The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump Has Us on the Brink of a Social Civil War

Episode Date: August 4, 2020

There’s two things that Rick Wilson loves the most in this world and that’s food and politics. On this episode of The New Abnormal, Taste the Nation host Padma Lakshmi joins Rick and co-host Molly Jong-Fast to chat about her experiences foraging onions in the desert, hanging out with Thai women in Las Vegas and gaining 20 pounds, on purpose. Oh, and how immigrants and Native Americans have way more MAGA clout than Trump ever will. “It should be mandatory that [politicians] go and embed themselves for a week,” she says. Then, MSNBC’s Joy Reid joined to discuss her history-making career move, the impending “social civil war” and Trump’s ability to praise a drug that could kill people. (“It's like a cult leader in a way,” she says.) She and Rick also walk Molly through a typical day in Florida (most notably the bath salt, face-eating zombie incident—not to be confused with the also-mentioned “Zombie bin Laden.”) Plus! The duo opine about Trump’s failing ad strategy and the morons pushing our country into an economic crisis tailspin. Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi folks, it's Rick Wilson, and welcome to The Daily Beast's The New Abnormal. Hi, I'm Molly Jongfast, a left-wing pundit, an editor-at-large at the Daily Beast. I'm also an editor at The Daily Beast, a former Republican political strategist, best-selling author, and full-time troublemaker. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, business, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. I'll try to keep Rick to the minimum number of F-bombs and try to keep our... kids, pets, and other wildlife sounds from invading our respective bunkers. So, Molly, how was your weekend? That was amazing.

How was your weekend, Rick Wilson? I spent my weekend making and writing ads, as you might imagine. I'm curious to know about those ads, but we will. You'll see them all soon enough. Hey, Molly, whenever Jason Miller goes and has a successful television outing, how would you say it concludes? I'm not touching that. You're so mean. You're so mean.

You're not touching that. Really? Oh, I'm trying to... I mean, some people are obviously paid to touch that. I'm trying to keep it very classy here on the new of normal. Do you not know me? Let us just say, Trump advisor, Jason Miller. He goes on the Sunday Fox News.

Was he on Fox News? Was that the Sunday show he was on? And that was the one, just to segue, which Ben Dominic was on. Did you see that picture of Ben Dominic? I saw that. Someone is living hard. As a guy who doesn't sleep a lot and who works basically 20 hours a day right now and doesn't ever take time off, I feel like I feel pretty rough around the edges.

But damn, son. I mean, he is 38 years old. Okay. I'm no fan of the federalist, but part of me is like, get him a massage or something. I mean, he does not look good. I think Jason Miller may have a recommendation on that. Oh, I set you up again. I apologize to our listening audience.

that. So Jason Miller asked three times whether the Trump administration or campaign would accept foreign assistance in this election, and three times he did not say no. Did you say that Jason accepted foreign assistance with his erection? Oh, geez. Oh, election, you monster. This is a family show. I have you now, Trebek. I mean, Jesus Christ. Well, the obvious. Well, the obvious answer is the obvious answer. These people would take, if zombie bin Laden came back from the grave and said, I will prove Joe Biden's son was once in Al-Qaeda. You completely made up bullshit.

They'll take anything they can get. They are desperate for an August, September, October, or even November surprise at this point to break the cycle of an election that is going down the crapper for Donald Trump. Yeah, I mean, but it's interesting because I was thinking about earlier on we saw they asked Bill Barr the same question. It was a house hearing, and I can't remember who it was who asked him a man, but he said, will you not take foreign assistance? And it took Bill Barr like three times to say yes. You can see the gears going, bleep, bleep, bleep, bloop, bloop, bloop in Bill bars. What do you mean by foreign assistance? Like, and by foreign do you mean by, right? Right.

I mean, you know, so I did think it was interesting that they're really going to take whatever they can get. And Trump has, shockingly, Susan Collins, who said that Trump would learn his lesson. Trump is not learning his lesson. Oh, poor Susan Collins. I'm off her Christmas card list now. You probably are. I am. I'm sure of it.

Look, the idea that Donald Trump's campaign would once again joyously welcome the assistance, if it is what you say it is, I love it, especially later in the summer. this should surprise absolutely no one. But it is interesting to me that it's scary because he could win this way. Well, look, the fact is Donald Trump is not out of this fight. Okay? His polling is sliding downward. He's having a bad set of runs.

But this is still a campaign based on the electoral college map. And if Democrats take things for granted or do things that are not smart politically, there is still a possibility that this guy could turn this race in a direction they don't want it to go. It will be so, I mean, can you imagine what a second term of Trumpism would look like? Well, I'm going to call my cousin done in Uruguay and make sure I've got my escape plan in place. And of course, of course, now some Trumper is going to hear this interview. I go, well, if you don't like this country, you can just go ahead and leave that. I'll pay for your ticket.

And they're the same ones right now who are screaming that if Joe Biden's president, it's obviously going to immediately sink into full communism. Yeah, it's bizarre. I mean, the idea that Joe Biden is radical leftist. Trump pulled ad spending and is going on destroying the legitimacy of the election. Has he really pulled ad spending? They have pulled down their ad spending in six of their general election target states. And look, I know there are a lot of conspiracies floating around that's like some sort of strategic mojo.

It's not. This is a campaign in a full-scale shit show panic. Their campaign is internally, I mean, since Brad Pascal was removed, you're welcome. And Bill Steppian has been the temporary acting adjunct to sort of. sort of pseudo campaign manager. Did you watch him today on Fox News? He's very determined to come across as calm and in control.

He looked like he was crying. Yeah, this is not the look and feel Donald Trump wants to see on his TV. He wants to see the dickish performative fighter, shut up, Lib! And instead, he got Bill Steppian, who looked a little bit like somebody in middle school who got his lunch money stolen.

But he was trying to seem serious. But the problem for Stepion is he better hire a food taster because Jason Miller is absolutely trying to fuck him over and get him out of there. Jason's on the play for the big job. He's shanking Steppian behind his back every day. Can you imagine Jason Miller? I mean, what would that even look like?

Well, Jason Miller would run the Steve Bannon playbook, a guy who he is in business with, by the way. Let's not forget, Jason Miller and Steve Bannon have this radio program they do together. It would look like this. Wait, what is their radio program? The Moore Room. Oh. Steve Bannon's War Room. So Miller and Bannon have this podcast or radio show, whatever it is they do,

whatever their streaming program is. Steve Bannon and Jason Miller's only fan page, it's hot. Disturbing. But Rick Wilson, since you actually know about ad spending, what is going on here? Look, this campaign recognizes that their ads are not working. They're not moving the numbers, okay? If their ads were moving the numbers, they'd keep doing it. And the reality is right now, Donald Trump's numbers are so bad.

He's got, you know, 50% negatives, essentially, if you want to rough number average it, okay? When you go negative, you buy negatives for your opponent, okay? But for every point you buy for your opponent, your negative campaign gets you about a half a point of negatives also. Donald Trump can't afford any more negatives. So even if he drags Joe Biden down, it's a chase he can't win. All these ads they've been suddenly rolling out today on YouTube, like with the woman with the Bob Dylan style cards, those are base only. Those are not expanding Donald Trump's vote.

They are trying to reinforce what's on those cards? 11 million illegal immigrants. Biden shut your factories and personally ship them to China. Chaos. Left wing mob, all that other shit. Those things are not meant to say to a suburban Republican mom who voted Democratic in 2018, hey, come home. Those are meant to say to the Breitbart O-A-N-N-Fox. audience that unless they stick together and stay with Donald Trump.

Trump will never break up the fake pedophile ring run by Hillary Clinton. They'll never break up the fake pedophile ring. And also it'll lead to a gay chrie of marriage and all that of the shit. So they raise a lot of money for America first, right? Uh-huh. But they have to pay a lot. Like they have all these people employed who are like Trump's old security guard and then junior's girlfriend and Eric's wife. Is that a That's some of that catching up with them? Well, look, there are only so many people you can bribe an NDA into silence. And right now, there's enough people there to run like a division of a mid-sized American company

of people that have been parked there in the, basically, the rubber room of America's First Politics. There's very little return on investment from anybody there in America First Policies or whatever they call it, because politically speaking, the only thing Trump fans care about is Trump. Even having a lesser Trump on the scene does not have the same effect. as it would otherwise. Right, that is definitely true. So do you think some of it is that they're actually having a financial crisis at this point, or now?

Look, they're not having a financial crisis yet, but they've spent three quarters of a billion dollars. So far. Process that in your head, again, three quarters of a billion dollars. Now, take off 20% for the Trump skim. It's still, in politics, what we refer to, and the technical term of art is a fuckton. Is that metric? It's an imperial fuck ton, actually. That's slightly large than a metric fuck ton.

Yeah, I was just checking. But the things they've been doing are not working. The things that he could do for free, he can't do because he's mentally incapable. The things he pays for aren't working. And so even holding the Trump base has become problematic. Even holding safe states has become difficult. Donald Trump's polling 12 points down right now from where he was in 2016 in the state of Georgia. They're going to be doing ad spending to hold on to Georgia.

Can Alabama be far behind? So I think it was yesterday. the $600 enhanced unemployment expired. And Mitch McConnell let it expire. I think he went home on Thursday to have a lovely weekend. What is going on here? He wanted to spend more time with this coal. What's going on here is after three and a half years of spending money like drunken socialist sailors,

I know I make that joke a lot, but it's true. The Republican Party suddenly discovered fiscal discipline. And they also suddenly discovered this new, they broke through a new layer of political tone deafness. with this line of attack that Steve Mnuchin, who and Peter Navarro and others are all saying, well, if we give these people $600 more a week while they're not working, it might encourage sloth and indolence. We might end up having people who are not working just to collect this wonderful unemployment. It's just completely insane. It is just that shit. We're in a country right now where 32% of the country couldn't pay their rent or mortgage last month. There is going to be a

tidal wave of foreclosures and evictions in this country. People are starving. Listen, I was out the other day running an errand and I thought, oh, that must be a testing center because there are all these cars in line and these cones are put up in this parking lot, right? And then I realize, and I live in an affluent area. And then I realize it was a food bank distribution point. And this is happening everywhere. We're in the opening acts of an economic crisis that these fucking morons are so ill-prepared to handle and they are so unwilling. We spent $2 trillion. on an unfunded tax bill that went to 198 people on Wall Street. And corporations, I mean.

And 86% of it went to a bunch of hedge funds and Wall Street banks and high net worth individuals. And now we're bitching and moaning about a couple trillion dollars to, I don't know, ensure that 40 million Americans who are out of work somehow might be able to put food on the table. As a conservative, I find this sudden renewal of making this a fiscal discipline argument to be repulsive. Well, it's interesting, too, to me, that here we are. We have that we're in this time when all of a sudden Republicans, like half of the Republican Party keep saying this thing, which is if we give them this incentive, they won't want to go out and find a job. And the idea here is that there's not a deadly pandemic. And I feel like it's this continual loop, which is Trump bails to address the pandemic and then is mad. People are being bothered. by it. Do you know what I mean? Like, he's like, we must reopen schools, even though your state is spiking and there's a refrigerated truck outside of your hospital. It really reminds me of climate denial, right? Like, it's like, well, we are going to ignore this pandemic and then we're going to be mad at you for being stymied by it. This has become a set of signifiers again, because what's left of the right, what remains of the right, is now all about performative anger over things that, really aren't real and don't matter. They know at some level that there's really not a

Antifa army of socialist coming to kill them all. They know at some level that this country is in absolute agony and is in a state of economic anxiety and worried that is unprecedented in our lifetime, certainly. And that they should be in because that's the thing that's like Trump is always tweeting about, you know, the NASDAQ. But the truth is the stock market is not the economy. And this idea that the economy will magically fix itself when the fundamentals are so terrible and is just crazy. And then the other, the larger issue, which is these people who have that, who have COVID, have these crazy long-term symptoms that we don't even know the beginning of. COVID is going to be with us for a generation. We're going to deal with this problem, just like the Great Depression,

left this enormous psychic mark on the country that lasted throughout. I mean, look, our parents aren't quite cognizant of the Depression, but my grandmother sure as hell was. And that generation, it shaped American politics. The Depression shaped American politics for 40 years. And this is going to shape American life and politics and the economy for a very long time. And I would also say, like, I think that this is a little bit more like polio. Mitch McConnell has a limp because of polio, right? So, because he got polio when he was a child. So we don't know. what these COVID cases are going to look like in 50 years, 60 years, 70 years. We're going to have the economic devastation.

We're going to have the symptom, you know, these COVID people, I mean, who have these. I was, you know, one of my favorite things to do is to talk to my doctor friends about this. And I've been hearing these stories of these long-term effects that they, because we never had, we had no long-term because it was so new. And the long-term effects we're seeing are really scary. Mm-hmm. And that stuff isn't going to just, let's say we get a vaccine tomorrow. One of the reasons for the delay in the aid package is that Mitch McConnell is insisting that they include liability protections for companies. By the way, not just pharma or hospitals or doctors. It's like they want to include liability protections for like homeowners and banks and lenders and everything. I'm sorry. You know what? If you need to try to outline a set of, liability protections in a country that already provides pretty good liability protections. This is not focusing on the extant crisis.

Yeah, it's really an interesting thing to see that we are in this situation. It's really scary to me. So right now, what's really happened is Republicans can't agree with each other, so they can't even go to Democrats. Right. And I will tell you, the difference between the Republicans who are running for re-election this year and the ones who aren't is very much, very much a hotline. You know, where Rand Paul and Ted Cruz can be out bitching and moaning about everything,

I can't believe these. Lib tards are demanding more of that money of ours. The ones that are running for re-election are absolutely mortified, and they want this done tomorrow. They want it done yesterday. Can I ask you, Mitch McConnell, I read something on Friday that where Mitch McConnell said that he gave certain Republicans who were running for office permission to start distancing themselves from Trump. Did you read that in Politico?

Too late. Do you think that Trump will go quietly? No, no, no, no, no. He is going to see these people that when they make their first, we know his character, okay? We know who he is. We know exactly what is the boundary layer of all Trump behavior. And that is his delicate, dainty little ego. And the minute Sue Collins or Steve Danes or somebody else goes over a certain line and says,

I'm breaking with the president on issue X, he is going to have a hissy fit. and he's going to stomp his feet and he's going to scream and he's going to yell and Mitch McConnell's going to be sitting there in his office going, dear God, don't tweet, don't tweet, don't tweet, don't tweet, please, God, don't tweet. Donald Trump will view any political self-preservation by people like Susan Collins or Lindsey Graham or Tom Tillis or anyone else as a personal betrayal. And that personal betrayal in Trump's world always leads to the tweet. Right. So that seems likely, right, that we're going to see that. I think it's very likely we're going to see that. And again, he cannot resist engaging anything that pokes his ego. He can't. He can't stop himself. So I don't think that Mitch McConnell telling Trump that telling these senators that they can distance themselves from Trump is going to be, Trump is going to deal with us well.

I believe that he will deal with it as well as he deals with any other complex multivariate problem or emotional challenge by a tantrum. That was my feeling. Okay, so I hear the RNC is not going to have any outside media. The RNC is not going to have any outside media because they're A, chicken shit, B, Donald Trump believes he can produce his own television show and that all America will tune in and that the cable networks will carry it without interruption. I would like to point out he would be mistaken on all those fronts. On not one of those things is the media going to play nice. He's not going to get unedited, unexpurgated coverage. And just providing a live feed of an event does not mean the event is covered by the news. It's also kind of Saddam. Yeah, it's a bit strange, right? While I believe they have complete control of the GOP and that they will vet the shit out of every single person going in that room, I think they are terrified of anybody,

even the smallest, tiniest break of daylight that could lead to an impression that Donald Trump is not the guy with, I have 99% approval in the Republican Party. Right. No, I agree. And I think it's fascinating. But I also wonder, will Trump go along with not having media there? I mean, Trump loves me.

That's the thing. Trump listeners, if you're tuning in today, don't forget, the number one thing Donald Trump cares about more than anything else in the media world is how he's covered in the New York Times. That's what he cares about. Attention Trumpers. Donald Trump's performative BS. He really is obsessed with the New York Times about the media being the enemy of the people. He's feeding you chum. Donald Trump loves the media. He doesn't exist without the media. As I said the other day, he's Chauncey Gardner with the media. He obsesses about how he sounds and looks and is covered in the New York Times more than anything else. So he will not like it. He will not like it at all. Yeah, I think that's right. Padma Lakshmi is an American author, activist, model, and television host. Her show Taste The Nation is now out on Hulu. Well, Padma, first off, thank you so much for being on with us today. You are a combination of two of the things that I love the most, the intersection of food and politics and life all at one time. So thank you very much for being with us today.

Thanks for having me. It's great to be on your show. It's pretty new, right? You're new abnormal. It's pretty new. And you've got a pretty new show also. Can you tell us something about that? Sure.

I have a new series on Hulu called Taste the Nation. I go to 10 different communities around the country, 10 different immigrant enclaves and 10 cities. And I just explore the community through the food. And the idea is to look at immigration around the country and through these people. stories and use them to illustrate certain aspect of immigration or ask them questions or, you know, just in many cases just illuminate what life is like for these people living in our country, often as our neighbors, but that we seldom hear from firsthand.

Sure. So tell us some of the places you went or you've been for the first season. We went to Las Vegas to interview some Thai immigrants who'd been there since the 70s because of the Vietnam War. Oh, wow. Yeah, it was fascinating. There were probably more ties in Los Angeles, but, you know, with every episode, not only did we pick a new, new ethnicity and a new city, we tried to explore some facet of immigration that we were interested in. For example, I really wanted to go to Las Vegas because the immigrant population in Las Vegas of ties is mostly female. And that is because during the Vietnam War, the U.S. had a base in Chi Mai, and a lot of these GIs married Thai women and brought them over,

and they have all now, a lot of them, have settled near Nellis Air Force Base in Vegas. And so that allowed me to explore the heritage and history of Americans having a tradition of welcoming others into our families and into our homes. We also go to Hawaii as, you know, to do Japanese Americans in Hawaii. And I think there, that episode really allows you to see how two cultures who both, you know, are very open and both benefit each other can fluidly make a third culture in Hawaii. It's very difficult to distinguish what is uniquely Japanese sometimes and uniquely indigenous Hawaiian culture because they're both island cultures. They're both based on fishing, but the Japanese had done so much to revolutionize the fishing industry in Hawaii. And so that's sort of a happy story that we tell at the end.

But there are some harder ones that, you know, we start out with an episode in El Paso to talk about the family separation issue. We talk about the Golagichi community to talk about descendants of West African slaves. Because I think it's really important to show that West African and slave people can. came here with skill and talent and traditions that spanned hundreds of years before they ever got to American shores. And so we can see that in the food today. And yet we never look at African American food independent of its colonial connections, you know. And so we also did an episode on Native Americans, and those are some of the episodes.

What I think is interesting, and I'm sure you must have seen this, is this a lot of these states are shifting more blue. is they are able to enfranchise their immigrants. I was wondering if you saw any of that when you were on your travels? Sure. You know, I didn't say that specifically with the Thai women. I think those Thai women are very industrious. And, you know, out of the Las Vegas desert where there was no community, they built a community center and a Thai temple where they all worship.

And, you know, you see that in the episode. You see the priests that they brought. You see the children learning traditional dance and so forth. But we did come across, you know, the problem is like a lot of immigrants, for instance, a lot of my own ethnicity, Indian immigrants in this country or first and second generation immigrants, they don't vote. For instance, I think in Houston, only 20% of Indian Americans voted in the last election. And I think that it's very important for us to remember that our vote does count. I think there's a psychology that, you know, I'm generalizing now, of course, But there is something to a psychology of keep your head down, don't complain, and just do your work and build a little niche for your own family that's safe and prosperous and don't make weight.

I know for a fact that that was the case with my family and so many of the immigrants that I talk to have felt that way. You know, there's this tacit belief and it's reinforced in a million different ways that we are American. We pay taxes. We contribute to the society. we send our kids to school, whatever. But we are not as American because the white America makes that clear in the billboards, in the newspapers, and the TV shows, all of it. And, you know, for most of us, we're just happy that we get a second chance to build a new life

in this country. I think you see that galvanization in the generation that comes after the first generation. And so people, you know, you see it now with the squad in the house and, you know, like all of Ilhan and AOC and, you know, different people like that, you see the next generation who's born and brought up here and really internalize the, hey, wait a minute, my rights are important. You know, internalize that ethos of American freedom and American individuality. But that is something that we don't feel we immediately get to participate in. Psychologically, of course, you know, we know that we have the right to vote.

And one of the most important things that we do need to do is galvanize that. And I think for good or a lot of evil, Trump has done that. He has galvanized and woken up people who would have never considered themselves to be political, myself included. Right. You definitely seem to have been catalyzed by, and what you were just describing, I think, is so true, Padma. I mean, presidents on both sides of the political equation always talked about America as the propositional nation. Anybody could come here. It wasn't going to be perfect, but there was this welcoming sense in the culture. And it feels like to me that Trump really tried to kill that off as much as he could, as fast as he could. Definitely.

And that now it's become something that has, I think there's been a blowback. Maybe you agree with this. I don't know. I think there's been a blowback against that sense of, no, this is merely going to be the white ethno state that some of his advisors like Steve Bannon fantasize about. Yeah. I mean, I totally agree. Yes, he has catalyzed me. And, you know, what he's also done is squandered a lot of goodwill.

that America have gained because of this ethos that you're saying that no matter what America's foreign policy has been in any given decade and there's 17 more hours we could talk about just that, America always occupied a slightly higher moral ground because of their openness, because of this fact that, you know, unlike most countries, it didn't matter what class you were in, what religion you were in, where your parents were from or what your last name was. If you came here, you rolled up and you worked as hard as you could. You two had an equal shot. You had equal opportunity at that American dream, at that success.

And I, you know, I think that is what has kept America as this beacon of aspiration around the world. And I think that America has benefited so much from all of the immigrant contributions. And I just don't mean like economic, although that's pretty significant. I mean also culturally, I mean with their. sports, their music, our literature, our television, all of that that goes who are in the world, does so because of all of the influences. I mean, I am an optimist, even though it's hard to be one these days. And I really think that that kind of microcosm of the world where you take the best

of all cultures that have settled here and you turn it into something uniquely American, to me, that is what makes America great. That is what it makes America cool. And also, by the way, that immigrant force that allows us to renew the labor force, that is also what makes our economic engine run, which allows us to fund our military and therefore have supremacy in that regard. So this idea of immigration being a bad thing is really, then you'd have to erase all of the accomplishments of America in the last hundred years. Can you tell us a little bit about your immigrant story just for people who don't totally know? Sure. I came here when I was four years old. My mother had an arranged marriage in India, which was very turbulent and difficult. She took the decision to divorce my father when I was two. And, you know, at that time in the 70s, much like, by the way, now, in a lot of India still, we lived in the South, a very conservative Brahmin middle class people. And it would have been very hard. She would have had this invisible scarlet letter on her chest everywhere she went. And so she, she,

He had studied to be a nurse, and so she took the decision to create a new life for us and strike out here in America. And at that time, there was a real shortage of medical professionals, doctors, and trained nurses. And so America was giving really lucrative visas to anybody who wanted to come and had this knowledge. And so that's why today you'd see all these hospitals with doctors' rosters that look like an Indian phone book. It's like after 2000, the tech boom also gave you.

immigration to a lot of Indians that went on the, you know, to the West Coast or New York, engineers, computer programmers, all that. You know, in fact, 60% of the Indians in this country today, immigrants, are actually here after 2000 because of the tech boom. But I stayed back with my grandparents for two years. So from the ages of two to four, I did not see either of my parents. I have no contact with my biological father, really. And that's why I think the child separation issue really, you know, obviously I'm also a mother, but she don't need to be a mother to be horrified by that. But I know the ways in which my separation from my parents at such a young age as a toddler

has affected me psychologically all my life. I will never know to what degree, but I know it is significant. And so I've always lived as an immigrant. And some of those things I spoke about earlier about feeling like, of course, you're American, but you're not as American as your white peer in high school or in college or whatever. I feel, I have felt for a long time until I really insisted on my American next recently. I felt like that, you know. So I grew up, I came to New York when I was four.

I grew up in New York and in Los Angeles. I went to college in Massachusetts. And I live in New York now. So in New York, when I grew up, I didn't feel as different because, of course, walking around in the street, you saw all kinds of people with all kinds of accents. When I moved to California and I went to high school there, I really, really, really, really felt like a minority. There is a lot of diversity in Los Angeles, but they don't commingle. So you have the Mexican part of town, you have the white part of town, the black part of town, and the Asian part of town. And that is still true in a lot of cities in Los Angeles County.

I always think of you as a very thoughtful person. Thank you. I'm curious to know how you got into what you do and what the trajectory there was. It was a complete accident, actually. I mean, I never thought I could have a career in food because I just didn't have people around me like that. I grew up in a middle class, almost working class, through collar neighborhood. My mother's the nurse. My stepfather is a plumber.

And we didn't know restaurants. We didn't know the chefs by name of the restaurants we went to, put it to that. I didn't know it was a career, but I always loved to cook. And I actually studied theater and American Lit. And so after modeling, I was auditioning and I had been in a few things, you know, nothing so, nothing even worthy of mentioning. And when I did my first movie, the director wanted me to gain weight. And I did. I gained 20 pounds to the role. And then after the movie, I was still making most of my living as a model. I wasn't paid very much. And so I wanted to lose the weight in a healthy way. And that's how my first cookbook

came about. I had had drinks, I had cooked at my house for some actors, and I had met a publisher, and they were saying, oh, I heard you're a great cook. And I said, yeah, I said, it's always been a fantasy of mine to write a cookbook because everybody wants to know what a model eats. And that is how I got my first book deal, you know, my book deal. And, you know, it was a complete group. I don't think even the publisher thought it would, you know, be very serious. But it was a marketing hook for them, I guess. And then it well, and it won a prize in Versailles, France, and I went on

the Food Network a couple of times, and then they offered me a development deal for a show. And I wasn't in a position to say no, so I said, yeah. It was one of those things where you're like, okay, I'll do this, okay. You know, I had a show on the Food Network, because it was a sort of stand and stir

cooking show called Padma's Passport. It was only on for one season. You just used the term of I've never heard before, stand and stir. I mean, it instantly is clear what it is, but I just wanted to say, I'm glad I learned a new phrase just now. Yeah, it really gives the description.

And, you know, after that, I did a couple of documentaries. Actually, early in my career, those documentaries are the seeds of what taste the nation is today, just with better hair because I was 20 years young. I was those episodes now, and I'm like, God, who is the overzealous hair person on this? I was doing then what I'm doing now. I'm just much more forceful in my arguments or what I present.

Because I do think that food is a great way in to look at a culture. And I wanted this show to be political. Honestly, the food for me is just an excuse to have a political show because I knew that if I said, hey, I want to do my own version of Face the Nation, no one was going to green light that show. I just give them a spoonful of food with, you know, a tablespoon of politics right behind it. I came of age at the time of Kate Moss,

and so there was this idea that women need to be skinny, skinny, skinny. You happen to be quite skinny, but for you to be a model, do you find herself thrown into this like women, food, body stuff in a way? Totally. I mean, I, you know, I think that again was part of the novelty and why I had any name recognition at all. I can't tell you how many times people would be like,

oh, do models eat? And I'd be like, no, they just live on cigarettes and people. What do you say? I mean, the reason that models are skinny is because we're fruits of nature. We are not normal people. The cocktail of our genetics make us look and be like we are. And, you know, when I was in my 20s, I could eat chimichungas and beers and go to sleep and wake up the next day and not feel it.

And that is the truth. But when my metabolism started changing and then when I had to gain weight and that was a lot of weight, you know, to gain in such a short period of time, I think it was like two months that I had to gain that. There's the best three months of my life, by the way. spaghetti bolognese and then a pepperoni pizza and then a maltone milkshake. I couldn't even imagine doing that now. But, you know, I think that was the part of it.

And then also, I am a woman on television. So now I'm a woman over 40 on television and I am a depreciating asset. I'm like a car you just drove off the lot that is going to diminish in value. because people look at me and my body and they judge it a completely different way than they do say my head judge, Tom Colicchio. He never gets the questions I do about how do you keep your figure. And well, the truth is I work out the beast. I have to. It's an occupational necessity.

And they never ask him how he balances work and life and all that stuff. And I get why people do it. It's because the norm of our culture is one thing. And I'm sort of an anomaly and sort of just in flying in the. face of that, which I kind of like now. For so long, I really, I was trying to be what the marketplace wanted me to be, and it just, I couldn't. And so now that I finally let go of that, I find that, you know, today standing where I am in my own shoes feels really good, but it took a long time to get here. What was your favorite experience? What was your favorite thing that was like

a holy hell, this is happening in America, this is so cool, this food subculture? Well, I will say there were a couple of moments like that. I really enjoyed my time with the Thai women. I'm sorry, Las Vegas, but I hate Las Vegas. I'm not a gambler. I'm with the worst. But my favorite Thai restaurant is in Las Vegas. What's it called?

Lotus of Siam. And so that was a real treat for me. Like, I filmed the whole season of Top Chef in Las Vegas, and I would get takeout from there three or four times a week, and I'm very well. But I will say another moment where I literally was like, holy shit, I can't believe I'm doing this, was when I was on the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona with a woman named Twyla Pasadour, who is this amazing seed carrier.

That's what they call her. And she has taken up the task of cataloging all the flora and fauna in the Sonoran desert because all of this information, and it's quite substantial that Native Americans have, is passed down orally usually. And so a lot of it is getting lost. So she took me through this desert. And all my style was this beautiful breathtaking desert, you know, this Wiley Coyote Desert. But seeing it with her eyes, she taught me how to forage for wild onions. And I'll never forget how to look for them. She taught me how to eat cactus fruit and season it without salt, but with sumac and agave.

And she really taught me how to live off the land. I ate a pack rat. I know that sounds crazy. I've eaten a lot of weird stuff in my life. but that probably takes the big. That is amazing. And I just never been on a Native American reservation before, and I think more Americans need to do that.

I just feel like all these lawmakers who are just sitting on immigration policy in Washington, it should be mandatory that they go and embed themselves for a week, just like I did in El Paso or on the border, to live and see down there how their policies affect people on the ground. because it's a different story when you're there. You know, it's funny because I was in New Mexico last summer and I went to two different reservations and ate the food and went to the churches.

And it was amazing. I mean, it's so culturally different. And the reservations were so different from each other. It was amazing. Totally because, you know, they also like what grows is different. They're like different, completely different people. They have different customs, different stories, different ways of dress.

And I think like that's, like, that's why I wanted to do this show. Like I knew when we pitched this show, I knew I wanted to do an episode on Villa Ghii Cuisine. And I knew I wanted to do an episode on Native Americans. Because if I was going to talk and opine about what American food actually is, I had to go see what was here before any European colonists came and sort of contaminated the natural food of this land.

And so that was the thinking behind going there. But once I was there, there's such a depth and it's a strange kind of groundedness that I felt emanating from all the people I met on the reservation. And I think there's incredible value to that. I never learned about this. I'm a product of the American school system. I should have. It's true.

Because it's interesting. You know, it's really interesting as part of our heritage. And again, I think all this stuff is cool. Like, I'm a history nerd and I'm a fool. nerd. So I just created this show to play to all of my trash. Well, that's really cool. Before we get into things today, we have a fun little treat rolling out soon. There are so many insane things happening in the world right now, and two episodes each week

just aren't enough to cover it all. So the new abnormal is going to start releasing a limited run series of bonus interviews over the next few weeks for Beast Inside members only. Starting in August, we'll release a new one each Sunday. But listen carefully, only Beast Inside members will have access to these. So head over to new abnormal. Dot the Daily Beast.com to become a Beast inside member. That's New abnormal. Dot the dailybeast.com. We promise it'll be worth it. Joy Reid is the anchor of the new MSNBC show, The Readout, and has made history as the first African-American female cable news anchor. Well, we are so pleased to welcome to the new

abnormal. My old friend, how two of us from Florida managed to get where we are today is a miracle of it itself. But welcome to the new Abnormal Joy Reid. How you doing? What's going on, friend? And it's funny because Rick, you might have been one of my oldest Twitter frenemies. We used to scrap like crazy. Like crazy. Like every day. But you know what? It was always good natured scrapping. You know, we always had a baseline there, which I think is kind of gone today. I think it's much harder to develop a friendship like we did in the environment 10 years on now in this thing. Yeah, I don't know what it is. And Molly, hello to you too. And thank

You off from being a shit. Mine and I have just been friends, period on. But Rick and I, when we started out, it was during the Bush era. I want to say it was during the Bush era at the end of Bush, right? And so the things we were fighting about were, like existential, like Iraq war and policy and everything. But there was never a sense that the country was like ripping apart because of it. Right. So we weren't from like almost two different countries the way it is now.

Like Trump people and not, it's almost like two countries fighting each other. Whereas we could really go at it on Twitter, but also really. is funny. So we always laugh too. Like we were laughing together too. So I don't know. It's a weird world now. I mean, it's so strange. This is history. What's happened to you. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty crazy. Do you feel like this is really cool or do you feel an enormous amount of pressure? I feel like both, right? So it is really cool and I'm very proud to be in the door. But then I think it's also weird that I am the person in that door. You know what I mean? Because it's just, it's weird. I still think of myself as like sort of a quirky columnist, you know, inside. You know, I'm still shocked when anybody knows who I am, you know, so I am just amazed that it's happening at all. But I also feel very proud of it,

and I feel a huge responsibility to do a good job because it's not like there's a lot of other black women out here to absorb the negativity if it goes wrong. It's just I'm out here on a high wire by myself. So, but I really want it to not be, I don't want to be the only one for long. I think this is just opening the door for more and more diversity in prime time, which we really needed. So far, the show has been a huge success. You've had a, you've had a tremendous audiences, you're getting great guests. Do you feel like all the years of sort of being in the spotlight there obviously tuned you up for this show? Does it also feel like you're at the right moment in the right place? And I appreciate that. Thank you. I mean, we've been very lucky.

The booking gods have been very good to us, you know, and thank God we got like Lincoln Project videos to play whenever we run out of news. But I mean, no, we literally have come in at a time. This is the best and the worst of times. And you guys, I'm sure, feel this way too. It is the best of times in that we are witnessing history at a level that we've never really witnessed it before, meaning that we're on the brink of, in many ways, a sort of social civil war. We have a president. We've never had, we've had bad presidents, racist presidents, stupid presidents. We've had all kinds of presidents, but out of 45 tries, we've never had one that got help from a foreign government to get his job. Like, that was like the no-no. Like, anybody, go watch Hamilton, okay? It's a big

deal to the founders that, A, black people don't get to vote. That was a big deal, too. Well, keep that in mind. But the other thing that was a big deal is that foreigners don't get involved. And the fact that you had foreign, and not only even just any foreign country, but a deeply adversarial country whose leader still wants to refite the Cold War and defeat us in the Cold War. And that country helped him get elected. That is unprecedented. And for him to not really try to govern the country and to just say, you know what, if it's not our people dying of coronavirus, who cares, I'll pretend it's fate. And encouraging his own base to recklessly believe it.

it isn't real and take incredible risks with their own health and maybe kill themselves for him. It's like a cult leader in a way. And it's not what we're used to in American politics. So it's an incredible time to be in this business, to be able to help tell this story and to help push back on it. But it's also terrifying. The unreality of where we are these days, it's so striking and it's so vivid. But we've also kind of become, it's like we're always waiting for the next shoe to drop with this guy. Yeah, all the time. And the shoe is always devastating.

Today we're back to Trump pushing again for people to take hydroxychloroquine. And the only reason I know what that is is my father was Congolese. And so he would get malaria like twice a year. He was constantly getting malaria. And he would call and we'd like, how you do it? Well, he would call us. You know, he barely ever called. But he would call like maybe once a year and we'd say how you do.

And the first or second thing would be, well, you know, I got malaria again. So hydroxychloroquine is what you take when you get malaria. It isn't a drug that Trump made up. But it's not for that. It's not for this. Right. And it doesn't work particularly well. And it'll kill you.

I mean, actually, it's quite dangerous, you know, and as he got older, taking this drug got riskier and riskier for his heart health. And he ultimately died of heart attack, not because of that drug. But it isn't like the thing you want to be taking just as a prophylactic. Yeah. Though Louis Gomer claims to be taking it as a prophylactic, even though he has no symptoms. But Louis Gomer is the dumbest man in Congress. Yeah.

And that is a high bar, but Louis Gomer is the dumbest man in Congress. It's true. That's the subtitle of our podcast. Can we talk about your weekend show? You're testing out anchors for that? So, yeah. So what's happening is the network is keeping the name AM Joy for now until they find a new show and replace it.

And they're trying different people out. So Tiffany Cross has done a couple weekends. She was great. She's brilliant. I mean, Tiffany Cross, the first time I had her on the air. And a friend of ours, one of our producers said, I know this young woman, you've got to give her a shot. She's really brilliant.

She hasn't been on TV. But you should book her because she's a great political analyst. As soon as I saw her on, I thought, Oh, I will never stop booking this girl. She's so brilliant. And she can sort of toggle between pop culture and politics in a way that I think for, especially for a younger audience is really important. So she's brilliant.

Jonathan K. Part, my buddy and pal, who's been the filling for A.M. Joy, for almost the whole four years, he got a shot. And other people are going to, they're going to jump in and then they'll play Survivor and figure out who wins. I like Capehart for scrappiness in that one. Yeah, he's got moves, too. You never know, right? He might, and he's also got, like, a boss, like, show system.

I know, right? He wins Rer, like, every time. He's on TV. He sets the bar. He does. So, you're here at a great moment. You've got this election campaign from hell to cover. What are you thinking about for your long-term, the long run of this thing?

What do you want your legacy to be on this? I know that's a big picture question, but you ought to think about it because you're kind of a big deal now. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you, Rick. You know, the way I think about it is, you know, I was not a reporter. I came into this. You know, I worked in local news, but I got out of that right quick because I opposed the Rock War and just was like, ah, this is not for me, fires and floods and cars in a canal. You know, Rick will appreciate this, the car in a canal. If there's a car in a canal, you're going to get a helicopter shot. That in Shark Week, right? That's what we do.

You're going to get a chopper shot, right? And then you're going to have Shark Week, and that's what we did. Is this true in all of Florida or just? Yes. It's the story. It's the story. It's the story. It's the story. story. How does a car get in the canal? This is the mystery. No one knows. Half the time it's empty and you never know. The other half the time the guy's either like 90 years old or face-eating cannibal methamphetamine addicts are involved. One of the two. Right. We have the face-eating cannibals. Yeah, remember the face-eating cannibals was a, only in Florida would there be base-eating cannibals on the highway. It was only like the main highway too. They weren't like hiding. Right. It was in Miami on an overpass.

Like a big overpass, a major, major road. I thought Rick was kidding about facing cannibal. No, it's real. They were having bath salts. They were eating bath salts. And the bath salts were making them go crazy, and they were eating people's faces. Only in Florida, right? So I did that for a few years and was like, this is not the career I want.

You know? And when the Iraq War broke out, I was so against it. I wrote a column. I made through a guy named Ike Siemens, a craggy old white dude who became like my bestie inside of the newsroom. And he introduced me to the guy who was the opinion page editor at the Miami Herald, who was the first black opinion page editor. And I got this little column. And my very first column almost got me fired because, you know, you don't write the headlines when you do a column. The editors do the headlines. And the editor put in against the Iraq war, against a stupid

war or something like that. Also put my work email address on it instead of my personal email. So I got marched in by my boss and almost fired. What I took away from that was that I really should get out of the local news business because I just was against the war. I thought it, I didn't like the way we were covering it. I didn't like the way the media in general from the New York Times on down was covering the war. I thought it was too rah-rah. So I quit and I ended up working on this campaign to try to defeat George v. Bush. We lost. And it just went round and round until I ended up on the Obama campaign. But I say that long story short to say that for me, the business has been not, my goal wasn't to be a reporter. And the first time I actually became a reporter was when I was at the

Greo, long down the road. And I ended up working at the Greo that was part of NBC News at the time. And I went down and I covered the Trayvon Martin story. And it was the first time I'd actually been a reporter reporter. And that story shook me to my core. You know, this kid was my children's age. He grew up in the town next door to my town in South Florida. You know, he rode horses. Like he was a good kid who wanted to be a pilot.

And I had covered a pilot program that he was in where they were learning to fly. And that was his dream. So this was like a kid I knew, a suburban little black kid. And so to me, what I want long term for this show is that that story, story, which was the first Black Lives Matter story. That's where the term Black Lives Matter story started with him, is that, let's say Biden wins. It's not as if all that's happening in the streets is going to end. It's just going to be his problem. And it's not like coronavirus is going to dry up. It's going to be his problem. All of these issues, police violence, all of this stuff is

going to fall on the person who's actually president. And Trump doesn't want to be president. So that means Biden gets all of us in his lap. And I think you guys, myself, all of us are going to then be sorting through the mess. And it could be for four years. So I think there's been a paradigm shift, but I'm not sure. Do you think that what has recently happened with Black Lives Matter will really be able to shift things? Yes. And the reason I say that is that after Trayvon Martin was killed, you had President Obama say Trayvon could have been me and lost basically half his white support, right? And he got reelected with, you know, 5 million volts instead of 10 because of that, right? You Fast forward to George Floyd, 30 days after this man was killed, you had a bill on the floor of the house.

That's a different world. And I think police reform in these police unions, I have a lot of friends from Florida that are police officers. My godbrother is a retired NYPD officer. Even they say to me, the culture is changing. The demands are now unstoppable. And these police unions are having to really wrestle with the fact that they're going to lose power and they're going to lose budget. And so I think you're going to see a tremendous change in policing, which will be good for everyone. Here's what we find out.

If black people are being abused by the cops, it's only a matter of time before white women's sons in Portland are being abused by the cops. If they're willing to do it to my kids, trust me, if your kids march in Portland, which is a city with almost no black people, they're going to get their butts kicked too. And so, you know, we have to change it for everyone. Rick Wilson, do you know what time it is? Fuck that God! And today, we need to talk about the author of the Maga.

Do you know who that is? The Maga Doctrine? Would that be Matt Gates? Would that be... Would that be We lad Charlie Kirk? It would be. That lovable scamp. But we Charlie Kirk, he's always up to something with his Tea Party USA.

Turning Point USA. You know, I'll be honest. They all look the same to me. All mediocre white guys. But, you know, the reality is that this guy Charlie Kirk is just a complete, it's interesting because he's very anti-mask, and he actually said on Fox that only the vulnerable with underlying conditions should wear masks. Everyone else should go about their business. And then there's that thing that these trumpists do where they demand that schools

immediately be reopened. The idea of Charlie Kirk and the whole, again, performative dickbaggery of I'm not going to wear a mask because of my freedom. This is something that these guys, look, they lost this fucking battle in May. When everyone had to reopen right away, liberate Wisconsin, blah, blah, blah, they lost this battle. You know why they lost this battle? Because we're here again. The death count is rising and rising and rising. The infection count is rising and rising. These

fucking idiots are doing this for clicks. And people are dying because these fucking idiots are doing this for clicks. Well, the founder of Turning Point, the guy who discovered Charlie Kirk died of coronavirus. He did indeed die of coronavirus. Which I think speaks to the larger issue here, which is like, could have your founder die of this and still

continue. Somebody you give a shit about can die and you still keep going on. That's a sign that you're not just in it for the politics, but there's something almost psychotic about it. And the disconnect is kind of shocking, right? It really is, and it's really remarkable. So, Molly, what happened with Judge Box of Wine and her mask rant this weekend on London, whatever it is?

Judge Box of One was on a television program, which I guess is a YouTube program, and she said that masks are bad and that they're Marxist and they dehumanized and she went all anti-mask, which is ironic because about three weeks ago, Judge Box was seen in the Hamptons where she is wont to be, sitting outdoors wearing a mask, and on her phone could see that she had been looking at a picture that Christy Teagan had posted of her book. boobs. Thank you. No, look, I'm not saying it's unprecedented that any American would look at pictures of Chrissy Teigen's boobs. But Judge Box of Wine would not have been my first call on that, but, you know. So maybe our fuck-that guy of this week is sort of this combination of Judge Box of wine and the larger sort of movement of Fox News to completely off the rail. On that note, we'll wrap up this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, will be talking with smart folks from The Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics, and science who will help us understand what's happening to our country and the world.

We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. We're just getting started and don't want you to miss an episode. If you'd like to follow us on Twitter, I'm Molly Jongfest and he's the Rick Wilson. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you again on the next episode. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the Beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover

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