The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump’s Lawyers Aren’t Even Trying to Win His NY Fraud Case

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

Trump’s legal team seems more concerned with leaving landmines in the court record than winning his New York fraud trial, The Daily Beast’s Jose Pagliery says on this week’s The New Abnormal. Plus! A frank talk about the current state of local politics with Nebraska state Sen. Megan Hunt. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Kenned, 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. One excellent show we have today.

Nebraska State Senator Megan Hunt joins us to talk about Nebraska passing legislative bill 574 in her continuing efforts to support the LGBTQ community in the Cornhusker state. Then we'll talk to Daily Beast investigative reporter Jose Pallieri all about Trump's latest legal fuckery, including his new gag order. But first, let's have some fun. So, Danielle, we're entering, I think this is week 37 of not having a speaker of the house. I don't know, it feels like it. So after we recorded at the end of last week when Steve Scalise was the Republican choice for the floor vote, he backed out and then they re-voted. And now it's Jim Jordan. Jim, see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, Jordan is now their standard bearer.

And the question is, is he going to be able to get to 217 votes any easier than Steve Scalise was? And the answer is probably no. It doesn't look like he has the votes. So I don't know. Are we just going to be stuck on this merry-go-round forever? Is there going to be a temporary speaker, some kind of sort of accommodation made between Democrats and Republicans? We don't know at this point, but we do know that it is a shit show. I mean, we need a new word for a shit show because I think that what's wild is that literally

by the time that we had finished, things are in production for the show that the Republicans had blown up their own caucus again. And that just is showing us over and over again that there is nobody. I guess McCarthy, in all honesty, was the best that they could do in terms of consensus. and that took 15 votes for us to get to. So now you have Jim Jordan, where you have folks that have already come out of the woodwork and said they will absolutely not vote for Jim Jordan.

And frankly, you shouldn't vote for Jim Jordan. This is a man. We've covered this before, but I will say it again, who learned about sexual assault that was happening at Ohio State University with his student athletes. And he did absolutely fucking nothing except ask them to keep their mouth shut.

So I don't know what that says about your character, but you are unfit to lead, right? Any goddamn thing. Like that man shouldn't have a gavel in his hand ever, and he leads a committee. So I think that Republicans have found themselves. They are the dog that caught the car. They wanted to bring mayhem into their caucus by elevating the Marjorie Taylor Greens, the Beatlejuice girl, the other alleged sexual assaulter Matt Gates.

Like, you just have people who know nothing about government, are not curious about government, don't want to govern, want to break down government, and then you wonder why you can't pick a speaker and get to 217 votes, but you wanted to applaud the fact that you got the majority back by four seats. I don't know what the quote-unquote average American

thinks about this moment, but if I'm a person that doesn't pay a lot of attention to politics, but I'm seeing headlines like, we still don't have a speaker of the house with all the serious shit that has happened. happening around the world, you know, and America looks like it is ineffectual. I'm starting to worry about whether or not we actually have a two-party system, which of course you and I, Andy, know, we do not. Yeah, there's just so many things going on with Jim Jordan. But just starting with the

Ohio State stuff, I have to assume that anyone who votes for Jim Jordan is tacitly or not so tacitly okay with sexual assault. A hundred percent. It's more than a little ironic that a bunch of people who love to throw the word groomer around have absolutely no problem with a guy who saw sexual assault happening around him from a coach to players. And as you said, did absolutely nothing except apparently tell the people who knew about it to keep their mouth shut. Yep. So that's a little odd. And on top of that, Jordan defied a subpoena from the January 6th committee. He was, I think it's fair to say, among the people sitting in Congress. Congress who did the most to try to help Trump do his little coup. And this is the guy that you want to make

Speaker of the House. And look, we've said it ad nauseum and you just said it again, but there's no better sort of explanation of or proof of what the Republican Party is today than this, than the fact that this is the guy that a majority of them have decided should be the Speaker of the House. And, you know, look, he's not going to get a single Democratic vote. The question is, can they get enough of the Republicans who still have, who are just clinging to that last shred of self-respect? Can they get them to let go of that and go completely to the dark side? They apparently today, they got Mike Rogers, who was the head of the House Armed Services Committee, who said that he has had some deep and substantive conversations with Jim Jordan over the past couple days.

That's a bold face lie. because you know that you can't have deep and substantive companies. You already know he's lying just by saying that. It's a logical impossibility. So I don't know. Can they peel enough people off? It may be that they get some people who are just like, holy shit, I don't want to vote for Jim Jordan. But this is ridiculous.

We need a speaker of the house. Fine. I'll do it. And they just sort of, you know, wave the white flag. Look, if Scalise couldn't get to 217 and as awful as he is and as David Duke without the baggage as he is, he is, guess, at least temperamentally, he's not as insane as Jim Jordan. My only point being not that he's sane or in any way good, but if Jordan is, again, temperamentally is worse than Scalise.

And if Scalise couldn't get to 217, I really don't see how Jim Jordan can. And of course, I say this knowing that the way our luck is going in eight hours after we record this, I'll be proven wrong. You will. And I keep wondering if, you know, and I'm going to age. myself, but I keep wondering if they're going to like weekend at Bernie's McCarthy. Like, and that will be the last laugh for McCarthy because he may be in all honestly, the only person that they'll be like, okay, you can have your job back again.

And then he actually walks back in the door with more clout because what else were they going to do? Like, is there a time cut off for this? Like, can we just not have a speaker? Like, can we just, is that possible? Like, I don't think that there's, like, I can. think that we can just keep with that temporary speaker who had the very angry gavel and that just be what it is. And I'm like, this is craziness. And I don't think that the American people realize

because we've just become so numb and accustomed to their fuckery, like how insane it is that we don't have a speaker of the house. Like, it's never happened. And here we are. And the choices are fucking poultry at best. I don't know. I mean, maybe the joke will be on us, and the next time that we come on here, it'll be Donald Trump. I don't fucking know. It might be, yeah. Although he's endorsed Jim Jordan, which, again, tells you all you need to know. It's interesting, Dan Bacon, who's a Republican member of the House from Nebraska, was talking to CNN.

And he said, which I don't think is a surprise other than it's an actual Republican saying it, he said that it feels like a lot of Republicans, they don't care about holding the House. They don't care about who his speaker because all they care about is screaming and yelling. And his exact quote was, these guys want to be in the minority. I think they would prefer that because they could vote no and yell and scream all the time. And I think a lot of that is true. They took over the house and, you know, it's been nothing sort of adjeda for them ever since. You had McCarthy taking 742 votes to become speaker.

And then him being ousted by a member of his own party, basically, by Matt Gates. and now they can't find anyone to replace him. And it seems, again, we know that they have no interest in governing. We know that Marjorie Taylor Green couldn't care less about governing. She just wants to get up there and explain all her Q&N conspiracy theories to the world. And they are far more comfortable standing up at the state of the union and yelling at the president than they are being lawmakers and anything remotely resembling governing. So I think America should give them what they want. I think America should put the Republicans back in the minority in the House.

And it's a win-win situation, Daniel. 150%. That's exactly what I think should happen. Give these people exactly what they want. They want to be cartoon characters and pundits on Fox News and wringing their hands. And so give that to them, please. That would be the best gift. Yeah. This is their entire party.

This is Ted Cruz talks about his podcast more than he talks about legislation. And like you said, the end goal for all these people is to get on Fox News. So, fine, give them what they want. Let's take away all the mechanisms of governing from them because they're not using them anyway. They're just sitting there getting dusty. America, I'm talking to you. Give these people what they want. I am pro-Republican here.

I am saying, help the Republicans out. And let's give them what they want. 100%. So let's move on to something horrific that happened in this country over the weekend. A six-year-old boy was murdered and his mother, his mother, 32-year-old mother was seriously wounded in Illinois. And the reason seems to be that they were of Palestinian origin and they were killed by their landlord who apparently, again, did this because they were Palestinian. And I guess because he is not happy about the situation in Gaza and Israel.

This feels very post-9-11. And look, we like to talk a lot. We like to talk a lot of the situation. lot in this country about how we generally, oh, well, we weren't very Islamophobic after 9-11, and there were not mass murders of Muslims in the streets. And I don't really know if patting yourself on the back for there not being mass murders of a particular group is something you want to do. But we spent a lot of time doing that and sort of downplaying a lot of the Islamophobia and a lot of the shit that Muslims went through after 9-11. And I'm not even saying that that's all stopped. But this in particular, yes, this was a crazy person, a 71-year-old. I think he was their landlord. It's just heartbreaking. But we spent a lot of time on this podcast talking about how a lot of

actions that we call lone wolves in this country are not. And while they might be in the sense of it's a series of one individual doing things, there's a lot. an ideology behind it. And there are people out there who are feeding the flames of this ideology. And this, I think, is, this feels to me very much of a piece with that. It goes without saying that you shouldn't murder people because of their ethnic origin or their religion. We have to not do things that, again, that fan these fires. I'm so saddened and sickened by this whole thing. And Danielle, I'm going to let you go. So here's what I will say. When the news broke the story about the six-year-old little boy who was stabbed 26 times by his landlord and his mother in critical condition, my heart dropped as it does with every horrific hate crime story that we hear.

And I think that what happens is there is a failure to connect the dots. There's a failure to connect the dots on how Islamophobia is embedded and has been. And those flames have been stoked through the Trump administration when Donald Trump came into office and said we're banning people from Muslim nations, right? Like, and then was sued, right? And then had to reword it, but was able to reword it and go through with a similar ban. When you have news stations that dehumanize and dehumanize and dehumanize. couple people from their humanity, what you get are acts of violence like this that people feel

are absolutely justified because they're fed bullshit and lies and one-sidedness and dehumanization on a regular basis. When you have candidates that can run for office in the Republican Party by tearing down and demonizing and dehumanizing other communities, the most marginalized communities, you get acts of violence. There have been reports that have come out that have said that over the last seven to eight years, hate crimes in this country have ballooned. Do you know what else has ballooned over seven to eight years?

Fucking Magadam. So we cannot part and parcel the ways in which we have normalized violent, hateful, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic, transphobic rhetoric in this country and then turn around and be surprised when some heinous act of violence happens. And sadly, what I will state is that this will not be the last time because these things will continue to happen. You can't look at the crisis that we are all witnessing and not feel your heart break for our collective humanity right now. You can't look around and say to myself, my God, I would love to raise my children in this world and feel like good about it with what you're seeing.

And so, you know, I don't want just the fucking thoughts and prayers that come after these horrific things that are happening and think that that's good enough. It's like, what are the policies you're creating? What are the words that you are using? What's the rhetoric and the talking points? What's the coverage that's being shown that allows for people to think that they can do these things. And let us please, for the love of fucking God, stop saying that these are lone wolves, because they're part of a larger ideology that is mainstreamed and sitting right in the house

chamber that we were just talking about before. Yeah, and look, I'm Jewish. First of all, I don't want to speak for the Jews. I hate people who do that, and I'm not one of those people. But I want to speak to my fellow Jews, if I can do that. There was a lot of stuff going around about how last Friday was going to be this big day of violence. And we saw school closures. We saw beefs up security at synagogues and stuff like that. And look, I'm not opposed to beefing up security at synagogues. I mean, on any day of the week, that unfortunately seems necessary on any day of the year, I should say. But I also feel like there's a lot of sentiment among Jews and not all Jews, but among some Jews, that any protest in favor of Palestinian rights is a violent act and a scary act. And boy, I think we've got to be real

careful about not going there. And there are a lot of people who support the Palestinians. The vast majority of the people who support Palestinians are not terrorists. And we need to stop acting like they are. And we need to stop equating them with al-Qaeda and stuff like that. And being afraid that any large group of Palestinians protesting or any small group of Palestinians protesting is, quote unquote, dangerous. Because I honestly feel like it's that mentality that feeds into acts like this six-year-old boy being murdered. Because as you said, puts people in a mindset that, quote unquote, these people are terrorists. And A, it's untrue. And even beyond it being untrue, it's one of those things that's untrue that also itself is dangerous.

and can cause less than sane people to commit acts like this landlord did. So I don't want to preach. I don't want to tell you what side to be on in what's going on in Gaza and Israel. But, man, I'm just, I'm begging you to just be careful about how you talk about, quote, unquote, the other side here. And remember that, again, the vast majority of the people are not looking for violence. And they're not looking to run wild in the streets of. America. They're looking for what they believe is justice for the Palestinian people. And I'm

begging you to stop demonizing them and to at least recognize a shared humanity because if we don't, it's just going to lead to more acts like this heinous one over the weekend. Thank you, Andy, because I think that it is really important to err out. The only thing that I will add is that we cannot call ourselves and continue to call ourselves a democracy when we don't allow people to protest how they feel. We cannot call ourselves a democracy and then shut down particular voices and then tell people and dictate to people how they can show their frustration and their anger. So long as it is being done peacefully, which a majority, and I would say, you know, 95% of and, you know, upwards of that, of protests that we see are nonviolent in this country, then we need to have people

be able to exercise their own personal truth. And I think that the side that we need to decide to stand on is a side of humanity and allowing people to be able to express that humanity and have empathy and compassion. Because when we don't, when we allow the Fox Newses of the world, when we allow the politicians that have their own agenda and greed attached to that agenda, create the noise, then it decouples us from our compassion and our empathy, and we have to cover stories like the awful one in Illinois. Megan Hunt represents Nebraska's 8th District in that state's legislature, and she has been a very visible fighter for abortion and LGBT rights,

among other important issues. She joins me now. Senator Hunt, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. pleasure. Absolutely. Okay, first I need to make sure of something. You are not, in fact, Owen Hunt's younger sister who was missing for 10 years, which is the first hit I get for your name on Google, which insists you are part of the Gray's Anatomy universe. You know what? When that character was added to Gray's Anatomy, it messed up my Google alert forever. So, no, that is not me. Okay. All right. Now that that's

cleared up. So earlier this year, legislative bill 574, which included a 12-week abortion ban and a bunch of awful anti-trans stuff, passed through your legislature and was signed by Governor Jim Pillon. The abortion ban took effect fairly immediately. And the anti-trans aspects, which I believe include a complete ban on genital or non-genital transition surgery for minors, took effect on October 1st. But there's a lot of confusion surrounding that portion of the law, isn't there? Yes, there is. My office has heard from so many parents and providers and pharmacists. And I'm hearing from people who have been on a gender affirming regimen for years, you know, minors who are taking puberty blockers or hormone therapy, and they haven't been able to get their prescriptions

filled, even though that wasn't the directive of the law. So this is what happens when we put care in the hands of politicians instead of trusting our doctors and our neighbors to make the decisions that best for them. Even if this wasn't the intent of the law, it's resulting in a lot more harm and a lot more confusion than I think a lot of supporters of the bill realized. Yeah, I was reading about it in the Nebraska Examiner, and I was confused. It says non-surgical treatments beyond blockers and hormones, including therapy, are not prohibited. And then it says new patients cannot receive puberty blockers or hormones until new rules are in place. Minors who started the treatments can continue only their specific care. This has got to be a nightmare for people to try

to navigate. Exactly. And you also have to understand that's part of the point, right? I mean, from the governor at the top to some of my colleagues, they have chosen to target and discriminate against trans-Nebraskans. They've done it through legislation like this bill, through executive orders, and through these rules were put together by the chief medical officer of our state who's an ear, nose and throat doctor. So why do we have an ear doctor putting together guidance for trans health care? He doesn't know anything about it. And all of this just points to the truth, which is this is a political stunt. It's designed to keep trans people out of public life. And it doesn't have anything to do with the standard of care or actually providing health care to Nebraska's. Yeah, I was going to ask you

what the state's chief medical officer has to say, but I guess you covered that. This is actually what I think is a legal weakness of the bill is it puts the chief medical officer of the state in charge of all of these regulations. And they were supposed to be, you know, announced and implemented by October 1st, because that's when the bill goes into effect in Nebraska. But we didn't get those regulations. They're kicking the can. They're delaying all of this stuff. And the effect is that we have trans people who are left in this purgatory of not knowing what the law means, not knowing what the regulations are, can't go to the pharmacy and pick up their medication for the first time in years. And all of this is by design. This has affected you personally, hasn't it? You've been accused

of abusing your son, who is trans. You've been called a groomer. You've gotten death threats. You filed a lawsuit against a group called the Nebraska Freedom Coalition, and the judge dismissed your lawsuit last month, but I'm going to assume you're not done fighting? Absolutely not. My motto is, when you don't quit, you don't lose. We can't lose if we never quit. And I know, that these people who have defamed me have defamed my family, they're going to keep doing it. And this ruling by this judge, who does not like me, by the way, he has a personal issue with me. So I'm not surprised by his ruling because he's not an objective jurist, actually. But they're going to mess up.

They're going to come harder for me and we're going to catch them. Or they're going to go after another parent in the community. Or they're going to go after a teacher. Or they're going to go after a doctor. And we will never stop fighting to say that trans people, are that they exist, that they're legitimate, that they're surrounded by friends and family who love them, and we should celebrate that. And anyone who's defaming these people or calling for violence against them, that's not something that we can stand for as a community, whether we're in Nebraska or

California or Colorado or anywhere in the world. Yeah, I know all these people are, like, it's pointless to point out their hypocrisy and also it would be a full-time job. But to have a group called the Nebraska Freedom Coalition who wants to put all this power in the hands of the government and of the chief medical officer and take away individuals' freedom and family's freedom to do what's best. Even though it's everyday and commonplace now, it's still mind-boggling, isn't it? It is. Yeah. And I mean, you said it exactly. It's exhausting to point out the hypocrisy. Let me tell you really, when I got into politics, I decided to run in 2017. In 2018, I was elected by a landslide in my community. I became the first out LGBTQ person ever elected to the legislature in

Nebraska. And I thought that I would be working with people in an institution that was serious, that took evidence seriously, that really cared about what was best for Nebraska's and our neighbors. And, I mean, it's banging your head against the wall. It's unserious. It's unreal. It's premised on all of these manufactured toxic social issues. It's completely cynical. And what I would say to voters, you know, whoever's listening to this, this is what we have to take seriously. We can't fix these institutions from the inside unless we just have better candidates. Like, I need normal colleagues who are willing to look at evidence and say, okay, so this is what, you know, the subject matter experts have to say. And I'm going to take that seriously. And in our

legislatures and our city councils and our school boards and certainly in Congress, we don't have that today. And so we're banging our heads against the wall talking about hypocrisy, but they love it. They're hypocritical on purpose. They don't care. They're not ashamed of it. So it does nothing to point it out because they love it. They're proud of it. No, absolutely. Everything that you've just said to me, you have said basically on the floor of the legislature. I want to ask you about there was a moment back in, I think it was April. And I believe it was about LB. 574. But, obviously correct me if I'm wrong. But you were talking directly to Republicans and you said, and this video went fairly viral. You said, no one in the world holds a grudge like me and no one in the

world cares less about being petty than me. I don't care. I don't like you. I thought that was just, that is not the kind of thing we're used to seeing on the floor of the legislature. And I thought it was just, it was amazing. Well, thank you. I mean, we really have this facade of civility. And I do not consider myself an uncivil person. I consider myself very respectful and polite and professional and serious about this work. But I can't stomach anymore colleagues who say hi to me in the hallway, ask me to get a coffee, who inquire about my weekend, and then look me in the face and vote to take my child's rights away. Fuck you. Like, I don't fucking like you. And it shouldn't be a surprise to you to hear me say that. And it shouldn't be wrong to say that. And they should say that to me if I did

the same thing to them, but I would never do that because that's not how I work. It was a difficult session. We engaged in the longest filibuster in the history of the United States to try and block this bill that was attacking trans kids. And I know that I spoke for at least 400 hours. My colleagues probably did more. I know my colleague, Senator Michaela Kavanaugh, she did much more than that. But at the end of the day, we knew that we probably didn't have the votes. We might not win, but we had to make it painful for them. We cannot hand them this win that takes away the civil rights of our fellow Nebraskaans and let them get away with it easily.

I wanted them to hate coming to work. I wanted them to dread waking up in the morning. I wanted them to regret the day they ever decided to run for office. I wanted them to cry and have a panic attack thinking about coming back next year. And all of this was a means to the end. of doing that. Yeah, I mean, it just sounds like you wanted them to know a little bit of what trans people go through every day and LGBT people in general because of people like them. I don't want anybody to go through this every day. Of course. Of course. You know, I'm just tired of not fighting. I'm tired

of staying in this realm of artificial fake civility where we have to smile and shake hands and act like at the end of the day we're still friends. We're not friends. You are a bigot who is taking people's rights away. You are a fascist. And that's the climate that we're living in now as Americans. And I think that more elected officials should say that. Couldn't agree more. I get so tired of hearing, you know, my esteemed colleague from across the aisle and stuff like that about absolutely horrible people. And they can change and we'll be cool. But I'm waiting for that day. Yeah. Your governor, Governor Pillon, also recently signed an executive order that purports to be a Women's Bill of Rights. That's what it's called, I believe. It's really just more anti-transbigotry,

isn't it? That's right. So this Women's Bill of Rights has been introduced in many states and passed in many states. And the language comes directly from the Independent Women's Forum, which was a group originally created after the sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas. So this is a group created, quote, as a conservative alternative to feminist tenants. So this is an actively anti-feminist group. It's anti-woman. It was a group. It was a group. It was a group. It was a group. It was a group. created to support Clarence Thomas when he was accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill. And now they're handing out this Women's Bill of Rights, which if any of these states really meant to help women with their rights, then we would address things like child care,

maternal health care, housing. We wouldn't be banning abortion. We wouldn't be banning gender affirming care. Again, you know, you can point out the hypocrisy, but they know. They understand what they're doing and they're proud and they're not sorry. Yeah. And this entire bill seems to be aimed at base. basically talking about people's genitals. That's right. Well, I'll say it's a resolution. It's not a bill. Oh, sorry. Yes. Yes. No, that's okay. So it doesn't have the force of law.

Right. Yeah, exactly. I have a gay colleague, Senator John Fredrickson, who's a great friend of mine. And he pointed out, you know, the definition of male in this resolution was all in relation to impregnating women. And so he says, well, since I don't engage in impregnating women, Am I a man? I mean, it's just a laughable exercise that our country is under right now with this, like, what is a man? What is a woman question? And, you know, the only people who are obsessed with this question are transphobes who are trying to categorize people so they know who they can discriminate against. Yeah, absolutely. And I just, you know, I read through what this executive order said. Time after time, it was just basically, well, if you were born with a penis, this, and if you

were born with a vagina, that. And I was like, what does this have to do with women's rights? As you said, it's an executive order, it's not a law. And as you said, it doesn't have the force of law. But what does it do? It creates a chilling effect on the narrative that we need to accept as people, that everybody's different, that everybody has their own background and their own unique identity. And that's a good thing. That's actually what American values are about.

That's what freedom is about. And individuality and enterprise and creativity and being able to express yourself and be free to express yourself in whatever way you see fit. And this is what conservatives who, you know, claim to be the party of American values and family values, this is what they're completely against. Earlier this year, I'm just shifting gears a little bit. You actually left the Democratic Party and switched your registration to independent. What made you do this? I should give your listeners just a little bit of background.

In Nebraska, we have a very unique legislature. We have the only one house legislature in the country, so we don't have a house in a Senate. and we have the only officially nonpartisan legislature in the country. So we don't have any majority minority leaders. We don't have any caucuses. Every member of the legislature is hierarchically equal. Like we don't really have any leadership at all. Everybody's the same.

And that's a really good thing for collaboration and compromise, finding common ground. Historically, that's been a huge strength for us in Nebraska. Unfortunately, the parties engaged with the Nebraska legislature, and our candidates very differently. So the National Republican Party, they fund candidates, they support candidates, they recruit candidates, they do all the things that they do in other states. In Nebraska, the Democratic Party does not do that. So my colleagues and I have never received a penny from the Democratic legislative campaign committee, the DLCC. We've never gotten any money or any support from the Democratic Party institution. When we started our filibuster this year, we were just trying to

to use every tool and procedure in rule in the toolbox to protect kids in Nebraska. That's all we were trying to do. And it ended up getting a lot of national attention. And we were happy for that because we thought that we could use this to raise some money and help candidates and try to get some more allies in the legislature with us. And also just raise consciousness and awareness around trans rights and LGBTQ equality. And what the Democratic Party did is start fundraising off of our actions. they started saying, you know, support candidates like Michaela Kavanaugh and Megan

to donate to the Democratic Party when they had never given us a dime ever for our work. And so I changed my party affiliation because I mean like, fuck that, right? Like you don't get to not support me ever and then fundraise off of my work that is honestly taking very great sacrifice for me to do. So I changed my party. I have a lot of problems with the Democratic Party. I'm a progressive. I'm not.

You know, some people were very confused by this. They're like, oh, my God, she's becoming conservative. She's joining Republicans. Like, no, dude. Like, nothing like that is happening. I just didn't want them to keep being able to say, donate to us and support this Democrat in Nebraska who we don't give a fuck about. Like, come on. And so I'll likely change my party registration back someday. I haven't yet. It's not really urgent on my to-do list. But I'm a progressive leftist. And a lot of us, a lot of us do not feel at home in the Democratic Party. And that's, that's an internal party. issue that's probably going to go on for a long time. I think I will be long gone from this planet and that still will not be solved. And as you pointed out with the unicameral legislature

and also the nature of there's no sort of hierarchy. And I was reading about this when I was learning about how you switch to independent. And the thing that struck me was that even like committee assignments and being a committee chair, none of that is dependent on your party the way it is in most legislatures, state and federal, where the majority party gets. to assign stuff like that. That is right. And it's amazing because even in the wider legislature, there still is a collective agreement that we're going to put the most qualified people in the best place. No one's punished by getting thrown off a committee. No one's rewarded by getting put on a committee. Also, our committee chairman elections are secret. We do a secret ballot. So the result of

that is that we often have Democrats and progressives in leadership positions because when you have a blind election, you can vote for the person who you actually think is best, and you won't experience retaliation for that. And I think that really does foster a lot more independent thinking and ensures that we get the right people and leadership positions for those jobs. Yeah, that's really interesting. Before I let you go, I want to ask you, you have a quote on your website that struck me. It says, our economy isn't money, it's people. Explain what you mean by that. Well, that's a good question. What I mean when I talk about how our economy isn't just money, it's people. People are really the resources that we have. It's not money, right? Like, money comes and goes. Money is what we exchange to get things and have things. But the real value that we have in our institutions, in our firms and companies, in our communities, in our families, it's the people that make that valuable. And it's the relationships that we have together that we're able to use to create great things. It's not money. I think that in order to make sure that we have a strong economy, that we have a strong economy, that we're,

we have the resources we need to take care of everybody in our communities, we have to take care of the people first, not the people with money first, but the people first, because I think the strong economy follows from that. That's a great answer. And last question before you go, and please feel free to make news here. Do you have any plans on running for a higher office? I never plan to run for office at all. And I think one thing that gives me a lot of power in this position is that I don't fucking need this job. I've got other stuff I can do. I don't need to be elected. But that said, you know, if it's ever obvious that I'm the right person for another position, yeah, I would step up and I would take that opportunity. Now, mind you, I live in a pretty conservative state. I represent the most progressive part of a conservative state.

So I don't know if any kind of statewide office is realistic for me. And I wouldn't run for something. I couldn't win. But I got to where I am by not closing the door on things and having an open mind. And I certainly have that attitude about my future. Well, it sounds like you'll have to jump straight to national office. Senator Hunt, thank you so much for being here. It's been a pleasure talking to you. And more importantly, thank you so much for fighting the good fight. Hey, it's my honor and my pleasure. Thank you so much. Folks, I am very happy to welcome back to the new abnormal, Jose Pallieri, who is the political

investigations reporter at The Daily Beast, whose recent piece brings us through Donald Trump and his team of fools, or aka his lawyers, and all of the tricks that they're trying to pull in his New York City trial. I know it's very difficult to not get confused with all of the trials that are happening. But you're a new piece, Jose, how Trump's team twisted his bank fraud trial into a farce.

Talk to us about it. What is happening? Because there are a lot of important things happening in the world, but I forget that we still have to also pay attention to Donald Trump. That's right. So I spent quite a bit of time in state court in New York City in the past two weeks where Donald Trump and two of his sons, some of his top executives and a bunch of his companies are on trial accused of bank fraud. Now, this is a civil trial. So he's not going to see any potential prison time here. But this could absolutely destroy his real estate empire. The judge has already concluded that he did commit bank fraud.

He lied to banks about the size of his assets. And so the question now is, is what's going to happen to his companies. Are they going to actually be put into receivership, as the judge indicated? Is he going to have to pay up a quarter billion dollars at the end of this? We still don't know. But what's been going on in court, which has been fascinating for me to watch, is the way his defense lawyers have essentially really given up on a good faith effort to win this trial. They've sort of admitted that this judge has it out for them, that this is not going to go well,

that the evidence certainly is not exculpatory. But instead, they are just littering the battlefield with landmines all over the place to essentially use this as a shadow boxing exercise so that they can eventually fight this out in appellate court. I mean, it's really clear at this point that what they want to do is waste time for the next three months all the way until the holidays and then take it to an appellate court who might say do it all over again. So what's funny here to me is that Judge Engaram,

has already decided, like you just said at the top, that there was fraud here. And you would think, and tell me if I'm wrong, because I'm not a lawyer, but you would think that as the defense, that you would try not to piss off the man that is going to decide whether or not you're going to pay out a quarter of a billion dollars. Because at the end of the day, what we are seeing when Donald Trump's lawyers get kicked up to appeals court, whenever they try and do one of their time wasting. maneuvers, they either get laughed out of said place and they get smacked down to the very judge that they were in front of. So I'm confused by the tactic here to piss off the sole person,

because this is not a jury trial, to piss off the sole person who has the ability to say yes to $250 million or more. They see Engoran as a lost cause. Let's start by saying I have actually been in this man's courtroom now for two and a half years. And he always came off as a very patient, jovial, wise older man. He likes to start every court hearing with a lighthearted joke. And he really listens to everyone in his courtroom. He, I've been in front of other judges who cannot wait to rip someone to shreds. He's not like that. But over the past two and a half years, they have brought him to the break. I mean, I have seen his attitude change toward the Trump team because they keep engaging in delay tactics.

When he demands that they turn over documents, they just don't. When he asks, did you check every nook and cranny? They'll say, yes, we did. And then when he asked for proof of that, they say, uh, we'll come back to you. He has had to fine Donald Trump, $110,000 for not complying with a subpoena. He's had to repeatedly over and over and over again, tell the attorneys, you are trying to use my courtroom as essentially a Fox News hit and use arguments about how this is a witch hunt that don't hold water. Just argue the case. If he didn't commit fraud, argue the case. Show it.

Tear apart the attorney general. And they don't. He has gotten to the point where he is now shutting them down left and right. What that means is that on the Trump side, they've essentially decided to cut their losses. They are not investing in this guy anymore. They're not trying to change his mind about anything. They are littering the court record so that things look as confusing or as twisting. as they can. And I'll give me an example of this. So the lead defense lawyer for Trump, Christopher Kyes, he used to be Florida's solicitor general. He is well known in legal circles. And he has spent quite a bit of time in the past two weeks speaking down to the judge, talking down to him and using a very condescending tone where they'll object to something.

And the judge says, no, objection overruled. And then Kyes will say something to the effect of, well, I have never in my 30-year career seen anyone make this kind of judgment call. I think it's going to reflect very poorly when we appeal this in a few months. And it would be a shame if we all missed all this time, you know, wasted all this time at this trial. And he does it over and over again. You can tell he's like no longer talking to the judge. He's talking to the court reporter to make sure that word for word, this can be brought

up months from now in appellate court. Now, on one level, it's really unprofessional. We've left professionalism at the door, Jose, with these attorneys. Like any of Trump's attorneys at this point, I mean, my God, they should be disbarred. But go ahead. There's an interesting thing to say here about a lot of the attorneys who've joined him because they start out quite professional. Again, I've been covering this for years now.

And when they make a first appearance, you know, sometimes they're decked out, you know, as like the clean, fresh new lawyer who's going to really fix this case for Trump. But they all end up at the same place. They all end up, as Kais did the other day, shouting at a local New York newspaper reporter for asking a question. They all end up blowing their top because they just get enveloped in the MAGEL World. They just end up getting recruited and going along with it. I mean, it's not every lawyer who works for him, but it's happened to most of them.

So like I said, in court, what we're seeing now is one side essentially saying, we're done for, we're barreling down this terrible end for us. So let's just ruin this for everyone. It's like a sick upside down twisted yolo. At this point, I'm like beyond surprised, right? Like, shocking. Shocking that they would waste people's time. Shocking that they have no defense because Trump did everything that the attorney general is saying.

Because in honesty, right, and this is what I would assume that the appellate court will also say, is that if you have a defense, you would have way. And you wouldn't have needed to wait to get here. Like they keep waiting to find this perfect judge like an alien canon that is going to twist themselves into knots and throw out the oath that they took, throw out their entire record in order to do Trump's bidding. And I don't see them finding that like outside of Florida. It was a surprising move that Ingorin, before this trial started, went ahead and concluded

that the Trump's had committed bank fraud. That was a big deal. I was not expecting such a sweeping ruling. He could have waited, right? Like, we could have gone through the entire trial before he came to that conclusion. But, you know, honestly, it made sense. It was surprising to me, but it still was bound by reality in the sense that up until now, the AG has been saying, Trump, you claim that your penthouse was three times larger than it was.

For the love of God, give us a reason. Give us some explanation for how you could fake that. And the result has been, this judge is unfair. This case shouldn't be in this division. This is a political persecution. She had it out for Trump the whole time. This case is not fair because the real estate prices are relative. Who are you to question what something is worth? Okay, peel that all back. You still have an answer to the question. How could you say it's 30,000 square feet when it's 10? Correct. I mean, seriously, it's complete crap. And so it wasn't outside the bounds of reality that the judge would come to that conclusion. But in doing so, in making such a sweeping conclusion and saying that

essentially the heart of this case is resolved, it sort of naturally followed that after that, the Trumps wouldn't really see much of a case going forward. They could have tried to settle. Apparently, there have been some settlement talks, but they didn't go anywhere. It's not surprising. This happens at trials. But what is really unprofessional is the way they've gone about it, right? And it's like actually using this to troll everyone. I mean, I'll give you another example that really ticked off everybody in the courtroom. We're going through evidence, and the AG's office will pull up a document and say, you know, hey, witness, is this what you said about this property?

Okay, then, you know, you clearly fudge the numbers. But then when the defense starts questioning the same Trump witnesses, right, like former Trump organization employees, they'll go line by line and then ask the same question for every year from like 2011 to 2020. And I see reporters in the courtroom like falling asleep. I see the judge like pulling his hair out. Like what do you do? You're wasting time.

You're just trolling everybody. And I think it goes to the heart of how the Maga world operates. If they can't win, no one will win. And so they're making this as painful as possible for the attorney general, the New York taxpayer. And everybody always is paying attention to whether or not we can hold the Trump organization accountable for faking numbers, and they're trying to just harm it as long and as hard as they can. Because they know that if they stretch this out, this will actually start bumping into all the other criminal trials he's got because he's got a big, well, he's got a civil trial in

January for the rape case. This is the second iteration of him sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll. Then there's the criminal case in Washington, D.C. for the coup in 2020. There's the criminal case in New York for faking the business records to hush, you know, the hush money payment to cover up the fact that he had sex with a porn star like 20 years ago almost. And then there's potentially the one in Atlanta. And then there's, of course, the one in South Florida. And so what they're seeing this trial as is an excuse to like basically push everything else and interrupt all the other legal trouble he's having because the world does not look good

for Donald Trump over the next 12 months. It just doesn't. I think that the judge in the New York case is going to get. to a point where he's just done. And I mean, and judges, like, we have to understand and what we have all learned is that like their courtrooms are their fiefdoms. So they can go ahead and appeal it and it comes right back down and, you know, they can do whatever it is that they will do to try and waste this time. But I think that at the end of the day, the fact remains the same that they have no defense. There is no defense here. And so I'm just curious, if you know,

know, what stops this judge right now from being able to say, you know what, I've heard enough and I've seen enough. You're obviously playing games. You're wasting my time. You're wasting the taxpayers of New York's time. You know, I'm ordering you to pay X. Go ahead and go and go and appeal and move on. Like what stops him from doing that, knowing that Donald Trump is using each and every time that he's appearing as an opportunity not to provide evidence. and be on the record elsewhere. Like, we all know the fucking shell game that is happening right now. And I'm just wondering, like, when the jig will be up.

What happened during the first week of this trial sort of hints at where this is going. So Trump would show up in court and just sit like a good little boy in his chair. And then when the day was over, he'd walk outside and start complaining the way that a little kid does when they're reprimanded in school. So he'd talk outside the courtroom, but not inside the courtroom. And that went on for only about a day and a half before the judge finally had enough and said, you are threatening my court clerk. You are lying online. You are trying to fundraise off of threats that are coming into her because you accused her of being Senator Schumer's girlfriend. You can't do that. You cannot keep up this game you've done elsewhere. And actually, he, in a matter of a day went far beyond what any other judge across the country has done. Because let's be honest, as much as we've heard about Judge Chutkin in D.C. and Justice Mershon in New York, they haven't kept him on a short leash. They've had him, they've brought him in and said, you know, you shouldn't be saying these things. But then he goes ahead and says him anyway and they don't do shit. So this judge

told them, you cannot do that. Again, I'm putting a gag order in place. Shut up. I've never seen a judge so far be that harsh. And so actually, I think that the jig might be up pretty soon if they keep this up. He's already fined these lawyers and sanctioned them for wasting everyone's time. He can certainly do that again. The question I've got, of course, is why do these people keep sticking around? I mean, like, I know the money's good because so far Trump has been paying for his lawyers, at least those he likes, mostly through political funds. So they're getting paid. And I've talked to some of his attorneys who have explained that this has been a concern for them in the past, but they do get paid so they end up okay. At least the smart ones end up lining up their agreements in a way that gets them paid.

But I do wonder, like, at the end of this road, what do they get from this? I mean, certainly if he wins again and he's president again, which could very well happen, then maybe the future is bright for them. But if he doesn't, there's a pretty dark hole at the end of this tunnel. Yes, and it's a Trump-sized hole at the end of the tunnel. Jose, so funny thing, after we talked, it turns out Judge Chunkin has imposed a limited gag order on Trump. Can you explain this to us? So just after we spoke, that federal judge in D.C., who's overseeing the case where Trump is accused of conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election, finally had enough of his antics too. Judge Chutkin issued what's being called a limited gag order, preventing him from disparaging court staff, witnesses, or prosecutors.

And that means Trump can't pull off the same personal attack against the judge or clerks in D.C. Like he did in New York. And he can't start scaring witnesses or keep calling Jack Smith, the prosecutor, a thug. He's still free to rail against Joe Biden and the DOJ and the government at large. But in a very real sense, the baby is starting to realize he's still stuck in a playpen. Jose, we will have to leave it there for today. Folks, the piece is up now at the Daily Beast, how Trump's team twisted his bang. fraud trial into a farce. Check it out now. Jose, thank you so much. Always appreciate you.

Thank you. Danielle Moody. Andy Levy. So Danielle, who is your fuck that guy for the beginning of this week? Well, because we need some lightheartedness in our lives, it's George Santos, who I have not spoken about Katara, Kamara, whatever his name is in quite some time. The man who has a random baby in the halls of Congress and we still don't know who that baby. Who that was that he was running away from the press with. Really wonderful investigative reporting has turned up with nothing. But apparently, he has caused quite the stir by saying to his fellow GOP members that he will quit. And I just did it. I wish this was video so you could see the spin that I did on that. He will quit Congress if the GOP works with Democrats on a speaker deal. Sir,

you have like 21 fucking charges and counting that you are facing. Okay. You are a thief and a liar and you have lied about both. So I don't know if you are going to quit before you are forced to resign or end up in jail. But the fact that this motherfucker cannot keep himself out of the news is amazing to me. He is addicted to it. And for that reason and that reason alone, he's my fuck that guy for this week because we need something to laugh at and George Santos is the

biggest fucking clown I think I've seen this week so far. Yeah, for any listeners who haven't seen the video that Daniel was referencing of Santos with a baby absolutely screaming while walking down the halls of Congress. Look, I'm not saying hit pause and go watch it. I'm saying listen to the end of this podcast because that's obviously more important. More important. But then do some kind of search and find it because it's absolutely, it's like jaw dropping. I have no idea what was going on there. I'm almost happy that there's been no investigations because I sort of, it's one of those things I almost don't want to know more. I just, I just wanted to live in my heart forever as what it is. And almost like a good movie, like sometimes when you finish a movie and you're confused,

you know what was good, but it was a lot to think about and it was confusing. Maybe you don't want to read someone's take on what the movie meant. Maybe it's what it means to you that. That's important. And I feel like this is sort of the same situation here. So, Andy, who is your fuck that guy to start out this week in America? Well, mine is a lot less fun. And I apologize for that in advance. On the other hand, I don't see how it couldn't be anything but less fun.

I think it's now been, maybe been three or four episodes since we had him as a fuck that guy. So I'm returning Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, to where he belongs, the ring of honor in the fuck that guy, Pantheon. Over the weekend, there was a settlement, a court settlement over withheld COVID-19 data in Florida. And basically, back in June of 2021, as the Guardian reports, Florida stopped giving daily updates of COVID cases. And they claimed that that was because, oh, well, Florida is returning to normal and we don't need to do this anymore. I will return you to June 2021 because you. You may recall that that's when what we know is the Delta variant started its rise.

Not only did cases go up, they hit records in Florida by September of 2021, 385 fatalities a day. At the same time as the Guardian reports, Florida led the nation in pediatric COVID hospitalizations. So as all of that was going on, Florida stopped doing its daily updates to anyone with even half a brain. It was obvious why they did that. They did that because they didn't want people to have easy access to these numbers. And so they just lied about it. And they lied about the fact that they had various documents that had COVID data that weren't made public. They said those documents didn't exist.

And the court called them out on that and said, well, these documents do exist and you need to make them public now. And they were forced to do so. as if we need any more reason to point out that Ron DeSantis is wholly unfit to be the president of the United States. Here it is, basically engaging in a long cover-up to pretend that a lot of people weren't dying from a disease that probably didn't need to die if Florida had. That's governor? Yeah, if Florida and its governor had done the right thing and told people to get vaccinated and maybe put a piece of cloth. around your nose and mouth, you know, that thing that so many people collapse in a corner and cry about when they have to do it. Big strong men who can't put a piece of cloth around their

nose and mouth. Anyway, for all those reasons, that is why on this particular day, because there'll be another reason on another day. But on this particular day, that is why Ronda Santis gets my fuck that guy. He's good for a fuck that guy every fucking day of the week. Every day that ends in why, that's your day, my guy. 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.

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