The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump Is Liable for Ashli Babbit’s Death

Episode Date: July 9, 2021

Substacker and The Nation columnist Jeet Heer explains with no hesitation why Capitol insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt’s death is on Trump, Rep. Cori Bush (MO-D) sends a clear message to Majorie Taylor Green and gets real about defunding the police and Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action reveals a gun crime stat that would freak out conservatives. If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Jong-Fast and welcome to The Daily Beast, The New Abnormal. I'm a left-wing pundit and an editor at large at The Daily Beast. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. Our world has been turned up day down. On the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and figure out how to get ourselves out of it. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon. I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails.

We have a super interesting show today with Congresswoman Corey Bush. She represents Missouri's First District. It's going to talk to us about police reform and a host of issues. Then we'll talk to the founder of Mom's Demand Action, Shannon Watts, about where we're at with gun violence. But first, we have sub-stacker and columnist at the nation, Jeet Here. Welcome back to the new abnormal, Jeet Here. Good to be here again. You're like one of my favorite guests, so I'm glad to have you back.

Well, you're one of my favorite hosts, so I'm glad to be here. We're going to talk about a lot of stuff. I think the first thing we got to talk about is, what the fuck is wrong with Canada? Why do you have a heat dome? Well, the heat dome is another case of how climate change is happening right now, and it's happening a lot faster than anyone expected. And it's happening with real casualties. There's like three times as many deaths right now happened as what normally happen in British Columbia.

Like temperature is higher than we've ever had recorded as long as humans have been there, including like, you know, frighteningly sort of an entire town that burned down. So yeah, it's a real wake-up call for those who haven't already working out. Yeah, I mean, it's just really scary. And that town is gone now, right? Yeah, it seems like the entire town is gone. And yeah, it's as hard to know. know what to say about this, except, you know, like, you don't just go to the urgency of, like,

we really have to treat climate change as an emergency. And like, you know, I mean, the, the, temperature are going to go up for decades to come, but we have to make sure, you know, like, this is under control. Like. So let's talk about what's happening right now, because even though it's like a weirdly sleepy news time, there's some really scary stuff going on under the surface. And you had a tweet today that I think is really important, and I think it's like going on under the surface, and it's quite scary. So there was this Bernie Carrick tweet.

Bernie Carrick is this right-wing ghoul, but he was the police chief in New York. By the way, I have to apologize because it seems like all the fuckery is coming from New York City. There's a type of character, which I call the New York. douchebag. Right. Natively here, Gene, and I can probably say this because it's a slur and I'm a New Yorker. We call them a mook.

A mook. Okay, yeah. You're going to get canceled for mook. I mean, there's no world in which like two years from now you're not going to be able to say it. It's not a race. I think I'm allowed to say it. It's a New York slug. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we seem to have produced some of the worst people of this decade.

Trump, Rudy. It's an interesting kind of change within the Republican Party. You know, people used to think, well, the New York Republicans are, you know, the Rockefeller Republicans are the moderate types of the party. But as the party has moved to become more extreme, the New Yorkers that, like, rise in the party are not like Rockefeller anymore. They're like these, yes, they're gangsters and goons, yeah.

So, yes, so Bernie Carrick tweeted that, you know, basically this Trump statement, again, you could never find these Trump statements because Trump doesn't have Twitter anymore, but he had this statement where President Trump asked who shot Ashley Babbitt. Every American should know who shot Ashley Babbitt. An unarmed young woman was shot at point blank range and killed for trespassing. She was attacking the Capitol. Like, this guy was a police chief. Are crimes no longer crimes?

Yeah, no, I think, I mean, first of all, there's a real attempt. I think the Congressman Gosar was kind of maybe at the head of this it really started on the real far-right kind of white supremacist world went to Gosar and because now we've been to Trump world. Which is pretty much the same thing.

So one step removed there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're not talking about yeah, we're not talking about like crossing the Pacific. This is like pretty easy. But now it's with Trump and that's the frightening part because we've seen over the last six years you know, if Trump takes up something like build the wall, you know, lock her up,

it then becomes sort of a GOP orthodoxy. Okay, so here's the thing, you know, like you had the insurrection, you know, this incited riot to attack the Capitol. I mean, there was violence, including Ashley Babbitt being shot by the cop. And now she, by the right, is being turned into this murder. And I think the real comparison is with the Horst Weisel, who was this, you know, like Nazi in 1930 who had been killed in a kind of. of brawl and was made into like in Nazi propaganda they had the horse vizal song you know like

this became the rallying figure this uh and once he's this is happening with ashley babit and it's very disturbing um i think one thing to emphasize i think you know there should be a full investigation of january six including you know all the circumstances of the shooting but the main thing to keep in mind is who killed ashley babit well obviously trumped because she was there the Capitol because her president, you know, said that the election of it stolen and that patriots should rally. And she believed in Q&N, which Trump also promoted. And that was what led her to this, you know, situation where she's part of a mob that was attacking

the Capitol. So, like, I really think that it's important not to get litigate the circumstances of her death, like, as if that's the issue rather than what was a political, it was a political act. It's an act of political violence, the attack on the Capitol, and the instigator of that political violence was the then president. And you see it with all these arrested insurrectionists. They all say Trump told us to come, so we came. And even like Republican A.Gs did these auto calls, Republican attorneys generals. These are the people who are supposed to uphold the law. But they happen to be some of the biggest psychos in the Republican Party. They did these recorded phone calls that were like,

go to Washington, D.C. I mean, what I think is so scary, and again, I know we're not supposed to compare Trump to Hitler, but, you know, Hitler was actually put in jail. They actually did, tried to do something about Hitler, whereas with Trump, and obviously he's not Hitler, Hitler was intelligent, but. Well, he did, he did come out this week that he did say that Hitler did some good things. Right, did some good things, and wrote his own book. But, like, you know, and I'm Jewish.

I mean, I'm no fan of Hitler. But I'm just saying, like, the Germans did do something solid against Hitler, whereas we're not seeing any of that. Well, I actually think that both of the Pooch and this lesser-known event in 1934, where a French mob attacked the parliament building there, are both important sort of precursors, because you both have the sort of political violence, then the attempt of the system to deal with something with it,

but then the kind of whitewashing and argument, well, was this really so bad? So with Hitler, it's true, he went to jail, but then there was a kind of early release pardon, and then it was all recast in a heroic light. And the same with the French attack on the French parliament, which I think some historians, it's controversial, but some historians see that as the sort of beginning

of the sort of rupture in French society that led to the sort of collaborationist Vichy regime. But the attack on the French parliament, what happened was, you know, there are people who were jailed, but then there are other people saying, It wasn't so bad. It was just like a kind of tourist event that got out of the hand.

It was like, we were seeing now as well. So I think that it's really important to like, you know, politically fix, you know, the meaning of this. And we've seen this since January 6th. Initially there were a lot, there were not a few more than a few Republicans that said, oh, this really went far beyond anything. And Trump is responsible. And there's some distancing. But now January 6 is becoming normalized.

And I think this kind of turning Ashley Babbitt into a martyr is part of the normalization of January 6th. And I think that's something that, you know, I think everyone should oppose, like not just Democrats, but like, you know, like never Trump Republicans or even like ordinary Republicans. I think it's very important to like recognize January 6th was far out of bounds and was really represents a real threat. But yeah, I don't know if that, again, as with Trump in 2016, I don't know that the political system. has the resources to stop this. I mean, I wrote a piece about this yesterday for the Daily Beast. Nobody has been held accountable in Trump world. No one.

Not even, I mean, the only person, Michael Cohen, right? And he hardly was, right? And then Weisselberg now, but I mean, Jared was running the COVID response and saying those blue state governors need to pound the phones. Like, let them die in the blue states because it'll be better for us. I mean, there's been so many. horrendous sort of, you know, crimes. And nobody is, you know, the system is not set up to, you know,

to hold any of these people accountable. No, that's exactly right. I think that's a big problem with something I've been writing about myself. The American system really has this, like, thing of elite impunity, where, you know, like, once you're, you know, once you're a jet, you're a jet all the way. and from your first breath to your dying day. And so, you know, like, it was a system where like someone like Kissinger, you know,

I mean, Nixon had to resign, but he got a pardoned. All the Iran-Contra people got pardons. The Bush torture people, you know, were not gone after. So there's a real, I mean, it really goes back to the foundations of the country where, you know, like, you know, Aaron Burr shot Hamilton. And, you know, he had to, like, flee for a while. But then he, you know, came back. And he was like, you know,

became a lawyer in good standing. So I think, you know, there's a real problem, which goes far beyond Trump, that the American political system is very reluctant to hold its own accountable, even in the most corrupt criminal acts imaginable. Yeah, that is kind of shocking to me. But Rummy, Don Rundsfeld, who killed millions of people, was involved in two different terrible wars, decades apart, died last week. And you did. really see that no one from Bushworld was held accountable for anything. No, that's absolutely right. Yeah, I know Rumsfeld lied America into a war that has had, like, you know,

depending on how you estimated, but like it has had at least 500,000 people dead, and also the entire region destabilized to this day. One of the worst disasters in American history. Let's talk about the pullout in Afghanistan, because it seems to me, and again, And I am way over my skis when it comes to foreign policy, but I can watch television and read newspapers. So from what I see in reporting, it seems like that Afghanistan is a total disaster and that America is leaving and the Taliban is just like, okay, let's go. Yeah, no, I mean, it's going to be bad. But I mean, the fundamental fact is what I think about is like, you know, you've had Americans there for more than 20 years.

it's America's longest war under like four presidents. And you have not gotten a situation where you've been able to build an Afghan government that can credibly defend itself. And so like, you know, the two pathways that are like a permanent American presence in Afghanistan, which seems like hard to like, you know, justify or imagine. Once you withdraw, it is going to be the Taliban. So yeah, I just, I think it's like either way, it's a very bad situation. No, I mean, they shouldn't stay, but the leaving it is proof that it didn't go well.

Yeah, no, leaving it is proof that it did not go well. And again, like, since we talked about Rumsfeld, I mean, I want to mention that part of the roots of this whole thing was that when Rumsfeld, when they first went to Afghanistan, he wanted the so-called light footprints, which is to say they just wanted these kind of quick air battles, have the Taliban retreat, so that. that America could take the capital city, but not have a heavy presence on the ground. And that was all done so they could like prepare for what they really wanted, which is to attract Iraq, because you wanted to show you can win a quick war with low casualties. So the whole way that the whole Afghan war, the way it was initially set up was that the one moment where, you know, America could have gone in and actually like defeated the Taliban or had sufficient enough defeat that they could then negotiate with.

the Taliban remnants, they did not do that. And that really set up this kind of, you know, what we've seen, which is like this endless farce of this America propping up our government that cannot sustain itself, but unwilling to commit the type of troops that would be necessary to actually defeat the enemy. So I feel like the whole thing like really, I mean, yeah, I mean, I think it was, we can now see that it was very badly conceived from the start.

And then for very bad motives. I mean, the initial whole mistake was, Rumsfeld using Afghanistan as a way to sell the war in Iraq. Of all the dumb stuff that the Bush and the Bush administration got involved in, that seems like one of the worst. And it is just sort of heartbreaking to watch these, you know, a lot of these people in Afghanistan, these translators and these people who risk their lives now getting murdered because the winds of policy have changed and war is no longer popular. Yeah, it's a very sad situation. As with very similar, it's always to the end of the war in Vietnam, where there's a lot of people there who have kind of allied themselves to the United States are going to be a bad situation. And I have to say, like, I do think that there's one political thing, which is that they really has to, you know, robust refugee program to like, you know, get those people out of there.

And it's not happening. And this is a Democratic president. Yeah, I know. Exactly. And it's something that is entirely foreseeable. Right? Like, it's something, you know, people, I as you remember, like, back in George W. Bush, like, people like George Packer making the kind of case for, like, you know, Iraqi and Afghan translators, the programs that need to be in place if America withdraws. And that was like 2006, 2007. So this is the people that actually known about, you know, like, for a long time. And it really speaks, I don't know, I think to my mind, it speaks, like, of How, you know, you shouldn't get into these situations if you can't really commit and can't really, you know, live up to your promises. And you can't, so it really shows in some ways the deep folly of these wars.

The American brand, we can't commit and live up to our promises. I mean, that's what we do. That's our whole, you know, foreign policies we can't commit and live up to these promises. But it is shocking to me. And it does feel like the fall of Saigon and watching it on television is, incredibly, you know, there is a feeling of the same kind of powerlessness that we are this big country that goes into places where we don't belong and then decides that fuck it, who cares, they're not our people.

Yeah, no, that's right. That's right. And I do think that there's some political agency in terms of refugee policy, and there will be, you know, in the coming months. And I hope, I don't know what the White House is, where they're head spaces. I do know that there are Democrats in the Senate and in the House that do care about these issues. and so I think that's where sort of political leadership is going to have to come. Yeah, I mean, I hope it does come because it's really, it's pretty heartbreaking. So talk to me about what you're saying.

I'm a little bit curious in Canada. Do you feel like Canada is getting more involved in being more environmentally with it? Because I know that you guys have in the, you know, you have a Democratic prime minister, but you do have, he has a certain love of. timber. Yes. And also tar sands. Well, I think that's a big thing with Canada is a resource extraction country. I mean, that's the sort of, you know, thinking Canadian history that's a lot of policies is that, you know, where the drawers of water and the hewers of wood, and more importantly, coal miners, oil extraction, it's such a big part of the country. And I think, I mean, environmental terms, I think we've been like worse than the United States, certainly worse than a lot of the European countries. Yeah, yeah, I know. Just because the resource stuff, there's a sort of commitment to pipelines, which, you know, comes from like all the major parties. In some ways, I mean, I think it's actually the Keystone thing was good because it should be a wake-up call to Canada that, like, we can't rely on these pipelines that they're, you know, the world is training against that. The more positive news has maybe been a commitment to cap and trade and sort of putting a carbon tax. So, and I think the liberals are probably, they look like they're in a position to win again. They'll probably be an election in the next few months.

And if that's the case, then the carbon tax is going to stay. I think that's the one positive Canadian contribution. I think some of the provinces are better than others, one of which is British Columbia, which unfortunately is suffering now for circumstances beyond its control. But in British Columbia, there is a kind of robust environmental movement. And, you know, the government has taken a lead in terms of cap and trade. But, yeah, I mean, in general, I mean, Canada needs. the Green New Deal, even more than the United States does.

And you really need a really robust investment in, like, kind of green technology and infrastructure. And there's like 15 countries in the world where you have had this kind of very happy combination of economic growth with a decrease in carbon usage. But Canada is not one of those 15 countries and neither the United States. And so really, the next step forward is to get to that position. where the economic growth is decoupled from carbon use. And once you get to that, then, you know, like the following steps, I think will get a lot easier.

It's so interesting. So now let's talk about your constitutional right. You're Canadian. So you have no constitutional rights. But if you did and you lived here, you would have the constitutional right to tweet. And wait a second. You don't have a constitutional right to tweet. But don't tell that to Donald J. Trump because he is now.

suing Twitter and Facebook because he believes that by running their private companies, they're actually stepping on his First Amendment rights, discuss. Well, I mean, Trump is kind of launching this ludicrous lawsuit, but I mean, that's kind of what he does, right? Like, he's kind of like a history of ludicrous lawsuits. He never pays his lawyers, you know, or very rarely pays his lawyers, let's say. So it doesn't cost them anything. He could fundraise off of it, you know, go to all his followers and say, I'm standing up for

your First Amendment rights. He actually has a piece in the Wall Street Journal today. I saw that. Yeah. Where he kind of makes his argument, I'm standing up for everyone's rights. But yeah, it is a kind of ludicrous position because obviously private businesses have the right to, you know, determine who their rules are. And, yeah, being an obnoxious tweeter is not a protected category under civil rights laws. I mean, I think that's interesting that this is part of this attempt on the right to cast themselves as victims and to claim protected right status.

one saw this in the National Review just had a very curious article yesterday documenting with the statistics saying that like Ivy League women are reluctant to date Trump Fest and saying that this is like a civil rights problem and so you have like suddenly say like you know being a Trump

a voluntary decision to support a political candidate is puts in the same category as being a person of color or being LGBT or being a woman like you know like which is very curious. But I mean, I think the root of it emotionally is the victim complex. That it's very important for these people to see themselves as victims

and to mobilize their political movement based on that victim would claim. You know, what's striking to me about it is that as I was reading through the filing, as you know, I'm a lawyer, so I really understand this stuff. I'm just kidding. I'm not a lawyer. I was struck by the fact that Trump's lawyers in this case both have AOL email addresses. often something that marks a very savvy technology, you know, a person who's very up on technology.

My father listens to this podcast. He's going to be really bad. Does he have an AOL email address? 100%. Let us tell it now. By the way, yes, father, sorry, AOL email addresses are extremely good. No, it is. It probably like it was a document filed in.

comic sands? Right, exactly. The other side of this, the unfunny part, is he's going to use this to fundraise. And more importantly, he's going to use this to try to stay relevant. Because remember, last week he went to the border to give a press conference, even though he's a private citizen, a retiree who mostly plays golf. And he didn't get the attention he wanted. So this is like another ploy down this rabbit hole.

Yeah, no, that's right. That's right. It is kind of seeking attention. And, you know, it's something I'm actually arguing about myself, like, how much to what degree, you know, should one just ignore him, that he is just a private citizen. The one reason I think to maybe pay attention is that he, you know, still has these followers and is still dictating the terms for the Republican Party.

And one sees this, like in the primaries, in various places like in Ohio, where, like, Every Republican candidate is trying to sound like Trump and trying to get his endorsement and, you know, absorbing his themes and his language and his arguments. And so I do feel like there's some obligation to pay attention to this stuff. Just like, you know, what Trump is for what it says about Trump, but what it says about the Republican Party and where it might be going. But yeah, I do think at bottom it is a kind of sad attempt to get more attention for someone. And it shows that the Twitter brand and the Facebook brand have kind of worked. Like they have kind of hurt his ability to get what he really wanted all along, which is to be the center of attention.

Yeah. No, I mean, I think it's kind of very telling, right, that he is suing these companies because he wants attention because they've taken away his attention. Attention is not, again, a constitutionally protected right. So neither is having Ivy League women sleep with you. So it will be an interesting couple of months. I wonder if I could, I might join that. Class action lawsuit. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I mean, it'll be an interesting thing. And again, I just, you know, the thing I'm so struck by, and since you are such a scholar of history, I mean, the irony of the party of small government. Well, this is exactly. This is exactly right. So basically, their whole argument of the Republican right for, for the last, you know, 70 years or more

is about private business and free association. So, you know, should black people in the South be able to sit at lunch counters? Well, no, this is like a private association the business owner can decide. Should gay couples be able to go into a baker and just like get a wedding

cake just like everyone else when they're getting married? Well, no, this is the baker has a First Amendment right. You know, it's their art form, their expression. You know, should an Ivy League women be able to turn down some Chad in a MAGA hat? Oh, no, no. That's not private.

That is, we have to have to have a different program to give these guys' girlfriends, you know? Every, and we have to have the government to be so that Trump can have a Twitter account. So it really, I mean, at base, I think the one way to think about it is that it shows that the so-called principles

were never principals, but we're always about a particular group of very privileged entitle people, why need to maintain power? And if they maintain power through the use of arguments about free association and private property, they'll do that.

But if they need to maintain power by saying government intervention, they'll do that too. So it's kind of like socialism for the rich, which Trump has also benefited a lot from. And yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, I do foresee where this Trump's thing is heading is

yeah, like, you know, government mandated hot girlfriends for That's right. Hey folks, every week we do a bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast membership program. This weekend, we have a super interesting talk with Emily Atkin, the author of the Daily Climate Newsletter Heated. We talk about how to actually change the discussion around climate change. To hear it, become a member of Beast Inside at new abnormal. That's new abnormal.thedailybeast.com.

Corey Bush represents Missouri's first district and sits on the Judiciary Committee, as well as the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Hi, Corey. Welcome to the new abnormal. Yes. Hi, Mommy. I am so excited to have you. And so let's talk about the People's Response Act first. Yes. It reads to me like what good policing should be.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's common sense. It's common sense in any area. You know, Molly, my background is nursing. I'm a registered nurse. And as much as people would love to see me, you know, sometimes anyway, see me as their nurse, they probably wouldn't love to see me as the surgeon, too. You know, so that's what we're saying. We're saying that have the people, this is a health-centered approach to health crises, and that's how it should be. Yeah, I mean, it seems like a no-brainer to me, but we are in this interesting time. And I live in New York City, so we just had this mayoral race. A lot of pundits have used the election. of Eric Adams as a way to tell Democrats that they can't reform policing. What do you think about that?

Oh, I think that it's just if you want to listen that way. I mean, but you know what, Molly, there are people right now who are saying that the insurrection that happened on January 6th on the Capitol was a tour. It was just a regular, you know, it was a tour, even though we have video and, you know, we were, some of us were actually there. So I think you can say anything to make it fit what you wanted to feel. fit. And we're in the stage right now, in a place right now in this country where if you say it and if you want people to believe it, if you say it enough, then you know you'll get some people

to believe it because our former president, Donald Trump, started with that. But anyway, as far as the People's Response Act, you know, if we want to see better outcomes, if we want to see lives changed, I think that that's a part of medicine, too, is we do things that are evidence-based. And this is evidence-based. Like, why would I not want my family member, my loved one, or myself, if I am in a mental health crisis, why would I not want the best care? Because this is the thing. Everybody has knows that place in your community where maybe this particular clinic or hospital is maybe not the one that you want to go to. You probably want to go to this one or you have this restaurant. I don't know, we don't go to

that one, but we'll go to this one across town. In the same way, why do we have police officers who are doing a job that they are not skilled or trained for? It's not even in their job description, you know, not really. So what we're saying is create this new division for public safety under the Department of Health and Human Services, instead of having this up under the DLJ, where we have this, where we create this non-carceral health centered approach to these health crises. And we're also saying, look, we get it. We get that this is a huge change. But what has to happen in order to save lives is a push in the right direction. And so there was a time when people would smoke in their car, you know, and then somebody said, you know what, hey, maybe not.

You know, and what did we start doing? We started to do better and saving lives. And so that's what this is about. We are also putting money, putting money into communities. There is money. There's grant funding for local and state government to be able to build programs and scale up for community organizations to scale up that are already doing this work. Do you think that you're going to be able to get this pass, though? It strikes me as Republicans are obstructionists and Democrats are a little bit scared.

Yeah, you know, I think that it's going to take what a lot of other things takes. It takes, you know, it takes time. It takes a lot of relationship building. It takes, it's going to take us people who are the most directly affected telling their stories. And the thing is, the stakes are too high for this not to pass. do we say to people who are in our communities who are living with mental health issues and have an immigration situation or intimate partner violence, do we tell them, oh, no, no, we don't need to take care of you the way that you should be taking care of.

What we're going to do is we're going to keep it the way that it is because it sounds better to society. No. So that's how we have to approach this. You know, it's just common sense. What do you think about, I get very worried about voting rights and what's happened with the Supreme Court last week. Where are you with this? Is there a chance for Democrats to pass something? You know, we have to, you know, on the House side, we did our part.

You know, we did our part. Not only did we do our part, but I co-led a letter with nearly a hundred of my colleagues to push our Senate to say, hey, look, you have to get rid of this old. Raggedy Jim Crow relic, the filibuster to be able to get our policy, get the policy that we need in this country, get it done. Because the thing is, the people in our districts don't care about what is the procedural and what is, they don't care about that. Did you bring home voting rights to my community because we have all of these restrictions? Did you bring home reforms to policing like we asked? Did you bring home, you know, making sure that our unions, that we protect our unions and and that workers have their rights.

Do we bring those things home? And so I think that if we continue to look at organizing in those states, especially where we have that pushback, and it's not just two states, let's be clear. You know, we focus a lot on what's happening with probably in Arizona and in West Virginia, but there are some other states that probably could really use some help. So organizing on the ground in those communities is important

because they need to know that the people in their states want to see this legislation cross over and get signed by President Biden. Do you think that there's a chance to talk to Cinema and Mansion? I think that there have been talks. I'm just not in those talks. There have been discussions

upon discussions, I bet. But, you know, I think it's very clear where especially progressives, you know, those of us who are progressives where we stand on this. And so I don't know that us continuing to do that is what's going to move the needle. I think that that are more moderate Democrats.

I think that those are the people that should be in those conversations. But I think also, you know, I'll tell you one thing that's disturbing. We also have to remember, number one, there are no black women in the U.S. Senate. You know, what is representation like and is representation at the forefront of those conversations? And so if there is, because there are no black women, you know, represented, and not only black women, but, you know, just other communities that should be represented because this legislation affects them, you know, we want to talk about equality, you know, do we have anyone from our trans community, what community, what does our, what does our LGBTQ community? What is their representation like? So having those conversations, that's who should be at these tables, making sure that those Democrats are hearing that, you know, hearing those voices. You had an experience of being harassed by Marjorie Taylor Green and your staff. I just think that there sometimes is a false equivalency.

I mean, this person is so out of the mainstream in life. How is it? Are you okay? Do you feel safe? I mean, I have to ask. No, a lot of people have asked me that question. Do I feel safe? Am I okay?

And I say this. First of all, she doesn't scare me and she never has. and she herself, she won't scare me. Let me tell you this. I've stood before tanks. I've been shot at. I've had dogs unleashed on me. I've been on the ground in Ferguson and in other protest situations for so many days.

I don't even know. Ferguson alone was more than 400 days. I've probably been to nearly a thousand protests in my life shot at with everything. They have been surveilled and been physically assaulted by police. I'm a survivor of domestic abuse. and sexual assault. So in absolutely no way, does she scare me or do I feel unsafe in that manner? What makes me feel unsafe is that we don't have the protections not from that mindset that she has,

that feel that where it seems, I'll say where it seems like she and others in Congress, along with the people that are their supporters, feel like there is no consequence. And so we can do whatever we want to do. And so in that way, that is how I feel unsafe. But let me say this. If I see her walking down the hall, I'm just going to be clear. I do not break in my back. Well, I have sort of a follow-up question on that.

We've seen Republicans have really sort of been okay with Paul Gosar's ties to white supremacists. We've seen a lot of, you know, Mo Brooks spoke at Stop the Steel Rally. Why aren't Democrats pushing Republicans to censure these people? I mean, the only one who's been censored now is Marjorie Taylor Green, and she was centered by Democrats. Right, right. It seems like we're in a place where, you know, if you don't talk about it, you know, maybe it'll go away, you know, get through, get through to the next thing. And that's a problem because if this was different, the Republicans will be throwing everything at us. You know, we have been putting forth bills, you know, I have my bill to investigate those that had anything to do with the insurrection.

HR 24, but then also there are other bills that were put forward by other members of the House. The issue is until we really, I don't know, I just feel like maybe on the Republican side, they just don't feel the pressure to have to do anything. Because what bothers me is that I sit in committee hearings, I sit in committee markups, and I'm sitting there listening to and looking at the same people that had something to do with the insurrection and they get the same microphone that I get. And they have the same voice. They have the same authority that I do.

And it is unbelievable that that is allowed. I mean, that's my feeling too. It just seems insane. Do you have any thoughts on how Democrats can hold the House and the midterms? First of all, we just, we got to get some legislation across. We got to get it done. So the Senate has to where we got to get this done. We can't just sit back.

We can't do the blame game because the people won't care about that with the midterms. And then also I think that we have to look at what is our messaging, what is our communication piece instead of using people like me as a scapegoat to say, oh, well, she says defund the police. So that's going to make everybody lose their elections in 2022. I push back on that type of rhetoric because, number one, I ran on it, clearly, you know. And then number two, because when there was opposition that came against me and said all of these horrible things and that was out in the media, what was very much so out in the media. And what I did was we came up with a different comm strategy. We put a little more money in the comms and we put it out a better way to message. You know, and we still won.

I think that that's a thing. Like, figured that out. We know already right now, Molly, we know that that may be, that those kinds of things may be an. issue because it was an issue for 2020. So why not work on that now? So hopefully that's what those, that's what's happening is of figuring out what that messaging is not looking to be able to blame me for something. Because the other thing is, Molly, I'm not just speaking about what sounds good and what

can be a slogan. I'm trying to save the lives of the people in my community that they overlooked, that they overlooked because we are number one for police murder in this country per capita. We have been for at least seven years going. We are number one or number two for murder for homicides in this country per capita. Again, year after year, we are number one for the murder of children in this country. And so I will not allow you to tell me that it's a slogan and I have to shut up. No, save the lives of the people in my community.

And I do think it's interesting that police have such a low solving crimes rate. That's what the People's Response Act will help with because now, like I think about in part of my district, We're at somewhere around 33%, I believe, somewhere in the 30s as far as the cases solved. So maybe if we stop having our police go out on these calls that a therapist or a licensed social worker could take, then that would give them the room to be able to really do the work that they need to do. That's police work that I cannot do. Because other things is, the social worker can't, there's work that the social worker cannot do that only the police can do. This was amazing.

Thank you so much for coming. I hope you will come back. Absolutely. Thank you for having. Shannon Watts is the founder of Mom's Demand Action and the author of Fight Like a Mother. Welcome to the new abnormal, Shannon Watts. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to have you here because I think of you as doing God's work.

And, you know, I met you years ago, and it only seems more important now what you do. Can you explain a little bit about what you do? Yeah. You know, we started out just after the Sandy Hook School Shooting Tragedy. Mom's Demand Action was just a Facebook page. And we have quickly become the largest grassroots movement in the country. We're actually larger than the NRA now. And we work on the issue of gun violence prevention really in three ways.

First of all, legislative. So passing, supporting good gun safety bills, but also opposing the NRA's agenda, showing up to kill back. Like guns in school, stand your ground, permanent carry. We also work on this electorally, so we get involved in every single election cycle. I'm very proud of the fact that not only are we electing gunsons champions, many of them are our own volunteers and gun violence survivors. And then the third way we work on this issue is really culturally educating people about secure gun storage, getting influencers on board, and really just sort of changing the culture of what's acceptable. Yeah, talk to me about that idea of changing the culture of what's acceptable,

because it seems like, say, I know for me, when Sandy Hook happened, and I think a lot of people felt like this, and I certainly see this in Chris Murphy, you know, a senator from Connecticut, when Sandy Hook happened and it was not far from where my in-laws live and where my mother used to live, that we all thought this is it. Like, there's no, you know, if a gunman is going to kill all these kindergartners, if this can't get people interested, then nothing will, and it turns out nothing well. You know, I guess I would argue that point, because the gun lobby we had the day before the Sandy Hook School shooting tragedy was the same one we had the day after.

They still had the same influence on our lawmakers. What had to happen was that people would rise up and force that change. And look, if you look at any social movement in this country, it doesn't ever happen overnight. The system isn't set up that way. Now, do I wish that that would have changed the hearts and minds of lawmakers on the Republican side? Yeah, I do. But we know how politics works in this country. If you go back and look in 2012, close to a quarter of all Democrats in Congress had an A rating from the NRA.

Today, not one does. The last one lost his election in 2020. So that work is happening. It's like drips on a rock. It's going to take us several election cycles to get to where we need to. be. We now have all the Democrats on our side and we're starting to peel away Republicans. And I really do think it's just a matter of time until there is a major shift on this issue. That is pretty much one of the best things that I've heard all day. Okay. I feel slightly less depressed now. It is interesting to me to

watch these Republicans who are still beholden to the NRA, which barely exist. I mean, isn't the NRA in terrible trouble? The NRA is in terrible trouble. And I'm hopeful they are. at the beginning of their demise as an organization. They're clearly corrupt. They're bankrupt not just morally, but financially as well. They are in many ways a paper tiger, and their return on

investment has been dwindling for the last decade. But there's still this playbook that they wrote, right? That they left lawmakers when they started primaring them, when they were holding them accountable and scoring their votes, and that PTSD among longmakers still

exist. But if you look at the polling, 90% of Americans, 89% of Republicans, 87% of gun owners support stronger gun laws like a background check on every gun sale. Really, the only place this is polarizing right now in America is among some lawmakers, and particularly in the United States Senate. And that is because this issue too has sort of part and parcel with the extremism we're seeing, right? What is the thread that runs through all of it? It's really sort of extremism and gun extremism. I mean, if you look at who was organizing those anti-vax events all across the country, it was a group of brothers called the Door Brothers, and they are gun extremists.

So it's this idea of things that you love are going to be taken away from you by the government, and guns fits right in there. It's really interesting to me, because you are absolutely right, that there is, it's the same group of people that want to have the guns, that want to make it so you can't have the vaccine, that want to, you know, take away your right to choose. I mean, this seems very, it's very interesting. What do you think about, you know, what happened after the pandemic? It strikes me. There was like a mass shooting every single day.

And then even on July 4th weekend, there were 150 mass shootings. Talk to me. During the pandemic, it is true that mass shootings slowed down, right? Because we weren't in public places. We weren't gathering the people's homes. And yet the gun violence continued. and abated. In fact, 2020 was the worst year for gun violence in our history on record. And much of that was gun violence concentrated in city centers. The data is all just starting to come in now, but we know

that gun violence across the board rose, particularly domestic gun violence, unintentional shootings, possibly gun suicides. We know gun homicides increase. And part of that was the isolation, but the other part of it was the historic number of gun sales. Since COVID started, there have been at least 40 million guns sold, probably about 40% of those two new gun owners, possibly in states where there's no background check required, no training required to carry a gun. And, you know, the reverberations of those gun sales will be with us long after the COVID crisis is cured. It's an epidemic within a pandemic. And, you know, we're seeing Republicans point fingers and want to talk about crime, which, by the way,

crimes of opportunity, like burglaries and rape, those have not increased. It is gun homicides that have increased because of the laws those Republicans have passed or weakened. This is the logical outcome of their agenda. Why don't Democrats say, you know, Republicans say Democrats are soft on crime. They want to, you know, to fund the police. Why aren't Democrats saying, you know, these crimes are caused by guns. I mean, is there a clear correlation between gun ownership and gun crime? I guess the first thing I would say is that Republicans have always probably been better at messaging and in part because they don't let the truth hold them back. You know, and so it's very difficult to argue with disinformation. I am hoping that Democrats, you know, will will start to pivot to the reality of this.

I mean, Chris Hayes did a whole show about it last night. I'm seeing him get a lot of grief because, you know, they're saying the data isn't in yet. Republicans are saying you can't make that case. But you certainly can. I mean, if you're saying, okay, we have to wait until the data is in to show us that an increase in gun sales directly results in an increase in gun homicides, you can say that the fact that we have 400 million guns in this country is why we have a 25 times higher gun homicide rate than any pure nation, right? it's logical. And I think that anyone who doesn't make that comparison is foolish. Yeah. No, I think that's right. And I mean, it's just shocking to me. I have a question. We have a lot of listeners in this podcast who are really interested in getting involved. And since you have this amazing story of being, you know, a mom who decided to get involved, what can they do? So I would say it is more important than ever get to get involved, because we may be struggling at a federal level for a while with polarized politics, especially post-mid terms. I mean, I don't have a crystal ball, but I think we can

say that this is the lot we're going to be dealing with for a while. But, you know, we're making a lot of change in state houses and in city councils and in school boards and in boardrooms. San Jose, after the mass shooting there a couple of months ago, just passed the most sweeping gun reform of any city in the country. You now have to have insurance if you are a gun owner. You have to pay a fee when you buy a gun that will help address the cost of gun violence in that community. And so there are really amazing, innovative things being done. And when you get involved and you start to change out the lawmakers at a state and city level,

you can then make real change. I mean, Virginia. We flipped both chambers the General Assembly in 2019. We've now passed over a dozen good gun laws. Colorado, we just passed sweeping gun reform legislation after flipping both chambers in 2018, right? So it takes a while to get to the place where you can start making change, but that work has to be done by people on the ground. Yeah. No, I agree. One of the kind of terrifying things to me is Representative Boehbert, who is basically a one-issue candidate, her issue, and she loves. guns. She's from not that red a district. It is an historically red district. Right. With very wealthy people, for example, in bail in it. And Aspen, too, right?

And Aspen. And if you look at who voted in the last election, it was not a great turnout, right? So the Reddest people came out to support their Redis candidate. I think that is a seat where we can win back. People are very frustrated in her district with the fact that she is only focused on guns when, you know, there are so many different things, particularly business issues and water issues, that they elected her or anything else, given that no one is restricted their gun rights. And Marjorie Taylor Green also. You know, it's like the NRA created this monster. It's a Frankenstein and the Frankenstein has been set free. And we're seeing the embodiment of that in these members of Congress. It is shocking to me that, I mean, when you see Boehbert, I mean, she really is just about an inch thick. Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, it's just, yeah. So there's now this new law that is just going through the New York State Legislature that you're going to be able to sue the gun manufacturers.

And I know some other states have also done this. Could you talk to us about what the implications of that may be? Yes. So, you know, New York is another good example of how we really fought an electoral battle there. Because even though Democrats were in control, many of them did not support gun safety. And it wasn't until we elected gun since candidates really in 2018 that we were able to, able to start passing gun laws in the state of New York. And they've passed a lot of different things, and they're being very innovative. And there is a law at the federal level called Placa, PLCAA. And it was something that was passed by Congress to give the gun manufacturers immunity from liability

for their products. And the reason they asked Congress for that was because they've learned, the gun lobby has learned from other lobbying organizations and how did they fail, right? How did the, how did tobacco go down? How did the alcohol lobby lose to mothers against drunk driving? And what they decided was that if they were able to never be sued for anything, then they would be protected financially. And so it is very hard to get around placca. And what New York has done is to pass this bill that basically says, nope, in the state of New York, we can hold gun manufacturers accountable for the harm that their products caused. And that just passed and was signed into law by Corma. Could that theoretically be a game changer? Absolutely. We will be

working with New York as it is implemented and then make sure that it's considered a best practice so that there's model legislation for other states to follow. That's fascinating. In Texas, things have gone the other way. Can you talk about this new bill where they won't have to train, there won't be. I mean, it seems like they're just making it so everyone can have a gun no matter why. So the NRA for a long time, their priority legislation has been something called permitless carry. And they spent decades building up the permit system, right? The gun lobby invented the permit system because they said, okay, if we let people have background checks and training and they have this permit, then they can have guns anywhere they want, and that will enrich us.

And they were right. And then they got what they wanted? So they said, hey, what if we could do this but without a permit? Because then everybody has a gun and then people are afraid. So they buy guns too, and it really takes down any barriers whatsoever to getting a gun. So they tried to pass permitless carry at the federal level at least three times. It failed every time, including when they had a Republican president and a Republican Congress. So they started going state by state.

Now, as you all know, politics is cyclical. The pendulum swings back and forth. We knew that when we elected a gun sends trifecta in D.C. with the president and the Senate and the House, house, that there would be backlash. And that backlash was the red estates are passing the NRA's agenda. So 21 states now have permitless carry. And that includes a few new states this session, like Texas, like Iowa, like Tennessee. And essentially, people can carry hidden, loaded handguns without a permit, meaning they don't have to have a background check and they don't have to have any training. And when these laws have passed, like in Alaska, we have seen gun violence rise significantly.

It's, again, logical. It's intuitive. And sadly, it's the constituents of those states that will bear the brunt of the tragedy. Jesus. Oh, so depressing. Thank you so much. What's crazier than QAnon, more outlandish than Pizza Gate, and scarier than a Mexican getaway with Ted Cruz? The answer is, what the American right wing has planned next. Be one of the first to listen to Fever Dreams, new podcasts from The Daily Beast, tracking the conspiracy slingers, orange acolytes,

and straight-up grifters pushing to retake power. Every Wednesday hosts Swin Subisang and Will Summer, checking in on the movement of the radical right. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash podcasts or your favorite podcast player to catch the first episode and get subscribed. That's Fever Dreams,

which you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Jesse Cannon. Molly John. Fast. So much fuckery. We're here to talk about the fuckers. My fuck that guy is a frequent flyer. His name is Representative Paul Gosar. He hails from a very rural part of Arizona.

He sucks. Even his siblings know he sucks. Though his mother still loves him. They did say the mother still supports him. Well, that motherly love is hard to break, right? Molly, you know this. Hey, man. So Paul Gosar really sucks.

He is really working hard flirting with white supremacy. Recently, a man called Nick Fuentes, who's basically like white nationalist, white supremacist, racist asshole. That guy said that the one thing that makes him feel optimistic for the future, and by the way, you don't want that guy feeling optimistic for the future. because his future is not good for the Jews, as they say, or any of us. That guy said the one thing that makes him feel optimistic for the future is Representative Dentist. And so for that endorsement alone and also this excellent piece in the informant by Nick Martin about all the many times that Paul Gosard has cuddled up to white nationalists and white supremacists. And for that, I say, fuck you, Representative Dentist. Who's your fuck that guy, Jesse Cannon?

Mine is a fresh new edition for the podcast, and I'm kind of shocked it took this long. One, Chip Roy, good old chip represents Texas. Now, if you are not familiar, the Delta variant is ripping through the unvaccinated parts of America, particularly the Southwest, right around where Mr. Roy is from. So today he posted what looks like a turkey baster injector, but I guess was supposed to be a needle, but the graphic design department, I have a feeling it's not so good in the royal office. It's not their passion.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, what could you do? It's hard to find good graphic designers. Anywho, he said, come inject it as if to challenge the Biden administration in their door-to-door vaccinating, trying to get this delta variant to not kill people as if he's going to really stand up and be a tough guy.

He is not. Yeah, he is not. But of course, like all Trump, you've reported. Republicans and Tripproy is actually an example of someone who was not that Trumpty and has ran fast that way because all of them are going down the path to hell in this party. He now says he wants 18 more months of chaos and the inability to get stuff done. So he's basically giving away the game here. He's going to oppose Biden getting the vaccine because they want it to go bad so they can

retake power and put Trump back in the White House. And this total worm of a man is. showing his absolute true colors that none of this is actually about the ethics he holds and all about being a horrible, horrible person who cares more about power than this country. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from the Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics, and science. We'll 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. 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 what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.