bussie is the author of Gunfight, my battle against the industry that radicalized America. Welcome to the new abnormal, Ryan. Thank you so much for having me, Molly Johnfast and Jesse. Great to be here. So you have a book that is like very much up our alley. And I want to talk to you first about how did you get into firearms?

Yeah, so I think a good part of my book is explaining that to folks who don't quite understand what the near religious devotion to firearms are by so many people in, well, it's everywhere now, right, but flyover country especially. And the way I got into it was I grew up on a rural ranch, and I joked that I was born with a shotgun in one hand and a rifle in the other. That's a bit of hyperbole, but it's probably not far from the truth. and a lot of the best parts of my youth were spent hunting with my dad or shooting with my brother or, you know, they were centered around firearms. And guns became to us this sort of thing that represented the best parts of your life or what you wanted things to be or what you hoped things would be, you know. And so after I graduated from college, I thought, why not get into something that I really love? And so it was kind of a dream for me, really. It was like, it was like, is that a dog in the background?

You must, now, since you're on this podcast, you must explain to us what kind of dog that is. I'm sorry, but I've got bird dogs and I've got wire hair, a German wire hair, and a Britney spaniel, both of which see a deer out the window and they're very distrust by it. Excellent. All right. So, yeah, so I, you know, I got into the industry thing, like a kid who wanted to play baseball. It was almost like I made the major leagues.

And so it was a dream job for me. But early in the industry, you know, in my time in the industry, which I got in in 1995, it was still infused with this sort of responsibility and decency, much like our politics was in the way back years of the 1990s, right? There were just norms and lines you didn't cross. And the firearms industry was certainly like that. There were norms and lines that were not crossed. And sort of the through line of the book is that the NRA and the firearms industry developed this modern radicalization that we see in our politics. It just, you know, I live through a time that preceded what we have now in Trumpism by about 10 years because Wayne Laupier and the N. essentially turned the firearms industry into radicalized politics. So do you talk about some of the techniques they used to do that and how they paralleled?

What has it gone on in recent years? Yeah, so the parallels are just frightening. You know, all the things that you see in Trumpism were first developed by the firearms industry. First, an important one, I think, is this embrace of conspiracy theory. And I think that the NRA sort of stumbled on it, right? during the Obama years, there were ads and speeches and everything where NRA would say things like President Obama is going to rewrite the Constitution. And I think they said it kind of looking around the room and then people cheered and they're kind of like, holy shit, they believe this. Okay, let's keep going.

How about President Obama is going to outlaw hunting ammunition? And they cheered. And then President Obama is going to disavow your right to own any sort of firearm. And they cheered. And they just, and then they wrapped the flag around it and then they put a Bible in its hand and people just kept cheering. And I think they were like amazed like, holy shit. We were just sort of making this up on the fly, but people believe it. QAnon really, I think, has its roots in Wayne Lopjeers' NRA speeches of 15 or 18 years ago. The other one is this sort of casual embrace or use of racism. And it's very much like the Trump voters who will claim, well, we're not racist.

And I think in their heart, they're correct, but they're okay with using racism or they're okay with forgiving racism to drive hate and fear. I detail many examples of that in the book. And then the last one, I think, that's extremely important and pertinent, is that the NRA developed this police state totalitarian 100% with us or against us culture that is now employed by the NRA and by right-wing Republican politics. You know, nobody is 99% Trump, right? They're either 0% or 100%. And that's the NRA really started and perfected that.

You can never be pro-gun enough. So if you say, well, I just want to consider. more background checks, you're out, you're done, you know, you're not sufficiently loyal. So those are all things that was developed by the NRA and really hand it off to the Republicans and the Trump administration. So one of the things I think you talk about well in this book is like outsiders, I come from a family of anti-gun activists. You often wonder, is it a cognitive dissonance to not see the proliferation and ease of access to firearms versus just general greed? Can you talk about what your experience with the industry was of seeing how people are with it?

I think there is fourth cognitive dissonance. I think there, you know, this is not an anti-gun book per se. It is an anti-gun radicalization book. And I think that the NRA wants to lean on the sort of respectable decent parts of gun ownership as a way to provide social cover for the parts that aren't very defendable. Once you overlay greed in quarterly capitalism with this sort of embrace of we will do anything to win the next election or make the next sale, you convince yourself that you're under attack from Jesse's family, right? Then you can convince yourself of anything. We're now the Americans standing up against the big, bad socialist trying to take our lifestyle away. The truth is everything in this democracy is freedom balanced with responsibility. And firearms in this country can exist just fine if there is responsibility balanced with the freedom. But right now, I think that there's, frankly, there are a bunch of people who believe that freedom should run a monka, there should be no responsibility. And if you haven't figured out, that ain't working very well. It's interesting that we do think we find ourselves in a situation

where the gun lobby is, you can't negotiate with them at all. There is no negotiation, right? Just like there is no negotiation with Trumpist or with Mitch McConnell, or that's why these gun politics that I lived 15 years ago as they were developed, like they are our politics now. Mitch McConnell's His strategy is no, that's the strategy. And that's the same thing with the NRA. Even when they know that it's morally reprehensible and societally reprehensible to do what they're doing, it's all for the short term. They'll do anything to win the next election, literally anything. They'll sacrifice anything, even though apparently now, even our democracy, because if you didn't notice the people in January 6th, they had a couple different kinds of flags. They had MAGA and US flags and

Trump flags. And then the other type of flag they had were AR-15 flags. They weren't their barbecue grills. They weren't their favorite sports stars. They were AR-15s. That is, the whole gun thing is literally at the center of the political radicalization that we see today. You seem to point to Columbine as like an inflection point where things could have changed. Yeah. What happened? Well, I think right then there were higher ups in the marketing, behind the marketing of the NRA that realized, wait a second, this is bad, but it can be used to gen up fear because the worse the event, the more nationalized the event is, the more horrific the event is, the more there could be political activity, which we could use to scare the hell out of people.

So instead of just working to do the right thing, which, I mean, at that point, the only thing that need to be done was to close the gun show loophole, which is a minor policy thing. But instead of doing that, the NRA ratcheted up the fear machine and basically told everybody, no, we're not just talking about that. They're trying to remove all American gun ownership, right? And once they realized that that sort of horror and fear could be used to drive the next election or make the next gun sale, we were eventually we're going to be on the path to where we are today. Yeah, that makes sense. Sandy Hook was another sort of inflection point like that. I saw in Sandy Hook so much, like the industry really wrestled. And then the NRA, you know, a week later, LaPierre came out and waved his bony finger around and, you know, said we need basically more armed of people in schools. Right. And, you know, I'm like, what the fuck, man?

And I think a lot of people were in the industry were that way too. But eventually, you know, they jumped on board. Do you think that there's any, I mean, if you can't get reform. or some kind of control over guns after killing all of these kindergartners? I mean, do you think there's any hope? And especially because, I mean, the NRA right now is pretending to be bankrupt. Yeah, they're pretending. Well, they are morally bankrupt.

Right. But I mean, what's happening right now is they are sort of trying to shop this idea that they're bankrupt, right? So I think the NRA and gun politics are very much like Trumpism, you know, Trump didn't win the election. but again, if we haven't noticed, he's still ruling the Republican right. And the NRA is still doing that in gun politics. It's as if they set this little campfire by which everybody thought they could stay warm. And then they woke up and they're like, holy shit, it's dry and the wind's blowing, like whole place is on fire. And even if the NRA is weakened in its current state, the fire that it let across the country is not weakened or cooling off in any way. Right. I do think that there's hope because there are so many gun owners. And I think it will, it is incumbent on reasonable gun owners to stand up and say, we're not down with this shit. Like, responsible gun ownership, yes. Hunting, yes.

My rights to own a gun, yes. This sort of irresponsible ship where guns are at the center of sacrifice and a democracy, or we don't even care about little kids being shot. No, we're not down with that. So I believe that there is hope because there are tens of millions of gun owners who just aren't down with this ship. And when they stand up and take the mic back from the loudest people in the room, unfortunately, those are the people that have control of the politics on the gun side and in the Republican Party now. It doesn't take all of them.

I mean, it just takes two or three or five or ten percent across the country to make a huge difference in our politics. And I think we're near a point where the NRA and the right have jumped the shark on this because you can't watch people march into the Capitol with AR-15 flags and attack Capitol police officers and not know something is very fucked up. Agreed. So but one thing with the weakening of the NRA, you know, when NRA TV came out, I was like, oh, God, we're, we now have a new echelon of hell and that echelon of hell did disappear.

You talk a lot about that in this book. Can you tell us what you saw there with the NRI TV in like Parkland? Yeah. So I really believe that the NRA, by that time, in Ackerman McQueen, who was the advertising agency behind the NRA, they figured out that, okay, we have these national tragedies that happen once every year, 18 months, six months, two days, whatever it is. And they have driven sales and politics. You know, we've used those to gin up enough fear. We had a black president. We used that to gen up fear.

But now in Parkland, we have our preferred candidate who's not going to take anybody's guns. and these Parkland kids, we basically demonized them enough. So what do we do? Oh, let's start NRA TV. Tell everybody to, if they're out of people to hate, black presidents, legislators, whoever that is, let's tell them to hate their neighbor. And that famous Dana Loche, you know, clinched fist of truth, bullshit. That was essentially, I called that the hate your neighbor had because we had run out of people to sufficiently hate, right? So to gin up the next election, we had to say, hate your neighbor.

Even better if it's a gay kid or a black girl or like even better, right? Thankfully, that fell a little flat. But, you know, Trump had, you know, society handed him one more card, which was COVID and then the George Floyd murder. And when that conflagration hit our country, gun sales fucking exploded. When I started in the industry, not all that long ago, you know, gun sales were in the three to four million units per year. the year in and around COVID and the George Floyd Black Lives Matter rallies, there were 23 million guns sold. Oh my God. And so if you think that turmoil, hatred, fear doesn't drive gun sales, just think about the worst time in your life in American society and then overlay gun sales with it.

It's a dead nuts match. So when did you decide to leave the business and what was the moment? I wrestle with that a lot in the book. I think sort of the defining last straw for me was inauguration day 2017 that happened to correspond with Shot Show, which is the large industry trade show, one of the largest trade shows in the world that was in Las Vegas that year. And inauguration day, the day that Trump gave his American carnage speech was on that last day of that trade show. And the industry trade group, the NSF, essentially stopped the trade show. They didn't stop it, but they pumped the audio for the inauguration. into the entire Las Vegas Convention Center so that everybody could kind of stop and praise to Trump. And I watched what was usually a frenetically paced trade show environment come to a stop as if it was like a Catholic Mass. And I'm like, holy shit, what have we done? And it took me a bit longer to get out because I continued to try to fight back and I still thought I could have influence. And, you know, I was losing the battle. I think that's the moment I decided

I've got to get out of here. So what do you, Ryan, what do you think people can do to try to weaken the NRA and the messaging that, you know, guns should just be every single place and, you know, crossfire is just going to be part of our lives? Yeah, I think the first thing we need to do is, frankly, what, what you guys have been doing on this podcast for a long time, which is basically called bullshit to the bullshit. You don't just let it pass, right? It's not in your best interest to let your family member just spew out. some sort of conspiracy theory at Thanksgiving dinner because you don't want to, like you don't want to say anything bad at Uncle Jim. Bullshit.

Like that that is leading us into a very bad place. I think, too, that gun policy advocates like Jesse's family, they need to understand that there are good people who value guns in a good and a healthy and safe way. And we need to empower them, you know, not demonize and try to understand them a little bit more. But I think that good people are going to stand up. And I'm very hopeful about that.

Well, it seems like the people, who need to be advocating for gun control and are people in the Republican Party who have guns. Right. Do you really think that we're going to have a Victor Orban sort of country where just a few roving lunatics have the gun rights and you're going to have, I mean, these people, the Tucker Carlson's other world need to wake the fuck up. There is not going to be any, there's not going to be any constitution or any amendment, much less the second amendment. Right. If these people get their way. I mean, it is so funny that, you know, he did a whole week of Victor.

Orban is great in Hungary. And then, you know, he didn't realize that you can't get a gun there. You have to get a Vax. All the things that Tucker Carlson holds so dear are actually things he can't have. Well, I think we're pulling back the veil on what the right really wants. We want this proto, we don't. But they're obviously advocating for this sort of proto-fascist world where they picked a few of their shock troops as Steve Bannon and said, you know, those are the people that get the guns.

everybody else doesn't. So, I mean, if you want to have, I mean, actually being responsibly pro-gun at this point is being responsibly pro-American and pro-constitution, because that's the way our rights are going to exist. The same with free speech. Do you really think you're going to have free speech if these people get their way? They don't want free speech. They don't want you to have this podcast. I do think we're at this dire sort of existential crisis in the country where these are the real questions we're going to have to ask ourselves. Yeah, no, I mean, I also think we're going to need good guys on the right. I mean, that's what it sounds like what you're saying is that we need good guys on the right. And I don't know exactly how we will that into existence. Yeah, I think, and Sarah, my wife, who was in the book, is very, you know, very fond of saying, Ryan, you're going to have to kick down this door. Like, it can't be people, I don't mean to be pejorative, pejorative against Jesse, but Jesse's not going to be able to kick down the door.

right. Somebody has to kick it down from the inside. Thank you, Ryan. Thanks so much for having me, guys. Love your show. Thank you. Ryan J. Riley is the senior justice reporter at Huffington Post. Welcome to the new abnormal, Ryan. Thanks so much for having me. You have been just really brilliant about reporting on the only people who have gotten punished

for the Capitol insurrection, the foot soldiers, And I think you've done a meticulous job. And I'm curious to know how you got started doing this. Yeah, you know, I mean, as soon as January 6th happened, it was pretty clear that this was going to take over my beat. And initially, you know, I was kind of not too happy about that. But I think ultimately it ended up being just a really fascinating investigation because this is the largest probe in FBI history.

It just has so many different layers and so many different approaches and just a lot of really sort of unexplored areas of the law. And I mean, every day there's a new charge, there's a new guilty plea, there's a new court hearing, there's just development after development after development. And it takes, you know, a lot of journalistic effort and the efforts of other journalists as well to sort of get a handle on on this and really give Americans a sense of what's happening in this investigation. And, you know, I still don't think that most people will recognize just the sheer magnitude of this investigation. We're talking about over, you know, nearly 650 people charged at this point. But in reality, based on the work of online sluice, that's only about one fourth of the total universe of potential defendants because there were about 2,000 people who actually entered the Capitol. And then you put on top of that another around 500 people who assaulted police outside the Capitol, engaged in some other sort of criminal activity that would be chargeable outside of the Capitol. So there really is just this massive caseload that is coming down. It's already sort of overwhelming the system. I think it's really important to pay attention to what's happening there and, you know, as sort of justice as dispensed for what happened on January 6th.

I think it's really exciting the way that you've been, and I think a lot of people have been a little more open to Internet sleuths. Have, did you know, I mean, initially, I think that the story that initially always comes to mind is the, is the Boston Marathon bombing and sort of some of the bad sleuthing work that was done there. Will you just go into that a little more, with a little more detail for people who don't totally know the story? Yeah. So, I mean, initially everyone was trying to identify the two individuals who, you know, obviously were involved in the Boston Marathon bombing. And there was just a massive amount of people who were focused on, you know, a couple of different suspects. And that went in a bunch of different bad directions. And people were misidentified and thought to be people who they weren't. In the capital case, it's actually at this stage, it's a little bit of the reverse. where there's more of like a core group of people who have done this for months and know that, know things really well, know the capital building really well, know the suspects really well, who are now seeking to identify an even larger group of defendants. And because they've done this for so long, even when I'm dealing with people who I don't actually know their real identity,

I do know their track record. And I know that they have a provable track record. This, you know, person with X screen name, I might not know where they're from, might not know anything about them, I know that they've given me good information in the past and open source information in the past. And that's the thing about these sort of investigations is you can check the work. You can look at what they've found online and just basically compare and contrast that. And so it's something where you are able to vet this information. You know, at this stage in the investigation, it doesn't make a ton of sense for me to identify a bunch of people who haven't been arrested yet because that's only going to sort of step on on FBI probes. And also there's more than a thousand, as well.

what you're saying. Yeah, I think we'll clearly, I mean, if they don't clear a thousand, something went seriously wrong, because there's just so many people who, the FBI has all the information they need to charge them. It's just a matter of when that will actually come about. Yeah, so I mean, like, I think that now at this stage, it's more just sort of waiting for that, that sort of pipeline to open up a little bit because there's just basically, things are being sort of jammed up right now in the system because the system can't really handle this capacity. So I know it's frustrating to some of the sluice, but the FBI has been at least trying, you know, behind the scenes to give them encouragement that their work matters and show them the impact that it's having when charges ultimately come out. It's so, I mean, it is, right, people are very pissed off that things are taking so long. And I don't think they realize that the wheels of justice are not the same as, you know, there's protocol for this stuff.

Totally. And I think not only is their protocol, but just even organizing the logistics of, an arrest is a tremendous lift, right? Because a lot of these, you know, FBI field offices are often centered in cities in major, in major metropolitan areas, places where there's a significant population. A lot of the suspects live in pretty remote areas of the country, and that makes these organizing some of these arrests all the more difficult because there has to be local authorities involved. They have to bring in an FBI team from elsewhere to execute an arrest. So there just really is a tremendous amount of logistical work that's happening behind the scenes that can often be frustrating. But it is, you know, it's just bizarre because I'm monitoring a number of these social media accounts of people who,

you know, will eventually be arrested. And they just don't see it coming. Like, they're just sort of going about their normal day. The case that really comes in mind is Logan Barnhart, who was identified, dragging a metropolitan police officer down the stairs of the Capitol. This is a guy who was like a bodybuilder and had this pretty significant online presence and was pretty covered up when he actually took part in that attack. But at one point when he was at the actual Trump rally by the White House, didn't have his sunglasses on. And all it took was a camera briefly moving by him for them to get that perfect image of him and then find all those images through facial recognition of, you know, him on the cover of romance novels and him and bodybuilding magazines. Yeah. So like I think, and but he didn't

see that coming in all. And he just sort of kept posting. He didn't have anything. He had one post, I think, that, like, commented, like, people don't know what really happened at the Capitol, sort of referencing him, him being there. But, but, and then he also had all of, you know, his items of clothing that he worked at the Capitol where all, all of those components were in his other, his other Instagram posts. So he had that evidence just sort of sitting out there online, thinking that he was never going to be caught. And, you know, lo and behold, sluice were working on this behind the scenes. It's so, I find this totally fascinating. Some of the pieces I've read that you've written and the reporting that you've done, these people, some of these people are like Trump told me to do this.

Yeah. I mean, a lot of these people are saying that they were invited to the capital by the president. That's been a major line of defense. And I think that especially you've seen defense prosecutors make that pretty clear and say, hey, like, you know, this is the president's fault. Ultimately, why are we? going after the pawns. I mean, you know, if you look at a lot of the defense attorneys, it's not perhaps not surprising, not given where, you know, D.C. defense attorneys sort of fall into a certain political category for the most part. But it's, it is sort of interesting to have how those consequences have been dispensed because, of course, like the people most morally responsible, really, for what happened at the Capitol are the ones who are facing the least, you know, actual real world, you know, legal consequences for it. And these people who just sort of, you know, following the leader to a certain extent are the ones who are really having their lives torn apart.

And the collateral consequences, I think, are not something to, you know, to downplay. People have varying feelings about some of the sentences that have been handed down. But, you know, overall, I think the consequences publicly of having your name associated with this for the rest of your life are going to be somewhat significant. But if you, I just want to dig deep, dig down on this for one second, because it's just curious to me, if these people are being judged, you know, if, and there are some sentences that really do sort of hit at this idea that it really wasn't their fault that they were taking direction from, you know, they were doing what they were told. How is it possible that then there isn't a larger criminal probe against the people who were telling them what to do? Like, I mean, if you had a drug dealer who went to jail and said, well, I'm dealing drugs for this guy, you would then go to the, you would then go to the, guy who you were doing. Do you know what I mean? Like, just talk me through why this doesn't like trickle up. Yeah. I mean, the First Amendment concerns, I think, are the major, major hurdle there. The only way that

someone could be really charged is if they were involved in specific planning for violence beforehand. And there's just not a ton of least public evidence about that at the moment. That might be something that we see come out more. But in reality, you look at Trump's speech. he was, he made a comment in there about, you know, peacefully, peacefully, right? Like, that would gut any case against him, even if he did it in sort of a sarcastic tone because of the, you know, the First Amendment implications there, right? Like, you should be able to organize a rally or a march to to the Capitol. You should be able to say people should peacefully march to the Capitol. That's, you know, that's, so people were acting upon, it's kind of what makes the conspiracy theories about a stolen election so potential. you know, I mean, obviously, what we saw ultimately, they had consequences, right? Like, because if you actually believe the election was stolen, logically, this isn't that

unexpected of an outcome. If you actually believe that there is this massive criminal conspiracy to steal America from under your feet, it would make sense that you would do something about that. And you didn't just go down there and hold up a little sign because you thought this was 17762.0, you might actually do something about that. So I think that's just, what made this so volatile and such a dangerous mix? And it's sort of, you know, the ultimate question that I think might be answered by the January 6th committee is what more evidence did the FBI miss or what warning signs did the FBI miss in the lead up to January 6th. So talk to me about, and it's a really good question, talk to me about the very important people, the VIPs of the

insurrection. The VIPs of the insurrection. Yeah. Who, you meet like the people who actually were in the... Well, their VIP list that was recently released, and it had Bannon's daughter, and it had... Yeah, you had a lot of really important figures in that. I think that in order to connect that to criminal activity is going to be still a little bit of a heavier lift. I mean, you might have some people who recognized the potential for violence, and it would certainly be interesting to see what some of those communications were on the morning of when they realized that all of these people who showed up to this rally were, you know, dressed in military gear and sort of ready and willing to fight. There are a number of figures, I think, including, you know, Melissa Carone,

obviously, who became sort of infamous and was parodied on Saturday Night Live, who it's just sort of bizarre that someone, that little credibility would have been put forward by this group. I suppose not all that surprising, ultimately, when you realize the content that they were actually putting forward and the reliability of all of the information they were. forward. It's not surprising. I suppose that they would put someone who is so clearly unreliable in such an important position. But you also look at people like, you know, State Senator Doug Mastriano from Pennsylvania who was on that list. And he actually, I mean, in any other scenario, I was, yeah. And he, I mean, he was with, so he's in every step of this.

And again, yeah. I saw, I read, I saw him in the Senate report. That's right. Yeah. And he also, like, he powed around with a bunch of these people who were, you know, Domestic terrorists, right? He, the one guy who was arrested actually the day of the hearing over the summer where the four police officers testified, there's this guy who had been around for months and was going to a Rudy Giuliani rally that Doug Mostriano was using as a fundraiser and, you know, posed with photos for him. And this is a guy who was clad in military gear, had a bullhorn, was saying, steal their guns about police officers, charged the police line, tried to rip away the fence, pepper sprayed them, and then bragged about how. he maced the cops right back on video afterwards. And in the months afterwards, while he's on the FBI wanted list, is going to Doug Mastriano events. And Doug Mastriano himself was illegally on the U.S. Capitol property during the insurrection. And in any other scenario where police weren't so overwhelmed or where it wasn't such a lift

for prosecutors to be able to bring thousands and thousands and thousands of cases home, could have been subject to arrest for that easily. He was past the barricades. He's, you know, unlawfully in an area he wasn't supposed to be. He won't be charged for it because prosecutors really have the wherewithal or the ability to charge, you know, 9,000 people who are illegally on the grounds of the Capitol. But he was breaking the law that day. And it's just, it's so incredible that, you know, there haven't been any consequences for someone, for someone like him really legally who brought all of these people to the Capitol and people who committed crimes that day. Yeah, it's crazy.

Talk to me about. Ali Alexander. Yeah, I think that Ali is really going to be one of those tougher cases and raises a lot of First Amendment issues. And what's interesting about a lot of these cases is that in the recent legal maneuvers around, say, you know, a charge of sort of riling a crowd, rioting up a mob to commit violence, a lot of the test cases that have tried there were actually against flat-out white supremacists who were basically inciting a riot. And a lot of the recent legal maneuvering has been about white supremacists. And now because of, I think, some of those cases in the federal appeals court, that's actually offering somewhat of a

protection to a lot of these defendants who, you know, there might be an arguable case that they were somehow, you know, inciting. And, you know, including Trump himself, if you were to try to make that incitement charge against him, that's sort of the legal framework that you're running into. And the Justice Department has had some issues and some of those legal findings have been, you know, overturned bringing sort of an incitement charge against individuals who weren't directly involved in criminal activity personally, even if they inspired it in some way. So yeah, and the legislative history of that also is really fascinating. So there are just a ton of fascinating and really, you know, intellectually intriguing components to this investigation overall. Yeah, it's fascinating.

And you don't think that those congressmen who were, who spoke at the rally like Mo Brooks and Paul Gosar, America's least favorite dentist, you don't think those guys will sort of get in trouble. I would be shocked if they were because I think that they just run headfirst into those First Amendment concerns. And unless there was an explicit, very, very, very explicit arguments, they go down there, smash those windows, break into that and that building and, you know, drag lawmakers out by their necks. I don't think you're going to see the Justice Department go down that way because, frankly, it probably wouldn't work out well for them in the end. they'd probably lose those cases ultimately. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us.

This was great. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Really appreciate it. 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 to 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 Sub. sang and Will Summer, check 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. So, Ryan, who is your fuck-that-guy today? So I'm so happy to stand in here for Jesse today. My fuck-that guy is one bonie-fingered guy who used to run around the NRA convention

with very expensive tailored suits. And he struck me as sort of a worn-out junior high school principal, but again, with much nicer suits and sort of a stretched skin sort of face that you might get by sitting on a yacht too much. Or maybe he got that by being in front of the cameras after Sandy Hook and all of these sorts of tragedies where he said things like, the only thing that will stop this is more people with guns in our schools. So as you might guess, my fuck that guy is one, Wayne LaPierre, how I feel so, so honored to say,

Wayne, fuck you. It is a very good choice, I think, and extremely non-controversial. Yes. My fuck that guy is a multi-shirt wearing, subpoena ignoring, television producing, autocrat by the name of Steve Bannon. Congress is trying to figure out whether they're going to have to lock him up. He's trying to claim executive privilege, even though he hasn't been employed in the executive branch in more than a thousand days. And for that, and Jesse, don't you have something you want to ask? I mean, he also did recently say that he has 20,000 shock troops to start the coup next coup against the government, which is really lovely.

It's really, we have to remember, he is the guy who is the top of the human centipede of feeding all the shit to people about that we need to have a coup in America to install the right as an authoritarian state. Also, he doesn't take showers. How do you know that? Just look at him. No, no. Just look at him. He doesn't take showers. I think that's an allegation. Right. I think you're on to something.

Now, the three shirt method, this would make sense. Like the first shirt is absorption. Second shirt is suppression of smell. Third shirt is just in case. I think you figured it out. All right. I'm not. Yeah, I mean, anybody can tell.

He doesn't take showers. If this is not reported elsewhere, I'm not participating in this, but I do think he gets a hearty, fuck that guy. Steve Bannon. on that note we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from the Daily Beast in future episodes we'll be talking to smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond from media culture politics and science will help us understand what's happening to our country and the world we hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media thanks so much for listening and we'll see you again on the next episode want more great listens check out our comedy podcast the last laugh and our star started the daily beast podcast at the DailyBeast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover

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