The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump’s Ties to Big Oil Just Got Even More Terrifying

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

This week on The New Abnormal, co-hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie are shocked about what Trump said at a recent meeting with big oil executives. Plus! Legal expert Chris Geidner talks Trump’s latest legal woes. Also, Tara McGowan, the founder and publisher of Courier, joins the show to talk about modern media and the journalism business. 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 Kedin, 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.

Tara McGowan, the founder and publisher of Courier, joins us to talk about modern media and journalism and why the old adage, your most trusted source for news, doesn't work in the current climate. Then we'll talk to Chris Geithner, the publisher of the Law Dork newsletter, and he'll break down all the recent news regarding Trump's legal woes. But first, let's have some fun. So Danielle, we now have one presidential candidate confirmed to have literal brainworms. And we don't really need to talk about him anymore. But let's talk about another presidential candidate who, I guess it hasn't been confirmed yet, but it feels like it's a little suss what's going on with him. I'm speaking, of course, about Donald Trump.

And he had a nice meeting with some of the country's top oil executives down at Marilago. and he told them that they needed to raise a billion dollars to get him back in the White House. And he basically said that if he gets in again, he will reverse, as the Washington Post says, dozens of President Biden's environmental rules and policies, and stop new ones from being enacted. He basically told all these oil executives that them giving him $1 billion would be a deal. And, you know, Danielle, we've talked in the past, I think as recently as the last episode, about how everything with Trump is transactional. And that obviously includes the climate of planet Earth.

Do you remember, Andy, in the Matrix series, where Neo finally goes to Machine City? And it's like this dark place. The sky has been scorched. There's just oil and machines all over the place. And it's pretty much like just barren and despair. That's what the fuck Republicans want for the United States. That's what rolling back every single environmental bill that is about preserving our clean air, clean water, ensuring that we have the ability to fight against climate change, which we have created because of unregulated industries. The idea that Donald Trump is not even hiding the fact that he is for sale, that this country is for sale, that I guess it will be a mix of the Matrix and the Jetsons because those that are wealthy will live on those stilt houses where they're up where the fresh air is and the rest of us will just be choking to death on the ground.

Fuck Donald Trump and these Republicans that I'm certain will turn around and raise a billion dollars for him. him because at the end of the day, they don't care. Like, they'll drink their bottled water and they'll have their safe zones and it'll be the rest of us that will succumb to the environment that they will create, that will be cancerous, that will be disease filled, that will just be horrific. But that's what they want. So whenever people want to think about, I wonder what, you know, a second term, maybe we'll make it through. Just look at all of the quote unquote natural disaster. that have been happening, look at all of the things that are going on around the world and just think to yourself, is America prepared to deal with that kind of devastation with this kind of fucking

disaster in the White House? I don't think so. No, not at all. And it's interesting to note, as the Washington Post does in their story about this, that President Biden has actually passed some good environmental legislation. He does call global warming an existential threat. At the same time, the United States is now producing more oil than any country ever has. And ExxonMobil and Chevron reported their biggest annual profits in a decade last year. So it's not like these guys are hurting. But this, of course, always gets into the whole thing of it's never enough for them. Record profits or the highest profits in a decade pumping out more oil than any other country ever has. None of that is enough for them. They still, all they want are, fewer regulations and lower taxes. It doesn't matter. You know, they want both to be zero. They feel very, very put upon if they're even the slightest bit regulated or the slightest bit taxed.

And Donald Trump knows that. And he's not the smartest guy in the world. He understands transactionalism. And he understands how these guys think. And he knows what they want to hear. And you're absolutely right. They probably will go out and raise a billion dollars for them. Yeah, because it's going to be no sweat off of their back for a group of 20.

because that's who he was talking to, a group of these 20 multi-billionaires to come together to put together a billion dollars for Donald Trump, they can do that in a phone call. Do you know what I'm saying? And so it just goes to show you that if you allow Republicans any semblance of power,

they will ensure that those that are not in the millionaire and billionaire class suffer. So whether it is that you're, You're suffering through the fact that, oh, unregulated business, throw away workers' rights as well, because that's the other thing that will be coming our way. You know, it's too much to ensure these people. It's too much for them to have bathroom breaks. It's too much to give them clean water. You know, they're just so fucking greedy and despicable.

And how I would love for Biden to tackle this kind of angle is to talk about these people as being unpatriotic. because they don't want to pay their fair share to ensure that America is safe, is clean, and competitive. They don't care. They only care about themselves. And I think that instead of just referring to them as greedy, we need to come out and say that they're also unpatriotic. They don't give a fuck about America or Americans.

They only care about themselves. And that's not the kind of country that we are. Like, that's how he needs to combat this. Yeah, that would be fantastic. I mean, I would take it a step further and say, they're not just unpatriotic, they're anti-human. Yes. Because all the things they want that will benefit them greatly in the short term, if not checked,

are going to lead to, you know, it's not even an exaggeration to say it anymore. They're going to lead to the end of humanity. And I'm not saying that's going to happen in like a day. If we keep messing with the climate of this planet, we're not going to destroy the Earth. The Earth is going to continue its way around, you know, the solar system, orbiting the sun and, you know, the Milky Way is going to continue to move through the universe. we're going to destroy humanity, and not to mention a hell of a lot of other species, but you're right. From a political standpoint, it would be great to start tarring these people with the brush of un-American.

And, you know, that's a thing that the Democratic Party and liberals in general are generally kind of loath to do. And I get that impulse. You know, it's generally a Republican thing and a conservative thing to rail against their opponents as un-American. But you look around at what they're doing. and in so many areas of politics and of life in general. And that goes for this one as well. And they absolutely are un-American. And you know, you're right.

It's high time that they start getting called out for it. To your point, Andy, about what it is that Democrats don't like to do in terms of labeling people in the name calling. My point is that we have ceded patriotism discussing freedoms to the Republican Party. And so all you have to do. is start to talk about what patriotism actually looks like, that it looks like caring for your neighbor, that it looks like ensuring that workers have protections

and can take care of their families, that when we take care of the least among us, the best of us, you know, everyone does well, that you start really honing in on that patriotism and that nationalism and that feeling of pride, and then you can very easily separate these people out. And this is what it doesn't look like. You know, Mark Cuban, of all the people, gets on social media and says, I'm paying $288 million in taxes.

And I'm happy to do it because this country has done well for me. And that's my responsibility is to pay back and you hold up people that are actually doing right by signaling what patriotism actually looks like. That's what I think. And Democrats don't ever want to do that. And so they cede it to the right. I think our next subject is right along those same lines. And we're talking here about election denialism. Joe Biden earlier this week went on Aaron Burnett's show on CNN and said of Donald Trump, he is probably going to reject the results with the November election. And, you know,

he pointed out all the comments that Trump has made recently, which, of course, are right along that line, right along those lines. And then there's also the idea that we're now looking at every one of the people, it feels like who is considered a possible candidate to be Trump's vice president are sort of lining up, you know, and refusing to say that Joe Biden won the election in 2020. You know, you've got J.D. Vance now saying, oh, I don't think Mike Pence's life was ever in jeopardy on January 6th. They are just, they are really just lining up to not only not accept the results from 2020, but to already cast doubt on the results from 2024 if Donald Trump doesn't win, of course. If he wins, you're not going to hear anything about election irregularities.

But if he loses, they're already telegraphing that they are going to straight up challenge this election, and they're going to, unfortunately, have a court system that is much more in their corner than it was in 2020, possibly, to help them along the way. And so this also, to go right along with what you were saying about the oil at sucks, this needs to be called out as being about as un-American as possible. It's just such bullshit that these senators, these governors, these people that are in these elected positions that take an oath to our Constitution to democracy, have the audacity to say six months before an election that they're

not going to accept the results. I think that Tim Scott is a fucking coward. There are so many names. Lord, protect me. There are just too many names. But he's just a coward and a punk and a lackey, right, for Donald Trump. It doesn't matter how racist. the man is, he'll just sit there and gleefully laugh and chuckle behind him, not realizing that he is the fucking joke. The idea that he would even really seriously be considered or in the running to be vice president is laughable to me. But this desire by them to just torpedo our democracy and the peaceful transfer of power is just wild. These are the same fucking people that were running inside of the Capitol building. Yeah. Like I just wish that we would play those videos.

over and over again. Like, again, if Biden's campaign had any like oomph behind it, I would run fucking ads in every one of those Republicans states and show them running for their lives and say, oh, January 6th, not a big deal. Trump did this, period. Vote for Biden. Like, to show the audacity of these people now to want to rewrite history. And it's because the Democrats are not doing a good enough of a job, beating into people's minds over and over again, just how dangerous these people actually are and just how ruinous they will be to put the final nail in the coffin of our country if, in fact, Donald Trump is allowed a second term. Look, I believe that Donald Trump really does believe that he won in 2020 because he's not

capable of conceiving of the possibility that lost it something. Tim Scott is a whole different story. Tim Scott is not a stupid person. Tim Scott knows damn well that Joe Biden won the election in 2020, and he knows damn well that the election results in 2024. Whatever charges Trump throws out there, they will be specious, they will be false, they will be ridiculous. But he goes on meet the press and Kristen Welker says to him, you know, asks him, will you commit to accepting the election results of 2024? And Scott replies, well, at the end of the day, the 47th president of the United States will be Donald Trump. And then she says, well, hang on, will you accept the election results of 2024 no matter who wins? And his reply to that is, that is my statement. He can't even do the baseline of saying, yes, of course. And this is a choice that he's making because this is not a belief that he holds. He is choosing to say things that he himself doesn't believe.

If there's a better definition of cowardice, I don't know what it is. Because that's what he is. He's a moral coward. My thought, Andy, is at this point, like, are we sure these people don't believe it? And if they don't, does it actually matter? I would maybe just think a smidge more of you if you actually believe the shit that was coming out of your mouth, as opposed to just being a puppet for the bullshit. And so I'm like, does it matter? But I think that he actually does believe it.

Really? Yeah. I do. I think that these are people that just lack conviction. Yes. I'm saying that, yes, he lacks conviction. But in his heart, he knows both that Joe Biden won in 2020 and that 2024, if Biden is declared the winner, it won't be because of nefarious acts. And I think Tim Scott is smart enough to know that.

Tim Scott has been around Washington long enough to know how things work. And he is choosing to be this way. I agree with you. I'm not saying it makes a difference because ultimately you're bad either way. But to me, there is something a little worse internally. There's something a little worse in knowing something isn't true and pretending you believe it is. Yeah, I guess. I, you know, I don't know.

Yeah. They're despicable either way. But apparently they do have some. No, I'm not giving them anything. I actually am not. Fucking Marjorie Taylor Green finally got, I guess, poo-poohed, you know, not for the Jewish space lasers, not for her homophobia or transphobia, not for her racism, not for her lies, but for her millionth attempt to try and vacate Mike Johnson from the

speakership. Finally, other Republicans are like, maybe this one, this one's not that bright and have voted down her measure to try and vacate the seat. Also, because guess what, nobody else wants that fucking thankless job. No one wants it. You know? So it's not like they are a bunch of people lined up and saying, pick me, pick me. Everyone's hiding under their desk like they were on January 6th. So, but on this one thing, they agree. Marjorie Taylor Green, a fucking idiot. Yeah, I think House Republicans have learned the lesson that they, I don't remember if they officially told us this like the first week in the Army or if it's just something you learn,

but it's like never volunteer for anything. And I think they've come to realize that volunteering to run for House Speaker is sort of in that same boat. It's like, why in the world would you do that? But it is pretty incredible that we are now seeing with all the examples of all the utter garbage that she has been spewing since pretty much the day she got into office, that now finally they're starting to recognize that she's a problem and she actually got booed, I believe, on the House floor by Republicans. The most ironic thing now is that a bunch of Republicans are yelling at the media for paying too much attention to her. Representative Tim Burchett told the media,

you got played for covering all of this, giving her all this publicity. There's this quote from someone who is described as a House leadership GOP aide. And he told Notice, which is a great new website, by the way, notice.org, I think. But he said, the press corps have convinced themselves

that they must cover every finite development, despite everyone covering it, knowing their will for participants in furthering her brand. Buddy, you're a House leadership GOP aide. That is what everyone in your conference has been doing since at least 2016. That literally describes every Republican who we constantly see on Fox News. Ted Cruz seeming to care more about his podcast than his senatorial position.

And for you to sit there and start yelling at the media and saying it's their fault, That's the only way that you all have survived this long is you play the media every day and you care much more about that than you do about actually legislating. So as you would say, Danielle, miss me with this. Right. Thank you, Andy. I don't know who said this so long ago and I wish I could remember to attribute this to them. But I honestly wish that our representatives on their clothing much in the same way that soccer does

and basketball is starting to do, just show me what teams. you're repping, like that you should have to wear the logos of the people who matter. So for Ted Cruz, it'd be the name of his podcast and all the oil companies and like, you know, whatever you actually care about, you should have to wear on a jersey every single day just so we don't get confused. You know, maybe the Constitution gets a little bit, I don't know, in script down at the bottom on like, you know, the left hand side of your shirt, hardly legible because it doesn't give you as much brand boost. It's just so disgusting. They don't care. They don't care about their constituents. They don't care about their states or their districts. They care about what's next for them.

And Marjorie Taylor Green just does that in a bolder way. But, you know, she's learned from the best because Donald Trump just said, give me a billion dollars. I'll roll back whatever regulation you want. It doesn't matter. You know, they don't care. Yeah, absolutely. I know Robin Williams made a joke about how politicians should have to wear a sponsor jackets like NASCAR drivers. Yes, that's okay. Then yes. I don't know if he was the first, but I think he gets credited with it a lot. Anyway, the other interesting thing about the Mike Johnson MTG's attempt to oust him, which failed,

is that Democrats mostly voted not for him to be ousted. There's a bit of a split. The majority of Democrats did vote that way, and they are basically saying, they're saying, look, this was not about saving Mike Johnson. This was about A, it was about not voting with Marjorie Taylor Green, which is understandable. And as House Democratic whip, Catherine Clark told, again, notice. We did not save Mike Johnson. We're saying no to Marjorie Taylor Green in her extremism. She's a chaos agent, and it's time to end the pro-Puton caucus obstruction on the issue of Ukraine aid, because that was one of the big issues that Marjorie Taylor Green wanted Mike Johnson gone on. There are progressives who don't agree with her. Some voted present. Some actually voted to oust him or to let a vote proceed to oust him. Primalah Jayapal, who's the progressive caucus chair, she is like, look, let Republicans go into chaos, let the country see that they don't know how to govern. And I'm sympathetic to that end too.

So I said before we started recording, Danielle, that I could kind of see both sides of this. And you called me all kinds of names. Accused me of being a centrist. I think there was another word that has an M and an F in it. Wow, Andy. So go ahead. Go ahead. Okay.

First of all, I would never call you those times and names on air. Exactly. Exactly. Now we see the violence. The thing is, is that, like, I don't understand why Democrats have to get themselves involved in Republicans' business. And that's my thing. It's like you're not showing that you're the, quote, unquote, bigger person in the room.

You're at this point, nine years into this. fucking Trumpism bullshit, you're just a punk. So if the Republicans are going to go down, let them go down. If they're going to put on another fucking spectacle, you might have to be in it, right? Like, this is their fucking dirty laundry that they're airing. You do not need to be the laundress. And so for me, it is, it is, and I understand why progressives get pissed off because I am one of them, because I'm just like, no one is looking at the state of affairs that our government is in and saying, well, my goodness, thank God the Democrats are the adults in the room. No, these are the same people that think that every time a Republican is in office, our economy does

better. No, no need to look at the facts. No need to look at all of the fucking tanking that they do and all the shoveling out that every Democratic president has to do after a Republican. So I'm just like, if they're going to implode, light the fucking fuse. You know, do not help them make their caucus better or more functional because it does not serve us in the long run. That's my point in terms of the, oh, the ball. I could see both sides and I could see this, that, and the other thing. And I'm like, I don't give a fuck. If they are going to blow themselves up, I want to be the one that's like, do you need a match?

Folks, I am so excited to welcome to the new abnormal Tara McGowan, who is the founder and publisher of Courier, a fast-growing, left-leaning news network with Lowe. local newsrooms in 10 states. Currier is building a more informed, engaged, and representative democracy by reaching tens of millions of Americans where they are online with factual values-driven news that inspires civic participation. Tara, well, one, I can't tell you how much your outlet is needed as we are about six months leading up until the most important election of our lifetimes and of the history of this country. I guess I want to start off with asking you about how you feel about media right now, about journalism right now as our democracy has been labeled as backsliding

for the first time in our nation's history and where we are just being inundated with misinformation purposefully designed to cause confusion, distraction, and apathy. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me, Danielle. I'm very happy to be here. I'm a fan of this and your work. And that's a loaded question to start with. I like to go big, Tara. I like to start off very big.

I have big feelings and a lot of them. So I don't feel good about the media. I mean, and let's sort of define what we mean there. I guess generally when I say the media, I'm kind of thinking about mainstream legacy media. I even think the word mainstream is really outdated because mainstream is sort of implies that it's reaching the mainstream or the majority of Americans. And we don't have any media today that is reaching the majority of Americans. We are in a very decentralized media ecosystem,

the most decentralized. I think it's ever been. When we just talk about sort of traditional and legacy media, you know, the publishers that have been around forever and ever, like New York Times and Washington Post and CBS and ABC and NBC News, what have you, I feel not great at all. I think that the state of that media today is incredibly and increasingly out of touch with where the American people are. I think that their need to be able to build and sustain business models that keep them in business have moved them to only focus on the most highly informed, educated, and wealthiest Americans. Their audience, not just in who they distribute or market their journalism to, but who they actually cater to in terms of what and how they cover news and how they define news.

But also I think that there is an enormous amount of malpractice by traditional media today where they afford, because of these forces, they're really choosing what they report and how and how often they report on certain stories over others based on the needs for clicks and engagement of this increasingly small minority audience of essentially elite Americans that are not representative of the population or the eligible voting electorate in this country. And that is what is very directly putting our democracy at stake in their role in putting our democracy at stake, in my opinion. I want to unpack one of the things you started out with, which was this questioning around even the term, the notion of mainstream and what is mainstream when we say mainstream media.

and who are they actually reaching? I'm old enough to remember that there was a time when we only had a handful of news channels, only had a handful of papers that did reach a majority of Americans right now. And what we have had, I think, in one way, which is good, which is by the advent of social media, we have decentralized information in a lot of ways,

which is kind of doing away with the gatekeepers in a lot of ways and instances of what I can have access to and where I can have access to that information. That being said, it has also created the climate for us all not to receive the same information, right? And we can go to where we feel comfortable with or where we want in order to get the information that aligns with the views that we have, right? That is not part of a larger collective. So when you're talking about these legacy operations and mainstream and who they're reaching, Where do you see both the problem and the opportunity with how information has become decentralized?

Yeah, it's an excellent question. And just to like put some numbers around the decline in reach of traditional and legacy media for a minute, the table news programs and the evening news, they have seen dramatic declines in viewership and ratings over the past number of years on. The best night, the most popular Fox News program or MSNBC program, sees about between two and three million viewers. The New York Times, which is lauded as, you know, the newspaper of record and still one of the most reputable news sources in the country and around the world, they have 10.3 million subscribers and a goal of 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027. There are over 330 million Americans in this country. These are very, very small segments of the population, right, that are accessing what used to be the news sources

that were accessed by the many, to your point. You know, I don't want to paint it all as a bleak picture because the internet and social media really did more to democratize media than any other forces in our history. And by that, I mean, when it was consolidated, when there were just a few trusted newspapers and news anchors that the vast majority of Americans tuned into for their news,

you know, that was a controlled message and message delivery as well, right? There were plenty for all of the, you know, traditional and old school journalists and media executives that I've run into over the years who really want to go back to those days or even think that we will. Those days weren't great. There were so many communities that were not represented. There were so many stories that weren't represented. So there really is a lot of benefit and a lot of silver lining to the decentralization

and just explosion of new media and media sources and types of media and types of journalism. But of course, with that comes a really, really, really fracturous environment that allows for a lot of bad actors and disingenuous and really egregious media to be able to reach segments of the population without really any accountability or even the population understanding that that's happening, right? So we've put an enormous amount of responsibility on the shoulders of big tech that have revolutionized or devolutionized, however you think about it, our media and information environment. And yet we've put absolutely no regulatory boundaries around these companies. So we don't have regulation of social. media or search engines. You know, the Department of Justice right now is pursuing a very big

lawsuit against Google about monopolizing search in this country. There are these conversations happening. There are these debates happening. But ultimately, the platforms where the most people spend their time and go to to find information are self-regulating and not very well. And that means that there is more disinformation, misinformation, misinformation, and malicious efforts reaching segments of the population every single day without folks even knowing about it, never mind being held accountable for it. The notion that even back in the day when there were a handful of outlets that there wasn't bias, right, that there wasn't misinformation that came out of those outlets or like you said,

that people from marginalized communities were often discounted, stereotyped, and pigeonholed, right and how the media was discussing them i got to comment the other day on one of my social media pages that said you know well i guess you know neutral media neutral news is dead and i was just like at what time was it alive i'm like i think it depends on who you ask and at what time that you ask them when it comes to a place of neutrality right and people having this belief or this fantasy that news is neutral what does that word neutrality mean to you as a journalist? Yeah, absolutely. And I studied journals and I went to journalism school. I worked for quote and quote neutral media at CBS News and frontline PBS in the early days of my career. I very much believe in the need to have media and journalism that is not biased or

values driven or political or ideological. But I also believe that we should have all of those other types of media as well. And I think the key is for all of them to be transparent. To your specific question, what does neutral mean? Neutral means journalism that is produced very much to just get the facts across about a news story or event. It does require some level of balance, but what I want to dig in on balance because I actually think the idea of balanced journalism has been wildly and dangerously misconstrued. by a lot of traditional media today. So what I think is important when it comes to balance is that you represent as many sides of an argument or a position or a debate as possible.

I also say as many because there aren't ever just two sides. We have a dominant two-party system in this country. So when we talk about elections and political issues, yes, there are two dominant sides, but there aren't just two sides or two positions on any issue. And so I think that media would be served well by thinking about representing different communities who are impacted by decisions or policies when they're reporting on potential policies or elections and candidates' positions. But what's been misconstrued about the idea of balance is that many, many, many assignment editors

and publishers and producers have assigned balance to their reporters and their journalists and their journalists to mean to cover without any more or less accountability on either side, facts versus lies and hold them up equivalently. So when we have, and you know, they weren't always in this position, right? We had some golden ages in this country where politicians and elected officials, including presidents of the United States, were held accountable by the media if they tried to lie. Today, that accountability is gone because the media requires giving them as much airtime or word counts based in an article as the other side, regardless of whether they're telling the truth or not. And I do understand and empathize with the media and other journalists and publishers that it's

difficult to hold liars accountable when they just double down on their lies. But that's their job. Right. That is their one job. Right. That's the thing that they feel so entitled and empowered and defensive of is that the media exists to hold great powers accountable to the truth. And so when you are giving as much oxygen or airtime or word space to lies without

accountability or without making very clear, including in your headlines about these stories or positions that these are lies, these are unfounded or baseless claims, and you're holding them as equivalent because they're just both political arguments, whether one is true or false, that does an enormous amount of damage. And it doesn't only do damage in the sense where it doesn't hold the liars accountable. It also erodes trust among your audiences. Because the ones who see through the bullshit of the liars are confused about why they are being treated as fairly, quote and quote-unquote as people who are telling the truth, regardless of whether they're a Democrat or not. And just to tie up this point, I think this comes from a place and it's very relevant that we're

talking this week given Joe Kahn's recent comments in an interview with Semaphore, which I'd love to touch on. But it's coming at this period of time where I believe that it comes from this defensive posture where legacy and traditional media wants to be seen as so unbiased that they have chosen that upholding the truth and holding lies and liars accountable is less important than showing a balance of reporting on Republicans versus Democrats, regardless of who's telling the truth. That's malpractice, in my opinion, and absolutely antithetical to why the fourth estate and the media is so important to our democracy. Not only is it unfortunate and a malpractice, it's also dishonest on its face. I mean, the

New York Times has been called out a number of times over the last couple of months in their reporting on Israel and Gaza. They have been called out on putting non-factual information, offering an office fact, to make sure that their writers don't use certain words when talking about Israel, don't use certain words when talking about Palestine. And this has all come out through other outlets investigative reporting on this legacy operation that people uphold with a certain light. That being said, I will say this because I am an opinionator, that there are issues that both sides don't deserve the same amount of air, particularly if you're not going to uphold it with the kind of care that it needs. For me, you know, the topic of white supremacy, I'm not going to bring on a white supremacist to defend their point. I'm not going to give equal, you know, space in, you know, in an article to a white supremacist to uphold and be able to sell their value points to my audience. Like, that doesn't make sense to me. But I think that in this desire to have both sides,

this desire to continue with the fallacy of neutrality, that we have had that done, where it is, oh, let me bring on the climate change, you know, denier as well as a scientist. Because, oh, both sides deserve, you know, the same weight. And I think that, Tara, like, that is where we have gone off the rails. And I think that over the, you know, particularly as a pertain.

to Donald Trump and holding politicians accountable for the lies that they tell. Over the nine years since Donald Trump has been in the political sphere, journalists have learned nothing, nothing as it pertains to covering this man. And he does the same things. And now we have a bunch of copycats. I'm just wondering, as we march forward to the election, what do you think that responsible outlets should be doing? There's so many things there.

One thing I really want to touch on, because I don't. don't think it gets as much attention or discourse as the idea of both sides as we were just discussing. Is the editorial decision of what to cover versus what not to cover and how much to cover it? And I think this is something that the media needs to really be held accountable for and reflect on because this also gets to a lot of malpractice we're seeing, including especially related to their coverage or lack of coverage of Donald Trump. right now as we approach another really scary and consequential election. I want to touch on this because this is where, again, objectivity and neutrality are fallacies and do not exist. And anytime

folks like Joe Kahn, the executive editor of the New York Times, say, like, our job is not to put our thumb on the scale of any candidate. Of course not. That's not what anyone's asking for. But when you look at the amount of coverage, right, related to Joe Biden's age versus the amount of coverage, let's say, about Donald Trump's trial that he is currently in, right? And the day-to-day coverage of that over a period of time, or the example that I bring up often is the amount of coverage when Donald Trump's former vice president came out publicly saying he would not vote for his former president and ally. The discrepancy is really massive. And that's a decision that media is making, right? They're deciding what is newsworthy. And they're deciding that

based on what is going to drive the most engagement and revenue and not what is the most important information for Americans to have to make informed decisions at the ballot box, which I argue is the primary objective of journalism in America, right? It is to have an informed and an engaged population, civically engaged. The freedom of the press does not exist without a democracy or democratic government in this country. We know that there are countries in this world that do not have freedom of the press. They do not have democracies. And so that is where we are headed. And so it's always baffling to me that the executives in charge of some of the largest and the most powerful media institutions in the country have not sat around the boardroom table and said,

we have a role to play. And this is not about handing the election to Joe Biden or skewing coverage in any way that is, you know, strategic or non-factual. It's truly about what is the most important information about what the candidates stand for, what they have said on the record about what they will do if elected to a second term, and how much can we cover that and how many ways can we cover that? So people really understand the stakes and how can we make sure that that information is getting to the broader population? Those are not the questions clearly. being asked or grappled with in these boardrooms. And that's what I think is really, really, really scary because what needs to be done is that, one, we need to have an infusion of

enormous amounts of capital into new models of media and journalism in this country. Right? I won't go down the rabbit hole because I'm sure there's no. And I've seen the headlines that local news has been decimated in America. And there is a direct correlation between having access to local news and civic participation. It is, Alan, like yours, like Courier, that are most needed during this time, during this crucial time, that people need to have options and understand that there are outlets that are available that are holding themselves to a higher standard than where some of our legacy media outlets have been. So Tara McGowan, I really appreciate you making the time for the new abnormal

and really hope that you will come back as we make this March to November. Thank you so much, Janelle. Please do check out Courier and and other groups that are doing this work, it's so important to have pro-democracy media this year and for years to come. So thank you, Daniel. When it comes to our court system, if Trump wins in November, even the best case scenarios are very bad. For Democrats on the left, certainly, but also for democracy. So writes Chris Gidner at his most excellent legal newsletter, Lawdorck at LawDork.com. And Chris, the former BuzzFeed Legal Editor and Deputy Editor for Legal Affairs at Grid News,

joins me now to expound on this. Chris, thanks so much for being here. Of course. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. I know you're in research mode, so I appreciate it. So before we get into what you foresee from a possible second Trump term, I want to ask you about an appointee from his first term, Judge Aline Cannon. Earlier this week, she indefinitely postponed the Trump classified documents trial, saying that the May 20th start date had to be vacated and that she couldn't set another date because of unresolved pre-trial motions. Now, over at the social network for true posters, Blue Sky, you wrote, Judge Cannon says setting a trial date for Trump in Florida would be imprudent, more or less because, one, she has created the problem herself through earlier delays, and two, she doesn't seem to know

how to do law judge things. My question for you, Chris, is why you got to be so harsh, man? She's trying her best. I left out three. Oh, no. Yes. You can imagine what that might have been. he's in the tank. Would that be making an accusation that we perhaps do not have legal standards of proof for? Exactly. Yeah. Okay.

I told somebody else, I would keep to the things that are ascertainable from the face of her order itself. Right. Let me approach a question this way. If she were in the tank for Donald Trump, what would she be doing differently? Nothing. Okay. You could ask the question.

question differently. If she were in the tank, what would it look like? It would look like this. If you hadn't been everything else that she had already done that sort of made it almost a, well, of course, this is what she's going to do ruling, you would say you realize that you're claiming these concerns as being the reason why you need to get rid of this trial date. But half of them or more are of your own creation. Yeah. Like, it's me saying that I don't like to get up early. And then, like, back when I had an editor,

my editor reminding me that I was up till 2.30 every night. Right. Yeah. If you do it to yourself, then you're going to not have your, all of the pretrial rulings handled. That's where we're at. It's both not surprising and offensive. So Chris Hayes on MSNBC called what Judge Cannon is doing a scandal.

Do you agree with that take? I'll give a yes and. Okay. Yes, and this sort of scandal, to the extent it is a scandal, is something that happens often in courtrooms. We just don't normally care about the cases. Interesting. Not to jump ahead, but one of the decisions,

from the Supreme Court on Thursday was relating to civil asset forfeiture. And one of the examples cited in the case in the dissent came out of a ProPublica report where basically there's a county in Massachusetts that holds items seized in civil asset forfeiture for up to a decade before filing for the forfeiture. So basically, you're not even able to, to challenge it for a decade. That's also a scandal. It's just not involving the former president, so it doesn't get the attention. Right. Okay. So before we get to the piece you wrote about what a second Trump term might look like for the courts, since you brought it up, let's talk about that decision quickly yesterday. What was the decision? What did the court rule in that case? Yeah, there was a civil

asset forfeiture case that got to the Supreme Court. There have been lots of efforts to get civil asset forfeiture in front of the justices. And they took this. It came out of Alabama's process for civil asset forfeiture. And they have an innocent owner defense that, particularly for cars, if somebody else is using the car, you had no reason to know about it. You weren't aware that it was being used for, in both cases, relating to drugs. You can get it back. The state doesn't get to keep it. This challenge was saying we shouldn't have to wait for the end of the forfeiture proceeding before we can get our car back. We want a preliminary hearing, a retention hearing to be able to get our car back longer than six months, a year, two years later. Six justices, the six Republican appointees, said, no, there's no retention hearing.

However, it was a really weird decision because you had this concurrence from Gorsuch joined by Thomas, which means that there were five justices, if you count the three dissenters, also saying civil asset forfeiture is out of control. There are lots of constitutional questions about it, especially as to how it has evolved since it's been used. used much more dramatically and expansively since the beginning of the drug war. And both Gorsuch's concurring opinion and Justice Sotomayor's dissent basically say, bring us more cases about this. And so it is an odd ruling where the challengers today lost, there is no right to this retention hearing. but a majority of the court also said, we think the way that civil asset forfeiture is being implemented likely is unconstitutional in a bunch of cases, and we want you to bring them to us.

Okay. Well, that's really interesting. So there's a little bit of a silver lining there at least. Okay. So let's talk about a second Trump term and the judiciary. There is no silver lining there. Right. No, absolutely. And one of the things you talk about is balance. And you say the federal courts are already unbalanced. And another four years or, you know, however long, Trump decides to stay in office will make things even worse to the point where the lack of balance increases the risk of the legitimacy or the risk to the legitimacy of the courts. You say perhaps past a tipping point. Now, I'll get to the Supreme Court in a minute.

But talk about the other federal courts first in this regard, because I think people don't focus as much on those. and they're just so important. There's so much attention on the Supreme Court, obviously even in my work, because their decisions are nationwide. But as we've seen out of the Fifth Circuit over the past year or two, the appeals courts both can dramatically impact the lives of people in multiple states with one ruling. And also they sort of set the ground game for what Supreme Court can hear and what the Supreme Court has to hear sometime.

And so if you have really unbalanced appeals courts, you can end up getting cases that sort of are forced to the Supreme Court because you get these outlier rulings all the time. And what I pointed to was like first primarily, we have a court that runs up the middle of the Midwest, the Eighth Circuit, that runs from Arkansas to North Dakota. that is made up of 11 active judges, and there's only one Democratic appointee on that court. Similarly, there's the Fifth Circuit that we always talk about. Five of the 17 judges on that court are Democratic appointees, six of the 16 judges on the Sixth Circuit, and four of the 11 judges on the Seventh Circuit were appointed by Democratic presidents. That's basically, if you look at the fifth, that's the fifth sixth, that's the fifth, seventh and eighth circuits that we're talking about there.

That's basically from Ohio to Texas and Oklahoma that are all that on balance. That's from Louisiana to Texas and to North Dakota to Oklahoma to Ohio is the fifth, six, seven, the eighth circuits. There is one circuit, the first circuit. the First Circuit is all Democratic appointees. But I would like to note that I think it does when we talk about sort of false comparisons. Yes, the First Circuit is made up of all Democratic appointees, but we don't hear anything about ridiculous rulings out of the First Circuit. So, yes, it's all Democratic appointees, but they hear cases and issue decisions.

And they're rarely overturned even by this Supreme Court. court. So, like, they must just be doing their job. So we've got that. And then if you have, first of all, if you have another Trump administration, those numbers aren't going to change. They're not going to get any better for balance. They're not going to get any more balanced. And they're possibly even going to get more unbalanced. And we're going to have more circuits that are similarly unbalanced like them. So we're going to have more Judge Casmarix, is what you're He's a district court. I just mentioned the district courts in one sentence. District courts, if you have more things like they do in the Northern District of Texas where you can have

single judge divisions and the single judge in that division who gets, in Casmeric's case, 100% of the cases filed there. And it's an ideologue right-wing appointee. Like, you're going to get ideological right-wing decisions. And then if they go up to an outlier court, you see the problem here. Yes, I do. I think all of America is starting to see the problem. What about the Supreme Court? Trump has already appointed three of the nine justices, all of whom we should note are fairly young. We've already seen some rumblings on the left that Justice Sotomayor, who is 68, and maybe even Justice Kagan, who is 62, should step down kind of now and allow President Biden to appoint their successors before a potential Trump re-presidency award, I think I just made up.

And we can talk about that, but also, as you note, Justice Alito just turned 74. Clarence Thomas will be 76 next month. So they could be prime candidates to retire during a second Trump term, allowing him to appoint younger Federalist Society approved justices. Yeah, they both would. There is no doubt in my mind. that if Donald Trump becomes president next year, that by June, one of them will retire. Oh, you think that quickly?

Because I was thinking maybe they would wait like three years and milk it a little longer and then wait. No, I don't think so. No. Okay. Because, I mean, remember, this is the worst Senate cycle for Democrats. The other two cycles are better for Democrats than this one. Oh, good point.

Yeah. I was just thinking that Clarence Thomas might lose so much. much money by retiring. I actually don't think that's necessarily true at this point. He's such a hero at this point. Keep in mind, if he retires, he's going to retire in order to allow Eileen Cannon to be appointed to the Supreme Court. I mean, it wouldn't be.

I don't even like joking like that. Like, that's the problem. I don't think it would be an Eileen canon. I think it would be a James Ho or a Kyle Duncan. Like, it would be. I was just going to say that. Yeah. An appeals court judge who does have a brain and could do real harm to Supreme Court precedent.

Yeah, absolutely. Beyond the glaringly obvious problems with all these scenarios, which is the continued erosion of reproductive rights, voting rights, LGBTQ rights, et cetera, at infinitum, let's get into why you say that even the best case scenario of the second Trump term would be bad for democracy itself with regard to the. court system to judiciary? The examples that I've been writing about and talking about this term that we had the Mithra Pristone case that came out of a Casmeric district court decision that went way over the top, said that we were going to go back to the 2000 approval of Mithra Pristone and strike that down. We were going

to get rid of all of the changes since to make it more accessible. That goes up to the fifth circuit. which is still far right, extreme outlier. They pull back the 2000 disapproval, get rid of that, but they still uphold the fact that these like random doctor association has standing. They still allow them to challenge the 2016 and 2021 changes and find that those were arbitrary and capricious changes and get rid of them. And the Supreme Court needs to take that up. And they then heard that and were hearing this case.

But in the course of that, we've had two years of instability and insecurity as to not only what's going to happen as to Miffra Pristone, but remember, particularly when we were back at the Fifth Circuit, the concern that Farm expressed about this, that this was also like, and that the FDA expressed about this, that this was like potentially a decision that could up. upend the way that we do drugs in this country, legal drugs. What a great quote. The way that drugs are approved and sold in this country. Then along with that, you also have this not companion case, but I look at it, the way it evolved as a companion case, the social media influence case, where you had Judge Dowdy in Louisiana, who issued that July 4th ruling that basically ban, thousands of people in the Biden administration from even talking to Twitter or Facebook.

And that was a similar situation where it went up to the Fifth Circuit and the Fifth Circuit said, yeah, the challengers still have standing, even though that's ridiculous. But we're going to pull back the most ridiculous prior restraint elements of this district court's injunction. But we're still going to keep an injunction in place. And the Supreme Court had to hear that case. And that was a year and a half of instability as we're going into an election. Remember, half of that case was about COVID-related engagement that the administration had with social media networks. But another part of it was the election-related engagement that the administration had about false election claims and things like that, election protection.

Those are two cases that we saw years of instability, even in the best case scenario of the Supreme Court ending up saying that both of those challenges fail. Like even if we assume that that's how those cases turn out come June, we'll have had two and a half years of upheaval with Mipharesone and two years of upheaval with social media. Imagine that being in multiple circuits with even more Casmeric type judges. And that would just be the reality. And then if you change it so that you have a Supreme Court that might actually uphold some of them. Right. Boy. Well, I got my headline anyway.

Chris Gidner worried the courts could upend the way we do drugs in this country. So that was really the only reason I brought you on was to trick you into. saying that. Chris, thank you so much. Always a pleasure to talk to you and have you explained just how horrible things are. Lawdorck.com is the website, invaluable writing on the Supreme Court and appeals courts and district courts and all manners of court. Chris, thank you so much. Thanks always, Andy. Danielle Moody. Andy Levy. Danielle, who is your fuck-that-guide close out this? I'm going to go ahead and say not-so-glorious week. Well, I will say that when these

comments were made which was at the beginning of the week i sent in our group chat this is going to be my fuck that guy barring anything else happening and so it stands who is my fuck that guy you ask ah the governor of new york kathy hokel and this is friends not her first time here so in an interview that she did actually with jonathan kate heart at the milken institute global conference where she wanted to talk about the ways in which New York is making all of these advancements with AI, artificial intelligence and the like. She couldn't stop there with just saying, we're going to, you know, provide economic opportunities with AI for low-income communities. If she had ended at that point, it would have been like, Bravo, on to the next. But no, because she couldn't stop herself for her.

letting her racism show. So this is what she went on to say in this interview about artificial intelligence and low-income communities. Quote, right now, we have young black kids growing up in the Bronx who don't even know what the word computer is. They don't know. They don't know these things. Let me take a breath.

Because again, the names that would roll off my. tongue like a waterfall, I will not say because I like what I do for a living. But what I will say is Kathy fucking Hockel, have you been to the Bronx? Do you know what schools are in the Bronx? What kids are learning? Or do you, are you equating the Bronx with some developing nation? And if so, then why aren't you putting the resources into these areas? Why are you allowing folks like Eric Adams to go ahead and just cut, cut, cut away at education if you're so fucking concerned?

The ignorance that this fucking woman showed, which is how most good moderates that Martin Luther King warned us about, that the good moderates would be the one that would sell black people down the river, not so much the KKK or the white citizens council, as he once said. No, it wouldn't be them because we know where they stand. It's the ones that smile in your face but talk shit behind your back or say stupid shit on a microphone and then want to apologize about it, you know, five tweets later, which is what she did. You know nothing about what black kids know. You know why? Because you don't fucking ask them. Because you don't trouble yourself with going into these communities that have more resilience, more innovation than you would ever understand because they have to. And so it was insulting, it was racist, it was small, and it was stupid, like her fucking office. And so I wish that she would pay attention and work on the things that matter for this state instead of speaking out of her mouth about things that she knows not. So for that reason, Kathy Hockel, you are my fuck that guy.

A couple of points. One, I feel like we're not going to get her as a guest now. Yeah. I mean, you can, Andy. No, I don't know. When I sent it around, I was like, because I first heard that one sentence and I was like, oh, no, she did not. And then I saw the longer quote and I was like, obviously that sentence is by far the worst. But even the rest of the quote sounded so Trumpy.

Mm-hmm. The whole thing was about building a supercomputer and attracting federal grants, et cetera. And then she says, no state has done this. And in fact, I talked to a lot of other people who said, I wish my governor had thought of that first. Like, that is pure Trump. Like, this is gross. Like, what are you doing? And then young black kids growing up in the Bronx who don't even know what the word computer is,

like, there's no way to spin that as well what she meant was. And I saw people try to do it. There's absolutely no way to spin that. The idea that a child in America anywhere in 2024 doesn't know what a computer is, it's indefensible to say that. I guess the claim now is like, but because of her, they will. And it's like, really? Like, that's where you're going?

We have this habit in New York. We elect these demonstrations. who are actually Republicans. We see it with our mayor, with Eric Adams, who gives all the money to the cop and closes libraries. And we see it with Hockel. And it's a little more understandable for a governor because you got upstate and Long Island are a lot of Republicans there. But it's still, we just, we have this habit of doing this here. And it's gross.

And it needs to stop. Yeah, fuck those guys. So, Andy, how are you closing out this week in America? with your fuck that guy. I came across an article this morning as I was doing my eight hours of pre-show research. And I think I was an hour like maybe four and a half. So it was probably like 8.30 a.m. And I came across an NPR article with the headline medical residents are starting to avoid states with abortion bans, data shows.

And I thought, this is really something. The article basically talks about how, well, exactly what I just said. For the second year in a row, according to statistics from the Association of American Medical colleges, students graduating from U.S. medical schools were less likely to apply for residency positions in states with abortion bans and other significant abortion restrictions. Now, think about what this means. First of all, it's obviously horrible for reproductive medical needs in those states. Obviously, that's a given.

But think about what this means overall, because we're not talking about, oh, this is a bunch of doctors who are looking to perform abortion. so of course they're not going to go to those states. No, this is just people who are graduating medical school and about to, you know, set up a residency somewhere. What we're saying here is that all these states in the South, in the Midwest, wherever, that are passing these laws, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Idaho, a whole bunch more, that people who just want to become doctors in general and who are just graduating medical school don't want to go to those states. So that is going to affect the medical care of every resident of that state. So it goes way beyond reproductive

health care and reproductive freedom. It goes to you're not going to have any good doctors who want to be there in your state. And you're going to end up with doctors there who probably couldn't become a doctor in the states where they actually wanted to go and, you know, and ended up in your state. So the residents of those states need to start thinking long and hard as they pass these obscene abortion bans and as they continue to fight against reproductive freedoms. They need to think about what this means, not just for people who need reproductive health care, but for everyone in their state, which if you're a dude, suddenly that includes you. And maybe that'll wake you up to the fact that denying women health care is actually going to come back to bite you in the ass.

And maybe ultimately that will make some kind of difference. I don't have the fullest confidence in that. But sometimes people do the right things for selfish reasons when they won't do them for, you know, just being a good human being reasons. So anyway, I just thought it was a really interesting article. And I thought it was a good fuck that guy to all these states that are passing these laws. and just it should be a real wake-up call for them that what they're doing is, again, it's going to affect every single person in that state who needs medical care at some point,

which is every single person in that state. I mean, what they're doing is just creating medical and health care deserts across this country where those that are skilled who care about the work that they're doing are either leaving the state or will never touch those states because why would they put their practice and themselves and their families in jeopardy. And I need for these people to understand that pregnancy and delivering a baby doesn't come from a fucking stork. Like it is not a seamless, neat and tidy process.

It is the time when the person that is delivering a baby, the mother is closest to death. And the fact that you can't receive the kind of care that you need in order to make sure ensure your safety and the safety of your child. Like that is part of the entire. pregnancy process. And so, you know, these folks, again, they don't care. Why? Because it comes back to money. They'll take themselves and their families and they'll fly to these different states to get the best

kind of medical care. These representatives, right, who pretend cosplay that they are doctors right now, you know, they get the best health care that is paid for by their constituents in that state, you know? So they could care less. These people need to start thinking about themselves. and their families. Fuck those guys. Yeah. And I just want to point out before we leave that one of the things about this is when you're talking about people who are just leaving medical school, they're going to become residents, you know, in a hospital somewhere. And that's their training period. And what you've got is you have people saying, well, I'm not going to go to a state where abortion is banned, because I won't be getting the fullest training that I possibly can. So they're like, I'm going to

go be a resident in a hospital and a state where I can get full training. And guess what? Once you become a resident in a hospital and a state somewhere, there's a pretty good chance you're going to stay in that state because you've already relocated. So that's why this just goes way down the line. And I think you're absolutely right. This is going to lead to medical deserts in a lot of these states. And so fuck those guys. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder.

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