The Daily Beast Podcast - Whoever Fills Mitch McConnell’s Shoes Will Be Even Worse

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

First on this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, a conversation with civil rights leader Bishop William Barber about the Poor People’s Campaign and the urgent need to craft public policy to correct the root causes of poverty. Plus! CNN commentator and New York Daily News columnist S.E. Cupp joins the program to discuss her thesis that the Republican Party has gone from being the champion of small government to the avatar of no government. 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 Campbell News conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Kedden, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. We have such a great show for you today.

We're honored to welcome Bishop William Barber, the founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. And he'll join us to talk about the poor people's campaign, a movement against systematic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, and the war economy. Then we'll be joined by CNN Commentator and New York Daily News columnist, S.E.com. to talk about her recent piece claiming Republicans have no solutions, only grievances. But first, let's have some fun. Mitch McConnell was a giant among men. He spent his entire career as Senate Majority Leader looking out for the little guy. You know what, I can't do this.

I guess the monopoly bid is little on the board. And you could be a giant when you're standing on other people. Yeah, I can't do the bid anymore. or giant tortoise Mitch McConnell has announced that he will be stepping down from his post as Senate Majority Leader, a post he has had since 1873. He has been, I think I go back and forth between awful and truly awful. There was the rare occasion when he showed the tiniest bit backbone and stood up to Trump for about a good 10, 15 minutes before retreating back into his shell.

And other than that, I can't think of a real. nice thing to say about him, except that problem now is that the next guy, whoever that turns out to be, might end up being a lot worse. Yeah, here's what I'll say about Mitch McConnell's announcement. Bye bitch. Like, you should have retired six decades ago. You know, I just wonder, like, I would love for camera crews to go to the state of Kentucky, which pretty much ranks at the bottom of most metrics that you would use to measure a flourishing state, whether that be education or health care. What is Mitch McConnell delivered to the state of Kentucky in his decades of being in the Senate and of being a majority leader? Nothing. What he will be remembered for. And when the

announcement came out, the anger, like the heat that rose up in my body, but it wasn't just that Mitch McConnell. I got to say something that is very unpopular. I was really fucking angry with Barack Obama. To allow Mitch McConnell to do the inconceivable, which is to disallow a president of the United States, their constitutional right to seat a justice in a vacant Supreme Court seat, to not take Mitch McConnell to the courts where he would have lost over merit guard. Garland seat and think now about where we are, I'm just so fucking angry. Mitch McConnell, when given the opportunity to do his worst, exceeded expectations. Do you know what I'm saying?

Yeah. But when you're looking at who could possibly match up to the kind of sinister wizardry that man wielded for the last several decades, there was nobody. There was no Democrat that went toe to toe with him and even made a worthy of opponent. And so he'll go down in history for Republicans as their best majority leader. And he will go down, I think, in overall history as a man that stood as one person, that tortoise shell is real fucking strong as the clog to progress in America. Yeah. And when we're done talking about good old Mitch, we're going to talk about the Supreme Court. But it is sort of hard to talk about

one without the other because the makeup of today's Supreme Court is in some. large part, as you pointed out, due to Mitch McConnell. And look, he also gave us, by not allowing Barack Obama to put Merrick Garland on the bench, he gave us Merrick Garland as Attorney General to slow walk all of the Trump stuff. We're sort of doubly screwed by Mitch McConnell in terms of where we stand right now. There is a damn good chance that his replacement, whether it's John Thune, John Cornyn, one of the other Johns, or Rick Scott, who has apparently, I can't even talk about Rick Scott because no literally nobody likes this guy but somehow he keeps succeeding. But that's a story for another day, I guess. Anyway, I am sympathetic and pretty much in agreement with the

argument that whoever's next might be worse or will be worse. But I cannot find it in my heart to say anything good about Mitch McConnell. Like, you know, if the best thing you can say about him is like, well, there are worse people, that's not a ringing endorsement. And that's the best I can do. He has screwed this country so hard and so often, I don't know exactly why he's deciding to step down from this position. You know, obviously he's been through some health stuff starting last year, I guess. But there are reports that all of that is sort of in the past. So I don't know if that is anything to do with it. I suspect it's more that even he is sick of dealing with the extreme MAGA folks and just sort of realizes that as awful as he is, he doesn't have quite the level of awfulness

that they want in a Senate majority leader. So my fear is. is that he's going to go away and then we're going to get that extreme maga awfulness. But even all that said, I cannot imagine for a minute looking back on the good old days of Mitch McConnell. No, I continue to say this, that this country has been pulled so far to the right, so far off of a cliff that we are comparing like the last several decades under Mitch McConnell's rule and saying that something could possibly be worse. I can't think of what could be worse than having stolen multiple Supreme Court seats in order to usher in authoritarian rule in the United States, where right now it is like a fucking redux of 2000 with the Supreme Court getting to decide whether or not a serial

criminal can be held accountable for being the architect and mastermind behind faulting on our transfer of power. Donald Trump, in his own admissions, audio, video, like tweets, fucking truth socials, has said what he did and what was the goal of January 6th. And now the Supreme Court, which could have been like, you know what, lower courts? Y'all are right. Keep it pushing. We're not hearing this. We have other parts of modern society to destroy. Go ahead and prosecute Donald Trump. Now it's going to be up to the nine unelected black robes. And who put them in place? Mitch McConnell. So in just thinking about, oh, what could be worse? It's just more of the same. Like, they'll be crazier. They maybe won't be as articulate. They won't know necessarily as much as

the innings of the Senate, inning operations of the Senate. But like, honestly, Mitch McConnell did more to destroy America and every advancement of civil rights that we have had over the last six decades than anyone could ever possibly fathom. Yeah, absolutely. And let's talk more about what the Supreme Court did the other day. This is the same Supreme Court. We're talking now about the case. Trump is insanely trying to claim that basically any actions taken while in office as part of the office of the presidency are immune from prosecution. I mean, this is just, so obviously on its face in saying that I cannot believe we're actually having to talk about this now as a serious proposition that will be heard by the Supreme Court. As a million people have

pointed out, under Trump's sort of theory of presidential immunity, Joe Biden could order the Secret Service to assassinate him right now and not be held criminally responsible for it. But the Supreme Court, in its very, very finite wisdom, apparently, has decided that the lower court ruling that this theory is garbage needs to be reviewed by them when they could very easily have simply signed off on that ruling by the Court of Appeals and let Jack Smith's trial against Trump proceed. But instead, what they did was they waited two weeks to even let us know if they were going to accept this case, and then they accepted the case. And what this does is it throws the timing of Trump's federal trials into great jeopardy, given the fact that if these trials

now don't get started till, I don't know, September, October, if then, and then Trump wins in November, in a very real sense, the Supreme Court just said, you know what, protecting democracy is not really our job. Right. 3,000 percent. That is exactly what they have said, exactly what they have done. And I think that folks need to understand that in so many ways, in so many ways Donald Trump and Trumpism have already won. It's like the last cherry on top of the Sunday is the election. But in so many ways, the Supreme Court has eroded everything. And they're continuing to go for things that we couldn't even imagine. They got rid of abortion.

They got rid of affirmative action. They've now allowed a flood of guns into blue states that had their own laws. Because when it's states rights to protect civilians of those states that voted for that, nah, right? The Supreme Court can supersede that. And so now, by virtue of their time wasting measures, they've already decided this. Like, I'm trusting fucking Clarence Thomas to do what exists. To continue to do Harlan Crow's bidding, it's just like Trumpism has taken over America, has taken over our Supreme Court, has eroded progress for over the last 60 years, and they are hell-bent on just finishing the job.

I always say that I'm ye of little faith. I am ye of no faith in how this moves forward. People keep saying like, oh, don't worry, you know, court cases go on during elections. Do they fucking really? Because we're in like a real special fucking place here. Yeah, I mean, sure. Court cases go on during elections, but we've never had, you know, we've never had a case where it involved a former president who might be the new president again.

So, yeah, I don't get that at all. You know, I go back and forth and trying to figure out what the court's motive is here. And look, you only need four people for justices to grant cert to the case. So we don't know that agreeing to hear the case means they're going to rule. rule in Trump's favor. And it's still, look, it seems almost impossible that they were ruling Trump's favor. But like you, I'm not sitting here with a lot of faith. We don't know, by the way, how many justices voted to take this case. It could be four. It could be nine. It could be somewhere in between. What we do know is that even if they take this case, hear their arguments, by time they come out with

their decision, even if it's against Trump, it's almost a case of it'll be too little too late. And that's the problem here, and for the court not to recognize this, and for the court not to care about that, is pretty alarming. And look, there were a lot of people who, because the court of appeals took their time issuing their decision on this, the one that has now been appealed successfully to the Supreme Court. I remember at the time, people were saying, well, look, they took their time, but they wanted to make sure they crafted it in such a way that the Supreme Court could look at their decision and say, yeah, we don't have to touch this, what they said. Well, clearly if that was the strategy of the appeals court, it didn't work. And so we got a delay there

when it took them a while to issue their decision. These delays go back even further because Jack Smith had asked the Supreme Court to take up this case and bypass the Court of Appeals back in December. And the Supreme Court declined to do that. So this case has now been wending its way through the courts for months and will continue to not be resolved for at least a couple more months. More than that, to be on, I guess they're going to, I think they're hearing oral arguments in April. So all of this is playing right into Trump's hands. This is where it gets at when I say they're not doing their job protecting democracy, because in essence, what Trump has filed here is a nuisance suit. He knows damn well. I would say 99.9% of legal scholars and whatever have said,

this is the most ridiculous thing we've ever seen in our life. And I think Trump in his heart probably He knows that, but that he doesn't care. His goal is to run out the clock. His goal is to delay, delay, delay, and the Supreme Court just signed off on that. Yeah. And when you say like, oh, I can't believe that, you know, they don't see that or they don't know that, they do. They're fucking complicit.

This has always been a part of the scheme and the setup. Donald Trump knew from the time that he entered office, put his hand on a Bible, which I'm surprised didn't burn. He knew these cases were coming. Maybe not the documents case because he hadn't stolen them yet. but he knew all of these other cases were mounting up against him. The only reason that motherfucker ran was so that he could stay out of prison and then have on his resume, oh, look, look, but I was president.

So that means I'm immune from every single thing. So I can expand my crime organization and do so under the cover of presidential immunity. And I can put people in place at the very, very tippy top that when my shit rises there, they'll be like, nah, son, you're good. Like, that's what he did. The mob boss of all mob bosses, he put every fucking player in place. And all he had to do was appease the white evangelical Christians

of their fantasies, their Disneyland, of a white Christian, fascist country in order to secure his freedom and his fortune. Yeah, and speaking of mob bosses, Donald Trump made an offer that New York couldn't not refuse. He is supposed to pay $454 million as the penalty in the civil fraud case that he lost. In order to appeal this case, he has to put up the $454 million. He made an offer to put up $100 million. And he did this in an 1800-page court filing. And the answer to that was, as to use words you

just used before, nah, son. It doesn't work that way. Eighteen hundred pages, to explain why he couldn't put up a $454 million bond, considering what he always claims he's worth, considering that he supposedly holds more than that, roughly 600 million in liquid assets. But all of this is exactly what your point was before. He probably most likely knew this wasn't going to work, but what does it do? It delays everything. It comes up the system. It lets him go out there and say, I tried to make a deal with them.

They wouldn't accept it. And this is what he does. It's a game to him. He works the courts, the way he works everything else, the way he hires contractors and doesn't pay them and, you know, finding some way not to pay them. It's all just a damn game to him. Just agreeing to play the game, it's like war games. Just by playing the game, you lose. And to Tish James' credit, et cetera, she pretty much instantly said no to this game and basically said, look, you either pay off the judgment.

If you don't have enough funds, she said, we will. will ask the judge to seize his assets. And God bless her for that. I just, you know, all I ask, Tish James, please let us know which building you're going after first so that I can order some champagne. I can get in a car and make sure that I am there when you, no doubtedly in my vision,

with a sledgehammer, just knocked Trump's name off of the building and, you know, and put up a big banner that says seized, property. Like I just, like in my fantasy, if this is all I get, which it may be all we fucking get in terms of justice for Donald Trump, just let us know, because I would like to give you a parade in every place that you're going to in front of every building. And I'm sure, I'm sure others would join me. You know, Moody Tower has a nice ring to it. It has a nice ring to it, you know? You know,

TNA, the new abnormal tower. Look, we can do all of our all of our. All of us. shows up there, you know, with views of the city. See, Andy, that's how it's done, ending this segment with the creative use of the new abnormal. That's how it's done, buddy. So are you saying that should be the new abnormal? Bishop William Barber is one of the great civil rights leaders of my generation. Among many, many other accomplishments, he served as the president of the North Carolina NAACP from 2006 to 2017 and on the National and NAACP Board of Directors from 2008 to 2020.

He is currently co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, a national call for moral revival, president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, and the founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. It's an absolute honor to have him here today. Bishop Barber, thank you so much for joining us. Very good. Bishop Barber, I want to start by asking you about the Poor People's Campaign because you have a big event plan this weekend. Just before we get to the event itself, talk about what led you to start. this incarnation of the campaign and its relationship to the original 1968 Poor People's Campaign

led by Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Well, one thing is that the issue of poverty and the sheer numbers has exacerbated since that time. And coming out of the Mar-Mondy movement and the issues in the South, we agreed to join in with the Kairosk and be a co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, a National Call for More Revival. after I had gone on a national tour, calling for a mall revival, and hearing from people all across the country saying that there were five issues that we need to deal with that related to poor low wage folks, that systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological devastation, denial of health care, the war economy, and the false moral and natural naturalism. We did that in 2016.

We went all over the country, 2016, 2017, meeting with people. And really the people said it was time. You know, the original poor people's campaign actually, and I say this with the deepest respect, did not start with Dr. King. That's the great man theory that even Dr. King didn't like us tell her. It was Mayor Wright Evelman who was working on poverty issues in Mississippi, and it was the women of the welfare rights organization that said to Dr. King, we have to have a poor people's campaign because it's not enough to get at the lunch counter. In fact, Dr. King had really actually talked about poverty as way back in the 50s when he was. at Dexter Avenue. He talked about how the 1% was running roughshot over the 99% in the sermon entitled, Paul was a letter to American Christian. And people forget that the march on Washington,

they at Rustin made sure that it was a march for jobs and justice, not just similar rights, and one of the top agenda items was that the cause of poverty and low wages that they needed to raised the minimum wage from $75 to $2, and indexed with inflation, which is they, we had done that. The minimum wage would be over $17, $18 a day. But we decided in 2017 the commission of study. I asked to be commissioned called the Souls of Poor Folk, auditing America 50 years after the campaign,

a preacher by the name of James Ford said, America understands audited. And my co-chair, Reverend Nistiel Harris and others, we got some people to do it. And, Doc, we were shocked. We were blown away because even though we had been talking about it, when the economists got a whole other numbers, this is what they told us, 2018,

that there were over 140 million poor and low-waste people in this country, living within $500 of economic ruin, over 87 million people uninsured or underinsured. Millions of people that get up every morning by a genetic gas can't buy a let it water. Over a thousand border suppression cases within five of state capitals after the end being the gutting of sex and five the voting rights act. And then when you

disaggregate those numbers, 60% of black people are poor and low wage, that's 26 million. While 30% of white people were poor and low wage, that's 66 million people, 40 million more than black in raw numbers. And the largest number of poor and low ways are white women and working.

And the more we disaggregate the numbers, the more we knew that we could not leave this number left alone. Last year, finally, we were at our conference, and there's new research that has come out. One book called Poverty by America, not just poverty in America, but then there's another research that looked at death and says that poor people, now when we first did the study in 2018, the Melbourne School of Public Policy said poor people were dying at a rate about 500 to 600 people a day. New study says 800 people a day, 250,000 people a year, a dying,

from poverty and low wages. Now, if you put fact that in and you divide 250,000 by 365 days, you'd have to go to a funeral every day for 600 years and go to all of the funnels of the people that die from abolishable unnecessary poverty in one year in this country. In a country where there are about seven policies you could pass, all which are popular, that could almost eradicate poverty. And yet, in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, when poor people were dying at a rate of three to five times higher than other people, when service workers would change these central workers, but were treated like they were expendable because they were said, you've got to go to work, but you don't get paid leave, you don't get paid leave, you don't get little wages, so forth and so long. 52 million people make less than $15 an hour. We have not raised the mental waste since 2009. And yet, when the vote came up in the United States Senate after the House passed to raise them in a wage,

wage of $15, the federal minimum wage. Eight moderate, so-called Democrats and 50 Republicans said, no. We've not raised the minimum wage says 209. Minimum wage for tip workers is $2.13 an hour, 725 for other folks. And 58 senators said no to 52 million people. That is why, is that the state of reality like that, where we had 15 presidential debates, I think in 2020, not one 30 minutes was spent asking the question. If you become president, what will you do to address the reality of 43% of the nation

than are poor or no way of adult and over 50% who are children? And a quarter million people dying a year from the averages of poverty and nowhere. It really is amazing because, as you point out, just by changing one two-letter word and saying instead of poverty in America, saying poverty by America, it really shines a spotlight on the underlying problems here and the fact that there are direct causes for, so many millions of people being in poverty, and as you say, causes that could be alleviated. Yeah, policy violence. Let me give you some. And these are all federal policies. And even in state houses, that's why I would talk about that in the million. If you passed living wages

a $15,000 a hour of a million, which is actually low to low, really. But let's just start there. 52 million Americans would come out of low wages and poverty upon that signage of that being in passive. And 43% of African Americans. So when you deny living wages, it's both a race and a class issue. The majority of people, though, would be white, actually. And yet when we talk about poverty

often in this country, people do want to do two things. We want to marginalize it and say there are only 39 or 40 million poor and no one people. And that's when folk used the old measurement that comes out of the 60s, which says if you make $13,000 a year, you're not poor, which is utterly ridiculous. Because you actually have some

Congress person that said, well, if you make $7.25, a sudden 50 hours, you're in the lower, low, low middle class because you make about $14,000 a year. But if you just did that one thing, during COVID, we passed child tax credits. 60% of children were raised out of poverty for about six months, and we threw them right back in. We expanded Medicaid because of COVID. But now this month, millions of people are going to lose their health care. Universal health care, medicated for all of however you want to do it, could eradicate people being without health care. and being under insured.

Passing a $15 minimum wage across the nation as a federal minimum wage, economists, Nobel Peace Prize will say it won't hurt weight or it will not cause inflation, it will not mess up prices, but what it will do is pump $330 billion into the pockets of people who will spend that and then that will spend in the economy.

We actually lose money because we don't pay a living wage, we have to pay more public assistance. Because we don't do health care, people have to spend more on health care. And all of these things, my friends, I pop 70% of Americans won't a minimum wage raise. You know, 60% of Republicans in Mississippi now won't health care in Mississippi. But the problem is, this is why we're mobilizing,

is that the deaths are kept invisible, invisible. We don't talk about them. We hide it. When is the last time you've seen a news show, headline, 250,000 people are dying a year from poverty, 800 a day. If 800 people die from bathing, in fact, when seven people died from vaping, it became a White House and a congressional issue. If 80 people died tomorrow from gunshots, it would be all kinds of hearings and everything.

And yet 800 people are dying a day from policy violence. Poverty by America. Matthew Desmond at Princeton has made it real clear. And we tell you, don't start comparing other countries. And we're talking about this country. Poverty by America is an abolishable, unnecessary reality that exists. So talk about what's happening on March 2nd, which is this Saturday. I referred to it as an event, but it's actually 33 coordinated events throughout the country.

Well, it's the first time since the 60s that we've been organized as strong enough to have a massive mobilization that can put poverty and low wages into political narrative and help poor and low-wage people own their power. Because inside of the ugly numbers is also a powerful truth. And here's what it is. Saturday is called the Mass Mall March, a mass poor and low-wage moral march on state houses and to the polls. It is launching a 40-plus-week effort to mobilize,

educate, and move to the polls, 15 million poor and low-wage voters or a large percentage of them around an agenda where we declare we are not an insurrection but a resurrection we're waking the sleeping giant and we're going to make sure that we vote our power and vote our demands our votes are demands and not merely for personality parties we launch in 33 states every state is only at their state capital with a thousand people at least as the launch. We will touch millions of people, you know, through social media, but we're putting before the nation that poor and low-wage folk, and most of the speakers will be poor and low-wage people, are saying, listen, all of these poor folk mean now

that poor and low-wage people make up in battleground states, but Marjorie victim was within 3% except in Texas where it was 5%. Poor and low-wage voters make up over 30% of their electric. There's not a battleground state where poor and low-wage people voted 20% of those who have not voted were to vote that they could not shift political reality. So Linda Lake says the proposed that this is the sleeping giant, that anybody is either politically suicidal or foolish that they don't reach to them and talk to them. We commissioned a study called waking the sleeping giant. The research is found number one reason for a low-wage folk don't vote,

whether they're in East Kentucky where coal miners are or in the Delta of Mississippi, is nobody talks to them. They don't hear themselves discussed in the political manner. We're saying now, on your own, make them hear you, as the song said, make them hear you. And then the democracy, one way you make folk hear you is exercising your power, giving you so quick number. If you add up the margin of victory in 2016, for instance, and even 2020, but 2016, in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, the total margin of victory was 270,000, 10,000 votes in Michigan decided to presidential, 20,000. in Wisconsin, 40,000, Pennsylvania, 170,000 in North Carolina. But the number of poor and low-wage voters that didn't vote is over four million.

Wow. In Michigan, 10,000 votes decided a million poor low-wage voters didn't vote. In Wisconsin, 20,000, a million poor-in-lowers-in-law voters in Pennsylvania over 1.70, even though the margin was only 40,000. So the list is not even ahead. In Florida, it would only take 2% of poor and low-wage voters to mobilize around. agenda to change the outcome and the government information and president's right in North Carolina, 18.6%.

In Virginia, about 21%, in Georgia, about 12%, in Texas, about 20%. There is this power now, you know, among the 135 million poor and lowly folk after COVID, that must be actualized. And so we're launching a campaign. This is not a one day. We're launching it tomorrow.

We're going to train over 6,000 people in these 30-plus states, 200 people per state in the best technology and the best old time getting in the turf knocking door the way of touching voters. We're going to use technology and the old way. If you take 200 people in 33 states and multiply that times, that gives you 6,000 plus. If you multiply that times 40 times five, you actually touch over 15 million people in less than 10 weeks. So that means we could actually touch, you know, four times. We're things like non-positive report card. Did you know that this group is falling in a way?

This group isn't. Did you know this candidate? Did you know your power? Did you know that just 1% of poor and low ways in this state mobile life? People need to know that because they don't hear it in the news. They don't hear it on corporate media. We talk about the middle class and others, but we don't hear it. We're going to force this narrative.

And then we're doing it in the name of the dead. That's why I was saying we don't need to be an insurrection. their resurrection. We've had too many people die from the ravages of poverty. And we don't own our power to stop it. We become accessories to the political violence. And we're not going to do that anymore. And people can find out more about this. I just want to give everyone the website. It's poor people's campaign.org. And they can go there and find out all the details. I believe the rallies are scheduled for, is it 10 a.m.? 10 a.m. gathering 11 o'clock to start. There'll be over about one because some states have early voting. We're doing it because it's

by the Super Tuesday and the state of the union. So we're trying to drive this right into the heart of the narrative in this country. They can go to www.breechrepairors.org, www. www.breechreparers.com as well, repairs and breach is holding the organizing. That's the way they can donate there. And there's also a thing where they can type the word moral. I don't want to give the wrong number.

So they go to the website. They can then type in the world moral and text and link up. But this is the most powerful. In fact, one thing Dr. King said at the end of the Selma to Montgomery March that a lot of people miss, I think it was his greatest sermon, greatest speech. I think I have a dream was his greatest closing because the speech that day was actually enormous and never again. But the speech after he got to Montgomery, under the threat of being shot on the state capitol steps, he said, we're on the move now. And then he went into this explanation of why segregation existed. and what the first reconstruction did in the 1800s, why he was in the middle of the second reconstruction,

and I believe today we need a third reconstruction. But anyway, he said segregation existed every time the masses of Negroes and the master of poor white folk threatened to form a political voting bloc that could fundamentally shift the economic architecture of the nation. And that's the great fear, he said, was of the greedy, racist aristocracy in this country. And it still is. and poor and low wage votes 83 million of them, 50-some million voted, 57 million voted, but 23 million didn't in the last election. And the number one reason is nobody talks to us.

And what we're saying is then you have to make them hear you. You have to go office and you have to own your power. And that's what we intend to do. Before I let you go, I just want to ask, last summer you retired after 30 years of being the pastor of North Carolina's Greenleaf Christian Church. obviously you didn't retire so you could go spend your time on a beach somewhere. You've got to be one of the busiest people in America. And obviously, as we're seeing with this weekend, you're still out there doing it. I'm just curious, though, do you miss being a pastor? Well, I retired from pastoring a congregation.

A few years ago, I was consecrated bishop with the College of Affirming Bishops. And my consecrating Bishop, Yvette, Funder, a same gender-loving sister. And part of the role of Bishop, one of the I was consecrated to lead this justice work and the work of repairs. And in that role, I'm now pastoring pastors and teaching students. I've just been asked to be the founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale University, first of its kind center. You know, the Pew Foundation did a study two of years ago of 50,000 sermons in American Pulpricis and found out that poverty didn't even register in one lieutenant's senator in a sermon,

was the number one issue on the lips of Jesus and the number one issue on the lips of the prophets. How do you treat the poor? How do you treat the immigrant? How do you treat those on the margins? So I guess, yes, I love congregational work. I love being a pastor. Our church was the church that had ministry seven days a week. You know, we're not only protesting in the streets. We provided homes for St. Poor and low-income senior citizens, homes for people who never thought they were on their own homes. We did, you know, HIV-A's testing. We were full affirming and welcoming congregation in the South. You know, we had a drug dealer gang bang, a redemption ministry that we lay,

so forth and so on. But my time now is to be an elder and trained other ministers. And that's what I'm doing at Yale with students. And in a discipline, not just minister's students in law and health, who want to understand how theology and public policy are inextricably bound together. I still preach. I'm still invited. quite a bit, you know, to pastor preach on Sundays. But what I love doing is helping to raise up,

not the generation that's coming behind us, but the generation that's already here and who are so hungry for a theology of connectedness, right? Because what they are seeing that there is no, you can't say Jesus and not say justice. It's just biblically and scripturally impossible. It's a form of heresy to say that Jesus is on the side of guns and against gay people and against women for a particular party and tax cuts. Actually, there are almost 2,000 scriptures in the Bible that all speak to how we are supposed to live in relationships until the least of these. And if you cut all of those scriptures out of the Bible, there is no Bible. It falls apart. Literally, it falls out. I actually do that in my class. I cut them all out for the students

and show them the least. And the Bible is no more. It just isn't. I relish now in learning from these students and downloading what I know and what I have learned. Because sometimes, also is what gives the students hope. Like one day we were in class. First, I tell you a quick story. And I was talking about public theology, public policy. And I said, do you all know the story of the second grade awakening in America? They said, no. I said, it was in the 1800s. So one of the students said, well, it was probably just like white religious nationalities day. I said, no. In the second great awakening, the leader of it said, when you came down, you gave your heart to Jesus and your hand to the abolition movement. They said, what? I see him, it's 1846. I said, and he's found in

a college called Oberlin College. Oberlin was interracial in Ohio in 1840, was open to women. But to go to Oberlin, you had to give your life to the Lord and to the abolition movement. And as soon said, what? And I said, yeah, that's public theology and public policy. And we're how they treat it the least of these. And so what we're teaching is to claim to be a person of spirit and religion and then not have a quarrel with the world's injustice is to make one's claim of spirituality to deepen the suspect. And so in some ways, I'm pasturing in a new way now. Understood. And thank you so much for doing it. Bishop William Barber, it has been an absolute honor to talk to you. This Saturday, March 2nd, the Poor People's Campaign, a national call

for moral revival at 32 state houses and also in the District of Columbia at 10 a.m. Go to poor people's campaign.org for more information. Bishop Barber again, thank you so much. And your parents are the breach, if they want to do some donating and join up. Excellent. Thank you so much. Has the Republican Party gone from being the champion of small government to the avatar of no government, at least in the sense of government that simply can't do anything? So says my next guest, CNN commentator, New York Daily News columnist and my ancient friend, S.E. C.E., thanks so much for being here. I don't like ancient.

Well, nobody likes ancient except like magicians. or wizards or something like that. Sure, sure. It's part of life, Essie, and you have to deal with it. So you wrote a thing for the New York Daily News, laying out the case for this thesis. Let's dig in, shall we? You say the Republican Party has prioritized everything but solving problems over the past few years. Show your work.

Let's start with immigration, because I feel like this is the most recent example of what you're talking about. Well, it's definitely the most glaring because, I mean, it's almost a farce. a parody because Republicans complained, I think rightly, for months and months and months about a border crisis that wasn't just affecting border states, but lots of states. New York, for example, being one of them. And they complained that it was a national security crisis. They complained that it was an economic crisis, crisis of crime, a crisis of bad policy, all those things. They made a good case. And frankly, Biden helped them make that case. But when given

almost everything they are asking for and stuff that they had never been given before, they said no. Why? Because Trump wants to run on a broken system. He wants people to be afraid of migrants and immigrants so that he can get reelected. And Republicans said, okay, sure. So that's like the most glaring and obvious example of just craven politicking over policy. Because politics doesn't solve anything.

Policy solves problems. And they chose to politic. They chose to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas a political stunt instead of solving a problem when they had the opportunity to. But there are so many others that I go through where Republicans really just don't want to solve problems. And in fact, are solving problems that like don't exist. A while back Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida wanted this giant police force that was going to go out and look for fraudulent. election results, fraudulent election stuff. There wasn't any.

The abortion bans are kind of solving a problem. Very few people are asking for. Abortion numbers are not up there. Way, way, way down, thanks to the advent of contraception. Abortion legally with some restrictions is the majority popular opinion in this country and has been since 1976. So they're doing stuff they don't have to do that isn't solving problems and actively avoiding doing stuff that would solve problems.

See what I'm getting at? I do see what you're getting at. It feels to me like a lot of this really comes down to the difference between bomb throwing and governing. And my super hot take on this is that A, yeah, bomb throwers are often necessary. B, it's a hell of a lot easier to throw bombs than to govern. And therefore, C, historically, it's not unusual to see the bomb throwers become the governors and turn out to be really, really bad at it. Does that sound like a fair description of what we're saying?

with the GOP right now? They don't want them solved. If voters wanted to hold Republican lawmakers accountable, they would say, great, you recognize my grievance, I appreciate that, now solve it. Now go do something to solve it. And they're not demanding that. Just seeing the grievance reflected back

is enough for these voters. And they're going to keep voting for the Republicans. They're going to keep voting for Trump, the Marjorie Taylor Greens, the Matt Gates is, the chaos agents, because they're as angry as they are and they don't require solutions. So these are the perfect people to run the country, according to these voters.

You're just going to get more of them. Okay, well, you've given me my headline, conservative commentator Essie Cup blames real Americans for problems. So thank you for that. I do want to get into a little bit of what you were just saying, and you wrote about this in your daily news piece too, about how the voters just want to hear their grievances amplified and they're not looking for solutions. I think that's 100% correct. But it also struck me as interesting because for so long, one of the biggest refrains of the conservative movement was that the left was primarily interested in the politics of grievance. Yeah, you're right. And-

Okay, that's enough. Moving on. She's not right there. End of sentence. You're right. You're right. And the grievance, like the classical debate over the grievance, aka the problem, between the left and the right, was over. how to solve it in the role of government. And so, you know, over on the left, lots of liberals thought

and still think that the government is a good tool to fix a lot of problems over on the right. And in libertarian circles, we think the government is maybe not so great at fixing problems that the private sector should better address. That's a great debate. In fact, that's why I got into politics. That debate, the role of government and what is best, how do we best solve these problems? But to have that debate, to engage in that debate, otherwise known as politics, you have to agree that there are problems to be solved. And that's where Republicans just kind of stopped. They decided we're not bringing solutions to meet yours, in fact, because we don't really want to solve these problems anymore. We prefer to leave them broken for all kinds of reasons.

And it's not as politically profitable to solve problems as it is to do all the other things. Stoke division, Unleash the Culture Wars. keep your seat, keeping Trump's good graces, be mad at people, conspiracy theories, all that's way more politically profitable for MAGA and the right right now than solving problems. That's where we're at. Yeah, I don't want to glamorize the quote unquote good old days, but it is very clear that, you know, things did use to be different and probably a little better at least. So I will say, I will ask this, do you see a path to getting back to what I guess I'll call the better old days.

Obviously, like, as we said, Republican voters are not demanding different. And as long as they don't, I don't think there's a lot of incentive for the Republican Party to change because they're also not interested in winning, which is a thing political parties used to care about. It doesn't even care about winning anymore. But I think ecumenically, as a country, we all have to demand better. And I'm not both sides saying the problem is asymmetrical, all the prefaces and codisels. But on the left, you know, solving problems.

has been hard to find too. On the border, on the economy, on crime, I've talked to lots of Democrats. I'm sure you've heard lots of Democrats over the past few years at points denying that these were even real problems, right? Denying that there's a border crisis, denying the crime is real, blaming Republicans on it, like if we're inventing these problems. And that's not true either. Until we as voters start fetishizing problem solving and demanding a radical commitment to solving problems. We're just not going to get a government that's all that interested in it. We haven't incentivized our political leaders to solve problems or you'll be voted out. We don't do that. So I don't see a path forward until we as voters demand better.

But don't you think the second term of a president Trump will solve all of this? Obviously. All of this is to say that a second term of Trump will solve all of this. But no, it's obviously, that's going to be worse. He's not going back into the White House to solve problems either. He's going into a void jail. And I don't think a second Biden term is going to solve a lot of problems either. I think it's going to prevent a lot of problems. But it's not going to solve a lot of problems either.

And I know you talked to Adam Kinsinger about this. I listened because I was in it. As you mentioned me. No, but I know I know you guys talked about how I, you know, I used to say, and I still say that like immigration will never get solved because it's politically profitable to leave it broken. That's the same on gun control. I think that's the same, especially on the right on climate. You could name a lot of issues where solutions exist. There are solutions. And it seems like politicians, especially on the right, are actively avoiding any of those solutions, even considering

them. Like, I think the best example of this is when Republicans decide there can't be any federal money for research, researching problems, like researching gun violence, researching vaccines, researching stuff that, like, is boogeymen to Republican, you don't even want to research the problem. That's how you know they really don't want to solve it. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about guns because I think it's fair to say that while I've shrugged off a lot of my, most of my libertarian past, this is an issue where I'm not fully on board with the, whatever you want to call it, the standard liberal position. And I know you're an avid hunter, et cetera. So it was interesting to see you write in your daily news piece. You say on gun violence, Republicans have blamed everything

but guns to avoid bringing any real solutions to the table. And we really have reached that point, haven't we where it seems like Republicans just sort of shrug their shoulders and they're so afraid that the slightest bit of legislation is just going to be seen as gun grabbing or whatever it is, that it's so much easier for them to get out there. And as you said, with other issues, to just get out there and blame everything except the guns and fearmonger and talk about how even the slightest, again, the slightest bit maybe of regulation is the moral equivalent of banning guns. Yeah, and listen, I'm, you know, very familiar with the slippery slope and the arguments

that we used to make at the NRA. And that's bedrock for this argument and this side of the debate. But the problem is you could, instead of talking about the problem with guns, you could talk about the problem with access to guns. And that reframing would be a way to talk about gun violence. And that is true of handgun violence in big cities. and AR violence with mass shootings, the access is a problem that you could deal with

without taking guns away from everyone or anyone, unless courts adjudicated. And you can talk about red flag laws and mental health and all that stuff is important too. It doesn't mean you can ignore all that stuff, but you have to make guns part of the solution to address gun violence at all. We all know that deep down inside.

We know that. But we can't get there because Republicans won't even have the conversation if it involves guns, which is crazy. You wouldn't do that for any other problem. You wouldn't ignore the obvious main thing to avoid talking about it and solving it. What's a shame is I'm on the side of gun rights. I don't think that right is absolute. And I think we have a problem that we need solving. And so I'm on this side, but I would love to get at some solutions. And solutions do exist, but you can't even have a conversation with bad actors or actors who are telling you they don't

want to solve the problem. You know, if you listen to people in Congress after shootings, they'll say, well, there's nothing we could have done to stop that. Or there's nothing the next law would do to stop that. Well, okay, so you don't want to solve this problem. They're telling you that. Yeah, it's amazing. Although I have to say, again, all I heard from that was the headline. Conservative commentator, SE Cup wants to take away your access to guns. Only if you're in real America. Right, exactly. I thought it was kind of funny. You started your piece with the old aphorism that is off incorrectly attributed to Thomas Jefferson, you did not make that mistake. The aphorism is, that government is best, which governs least. And I was thinking it feels like

today's GOP has changed that to that government is best, which governs worst. Or not at all. Or not at all. But I thought worst was much more clever and scanned better. So I figured I would say it to you, so you would tell me how clever it was. But that's why I added or not at all. I'm not changing yours. I'm adding or not. Yeah. Okay. I guess what I'm saying is I don't think need an editor. Oh, right. I honestly do think that's interesting because you mentioned, like, you know, the Matt Gates's and the Marjorie-Telle Greens of the world. And look, I talk about this and I talk about, you know, there are people who have said to me, you know, why do you always talk about these people? These people are insane, you know, they're a fringe. They don't need to be talked about.

They're not saying that as much these days because my response was always, guess what, they're not the fringe. No. I wish they were. And I wish we could just make jokes about them and not care, you know, beyond that. But they are absolutely. not the fringe of the Republican Party right now. And they do seem to want to govern as bad as possible. Yes. I mean, if you were an average person that sort of paid attention to politics and I asked you, what is Marjorie Taylor Green done? I mean, all I know is she's always trying to impeach Joe Biden. That's it. That's it. That is solving nobody's problems. I'm sure her constituents in Georgia, whatever district, have problems that they might like her to solve. And this is coming from,

A limited government conservative who does not believe government is the solution to every problem. And I like a lean government. But the government should solve some problems. And so to completely divorce from having to do that as a lawmaker is kind of crazy. But again, if you're a voter not demanding differently, then they're just responding. They're responding to that supply and demand. And the demand is for more Marjorie Taylor Greens and fewer Mitt Romney's and Adam Kinsinger's and Liz Cheney's. Yeah, absolutely. It would be great if things were different.

Essie Cup, thank you so much, as always, for joining us. I know it's getting close to your bedtime with your ancient, your ancientness. I will let you go and you can take your little nap and get your early bird dinner. Essie, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Andy Levy. Danielle Moody. How are you rounding out your week with your fuck that guy, fuck this country, fuck that state.

I'm going to talk about something that we have been talking about for the past several shows, but it's continuing. And this is Republicans and their response to the insane ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that embryos are people. In response to this ruling, which effectively makes it impossible for in vitro fertilization to be done because it makes it basically impossible for clinics to remain open. Senator Tammy Duckworth put up a measure that would protect IVF and a bunch of other reproductive technologies at the federal level. And Republicans have been all in the news since the Alabama ruling saying, no, no, no, of course we support IVF and we are not in favor of banning it. And yet, this bill was blocked by a what? A Republican senator. That's right. Cindy Hyde Smith from Mississippi says the bill is a vast overreach that goes too far. In other words,

it allows for in vitro fertilization. She again, as these Republicans keep doing, she says that she is in favor of total access to IVF, yet somehow at the same time, she says that what the Alabama Supreme Court did does not ban IVF when it very, very clearly, if not de jure, then at least de facto does ban it. Because as I said, it makes it impot. And we've already seen it in Alabama, where IVF clinics have said they can't perform any more of the procedures. So it's the dual thing here. First of all, It's the rank stupidity of banning IVF. And then on top of that, it's just the outright hypocrisy and straight up lying and claiming that on the Republican side that they do, in fact, support IVF when every move they have made would tell you just the opposite. So I don't think, unfortunately,

this is going to be the last time we're going to have to fuck that guy on this issue. But it would be nice if it were. I just don't see it. So my fuck that guy is specifically, Cindy Hyde-Smith, senator from Mississippi, but more in general, it's a whole lot of Republicans who are saying one thing and doing another. So fuck those guys. Let's just say that not all women give a fuck about women. Yeah. On this issue and on many issues, they love to try and have it both ways. And you're not going to, just like the stuttering that is happening right now when being questioned by reporters about their stance on IVF, I don't know enough. Oh, I do know enough. Embryos are people. No, they're not. Like, they don't know what they're doing. But this was very clear. You had the

opportunity to protect IVF at the federal level. And the Republican said no. So understand, birth control coming to you soon. Yep. Fuck those guys. Yep. All right, Danielle, close us out. Who's your fuck that guy? So my fuck that guy is the Trump legal team. And I know you're going to say, which one. I was going to say that. Yes, the one that has brought the case against Fannie Willis in their attempt to remove her from the Georgia election interference case. And now, folks, if you've been like me, you have been following the saga that has been

playing out why Fannie Willis is basically put on trial for having a relationship with the lead prosecutor in the Trump case. This was supposed to be a big gotcha. moment with the Trump legal team. Mind you, let me just take a quick sidebar to say, I don't give a fuck literally who Fannie Willis has had dinner with been in a relationship with. Do you know who I would love to have sat down in front of a panel of fucking judges? Oh, I don't know. Clarence Thomas, who we know has been on the take for decades and his decisions actually affect, you know, the rest of us. That being said, so the prosecution, their star witness, the defense team

star witness in the Trump case to remove Fannie Willis. They brought him to the stand. His name is Terrence Bradley. And Terrence Bradley was supposed to be the person that was supposed to seal this case. And they brought him back to testify. And the Trump world referred to him as their star witness. And this is what he said, Andy, when he was brought to the stand about the relationship between prosecutor Nathan Wade and Fonnie Willis. Quote, I do not have knowledge. of it starting or when it's starting in referring to the relationship, quote, I never witnessed anything so you know it was speculation.

What? It's giving Hunter Biden trial. Yeah. It's giving like a whole bunch of hammers looking for a nail and coming up with a piece of tickety tack. Like this person was supposed to be the star witness, the one that saw everything, knew everything, and now he gets on a stand and says, you know, I was just speculating. I didn't

really have any proof. It was a hunch. So we're going to see how this plays out. Trump's lawyer at one point during the testimony accused Bradley of lying after Bradley said a January 2024 text conversation between himself. And he said, he got Trump's lawyer, got all upset and said, why in the heck would you speculate? Isn't that all Trump world? Like, and then Bradley's reply was, I have no answer for that. So, bravo for giving us the Georgia version of the Hunter Biden investigation, which came up with a big old, um, goose egg, because your star witness just deflated your possibilities on the stand. We will see, of course, how this plays out.

But to Trump world, fuck those guys. I'm starting to think that a lot of these cases being brought. Republicans, they're not really concerned with the facts as much as they're concerned with hearing what they want to hear. I don't know. Call me crazy. Yeah, it's weird. It's crazy. Fuck those guys. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our

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