The Daily Beast Podcast - This Is the Only Thing That Will Shut Trump Up

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

Slate senior editor Dahlia Lithwick is noticing a tone change when it comes to how people are reacting to Donald Trump’s indictments. She describes this change on this latest episode of The New Abnormal podcast along with a huge decision that Trump’s Jan. 6 judge is going to have to make. Also on this episode: Hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie discuss Trump’s looming Georgia indictment, the one (and possibly only) thing that’ll shut him up, and the clash of his and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ fans at the Iowa State Fair when one of Trump’s followers called DeSantis “Florida Pudding Fingers.” Plus! Dr. Nicholas Mitchell, assistant professor of Curriculum Studies at the University of Kansas, explains what it means now that a propaganda organization called PragerU was just approved to have its “educational” videos be used in Florida schools (and a few examples of its videos that show how bizarre they really are.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Slate editor Dahlia Lithwick joins us to talk about Trump's latest legal jeopardies. Then we'll talk to Nicholas Mitchell, who's an assistant professor of curriculum studies at the University of Kansas. And we'll talk all about how Florida school curriculum could now have a propaganda outlet called Prager You taught in their schools. But first, let's have some fun. So, Danielle, as we record this, we're sort of in a Schrodinger's cat version of, is Donald Trump indicted or not indicted? We don't know. There are rumors that I'm talking about Georgia here. I was going to ask for clarification. I know. It's, yeah, it's this week's indictment.

We're talking about Georgia. We're talking about Fawnie Willis. And reports are starting to trickle out that maybe he's been indicted. Maybe the indictment has, you know, been sent through by the grand jury, but then other reports say no, that that's not true. Anyway, the bottom line is, by time you listen to this, who the hell knows? He may be under yet another indictment this time in Georgia, or it may still be a day or two away. But the betting money is on it happening this week. And so that's where we stand. The reality is that the fact that we are so confused when you say indictments that we don't know

what state, what place that you're talking about. I mean, it should not be normal. Like, it should still be a wild experience. This should be very wild for people in America that we have a former president, twice impeached, multiply indicted. It's still the frontrunner of the Republican Party right now by double digits.

Is absolutely fucking insane. But I think that this indictment coming out of Georgia is going to be, enormous. It is going to be, I think, a RICO-style indictment, which we've been hearing in the streets and the tweets and wherever, because there are going to be multiple people that are going to be implicated in this. And I think that this is going to, this may be the one that really just sets it all off. Yeah, absolutely. I was remembering back to that simpler time when, you know, when Alvin Bragg filed the first indictments against Trump and it was such a big,

deal that a former president had been indicted. And it really was like a shocking moment. And now it's like, okay, what is it this week? What's going on now? So yeah, and this one does seem to have the appearance of it's going to be a big, a big old conspiracy in terms of what's being charged here with a lot of people involved. So like I said, by time you're listening to this, you may know more than we do now. So we should probably move on and talk about what exactly Donald Trump has been doing and how he's been conducting himself with regard to all these indictments. And this is going to shock a lot of people, but he has not been handling it well. Oh, yeah. No, I know. I know. I look, the Donald Trump I know would have taken this all very calmly and rationally and issued very

Anodyne statements just saying, you know, we look forward to these charges being proven false in a court of law. But instead, you know, we've talked about on this program before. He's been going after Jack Smith in D.C. He's been going after the judge in D.C. And he is now laser focused on Georgia, saying things on his busted-ass Twitter truth social. Like, I am reading reports that failed former Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, Jeff Duncan, will be testifying before the Fulton County grand jury. He shouldn't. I barely know him, but he was right from the beginning of this witch hunt, a nasty disaster for those looking into the election fraud that took place in Georgia. And he goes on from there.

Just to clarify, just real quick, he doesn't know this person, but he knows enough to say that they are nasty. Yes. Yes. And calls him a loser and someone who fought the truth all the way. This feels, Danielle, to me, and I'm not a lawyer. I want to clarify this. This feels not unlike witness tampering. Yeah. So I, too, am not a lawyer, but I've watched plenty of law and order marathons. And what I have gleaned from that jurisdiction, the jurisdoctoris that I've gotten via the We channel, is that any time that you name someone out in the open who you know is going to be.

testifying against you and then actually say the words they shouldn't testify. I don't think that you need to be Velma from Scooby-Doo in order to figure that out. Call me crazy. Like, it seems very clear. And so he was spoken to a number of times. He was spoken to Trump and his legal team were spoken to by the magistrate. They were spoken to again then just last week by Judge Chunkin. So it is not like Donald Trump is a toddler that doesn't know that the stove is hot and so he shouldn't touch it because he's been explained this is what this looks like and Donald Trump said yeah got it bet let me one up it yeah no he knows exactly what he's doing here and he's doing exactly what he wants to do and you know we've talked about this before he has uh in his life nothing has taught him

that there will be consequences so you know he just continues to do shit like this there are laws on the books against this kind of thing. There are statutes that say that if you do stuff like this pretrial or whatever, that you can be remanded to prison. I don't think either of us thinks Trump is going to jail for this stuff, which is not to say that he shouldn't. I think we just think he's not going to. Does that sort of sum it up? Yes. I just, you know, we say all the time that shutting the fuck up is free. He chooses not to. And, you know, And the fact is like, look, I know that there are people and I'm one of them that says, is it possible for him to fake-ass Twitter himself behind bars?

Obviously, very unlikely. And I don't say that with any glee in my voice. Yeah, of course. In my soul, maybe, but not in my voice. But the fact is what Donald Trump is doing is extraordinarily dangerous and is normalizing this type of witness tampering, threatening behavior. for other people to be able to do. What is to stop this? I mean, this is beyond mobster shit.

If Donald Trump were not the former twice impeached president of the United States, he would be in jail. There is no question about that. He would be in jail until he was awaiting his trial. What's his face? Avanadi was thrown in jail

until he was awaiting his trial because he also wouldn't shut the fuck up. So it's like the leeway and the room that we are giving Donald Trump is going to put people in danger. And that's the thing that I feel like we're just kind of all shrugging at. Like, oh, this is just Trump doing Trump. And I'm just like, did we not listen to Shay Moss and Miss Ruby Freeman? Like, did we not listen to how their lives were turned upside down, stolen from them,

their names, their character, right, stolen from them because of Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani. And so now you have people, the jurors of the case, the people that are testifying that Trump and his team have access to. And every day that they testify, every day that when this trial begins, those people are in danger. I guess somehow I follow a lot of lawyers on Twitter or they're getting retweeted into my feed or whatever. But I have never seen just sort of this many lawyers. And I'm talking about defense attorneys and stuff like that. Basically, all saying, if this were my client and they did this, they would be in jail right now. It's like unanimous. So everyone sort of agrees that if this were basically any other person except Donald

Trump, unless it was maybe some other super rich white guy, they would be in jail for doing what he is doing. And I appreciate that there's a huge political element to this. And, you know, it has to be played carefully and whatever. But again, all of this just. plays into his belief that there are no negative consequences for any of his actions. And it also reminds me of, you know, a lot of Republicans after the election and prior to January 6th, you know, a lot of Republicans kind of took the attitude of, oh, what's the harm in humoring him? He thinks he won. Nothing is going to happen with it.

What's the harm? Just humor the guy. And then we saw what happened. And this feels similar in a way. It's like we just, we keep humoring him and we keep letting him do these things and get away with these things that 99.9% of Americans could not get away with. There's too much of this attitude like, well, we have to treat this differently. I do understand that, well, we're in uncharted territory for the fifth time now in the last year. I'm like, all we do is swim in uncharted territory.

That's just the Atlantic fucking ocean now. I know. That's where we are. But I do get that historically, the whole idea of charging a former president, you know, and indicting him that this is all still new and everyone's trying to feel it out. And nobody wants to be the person that, you know, says Donald Trump, you're going to jail because you can't shut your damn mouth. But at some point, he's clearly going to keep on doing it and he's going to keep on doing it. And it doesn't matter if judges.

warn him or reprimand him, the only thing that is going to stop this is him going to jail. And yes, I agree, that's not going to happen. And so I think he's just going to keep on doing this because nobody has shown the slightest inclination to do what at this point, I think it's fair to say, what has to be done. I mean, I'll just make one other point here too, because there is more than one outcome that happens here, is that it's either Donald Trump continues to do what he does or, someone gets harmed, right? We're seeing this.

We're seeing this happen with the man that was just killed in Utah by the FBI, threatening Biden and Alvin Bragg, right, based off of theories that he's hearing from his favorite politicians, right? His favorite network. So what I'm saying is that like either we're just waiting for this to escalate to the place where someone or some people are harmed. And that to me is just a dangerous place for us to be and then to be consistently normalizing it. We're watching this rhetoric blow beyond just these, like just these politicians. And it's scary. Yeah, absolutely. And the only thing I will add to that

is I don't know that it's an either or proposition. Like I think people could get harmed and he'll he would keep doing it anyway, because I don't even trust that he would stop doing it if someone got harmed. Because honestly, he's not opposed to people being harmed for this. He is not opposed to anything that he thinks will somehow help him or be done in service of him. So I, you know, I honestly don't think he cares if Jeff Duncan, who he truthed about, or if, you know, anyone on Jack Smith's team or any jurors or anything. I don't think he gives a single fuck if something bad happens to them. I just, I don't. No, I don't either. And that's what's terrifying. Yeah. Meanwhile, over the weekend, the Iowa State Fair happened, which is always like, all this shit is so

embarrassing to me for American politics. But this is who we are as a people. I mean, this has nothing to do, you know, as a general statement, this has nothing to do with Trump or whatever. We make both parties go through this idiotic nonsense every four years and it's it's just dumb and embarrassing. And I'll even say, I'll say it, Danielle, it's cringe. It is cringe to me. Because nothing says you know how to run a country and bring it together like petting a sheep or eating a pound of butter. Like I don't, I honestly, I don't know the fucking point of this fair. these pig contests, this like whatever outfit you got from Target, I don't get it to show that you're like of the white people because that's what it also is too.

Because you can't fuck around and say like, this is about being of the people because I've seen the clips. Okay. I've seen them. No, it's insane. And look, I don't have anything against the state fair in general. I mean, look, it makes people happy. They go have fun, go, you know, do your butter sculptures and, and, and, you know, you. You know, the food does look good.

I will say that. I just don't understand why presidential politics has to be involved with it. But this year, we've got the Iowa State Fair, and we've got, you know, every Republican candidate pretty much abasing themselves to try to show that they are the whitest or whatever. But what we saw this year was a lot of ugly back-and-forth screaming and stuff like that between Trump and DeSantis supporters. And a banner flew over the fair right before DeSantis was supposed to sit down with the Iowa governor, Kim Reynolds, and the banner said, be likable, Ron.

And I don't know who put this banner up. I don't know if it was Trump's team or whatever. And there were screaming matches between the two sides. And you had Trump fans shouting, go back to Florida pudding fingers. which is actually pretty good, and I can't argue with that. It just sort of got me thinking that we really have been seeing in the last several months. Like, there is no love lost between Trump cultists and DeSantis groupies. Like, these two camps seem to really, really hate each other. Just the fact that Ron DeSantis could possibly have groupies is wild to me. I know.

I know. Where the fuck are these people from? Do you know what I'm saying? Are they also of the Android set? I think they're from Florida. But I believe, you know, it's like I believe that I will say this. I believe the banner. Try and be more, try to be less of a dick is what I would have said. But, you know, I don't think that that's possible at this point. It's like two bullies on the playground and they each have their possees behind them. This is what our body politic has come down to. calling somebody pudding fingers sounds like an insult you would literally say in elementary school but this is how this is being covered by politico like what the fuck honestly are we in hell well yes we are in hell right exactly and you know given all the food at the iowa state fair

pudding fingers might be a compliment i don't know i'm not sure because butter fingers is considered Well, unfortunately, that has another meaning. So they had a, you know, they had to go with credit. I don't know why. For some reason, I never thought that there would be such a huge amount of hatred between DeSantis and Trump supporters. Because honestly, I mean, they both suck, but they both kind of suck. Like, they don't suck in dissimilar ways.

You know, personality-wise, yes. But in terms of their horrific visions for this country, they're not all that disson. similar. But the Trump thing is, is, it's a cult of personality. So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. But I don't know. And maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I'm, I'm just wondering if it has implications past the primaries. Like, are Trump voters not going to vote for DeSantis if he somehow is the nominee and vice versa? I don't know. I mean, I like all of it. I like the idea that there's this huge rift between these two guys. I just, I guess I didn't expect it to be this blatant and bad. Does it matter? You know what I'm saying? Like, does it

matter if they don't endorse each other at this point? Like, if it's not Trump and Trump isn't in jail, he's going to blow this entire party up. And this is what they all know. When Lindsey Graham said, if Donald Trump becomes the nominee, he's going to ruin the Republican Party. And this was said back in like 2015, he was absolutely right. Because if he's not going to be the anointed king, he's not going to go away quietly. He's like, I'm going to take out as many motherfuckers as I possibly can. Like, it is a death suicide pact at this fucking point. Do you know, like it's, oh, you go.

I think that's the last correct thing Lindsay Graham said in his life. And meanwhile, you know, there are other Republicans running to become the nominee, Danielle. You always like to pretend there aren't, but there are. I think the polls like to pretend they aren't, but that's just me. Mike Pence, you might remember Mike Pence from Hang Mike Pence, the famous phrase about Mike Pence. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, he was asked by squirmy little Chuck Todd on Meet the Press. If he considers himself a MAGA Republican, I know this is hard to believe, but he kind of weaseled his answer.

He said he's incredibly proud of what we did in the Trump Pence administration for four years. And he went on and on and said that they did all this with the support of MAGA Americans. But when he was asked if he's a MAGA Republican, he said, I'm a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican in that order. Take it away, Danielle. This is the epitome of Stockholm syndrome. Dear sweet, stupid Mike Pence, you have no constituency. Your constituency tried to kill you. They built a gallows.

They were chanting about hanging you. These people are not applauding you for following you. the Constitution, they see you as the enemy of the people and the state. You are the sole person that kept them away from anointing Donald Trump as their king. So when he says, I'm still Maga, I'm like, they don't want you. They have literally said, not only don't sit with us, we will kill you if you try. And yet he's still out there. He's like, like me, please, please, like me, just like me. Me and mother can do great things for this country. Look, what's a little light hanging between friends?

You're right. Folks, I am very happy to welcome back to the new abnormal. My friend, the brilliant Dahlia Lithwick, who you know is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Lady Justice, Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America, and is also the senior editor at Slate, the host of, the amicus and is an MSNBC contributor among so many other things and hats that you wear. Dahlia, let's take out our crystal balls to start this off with. As we are recording, Donald Trump has been indicted how many times? Three times and we're waiting on a fourth. We're waiting on Georgia and we're told that this will happen this week.

We don't know. But just tell me what you. you think right now about the fact that the Republican frontrunner by double digits. I mean, well double digits, is a thrice indicted, twice impeached former president of the United States. Oh, by the way, he's also been found guilty of defamation and, oh, rape. Yeah, I was going to say, and you're allowed to call it rape now, it turns out. I've been thinking about you a lot. this week, Danielle, because I think I was really struck by the Jacksmith indictment and, you know, the hearings last week in front of Judge Chutkin and D.C. by the lack of glee. Even amongst our friends when Alvin Bragg brought his indictment, there was a sense that even the first Jack Smith, the documents case in Marilago, indictment.

indictment, there was a kind of a goofy, like, oh, here's all the funny memes of, you know, boxes, hidden toilets. And there was a really staggering absence of that around both the upcoming Fulton County indictment that Fannie Willis is apparently going to bring and the one around January 6th. And the thing that struck me is that it stopped being kind of a fun, funny spectacle that you could spoof. And, uh, uh, You know, I think I wrote this sometime in the last couple of weeks that, you know, the farcical part of this is overright. It's no longer like waka, you know, payments to porn stars channeled through, ha ha, you know, it's not funny. It's deathly serious. It's existential. And so I think I want to start my answer by saying, this is existential. Whatever kind of valence of comedy, yuck, yuck, ha, ha, you know, he was. hiding the documents next to a toilet with a chandelier, like, that's over.

And that sense of dire seriousness is, I think, the thing that, like, I'm sitting with, that all aspects of this that are not deathly, deathly serious, we have to just ignore because this is now life and death stuff. I want to dig in a bit to your feeling around this being existential, because we have used that term a lot, right? Unfortunately, over the last several years. Every election is an existential crisis and threat to our democracy. This right now that we're undergoing just feels existential.

And I think to your point, it stopped being funny for me because this is not somebody else's country I'm watching. This is not a caricature on a television series that we're watching, right? This isn't some far-off crisis. This is happening in the United States, and 30% of the country is fully behind a thrice indicted, twice impeached, sexual assaulter, defamation, like full-blown liar, and thinks that that's their guy. And so when you say existential, what does that mean for you? I think that in addition to your geography frame, right? Like there's only one America.

I also have this temporal frame, which is if X is allowed to happen with impunity, it will happen again. And so when you're thinking about hush money payments and, you know, financial fraud, okay, if that is allowed to happen, that'll happen again. That's happened since time in Memorial. That's like every white collar crime, you know, bullshit ever, right? So whatever. Mar-a-Lago documents, I know it's deeply, deeply serious as a matter of national security that if presidents are allowed to, you know, tuck nuclear secrets, you know, into their bib, into their lobster bib and, you know, keep them. I understand that shouldn't be allowed to happen again.

But if what happened on January 6 and the run up to January 6 and then almost, you know, murder of people and the threats to murder the vice president. If that can happen again, then how do we ever have a free and fair election? And maybe the coda to that, if that is a nothing, then it will be every time following. It's just, and I know you and I talk about this a lot, but it's really on my mind right now, particularly with the Ohio results last week. We're just in a moment in which if democracy is allowed to work, it is pretty clear that the American public does not like abortion restrictions and forced pregnancy, does not like unfettered access to assault weapons, does not agree with the disruption of democracy. And what we're seeing not just in these two sort of January 6 cases, the twin cases of Jack Smith in D.C. and what's coming in Georgia, is of a piece with this larger, broader conversation you and I have been having since we've known each other,

which is a deliberate decision to put aside the will of the voters for a strong man. And that's what I mean when I say existential. It's not just, oh, my God, we're now doing like Banana Republic, you know, third world, push stuff. Now we're talking about green lighting something that will mean that we never again, can trust that the will of the voters will amount to anything. And that, to me, feels, again, you're quite right. We use the word existential way too cavalierly. But if that isn't existential setting aside the preferences of majorities, I don't know what existential means. Let's take a look. And that totally makes sense. And in that vein, I want to take a look at the

tale of two judges right now. Tanya Chuckin, who is, the judge that is going to oversee the January 6th insurrection criminal trial against Donald Trump. And Donald Trump and his team, Jack Smith, they were in court last week for the judge to essentially provide once again a very clear friggin warning to Donald Trump and team about the rhetoric that he's been truiting or whatever, whatever he does. does on his broke-ass Twitter and the threats and potentially spoiling the jury pool. We have that behind door number one. Behind door number two, we have Eileen Cannon, who has made herself look like a fool not

once but twice, has been admonished by the circuit court above her for her decisions around the documents case thus far and has been found to make. really egregious mistakes because she has no experience. Tell me about, again, taking out your crystal ball. When you're looking at these two judges, these two women that are making history, overseeing the criminal prosecution of a former president of the United States, what are you making of what you're seeing thus far? It's funny, Danielle, last week I kind of ruefully noted to somebody that it can't be entirely. a metaphorical accident that, you know, judges like Judge Cannon are selected by, you know,

literally spinning a wheel like that's there on a wheel. And it's just such a fateful decision, you know, what essentially random chance will offer you. And you're completely right. I think we can actually look at this kind of case study in why judicial temperament matters, why judicial experience matters, why until Trump judges became a thing, even Reagan judges, even Bush judges were not cartoon characters, you know, twirling their two-dimensional mustaches. I mean, you could disagree with them. I've disagreed with many Bush judges, many Reagan judges, but they were not absurd. And Judge Cannon is absurd and was appointed in part because she was absurd, because she was young and ideological and part of a movement

that saw itself as a legal juggernaut. And you're seeing cases. all around the country where incredibly young, unqualified, Trump judges are doing things like Judge Kuzmariq, you know, who's trying to end access to one of the two medications in a medication abortion. You know, a judge, apparently, I didn't know this, Ken Starr's nephew, who's forcing religious sensitivity training on an airline as a punishment for their conduct. I mean, just crackpot ideas. And Judge Cannon is of a piece with that, you know, don't need to be a good judge, don't need to show judicial temperament, don't need any experience, just doing my thing. And so in her case, she is going to do, I think it's apparent now, everything she can to drag this thing out, which is Donald Trump's strategy, right? That's his number one strategy, is drag out every single, at least the federal trials until he becomes president and pardons himself and everyone around him. And then, you know, have a judge in D.C.

you know, who is an experienced, well-respected, straight-shooting judge who has sentenced a whole host of January 6 conspirators, who takes this very seriously, who has, I think, evinced in a very, very short amount of time that she plans to treat this like any other January 6 case, right? He doesn't get special treatment. She doesn't much care that he's running for president. And she doesn't think that his free speech rights, she made plain last week at the hearing. her obligation to make sure that justice is done. Witnesses aren't intimidated. Prosecutors aren't threatened and that she's not threatened. It is so stunning. And I know this is sort of the gist of your question to watch these two judges on a split screen because one of them is in the tank for Trump and always has been. And as you note, quite literally was admonished for rulings treating him

differently because he's the former president. And another one who just said in open court last week. I don't care if he's the former president and I don't care if he's running for president. In my court, he's just another criminal defendant. And maybe that's a very long-winded answer. But to me, it is a case study in whether a person can be above the law or everyone can be treated equal under the law. Those are the words engraved on the U.S. Supreme Court building. And, you know, I will say this about Judge Trunken, too. She likened Donald Trump running for president as anyone else having a day job and facing trial? And I was just, wow. I said, okay. I'm like, she is not playing around. And so when you had eyes on that hearing and then now know that

the Department of Justice, Jack Smith, have put in their time request being January 2nd. We're waiting for the Trump team's response to their January 2nd, 2024 date. Just, you know, again, Bristol Ball with limited knowledge of how we think that this will rule, but we'll find out on August 28th, based on what you are seeing, I think it's fairly likely that we see this go to trial in the first quarter of the new year. I think that's absolutely right. And you can tell even in the run up to the hearing we just had, right, where the Trump team was trying to push it off and they were all super busy and they're all on TV. And last weekend, a motion came from Jack Smith's team, saying we need to get, you know, some reassurance that he's not going to be leaking evidence and trying to intimidate witnesses.

And Trump's team tried to push that out. And she just was like, nope, we're doing it now. I'm making time on my schedule and you're making time on your schedule. I don't think she has a lot of patience for their effort to run out the clock. And my sense is, I'm like, you know, I could be wrong, that she, as I said, from the first minute, in fact, even from the, the, the initial appearance in front of the magistrate judge, where you had other, you know, judges from the D.C. court sitting in the room. You just have a sense that there is a machine that processes all of those January 6 cases. They process them together. There's a pretty unified,

singular voice on these cases, which is why so many people are, you know, in jail and convicted. and they are going to treat this like of a piece with that. This is not a Rose Bowl float. This is not a special, you know, command appearance. This is just one of any number of insurrectionists and plots toward insurrection that they are going to treat without drama. And so I think you're right. In some sense, I think the more intriguing question is she told him not to talk.

And he spent the entire weekend threatening, you know, I mean, posting truthing on his website, you know, threats against Fannie Willis, false claims about Fonnie Willis, you know, making absolutely false claims about her. And I think she's got to make a decision about how much she is going to allow him to terrorize witnesses, to potentially pollute a jury pool, and how far her admonition, which was a really clear admonition, that he could not do those things and call it free speech, how much she's going to tolerate of that. And that is a, like, for me, that is the question of the moment is whether she's going to come back and give him a boop on the nose and say, okay, now we're going to have to circumscribe your rights further.

I think that it's incredibly wild. But I, before this judge was appointed, I would say, oh, there's no way in hell that Donald Trump gets a gag order or maybe. remanded, right, at some point in time before this trial, because that just seems, you know, well out of the norm. But he has now been warned multiple times very clearly about his behavior, and he has shown no sign of slowing. And so I think that what he is doing to make himself even further of a martyr is to continue, or maybe he just can't fucking help himself. Because that, I mean, both of those things can be true at the same time, that he can't help himself, but also is on a quest to make himself a martyr and say, see, they're persecuting me.

And they're going to slap a silent sticker on my mouth. And this is against free speech. This is in America. But I'm like, what has happened, though, Dahlia, is this normalization of political violence. Like, we have moved over the past eight years away from. just heightened rhetoric to taunts and threats and actual violence. No question. And this is where I think it was a really good piece by Russell Berman in the Atlantic,

sort of laying out the degree to which Judge Chutkin is being somewhat aspirational when she says, I'm going to treat you like any other defendant. She is well aware of what it would mean to impose a gag order, to, you know, put Donald Trump into jail. You know, don't forget, Michael Avinati was jailed before his trial. Roger Stone had a gag order from Judge Amy Berman Jackson, right?

This is not unheard of. Even with high-profile defendants, you know, Roger Stone stopped tweeting about the judge. So it's not unheard of, but this is a huge decision for her to decide to, in fact, impose consequences on his speech.

Because as you say, it just feeds his narrative that she is punishing him from speech, right? That she is so out to get him that she won't let him run for office. And that's why I think he was very, very clear, you know, even campaigning immediately after the judge admonished him to watch his mouth, you know, ran to campaign things and to truth social to threaten her, right? Because in this game of chicken, he knows there's no cost to him blinking. And she knows there is a cost to her blinking. And that's, as you say, the asymmetry of, you know, being completely lawless in a legal system, right? She has to think about consequences.

She has to impose the loss. She understands it. She has to do all this delicate balancing. And he just has to burn stuff down. And that's always, always the problem, right? I guess the other thing I want to say in response to your question is the folks who are complicit are people like Mike Pence. yet, right, who on the Sunday shows has an opportunity to distance himself from the call to actual violence, right? He could have died and he won't do the thing. He will not say the words.

And so to continue to get assists from people who downplay the actual stochastic terror, the actual incitement to violence, you know, the fact that all of the judges, judges in these cases, the prosecutors need federal marshals to protect them. And that this is seen as kind of a hilarious, you know, knock-on effect of Trump's language is the normalization you're talking about, that the fact that he has now gotten to the place where he can openly threaten judges, prosecutors, the spouses of judges and prosecutors, in spite of everything we know, from Ruby Freeman's testimony, I think is the normalization here that we just give people another layer of protection and let him walk on free.

Yeah. It's just, it's extraordinary. And unfortunately, we're going to have to leave it there today, Dahlia, because I feel like we didn't even get a chance to scratch the surface. I will say this quick thing before my producer kills me. In one word, what is your feeling about? the latest grifting news around Clarence Thomas. Can I say too before your producer kills me? Heart sick. Yes. Beyond belief, but also emboldened because I think people care. And I think unlikely

people care and they care a lot. And this is getting traction, Danielle. I think it's getting real traction legislatively and in terms of the press. I think that, and I know this is way more than two words, I think that this is an issue on which a lot of improbable voters, including Republicans and independents, are equally horrified. Yeah, I mean, and as they should be. My friend Delia Lithwick, you will have to come back and join us again on the new abnormal. It is always, always a great time and a pleasure.

I'm so grateful for you. Thank you for having me. You may have heard that Florida has approved the use of videos made by the conservative Prager You, not an actual university, I must point out, for a supplemental use in classrooms across that state. And just a few days ago, a similar proposal in New Hampshire was tabled by the state's education department, meaning it's still a possibility. Here to explain why this is all a terrible idea is assistant professor of curriculum studies at the University of Kansas, Nicholas Mitchell. Nicholas, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having, Andy. So I pointed out that Prager You, which was co-founded in 2008 by conservative radio host Dennis Prager, isn't a university. How would you describe what it actually is? I think the best way to describe Prager You is their conservative media outlet. I mean, in really an advocacy group, that's been their niche. Typically, they make a lot of digital content. And it's specifically designed to really engage its audience in the sort of culture war content that really is. drives a lot of clicks on the internet and on YouTube. I'm assuming I know the answer to this, but I'm going to ask it anyway, is this the kind of stuff that you usually see in curricula? Is it the kind of stuff that should be in curricula in this country? In the world of curriculum, it's not unusual for groups to create a curriculum. I mean, I give you two examples. I mean, the Pulitzer Prize Center created a really robust

curriculum that went along with the 1619 project. Hillsdale College has its own. curriculum. So, I mean, you can look historically a lot of groups, you know, develop these things for education. So that's not really abnormal. What becomes interesting is when they get vendor status with the state, which means that the state will purchase materials from them. This doesn't mean so much that Prigger U is straight up writing Florida's curriculum, but they are making supplementary materials, videos you can use in classes, workbooks, things of that sort. I mean, that is notable because really curriculum is a explicitly political process. I don't think a lot of people understand that. And the reason it is, we mean, you know, political in the

cultural sense that, you know, the big philosophical question of what should we teach young people? That is an ancient question. But also because this is a established by the state if you're talking about public schools. And the state gives its stamp of approval on here. So Prager U has the stamp of approval to produce educational content for the state of Florida. And I mean, that's a big move. Yeah, absolutely. I want to be clear. No Prager videos have been used in Florida yet. The approval is very recent. But let's talk about some of the videos that Prager has produced and put out, you know, in the past and up to this day. They've got an animal series in which two kids, Leo and Layla, talk to historical figures. In one of these videos,

Frederick Douglass says, I'm certainly not okay with slavery, but the founding fathers made a compromise to achieve something great, the making of the United States. And there's another where Booker T. Washington says America was one of the first places on earth to outlaw slavery, which I don't think is true, actually. Are these the kinds of things we're talking about that could conceivably end up being used in Florida schools for kids? If I remember the process correctly, each particular thing they would want to use would have to be approved. So this really puts the Department of Education on the hook.

Like you have to give the straight up stamp for these particular things. Like that, I mean, just because you have vendor status doesn't mean you'll produce something that, you know, they'll automatically approve. Or they could give just the carte blanche stamp of approval, which would, that would be shocking, you know, if they would. But presumably if they gave those videos the stamp of approval for the state, teachers could use those videos if they chose to, and specifically the two you mentioned. And of course, it's not like these videos are outliers. This is the kind of material that they produce. There's another animated video about a Polish girl who questions man-made

climate change, and she has made fun of, and she shunned, and she learns her. And she learns her elderly relatives that she is going through exactly what they went through under the Nazis and communists. I mean, this kind of stuff is, you know, it's borderline insane, but this is the kind of material they produce. So you have to assume if this is who, you know, the Florida Department of Education wants to be in business with, this is the kind of thing they're looking for. Well, I think when you look at the state of Florida and this decision, one of the reasons that a lot of people pounced on this is because, you know, this is the same state that had passed, you know, the don't say gay law for K through 12 that they recently expanded, the Stop Woke Act,

that law, the whole fiasco with AP African American Studies and the more recent one with AP psychology. So I think what a lot of people have done, and, you know, I think this is, I think this is what you're doing. I think this is a situation that the Department of Education of Florida has put itself in, is that you've engaged in this sort of, you know, culture war education policymaking. And people are reading this in light of that. I mean, also, you know, the most recently, the social study standards. Right. So there's a lot going on.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's political. It's educational. And this may kind of come as a shock to your audience. I mean, this is just Monday in the world of curriculum because people fight over curriculum all the time. These arguments are old. I mean, from the Scopes Monkey trial to, you know, I don't know if you remember a couple of years ago to teach the controversy piece about creationism versus evolution in biology classes.

So it's, you know, we're back at one of these inflection points. Yeah, it's very weird, D. because like you mentioned, the creationism one, I mean, I'm, you know, I'm old at this point. And I remember in, I believe it was high school, having a debate in the classroom, a debate of creationism versus evolution. And I look at, you know, where we are now. And I'm like, aren't we past that? But like you said, it seems like we're back. And this is an inflection point. And it feels like in the case of Prager-U, there are really two issues. One is it's fairly overt political agenda. And the other is it doesn't seem to care all that much about things like facts and truth.

I think, you know, definitely in those political agenda. I mean, they're overt with that. So I don't think it's wrong or insulting to say that they have a political agenda. A lot of groups that create curriculum do. But, you know, from my perspective, what this really, they're fighting over is meaning. And I think, you know, when we talk about, you know, education and career, It's not just reading, writing, and arithmetic. You know, we are really teaching people how to enunciate, as the big fancy word.

How do they frame themselves in American society? How do they relate to history? I mean, how do they understand notions such as rights and how you understand the country and your place in it and your history is directly related to your politics, your sense of community, you know, all of that. So, I mean, what Prager You is doing and honestly what's going on with these education fights, regardless if it's don't say gay, trans rights, critical race theory, you know, multicultural education as a whole, we're really having a debate over who we as a country. And, you know, that's the classic American debate. Who are we? And schools have a long

history of being involved in both sides of that debate from the really beautiful moments of desegregation and, you know, Brown versus Board changes America to how schools have been used to inflict real harm, like the indigenous residential schools or Jim Crow education. So you hear a lot of people talk about indoctrination. That's not really a term we use in education. The word we usually go for in our special curriculum studies is miseducation, which means you are specifically teaching someone something that is harmful to them and is incorrect. So think about Jim Crow education, teaching black people, black kids, that they are inferior, that they are naturally inferior. They don't deserve rights. That's miseducation. It comes from a book called the Miseducation

of the Negro by Carter-Watson. So, I mean, this is so much bigger than what's happening in the classroom, but that's true of schools. Like, schools, one thing I tell on my students, students, you go be a teacher, you get to see what's going on in society up close and personal. And this is another example of that. And Prager You is very much an active participant in the culture or debate over who we are as a country, as a government, and as a culture. Yeah, absolutely. So you're telling me that the word miseducation doesn't come from a Lauren Hill album. God, I love that album. Oh, it's fantastic.

But that's a throwback to the miseducation of the Negro Carter Woodson. It's 1933. It's a classic book, kind of the foundation of critical pedagogy. Yeah. So I was going through Prigger You's website, and I was coming across these videos. There's a video about Muslims called Born to Hate Jews. And I cannot believe that in 2023, this is the kind of stuff that the Florida Department of Education was looking at and going, that we want to be in business with them. There's another one that you pointed out in your article on intersectionality. What was that one like? Well, that one has a lot of views.

It's a couple years old. Ben Shapiro, you know, who's very much one of the big figures in the, you know, the culture war. And he basically describes, you know, intersectionality as, I'm trying to remember the exact verbiage he used as a form of identity politics in which. which the value of your opinion depends on how many victim groups you belong to. At the bottom of the totem pole is the person that everybody loves to hate the straight white male. And he also talks about how the more membership you can claim in oppressed groups, the more aggrieved you are, the higher you rank.

I mean, I teach intersectionality every semester. I have no idea what he's talking about on that front. And I mean, it's also worth pointing out, it may have been Vox a couple years, ago when this video came out in 2019, they gave him the Kimberly Crenshaw article. He said it seems relatively unobjectionable, which I'm like, well, man, you cut this video talking about how it, it's this controversial idea that puts people on a hierarchy, which intersectionality does not. Kimberly Crenshaw never said that. Right. Matter of fact, within the world of intersectionality is, you know, a little, you know, academic here, but there's a famous short article by

Audrey Lord, there is no hierarchy of oppression. It's, you experience all these things at once. It doesn't, there's no hierarchy of, well, the racism I experience matters more than the sexism I experience. Now, you're experiencing them both because they inform each other. But he really advanced a criticism of intersectionality. He misrepresented it. And, you know, those are the sorts of things that I think a lot of people are concerned with with Prager You and their videos, is, are, and if you're going to use this in a school, the question I have is, are you misrepresenting what you're talking about? Are you distorting something? Are you leaving out, you know, key factors? Because that's a lot different than teaching both sides of a debate. When you pose one particular

perspective, I don't know if you misrepresent what you're talking about, that's an issue, you know, with a school. No, absolutely. Something I thought. was really interesting in your piece was you wrote about something called the hidden curriculum. Tell me about that what that means. Yes. You have four types of curriculum. You have the formal curriculum. That is straight up like the classes you had to take in high school. You have a social curriculum, which is what you learn in society. Society teaches us. Media teaches us. Movies teach us. You have the null curriculum, which are all the things you were never taught. So to give you an example of how these two things can work or how those three things work is most Americans had never heard of the Tulsa Race Riot

until the TV show The Watchman depicted it. So the Tulsa Race Riot is in the null curriculum. You're not being taught. The social curriculum from this TV show taught it. And now it's in the formal curriculum because now it's standard teaching. The hidden curriculum are the stuff you're being taught that you're not aware, you're being taught. It's the subtleties, its implications of. The best example of that is you go back to high school, you have to go to the restroom. You raise your hand. What does that actually teach you? That's the hidden curriculum. It teaches you in many ways to defer to an authority for something that is a very basic bodily function. Another example would be if your high school doesn't allow same-sex couples to go to prom.

What is the hidden curriculum of that? What are you teaching those queer students about their place in the world? That they're abnormal and therefore they don't get to do things that other people do. The air quote normal people, you know, heterosexual folks. So that's, I mean, that's the hidden curriculum, you know, a lot of, that's the stuff that usually hits people long after they forgot what they learned in high school. They do remember how high school made them feel. Yeah, absolutely. Could you effort a guess at the hidden curriculum of Prager You? I think their whole thing is, well, I don't think it's so much hidden. If it's hidden,

it's very thinly veiled. It is, and it depends on the video. I think they're advancing a conservative worldview, a social conservative worldview, a gender conservative worldview, a racial conservative worldview. And that is what sits at the heart. That is their ideology that produces their curriculum. Yeah, you mentioned in the article you wrote, I'll just quote what you said. You said, what is the impact of a hidden curriculum that teaches black children that calling out racism and other ill treatment they may be subjected to means they're embracing victimhood? And you wrote that the hidden curriculum is basically the feeling that they should suffer in silence, which I thought was incredibly interesting.

That's something you see. I mean, the victimhood piece, you see that a lot in kind of the racially conservative, which means, and I put this in the piece, that these are folks who oppose the government taking a lot of measures to mitigate the impact of, you know, past racism that the government itself inflicted upon, you know, non-white communities. So I got to be honest with you, I don't really know what. victimhood means here? Like, you hear this so much like, you know, they're, they're perpetuating victim. You know, Black Lives Matter, protesters are perpetuating victimhood culture. I literally don't

know what that means. When I look at Black Lives Matter, folks, and this is really just kind of regardless of how anybody who's listening feels about the protests or what happened in 2020 or defund the police, Black Lives Matters were protesting for their constitutional rights to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment. At the heart of it, that's what it was. So am I to interpret that me protesting from my rights under the Constitution is, is that victimhood culture? Is that what they mean? If I call out racism, am I being a victim? What does, I mean, what does that mean? It's a floating signifier, honestly, kind of like woke. Like, it seems to me that you can just call whatever activity or criticism you don't like victimhood culture, just like you can call whatever you don't

like woke. I mean, you see this a lot kind of with terms. I mean, you see people do it with fascism. They thought, well, that's fascist. No, that's not fascist. Or, you know, that's communist. Nope, not communist or Marxist at all. We do have a tendency to throw around terms, you know, in America. But, and that's a big one. But, you know, that was the question I have after watching one of the particular videos and it's are we telling people to teaching children that you're being a victim if you demand people stop being racist to you you demand remedy for the racism you've been experienced right that you've experienced and you know because this florida is a former jim crow state now i'm from the south too though that's a delicate you know thing because you know race relations

in the south are still very very tense it's very it could be very visceral at times but I mean, that's also like would you show this video in an all black school, but also a predominantly white school with their handful of black students? What sort of hidden curriculum comes from this? And then what does that do to the environment of the school? But like I said, I just, I don't know what they mean by victimhood. I still don't know. Yeah, no, it's, it's very weird. I'll just end by pointing out in the Booker T. Washington video with the little animated kids, the Booker T. Washington tells the kids that they have done nothing more and that future generations are never responsible for the sins of the past. And one of the kid replies that in that case, you know, she won't feel

guilty about historical stuff. And this just seems to me the hidden curriculum here is, as you said, it's not really even hidden. It's just very overt. And this does seem to be right in line with the kind of history that the state of Florida wants to teach. You know, that, that is a particular kind of social conservative talking point. The responsibility of the present generation for the past, I mean, that is an ancient philosophical debate. Absolutely. Absolutely. Like that's so old, it's in the Bible. Literally that. Yes. It's debate in the Bible. So I don't fault anybody for jumping into the philosophical debate. But a lot of this will come down how if If a teacher uses these videos, do you present these videos as debate points?

Or do you present these videos as this is the answer, the debate is resolved? That's going to be a particular question. We're going to have to ask and answer as more people, you know, get into these videos. But I think the overall hidden curriculum of all of this, everything going on in Florida, from all the laws to the Prager you is who are we as Americans? What does it mean to be an American? How should we look at our own history? How should we look at our own culture?

And how should we move forward, going into the future? And so, yeah, these, I mean, this is, this is civilization level stuff. Yeah. And I think that's why I think, and I think we all know that regardless of, if you're liberal, conservative, I think we all know these education fights about the curriculum. about, you know, what we are taught identity and history. That's what we're actually arguing about. Who are we? I just would rather us take off the costume that this is something else and have the debate we're trying to have.

Dr. Nicholas Mitchell, I will leave it there. Thank you so much for coming on. This has been very informative and really interesting. I really appreciate you being here. Anytime, Andy. Andy Levy. Daniel Moody. Andy, it's another glorious week in this dumpster. Fire we call America. How are you starting off our fuck that guy week? Well, I'm going to take a break from our usual suspects and go to the great state of Kansas where a truly horrific thing

happened on Friday. A local newspaper, the Marion County record, had its office rated along with the home of its publisher by the local police department, which I believe is a police department of five people and all five of them participated in this raid. And they seized everything. They seized all the computers from the newspaper's offices and all the stuff from the publisher's home. And all of this was because a woman named Carrie Newell, who owns a restaurant in Marion, she has been trying to obtain a liquor license. And there was a public hearing about it. And it turns out that years ago, she had a DUI and then got busted. Her license was suspended and then she got busted for driving with a suspended license. And she was mad. She had it in her

head that the newspaper had illegally found out this information, which A, is not true. And also, B, the newspaper was tipped off to this by someone and did their own checking. But they also decided not to publish it because they weren't sure that the person who tipped them off didn't get the information illegally. So they didn't even publish a story about this, but she complained and the police department decided they needed to raid this entire newspaper. And they got a judge named Laura V-R, V-I-A-R, and maybe mispronouncing it, but I'm hopeful that she will be out of a job soon, so it doesn't matter. They got her to sign off on a search warrant, which pretty much everyone who is looking into this case is saying is completely illegal. So all of this is bad enough and a

complete infringement on the freedom of press and a complete law enforcement overreach. The worst part of this is when they raided Eric Meyer's home, he's the publisher, his elderly mother in her 90s lives with him. And she was in fairly good health for someone her age. And she was so upset about this and it gave her so much anxiety that she passed away over the weekend. And so this whole thing, as if it weren't disgusting enough, this whole thing has led to the death of an elderly woman. Oh, my God. Everyone in this police department needs to be out of a job. This judge needs to be out of a job. This judge needs to be out of a job. And I would love it if they would all be put in jail, but we all know that ain't happening. But at the very least, that entire police department and this judge out of a job should never

be able to work in law enforcement or in the justice system again. The whole thing is absolutely disgusting. So fuck all those guys. Oh my God. This story is horrible. Yeah. And also, there smells like multiple lawsuits there. I hope so. Oh, God. Yeah. All right. Well, fuck all y'all in Kansas.

Yep. Jesus. So who's your fuck that guy? I'm assuming you'll give us one of our usual suspects, you know, DeSantis, Greg Abbott, right? It's got to be one of those guys. Ted Cruz, maybe. You know, what's funny is that we've both decided to divert from our norm. Because, you know, contrary to, you know, popular belief, there are other people that suck out there.

Not just those guys. So I think it's fair that other folks get there just do. So a story broke, and Andy, you'll love this because it's sports. Something that I don't ever find myself really talking about. But this story was just so wild. If folks remember the movie, the 2009 movie, my God, I can't believe it was that long ago. The 2009 movie The Blindside, which starred Jesse, our producer's favorite actress, Sandra Bullock. So in this story, just to say,

just to set the tone, it is the white savior movie of white savior movies of all time. It is a story of a white woman who, you know, finds apparently because very large black men are just like roaming around and, you know, takes in and adopts this black man, Michael Ower, and turns him into a football great. And thank God, because when she found him, he had no shoes, he had no nothing. And, you know, and if not for whiteness, you know, who would have known what would have happened to this black man? And if you were a black person and saw this trailer when it came out, you were like, so miss me with the bullshit. Like, oh, hell no, I'm not going to give you my money, Hollywood. And as it turns out, fast forward. But the former NFL offensive lineman Michael Ower, this is according to the Bleacher Report,

has now alleged in court documents that Sean and Leanne Tuey never actually adopted Michael Ower. And instead, get this, they fucking Britney Spearsed him. They tricked him into agreeing to the Tui's as his conservators after he turned 18, granting them legal rights to make business decisions on his behalf, and in turn, he said the family made royalties off of the blindside movie while he didn't receive a penny. First of all, I don't know why it took this man so long to come out and say that he didn't make a dime off of the telling of his own goddamn story,

that this white family made millions of dollars off of a lie. and we all knew from just the tenants of this, like Hollywood does, they love good-hearted white people. You see, guys, don't worry about the cop with their knee on your neck. Don't worry about the unarmed people that are getting shot. Don't worry, there are good white people. Come to find out, it's like this whole thing was a fucking lie. And this is what the court documents say. Quote, the lie of Michael's adoption is one upon which co-conservators,

Leanne Tuey and Sean Toey have enriched themselves at the expense of their ward, the undersigned Michael Orr. Michael Orr discovered this lie to his chagrin and embarrassment in February of 2023 when he learned that the conservatorship to which he consented on the basis that doing so would make him a member of the Tuohy family, in fact provided him no familiar relationship with the Tewis. I mean, so for that reason, the tois are my, fuck you both. Fuck that family for the first time maybe on the new abnormal. I mean, that's absolutely amazing. And if you look at the legal filing, I guess the twoies deny all of the, well, they at least deny they say the money was split. But the legal filing says that the movie paid the twoie and their two birth children. and didn't pay him.

He was the whole point of the movie. It's unbelievable. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at thedailybeast.com slash podcasts.

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