The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump Suffers Another ‘They’re Eating the Dogs’ Moment

Episode Date: April 13, 2025

President Trump appears to conflate political asylum seekers with mental asylums—much to the chagrin of The New Abnormal hosts Danielle Moodie, Andy Levy, and producer Jesse Cannon. “It's giving, they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats,” added Cannon. Plus, Noliwe Rooks, professor of Africana Studies at Brown University, explores the uneven effects of school integrations in her new book, Integrated: How American Schools Failed Black Children. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Hello and welcome to another Sunday bonus edition of the new abnormal. And we thank you so much for being here. Today we have an extra special guest with Noliwey Rooks, Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University, and they'll tell us about their new book, Integrated, how American schools failed black children, which explores the limited impact of school integrations and its uneven outcomes for black students. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready to listen to some clips?

Clip. Clips. All right. Well, as usual, it's the new dawn in America. And, uh, well, it's not looking good. So Aidan Ross, who some listeners may not be familiar with, is a Twitch streamer who has gone to the right wing. Um, he's not regarded as, um, the brightest poll among the Twitch streaming bunch.

He gifted a cyber truck wrapped in Trump's post-assassassist. They should attempt to Trump that he couldn't take because it would be an FEC violation. And even Mr. Trump said that's a little much for me, Chief. He did the handy dance, as we're calling it, with Mr. Trump at one point. You know, the one where he's kind of given a handy. Yeah. Oh, dear God. I knew what you mentioned.

Just go ahead. She said the handy dances if she did. Yeah, go on. I did not know. And now I feel terrible for even asking. It's the opposite of the safety dance. Mm-hmm. Anyway, we have reached the

Whoops, why did I help this guy portion of Aiden's career? Guys, you want to be honest to you, I don't know how many guys are invested in crypto or stocks. What the fuck is going on with our country? Guys, why am I poor? Like, what is going on in the world right now? Why the fuck is this going on? Can somebody please explain what's going on?

Why are we all losing? Why are we all negative right now? Like, does anybody know why? I really appreciated whoever put the Adam Curtis music to that. Yeah. Oh, my God. I suppose the answer he's not looking for is because... You voted for it?

Yeah, because idiots like you voted for it. I don't feel bad that he's poor, although I actually doubt that he's poor. Yeah, no empathy here. You know, I saw a tweet that producer Seamus highlighted this week that somebody says, those poor people who voted for the racism and got this. said that's what I think of when I think of Aden. Yeah, yeah. I look, that's what Danielle has been saying for a long time now.

So on Orange Monday, we had this very bad stock dip and then, you know, the chaos of Trump taking it up, down all over the place. But then Trump had a little get-together at the White House with some very rich people. And they made a very interesting humble bragger. Are we still calling things that? Let's listen. It's not just something. It's actually an individual person. He made $2.5 billion today, and he made $900 million.

He's in financials. I wonder why they're calling for insider trading investigations. Yeah, I mean, my God. And, like, again, the quiet part is long gone. Like, they're bragging about it. They're not even just admitting it. They're bragging about it. Look how much money we made.

Look at those suckers. And by the suckers, we're the suckers, the American people. Look how fucking stupid they are. In the 2000s throughout New York, there was a graffiti artist who wrote all over New York City. Charles Schwab fucking you. I think they were psychic. I don't remember that. It was one of those ones that I always look at, be like, I wonder how high they were when they decided this is going to be my schick that I'm going to dedicate many years of my life in danger with getting arrested for.

But now I know they just were. really psychic. They probably had some vision that came to them in the night. They were like, I got to warn the people. I got to warn the people back to the future style. Yeah, they tried to tell us like 12 monkeys. So at one time, we were a nation that when we announced that we were going to invade a country, a president would go to an address. They might say it's Tuesday night, 9 p.m. I'm going to sit at the resolute desk, be resolute. Here's... I'd be resolute.

Here's how we announce for invading countries now in America. This is Mr. Trump sitting next to Mr. Pete Hengseth. That's something you said we're taking back the canal. China said too much influence. Obama and others let them creep in. We, along with Panama, are pushing a mountain, sir. And so we had a very successful trip there.

President, President Molino, sends his regards, very complimentary of the U.S. He's a great ally, and I think they want the communist Chinese out. And with our troops, they're partnering with their forces. We've got a chance to push them all the way out, sir. We've moved a lot of troops to Panama and filled up some areas that we used to have. We didn't have any longer, but we have them now. And I think it's in very good control, right?

Yes, sir. Mm-hmm. I mean, beyond just the normal stupidity, this all goes back to the, the 100% correct theory that a black man being elected president broke all these people's brains. Come on. And I 100% believe that so much of what we've been seeing since 2016, it really all does come down to that one thing. They can't stop invoking him. Everyone knew that there was this strain of thought in America that is just straight up racist.

But the idea that it just, it ruined so many people that a black man was the president. It's absolutely wild, man. Is it wild or is it just America? I think it's wild. I really do think it's wild. Again, not that we didn't know that there are millions, tens of millions, whatever, of straight up racist people in America. 77 million, to be exact.

Yeah, that's right. Fair enough. Fair enough. I wouldn't put a qualification on that. That's 77 million that are enthused enough to get up on a certain day vote and that are eligible to vote since we love taking away that right in America. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so that you're saying there probably more.

That's what I'm saying. Yes. Yes. You know, it's my job on this podcast to bring everything down. The accuracy of that statement. Can't believe. Because Danielle and I are out here trying to be cheerful. Oh, yes.

Yes. That's usually what I hear. Yes, yes. Trying to be optimistic about the future. And then you just, you crash. I got an idea. Mm-hmm. We've been thinking about moving this podcast to YouTube sometime in the future.

What if we have a live react of my mood ring while you guys talk? We'll just have a mood rig in the corner. We can really put it to the test to see what you guys are putting out in the world. I like it. I take that challenge. Okay? Absolutely. Okay, well, I think we have a new concept to develop on our own over here.

We'll figure out what happens with that soon. I think basically you're just going to need a still picture of the black stone. That's convenient since I do wear a black wedding ring, so this will be really, really easy. Oh, God. So can you two think of some words where, you know, it's the same word, but it means two things. Any ideas off the top of your heads? It's the same word, but it means two different things. Not words that are spelled differently.

Yes. Okay. But that would also work for the example about to give because, um, like resign and resign. Oh yeah. Yeah, there we go. Or spelled the same and they're like complete opposites and it drives me nuts. Okay.

Well, Mr. Trump has a little bit of confusion. Some people have suspected about the word asylum. Oh, okay. And many people debate this, and I think we have some pretty definitive evidence for the case against him. We're murderers and drug lords and thieves and people from prisons from all over the world. And there were people from mental institutions, insane asylums. They were taking their mentally insane. And they were dumping them into our country.

And I'll tell you, Tom Holman and Christine Omer doing a fantastic job. in removing them. And now the courts, the Supreme Court just gave us numerous good rulings where we have to be able to get them out. You had other judges trying to take over the system and think of it. They take over. They want these people coming back, Trend de Araqua from Venezuela to Venezuela jails that cut off the fingers of a man in Colorado. They cut off his fingers because he called the police looking for help. They said, did you call the police? He said, Yes, I did. Put your hand down and they cut off the fingers. This is what they want to bring these people back. It's giving. They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats.

Yeah, that was my first thought, too. Look, I, for a very long time, I was a, I guess I was an asylum truther, would you call it? I didn't think he was confusing the terms, but I'm coming around. I am definitely coming around. You know, I wish that somebody hadn't have dumped him in this country. Do you know what I'm saying? like I wish that. How much better would we be? I think there's a general rule that any time you think the better of him,

you're going to usually fail. Anytime you're betting that there's 40 chests, you're going to fail. And anytime you bet that associating with him is going to go well, it's going to go real bad. Yeah, I guess I always just thought, well, he's thinking of the whole thing with Cuba, where they were, I guess,

was that during the Carter administration, that they sort of like opened up their jails and places, like that and you know you had the big the boat lifts and all of that stuff and i just always assumed like that stuck in his head from the 80s and that's what he's talking about and i still think that might be true but i am coming around to the idea that he really thinks that asylum only means one thing all right well lastly we have uh sean duffy here to tell you the president's focusing on what really matters the president's talking about shower heads you don't have enough water that can

come through your shower head because of Biden's regulations. And so again, fixing small things like that, hopefully he's going to get to dishwashers. Wouldn't it be great if dishwashers worked again where you don't have to wash your dishes first and then put them in the dishwasher to actually get a little heat on them? I mean, come and send stuff he's doing. No, 100% sir. And like, 100% sir. Who is that tool? That was a Newsmax anchor. Say no more. I can't quite place which one because they all look the same, but in their breath all smells like boots. Boots and booze.

Yeah, this whole thing, I mean, is anyone complaining about their dishwasherers? Is anyone complaining about their showerhead? I just, oh, my God. I think that the dishwasher's not working has more to do with the dishwashers than the water pressure in my experience. Yeah. And the showerhead thing, I am convinced this is like one of those things like with the whales and the wind farms that like he heard something one time and now we have a policy. based on his fucking literal old man sundowning bullshit. I guess you could say that Sean Duffy has gone from road rules to, with the dishwasher's, load rules.

Oh, boy. Oh, my God, Andy. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal. Professor Noliway Rooks, who is the professor of Africana Studies at Brown University, and is the author of a new book entitled Integrated, How American Slurface, failed black children. Professor Rooks, I am very happy to be in conversation with you today as, you know, over the course of, I would say, the last decade plus for myself as a former educator, I taught first and second grade and got a master's degree, early childhood education,

lobbied on education. I have been questioning over the last decade plus whether or not Brown versus a Board of Education, the historic 1954 case that ended segregation in schools, was the right decision. I have been asking that of myself and scholars like yourself, because when we fast forward 70 plus years to where we are today and that you can still look at a child school district and zip code and be able to determine how long they are going to live, how economically successful that they are going to be. Yes.

That, to me, signals that no, the decision was not the right one. And I myself attended a 96% white school, went to the best school district that my parents could afford taxes in, and had similar, not as heartbreaking as your fathers, but had similar instances of microaggressions, I want to ask you, was it the right decision? Thank you so much for that. And just a small question to first get started on. You know, one thing since I wrote this book, and I really will answer the question, that I've been surprised by is I had a little bit of trepidation of putting this out here. Like, this is a decision. Brown v. Board, this momentous civil rights win that's about equality and citizenship.

Like me saying, but as we look around, was it in the best interest of most black children? So the things I would say are that over the past 70 years, what is clear is for the 20 to 25% of black children who are allowed to integrate, for whom there are programs, there's access. If you allow it to work, it actually works well. microaggressions aside, those of us who integrated schools are the ones often who end up in career-enhancing kinds of environments, becoming the chairs of this, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, like the narrative of Black Excellence, Post Brown really is very much tied up with having attended integrated schools. But here's the thing, if only 20 to 25 percent of us have been able to do that, a pretty good number, a number of folks, and we celebrate. break. You know, the first, the successes, but at what point do we look to what is happening to the other 75 to 80 percent of kids? The vast majority of kids are actually in school districts that since the 1980s have been resegregating. And often this narrative of success, those of us who have managed to gut it out, to grit it out, to go through and survive, our success, and,

is often almost used as a way to shame the other 70 to 75%. They did it. Why can't you? My indictment of integration is more an indictment of the resistance to allowing it to actually work. And let's be real-eyed and clear-eyed about the fact that, you know, most just don't have access to it. I also want to point out in the research for this book, I discovered two things that I didn't know,

that I often think that how would this change our thinking? Number one, I did not know that Topeka, Kansas, the named school district in Brown v. Board. It's Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas Board of Education, it was a separate but equal state. Kansas, Kansas as a whole, was a separate but equal state. So black people in Kansas, unlike many Southern school districts, actually had functional separate but equal. The school building, the same amount of money was spent on black schools as it was white schools. Black teachers got paid the exact same as white teachers. Curriculum, books, extracurriculars did the same. And as a result, when the NAACP in the late 1930s came to Kansas and said, we want to strike a blow. They were shopping for cases in districts. We want to strike a blow against segregation and start with education.

And we're looking for people to join us. Black people in Kansas rose up against the NAACP. Now, I did not know this. It waged a 10-year campaign first in Wichita. This is where the first school district that was targeted. And the black people in Wichita ran the NWACP out of town, literally because they said, you don't know what you will break if you take our schools. You don't know how it will disadvantage the community and our children if you disenfranchise.

if you dismantle these schools. And then WACP was like, no, no, segregation just can't be right. You know, we have to strike a blow. These people hired lawyers. They took up collections in churches. They protested in front of NAC members' homes. These are black people fighting the NWACP for their schools. So then they end up going to Topeka.

And those people still fight them for another five to seven years. The idea, and on the eve of the case being decided, over half, 56% of black people in Kansas said they didn't want it. And so I didn't know that. But why don't I know? Why isn't that resistance part of the story that we tell about Brown v. Board? What is changed? Who kept it secret?

Because again, you got 10 years of law cases, suits going on. It's not a secret. So that was one thing that I didn't know. The other thing that I didn't know is that a lot of black teachers who were kind of like once they got clear, okay, this is the direction we're going. Maybe they're right. Maybe we are feeling really good about our separate but equal institutions. We're feeling good, but maybe the NWACP knows what they're talking about and we need to get with integration. For black teachers across the South, what they wanted to do was to integrate the adults first. They wanted to send

black teachers, administrators, janitors to white schools and then send white teachers, administrators, janitors, the black schools, and let the adults work out whatever tensions. Let the adults sort of figure out how do we as adults navigate this new reality and then bring children in. Then after there's somebody there to welcome them, for the white kids that are going to majority black schools and black kids are going to majority white schools, there'd be a friendly face. It would not be hostile territory. The NWACP decided that, no, we need to lead with the children because the innocence of children will melt the hearts. There'll be little resistance to this idea if we send babies for it. Those two things, again, I never, I did not understand

those things. And understanding them then caused me to take a different kind of look at the kinds of educational options black children have today. Their struggle to find black teachers. And the lack of not like what it means that we have so little knowledge about how many impactful black educators and impactful black public schools existed pre-brown. You would believe that black people wanted brown because there were no teachers capable of instructing them. You would believe that black communities wanted their children in white schools because there were no quality black institutions. Right. Very often when I when I mentioned, you know, these high-quality schools that were doing these amazing things all over the country,

you know, have people who are educators or who have been in schools of education, and they're like, what are you talking about? You know, everything was broken down. They didn't have resources. They didn't have quality teachers. That was the reason for Brown, which is just really not the case. So I think that with all of that context, I can answer your first question, which is, I really think that the way we pursued integration actually ended up. up being a harm to the majority of black kids. I appreciate the context so much because I think it's something again, if you, a scholar, are just becoming aware through your research of these facts, then you know damn well that the mainstream of American society had no idea whatsoever.

Right. The reason why over the last like decade plus for me that it has come up, I want to get to an article that you among others are quoted in, which is in the Atlantic, speaking about your new book, The Rise of the Brown v. Board of Education Skeptics by Justin Driver. Because for me, you know, I remember asking my mother, my parents came to the United States from Jamaica in 1970. And I remember asking my mother, why she moved so far out east on Long Island, New York, where I would grow up. I could literally count the black families on two hands. And my mother would say to me, we moved to the best school district that we could afford. And as I would and my sister, who is also an educator, would go through our master's program.

And our master's program was about centering children of color, children of immigrants, and their families in learning and education, right? not to just drop them off in white institutions and hope that they don't drown. Yes. So there's a quote in the Atlantic piece from your book that is speaking on your father's experience that I wanted to lift up for the listeners. And it reads this, Milton's experience reflected the trauma black students suffered as they desegregated public schools in states above the Mason-Dixon line, where displays of racism were often mocking, disdainful, pitying, and soared sharp in their ability to cut the unsuspecting

into tiny bits. It destroyed confidence, shook will, sowed doubt, murdered souls, quietly, sure, but still as completely as could a mob of white racists setting their cowardice rage and anger loose upon the defenseless. Yeah. You know, my father, And this is so your listeners will know, the book is a history of integration and desegregation, the policies, and it tells almost little case histories of places like Boston, San Francisco, Pinellas County, like a little, little sort of how did we get here. But I rely on my family to humanize those histories, to tell these particular kinds of stories that I don't think we get to hear. And in the beginning, when I was thinking about Brown v. B. Bore, I kept trying to fit my grandparents into it, like, into this narrative of who black teachers were, what black schools were. And I realized I was having to deny a lot of that history. I was having to leave it out to tell the story that fits with the official story. And so for my father, what I recognized is the family history that I knew about him from my mother, mostly because they were married when he was out in California. at law school, Golden Gate County County College Law. What she would say is, you know, he had been raised and nurtured by black educators in high quality black institutions. He went from elementary

to high school again. His parents were his teachers and administrators. Then he went to Howard University, where he majored in philosophy and economics. My father was brilliant. And then for the first time, he ends up out at the Golden Gate College of Law. And he'd never had teachers who didn't think he was capable. He didn't have an experience of teachers who were mocking or who didn't fully believe him to be human, you know, much less capable. And the story that my mother told was in law school at the time, they may still do it. I don't know. You would have a signed seating and the law professor would call on you to answer random legal reasoning question. And he would marshal all of his philosophical, trained, classical, this and that, to answer.

these questions and he was always told that it wasn't quite right, that he needed to try again. He needed to rethink, which would have been okay, except he would then hear the same thing, basically the same thing, just words in different order, come out of the mouths of his white classmates, and they'd be called brilliant regularly. And he didn't have anyone to have taught him. He didn't know how to navigate that. You know, like he was bringing his best. And because it, was still good. He was hearing it when he said what he said when white people said it was great. But he couldn't break through ever. And it broke a part of him. It really did. And what I say in the book is he's not the only one. I'm not pulling this up. Oh, look at my father. You know, he couldn't make it

everyone else good. It's that that's not an unusual story for that first group of people who are in integrated environments. We have Ruby Bridges, who's six years old in New Orleans and ends up spending the first year in her desegregated school by herself with one white teacher because white parents will not allow their children to sit in the classroom with her. A year. She's a baby or the Clinton 12, a group of students from Clinton, Tennessee who attend the high school for one year. At the end of the year, there's only two of the 12 who are able to finish to withstand the violence, the threats of economic reprisals, the hatred, a year of wiping the spit of adults off your body. I mean, imagine this.

You know, like adults are spitting on you because you are walking into a classroom. And the year after the last of them graduated, only two graduated, the year the second one graduated, they bombed that school into rubble. It took two years to rebuild it. So this idea that these children are martyrs or integration, you know, just, sort of preceded a pace after a period of adjustment, you have to deny the humanity of those children. You have to see them as not having or allowed to fully have and inhabit their feelings in order to say it's an unqualified success. So again, when allowed to work, when you don't

have people spitting at you and throwing dynamite at you and refusing to send their children to school with you, sure, it's great. But there's a whole other story about integration. The it took and how it happened and didn't happen that I'm trying to also tell. Well, we will have to leave it there today. Professor Noliway Rooks, your book, this conversation that you are offering and that others are beginning to have is one that I think is long overdue, particularly in the shadows of what is happening now with the destruction of our Department of Education and the questioning that is happening about what America's future looks like. I think that your book is right on time. Folks, the book is integrated, how American schools failed black children.

Professor Rooks, thank you so very much for making the time for the new abnormal. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Very cool name of a podcast, too, let me say. Thank you. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support

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