The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump Just Lost One of His Major Talking Points

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

This week on The New Abnormal, why Trump will need to divert from his strategy of pushing a broken economy. Plus! Josh, the publisher of the newsletter Ettingermentum, shares why he thinks attacking Republicans for being “weird” is a real winning strategy. Then, Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, joins the program to detail the origins of the “White Women for Kamala Harris” Zoom call. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Kedden, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. We have such a great show for you today.

Josh, the publisher of the newsletter, Ettinger Mentem, is going to tell us all about why the Democrats' attacks on Republicans as being weird are a real winning strategy. Then Shed and Watts, the founder, Amaretta of Mom's Demand Action, joins us to talk about her organization in the origins of white women for Kamala Harris' Zoom call. But first, let's have some fun. So, somebody had a big weekend, and it wasn't just Donald Trump swimming in 162 of the lies that he told at his Mar-a-Lago hotel home. I don't even know what the fuck you call that place. Nonetheless, happy birthday, Andy. So happy that you turned another year older than me. So Donald Trump lied, huh?

Yes. According to NPR, he lied 162 times, but I'm not lying that it was just your birthday. So here's the thing about this just super quick. I just want folks do the math with me. That means that he told two and a half lies a minute for a little over an hour. Just nothing wrong with that. Nothing to see here, folks. Not like that is compulsive DSM-5 behavior.

like compulsive, crazy, weird, psychotic behavior. But nonetheless, so something else that was supposed to happen, apparently is not happening, according to Bank of America, which is that, you know how Republicans had been talking about Joe Biden's economy and how it was sending us over the edge, Andy? I recall. Well, it seems like we never reached that cliff because according to, the CEO of Bank of America, Brian Moynihan, that they no longer believe a recession is, quote,

unquote, on the horizon for the American economy, basically stating, and this is according to the hill.com, that the Biden administration and federal reserve have achieved a quote unquote soft landing after inflation troubles in recent years. I mean, they were so excited to be out there screaming, we're headed for a recession, we're headed for a recession. And look, I know, you know, conditions change and all of that. But the fact is, there were a lot of people, and I don't mean people like me, I mean people who actually understand economics, who were saying, no, we're not headed for a recession. And the people that are saying we are are not really being accurate. And sure enough, that turned out to be the case. We saw this like a micro version of it. I forget if it was last week or the

week before when the market tanked that one day and everybody was, you know, screaming, ah, we're going to be. And then the next day, it rebounded right back up. At a certain point, like, you have to start asking yourself and you have to start thinking to yourself, how much of this is politically motivated, how much of these predictions. Some of it is wishcasting. Some of it is just straight up. We want to go after the guy in power. I don't know. I tend to tune it out at this point, because that's how I feel. And look, maybe I'm wrong. You know, maybe these are people who are actually, you know, they are legitimately saying, hey, this is what we're forecasting based on X, Y, and Z. So I guess it's wrong of me to just trash their motives across the board. But eventually, I really do

just tune it out. I mean, I'm not a, you know, again, I'm not a big business guy, but, you know, I know my mom watches CNBC a lot. She's a former broker. If I'm out visiting her or whatever, I see some of it and it's like, you know, one person says, oh, I'm bearish on this stock and, you know, you need to sell. And then the next person says, well, no, I think actually you should buy that stock. And I've learned absolutely nothing. Yeah. I mean, the goal, look, like, let's be honest with those shows, they're not for the average person, although I believe you're above average. They're not for the average person to actually inform you to do what's right for your money. But I think that what is important for folks to understand here is that the predictions of Donald Trump and all of his sycophants that Joe Biden is terrible for the economy, that Democrats are terrible for the economy.

They've just lost one of their major talking points, which is that, you know, every time people get polled, who do you think is better for the economy? I don't know how this even works with one person who has been convicted of fraud and grifting and as filed for bankrupt. see more times than many of us can count versus, I don't know, Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Like, I don't even know how people equate that there because Donald Trump has money. That means that he knows what to do with other people's money. But what they say here, I just want to read this final quote, the president of Bank of America, he said, look, the consumer has slowed down. They have money in their accounts, but they're depleting a little bit.

They're employed. They're earning money. you look at it, they've really slowed down. So the Fed is in a position that they have to be careful that they don't slow down too much, which is that people are feeling better about their economic standing following a global health pandemic and that we have moved back to a place of normalcy, but at a slow pace so that we could have this quote unquote soft landing. I think that people are feeling that. I want to say that they are feeling that more. I mean, I went to the grocery store today. And I was like, oh, this is nice. I don't know if it was only because I was

buying things that are seasonal and cheap. But hey, tip there, buy things that are seasonal and cheap. But I do think that folks are feeling better than they did last year at this time. And that is notable to be able to take away this talking point because you know that this is going to be in the Wall Street Journal in Bloomberg and other places that, you know, these CEOs and shareholders read. And so I think that that bodes well for the campaign. Yeah, a couple of things. I think Donald Trump does know what to do with other people's money and that is have them give it to him. Ah, yes, you're right. My bad. You know, that's his whole career. But yeah, I mean, look, inflation is dropping, you know, just recently in the past couple months. And look, I don't think anyone

is denying that inflation is still a factor. But, I mean, I mean, really does seem to be going down. And it'll be nice if the reporting sort of, you know, picks up on that and stops telling people that the economy is bad. Because it's really interesting when you talk to people. The general sense is that, you know, they always say, well, I'm doing okay, but I know other people are hurting because that's what they hear. Right. It's become this way of framing the economy. And also there's like no reminders that it was Joe Biden and Kamala Harris that how to get us out of the economic mess that was left by Donald Trump. And that really can't be, you know, said enough, I think.

Yeah. What I think has been said too much coming out of the fucking cuckoo that is Donald Trump. Did you see his truth social meltdown over the crowd sizes and the hangar in which Vice President Kamala Harris held one of her huge rallies? Donald Trump is in a full-blown meltdown. And it is wild to me that this man is so focused on crowd size, doesn't offer up any policies, by the way, isn't trying to hit back on the Harris Walls ticket on policy,

but wants to invent a lie that artificial intelligence, that AI generated the images that all of us saw. And his lie was so bad that even, brace yourselves, the Vec Ramoswamy, the bootlicker himself, went on social media and said, it's not AI. They actually have these crowds and Donald Trump just has really bad people around him. I don't know if that's him auditioning to be one of the good people, quote unquote, around Donald Trump. But when your own bootlicking Republican folks who like bow down to you are saying it's not AI and you're trying to run with this lie, you look dumb. You look dumb. Yeah. And along with Vivek, even like some of the chuddiest of the online chuds like Ian Miles Chung and I think even Tim Poole were saying things similar to Ramoswami. If you're out crazying those people who will basically back any insane conspiracy theory that they can get their grubby little mitts on, you know, you've really gone too far.

And you mentioned the Trump rant on Truth Social. And I just want to read a little part of it. Oh, please. Please do. Has anyone noticed that Kamala cheated at the airport, cheated in all caps? There was nobody at the plane and she A-I'd it and showed a massive crowd of so-called followers. but they didn't exist. She was turned in by a maintenance worker at the airport.

What? Like, what? I don't even know what that means. And it's just, it's such a bizarre thing to say. But you're absolutely right. It's just, I mean, he is melting down bigly, as he would say. And we're seeing it with the AI thing, which is just straight up insane. And he's also doing this other thing now where he's mad because the polls are shifting to Harris.

And, you know, there was a recent New York Times Sienna College poll that had Harris up four points in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in each of those states. And he is just going absolutely nuts and claiming the polls are lying and that they're fake news. And look, all of this, it's always nice to see him completely melting down and just absolutely losing it. But we do have to remember that all of this is also laying the groundwork for, you know, another quote unquote stock. the steel movement after election day if he loses. And I would say this, that one, he's insane. This AI'd business, a maintenance worker, the way his mind is melting right now. Yeah.

And it's just full blown. Like, how do you cheat at landing a plane at a hangar where there are people waiting for you? Like, what was the game that she was cheating at? But to your point, this is, I mean, this is. This is a 2020 redux, which is that Donald Trump begins months in advance of laying the groundwork to prime his base to not believe any results that are anything outside of him winning. And I would just go back to what Biden has said so many times. Like, you can't love this country only when you win. You can't believe the polls only when they show you up.

and then every other time they're completely wrong. That's not how things work. I would say there was just one of those insurrectionists on January 6th was just sentenced, one of the most violent actors on that day, was just sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. 20 years. Other people have been sentenced

while Donald Trump continues to walk free. I don't think, and maybe I'm wrong. I'm knocking on all types of wood, But I do not believe that his followers show up in the same way that they did in 2021 to defend his lie, knowing that some of their neighbors, their family members, are doing time right now. And Donald Trump didn't come to their aid in the way that he said that he would. Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And of course, he keeps saying he'll pardon them if he's reelected. Well, he could have pardoned them the first time.

and he chose not to. Again, I hope you're right about that because, look, there is a substantial number of people in this country who are going to believe that if Donald Trump loses the election, that it was stolen, that it was rigged. There's just no getting around that at this point. And all of these things that Trump is doing, even when some of the people on his own side call him out on the AI thing, it ultimately doesn't matter because it's just it's sewing seeds. It's the Steve Bannon, you know, throw shit at the wall, see what sticks, methodology. It's all of that. And so we're going to end up in November with a sizable number of people who are primed to believe the election was stolen.

Trump is, if he loses, he is 100% going to claim it was stolen. I mean, at this point, there is not even a point 0.000,000, 0.01% chance that he won't do that. It's automatic at this point. So we've really, really, really got a guard against this. And I hate even talking about the AI stuff because it's so stupid and you hate to spread it. But on the other hand, you have to keep shooting these things down because what's the alternative? Yeah. And I just have to say this, right?

Donald Trump has returned to Twitter. Lawrence O'Donnell host over at MSNBC said, this is a sign of absolute desperation that his campaign is beginning to unravel. And look, I'm not going to tap dance until after the election. So this is what he has just posted, which is that are you better off now than you were when I was president? Our economy is shattered. We literally just talked about the economy that was just on the CEO was, Bank of America was just on Face the Nation over the weekend talking about how our economy is strong. Our border has been erased, he writes. We're in a nation in decline.

make the American dream affordable again, make America safe again. And then the response by a Twitter commentator, Brian Cresenstein, writes this underneath Donald Trump's post and says, Donald Trump left office January 2021. Here are some economic indicators. Unemployment was at 6.3%. The GDP contracted by 3.4%. The national debt had risen to $27.8 trillion. dollars and the u.s had approximately 9.8 close to 10 million fewer jobs than before the pandemic what planet

does Donald trump exist on and when your own places these conservative places like you know the face the nations the wall street journals the bloombergs and these places start actually reporting what is really happening and has happened with the economy he's going to blow an absolute gasket. And the reason why he's back on Twitter, because ain't nobody on truth social. Nobody is there. So he has to go someplace to be heard. And so now I just feel like between now and, you know, and post-election, oh, Lord help us, it is going to be like Twitter vomit coming from this man. Let the catch-up fly. It's going to be crazy. And look, there's this whole thing now where he's accusing Kamala Harris of stealing his big idea, which is no tax on tips. And as many people have

pointed out, this was actually a Ron Paul idea from back in like over a decade ago. I think it was 2012. And yes, Kamala Harris did just come out and say that she supports this whole no tax on tips movement. But what he put out on his true social was this was a Trump idea. She has no ideas and can only steal for me. Kamala has no imagination whatsoever as shown by the fact that she played copycat with no taxes on tips. But please tell the people that copycat was in all caps. Yes. Because that's what adults do. Yes, absolutely. And look, I don't know, the whole tax on tips things seems to me, I don't want to out anybody, but I feel like most service workers don't declare most of their tips already and aren't paying taxes on them.

But I could be wrong. I could be very wrong about that. And I will say that back when I was a service worker, I, of course, declared all my tips for tax purposes because I'm a good boy. I am podcasting's good boy. You know what? We have a part-time service worker on this podcast. He can chime in with some reporting of the culture right here, if you would like.

Hmm. It's your time to shine, Seamus. You know, they could just pay us some more. Thank you, Seamus. And the fact of the matter is, yeah, they both are saying no. taxes for tips, but Trump is sort of, on the GOP side, Ted Cruz has proposed legislation, along with other Republicans in both the House and the Senate, that claims to exempt tips from taxes. And a lot of people looked at that and said, these are really a sort of giveaways to the

financial industry. And it appears that what Kamala wants is a more targeted approach that actually would be for the people that Trump is claiming it's for. And, you know, no surprise there, I guess. any surprise at all. Joining me now is Josh, publisher of the fantastic political newsletter, Edingermentum at Eddingermentum.com. Josh, thanks so much for coming back on. I appreciate it. Yeah, it's great to be back.

Thanks for providing me. Absolutely. The last time you were on, we talked about why President Biden was polling so badly and what you thought he could do to fix that. It feels like that was 10 years ago at this point. But now that it's Vice President Harris leading the ticket, we've seen a bit of a turnaround in the numbers. so I thought it'd be interesting to get your take on the situation now.

Back when I talked to you, you had written a piece about how you thought Biden could win. And I want to just, before we get to your more recent piece on how you think Harris can win, I want to run through some of the things you listed about Biden and see how they apply now. And the first is it's abortion stupid. And one of the things you wrote is that Biden needed to get over whatever personal qualms he had on this issue. And in your words, grow up. It does seem like the Harris Walls ticket is and will be much more. explicit in defense of reproductive rights.

Yeah, part of that is they can actually talk in the first place. Like, that's a little, sounds a little facetious. No, you're right. It's true. That's like where we were at that point. Biden, like, to the extent that like he even had good abortion messaging or could get over his own personal qualms as you put them to really press forward in the issue that we've seen time and time again has been a real huge like difference maker for Democrats

since the Dobbs decision. He literally could not articulate the message during the debates. They asked him like a question about a question about. to open the debate, like it was the biggest softball in history. And he used the opportunity to talk about, like, people being raped and killed by migrants. It feels a little weird to, like, say, oh, he should have talked in this way or in that certain way when he, like, was kind of incapable of communicating at a fundamental level. But, yeah, I think I've, like, tried to watch, like, all of the different rallies they did over the past week. So I've seen the same speech

a number of times. And they're very, very explicit, both Harris and Walls on, like, like this topic. Harris, I think like kind of her part of her comeback story was that she spent a number of months like specifically messaging on abortion like around college campuses. And that was kind of low profile, but it generally did get good reviews. So she has a lot of experience messaging on this. And I think that's a good thing for her because the problem with Harris and like we've seen it a little bit so far is that she really is not too terribly politically experienced. She's only held statewide office since 2010. She's only run against the Republican in a general election twice. Both were attorney general races in California in 2010 and 2014.

Her election to the Senate in 2016, that race was against another Democrat. So like with her, you are looking at somebody who really like doesn't have a lot of, I wouldn't say polish. I think that she is like as polished as somebody in her position would be. But you don't have like the kind of campaign experience you usually expect or anticipate from a national level presidential candidate, but her time, like I think working on behalf of the administration on that specific issue, like has made her very well prepared in that. We've seen it, like, rightfully be a centerpiece of her campaign so far. Yeah. Another thing you wrote about with regard to Biden was your advice was to run as a Democrat. And I feel like when Harris picked Walls, it was a sign that that's exactly

what she's going to do. And again, not that Walls is some kind of hardcore lefty, no matter how the right wants to paint him. But I think it's fair to say there were. other potential VP picks who were to his right. Yeah, or had brands that were more kind of individualistic outside of being a generic liberal or generic Democrat. With Walls, she is choosing to run on the generic kind of democratic platform with Shapiro or Kelly or even Bashir, it would have been about their personality and what their personality represents, especially in the case of Kelly. And Walls, like not to say that he isn't charismatic or doesn't have his own story, I think that's really kind of shown through in the past week in a way

that I didn't anticipate, honestly. But part of why she has improved significantly compared to Biden is because she, and I think the New York Times put it this way when their survey came out that had very, very good numbers for her in the big three Midwestern swing state. She was up by four among likely voters in all those states, but she was running like a generic Democrat. And generic Democrats do well. And I think the kind of run is a Democrat for Biden.

Same thing with abortion. Like it feels kind of awkward looking back on it because it's like, well, yeah, I mean, I guess ideally that would have been the best. best to do, but he was incapable of running as a generic Democrat. He was incapable of running as somebody in line with his party because he was so much older. The age issue just took over everything else and it gave him no room to maneuver in a way that Harris has a lot of room to maneuver. And so far, people are, they want to look at her along the lines and look at the rest of the party. And one of the other big things that you said in your original Biden piece was take the

gloves off against Trump. And I really want to get into this one because I think it was something he said about the 2022 midterms, which I should point out to our listeners who don't know you were spot on and predicting, is that for a lot of voters, whichever side they see as sort of the freaks is the side they vote against. And I feel like that goes hand in hand with the take the gloves off against Trump, particularly with the whole their weird message that we're now getting from the Democrats. Yeah, I think the weird stuff, it kind of took me back a little bit because it's such a strong articulation of like a lot of what I've been saying over the past number of years. Yeah. It kind of left me be like, okay. okay, well, now they realized it. So what do I say now a little bit? Because that's been kind of a point that I've kind of tried to come back to time and time again, just like following all these far right figures, like, I don't know, like Chris Rufor or Matt Walsh or whatever and trying to like just be like what these guys are pushing is like not really comprehensible to the average person. My master's thesis was like about how the whole right wing populist ideology, there was no kind of like basis for it socially. Like it wasn't even something Republicans even understand. Obviously, there's

the stuff about abortion and Vance, just Vance being this horrific pick who connects Trump to all these weird, just bizarre podcast and Twitter right-wing people that's just viscually just strange and disgusting to people. But like the basis for his whole ideology as like an anti-corporate Republican, even that is not like mappable in terms of how American voters think. You have like, I mean, put it kind of bluntly, like you have voters who understand politics more legibly through like class or economics, like how he's trying to push it. Then you have the right wing base which understands politics to a larger extent through race. So his own kind of constituency, like it's a very much, I think his whole ideology of the whole

right-wing populist thing where they're going back to interventionist markets and interventionist economic system and ending overseas wars, that's very much a top-down movement by intellectuals who want to like reverse engineer some kind of coherent governing. philosophy out of the kind of insanity that is Trumpism. It's not something that people from the bottom up are demanding. And I had another article about that, like last year. That was the one I turned to my master's thesis. But yes, we've seen this to be the case with Republicans over and over again, even in really strong years with them, like the Tea Party wave. You saw several candidates, even like in 2010, who did remarkably poorly compared to other Republicans who were connected

to the Tea Party like Ken Buck or Sharon Engel or Christina O'Donnell. And that has a consistently happen for them. It's not that like generic conservatism is unpopular, but these like this very hard right form of social conservatism that I think social conservatives use Trump's victory to tell themselves was ascendant is just not what people have. People are more secular. They're more pro-abortion. They're not like salient Christians. There's just not a base for this. And it gives Democrats a real opportunity to exploit. No, absolutely. And look, I think a lot of us who have been very online and probably too online for the past bunch of years. I was looking back after the weird thing became a thing and I was finding old tweets where like, you know, Ronnie Jackson

said something. He was like, I will never eat one of those fake burgers made in a lab. Eat too many and you'll turn into a socialist Democrat. And I quote tweeted that and I just said, all these people are so fucking weird in the exact same way. It's been really kind of nice to see that become like articulated. Exactly. You see that their response. to it just like it kind of shows the whole point because they got so pissed off about like the couch thing which was like an organic sort of meme they tried to manufacture their own about walls and the couch thing was like that was like it was obviously kind of crass but it was like somewhat like believable and like it made sense for a coming of age story and it was like it was

comedic because it like was something that could like based on like how Vance was being perceived and how his rollout was going like and all the revelations that were coming out about him it fit into that larger kind of like perception people were gathering of him as a total freak and Don Jr. and the rest of the right, they're like, well, we need to come with our own slander for like walls to show them like that we can do it too. Their answer for that was to say that he drank a gallon of horse come. Yeah. I don't know the fuck where that comes from. It doesn't map on anything people were perceiving about him. They just came up with it in their head because they're fucking weird. Like it improves the whole point in and of itself. Yeah. It's just utterly bizarre. And you

look at it and you're like, all right, man, yeah, keep trying to tell people you're normal. Just to go along with the taking it to Trump and with abortion and stuff like that, another thing I love that they're doing now is, and Vice President Harris in particular has done this, she's referring to the Trump abortion ban. Yeah, yeah. And we're talking, you know, we're seeing people talk about Trump's Project 2025. Exactly, yeah. The Project 2025 stuff is awesome.

I never thought I'd live to see the day where the Heritage Foundation became a pariah. I know. Those people's death this entire administration. Like you can't like cut himself off from them. I was kind of on the project 2025 thing like for a while. I was aware of it like before it became a big thing on TikTok or whatever. And it was just so bizarre to me because like you see the right doing stuff like this all the fucking time where they'll just go out of their way to like write up these like fantasies or like just be totally brashly confident and all their predictions declaring victory over everything and like measuring the drapes for the White House anytime there's a news story. all the shit like, oh, you have six months after Trump was shot that they said the liberals,

like just, it makes you wonder because it's so, these people have to kind of like know something we don't. Like you're inclined to believe that because the right is often cast as political masterminds. And it feels so hard to believe like these people can't be talking out of their ass. It would look so embarrassing for them just to do that. But the answer is a lot of time, no, they just actually are. They actually really kind of don't know what they're doing. They just want to sound cool. Yeah. No, it's just, it's nice to see them sort of, you know, falling on their own sword, even if it's not by their choice. So let's talk about this more recent piece you wrote about how you think Harris can win. And I'll start the way you do by talking about the Supreme Court. And I believe

the word you used here was savage, as in Harris should savage the Supreme Court. Yeah, this piece was a lot less fundamental than the Biden one was, because I think she is doing quite a lot right. There were only like a couple of things. I could kind of say that like were obvious kind of moves she could make. And the court stuff is that's kind of what they're getting on to. And it is one of them. I think people really underestimate how unpopular the Supreme Court is. Like I think right now Harris is like minus five, minus four favorability on average.

Trump right now is minus eight, minus nine. He had a bit of a bump after he was shot. Biden, one of the most historically consistently in popular presidents like in presidential history is like minus 16. the Supreme Court for about the past year has been minus 20 or underneath that. They are less popular than Biden. They're less popular than Trump. The less popular than I think either political party. They're less popular than J.D. Vance still.

Like this institution is not well liked at all. Like you don't have to really like do any like harsh messaging on them. You don't have to like say like explain the people why they're bad. Like the public is well ahead of the party on this issue. They really do not trust this court. They think that they're very ideological, very extreme, partisan, elitist, just all these terrible things. And there's a number of, like, I would say, like, I think the polling says right now,

about 10% of the country is like likes Trump, but doesn't like the Supreme Court. And that's a big segment of people you can reach to the extent where, like, instead of just like saying, oh, this is Trump's abortion ban. This was Trump's decision. It's like it might be more effective to try to connect Trump to the court, like calling him the Supreme Court's presidential candidate, their preferred person for their agenda, because they are really disliked now. People think that they've gone way out of line. Yeah, that's so interesting. And I think it's so important to just be, I think, hammering this court at every possible

opportunity for all the reasons you just laid out. So let's talk about immigration for a minute, because this feels like an issue where Democrats are sort of content to basically be Republicans or, at the very least, Republican light. You argue that. that this is a mistake, not just from a policy perspective, but also from a political perspective. The thing is, is America was kind of exceptional relative to other Western countries, like during the 2010s, because in Europe, there was a very consistent trend where, like, starting around the early 2000s, right-wing, far-right parties would surge in the polls off of immigration scares. And the centrist parties, usually the center-right, but in some cases, like in Denmark,

the center-left, would try to, like, say, oh, well, immigration isn't the biggest thing to sacrifice on. If it means preventing these, like, anti-democratic forces from coming to power, like, we might as well just, like, kind of, like, just give up on this issue and move elsewhere. And, I mean, I guess in theory, like, that makes sense. Like, if you, like, are a popularist or whatever, like, there's, like, an idea behind it. If you really just don't care about migrants, maybe it, like, makes sense as a utilitarian bargain. The problem is that instead of pacifying the voters who are interested in the far right over the immigration

stances and making them like convinced that like the centrist parties like have heard them. And what it does is that it legitimizes these parties whose biggest problem is usually that they're not seen as legitimate parts of the political system that they're seen as like this may be more specific to Europe or they have parliamentary systems. But these parties that are seen as like outside of the norm, outside of the mainstream, oftentimes the concern with their voters is they won't be allowed to govern. So a vote will be wasted for them. So what happens is that they see these parties actually influence.

the system in a profound way. And it legitimizes them as like this, like, acceptable political force. And for the U.S. with the two-party system, there's a bit less of that effect here. But I think that like in the like in our context after January 6th where the whole argument is that Trump is a threat to democracy and can't be allowed to come to power and to destroy like America and that his views are totally unacceptable, it sort of puts a damper on that when you go from that to like kind of saying, oh, but he also, we can compromise with them. on immigration, like, because they're just a regular political party. They happen, like, their views happen to be acceptable on this one issue, but nowhere else.

It's just immigration where they're like, kind of, we can work with them. And that, it makes Trump look like less of an extraordinary figure in a way that might boost his appeal. And it, like, not saying that he needs to be deplatformed or whatever, but it goes against their broader message of him as this uniquely dangerous force. And it also legitimizes their stance because you no longer have anybody pushing back against this right wing like position on immigration, that immigration is a problem or that is out of control or that people are dying or overdosing because of this. And nobody really saying like are

like saying facts about what the actual situation is. Like the vast majority of Fenned all, for instance, comes through legal ports of entry. That's probably not something you heard from any Democrat because they've surrendered on this. I don't know if it would change everybody's minds if like they heard that, but it certainly would be, it seems like an important rebuttal for Trump or something he's put at the center of his campaign. So you have, like, it just creates kind of a feedback loop or the far right party gets more legitimized. Their best issue increases in salience, increases in popularity,

because nobody's arguing against it. And the parties that surrender on the issue, they look disingenuous, like their Johnny Come Lately's, and they're not seen as good, and they'll never be seen as good as the far right on immigration. So the end result of this consistently has been that the far right just gains more power. They surge in the polls more.

They get in a position to form a government. They usually cannibalize whatever remains of the center right or oftentimes the center left also. And like then the parties compromise, the mainstream parties compromise even more. And this just goes on and on and on until you get to the situation where you're in like Italy and Germany where the far right parties are some of the strongest forces in those countries. And the centrist parties are totally hollowed out. It's not the sole reason for why they're popular. But like this particular strategy they're trying, we've has basically proven to

not work. Everything you just said there is, I think, so important. And the fact that you couple the moral hazard of taking this stance with the fact that it's also a political hazard, I just don't think that can be said enough because ultimately that's what's, you know, if this is going to change, it's going to be a political calculation. It feels like not a moral calculation. Yeah, yeah, because they don't really care about that aspect of it. And it's frustrating because they had like very basic points, like just saying something as basic as a pathway to. citizenship as their baseline stands. That's always been acceptable on his one elections. I mean, I know Harris in a speech recently said that she wants that along with the immigration bill,

but she's already at the point where she's saying you need to pass restrictions without even like demanding a pathway to citizenship, which has always been what Democrats have said. So it's not exactly clear what their solution is. And I think more importantly, how they can defend their years in an administration running the country without having done these positions that they now have suddenly adopted. If you've suddenly seen the light over this, what were you doing your first three years? What was the point of that policy? What were you trying to accomplish? Are you admitting that you failed? But why should I vote for you if you're admitting that you failed so profoundly? It just creates a lot of problems that would not be necessarily, like, don't even really need to happen

if they just took a more typical stance on it, just bit the bullet and went on to like campaign on more popular issues. The website is edingermentum. News. I encourage everyone to sign up. subscribe. It's just it's great political analysis. Josh, thanks so much for being back on. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having me on. Folks, I am so excited to welcome to the new abnormal founder, Amerita, of at Mom's Demand Action, Shannon Watts. You may, and I'm certain, have seen Shannon's name and face everywhere as she followed the lead of Joteka Edy and we win with black women who did the very first Zoom call for Kamala Harris following the announcement that she was going to be our new Democrat nominee for President of the United States. And Shannon, you took the call, you answered the call and did white women for Kamla Harris Zoom call.

Talk to us about how that came to be and why it was so important for you to get out there and get this thing organized. You know, the context of this is that I started Mom's Demand to Action in 2012 after the Sandhook school shooting. I was a white suburban mom who became afraid that my kids weren't safe in their schools. And, you know, shame on me, not seeing, not intervening in the fact that children were. were shot every single day in communities less than 30 miles from my home. It really took that mass school shooting to help me see that I was living in a bubble and to get me off the sidelines and to become an activist. And I saw so many other white women have that same journey.

And really, in a lot of ways, our organization, although it became very diverse, it was also sort of this lab experiment where white women would come in and think, oh, I have to keep my kid's safe and the solution is an assault weapons ban to, oh, I'm actually part of a bigger community. And this is a very complicated issue that demands holistic solutions like, yes, an assault weapons ban, but also background checks and unlocking community violence intervention program dollars and on and on. And so when Kamala Harris became the nominee, a black woman, an AAPI woman, I thought, okay, you know, the troops will need to be rallied here. And it will be interesting to see how this plays out. And within hours, as you mentioned, Joe Takea, Edy, the leader of

of Wynn with Black women, had assembled a Zoom call of 44,000 women, and they raised over a billion dollars. And then the next day, I saw Roland Martin, who was a friend of mine, work with black men to organize a similar call. And they had over 50,000 people and raised over a million and a half dollars. And so I woke up really early Tuesday morning, earlier than normal. I think it was like 5 a.m. And I just decided to tweet, are white women going to do the same thing? Are we going to use our economic and political power to honor and emulate, essentially, what had been done on these other zooms?

Not thinking I would do it myself. And people just like started DMing me and emailing me and tweeting at me saying, yes, yes, yes. And that's the genesis of the call that we had just 48 hours later. I've been following you for a long time. I started following you when Mom's Demand Action came onto the scene. And I will tell you, Shannon, that when I saw that tweet go out, I could not have been more proud and excited.

And I say that because, you know, everyone knows the statistics of what happened in 2016 and what happened again in 2020. that white women increased their support for Donald Trump from 2016 to 2020, which when those numbers came out, I know that black women like myself were appalled. Like, how could that be? So recognizing, I think that what was so important and what I heard in it, I would love for you to share what some of the conversations were on the call

and obviously what is continuing to happen now. But I was so taken aback that white women could support a man like this. And I was so taken aback that given the opportunity to support another woman, even if that woman was not a white woman like Hillary Clinton was, that we could find ourselves in the same position, if not worse, than 2020. And so I just want you to give us like your thoughts around your own feelings about the responsibility that white women carried in carrying Donald Trump over the finish line and where you felt the need for, I guess, accountability and to answer the call that black women have been leading, you know,

on the front lines to hold down our democracy for so long. Yeah. I mean, that's really powerful. You know, you mentioned that not only have white women voted in the majority for Donald Trump in the last two presidential elections, but the majority of white women have voted for the Republican presidential candidate in all but two elections since 1950. So we have a pretty horrible track record. And there has been a journey, particularly for even liberal, progressive white women over the last decade. I mean, I can remember when Hillary Clinton lost, and the conversation was about white women failing her. I kind of was defensive. I felt like not all white women, you know? And it took those years in between to realize, yeah, not all white women, but I know the white women who are

voting the wrong way. And it's really incumbent on me to help convince that 53% to do the right thing because they are my friends. They are my family members. They are my kids, friends, parents. There's also the feeling of regret. I mean, we didn't realize we'd have a chance so soon to elect a woman president again. I'm 53 years old. I started to think I will not see a woman president. before I die. And all of this, I think, is a certain amount of the energy that goes into it. But one of the very first things I did, I did not know Jotakea, Edie. And one of the very first things I did was connect with her. And she was very supportive, but she was also very clear to say, yes, you should have this call. Yes, white women have work to do. But it is very different work than black

women, because the 90% of us vote the right way in every presidential election. For me, that said, this Zoom call that white women have needs to be a little bit less of a rally and more of a reckoning. Mm-hmm. And I think just the recognition of that. And I was gathering it from your tweets, from following your posting as you were leading up to the call. But then since, and I just want to give you an opportunity to tell us, you know, some of the conversations that happened on that call because I know that there are people whose work that I admire like Glennon Doyle, like the musician Pink. like women that have in their own right have been on a journey. Glennon through her books and through her and through her talks,

pink through, you know, through her music and having a daughter and really understanding like the feminist lens. And I just want you to give us kind of a window into that reckoning. And what did that reckoning look like and sound like? And if there were still folks, you know, that showed up that were like kind of the 2016 you, which is like, not all white women, were they still in that headspace? Yeah, I think it was a very frank and honest conversation. And there were plenty of people who said it was cringe, but I thought it was a course correction to finally be coming together with very influential women, white women,

who were saying, we have failed black women. We have failed, you know, women of color. And when we vote in a way that, only protects ourselves, our families, and our communities, then we are being selfish and we are not participating in democracy, but also, you know, Brittany Packett Cunningham has this amazing quote that I use all the time, which is your whiteness will not save you from what the patriarchy has in store for you. And I think a lot of white women have thought for a long time, oh, if I, if I vote the way my husband tells me to vote, I'll be okay. And it was a conversation about that. And, you know,

I think Glennon was one of the first speakers and really laid that down, which is this idea of what if we didn't just say we trusted black women? What if we actually did it? What if we actually followed the lead of black women in this election? How can we do this differently? And there was a lot of very tactical, strategic discussion about how do we do that? How do we organize white women, including the 53 percent that we want to come over to us to vote the right way? And look, white women are the largest voting block in this country. Over 40, percent of voters are white women, but we're not a monolith. We are divided along lines of marriage and education, religion. And so if you can peel off even just a small segment of those swing voters,

you can swing an entire election, thus the name swing voters. And it was sort of giving a lot of the women who probably did vote the right way permission to be audacious and to start persuading. Yeah, because I think that, too, you know, what black women and women of color have have found is that like that as as Joe Takea said so brilliantly is not our work to do as black women you're at the kitchen table with your friends and your family members you're in you know the pta meetings and the sports you know events with other white women and so taking the onus and the responsibility to now broach those very hard conversations because everybody wants to be polite Everybody wants to be invited to the thing.

But to broach those very hard conversation, that is what the peel off will be. I want to switch gears and ask you now about the Trump Vance ticket and about their attacks on women, particularly around childless women, their attacks on IVF, contraception, and just their vision of not only refining but fortifying the white patriarchy. How is that resonating? Is it something that is now sitting, do you think, with white women in a way where they're just like, oh, we're not going to be safe? They are not going to protect us. They're actually going to find a way to not mince words to enslave us inside of this patriarchy. Yes, I think that is definitely true. And I mean, there's a bunch of strategic missteps, thankfully, by the Trump vance tickets. including picking vans, someone who has a long track record of misogyny, just like Donald Trump does, but who has said some really bizarre things. And when you start talking about women who are childless

being punished and not being a full human who deserves an entire vote, when you talk about women as childless cat ladies, and then, you know, he tried to correct that by saying, I have nothing against cats instead of I have nothing against women. Right. When you not only, want to ban reproductive freedoms, but you also want to take away the right to IVF. I mean, those are red flags. And this is anecdotal, but I have a sister-in-law who lives in a very red county in California. She's a born-again Christian. She's 60 years old. She is married to a man who voted for Donald Trump, and she has never, in the 20 years, I've been married to my husband, been vocal about politics. And as soon as Kamala Harris became a candidate, she texted me in

I'm holding a fundraiser on September 21st. Wow. Yeah. And I thought, we're going to win. I wonder, like, is it, do you think, the combination of one, a kind of, Kamala Harris to me is a figure that doesn't have the same kind of baggage that Hillary Clinton did. Who, we've known Hillary Clinton at the time that she was running three decades plus. And I think that there were a lot, whether they were.

warranted or not, there was a lot of negative energy from other women about Hillary Clinton, whether it was you should elect Bill Clinton when he cheated on you publicly, or you should have baked cookies, or you should, you know, there was just a lot of stuff. What do you see as the biggest, again, not all women are the same where obviously not a monolith with orientation and race and ethnicity and all of these things. But what do you see as like the biggest differentiator between this now third, because Shirley Chisholm did run for president first, this kind of third woman ticket from Hillary Clinton. Americans don't like dynasties.

They resent voting for people. They feel have been coronated. And whether we like it or not, the fact that Hillary Clinton was the first lady and then the secretary of state, I mean, we knew her for a long time and that story about her was baked. And, you know, she had to break a lot of barriers. and for that, you know, there was a lot of punishment, but that also cost her, in some cases, her credibility. When it came to Kamala Harris, I want to be very clear, she's brilliant and

incredibly qualified, more than qualified. But I think she was also seen as sort of a fresh face. If you don't live in California, you don't necessarily know all of the different elected positions and experience that she has. You only know her maybe briefly as a senator and then as the vice president and generally the vice president isn't someone who has a high profile. I actually think that is to her benefit. I think the fact that this is a short election cycle now, because Joe Biden's step back, is to her benefit. And she has not had a single misstep. Like, she has absolutely embraced the moment and is just knocking it out of the park, not just her own speaking style and her messaging, but also I think her vice presidential pick and the team that she has really now

surrounding and supporting her. This is like lightning in a bottle. You cannot create it. You cannot recreate it. This is something that is so unique and we will look back. I mean, I was in my late 30s when President Obama was the nominee and I thought, wow, I've never seen anything like this. He's basically a rock star. This blows the doors off of that energy. It's sort of unfathomable. And what I thought might be a honeymoon, I think it's going to last all the way through election day. So, you know, election day at the time of this recording is roughly, I think, 84 or 83 days away. What is your plan and what do you call on the rest of us to be doing over the next 83 days? We have to organize every single day.

If you're not doing something every day, then you're not doing enough. This is a very short election cycle. Everyone can do something for the next 80 to 90 days. We have taken that huge mailing list from our first Zoom, and we are using it to have something called Women Wednesdays for Harris. It's a Zoom that's only an hour long and 8.000. 8.30 p.m. Eastern every single Wednesday evening. You can find it on my social media. We have amazing guests and elected leaders and teachers to show you how to organize. For example, we're

going to have one this coming Wednesday about how to host a house party. That's something the Harris campaign really wants us to be doing, especially in swing states, because there are great ways to persuade people and to get them registered to vote and to commit to vote. Having a phone bank, joining a canvas. There are so many different things that we can all be doing all the time, and we can plug you into that on every single one of these calls. So look, if you are supporting Harris and you're wearing your hat to the grocery store, that's not enough. It's not enough to make one donation. It's not enough to join one call. You have to be organizing every single day. And yes, that might include persuading that 53% we talked about earlier. And tell people, Shannon,

how they can find more information about these calls, how they can find more. information about how they can get plugged in every day from now through election day. If you go to answer the call 2024, which is the dot com, the original landing page for our Zoom, you will see the link there to join. And then I'm Shannon R. Watts on almost all social media and you can find all the links to join there. Shannon, I just have to say, I appreciate you so much. I can't thank you enough for the work that you're doing for the organizing that you're doing. And, you know, we will talk to you again, hopefully a few times before Election Day. But I hope that absolutely we will be celebrating come November 6th.

The very last women Wednesday for Harris will be a celebration, I promise. Amen to that. Thank you, Shannon, for making the time for the new abnormal. Appreciate you. Of course, you too. Andy Levy. Daniel Moody. How are you kicking off this good, good week with your fuck that guy?

I'm not positive. but I think I might have another fuck that guy virgin for us today. Oh, okay. And it's former GOP senator Ben Sass, who for the last couple years, I think a year and a half, has been the president of the University of Florida. And according to some great reporting by the alligator, which is an independent Florida newspaper that is aimed at campuses, SASS more than tripled the spending of his predecessor and directed what the alligator calls millions in university funds into secretive consulting contracts and high paying positions for his GOP allies. His first year in office, Sass spent $17.3 million. The former president, Ken Fuchs, in his last year, spent $5.6 million.

That's quite a jump. And as the alligator reports, the majority of that went to big-name consulting firms. It went to high-salaried positions for a lot of SAS's former staff and to Republican officials. It's an unbelievable grift. And these are the people who remember, you know, on the Republican side, and particularly in Florida, are always talking about saving the education system. And also, you know, they get very upset when schools spend money on programs, you know, like women studies, African-American studies, etc., etc. etc., etc. But they seem to have no problem spending millions and millions of dollars on administrative stuff, giving their buddies jobs, and paying places like McKinsey millions of dollars. I want to highlight

one in particular. One of SAS's former staffers in the Senate is a guy named Raymond Sass. He spells his name differently, no E at the end. But this guy was hired by Ben Sass. He worked remotely from the D.C. area. And he was the vice president for innovative. and partnerships. His starting salary was $396,000. Another former staffer of SASS was hired at a rate of $432,000 a year. The guy he replaced made $270,000 a year and had 30 years of experience in media relations and was demoted to be SAS's buddies deputy. It's an unbelievable scam. It's an unbelievable grift, and it's par for the course when it comes to Republican officials. And, you know, Ben Sass made a lot of hay as, you know, saying he was leaving the Senate because he didn't like

the climate and he presented himself as this, you know, moderate, can't we all just get a long kind of Republican? And what do you know, it turns out he's exactly the same as every other grifting Republican on Capitol Hill and in state houses and throughout the country. So Ben Sass, you get my fuck that guy for today. It's just wild to me because these are the very same people that will tell us that we can't have free and reduced school lunch.

These are the very same people that say that there's no money for child tax credit. These are the same people that like don't want to give the hardworking American people back any of their tax dollars like in services that will benefit them

and their communities. And then they turn around and they give millions of dollars to their friends because they want to create a caste system in this country where the workers remain struggling on the bottom that have no rights, no, you know, workers protections, and they exist at the whim of those at the top. And it's just so fucking disgusting to me. And also like, look, I have been a consultant for so many years and I wish I didn't have any integrity. That's all I have to say, because I would be doing this show from my yacht.

Fuck that guy. All right, Daniel, close us out. Who's your fuck that guy? So shout out to ProPublica, who recently obtained, get this, folks, 14 hours of videos from roughly 36 speakers from Project 2025. Oh, because it was not enough for them to create a not. 900 page manifesto or the MAGA linked in with over 20,000 right-wing Republicans ready to go and invade our institutions and got them from the inside out. No, now they have created instructional videos, kind of in the vein of like 1980s don't harass the workers videos. And let me just say to you, because I want to be petty, that some of the outfits favor that time frame and not in a cool way. The videos pretty much sit down with, I think, about two-thirds of whom are from the Trump administration.

Again, just quick reminder that Donald Trump says that he doesn't know anything about Project 2025. We just saw a picture of him on a private jet with Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation, which is the foundation that is backing Project 2025. Two-thirds of these people worked in Donald Trump's administration that are on video that he says he knows nothing about but essentially you know in the videos as part of the quote unquote presidential administration academy these are people that get instructions on how essentially to cast doubt against climate change remove climate change language from every piece of paper and every website remove any references to gender equity and get rid of equity and those conversations all

together. They also get a primer on how to avoid mainstream newspapers, how to challenge the left wing. It's a step by step. And it is done over 14 hours of video. And this is what happens. I don't remember if folks remember the opening episode of The Handmaid's Tale. But in the brief that I time that I watched this show, I remember the scene where the women are being put into a room and they're watching videos in their cloaks on how to act, how to, you know, maintain their composure, what is expected of them. This is basically the same thing. And shout, you know, just again, without investigative journalism, we wouldn't know what these plans are, but you can see some of the videos up at ProPublica. And it's wild. It is a entire reimagining of America because the purpose behind

Project 2025 is that they felt that there were too many fits and stops and starts in the first Trump administration. And in order to just have full throttle, full steam ahead in a second administration, these are the tactics that they have employed. This is the apparatus that they have put in place. And so I just want to remind folks, you know, keep your enthusiasm all the way through November because these people have a plan and their plan is revved up and ready to go on day one. So for that reason, once again, to Project 2025, to these video hosts, fuck those guys. Yeah, amen to that. I just want to say that I never did watch The Handmaid's Tale because I can't bear to see women treated like that.

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