The Daily Beast Podcast - What It Will Take to Make AOC the Next Bernie Sanders

Episode Date: October 11, 2022

Amie Parnes, senior correspondent for The Hill newspaper, covering the Biden White House and national politics, joined The New Abnormal podcast to talk with host Andy Levy through the list of Democratic contenders who could become the next Bernie Sanders—why they would or wouldn’t be fit for the job, and why New York Congresswoman AOC made the list, with a grain of salt. We're also joined by freelance journalist, Eve Peyser who weighs in on the latest with Ye & Donald Trump's poor decision-making. Then, filmmaker Andy Ostroy, who hosts the podcast The Back Room, joins the pod and plays a little game of Sophie’s Choice with Andy Levy: Would people rather see Trump in jail for the rest of his life or see Fox News shut down forever? Plus, he shares what it felt like to interview the killer of his deceased wife, actress Adrienne Shelly, who was murdered in her apartment in 2006, as well as his take on said killer being an undocumented immigrant. It’s not what you expect. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. And I'm producer Jesse Kennett, 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 great guest co-hosts, as well as some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try to make some sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. What a great show we have today.

First, we're going to talk to Amy Parns, who's senior correspondent at the Hill and is going to go through who progressives feel may inherit Bernie Sanders Crown. Then we're going to talk to Andy Astroy, who's the host of the backroom with Andy Astroy and the director of the documentary, Adrian, and he's going to tell us all about his recent work.

But first, we have Eve Piser, who's a freelance writer for the New York Times and New York Magazine. Eve Piser. Andy Levy. Welcome to the new Abnormal, and thank you so much for a guest co-host today. It's a treat to have you. Thank you for having me and reminding me what is up with

politics. Yeah, so Eve used to cover politics a lot and she got smart and shifted, but we're dragging her back in. So let's start right at the top, because if you're going to drag someone back into politics, you've got to start with the main man. And that is the former president of the United States, Donald Trump. So over the weekend, he was speaking in Nevada. And he had to let his audience knows something. He had to let us know that the biggest crowd that he had ever seen was his crowd on January 6th, which is, okay, you know, maybe you don't want to go there, but he obviously does. But then he made it even better by saying that you never hear that. You never hear anyone saying that. You never hear it. I had not heard it before personally. You know, he doesn't always

tell the truth, but I think that was an example of him doing it. Yeah. It's just, Is that something you are proud of? If we think about all the things Donald Trump has bragged about, that can't be like the worst one. True. I know, and I guess you're right. It's just funny. It does remind you that Trump is just, like, every once in a while,

at least he'll say something and you just, like, you have to laugh. Sometimes it's just like funny, but sometimes it's just so out there and so weird that you sort of have like it's an involuntary laugh reflex, I think. And this was one of them, like when I heard him say, you know, the biggest crowd I've ever seen, January 6th, and nobody is saying that. Yeah. It's like, what are you talking about? It made me think all the way back to the 2016 Republican primaries.

Before it all happened. And when, you know, I think a lot of liberals like kind of liked Trump because he was being really funny about these other Republicans, his opponent. Right. It's like he has a natural comic timing. It's not something I like to think about or think that it means that he's good in any way, but it is something he possesses. And when I watched that clip, I was like, yeah, I was reminded of it.

To me, anyway, I've always thought he had like an old, like, almost like a Borscht Belt sensibility. Like, I could see him on stage with Jackie Mason up at, you know, Grossinger's or someplace, upstate New York, just talking to a lot of old people. So another piece of Trump business that we found out about over the weekend is that according to the New York Times, he had told some of his advisors last year that he would return a bunch of the documents that he had at Mar-a-Lago in exchange for the documents that I guess the archives had or that the FBI had regarding the FBI probe of the so-called Russia Gate stuff, the investigation into his campaign. ties with Russia. So it's just sort of, you know, again, like this is how he thinks the world works, right? Yeah. Well, I remember when he was running for president, a lot of people said Trump is a poor person's idea of a rich person with his gold toilets and whatnot. Right. My feeling was that one,

like, that's really rude to poor people. But also that it's not quite accurate, like Trump is actually a child's version of a rich person, that this story is exactly like a weird representation of Trump's childlike way of looking at the world, like, oh, the federal government is going to do some, like, weird trade with me to get back these, like, highly classified documents I'm not allowed to have in what universe? Right. It's not a Tom Cruise movie. Right.

But he thinks of it, it's sort of like, you know, when you open your lunch that mom has packed for you and you don't like your flavor of Doritos and you, so you look to see if you can swap with someone else in the cafeteria. Yeah, exactly. It's a way of looking at the world that I would expect somebody who's like only seen movies and never lived in it. I think that's absolutely right. And that's, you know, similar to what I was saying, like, people kept saying, why does he have all these documents? Why does he have all these documents? And it's like, he has all these documents because in his mind, he looks at them and he goes, mine. Yeah.

You know, and again, it's like he's like a child. It's like a child. It's like how a child would think. Like, you know, he's leaving the White House, but he looks at this stuff. And he's like, these are mine. They're coming with me. No one else can play with them. And I think it was also like, well, once he was given presidential power,

he felt like now he was always going to have that absolute authority. And obviously he didn't respond well to getting voted out of office because in his mind, like he should just never have to lose that. And he should have always had it to begin with. Yeah. And, you know, I've always felt that what the thing to do with someone like Trump is you create like a Truman show situation and you build like a fake White House and everything like that. And you even give him, you give him like a general's uniform because you know he would love to be like a high up in the military.

And you hire a bunch of people to pretend that he's General Donald Trump president of the United States. And you just let him do his thing. And that would be a way to sort of get rid of him, but also make him insanely happy. It's almost a shame that he wasn't born into the British royal family. I know. They do that so perfect. At the Queen's funeral, seeing like King Charles and. Prince William, like, wearing all their, like, military flair. It was like, that's what he wants. And obviously, they have not, like, actually really been in the military. But Trump needs his, like, that sort of costume to make him feel important and manly.

Yeah, exactly. And just surround him with people who say, you know, yes, sir and yes, yes, Mr. President and yes, yes, general and stuff like that. And he'll be perfectly happy. And, you know, the world will be a better place. As usual, nobody listens to me. I actually, I don't know if I've heard the Truman Show idea before, but I think that's a genuinely good idea. Thank you. That makes two people now, me and you. All right, so let's move on to some big news that started online, but I think has made its way into the people in the world who are blessedly not online,

who I envy very, very much. And that involves Kanye West. So Kanye had been off Twitter for a long time. I guess by choice, but he was posting on Instagram. He basically accused Diddy that Sean Combs of being in the pocket of Jewish people. This became a thing and he got sort of banned from Instagram. So the lesson he learned from that is, oh, I should move back to Twitter, which is the obvious lesson to be learned there. So he went on Twitter and he was welcomed back and Elon Musk was very excited that he was back.

and the House Judiciary Committee was very excited that he was back. And then not long after that, he went ahead and put up a post that I don't see any way to describe as anything other than anti-Semitic. And that post quickly got pulled down. And I think now Kanye's account is locked. Twitter locked his account. Eve, what do we do? What do we do with Kanye? My initial thought is de-platforming works.

It worked really well with like Alex Jones and it worked really well with Trump. I mean, he's still influential, but way less than when he was on Twitter. So I think putting Kanye on truth social or whatever would probably do the trick. But it's sad and weird and obviously upsetting. A lot of people, I think when they're thinking about this, think about Kanye's public struggles with his mental health, but obviously that's being bipolar, like doesn't make you anti-Semitic and those two things shouldn't be linked because it's rude to people with mental illness. Yes.

But I think that not having a platform or like a mainstream platform would take away a lot of the power he has. Yeah, no, I think that's true. You know, he's one of those people that is always going to find a way to be in the public eye. I think unlike, say, like a Milo Yanopoulos, who once he got D-platform from Twitter, that was pretty much it for him. Which is not to say that I disagree with you. I just wonder, you know, he's one of those people that everyone just, there's so many people are fascinated by him. So many people follow every word.

He says, it's, again, it's almost like a Truman show situation where I don't know if maybe you could give him a fake social media platform and just let him post. and, you know, put up fake like numbers on it and stuff like that. And maybe he'd be happy. But I do, I do feel like people want him to post. The thing is here that, like, Kanye, you know, he, there was a whole thing where he wore a shirt with, that said, white lives. I think it said white lives matter. Yeah. And which I guess is what Diddy had sort of called him out for.

And that's when he decided he was, yeah decided he was going to post these text messages. he was going to make them public between him and Diddy, and it was in those that there were the Jewish comments were made. The other part of the, I think the context that's important is after his White Lives Matter fashion show, a woman named Gabriella Corepha Johnson, who is a contributing editor at Vogue, called him out, and he started a campaign of harassment against her. You know, Vogue obviously stood by her. and she's a stylist and, you know, styles like for Gigi Hadid and Bella Hadid and like a lot of

famous models and they all kind of had her back. And so I think it gave Kanye the sense that like everybody was against him because he started a campaign of harassment against this poor woman and had to like face social consequences for it. Right. And one of the social consequences he had face was being on Tucker Carlson show back-to-back nights because if anyone's going to help redeem someone who posts something really dumb and then tries to start a harassment campaign against a woman who calls him out, it's going to be Fox News and probably going to be Tucker Carlson. So he goes on Fox News for two straight nights and the House Judiciary Committee puts up a tweet saying Kanye, Elon Trump. That's the whole tweet. That tweet is still up since Kanye's whole

little anti-Semitic rant. So the GOP part of the House Judiciary Committee doesn't care about that. And we had Indiana's Attorney General. He put up a little tweet saying, the constant hypocrisy from the media is at an all-time high. They have now gone after Kanye for his new fashion line, his independent thinking and for having opposing thoughts from the norm of Hollywood. God. To be fair, vaguely, he put that up before Kanye's little anti-Semitic rant. Let's start with the fact that, you know, I love the phrase they're independent thinking, because that's what we hear these days.

It's people saying, you know, oh, I'm politically homeless or I'm do your own research or I'm, you know, this is independent thinking. and it almost always comes back to it's either like anti-Semitic or it's racist or it's anti-trans or it's homophobic. And all of this is now under the rubric of, hey, this is just, you know, this is free thought, this is independent thinking. Am I wrong about that? I do see hateful thinking generally categorized like that. I think that it is independent there as kind of being used as a synonym for like anti-semit. social. Right. Because that's just exactly what it is. Yeah. But obviously, the whole game is saying

really bigoted things in trying to frame them as things that are like, such truth bombs, nobody will listen to. Right. Exactly. There's this Reddit post, I think about a lot. It's like an image of a quote. I believe the quote is actually by some like prominent white supremacist Nazi that's often misattributed to other people that says, if you want to learn who's powerful in society, think about the people you're never allowed to criticize. And then the first comment underneath it is somebody from Reddit saying, I had no idea that kids with leukemia were the most powerful people in the world. Wow. That's amazing. But then the thing is, like, they always sort of, like, again, the Indiana Attorney General, Todd Rokita, obviously many, many people, including me, kind of got on him for his post about the independent tweeting.

So he later on put up a follow-up tweet saying, my post was specifically and clearly aimed at the hypocrisy of the media and the Hollywood elites, not anything to do with other comments. I have an obvious, clear, and substantial, congressional, and public record of being 100% supportive of the Jewish community and Israel. So my first question for Attorney General Rokita is, so you're not supporting Kanye's independent thinking anymore. Like, make up your mind, you know. And then my second one is if you're going to put up a post saying, like trying to disassociate yourself from something anti-Semitic, maybe don't throw in the phrase the hypocrisy. what I was talking about was the hypocrisy of the media and Hollywood elites. Yeah. I mean, there are like, out of all the dog whistles for things that mean Jews, those are probably

the two biggest. Oh, yeah. That's the game. Exactly. They push it as far as they can. And then Kanye, I guess, I guess sort of in his defense, he doesn't actually play the game. He says whatever crazy thing just pops into his. his head. So he'll actually say things like, you know, oh, on the Jews and then say, I'm going to

DeathCon 3, you know, which is his version of DefCon 3, I guess. But then the people who are more familiar with the game would be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't say that. We need to keep the focus on the media and the Hollywood elites as if they mean two different things there. Yeah. There's something to be said for the fact that at least Kanye doesn't use the bullshit coded language that so much other anti-Semitic stuff is cloaked in. So anyway, I think the bottom line here, for me, Eve, is that it's like what Ye said was bad enough and this should not turn into a blacks versus Jews issue or something like that, which I think the right would love for it to become.

Because I'll be honest, most of the black people I know, you know, follow on Twitter or whatever. like instantly we're like shut up conier like that's no absolutely not but it's you know the right loves to glom on celebrities anytime they sort of get a sense that oh maybe this guy is one of us again it almost always turns out that one of us means that they have racist or anti-semitic thoughts but they sort of get used they get used by people like Tucker Carlson and then it almost always backfires I think. Yeah. I think with celebrities who become right-wing celebrities, they use it as kind of a way to revive their relevance. Right. Because like Kevin Sorbo or whoever. But I think with Kanye's case,

it's actually really different because his political activity is actively harming his career. Well, and he stopped making good music several years ago. Yeah, there is that too. But, you know, it's, I mean, I obviously, like, I'm Jewish and find that sort of anti-Semitism really disgusting and hurtful. But with Kanye, like, there's something that seems to me a little sad about it because we've seen him lose the thread more and more every year since, like, 2016, maybe. Yeah, particularly if you've seen the clothing he's designing lately, he really is losing the thread, Eve.

Oh, God. I'm sorry, Eve, I didn't mean to interrupt you with my horrible line. No, now you have me thinking about how not only were the White Lives Matter shirts like horrible for like literally every reason, but for somebody who says he's a designer to put it in impact font, like a fucking... Like, what the fuck? Joining me now is Amy Parns, a senior correspondent for the Hill newspaper in Washington, where she covers the Biden White House and national politics. Amy, thanks so much for being here.

Thanks for having me. So along with Hannah Trudeau, you co-wrote a piece for The Hill called Progressives Hunt for New Younger Leaders' Post Sanders Warren Era. So before we get to some of the potential names that you discuss in the piece, I want to ask, Is there general agreement that the 81-year-old Sanders and the 73-year-old Warren are, quote-unquote, too old, at least as far as presidential candidates go? Or are there people out there, including maybe Sanders and Warren themselves, who are like, you know, 80 is the new 60 or whatever? So let's not be so quick to put them out to pasture politically. I think it depends who you ask, Andy. I mean, there's certainly these die-hard Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren fans who think that they can go another round, that they've

themselves. And so you talk to them and they're all about either of them or both of them doing that. But I think the majority of people are like, come on already. This is ridiculous. Like, why do we keep going back to the same people every single time? Well, look, it's hard not to argue that 81 is old. And I say this, my mom is 81. And she is, you know, in fantastic shape mentally and everything. But even she'll say to me, everyone's at all, she'll be like, this is too old to be president. Like you, you definitely, you know, she's like, I know I've lost a step. She's like, I'm not stupid. I'm 81 years old, you know. So, look, Sanders outwardly doesn't seem to have lost anything. I mean, he's, you know, out there with the schedule that would make me weep. Yeah. But still, it is hard to argue that 81 is an old, particularly if you're talking about, you know, a presidential run.

So add four years to that for the term in office. So he'll be hitting like 90, really. Right. But maybe it's just because I'm. getting older, but 73, which Warren is, doesn't even seem that old anymore. And maybe it's also because we have, you know, Biden and Trump and we look at like the last two presidents have been in that range. Right. Exactly. And I think when you talk to people, particularly about Elizabeth Warren, they were really intrigued by her run the last time, even though it didn't quite hit as well as

and stick to, you know, it didn't obviously captivate audiences. But she, she was on to something with her ideas. You know, she ran an actual campaign of ideas, which I think a lot of people found kind of interesting when, you know, every election really lately has been about politics, so much about politics and not really about policy. You know, she has a really big audience who is really motivated by the things she says, by what she, she's done outside the Supreme Court and with student loans. And so I really think that a lot of people think she is really capable of going one more around and can be that person. But really, it's the whole idea of like why the same people every single time. And I think that's really what's getting people at this point. That's, I think,

exactly right. So I think it's sort of important to point out that no one is really suggesting that either Sanders or Warren or both need to go away in any way, shape, or form. They're just saying, hey, we need younger people to sort of start picking up the mantle here for the future of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Yeah. And that was sort of the idea when Biden, and ran. He was sort of going to... That he was going to be that guy? That guy who was going to kind of bridge like the old and the young.

And, you know, that's why I think he was saying like, I'll be here for four years. I'm kind of, I forgot how he put it, but like the bridge I think is how he put it. And now he's not going away. Like he's telling people behind the scenes he wants to run again. And I think that's giving a lot of

progressives in particular, a lot of consternation because they would like to see someone who is of their age and, you know, and has the same values and, you know, and they want to see more of those people. And I think Democrats in general, not even progressives, but they're like, come on already. Like, this is, why are we still talking about the same four people? Like, shouldn't there be other people in the mix? Right. Exactly. So let's talk about the other people who might be in the mix. And let's let's talk about a lot of the names or some of the names that were mentioned in your piece.

I'll start with, because your peace, went to him first, current transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, seems to be, to me, is sort of a non-starter as far as the progressive wing goes, because and as people say in your piece, he ain't a progressive. Exactly. And so when you mention him to those to progressives, they are kind of shaking their heads and saying, no, he's not one of us. But, you know, I think a lot of people are intrigued by what he kind of represents. And he has sort of he had a really good run, obviously in 2020. It came out of nowhere. No one even knew how to pronounce his name, including me. And now he, you know, is traveling the country and going to some of these key states and is getting exposed to a lot of voters and would-be voters.

And so I think people kind of are looking to him as sort of like when you talk about next generation, it is people like Pete. But then again, I think that he would have a really hard time as he did in 2020, captivating a lot of these southern voters and black voters in particular. Yeah, and again, I think it's fine to say we need younger candidates in general and drop his name. And it's just that in terms of the, you know, progressive leader, I don't think he's the guy. Right, exactly. And I think a lot of people fall into that category of like, no, he's not a progressive. He doesn't hold the same values. And so I think when you talk to people around him, they say that he is kind of the guy who is very much in like the Biden lane of right. He doesn't think that the party has to go so far left. He doesn't think that that's how you can win a nomination.

And so I don't expect him to ever pivot to the left. And so that obviously will not please a lot of people on the left. Yeah, I agree. I just don't think he's that guy. I think he is who we think he is. So the next name on the list, let's go to California Governor Gavin Newsom. He's been making a lot of noise lately. He's picking fights with Ron DeSantis.

He's picking fights in Texas. and I will be shocked if he doesn't run for president. In 2024, if Biden decides not to run, or in 2028, assuming we still have elections in 2028. But I sort of don't really see him fitting the progressive mold, maybe not any more than Buttigieg. No, I think that's right. I think you think about a California governor,

you automatically think progressive, but he's not really. Obviously, California has a lot of bread, too. I think what's interesting about him is, as you said, he's been picking a lot of fights and kind of getting in the faces of Republicans lately. And that's sort of what a lot of people really want right now out of Democrats. They don't want this kind of sheepish behavior. That's why people were getting annoyed with Biden for a while, by the way, because they felt like he wasn't kind of throwing punches.

He was always on the defensive. And so what Newsom's doing with DeSantis, as he mentioned, and how he's putting up these billboards in conservative states about abortion, is kind of an interesting. thing. I think that that will appeal to some people, but I think there are some skeptics who obviously say he's not progressive, and there are a lot of Democrats who feel like he's not deep, so to speak, and has a lot to prove. So I think he's going to, if he does run, and I think you're right, he probably will. He'll have his work cut out for him in a lot of different ways. He is pretty, though. Yeah, if you're in that kind of thing. Yeah. The thing that intrigues me about

Newsom is if he runs the fact that his ex-wife is Kimberly Gilfoyle, who is the current girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr. Right. And so if you have like a Newsom versus Trump thing, that's just amazing. And I think I like, I can't think of another example of something like that. No. So I think that would just be a me. I mean, it would just get, I don't know. It would be great content as they say. I'm not, I don't know that it would be good for the country. No. And it's so funny how few people actually know that fact. I talk to some people and they're like, Really? How is that possible? Are you sure? People question me all the time. Yeah. I also might question anyone's fitness or office who married Kimberly

Gilfoyle, but that's a personal issue. The next name on your list is someone that is sort of being talked up as far as having progressive cred, et cetera. And that's Congressman Roecona also of California. And in your piece, a bunch of people kind of are like, yeah, there's a good chance he's the guy. It's interesting because as I was writing this piece a couple weeks prior, I've been speaking to a couple of big donors who have met with him recently or have talked to him. And he's sort of, his name is kind of making the rounds in those circles as kind of like a serious contender, someone who does have those progressive chops and who is kind of like a Democrat Big D, like represents like all the things that Democrats say that they should represent.

And I think that he's really appealing to a lot of people. And so I'm curious to see how he obviously has very low name recognition right now. Right. But he's kind of positioned himself in very smart ways and came out and supported Biden very early on. And so I think that he is kind of doing all the things, all the necessary things to do that. Although I think running for Congress, obviously, and running for president to completely different things. and few people have been able to make that jump from a house to the White House. Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting that you point out that he's sort of a big D Democrat, and I agree.

And to me, that places him, like, I see him more as an Elizabeth Warren. And I'm saying this in a completely value neutral way. But I sort of see him more in the Elizabeth Warren mold than the Bernie Sanders mold for almost precisely that reason. Like, he seems to fit much more comfortably in the Democratic Party, like on the, you know, on the lefty side of the party as opposed to Bernie Sanders, who often is a gadfly to the Democratic Party. Exactly. And he represents ideas and he talks a lot about various ideas. And so I think you're exactly right. I think he's very much of that war in mold. And he talks about, you know, climate change. And you're definitely going to be hearing more of him. If he's not running for president soon in the next. few years, I think, you know, look out for him definitely in the next decade because he is moving. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so now let's get to sort of more of the, what to me are more of the Bernie types in the sense that they are sort of Democrats. I don't know how big D Democrats they necessarily are. Let's start with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, aka A.OC. To me, she fits the mold of a Bernie

crat or whatever you want to say more than any of the other people we've mentioned. And, obviously including Kana. She's a GOP and Fox News, but I repeat myself, boogie woman. And that's sort of, like if you took Bernie and turned him into a brown woman, you would expect it to just drive Republicans absolutely insane. Yeah. And it has and it will continue to. But I just, I don't know. She's done really, really well, obviously and has a huge, huge, huge, huge following and has been able to capture, I think do things that so many other Democrats haven't been able to do, but I had your research like when she'll actually be of age to run and it's on inocuration day. That's amazing.

Yeah, which, you know, I'm sure she would, if she wanted to, she didn't do it. It seems kind of like an eye roll at this point. Like I thought that she was a little too young to run for Congress. But like I said, she's done amazing things. Yeah, no, I think she has obviously a huge future. Look, Bernie's never been president or the nominee. And to look at someone from that wing and say, you know, this is a potential presidential candidate is sort of iffy to begin with just because it may not work in the primary system, let alone in a general. But obviously she has a great future in politics if she so chooses.

And that sort of brings me to, and I can't remember, I don't think the rest of the squad was sort of mentioned in your piece. But it sort of led me to that, you know, the Ilan Omar, Ayana Presley, Rashida Taleb, Jamal. Mal Bowman and Corey Bush. Are those names bubbling up at all? They're not really on our radar. I think AOC is sort of kind of on our list, but is also an eye roll to a lot of people. Like, that would never happen so soon. And so I don't think these other people, I think they're obviously also, a lot of them are very polarizing and kind of like not where I think the party is, even though a lot of people think that it's leaning more left.

I think when you talk to people, they obviously say that the moderate lane is how you win. And obviously, Biden was able to kind of prove that point and prove that you have to kind of run a campaign like right up the middle to actually win. And I still believe that that's true. Sure. But if we're talking about like the future, you know, the sort of the standard bearers for the progressive wing, to me that's still because again, Bernie and Elizabeth Warren have never, as I said, have never been the nominee. but they are, you know, I think probably particularly Bernie is sort of the ultimate standard bearer for this wing. And if we're talking about replacing that, I mean, yes, I do think that's going to involve presidential runs. It may not involve presidential victories. So I'm just looking,

you know, it does seem that there are, you know, there is this group. I mean, the squad started out as four. It's now six. I like to say that's a 50% growth. That's why there's sort of, to me, there's like two different things going on here. There's the way, you know, there's a path to the presidency, but there's also the path to being like the future Bernie. Yeah, exactly, exactly. You're totally right. I just think you have to, I mean, Bernie obviously came close to winning the nomination in

2016, but I think a lot of people still have to be a little more pragmatic when it comes to running and what it takes to actually win the nomination and not just get to the nomination. Right, no, agreed. But as we all know, had Bernie been the nominee in 2016, Bernie would have won. Yeah. I'd just like to say that because it drives people crazy. There's a name that's missing on the list. And I kid you not, at like 1 a.m. I was lying in bed and it popped into my head.

And I was like, oh, my God. Nobody mentioned Beto O'Rourke. It's really interesting. No. But do you see him as a progressive? Not really, but not any less than Buttigieg. True. Yeah.

No, he didn't come up at all in any conversations, which, yeah, you're right. very interesting. But I don't know. I don't see him in that lane, even though he kind of likens himself to be. But, you know, he's a Texan. Yeah, I know. I just, it's just interesting because, you know, was it four years ago, or two years ago, whatever it was, like, you couldn't search the internet for two minutes on any sort of political website without his name being thrown in your face. That's true. Like I said, it didn't strike me while I was reading your piece, but I'm not exaggerating when it was like one of those bolt upright in bed moments. And I was like, which is a really sad commentary on my life, but I was like, wait, nobody said Beto.

No, no, he didn't come up one time. That's really interesting. You know, if we're talking about someone picking up the mantle of a Bernie or a Liz Warren, do you see either of them officially or symbolically passing the torch to someone, like sort of anointing their successor? I think Bernie kind of did that with AOC in a way. Yeah, it does kind of feel like that, doesn't it? Yeah, he's always sort of propped her up as like the next general.

him. And I think that's why she, you know, endorsed him and stayed very close to him. And yeah, I think he obviously sees her as a protege. But I think you're right. The squad will come up, obviously, and be the next generation. But I think they have kind of a lot to prove to people as far as if they, you know, have that gravitas to actually, you know, it's one thing, like I said, to be a member of Congress. It's another thing to wage a presidential campaign. And to, to kind of have that national status. And so I think there is a lot of room for growth with a lot of these people. But, you know, they, I think the Democratic Party in general and the progressive wing has to do a better job of kind of grooming these people to kind of come up or there's going to be a bit of a

boy in the coming years. No, absolutely. And I think that's really, that's why when I read your piece, and I was like, oh, this would be a really good thing to talk to Amy about because I do think that that's sort of the gist of it is that this needs to happen. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, it's sort of not happening and it's, you know, it's happening a little bit organically with like an AOC, but it's not the party, I don't know. These are not people that the party necessarily loves. You know, I don't think we're going to be looking for like the D-Triple C or the DNC to be actively seeking these people out. So it does sort of feel like this has to happen either at a grassroots Roots level or like a Bernie sort of not officially, but like nodding towards AOC.

So no, I totally agree with that. And that was what I found so interesting about the whole piece. Yeah. And you wonder in Bernie's heart of hearts, like I'm sure he loves AOC and thinks she's very capable, but you wonder if you asked him, is she prepared to actually do this and run for office? I wonder what his answer would be. Right.

And it might be no. But again, as you pointed out, she's not even hitting the eligible age for, for president until inauguration day in 2024. So, you know, she could, if she wants, she could conceivably be around for 40, 50 more years, which is unbelievable. Right. I know. It's really remarkable. And so, and, you know, count on it. I'm sure that one day in 10 years or so we'll be talking about her running this campaign. So that'll be interesting to see. Yeah. I mean, the real story here, as I was thinking about it, is sort of like, I guess some of the squad are, they're actually a little older than I thought, and they're in like their late 40s. But in general, as with everything else,

my generation, Generation X, is sort of skipped over here. And we're going straight from like the, you know, the boomers to the millennials. Right. I'm right there with you. Same generation. We're always the forgotten ones. Yeah. And I look, I guess in this case, it's our own fault. I mean, just there's, you can't really think of a person in their 50s in Congress or in a high level of state politics or whatever, who could be this next progressive standard bearer. No, I come up empty every single time, every single time. Yeah. But yeah, I think there has been sort of a lack of effort, I think, to promote these people

and to kind of give them more of a stage. I don't know why that is, but there is kind of a huge void between like the Bernies and then, you know, the AOCs. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, and we actually have to close out, but Bernie is such a sort of a unique character or, you know, and has been for the last, I mean, it's been a long time, but particularly in the last decade or so, he sort of positioned himself and become this unique figure in, in American politics overall, but and certainly in progressive politics. And I guess when

something like that happens, you sort of unintentionally, you suck the air out of, you know, it just all goes to you. Yeah, exactly. Amy, thank you so much for joining us. It was a great piece in The Hill and I encourage everyone to read it. And hopefully we'll talk to again soon. Joining me now is Andy Ostroi. He's a film producer, a documentarian, a writer, and host of the weekly politics and pop culture podcast, The Back Room. Welcome to the show, Andy. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Hey, so tell me about the back room. It seems like you've had a lot of interesting guests. Yeah, the Back Room is sort of an extension of the Twitter feed and following I've built up over the years. It's just a place for me to have, you know, casual

chats with people of all walks of life. and a place where I can vent, pretty much what I do on Twitter, except instead of 200 and whatever characters, it's a little bit longer. So it's a little more challenging, but it's been a lot of fun, and we have had some amazing, amazing guests. He had Paul Rudd on. Was that recently, or is that, that was a while ago, actually? As I liked to say and thanked him for it,

I said I was happy that I was able to pop my podcast cherry with Paul Rudd. Oh, so he was your actual first guest. He was my first, and he was in studio. Wow. Yeah, so we had a lot of fun. Yeah. We get it. You're better than me. So do you focus on politics or does it just, does it sort of, do you depend on, you know, who the guest is and you just sort of go with that? Well, here's the interesting thing about my podcast. It's always about politics. But the guests are often different that, you know, they come from the political landscape. They could be filmmakers, actors, musicians. When it's not a political figure, my philosophy has been that I want people outside of politics.

on my podcast because we always hear when it comes to entertainers and athletes like, you know, shut up and just play ball and don't speak or play the guitar and don't have an opinion. And my philosophy is that these people not only have opinions because they are American like us and they have interests and passions, but they also have a big platform to spread that vision and opinion and whatever philosophy they have at the moment. So whether I'm talking to Paul Bagala or Representative Eric Swalwell or a pop star like Phineas. We eventually get around to politics. Phineas, for example, we talked about his passion for gun reform and climate and reproductive rights. It generally is a political podcast, but the conversations might be, you know, a little different depending upon who the guest is.

Yeah, obviously that makes perfect sense. You mentioned your Twitter feed. I saw a recent tweet of yours that kind of piqued my interest. you tweeted, would you rather see Fox News shut down or have Trump imprisoned for the rest of his life? What I didn't see, and maybe I just missed it, was your answer to that question. Yeah, well, that's a good observation. I often don't put my answers in because I don't want to skew the responses. But that was an interesting one because it was kind of a Sophie's choice question. And sometimes, you know, with the immediacy of social media and digital responding the way it is, people often respond so quickly without thinking.

Right. You know, it's easy to say, oh, I want that corrupt treasonous son of a bitch in prison for the rest of his life. But the real answer to me, and this is a tough one for me to say because I hate Donald Trump and I would love to see him rotting in prison for the rest of his life. But the real answer to me was Fox News because over, you know, the course of the last several decades and likely going into the future, they have literally poisoned the minds of millions of people and have done so much destruction that it's hard to compare that kind of scale to one individual like Trump. And it was interesting to see the responses where people wanted to see Trump in jail.

And one person said something like, well, definitely Trump, because I don't watch Fox. And I was like, oh, okay, like, glad that you don't watch Fox. That's like when somebody, you know, somebody famous is indicted for sexual harassment and some people come out and say, well, that's weird. He never assaulted me. You know, it's like, what does that mean? If it doesn't happen to you, it still exists, right? So once in a while, I'd like to throw that out there and just to see what comes back and get the pulse of, you know, the American psyche in any given moment. Yeah, no, that was interesting. As someone who worked at Fox News for 10 plus years, I agree with your answer. Look, with the caveat that I don't think the government obviously has the right to shut Fox News down. I'm not calling for

that or anything. Oh, of course. It was a... Yeah, no, and I didn't think you were either, but I do agree that in terms of damage to the country, I think the country would be better served by Fox News being shut down. There's really no good way to pivot to this. So I'm just going to say, on a much more serious note, I believe it was six years ago next month, your wife was murdered. So tell me about Adrian. It was actually 16 years ago, 2006. Oh, 16 years? Oh, 2000. Right. You're absolutely right. Well, yeah, I'm sorry. She was an actor and a filmmaker, and she wrote, directed, and started in the film Waitress, which eventually became a Broadway musical.

Yes. Smash Broadway musical, and the film was a big box office success as well. And, yeah, she met a very horrible fate on November 1st, 2006. You know, it was tragic. And from that, you know, I dedicated my life in a major way to preserving and building her legacy. I produced one of her films after. she died. It was a script that she was shopping around at the time. It's called Serious Moonlight. And that movie stars Meg Ryan, Tim Hutton, Justin Long, and Kristen Bell, and was directed by Cheryl Hines.

Also, shortly after she died, I started the Adrian Shelley Foundation, which provides grants to women filmmakers. And we have over 100 grant recipients at this point. People can go to adrianshelly foundation.org and check out what we do. Our biggest claim to fame was, I think the year before last, we, or maybe it was this year, I can't remember the years are such a blur with COVID these days. Yeah. But Chloe Zhao, who won the Best Director Award for Nomad Land, was one of our grant recipients in 2012 when she was still making short films. So we definitely have a great impact on filmmaking and female perspective and work that comes out of women filmmakers. Last year, I had a documentary called Adrian, which I directed and produced, that premiered on HBO Max in December.

December, and I was working on that for the last four years. So that's kind of what I've been up to in terms of my post-Aidrian life. Wow. I mean, yeah, that's intense, and the foundation sounds amazing. I think Nomadland was two Oscars ago, because it was Coda, was the most recent one. Yeah, 20. Yeah, right, 2020, yeah. But that's impressive. You mentioned the HBO doc you did, which is simply called Adrian. As part of that doc, you actually interviewed your wife's killer in prehist. prison. Since I found that out, I've been trying to imagine what that must have felt like. And obviously, there's just no way I can. But can you tell me what it felt like? Well, it felt pretty much exactly what you would begin to imagine times a thousand. And so for me, I went with a very specific

mission. It wasn't a typical restorative justice kind of meeting where people pledge their forgiveness and are forgiven and then they hug it out. It was really more invested. investigative journalism where I didn't understand until that point what really happened that day. So finding out the truth of what happened was my number one goal because he had lied twice before over the years. And the second goal was to humanize Adrian for him to show him that she was a mother and a wife and a sister and a daughter and that she had a life and a career and that she was a very productive, loved human being. Because I thought in his mind he pretty much had had one very small memory of her when she was, you know, in the apartment with him, meeting her

fateful end. So, but, you know, it was, it was difficult, obviously, but it was certainly in service to my life and my needs. And I was putting together this film. So it was in service to the film. And he did tell what I believe was the truth of what happened that day, which is different than what he had said before. It painted him as a, as a criminal from the get-go. He was, you know, I don't want give any spoilers. And so it was, you know, it was something I compartmentalized, but had had a very clear focus and achieve the mission, so to speak. Did you get any sense of catharsis at all? Or it was just like, no, that wasn't the point of this and that was never going to happen? Catharsis was never one of the goals. Right. I don't, you know, to me, I don't find things like

that cathartic. I don't believe in closure. I do believe in having goals and doing what you have to do to achieve those goals. Yeah, I mean, it feels more like, you know, if someone did a fictional movie, like that would be a cathartic moment and you and he would have hugged at the end of the interview. But it feels like in real life, I can't imagine that being the case. People do that all the time. In fact, Van Jones, a few years ago, had a show on CNN. I think it was called maybe Restortive Justice in almost every episode. They hugged it out. And even more bizarrely, to me, the family member of the victim became. family to the murderer.

Wow. Because in their minds and in their lives, there was a huge void that needed to be filled. So, for example, if some 17-year-old kid killed someone's 17-year-old daughter in a drunken driving accident, and now this mother doesn't have a child anymore, somehow the meeting in the prison would morph into, you'll be my new child. And I accept your apology, and I'm now like a mother, a surrogate mother to you. And, you know, I don't judge and I don't criticize. Everybody's got to do what they've got to do.

But that kind of thing is just so foreign to me. And that was never even a remote option for me. Yeah, no, I couldn't imagine it being for me either. A couple of months ago, you wrote it, you actually wrote a piece for The Daily Beast called How My Wife's Murder and Trump's Election changed my life. For our listeners who haven't read the piece, describe how those two things came together. Is it because your wife's? killer was an undocumented immigrant?

That's a sort of a subtext to everything, but the more macro issues is in 2006, I experienced the death of my wife under horrible circumstances, and 10 years later, I experienced what I still fear today is perhaps the beginning of the death of our democracy, also under horrible experiences. And of course, I'm talking about the election of Donald Trump. So those two things were very pivotal in my development as a human being in terms of shaping what would become, you know, what I do in the rest of my life. You know, I think one is very deeply personal and another is more patriotic. And so, but both have incredibly significant importance to me. And that's really what the piece was about.

It was the, you know, the intersection in my life of those two very pivotal events. Sure, and all of that makes perfect sense. I don't want to harp on the undocumented immigrant thing, but I do think it's interesting only because it would have been very easy for you to go down the road of all these people are evil, get them out of the country, they shouldn't be here, and you have done the exact opposite of that. Yeah, well, that's a very dumb philosophy to ascribe to. Yes, absolutely.

And for those who are listening, if you want to really get a sense of my position on this. There was a New York Times op-ed that I wrote maybe two weeks before the 2016 election. It was, if you remember, it was when Trump was rolling out all his angel moms who said exactly what you just said, like, oh, if we can only get rid of, as if our prison system isn't filled with mostly really bad white dudes who do really bad things. But that whole mentality of, oh, my friend was hit by a bus. If we only get rid of buses, nobody would get killed anymore. Like, That's just a dumb thing to say. And so I have always been very private, for the most part, with my personal story.

I usually only share it when I'm talking about more important things, like things I'm doing to build and expand Adrian's legacy. And so when the election came around, which sort of ties into your question about the Daily Beast article, I felt like that was a really important time for me to share my story, to provide a counter-narrative to this whole Angel Mom thing. and maybe intellectualize it a bit for those who may not be too intellectual, but maybe there could be a breakthrough with one or two or five people. And so the New York Times op-ed was titled, my wife wasn't killed by an illegal alien. And the gist of this piece was that she was killed by a murderer, who just happened to be an undocumented immigrant,

just like there are people who get killed by white guys. And it's not because a white guy killed your family member. It's a monster killed your family member. And he happened to be white. And so there was no difference. And, you know, but every year, you know, you see right before an election, they roll out the caravan talk and the Angel Mom talk and the immigrant talk and the scary black and brown people talk because that kind of culture war stuff is what drives a lot of Republicans to the polls. I don't think it's going to work with really moderate Republicans and especially independence, independent voters this year. But this is their strategy. This is what they do. And so I obviously have a very different opinion about demonizing. an entire segment of our population. Yeah, and you're absolutely right.

I mean, this is every election year we get, you know, there's another world's biggest caravan heading for our southern border story and that, you know, Fox News hypes up for months and the caravans always mysteriously disappear right after Election Day. I mean, the irony is that we had thousands of extremely violent white people stormed the U.S. Capitol, and people died. That's real. That happened.

We have footage of it. They weren't tourists. They were carrying weapons. And they almost overthrew the government. That's real, not imaginary. The caravan stuff is bullshit and imaginary, as we know. But again, that kind of stuff works with really dumb people. It's a cult.

What we're experiencing in America is the biggest cult that we've ever witnessed. I have spotted no lies in what you just said. Before I let you go, do you have any upcoming podcast guests you can let us know about, tease for us? Yeah, we're going to be interviewing Rachel and Alexander Vindman tomorrow. Oh, wow. Following that, we have upcoming. We have Soledat O'Brien. We have Michael Phenone, who I consider to be a real American hero and patriot.

He was defending our capital and our congresspeople on January 6th. And yeah, so we're cranking it out. It's, you know, we've got really terrific guests. I love humor. So every interview has a lot of humor, a lot of laughs. if we're talking about very serious things. Well, that sounds excellent. And Soledadad O'Brien and I were high school classmates, so tell her I said hello. No shit, I will. Well, yeah, she's great.

Yeah, she's fantastic. Andy, thank you so much for joining us. It's Andy Ostroy. His podcast is The Back Room. I encourage everyone to check it out. And also, Adrian, the documentary about his wife, is currently on HBO Max. So check that out, too. Thanks a lot, Andy. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Andy. Eve Piser. Andy Levy. Eve, who is your fuck that guy?

for this episode? I'm going to go with an oldie but a goodie. Okay. Elon Musk. Oh, a favorite. A fan favorite. Fan favorite. The reason I chose Elon Musk this week is because of an interview he gave with the Financial Times.

As I'm sure many of you know, Elon Musk has like a million children. He has a lot of kids. And one of his oldest, he has a daughter named Vivian. She is trans and she doesn't talk to him anymore. He attributed his daughter's distance from him saying it's full on communism and a general sentiment that if you're rich, you're evil. But it's what he said afterwards that really solidified my choice. He said, oh, can't win him all.

So, yeah, he was blaming it on the schools, right? Yeah, he was blaming it on the schools and, you know, young people being progressive or whatnot. But just, just talking about, like, why, like, one of your children, like, one of the most important people in the world to you won't have any communication with you. And then you say, can't win them all. Yeah, that is just. well, do you want to know who my fuck that guy is? I would love to know why you would like to fuck this week. Okay, let me make this clear.

My fuck that guy for this week, which is not the same as a guy I would like to fuck. But my fuck that guy for this week is a senator from Alabama, name a Tommy Tuberville. I believe he's known as coach because he's a former college football coach. and those people aren't weird at all. But he was speaking in Nevada this past weekend. He was a Trump rally. He just went off on some thing that I hope for his sake was unscripted.

But he was talking about how Democrats are, in his mind, they're not soft on crime, but they're sort of pro-crime. And he actually said, he said, they're not soft on crime. They're pro-crime. They want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do that crime are owed that. So maybe we can't blame Tuberville for this because it's possible that the unholy spirit of Bull Connor had somehow entered into his body and was speaking through him.

But just an unbelievable comment because he starts off and you think he's talking about just Democrats in general, which is bad enough to say Democrats are pro crime. But then he moves to they want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. So obviously he thinks that, I mean, when we talk about reparations, we're talking about black people in America. And so he, first of all, is now saying they're the people that do the crime. So it's the black people are doing crime. White people never do crime. It's just an absolutely unbelievable situation. And as a bunch of people pointed out after he said it, the sort of,

ironic thing about this, not in a good way, is that, as I pointed out, he was a college football coach for 30 years and made, you know, untold millions of dollars basically off the sweat and labor of the players, many of whom were black. And for him to go out there and now be saying that they're the ones that do the crime, it's just levels of badness that I can't even get into. So he is my fuck that guy for this episode. That's really fair. And just to add something about Tommy Tuberville being awful is that after spending the earlier part of his career profiting off the unpaid labor of student athletes, many of who were black, he then opposed the name image likeness laws that allow college athletes to make money off of their work. Yeah, of course. A real piece of shit.

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