The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump’s $5M ‘Gold Cards’ Have Russia Written All Over Them

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

On the latest episode of The New Abnormal, Trump is poised to recreate Russia’s oligarch system by putting a $5 million price tag on U.S. citizenship with his “gold card” visas. Plus! Mike Masnick, founder and editor of Techdirt, breaks down how Elon Musk's latest DOGE move mirrors his Twitter takeover. Then incoming Center for American Progress president Neera Tanden discusses how Democrats can turn the tables on Trump’s agenda. 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.

What an excellent show we have today. Founder and editor of TechDur, Mike Masnick, is here to break down how Elon Musk's latest moves with Doge mirror his Twitter takeover and how Musk's actions aren't just reckless, but actively harming the American tech industry. Then we'll talk to the Center for American Progress's incoming president near At Tandon. We'll tell us about how Democrats can push back against Trump's agenda and stop playing defense. But first, let's have some fun.

Danielle, they want us to die. Mm-hmm. At this point, I don't know how you can come to any other conclusion when you look at how they are gutting health and medical stuff from the budget, from research being canceled, et cetera. And let's start with the flu, which is a fairly common disease that affects a lot of people seasonally. So every March, the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration meets, and they have a vaccine. advisory committee, and they pick the strains that will go into the next season's flu shot. And so that it'll be the most effective based on tests they've done or how they know which strains are going to be the most prevalent. And like I said, they meet every March and they do this. Well, not this March because that meeting

has now been canceled. And as NBC News points out, we are right now going through a pretty severe flu season, 19,000 adult deaths, 86 child deaths, a lot of obviously non-death illnesses. And in the middle of that, for the FDA under the leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services, i.e. RFK Jr., for them to cancel this meeting where they best determine what next years, or not even next year, later this year, because it'll be for the winter at the end of the year for them to cancel this meeting that determines what the best flu shot will be again i daniel they want us to die people will say that we're being hyperbolic here like oh that's not the case and blah blah i don't know how else to infer canceling meetings that are to determine how we keep americans

safe and healthy during heightened seasons of flu and other viruses. Like, I don't know what else you're supposed to take from that. This is coming from an administration that has been all about loving to throw around the word freedom. But evidently, all we have right now is the freedom to die because that is what's going to happen. People can say, oh, the flu is not that big of a deal. Let me tell you something.

I know folks this past season, healthy, young. who got the strain of the flu that knocked them on their ass for two weeks. What do you think happens with people who already have compromised immune systems and now will not have access to vaccines? The whole point of vaccinations is to provide us with built-in immunities to these strains that change and morph over time. This administration not only wants us to die, but they also just have an all-out war on information, on research, on education, and science to boot the fucking secretary. Well, I don't know, Andy, you tell me, what medical degree does RFK Jr. have? What experience in medicine, in the health profession, does RFK Jr. have to be qualified to have this?

job? I think he has the same medical degree that you and I both have. Oh, so Google University. I feel so fucking safe. Yeah. When we say they want us to die, and again, as Danielle said, you know, it sounds hyperbolic or whatever, but it's not just this flu vaccine thing. Also this week, a $200 million contract to a company called VaxArt was canceled. VaxArt's been working on a COVID vaccine in a pill form, which is obviously a lot more palatable to people than having to go get a shot. And RFK Jr. has put the pause on that. There's so many things going on right now. Last week was supposed to be the first meeting of the Center for Disease Controls Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

That was canceled or, quote, delayed indefinitely. There's all of these things going on. And look, these people, they claim they didn't want the COVID vaccine because it was MRNA. and, you know, because it changed your DNA and put the chip in you so you could be tracked by the government or whatever nonsense bullshit have convinced themselves of, here's one that would come in a pill form and they want to put the kibosh on that as well. And you have to ask yourself, Daniel, I saw a call from someone saying this was a bad day for infectious diseases. Actually, it was a great day for infectious diseases. I was going to say, I'm pretty sure right now that they're all rallying in some type of stadium getting ready for, the ultra virus of ultra viruses that we won't even know is coming, Andy.

Like that's the thing. Like, what is on the horizon? We won't even know about because of the way that this administration has shut down all research, all exchange of information. So we can't even prepare, let alone deal with what the fuck is already here. I just don't understand. as we had over a million Americans die of COVID, over a million. And we never talk about it.

We just act as if it didn't happen and just hope and pray, I guess, that it doesn't happen again. But it is because of their war on truth, on science, on facts that has people right now finding their way in a measle outbreak in this country that hasn't happened in well over a decade. why? Because we have vaccines. Why? Because at the turn of the century in 2000, America had announced we've eradicated measles. Why did that happen? Did it happen because of prayer? No, it happened because of science. It happened because of vaccines. And now, years later, we are battling an outbreak in Texas and in New Mexico that has cost the first child in decades their lives and why is that child now dead? Because they were unvaccinated. And so what does the current Secretary of Health and Human Services say to that? Eh, it happens. Yeah, he said it was that the measles outbreak was not unusual. He also said that all the people that are in hospitals are there simply to be quarantined, which the Associated Press reported as him appearing to misstate a

fact. No, he, first of all, didn't appear to. He did, you know, say something. Well, and that's the thing. Why? We use three words when we could just say one. Well, and the worst part of it is, is they added appeared to. So it's not even just misstate a fact. It's five words now. Take the place of the word lie. The chief medical officer at the hospital where most of these kids are said, we don't hospitalize patients for quarantine purposes. They are mostly there, she said because they are having trouble breathing. Jesus. We've now got the head of Health and Human Services out there,

hand waving away a measles outbreak in which someone has died and lying about what's going on. Danielle, forget about the next threat because we just dead at that point, I think. I mean, in addition to all the things we're talking about, we pulled out of the World Health Organization. I keep going back to they want us to die because I really can't figure out what would be the end goal or the end game of all of this, if that's not it? What is the end game of hand-waving a measles out? What is the end game of canceling an FDA meeting to set the next flu vaccine? What is the end game of pausing research into an oral COVID vaccine if it's not they want us to die? At this point, I really don't know and all, and I've said this before on this show, all that it

brings me back to is the movie Elysium where the healthy and the wealthy are literally on a different planet. And everyone on Earth is sick under pollution, under disease, and there is no medicine, only the hope of a lottery ticket off of the planet in order to get vaccinations. I mean, that's the setup. And you know, I'm certain that we will all be charted on SpaceX if you can afford the fucking seat and maybe it doesn't blow up on your fucking way there. Yeah. I do want to correct a hideous mistake you made, Danielle. Elysium is not a planet.

It's a space station. Oh, okay. Thank you. We have to be factually correct here. You're right. What happened here is, Daniel, you appeared to misstate a fact. I appeared to. You're right.

And so I felt like I should correct that. But other than that, you're exactly right. And I want you to talk about what you talked about before we started recording about medical vacations. Oh, which is that this is going to be the setup. Again, the wealthy are going to be able to travel to different countries that actually have vaccines and get them without a problem. And it will be everyone else that is left behind diseased. Look, you think it's sci-fi. This is where we're headed. And it can be avoided. But yeah, it could be avoided except it's what they want. So speaking of bizarre things that could be avoided except that that's what they want, I don't know,

listeners, if you saw a very, very weird video that Trump posted on his Instagram account, I guess. It was some AI-generated slop showing what the vision for Gaza is under President Trump. And it started with images of war and destruction. And then it pivoted to basically, I guess you would call it like almost like a Las Vegas, a situation with hotels, a big hotel with a marquee saying Trump, Gaza, shops, a beach. There's a song playing in the background as sort of a dance track saying Donald Trump will set you free. No more tunnels. No more fear.

Trump Gaza is finally here. Trump Gaza shining bright, golden future, a brand new life. Trump Gaza number one. Danielle, what the fuck? I need to take a break. there are bodies still buried under the rubble in Gaza, people's mothers and fathers and children and loved ones. There are still hostages being held in Gaza. To say that this is without kuth, without taste, without empathy, is an understatement.

Donald Trump is so fucking craven and disgusting. Trump, Gaza, as like millions of people are trying to return and rebuild their lives. And all this man can see is the future Vegas. It is obscene. The video was obscene. The song is depraved. I don't know what else to expect. And I don't even know why I'm so shocked.

But I don't want to lose my ability to be shocked and to be disgusted because then it means that I have become absolutely numb to what it is that they are doing. Yeah, for sure. I think that's really important. And also, I think obscene is the perfect word here. That's exactly what this is. Also in the video were several shots of, I think, a gold statue of Trump. Of course. And there's like, you know, AI versions of Trump and Netanyahu sitting on lounge.

chairs by, I guess it was by a pool. Elon Musk makes appearances for some reason, eating a meal. It truly is obscene to take this region that has just been beset by war and death and just turn it into this sort of this, again, this playground for the rich. But yeah, you're absolutely right. Like none of this is really like unexpected, I guess, although this did seem to be even for Trump, this did seem to be particularly obscene. But it is of a kind, certainly, even if it's maybe a little more in degree, it's of a kind with everything we know about him. But I do think you're absolutely right. And it's a very key point to say that it's important not to just shrug at these things and become numb to them. Along those lines, Trump, Mr. I don't want any immigrants in the country now says he's going to

sell what he's calling gold cards for $5 million. And the people who buy buy them would be granted green card privileges and a path to citizenship. He said, quote, wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card. They'll be wealthy and they'll be successful and they'll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people. So we can first of all start with the fact that they won't be paying a lot of taxes. Right. Because the people here don't even pay taxes. The rich people here don't pay taxes. Yeah. This really is trying to recreate the Russian olivated. situation here in America, to the point where Trump, when he announced this, even said that

it's possible that Russian oligarchs could qualify for these cards. $5 million. Yeah. Do you have that under your couch cushion? That's really not your business? Oh, that's true. We are doing very well on this show. The fact is that we're mob bosses now.

That's who America is under Donald Trump. Everything is for sale, like unless it's nailed down and even then. The shakedown of shakedowns. And it's funny because none of this will actually go into the U.S. Treasury. So it's just like the greed, the insatiable greed of these people is just astonishing. Like it in itself should be studied. Like nothing is ever fucking enough. They can never have enough money.

Right. And it's just like, what jobs is this five million? dollar gold card going to create. Is it going to create the factory jobs? Because it's going to be people in these factories that are making up these gold cards. Like what jobs are you talking about? You can just literally just stand around and throw around fucking words that are meaningless. And everybody runs with it and reports on it.

Oh, Donald Trump has a plan for immigration. The fuck out of here. Yeah. This could just be another time where grandpa is just. free associating, to put it mildly, politely, I guess, and that none of this is ever going to happen. But look, we're at the point where we can't say that for sure. And even if that's true, it does show where his mind is at. And it makes it very, very clear, as if it weren't already, that he's all for immigration. As long as it's rich people, I'm assuming they would have to be white, although possibly they could be like Saudi Arabian.

This is the vision, whether this particular thing becomes a reality or not. This is the vision of America that they have. Their vision of America is just so not only, obviously, do they hate Americans? Like with the thousands of federal workers, civil servants that have been fired, not only do they hate us in terms of the fact that they want to make sure that we all get sick or remain sick. They really do. I mean, this must be the most despicable regime that this country has ever seen, but it's because of their overt contempt of America and Americans. And their vision, this alteration that we are under, I guess people won't notice it until we are completely hollowed out and destitute and sick.

Then they'll see and be like, oops, I guess I shouldn't have voted for him. Joining me now is Mike Maznick, founder and editor of the Essential TechDirt blog at TechDirt.com, and CEO of the Copia Institute. Mike, I wanted to have you on... Well, first of all, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. I always enjoy talking to you. As I said to you right before I started, I forgot to write an introduction for you.

Who needs an introduction? Come on, wing it. We'll do it live, Andy. No, for sure, for sure. I got your resume stuff in there, though. So that's good. Look, you're a bit of a tech expert or tech expert, as I like to refer to you. Never say that again.

I know. Have you heard of this Elon Musk guy? What's his deal? Because he seems like a bit of a jagoff to me. Oh, man, this is the thing, right? So I spent the last, let's say, three years watching as he destroyed Twitter, right? And doing a whole bunch of really dumb things that were obviously dumb at the time. and watching him never seem to actually learn each of those mistakes.

And it seems like he is doing the exact same thing except to the U.S. government this time. And that seems really bad. Like, if he destroys this second tier social media property that I loved, I'll get over it and I'll survive. But if he destroys like the biggest economy in the world and all of the institutions that make it work and sort of make the rest of the world work. That seems bad, probably. A little bit, yeah. Yeah.

And he does seem to be following the same exact playbook as what he bought Twitter. I mean, you have the firing people and then realizing you need them and sort of begging them to come back. You have the Fork in the Road letter telling people to justify their existence. And if they don't answer the email, he's assuming that they don't want to work there and they're fired. he's doing literally exactly what he did when he bought Twitter. Yeah, which when he bought Twitter, he owned Twitter and he had the right to do that. As stupid as it was, he had absolutely every right to do that.

That is not the case with the U.S. government. I mean, beyond the fact that he was not elected president, even if he were, he still doesn't have the right to do that. And yet he is. And then that's leaving aside. There's so many different avenues you can go down here. But that is leaving aside the fact that it didn't work with Twitter. It messed up Twitter.

It destroyed 80% of the value. It lost a whole bunch of users. It lost most of the advertisers. It was bad. The only thing, the only thing it was successful in was giving Elon Musk more political power. And that may be what he's trying to do here as well. Yes. But that does not mean that is good for anyone else.

It was not good for Twitter and it is not good for the United States and it's probably not good for the world. Well, and there's something you wrote about recently where you actually said, ultimately, it's not even good for the tech industry, of which Elon Musk is a large part of. You said that what Doge is doing is undermining potential markets for the American tech industry. What do you mean there? I mean, this is the whole thing, right? The first agency that they targeted was USAID, USAID, however you want to pronounce it, their whole thing. You can quibble with whether or not this is good or bad in general in the world, how USAID work. the oversight of it, where the money goes, all this stuff. But in general, what it has always done

is used American monetary power to prop up and help different developing countries, which gives us access to those countries. It gives us access to those markets. It creates markets. It creates stability. It creates places that aid the U.S. in the long run. It requires being able to think more than one step ahead in terms of like what does this transaction directly do to benefit me it requires you to think like maybe if more of the world is stable and there's less disease less death that might travel elsewhere less war that might pull us in in the future that that is probably better for the u.s in the long run but that requires actually having to think through these things which is apparently too difficult for the sort of first principles

thinkers of like Elon Musk and Doge. But in general, what it has always done is actually helped the American experiment have more influence around the world, create more stability, which does then create more markets and create more opportunities for American businesses. And so in particular, the story that I wrote about was based on a really excellent story as well in Foreign Policy magazine by Kat Duffy, basically saying, like, right now the AI market in particular is, you know, AI companies, a lot of which are based in the U.S. They sort of view it as this battle against the Chinese over who's going to dominate the AI market.

There are a few others who think that they're going to be in there, whether it's Europe or India or where else. But they need new markets for where the AI can be deployed and developed and used, but they also need new markets for content. A lot of the current training data in AI systems actually came from from Africa. There was a whole story a few years ago about how, like, AI recommends certain words in English that are not very common in American or British English, but are very common in Nigeria. And so there's this whole interesting thing about the kinds of words that Chatchip-T recommends

and how you can distinguish, like, which things probably came from AI, which led to this whole other sort of funny side tangent, which is that AI checkers will often pick out some of those words. and say, oh, this was written by AI, which is really screwed over people from Nigeria who actually do speak with those words. It's a whole other issue. But, like, you know, being able to have access to these markets for the training data and for services that they can provide, that is something that USAID has historically really been helpful for. And as Musk said, he sort of took them to the wood chipper and got rid of it.

China has its own program, the Belt and Road Initiative, which is a very similar attempt, but with a little bit more authoritarian strings attached to it, they must be so thrilled about the U.S. effectively exiting the market, allowing China to go in, and with it will come Chinese AI tools. And so these efforts are really cutting off American markets around the world. And you can complain about USAID and say this is like evil capitalism or colonialism or whatever you want to call it. But if your focus was just on like what is actually good for the American tech sector, the fact that Musk and the Doge crew and these group of idiots around him are unable to think through

these things beyond that first step of like, why would we give foreign aid to these shithole countries, which is the way they think about it, as obnoxious and terrible as that is, it will come back to bite them. And as you said in your piece, the dumbest part is that this isn't even a particularly complicated insight. And it really isn't. It really is just, I hate to use the phrase common sense because that's yet another thing that's been co-opted by Trump, et cetera, to say things like as the reason they know why DEI caused plane collisions. But it really is like if you took five minutes to think about and look at the way the world

works, this should be, well, I was going to say it should be a no-brainer, but it feels like it's the people involved who are the no-brainers. Yeah. I am constantly amazed the unwillingness. And it's really even the lack of intellectual curiosity. it is this this assumption that they must know better, right? They will often refer to it as like first principles thinking, but it's not, right? Like there is this concept, which is not a bad idea to like have first principles and to rethink things entirely because like, yes, like bad stuff happens and there are reasons to rethink the way things are done.

But to completely ignore the reasons why they were done in the first place and assume that you automatically know better, especially in areas that you have no experience in, it is. crazy. It is bizarre to watch this play out in real time because historically you've always had some people who would have these ideas like, oh, I have this brilliant new idea to like reinvent the way we do the X, Y, or C. And what the reality is often they just don't know the reality. They don't know why the systems work the way they do. And anyone who gets into that role eventually sort of discovers it. The amazing thing with Elon and sort of the position that he has put himself in, and he did this with Twitter as well, was that at no point is he ever sort of forced to really learn that lesson.

Everything breaks. Everything goes wrong. And he's just like, you know, no big deal. I mean, the latest one was in the cabinet meeting where he stood up over everybody and mentioned like, oh, yeah, ha ha ha. We accidentally canceled Ebola prevention. And he's like, but then we realized and we turned it back on. Like this is his view is that, oh, well, you know, we'll just turn stuff off.

And if we make a mistake, we'll turn it back on. The problem is, like, that's all wrong, you know, like, except for the part where they accidentally turned off Ebola prevention. They did that. They didn't turn it back on. The reports where he says they did, and that he thought it was kind of funny, but they didn't. They fired 90% of the people who work on it. They weren't able to respond to an actual Ebola outbreak in Uganda.

And he's just like, well, no big deal. We'll fix it when we make mistakes. Like, you don't have to do that. You could have the experts there who tell you what to do. And a lot of the experts will actually tell you, like, where there is actual waste fraud and abuse, which is what he claims he's seeking out. Yeah. He seems to feel like it's sort of like, oh, if you pull out an Ethernet cable or an

HDMI cable and the wrong thing turns off or it turns out to be bad, I'll just hook it back up. Yeah. And, you know, incredibly. Like he did that with Twitter. There's the famous story of like they had three data centers and he decided that the one in Sacramento was no good. And on Christmas Eve, he was flying somewhere else and he had them turn the plane around, go to Sacramento and just literally himself went into the data center and pulled out racks of servers

that created all this instability within Twitter, but it didn't take the site down. And the lesson he got from that was like, yeah, you know what? I was right in the end, which is not true. And it's not a lesson you should learn. But he just seems incapable of learning that lesson. And then he surrounds himself with all these people who tell him like, oh, yes, sir, like, you're brilliant. You have this all figured out. You see the things that nobody else sees.

And like you can see where this comes from, right? Because like if you look at his success stories, Tesla's with EVs and SpaceX with private flight, like when he started those companies, everyone said, that's crazy, you can't do that. Nobody can do that. That this will fail. And he did succeed. So I can understand where he's like got this sense that like, well, I have, you know, the golden touch. And people will tell me that what I'm trying to do is impossible, but I'm always right. And you have to wonder at what point does, if ever, does that lesson get through? And unfortunately, it might be after he's completely destroyed the institutions of the United States of America. Yeah, I have a feeling, you know, when they do those words of the year, like at the end of the year.

I feel like Dunning Kruger is going to have a strong showing. While all of this is going on, Elon Musk is literally like pulling the plug on our government systems. Can you please explain to me why Democrats are going on again about repealing Section 230? I really am begging you here. Mike, please. Tell me what the fuck is going on. Look, if I understood it, I don't know. This makes no sense to me.

I think there's this element of, I mean, the Democrats still seem to be acting as if this is business as usual. And to them, the ones who are pushing this were the ones who spent the last few years blaming big tech for everything. So if anything, they're thinking like, well, big tech is the reason why we have Donald Trump and Elon Musk in control. And therefore, if we repeal Section 230, that will somehow punish Big Tech. And that is just a complete misunderstanding of how Section 230 works. It's a complete misunderstanding of the moment that we are in. What is happening to our government right now? What is happening to speech online at this moment?

You know, yes, like Section 230 was very, very important to the big companies when they were getting started. But it is the when they were getting started part that is important. Right. Because the way Section 230 intersects with the First Amendment is that the cases that are brought against these companies that get dismissed under 230, would get dismissed anyway under the First Amendment, but much later in the process, at much greater expense. And the big companies, the metas, the Googles, the Amazons of the world, they have literally buildings full of lawyers. They can afford to spend that extra time and that extra money on these cases. It is the smaller competitors that can't do that. And if you want

there to be more competitors, if you don't want the world to be controlled by big tech, you need something like Section 230, which makes it possible for someone to set up their own mastodon instance, for example. Right. You take that away and suddenly that becomes a huge legal liability and therefore you end up giving more power to the metas and the Xs of the world at a time when you claim that you're taking away their power. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of how these laws work and the nature of the Internet ecosystem

right now. Because Section 230 really should be thought of as protecting little tech, is how I think of it. And feel free to use that in a piece that you write later. With credit, do I need to credit you? Is this what we're talking about? Yeah. Yeah, you do, Mike Maznick. Send me an invoice.

I'll do that, yeah. I was looking at the people who are the sponsors of this bill. Yeah. And it's Dick Durbin and Amy Klobuchar on the Democratic side. And it's Marsha Blackburn and Josh Hawley. on the Republican side, and I was just thinking to myself, even forgetting about Marsha Blackburn, it's 2025. How in the world do Durbin and Clobetcher not know that if you're co-sponsoring a bill with Josh Hawley, you're doing something very wrong? Yeah, I don't know. This should have been a known

fact going back. You could go back to January 6th as an example, and the famous fist pump. But anyone who is paying attention, and I would hope that senators, who are colleagues of Josh Holly, were paying attention, they should have known that this was, you know, sponsoring anything with Josh Holly was a bad idea from the moment he got into the Senate. And that should have been obvious. And the fact that today, in this moment, Durbin and Klobuchar think it is okay to co-sponsor a bill with Josh Hawley is just an incredible statement of how out of touch they are. Yeah, it's insane. I want to ask you about something that, you know, he's just been in the news the last couple days. According to the Washington Post, the federal aviation administration is close to

canceling a $2.4 billion contract to overhaul the communication system that's, you know, that's sort of the backbone of our air traffic control system, and it was this contract was supposed to go to Verizon. They want to cancel that contract and give the work instead to Elon Musk's Starlink. This is fine, right? Oh, goodness. Where to start? Nothing to worry about here, right? Get on a plane. Go travel. I thought we were finished talking about Musk. So no. Yeah. I mean, there's so many things wrong with this. It's like Starlink is amazing for what it is. It has limited bandwidth, first of all. It has some issues with latency and other things.

Everyone recognizes that there's a massive conflict of interest here. Right. The way that this has been dealt with is like every time it's been asked of anyone important in the government, they say, oh, well, you know, Elon will take care of it. If it's a conflict, he'll stay out of it, which is obviously untrue. And nobody seems to believe that that is what is really happening. And then you see this kind of thing. And it's just another example of how much this is all about empowering Elon Musk, not actually

doing what's good for the country. We've had this before, and the FCC had this program to try and get, in the last administration, had this program to try and get internet access to low income households and things like that. And they had originally granted, I forget how much it was, it was like 800 million to Starlink. And then they canceled that when they realized like it wasn't going to work. It wasn't set up for that. They sort of were misleading on the application. There were all sorts of problems with it. And this has been sort of like this chip on Musk's shoulder ever since that,

contract was canceled. And so I think now he's just like, look, my friends are here in power and I'm in power and we're going to steer all the contracts we can to Starlink. You know, conflict of interest be damned. It is clear, you know, blatant corruption. Yeah, no, it really is. You know, you mentioned latency and I know as a serious competitive gamer that latency and lag are not your friend, but I'm guessing for air traffic control, not a big deal. God, we'll see. The bigger issue, as I understand it, is really the capacity of Starlink. And Musk has himself admitted this in the past, that Starlink has limited capacity, right? They have however many satellites. They have more satellites than anyone else in the sky. They're constantly launching new satellites. They are low Earth orbit. So the latency

can be problematic, but it's not as bad as it might otherwise be. But the capacity is limited, which means it can go down. If too many people are using it, it can go down. And so for a mission critical system, that seems like a problem. Yeah, you would think. Mike, it's always fun to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming on. And I'm going to let you go now because I know you're hard at work dealing with the reply guy problem over at Blue Sky. Thanks again. And we'll talk soon. Absolutely. It's always fun to talk to you. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal, the new incoming president of the Center for American Progress, the largest progressive think tank in the country, Nira Tandon. Nira, you know, you know, You know, you are rejoining Center for American Progress at one could say the toughest time and maybe the right time in our political climate where it seems as if Democrats as a whole have lost their footing in terms of how to battle this next iteration of Trump that is a lot more

focused, a lot more, I guess, crazy. You can go with crazy. Crazy seems right. Yeah, I can go with crazy. But, you know, this is not the clown car that we saw in the first administration. So talk to us about why now your return to cap and where you see us getting back on track. I understand how it can feel so overwhelming.

There's news every hour of an attack. on our values, an attack on people, harms to people. And as progressives of people on the broad center left, you know, what motivates us about being involved in politics and policy is that we think we can work collectively to help people. So when we see harm, it's overwhelming. And there's so much of it. But I also understand that you're absolutely right.

They came in with a game plan to do as much damage as possible. And there are no Republicans to limit him. Perhaps there's no institutions. There are fewer institutions to limit him. You know, I think both members of the mainstream media as well as the Republican Party are cowering. And so it really requires all of us to engage this battle. And the reason why I'm really excited to be at the Center for American Progress is we have always been an action-oriented thing tank. And in this moment, we have to retool for the

assaults we face. And I think that means strong opposition, but also providing an alternative vision so that we broadly, again, progressives, the broad center, left, middle, base, all of us have, are saying to the country that we offer change as well. You know, I think one of the challenges, challenges for us over the last couple of years. You know, I was in the administration. I understood this challenge is that, you know, when you're in power, it can feel like you're defending institutions. You're defending, honestly, sometimes the status quo. And I think the opportunity of this moment is really twofold. One, Trump's agenda is so extreme. It allows us to build a strong, resilient majority. And two, we can have the mantle of change because we are not the

We should not just be defending institutions to defend them. We should provide alternative ideas about how to solve the country's problems, and our ideas will be better. And we can describe how we will bring a change that will improve your life circumstances, not just harm other people so that some can feel advantaged by their relative position. You know, one of the things that has really rubbed not only me, but a majority of Democrats, the wrong. way is most recently Representative Hakim Jeffries in a press conference saying, throwing up his hands essentially and saying, what leverage do we have? What do you want us to do? They own the government. And the reaction, the pushback to that was fast and furious. And it isn't as if we didn't know what Donald Trump and Maga Republicans were doing. They literally wrote a manual, a 900 page plus

manual that outlined what they would do, where they would go if they were able to ascend to power again. Why do you think that, one, Representative Jeffries seemingly threw up his hands and two, that Democrats seem to not be prepared when they were literally given a book? Yeah, so I think there's really two different things happening. First of all, we have been engaged. I mean, when I was inside the government and after the election, you know, I think there are a lot of organized legal battles that we are seeing operate right now as perhaps our only check. We'll see like soon, whether the Supreme Court actually upholds the Constitution. But over several months, legal organizations started working even less summer or less spring on organizing themselves

to be ready. And it is frustrating that we are just like the last refuge here is the courts. But I do think people should take some pride in the fact that there's a whole host of organizations, Democracy Forward, Accountability Project, Norm Eisen is leading another effort. And these cases are right now creating some pushback. The Doge is losing a lot of these cases. Now, fundamentally, they will go to the Supreme Court and we'll see if the President Trump actually upholds the Constitution. I think it's a reasonable bet that he will actually uphold the Constitution. I have zero faith in the Supreme Court, but I do think some of these issues

are really, really clear. So there's that. I think there's, in terms of the Hill, I'll say, I think there's really two things going on. And I think, unfortunately, they've intersected in a way that can feel a bit demoralizing. But we absolutely... have to ensure that the Republicans own the fact of their power. And what do I mean by that? You know, what I mean by that is they have many times over the last decade, we've had a situation where they just basically create a strategic advantage from being the most unreasonable party.

And so the press and the public expect Democrats to say, no, we'll rush in and protect you on the debt limit because that would be so terrible. if we were to have the debt limit. Or no, we'll rush in and save you on the government shutdown because we're the responsible adults. And honestly, the Republicans have weaponized their irresponsibility so that they can just threaten all kinds of crazy behavior, which will harm people.

And because we as Democrats believe in rational government, we lose leverage and power. And so in my reading, like, I think a way to read what Leader Jeffries was saying, and maybe you could say it in a different way, and maybe it could be communicated in a different way, but I think the way to read that is to say, you know, I'm not going to give you my votes for free.

You own the government. You have a trifecta. It's your job to fund the government. It is your job to fund the debt limit. When we were in power, we had to come get votes from you. When you're in power, you have to get votes from us. And that's why, you know, and I do think we need to make, make sure everybody in America realizes that when you're the price of your eggs go up or when

there's a measle outbreak in your hometown, that these are not just things happening. They are caused by that same agenda that they wrote in this book. And honestly, let's be clear, they're going way beyond that agenda. So I think it's vital that every Democrat stand up. And, you know, I'm proud of the fact that there wasn't a single Democrat. I mean, maybe this is a little bar, but there wasn't. a single Democrat who voted for that budget resolution the other day that would take almost a trillion dollars from people's Medicaid. But I also think, you know, I sometimes our inside message

gets confused with our outside message and it sends terrible messages to people. But I also, what I really take from this is, you know, we just can't be the cheap date. Like, you have to have a bill that lives up to our values if you want, if you want votes for what you. you need to pass. And my personal take is, I know, you know, a lot of people are telling themselves if we have a government shutdown, it'll be bad for Democrats. My view of this is, I think we have a very simple message. We believe in a same budget, a same strategy, and that you have to give us those things for our votes. I'm of the vein of shut it down because this regime, this Trump regime is a demolition crew. They are not coming in with.

with trying to work or collaborate with Democrats, let alone give a damn about what they are doing to the American people. I mean, you had Speaker Mike Johnson on CNN this week when confronted with the angry Republicans at these town halls saying that they are essentially crisis actors. These were not even Republican constituents, right? So they don't even take responsibility for what they're doing to their own people and instead are trying to create the guise that all of this is for show that the Democrats are putting on when we know that that is not the case. And so I wonder here, when we have the state of the union

that is quickly approaching, what do you think the Democrats should be doing in that moment when all eyes in the country and in the world are going to be on Trump's first address? what should Democrats be doing? What is the message here? Because just sitting there idly by and acting as if this is normal, ain't going to cut it. Yeah, I totally agree with you. We have to figure out ways where we communicate constantly how, you know, this is a crisis. But I think it's also, we just need to say, you know, this is a crisis in people's lives.

There are people being harmed by this administration. And, you know, it's interesting. I have an additional take, which is, I have a. I think the most persuasive voice in America today is the person who's being victimized by these policies in real time. And that is the federal workers. Absolutely. We should talk about the federal workers. But we need to talk about what those federal workers were doing to protect all of us, right?

Like the air traffic controller staff that were fired are people who are the ones who are regulating that the pilots don't fall asleep. while they're flying the plane. When they get rid of the nuclear safeguards experts and then have to bring them in, when they're firing people at Health and Human Services who are really about protecting your public health, you are hurting those federal workers, but you're not just hurting them. You're making your family, my family, less safe. You're ensuring that my child is more likely to get subject to measles. my babies will be subject to viruses.

You know, we have big issues in this country. One thing that the right has done so effectively is use social media to tell the story of a David versus Goliath. You know, the Biden administration was like harming this person or like the big liberal elites who are offending your values this way. Well, now we have real stories of Republican federal workers who worked for. for veterans affairs who are getting fired and who can't help veterans, right? Farmers who aren't getting funded because they decide to slash the USAID program. I will share your concern. We need to have Democrats mobilized and Democratic leaders mobilized for the moment.

But I actually think the real opportunity is to ensure that we are standing with the voices of real people who are being harmed. by Donald Trump and this entire administration. Why? This is all in service, all of these quote unquote savings, which aren't even saving any money, but these attacks are in service of tax cuts for Elon Musk and his elk. And that's not the country any of us should be in. And I actually fundamentally believe that is not the country,

a majority of Americans voted for. And I think this is the opportunity of this moment, which is we have to make clear. that we stand in opposition because this is an extremist agenda that people didn't sign up for. So now that you have returned to CAP at this vital moment in our country, in our politics, and in the world, what does the path forward look like for your organization at this moment and what can people expect out of CAP in terms of strategy? So I think that we are obviously in an existential crisis and we need all the people mobilization we can get.

Our strategy is to do two things really simultaneously. One, oppose Trump's policies, particularly with a lens on harms to people. Constitutional violations of our norms, absolutely. But we are laser focused on where and how he is hurting the public. various groups in the public, where we're seeing real pain for the American people. That's going to be our focus. But we're also focused on building, you know, an alternative. And a lot of people say, well, we've had good ideas.

People don't care about good ideas. And they really care. It's all messaging. And he has a, like, way to communicate to people. And I hear that. But I have to say, you know, we have to be clear that the public has lost some faith in the broad center left's ability to solve some of our problems. And my deepest worry is that our public, the public, the electorate, what have you, has been a change electorate for almost two decades now.

Almost every election, people are voting for change. And in this moment where Trump is taking a wrecking ball, we can't just defend the status quo. We have to say how our ideas are better. So, for example, if they want to take down the Department of Education, we should absolutely stress how eliminating the Department of Education would hurt low-income students. It would hurt disabled students. I mean, the entire funding of disabled students operates through the Department of Education. That would be a travesty and would harm, you know, millions of children. But we also have to communicate why Department of Education actually improves education of every child in this country, how we can improve kids learning, everywhere and why our vision is actually better than any of these radical actions Trump wants to

take. And I just think as we build these ideas and our voice, we can shore up people's faith in us that we are also change agents. And throughout our history, progressives have led change. We are not the ones always defending the status quo. We are the ones driving change. I think that is a hugely critical component of what we do over really. the next two and four years because we can build a stronger resilient majority if we do that, in my view. Well, Neara, we will leave it there today. And I know that in the coming weeks, months and years ahead, there will be a lot on your plate bun on all of our plates. And I hope to have you join us again on the new abnormal soon. Thank you. And, you know, we're all on this together.

So I'm so grateful for your time. Thank you. Danielle Moody. Andy Levy. All right, Danielle, close out this week. I know it's going to be tough to find someone, but who is your fuck that guy? I'm going to close out this week the way that Jeff Bezos is closing out Freedom of the Press with his latest order to the Washington Post opinion section, which is apparently he has a deep misunderstanding of what personal liberties are and has directed the section of the Washington Post. Post to do the following. He says in a memo, I am of America and for America and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a part of America's success has been freedom in the

economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical. It minimizes coercion and practical. It drives creativity, invention, and prosperity. What he is, thinking here is that because apparently he sees himself and other technocrats like him to be the, I guess, the new frontier for American progress that no one should have the ability to critique them. No one should call into question their ethics, their business practices, whether or not they are actually hurting or harming the public. Because of this, the editor of the post, opinion section, David Shipley, has resigned. And, you know, this comes in a line of people that have resigned from the Washington Post because of Bezos's intervention with one of the pillars and

foundations of our democracy, which is truth, honesty, and freedom of the press, which means the freedom to critique. And so, you know, Shipley and his goodbye said, I will always be thankful for the opportunity I was given to work alongside a team of opinion journalists whose commitment to strong innovative, supportive commentary inspired me every day. But he's out because what is an opinion section when you're being told what your opinion is? Because that's what Jeff Bezos has done now. Maybe it was never a good idea to sell these papers to craven billionaires who had contempt for the truth and for democracy. For that, you are watching as people end their subscriptions and are posting it on social media that they are ending their

subscriptions to these outlets that no longer believe in free speech. So if folks think that America is somehow going to bounce back from the destruction that is being caused at the hands of the 1% that we should have been paying attention to, it ain't going to happen. So for for that reason and so many other reasons, Jeff Bezos is my first. fuck that guy, you should have just a marble statue because I'm certain I will be coming back to Jeff Bezos over and over and over again. Yeah, the best thing that I saw someone say about this was in a group chat I'm in. And defectors, David Roth said, trying to get into Bezos's head here.

And he was like, well, it's called the opinion page, not the opinions page. So you don't need more than one opinion. Damn. And that really does sum it up. I mean, to tell an opinion page that they have to advocate in a certain direction is absolutely wild. And to think that you're doing that and that somehow you're doing the right thing is just really, really bizarre. But look, I mean, with Shipley leaving, and remember, Shipley didn't leave when a lot of other people did when the order came down not to endorse a presidential candidate. He tried to ride it out and then obviously this was the last straw for him.

But a whole bunch of colonists left after that debacle, as did the Washington Post's political cartoonist. And by the way, thousands of people canceled their subscriptions. This is part of the winning them back strategy, apparently. Once again, for as smart as a lot of these tech guys are in their areas, they are just exceedingly stupid outside of their areas. Because if I'm looking at a PR crisis from the last thing I did that caused not just people to leave because in your mind you might be thinking, good riddance, I want to bring people in who are with my vision, but the fact that you lost thousands of subscribers and now you're sort of doubling down on the philosophy that led to these people unsubscribing, there's a word for that and it's not smart. Smart is not the word

there. And just as a side note, the last thing I want to hear is Will Lewis, who by the way is sir, Will Lewis, because he's British and he's been knighted. I don't need to hear him saying things like, this is about being crystal clear about what we stand for as a newspaper. Doing this is a critical part of serving as a premier news publication across America and for all Americans. I know it's childish and I know it's not fair, I guess, but all I keep thinking, sir, you're British and you're literally, sir. And we don't have that here. We don't have that here for a reason. So please, I don't need any lectures from you on how this is going to make the newspapers serve all Americans better. Just shut up.

So fuck both those guys. So, Andy, how are you closing out this week with your Fuck That Guy? My Fuck That Guy this week is really its profiles and courage. We've all seen, I think by now, we've seen clips or we've read stories about House Republicans going back to their districts, you know, on one. one of their many days off and having town halls and getting a lot of pushback from their constituents, getting yelled at and being told that Doge is a big mistake. And the people that voted for these congresspeople don't like it. It would be really cowardly, I think, to continue holding these town halls in the face of such opposition. So what these heroes have done instead is they are now

considering not holding these town halls anymore. And Republican Party leaders, according to NBC News, have said, if you feel the need to hold this kind of event, you either have to vet the attendees or do a teletown hall and don't do it in person. But another GOPA tells NBC News that House Republican leaders are urging lawmakers to stop engaging in them all together. And this, of course, comes before the Republicans are trying to pass a budget and tax cuts that will cut Medicaid and Social Security. So, yeah, it's pretty obvious why these fools don't want to do town halls anymore. But obviously, I've been saying profile in courage ironically. But they really are just unbelievable cowards. They are elected.

They go to Washington. Instead of serving their constituents, they cowtow to Donald Trump as if he were Lord God emperor. And then they don't even have the courage to face the constituents who voted for them who are not happy with what they're doing. And it's not a surprise that they are this cowardly. Everything is just more evidence of what we already knew. But my God, if what you were doing were even the slightest bit popular,

you wouldn't be having these problems. And you'd think that would tell you something. And what it should be telling you is don't do these things. But instead, what they've decided is telling them is don't do these town halls. So for that, they just get a big blanket, fuck those guys. guys for me. You know what's going to happen is that so they'll stop doing those town halls. It's not a and then what? What are they going to do? Close all of their district offices when people start showing up there. And then when they do that, then where do they think that the people

are going to end up? They think that they're just going to be like, oh, I guess because representative so-and-so isn't available. I guess I'll just take my grievances elsewhere. Watch it escalate. Watch it escalate. Okay? Because this I will say about American. they like to be heard and they like to be seen. And when you start ignoring them, particularly this Republican base and think that they're just going to go quietly away when you've given them carte blanche to act

and do anything that they fucking please and want, except you thought it was going to be directed towards others and now it's being directed towards you. Pay attention. Fuck those guys. 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.

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