The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump Isn’t Playing 3-D Chess. He’s Eating the Checker.

Episode Date: November 3, 2020

Trump’s hype men like to say that he’s so smart. A tactical genius. Always 14 moves ahead of you libtards. Surely, the Trumpkins say, there’s a deep logic to the president spending the waning days of his campaign attacking America’s most respected public-health expert. Under no circumstance is Trump just blurting out a bunch of… Oh, who are we kidding. The guy has the emotional control and strategic wisdom of a toddler. “I feel like it's important to remember: He is never playing three dimensional chess. He's just eating a checker,” Molly Jong-Fast quips on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “And, and the thing is, it was not a strategic move. He's just such a baby that the crowd started chanting, ‘fire Fauci, fire Fauci,’ and he can't help himself but wanting to fill that hole, that black hole, in his heart. And so, he gives the people what they want,” political strategist Tim Miller says. Rick Wilson chortles, channeling Trump: “Before I fire Fauci, I want a warm up by setting this bucket of kittens on fire.” No, but seriously. The craziest part about this crazy episode, The Beast’s Erin Banco explains, is that Trump thinks he’s absolutely crushed it on COVID response. “When the president talks about it to his advisors, he's reinforced by the people around him, who believe that they just killed it, that they did an awesome job,” she says. Plus! Bill Barr’s white horse! Marco Rubio’s parachute pants! Ric Grenell’s true obsession! New Jersey’s neo-Confederate dumbfucks! Bill Stepien escape plans! And Jesse the Producer’s first-ever Fuck That Guy! 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, and 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 today we have a very

special, exciting guest who's one of our favorite guests. Is that fair, Rick? It is more than fair. Wait, one of? Can I get a ranking? Like, am I in the, by bronze? Or where do I fit? We've had to change our rankings after the Miles Taylor situation. I was behind Miles before. I could never have been behind Miles. Please. But Tim Miller, Republican strategist, member of Republicans of the ruled law, bulwark columnist. And Arvatt. Yes, ma'am. Let's not miss Arvatt. Yeah.

One of our favorites is joining us today. Since as you're listening to this, people across this great country of ours are voting, we thought we would talk today about my interest in Tuven throat singing, long-distance equestrian sports, and the Galapagos Islands. or we could talk about the election. Ratholka. Oh, yeah. I think it's fair to say that some people are listening to this while waiting online to vote. Which I love for you.

And I hope that if you're listening to this while you're waiting to vote, we are bringing you at least some amusement and enlightenment. There are many other podcasts, but ours is here for you today on this most important and solemn of days. Do you know what happened this weekend? Well, I know that Bill Barr had to step forth from his den, like a badger having been baited out to greet a group of Antifa far-left super progressive protesters. Oh, I'm sorry. It was actually a group of Q-centric Trump fans, angry with Bill Barr for not arresting Joe and Hunter Biden. I want to point out this very important detail because I was actually sent photos from someone who was there. These people brought a white horse with them. Well, as one does, any protest these

days. What is the symbolism of that? This is... I don't know. I haven't been watching my cue drops closely enough, apparently. I don't know. It feels like there must be some symbolism about a white horse in front of Barr's house. I will point out that in the Book of Revelations. Oh, see, there we go. Tell us some Christian stuff. I'm not even going to Google this, but I believe the white horse in the Book of Revelations

was the writer who was spent on conquest and war, if I'm not mistaken. I went to Jesuit high school. I wasn't into the Opus Day bill bar shit. So I don't know about all. know about all the song speaking. We're not from that opus day thing, are we? There was something that's strategy. So I wrote about

this for the bulwark yesterday. If you want to check out the full read. But there was one little note about this that really stood out to me, and that is that Barr went outside to greet them. And he did selfies. He did selfies

with these folks. So we've got like these insane larpers that are fantasizing about pedophile rings deep inside our government going to his home and to describe me you would think that this he might be concerned as the security risk but no bar goes outside does he know how to do selfies i mean i guess maybe one of them was doing selfies with him right and this is the same guy that you know you don't recall just a few months ago like ordered the gassing of ministers outside of the white house who were peacefully handing out water to black lives matter protesters. So it doesn't seem like the scales of justice are balanced for me on who gets the

selfie treatment and who gets the rubber bullet grenade. Jesse and I, our producer, did this very dorky live election integrity live stream earlier today, which was like reading the encyclopedia, but sort of fascinating. And in it, they talked about this march where these parents and children marched to the polls and were gassed. Yeah, pepper stray, these kids are crying. This is in Graham, North Carolina. And their young black kids who were going with their parents as March, George Floyd's niece was going to speak. I guess the reports from the ground are they had a moment of silence in front of the courthouse. Now, this wasn't in front of, you know, the attorney general's private home. This was in front of the courthouse with a white horse. A protest site. And there are these guys that are in fatigues and gas masks.

It's like for a small town civil rights parade and, you know, start indiscriminately firing pepper spray into the crowd. I mean, it's just the contrast between that and Barr's House and the truck nuts is a very, very stark. And it is not a, it's not a fucking accident about who's being targeted is not. Can we talk about the truck nuts for a second? Please. Because the Texas guys, the Texas guys were one thing. And I want to revisit that in a second. But the Jersey, or the Garden State Parkway shut down by the Trumpers yesterday, I'm thinking, if you're Bill Steppian who runs the Trump campaign and you see this on TV, after you've shut down the fucking George Washington Bridge one time.

You've got to be thinking like... Oh, that's right. He was involved in Bridgeguide. I'm going to just going to declare, I think Bill Steppian must have ordered this. If he hasn't, he hasn't said anything, so therefore he must have. But if you see that on TV and you're Bill Steppin, you've got to be thinking, Siri, how can I immigrate to Chile? Siri, extradition treaty, Thailand.

I love that Rick Wilson, like, devotes some amount of the pod to whoever in the Trump campaign is listening to it. Oh, they are, though. It's so cute. But you're like, my message to Bill Step in, if you're listening. A friend of mine sent me a picture of a Trump car rally there from a couple weeks ago. And there were more Confederate flags than he would have seen in the average Alabama football game on the weekend. I mean, it was crazy.

I'm thinking, do you guys know what side of New Jersey fought on this over? Are you briefed on that one? Apparently, y'all aren't. Yeah, my husband's from West Virginia. and there are a lot of Confederate flags in West Virginia. I'm like, you're aware why you're West Virginia, not just Virginia, right? Back to the truck nuts. Did you see the statement that the sheriff put out in defense of the truck nuts?

Because this was actually the highlight of my weekend. He said that the Biden campaign should have alerted him that they were coming through his jurisdictions, that he could have protected him. Like we're in like we're in old. We're in the Old West. Right. And you need to call the sheriff before you're coming through town so the angry hordes don't come and attack you.

I did get a bit of joy out of that. That's like blazing saddles writ new. So Trump World has had some really unsuccessful events lately where more than once, I think twice now, they've had the buses not taking the people back to their cars and leaving the followers stranded. Correct. And once they had the older people getting hypothermia and then this time this weekend. And I'm curious to know, do you guys think these people will still vote for Trump, even though he gave them hypothermia?

Yes, he is testing them. He is testing their faith in him. Well, no, he's giving them the high-high treatment, which is therapeutic for COVID. It's hypothermia and hydroxychloroquine. Right. You know, as our friend Hillary Lurow said, come for the COVID, stay for the hypothermia. I actually, I mean, I hope that I hope all these people recover and et cetera. But I do worry about like the gal at Starbucks or at the McDonald's across from these rallies who didn't do anything.

She just, you know, went to her job and voted for Joe Biden responsibly. And now she's getting the coronavirus because these numb nuts all just packed in 10,000 people strong into a freezing cold Donald Trump rally. It is outrageous and totally unconscionable. Truly. And the doctors who are going to have to treat these people, you know, And I mean, this is what it is. Like, you know, it's a highly contagious virus. So it's never going to stop with the MAGA.

And Rick, I saw this video of our old friend Marco yesterday at this rally. Yes, I saw that. He's shouting. All these people are shouting. It's late at night. They're all packed in there together. I'm just like, does he really think this is going to hold up well? Like four years from now when he wants to run for president when people are showing videos of him, like,

at a death cult rally attacking Sleepy Joe? Maybe he does think, maybe I think so, but like, you know, there'll be a half million people dead by the time the next election comes around. Like, what are they, why is he doing that? My favorite text about that, a guy who's raised a seven-figure sum for Marco over his campaigns in the presidential, texted me and said, oh, God, you're getting all this video down, aren't you? Yes. And I said, my response was, oh, not just for Marco. They're all doing it. But it was a clownish performance and it was

He cheered on the Texas truck guys Yeah, it's like it's like what are you thinking What do you think people are going to look at this like in a couple years Or a couple months Right, it's not just bell bottoms Marco Okay, it's not just parachute pants It's not just something you get like, oh, that was a brief fad You went out and you basically bowed down to Donald Trump

At a moment where a pandemic is spiking across this country I guess the part of it that really strikes me is that these guys, he is surrounded by people who are not stupid, but they are telling him, like, well, we've got to keep the base. The base will never change. This will always be what it's like. And so, you know, we can't get primaried someday by someone saying you weren't sufficiently loyal to Donald Trump. Speaking of which, who primaries Marco in 2024? Well, that would be your boyfriend, Rick Gates. Oh, I mean, Matt Gates. Excuse me. You think it's Matt Gates or you think it's Junior? In Florida? Yeah. Are we sure that Junior isn't going to be slonging Marco in the presidential primary in 2024? Oh, no.

I think Junior and Tucker Carlson and Marco may be fighting it out in the presidential. And eventually, of course, the deal will be made and, you know, Vice President Carlson will rule with an iron fist for a thousand years. You know, you think this is funny. Some of us just find this very stressful. To quote my late and beloved grandmother, Gallo's humor son is still humor. Hey, Molly, if you were going to pick like a very popular figure in the country who is one of the few shining lights in the darkness that is COVID, who would that be? Right after I killed Santa, I might fire Fauci. Hold on. Before I fire Fauci, I would have warm up by setting this bucket of kittens.

on fire. On fire. I mean, it's like Joe Loda. Remember Joe? Yes. In the Senate race when he's like, in his, I'm sorry, in the mayoral race, right, when he's like, I would kill the kittens. I would run them over with the subway train.

I would not stop the subway train. That's what this is like. I mean, this is an outside of board thing on this. It's like, you know, there are these seniors out. He's tanking with seniors. It's likely to be the death knell of him. And there are all these seniors out there that, like, I think just like really want to vote for him, kind of, right?

They agree with him on most. things, but he's just so crazy and he's been so irresponsible on the virus. And if he just behaved for the last week, just kind of, just a little bit, sort of like he did in 2016, you know, maybe the magnet, the partisan magnet pulls some of these people back. And rather than do that 24 days before the election, it's like, no, fire Fauci. I'm going to get rid of Fauci. I'm just going to rub your face in the novel coronavirus and you're going to vote for me anyway, and you're going to like it. It's just a, it's just an unbelievable strategy. And, And the thing is, it was not a strategic move.

He's just such a baby that the crowd started chanting fire Fauci, fire Fauci. And he can't help himself, but, you know, wanting to fill that whole, that black hole in his heart. And so, and give the people what they want. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I feel like it's important to remember he is never playing three-dimensional chess. He's always just eating a checker. No, it's always impulse. It's always whatever brain fart is that at that.

moment occurring to him. He's, he's like an animal that chases a butterfly through the forest and runs into things while he's doing it. Yeah, there's no chess. There's no strategy. There's just, there's just the moment, pure impulse. It is sort of amazing. I'm just still shocked that he's still close in some of these states. Well, look, there is a natural tightening of the race at this point where the partisan numbers have come home. A lot of voters who voted early have now sort of I won't say they switched off, but they're not as, there's not as, you know, in your face on social media, everywhere else. And the Trump folks are feeling a little bit desperate. They're feeling a little bit, they're feeling like the world is coming down around them, and they're not wrong.

You also have the epistemically closed information loop that people are in. I mean, Molly, if you just want just to let your blood pressure spike, but also get a sense for what's happening, Go watch a tape of yet last night's Mark Levine show on the Fox News Network that he runs in the country night. Why won't they talk about Tony Bobaloo-Ste? He literally spent five minutes playing Trump's Mount Rushmore speech to like patriotic music in the background on the eve of an election Eve. I mean, it's like, you know, it is the people, these people are not getting this information that you find to be disqualifying. And if it slightly breaks through the cracks, you know, their defenses have built up such. They're not letting it sink yet.

They're completely rejecting it as being, you know, the fake newsmongers. That is so nuts to me. I mean, and I know it's happening. And we saw like Eric and Jr. I mean, there's, you know what I think is an interesting shift is that in 2016, those guys, the Trump crew, shared misinformation and disinformation, but they did it inadvertently. now four years later, it's like their campaign is doing it. Four years later, the whole last four years they've been doing it.

That's just the deal now. They don't even attempt to try to engage in a debate of ideas, right? That is like not what is happening in this campaign. What Donald Trump is out there when he's talking about a fantasy Joe Biden that wants to send Cory Booker to rape your wife and, you know, allow Antifa to run rampant over the country and bring in, you know, the social regime. Sharia regime. Sharia game age.

Yeah, exactly. And then online, you've just got Trump Jr. and Rick Grinnell and all these clowns, like tweeting memes that are, you know, either altered or disinformation or whatever bubbles up out of AitCham. Like, that's it. That's the campaign. Like that has been the entire, and it's been the president's. Doesn't Rick Grinnell know, like, crazy national security staff?

Yeah, it's disturbing. Yeah, it should scare these shit out of you what he knows. It should scare these shit out of you because when he walked in as, as, as, as, D&I, he got the briefings and he got the sources and method stuff that I'm sure the intelligence community probably spent the last four years thinking, let's just not mention this source here in this country because you never know whether the president will just blurt it out on an open fucking cell phone, which he would. The good news is Rick actually doesn't care about learning about the information about the,

you know, Middle Eastern threats. Like what he really cares about is how hard he can own Swin and Mockland with his like fake tweets. Right. I mean, like, when he was getting those reports, like, that's what he was focused on. How can I manipulate the support to own, you know, some liberal journalist on Twitter? Like, that was his main focus. So that, that should be right better. What is this national security you speak of? I'm here to own the lips. I mean, but that's the thing, though. What has saved American democracy or what will hopefully save American democracy is how stupid these people are. Next time we may not be so low.

I don't know. That's why I worry about, you know, the Tom Cotton's and the Josh Holley's of the world. Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton will come into that same thing and say, how do I keep these people that were Trump's base pissed off, paranoid, freaked out, angry and ready to burn themselves alive for me? And they'll do it by sitting in a room with pollsters and data guys and analysts and psychologists and they'll build something more frightening that looks, less crazy and less, you know, clownish than Trump, it'll be just as scary on the nationalist populist thing and the authoritarian in-waiting thing. That's why you don't take these guys lightly. Right. It's true. Can we talk about Texas for a minute? Sure. Because David Wasserman has Texas as a toss-up and I'm seeing a lot of polling that has it like one point away. That's humongous. We resisted Texas this whole year. We kept saying, ah, the data's moving, but it's not enough. It's not enough. This early vote in Texas is so cataclysmically large that we're going to watch it on election night. It's not going to be, it's not, you can't just put it to bed and say, screw it. I still think it's a tough lift, but it's closer now that it's ever been in our lifetimes. And it really, what Texas does is what makes the decision between whether or not this is a 1980 race or a 1964 race.

If Texas goes, it's 1964, and that's the ballgame, and Trumpism is on the active of history that night. It'll still have its devotees, you know, it'll also have its versions of like the diehard Burture style guys. But if Texas blows out, Georgia, I agree with Wasserman. I now think I'm going to call Georgia for Biden by a close number. But if Georgia and Texas go, even if Florida stays red, it is the political cataclysmouth. of the century for the Republican Party. But it does seem like in places like North Carolina, I mean, Calcuttingham is winning and Tillis is dying.

Yeah, well, there is this other demo, too, in certain states, depending on the thing can counteractive, but there are still some like blue-collar former Democrat types that like Trump that are culturally conservative, but that don't like the Chamber of Commerce Republican types like Tillis. So it's possible that it can work the other way, too, in certain places. And I think that is happening to tell us where I think that he'll run slightly behind Trump. It's weird because Cunningham and Biden both, and I want to dig into this at some point after we finish this hell election, the October surprises in the last minute oppo hits this year have all just fallen completely flat.

How many laptops? You know, Cal Cunningham took a beating on this affair story and within 10 days his numbers are bad. Trump just overshadows all that shit. It just doesn't work. With the virus and Trump, it's just too much to break through. Yeah, I think that's exactly right, Tim. It's just, there's just this infinite amount of overhang from Trump and COVID and everything else.

And people just go, okay, yeah, so he screwed around. Okay, here we go. Yeah, I think it's true. I think it's also interesting, though, that these were just like the last minute opo dump on Hunter Biden's laptop. They knew it wasn't picking up and they just kept going with it. They were like, but what's really on the laptop? Like, nobody gives a shit.

I mean, the guy lives in California. He doesn't work in the government. I mean, meanwhile, Ivanka Trump made how many millions of dollars last year? I mean? Oh, you mean the blind computer repair man story wasn't the silver bullet? Right. You know, like the son making money. Oh, and you have Jared Kushner doing deals with MBS while he's chopping up journalists.

that didn't break through. That's interesting. On WhatsApp. Call me crazy. And the other part of it, this idea inside the Trump media sphere that if only someone would say the name,

Tony Bobaluski, the whole world would pay attention and it'll be a little change tomorrow. Bubolinsky, Bubbolinsky. It's like Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. So it's election day and Rick and Molly, you two are going to be doing a Q&A for Beast Inside members. Or is it a Q&ON?

Damn it, damn it. So I wanted to ask one of the questions I saw from your listeners that I thought was interesting, which is ignoring majorities and you can't answer, Senator Congress, what's the seat you'd most like to see flipped in this election for the three of you to answer? I'd like to get rid of Dan Crenshaw, and I'd love to see Seema in Texas beat him. He's just the phoniest of all. Well, you know, it's a competitive category. So he's at the top tier of ponies.

And I think that's a surprisingly close race. It's a bit of a stretch. I don't want to pick an easy one that the Democrats are going to win anyway. So it's a little bit of a stretch. I'd like to see Seema snake him. Good choice. Rick Wilson? If I could flip one, if I could just flip one of these people,

it would be Mensa candidate Devin Nunez. just because he is part of this interlocking directorate of fuckwits who have promoted every goddamn conspiracy theory just because he is Derek Harvey's sugar daddy in spreading these ridiculous conspiracy things and completely turning the elements and arms of government into weapons for Donald Trump. But unfortunately, I don't think we're going to get that one.

So mine, I want to say Mitch McConnell, that I want, even though I know that's not happening, because he's just so destructive. Actually, you know what? I'm changing it. It's Mike Espy. My candidate is Mike Espy. I'm sorry. I get very involved. Mike Espy, because he grew up in Mississippi, he lived through Jim Crow. He is like back and he's just awesome. And the idea of sending, I mean, if we could, if Democrats could send three African American senators to the Senate, that would be incredible. And it would change, you know, we've only ever had 10. So Mike S.P. is my pick. He's amazing.

My husband is a Mike Sby stand. So he'll be so happy to hear that he got the shout out. I mean, he's just so, so great. We did a little bit of work down there. And, you know, there's a possibility of runoff. That would be something. That would be something. Aaron Banco is a national security reporter for The Daily Beast.

And today she's going to talk to us about two completely insane Trump myths. One is Hunter Biden's laptop and two is that Trump has done a great job managing the pandemic. Erin, how many laptops did Hunter Biden have? Well, for a long time, when I say a long time, it felt like eons, but I guess it was really only like a week or two. We were paying attention to what the computer repair shop guy in Wilmington, Delaware was saying. Didn't you go down there? So I did not personally go down there, but I, you know, kind of badgered the editor saying we really need to either let me go or let's send somebody who's a stringer

because I was so from the very beginning, so fascinated in how this random guy from Charleston, Delaware got involved in this major political story, one of the biggest political stories of 2020. And so we ended up sending a freelancer down there. to chat with him and caught him a little bit off guard. And so what he ends up telling us is that who he thinks is Hunter Biden comes in and, you know, gives him three laptops. Oh, God, there are three? Well, that's what he says. And then we really kind of whittle that story down to find out that there's really only one that the FBI has and is working with for whatever reason,

which we don't really fully understand why the FBI has that and what they're doing with it. but my colleague Lachlan Marque reported a couple of weeks ago, I think it's actually a week ago now, that there's a second laptop. So I think we're a little unclear still. We never definitely won. That might be too. I got into trouble with an opinion piece I wrote this weekend where I said that because the Washington Examiner took a snippet of that piece and said there's a second laptop. and I said that the Washington Examiner had discovered a second laptop when, in fact, again, it's not even clear there is a second laptop, but if it is, it was actually broken by Lachlan Marquis.

Yes, Lachlan Marquay broke that last week, early last week. Yes, it's important to get your Hunter Biden laptop stories, correct? Yeah, I guess, you know, it's looking back now on the origins of this story. is really interesting to see the trajectory of it, right? That it goes from this guy in Wilmington saying that he was given three to him saying, well, I don't really know how many I actually gave over. And then I copied the hard drive of one, but not the others. And then the FBI confirms they do have one of Hunter Biden's laptops.

You know, Marque says, no, there's actually two. So who knows, really? I think there's at least one. So the thing that I find fascinating about this story is it has not ever caught fire. No one is interested in Hunter Biden's laptop for any number of reasons, perhaps mostly because Ivanka works in the White House and Hunter lives in California and seems to have no connection to a Biden White House. Why do you think they're so stuck on it?

You know, at The Daily Beast, we really tried to do our due diligence at the beginning in trying to run down who was behind the operation, what, you know, who had these lab Who was this guy, John Paul McIsaac in Delaware? What was his story? And so we spent about a week really trying to get the nitty-gritty and granular details on how this laptop came into the news. And so what we ended up finding out was that Rudy Giuliani, when he would talk to the press, really wanted nothing to do with the process story. He would always steer clear of saying how he got the materials. He was always more interested in pushing the press to look at what the materials actually said,

but of course the process is the story. It's part of the story, a large part of it. And so what ended up happening is that I think Giuliani and others along the way started to either not trust mainstream media outlets with the documents that they had had, that they wouldn't tell the story they wanted. And so what ended up happening is that these materials made their way only to a couple of outlets that Giuliani or his other, where, you know, colleagues and people that were working with him were attached to. And of course, we broke the story that, you know, former Fox News, exec at Ken McCourt, was behind a large push in trying to get these materials out to the conservative media.

But it just never ended up taking off the way I think Giuliani had hoped. And I think that's in large part because he really pushed back against anybody wanting to ask questions about how he got the materials in the first place. That's so interesting since we've always heard that a first place. box runs with a story that it's just to become part of the conservative media and that they run the show. But you really think it's just because there were so many holes in the story that it did not catch on? I think that that was part of it, but I also think that there was very public skepticism about this computer repair guy in Delaware from Republicans like Ron Johnson and other people

working these materials from Capitol Hill. I think very early on there were doubts about how Juliana got the materials and who he relied on to get them pushed out to the press. And so from that point, once you have people raising questions about them, it's really hard to continue pushing them out in the way that you want. I believe a reporter, you know, an anchor or TV personality on Fox News, even, I forget who it was, exactly questioned the authenticity of this computer repairman and the materials themselves. And I think Johnson went on several TV outlets saying, you know, look, we're doing our due diligence. We're not sure this is real. We have no idea yet. And at that point, this story, I think, was sort of dead in the water.

Yeah. It's such an amazing story. And also Steve Bannon figures into this, too, right? Yeah. So according to Steve, who, you know, is not out of bail right now. I think so, but we tend not to react to him that often, given his unreliability. But, you know, he did appear on YouTube with Rudy and on other news outlets talking about his involvement. And he says that he came in at the very end in August. Rudy pulled him in because apparently he knew best how to get these materials out into the ether. But even Bannon kind of dropped off. That's not good.

Yeah. And he just, I think his role was always, you know, supposed to be behind the scenes. And Rudy was all supposed to be the one that went on TV and talked about it. But the problem with Rudy, as we all know, is that, you know, he got himself caught up in the Ukraine madness. And working with Durkatch, who we, you know, designated as a Russian agent. And so, you know, there were credibility problems from the beginning with Giuliani, which, you know, I think is part of the reason why this story never kicked off the way he was. wanted. I also think that the Borat stuff did not help him. Is that fair? I don't know. I don't, you know, I really don't know how much the boar had stuff played into all of this. I think it definitely, you know,

made him turn off his cell phone for a few days. The reporters couldn't reach him, which of course is always how this goes with Giuliani. Any reporter who talks to him knows that, you know, you catch him when you catch him and he's really hard to get a hold of. And when you do get him on the line, there could be a, usually always a story in that conversation. But if you don't get him on the line, then there's no story. And so when he, you know, kind of went dark there for a couple of days, that's when it started to slow down, I think. So we have this situation now where we have Eric and Rickernell and a lot of Trump surrogates sharing disinformation and really go in hardcore, no rules kind of stuff, which we see in Trump, too, this weekend, his like lies.

and rhetoric. What is going on? So I think, you know, from an intelligence and national security story standpoint, this is what officials have been worried about for quite a while, right, years. That 2020 would be the election of disinformation and misinformation and that, you know, officials in SISA, in DHS and other corners of the government would have to work to sort of combat not only disinformation from foreign adversaries, but just domestically as well. and from within the White House. And so I think we've already started to see that disinformation story kick off today,

or I guess it was last night. And in the administration, officials have already paid close attention to the Rick Grinnell tweet. They viewed this as a launching point for this disinformation 2020 election story. Can you say which one that was so that listeners? There were two photos that he tweeted out, signed outside. There was a photo of Biden, a picture. apparently not wearing a mask on a plane and then public. And of course, that that photo of him on the left, of him not wearing a mask was from 2019 and had nothing, I mean, before the pandemic hit, had nothing

to do with his election bid. And so, you know, the fact that you have our former acting ODNI director tweeting out photos that are inaccurate raises all sorts of alarm bells for Natsac and and tell officials who are closely monitoring the election. And so it's ironic now that we're, you know, four years past 2016 and that our 2020 disinfo stories seems to be coming from within the house. Yeah. And I certainly never expected that it would get this way or get this path. Yeah.

Yeah, nuts, right? I mean, you never thought you'd see that. So, Aaron, speaking of totally ridiculous things that I couldn't believe, I saw a headline from you today that after all these years of paying attention to Trump, that COVID is Trump's undoing and he truly thinks he nailed it. This is a hard one for me to believe that he actually deep down does believe he thinks he nailed it. Can you talk to us about the story a little bit? So I think the rhetoric coming from inside the West Wing is that the president does believe he crushed the coronavirus.

You think he really believes that? Who knows what Trump really believes, right? I mean, when he gets out on the campaign trail, he tends to exaggerate things. But I do think there's a good chance that Trump thinks that there's nothing more he could have done and that he did the best of any other world leader. And that's certainly been the conversation inside the White House. And, you know, when the president talks about it to his advisors, he's reinforced by the people around him believing in the fact that they just killed it. that they did an awesome job. They did kill it. Of course, that is just wildly inaccurate, and we have a worrying amount of positive cases throughout the country and mainly in the Midwest, and the death rate is, you know, going to spike in the next few weeks,

according to, you know, our nation's top health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci. It's curious to me, and I, I, too, and flummoxed by this idea that Trump thinks he can get up on the campaign stage and campaign on the idea that he saved the country. You know, we have 200 and how many thousand dead and more coming. And it's almost like we're living in this sort of warped reality where, you know, all the scientists and doctors working around him are screaming at him metaphorically saying, you know, wake up. There's, there's so much more we need to be doing here. And the white House now just simply believes, like, listen, we're not going to get anything done before there's a

viable vaccine. So we're just going to let this play out and see what happens. And so the calculation they've made is that taking that stance is okay because as long as the economy is open to the best of its ability, then Trump has done his job. It's a pretty bleak situation on the task force right now. I've had the pleasure of talking to a number of top officials who work with that task force who say even they have thrown their hands up in the air at this point. And they're the ones that are supposed to be pushing back on Trump and helping the rest of the country, even if they're sort of down and out right now, that's alarming. Is there just no task force anymore?

I mean, there is technically a task force. There are a number of officials, doctors, scientists, statisticians working on the federal government's response to the coronavirus. and they work within this sort of, you know, group, which you could call a task force. But the main task force is not meeting anymore. Those meetings happen, I guess. There are one-off chances where officials will meet with the vice president or, you know, Azar will meet with Girard or what have you.

But the formal task force really isn't meeting much anymore. Do you think that if Biden wins, which again, we don't know, that he can start taking over coronavirus or not really? Nothing can happen until January, right? If Biden wins, he can start forming relationships with governors across the country, with local and state health officials. He can start sort of a grassroots movement to regain the trust of at least the states. But from a realistic standpoint, he's not going to be inaugurated and in government until January. And by that point, that'll be right around the time maybe we have a vaccine or a vaccine at least for some people.

we could have many, many more deaths in cases by that point. So I'm not sure what world he'll be stepping into if he does win. We did get to talk to the Biden campaign about their plans for when and if he enters office. And it sounds like they're going to try to revamp the entire infrastructure within the federal government, who's in charge, who's living the response, and they're going to try to ramp up testing and then make sure vaccine distribution is set. but even that might not be enough at that point. It depends on what kind of fall we have.

Erin, thank you so much for joining us. This was plenty time, guys. I really appreciate you having me on. Hi there. We have a special surprise from Beast Inside, the Daily Beast membership program. On Election Day, the new Abnormal will do what we always do and talk about what's happening in this election,

and you can listen in if you join Beast Inside today. There, you'll gain access to an exclusive Zoom version of our podcast that day, where you can ask your own questions. We'll get through this election together. We'll help you stomach the last moments, or so we hope, of the longest, weirdest, crappiest presidential campaign in modern history. Join Beast Inside Today,

and then join us on Election Day when we pull back the curtain, New Abnormal style. Again, this is only for Beast Inside members. To hear this, along with the rest of our upcoming bonus episodes, head to New Abnormal. dot the DailyBeast.com. That's New Abnormal.

Dot the Dailybeast.com. Adrian Perkins is the mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana, and is running for the Senate, challenging incumbent Republican Bill Cassidy. Welcome, Mayor Perkins. Super happy to be here, Molly. Thanks so much for having me on. So talk to me about your race.

Okay. Our race is actually doing very, very well, and we are shattering expectations. We were late to the game. And we announced in July, I had no plans of running at the beginning of this year. I'm in my second year as mayor of my hometown of Shreveport. But this year, COVID-19 changed the circumstances in Shreveport and Louisiana and all around the country. And when trying to figure out how I can better serve and better protect my community, I decided to run for the United States Senate.

And things have been going well. People told us we couldn't raise money. We actually have outraised the incumbent. We've raised over $2.5 million with over $7.7. thousand contributions, averaging about $30 per contribution. All polls are suggesting right now that we are going to go into a runoff. People said that we couldn't even, you know, consolidate the Democratic base, let alone make it into a runoff with Senator Cassidy. So we're breaking our expectations, and we're going to continue to do so even in a runoff so that we can be successful in December.

And that adds another element to this that's very important for people to know is that in Louisiana, our primary is on the day of the presidential election. Our runoff is in December, on December 5th. How are you having a runoff against an incumbent? Yeah, so Louisiana, we have a jungle primary. So there is no Democratic nominee, our Republican nominee. Everybody jumps into the jungle primary. The top two vote getters, if no one exceeds 50% plus one vote,

goes into a runoff, a general election that will be held on December 5th. Wow. To the naysayers, like five, 38 who don't talk to me about why things could change because this could be a crazy election. We don't know. 538 actually had it as a high probability that there would be a runoff and had me, I think, as the fourth or fifth most likely person to make the runoff. So we had to submit our own polling data from a reputable source to 538 to show that we were

not only in second place, but we were in second place by quite a bit of a margin. and we've only closed the gap even more between me and Senator Cassidy. So they've changed their evaluation to put us in that number one spot. They have not yet changed their evaluations on how winnable this seat is, but we're confident that in a runoff, they will do so because Louisiana just saw a Democrat versus a Republican last year when our governor ran against Republican candidate Eddie Responi, and he was successful.

As you will know, the Senate has not had a lot of African-American men in it or women. No, I was going to say 10 total, men or women. 10. You count them all 10 total in the history. So there's a movement of African Americans coming back to the south, running for office. What's the feeling there? Like, do you think we can get the African American Democratic base to really, like, be represented in the Democratic Party? Absolutely. Absolutely.

I think this is a bit of an evolution that we're seeing down here. I think the old frame of mind was that you need to get a moderate Democrat in the South and oftentimes that correlated with a white Democrat in the South so that you can get these, you know, undecided voters. But what we're saying now that if you actually get a true Democrat, black or white, and in this case, we are seeing a lot of black candidates that you're able to galvanize your base, get them out to vote in order to keep these races close and for us to be successful. So I think we're turning that old understanding or the old assumptions on its head right now in a major way.

And it's all coming together. It's all coming to a head kind of at once because I believe this is the most Black Democratic Senate candidates in history, especially with nominations for major parties. Yeah, I think it's very exciting and that that's how Democrats are going to win. It's also writing a lot of the many wrongs that have happened in the South. I'm curious to know you're young. and you have, you know, I mean... Molly, I'm old, Molly.

I turned 35 on Friday last Friday, so I'm pretty old. Yeah, we're not impressed. I'm curious to know, like, a Mike Espy, when I talked to Mike Espy, we talked about growing up in the Jim Crow South and how hard it was to go back to Mississippi. And as you know, Mississippi is a primarily African-American, or it has a much higher percentage of African-Americans

and much of any of the other states. And so it's very exciting the idea of having leadership that reflects the population. You know, you're so young and just I'm curious to know what it feels like in the South and in Treeport. Yeah, I'll tell you this. So you know, Louisiana is right behind Mississippi on African American population. We have 33% of our population is African American. And fun fact, four out of every 10 registered voters is African American here as well. But yeah, I'm a little bit younger than Mike.

So the South that I grew up in is a bit different than him, but that's not just. say it was without the racial transgressions. I, you know, I had incidents where, you know, me and my family have had bad run-ins with law enforcement. You know, I was discriminated against when I was a student in various instances. So, you know, I was aware that I was an African-American growing up in the South at a young age. Fortunately, you know, there were way more positive incidences in my community to really allow me to live this life that I've been able to live. So, you know, it's not the same as Mike, but I will say this. I am still the great. grandson of a sharecropper. My grandfather was a sharecropper and a parish adjacent to Caddo

Parish. We have parishes here in our counties. So even though I'm younger, I still understand how quickly times have changed. And it, you know, would be my grandfather's wildest dream to think that in just, you know, a generation that he could have a grandson running for the United States Senate. So it's still that perspective that Mike has and having lived it, my perspective isn't too far off. and I understand the gravity of what I'm doing in this moment. You know, I think that's the only way we're going to get any kind of justice. You have to come in second now and then mobilize in December. Yes, yes.

We have to get in second and then we have to mobilize. And that's what I'm telling people right now that we need their support because we are the clear second, but we have to keep Senator Cassidy under 50 percent. And we have to close that gap between me and him because we don't want to create a GOTV problem in the runoff when we're mobilizing. And that GOTV problem would be people not believing we could close a gap if it's too large. So that's why it's important that we invest in this race now so that we don't have an insurmountable obstacle in front of us in the runoff.

Right. Okay. Yeah. Talk to me about the difference between you and Cassidy. Nobody really hears about Cassidy. But, I mean, he's not, yeah. Yeah, I was going to say, there's a huge list on the differences between me and, me and Cassidy. And you say nobody has really heard about him. You're absolutely right. He stayed under the

radar, but people probably remember him from three years ago when he tried to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act that would have stripped away health care from half a million Louisianaans, but over 20 million Americans. So, yeah, after that failed attempt when Senator McCain did the famous thumbs down, he's laid pretty low because that's an embarrassing thing to, that's an embarrassing record to have. You know, not only were you going to push this disaster. his health care bill, but it failed. So, no, you know, people might know him for that, but I can tell you he has been harmful to not just Louisiana,

but the country, you know, and his voting record and not moving to make sure we get sufficient COVID-19 relief, pushing right now to say, oh, I'm fighting to fight against a surprise medical billing, but really he's just siding with private equity companies and making it seem like he's fighting for patients. So he's a pretty bad character. And I would say another difference between the two of us is, I believe in a functional government.

You know, I believe in actually acting on those bills, those hundreds of bills that the House have passed that is sitting at the Senate's door, Mitch McConnell and Republicans refuse to act on them, not just a COVID-19 bill that they have refused to act on, but there's a voting rights bill, and there's an infrastructure bill. There's a lot of other bills that need to be passed so that our country can move forward. And he is, you know, just right in line with his political party, even if it's against the interests of Louisianaans or the answers of Americans. Thank you so much, Mayor Perkins.

I hope you win your runoff. Absolutely, Molly. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for the support. All right. You guys have a good day. For our last fuck that guy before this election, I would like to nominate the Trump War Room.

Oh, yeah, that's a good one. These are people who have spent their closing hours of this campaign, pretending that Joe Biden wants to tear down the Washington Monument, and attacking Lady Gaga. Now, when you guys are done, pretending that you understand these two fundamental American institutions, I want you to start practicing, would you like double meat on that pizza? Because that is about where you fuckers are going to end up. Would you like that in a loafer or a pump? Don't you think they'll end up working

for like the Heritage Foundation? You know, here's the thing. There are only so many jobs in D.C. for pudgy 35-year-old N. cells who work in the Trump War Room. There are unfortunately more of those jobs than you wish there were. I'm sorry to take everybody's joy away. Yeah, that's kind of my thinking. My fuck that guy is South Dakota governor, Christy

Noem. You know, her state is being ravaged by coronavirus. She's out posing with guns and Bibles and Laura Lomer. So you are my fuck that guy, Governor Nome. Can I add a bonus fuck that guy to the

episode. Of course. I would also like to give a bonus fuck that guy shout out to the Kentucky State Police. The Kentucky State Police in their training program for their Kentucky State Police Academy, the PowerPoint for their incoming students, includes quotes from Adolf Hitler and Robert Lee about pursuing violence at all costs. Fix your shit, Kentucky State Police. Jesus. Yeah, who could have seen that out of Kentucky? I would like to give a fuck that guy to every Republican media consultant who is building their beach house and Bethany off of Sheldon Adelson and all of these other assholes super pack money and defend from Donald Trump. You can say Chris Las Al-Avita. When they know better. Chris Las Al-Avita. But here's the thing, do I want to just say Chris Las Al-Avita? Because Rick, it's all of these fuckers.

No, because it's also Brad Todd and all these other fuckers. It's all of them. And to a person, they know better. You know, and it's like we had to hear from all the assholes that went into the administration and how they were saving us from Donald Trump's worst impulses. And that was all the role from the start. But guess who's definitely not saving us from Donald Trump's impulses? The people that are raking the fucking Colin Kaepernick ads and paying for their, you know,

getting their kids college fund filled out of it. Okay, so. We need jobs, not moms. I'm just, I'm really, I've really had it. enough of that crowd. And today is election day for folks. And I hope that they have a very, very sad night. And I hope that they're, you know, again, sit alone in their new beach house and Bethany with the Donald Trump wing and know that they paid for it with the blood of immigrants and refugees and all the people have died of the coronavirus.

Hey, hey, Tim, I'm sure you've heard this one. You guys are just never Trump to wreaking the big books. Yeah. Yeah. Jesus Christ. Can I do my first one ever. Please. Yes. Jesse. Bring it. Fuck that guy.

Let's go. Bum, bum, bo. It better be good. So after sitting at the sideline and watching YouTube gleefully get out your

fuck that guys for 60 plus episodes, I want to get out my fuck that guy rage instead of putting it on Instagram stories at the end of the night. Thank you for allowing me this cathartic moment. One of the things we do in this podcast is to put thought every day

into the implications of the questions we ask our guests and how they inform our listeners. because one of the ways we got Donald Trump is people who are terrible at explaining the world to other people. And one of the reasons I'm most proud of this podcast is that you guys do an incredible job of bringing perspectives that most people won't hear to people's ears and I really am proud of the work we've done with that.

So my fuck that guy is one Chuck Todd, the political director of NBC News and the host of two different shows of their networks who has a highly influential platform despite doing a terrible job at doing everything I just described. This weekend he asked a panel if the criticism that Biden is taking the virus too seriously is valid. He has access to so many resources and yet launders the dumbest Republican talking points

is valid in the name of both sidesism. And I really think that the media needs to learn this week, particularly when we're going to see an onslaught of the stupidest takes to justify the worst actions that both sides ism needs to die today before it gets really, really, really, really bad. So after years of him doing this and laundering the stupidest thoughts I've ever seen on television up to Chris Saliza. I say, Chuck Top,

fuck that guy. Oh, you brought in Saliza, dude. Now it's more. You brought a Saliza to a knife fight. I just want the record to show that I'm not laughing and I stayed out of this one.

I made enough enemies on the media consultant. Fuck that guy. Okay? So I was not laughing for the record. On that note, We'll wrap up this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes,

we'll 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

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