The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump Has No Reason to Believe He Will Face Consequences

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

The New Abnormal is back from vacation! And what a week to recap. A certain orange person named Donald Trump has been charged for alleged criming again and hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie unpack it all. They also discuss how they think Trump is handling the pressure and Andy shares one of Ron DeSantis’ biggest failings in his presidential campaign. Plus, on this right-wing themed show: Madeline Peltz, Deputy Director of Rapid Response, shares the full arc of the right’s response to the ‘Barbie’ movie hate, including an unexpected twist: Female right-wingers are sticking up for the film. Plus, a brief history of the right-wing’s hatred of the USWNT. Then HuffPost Senior Reporter Christopher Mathias reveals to Andy how he was able to expose famed writer Richard Hanania’s secret right-wing and very hateful past, which includes incredibly dark eugenic ideas like forcing sterilization on low IQ people and opposing race mixing. 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. Media Matters reporter Madeline Peltz joins us to talk about the culture war surrounding the Barbie movie. Then we'll talk to Huffington Post Christmas Dias, all about the latest right-wing intellectual who turns out to have a bit of a racism problem. But first, let's have some fun. Well, Andy, we've had a lovely week off, and apparently nothing happened while we'll we were out. We picked the exact perfect time to say, you know what I need, a vacation. And during this

time, you know, every single cable news channel did what they always do, which is cover Trump wall to wall with drones with a million reporters to see his third arraignment take place, this time happening in Washington, D.C., where a magistrate had to say explicitly to Donald Trump, to essentially, I'm going to use legal terms, shut the fuck up, right? Just shut the fuck up so that you don't end up in jail while you are awaiting your trial. And he didn't manage to do that. He has since been threatening his former vice president. He has been threatening the special counsel, Jack Smith, calling and saying that the trial needs to be moved to West Virginia,

because apparently it's more diverse. And then his lawyer going on television to tell us all that he actually did commit the acts, in fact, in question. So that's the wrap up. How do you feel about this? Look, I just want to say, if you're out there thinking, you know, why did they pick a week to go on vacation when Trump got indicted? It's like there's only so many weeks in the year. And you got like, it's basically a 50-50 shot. So you plan these things.

but it's like, you know, there's no way to know. Once a month he gets indicted. So, you know, we took a shot and we lost. What are you going to do? Yeah, I mean, you know, the indictment's been covered to death at this point. But it is the stuff that he's been saying on, what do you call it, his busted-ass Twitter? Yeah, his busted ass to Twitter, broken down Twitter, you know, whatever. Broke-ass Twitter, yeah.

Truth Social, screaming that he can't get a fair trial, that the judge needs to be recused, that if you go after me, I'm coming after you, which is what led to special counsel Jack Smith's office seeking a protective order because they read that as a potential threat to Jack Smith and his staff. It's literally everything that if you're his lawyer, it's everything you don't want him to do. But let's look at the situation. The dude is what? Late 70s and early, I don't even know how old he is. I'm totally from that. 77. Yeah. Okay, late 70s. He has lived his whole life with no. consequences. Yep. So there's absolutely no reason for him to think there will be consequences now. And so he's a little off put, you know, by the fact that he has all these indictments now because this is not normal for him. But he still, I think it's hard to break a lifetime habit. And it's just his life. And he's not wrong because everything in his life has shown him that there are no consequences. There are no bad consequences for his actions. So his lawyers, the judge can tell him whatever she wants.

His lawyers can advise him however they want. He is not going to listen. And he is going to post things like if you go after me, I'm coming after you. And we're all going to sit here and be, you know, rightly horrified by this. But at the same time, it's like, you know, the leopard and his spots, right? That this is who he is and it's worked for him his whole life. So why would he do anything different now? I mean, here's the thing.

You know, Roger Stone went through this court and was reprimanded for his continuation of talking about his case. Another one of Trump's lackeys went through this court where they were all convicted. I mean, Roger Stone is not in jail right now because he was pardoned by Donald Trump. The fact is, is that this is, I believe, I want to say, you all hold me to it, the find out of the fuckaround part. Like Donald Trump for 77 years has done whatever he's wanted to do, grab women, harass women, sexually assault them, lied, stolen, you know, cheated people out of their wages, all of these things. And nothing has ever happened to him. And on stage, you know, at one of his rallies, his clan rallies, he was talking about the fact that every time I get indicted, my poll numbers go up. That's not a lie. They actually do. But the reality is, is that you can tell by how much he is acting out on his broke down social and how much he is acting out at

these rallies because everything about him is projection that he is terrified. And rightfully so, because this is a case, as everybody has said, was built quote unquote for speed. You don't need clearance. You don't need classified document clearance. There isn't a ton of documentation, right? Like Donald Trump has said all of these things. So it's just like watch the videos. You know what I'm saying? Like, and read Mike Pence's, you know, meticulous notes that one takes on crimes being committed. And that's it. So my whole thing is, I think, what would be a beautiful site, Donald Trump keeps truiting his way into a cell block.

Because I would like to believe and shout out to the judge that will be overseeing this, Judge Chunkim, who is Jamaican born. Shout out to all the Jamaicans, who saw that and were like, yes, yes. Yes, yes, because she's not going to come to play. So, you know, I just think let him go ahead and keep talking because they're just giving him enough rope to then be like, well, you apparently need to be locked up until your trial comes. I would love to see that day. Yeah, it's just he's used to the rope being for Mike Pence and people like that and not for him. You're totally right. Look, I hope he's at the finding out part of a lifetime of fucking around.

But he has every indication that it's not, meaning the experience of his life. And God, I hope he's wrong this time. But the thing is, you can't, like, if you're going to sit there, you cannot let someone who was about to go on trial post things like, if you go after me, I'm coming after you. Because in addition to that being potentially a threat to the prosecutors, that's a threat to witnesses. That's a threat to jury members, potential jurors. And if you're going to sit on that jury and you're seeing stuff like this, and yes, Donald Trump is an inveterate liar, but this is the kind of shit that he means.

And this is the kind of shit that he does. It's, you know, it's as a million people have pointed out in the past, he's a mob boss, essentially. And this is the same level of, you know, if a mob boss said, if you go after me, I'm coming after you, I don't know how many people would want to sit on that jury, you know? and convict that mob boss. And this is no different. So I don't see how the judge can let this stand. Look, I am not a lawyer. I would never pretend to be a lawyer.

Just from a common sense perspective, though, this seems like you can't let a defendant say shit like this. And I don't know. Am I wrong? Nope. I think that you're 100% right. And, you know, what, again, if he's not reprimanded to the highest extent,

what people will be setting up, who are not Trump, is the Trump defense. well, you didn't hold him accountable. He wasn't thrown in jail for talking shit. Like, we're just, we continue to set bad precedent if he isn't held accountable for what he is doing pre-trial, because it's only going to get worse as we get closer. But you can't tell me that if a drug dealer or someone like that said something like that, that they wouldn't be in jail until, you know, pending the trial.

Mm-hmm. Oh, they would have been in jail anyone with the amount of indictments, I think it's 78, at this point, a year older than Trump, that's how many indictments he has, anyone else would be inside of a jail cell. So we know that. So let him continue to do what he's doing because I don't know what kind of defense his lawyers are going to make when the judge decides to say, you know what? You can wait this out behind bars because you won't be able, he won't be able to do rallies then. That would be amazing. I just, I don't think either of us sees that coming. I don't, I don't think there's any way he gets put in jail pre-trial, but there have got to be measures.

in between that and nothing that the judge can do here. And nothing just doesn't seem like the answer to me because he's going to keep doing this. And we know from Trump, like, if you go after me, I'm coming after you is that that's the beginning. That's not the end. You know, that's the light. It just gets more and more deranged from there. We know this.

We know this about him. So if you don't stop this now, you know, God knows what he's going to say. Yeah, 100%. So speaking of doing nothing or things. coming up, you know, goose eggs. Ron DeSantis, our favorite meatball, our favorite Rob, our favorite weirdo who doesn't know how to laugh or speak to children or talk to just normal people. Ron DeSantis is also out at the find out part of his campaign where he is losing his

biggest donor. Most recently, Robert Bigelow, who you and I, before we tape, Andy said, what must it feel like to be able to throw away $20 million and not give a fuck. Like it not have any, you know, I don't know, implications on your life, your likelihood, nothing. Just here's, so Robert Bigelow gave Ron DeSantis, contributed, donated to his campaign, $20 million back in March to his quote, never back down super PAC. I tell you something about it.

Like just even the title of his pack is bogus and bullshit. when filled with toxic masculinity, never back down. Ah, that's me. Except when, you know, a reporter asked me a question and then I'll freak the fuck out. But so Robert Bigelow, initially he had said that he would go without food to push a DeSantis presidential bid has now changed his tune and has said, according to Vanity Fair, quote, he does need to shift to get to moderates. He'll lose if he doesn't. Quote, extremism isn't going to. get you elected. I'm sorry. What the fuck has happened between March and August for this man to think

that like, did Ron DeSantis do like a major pivot? He's been the same. He's been the same since before he announced his presidential bid, not being able to utter a sentence without the word woke, using and weaponizing policies to criminalize women, to criminalize people of color to erase black history, to put targets on the back of trans people. And now all of a sudden, Bigelow is like, ooh, he's too extreme. I honestly don't get it, right? Like, I really don't. But $20 million feels like a lot to come off of and then be like,

so I'm done now unless he pivots. Pivots to what? Yeah, well, the weird thing. Look, Bigelow says that what happened is that he gave this money to DeSantis in, I think, February. and then in March, according to the Vanity Fair article, March signed a bill banning abortion after six weeks. That was Bigelow's thing. We should point out, Bigelow, again, in the Vanity Fair article, Bigelow says he still believes DeSantis is spot on in his attacks on quote unquote wokeism.

So none of that bothers him. This is strictly about abortion, which, all right, fine, whatever. I don't know. Did you not realize in February that this guy was going to sign this bill in March? Like you just don't seem all that bright, I got to be honest. And also, I got to say, like, a guy who can afford to give away $20 million, when you say, I'd go without food, I don't think you're ever going without food, buddy. No. This guy is a real estate tycoon. Like, the idea, him going without food, like, I guess by that he means he'll only have, like,

three seafood platters available for him to choose from at dinner. Like, shut up. He'll forego the foie gras. And it's second helping of caviaria. Right, exactly. Yeah. Look, this is a weird one only because it is about the abortion thing and not about all the other idiotic things that DeSantis has also done.

So I don't know. Bigelow is basically saying, well, if you kept doing everything else but were better on abortion. Buddy, nobody who does all those other things. like is good on abortion. Like, let's get that out of the way right now. This all goes together. The same people who won't shut up about woke, woke, woke, aren't big fans of women having autonomy over their bodies. Right. Like, that's just a fact. I mean, I don't, I don't know how you can even think otherwise. We have learned so much in the past, I don't know, four or five

years, about how dumb so many rich people are. Oh, my God. I have to say, it is one of the, I do think one of the good things that has come out of the last four or five years is at least for a lot. There's still the people who don't get it. But I think a lot of people have really been woken up to the understanding that a lot of these Silicon Valley guys are super rich. And there's part of you that thinks, well, they must be smart. And then you look at them and you see what they tweet. And you're like, these guys are fucking idiot.

He was just maybe good at this one thing or he got lucky or, you know, he did something shady to make all this money. Anyway, that's a total digression, but I just wanted to say it. No, no, no. But here's the thing is that we continually as a society equate wealth with wisdom, right? Like equate wealth with some type of genius. And they are not interchangeable. And that's like that is the reality here.

It's the reality with people like Musk. Like it just isn't. But to throw $20 million away on this guy and say that, oh, he just needs to change his tone as if his record doesn't speak for its fucking self. Like, I still think that DeSantis could win this thing. How? Like, he is in an interview this week on NBC with his wife. That was excellent self-censoring there.

Thank you. If you only knew that, like, it was a lot. It was a lot. I've learned to read your pauses. Yeah, they're pregnant. Yes. There's triplets going. on there. Right. And she's sitting there. And at one point, in one of the clips that are going around,

she starts crying, right, and talking about, like, what a great husband he is. The reporter then looks at Rhonda Santis and says, how does that make you feel, you know, to see that she sees you in that way? He does not put his hand on his wife. He does not hold her hand. He does not look at her and say, like, you know, he's just like, she is my partner. I care about her. If I was going to have kids, it was going to be with her. Like literally, that was it. There was no, I just don't understand. They're like, oh, she's the real firebrand behind the man and she humanizes him.

He's a robot. Even when you're crying, his initial reaction is not to comfort you. And he's doing this with cameras on where the whole point of this interview is to roll out his wife and be like, you know, she's the first lady we need. She is Cruella fucking DeVille. Okay? And he is just like, you know, I guess in in Republican circles, she should have been the one. I'm assuming like in most cases, she probably is the brains behind his crazy, right?

His policies and all of these things. She's the one according to the press that wanted him to run for president because she thinks she'd make a really great first lady. So it's just like you look at these interviews and I just, I'm so sick and tired of mainstream media. looking for the opportunities to humanize this Android. It just doesn't make sense to me. And it's the same way that you had mainstream media wanting to sit down and humanize and do interviews with Hitler. He loves long walks is what they were putting out

as he was putting people in gas chambers. That really happened. It's beyond. It's beyond me. Yeah, it really does seem like she would be a much better candidate. And I'm kind of glad that she's not the one running. Mm-hmm. I do want to say, we don't know what he's like in private.

And maybe he is, for all we know, he's an incredible husband and is very loving. And he's just, he just can't do it on camera. I don't know. I don't really care. All that matters is you can't run for president and be as bad on camera as he is, I don't think. And it's really, really starting to show. Every interaction you see with him, whether it's at a state fair or a diner or what, whatever, everything just screams, I don't want to be here.

And that he's just trying real hard to act like he wants to be there, but he can't pull it off. And the guy sucks. I think he's a loathsome person. The only thing I will say vaguely in his defense is not being comfortable on camera doesn't make you a bad person. And yes, I am saying this for personal reasons. but I just, he may be a total, you know, again, maybe he's a much more natural person when he's not on camera. Fine. You can't run for president and be this wooden on camera. You just can't do it. You know,

not in the 21st century. It just doesn't work that way. And he's so awkward and he's so uncomfortable. And I almost hate that we talk about this stuff because it really is. It's his policies that suck. Like the other stuff is just, it's fun to make fun of. And I like, to make fun of it too. But ultimately it's unimportant. If he were this wooden on camera, but he wasn't supporting bills that basically criminalize education

and stuff like that, I wouldn't care. It's just, it becomes another thing to make fun of him for, but we have to remember that it's his policies above all else that really suck, is what I'm trying to say. Yes. And he also sucks as a human being. He should practice more, being human.

And it does, it does feel like I mean, you know, we were going to talk about in that same interview, he actually admitted, he said, of course he lost when he talking about Trump in 2020. Good for him for finally saying it, but I don't know that I don't think that's going to help him in the Republican primary. No, it's not. I mean, and this is the reason why all of the runner-ups of the Republican beauty pageant are like tiptoeing. Because if they say anything that is remotely true, if they say, yeah, we shouldn't have. a criminal running for president of the United States, that's not who our party is, and, oh, he didn't win the election and, you know, incited violence, then they have no constituency. They have no base.

So what does that tell you, right? Like, the man has poisoned the well in such a way that even coming out against him, he's more, you see Desantis more forceful going after a woman of color. our vice president of the United States, he's got more words for who isn't running for president than he does Donald Trump. Like all puffed up in the chest about vice president Harris, but no real condemnation on a man that is standing between you and what you say you want, which is the Oval Office. So to me, none of them want it enough is my point. No, I think that's true. And so that's why I say, you know, I think it's good that DeSantis actually finally said this. I think it's going to end up hurting him.

And I also think it's sort of too little too late. Like, it's clear he's only doing this because his campaign is floundering. So it doesn't even seem genuine. And that's the problem with his whole campaign. Like you said, nothing about him seems genuine at all, including this. No, there's nothing genuine about him. Not even that horrific laugh. He can't even laugh.

Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal Madeline Peltz, who is the the deputy director of rapid response over at Media Matters for America. And, you know, it seems to me that August has been the absolute freak out month for the Republican Party, the quote-unquote conservatives on woke watch as they like to see themselves these days. And you've written two pieces that just highlight the stupidity. But I want to start first with Barbie. Your piece turns out women in the right wing media love the Barbie movie.

and apparently a billion people love the Barbie movie as it has just hit a billion dollars at the box office. So talk to us about this right-wing freak out. Totally. There's a beginning, middle, and end, a very dramatic arc to the right-wing media reaction to the Barbie movie, which has really taken over social media

and popular culture in general this summer. But before the movie was released as hype was building this prolific marketing campaign that I was watching very closely and an explosion of social media trends celebrating Barbie took over the internet right wing media reacted and they reacted negatively. Overwhelmingly they condemned the Barbie movie before they had even seen it as disgusting as a vehicle for woke indoctrination. Charlie Kirk called the trailer for Barbie the most disgusting thing he's ever seen. And that sentiment was repeated across the echo chamber. And so basically anywhere there's an explosion of attention in popular culture. And this has become more and more true

in recent days. There is a right-wing media reaction to it as they try to, it's like a form of ankle-biting, trying to profit off of this tidal wave of attention to bring, you know, to bring it into their own media platforms. But once the movie came out, a bunch of people, particularly young women, who are involved in the right-wing media, went and saw it and they loved the movie. So first, Ben Shapiro actually did a 43-minute review in which he, quote, unquote, destroyed Barbie, described it as a warmed over glorious Steinem propaganda reel. But then his accolite, Brett Cooper, who's their sort of sassy, Gen Z behind a podcast. microphone influencer made her own video saying that she had a great time watching it and cautioned

those in conservative media who were decrying it saying that not all female empowerment is bad and that there was actually an overreaction to the film and similar to what happened with Charlie Kirk condemning the film. Turning Point USA's in-house pop culture commentator, Alex Clark made a Instagram reel in which she declared that any consent. conservative who said that Barbie is woke as a quote unquote moron. So presumably she's speaking directly to her boss itself. And even Tommy Lerrin defended Barbie. So ultimately this mega popular movie turned out to be mega popular even within the right wing media. I feel like Madeline at this point, I don't know who the Republican Party is talking to. Like who they think that they're

going to be bringing down with their continued culture war conversations. Like one minute it's Legos, the next minute it's Barbie. After that, it's gas stoves and then it's crayons. Like, it's just, it's so fucking dumb. Like, it's the only way that I can really just look at the outrage. I saw the movie and I think that all the right wing did for the movie was make it more popular in the U.S. in particular because it was like every single comment that they were making just made people want to see it more. And it was a really good film. Like it was really good. It was funny.

It was thoughtful. It hit all of the marks. Hence why it's made a billion dollars. And so like what do you think as you follow their outrage Olympics that has been going on all summer? What do you see as like their win here? In terms of their audience, I really think that they have lost touch with the audience, particularly for the Barbie movie. I think that your question made me think that the reason why they're pursuing this is because the money is flowing. And you can see that in the way that, especially the Daily Wire and other

digital right-wing media imprints are trying to take on cultural projects to very limited, if any, success. And you've seen that with this Western that they made with Gina Carrano, after she was booted from the Star Wars universe for posting anti-Semitic memes. They took her under the Daily Wire wing. And I can't even remember the name of the movie. and it's my job to know these kinds of things. So I think that there is money coming in to fund these entertainment projects and that the same way that our media landscape has become so fractured, the Daily Wire in particular is looking to see if they can replicate their success,

pushing hate and misinformation into a fractured entertainment environment as well. And I just think that that is problematic for them because one of the things that it takes to be successful in entertainment besides having the backing of a major studio is creativity. And I think that has been a big part of what people have said about Barbie that one of the reasons it was so successful is because it's not a sequel. It's a new original piece. And that takes a tremendous amount of vision on behalf of the director and the actors and all of the work that went into producing this film that that talent, it simply doesn't exist in the right wing media. And so they're not going to be able to do it in the same way that a major Hollywood studio is. And so all that they can do

is wine. I mean, it's like all that they can do is wine. Their constituency doesn't care. I mean, I can look at the polling around Ron DeSantis and his war on wokeness to know that it's not hitting with his, you know, with the constituents that he's looking to turn him into president of the United States. And so when like, when you say that the money is flowing in, who is it flowing from? Because it's not flowing from their constituents. So who is it flowing from? And they're financial backers that are hoping to make money off of the clicks on Daily Wire, the advertising that finances the site and the money that they pull in through their Facebook advertising. The people who are backing, you know, Daily Wire announced that they are launching

a $100 million initiative to launch Daily Wire Kids. And that project has not yet borne fruit, but it goes to show that their money is pouring into an increasingly ambitious project in digital right-wing media. And so that's how you get these projects like the Gina Carano Western or these propaganda reels targeting school children like you're seeing at Prager University is that someone's funding it. And so they're producing it. I mean, it's indoctrination at its finest. I want to switch gears and talk about your other piece, which was the right wing media celebrate U.S. women's national team's elimination from the World Cup, which is just disgusting in and of itself, right? But talk to us about how the right wing had decided to go to war against a team representing

this entire country in the Women's World Cup and how we got to this place. Yeah. Well, they've been rooting against the U.S. women's national team through the entire tournament during the first match that the team had with Vietnam, some players stayed silent during the national anthem, which prompted widespread scolding from the right-wing media, saying that these players are self-absorbed, even saying that they don't deserve to play for the team,

and some floating disbanding the team. And that was just the first match. And then that celebration was turned up all the way on Sunday when they were eliminated from the tournament in this very heartbreaking penalty kick round, there was just outright celebration of their elimination. And it's just really rich coming from this particular set of pundits considering all of their self-righteousness when it comes to protecting women's sports under the guise of persecuting transgender athletes. But when those women who play sports dare to stand up and express themselves and

represent themselves as athletes and ambassadors for the United States in a way that doesn't conform to their expectations of, frankly, what a woman should be doing as an athlete on the public stage, then all of the sudden, you are not only rooting against the team, but you're saying that they shouldn't exist at all. And so it really gives up the game. This whole tournament, I think, has really exposed the right-wing media's pension for punishing anyone who dissents, this hyper patriotism that they've come to believe is apolitical within sports when in fact that in and of itself is an expression of politics when you see flyovers at football games. So the women's national team has long been a target of the right wing media.

But within the retirement of Megan Rapino coming up after this season, it really has drawn a lot of attention. I mean, when we look at this, which is essentially it's a war on women, right? Like they're not, it's not enough to overturn Roe v. Wade. It's not enough to degrade women in leadership. And I'm wondering with their quote unquote like millennial women and Gen Z whose votes that they actually need, how does it land for Republican women when they go after them? Because even just going back to your piece about Barbie, you know, the response was, you know, not all feminine and like not. all feminism is bad. Not all women's empowerment is bad. And so when you see and you hear about all of these right-wing, very fragile men going after women's sports and going after women

in general, how is that actually playing for them? I, in June, reported on a conference that was put on by Turning Point USA called the Young Women's Leadership Conference, in which I explored pretty much specifically this question about what do these regressive gender politics as expressed by the right-wing media? How is that landing among the Gen Z and millennial crowd of young women, particularly Gen Z? So what I found at the conference was a group of very willing participants in the messaging that women should exist exclusively in the domestic sphere. in service to men. Exactly. I mean, Candice Owens stood on the stage and talked about how you should be more like your grandmother, literally saying you should keep a garden and have as many babies as possible.

And it goes without saying that forming a family, getting married, having children is a wonderful way of life for people who actively choose that path. But there should be options for young women beyond that. And this conference, I think, really solidified or distilled the state of the messaging that is coming from institutional right-wing organizations like Turning Point USA, that even to a room full of college students, they're telling these young girls to forego a career. It was coming from both men and women, but coming from women in particular who have huge, media careers. Yeah. Right. Who have huge careers in politics looking at other young women and telling them, oh, no, no, no, don't attempt to climb this ladder. Go make a garden and go have some babies. It was absurd. And I'm like, and these young women paid to go to this conference. It was a really surreal experience. I think in particular, that message coming from Candace Owens,

who is perhaps one of the most single-mindedly ambitious. braven, hateful right-wing media figures in the entire ecosystem. The reason she was standing on that stage to uproarious applause was not because she is a great mother or a great wife. It's because she wanted a career and pursued it above anything else. And so there's a number of women who push that same message. And so I think it's really important to be paying close attention to the messaging that is coming about gender roles and particularly how young women should be participating in the

conservative movement because I've really heard a new radical tone in the last year or so. You know, and there was a, and you tell me if I'm wrong, if I'm remembering this wrong, but there has been a trend on TikTok with hashtag like trad women, these traditional women posting videos of themselves completely done up like they are in 1950s housewise. and taking on these traditional roles. And if you go and you look at this hashtag, it's wild. Like it is as, it's as if the 21st century never happened. Like it's as if, you know, the Republicans desire and some of these women's desire as well,

which is odd because they're earning money from being on TikTok, promoting this kind of quote unquote traditional lifestyle, this trad lifestyle, that is also being perpetuated at these conferences, which is to tell these women, empty your head of your brain and lay down for whatever man will accept you and like your job is to be an incubator. And I'm just like, do you see that trend growing over the next, like how do you think, how do you see it playing, I want to say, I guess, in the messaging for the 2024 presidential cycle? I think that we have certainly seen this trad wife trend and we've been seeing this back and forth between these institutional

right-wing players that I've been describing, like the Daily Wire and Turning Point, and this really cartoonish cosplay of a 1950s housewife that is shocking to the extent that it goes viral on social media. And I think really it's less about an actual ideological divide between someone like an Alex Clark or an Ali Beth Stucky. These are young women who work for Turning Point and the Blaze who target young women in their content. they have been engaging with this dialogue over the tradwives. And what I've noticed is that it's less of an ideological divide between these career media women and these tradwives so much as it is like a ploy for attention between the two

that they see these quote unquote tradwives cutting into their audience and are looking to monopolize and redirect their attention. In terms of 2024, I think it remains to be seen. I can't say that any of the prospective candidates are. very in touch with young women or the issues that are important to new voters, particularly women. But I will say that if there's one organization that's going after them, it's certainly turning point USA. And I think that they'll be one to watch, especially in swing states. I mean, it's extraordinary. It's just as if this entire party is operating in a different time

dimension and on a different planet from the rest of the world. And I just don't see. how their desire to put women, shackle them back to stoves and to children that they don't want, and to take away bodily autonomy, to take away college education. Like, I just don't understand how they think that that is going to play out in their favor in the long term. I feel as if, and you tell me if I'm wrong, you know, that they have overstepped, overreached in their desire to solidify patriarchy? Oh, I absolutely think they've overreached, and I do absolutely think that it's going to backfire.

If you look at the trajectory of messaging at the Young Women's Leadership Summit, Charlie Kirk spoke just a few years ago and said to the audience encouraging them directly to go into politics, to go into media, to pursue career in further in furtherance of the right-wing movement. when you contrast that with what was a very viral moment between a young woman who stood up at this 2023 YWLF, yeah, and said that she wanted to be a surgeon. And Charlie Kirk told her, and this is paraphrasing, but pretty much what he said, go find some babies and spend time around baby.

And if you don't have baby fever than that, after that, then you should be a surgeon with a tone that was like, if you don't have baby fever after that, then there's something fucking wrong with you. And it was so shocking to me because this young woman stood up to the Turning Point USA founder and said, I am one of your most active participants. I am one of your biggest enthusiasts. And what I want to know is, what should I do with my career? And he told her, give it up, whatever professional or movement training you're getting at Turning Point USA is a waste of your time because your highest and best calling, a calling that he specifically identified as coming from God is to be a wife and mother. And so it's the destruction of their own organization to be sending

this kind of messaging. And it's the destruction of their own organization and messaging to be telling young women that they should retire into their homes at the age of 20. Well, Madeline, we will have to leave it there today, but I'm certain that you will be back to talk about what is next on their culture war agenda. Madeline Peltz, appreciate you taking the time to join the new abnormal. Thank you so much for having me. Conservative darling Richard Hananya is a visiting scholar at the University of Texas. Austin has been published in the New York Times and Washington Post, among other places. It's called A Good Friend by GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, and his upcoming book is blurred by the likes of Peter Thiel and David Sacks.

And as my next guest broke on Friday, a decade ago, he also used the pen name Richard Host to write articles supporting eugenics and the forced sterilization of low IQ people, whom he said were mostly black, opposing race mixing, and a whole bunch of other nasty stuff. Joining me now to tell us how he put this story together is Huffington Post Senior Reporter, Christopher Matthias. Chris, thanks so much for being here. Thanks so much for having me, guys. So before we get to the heinous stuff that Hanania slash host wrote and continues to write cleaned up versions of, I'm fascinated by how you figured this whole thing out. It all started with a data leak from a well-used internet comments section host named Discus, right?

Yeah, that's it. So there had been rumors circulating online that Hanania was, in fact, this Richard Host character. But no one really seemed able to nail it down. So I started talking to people who were familiar with this data breach that Discus, which is the very common online commentant hosting service that had suffered back in, I believe, 2012. And it admitted it suffered the data breach in 2017. So there was about 17 million users' information was stolen. And I was able to review some of that data and search for Richard hosts. And basically what we found was that Richard Hosts, you know, was this pseudonym character that was writing a lot of articles for some really vile websites back in the early 2010. And one of his usernames shared the same unique password with a lot of other usernames on Discus, all of which had some connections to Richard,

Hanania. Namely, these usernames were connected to his email addresses, which I was able to verify. So, for example, one of his usernames was linked to his University of Chicago email address. One was linked to his University of Colorado email address, and one was linked to his Gmail address, which he shared publicly once in an academic paper he published. And so from there, it was just a matter of finding more and more verification. and a big part of that was having to slog through a lot of stuff he wrote to find when he, you know, when he was using the pseudonym Richard Host, what like biographical information he was leaving behind. And then it was just a matter of kind of cross-checking that information with what

I knew about Richard Ananya. So for example, like Richard Host wrote once about working out a McDonald's and being a really bad McDonald's employee as a teenager. And his whole thing, about it, though, was that he claimed that he was really bad at working at McDonald's because he has such a high IQ. Right. And that, like, all of his coworkers who were black or Mexican, like, you know, shook their heads at him and he called it really traumatic. And then, like, of course, like nine years later, Richard Hernandez tweets almost identically the same thing where he talks about working at McDonald's and being really bad at it. So it was kind of a matter of, like, you know, starting with this rumor, then going to the discus data breach, and then, kind of connecting a lot of biographical information.

Like I said, this stuff is just fascinating to me, and it's amazing how you just put this all together. And it sounds like it must have been a ton of work. And obviously, reading all of his stuff is not the kind of thing that I would wish on anybody. So, but thank you for doing it. And I'll get to his response to your piece in a bit. But I do want to say at this point, he has admitted that you are correct.

Correct. Yeah. And I will say, it's like, you know, I've done stories like this before, right, where you are exposing someone. and revealing that they were using pseudonyms online to express white supremacist's viewpoints or fascist's viewpoints. It's always a bit of a nerve-wracking story because if you're wrong, then you're fucked. Right. And like you, you know, you're opening yourself up to lawsuits and all that.

And also, you know, you would be, you know, really hurting someone's reputation. But, you know, I felt really confident. My editor felt really confident that we had it right. Hanania, you know, didn't respond to multiple requests for comment throughout the story. And then eventually a few days or maybe two days after the story published, he, you know, confirmed that our reporting is correct. Yeah, it must have been a huge relief. All right. So let's talk about the kind of stuff that he wrote under the name Richard Host and where he wrote it.

From your piece, it seems to be it's basically just a treasure trove of racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic stuff. In many ways, sort of the usual alt-right kind of stuff, right? Yeah, I mean, I think one of the most surprising things for me when I started reporting this story was, was how prominent Hanania was, like, in kind of like the early days of the alt-right. Like, he wasn't just some random shit-posting blogger. Like, he was one of the main writers for AlternativeWrite.com, which was, you know, I think, I'm sure a lot of your listeners are familiar with you, Richard Spencer is. You know, if you're not, he was like one of the white supremacist leaders of the alt-right,

kind of at the beginning of the Trump era. He was the guy that got punched on the day of Trump's inauguration. He organized the Charlottesville rally. So, like, Richard Spencer was coordinating with, you know, Richard Hanania back in the early 2010 to write articles for altright.com. And Richard Host, you know, sorry, Richard Host is Richard Nunanya. Richard Host was writing across all of these websites like the Occidental Observer, which is a deeply anti-Semitic outlet, you know, V Dare, which is another white nationalist outlet. And, yeah, he was just everywhere. Then he also ran his own separate blog called HBD Books.

And HBD is an acronym for human biodiversity, which is kind of the preferred euphemism in white supremacist circles for race science. You know, it's like, it's a lot of talk about like the I, the alleged supposed IQ differences between races. It's like really dark shit. So he was definitely like a very prominent voice in the alt-right at the time. And it was very much in this milieu of people. people that were obsessed with talking about IQ.

So it doesn't stand for happy birthday. No, it does not stand for happy birthday. Okay. All right. I thought it was a cheery site. Just listening to people's happy birthday. You mentioned that he's a Richard host slash Hananya was a big IQ guy. And he wrote a lot about how black people have lower IQs than whites.

He also says things like Hispanics don't have the requisite IQ to be a productive part of a first world nation. He says similar things about most. It's just straight up master race stuff. Yeah, man. I mean, he was, like I said, just obsessed with this idea that whites possess, like, not only superior intelligence, but, like, superior modes of moral reasoning, that they're less prone to violence, all this bullshit.

And it was basically, like, every type of bigotry he took part in. You know, when he was talking about IQ people, like, low IQ people, and like, like you just said, when he said that Hispanics didn't have the requisite IQ to be a productive part of a first-war nation. That was the beginning of an argument he was making for ethnic cleansing, which he was explicitly arguing that the ultimate goal should be to remove all non-white migrants from Latin America that migrated here after 1965, like after the Civil Rights Act. And then he extends that argument as well when he's talking about black people who he repeatedly discussed as having the lowest IQs. And he would often pair that argument with,

a call for forced sterilization. So he laid out a plan for the government to forcibly sterilize people with IQs below 90, I think, which is just like unvarnished fascist shit, like kind of as dark as it gets. So yeah, that's straight up eugenics. Yeah, I mean. Yeah, straight up. And again, that's bad enough on its own. But in his mind, this was going to apply mainly to non-white people, because in his mind they are the ones that have these low IQs. Yeah, precisely. So let me ask the question. How much different is this kind of stuff, the Richard Hoest stuff,

than the stuff that he has been writing more recently under his own name, at his own outlets, at places like the New York Times, Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, National Review, Reason Magazine. I mean, the list is, it's not endless, but it's large. And how much of a difference is there really? Yeah, I mean, so I think that's for me, like the real story here is that, you know, he 10 years ago was arguing for forced sterilization and now has fashioned himself as the go-to pundit arguing against wokeness, which, you know, is just kind of the modern euphemism for any, anything, you know, resembling social justice. And it's, you know, the scariest part for me is that, so I'll just give a, you know, a few examples. Like, yeah, Sure. He, you know, still talks about IQ of the races. He still, you know, of last month, called for more surveillance and arrests of black people. He, you know, has referred to black people as animals in recent months. He often promotes the work of people like Steve Saylor, who's like an explicit racist or of Ron Unz, who's a Holocaust denier. And he once said that, like, if he owned Twitter, he wouldn't let feminist. trans activists or socialists on Twitter because they're wrong and bad for society.

He's still doing all this shit, but somehow he's managed to give himself the veneer respectability. And editors across right wing and mainstream media have like really elevated him. To be fair, like some of the articles he was writing at different outlets were about foreign policy and then they weren't explicitly about race or could be interpreted, you know, bigoted way, but he was writing some really shitty shit for mainstream outlets like Newsweek where he kind of compared the deaths at the Tulsa Massacre to like the Rodney King riots and trying to draw some kind of moral equivalence there. And the same with places like Queet. And at Queerette, he wrote about how Twitter is like discriminating against conservatives. At the

National Review, he wrote about how culture, not economics, decides most voters' choices. For the Wall Street Journal, he wrote that, like, anti-Trump bias was kind of seeping into the social sciences. So he was given a platform to, you know, really kind of ensconce himself in the national mainstream media. And then, you know, along the way, started to get, like, a lot of very prominent backers and was getting invited to Ivy League universities to give speeches.

He spoke to the Yale Federalist Society lately. And, like, I looked up his speech. and wasn't expecting much. I thought he might try to dial it down or something. But then right there in the text, he's talking about how the government discriminates against whites and men. So it's, yeah, it's just really explicit. And I think it's been good to see what I was trying to get across.

People are picking up and talking about on Twitter right now, which is that like, you know, the real story here is that like the way the mainstream conservatism is structured right now, someone like Kanania can become a prominent figure and he doesn't have to hide his bigotry behind a pseudonym. As far as I can tell, at best, all he's sort of done is clean up his language a little bit and maybe moderate his tone for what that's worth. But the ideas don't seem much different now than they did back then. I'm curious what kind of responses you got when you reached out to these outlets that have published him recently. Yeah.

Someone noted that I think there's like more did not respond to request for comments in this story than maybe any other story. But I reached out to all of the outlets and I think, let's see here, the Wall Street Journal declined to comment. The New York Times gave me a statement saying that they weren't aware of his synonymous writings as Richard hosts. And then for the most part, I just didn't hear back from anybody else. It mostly felt like no one wanted to touch the story. Yeah. And that was true beyond the media outlets as well, you know, reaching out to the University of Texas where he's a visiting scholar and to Substack where he has a lot of subscribers and other

places. And was just interviewed by one of the head honchos of Substack, I believe, right? Hamish McKenzie. Yeah, yeah, that's correct. And Jonathan Katz, who's a great reporter who has his own Substack, has written extensively about Hanania's relationship with substack and why a substack is promoting him and why that might be problematic. So I'd encourage people to check out Katz's work on that. So Hanani, he published a response I mentioned earlier to your piece on his substack. And it was, it was weird, man. He basically

denounced all the views that he had back then when he was writing as Richard Host. And he says he was young, dumb, and full of, okay, well, here's what he wrote. He wrote around 2008, I had few friends or romantic successes and no real career prospects. Naturally, this led me to look around and come to the only logical conclusion, which was that I was naturally superior to everyone else. And women in particular shouldn't have any rights. Strangely enough, now that I have a fulfilling personal life and objective career success, such ideas don't appeal to me anymore. So basically, he got laid and now he's not racist, misogynistic, white supremacist anymore? Yeah.

I mean, I guess his argument here is that if we were. want to de-radicalize people, we should just give them money and get them laid. Right. Yeah, I don't know entirely what to say about Hananias response. I think, like, I will say that it does not address any of the accusations that, you know, he's made explicitly racist statements in recent months. And so I think that's kind of, you know, my biggest takeaway is that he's not addressing that.

And it's hard to know what to make of this. I mean, he's definitely attempting to, uh, say, his reputation and maintain his kind of elevated position, I think, in media and in academia. And he, from what I can tell, is finding a receptive audience for that. I was going to say, yeah, that it seems to be working among those people anyway. One of the things he wrote was one of the most dishonest parts of the Huffington Post hit piece is the argument that I maintain a creepy obsession with so-called race science and talk about blacks being inherently more prone to crime.

He's calling you dishonest and I would like you to defend yourself, sir. Thank you very much. Yes. So in May, Hanani had tweeted a link to a substack article he'd written about, quote, the reality of black crime or has, as he alternately put it, the pathologies of the inner city. So I don't really know how you read the pathologies of the inner city and the reality of black crime as anything else but saying that he believes black people are more prone to crime. If you look at a substack article, he still flirts with and talks about. IHU scores of different people and different races. And, you know, in that one particular subset article we talked about, he said, we need more policing, incarceration, and surveillance of black people.

So, you know, I think that's my most concise refutation of what is getting up. Your defense is his own words, basically. Yeah, yeah. And like, you know, he, I gave him ample opportunity to respond. I understand why somebody maybe doesn't want to respond to a journalist in a situation like that. And then he waited a few days and published this. And like I said earlier, to a certain extent, it's always a relief with a story like this when a source just kind of fesses up. But I would encourage, you know, everyone reading his response to, you know, go to the primary sources.

Absolutely. Exit question for you. He's got a book scheduled to come out next month from Harper Collins called The Origins of Wolk because, of course, it is. Do you think that still happens? You know, Harper Collins hasn't said anything to the contrary. They didn't respond to my request for comment. You know, Hananius looks like he's still on Substack. He's still at the University of Texas.

Maybe he'll stay at Harper Collins as well. Unbelievable. Chris, thanks so much for being here. This piece, like I said before, this piece was fantastic. I love this kind of journalism. And I thought you did a great job with this. Chris Matthias, everyone. Thanks, ma'am.

Thank you so much. Andy Levy. Daniel Moody. Who is you, your fuck that guy person's state or place in order to kick off this good, good week? It's a state. And, you know, I was saying before we started recording, I think if Florida didn't exist, we would be talking about Texas every day on this podcast.

And we still talk about it a lot. It's just that Florida also exists. And so Texas has sort of been relegated to run our position. But we really can't say enough about, and I know I'm taking a chance here because I'm messing with Texas and, you know, it's not my intent and I don't want to mess with Texas. But your governor, Abbott, he's bad. He's not good. And so now they've got this thing where they are raising the price of water for people in prisons.

I'm sorry. There was already a price? Yeah. I mean, they sell bottled water in prisons. And it's like 20 cents a bottle or whatever. And, you know, prisoners earn money from making. license plates or whatever else they do. So yeah, so they were charging 20 cents for a bottle of water, which I agree. It still seems weird. Like you're locked in a prison. Don't you? I thought the whole deal

was you at least got, you know, three meals and water and stuff like that. And now they're raising the price of water. This is in the middle of a heat wave where people are legitimately dying in Texas. Like they're not metaphorically dying. They're actually dying. People are dying in this state because the heat is out of control because of global warming, if we're allowed to say that. But so the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has confirmed that they are, they are raising the price of the water. And it's just, I guess they get non-bottled water for free. So they do get that.

But from all accounts, the tap water is unbelievably filthy because we don't care about prisoners in this country. I mean, we treat prisoners like absolute dirt. and I'm not advocating for club feds everywhere. But my God, there has to be a minimum standard for how we treat prisoners. And we are not meeting it. The point is, we have to stop doing shit like this. You should not be raising the prices of water for prisoners in the middle of one of the worst heat waves that the state has seen in a very, very, very, very, very long time.

It's inhumane. And everything that Texas is doing these days seems to be inhumane. and again, if it weren't for Florida, I think Texas would be getting my fuck that guy a lot more often. It still gets it a little bit, but it's getting it again today. Texas, fuck that guy. Yeah, we have no minimum standard for humanity in this country or like in the state of Texas. He, I mean, at the same time, you know, he also passed policy to ban water breaks for workers.

So like this just is on par. It's really disgusting. Fuck them. Fuck the entire state. So Danielle, who is your fuck that guy on this first glorious day back from vacation? I don't know if it's Mitch McConnell, if it's the people at his rally. I don't know. But what I find amazing.

So Mitch McConnell was interrupted. And interrupted is using a very euphemistic term. The man was shouted down with chance of retire, retire, retire at a. breakfast speech that he was doing in Kentucky over the weekend. He like it's it's amazing because on one hand, the Associated Press says that he arrived to a prolonged standing ovation, which I'm assuming is like is people being thankful that he was medically okay following his incident that happened on camera on Capitol Hill. And then I guess the crowd turned. And then they started chanting shame on you, ditch Mitch, retire, and lost the Senate. He seemed to be unbothered. He should be fucking

bothered. And honestly, like, I know between him, Feinstein and others, it is time to discuss term limits. Like, these people who are, and I really don't care, unless you are a healthy, mentally, physically functioning, 80-something-year-old, I don't understand why these people who are clearly unwell and who have had medical issues, serious cognitive health issues, should still be making laws for the rest of us. Like there has to be some place where we're just like,

oh, you should be termed out. This is not like a lifetime appointment. And I know that people have run against Mitch McConnell and, you know, and some have come close. But it's beyond time. So the fact that this, these people showed up clearly knowing that McConnell was going to speak to applaud him getting out of a car to then turn around and chant retire is wild, but also fairly accurate.

So Mitch McConnell, it's beyond time. It's beyond that. And you've just caused so much fucking havoc on our country. But to that, I say to him and, you know, his staff and fuck them. Fuck all of them. It's beyond time. The only thing is, I mean, let's not pretend that they don't want him to retire because he's old.

They want him to retire because he's not Trumpy enough for them. Right. That's a fair point. And that's sort of the scary part is that, like, you could be looking if he retires. I mean, great, he won't be the leader in the Senate anymore. But we're at the point where it's like. Like, you know, be careful what you wish for. And that's what kind of scares me.

And so, yes, fuck that guy to Mitch McConnell, but also fuck that guy to the audience, I think, because it's pretty clear what they really want. 100%. 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.

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