The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump Has Completely Forgotten His Relationship With Mike Pence

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

This week on The New Abnormal, hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy take issue with Trump’s latest comments surrounding Kamala Harris and Mike Pence. Plus! Journalist, historian and author Rick Perlstein joins us to tell us all about his recent piece for the American Prospect. Then, Dr. Jamil Zaki is here to tell us about their new book, “Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness.” 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 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 Kedden, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. Journalist historian and Nixon land author Rick Pearlstein joins us to tell us all about his recent piece for the American prospect.

Say it to my face, how Democrats learn to tell the plain truth and like it. Then psychologist at Stanford professor, Dr. Jamil Zaki, is here to tell us about their new book, Hope for Cynics, The Surprising Science of Human Goodness. But first, let's have some fun. Danielle, welcome back from the holiday weekend. I don't know if you were able to have any laughs over the weekend, but there was a clip that was going around on Sunday that I think you'll find amusing. And it was an interview that Trump gave with Mark Levin on Fox, naturally.

And among the things he said was this. He said, now they have Kamala who has many deficiencies, but she's a nasty person. The way she treated Mike Pence was horrible. So she tried to hang him? No. See, that's where you would think that might be the case. But in fact, I know it was a long time ago, and I think a lot of the media has forgotten, but it was actually Donald Trump, whose supporters were chanting hang Mike Pence as he stood around and did nothing. So it's pretty hilarious for him to be out there saying,

that she treated Mike Pence horribly. I mean, at least he didn't call her a nasty woman. She's a nasty person. So maybe that is like very, you know, non-gendered of him. I just think it's hilarious. This is the same Mike Pence that's not endorsing him, right? Yeah. And the same Mike Pence, who he sends an entire mob to go kill.

Yeah. And then called very weak for not doing the job that he asked him to do by stealing an election. It's the same guy. I looked at it up. Okay, great. I just wanted to be clear. Yeah, no, sure. And also, so now three years ago is a long time ago because, like, you know, if we're looking at, you know, nine through 12th grade, we haven't even graduated high school yet at the point that we're at right now.

And so three years, not a long time. But yeah, you know, okay. Yeah. But we're going to get a lot more into the media not having a very good memory later in the show. And for now, we can talk about someone who. it's not so much that he doesn't have a good memory, though he doesn't because he is completely sundowning, and I'm, of course, talking about sundown-old Trump. But he is, I'll use the New York Times' word, even though I don't like it. Here's their headline, Trump contorts himself on abortion in search of

political gain. Now, that's, you know, speaking of contortions, that's the New York Times looking for ways to avoid saying lies. But what they're talking about is a real thing. And that is that, Donald Trump has cannot figure out how to thread the needle on the issue of abortion. And so what we've seen from him is, you know, he's trying to please. He's evangelical masters. So he'll say things, you know, like he infamously did in an interview a bunch of years ago that there have to be consequences for women who have abortions, meaning legal consequences. And then he'll backtrack on that. And then he'll be talking to one interviewer and he'll say that he is considering supporting the ballot measure that's going to be before voters in Florida this November that will allow abortion up to 24 weeks in that state, which currently has a six-week ban. And then the day after, he goes on Fox News to say that he will, in fact, vote against that ban.

He's a Florida resident, remember. He's all over the place. He takes credit for Roe being overturned. But at the same time, he says he won't sign a federal abortion ban if one would to come across his desk, which I don't think anybody believes. And this is who he is. And it's way past time for anybody. And by anybody, I mean basically the media, because nobody else buys this shit. It's way past time for the media to stop treating this as anything but what it is.

He has done and will do everything in his power to make abortions either incredibly hard to get. or impossible to get. And that's the end of the story. I mean, it's not the end of the story. Because I just have to ask this, did it become illegal for mainstream media to use the word lie? Because I'm just wondering why use a 50 cent word when a penny will do. Like you could just say Donald Trump continues to lie about his thoughts on abortion. I don't understand why every headline that we see uses some type of fucking euphemism for the word lie. You can't at one time take credit and pat yourself on the back for appointing three right-wing justices that lied in their Senate confirmation hearings about

precedent and then turn around and say that, oh, I don't really know what happened with that Roe v. way thing when you're in front of one audience with cameras that are outside of the Fox News bubble and then say, oh, but I'm not going to do anything further when even your own vice presidential pick voted for legislation that would penalize women and go so far as to what is it? And not protect IVF, not protect birth control, all of this. It's just anyone who believes Donald Trump at this point in time gets. what they fucking deserve. Like, I just cannot stress that enough. There is nothing that Donald Trump has said over the last eight years that should have you believe anything that comes out of his mouth.

If somebody decided to say, oh, I don't know, maybe somebody other than Egypt should try and give him $10 million to change his mind on abortion. That would be the only way that it would change is if you had enough money to get him to change his mind. Like, that's it. So I'm just like, I'm so over these headlines that are so ridiculous. Who got abortion overturned? Donald Trump. Why? Because of Kavanaugh, because of Barrett, and because of Gorsuch.

That's it. Without those three fucking justices, we'd still have Roe v. Wade, oh, and affirmative action, and oh, gun laws that protect people's lives, and the list goes on and on. They're exhausting. I'm exhausted. It's a holiday. Yes.

It sounds like you're laboring. Yeah, Daniel. I am. Which is fitting. And it feels forceful at that. So you mentioned IVF, and here's another thing. And this, again, is where you, you know, what you said about anyone who believes Donald Trump right now, it deserves what they get.

Donald Trump last week called for IVF to be free. He said in his administration, IVF treatments will be free. No, they won't. And he doesn't want that. And the people he is beholden to the evangelicals. I would say wing of the party, but it's basically the whole party at this point. They won't let that happen. But he comes out and he says this because he knows, like he, his political instincts are at least good enough to know that abortion and IVF are loser issues for Republicans because the majority of

Americans believe in abortion rights and believe that people should have access to IVF. Basically, they believe in reproductive rights for women. So he comes out and says, well, when I'm president, IVF will be free. You were president for four years. You didn't make IVF free. But setting that aside, I am sure anyone listening to this podcast when they heard that was like, well, he's lying. Because as I've said before, we have the most intelligent and attractive listeners. It's true. They've done studies. More and more people are saying this. But the New York Times goes ahead and has a story. Trump called for IVF to be free. How would that work? Why are you taking this seriously. Because that's what they do. Because that's what they do. But it's unbelievable.

Like, I know the Charlie Brown with the football thing is such an overplayed metaphor or analogy, but it really is. It's absolutely unreal how credulous they are. And again, this is a losing issue for Republicans. Donald Trump knows this. And so he's doing whatever he can to try to make it seem like the party stance is not the party stance. But guess what? The party stance is the party stance. Yeah, it is. And, you know, there isn't a way to avoid what it is that you have overturned 50 years

of precedent in this country. There isn't a way for people to unlisten to the stories of women having to be near death or continuing to die in one of the wealthiest fucking countries in the world because we have made child labor, childbirth, so goddamn dangerous. And name another developed country with the kind of resources and technologies that we do that has one and four black mothers dying in childbirth. Show me a place that has poor white women dying in childbirth because there are OBGYN clinics that are shutting down in those areas out of fear of litigation.

You know, I don't know what it is that these people think happen. when women become pregnant, but let me tell you, let me just remind folks, it is not the fucking stork that delivers a clean, wrapped up baby in like cloth from crate and barrel. That's not what happens. They continue to make it so that this is not a glorious miracle, but a life-threatening decision that you're not even allowing women to make, but you are forcing them to make, life and death decisions that they shouldn't have to. I'm just like, you know what? Again, I say the mainstream media, the people that vote for Donald Trump, like, this is

the world that you want to live in because it makes absolutely no sense to me. It makes no sense to me to pose as a question something that you know could never absolutely happen. Oh, Donald Trump's going to make IVF, you know, free. No, he's not. Donald Trump says that he's going to fly to the moon by flapping his wings. Right. I wonder how much his arms will.

her. Like, that's coming to you next on CNN. Right. Here's a look at the science behind that. Oh, yo. Yeah, it's unreal. But Danielle, the good news for Trump is, as the Trump ticket craters among women, I think there was a poll that showed an eight-point swing. I can't remember if it was all women or white women to Harris after the convention. At least he's got J.D. Vance out there shoring up the woman vote.

Oh, wait. No. I'm now being told that that's not the case. We've heard the childless cat lady comments that have been dug up from a podcast that Vance did, talking about teachers who don't have biological children, being very disturbing to him. And now there's another podcast that got dug up, which was from 2021. It's from an organization called American Moment, which at the time of the podcast release, included an advisory board member named J.D. Vance. Here's what he said. You have women who think

that truly the liberationist path is to spend 90 hours a week working in a cubicle at McKinsey instead of starting a family and having children. What they don't realize, and I think some of them do eventually realize that, thank God, is that that is actually a path to misery. Look, I will agree that working 90 hours a week at McKinsey is probably a path to misery. I don't think that's just for women, though. But Danielle, I'm going to turn this over to you for so many reasons. I don't know who has time to do so many podcasts that isn't an actual podcast host other than J.D. Vance. Like, his calendar was clearly booked. Ted Cruz is right there, Daniel. Jesus. But he's a host and actually getting paid. Jady Vance is just going around doing this shit for free.

Like, you know, just like, what can I say? that will sound awful. By the way, this shit is not dug up. You just put in JD Vance and podcast and the shit overflow it. Right? It's not as if we're going into the archives with microfilm looking for this shit.

You know, like it's just, and you know, here was the question all that I had to ask before we started. I was just like, just remind me, J.D. Vance's wife works, right? Like, she's an attorney, right? That clerked for Supreme Court justices and just left her firm so that she could be on this failing campaign trail of tears with her husband.

And I'm just like, so do you hate her? And instead of going a couple's therapy because you have nannies raising your kids, like you're taking it out on other women and assuming that they're miserable? Like I don't get the assumptions that women who are independent, who make choices about their lives, that don't include centering men in them or children in them are somehow miserable. Because I know if I'm able to make my own choices, then those are the choices that I'm making. And most likely I am happy about them.

So this, like this weird, sick obsession that J.D. Vance has with independent women is vile to me, given the fact that he married a woman who has a big career or did until she decided to follow him around on the campaign trail. And I'm sure she just took like a bit of a leave of absence in order to do fulfill whatever second lady job she thinks that she's going to have. I just like, I'm so over these people. Also, you know, Donald Trump's wife doesn't have a job, but she doesn't seem to be on the campaign trail. Has anybody asked where Melania is? I'm surely somewhere coming up with the scariest fucking Christmas idea that she could possibly create wearing like wearing diamonds and, you know, and a jacket that reads, I don't give a fuck about you. Like, I just, these men, I don't understand the women that marry them.

I don't understand like standing by this. I don't, I don't get it. But, you know, like, wow. And I keep saying, I'm like, is this all from the same interview? No, J.D. Vance has been on a junket tour of right-wing toxic misogynist podcasters, like, since the 2020s began. While the rest of us were dealing with COVID, he's like, I got all this time on my hands to share my thoughts on the women folk. Oh, God. We should also point out, it's not just women that J.D. Vance has an issue with on that same podcast.

podcast, he went after, this is another favorite talking point of the right wing, he said, we don't talk enough about the fact that traditional masculine traits are now actively suppressed from childhood all the way through adulthood. And he talked about how his son's habit of fighting imaginary monsters is actually part of, quote, something deeply cultural and biological, spiritual, about this desire to defend his home and his family. And he said, if the Chinese invade us in 10 years, they're going to be defeated or they're going to be beaten back by boys who practice fighting the monsters who become proud men who defend their homes. They're not going to be defended by the soy boys who want to feed the monsters. These people are, you have to use the word weird.

It really is like just the best descriptor of them. Their notions of gender conformity are so, I mean, outdated is like the kindest way of putting it, I guess. I guess. I guess. Like, I just, you know, the question that needs to be asked is, who hurt you? I know. Like, in all honesty, who hurt you? Because, like, I need to get to the root of it so that we can figure out, like, how they don't create policies that now wound the rest of us. To me, it is beyond weird. Like, I know that that's, like, the word.

But, like, they're just sick. Their notions about women, about child rearing, about gender roles are just. sick. And the fact that these people are going to be possibly 50-50 chance in charge of the rest of our lives should be terrifying. I don't know because like I sure as hell don't want to live in the Handmaid's Tale where I guess my childless self will just be made to be, I don't even know. I don't even know what the roles are for childless women. I guess to run behind and catch the babies falling out of the women that can bear children. I don't fucking know. This is where I think the whole Harris Wall's theme of joy is really good. Because you look at

these people, they're so miserable. And all they talk about is things that other people do that make them miserable, not the other people. That's all they can ever think about is what is this person doing with their life that has nothing to do with me. But I need to put a stop to it because it makes me miserable. It makes me uncomfortable. And there is Harrison Wall saying, you know what, we're all about joy. Just we want people to live their lives. And, you know, look, I don't want to make, I guess, too much of this because I don't, I don't want to start sounding like Harrison Walls or like the second coming or something like that. But it's such a stark contrast. And it's possibly the biggest contrast that they can draw and one that I think will be appealing to a lot of folks.

Yeah, because I, for one, I'm over it. My next guest is a journalist historian and the award-winning author of a four-book series, which includes Before the Storm, Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, Nixon Land, the Invisible Storm, and Reagan Land. He has a regular column at the American Prospect and recently wrote a piece there titled, Say It to My Face, How Democrats Learned to Tell the Plain Truth and Like It. And he joins me now to talk about it. Rick, thanks so much for being here. Great to be here. So the thesis of your piece is Democrats are suddenly allowed to. to say what they mean. And before we get to this change, talk about when and why they stopped saying what they mean. Yeah, the history is really interesting.

It's kind of in my last book, Reagan Land, which covers how Ronald Reagan won the presidential election. And I think even more traumatically for Democrats at the time, it wasn't just that Reagan won in a landslide when, you know, up to the eve of the election, it was supposed to be tied. It was that a bunch of the most prominent, beloved, liberal senators from heartland states like, you know, Idaho and Iowa and South Dakota in the case of George McGovern, lost their seats to virulent conservatives. And basically Democrats, especially liberal Democrats, woke up the next morning and asked the most basic questions about where they had gone wrong. It was really traumatic. It was really quite sharp.

And I think one of the best details of this to explain how much this changed the basic presumptions of how Democrats did politics was that some of the people who lost in that election were a lot of the people who became the most kind of triangulating Democrats in the future. Like Bill Clinton lost his governor's race. He lost re-election for governor in Arkansas after raising taxes on cars. And then he also was kind of blamed for this very kind of migrant crisis thing that happened when a bunch of Cuban exiles came to America and were housed in a military base in Arkansas. And there was this kind of racist terror that they were going to maraud and very familiar to the kind of thing we hear now. Another example is Joe Lieberman. He lost the race for, I think it was Attorney General in Connecticut, right?

And the third example is there was this wonderful. liberal senator from Indiana, Birchby. He was called the king of the constitutional amendments. He was behind, you know, the constitutional amendment giving 18-year-olds the vote. He was a real liberal populist. And his son, a guy named Evan Bai was his campaign manager. And Evan Bai, of course, as a, I think he became governor, but also as senator, became one of the strongest voices against liberalism and the Democratic Party. And the pattern that took shape was, we are somehow alien to this rising conservatism in the heartland, that liberalism, you know, is exactly what the Republicans say it is. This ideology of coastal elites, not really American at all, you know, not really patriotic.

And if you look at the next really 24 years of Democratic history, it's one example after another of, Democratic candidates going into battle, kind of armed with advice to their eye teeth, about what they were allowed to say, what they couldn't say. And as I point out in the piece, if you're always kind of measuring in your mind, your years are always visibly turning about what you're supposed to not say about what you believe, it shows. Right. And I think the apotheosis of this, and I'm actually writing about this right now for my next book, was the 2004 election and John Kerry. And John Kerry, you know, had been, he came back from Vietnam as this brilliant, sharp, courageous and clear-eyed critic of what happens when you go 10,000 miles away to

try and fight a counterinsurgency war in a country you don't understand. And he'd completely forgotten that by 2002 when he had voted to authorize the Iraq war. And there was this idea that somehow, again, that we could reach these aliens in the heartland by getting a Vietnam veteran, right? Of course, everyone's going to understand that, you know, who could fight a war better than a warrior. But it was based on this fundamentally inauthentic proposition that this guy who first became famous as a public figure in the early 1970s, on TV, he was a very famous guy. He was even in Dunesbury at the time for criticizing a counterinsurgency war, had to suddenly defend a counterinsurgency war because he'd voted for it. And that's why the guy in 1970,

who you can see on YouTube and TV, speaking in these clear, declarative, morally firm, very convincing, by the way, sentences was speaking in apologies, right? There was a study done. And I think it was something like John Kerry's speeches in 2004 were on like, you know, like a graduate school level of complexity, right? Because he couldn't say clearly what he believed. And that became what it meant to be a Democrat. And that's what I think that Kamala Harris and especially Coach Walls have freed us from. So how much of this would you say is down to sort of the rise of the consultant class? Because it feels like we've had the same Democratic consultants for the past 30 or so years with the same old tired strategies of triangulation.

They're always looking for the next version of a sister soldier moment. And it's just, God, it's so grating to me. Yeah. It's quite striking. There was a movement of reckoning on this kind of stuff to go back to the 2004 election. And there was a woman named Amy Sullivan who wrote a really great piece about it, I think 2005 and 2006. And one of the things she pointed out about the consultant class is that they had created this certain set of incentives. And the incentives were all around fundraising, all around kind of polling services, all about kind of everything that involved, kind of.

kind of telling candidates what they should and shouldn't say made them a great deal of money. And one of the fascinating things that happened in that 2004 election was the one guy who criticized the Iraq war very presciently from the beginning and explained exactly what was going to happen in advance was viewed with terror, not only by the people running the party, the Clintons, the Gephardt's, you know, the carries and all the rest, but by the consultants. And the consultants were running in fear from this guy, he was destroying their economic model because he was basing his entire appeal, his entire fundraising on small donors, on a grassroots campaign, on opening up the process to

new voices, new skills, the internet. A lot of these guys were the same people who four years later kind of created the internet for Barack Obama. And we can kind of talk about the complexity of that. But yeah, these guys basically made money the more alienated and inauthentic Democratic candidates had to become... You're talking, I assume, about Howard Dean. Did I not mention it was Howard Dean? I don't think you did. Howard Dean.

There was a really wild thing I discovered. They were so terrified of Howard Dean. And by they, I mean, you know, the Clintons and the entire pundit class and the establishment that I think it was Gephardt and it was three of the biggest campaigns actually got together and put together an anti-Dine. It wasn't really dark money. They didn't quite have dark money then. But, you know, by the time they found out, you know, who had funded this thing, and

The Iowa caucus was already over, so it was kind of effectively dark money. They had a super PAC that put on anti-Deen commercials that showed his face next to Osama bin Laden. And that was, you know, that was, that was what happened to you. If you did what Harry Truman did, you know, I tell the story in the piece about how Harry Truman got the nickname, give him hell, Harry. Right. He was giving a rip-roaring Democratic speech, you know, tearing into the Republican Party. And someone yelled out from the audience, give him. hell, Harry, right? When does that where anyone ever felt like say, give him hell,

Kerry, right? No one ever says that. Give him hell Harry. And Truman, who, you know, kind of was this Tim Walls kind of guy. He very modest, very middle American, very unadorned. And he said, I don't have to give him hell. I can just tell him the truth. And they call it hell, which to me just really reminds me of, you know, how, how Coach Walls does things. Yeah, absolutely. And all right, so let's let's talk about what you think brought on what we're seeing now this change, this sort of return to the Truman-esque, Give Him Hell Harry, which, by the way, I think you should have said, Give Him Hell Harris. Right. Give-M-Hell Harris. That would have been a great title. We can call this segment,

Give-M-Hell Harris, right? I need to tell our listeners that Rick actually said that before we started recording. So I don't want to actually take credit for it, but it's a great phrase. Well, you know, it belongs to the ages, man. We can all have it. We're Democrats. We share. You know, we love our neighbors. So what were we talking about? Oh, yeah. So what happened? Yeah. So I think that a lot of that is generational, right? I mean, I think a lot of the, you know, a lot of the generation that came of age with this post-Ragan movement, right? They were the ones who invented the idea of triangulation. And let's be absolutely clear about what triangulation means, right? So what's the triangle? You know, on the one side, you have these terrible Republicans and no one wants to be like them. So that's kind of cool, right? They're too extreme. On the other side, though, the other side of the triangle, you have the actual Democrats in Congress. And the whole point of triangulation. is I'm not like those other icky Democrats, right? So it's a strategy that's inherently party destroying, right?

A person who triangulates gets power by insulting other Democrats, by saying other Democrats are extreme. And, you know, that made a lot of sense if you thought the whole country hated Democrats, you know, and you would see lots of TV commercials and lots of yard signs that would never declare that a candidate in Iowa or Colorado was a Democrat, right? Or they would say a different kind of Democrat. Or, you know, Claire McCaskill was very big on this. Like, I'm not like all those crazy Democrats, right?

Which, you know, I also kind of had a racial pinch to it, right? I'm not those people in the cities. And, you know, the people who did that, you know, were basically not to get, you know, all generational warfare on it, were kind of baby boomers. And the Democratic Party, you know, had some successes in elections. But a lot of those successes in elections were one at the expense of the kind of structural strength of the party itself, right? That's what triangulation does. And it was one on the strength of apologizing for being a Democrat, for being a progressive, for being a liberal. And, you know, one of the

consequences of that was that you got one party that got to just say what they wanted, right? That's the conservatives, is they become more and more authoritarian. And if the Democrat has to meet them halfway, you know, that means that what is halfway becomes more and more further to the right. And And by the time we get to 2016, you know, we wake up and say, oh, my God, we've created a monster, right? The Democratic, the Republican Party is, you know, going full fascist. So the people for whom that's kind of a formative political experience have no interest in meeting Republicans halfway because that means, you know, meeting fascism halfway. So, you know, I mean, one of the one of the people I was talking to about this at the convention pointed out that the only person who really thought in this kind of old fashioned and baby boomer way was this consultant Anita Dunn. who she actually received the business end of a classic Republican smear campaign when she named,

I don't know if you remember this during the Obama era, I think it might have been like 2010 or, you know, the high Tea Party era. She said, you know, people who really changed the world. She named a bunch of people and one of them was Chairman Mao. So actually to start going all in about how Barack Obama had an advisor who loved Chairman Mao, right? So again, that's sort of trauma. That sort of, you know, sense that you've had your decency and dignity stolen from you. You know, instead of kind of fighting back, you go enter this defensive crouch. Well, she's gone, right?

This whole generation of people is gone. And, you know, there's a generation of people who, you know, came up with stuff like, you know, my books, talking about how the authoritarian tinge was always there in the Republican Party, that this is just the apotheosis of forces that have been loosed in the land, you know, ever since, you know, the 1960s and the backlash against the civil rights movement. A lot of it is generational. And a lot of it, I think, is once you, you know, one of the things that's so exciting about this movement is that people realize that this way of doing politics is just so much more fun.

You know, it's so much more satisfying. And people are kind of realizing that we've reached the end of the road with this idea of putting up candidates who are always second guessing what they say, right? Because then that becomes the image of the party, a party that doesn't believe in anything, a party that second guess is what they say. And one more time to return to this 2004 election, because I think it was kind of the nadir of this sort of thing. This is kind of my coming of age. So I was very involved in the blogosphere in that time. And one of the things we always pointed out was there were all these polls showing that issue by issue by issue,

the electorate, the swing voters, all these people in the middle of the country hated what George Bush was selling when it came to issues. But they would tell pollsters, they would tell focus group, you know, people running focus groups that they liked him because he knew where he stood, right? And John Kerry didn't seem to know where he stood. So this very idea of kind of speaking from, you know, the kids call it based, right? That means basically based means not neurotic. Base means, you know, you're based in the center of your being, right?

That conveys confidence. That conveys trustworthiness. That commands respect. So where would you place Barack Obama on this spectrum? Because it's interesting. Obviously, he ran on the hope and change mantra and all of that. But at the same time, he. kind of had those triangulating instincts. He very much did. And you noted something that happened at the

convention with Pete Buttigieg in his speech that I actually didn't pick up on until I read it in your column. Isn't that wild? So basically what I said was, you know, we know that Barack Obama, again, in that 2004 movement, came to power basically as the rising star in the party by giving the speech saying there is no Republican America, there is no Democratic America, there is just the United States of America, you know, against a party that more and more was just saying that Democrats were demonic, literally, in the case of the Christian right? So it's a very attractive message, right? But when he tried to bring it into the White House, it meant, you know, compromising with a party that would not compromise, right? He kept on offering the hand of fellowship and getting it slapped away. And, you know,

in 2010, that meant that all this hope and change that people thought they were voting for, you know, didn't cash out, right? It was, it was, he turned out to be actually kind of a very institutionalist guy, you know, the people he hired to have around him were people who, again, came of age during this, you know, kind of 80s and 90s triangulation vibe. It really always angered me that he uses the word politics, almost like a curse word. And he kind of pronounces it with a scowl. Politics means nasty disagreements that are unpleasant, instead of joyfully fighting for what

you believe in. And the reason I brought up Pete Buttigieg was he's, you know, again, a generational thing. This is a guy who was talking about how his very existence as a gay man with the family was inconceivable only 10, 20 years ago. And the way that they got to a situation where, you know, we talk about kitchen table issues. No one ever says, you know, something like gay rights is a kitchen table issue. Well, he's like, this is my kitchen table issue. I sit at my kitchen table with my family. What could be more of an issue, right?

And he said, the reason we got to that point was, And he used the word quite explicitly, politics. And I think in a certain sense, that was a troll of Barack Obama. And this idea that politics is something we should shrink from, that, you know, politics means, you know, you take a stand, you make an argument from it. Instead of saying that there are certain prejudices that exist in Middle America, that we just kind of have to accept, right? And, you know, obviously, you have to do this with sophistication.

You can't just kind of tear ahead without, you know, some kind of sophistication about what actual public opinion is. But, you know, we use this word incrementalism, right? ObamaCare is supposed to be incremental, right? That's the best possible word you can be in a Democrat. Well, if you say that you're trying to pursue something incremental, you still have to have a goal, right? It has to be an increment towards something. And, you know, just a great example is Obamacare. That was the accomplishment. He said, oh, we need incremental change. But as soon as it happened, it stopped being an increment towards something, right? Because, you know, having a long-term goal in which you kind of chip away at it, generation by generation, election by election, that's politics. When you see, you know, a figure like

Tim Walts saying, no, I'm in this small community and I'm going to lead on something like gay rights. You know, I'm the coach and I'm not going to say, well, I can't possibly get ahead of my skis. That's another thing the consultants like to say. I'm not going to get rid of my skis. I'm the coach. I have this kind of symbolic capital in my community and I'm going to spend it. He always talks about spending, you know, the only reason you should have power is to use it, right? And I'm going to spend it by saying, look, our community has to embrace and love these neighbors in our midst. And he's quite explicit that that's politics. But it's not a politics that is distasteful.

It's a politics that's kind of joyful and affirming and fun. Yeah, for sure. Do you worry that this won't last? We're recording this the day after Harrison Wall sat down with CNN's Dana Bash. I saw some what I thought were disturbing signs in that interview, like Harris talking about how she now supports fracking. When I heard this, my first thought was, oh, God, she's triage. But am I overreacting to this? Well, I think, yeah, I think a lot of that interview was the same kind of insult to people's

intelligence that they perceive when people are trimming, are triangulating. And I don't know where she should be on fracking as an issue. But, you know, just to, you know, take another example, the one place in her acceptance speech, which didn't seem to be based, was, you know, on the issue of Israel and Palestine, she said very directly, a terrorist group called Hamas is responsible for X. And then why, you know, the other side of the question, there was no one that did it. It just kind of happened, right? So that was just the kind of bank shot, you know, speechifying that was a very big part of this bad old days. And so kind of if you're not willing to kind of have the guts on the tough issues where it really kind of the rubber hits the road, well, that means that this new way of thinking is, you know, kind of vulnerable to backsliding to the bad old days. That's what we have to watch going forward. That's our struggle, right? Is, telling our politicians that even if they're not quite in tune with the majority of the electorate, if they take a position firmly and confidently and respect the intelligence of the people that are

listening to them, that they can actually move public opinion. And that when they try to do that, they convey a certain kind of respectfulness and trustworthiness that can transcend. Because George Bush won re-election, even though no one agree with what he was trying to do. Well, from your lips to Democrats' ears, Rick, thank you so much for joining me. Folks, go head over to the American prospect and check out Rick's columns. They are fantastic. And if you haven't read his books, you are in for a treat. Rick, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Take care. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal Stanford neuroscientist and professor and author, Dr. Jemeel Zaki, whose new book, Hope for Cynics, the Surprising Science, of human goodness drops September 3rd. Dr. Zaki, you may not know this, but I am probably one of the most cynical people. I constantly say that when it comes to our politics over the last, you know, eight to 10 years, I walk around with but a mustard seed of hope in my pocket. But over the

seismic shift over the last several weeks, there has been a resurgence, not just in the body politic with the nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz. But there has been, I feel, this resurgence of hopefulness, of levity, of joy that haven't been a part of our politics in so long. It's almost as if we stumbled upon an oasis. I want you to talk to us about what I am sensing isn't just my good vibes, but is actually science. So talk to us about that. There's so much in what you're saying. If I may, I want to first offer you some solidarity. I've been studying kindness and empathy and friendship for 20 years. So a lot of people might think, because I study the sunny side of human nature, I must be a really sunny person.

The secret is, I'm right there with you. I'm a very cynical person by default. And part of this book for me was not a journey to teach other people how to hope. It was a journey to teach myself. And it turns out, though, that when you dig into the science of cynicism and hope, you actually realize that cynicism is a lot less wise than we think, and hope is a lot smarter. And one reason for this is because oftentimes we're cynical because we don't realize how much other people want what we want. I think this resurgence of hope over the last few weeks with the shift in the Democratic nominee for president, and, you know, the DNC was this incredibly hopeful and joyful experience.

I think that comes from people awakening to the fact that they're not alone in what they want politically or in what they want culturally for the future of this country. Yeah, I think, you know, it's so interesting because when we step back and we look at, you know, just the last four years,

let's not even go back all eight. For me, the eight is the beginning of the Trump era. If we step back and we experience the Trump era and then we move into a global health pandemic. I mean, there has been just such a vortex of darkness, like spiritual depression that I feel like millions of people, not just in this country, but around the world, have been feeling. And it was almost as if, Dr. Zaki, that I knew personally how down, how depressed I was feeling, how hardened. How hardened. I had become, but it wasn't until truly the last several weeks of air being let back into the room

of this, this permission slip of joy returning, that then I'm saying, oh my God, I was in a really bad place. And it was almost as if, you know, when when you're in a dark room, your eyes adjust to the darkness, it was like my spirit had adjusted to the darkness. And then all of a sudden, and someone pulled the curtain open. Can you talk about that kind of feeling and this and this two sides, I guess, two different sides to the same coin of the human experience, which is this hard and cynic, which how could you not be if you pay attention to the headlines and multiple genocides and all of these things that are happening at one time? But then this, this idea of human possibility, growth and expansion that we also carry at the same time. I feel like I just,

heard a beautiful poem. The way that you just described that experience is so lyrical and I'm sure resonates with so many people. I know it resonates with me. One thing that it turns out you learn from the science of cynicism and hope is that when people are disappointed, let down, betrayed, as we all have been in our lives, and as I think it's easy to feel when we're battered with news of horrible events around the world is that we go from being disappointed, that is, lowering our expectations of the people or systems who have heard us to being pre-disappointed, that is, assuming that everybody will take advantage of us if they could. In other words, betrayal and pain can be too good a teacher sometimes and can cause us to

lose faith in everybody, even when we don't have evidence to do so. You mentioned the pandemic, and I wanted to, if you don't mind, just run a quick pop quiz with you. Sure. Yes. I mean, okay, I'm prepared. I have my pencil. So you and I and millions or billions of other people were depressed during the pandemic. As you put beautifully, our eyes adjusted to a spiritual darkness.

And that was a lot, I think, because we were processing all this information through our screens. We lost contact with each other. So I want to ask you, during the early pandemic, 2020 to 2022, compared to the years before, 2017 to 2019, do you think that kindness in the early pandemic increased around the world, decreased around the world, or stayed the same? Oh, that's a good question. I want to say that it increased. So this is really interesting, right? You say that you experience the spiritual darkness, and yet if asked what you think our species did during this incredibly dark time, you see, light and you're right, it turns out. I surveyed a thousand Americans and asked them the same

question. I made it more specific. Do you think charitable donations, volunteering, and helping strangers went up, down, or stayed the same around the world? More than half of the people I surveyed thought that kindness had decreased during the pandemic. Barely 20% were as hopeful as you are. And it turns out that there are great data on this that show that in fact kindness increased around the world during this difficult time. And I think that says so much about our species. This was not an easy time. Many people struggling mightily to just stay alive, stay healthy, stay solvent. And yet we showed up for one another. And that's the type of goodness, not from our systems, not from necessarily politicians. Of course, there are horrible things happening every day. But if you look at what regular people do

on a day-to-day basis, they often exceed our expectations enormously. Yeah. And I, you know, And the reason why I thought that is because I was just taking into consideration what was happening in my community, where I was with my family hunkered down for that time. And there was so much kindness that was happening. There were so many offerings of food and of walks and, you know, and check-ins on people that were happening. They were DJs that were playing, you know, music and having dance parties online just to keep people's spirits up. Like, I think about the ways that people really tapped into their talents in order to be of service. And that's why I said that. Because despite what may have been coming down from on high from the president at that time, real people were reacting in the way that we want humans to react, which is from a place of. deep empathy and kindness. And I think, you know, what happens, I think, in terms of the adjustment of

the eyes to the darkness is that there's only so much negativity that we can take. And that, and that's what I feel like is we're not as humans. I don't, I'm not, you tell me, I'm not the scientist, but like, I don't think that humans are built for that type of siloed, consistent drudgery and negativity. I think that we have a great capacity for it, but I also do believe that there is a cap that's there. A hundred percent. And you see from the research in psychology and public health that cynicism wears away at our well-being. If you come to the conclusion that most people are selfish, greedy, and dishonest, that leads to depression, anxiety, loneliness, but also physical ill health. Cynics develop more heart disease than non- cynics. They die younger than non-cinics. We need the nourishment.

of being able to connect with one another, trust one another, be vulnerable to one another. And we're losing that as a culture. And it's hurting us. I think that a really important point here, though, is that a lot of people think, well, cynicism, yeah, it doesn't feel good, but it's right, it's accurate, and it's also moral. Because as you've said, there are so many enormous problems, so much harm being done. Maybe a hopeful person ignores all of that. Maybe hope is a privilege or maybe it's even toxic.

But it turns out that if you look at the data on collective action and social change, the opposite is true. When we give up, not just on politicians and elites, but when we give up on each other, we stop trying to make the world better in any way. Cynics vote less. So having faith in the everyday people around us is not just an exercise in feeling good. It's an exercise in discovering our collective. collective power to pressure people who have influence to do better things, to advocate for policies that most of us wants. I want to dig into what you said about activism and protests, because those on the political

right would see what we saw in the summer of 2020 during the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. And we see these spontaneous protests that are taking place in all 50 states and in some countries around the world. You know, and what I would argue, but what the opposition says is not true, is that the most hopeful people to me are activists. The most hopeful people to me are the people that actually show up and march and protests because they have a belief that their voice and their presence can in fact make change. Because for those people who believe that this is, the injustice is inevitable, they will just stay home. Yes. Martin Luther King in 1967 spoke to the American Psychological Association. It's one of my favorite speeches anyone's ever given to psychologists. And he said, you all are obsessed with being well adjusted, with being happy and mentally healthy as you describe it. But there are some things we should never be adjusted to. We should never be adjusted to bigotry, to rampant inequality, to cultures of war. Instead, we should. We should never be adjusted to bigotry, to rampant inequality, to cultures of war.

Instead, we should be creatively maladjusted. That is, we should feel fury at the way that systems abuse people, but we should not see those broken systems as a mirror reflecting our broken nature. We should realize that we and the people around us have a capacity and a will to overcome those systems or at least improve them. I'm paraphrasing here. Of course, he said everything more eloquently than I'll ever say anything. But that was, I just love that formulation of creative maladjustment. And to me, that is a very hopeful perspective. And again, I think that we've stereotyped hope as complacent.

It's not. It's a fierce emotion that causes us to yearn for something better and to see other people yearning for something better. And I think overcoming cynicism about who's around us now is critical to building that fierce hope for the future. I'll give you one example of this. Former student in our department and a professor now, Greg Sparkman, surveyed thousands of Americans about climate policy.

He asked, how much do you support aggressive policies to protect the climate? And what percentage of Americans do you think would support each of these policies? Americans think that barely 40% of their fellow citizens want policies to support sustainability. The real number, depending on the policy, is between 65 and 80. So if you want a more sustainable world, if you want policies to build more sustainability, you are part of a super majority that you probably don't know is there. And discovering actually being accurate about what other people want, that we want more peace, sustainability, and egalitarianism can catalyze, can spark that fire of creative maladjustment,

not to be complacent, but to fight for a better future because we can see it more clearly. Yeah, I think that there is something to the human will that is connected to possibility. And I think that one of the greatest weapons in politics to me is fear. And yet one of its greatest tools is hope. It is much easier to weaponize fear because we all have them and to continue to prod into making our biggest fears into reality. But what I find really interesting about the moment that we're in right now with the shift in this ticket is that hope is indeed a tool, but it isn't something that can be used in a fraudulent way to say that it isn't, I can't create the splendor of hope and think that people are going to ingest it. It is truly something that you have to really feel and connect to. So can you speak to that where there are people right now, namely in the New York Times and other outlets, who say joy is not a strategy, who say that, you know, vibes are, you know, are not votes and, you know, and are really trying to pick away at this resurgence and this reclamation of possibility and disconnect us from it once again.

And I just want to get your thoughts on how it isn't something that can just be dropped on people and said, oh, just be hopeful. And then people are like, yeah, okay, that sounds good. There is something that is much more innate than that. I want to speak to a couple of great points you're raising here. The first is around fear. I completely agree, and not just me, the data agree, that fear can be a powerful tool and so can cynicism. It turns out that when people trust their fellow citizens less, they're more enthusiastic about so-called strong man leaders,

authoritarian, autocrats who say, I will protect you from each other, in essence. So cynicism has long been a tool of propagandists and despots, right? So absolutely just co-signing that, again, cynicism, we often think of it as, oh, this is seeing problems. Yeah, that's great. We should all see problems. but if you don't see solutions and if you think everybody is on the take,

you're probably actually more susceptible to fear and the type of politics that are driven by fear. I, again, love your turn of phrase here that hope needs to have real calories, right? It can't be splendid. It can't be any of those other artificial sweeteners. And I think it's not. I think that the idea, and I hear this all the time, that hope is not a strategy, fine.

I can agree that it's not exactly the same as a strategy, but in order to carry out a strategy, you need to see it as a possible path towards something you want. That's part of hope. Hope is not just dreaming of a better future. It's seeing a road from where you are now to where you want to be that magnetizes you through your actions along that road. I think that what people miss when they say hope is not a strategy and joy is not a strategy is that the joy and hope that people are feeling right now is not empty calories. It's based on actually realizing that they're not alone. And again, as we've been talking about, that realization is not a complacent one. It's an active one. Once you realize that you're not alone, you feel more like you could make

something happen, like your actions matter. So you're more likely to act. I mean, we've seen in the last few weeks, not just people being happier. We've seen them donating unprecedented amounts of money. We've seen thousands, tens of thousands of people who have never been involved in politics, writing postcards, going door to door, phone banking. These are not people treating vibes like a strategy, but rather turning vibes into action, which is what tends to happen when people feel hope. Well, Dr. Jamil Zaki, I could honestly, I could speak to you for hours. Your students at Stanford are very lucky. to have you as their professor. This was a wonderful conversation.

Folks, the book is Hope for Cynics, the surprising science of human goodness. And I would say that in this moment, it is required, required reading. Dr. Jamil Zaki, I hope that you'll come back again and join us on the new abnormal because this was really, it was truly uplifting. I would love that. This has been delightful.

Anytime. Danielle Moody. Andy Levy. So, Danielle, start out this holiday week with the way all holiday week should start with your fuck that guy. You know, I couldn't think of a better way. So here's my thing. And if anybody has been following me on social media, then you know where my anger lies these days, which is directed towards corporate mainstream media. But more importantly, with legacy outlets like the New York Times.

Over the last couple of weeks, I don't know. what the fuck has happened to the New York Times and their opinion pages, their political pages. When given the opportunity to talk about the Harris Walls ticket, the white men over at the New York Times find themselves saying things like joy is not a strategy, finding things like saying that the recent CNN interviewed that Harrison Walls gave only after all of legacy media was berating the campaign for doing something crazy, like taking their message directly to the people without a fucking middleman, saying things like the, it was too vague and too vocus. And I'm thinking to myself, where was the reporting on Donald Trump talking about electric sharks? Where is the reporting

and all of the think pieces on him talking about Hannibal Lecter, like he's a real person? Where are the conversations about anything that you can take out of Donald Trump? Trump's myriad of 90-minute rambling, senile accusations and rants that he says. There is nothing. And so when you have people, particularly, and I'm specifically talking about these white male opinion writers who have been all but silent on the dangers that Donald Trump poses or even questioning his mental fitness. but by the way, when it had to do with Biden,

you couldn't stop the coverage around age and questioning around his agility. So the things that I wonder are, does mainstream corporate media just want Donald Trump to win? Like, are they just so in the bag for it? Have they been browbeaten? Or is this how they've always felt? Because you cannot continue to tell me

that over the last eight years, these people have learned nothing, that somehow cozying up to the person who is actually getting you attacked in real life at his rallies is somehow going to what? Ensure your safety if he becomes dictator for a day or a lifetime? Like where do these people think that they're going to work? I don't know. But what I do know is that I'm tired of the vocus and vague and stupid.

and irritating and lack of thought and strategy pieces that keep being pumped out of these places. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have offered up their policy plans around the economy. They've offered up their policy plans around reproductive justice. They've offered up plans around HBCUs and education policy and reform. Where the fuck are the questions about Donald Trump and J.D. Vance's plans? Where is the deep dive investigations into Project 2025 in their connections? Where is even the commentary on the suspicion that Donald Trump took $10 million from Egypt? Like, there is none.

But you want to talk about Harris's outfits. You want to talk about her posture. You want to reformulate GOP talking points as if it's actual journalism. I am sick to death of it. And for that reason, the New York Times, in particular, today is my, fuck those people, fuck those guys. Complete agreement on all of that. I'll take it a little further in that.

I'll expand it from the New York Times. And I mainly want to talk about the Washington Post, but before I do, I want to give a shout out to Dana Bash, who in her interview with Harrison Walls last week decided that one of the important questions she needed to ask was about Donald Trump saying that Harris was always of Indian heritage, but then happened to turn black. in recent years. A question that didn't need to be asked of Kamala Harris. And then Harris answered it perfectly. She said, next question. Same old tired playbook. And Bash was, her response was like, that's it. Like, she couldn't believe that that was all she was going to get, which was all she

should have gotten. And then Politico decided to run a headline that read, next question. Harris evades questions about her identity. Are you fucking kidding me? That's how you're going to frame that. they eventually changed that headline because three different times, by the way. Three different fucking times they change it and all of them were wrong. Yes, exactly. So it's just incredible. And then on Sunday,

we get an editorial from the Washington Post. This is an unsigned, you know, editorial board editorial. America has two presidential candidates. Let's compare them. They start out and they say, in character style, tone, outlook, dignity, and yes, race and gender,

the two candidates are distinct. Fine. Yes, 100%. Then they say, the distinctions between them on policy substance, however, are somewhat fuzzier. Really? Are they? Are they really? Does Harris want to deport 20 million people? Mm. Mm. Does Harris want to appoint Supreme Court justices that will overturn even more rights for American citizens? Does Harris want to give the ultra wealthy more tax break? et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, climbing. The list is endless. And I just want to go at the end and read this because the whole thing is just something

to behold. But then it says, in other words, the substantive contrast, Ms. Harris draws with Mr. Trump, generally make her look better. But should Americans settle? Like, what? I swear to God. By the way, one thing not mentioned at all in this thing, January 6th.

Not a single mention that Donald Trump tried to get a mob to, well, he got a mob to storm the Capitol. He tried to get a mob to storm the Capitol to overturn the 2020 election. Thankfully, he failed in that goal. But I just, how do you not mention that? How does that not warrant a sentence or a paragraph or the whole fucking editorial on why exactly nothing else matters in this election? because one of the guys tried to overturn the last election.

But instead we get, should Americans settle? It's like, it's so comical. If I don't laugh, Andy, if I don't laugh, it'll just be, you know, an hour-long podcast of hysterical tears. And no one wants to tune into that, although some people may. People have weird fetishes. I seem to recall liberal tears coffee mug selling very well. So we consider this as an alternate revenue source.

Good idea. Jesse's always thinking. This is why Jesse is the businessman. And so much more, I should add. And so much more. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, Andy, since that was so uplifting as we start out this week, coming off of the heels of a holiday, please do share with us who has made it into the hall of fuck that guy for you.

I got to be honest. After the two of us ranting about the media, which sadly, I don't want to say there's nothing I like more because I wish we didn't have to do it, but I think it's just so important. I'm going to go with an old standby for mine. It's Donald Trump. You could throw a

dart at a giant chart and pick a reason, you know, whichever one it hit. But I'll just go with the fact that he headlined an event at the end of last week called the Moms for Liberty Summit. And of course, I think we're all familiar with Moms for Liberty at this point. They want to ban books.

They want to ban basically being gay or being transgender. They're God's awful creatures. I don't know what else to call them. So he, of course, headlined an event that they held. And the event, of course, was sponsored by the Heritage Foundation. You might recall that the Heritage Foundation is the group behind Project 2025, which also includes Moms for Liberty as one of the partners. And all of this is, of course, despite the fact,

that Donald Trump has never even heard of Project 2025. Doesn't know what you're talking about. You know, it's news to him. This is the first he's hearing it. So there's that aspect to it. But beyond that, it's just, again, Monster Liberty is just, it's an absolutely god-awful group that really, not something I say lightly,

but they run against everything America should stand for. And the fact that he is speaking at their event, just not only is he speaking at the event, but this just speaks volumes to where he is. And, you know, this is one of those things where when the Washington Post says, well, Trump has really been light on policy, well, he has, but he's got Project 2025 for that. He's got groups like Moms for Liberty for that. He's got the Heritage Foundation for that. And why not just transfer all their policies to him? Because that's what's going on here. Their policies are his policies, not because he necessarily believes in them because he doesn't really believe in anything except enriching himself, but because he views them. as the way to enrich himself and to gain himself more power. So all of these are his policies. When Moms for Liberty bans books, that's Donald Trump's policy, et cetera, all down the line. So my fuck that guy here is, I had to throw the media back in there because it's what we do these

days, you and I. But it's also Moms for Liberty for being who they are. And it's also Donald Trump for encouraging them and supporting them. So just to fuck that guy. to all those guys and gals. I just hate the fact that these organizations name themselves things that they are against. Yeah. So it's like, call yourselves moms against liberty, right? Like moms that hate freedom.

Like, I know it doesn't roll off the tongue, but that's exactly what it is. And so for everyone moving forward, any time that you see something with the title that says so-and-so for freedom and liberty, understand nine times out of 10, that organization is a right-wing organization that is anti-exactly what they're saying that they're for. It's opposite day on Earth, too. And again, didn't Donald Trump try and distance himself from them at one time? Also, wasn't there a scandal down in Florida

with the Moms for Liberty and like sex scandal and all of that? Yeah. Oh, my God, the hypocrisy. Yeah. By the way, I'll just button this by saying that Moms for Liberty in the recent primary down in Florida lost a lot of school board votes. And it's a really good sign that people are waking up to this because a lot of what they did and a lot of what these groups that look to ban books and ban any mention of gay people or trans people. They fly under the radar because most people aren't sitting around wondering what's going on at their local school board.

Even if they have kids there, not all parents are that involved in what's going on in school boards. So they've been able to fly under the radar and they've been able to fly under the radar and they've been able to do these things. And I think people are now waking up to the fact that the moms for liberty types are just horrible people who want horrible policies. And so things hopefully are turning a corner there. Here, here. 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.