The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump’s Cronies Are Prepared if He Loses Hush Money Case

Episode Date: May 26, 2024

The former president’s supporters are already laying the groundwork—if he’s convicted in his hush money trial—to allege the whole thing was rigged. Plus! Danielle Moodie speaks with Professor Jenn M. Jackson from Syracuse University about her new book Black Women Taught Us: An Intimate History of Black Feminism. 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 Campbell 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. Hello and welcome to another Sunday bonus of the new abnormal.

We thank you so much for being here. Today we have an extra special guest with Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University, Dr. Jen M. Jackson, who will tell us all about their new book, Black Women taught us an intimate history of Black feminism. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready to listen to some clips? Clips, holiday clips. So Trump advisor, Charlie Kirk, I'd say sometimes seems like he's working for the Democrats with how bad his policy ideas of what Trump should run on are. But frankly, he's a little too stupid to be a part of anything that nefarious.

And I'm going to let him demonstrate that. By the way, both parties are to blame for this. But Republicans at least are noticing this and have a plan and an agenda. And the agenda, Donald Trump's agenda, putting the country first, curtailing hyper-inflinflation. I have made this advice publicly and privately to President Trump. In the debate and in his rallies, he needs to be very clear. And when he goes to college campuses this fall, which I hope we're going to host a couple campus events for either him or his vice president,

future vice president, whoever it is, you know, we have a great campus infrastructure. I hope to do it. The President Trump is to say, forget the noise, forget the chatter. As president, I will make it easier to do three things. Get married, have babies, own a home. If I'm president, those three things will be achievable for you. The three M's, mortgage, Maiden. If I am president, those three things will be in your grasp.

What the fuck is the last M? Maiden? When I hear Maiden, all I think of is the number of the beast. Literally, we're by-bye and went. Yeah. I mean, first of all, we don't have hyperinflation. Is he trying to claim that we have hyperinflation? because we don't, but I mean, that goes without saying that he's just stupid.

But mortgage, marriage, maiden, that's your campaign theme? What is this campaign offering that is going to make mortgages more affordable? Anything? And who said that getting married was difficult? It's not. Finding somebody that you want to marry, on the other hand, that seems to be difficult. And then maiden, like a milk maiden? Like what are we talking about?

about here. Well, that's about having kids, right? Because that's the third thing. No, it's a matron. Yeah. Not maiden. You have a maid of honor because that means that you are unmarried. Right. A matron of honor is married. So he's just dumb. No, that's what I'm saying. Like, the maiden has to line up with the having kids part of his little trifecta there, but it makes no sense. Well, by definition, a maiden is a girl or young woman, especially an unmarried one, which makes this even worse messaging. But I think what he's doing as usual is he's he's hearkening back to terms that a bunch of sexist loser in cells who sit around a table discussing things like this call women. Can we just talk about what the best Iron Maiden album is and the fact that it's actually killers, which most people don't realize?

You know, I know that that is a popular Stan Sandy. Is it really? Among the more educated music fans is that, I mean, I'm an anti-iron. made in music listener. Really? Yes. But we're not here for music takes. We're here for bad takes.

So I'm going to continue. Okay. It's been said if Donald Trump is talking, he's lying. And here, he's going to both be lying and doing his other favorite pastime, moving the goalposts. No, I have fake tapper. They said, I just wanted to debate this guy, but, you know, and I'm going to demand a drug test, too, by the way. I am. No, I really, yeah.

him coming in like the state of the union he was high as a kite and said is that Joe up there a beautiful row and by the end of the evening he's like well it was exhausted right now we're going to demand a drug test who is he going to get to pee in a cup for him because everybody fucking around him is hot up on some hot shit yeah this is the guy whose white house was handing out Xanax modafinol i think opioids left and right So don't forget Viagra, Andy. Well, who could forget Viagra? Whatever. He's so stupid.

But sure, have a drug test for both of them. Yeah, honestly. And like, let it be done in front of somebody that is actually taking. Nobody in the stall. Nobody in the back. Like, you know, let's just see. Could we, please? For those not in them, though, there's apparently a very old thought that Trump uses

Sudafet as a stimulant. Really? I didn't know that. This is kind of like one of those theories that like you can give it a little bit of credence because he does have all the symptoms of it, but also seems a little weird. But I would love for Biden to put that one in there. And let the, if you wants to play these games with letting people speculate on weird drugs, let's just play with that one.

Yeah, for sure. Look, this whole thing is stupid and I don't want to give credence to anything Donald Trump says. But I think Biden's response to this, I'd be perfectly fine if his response to this is, you know, hell yeah. Let's do it. Yeah. And also another thing is, is as usual, and as you two both pointed out,

once he agreed to these debates, this is another way that he could snake out of these debates if he wants. Yeah, of course. Of course. Well, he has more bullshit, unfortunately, that I'm going to play. Because you've done it's disgraceful. Everyone's... Millions of people are leaving New York City.

Yeah. It's weird because the traffic I don't know that. I'd kind of be all right with that. Meanwhile, we have never had a greater... influx of people moving to the city. I know. Reality, never shall Trump and reality meet. No. No.

He makes everything about him seem like the biggest deal to everyone else. And it's like, no businesses are watching this trial. Like, first of all, nobody's watching this trial because it's not televised. But no businesses are paying attention to this trial to see if they need to move out of New York. Like, everyone knows this is about Trump being corrupt. That's just whatever Well, speaking of Trump's bullshit Warren Beaubbard has some of her own to add to the pile

Yeah President Trump when he was in office he underwent Testing for his cognitive dissidents For his ability to function as He went he underwent Wait, whoa, wait, whoa, wait, wait Run that back a minute Can you play that again?

Trump when he was in office he underwent testing for his cognitive dissidents, for his ability to function as You know, who needs enemies when you have friends like this? Between getting shouted down with Beetlejuice when she showed up at Trump's trial in that last week, just having a great week. We live in a democracy. Democracy. So good.

Andy. How did they not use that for the title of the movie? Yeah, I don't know. That's a really good point. I never thought of that. Like, just having to hear these stupid people every day and realizing that they're like the ones who are making laws, man. I mean, they don't really have time to make laws when they're, you know, on these field trips to go wear the same outfits to stand in front of courthouses. All right. One last one. Here we have Congresswoman. Nicole Miat tacos, or however you pronounce it, from the questionable borough of Staten Island, New York, and she has thoughts on the Trump trial. And I do have concern with the jury simply because this is Manhattan, where 85% rejected President Trump. These are people that do not like President Trump.

So I question whether he can have a fair trial simply because of the makeup of Manhattan. But simply based on the makeup of Manhattan, one of the most of the most. most diverse places like on the planet. But yeah, I guess we should have held the trial in Staten Island. My advice would have been to Donald Trump, don't commit the crimes in Manhattan if you don't want to be put on trial there. You should definitely commit crimes in like, you know, commit your crime on Staten Island. Yeah.

Then you'll get a Staten Island jury. Case closed. I think it's amazing that the talking out of two sides of their mouth of that this week, Eric Trump took a picture and said, look at all these Trump support. coroner is in New York. And then the other side is this. And then as well, let's say there's a hug jury in this trial. It's going to be, oh, it was a fair trial. But if he's guilty, we all know it was rigged. Oh, of course. I mean, yeah, and that's all this is is just laying the groundwork for that. It's the same playbook that Trump used leading up to the 2020 election. Yep. Pretty sad to

see. I should say, what's really, really lovely is this person running unopposed in the upcoming election. Stems apparently don't learn any lessons about how to win. Also, we got to get Staten Island. It needs to be deburrowed. Stexit is a thing that needs to happen. I know, and it really does. Let them be on their own. Let them secede. Folks, I am so excited and happy to welcome to the new abnormal Dr. Jen M. Jackson, who is an award-winning professor of political science at Syracuse University is a columnist for Teen Vogue and is the author of the new book Black Women taught us an intimate history of black feminism. I'm so excited to have you on.

And what I will start off with saying is that we are living in quite a climate right now. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I feel that every headline is one that is directed towards women and people with uteruses and how much this country hates us. Yes. Your book to me is so right on time because I feel like we need to lean on the teachings and the inspiration of black women that came before us. So I just want to give you an opportunity to tell folks about your book Black women taught us and why it can be used as a tool, as a defense, as a

sacred space in this moment. Absolutely. I really appreciate that. And I absolutely agree. When you say we're living in a time, I almost said it's the upside down. Like it just feels like we are in an alternate universe, unfortunately. And, you know, I started the book in about 2021, 2020-ish, when we were all kind of stuck in our homes due to the pandemic and quarantine. And it's now come out in a time that I couldn't actually have imagined, right? There is no such thing as after the pandemic. We're just living through. And this political moment where we are seeing a genocide in Rafah, Gaza, and Palestine when we are seeing our political leaders and campus provost acting in violent, repressive ways against students who are paying tuition,

paying their salaries. This has been a very strange moment. And so the book was very prescient because even though I didn't write it this year, it came out right on time. So black women taught us really is a reflection of my own black feminist journey, starting back when I was a we won, you know, a child up until today. It's a walk through all the ways that black women, black queer folks, black femme folks, my black foremothers and elders have guided me through this process of surviving in a queer black body. When I wrote it, I really struggled through some of the stories, right, because in a moment like this in particular, truth telling has become very dangerous. You know, there's a lot of ways that we are not encouraged to tell our

own truths. When I say we, I mean, folks at the margins, the most vulnerable of us, we're often punished or canceled or rejected for our truths. And in this moment of deep hate where people are using the arm of the state to help make their ideological preferences even more pronounced, those truths are even harder to tell, right? The book deals with critical race theory and the text on critical race theory. It deals with my own trans and queer journey and the ways that I was taught to essentially. hide even by people who loved me, even by people who cared deeply for me. And I think that in this moment, what I want people to really take from that book is that we're all struggling right now. We're all struggling with mental, physical, emotional health issues and concerns. And that there are actually tools. There are actually lessons. There are actually black women, four mothers, and femme folk, queer folk who came before us, who lived lives that were rich. and full. And they struggled just like we did. And luckily for us, they cared enough to archive

themselves and tell their truths so that we can use their stories to help us get through it. You know, I think that oftentimes when we find ourselves, and again, this moment that we're in is unlike any other, where there's just a confluence of just like extraordinary crises, domestic and foreign and internal and external, personal and the public. And, And I think that when we're in the midst of this type of turmoil, in the tornado, we can forget that there were lessons, right? That there were things that our foremothers taught us, left for us, like Easter eggs in a movie, so that we didn't have to feel like we needed to recreate the wheel.

And I think that I do want to touch upon the fact that you talked about the campuses, where you are, college campuses, have become. the center point for angst that we are all holding right now with regard to what we are seeing happen in Israel and Palestine in the Congo in places that we may never visit but that we nonetheless feel connected to and in one of your chapters chapter four is Ella Baker taught me why we should listen to young people and you open up with a series of quotes and I just As a professor right now, what does it feel like to watch literally history replay itself in a way where we just, in mainstream media, I will say, shrug off what it is that these young people are trying to offer us. They're trying to offer us a mirror and we're shattering it over their heads.

And so what does it feel like to be kind of in the center space of where young people find themselves, but where they've always found themselves situated, which is on the right side of justice. Right. I really love that question. The Ella Baker chapters is a unsung chapter in the book. And I do open the chapter with several quotes, but I also open the chapter with a kind of like flashback series or sequence of my own life being a young queer person who experienced intermittent houselessness and moving in through college and graduate school and what those experiences meant for me becoming an educator. And to be honest, I think that's one of the hardest things about being an academic right now as someone who actually doesn't come from

academia, right? Like people say, I'm of it, but I'm not from it. I'm in the space with these people, but these are not my people, right? Like, I still am as far as I am concerned and will always be concerned. I'm always going to be that poor black girl from Oakland. And when I see my students who are struggling at these universities who are on these campuses and asking their faculty, who are making six figures, you know, who are living in beautiful homes in the suburbs, who are driving expensive cars to campus to show up for them, to risk themselves for justice and to see the faculty and staff and the administration to shrug off the concerns of students. It takes me right back to when I was that young person and when I would encounter these

elite faculty members and administrators who could not have cared less about what happened to me. And I know what that feels like. I know what that feels like. I tell my students all the time that part of the reason why I wrote that chapter in the way that I did is because I remember not having anyone. Like I remember being a student and I have a congenital heart disease and I had to have open heart surgery during my junior year of college. And I remember going into a deep depression about this because I was terrified. I was like, oh my gosh, but I don't make it. You know, all these things were going through my mind. But also, I was getting an engineering degree from USC. And I thought, what if I don't finish school? You know, so I'm scared, you know. And I remember having faculty

members, professors who didn't believe me, who would say, you're making it up. Why didn't you tell me about this sooner? I'm like, this is called emergency heart surgery. Have you never heard of emergency heart surgery? People can't tell you in advance of an emergency, you know? It really hit me in that moment that when you are black, when you are queer, when you are poor, when you are first gen in these institutions, they do not see you, right? They don't see the fullness of who you are. They don't see their humanity. And as I am here now, working in these same institutions, these institutions that are absolutely oriented toward Israel and towards Zionism, that privilege, powerful, powerful private interests, you know, that are deeply embedded in the carcral state.

It's so hard to look at my students' faces and say, I am doing all that I can, but I am also part of the problem, right? Like, I'm in here too. Like, I'm complicit because I get paid from this place. And there's only so much that I can do. It's a very complicated feeling. And I tell people all the time, I love what I do. I love what I do. I love being a professor.

I love this work. I love young people so much. And I will fight with them every day. I will take their side every day. They don't have to say nothing to me. They send me a text message and I'm like, where you want me to be? What you? You want me put on my regalia?

What time? Five of a clock. All right. I'm there. Like, whatever they want me to do, I'm going to do it every single time. But I have to always be honest with them. We are fighting a big monster. Like, we are fighting a big machine.

And I think this past semester, you know, January through May has shown us just how embedded these institutions of higher education are with prisons, with police, with the government. and how quickly it'll snap back on us the moment we challenged them. I think that, one, it was so incredibly jarring to watch it unfold and to think that these young people are really fighting for their future because the people that were put in charge to fight for their future are only in it for themselves. And I think that there is always this time of awakening. Well, you tell me, Jen, like, because it seems to me like you're a. book was like your reflection and your moment of really deep reflection of looking in the past, but also looking forward. What is this path that has been laid for me? And I think about young people

who I'm not in regular contact with like you as a professor. And I feel so deeply for them. I feel so badly for them that my generation and previous generations just failed them. Because how is it that we look around and for the first time in America's history, we have a generation that is going to be worse off than the generation that came before it? How is that possible that we can out of one side of our mouths utter that America is this place of bounty? And yet there are so few people that will ever experience or even understand what it means to live in abundance. What do your students, what do you hear from these young people about their prospects for the few? future. And I don't mean prospects in the way of career and profession, but in the way of hopefulness and community and connectedness. Yeah. I think that's so interesting because when you said that this is

the first generation that's going to be worse off than one before it, I merely went back to the recession of 2008 when millennials were having the crises of the job crises of I graduated from college, but I can't find a job. And, you know, that that was one moment where it was like, oh, this is going in a different direction than we all thought we were going in. And not only that, it also showed how many millennials had baby boomer parents who were there to step in and fill the gap. A lot of people move back home, which is a privilege that people don't understand that a lot of people don't actually have. But in this moment, what we're seeing to your point is not just about career. This is both financial and career-based, but also ideological, right? I keep thinking about the student

encampment at Syracuse. It lasted for 16 days. And the students were there during graduations. And so commencement was happening. And there'd be these moments where parents actually would stop and heckle my students who were in the encampment. And their children who were in their cap and gown would say, hey, mom, hey dad. Come on. Please stop doing that.

They had to collect their own parent to get them to leave the students in the encampment alone. And overwhelmingly, when I think about who was confronting my students in the encampment, it was parents. It was parents. It wasn't other students. It was parents. And that device.

that you're talking about between generations, to me, is that's the clearest example of it, that these young people can't even go home because their parents at home are racist. Their parents at home are white supremacists and anti-black and Zionists and don't care about genocide, right? Even if they do have parents to go home to, they don't want to because their parents support political ideals that they cannot abide. And what I will say about the hopefulness, and this comes through in the book as well, right i i can't help but have hope because i believe in young people and i have three children they are

i never want to use the word resilient because what an awful term for people that should be something you use for a car but what i will say is that they are situated in such a way where they can they are looking back at what we've been through and they are looking forward at what is to come and they are shaking their heads of us and they and they are shaming us right and and rightfully so and they are saying you all dropped the ball. You all knew better and you didn't choose to do better. But we are going to do better. We choose to do better because it's not even that hard, right?

And that's a different thing. There's got to be a different word for that. But there's a certain type of internal accountability that they have to one another and to themselves where they're like, yeah, I don't want to harm the environment because that harms me. I don't want to harm other people because that brings harm. to myself and my community, right? They have the common wisdom, right?

This is common wisdom and sense, the good sense to know that when you put those awful negative energies into your community and into your environment, that it comes back to you. And unfortunately, you know, we've seen what happens over the last 100 years, the last century and a half, at least, of people who didn't give a shit about when they put that type of awfulness into our politics, into our environment, into our land, into our food, into our jobs. You know, it's the carceral and punishment rehabilitation system into mental health, right? They did not care. I have this eternal hope.

I've always had it. And I partly have it because for me, it's like I'm still here. And that gives me hope I was told I would never make it to 40. 40's coming up in a few months, you know. And I think a lot of us who are at these vulnerable positions, these multiply marginalized positions. We have to hold hope because if we didn't, as my friend told me the other day, she said, I would just crumble up in a ball on the floor, you know? And I think that's how a lot of young people are feeling right now. I don't have time to crumple up into a ball on the floor.

So the only other opportunity here for me is hope. You know, it's so true. I make jokes all the time that I carry around a mustard seed of hope in my pocket because some days that that is pretty much all I can muster in size, you know, but it is something. It is a seed that can be planted and can sprout more. What is your hope for folks that read your book? What is your hope for what they can take from black women taught us? You know, I really appreciate this. I got someone posted on threads today,

and they said that they were concerned because they were reading my book, and they put it down a few weeks ago, and they couldn't remember why. And she said, oh, I remember why. There's a part in the book that tells me that I need to work on telling my own truth. And because I've been lying for so long to everyone else,

to people please and lying to myself, I had to struggle with that part of the book. And I read it, I read it today and now I have to sit with it. And that's probably some of the best feedback I get about the book, the number of times people have said to me, I struggled with reading this section because it did do that. It turned that mirror, right, on me. The same thing that young people are doing, turning that mirror. That was part of the goal of the book, right? I was actually turning the mirror on myself, but the fact that so many people have read it and felt that same inclination, that's what I hope people get from it. It's not a fun, quick novel to read.

I've had some people like, I read it in one day. I'm like, chow, you must be in therapy and really on some healing work because I can't even read my own book in one day. I thought my spirit is troubled. I have work to do, you know? And the goal of the book is the same goal that I have when students enter my classroom. I want folks to read the book and become otherwise. The goal is to read and to understand the lessons and to understand how we are each participating in all of these systems and to take full account of it and to understand how we can do better every single day, but that we have to choose with intention to do better.

It's not something we just fall into. You don't just become an ally. You don't just become a comrade just because you said it on Thursday and now you get to be that for the rest of your life. No, we have to choose to treat people with goodness and kindness. and integrity. We have to choose to fight racism every single day. We have to choose to speak out in our networks, in our neighborhoods, in our communities first. We have to make intentional choices about how we move through the world if we are going to dismantle anything around us. It starts with ourselves. And that's what the book is about. Amazing. Dr. Jen M. Jackson. Folks, the book is Black women

taught us an intimate history of black feminism. It is out now. I suggest you buy a copy of for yourself and for a friend and get after it. Thank you so much, as always, for making the time for The New Abnormal. Really appreciate you. Thank you for having me. Always a pleasure. 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.

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