The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Donald Trump Won’t Let His Famous Dead Uncle John Rest in Peace

Episode Date: February 4, 2024

Donald Trump keeps using his relation to a famed MIT professor as proof of his intelligence. But as The New Abnormal team points out—smart people often have dumb relatives. Plus! Danielle Moodie has a thought provoking chat with DEI expert Denise Hamilton on her new book Indivisible: How to Forge Our Differences into a Stronger Future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Kedin, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

Hello and welcome back to another bonus episode of The New Abnormal, and we thank you so much for being here. Today we have Workplace Culture and DEI expert Denise Hamilton, and she's here to tell us all about our new book, Indivisible, how to forge our difference into a stronger future. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready to listen to some clips? Clips.

All right. So dementia J. Trump is finally having to answer for the obvious observations that he's slipping into an alternate reality inside his own mind, much worse than the one he's usually inhabited. And much like Alina Haba's defense in the E. Jean Carroll trial, his defense of his dementia leaves a lot to be desired. And I said to him, you know, Ronnie, I'd like to take a cognitive test. I never heard of it before, but whatever it. I like tests. always like tests. Tests are very interesting. And, uh, you know, I had an uncle. He's the longest

serving professor, Dr. John Trump, in the history of MIT, same genes. We have genes. We're smart people. We're smart people, you know. We're like race. Mr. Lieutenant Governor, we're like race horses too. You know, the fast ones produce the fast ones and the slow ones doesn't work out so well, right? But we're no, we're no different in that sense. So he's a horse. I'm going to be honest, but he said we're like Ray. I was like, wow, he's going to finally admit it. Look, eugenics is cool.

I hope the R&C clips that one, Andy. Nothing has ever gone wrong in a society that compared human beings to race horses in terms of breeding. I don't think you can point to a single instance where that led to death. on a multi-million scale. You can't do it. It's just, it hurts nobody. What a fucking idiot.

And also, why is everything so interesting? Like, do you know what would be interesting, him reading a thesaurus? Everything is so the tests are interesting. Oh, it was very interesting. The question, interesting. Everything is so interesting. You know that he hasn't taken a fucking test, right? Like, the only thing with you, you know what?

Nope, stop, Danielle. Stop yourself. I think I know where you were going. I'm going to stop myself with the kind of tests that he is probably very familiar with. I'm just going to also say I have a good amount of friends in academia in STEM. One of the things they're consistently complaining about is someone they work with who's clearly past their mental point that won't retire, but because of tenure and protocols at their institution, they're not quite leaving. really find this one to be a rough, rough, rough defense.

Yeah. Yeah. Good God. I also know a lot of people who are smart who have really dumb siblings. Point taken. Taken. Yep. Well, as I was saying, Trump is often living in a real demented world inside his brain.

But what I think is a real testament to how demented that world is, is when he hears somebody say something, he loves repeating certain things of what he chooses to curate of those. many things said to him often says a lot, such as this. If George Washington and Abraham, Lincoln came back from the dead, and they decided to run as president and vice president, you'd beat them by 35 points. Who told him that? You know, perhaps probably Billy Bob Johnson at the Iowa State Fair, someone like that. And why the arbitrary 35 points also?

No, it's not arbitrary. This is a scientific, yeah, I can't do it. Oh, my God. Listen, when you're eating corn dogs, you suddenly get really good polling in sight. I mean, look, there's not a single Republican who would vote for Abraham Lincoln these days. Oh, that's true. So he might be right. I mean, they did kill him.

At least if it was a Republican primary, I believe he's right. You know, George Washington and him, both a lot of syphilis allegations, that's all I'm saying. I hate it here. But I think it is a thing that, like, one of the funny things about you see in these older people, you know, obviously Trump wasn't in politics forever, but the older generation loves repeating the things said to it. But the younger people, they always do with this, you know, I was talking to this person the other day and they were talking about their struggles. The older generation seems to always be, I was talking to somebody and they reaffirmed how awesome I am. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure Donald Trump talks to that person every day in the middle. every day. You're so handsome. You're so thin. You know? Every day.

The same people accurately tell them the price of milk. Mm-mm. Okay. Now we get to a man I, as we were discussing before we taped, that I think is the biggest sociopath in the whole congressional body. Tom Cotton, a man who if you're writing a racist character and someone in the writing room suggested this name, everyone would yell a little too on the nose. He's going to prove sometimes truth.

is stranger than fiction since he's going to do what he does second best, since first best is being horny for war and violence, and be really racist to the CEO of TikTok at a hearing this week. It then had a lawsuit and it was overturned. I can't remember that. It's another company. It's a Biden administration that reversed those sanctions, just like, by the way, they reversed the terrorist designation on the Houthis in Yemen.

How's that working out for them? But it was sanctioned as a Chinese communist military company. So you said today, as you often say, that you live in Singapore. Of what nation are you a citizen? Singapore is. Are you a citizen of any other nation? No, Senator. Have you ever applied for Chinese citizenship? Senator, I served my nation in Singapore. No, I did not. Do you have a Singapore in passport? Yes, and I served my military for two and a half years in Singapore. Do you have any other passport from any other nation? No, Senator. Your wife is an American citizen, your children are American citizens. That's correct. Have you ever applied for

American citizenship? Not, no, not yet. Okay. Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party? Senator, I'm Singaporean. No. Have you ever been associated or affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party? No, Senator. Again, I'm Singaporean. Let me ask you some hopefully simple questions. You said earlier in response to your question that what happened at Tiananmen Square.

Got them. These hearings go so well for Republicans these days. Tell me you're racist without telling me you're racist in that just line of questioning. I wish that somebody that was there that was a Democrat, you know, like I, I used to love Katie Porter and her white boards, right? Like, I needed somebody to pull down the 1990s, like, scroll map of the world that you used to have in class. I'm dating myself and just pull it down so that you could point Senator Cotton in the right fucking direction. Like, here is China, a separate fucking country. Here is Singapore.

I kind of wish you had let that clip go a little further. Are we can in the cop? Well, the only thing I'm going to say is Cotton's next question was about the Tiananmen Square massacre in China. And he asked Chow Chou to condemn the Chinese government actions in Tiananmen Square. I just want to point out that it's an interesting question for Tom Cotton, a Republican who supports Donald Trump to be asking, because here's what Donald Trump said about Tiananmen Square. He said, when the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious.

They were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak. Not exactly a condemnation of the massacre in Tiananmen Square. So for Tom Cotton to sit up there and pretend that he gives a shit about what happened in Tiananmen Square when he supports Donald Trump is just off the charts. it's pretty good. So who has the more on the nose name? Tom Cotton or Harlan Crow.

Wow. I feel like we need Jeopardy music here and we need to think about this. I know. This is a tough one. I could see arguments both ways. Oh, that's so good. We don't have to answer this now. The Harlan Crow, you know, like I saw a tweet to kill a mocking bird ass name and it just

really just sticks with me. Yeah. I mean, to me it's a, I said this, you know, it's a Stephen King villain ass name. But it's also just so on the nose. Oh, my God. Well, to round us out, the girls are fighting again. At the Washington Press Club Foundation's annual congressional dinner, Representative Lisa McLean, a Republican from Michigan,

made sure to let Representative Lauren Bobert know that she sees her in the audience. If you could, for the speech tonight, if everyone could, please keep their hands above the table. And I know it's date night from some of you, but no inappropriate touching. That includes you, Lauren Boebert. No vaping. either.

Oh my God. What are we supposed to say to that? I don't know. I'll tell you what I saw. Warren Bober came in fifth in a straw poll this week in Colorado. And this party, when they smell the stench of death, they waste no time getting back at these people because the factionalism in this party is off the charts right now.

Yeah, I think that's right. I just wish, because there's a, like, There's an actual funny way she could have done that. What's here it, Andy? What's here it? No, I don't know off the top of my head, but like if you're going to write a speech and you're going to put something like that in it, like make it funny because it could be funny. It's just gross.

I'm assuming a comedian could make that funny, but it's just disgusting. Like, she's an elected official with, like, and we watched her on video as if she was like some fucking teenager in a back of a car. Like, it's just so, like, they're so fucking classless and crass and disgusting. The fact that people vote for these folks is just, it's beyond me. It's beyond me. Oh. Personally, I look forward to her TV show after Congress.

The Sarah Pill and Hillbillies Part 2. Oh, God. No. No, not the boberts. Folks, I am very excited to welcome to the new. Abnormal. Denise Hamilton, who is a nationally renowned expert in workplace culture and equity and is a force in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space, and is an author of a new book entitled Indivisible, How to Forge Our Differences into a Stronger Future. Denise, thank you so much for making

the time for the show. Let's start with the title of your book, because I think that often when we hear the word indivisible, where do we go? We go to the Pledge of Allegiance. At least that's where my mind goes. So talk to us about the importance of this title and how it is different than what we think about when we think about DEI. Well, I think that we have forgotten that DEI, they're just tools. They're just tools to achieve a bigger goal. The goal is to actually be indivisible. And you're right. We hear that word in the Pledge of Allegiance, and I've always thought it's a beautiful word, but I don't think anybody cares about it. We've lost it as a goal. And to me, when I think of what it means to be indivisible, I think of the human body. The brain and the lungs don't argue over which is more important,

right? Like your legs are the strongest muscle group in your body, but you are going absolutely nowhere if the tiny little bones in your ear don't manage your balance. All of the parts are significant. All the parts are important. And when every gift is allowed to shine from each part, you have the best possible outcome. That's all DEI is. It's creating a space where the best dancers get to dance. The best singers get to sing. And the best gifts get to come to the forefront of every space. And don't we all want that? I mean, I would like to say that we all want that, but apparently DE and I has become the next boogeyman on the radical right. And when you describe DEI, that's what I think about it. But as it is being used and weaponized by the right, they are saying

that, well, you know, this is what is led to the destruction of America, apparently, is equity and inclusion, that if not for DEI, you know, business would get done because apparently white men are the only ones that know how to do business. So when you hear these attacks and you see in the headlines on a regular basis, your industry, your space of work, how does that sit with you? Well, first, I am a lunatic a little bit. I walk through the world with an almost inappropriate level of optimism, right? I believe that the only people that can change the world are the ones who think they can. And I also understand the ebbs and flow of social change. I heard a fantastic presentation by Neil deGrasse Tyson a few years ago, and he was talking about the tide.

He was talking about how language shapes how we move forward and how we see the world. And what he said was we use language like the tide goes in and out. when that's not actually what happens. The earth rotates, there's two bulges of water on the face of the earth, and the earth rotates in and out of those bulges of water. I took it a step further and I said, you know what? The sun actually doesn't set. It's the earth that sets.

And scientifically, we all know that's true. But what if we decided to go on a national campaign to change the phrase from sunset to earth set. The truth of it is, nobody would care if it was true. People would resist it because they are used to calling it sunset. That's the battle that DEI is doing. We are trying to change stories that people are deeply engaged in. They're deeply committed to. And our stories, they don't give us up easily, right? So I always expected this backlash. I always expected this difficulty because it's just homeostasis. People always seek the devil that they know, right? And so when we introduce all these new concepts and ideas and we're challenging fundamental stories that they

believe their whole lives, we're crazy if we don't expect them to be resistant. So I budgeted that in to my work long ago. We knew this was coming, right? And so I think the challenge that the rest of us have is to not be discouraged. I refuse to allow people like Elon Musk who are fighting numerous discrimination lawsuits to determine whether or not DEI is working. His resistance to it actually proves to me that DEI is working. He's a proofcase of it. I heard Charlie Kirk say the other day that he gets nervous if he sees a black pilot flying his plane. I'm so sorry, no disrespect, but this is a community college dropout that has decided to position himself

as the evaluator of the skills and talents and capabilities of one of the most tested industries in the world. So we have to resist the framing of naysayers, right? There's a small group of people who are committed to the status quo and those of us who take responsibility for our chapter of the American story

cannot be discourage. by this group of naysayers. Denise, let me tell you something. Hallelujah and amen to every single point that you just made. Because I think that where we find ourselves and where, you know, and I'll take this from the political lens where Democrats find themselves is consistently trying to, instead of coming from a lens of reframing, instead of coming from the lens of exactly what it is that you said,

that there are a small group of people that are committed to the status quo because it has worked for them, but that the rest of us are committed to progress. We're committed to our generation and our time with the baton to move this country in a direction that allows for there to be expansion of the American dream. And so what gets me, though, is that the Charlie Kirk's of the world, while we know by number, there are not anything in comparison to the people who believe in honesty, integrity, facts, inclusivity, they have the biggest microphone. It begins to seed into the conscious that, oh, maybe this DEI, maybe this critical race theory, maybe it's all just too much. So we need to stop it. So what do you say to that? Because that goes to this idea of

your book, of Indivisible, that we can't be broken apart, but that's exactly what this party is working to do. Well, I mean, I think that. that you've answered your own question. Yes, they have loud microphones. We have to be louder. We have to be more confident. We have to believe in our power. I believe that, you know, when we look at America, it's like we've inherited this incredible great old house with beautiful bones. And it's our generation's turn to do the renovation, to update the kitchen and to fix the leaky pipe in the bathroom. We have far too many people that approach this country like a renter instead of an owner. And what is the distinction in my mind? An owner fixes the foundation,

the electrical, the plumbing, this stuff nobody sees, right? The renter puts up peel and stick tile, right? Because the owner is committed to long-term viability and the renter is just trying to extract temporary value. So we have a whole bunch of people running around as extractors. We are overrun with extractors. And so what we need to do is convert more people to owners. And that's why I wrote this book. We are heirs. We are heirs to an incredible legacy. And it's our generation's turn to write the next chapter. I don't think it should be a rehash of chapter eight. I think it should be a fresh, new, forward-leaning chapter. And so I'm committed to doing that and raising my voice. And we just have to be louder. We need to say more. And while I'm here, we also have to surrender the two kind of

malaises of our time. And that's hopelessness and helplessness. I literally feel like, how dare we, how dare we move through this country with hopelessness and hopelessness? I have a personal muse. Harriet Tubman, here is this woman enslaved, born in the 1800s, couldn't read, couldn't write, had never been more than a mile from the plantation, didn't have a map, didn't have a horse, didn't know anybody in the north. And she ran by herself. She had a disability, ran by herself to the north to secure her freedom. But if that wasn't amazing enough, she turns around and she comes back time after time after time. This time she gets three people. The next time she gets six people. The next time maybe it's four people. We need some tenacity. We need to be patient and do the steady everyday work of building the country that we want to live in. We are not less capable than Harriet Tubman in the 1800s.

We have more information, more education, more knowledge, more. We have more of everything. So why aren't we doing more? Instead, we're standing around waiting on a Messiah and the Messiah is waiting on you. It's time that we started acting like we are. are not spectators of America, but we are the actual authors of this generation's chapter. So I don't let the Charlie Kirk's of the world discourage me. There's a famous African proverb, the lion does not concern himself with the bleeding of the lamb, right? And I understand the very

important work that is set before me and set before each and every one of us. And it's time we all step into that work and step in powerfully. I mean, I love it because I, I think that where we find ourselves is because of the overrun of information, the access to everything. We can access despair all day, every day if that's what we choose to see. That is how the algorithm is set up. And so if that is what your algorithm is set to, then you will be overcome with malaise. You will be overrun with apathy, which I think is a disease that has taken hold of this country.

We see so much and yet feel so helpful. to do anything about it. We see so much and yet refuse to step out of our front door. And so I feel everything that you're saying because I worry greatly about the timeline that we are on in the next couple of months leading up to an election where we are seeing equity and justice weaponized by a group of people that are hell bent on pulling us back to pre-1950s era America. One of the things that I want to talk to you about with regard to your book, too, is you say, resist the temptation of the feel good story as a way to make change. Can you talk a bit about that? Because as somebody who does podcasts as, you know, somebody that reports on politicians and politics, story is a big part of that.

Look at how we're all alike. Look at how, you know, everything is great. What do you mean by, you know, to resist the temptation of the feel good story? Yeah, I think sometimes what we name feel good stories are kind of a panacea, right? They're a sedative to make us look away from the bigger problem. In the book, I talk about Dr. Pimple Popper, which is if you're not familiar, a reality TV show where people can write in and they have these horrific medical conditions. And this wonderful, gracious doctor, she does their medical revision. surgery or treatment at no cost, right?

And we look at these stories of these people that come in horribly disfigured or injured and this wonderful woman that's stepping up to treat them. And we think that's a feel-good story. And I say it's not a feel-good story. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing that people have to do a Willy Wonka-style hunger games contest to get medical care in our country. But in a weird way, we've enshrined it.

It's absolutely bizarre. I had a friend send me an article about a little girl who had cerebral palsy and her parents had terrible crappy insurance and they had appealed for a motorized wheelchair for her to get around. And the insurance company had denied her. And so the local high school robotics team built her a motorized wheelchair. And she sent me the story like, oh my gosh, this. is so amazing. Isn't this story incredible? And I said, no, it's not incredible. It's embarrassing.

So our older children have to help our younger disabled children navigate a life-changing disability. That's not good news. That's embarrassing. And this is what I mean when I say we have to shift the way we're looking at the challenges that are placed before us. We have to resist the simple reductionist simplistic frames that were being given. It's nonsense. We deserve more. I love seeing an article about a poor black child that was homeless that got into seven Ivy League schools and got, you know, a million dollars in scholarship funds. Why should that be news? If you're bright, you should have access to the best educational institutions, right? But we all kind of have this tacit agreement, this unspoken agreement that we're going to be complicit with these systems of

reduction. And I'm not about that. My goal with this book has been to challenge the frames that were given and to help the readers to develop that skill for themselves. That once I hope that once I show you something, you can never unsee it ever again. Those stories, the ones that are supposed to make us feel good about those that are able to overcome obstacle. You're right. Does not challenge how and why those obstacles were put in their place in the first place. Doesn't say what are the systems that created these issues in the first place? Whenever I see stories about people doing wonderful things, don't get me wrong, about, you know, trying to figure out different ways to clean water in places like Jackson, Mississippi, in places like Flint. And I think, well, that's

wonderful. I love that these people are taking on this philanthropic or environmental innovation. But where is the government? Where is the system that should have never allowed an American city to go for years and continue to go for years without clean water? Exactly. How do we make that okay? And I think that the way that you have framed your book and the questions that are being asked are really important. I want to go back to the point of hopelessness. I want to go back to the story of Harriet Tubman and the place that Americans seem to find themselves right now, which is exhausted and exasperated from Gen Z and Up with the American Project. And everything that you said, the American Project requires tenacity. How do we get that back? I think we have to be careful what we consume. We need digital literacy. We need to understand that there are literacy.

bad actors who seek to dissuade us of our inheritance. They're seeking to cheat us out of what we have been given. I think that we need to be more alert to that. We need to get out of the kind of the numbness of sugar, you know, like our diets, our consumerism. I'll just buy two more, you know, pairs of leggings. Like, you know, like, I think there are a lot of things that are distracting us. And we've lost sight of our responsibility. And there's, you know, a couple forces in there. There's first, if you don't have a $2 billion company by age 22, what are you even doing with your life? Right? Like, it's ridiculous. We kind of created this thing that if you're not doing something incredible and astronomical, you know, then you're doing nothing. And that's actually not

how this works. I think of us as all being in a big stadium. And if everybody in the stadium drops a couple pieces of trash at their feet, that stadium is completely trashed. But what happens if everybody bends down and picks up the trash at their feet? Then what do you have? Right. And we've gotten to a space that we're all looking for somebody else to come along and pick up the trash. And the truth is, baby, it's your house and it's your feet. And this is your space. And it's going to be exactly what we allow it to be, and it's going to be exactly what we create it to be. Both of those things are true. I personally would like to be in the creation mode. I don't want to be away from the table when my future is being discussed, but so many of us are so big, we're watching cat

videos. We're laughing and it's wonderful. I'm a happy, joyful person, but we also have the work that we're supposed to do. And we can't let people who are not committed to our shared values to dissuade us of our work. And that's literally what we're doing right now. So I say to people that feel exhausted, that feel discouraged, go get a massage, have a lovely dinner and get some good night's sleep tonight. Because tomorrow you have work to do. And you need to find your specific work, right?

We need to stop looking for another Martin Luther King. Stop looking for another Gandhi or another. Like, we don't need a hero. We're the heroes that we're looking for. And if we don't move like that, we're going to blink and have this country deteriorate to a place that is not salvageable. I don't believe that the future is dark. I think that people are rejecting DEI and pushing back against DEI because it's working. We talked about Charlie Kirk being mad at the black pilot, but let's be clear, there are black pilots, and that's new.

So we need to learn how to celebrate the victories, celebrate the movement forward, and make sure that we are not letting people who don't believe in forward movement define this movement. Amazing. Denise Hamilton, thank you so much for making the time to join the new abnormal folks. The book is Indivisible, how to forge our differences into a stronger future. Thank you. Thank you. And I hope that you will join us again. Absolutely.

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