The Daily Beast Podcast - Which (Alleged) Crime Did Matt Gaetz Want a Pardon For?

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

Former President Donald Trump was not lacking in pardon requests in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riots, according to new information revealed during the hearings on Thursday. Among those who asked for pardons: Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Mo Brooks (R-AL). That in itself proves that Brooks knew Trump’s “Big Lie” was a load of BS, says New Abnormal co-host Andy Levy on the latest post-hearing episode. Also in this episode, Jay Willis, editor in chief of Balls & Strikes, breaks down two Supreme Court rulings, including the rejection of gun control legislation in New York, loudly proclaimed in an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas. “Thomas’ opinion basically freezes firearm regulation as it existed [in the Constitution],” Willis says of Thomas’ mind-boggling explanation. Last but not least, Greg Sargent, author of The Washington Post’s The Plum Line blog, makes the case that the Jan. 6 hearings are absolutely making an impact. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Zhang Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic Invo. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, 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 the wisest and funniest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it. What a great show we have today. First we're going to talk to Jay Willis, who's, of course, the editor-in-chief of balls and strikes. And he's going to talk to us about the Supreme Court's latest terrible ruling.

Then we're going to talk to Greg Sargent, who's, of course, the editor of the palm line blog for the Washington Post. And he's going to talk to us about what he's seeing all around politics today. But first, let's have some fun. Andy Levy. Molly Jongfest. Crimes. He did him. He did him.

The man who used to be president, Donald Drumpf, as I like to call him, because it really, really annoys him. He liked criming, didn't he? Big fan. It's an incredible moment when I was sitting there and I was thinking to myself, everything I worried about between November, the election and January 6th, everything where I thought, I wonder why he's coming back from Palm Beach on January 31st. I wonder why he's doing this, why he's doing that. Everything I worried about, he was trying to do. There had been some talk that he might fire everyone and replace them with Jeffrey Clark.

He was trying to do that. Yeah. Well, we found out just how close that came. Boy. Yeah. And by the way, an environmental lawyer, it's not on the side of the environment. If you work for Exxon, you're not environmental lawyer. He's an anti-environmental lawyer.

When you think somebody's doing something sketchy as hell, there's some really good sense. And I think this is the most important data point here. Maggie Haberman, very connected in Trump world, have heard from several former Trump advisors acknowledging this testimony is quite grim. I mean, it really is. Look, I'm sure the usual suspects will find a way. to pretend it's not. But I did see a tweet that quoted Brett Baer, I assume on the air on Fox News,

basically saying that this was really, really grim. So I expect Brett will be looking for a new job soon elsewhere. But I think Fox World has sort of turned on him too, don't you think? I don't think the prime time hosts have. Right. That's where the power is, I think. The stuff that was there today... It's the boring lawyers.

Exactly. It wasn't as entertaining, quote, unquote, as the other days, but it was no less important. I think that's the best way I can put it. There weren't the fireworks and there weren't the passionate music swelling testimony from a rusty Bowers type, who, of course, you know, the next day he said he would vote for Trump in 2024 over Biden because all these people, even when they do the right thing, are apparently mentally ill. It was lawyers speaking lawyerly, but there's a power in that. It's not, again, it's not the most.

riveting entertainment, but there is power in listening to these guys basically saying, we can't do that. We can't do what you're asking, Mr. President, because the law says we can't. And that's what we got a lot of today. Like, we got a lot of, you know, that's not, these guys saying, that's not what the Justice Department does, you know, and the Justice Department has no right to seize voting machines and stuff like that. One of the very smart things that Liz Cheney did, and again, I look forward to not voting for her for president. Let me tell you, I'm never voting for her for president. But I do think she's doing a very good job with this.

And she set it up at the beginning of the hearing. She said they're going to talk about these four congresspeople who asked for pardons. So we sat down for this hearing and we thought, who the fuck is she talking about? We have now. Drumroll, please. It's always the people you most suspect Gates. Yes. By the way, with Gates, it's great because it's like, what does he want to pardon for?

The FBI stuff or the, you know, the coup stuff. Right. Mowbrough, surprising nobody. Andy Biggs, of course. My personal favorite member of Congress, one, Luehurt Gohmert. That's the French pronunciation. I prefer to say Louis Gomer. Yeah, Louis Gomer.

Representative Perry, who has figured a lot in today's hearings. Yes. And MTG. Yeah. Marjorie, Taylor, Green. On the bizarro planet, that's the Algonquin Roundtable. It's the Algonquin roundtable of morons. Yeah.

If I could steal a joke from the great sitcom Friends, that's the Algonquin Kitty's table. Oh, never use a friend's joke. Oh, sorry. Great show, though. Seinfeld all the way, baby. Well, of course. No argument there.

I heartily agree. Apparently Gates's pardoned. He wanted it to read, quote, from the beginning of time until today for any and all things. Yeah, King, King. Hell yeah. As young Max Greenfield would say, based and red-pilled.

Yeah. But I'm going to tell you, not great. No. So look, these are, as you started this off by saying, it's, you know, it's always the people you most suspect. And there's not a surprise on this list. It's a list of, among other things, the dumbest member of Congress. I had forgotten that his chief of staff was called Connie Hare, which I had no one found hilarious and forgotten about.

So I would like to say that we now know we're dumber than a box of hair comes from. Oh, oh. I don't think anyone is surprised at any of these people, I mean, that he wanted to seize the voting machines, we knew it. Right. You know, that he wanted to install Jeff Clark, we knew it. By the way, Jeff Clark, who someone has found an old tweet where he says he chastises Mark Hamill for getting a vaccine and saying that he's low tea, which is like an all right testosterone obsession. But the list is everyone you would think, Brooks, Biggs, Gomer, Perry, Green, and Gates. The one thing that is interesting is that Gohmert and Mo Brooks both have lost their congressional. seats because they went big for Trump, right? Gohmert went and ran for AG and he lost and he didn't even make the runoff. So he's out. He lost his seat.

Mo Brooks ran for Senate, got endorsed, got unendorsed, as Trump often does. And he lost his seat, too. You see how loyalty is paid. And also, none of these people got pardons, right? No, none of these people got pardoned at all. They asked for pardons, but they didn't get them in the end anyway, which is sort of amazing because everyone else in the world, I mean, Judge Box of Wine's husband got a pardon. Like, who the fuck is that? They're not even married. They were divorced. Right. Jared's dad got a pardon.

Everybody gets a pardon except for people who really need them. Except the people who try to help Trump, apparently. Yeah. There was a key moment in the hearing on Thursday. I thought the acting attorney general and like the other people in charge was Jeffrey Rosen and a couple of the other guys. And there was a big meeting with Trump where he wanted to install Jeffrey Clark and boot Jeffrey Rosen because Rosen wouldn't do anything

about the non-existent election fraud. And they're explaining to him why this isn't going to work. And Trump response was, what do I have to lose? And that to me, like, if anything sums up Trump more than anything else,

like this is the guy who is, the president of the president, the United States. And what he's asking the Justice Department do is not in its purview. It's illegal. It goes against the Constitution. And all Trump cares about is what do I have to lose? I know you were trying to interrupt me, Molly, because you were trying to stop me from saying something because I'm going out on a limb. But I'm going to say it. I don't think you want a person with a what do I have to lose attitude to be the president of the United States. I'm sorry. I'm saying it. I stand by it. and I will not apologize for it.

I mean, listen, man. No, I'm not apologizing, Molly. I'm not appellate. Molly, stop. Just stop. You're not going to get me to apologize. I like when he was like, what do I have to lose? And the other guy was like, and so I started listening all the things he had to lose.

And also the democracy had to lose. That was pretty wild stuff. Yeah. I mean, basically the response was every single senior person at the Justice Department is going to resign. Yeah, exactly. And you could go to jail. and also you're ruining American democracy and, and, and, and, and, and. I mean, I think what's clear from this hearing now is that there is a lot more.

And they have now paused. We're going to have a week or two off. We've got Mo Brooks is a wild card. I still think he could testify. We have this video from these documentary filmmakers. They put out another video today. I've heard from some people that it's very explosive. I've heard from other people that's not very explosive.

We'll see what that means. Totally contrary things, as always, from two different people. But it certainly is video of them. And Trump is always a person who's happy to confess on television. So if history is any guide. And I think that what's clear here is they have started to really make a case. And you saw polling. I don't know if you saw this poll.

Today there was a poll that had DeSantis way over Trump. certainly looks like this has having a chilling effect for Trump. Yeah, I think it might be. I just want to point out, apparently Mo Brooks' request for a pardon was a pardon for, quote, every congressman and senator who voted to reject the Electoral College vote submissions of Arizona and Pennsylvania. So it wasn't even just for him. He wanted a blanket pardon for everyone who voted to reject those vote submissions. So he knew.

Yep. He knew this shit was not above board. He knew it was illegal. Of course. So, yeah, drag his ass and let him testify. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, and also, Mo Brooks is a lawyer. So I like that the subject was pardoned.

It's just hard to believe that. Subjects, me doing crimes. Right, exactly. About my crimes last night. Yeah. Subject, avoiding jail. I think this has gone really, really well, and I'm impressed. And looking forward to not voting for either, Adam Kinsinger.

or Liz Cheney for president. Well, neither one of them has a political party. So, I mean, there's no chance of them even being a nominee. So I think we're fine. I'm telling you, I see a world where Liz Cheney runs for president as an independent and takes a few votes away from Trump. Literally, she sent out mailers today asking Democrats to switch parties to vote for her in the primary. Yeah. Yeah.

I saw that, which, by the way, not a bad idea. You know, I mean, the person running against her is worlds worse than her. But I don't know. I mean, it's still like neither one of them is going to be president and both are being stand-up people right now. And that's what we're focused on. Yeah, exactly. Jay Willis is editor-in-chief of balls and strikes. Welcome back to the new abnormal, Jay.

Happy to be here discussing only the best news about all the great things our wonderful Supreme Court is doing. So it's, you know, we're in this last week of June, right? It's almost over, and they are trying to figure out how to sort of dump the bad news as close to vacation as humanly possible. I mean, there are a couple of other decisions, but there were two really big decisions. Both suck. Discuss. Yeah, neither one is good. So the first one is Vega v. Tico, a question about what remedies you have if a law enforcement officer violates your Miranda rights.

Officials of the extended law and order universe will know the Miranda rights. You have the right to remain silent and so on and so forth. But there's a question about what happens if a cop doesn't give you those warnings? Can you say sue that cop? Do you have any remedy of that for that? And the Supreme Court today basically said no. You don't. It's totally fine when that happens.

They refer to these as judge-made remedies under a section of law known as Section 1983. And they basically say, when that happens, if Congress wants to create a remedy, Congress can do that, but it is not on us, on judges, to do so. You and I know that Congress has trouble right now doing anything beyond like naming a post office. Right. I was going to say even that. Yeah, the idea that Congress is going to come together to pass a law that conservatives would be able to frame as mean to cops is just basically. saying that there's not going to be a remedy at all. Yeah. So does this undermine due process? Yeah. If the court has consistently held for, I think, more than half a century, can I do math off the top of my head? I didn't go to law school because I can do math.

The court has held for half a century, right? That the protections of the Constitution don't mean anything, especially for criminal defendants, if criminal defendants don't know about them. That's why the Miranda warning exists. Right. Again, this doesn't like overrule Miranda in formal terms, but again, if there are no consequences for cops who violate Miranda rights, you start to wonder whether those rights matter, whether they exist at all in practice, if not, even if they still exist, you know, in the annals of Westlaw.

Talk to me about the other decision, because that is the second decision. decision is this sort of big headliner, Bruin? It's a fun debate for a progressive legal outlet like balls and strikes right now to try and sort of triage our limited resources and talk about which disappearing right is like most important to cover fastest. A couple minutes after Vega, we got this decision in Bruin, a huge case about the Second Amendment. And what Bruin does is the court has previously held that the Second Amendment confers a point. on, quote, ordinary law-abiding citizens, in quote, a right to possess a handgun for self-defense in their home. The court conjured up this right in 2008 in a decision by your friend in my

justice Antonin Scalia. Coming up with that right, incidentally, for the first time in the Constitution's history, court had never previously held that. And all of a sudden it says, ah, yeah, actually, this rights existed all along. Right. Crazy. Crazy how that works. Yeah. Today's case, a decade later, kid and a half later, I guess, extends that ruling to outside of the home in an opinion written by Clarence Thomas. You may remember him as married to Ginny Thomas. Yeah, noted like Q Curious, Ginny Thomas. Yes. Yeah, so this new opinion extends that right to handgun possession for self-defense outside of the home.

So a little bit of background. There are 43 states that there are. concealed carry regimes are known as shall issue, where if you apply for a permit and you check a couple of boxes, fill out a form, you know, maybe you have to give your fingerprints, you'll get a license to carry a handgun in public. There are six states, including New York, and it's a New York law at issue here, that are known as may issue states where you have to apply. apply for a permit and the government for one reason or another, if it decides your application isn't compelling enough, it can say no. Right. New York basically requires you to show some kind of special need for self-defense in order to carry your handgun around in public.

And Clarence Thomas says, no, this is not okay. And in doing so, he sort of, not sort of, he revolutionizes at Second Amendment jurisprudence, and the tests that courts are going to apply going forward. So going forward, governments need to prove that if they're going to try and regulate handgun possession, it has to be, quote, consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation. Which would mean muskets, right? What this means is it's almost even sillier than that. It's that if you, the government, if you can't point to a firearm restriction in place in 1791,

as an analog as supporting the type of regulation you're trying to promulgate today, it's no good under the Constitution. Thomas's opinion basically freezes firearm regulation as it existed. Again, I'm not a math person off the top of my head. 225 years ago, sounds about right, freezes regulation there and governments who are looking to protect their citizens, their voters, their constituent from the threat of like death by handgun in public at any moment. will now have to deal with this framework going forward. Now, Kathy Hokel, our governor,

I'm not negating the terribleness of this, but we did see this coming. We knew when it was argued that it was very likely that this extremely conservative Supreme Court would do the most gun-crazy possible thing. I don't know if you heard her speak, but she was furious. Do you think they have some kind of magic workaround

in New York State for this? It's going to be tough. I wish I had a more optimistic answer for you there, but it's going to be tough because the test that the court puts out today in Thomas's opinion, it's both really simple and, of course, gives the conservatives considerable wiggle room. Right. So again, it's just kind of one step, which is, was this law okay at the founding? If it wasn't, then there's nothing you can do. But also, Thomas goes through just an exhaustive discussion of the history of firearms regulation. And as you would expect, the history of firearms laws in this country at the federal and state level, at the territorial level, like throughout two and a half centuries, it's not one-sided, right? There have been laws that have restricted people's ability to carry in public.

But wouldn't you know it? Whenever Thomas encounters one of those, he says, oh, well, this is an outlier. He finds a reason to discount it. He says that he'll say that, you know, it wasn't in effect for very long or that it only was in force in a state or like Western territory that didn't have that many people. It wasn't that influential, basically. And I mean, it's just, it's a, it's almost a parody of motivated reasoning, right? Like, whenever you find a judicial, opinion with which you disagree, it's easy to say, oh, you know, he's picking and choosing, right? He's picking and choosing the best facts. But that's, like, Thomas is doing that in the open here. He's acknowledging the existence of facts that do not support his argument, and he's just sort of hand-waving them away. And, I mean, like all Supreme Court opinions, right, like this isn't some grand principled neutral apolitical interpretation of the Second Amendment. It is reactionary judges on the Supreme Court who know they have the votes to get there and who are just sort of reverse engineering a way to arrive at that results. And again, the fact that there is

like clear countervailing evidence, like they don't even feel the need to hide that. They could acknowledge it because who gives a shit? Three votes, three votes in dissent aren't going to, aren't going to overcome it. So my idea here is like right now, Biden could, I mean, he, you know, like, could our term, like, if Biden wanted to use his pen to make an executive order, I mean, could he do term limits? I mean, is there a world in which he could do something to rebalance this court or even just to show them their own? notice, because they are at this point completely unchecked. I mean, I think a place to start there would just be for the White House to start frankly

acknowledging that the Supreme Court is like a political actor that poses not just a direct threat to the quote-unquote Democratic Party agenda, right, but to what a majority of Americans want. Like, most Americans favor gun safety laws. most Americans do not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned, for example. And every time we get a bad Supreme Court decision, you know, the most we get from the White House is a statement about how it's concerned and disappointed in the justice's ruling. But in my view, statements like this, they sort of implicitly treat the decisions with like some degree of legitimacy because they come from the Supreme Court, right? Right. Like, I am very disappointed in what our arbiters have decided. But, like, I just think that's the wrong approach. Like, this court is composed of Republican justices who were put on the court to advance the Republican Party agenda. By a guy who lost the popular vote.

I mean, yeah, we can keep going with all of the reasons it's very, very bad. But, yeah, in my view, as long as Biden is treating the court as a neutral entity instead of what. he should view as like an opponent of Democrats and democracy, he's not doing enough. Like, let's start with some good rhetoric before we get to substantive steps he can take. Thank you so much, Jay. This was great. Hey, my pleasure. Let's talk about more bad news soon. It's a great time. Oh, we will. Don't worry. Greg Sargent is the editor of the plum line for The Washington Post. Welcome back to New Abnormal, Greg Sargent.

for having me on. I'm always so happy to have you on because I write a lot, but you read a lot. Yeah, a lot. And it means that you really read everything and you see everything that's going on. I wrote a newsletter today for Wait What from the Atlantic. I said that the January 6th committee's hearings are working. Do you feel that way? Yes, I absolutely do. I think they are working. I think, in fact, we have some new indications of this right now, which is. is this whole spate of stories about Republicans being unhappy with Kevin McCarthy. Yes. I did a thing today on this, but I think that whole narrative is a total baloney.

But it indicates that Republicans know that these revelations are very bad for Trump. And so what they're trying to do is throw out some spin along the lines of, well, you know, if we had representation on the committee, it would be better for us. But they don't have an actual defense of Trump that they could mount. So, and I think that's becoming very evident that the evidence is so damning against Trump that there isn't a supposed secret strategy that they could use if they were on the committee to push back. Yeah, it also just seems like it's doing another thing, which I think is really important,

which is it is making it almost impossible in my mind for Merrick Garland not to keep going with us. It sure looks that way. I mean, the evidence of corrupt intent seems overwhelming at this point. And it's been so vividly demonstrated in so many ways that I've got to think that there's a lot of panic over at DOJ right now. Yeah. It's funny. But the other thing that I was surprised by was, and you really see why Trump and Don Jr. were so furious.

But having Liz Cheney, and again, I would never vote for her. I'm not a fan. I think our father probably. My kids' favorite thing is in the Borat movie where Dick Cheney autographs a gallon water bottle for waterboarding. I forgot that detail. But yeah, I mean, this is a family that I'm not particularly invested in, but there's a lot of power hearing a Republican say these things about Trump.

Yeah, and Liz Cheney is sort of a really good person to make that case, sort of for precisely the reasons you're bringing up. There's like this sort of sense that she's seen the belly of the corrupt beast up close, right? And so if she's telling you there's serious and severe corruption up here, she's got to know what she's talking about. And that voice of hers, that sort of serious Republican voice really, I think, lends the proceedings a fair amount of strength. I think so, too. I also think the thing about Cheney, and I think this is true about Kinsinger, too, is that they are not the most. more this gets divorced from a political calculus, the more effective it is.

Yeah. I think there's certainly a very clear sense among a lot of people on the country watching this that both Liz Cheney and Adam Kinsiger are essentially throwing away their political careers to do the right thing for the country. And for low information voters and independence, my strong suspicion is that this is very powerful for them, whatever they take away from the substantive revelations themselves, right? What they're hearing is principled Republicans throwing themselves on the altar for the country and taking heat from Republicans and Trump for it. And that's powerful.

Yeah, I think so too. I also think that it's funny because it's like before it started, people were saying, well, they're not going to show us anything new. We've seen everything. There's been so much reporting. I've seen stuff I hadn't seen. Yeah. Oh, well, for sure.

And I've never really understood that objection, even if he sort of accepted at face value. Like imagine a world in which we knew all of these factoids, which we didn't. But if we did, having them demonstrated in this very high profile way in a somber, weighty setting like this with every news organization except for one big one covering it, certainly punches it through to far more people and adds far more weight to the revelations. There's another thing I think is worth pointing out here. You often hear something like, oh, well, people already know what happened, right? But I think that's wrong in the following way.

So people know that crazy Donald Trump wouldn't accept the outcome of an election and he tried to overturn it. People know that a bunch of angry people who wanted Trump to win rioted, right? But knowing those two things is not the same as knowing that Donald Trump spent weeks trying to corrupt the government in every conceivable way with the express aim of nullifying an election that he knew he had lost in the full knowledge that he was pushing his acolytes to do something criminal and then weaponized a mob against his vice president to try and force that procedural coup to completion. That's a very different story than those two isolated facts that I brought up earlier. Yeah, I also think that watching the way that they're making the case, The other thing that's interesting, and you and I have watched a lot of congressional hearings, so we can attest this, is usually in congressional hearings, you'll have one side fighting with the other, and then everybody grandstanding. And in the end, you'll come away and think, well, there were some things in there that were okay.

But, and I feel like with this, because there's none of that, it feels more like a trial. Yeah, I mean, I think Republicans probably did err tactically in some sense by not remaining on the committee. but I think we should be clear that if they were on the committee and they did succeed, were to succeed in kind of muddying it up, it would be only through sabotage tactics and not through any actual substantive defense of Trump. And I worry that some of the coverage of McCarthy, anger of McCarthy sort of subtly implies that, well, you know, maybe if Republicans were on the committee, things would look a bit different. Maybe they do have some sort of defense that they could mount of Trump. And I, I, I

worry that that message gets through some of this coverage. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how you would conceivably be able to defend any of this stuff. And, I mean, the last hearing we had, you had, I mean, you had Rusty Bauer from Georgia. There certainly is a sense in which these people have Stockholm syndrome, right? He's talking about how his dying daughter is being harassed by Trump supporters and is so, you know, during her last days on Earth is so upset. And he says he'll vote for Trump again. I mean, that was kind of insane.

But you do see that these are people who are still very much in the cult, but they just won't do crimes. Right. And I think it's important to not let the fact that he would vote for Trump or the fact that Liz Cheney votes against Democratic voting rights bills pollute the importance of what they're actually doing. Right. We need Republicans out there who. respect the baseline standard of honoring election outcomes and treating them as binding, even if we disagree with them on virtually everything else. And there's kind of a Twitter man out there that kind of distorts that and tries to downgrade their contribution based on

the fact that they do other destructive things. And I think that actually harms us in the long about Rusty. That, I think, is a good example to point to to show how what bullshit it is that Republicans wish they were on the committee to defend Trump. What would they have done? Cross-examined him? I don't think so. I don't think any Republican really wants to cross-examine that guy. Yeah, I mean, it is interesting, though. I mean, what's happening here is Republicans are largely sending Liz Cheney, Adam Kinsinger, and a bunch of Democrats to do their dirty world. Yeah, and by the way, I'm sympathetic to this in some ways, right? Because a really critical thing that the committee needs to show is that Trump acted with major corrupt intent, right?

Right. In two ways. One, that he knew that he had lost the election. And two, that he knew what he was pushing Pence to do was illegal. Right. Right. And so getting Republicans out there saying we told him 50 different times that it was illegal and we told him 50 different times that he lost the election. really is an effective way to rebut the kind of, you know, media tendency to fall back on weird

euphemisms like, oh, well, maybe Trump really believed he had lost or really believed he was exercising his legal options. And so I'm sympathetic to the committees need to use Republicans to get that across because, frankly, what else is going to kind of punch through the media narratives that I'm talking about here, other than Republicans saying, no, Trump didn't actually really believe that he won, right? Yeah. But you still do feel like the large majority of elected Republicans have been too cowardly to do their own dirty work.

Yeah, although, I mean, it's part cowardice, but part real self-interest, right? Right, right. Craven. Yeah, I mean, it seems to me that a lot of, like, if you think about Kevin McCarthy's shift, right? Like, right after January 6th happened, he genuinely looked horrified. And after all, the rioters were trying to get him. And Trump said to him on the phone, something like, well, I guess they're more upset about the election than you are, Kevin. Right. So he was hard right at that. And he actually said, I think, on one of those recording, that some sort of accountability should

happen or said something along those lines, right? And then he quickly shifted away. And I think it might be a mistake to call that just cowardice. I wonder whether what's going on to these guys is they're essentially deciding that in order to keep the voters that Trump activated in the fold, in the Republican coalition, they need to do this stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah. There's a great quote from Lindsey Graham that I think is really important, and I try to push it out there whenever I can. He said something like, he was very candid about his differences with Liz Cheney. He said that Liz Cheney has made the determination that the Republican Party cannot grow with Trump. I need the determination that the Republican Party cannot grow without Trump.

And I took that to mean that they need Trump and they need the story of the stolen election and they need this sort of, you know, ever infuriating idea that future elections will be stolen from them to keep these voters activated in the Republican coalition. Yeah. No, I think that's right. I mean, they, look, there is a, it's a craven calculus, right? That they can't stay in power without Trump. Exactly.

Yeah, and I think that's a good point. Talk to me about the gun bill that is in, that is being voted on right now. Everything is happening. You had this Supreme Court gun decision and then you have this gun bill that it, it sounds, It sounds like it's going to go through. Yeah, it sure does. Well, I mean, I think, I mean, I know this is not a popular opinion on Twitter or whatever, but there's some good stuff in this thing.

Oh, good. Tell us. Well, so I think something that is perpetually overlooked about it is the way in which it strengthens the background check system. So we're sort of obsessed with the red flag law stuff and the mental health stuff and so forth and so on. But the bill also reclass—it broadens the pool of gun owners. that have to, sorry, it broadens the pool of gun sellers that have to get a license, federal license to sell. So before a lot of people could sell privately without really intending it to be their central

business, right? Right. And they can do it not as a federal licensee, not as a federally licensed gun salesperson. And then they could sell these guns without background checks. And that became a major way that people got guns without undergoing a check. Now, more of those people are going to have to get federal licenses. And I think that's a – and they'll have to conduct background checks. It'll cut off yet another way that some of these guns get into the wrong hands.

And I think that's a big deal. Yeah, I think so too. Talk to me about Texas because there's – this weekend, the Texas GOP, which has – I do want to say notoriously been just awful. This is the group you would expect to describe homosexuality as an abnormal lifestyle choice. Just sort of give us the 4-1-1 on the Texas GOP. I mean, you know, have lost touch with reality, right? Well, they're pretty far right. I mean, they're pretty radical. I mean, they, not only they describe homosexuality as an quote, abnormal lifestyle choice, it essentially, their new platform document essentially declares that no valentonement

no validation of transgender identity is legitimate and dismisses all gun regulations as a violation of God-given rights, right? And, you know, we're starting to see nationally where those movements are headed. I think we're going to see more states go in this direction. And by the way, it also calls for repeal of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, which is a really radical position. I think I joked somewhere that maybe it's time to ask Texas Republicans if they want to bring back literacy tests. And it's not even a joke, really. They don't.

Well, that's the counter joke, right? Right. Right. But, you know, I mean, I do think that this could open the door to all sorts of, you know, newly creative ways of suppressing the vote and disenfranchising. Certainly, they love to talk about secession in Texas, but that would not be a good deal for them. Right. I forgot about that part of the document. I mean, that's like their favorite thing. I can't imagine that that would be something they'd want in the end. But I think they are the kind of

call for it is the thing, right? The declaration that we could do this if we wanted to. Right. That's the real, that's the emotionally satisfying thing for them. Yeah. It's so weird. Thank you so much, Greg. I hope you'll come back.

Andy Levy. Molly. Who is your fuck that guy? So my fuck that guy for today is it's kind of a hilarious, fuck that guy. It is soon to be former congressman Mo Brooks from

the fabulous state of Alabama. You may recall Mo Brooks kicking ass and taking names. Kickin ass and taking names. He was endorsed by Donald Trump and then he was unendorsed by Donald Trump and then

he cravenly begged to try to get Donald Trump's re-endorsement and didn't get it. And then he lost his primary bid to a woman named Britt. Her last name is Britt. Now that he's lost his primary bid and will not be re-elected to Congress, he is saying that he is now willing to publicly testify in front of the January 6th commission if they subpoena him. And I mean, this is absolutely hilarious because he was one of the one of the original House Republicans who challenged the election results and he was a huge Donald Trump guy. And then he got spurned by Trump.

And now he's actually pulling a Trump in that he is showing that he also has no loyalty. And so he is now willing and able to testify before the January 6th commission. That is great. But he still gets hardy fuck that guy. because he's Mo Brooks, and had he won his primary, he would not have said he was willing to testify. So fuck that guy. Certainly not. No.

Do you want to know who my fuck that guy is? Yes, please. A diffuse group that surrounds the one and only Ron and on. Ron Johnson from the great state of Wisconsin. So the last hearing, the last January 6th hearing, the one before. for the one that's happening today as we tape this. So hearing number two or three, Ron Anon, it becomes clear they put up a text message from Ron Johnson's staffer to a Pence staffer, which says, we have the fake electorates. We're going to bring them to you.

And the staffer's like, do not do that. Do not bring us the fake electorates. Ron Johnson is up for re-election in November. He comes from a pretty purple state. He then afterwards, and this one is personal for me because two of his staffers have been very mean to me on Twitter. Actually, not that mean. Not as mean as I would have hoped, but there's still time. But Ron Anon was pretend talking on his phone as he left the Capitol, as one does when you're a Republican senator.

and he said, I'm talking in the phone. Manu Raja said, I can see that you're not talking in the phone. I can see your home screen. For that, Ron Johnson, or as we call him Ron Anon, gets a hearty fuck you from me. Aren't they blaming it on an intern now? Well, then they said it was an intern, but the staffer who sent those messages is now his chief of staff. Right. It's just always blame the intern.

Rule number one. Oh, fuck that guy. Fuck them all. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics and science. We'll help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you again on the next episode.

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