The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump’s RNC Speech Was Good for a Solid 10-Minutes

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

This week on The New Abnormal, co-hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy have plenty to say about Trump’s RNC speech. Plus! Senior reporter for New York Magazine, Sarah Jones, is here to tell us all about the National Conservatism Conference, what that means and why Trump’s VP pick, J.D. Vance, is all about it. Then, Veronica Riccobene, a reporter for The Lever, joins us to talk about their recent article on Vance and why his dangerous abortion stances are being whitewashed by the media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Senior reporter for New York Magazine Sarah Jones is here to tell us all about the National Conservatism Conference, what that means and why Trump's VP pick J.D. Vance is all about it. Then Veronica Rico Benet, a reporter for The Lever, joins us to talk about their recent article. J.D. Vance wants police to track people who have abortions. and why as dangerous abortion stances are being whitewashed by the media. But first, let's have some fun. So, folks, I don't know what we just witnessed, but it was roughly, how long has it been? 17 hours.

It's been 17 hours since Donald Trump has been on stage, recounting his assassination attempt, hugging the uniform of the firefighter that was slain apparently maybe, I don't know, according to Twitter, the name is spelled wrong. Who knows? Hulk Hogan was on the stage. Like, my brain can't make sense of this right now. None of it made sense.

I mean, Hulk Hogan, he played his role well, I guess. But according to people on Twitter, this was a subdued Donald Trump who was compelling, who was captivating. A pin could drop in the audience and you would have heard it through the tears. Take it away, Andy. what did you make of the speech? Because according to mainstream media, it was akin to Lincoln. Yeah, I mean, look, Danielle, tonight, I think we saw a new Donald Trump, a humble Donald Trump, a spiritual Donald Trump. And I think whatever you thought of him before, he is clearly a changed man. This is a man who days ago came within inches of losing his life.

And a man who now, as he said, wants to be president not for half of Americans, but for all Americans. And he said things like when he spoke of having God on his side, these were not the words of a charlatan speaking to his marks. This was the deeply held conviction of a man who has stared the grim reaper in his eyeless face and said, not today. I have work to do. Bravo, Andy. Anyway. Actually, that was almost Shakespeare. No, I just realized I thought this was my New York Times op-ed interview.

Oh, yeah, that's my bad. The accuracy. My God, I just, I'll give him credit. He kept the so-called new tone, I think, for a good, solid, maybe 10 minutes before he went right back into immigrants are invading our borders. Mm-hmm. Witch hunts. Yeah, which hunts. The Democrats have weaponized the Justice Department against me, and they cheated.

They used COVID to cheat in the election. It was like going to a concert, and the band starts off with some new tracks. but they know the audience wants the hits. And so he pivoted back to the hits and to the just the lies that are too ridiculous to even, we had the best economy in the history of the world. And it sucked. And I don't think it matters. I don't think his speech moves the needle one way or the other.

I cannot imagine somebody who wasn't already going to vote for him watching this and saying, I'm going to vote for him. And I can't imagine anyone who was going to vote for him watching this and saying, you know what, I'm not voting for him anymore. So we net out even is what you're saying. Yeah. We've gone in with as many Trump voters as we're coming out of this ridiculous theatrical farce that we all were forced to watch because we love our listeners, right?

So we needed to give deep analysis on the pile of shit that was on the stage. I think that for me, it's almost like having these WWE people, lead up to Donald Trump speaking was so accurate. It was just so on the nose. And then for him to stand there as these supersized pictures of a bullet whizzing through the air circled with the red sharpie

and the blood on his face and the people panning to the audience with the tears. You can't choreograph this shit better. So it made sense that a Hulk Hogan is up there ripping up his shirt and talking about scumbags and criminals and, you know, and giving their best toxic white male aggression, masculinity bullshit. It's wild because I don't know if there aren't people that are looking at this and seeing

the emotion on people's faces in there and thinking like, well, it's compelling because that's what I heard yesterday from a friend of mine. I'm going to tell you, Danielle, like, it's scary because it's really compelling. And I can't wrap my mind around that fact, but this is what a reality TV show host, a pageant guy, like this is what he can create. He knows how to manipulate media and, you know, and spin it to his advantage to make him look like both a victim and a hero, which is wild. It was an interesting speech in the sense of, I guess, conceptually or whatever, not so much in the delivery. But, you know, he started off and he was, he was kind of somber and he said, a lot of people have been asking me about what happened, you know, and he said, I'm going to tell the story now and then I can't, I won't tell it again because it's, I forget exactly what he said it was like, you know, because it hurts too much or something along those lines, which I guarantee you he's going to be dining out on this story over and over again in the next four months. And he was kind of, you know, he was in soft voice. and I cannot be objective about this.

I'm at the point where I can't listen to him talk and just sit there and go, oh, that was good. I could see the first part of this being, as your friend said, you know, being compelling to some people. But again, he couldn't maintain that. He went back into the things I said earlier. He started talking about the China virus and stuff about China making, I think, cars in Mexico to flood into America. you know, he went back into the Trump's surrealism part of what we're used to. So that's why I say if he had kept the whole speech at the first part, I could see, again, these mythical people who are on the fence who continue to baffle me.

But I could see them, you know, someone like that saying, you know, oh, you know, he seems genuinely changed by what happened to him. But if they stuck with the speech, they would see that, of course, he has not been changed at all. But here's my thing. Like, are we stupid? Do we just believe that because you read off of a teleprompter and you speak in a soft tone, that somehow that erases the last eight years? No. It's in the same way that we're talking about Joe Biden and one terrible fucking debate.

And like, but that's changed the tone of everything. It's like, so Donald Trump, if he stuck to the script and kept in his hush tone and didn't say China virus or illegals or inflation 65,000 times, or we're teetering on the verge. of World War III and all of these other things, then I guess the separation of children from their parents at the border doesn't matter. I guess the ban on Muslims entering the country doesn't matter. I guess the overturning of Roe v. Wade is something that we don't need to pay attention to

and the weaponized Supreme Court that he created. It's just wild to me how wrapped in like reality TV entertainment, this country is that if you're given one moment of like, Look at my red sharpie and this bullet whizzing through the air. I'm like, this is like eighth grade fucking graphics. What are we doing here? It's, yeah, I, it's wild. But the, you know, Van Jones, what did Van Jones?

Because I have to pull this up because this motherfucker is really testing my spirit. But Van Jones said, um, there's something happening as he's watching this. He said the RNC feels like Obama, 2000 and, 8 convention. Yeah, I have nothing to say about. Like how? Let's also remember, last night, he said, a bullet couldn't stop Trump, but a virus just stopped Biden. What does that say? It says to me he's a fucking moron. Oh my God. Yeah, yo, that money must be really nice. You know, I would never know. I'll stay poor with my integrity, but like my fucking God. Van Jones is the, you know, today is the day Donald Trump became president guy, who I believe that was when we bombed Syria, if I recall correctly.

He's been hawking this shit for, you know, a bunch of years now. The thing is, he's not alone in the media. And, you know, we talked a lot about this sort of new tone and how, you know, and I said, look, and Trump kind of stuck with it for like 10 minutes before he just had to go back to his old thing. If we look at the media coverage of this entire convention, they all are taking that same tack. And they're just buying into it 100%, which is just insane. Gaslighting at its best. And now we should really discuss how the media has been reacting to this R&C circus of a convention. Andy, take it away because I need to collect my fucking thoughts.

I have never seen a bigger collection of Charlie Browns in my life. It is absolutely unreal. I cannot read another story about how this convention is about unity and softening of the message. The unity that we've seen at this convention has been the same unity that we saw in Charlottesville at a rally called Unite the Right. It is absolutely no different. It has nothing to do with unity of America. unity for people who don't look like them, people who don't think like them. But I hear it over and over again. And we're hearing the same thing when it comes to things like abortion. J.D. Vance, who is now

Trump's vice presidential pay. Is as hard line on abortion as it gets. We're talking about advocating for a national abortion ban, being one of the signatories to, in the Senate, to, want the Comstock Act to be enforced as Media Matters reports when he was asked about his opinion of rape or incest exceptions to abortion restrictions. He said, quote, two wrongs don't make a right. And then we get reports from people like Kristen Welker at NBC News who says, oh, well, Vance used to be more conservative, but he has moderated his tone on abortion at the convention. Other reporters saying, his views on abortion have evolved, just like a lot of Republicans have evolved. It's time and time again and is not just on abortion. I mean, we're sitting there watching a convention where people are holding signs that say mass deportation.

And we're getting articles about a kinder, gentler convention and a softening of tone. Danielle, I can't. I can't with it. Honestly, I don't know what fucking planet we're on. I feel so gaslit. I feel so lied to and betrayed over and over again by mainstream media. The reality is that they are not even offering to you what the tone was being softened from. So they're not even doing their due diligence as journalists and saying, well, you know, funny because J.D. Vance is for a national abortion ban. J.D. Vance is for no exceptions for an abortion as it pertains to incest or rape. He thinks that rape is something that is

quote, inconvenient. He believes that there should be a ban on no fault divorce because women staying in abusive marriages are good for children. He doesn't like working women. He refers to them as quote unquote cat ladies. This motherfucker hasn't softened his language. I guess if that's a euphemism for fucking lying and trying to gaslight white women and to believe. leaving that, oh, don't worry, that cloak will fit you just fine. You'll like it. You won't even have to worry about what outfits you're going to wear in the new Gilead. You don't even have to be concerned about it. We'll do all the thinking for you. Like, this media is so fucking, it is embarrassing and it is dangerous to listen to the likes of Savannah, Guthrie, and Lester Holt

talking about unity, where? Yeah. In between their signs for mass deportation, in between their transphobic policy measures in between what? Like they're cheering on legislation in the Senate about conception being the point of life. What are we talking about here? Just like Katie Turf fell all fucking over herself to say, oh, look at Donald Trump now that he's been, he looks so sad. By the way, no confirmation yet from doctors on what kind of fucking treatment constitutes having a maxi pad on your fucking ear. Not to mention that all of those motherfuckers mindless cult like folks are also donning this maxi pad on their ear. The same people you know that didn't want to put a fucking mask on because they said it made them look stupid. Are we at a lack of mirrors at the RNC? I'm so incredibly

just beside myself with the fact that this media thinks that by somehow coddling Donald Trump that they're going to maintain the same level of access and power that they had, you know, when America was a democracy. I have news for you, not news that you'll report on because y'all don't report shit. But free press doesn't exactly exist inside of an authoritarian system. But Danielle, maybe this one time it will. Yeah, you're right. There's always that.

There's always that. There's always that. One last thing I want to say, even if this convention had been five days of Carrie Lake Vaseline lenses and puppy dogs and k-cats and, you know, fields of gold wheat. It doesn't change who the Republican Party is. First of all, we haven't seen any of that. We've seen the same old Republican Party, MAGA-controlled Republican Party. But even if we had, it would have been a sham. And it would not have been reported as a sham because it was already being pre-reported as the new tone. and Donald Trump's spiritual awakening.

And so had they done that, our national media, our corporate media, would have fallen, just lock, stock and barrel right into portraying it as if it were a real turn. I have never seen a bigger group of credulous people. The only other group of people this big that I can think of that is this credulous are the people who follow Elon Musk on Twitter. It's just absolutely unreal. They never learned. As all of this continues to unfold, and it seems that the media continues to be complicit in the rise in fascism in this country and applauding each other at the same time for it,

establishment Democrats are in what I am going to refer to as a complete shit show disarray. If you ever wanted to see what a dumpster fire looks like, it's what's happening right the fuck now. I know that people have varied opinions and they think that three and a half months somehow means three and a half years to introduce the American people to, I don't know. Some say if they are successful in pushing out Joe Biden while he has COVID this weekend, that obviously it'll be Kamala Harris. And, you know, of course, the VP and she'll have her pick of, you know, who her running mate will be. And then everything will be beautiful and amazing and perfect and wonderful inside of the Democratic. tent. I, for one, fucking disagree vehemently on the decisions that are being made now, because I think that the loudest voices that I am hearing are not the ones whose lives

are going to be on the line in a Trump regime Project 2025 2.0. The ones that are the loudest right now are not the ones with the most to lose. And I mean loss of life. I mean loss of freedom. I mean loss of dignity and respect and, you know, economic viability. They're not the ones. And so, you know, I find myself in this moment being disgusted, absolutely fucking disgusted with this party that I'm a part of. Yeah, I mean, a quick scan of headlines from Wednesday and Thursday, Obama tells allies Biden needs to seriously consider his viability.

Pelosi privately told Biden, poll show he cannot win and will take down the the House. Behind the curtain, top Dems now believe Biden will exit. Joe Biden reportedly moles standing aside as poll deepens Harris dilemma. And then on top of that, you have Adam Schiff coming forward and saying Biden needs to step down. You have apparently Chuck Schumer and I think Hakeem Jeffreys basically telling him that there's a lot of discontent with him staying in the race. This is now the story, unfortunately, because these stories should be, I don't know, Project 2025. It should be the state of the Supreme Court and other federal courts in this country. It should be the people at the Republican National Convention holding up the

mass deportation signs and the plans to apparently somehow deport 10 million people. And all of those should be what Democrats are talking about right now. And it is, at the very least, it's borderline malpractice for this to have become the story. And the fact of the matter is, I'm not even saying, what am I saying, Danielle? Like, but this is where we are, Andy. Is that like, I know, we've run out of things to say because it's so astonishing the moment that we find ourselves in. And look, a lot of the people who want Biden out want him out for not bad reasons. They want him out. They want him out. because they think that someone else has a better chance at beating Trump.

So, okay, I get, like, I don't want to impugn the motives of those people, although Danielle, please feel free to in response. But I don't think Adam Schiff should be out there publicly saying this. It's particularly bad that he came out and said this right after a bunch of big donors said they were going to stop giving money to other Democrats unless they called for Biden to drop out. Because I think that really is just ripping off. off the veil there and showing why Adam Schiff did what he did. And I think that's awful. But I don't think they're going about it the right way. If they're going to get him to drop out, and it's still

ultimately, everyone can tell him whatever they want. It's his call. We all know this. All of this shit should be going on in private. It should not be leaked. And it should not be what we're reading in the media every day. And quite frankly, it shouldn't be what we're talking about on this podcast. You know what's amazing to me is that Democrats fucking suck at messaging. That's the conversation I've always had in media trainings that I've done with different folks is that Democrats suck at messaging. But my God, have they been able to captivate and control the media conversation for the last three weeks since the debate?

And instead of us being focused on the circus that is the RNC, instead of us asking really good follow-up questions as to where is the medical examiner and the doctors that treated Donald Trump and why we haven't had a press conference, instead of asking ourselves, oh, Donald Trump has been caught multiple times falling asleep at the RNC. Does he have the capacity to be able to serve as commander in chief? And oh, about those 20 million people. Because some days, Andy, it's 5 million people deported. Some days it's 10. Some days is as many as 20 million people. Do we have any idea what the fuck that would do to our economy, what it would do to families at all. Oh, by the way, where are they going? Is it, is it Delta? Is it a fucking coach bus? How is this happening? But instead of us focusing on the real threat that is at hand, this is what Democrats are doing. And, you know, for the life of me, I can't point to a police in history where ousting the incumbent in order to either go with the vice president or pick from the pot of Democrats, which you had the ability to do, by the way, back in 2021.

Back in 2021 would have been the time to have this fucking conversation and say, you said you were a transitional candidate. We just want to get that on the record because we're going to start pushing other people forward. But they didn't do that. And so tell me where in history you can point to this happening and it working out well. We've said this a million times before, but I think we should be. both get on the record for it again.

Both of us agree that if he bows out, it has to be Vice President Harris, right? A hundred percent. A hundred and fifty thousand percent. A week or so ago, there was a very undercover event in Washington, D.C., called the National Conservatism Conference, where among the politicians listed as feature speaker was the man who would a week later be named Donald Trump's running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance. My next guest is someone who did cover the conference,

Senior Reporter for New York Magazine, Sarah Jones. Sarah, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. So let's start off with the most basic question. What exactly is national conservatism and how is it different from regular old run-of-the-mill conservatism? Well, certainly further to the right. And as you might guess from the name, national conservatism, there is a very strong element

of nationalism in it, an emphasis on strong borders and national sovereignty. But as I noticed at the conference I'm read about in my pieces, I would say that there's also a really strong fixation on falling birth rates in the West and traditional gender norms and sort of the need to, as some speakers, put it, maximilize the Christian state. So it's a grab bag of all kinds of things. None of them particularly good if you care about multiracial democracy. Yeah. In your piece about it, you say the NatCon future looks a lot like J.D. Vance. Explain what you mean. Right. So J.D. Vance not only spoke this year, he spoke it in the past, but if you follow things that

Vance has said over the years, especially after he started making this turn to being more supportive. of Donald Trump and really sort of licking his boots, there is a similar turn against immigration, for example. When he spoke at NACON, he railed against Haitian immigrants who had moved to the city of Springfield, Ohio. That's been a theme for him for a long time. It was during his campaign and before then, too. Emphasis, I wouldn't call it on isolationism exactly because I think he's quite hawkish when it comes to the Middle East and to Mexico, but certainly skeptical of our posture with regard to Ukraine, a fondness for illiberal foreign leaders like Victor Orban, the list really could go on. Yeah, one of the quotes you have in your piece from him is he said, look, the thing on immigration

that no one can avoid is that it has made our society's poor, less safe, less prosperous, and less advanced. I mean, I feel like you can avoid it very easily by, you know, like looking at statistics and stuff like that. Nothing he said is even remotely factual. No, it's certainly not true, but the crowd ate it up, which I think is interesting. because I don't consider him a particularly charismatic speaker or figure, but it was very much his crowd and he was comfortable there.

Another thing he said that you quoted was he referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as, quote, the prize at the end of the rainbow. I assume that's simply another version of referring to her as a DEI vice president, as other Republicans have done. Yeah, I mean, it read in the moment as being very sarcastic. Like, why would you want Kamala Harris? She's not much of a prize at all. And that's certainly how it seemed to me when I was in the same.

the audience listening to that. And I think that's not particularly far away from calling her a DEI hire a DEI president as some people have done. You know, you mentioned earlier the concern about birth rates and more particularly birth rates among white Americans. I assume there were a lot of natalists there. And this really does feel like a sort of severely underreported aspect of national conservatism and of J.D. Vance's beliefs. Yeah, I'd agree with that. So I attended a panel that was called Beyond Dobbs. A bit of a mixed bag. There was, for example, a speaker who just spoke about what she called gender ideology,

which is really just anti-trans rights. There was also a speaker from the Heritage Foundation who was really concerned about family formation. And she was trying to draw this distinction between the pronatalism of figures like Elon Musk, who is not married, is having children with people he's not in relationships with, and family formation, which is what she thinks the state should try to encourage, although she was kind of laid on the details about how that would take place other than banning abortion. So I thought that was an interesting distinction to make.

And there were some natalists in the audience like Malcolm and Simone Collins, who are pretty well known, considered themselves atheists, which is interesting, but are very much in the pro-natalist scene. Are they the ones with the funky glasses that I keep seeing being written about? Yes. Okay. I don't know if it was you that quoted this or someone else that I read about the conference, but there's a lot of the phrase, faith, family fertility. Is that like a fairly good slogan for what national conservatism purports to be?

I think so. Although you do have to read in between the lines, especially when they're talking about freedom, freedom from whom, what does that look like? So it's a little misleading if you think about it. But the emphasis on fertility, definitely, and the emphasis on faith, definitely, although it's really more of an emphasis on Christianity. Yeah, for sure. And one of the things you wrote was that Nat Kahn's frequently talk about something they

call restoration. So what in their minds are they trying to. restore. So as I interpret things, there's this vision of the American past that they believe is accurate. And I don't think it was particularly accurate unless you're thinking about, say, the Confederacy, but the Confederacy did notably lose. America's never quite looked like the way that they want it to look. And so when they talk about restoring America to what it used to be, I wonder what they're really talking about. And I don't think that they're restoring a vision of America that is particularly truthful. But at the same time, it does mean going back to a time where

women didn't have as many rights and people of color didn't have rights at all. So it's deeply concerning when I hear them use that phrase. Yeah. And you wrote another piece about the conference called The Nurse Mades of National Conservatism. The subheadline for that piece was at a conference on the future of the right, women are a resource for men. So what was the sense you got of women's place in a national conservative society? They do certainly have a place. Like there were a few women's speakers and they didn't all talk about reproduction or sexuality, but most of them did, as I note in the piece. And I think that's really telling. Although there is a place for women in this movement, I think it's quite restrictive. And it is very much tied to this fixation on birth

rates and fertility. You can't fix that problem if you think it's a problem without women, especially when Stephen Miller got up to speak talking about immigrants posing such a threat to women and girls. He really went on about that for a long time. And that's when I really got the vibe. Like this is pretty old school racism, this fear, you know, they're coming for our white women and we need to protect them and conserve them for ourselves. One of the things you wrote was that anti-feminism is a key to the NatCon project. Absolutely. I think any liberatory movement for women poses a real threat to what they're trying to do because, you know, an aspect of feminism is that women should have the choice as to whether or not

they become mothers. And they couldn't really fathom that. I noticed that on the panel called Beyond Dobs. One woman who spoke was a former Trump official, Katie Tolento, and said that, you know, abortion is against a woman's natural desire. And if you really think about what that sentence means, the implication to me is that, you know, women, what is women's natural desire and is to have children, which is certainly not true for all women I know at all, but that doesn't really seem to factor into the way they look at things. You also noted that they are very much what you call porn scolds. You actually cited in particular a bunch of the women who spoke at the conference. Yes, I attended that panel in part because I noticed it was one of the higher concentrations

of female speakers that was on offer at the conference. And I thought that was interesting. As you say, yes, I do think, you know, they were really anti-porn against the idea that porn could ever be produced or consumed ethically. I think there are some really interesting feminist debates on that topic. But there was no nuance. They were not interested in delving into that at all. It was, you know, it was very, you know, this is a shameful thing.

People need to feel bad about it. And I got the distinct impression from things that they said that, you know, age verification limits, for example, to try to keep porn away from children is kind of just the tip of the iceberg. It's the camel's nose under the tent. I just want to be clear about how thoroughly national conservatism has taken over the Republican Party. J.D. Vance, at least in retrospect, was probably the biggest name there. but he was far from the only Republican Big Shot who was speaking, right? Far from it.

So the first night feature, there was a speech from Senator Josh Hawley, and I wasn't able to intend that, but it has been well reported where he came out saying, you know, I am advocating for Christian nationalism. There are a number of Republican senators who spoke, including Eric Schmidt of Missouri, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, which I thought was really interesting. You know, at the very beginning of the conference, they came out and said, you know, we're mainstream now. And someone else said later, like, we are the conservative movement. I'm not wholly convinced that that's true yet, but certainly they have reasons to feel really good right now.

Yeah. I mean, if it's not true yet, at least the way the trend is going, they seem to be well on their way. And you mentioned Josh Hawley. And of course, he, as you said, his particular speech, or one quote from it, did get some attention when he said, I'm sure some will say now that I'm calling America a Christian nation, so I am. Some will say that I'm advocating Christian nationalism, So I do. I heard that. And, you know, obviously I don't want to live in that country. But part of me was kind of happy that he didn't bother with the pretense of saying Judeo-Christian, because I am really sick of hearing that. Yes. It was refreshing in that sense. And I think there was an interesting tension at Nat Khan. And I mentioned this really briefly in one of my pieces where there were a number

prominent Jewish speakers, but I think they're absolutely in tension with other speakers at the conference and with the broader goals of national conservatism, where, you know, people were very open about the idea that there should be a Christian state and that some forms of discrimination might even be permissible under the law or should be permissible under the law. So they were really blunt about it. And, you know, I think that that was one of the reasons I wanted to go and cover it was to see exactly how in the open that they were going to be. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, you mentioned that there were some Jewish speakers there, which horrifies me as a co-tribalist or however you want to put it. In the reading and whatever that I've done on national conservatism and

Christian nationalism, there seem to be those who are just straight up sort of virulent anti-Semites, and then there seem to be those who are like, nah, Jews are okay. It's almost like Jews are okay, but they have to realize they're a guest in America. Is that accurate? I think so. I mean, I got more of the latter vibe during the conference. There would be overtures toward Jewish people and making sure that they felt comfortable and there were a number of Jewish people in the audience. But I think the tension I mentioned earlier was very much in evidence. Like there was a booth for like a Christian Zionist organization. Of course, Christian Zionism is not interested in protecting the Jewish people at all, at least in the long term. I mean, it's tied to this whole apocalyptic

worldview that they have. So I thought that that was really interesting and really disturbing. And one of the other speakers, I think, was Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation. And of course, you know, as we have discussed ad nauseum on this podcast, and which is now becoming thankfully and finally a big issue in the national media. Heritage is behind Project 2025. And this conference and national conservatism really does sound like they share the same goals. I would say so. I thought the relationship to Project 2025 was actually really interesting.

So Kevin Roberts did speak and so did Paul Dance, who's been really involved with Project 25, one of its key leaders and architects. And when Dan's got up to speak, a lot of it was just talking about the reaction to Project 2025 rather than what they actually planned to do. Now, maybe he felt it was unnecessary because he was at this conference where they'd been talking about kind of the future they wanted ad nauseum. But I didn't know if he was trying to downplay it necessarily, like, look, we're not that scary. I don't think that they anticipated it becoming as public and as abhorred as it currently is. And I'm not sure they figured out how to deal with that. But is it fair to say that the goals of Project 2025 closely align with the goals of the National Conservatism Movement? Yeah, I do, especially on issues like abortion.

There might be a little bit of distance between them on labor, but I'm not sure that national conservatism is really settled on a concessive position on labor, to be honest. with you. But definitely on abortion, definitely on LGBT rights, there's a lot to be worried about. And I think they share broadly, if we're going to zoom out a little bit here, I think they share broadly this goal of Christian nationalism for sure. Yeah, you know, people have noted that one of the things J.D. Vance did not talk about in his speech at the Republican Convention was abortion. He didn't mention it at all. But he is, you know, as anti-abortion as it gets. Was abortion a key talking point at the convention or at the conference rather? It did come up quite a bit. Now, there are some

people who are unhappy with how the debate over the Republican platform went and feel like it wasn't a strong on abortion, as it should be, although, to be clear, like, it's quite radical extending the 14th Amendment to fetuses, which would grant them personhood rights. But that wasn't far enough for them. That was interesting to me. But, you know, it's sort of the flip side of this emphasis on fertility, even when they weren't talking about abortion. I felt like they were, if that makes sense, If you really think that women need to be having as many babies as they possibly can to fix the birth rate problem, which I'm not convinced is real, then you want to ban abortion. There's no question about it. And yet at the same time, they are, I assume, very opposed to in vitro fertilization. I didn't hear about that as much. And I thought, you know, that kind of stood out to me. There was, I mentioned Katie Tolento earlier who served in the Trump administration. She has said very negative things about IVF in the past, but she didn't say anything about it on the panel.

Interesting. I want to go back to. to Vance for a second. He, as you reported in your piece, he talked about being buried in his family's ancestral plot in eastern Kentucky. And he also said that he hoped his children would follow him. And then the quote you have from him is, that is a homeland. This, I assume, was to differentiate someone like him from, oh, I don't know, let's say a brown-skinned immigrant who is not his wife. Right. Yeah, that was a big tell. He was very, he spoke about this at National Conservatives. privatism before the RNC. And like, he was very much pushing back against the idea that America is an idea. And he really honed in on it being a nation, being a homeland. And he said that just

after calling to restrict immigration and really singling out Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. So the juxtaposition of those two comments, I think, is really revealing. It tells you a lot about what he wants. And it's a very nationalist America. It's a very restrictive America. It's, you know, he said, if I remember correctly, that, you know, we can welcome new. newcomers, but it has to be on our terms. And that could mean a lot of different things. Yeah, I actually want to go back quickly to something you said that this national conservatism belief, America is, I guess you want to say, is a place, not an idea. And this seems to almost fly in the face of more traditional conservatism of Ronald Reagan's shining city on a hill.

and, you know, what we used to hear all the time from conservatives about America and its ideals. And this seems more like, no, America is not an idea. America is a country and it's our country. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Very much claiming of ownership over America and pulling up the gates and saying he drew a distinction between his wife's parents who did things the right way and these Haitian immigrants he accused of abusing asylum laws, which I think is really pernicious. You know, as someone who's unfortunately old enough that I remember quite well, Reagan's shining

city on a hill and going back even further than that, this seems to me to be a huge transformation of what conservatism means and what the Republican Party means. Right. I think that's plausible. I mean, I think there are always elements within the Republican party who have been calling for what Vance is essentially calling for. They just haven't necessarily been dominant at certain points in time. Exactly. So I think it is interesting. I mean, I agree that the GOP is generally undergoing some kind of change or evolution.

I'm not quite sure what that's going to look like in the long run, but it is changing, I think, in really kind of interesting and disturbing ways. Well, Sarah, thank you so much for coming on the show and for everything that you're writing over at New York Magazine. It's just, it's great stuff. And like I said, it's often stuff that is unfortunately not being covered by a lot of journalists and a lot of organizations. So I'm really glad you're out there. doing it. Thanks again, Sarah. Thank you. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal reporter with the lever,

Veronica Rico Bene, whose recent piece uncovers a bit more about Donald Trump's vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance. The article is entitled, J.D. Vance wants police to track people who have abortions. Trump's vice presidential pick pressured regulators to let police access the records of people who cross state lines for abortions. Walk me through this handmaid's tale that you have reported on and uncovered. Absolutely. We wanted to get a closer look about where Senator Vance actually stands on abortion. Traditionally, he's been pretty pro-life. He stated personally, he believes abortion is murder. He's even gone in certain cases to go on the record,

suggesting that there shouldn't be exceptions for cases of incest and rape. But, you know, in the eve and the lead-up to his announcement, there was more of an attempt by him to kind of distance himself from this anti-abortion rhetoric. He mentioned that he did not support a national abortion ban, et cetera. So we wanted to look into his legislative record as the senator and see what was really going on and what he actually did as a senator when it comes to reproductive rights. What we found was this letter, this previously unreported on letter, signed by Vance and a couple dozen of other senators. And in this letter, they asked the Biden administration to repeal a rule, which at the time of letters writing was proposed. It's since been enacted. And what this rule does, it expands HIPAA privacy rights. So as it

stands, HIPAA exists to protect what is called private health information from being shared. There are exceptions for law enforcement. So law enforcement can ask medical professionals for private health information and medical professionals are not outlawed from giving it to them. What this law does is it expands HIPAA. And specifically for reproductive health information, it states that law enforcement are not able to subpoena or to investigate these records. Health officials and health care professionals are not allowed to give these records to law enforcement. And the purpose of this rule was really to protect specifically women who are leaving their states where abortions are either restricted or completely outlawed to go to other states to have abortion.

You know, there's a big about police using these records to potentially hunt down women and prosecute them back in their home states. this rule would basically mitigate that from happening. And what J.D. Vance is saying is no, he does not want this rule in state, suggesting that he does want police to be able to seek out this very private health information, which should be scary to all of us. I need to understand this more. So at least right now, we as women and people with uteruses still have freedom of movement, correct? Mm-hmm.

So let me even back up further. Because you would have to be tracking women's menstrual cycles in order to be able to track their travel. In order to be able to build a case, yes. Correct. To be evidence of them having done this trouble to receive a quote unquote illegal abortion. There has to be. There would have to be a prior database. Yes, built out of menstrual health data, which is terrifying.

Oh, my God. So, you know, what I'm thinking about, too, like as my mind is now just all over the place. Because of your article. And I mean, all over the place and thinking about the most evil things that can be done, there are so many different apps. Veronica likes so many different apps that women use and people with uteruses use in order to track your period. For whatever reason, there are also apps for tracking menstruation, there are apps for tracking fertility, for people that are trying to get pregnant. Is this like an insinuation into what?

Seeking to sue these potential apps to get data of the women and people living inside of his state to be able to track them? Absolutely. It completely opens up health. data to police investigation and police prosecution. It makes it so that there's absolutely no barriers between a police officer or a prosecutor in a state where abortion is illegal, seeking out these records elsewhere and using it in a case against a person. And again, just thinking that laws still matter, you would need to have a warrant. You would need to have reason of suspicion. And so basically, I mean, this is Gilead. This is not

normal rational thinking. And what's even scary about this is we see the sort of surveillance state against women and people who menstruate being built up at the Project 2025 manifesto specifically outlines giving the CDC more power to track reproductive health data and track menstrual data. It essentially makes abortion illegal everywhere. It doesn't even give women the reprieve of being able to leave their states. It makes it so that if abortion is legal, in one state, it could essentially be used against women there, you know, in every state.

There was legislation that was introduced by Kitchen Katie, Senator Katie Britt, who basically wants to do this on a national level, which is to create what she referred to as like a pregnancy database, right? Like, oh, where people can share information. That's not what this is. It's similar to anti-abortion advocates setting up fake abortion. clinics in order to scare the shit out of women and people with uteruses seeking abortion care. Tell me, like, again, when you are uncovering this kind of nefarious policy ideology that J.D. Vance is supporting, how are you taking in then what we have been seeing at the RNC and what corporate mainstream media has been referring to as a softening of top?

tone, a softening of policy. There kind of seems to be this like, in mainstream media, everyone's kind of throwing up their hands and they're like, well, we don't really know what the Republicans think about abortion. Trump is, you know, wishy-washy. He's not personally invested in it. We know what J.D. Vance thinks about abortion. There's record of exactly the kind of expansion of the state that he wants to see,

not only to, you know, prevent women from receiving abortions, but to prosecute women who do. And as I see the RNC coverage, And I see reporters kind of, you know, I see articles about Judy Vance as like the populist candidate for the working class. It is frustrating because the evidence is right here. No matter what kind of rhetorical or maybe messaging strategy, there might be right now right before the election to distance himself from this. I mean, this is the man that compared abortion to slavery. Walk us through that because here's the thing is that while some of us who have been covering politics who have been covering the rise of the right wing for many years,

Many people know J.D. Vance because of his book, Hillbilly Elegie, which was then turned into a film. And there is a lot of thought around the truthfulness and the integrity of his book as well as, like, his stance and just being craven for power. I wonder, like, as you're doing this reporting, you're saying this information is there. Why do you think that it hasn't been covered in the way that you all have covered? it now? And why do you think that mainstream media is kind of, I guess, what are they doing? Whitewashing him? They are making him palpable to mainstream audiences. One, I mean, doing this reporting required going into troves of documents and doing like research that required like sitting down and doing actual reporting, which I think is being divested from

in most major news organizations period. Most I think mainstream media, they're leaning into kind of creating like commentary factories. So actually having like people on the ground to like seek out records. That's not the trend that media is going in right now. Even on media that would, you know, not be considered right leaning. I agree there is this like, I don't know if it's just because he's the new shiny object right now or in general,

media tends to bleed power. Media tends to to align on the side of power. So am I surprised that media is just taking what JD vance is saying and reprinting it without any criticism? No. does that mean that I don't wish for them to do better? Of course not. Like, that would be where I stand on that. In your mind, what do we need to understand about the danger that this ticket, this Trump-Vance ticket, poses to the country? At the end of the day, the rule that, you know, J.D. Vance wrote this letter about, this expansion of HIPAA.

This was done under, you know, the Biden administration's Department of Health and Human Services. this was not a law that was codified by Congress. And just as easily as Biden's department instituted, a Trump-vance ticket could take it away just like that. At the end of the day, with the complete erosion of federal abortion protections with the overturning of Dobbs, the pressing need for a codification of Roe could not be understated.

And I think that cases like this, where it is not a law, what is essentially, you know, up to the president's determination, under risk, it's really scary when, you know, the first day of the Trump Bank's administration, they could come in and order the CDC to start collecting more data on reproductive health rights, you know, repeal this rule about HIPAA and start some kind of national abortion database on day one. What we really need is a codification of Roe through Congress. I mean, just the idea of this kind of database, I am just thinking of all

the ways that your health information can be used against you. I'm thinking about, not only the criminalizing and pursuing, you know, legal action against women that are leaving states in order to seek an abortion or leaving the country for that matter in order to seek an abortion. But I'm thinking about what about your employer and the access to this database where you have an employer that is anti-choice. Does that mean that you're now not able to get a job? Like how far does something like this go? Once your information, your private personal information is put into this database, there's no telling what can happen moving forward and what other kinds of databases can be created.

Exactly. It's not just reproductive health. You know, organizations that wrote a letter in support of this rule, the Biden administration in fact said that it should go further, that sensitive health information related to people transitioning needs to be protected as well. On the GOP, there have been rumblings of tracking health, specifically of minors, tracking that health data to see who's transitioning, who's not, who's receiving what treatment for gender dysphoria and who's not.

Having our health data private from the government is a very, I guess, sacred and taken for granted right. And once the floodgates are opened on prosecuting people because of the health care they receive, there's really no telling of what they might criminalize next. I mean, I think that this may be one of the scariest things, and there just have been so many, but one of the scariest things that I've heard as of late, that is inside of Project 2025, that is part of the ideology and stance of J.D. Vance, Donald Trump, and all of MAGA. What do you say, Veronica, to those people who are reading your article and they're like, she's hyperbolic. This couldn't possibly happen. This would never happen.

in America. What is your rebuttal to that? I already got some comments, you know, this is just a letter. Yeah. Tell us about some of the comments and then your rebuttal to them. You know, this is a nothing burger. It's just a letter. It doesn't mean anything. It's just words. But we have the stated intentions of a U.S. Senator who could become our next vice president laying out the legal groundwork for a national abortion surveillance database. I mean, this is not nothing. This is not campaign conjecture, this is not something he implied. This is the nitty gritty, you know, HIPAA rulings and, you know, regulatory documents from the Department of Health and Human Services might not be the most glamorous thing, but at the end of the day, like, this is where governing happens. And these are where our

rights are given and taken away. And to those who say that this isn't a big deal, I mean, I want you to be right. I want this to be a nothing burger. But at the end of the day, unfortunately, I don't think it is. Yeah, I don't think that it is either. And I don't think that corporal, media, mainstream media is making the case. I think that there has been a concerted effort to showcase the Republican Party in this current iteration as being just, you know, regular conservatives. Regular conservatives that believe in quote-unquote family values. I don't think creating a nationalized database to track people, criminalize them, or scare them into not having treatment is about family values.

I don't think that tracking young children who are experiencing great psychological issues from bullying, from being outcasted because they are trans, that putting them into a database is about anything other than punishment, anything other than demeaning and dehumanizing people. And it's exactly, it's about fear.

I think, you know, for as many women or people that are prosecuted, unfortunately, for having abortions, there are thousands more who won't seek one out because they fear it. It's about the fear. And I mean, this is the party that says they're of small government. This is the party that says that they want you to be able to make your own choices. But we see a huge effort to criminalize those choices and to track them and to survey them.

And it's terrifying. Are there other things with regard to J.D. Vance that you all have been uncovering that folks also need to pay attention to that are outside of his stance on abortion and other. areas that should be paused for alarm. The lever has done some good reporting, actually. It was in light of the East Palestine train derailment in Ohio, which J.D. Vance is a senator from. You know, he proclaims himself to be this populist, you know, this man of the working people. But almost at every turn when it comes to a chance to regulate big business, in this case, specifically the railroads, he stands on the side of corporations. He worked with the railroad lobby specifically to tamp down a worker, to make it so that more people have to be on these super long trains, these super long freight trains to increase the amount of minimum workers that need to be on the train. This is just one example of, again, a kind of like procedural policy, nitty-gritty kind of thing where, you know, despite his public bonifies of being a populist, when it comes down to it,

he does not stand with workers. Veronica, I want to thank you for your reporting. I want to thank you for lifting up a curtain and a veil to the insidious nature. that is behind J.D. Vance, Donald Trump, Project 2025. It is going to be people like you that are going to keep people informed and conscious of how they are choosing to vote this upcoming election. So I just want to thank you again for your work and please tell people how they can follow you. Yes, thank you. You can follow the lever on X at Lever News and you can follow me there as well at Veronica Rico with two C's RICCO. Thank you so much for having me on and for covering this issue.

Absolutely. Andy Levy. Moody, comma, Danielle. I'm actually going to change my name to doomsday, Daniel. I'll talk calling you that. Danielle, yeah. How are you winding out another extraordinarily hopeful week in this country, we call America, with your fuck that guy? Okay, so there are bigger stories than this one, but someone on Blue Sky tweeted a link to this.

And it's one of those things where I was like, I have to. do some research and make sure that this is true because it just blew me away. And it is in fact true. So down in Florida, they have a commissioner of education. His name is Mani Diaz Jr. He's horrible. He's a DeSantis guy, et cetera, et cetera. So he has a thing called the Commissioner's Book of the Month, which is a monthly reading challenge to promote literacy in, I guess, from pre-K through grade 12. And he picks five books, and there are five recommended age ranges. So he picks one for each grade range. And the books for July, he announced, they are highlighting the importance of American pride

as we celebrate the month of our country's founding. So I'm going to read you the list of five books. And thankfully, the one in question here is last. The pre-K book is called Proud Little Patriot. The K-2 book is called F is for Flag. Yeah. The third through fifth grade book is called the Fourth of July story. The six through eighth grade book is called and then what happened to Paul Revere. The book for high school years, grades nine through 12, is a book called Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Jane Austen fairly famously British. Pride and prejudice fairly famously a book that takes place in England. It's been a long time since I read it. I would not surprise me if the word America doesn't even appear in the book. But this guy who is, is the Commissioner of Education in Florida apparently thought, oh, we're doing a month where it's American Pride Month,

and this book has the word pride in the title. I'm just sitting here, like, in absolute disbelief, that you can become the Commissioner of Education for an entire state and be this fucking ignorant. And then I started thinking maybe it was the prejudice part that appealed to him. Maybe he thought the title of the book was Pride in Prejudice, like he takes pride in prejudice. Again, I know there are bigger things going on in the world, but this really is, I mean, this, again,

this is Ron DeSantis's guy. This is what Ron DeSantis is doing to the educational system in Florida with the help of boot liquors like Manny Diaz Jr., who clearly is wholly unqualified. He's wholly unqualified, honestly, to work in a cafeteria in a school, let alone be in charge of education for the entire state. So, as big as possible, fuck that guy to Mani Diaz, Jr. I mean, I'm also wondering, I like your pride in prejudice because maybe he is not, you know, very literate. Maybe that's not a requirement for the job that he has.

But it's also a book that is situated in 1813, and we know the 19th century is their favorite fucking century. Yeah. So that could also be the reason. Pride in prejudice 19th century, you know? Like, I think, I think that's their vibe. Yeah. It's just actually unbelievable to me.

It doesn't take much to get these jobs, huh? No, it really doesn't. It really doesn't. It really doesn't. Fuck that guy. You have to have a strong tongue for the boot licking. Mm-hmm. I want to make that clear.

I didn't know where you were going. Yeah, no, I want to make, I guess I need to make that clear. Anyway, Doomsday, Danielle, who's your fuck that guy? Always a favorite. I believe that he is in marble in our heart. Hall of Fame, but it would go to Elon Musk, and I know what folks are going to say. What did he do this time? Because there's just so many fucking things to choose from. But Musk decided to take to his broke down, destroyed platform, formerly known as Twitter, to say that he is

picking up and moving out. He's taking his headquarters for X, I guess, out of California. And you would say, well, what could possibly be the reason? California is lovely. Oh, it would be because Governor Gavin Newsom signed a new law that has protections in place for trans students in public schools. And we know that Elon Musk is one of the biggest transphobes, probably next to what's her face, Harry Potter, like next to her. He is probably the biggest transphob. that we've ever seen. And so this is what he said when the law was signed, again, which is about making sure that LGBTQ plus young people are safe in their schools. He said, quote, this is the final straw. Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, you know, laws around equity and

justice and climate change and all of those things, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX, will now move its headquarters from Hawthorne, California to Star Base, Texas. And XHQ will move to Austin from San Francisco. And pretty much Gavin Newsom's response as well as mine is, bye, bitch. Like, bye. Go ahead. Go to Texas.

I'm certain that you will get a wonderful group of staff who are highly educated. You know, because of people that are in California, Do you think they're going to Texas? Do you think they're going to pick up their jobs and go to a place that is virtually unsafe for anyone that isn't white, straight, male, and cis? And that's where they're going to pick up and go? Maybe. But you're going to have to recruit from the pool of people that you have. So, I mean, you know, Elon Musk is a piece of shit.

He's a fucking racist and a transphobe and a bigot and a misogynist and like one of the most hateful people. And so, you know, leave the state of California. No one will miss you. Don't let the door hit you on the way the fuck out. Fuck that guy. All of this because he has a daughter who thinks correctly that he's an asshole. Yeah. And instead of going to family therapy, he takes it out on the country. Yeah. It's absolutely unreal. How much of this can be traced back to simply the fact that he has a trans daughter who he treated abysmally and she wants nothing to do with him. and instead of him realizing that that's because he's a shitty person and an even shittier father, he decided to blame everyone but himself.

So because of all of that, we've gotten to the point where he's giving millions of dollars to Donald Trump and threatening to move his countries to Texas, which, by the way, he says a lot of things, and I would say 90 to 95 percent of them never actually happen. So let's see. 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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