The Daily Beast Podcast - This Is the Only Way Trump Will Lose His Base’s Support

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

Ron DeSantis thought he could win over the MAGA base and secure the 2024 nomination by being the smart, indictment-free version of Donald Trump, but judging by his less than robust campaign performance, he thought wrong. Rolling Stone reporter, Adam Rawnsley, joins this episode of TNA to talk about what it’ll take for Trump’s base to finally be broken of his spell as well as the ways DeSantis’ campaign went wrong. Also on this episode: Capital B rural issues reporter Aallyah Wright tells co-host Andy Levy a story she reported on from a small town in the south that is so horrendously racist it left him nearly speechless. 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. 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. Capital B reporter Alia Wright

joins us to talk about the drama in Newborn Alabama, where a black man was elected mayor, but white community leaders have prevented him from serving. Then we'll talk to Rolling Stone reporter Adam Ronsley about Rhonda Santis's presidential campaign, which is going over like a lead balloon. But first, let's have some fun. So, Danielle, as we start, Start a new week. We now live in Barbie's World. The movie made $162 million over its opening weekend, which actually exceeded expectations.

And audiences seem to love it, except for one segment above the population, and that would be conservative whiny babies. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. The same people who will go around saying, go woke, go broke, don't really seem to understand that all their complaints about Barbie being anti-man and about it being an incredible woke movie that has the nerve to have as one of the actors, a transgender person, is a huge hit

across America and they cannot stop crying about it. And it's kind of a beautiful thing. I mean, it's just like, you know how they used to say that you can tell if somebody's going to grow up to be a psychopath if they're like torturing animals. Yeah. And I think that the video that that dumb dumb, Shapiro puts up of him melting Barbies, like lighting them on fire is indicative of that. Yeah. What grown-ass man says to themselves, you know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to go to the store. I'm going to purchase from Mattel these Barbies. And then I'm going to do a spectacular act of toxic masculinity by, burning them and melting the plastic and causing more carbon monoxide to go into the air. Nonetheless, their displays of toxic masculinity and fuckery is just, I'm so over it. I'm so exhausted by it. It's Legos one day. It's ketchup.

It's M&Ms. It's gas stoves. Now it's Barbie. And I'm just like, you know what? Go live in a fucking bubble somewhere. Take Elon Musk's failed rocket ship off to Mars and crows. create a colony of fuckery, right? Create your new colony of white supremacy over there where patriarchy reigns supreme and

you can, you know, beat your chest. I'm just, I'm over it. They look fucking stupid. And because they are so self- unaware, they have no idea how ridiculous they look outside of the little bros that want to pat them on the digital back. I mean, it's nothing but pathetic. Don Shapiro, who you mentioned, posted. A 43-minute video of him, as the video claims, destroying the Barbie movie.

A 43-minute video, grown-man posted about a movie based on a doll. Pathetic, that really is the only word for it. They just keep sounding like this and making absolute rules of themselves. And Christian Toto, who is a conservative film critic, was whining that the film used the word patriarchy 10 times. This is a guy, by the way, who every fourth word in its tweets is woke. So I'm not really sure what he's getting at there. This is all they have to do is complain about things being woke. What I do love about it is the two things.

One, like you said, they just look like clowns. It's just hilarious to watch. And the other thing is, of course, this movie is insanely popular. I don't know. Maybe it'll sink into their little heads that they should learn from that. And they should realize, like you said, that outside of their little bubble, nobody is walking out of the Barbie movie going, oh, my God, this movie was so woke. They're walking out of the Barbie movie going, that was really fun. I just had a really good time at the movie theater.

I suspect they wouldn't learn from this, but they should, shouldn't they? I mean, you would think that they would learn, but they don't. You see, the reality is that a majority of Americans are happy with the progress that this country was making. But the small, hateful, hate-filled minority are in places of power and have the loudest microphones in order to bring attention to all of the things that they can't stand. But I say again, much in the same way that I say about Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis and Shapiro and these people, what are they actually doing for their constituency? What are they actually offering to people other than a place to air their fucking white tears? There's nothing. So you're going to have your kids like, oh, we're down with Barbie and down with this.

Like these things that we as Americans love Mattel and fucking Disney. Right? Like it's just, it's ridiculous to me that they feel like they get to gatekeep and own everything and that it should stay exactly in their 1950s patriarchal white supremacist like anti-progress mindset. And if it moves outside of that, then down with it. Let's burn it all to the ground. Yeah.

Ginger Gates, who is somehow married to Matt Gates, which is weird because I thought she was of legal age. She was upset that Barbie showed Ken with, quote, disappointingly low T. That's low testosterone for those of you don't know. Have you seen a Ken doll? I don't even want to go into it. There's nothing going on down there. Nope.

What are you expecting? All these people are just, they are little whiny children. It is truly unbelievable. And to watch Ben Shapiro, he put up a 43-minute video and didn't even call it shrimp on the Barbie movie, which is what he should have called it. But that would be witty. I know. And self-depitating. And you can't, you know, you can't have that because he's such a macho guy all, you know, five-foot,

One of them, whatever. No shade to my short kings out there, by the way. Oh, shit. Not short kings. No. Anyway, they're just be clowning themselves, and there's richly not much more to say about that. We can talk about other people who would be clowning themselves, though. Mm-hmm.

And that would be Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Something we talked about the other day was these new ridiculous standards for the state African-American Studies program down there. And how one of the things was teaching people, black people learned valuable skills, wild slaves. He said, oh, they're probably going to show that some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a black myth into doing things later in life. And I, you know what, I'm not going to jump off here. Danielle, I feel like you might have something to say about this. I hate this fucking man so much. What Rob is doing, what his pathetic, sad campaign is doing is once again trying to rewrite history and create some type of, I don't know, mythology around whiteness.

Because again, let me tell you something. If everything was so fucking copacetic in this country from the first enslaved people being brought here, you wouldn't be going to the kind of fucking lengths that Ron DeSantis and the fucking Board of Education in Florida is doing in order to spread lots. in order to brainwash generation upon generation of white kids to continue to perpetuate white supremacy. The reality is that they don't fucking operate in is that enslaved black people are people that came here with fucking skills and languages and families and like passions and all sorts of things. They didn't know how to fucking farm.

They didn't know how to do a goddamn thing, which is why they, They had enslaved people doing the work that they did not know how to do and couldn't do on their fucking own. We went to war in this country because, God forbid, you look at black human beings as people as opposed to products that you get to use to your end, right? I'm just so fucking sick and tired of their lives and their bullshit. And frankly, I'm waiting for the Biden administration to fucking sue them. Because what Rob is doing isn't just like, oh, look at this little hiccup over here of referring to slavery as some type of fucking internship. Like, oh, they should have been so lucky to be raped and beaten and hung from trees and bodies ripped apart and children ripped out of wounds. I could go on good people.

I'm going to pull my energy back in. But I'm waiting for the fucking lawsuits. I am waiting for them because what he is doing is sick and. twisted and is going to thwart this country's progress and brainwash generations of people. But Danielle, what you're failing to recognize here are the upsides to the slavery. And that's why we need to teach this in schools, am I right? I'm breathing, Andy. I am breathing.

You think you've read the lowest thing you can possibly read, and then you find out that Florida schools are going to teach the upsides to slavery. Again, I would like to say it can't get any lower, but I know that I'll be proven wrong probably within 48 hours. So there's no point in saying that. DeSantis and his act are not playing well nationally. He is not doing well in the polls. I must have seen like eight or nine different outlets had articles about him rebooting his campaign because we're at the stage where presidential campaigns are basically comic book movie franchises.

They have to be rebooted. It usually it's 10 or 20 years later or at least like five years later. In his case, it's a month. But whatever. You know, I guess he's just that much more advanced that he can do things quickly. But it is amazing that this guy who, look, even we were talking about months ago as, you know, the only potential serious challenge to Trump. And he doesn't even seem to be that anymore. The more he's out there, the lower his numbers get.

And it's sad, Daniel is what it is. It is sad. When I think about Ron DeSantis and his failure to launch, his inability to captivate anyone outside of the protective boy in a bubble that his campaign has put him in is everything that he is doing is being egged on by the entire Republican Party. And I want folks to understand and connect the dots between the hateful rhetoric that has come out of Ronda's mouth every time that he utters the word woke and the policies that are being created, but then copycatted across the country. There is a all-out campaign that is signifying the reawakening of white supremacy.

I don't know what it is. It's not enough to do the Confederacy cosplay anymore. They have to bring it into legislation. And when folks don't connect the dots and realize that, like, this is how systemic racism becomes part of the fabric of our society. I can tell you the amount of things, the amount of machinery, products, industrialization that happened in this country

that would not have happened, if not for black people. And the reason why you don't know it is because of the generations of Ron DeSantis who were in power that made it so that you had a very narrow understanding of black people. They were animals that you trapped, you took on boats, and if not for that, they would have never been able to fend for themselves. And then they came to this country and without white supremacy would have never been able to thrive because they're really not people anyway.

That mentality has perpetuated throughout every single racist policy that has ever been created. Pre and post slavery and Jim Crow and the emancipation, all of those things. And so it just, it kills me that we don't have more conversations that are about the largest scale campaign of white supremacy that is being waged right now in this country, in places like Florida, in Alabama, in Texas, all across this nation. Why? Because of the demographic shift that has these scared white people losing their fucking minds. Racism doesn't exist, but they sure is fuck no. want to be black or queer or Latino or anything other than white in this country when that shift happens. And I wonder why. And the thing is, I don't know that, you know, Descent's sort of failure to launch on a national level shows that Republicans in general don't

agree with him. I think they just think he's a bad messenger. Right. But I'm not, you know, I'm not suddenly saying, you know, oh, see what he's doing in Florida isn't popular. nationwide. I suspect, at least I hope it's not popular nationwide, but because we're talking about Republican primary voters here, I suspect it's not unpopular. So I think it probably says more about him and just the fact that he is just kind of creepy and unlikely than his policies. I wish to God that this was a repatriation from the Republicans of the policies he's pushing, but considering the tremendous, you know, lead that Donald Trump has in the Republican primary right now, according to all the polls. Obviously, I can't be too happy about dissents failing.

You know, it's not like the people are saying, no, this is not the future of the Republican Party. I think they're just saying it is, but we want it from a different guy. A hundred percent. And it's just like he's not their type of monster, right? Because he doesn't come with the glitz and the glam. He doesn't come with the association with models and television. he's not a lights camera action type of monster. So he has all of the policies,

all of the legislative and political know-how, but he doesn't have any of the charisma of the kind of monsters that they like. No, I think that's absolutely right. And we're learning more and more times had a really interesting piece over the weekend about the COVID response in Florida. And it was right before the Delta variant hit big

that DeSantis backed away from supporting vaccines and, you know, urging everyone to get vaxed. And according to this article, when the Delta variant hit, Floridians died at a higher rate adjusted for residents of almost any other state. That's during the Delta wave, which was, again, one of the hugest waves we had. According to the Times, with less than 7% of the nation's population, Florida, accounted for 14% of deaths between the start of that July and the end of August. October. That was, again, the Delta wave. Like, this is a guy, Desantis, who early on was like, go out there, get the vaccine. And then at some point, he changed his mind. And he very clearly changed his mind because of pressure and noticing that, oh, well, conservatives are not liking the idea of this vaccine. And I don't want to alienate them. So I better get on board. And because he did that, people died. And now, of course, he goes around talking about, I think his catchphrase is Florida got it right when he talks about.

Coke. Oh my God. Yeah, not so much, buddy. But this is the kind of person he is. He started out right on this issue. And then he quickly just readily tea leaves and went bad. And it's just people die because of him. Do you know what kills me? What fucking kills me about all of this is over a million people died in the United States. We just kind of gloss over. Yep. Gloss over the fact that we lost over a million. fucking human beings in two years because of a global health pandemic. But we're all like back to work, masks are often like pretend it didn't happen. There just happens to be people missing from your like Thanksgiving table and missing from like your family and missing that used to sit next to you in your fucking cubicle. Like it is just insane to me that so many people lost their fucking lives and we don't even honor them by telling.

telling the fucking truth. Like, no one expected that for the first time a global health pandemic hits all of us to get every single thing right. But they purposefully made sure to get things wrong to cost even more lives to what? Own the fucking libs? And the fact that none of these people, none of these governors are going to jail, nobody is going to be held responsible for spreading lies to people and telling them to open up the say and liberate here and liberate that.

No one goes to jail and over a million people died and they didn't fucking have to. I mean, I would settle for them even paying a political price, but they're not. DeSantis got reelected. Forget even going to jail or anything like that. They're not even paying a political price. As you say, over a million people in this country died. And it is such an afterthought right now that the whole thing even happened. And it's just, you know, it's sort of a punchline.

Oh, remember. remember lockdown. It's just unreal to me that that's how we're processing this. A really interesting thing that the Times pointed out in this same article is that in America as a whole, most people who died from COVID died before the vaccines became available to all adults. Florida, nope. Most people who died from COVID in Florida died after vaccines became available to all adults. And that is just unfucking believable. You know, it is just like it is really a crime against humanity that these people commit. It really is. And I know like sometimes we need to laugh about it so that we don't cry so that we don't lose our minds. But these are crimes against humanity that they waged against unknowing people. The amount of lives that could have been saved if Donald Trump did not spend the first six, seven months of COVID, telling people that it was a fucking democratic hoax

and then turning it into a racist epitaph, right? Like the amount of people that all they had to do was find some cloth until we knew it was N95s that they needed, right? Like if you care about this country and you're a neighbor and you call yourself a fucking patriot, this is what you could have done. The mitigation that could have happened,

but this is what their cruelty and their ignorance has done. And like you said, no jail time at all, but no political price. Because as Donald Trump and the rest of them say, they could kill somebody, which they fucking did and watch their poll numbers rise. It's wild. It's absolutely wild. And it's sad for me to really understand that the only reason why Ron DeSantis isn't rising in the polls is because he is as like interesting to watch as paint drying, as a communion

wafer. Like he is, if he just had a little bit more showmanship, if he was just a little bit more Hitler-esque, he could have knocked Donald Trump down. And then we would have an even bigger, more logical and more politically savvy monster. But because he's such a fucking failure and is so goddamn mediocre, he won't even really be in competition with Trump. That's the only reason. And that is sick.

Last week, Leah Wright, rural issues reporter for capital B, a black-led nonprofit National News Organization, published a story about a town in Alabama where a black man was elected mayor in 2020, but unable to serve because white community leaders have locked him out of town hall. She joined us now with the details. Alia, thanks so much for being here. Oh, I'm excited to be here, so thank you for having me. Absolutely. Okay, so my first thought when I read your story was that it was unbelievable.

And then immediately my second thought was, I guess I want it to be believable, but sadly, it isn't. So tell us about Patrick Braxton and the town of Newburn, Alabama. Yes. So Patrick Braxton is the 57-year-old volunteer firefighter who was, you know, born and raised in New Bern, Alabama. New Bern, Alabama is about one square mile long. It is a predominantly black town of about, you know, 275 people. So it's very rural. And when I first initially, you know, learned of this story, I got wind of it from a local reporter, freelance reporter, based in Alabama. And a few things stood out to me, a few of many. And it's the reason why I wanted to pursue this story and travel to New Bern myself.

But one of the things, a predominantly black rural town that has never held elections according to the residents. They, you know, never remember election. they never recall participating in an election. And the position of mayor and town council in particular had been passed down for generations to the small percentage of white people in the town. And so Patrick Braxton, you know, being a native of the town,

for so long he felt that black residents, along with himself, felt that white town leaders hadn't done enough to help them. And in fact, in 2020, when the pandemic hit, Braxton and other folks felt like the white town leaders at the time also didn't adequately respond to the needs of the community. And so that was partly the motivation for why Braxton wanted to run for mayor. And so in July 2020, after being the only one that filed the necessary paperwork to serve as mayor or town council, Patrick Braxton became the first black mayor of New Bern, Alabama. It was after the fact that he became mayor that a lot of things start happening, which was another piece of the story that stood out to me.

And that was the harassment and intimidation that he said he had experienced. And so some of the things that he faced, one, you know, being locked out of town hall, being locked out of the fire department, even responding to fires alone, you know, and being deprived of fire. fire equipment. One of the other things as Patrick had become mayor and he had began selecting his town council in the background, the previous white town council, including Haywood, Woody Stokes, who was, you know, the previous white mayor of the town. They allegedly called a special meeting where they agreed that they would order a special election. And apparently, Braxton, an other town council members did not hear of such an election. It was not publicized. And so at that October 6th special election, Woody and his council filed their necessary paperwork and reappointed

themselves as the new town council. So there were, you know, a lot of things happening in the background, but also, you know, different forms of intimidation and harassment that Patrick says he experienced after he became mayor. And it also was the basis for the reason why he has now a federal civil rights lawsuit against Woody and the former town council for what he says has been a conspiracy to deny him his position because of his race. So there's a quote of quotes that I sort of can't get over. And one of them, you shouted out freelance journalist where you first heard about the story. I think that's Lee Hedgepath. I read his piece because you also, you linked to it in her piece. And he had a quote in there that

he said that Braxton, when he approached Woody Stokes, who was the mayor at the time and still apparently thinks he's the mayor, but when he first approached him and said that he wanted to run for mayor, Stokes told him, we've never had an election out here. We don't have ballots and machines to do it. That blew my mind. He's literally telling him, oh, we can't have an election. Yes, that's the action and the attitude of what has been going on in this town, you know, for decades. And, you know, I think about one of the people I spoke to Ms. Janice Krulls, who is a native of Newborn and also one of the members that Patrick chose to be on his council. And she, you know, just spoke about the deep segregation in the town and why that fostered a sense of, you know, disengagement for so long. because people, in her words, the white folks in the town didn't want black people anywhere near them unless you were working for them.

And, you know, this habit, this, you know, became a habit and it passed on for generations. But, you know, even at one point years down the road when Ms. Janice wanted to get involved, she recalled, you know, trying to attend local town hall meeting. And most of the time when they would try to attend these meetings, the council would either change the location. They would change the time of the meeting. And I remember she mentioned one particular meeting where she and one of her family members voiced concerns that, you know, there was nothing recreational to do for the youth in the community. And they suggested the town could, you know, build an arcade or some sort of facility for the children. And she said the mayor at that particular time, it wasn't Woody, but a mayor before him, basically told her, well, and I quote, it's no white children here in New Bern. So why would we build something like that? You know, completely disregarding the town's majority black population. And so, you know, I just think when, you know, going back to the quote that you mentioned of Woody mentioning the fact that, you know, we don't even have, you know, equipment to run in the last. election. We've never held election. I think it just speaks to that attitude and that deep segregation

that Ms. Janice spoke of, of, you know, being ingrained in the community for so long, but also the fact that when they, you know, black people want to engage, they're often dismissed. Yeah. And then you had another, you had a quote from Braxton in a clip piece where he says that when he was elected, a white woman told him the town wasn't ready for a black mayor. This is a town that, As you point out, it's 85% black. It also just speaks to what we've seen for so long of, you know, white people wanting to hold on to, you know, power. White power in particular and, you know, find ways to disenfranchise, you know, black people, particularly, you know, across the South. there's, you know, when I just think about during reconstruction or even after just all of, you know,

the racial terror and violence that, you know, black political leaders, you know, even black folks, but especially black political leaders had faced for just trying to serve. And I think about one of the black political experts I've, you know, talked to, you know, with this reporting about how, like, although we don't necessarily see what has. happen during that time or even in the 60s or 70s, that this is still a form of intimidation and trying to hinder the political progress or even deny, you know, black people the right to participate in a democracy in a predominantly black town or even, you know, just thinking about the layers of government. I spoke to another political professor who, you know, posed a lot of

questions, you know, such as if this is what we're seeing at the mayor and town council level, what about the police chief or, you know, county official positions or, you know, state senator or represent, you know, all of these positions of the chain, they're not able to elect someone to represent them. So, yeah, I think it's also just part of, I know I mentioned the past, but also the future. It's part of, you know, this larger movement. of what a political expert told me as a power grab. And it's been happening, as we know, for decades at this point. Yeah, it really is incredible.

That quote, you know, this town is not ready for a black mayor when 85% of the town is black is just all you are saying there is that in your mind, black people are not human beings. It's just unbelievable to me. I mean, there's 2023 that black people are still having to deal with this in America. Yeah, and to put it simply, it also sounds like they're saying that black people can effectively govern themselves or be in charge of themselves is what residents have told me as well as, you know, some of the political professors. And it's unfortunate. Yeah, I mean, this is just, this is like the town where Jim Crow never died. It's just absolutely unbelievable. So you mentioned that in Houston is now, you know, has filed a lawsuit. And even that agent has been. easy from reading what you wrote about this. There's been threats, there's been intimidation, players wouldn't take his calls or wouldn't take the case. It's been a rough ride, even trying to

file what should be an easy lawsuit, I would think. Yeah, I think about La Quina Lewis, who I spoke to, who runs, you know, the nonprofit organization who has helped Mayor Braxton, you know, with his case and trying to help him find attorneys. And, you know, she mentioned that people, when he would reach out, they would say they would help, but then they would just take his money, not return his calls. And it was really, you know, difficult for a long time. Even, you know, she mentioned large law firms who specialize in these type of issues didn't even, you know, want to be a part of the case. in the midst of trying to find legal help, trying to find support from, you know,

local organizations, local officials, and also, you know, experiencing this intimidation in these threats. And I didn't mention, you know, even another issue that happened and I reported it in the story was that there was an instance where a white driver was on the road and tried to run, you know, Mayor Braxton off the road. And, you know, just all of that stuff, it seems as if you would want to give up. As we know, they haven't. They are, you know, so fed up with what has happened for so long that they said they

won't be intimidated to back down. But luckily, you know, they finally have found an attorney who has taken the case and seems pretty serious about, you know, moving forward with it. Well, that's good. Yeah. You mentioned Laquina Lewis and, you know, she told you also about receiving death threats. You said, I think she got a letter that had a drawing of her and Bracking being lynched. Yes. I was completely eachless. And I had to, you know, one thing I always do as a reporter, you have to handle, you know, these interviews with empathy and care because it's, you know, these things are affecting

them on the day to day and affecting, you know, their mental health, their physical well-being, all of the things, but yes, there were a number of letters that were sent in the mail that she received, you know, mentioning derogatory terms such as the N-word, the B-word, the writer of this letter saying they hope that Laquina and Mayor Braxton dies and they're watching her at the food distribution sites. And again, the photos that you mentioned, that they're hanging, they're being lynched and saying, I will see you soon. This really speaks to the gravity of how concerning this has, is and it has been for them, you know, to even threaten their safety. It's been a lot for them during this process.

Obviously, I cannot even imagine, you know, you say in your piece that you saw, you did, you saw these letters, you're not going to publish them. And I think that was, you know, definitely the right choice. As you said, I, like, oh, God, nobody needs to see that. Anybody ever needs to be getting stuff like that in the mail. But in 2023, it's just, it's just so mind-boggling that things like this can still exist in this country. And go unnoticed and unchecked for so long. And I think, you know, that's one of the most important reasons why Capital B created this position, you know, a rural issues reporter, allowing it to exist. Because for so long, when you think about rule, it's often synonymous with, you know, white and conservative and anything, you know, kind of outside of that narrative seems to go unreported.

And it's one of the reasons why I feel it's important to amplify these issues because, you know, it makes me think of a quote I heard from another political professor I spoke to. And she said, you know, a lot of times we think about what's happening nationally. We think about the big cities. But the litmus test for what's happening and how well, well, not America is doing, is to look at what's happening in rural areas. I think that speaks to the importance of why we can't turn a blind eye to these stories. No, absolutely. And before I let you go, tell me more about capital B because I have to be honest,

I was not aware of it before you published your story. And now I've been reading it. First of all, it's unbelievably interesting. But also, it seems like it's doing a lot of work that journalism has sort of stopped doing. And like you said, it's going into small towns and it's serving communities and reporting on local story. Tell me more about Capital B. Yeah. So Capital B is a black-led local and national nonprofit news organization that centers the voices

their perspectives and experiences of black communities across the country. And when I mentioned this local national piece, we have a local newsroom in Atlanta. Of course, we have the national newsroom, which I'm a part of as the rural issues reporter. And we're also going to open another local newsroom in Gary, Indiana, I think later this year. And so, you know, the goal is to be in the places where, again, a lot of national conversations aren't happening, but are still important, you know, two and four black communities. I remember at the height of the pandemic, there were so many narratives and stereotypes about black folks, especially after the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd and even certain,

you know, terms and language at, you know, some of these traditional news outlets, they didn't necessarily, I would say cover certain issues from the lens of. of racial equity, racial justice, also just from the lens of what it's like to be a black American in this country. And while some have changed, it's, you know, been a pretty slow process. And so why not create a space like Capital B where we're dedicated to that mission and also being able to employ black reporters to do this work? Because we know, you know, research shows that when readers see someone that looks like them covering issues, they're more willing to trust that news and also, you know, the voice that's covering these stories. So, yeah, we exist to amplify the voices and, again, cover the stories that no one else is talking about. That's such a great mission. Alia, thank you so much for being here and letting our audience know about this story. And hopefully we'll get to talk to you again when Braxton wins his lawsuit, I would like to say. But he's also.

running again, right? He is. He's planning on running again in 2025 when Alabama has their municipal elections. And in the meantime, you know, while they also are, you know, moving forward with litigation, they also want to organize around voter education and registration to make sure that residents are prepared when the next election cycle happens. Excellent. Alia Wright, thank you so much for being here. And hopefully, like I said, we will talk to you again soon. Thank you so much and I can't wait to come back. Folks, I am happy to welcome to the new abnormal Adam Ronsley, who is a reporter at Rolling Stone, whose recent piece about Ronda Santis's paltry, tawdry, lackluster, failure to launch campaign,

brings new light as to some of the reasons, maybe it being around COVID-19 and the fact that Republicans don't care. frankly, Americans want to pretend it didn't happen as a center node to what he thinks could dethrone Donald Trump. So talk to me, Adam. In your piece, you lay out essentially what helped launch DeSantis into fame, into political fame, into folk hero stance, as you said, in your piece. And now that is not the case. So talk to us about the rise and then where he finds himself now two months into his presidential bid. Yeah, Governor DeSanis really is among Republican candidates, what we would call extremely online.

He is very much plugged into a feedback loop of Twitter. And as you might recall, during the bad old days, the global pandemic, you know, the hot button culture war issue for a hot button culture war governor was, of course, the pandemic. And to give you a sense of the extent to which DeSanis went after that, he convened a grand jury to investigate the COVID-19 MRNA shot. So in other words, a criminal investigation of the vaccine that saved millions and millions of lives and allowed us to put the pandemic behind us.

He has also gone so far as to accuse the medical establishment of having lost its mind for quote-unquote trying to jab a six-month-old babies with an MRNA shot. and you can give chapter and verse on what he did while he was governor. He was trying to push out monoclonal antibodies instead of the vaccine. But his big thing was, you know, I'm the anti-vaccine. I'm the anti-vaccine mandate governor. And the problem was, you know, people like that. And it certainly helped propel him to another term as governor.

But along the way, people moved on. And part of the problem is that, you know, we didn't have lockdowns like they had in the UK or in Europe. So it wasn't as big a factor. Certainly wasn't as big a factor in the states that he needs to win. But more importantly, people have moved on. And unfortunately for him, the Biden administration recently essentially backed down on federal vaccine mandates and lifted all those requirements. So he no longer has the Joker to his anti-vax Batman. The problem is, is that remember when guys is a terrible, terrible campaign slogan. If you're a Sopranos fan, you can remember when Tony says, remember when is the lowest form of conversation. And that's essentially his problem right now is that,

yes, Republican primary voters, I'm sure, remember that he did all these things or can easily be reminded that he did all of these things. But the problem is that they don't care because it's not a central feature in their lives. If you ask Republicans what the big issues are for them, they're going to say, you know, if you look at the Pew polling recently, they're going to say the economy, the inflation border, which is, you know, essentially a proxy for immigration and, you know, public morality, which tends to be, you know, a catch-all kind of cultural war nonsense bucket for them to put those concerns in. But no one cares about the pandemic. And you're starting to see that. And we spoke to about half a dozen Republican pollsters who said that, you know, some of them said, we just stopped polling on this because it's so low on our. own list of priorities that it just it doesn't make sense for us to poll on this. And I think part of this is also part of a deeper misunderstanding and strategic error that DeSantis campaign made in taking on Trump is that they tried to define Trump as like a basket of policies when that's absolutely not what Trump represents to his voters. Nobody votes for Donald Trump because they've got a checklist

of particular policy proposals and they're going down the list. And as he's at a town hall, they're saying, oh, yeah, okay, there's that, yeah, and that marginal capital gains tax stuff. Nobody is doing that. He has a charismatic relationship with his audience. He represents more than the sum of his policies to his audience. And the other thing is that his policies aren't fixed. We all remember him, you know, he tried to make himself to seem to be like, you know,

a magnanimous, enlightened president who is all about, you know, criminal justice reform, the next step act. And then all of a sudden, you know, in the summer of 2020, he became president when the looting starts, the shooting starts. None of his followers disliked him for that. None of his followers yelled at him when they were doing the first step back. None of his followers yelled at him when, you know, he went in Mr. Crackdown mode. He is not a series of particular policies and trying to out policy Trump is essentially misunderstanding his relationship with his own base. You know, and I think that that is such a good point, right? Because what I say all the time on this show is that Ron DeSantis, right, does not have the charisma.

He doesn't have the showmanship. He doesn't have a basic sense of how to deal with other people outside of his campaign bubble. And because of that, he has made cruel policies, the center point of his campaign. And what I realize is that there is no difference to me and to many people between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis as it pertains to who they hate. Like, they're pretty much aligned. There's no daylight there, except for Donald Trump didn't make the LGBTQ community a center point of his administration.

He didn't do the community any favors, but he didn't put a target on there back in the way that Ron DeSantis has, as well as black people. But when you look at it, I think what you've said is what I've believed all along, that these Republican voters, right, and I use air quotes around it, don't actually give a damn about policy. As it pertains to what's making their lives better, they could give a damn. Trump represents an avatar of resentment. If you really want to understand Trump, watch a lot of WWE stuff because there's a reason why he appeared in that is because he gets that sort of operatic melodrama. It is about conveying messages in non-policy terms, essentially. And that's what he does.

you see this as well, and this is how he gets tripped up when, you know, Trump finds himself in these legal problems, is that, you know, DeSantis's whole message to sort of the mainstream Republican consultant class and donor class was, well, I can give you Trump policies, and that will give you essentially the white working class turnout, is that, you know, the Trump phenomenon in 2016 and to a lesser extent in 2020 was all about, well, you know, he managed to turn out lots of non-traditional voters who have stayed home in previous elections. And so the dissanist value proposition was by checking the box on these policies, I will also turn out these voters.

However, the difference is I have self-restraint and I will not be stupid enough to get myself into these various legal problems that he has, whether it's the Stormy Daniels trial in New York, whether it's the January 6th probe that looks like it's going to end an indictment or the Mar-a-Lago indictment. I'm too smart for that. I'm not going to get caught up in that. And again, it's a fundamental misdiagnosis of Trump and his relationship with this audience. Because the thing is, Trump voters don't believe he got himself into those situations because he did something stupid.

Okay. They believe he got himself into those situations. It is essentially his legal problems are validation. Because it's not part of a legitimate investigation to the many crimes he committed. It is persecution for him being so wonderful. And so. Oh my God. Exactly.

And when he finds himself in these situations where Trump has just gotten indicted for the umpteenth time, he's flat-footed because the base is extremely angry and he can't make his primary case, which is, I'm going to be the Trump without going to jail problem. Because if you say that in explicit terms, people are going to hate you and not like you, because they don't believe that aside from a handful of donors and, you know, DC consultants and maybe some folks in Congress, the people who actually matter and show up to the polls and CHOP primaries don't believe that.

They just believe that this is validation of him being persecuted by the deep state. I mean, that is just like so accurate and yet so fucking wild. So essentially, then, Adam, is it that every single other person that is running in the Republican primary right now, aren't they just running for the VP slot?

because if you're not going to differentiate yourself by being able to say, look, I'm the, I'm the one that you can look to for policy. I'm the one that you can look to that is not potentially going to be in an orange jumpsuit or, you know, be disallowed from federal office anymore. If that is not the winning alternative strategy, then are they just running for vice president? Certainly sounds like some of them are. We've reported. that, you know, Trump himself has said very, very nice things about Vivek Ramoswamy and has wondered allow whether Vivek is actually running for a job in the Trump administration. I don't think any of the other candidates have kissed the ring quite enough for them to be considered

for cabinet positions or vice president positions. But, I mean, you do bring up a good point is, like, is there a lane that exists for a non-Trump candidate and how does one occupy that lane? And I think the only lane is really probably Pyrick, is that if you present yourself as an anti-Trump, maybe not in the sort of never-trump Chris Christie mold, but essentially as, you know, go down as a warning from the future. You are John Connor from the Terminator and you are here to warn us about what's going to happen in 2024, where you run your campaign essentially warning everybody and saying, listen, he's going to get smoked in 2024. for here's what I think we should do, you lose, and then you run on, hey, I was right.

I don't know that necessarily would work, but I think that's the only lane that actually sounds plausible to me. Do you think, because, you know, aside from Chris Christie, to your point, no one has taken on Donald Trump, not after indictment number one, not after indictment number two, and not after I'm certain the ones that have yet to come that are coming down the pike. They don't take him on. They don't use what should be for a normal human being, dings in the armor to make the case for themselves. And so in your humble opinion, do you think that they're just biding their time, hoping that the Department of Justice gives them all an opening and just moves Trump out of the way?

Listen, every governor and every senator wakes up, looks at the mirror in the morning and says, good morning, Mr. and Mrs. President. So I would not discount the value of delusional ego-centrism when running these things. You know, I don't necessarily think that anybody is banking on the DOJ to do this. I think that's probably a poor bet. I really could not get inside the head of Mike Pence and what makes him think after a crowd was literally cheering for his head in front of the capital. What makes him think, you know what? I got this. Like, who does that man think his constituency is?

I don't know. It is wild to me. I really don't know. I don't even think he's going to win. And that's the other thing is that, like, I don't even think he's going to win Indiana. If he even gets that far, I cannot rationally see Elaine. I think a lot of these things, people didn't reason their way into this and they're not going to reason their way out of it in terms of voters. And I think the only way in football, winning cures a lot in the locker room and losing doesn't. And I think the only real way that Trump could ever lose his hold on the Republican. base is by repeated loss. A lot of people will put up with a lot as long as they view you as a wave they can surf to office on. And losing is pretty much the only way you can essentially cure Trump fever. But here's the thing, Adam.

Trump had placed his hat, placed his supposed Midas touch on a bunch of candidates. Oh, yeah. That all flamed the fuck out. Yep. So in terms of his prediction on people that have. fully align themselves with him. He didn't have anybody that won any major races. No, I think the technical term is ballot box poison.

But the issue is even while his picks for the midterms were awful and cost the Republicans of the Senate, he personally, nobody wants to get in between him and his voters. And so, you know, he can screw up as much as he wants in terms of making midterm picks. But, you know, I think a lot of incumbents. and say what you want about Congress, a lot of these people know their district. And I think it's very telling that, you know, even the Florida delegation where Ron DeSantis has a very, very, very good hole in the state legislature, you're not seeing the Florida congressional delegation turn out for Ron DeSantis.

No. Like so far, I think he's got what, like Thomas Massey? Congrats. Before his announcement, they all had aligned and pledged their allegiance to Donald Trump, knowing the deep potential of him entering the race. Yes. And so you have a lot of incumbents who are deftly afraid of getting on the wrong side of Trump. And unless and until he can lose enough so that people no longer want to put their faith in him,

he's still going to be the kingmaker. With a couple of minutes that I have left with you, I want to go back to DeSantis for a minute because it's two months roughly into his presidential bid. we know that we are still a ways out from the meat of the election cycle. Do you foresee after a myriad of missteps, the firing of a dozen staff because he doesn't have the money and is hemorrhaging the money, does he come back? Like are we at a place right now where maybe we are counting our chickens before they hatch? No.

I have you on tape, Adam. Okay? Yeah, I'm happy to say that. Is that like, listen, one thing we do know is that polling, in particular, polling of Republicans is very screwy. Ever since 2016, you know, the turnout models have been a little bit off, but there's a difference between a little bit off and a lot of it off. Again, you can use members of Congress as a sort of non-scientific canaries in the coal mine

or donors. No one is really, the people who know their districts and the people who know their electorates are not banking it on run. And you're starting to see even, you know, some of the memos that are leaking out from the DeSantis campaign is saying, well, I think their strategy was initially sort of like a two-state strategy is that, well, we win in Iowa, New Hampshire, or we win one of those, and congratulations, we get the buzz, and that'll take us through all the 50 states. And then the memo that got leaked out, I think it was through NBC from early in July.

from the DeSantis campaign was essentially reassuring donors like, well, about Iowa and New Hampshire. You know, America's a big country. There's 50 states. And so we're going to go the whole way around. The thing is, is that, you know, if he's got the stomach for the humiliation, he's certainly got the money to get humiliated in every state if he wants to keep going. But I think what's going to happen is he's going to continue to get beat up by Trump. and he's going to have to do the Ted Cruz thing where after he humiliates you and attacks your family, you are going to have to stand on a stage at the GOP convention and smile, give a thumbs up, and say,

I'm behind Trump for 2024. Because, you know, if he wants to have a future in politics, if he wants to call a special session and pull Putin and allow himself to run for, you know, another term and get the Florida legislature to okay that, he's got to be on team Trump. if he wants to have a future in politics, I don't know. He's certainly not helping that with how he's running his campaign and the people he's alienating. And not for nothing, but some of the people, you know, if you think Donald Trump hates Ron DeSantis, you know, look at some of the people who work for Trump, went to work for DeSantis,

and are now back at Trump. Memories are long in politics. And he has not made a lot of friends with a lot of people who are going to be very important for a long time in Republican politics. It's hard to be friends with a robot. There you go. Folks, the piece up right now at Rolling Stone is private GOP polling data reveals why DeSantis' campaign is sputtering. Adam, thank you so much for making the time for us.

I'm sure we will speak again when there are more flames coming out of DeSantis' camp. Thanks much for having me. Danielle Moody. Andy Levy. Start us off on Monday with a cheery fuck that guy. Yeah, I think that this is good. You know, I like to begin off the week feeling really hopeful. Like everything is going super well.

Kind of like the beginning of Barbie. Anyway, so here we go. Remember how Andy we spoke several months ago about Sarah Huckabee Sanders, rolling back child protections and child labor laws and said, this is going to be a terrible idea. Remember that? Yeah. Yep.

Okay. Were we wrong? We were wrong. We're actually never wrong. And so here we go. And this is coming out of Mississippi and is coming from the Huffington Post. Just let me read you the title. Third teen worker killed in industrial accident as states try to loosen child labor laws.

So here is the story associated with this piece in HuffPost, which is that on Friday night at the Marjack Poultry Plant, in Hadesburg, Mississippi, that a third worker death has happened at the plant since 2020. Devon Thomas Perez, who NBC News reported moved to the U.S. from Guatemala six years ago, was cleaning machinery as a part of a sanitation crew when he became trapped in equipment on a conveyor belt. He died at the scene. The company said that it appears that the child, because he was 16, quote, should not have been hired. And they go on to say how devastated they are at the loss of life.

Let me tell you, this is the Republicans America. This is what they want. Black and brown children are absolutely and totally fucking disposable. We've had child labor laws on the books for God knows how long because of stories like this one. And these Republicans are now rolling back these protections. and taking children and putting them to work because they could care less about their lives. This from the pro-life, pro-family fucking party. And for that reason, the state of Mississippi and all the other Republican-controlled states

that are rolling back child protection laws are my fuck that guy for this start of the week. Yeah, it's disgraceful what we're letting happen in this country because I was looking at some of the other cases where they happen. And the company or the factory or whatever, they love to blame outside staffing companies. It seems to be what they do. But if we're going to get and drill down on this, states that are doing this know that these staffing companies are not the most ethical in the world. And they know that this is going to happen. You can push off blame to a staffing company all you want. It doesn't get, obviously, at the underlying cause for this, which is the unthinkable and unconscionable loosening of the child labor laws. And, yeah, so just fuck on these people.

So, Andy, since I've brought us into the gutter of despair, who is your fuck that guy to start off this good, good week in this Godforsaken country? Yeah, I'm going to go a little less depressing. It sucks, obviously. This is a fuck that guy. But it's a little less depressing, only because nobody died. It's the Daily Wires, Michael Knowles, who's just one of the worst out there. And he's now upset. He's decided to be outraged about the U.S. women's national soccer team.

He thinks they should be disbanded, basically. I guess some of the players did, but they didn't put their hands over their hearts for the national anthem. They had their hands clasped behind their back. And this apparently is a death penalty effect, as far as Michael Nose is concerned. But there's two things I want to get into here is he goes into a whole rant about no one that's going to miss the U.S. women's soccer team. Just get rid of it. He goes into this whole rant about it and about how nobody watches them and nobody cares. I have two things to say to that.

One, I did some digging. The World Cup game against Vietnam averaged 5.2 million viewers on Fox peaked at 6.5 million viewers. And there were an additional million viewers on Telemundo, according to Media Matters. some digging, just because I was curious, those rates are better than any NASCAR race this season, except for the Daytona 500, which kicks off the season. And I say this, I'm a NASCAR fan. And my only point in bringing this up is if you're going to pick a sport that is palatable to conservatives, it's probably going to be NASCAR. And he's sitting here saying nobody cares about the women's national team, when meanwhile, they are outdrawing NASCAR. I know it's hard to believe.

but as usual, they don't have the facts. Weird. I know. And the other thing I want to bring up is, you know, get rid of the U.S. national soccer, the women's team. Nobody cares about it, and he dogs the WNBA and all of this. I just want to point out that these are the same people who pretend to be so concerned about women's sports

when they talk about the idea of trans people competing. And you don't have to be a brain surgeon to know that they don't really care about women's sports and that this is just them being straight up anti-trans. But here he is, like, again, you know, there's no quiet part. He's just saying it. He hates the WNBA. He hates women's soccer. He does not give a shit about women's sports.

And any time you hear one of these people talking about the sanctity of women's sports and how it's important for cis women have to have their own competitions, and it's unfair for trans women to be in them, just know and just understand that they don't, don't care at all about women's sports, not in the slightest bit. And if it were up to them, they would just be gone. They would just be canceled. So for those reasons, and in his case, for so many more that I could have brought up, fuck that guy. There are no words for just the misogyny, for the transphobia, for all of it.

That's a wonderful one, Andy. No one is dead, but they're still fucking trash. Yes. Fuck that guy. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder.

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