The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Castrated Mad Hatter Murdered Lincoln’s Killer

Episode Date: September 3, 2023

Comedian Jesse Joyce tells The New Abnormal how his fascination with “the guy who cut his own balls off with a pair of scissors and then killed John Wilkes Booth” forced him into writing his new book. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. 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 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 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. Hello and welcome to another Sunday bonus episode of the new abnormal.

We thank you so much for being here. Today we have an extra special guest with comedian Jesse Joyce, who joins us to talk about his new book, Killing the guys who killed the guy who killed Lincoln. But first, let's have some fun. Okay, you ready to do clips? Clips. Oh, yeah, clips. All right, I'm going to warn you.

We got, we got rough waters ahead, everyone. Oh, boy. So Donald Trump on Wednesday was posting 31 unhinged videos on me. Real normal stuff. A lot of them reminded me when friend of the show, Swin once pointed out that he's really most like a catty stage mom at heart.

And his speech resembles that more than a businessman if you really look at it. Yeah, he's like dance mom. Yeah. Yeah. It's like he's like if you imagine him in the razzed. the rafters watching a talent show. That's much more what he talks like than anything else. And he's going to demonstrate his style right now.

Look at Joe Biden's only campaign strategy is indicting me. That's all they can do. Keep indicting him on nonsense. Going on extended vacations and sleep, sleep, sleep. That's what he wants to do. He wants to sleep and he wants to go to the beach and sleep. He thinks he looks good in a bathing suit. He doesn't.

Biden is totally controlled by China, Ukraine. and various other countries. They know everything about him. All of his misdeeds, and there are many, he's a corrupt person. He's a compromised president who is leading our country to hell in the true sense,

and I don't know if you know what this means, he is a Manchurian candidate. Trust me in that, it's not good. It's like, is he standing in front of a mirror and saying this to himself? Because I swear to God, every fucking thing. First of all, six foot three, two hundred and fifteen pounds.

Motherfucker, you don't look good. You don't look good in a suit, let alone a bathing suit, okay? The portion of his body that's fat, maybe. Oh my God. A Manchurian candidate. You may not know what that is, but I do. Of course you do. Because you fucking hollow inside.

Of course you do. I don't know. The funny thing is, is I take Umbrage with it. He said that like somebody who's like, I don't really know. if that's true, that's what it is, but that's what Stephen Miller told me to say. Oh, yeah.

Absolutely. But Daniel is such a pleasure. You laugh as hard as I did at the fucking bathing suit line. That's the best part. It's like his biggest dig. He doesn't look good in a baby. Bitch, why are you looking?

Like, also. Like, why is that even on your fucking radar, sir? Also, Joe Biden should just be like, okay, let's, See yours. Right. No one wants that.

I should reiterate, but. You know he's got a speedo. Oh, my God. You know he does. Andy, I might have to cut that out for the audience's sake. Jesus. You cannot cut that out. I do not want to read the reviews of the nightmares that inspires.

I have unfortunate news. He's not done. He has more of this stupid. Are we doing all 31? I will tell you as a dedicated producer of this podcast, I listened to about 16, maybe 18 of them before I was like, I can't do it anymore. If there's more gold in here, that gold is staying in the mountains of California in the gold rush because I can't take any more. But I did like this one. My poll numbers are up since the very boring record setting low, the ratings, that is, there were low ratings.

Debate that everybody wanted me to do. And now they said it was brilliant that you didn't do it. leading by big numbers we are leading by numbers like nobody's led before I made the right decision and we broke all records with the Tucker Carlson interview we had 261 million people watching

whereas the debate only had 11 million people that was a record low so we had a record high and a record low and it was a lot of fun and congratulations to Tucker Carlson great job I wow I just first of

if anyone knows how things work on social media, you put out a link. A click does not mean that people actually watched it. They could retweet it. They could refresh it. Like, this does not mean views. He did not get a quarter of a billion views. This was not a royal wedding. Do you know what I'm saying?

Like, it's just so fucking dumb, but congrats to Tucker. Like, that's the dance mom. So proud of you, son. my real son. I don't think there's a single thing he said in that entire clip. That's true. That's a good point. It really is sort of a talent to just say that many numbers and that many statements and all of them are false.

I don't know. I mean, the debate itself got 12.8 million viewers. I guess it got 11 million viewers on Fox, but then it was also on Fox business and streaming. So it was 12.8. That's not a record low. It's lower than 26. but it's not a record low. Danielle, you covered the ridiculous 260 million figure.

Literally everything he said in that clip is not true, which is just... That's so Trump. But also, Andy, it's like nothing you've ever seen before. No, it's big. It's huge. It's amazing. I just like to try to picture him saying this about the numbers the judge held up at the beauty contest. If you just replace it with all that, it's exactly identical.

Yeah. The only way I would say he... he's not like a dance mom or stage mom is that he doesn't say nice things about his kids. Oh, that's a good point. Except Ivanka. Well, now we come to the part of the show where we're going to discuss Jesse Waters. He's going to now do his one true talent, which is embarrassing himself on TV. I am now going to book the Fulton County photographer for my Christmas card.

Because, Judge, and I say this with a unblemished record of heterosexuality. He looks good. And he looks hard. And I think his heterosexuality is blemished with that next sentence after it. Also, what is wrong with straight people? Like, what is, like, you know, as a bona fide, proud queer woman, what the fuck? Y'all keep a record? Is that true?

It's an unblemished record? I never see one. First of all, not all straight people, okay? Can we just get that out there? I will say, though, that if you have to pronounce that you have an unblemished record of heterosexuality, you do not have an unblemished record. You were up to some shit in college. Yes, you were. Let's get that out of the way, too.

But these people are so deeply weird. Like, on top of being, you know, again, he's the dumbest person on cable news. he might be the dumb equivalent of James Brown. He might be the dumbest man in show business. But on top of that, these people are so deeply weird. That is just a fucking weird thing to say and to talk about Donald Trump like that or anyone like that, but particularly Donald Trump. I don't know what else to say besides they are just deeply fucking weird.

He looks good. He looks hard. I just like, what? What are you saying? Oh. Yeah. Well, speaking of the devil, here's Jesse talking to Stephen Miller. Literally speaking of the devil.

Yes. Stephen Miller, who I like to think of is like when Rush Limbaugh, when death from his ears being tired of hearing Rush's mouth, Miller's hair is receding in ways I didn't think possible before, but clearly it's tried not to live next to his fucked up brain anymore. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Here's his thoughts as they gaze at. Donald Trump's mugshot. Stephen Miller, what was the first thing that you felt, because this is all about emotion,

when you first laid your eyes on it? Yes. Well, you're right. It is all about emotion. I'm going to get a little poetical with you tonight, if I may. They say that the eyes are the window into the human soul. That blazing set of eyes that we saw in that photograph revealed a soul that is literally burning with a righteous flame on behalf.

of 300 million Americans. That is one of the most powerful images that I have ever seen. Yes, through the injustice, through the autocracy, through the crushing heel of the government, the oppression of the Democratic Party, one man and his two eyes looked straight into the hearts of the American people and said, I will not give up, I will not back down, I will not surrender, I will see this through no matter how it ends, they will not break me. That's what that photograph said. those of us who have believed and who have hoped that there would be a real man, a true man someday who would vindicate our rights. We don't know how this battle ends, but we know that we will be riding in this battle in this struggle to save democracy with a real man, Jesse.

Well, on a lighter note, let me make this point. Have you ever tried to take a driver's license photo, a passport photo, any government photo? How the hell did Trump do this? I mean, those of us who have taken any government-issued ID in their entire lives have never had a photo that was even close to good. alone at our best moment. How does the man take the literal best photo of his life in a freaking booking shot in a Georgia Fulton County jail? This could be his single most impressive feat of all, Jesse. Miller, I've already booked the Fulton County Jail photographer to do my Christmas card. First of all, count me the fuck out of that. Okay, I don't know what kind of math. He's mathing over

there, my man, but that ain't it. Count me the fuck out. I think again, the unblemished record of heterosexuality is just getting lots of blemishes very fast. It's breaking out and needs some acutane. Yes, it does. There's a thing that we're not talking about enough, although people are writing about it, and I know we've talked to some of them in interviews on the show. Andy, are you saying lots of people are saying? Many people, many people are saying.

It's the overt religious overtones of everything we're hearing now. And it's the righteous flame. and it's, I mean, Trump did it in one of the clips that we played where we talked about going to literal hell. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. This is all being done on purpose, and this is all part of the sort of Christian nationalist and QAnon world. And Stephen Miller is jumping right on board with that, with throwing words like, you know, righteous fire or righteous flame, whatever it was. And it really is something that they have been doing, we're hearing it more and more.

It needs to be noted because it is absolutely being done on purpose. 100%. Sorry to get all serious there. But it's the truth. And also, if that is the window to anybody's soul, shut it. Put the blinds, close it. You know, like, put the blackout shades on. Like, I don't want that energy.

Do you know what I mean? Like, no. Yeah. It's also amazing to me because if you took that same pose that Trump, you know, that same facial expression and put it on a black man, the first thing that these people would do would be to call him a thug. Mm-hmm. Yep.

Mm-hmm. Oh, he wouldn't be hard in the good sense that Jesse likes. Yeah. Get the fuck out of here. Mm-mm. All right. Well, I'm going to squeeze one more in because Andy requested it. So if you don't know this, the FDA is going to put out a recommendation that you should drink no more than two beers a week.

And Lion Ted Cruz has thoughts. I guess he can call them that. I mean, it has now done that for new construction. They're trying to go after and regulate ceiling. fans. I got to tell you, it's hot in Texas. We don't want to get rid of our ceiling fans. And now these idiots have come out and said, drink two beers a week. That's their guideline. Well, I've got to tell you, if they want us to drink two beers a week, frankly, they can kiss my ass. No, okay. Senator, I brought a beer to drink with you. I'll drink this non-alcoholic

beer with you because I'm not allowed to drink on camera, but I'll have a sip in the meantime. I got to say, have you ever seen a brand do more damage to itself than Bud Light, which single-handedly seem to destroy themselves? So I'm glad you're not drinking a Bud Light. Personally, I'm fond of Shiner Bach, which is a good Texas brand. I've been to the Shiner Brewery in Shiner, Texas, and I recommend it, and I promise you this is not alcohol-free beer down here. No, and by the way, the one I have right after the show won't be alcohol-free either. and it may just be a... God, they are fucking dumb, huh?

Like, if your masculinity is tied, like, it's just like listening to them, oh, it's not going to be alcohol free after here. Don't worry, I'm still a man, because men drink... Like, shut the fuck up. You sound stupid. Also, your ceiling fans are climate change.

You know? Like, it's hot in Texas. Yeah, we know, bitch. Oh, my God. There's so many things you have. First of all, Eric Bowling is the anchor who said he's going to be drinking an alcoholic beer after his show is over. And then I imagine sending dick pics to his employees.

That's what he does. Yep. But if you haven't seen this video listeners, you've got to watch it because it is one of the most pathetic things you will ever see in your life. It is Ted Cruz trying desperately to be, in Jesse Waters' words, hard. And it doesn't work out well for him. But there's so many things about it. It's just, first of all, he's not holding a beer the whole time until the end. And then he reaches over and grabs the beer that has been carefully placed.

And he twists the cap, which has clearly already been opened. Mm-hmm. Because otherwise he might have, you know, had to struggle opening the twist off. So they pre-did that so that he could just turn his hand. You don't hear a pop, you know, you don't hear anything. It's just, it's so sad. And then watching him say, kiss my ass, like he's some kind of downhome guy. There are much dumber people in the world,

and there are much dumber people in the Republican Party in Washington. There is nobody more pathetic than Ted Cruz. He is just by leaps and bounds, he is the most pathetic of all of them, because he's so bad at the cosplay. And he's just such a, he is just such a pathetic figure. And I honestly, like, I want an Oliver Stone movie about him. I just think it would be absolutely amazing. Please go watch this video if you haven't seen it. It's so bad. You know what I want, though? I'm going to say because you know how the Republicans, like they love to do the opposite, right? So the FDA says you should just drink two beers a week suggestion wise. You know, let them drink 20 a day. It would be the Republicans promoting alcoholism like here. You know, they say this. Real men, you know,

they take on full kegs a day. This is how stupid. they are. It's so sad. It's pathetic. And Ted Cruz, yes, he is the model. He is the model of that. Kiss my ass. Oh, God, Ted Cruz. Sit the fuck down. There's been a lot written about Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes' booth, but it's a good bet that none of those authors ever repeatedly refer to him by the name fuckface the way my next guest does. And his book isn't really even about this particular booth. It's called Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln. And here to tell us about it now is

comedian and comedy writer, Jesse Joyce. Jesse, thanks so much for being here. Andy, it is a pleasure to be back with you. So, how are you, my friend? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. All right, so before we start, I want to point out that even though you're an Emmy nominated and Writers Guild Award winning comedy writer, you've

written for the Oscars, the Emmys, the Tony's numerous other award shows, the Comedy Central Roasts, you write for Jimmy Kimmel, you've written for a host of other comedians. This is a book about actual history. And so I'll ask, what drew you to this story? Because the normal thing to do is to write a book about John Wilkes Booth. And here you are writing about his brother, Edwin Thomas Booth, and his killer, a literal Mad Hatter named Thomas Boston Corbett. Do you just have to be different? Is that your thing?

I don't know. I just, I'm really compelled by these, like, weird little stories like, Hey, did you ever hear about like the Bat Project of World War II where they like, you know, tried to blow up bats in Japan and, you know, whatever. Like, I just know these weird. And I've always been fascinated by the guy who cut his own balls off with a pair of scissors and then killed John Wook's boot. And separately, I was always kind of interested in this one little story that I know that John Wook's Booth's brother once saved Abraham Lincoln's son's life.

Right. And I've always thought that was, so I've always like kind of told those two little anecdotes is like, hey, there's these weird little things that happen in history. And then I decided like, well, let me dig into these guys and say, see what they're all about separately. And then I decided they should be a book together. They make a very good kind of pairing to sort of compare and contrast their lives. So yeah, that's definitely.

And I call John Fuckface because like it gets cumbersome to write John Wilkes booth all the time, right? And you can't say just John because everybody in the 19th century was named John. So you can't do that. There's John Ford, the guy who owned Ford's theater. There's just a bunch of Johns for ease. I just call it fuckface, right? Because also because there's another booth in the book. So so that explained.

I just felt like I needed to explain that up top. Oh, yeah, no. Look, it makes perfect sense while you're reading the book. There's not going to be any John Wilkes-s sympathizers listening to this. Whatever. So I thought it was a creative, clever choice to make. We'll get comments, Jesse. We'll get comments. Let's start with Thomas Corbett. Because his story is sad, but in a yikes kind of way. He's making hats, which is slowly but surely driving him insane because of the mercury that we used in the process.

His wife and possibly his unborn child die, leaving him a 24-year-old widower. he turns to booze and then he moves to Boston, acquires the laziest nickname in the world, Boston. Then he finds some of that old time religion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, that period of time was called the Third Great Awakening in America. And so it was like right around then that he was a homeless, desperate alcoholic

with a widower. And he just started becoming fascinated with street preachers. And then they just, whatever, it clicked with him. And then he became a street preacher. would just shout about God to people on the street. Then one night, two prostitutes, like, came up and talked to him. And I'm not sure what the, nobody knows what they said. But either way, he got horny and mad.

And then he went back to his little apartment. And he read that chapter in Matthew about how if your eye offends you, cut it out. And if your hands bothering you, cut it off and whatever. If your hands make you straight from God, that kind of stuff. And so then he took a pair of scissors and he cut his balls off. And then he just like went about his evening. You know, like he didn't even, because he was. was crazy because that's a detail. I know people need a minute with the cutting the balls off thing,

but just to go back, like people seem to be really interested in that, like, it seems like you knew that, but that Matt Hatter is really a real term because in like the 1856, they used to steam hats with liquid mercury. And so like people would, people would make hats would just sit in a room with no windows all day, breathing in liquid mercury. And that literally made them crazy. So like, everybody who made hats in the 1800s was like out of their fucking mind. They were all insane. And so this guy really just took it to the next level. So that's what happened then.

And that's the only like the precursor to the whole story. He castrates himself. And then as you said, he sort of wanders around the streets for a while. And eventually someone makes him go to a hospital. And it gets really gross and graphic in the book. So I'll leave that for now. So I'll jump ahead a few years. And then we've got the Civil War.

And he ends up in a regiment through some weird circumstances. And then you write, Private Corbett was a fun combination of untreated mental illness, an itchy trigger finger, and religious entitlement. Yeah. The word thing was like, yeah, so he was real quick to like pull guns on people because he was always carried guns on him. And he seemed like he was like, what the fuck is that supposed to mean kind of guy, you know? Right. And also he heard voices and he was, and he had shaky hands.

He was jittery. So not really the guy you want to have firearms to him because of the mercury poisoning. And then also because of this like real deep commitment to his. religion, he would correct people all the time if they, he would like, if somebody swore around him, which ironically, this book is just filled with curse words. So he would not be a fan of that. But if somebody swore around him, he would start like loudly singing church hymns at them or whatever. The colonel of his regiment, Colonel Butterfield brought out the whole, all like 1,000 of the guys in his regiment together because somebody had stolen something from like a local

lady and he was like trying to get to the bottom of them stealing it and he said, I'll have no damn thieves in this regiment. And this private with no balls, this guy just starts shouting at the colonel because he violated God's law by saying damned. Then he gets court-martialed and they're going to execute him and whatever. He just is so annoying to the jailers by singing church hymns at them. He goes on a hunger strike and he just, he's apparently a loud guy. That's what everybody says to him. Right. So he would just like loudly 24 hours a day. not sleep at sing church hymns and so they finally just like you know what fuck it and they just like let him go right but they court-martialed him and then he just joined right back up in the army and like

nobody noticed like everybody just that's like a thing that you can just do back then it was really that was amazing to me because he he signed right back up with the same regiment without even changing his name yeah yeah he did that like two or three times yeah like yeah like you can just like whatever you'd get kicked out of the army you could just like go back you know like There weren't like, you know, computer records or anything. Right. Okay. So eventually he ends up as a P.O. Doe in the Confederacy's infamous Andersonville prison is liberated.

He gets discharged from the Army. Then he signs up again because he's an addict at this point, I guess. And he signs up with a unit charged with defending Washington, D.C., and that puts him in an eventual path with John Wilkes, sorry, fuckface booth. But before we get to that, let's jump to fuckface's brother, Edwin. You compare the Booth family to the Hemsworths. Explain that and talk about their father, Junius, and about the family situation in general,

because it was fucked up. There's, like, no exact contemporary equivalent. And it's unfortunate because of what John did, nobody remembers the rest of this family. But, like, they were, like, super famous. And John was kind of the nobody of the family. A buddy mine made a good comparison the other day. We was talking about the book.

It was, like, I guess what would be close. I used the Hemsworth as then, you know, there's Chris and then there's the other guys. You know what I mean? And that was what John kind of was. But the Douglas family is a good one, too. Like Kirk Douglas was huge, like one of the most famous. And then Michael became huge.

And then there's Eric. You know what I mean? Like Eric Douglas. So it's kind of that is sort of the dynamic too, except there were like nine booth kids. And like a bunch of them were actors. But Junius, the dad, was very famous. And then he took Edwin on the road with him because Edwin was older. and Edwin learned to become an actor and then also took over from his dad and became like hands down the most famous actor in America.

The film was like, boy, the most famous celebrity in America basically. So the conversation, the day after John Wook's booth killed the president, like nobody knew who John, everybody was saying, like, did you hear that like Edwin Booth's brother killed the president? Or like Junius Booth's son killed the president because everybody knew who they were. And then just nobody remembers them anymore. Edwin like pioneered the naturalistic acting style. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I compare him to like, 19th century,

like a young Marlon Brando. Like what Junius would do and like all that like old guard of like Shakespearean actors is they would kind of just gesticulate a lot and like loudly just sort of pontificate Shakespeare. You know what I mean? They would just loviate it, you know, and do like pantomime. So because nobody understood Elizabethan crows. Like people still don't.

But the way they thought they had to do it was kind of just essentially pantomime the words literally, you know, like slings and arrows and they'd pull an arrow back, you know? that kind of thing. And then Edwin was the first guy to kind of go like, I think if you just like sulk around a lot, people will get that Hamlet is sad. You know what I mean? You don't have to like rub your fists into your eyes and pretend you're crying. You know what I mean? Like that kind of shit. So it was like revolutionary. Nobody had ever seen anything like that before. So like Edwin was considered like a genius because of it. But you'd ask about his dad. Their dad was like an

absolute fascinating, wacky artist psychopath kind of guy. Like I think this maybe is kind of a telling when John Wuxbooth was a fetus when he was like, it was. It was a eight weeks before John Wilkes Moose was born. His dad beat a guy almost to death, like, while his, while the fetus was in the room. Like, his dad sent a threatening letter to kill Andrew Johnson one time. So it's not even like, there's like a historical precedent within the family to threaten to kill the president. His dad was always getting thrown in jail for being a, like, a drunker.

Like, he just, like, take all his clothes off and get naked or he would just, uh, sometimes just decide he didn't want to, like, lose the sword fight in Richard the third, would supposed to kill him, right? Like, that's what historically happens. But sometimes he would just fight the actors so hard, like, because he didn't want to lose. Like, he was just a crazy guy. And one time he got thrown in jail. And like, I guess he was like a real charismatic, interesting, just larger than life celebrity kind of guy. A dude he got put in jail with was so taken with him. The guy was a horse thief and he was going to get executed. Dottie was such a cool, like, wow, I'm in jail with a celebrity that when they hung him the next day,

he was like, I want you to give that guy my skull so he can perform Shakespeare with it. And so like the skull that the Booth family used for the rest of their career like Junius and then Edwin was like actually this cellmate that Junius had one night. It just gave him his skeleton head. It was like the Uruk skull that they would use. Right. And Hamlet, they would just carry it around the country with them, just like this dead horse thieves head. That's unreal. Really weird guys.

So Edwin becomes like this incredibly famous actor, as you point out. And so while Boston is in Washington, Edwin is in Boston. and then fuckface assassinations Lincoln. Corbett is part of the unit involved in the manhunt for him. They find him. And despite orders to take him alive, Corbett shoots him in the head, which at this point in the book, I was like, oh, God, that's so Boston.

That's nice of you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, like, I guess a God told Boston that you need to kill him, even though it was like, because, you know, I don't know if you know this detail, but like the Lincoln assassination was a giant conspiracy. Like, I'm not being a conspiracy goof.

Right. No, of course. There was supposed to be five other assassinations that night. Like, everybody had a job. There was a guy was supposed to kill Seward, the Secretary of State, and somebody was supposed to kill Vice President Johnson. They were just going to try to wipe out the whole cabinet, like Stanton, the Secretary of War. And everybody except Booth fucked up their job, like, just because they were like January 6th away. You know what I mean?

They're just like, they're like mad and they want it, but they're not good at it. Like nobody thought this through and they just kind of like, well, maybe if we're just loud enough. So or whatever. So they all fucked up their plan, except John. The War Department, like, they didn't know how big the plot was. There might have been others. So they wanted to take John alive so they could interrogate him, you know, and have a trial and stuff so that, you know, like America wanted a trial, you know.

But then God tells Boston to kill him. And so he does, it just shoots him right in the head, which fascinating detail, like in the exact spot where Lincoln was killed, right? Like just right behind the here. That's amazing. And then they just arrest Boston and they're going to court martial him because now he's in big trouble, you know, because he just killed Booth. But they let him off because public sentiment, basically, Boston was looked at as sort of a hero.

he's the guy who killed the guy who killed Lincoln. And then so the rest of the book is a fascinating look at the post-assassassination lives of the two men. Corbett goes even more crazy. And remember, this is the guy who castrated himself. He's convinced that fuckface is still alive and is after him. So he flees to Kansas as one does. As you write, he drove everyone crazy out there. And you wrote about how while he was out there, he was invited to be a delegate at the Republican County Convention.

And while the convention chairman was speaking, Corbett goes up to the podium. points a loaded revolver at the chairman's head and demands silence so he can lead everyone in prayer. And all I kept thinking was, man, this guy was ahead of his time. Yeah, I have a joke that puts it in historical context. So like, you got to remember this is a time in the Republican Party before it was dominated by guns and prayer and weird conspiracy jerks off. Right. Right. But yeah, that's what's so funny. It has like a lot of sort of QAnon parallels to it, I think, too, is that Boston would get really Matt, because the South started like trying to rewrite history after Booth killed the president and after Booth was killed, they started saying that fuckface wasn't dead, right? Like, so Boston

had killed the wrong man. And that would make Boston really angry. But then because he was so mercury poisoned at this point, he then was like, well, maybe they have a point, like, which is insane. So he started to believe that John might still be alive, even though like he was at the time making a living going around telling the story of specifically how he killed John Wilkes Booth. And, and And now he's like, well, now I'm in a lot of trouble. Like now, like, I better get out of here because John Wilkes Booth is coming to get me because I killed him. Do you see what I mean?

Like, it doesn't. Like, so he flees. Like he just runs for his life because like a troll sent him, you know, like a 19th century tweets. They just like, you know, sent him a postcard from John Wook's booth, right? That said, like, I'm coming to get you. And he was like, fuck, it's happening, you know? So he just runs to Kansas.

And so now he's like completely convinced that John Wook's booth is. coming to get him for killing him. So he like just digs a giant hole in the ground in Kansas in this rural place called Concordia. And he just like lives there like in this hole in the side of a hill with like guns pointed at the opening of the hole. He's like waiting for John Wilkes Booth to show up for like years. So unreal. Yeah, it's really fascinating. The book is fantastic and it's real history, but there wasn't a page I read that where I didn't laugh at something that you wrote. Oh, thanks. That was, it's important to me is that the premium of this book was on the comedy. You know what I mean?

Like I wanted to make sure that it, because I'm a history dork, so I wanted to make sure it was historically accurate. But it's far more important to me that people think it's funny and not necessarily like, oh, I'm going to use this for my thesis, you know? No, absolutely. But before I let you go, back in the day you used to regale us with stories from the Comedy Central Rosts. And I remember that you worked on the Trump one. And I guess it's fair to say you didn't exactly vibe with him. Man, I hated Donald Trump when he was pretending.

to be a billionaire at Pizza Hut commercials, like long before. So I've had to like work with him a few times because I'm a comedy writer and his world was just basic cable fuckery for so many years. You know what I mean? He would just like end up on dumb little basic cable TV shows and one of them happened to be the roast. And so we had to deal with him for his roast and it was just utterly impossible. And I've worked on like all the roast. So like I know how they're supposed to go. And usually the celebrity being who's the. subject of the roast. We'll, we'll kind of say like, all right, hey, listen, just like, you know, leave my kids out of it or something normal like that or like, don't make fun of my

dead mom or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, they have some off-limits sensitivity, which we're always fine with because it's reasonable and we're empathetic humans. And it's like, yeah, yeah, we're just going to make jokes here. Why would we drag your children? Whatever. Donald Trump's only rule was you cannot say that I'm not as rich as I am. Right. Like, that was literally what he said. And we were all like, what the fuck? So we'd write these jokes. I wrote a joke that it was something where the punchline involved that he had $3 billion and he crossed it out and put $7. He sent the jokes back to us, you know, like he had like faxed them back to us and he'd

redacted a bunch of stuff. And like most of what he was redacting was he was like jacking up the numbers in his script. It was the most insane. I've never seen anything like it. So there was like some joke toward the end. This is like his rebuttal, right, where Donald Trump gets back up and he then makes fun of everybody who made fun of him all right. There was some joke about how he talked.

all the problems in the world, like, you know, bedbugs and herpes and whatever they else. But he doesn't, it's not his problem. He doesn't live here. Like, he lives in a golden space station that orbits here. Like, he's like, Earth's slum lord is kind of the vibe, you know? And so he then starts, like, talking about how great his space station is. And he's talks about, you know, it's like, you know, Italian imported Italian marble and it's 150,000 square foot, whatever.

He crossed that output 300, 300,000. He needed people to know that his, like, fictitious space station was larger. Who is that right? Oh my God. Jesse, thanks so much for being here. The book is Killing the guys who killed the guy who killed Lincoln. Go out and buy it. It's a short book and it's funny as hell and you'll actually learn a whole bunch of stuff from it. Jesse Joyce, thanks again for being here. Scribd. That's how you get it. Scribd original. Oh, that's right. Scrib.com. Yeah. Yeah. Go to Scribd and snag it. Thank you. Thanks, buddy. 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 star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.