The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump, an ‘Authoritarian,’ Could Actually Win the Presidency

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

Donald Trump recently posted a video to his Truth Social account that hosts of The New Abnormal politics podcast, Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie, say is a preview of what another MAGA presidency will look like. They discuss in this episode of the show along with Marjorie Taylor Greene’s display of Hunter Biden’s nudes. Also on this episode: Melissa Murray, professor of law at NYU, MSNBC talking head and legal analyst, and co-host of Strict Scrutiny, breaks down the possible indictments that could come down against Trump, including other charges that could stem from bigger allegations. Plus! Sarah McLaughlin, Senior Scholar, Global Expression at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Expression (FIRE), spars (kindly!) with Andy about religious freedom of speech and explains why the UN Human Rights Council’s resolution that supports the prosecution of blasphemy won’t be so “pretty” in practice. 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. NYU Law Professor and

Strict Scrutiny podcast co-host Melissa Murray talks Trump's latest legal peril. Then we'll talk to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression senior scholar Sarah McLaughlin about the UN Human Rights Council's recent decision regarding anti-religious expression. But first, let's have some fun. So, Andy, you remember, you know, back in high school where people used to hang pictures of people that they admired and liked and had crushes on in their lockers? I've heard of that. You've heard of that, yeah. So Marjorie Taylor Green, everyone's favorite Q&ON conspiracy theorist, whack job, decided to take this to another level and one that is absolutely below ground. Marjorie Taylor Green at a hearing decided to.

wave around nude photos of Hunter Biden and say, dear friends, that this is something the American people needed to see, that she was uncomfortable with having found those photos, with having printed them out, with having putting the little red boxes over them, but that this showing the nude photos of the president's son was something that, quote, the American people deserve to see. It had absolutely nothing to do with the House Oversight Committee hearing, which was being held with two IRS staffers. It had absolutely nothing to do with advancing the conversation whatsoever. Marjorie Taylor Green every day embarrasses herself, embarrasses the office of representative, and finds that hacking into hell will never find us at the bottom of what Republicans won't do.

It's a fucking disgrace. Yeah, you know, you pointed out, she said that the American people deserve to see these photos. And I mean, look, I'm not perfect, obviously. I do try to live my life right, though, and I don't think I deserve to see those photos. I don't. Count me out. The weirdest thing about this is what does this have to do with anything? You're holding hearings that are supposed to be, I guess, about bribery and Hunter Biden not paying his taxes.

and your witnesses are IRS staffers, what do nude photographs have to do with any of this? And the answer is nothing. Yeah. I guess that in MTG's mind, showing pictures of a guy having sex makes him a criminal? I don't really know. I mean, look, he is allegedly having sex with prostitutes and that thing.

I don't care. I don't care. Sure don't. There's just nothing else to say about this, but I don't care. This has nothing to do with anything, but it's just MTG. She said she was uncomfortable showing these photos. No, she wasn't.

No, because she also followed up her discomfort by sending a fucking email. Yeah. So Marjorie Taylor Green is trash. Hunter Biden has already been found guilty, has already paid restitution to the IRS for not paying his taxes for two years. He paid it back in full. He has done everything that needs to be done. in order to move on from this topic. But you know what he didn't do?

Pay a porn star with hush money from his campaign. That's right, because he never ran for fucking office. So miss me with the bullshit. You know what else he didn't do? Rape someone. But again, miss me with the bullshit of Marjorie Taylor Green and the Republican Party. But I will say this.

Bravo Biden Harris, 2024. Bravo to them for using this fool's own words where she compares Joe Biden to FDR and LBJ wanting to finish what they started, you know, by building out the middle class in America, by putting people back to work, by caring about rural poverty and urban blight and all of these things, and he used it in an ad that it's gotten 30 million views, now probably well over 30 million views, in 12 hours.

Bravo. Yes, absolutely good for them for doing it. This was such a slam dunk. Obviously, before they did it, a lot of people were basically saying, Joe Biden should turn this into a campaign ad. But a lot of times you see that, and then the campaign, you know, they're too static or they're too old or whatever to realize that that's a really good idea. So absolutely kudos to them for realizing that and for doing this.

It is amazing that, like, if I'm every other Republican in the world, I am screaming at her so loudly to shut the fuck up because she is literally out there making the Democrats' points for them. Just what an unbelievable gaffe for her to think that she was dogging Joe Biden for, as you say, for continuing down the path of FDR and LBJ. I mean, there aren't a lot of people who obviously Democrats are going to, going to be like, well, yeah, exactly. But I got to think, like, even moderates, like, I don't really think FDR is a widely reviled figure in American history. Pretty sure. I know Republicans love to

run on that, or they used to anyway, back in the Reagan days, running against the New Deal and all of that. But man, that shit's been decided. Nobody is walking around except for the most hardcore conservatives and libertarians. Nobody is running around talking about FDR being a communist. and ruining this country with the New Deal. There's sort of a general broad agreement that all of that was good. And I like to think that you could say a similar thing about LBJ and the Great Society program. Again, it was controversial in its time because the right hated it. But all the stuff that was done back then is now broadly, I think has a pretty broad mandate

of being considered good for the country. Pretty sure we wouldn't have a middle class in America. And I have lots of grievances with LBJ and FDR around who they excluded from the New Deal and the new society, namely black people, people of color, women, you know, everyone that the Southern folks didn't want and still don't want. But aside from that, we would have a less robust middle class, if not for those programs. That's inarguably true. And absolutely, I'm certainly not suggesting that either of those two men is above criticism. They absolutely are. and there are absolutely valid criticisms of both of them from a left perspective.

But the idea that those programs in particular, what she said, she's like, Joe Biden had the largest public investment in social infrastructure and environmental programs. Okay. Yes. And maybe this just comes from, you know, playing to your base so often and so frequently, but this was just incredibly tone deaf. I think we should stop calling it playing. to your base and just call it playing

to the floor. It works for me. The base boards. They be playing to their base boards. The base goes on the floor. Yeah, 100%. You know, and then we wonder, where does all of this come from?

Where does all of this mayhem and psychotic nature of Maga flow from? It flows from the mouth of Donald Trump because this latest, What do you call it? I mean, I call it broke-ass Twitter, but Twitter is broke-ass. So it's so confusing.

Donald Trump, truth or whatever he does on his own sad app, the most obvious. I'm like, just send it to the Department of Justice. Just mail it to Jack Smith. But put out a video and here's what he said. If you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before. Does he mean like invade the Capitol and defecate in the halls? Does he mean like steal from former Speaker Pelosi's office? Does he mean like beat the crap out of police? Does he mean, what do you think he's talking about, Andy? What is it that we've never seen before? I mean,

it's a little scary that we have seen all that stuff before. So what he's talking about must be a lot worse. And I don't even want to imagine what that is. But if Jack Smith isn't taking a look at this, and look, I know it's a really high bar to clear for incitement and stuff like that legally in terms of speech. But in terms of making intentions clear, this is the Bible. This lays out the case. You know, if the Bible lays out the case for God and the New Testament lays out the case for Jesus, this is Trump just laying out the case right here for what another four years of. of a Trump presidency would be like. And the idea that this guy is probably soon going to be under four separate indictments

in four different jurisdictions and is putting out videos like this. And yet he is, as far as we can tell right now, he is going to be one of two people, one of two men who has the possibility of being elected president in 2024. And it is so goddamn scary. what that says about the state of this country and, you know, obviously, particularly about the state of the Republican Party, which is just, you know, completely owned and operated by him and the MAGA heads. It's just how did we get here? Like, you look at this and you're like, yeah, shit has been bad in this country before and we've

had really bad choices between presidents. But this is something new, it feels like. Am I wrong about that? I think that you're 100% right. What is new is that we've never faced. an outright authoritarian in America that has a 50-50 toss-up chance of winning the presidency. Even though this is a man who was found to have sexually abused women lied about it, Donald Trump is probably one of the most egregious political figures that we've ever seen

in this country. And I don't think that that is an understatement. And what he's saying in this video is that how dare you hold me accountable for any goddamn thing that I've ever done, that I've been recorded saying, find me the votes. Do me a favor, though. Take down the Magatrons. In his own fucking words said these things. And he's saying, how dare you, Department of Justice in America, how dare you, the tens of millions of people that didn't vote for me, hold me to account. I am a king. I am a god. And if you mess with me, you will find out. What the fuck? Yeah. And I think I thank you because you clarified what I was trying to say. The main thing is that like you said, he's got a basically 50-50 chance of being the next president. And I think

what we're used to, and I'm talking about modern American history here, I'm not so, you know, if you're a historian, please don't yell at me about 1796 or something like that. In modern American history. We've had candidates like this, but they've always been, you know, they get four percent of the vote and no electoral votes. Their third party, their gadflies, whatever. But that is obviously not the case here. This isn't even George Wallace, who got more than four percent of the vote, but also no electoral votes. But this isn't even like a George Wallace situation where, you know, the third party populist anger. This is the standard bearer of one of the two main political parties in America. And this is new. I mean, you can hate Barry Goldwater all you want. You could hate

Ronald Reagan all you want. This is different. This is just clearly, clearly different, which is not to say that it didn't, you know, it's not building on a lot of what came before. But man, this is just off the rails. And we are just off the rails as a country right now when we can get to the point where a guy can say stuff like this and have the track record he has. And he is, I mean, I honestly, at this point, I don't see him not being the Republican nominee. So speaking of other people who are running for president that are fucking terrible and doing terrible things. So let's go down to the hate state of Florida, where Death Santis, Rob, as we like to call

him on this good show, has just passed policy and the Republican-controlled Board of Education has just passed new recommendations on the teaching of enslavement in America, where now they would like young people to be indoctrinated to believe that white slave masters who raped, beat, brutalized, tortured, and terrorized their enslaved people taught them skills that they were able to use in life. I do not have enough fucking time on this show or breath in my body to rip through that fucking state and Ron DeSantis' bullshit campaign to try and erase the fucking disgusting history that this country refuses to reckon with. But I know that if you actually believed that white people did right in this country and its founding, you wouldn't be going to these motherfucking lengths to tell the kind of a group. just lies that are going to be now a part of curriculum in the state of Florida. And what I'm waiting

for is for lawsuits to rain down on Rob, and I hope that he drowns in it. Yeah, this is really unbelievable. I mean, there's so much in here that is just unreal from from teaching that slaves learned valuable skills to other things like there's a thing that happened in Florida called the Koe Massacre. And this was in a, there was a town in Florida called Rosewood, and it was a black town, for lack of a better way to put it. And a bunch of white supremacists, I guess, a huge mob of white people descended into the town and murdered scores of residents. And this took place on a presidential election day, November 2nd, 1920. So this is all fact. This is all stuff that happened. They wanted so that when students learn about this massacre, the instruction will include

acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans. Is fighting back an act of violence? Is that what they're trying to say? Or is it, was it, were the black people being uppity? Is that what they're trying to say? I don't really know. But this is the kind of mindset we're working with now. It's just unreal. This is the same state that you cannot teach AP African American history. They have banned that from their curriculum. This is what they want. You know, we've been saying this on this podcast, and we're not the only ones. A lot of people have pointed this out. But this is what this all leads to. And it is the no pun intended whitewashing of black history in this country, which is the same thing as saying the whitewashing of American history. All their complaints about critical race theory and their, you know, stop woke and all their stuff. That's what all of that is about. That's what all of that is, leading to. And here we see just, you know, the evidence staring us in the face. I hate this man more than I can ever, ever say, more than I can ever, ever articulate. Everything that he stands for, everything that he is doing, everything that the Republican

white supremacist party is trying to do will never, will never erase the origins of slavery, the slave trade, and all the damage that has been done. done their two-four. Folks, I am so excited to welcome to the new abnormal Melissa Murray, who is a professor of law at NYU law. You see her as an MSNBC talking head and legal analyst, and she's the co-host of strict scrutiny. Melissa, there is so much illegal news.

These are the days. These are the years. I wish that I had gone to law school, but thankfully, you did and you teach the law. We need a 101 class to follow the indictment cloud that is hanging over Donald Trump's head right now. So once again, Donald Trump has truth, I like to say, used his broke-ass Twitter in order to proclaim that there is a witch hunt that is continuing at the hands of Jack Smith because he received a letter notifying him that he is, I guess, a person of interest. with the case that is associated with January 6th and the insurrection where we know that I think at this number, at this time, a thousand people have been convicted in all types of levels of being in the Capitol building, convicted of conspiracy, all of these different things. But none of the architects, none of the architects have been found to be indicted as of yet. tell us what you make of Donald Trump's, I don't know, toddler tantrum at this letter and what we should make of the letter itself and what we are saying at states.

So thank you for having me. It's great to be here. The tantrum is entirely predictable. This is what he's done every time he's received a target letter from the Department of Justice. And that by itself is noteworthy. I mean, this is not the first time. He's gotten a card. letter from the Department of Justice indicating that he is the target of a federal prosecution and likely indictment. The target letter is just that. It is a letter advising a prospective defendant that he or she is a target of a criminal investigation and a criminal investigation that in all likelihood will lead to criminal charges in the form of an indictment. So yeah, this is kind of indictment eve with Donald Trump. We've been here before. We've been here at least twice before once with Alvin Bragg and the state level indictment for the hush money. And then, of course, there was the earlier Mar-a-Lago documents target letter that Jack Smith sent. So this is, you know,

sort of par for the course. I do think there is a little bit of pre-indictment fatigue going on. I mean, this has happened so often that it's hard to be breathless in anticipation about the indictment that's likely to follow because, I mean, this man gets. indicted the way cheetahs get spots. I don't know what else to say. This is not the first one, and it probably won't be the last one either. I mean, obviously, the Department of Justice's investigations, the documents and then the insurrection are very different. But for laymen that are trying to keep up with this kind of headspin of indictment and indictment fatigue, how does this potential case around the insurrection differ in?

in terms of location, the geography, when we're talking about potential jurors, where this grand jury is, the judge. How does it differ from the documents case and Mar-Lago, Bedminster, and the nonsense down in Florida? I actually think there are very similar contours to both sets of investigations. So with regard to the Mar-a-Lago investigation, there was conduct that in Jacksmith's mind supported criminal charges that occurred both in Mar-Lago in Florida. But there also seems to be perhaps something that was going on in Bedminster as well. And, you know, they took the very interesting step

of charging the conduct that happened at Mar-Lago in the Southern District of Florida. Open question whether there might be another indictment regarding what happened at Bedminster. And that would be filed in the District of New Jersey. So, you know, even within this one universe of an investigation, there might be multiple prosecutions that would result from it. And it's, I think, quite similar in the context of January 6th. So there is,

I imagined an investigation into what happened on the day itself, like whether or not the former president incited the crowd. And if so, whether that rose to the level of criminal incitement, that might be one sort of piece of that puzzle. There might be an investigation into whether during that period leading up to the insurrection and just following it, the effort to deny the election and drum up support for Donald Trump amounted to fraud. Again, wire fraud because of all of the money that was exchanged. There was a lot of discussion of that in the January 6th Select Committee last year, and maybe that is part of a separate kind of question that could lead to an indictment. And then there's what happened in Georgia. So not just inciting or potentially defrauding, but

that there were phone calls made to Republican officials in Georgia that were intended to drum up, find votes for Donald Trump. That could be a site for criminal charges. It could also be the case that there's additional civil stuff going on with regard to the poll workers who were accused of fraudulent activities. And it turned out that that was not the case. So this is Shay Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, like that could be, there could be a defamation suit that they bring and they have brought

against the individuals who were election deniers on me. There could be something there. I mean, there's just a lot of stuff. I mean, this dude be crime in. Like, I don't know what I think it's like. Allegedly, allegedly, allegedly criming. Allegedly, allegedly criming. But it's like when you pull the thread, it's like the whole thing just falls apart.

There are so many different avenues. And I want to get your thoughts on. So when we're thinking about the insurrection, and we know that Stuart Rhodes, former leader of the oathkeepers, was found guilty on multiple charges, including seditious conspiracy. And that being a very high bar to meet. And he was found guilty of. Is there a world? I mean, and I know the upside down Earth two world that we are kind of operating in, where, again,

a Stewart Rhodes is charged and found guilty of seditious conspiracy and a Donald Trump is not. Sure, yes. There's definitely a world in which that happens. Again, when I say that there are all of these buckets that Jack Smith could be looking into that are potential sources for an indictment, like the conduct itself could give rise to an indictment. Yes, like there's lots of stuff going on. But again, I don't think that any prosecutor is going to bring any charge. against someone unless they're sure they can prove all elements of the crime. And so, yes, we have conduct, perhaps, but, you know, was it done with the requisite criminal intent? Like, that really is a

question. And, you know, I think that's intent is just very difficult to identify. The mental state is very difficult to identify, especially for someone like Donald Trump, who honestly lies as easily as he breathes. And, you know, he's like, you know, no, I wasn't intending to incite. I was just wanted them to go peacefully. Like, that wasn't... At least we heard from the January 6th hearings last year, Donald Trump was made aware of his followers having weapons. And he said, remove the magnetrons. They're not here to hurt me. Let them in. Again, like, I think this is something that has to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt before a jury of 12 people. And, you know, that's hard. It's like, again, it's purposefully hard.

The whole point of the reasonable doubt standard for a criminal conviction and, you know, proving it to a jury of 12 peers is you don't want the government to be able to railroad anyone, even if it is Donald Trump. Right, of course. Even if it is Donald Trump. Right. And so, you know, it's a purposefully high bar. And that is something I think any prosecutor thinks about before bringing charges against a prospective defendant. Like, can I prove every element of this crime to, you know, a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Can I convince 12 people that I don't know that this is what happened and happened beyond a reasonable doubt? And that's something I think that's going on here. And mental stage is really hard to divine. Like people, you know, no, that's not what I was thinking. I was actually thinking this or, you know, whatever. He has a lot of defenses that he's likely to raise about executive authority, about his role as president on that day. My point is simply that there's just a lot of stuff here. It all overlaps in really interesting ways. And it's not just

that there's overlapping stuff for Jack Smith. Like some of what Jack Smith is investigating is overlapping with what Fannie Willis is investigating. And, you know, if there's questions about, like, you know, defrauding individuals who are like sending in their money because they believe the election has been fraudulently conducted, you know, maybe that has something to do with some of the other things that we've seen like Michael Cohen. And that's, hush money. Like, who knows? But, you know, it does seem like we are in a situation where we have the unprecedented circumstance of a former president who just is in a heap of legal liability, lots of exposure. And again, still using social media as a tool to try and intimidate people,

which he's being investigated for in the first place. Oh, if you come after me, you'll face things you've never faced before. He said on truth. So you'll face things you've never face. And I'm like, what? Like somebody defecating in the halls of Congress? Like what? Somebody building a gallows on the steps of the Capitol building? I think that actually goes to the question. Like, I mean, can you imagine being this guy's lawyer? Like, what an absolute nightmare? Which one of them? I mean, it just seems like there's a revolving door of lawyers. And that's not surprising. Like, this has got to be the worst legal assignment ever, because you have a client who won't listen to you, who's convinced of his own infallibility, and who just spouts off at the mouth.

And, you know, maybe it'll work out. Maybe it'll work out. And he will prevail. Who knows? But, like, God, what a terrible job to have to deal with it. Do you think at all? And again, I'm going to ask you to, like, shake a magic eight ball and look into a crystal ball. Do you think any of these cases, all of the numbers that we've seen, again, we don't know

when Fannie Willis is going to, you know, issue her indictment. She sent a letter, told us, between July and September. She was just like, block off all of August. Block off, you know, don't take holiday because I don't want to ruin it. But do you think there is a world in which we see a trial begin for Donald Trump in the beginning of 2024? Like, or is this just going to be what we've seen of him over the last five, six decades of his crime spree, which is that here are these indictments. They're brought up. This man runs for office.

And like he said, when I win, I'm doing away with all of it. Like, does this happen any of them before people walk into a voting booth? Under the Constitution, criminal defendants are entitled to a speedy trial. And the Constitution doesn't define what is speedy. But as a general matter, like, when you are indicted, your trial should follow relatively quickly. So right now, there have been a couple of efforts to kind of nail this down with Judge Cannon. There was a pretrial hearing last week about this. She's going to issue a ruling in which she sort of identifies a target to start this trial. But Donald Trump's modus operandi here is to delay, delay, delay.

He's already filed a motion to delay the trial until after the 2024 election. And I thought that Jack Smith's response, which was very, very, very. forceful was really excellent, not just because it made clear, you know, there is no basis for delaying the trial in such an extreme way. But it was also really, I think, directed to Judge Cannon and the Court of Public Opinion. I mean, I think he was basically telling her, we are all watching you. The world is watching you. The world knows. There's no reason to delay this.

And if you give in to this guy who acts like he has you in his back pocket, it's going to look really shady. and you've already embarrassed yourself last year with the ruling on the classified documents and the appointment of the special master. So, you know, I thought it was a really effective response. She's indicated that she's going to make a decision. She was, there was some discussion in the pretrial hearing that maybe March would be suitable. March might actually work out reasonably well. You know, the Department of Justice has this policy of not undertaking like, you know, major criminal investigations or trials really. close to an election because you don't want to influence the conduct of the election. But if it starts

in March and, you know, it's concluded by the end of April, that's a pretty long time before the election. It's like almost seven to eight months. And, you know, yeah, you could get a verdict by then, whether it's guilty or not guilty, like you get a verdict. And I think that's likely to happen just simply because there is a constitutional mandate for it to happen on a relatively expeditious time line. Oh, God. I don't know what kind of medication I should start taking to prep myself for 2024, but I should start thinking about it. Before I let you go, Melissa, I want to turn my attention to what I refer to as the corrupt and grifting Supreme Court. And I can't imagine what it is like to teach law in this climate. I don't know. Hey, Danielle, it's all private jets and super yachts and fishing trips.

Is this what they think they're going into the job for? Yeah, definitely. I get taken to work every day in a private jet. I don't. It's crazy. First of all, I'll just say this. The preoccupation with Donald Trump, I get it, but I'm exhausted of this. Like, I mean, how many times can you indict this man?

I mean, he's like Candyman at this point. Like, you just say his name three times an indictment. Indict, yeah, basically. To me, the bigger issue is the Supreme Court. I know. I'm like that kid in the sixth sentence. I see the Supreme Court everywhere. But this court, regardless of who is president, this ultra-conservative, 6-to-3 conservative supermajority is going to be in place for the foreseeable future, literally doing their level best to roll back the 20th century. I mean, and like last term was bonkers over ruling Roe versus Wade. This term that just got finished, it was similarly bonkers. Like the court guts affirmative action. And a essentially says, hey, you know, state level anti-discrimination laws? Eh, conflicts with the First Amendment. I mean, it's just like, it's unbelievable.

And it is effectively a license to discriminate. And we're already seeing that. And then on top of it, like, you know, they're doing things that are just completely out of step with where the public is. Then they have these lives that are apparently very out of step where most of the working public is. And they don't fucking care. Not at all.

Clarence Thomas is with one breath, like affirmative action is undeserved largesse that well-meaning, but ultimately nefarious white people give to black people. And it makes them stigmatize and it's terrible for them and whatever. He says all of that while he is literally taking money from a billionaire to fund his grand nephews education. I will say it. He has an actual sugar daddy. You have an actual sugar daddy and you're begrudging the, of race alongside 15 million other factors in college admissions. Like, John Roberts is just writing a decision where he basically acts like every black and

brown kid who ever got into college only got there through affirmative action, which is not the case. Like, I've sat on admissions committees. Like, we are thinking about these students in a broad and holistic sense, like their work experience, their family background, where they're from in the country. Like, race is part of that, but it's not the only part. This guy literally wrote the most jacktastic opinion that basically acted like every black person you've ever seen in college only got there because of affirmative action. And it's just absolutely the racism of it is just ludicrous.

They're ludicrous. And honestly, in any other world, any Supreme Court justice caught fly fishing in Alaska with someone who has business before the court, quite significant business interests before the court. Not one time, not two time, not three time, but over ten times. And you never disclose it. You never recuse. Like, if that were a black woman or a black man or any person of color, they would have been run out on a rail by now. Like, I mean, let Sonia Sotomayor do it. I mean, they're already trying to do, like, stuff with Sonia Sotomayor.

Like, she's got these books and she goes places and sells these books. And, I mean, like, it's just ridiculous. Like, it is absolute grift. They should be subject to the same kinds of. ethics requirements that any other public servant is subject to. And the fact that they're doing this with impunity, like, Clarence Thomas is literally the Shiree Whitfield of the Supreme Court. He's literally like, who gone check me, boo? Who, who going to check me? No one. I thought we had checks and balances, but I realize over the last seven, eight years, we got nothing. We got,

there's no recourse here. And this is the other thing, right? Like, they are utterly unchecked. checked by any other institution. Congress isn't going to do it. The president isn't going to do it. And they're writing these opinions that essentially arrogate even more power to them. So think about 303 Creative versus Alenis. This was the one where they allowed the Christian website designer to basically not provide services to same-sex couples because it was quote unquote compelled speech. What is speech for this purpose? Like what kinds of wedding related activities are expressive such that you can opt out of basic public accommodations laws because you're suddenly an expressive artist.

They never tell us what expression looks like in this context. Like here, apparently it's a website designer. But what else is it? Is it flowers? Is it linens that you rent for your wedding? Like, we just don't know. And the thing is, we're not going to know until they tell us. Like, that's a decision that they get to make in their own time.

And they're just irrigating more power to tell us what's going to happen and what's going to be. Like, it is absolutely the height of hubris. It is judicial imperialism of the nth order. And honestly, to me, this is a zillion times more important than whatever Facakechugganus Donald Trump is involved in. A thousand percent. Well, Melissa, we will have to leave it there today. But I hope that you will come back to wave through more.

I'm telling you just got a hot and bothered like saying this. Like, I'm like sweating now. Oh, no. Yes, I know. We all need to cool off. Maybe we can go fly fishing. Only in Alaska, only on a private jet. Only in Alaska. Only on a private jet. The seat on the plane was going to go unoccupied unless he sat there. I mean, obviously. 100%. I'm going to do that next time I see a spare seat in first class. This would have gone unoccupied unless I sat in it. So I did. Logic. Yeah. Let's all try it. Let's all try that.

Yeah. Thank you, friend. Appreciate you. Last week, in the wake of the burning of a Quran in Sweden, the United Nations Human Rights Council approved a resolution on religious hatred and bigotry by a vote of 28 to 12 with seven abstentions. Among the 12 votes against was the United States, and here to explain why that was the right call is Sarah McLaughlin, senior scholar, Global Expression at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Expression or Fire. Sarah, thanks so much for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me, Andy. Okay, so let's start with, look, I have to ask this. Why do you and apparently America like religious hatred and bigotry? I'm glad we're starting off with an easy question. So obviously, you know, I would disagree with the notion that one has to like religious hatred to be opposed to attempts to prosecute it. But the issue, you know, here is what the UN Human Rights Council is suggesting is that, you know, anti-religious speech or,

you know, what a lot of people would consider blasphemy, something that needs to be prosecuted. And I think what the U.S., and what I think is what will happen there is it's not going to make hatred go away. What it will do is silence dissenters. And we can look at the countries that do currently prosecute this kind of speech to get a sense of what will happen. And it's not pretty. I do want to get into some of these countries what it does look like where they do prosecute blasphemy, as you correctly call it. Before we get there, I'm a little confused. because this is the UN Human Rights Council, and I guess they're not so much with the belief that freedom of speech is a human right?

Oh, well, you know, there's, I think, you know, Article 19 says that freedom expression is a human right. But what's happening here is, you know, the background for people who might not be familiar with it is when this Quran burning incident happened last month in Sweden, There were a lot of demands that Sweden do something, that it do something to make sure this couldn't happen again, that this provocative expression isn't allowed to insult and hurt and upset people. And the organization of Islamic cooperation, it's a permanent delegation to the UN. And so they have 57 member states within that OIC. And a lot of them are Muslim majority nations. They issued a statement calling for international response to this, for the UN to do something. for countries to do something.

You know, what we're looking at here is kind of a lot of global demands, and this isn't uncommon. We see this happen every time there's a major international newsmaking incident, whether it's cartoons, whether it's a novel, you know, just something that people find deeply offensive on a religious level. Okay, so you quote Pakistan's envoy to the UN, Khalil Hashmi, as saying, the opposition of a few in the room has emanated from their unwillingness to condemn the public. desecration of the Holy Quran. And this is an easily demonstrated falsehood. You also point out, the U.S. ambassador specifically said she wished the council had condemned deplorable acts of

anti-Muslim hatred while also respecting freedom of expression. Yeah. Pakistan, it's kind of absurd that they're taking this position here because if you look at what's happening in Pakistan on a regular basis, you can see why their position of prosecution for this kind of expression, how dangerous it is, and how a lot of the people who might be open-minded to the idea that prosecution is necessary, I think if they looked at what's happening in Pakistan, they would take a step back and say, wait, this isn't what we want. For people who aren't familiar with it, Pakistan has, among the strictest blasphemy laws in the world, they're currently one of seven countries maintaining the death sentence for blasphemy. And death sentences are common. It was a very important. It was a very important. It was

in Pakistan, and it'll be for somebody saying the wrong thing, somebody who appears to be insufficiently supportive of the religion of their peers. That's enough to get you in prison and possibly on death row. And it's not just the prosecutions and the death sentences. Pakistan also has a really disturbing frequency of mob violence against people who haven't been proven as blasphemers, just people who someone pointed out them and said, this person, blaspheme, this person desecrated a Quran, that alone can sometimes be enough to get you at the hands of the mob. And so to have Pakistan suggest that you need these kind of laws to do something to combat religious hatred is ridiculous. Religious discord is very common within Pakistan, and their laws

not only haven't stopped it, but I think in some ways encourage it. It sounds to me like what you're saying is that, I don't know, maybe there are some people who take advantage of making blasphemy accusations as cover to settle personal disputes, Sarah? Yeah, that happens. That's happened a number of times because, you know, it's very hard to prove whether or not someone said something blasphemous. And so, you know, a lot of times if you have a fight with a neighbor, you have a disagreement with someone you purchase something from and they're not giving you what you want, you

accuse them a blasphemy and guess what? Your problem might be solved because either the government will prosecute them or a mob will be angry and attack them. I look at that and I don't see, you know, a brave. attempt to stop religious discord. Yeah. I mean, look, I'm just, I'm a simple fellow, Sarah, as you know. I know, Andy. It strikes me that when people like Hajmi say we have to counter the scourge of religious hatred, they want to pretend like they're not one of the scourgers. Yeah. And, you know, it's funny. One of the other countries that voted in favor of this resolution was China. If China wants to

find who's responsible for religious discord and hatred, including against Muslims, I think it can look in the mirror. Yeah, that's unreal. Yeah. So, you know, to see that, and it's, it really kind of shows you how little you can trust countries like this when they say they're just trying to stop hatred. What they want is to be able to control people. And especially in countries that, you know, are more theocratic and where religious law and political law are merged, what you're asking is if you want to ban some religious expression, you're banning political expression too. Yeah, I mean, look, it's also when these people say that they're opposed to, religious hatred, I don't think they're being fully truthful here. I think what they're saying is

they are opposed to anybody not being on board with their chosen religion. And I don't want to make this just a Muslim thing, although, as you pointed out, a lot of these countries that have laws like this are Muslim. But there are certainly Christians around the world who feel this way about Christianity, that it can't be mocked, that it can't be blasphemed against. But they have no trouble, you know, smearing Muslims or anything like that. Yeah, well, if you look at Poland, Poland is one of those countries that's pursuing blasphemy prosecutions from a Catholic angle, from a Christian angle. So, you know, there have been people in recent years convicted for hurting religious feelings, you know, another name for a blasphemy law. Because of expression, they've engaged in at pro-abortion rights

protests. There was one case, it was a few women were arrested after they created images of the Virgin Mary with a rainbow halo supporting LGBT rights. And so, you know, you see how quickly this goes off the rails. Suddenly, stopping religious hatred becomes stopping political speech, the turn of the time. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I, you know, you said earlier that this does not bode well for the world's dissenters, and I'm assuming this is the kind of thing you're talking about. Yeah. And, you know, the reason why I like to point that out is because I will speak to a lot of people who are coming at this, you know, more from perspective on the left where they, you know, understandably don't like, you know, anti-Muslim hatred.

That's a reasonable position to have. But I think that they are persuaded that you need these kinds of laws. And they don't truly understand what these laws look like and how they operate in practice. So, you know, I feel like I constantly have to remind people, you know, the things that you support, the speech you support might actually be the kind that's, you know, not permitted under these laws and, you know, how countries would actually prosecute what they deem and what some people deem to be religious hatred. Well, yeah, and we saw a lot of this back in the Charlie Hebdo days, and you saw statements from people that you would not have thought would say such things, but them saying things like the sort of victim blaming and saying that the publication of these cartoons was a provocation, et cetera. And it was kind of shocking to see, if I'm recalling correctly, I think Penn put out sort of a mealy-mouth statement. Or am I wrong about that?

I don't remember who said one of the time. I think Penn might have offered an award to Charlie Hebdo. that created a controversy. I would have to look back at the details. But, you know, I agree. At that time, there were people that you wouldn't expect it coming from and more people than you would think who would say, if they didn't want this to happen, they shouldn't have printed those cartoons. You know, the next step down from that is, I think it was last year,

there was a woman who ended up being beaten to death by a mob in Nigeria. And it's because she was a college student and she sent a WhatsApp message to her classmates that people thought was too flippant about religion. And so it's, you know, where is the principle here? You know, when is it suddenly okay to kill someone because they engaged in even offensive religious speech that you don't like to find that principle for me? And a lot of the people who, I think,

flippantly weigh in on this, are troubled by it when it gets to being asked to define the principle. No, absolutely. And I want to clarify, Penn itself as an organization, was okay. But I think it was like 204 members of Penn

wrote a letter to the organization upset that Penn was going to give this award to Charlie Hebdo. Yeah, yeah. And basically saying that I'm reading from the letter, there is a critical difference between staunchly supporting expression that violates the acceptable and enthusiastically rewarding such expression. And that they said that the cartoons must be seen as being intended to cause further humiliation and suffering. You can go back years earlier and go back to Satanic Verses when Rushdie published those. And the same things were said then. And it's really amazing, you know, how quickly people will be able to, are willing to sell out artists and writers.

You know, even if you don't like what they're saying, to be so casual about their potential murder because of something they said, it's pretty shocking. And I think what bothers me is how many people don't find it shocking to have that viewpoint. Yeah, to be fair, I don't think Salman Rushdie's in any day. danger. Yeah, who would ever attack Selma Rosti? Definitely. That would never happen. Something I found incredibly depressing in this particular story was something that the UN Human Rights High Commissioner Folker Turk said to the council. He said that inflammatory acts against religion are, quote,

offensive, irresponsible, and wrong. What depressed me about this is not that he's not entitled to that belief, which in some cases I completely agree with. But he is, he is a very important. He is, is the so-called human rights commissioner, and he apparently thinks that being offensive or irresponsible should be illegal? Yeah, and, you know, that's the problem with a lot of these statements. If you, you know, condemning it is entirely separate, saying I disagree with what this person does. Right. I think they're wrong. It's when you couple that and you don't separate it from the suggesting that it should be prosecuted,

then it gets pretty disturbing, this idea that I find it offensive, I find it wrong. And also you should probably go to jail for it. Exactly. Yeah, or be killed, as you pointed out in Pakistan. Again, like you said, you sort of, I guess we now expect some people are going to think like this, but the human rights high commissioner of the UN? Yeah, I mean, it's kind of a fundamental question of what do you think a human being has a right to? Do they have a right to expression? Or do they have a right to not hear expression they don't like? Personally, I think it's the right to expression, but I guess some members of the Human Rights Council disagree. Yeah, I don't understand that, you know, as a religious person, it seems to me you should be secure enough in your faith that you don't have to force other people to respect it and that you can handle mockery, you can handle straight up blasphemy or whatever and just be like, okay, that's how you feel I am secure in my faith. Yeah, I think it definitely betrays a lack of confidence, a lack of true belief. If, you know, if your belief is so weak that someone's saying something offensive about it can break it. I'm not sure. was really faith to start with. Absolutely. This gets into a larger question, and this maybe put you on the spot a little bit because it sort of wasn't something that I had planned on talking about,

but it's a bugaboo for me. So I'm just going to raise it. And I don't know how else to put this. And I think I put it like this before. I don't believe that we should hold religious beliefs sacred. And by that, I mean, why do you get an exemption for your religious belief? And that you have the absolute right, obviously, to follow any religion you want. But you do not have the right to say, oh, you can't do that because of my religion, or, you know, the government needs to do this in the name of my religion. Here in the West, we sort of put religion up there with things like freedom of speech and things that are like absolute. And then we sort of, we elevate them. Like, why are religious beliefs more important than political beliefs? What if my belief is that all religions are stupid and anyone who follows

them should be put in jail? Why don't I get to live my life that way? I think you are trying to get prosecuted for religious hatred now. Maybe. It's hard to answer. I know a lot of deeply religious people who would explain why they think that those views are more deeply held than anything else. For them? Yeah, for them. But I think my counter for that would be, you know, if religious views are so deeply important and so close to why people act as they do, why they make the decisions they do, how people live their lives. I think my counter to that would be, doesn't that mean it's even more open to discussion, more open debate? I mean, if this is the way that people are making their moral decisions, making on some country's policy decisions,

if anything, that makes it more up for discussion. I think that makes it more important for us to debate it. And so, yeah, I mean, I agree with it that the thought that it's because it's so deeply held and so personal that that makes it, for some reason, not up for discussion. Yeah, I would agree that that's a little backwards. Yeah, I mean, I apologize for going off on a little rant there, but this is something that just I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I guess it just annoys me. And there are, you know, in this country, we have a lot of sort of right-wing Christians who complain about cancel culture left and right, but they don't want a single thing. And that even gently mocks their religion to be allowed, it feels like.

Yeah, and I mean, I would say to that that I'm glad that we have the precedent we do, you know, that ensures we can, you know, even provocatively and divisively attack what our, you know, fellow citizens think and believe, you know, and a lot of times I look at, you know, Texas v. Johnson, the question of flag burning. You know, I think it's important that we have those precedents that just because something is deeply held and because people might even look at it as the most important symbol or the most important thing in their lives, that doesn't mean that the rest of the people around them have to feel that way. And, you know, it's good because I think, you know, in every religion, you're going to find people who think that their views should be

exempt from public debate. And I'm glad that legally they're not. For now. For now. I mean, let's be honest, Sarah, for now. Yeah, well, the UN Human Rights Council has this way, we'll say. Exactly. If the Human Rights Council and, you know, you and the woke mob have their way, I will be imprisoned for wrong think, Sarah, because I'm not heterodox enough. We would miss your tweet so much. I know, I know. I appreciate that. We're actually out of time, which I wanted to get into, the one thing where I think the UN Council could have been correct is if they made it a crime to be a Philadelphia sports fan.

I saw it coming from a mile away, all right? This seemed to be out of time, so I can't really get into that right now. I'll send you a long email rebuttal, don't worry. I'm going to encourage the UN to look into this. Sarah McLaughlin from Fire, thank you so much for being here and keeping us up to speed on what the UN is trying to do to me and my precious freedoms. Thanks for having me. Andy Levy.

Danielle Moody. Andy, how are you rounding out this good? Good, good week in America with your fuck that guy. I'm going to round it out in the most American way possible by talking about Congresswoman Lauren Bobert. Oh. Yeah. On Tuesday, there were some anti-gun violence activists, I guess you called them. She was handed a pamphlet by the mother of a victim in the Uvaldi massacre.

And along with that pamphlet, there was a little pin that was representation of the girl's little shoes, the girl who had been killed in this massacre. And there's video. You see Bobert being handed this. And then she walks down the hallway and then she gets to the first trash can she sees and she throws away the pamphlet and the pin. And it's like, look, I get that you fetishize guns and, you know, do God knows what with them in the privacy of your own home. Have a little respect for the mother of a victim of a, mass shooting and don't throw the shit out where she can see you do that. Like, at the very

least, get to your office, get somewhere, and then roll your eyes and throw it out because you don't care at all about gun violence. This is not even about politics. This is about being, like, again, like the baseline standard for being a human being is to not do something like that and to recognize that someone else is in pain. And even if you disagree with them over the cause of that pain and the solutions to preventing that sort of pain from being inflicted on other parents throughout the country. Fine. Whatever. I don't even care about that right now. What I care about is, holy shit, you just did this in the view of a mother who lost her world, who lost her world to senseless violence in a school, in a place where children are supposed to be learning how to live

and how to have productive lives and happy lives. And instead, they, They get gunned down. And you don't even have, again, the baseline common human decency to get out of this woman's sight before you throw away the shit that represents her daughter's murder. And it's just, it really is. Like, I don't know how you get to be an adult without even that extremely low bar of empathy. So for that, and obviously for so many more reasons, but particularly for that today, fuck that woman. Oh my God. She's trash, you know, and you can't expect much from trash. And so my heart goes out to the mother that lost her child in senseless gun violence in a place that she should have been safe. But you can't expect much from those people because they haven't, I don't know. I guess they're still working from a reptilian mind. I have no idea. But it's disgusting. Yeah. All right. So, Danielle, cheer us up with your fuck that guy. Oh my God.

Give us a happy fuck that guy. Oh, absolutely. I usually stay in politics. But, you know, on this week's fuck that guy, I got to move into entertainment into a genre of music I fucking hate. But Jason Aldeen would exemplify some of the reasons why, yeah, it's not a favorite genre of mine. So this motherfucker decided to record a song back in May.

called Try That in a Small Town. Mind you, parentheses, he's not from a small town. Right. Nonetheless, he puts out this song, which is horrible. The lyrics and, I mean, it's just, like, it's trash. I don't know what else to say. I want to give you a little piece of it. Quote, got a gun that my granddad gave me.

They say one day they're going to round it up. That shit may fly in the city. good luck trying that in a small town. Yeah. So you would think that being removed from the CMT's roundup would be enough. He releases a video and to not be outdone as the clear white supremac that he is because I just want, you know, folks to know that you don't need to sing the N-word in order to be a white supremacist because this suffices.

He releases a video, and the backdrop of the video, I shit you not, is the site of one of the most egregious lynchings that happened in 1927 in Columbia, the Mori County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, where a white lynch mob dragged a young man named Henry Choet through the streets behind a car before hanging him from a second-story courthouse window. It is also the site, I believe, of another white domestic terrorist mob violence in the 1950s. And in this piece of trashes video, he's projecting images, violent images that feature black and brown faces on said building, and then also images of BLM's uprising in 2020. When the video is pulled, he decides to say that the interpretation that people have is wrong, and this is about neighbor protecting neighbor, and it doesn't matter your background or blah, blah, blah, shut the entire fuck up. First of all, you've worn blackface.

Second of all, you're talking about shooting people, and you had an experience firsthand at a mass shooting that took down 58 souls in Las Vegas several years ago. He was one of the performers that were there. So to put out this video at this courthouse, which you know the fucking history of, and then to think that we are all what, boo-boo the fool? Because you don't drop the fucking N-word?

We go and say, oh, well, he didn't really mean what he said. Take these motherfuckers at their word. Take them at their song. Take them at their word. Take them at their video production when they tell you who they are, when they sing about it, when they turn it into a jig. Stop making excuses. So for that reason, and for all of the white supremacist motherfuckers that are buying his shit

that is now at the top of iTunes, fuck all y'all. Yeah, there's just so much about this. You pointed out he lives in Nashville or whatever. He grew up in Macon, Georgia. That is not a small town. That's a city. Mm-hmm. 100,000-plus people.

And you know what? fine, like you're allowed to write a song from the point of view of someone who's not you. The thing is, though, that's not what he's trying to do here. What he's trying to do is claim this thing that conservatives love to claim. And that's that they're all small town, real America. And you look at them and it doesn't matter where they live or where they grew up. They all try to claim this. And it's another in the long list of things that would be funny, except that it somehow works.

But you talked about his sort of explanation for this, and he talks about, you know, the feeling of the community that I had growing up where we took care of our neighbors regardless of differences of background or belief. Okay. And then you write a song where if someone burns a flag, they get the shit kicked out of them and that's the right thing to do. I'm not sure how that squares with taking care of your neighbors regardless of differences of belief. There seems to be a problem there. But obviously he doesn't see it that way. And yeah, I mean, everything you said just, I couldn't endorse more. Fuck that guy and everyone who buys his music. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal.

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