The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Republicans Can’t Seem To Lay a Glove on Biden

Episode Date: April 6, 2021

That new documentary on QAnon ended with something of a bang, with one likely suspect seeming to half-confess that he was ‘Q,’ the oracle of the violent conspiracy movement. But there may not be even a single ‘Q,’ explains Will Sommer, one of the people featured throughout the documentary and the co-host of The Daily Beast’s new hit podcast, FEVER DREAMS.   “There was kind of like this group surrounding the original Q,” Sommer, who’s writing a book on QAnon, tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “There's not even one solid Q in the beginning. I mean, Q does not use the name. All these posts that are attributed initially to Q do not use the Q name. So you get into this fight over the canon, of who is Q who's not Q.” Speaking of delusional movements, the Republican party is at a bit of a loss these days. They can’t seem to figure out how to get in the way of Joe Biden’s agenda—or even to throw an effective counterpunch against the guy.    “The Republicans don't how to push back. The most effective pushback of Biden's whole infrastructure relief plan has been from [Obama’s former national economic council chief] Larry Summers,” James Carville, the veteran Democratic strategist, tells Jong-Fast. “Intellectually, they just they've lost their footing.” Carville adds, “I think the most significant 24 hours in American politics was from 8:00 PM eastern on the 5th of January to 8:00 PM eastern on the sixth. And that time you had the two Georgia wins  and you had the insurrection and those events taken in tandem have been very, very underappreciated by contemporary commentators. They were just a different party on the night of January the 6th. Everything changed in a 24-hour period. And, you know, they’re still off balance.”  “And while they are balancing, I think the Biden people have just stayed focused and running as much through as they possibly can. But [the Republicans] don't have a coherent pushback. It's all CBS: cancel culture, the border, and senility. That's all they do,” Carville adds. “They just completely reinvented a coalition and their messaging overnight has gone from an Episcopalian, Presbyterian, white party [to] rural and non-college... They don't want to talk about free trade or anything like that,” he continues. “And Biden is not just a polarizing figure. I mean, you can't gin it up. I mean, Obama, for obvious reasons he could get them all ginned up. They try to get a charge out of Biden, but it just doesn't work that well… They'll get it back. But right now they're having a hard time.” If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Jongfast, and welcome to The Daily Beast, The New Abnormal. I'm a left-wing pundit and an editor at large at The Daily Beast. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. Our world has been turned upside down. On the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and figure out how we get our out of it. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure everything doesn't go too far off the rails while we have fun discussions about our world gone mad. And while I take that

duty seriously, ourselves, not so much. Today we have an excellent episode with Daily Beast Reporter and Fever Dreams podcast host Will Summer. It's going to talk to us about the HBO Max Dock Q, into the storm, where Will is the main reporter interviewed throughout the film. Then we're We're going to talk to Sean Donovan, who served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, as well as director of the OMB under Obama, as presidently running for mayor of New York City. But first, we're going to talk to our returning guest, the Ragen-Cajun, legendary Democratic consultant, James Carval. Hi, James Carval. Hey, guys.

Welcome back. Good to be my first post Matt Gets appearance on the new. Let's talk about Matt Gatz. Yeah, let's do that. You have seen a lot in your day. What is going on? It is interesting to me to see another Republican congressman go down because you remember Chris Collins, early Trump supporter. Sure.

The most forgotten person in the Republican Party and the most forgotten person by liberals is one Dennis Coach Hesert. Oh, yes. A servant Republican Speaker in history. Somehow another, he just evaporated. He came right after Newt Gingrich. Yes, he was the longest serving Republican Speaker in history. And everybody coached, he's going to bring some real needed discipline to that caucus. And he turned out to be a child monster.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what he was. Yes, yes. And then you got to tell me Jim Jordan.

All right. Oh, man. That's a creepy guy on steroids. Yeah. Jim Jordan allegedly ignored sexual abuse. For sure. There's nobody that's been played sports. I mean, if you're on a football team, everybody knows everything.

You can imagine on a wrestling team. You didn't know that the doctor was given a lot of digital exams. I mean, come on. So talk to me about what you're seeing right now in the Democrat. It feels to me like Biden is just passing stuff and getting stuff. done and Democrats are having this sort of amazing success. That's not what's being messaged, but that's what it feels like to me. Do you think that's what's happening? Well, and first of all, the Democrats are very, very slight. The Republicans don't know to push back. The most effective

pushback of Biden's whole infrastructure relief plan has been from Larry Summers, who's right. Honestly, they don't even have, they don't have much effective to say about it. The Washington Post, you know, this morning was like trying to, you know, well, we went out and, you know, the Republicans really don't want all this big spending. Okay. You know, 70% don't, but 30% do, which is a lot. Yeah. And they don't, intellectually, they just lost their footing. I mean, so I think the most significant 24 hours in American politics was from 8 p.m. Eastern on the 5th of January to 8 p.m. Eastern on the 6th.

And that time, you had the two Georgia wins and you had the insurrection. And those events taken in tandem have been very, very underappreciated by contemporary commentators. There were just a different party on the night of August of January 6th. It just everything changed in a 24-hour period. And, you know, they still are off balance. And while they are off-balancing, you know, I think the Biden people are just staying focused and running as much through as they possibly can. but they don't have a coherent pushback.

It's all with, it's CBS. It's cancel culture, the border, and senility. That's all they do. CBS? That's amazing. CPS. Yes. Cancel border finility.

Do you think the Republicans got bad at pushing back because they had Trump and Trump was sort of so, you know, was just sort of instinct and they just let him sort of run rampant. I mean, you know, what I think about a lot is this idea that a weak party, there's a sole piece I read about in the UK, there was a rise of authoritarianism, but because their party structure was very strong, they were able to bat it down. And what happened with the Republican Party was that, right, none of them wanted Trump, but he just sort of was able to cruise through the primaries. And so it was really a weak party. And I wonder if some of what's happened is since

Trump has gone, it's still that very weak party structure. Well, they're weak because they've just completely reinvented their coalition and their messaging overnight. They've gone from a Episcopalian, Presbyterian, white party and, you know, suburban, and they've gone, you know, rule, you know, non-college. And just the coalition has changed. And the changes you see reflect that. So there's no longer, they don't longer talk about free trade, obviously, or anything like that. And they're just looking for, and Trump has just got them completely off guard and Biden is not just polarizing figure. Right.

I mean, they can't gin it up. I mean, like Obama, they could, you know, for obvious reasons, he could get them all ginned up. And they try to get a charge against Biden, but it just doesn't work that well. And, you know, and they're just getting hit with one thing after another. And, you know, a significant number of people that have peeled off from them. So, you know, they'll get it back. But right now, they're having a hard time.

Yeah. Oh, well. Couldn't have happened to a worst party. Don't hate to see it. Like, this is a thing that I've been just talking about more and more. How do you think Biden is able to keep this moment, right? Like, the vaccine program is a humongous success, right? We've gone from the worst country for COVID to basically, I mean, with the vaccines, I mean, America is just absolutely, you know, there's data today that says everyone in America. can be vaccinated by the summer, right, later in the summer. So how does Biden, because Democrats really aren't brilliant at messaging, or at least not anymore, they were when you were, you know, but how is he able to keep this going, to keep the messaging on this and to really take advantage of this huge win? Well, the one thing is, and I can think that the woke wing of the Democratic Party, which I'm not a member, they want to just get got Mr. Zions, Jeff Zions, to be like, secretary and they couldn't get him past the wokey so they put him in charge of the vaccine everybody

says he's like one of the most confident people you can imagine so one of the things people are seeing is of course trump and him didn't know whether to you know whine their asses or scratch their watches and so this guy comes in he's the logistical people he puts all the people in place and Biden does something smart he under promises you know he's going to have a hundred million about in oh my god look what we got 200 million and but I think think that the vaccine just gave him a kind of credibility. And the other thing is, people need this money. People are just like hurting. They don't have nothing. You know, law, you know, the top percent of people who did fine, they're better than fine. But, you know, this stuff is popular.

People like this idea. You know, now it's going to get more difficult, a little tougher sledding, but he's not a very clear target for him. So they'll get, they'll get their footing with they certainly don't have it yet. So you spend a lot of time in parts of the country that Democrats do not rule, right? Louisiana and different places like that. Do you have any thoughts? Because this 2022 Senate map is kind of like if Democrats could pick the right candidates, they might be able to knock off one or two of these GOP seats.

Do you have any thoughts of like exciting red state Democrats who you think could maybe break in? Very good. I think North Carolina, if you look at it, it was disappointing in 2020, but it did actually close some. Yeah. And we got a bunch of good candidates that are circling around North Carolina, and that's going to be an open seat for them. I think that's probably one of more attractive pickups. Yeah. Pennsylvania, you know, we've got to get the right kind of candidate, but, you know, everybody's going to have a primary there too.

So that's, you know, a very attractive pickup opportunity. Wisconsin, for sure. Yeah, Wisconsin. Absolutely. Iowa? Who knows? It's an open seat. The state has been disappointingly red here of late, but we're still got to be in. I don't know why Florida's out. I didn't know why we, Florida, in 2018, 64% of the millions voted to get felons the right to vote. 60% in 2020 voted for a $15 minimum wage. Yeah. Maybe if we ran a smart campaign down there, we'd win an election. Yeah. But it is not, apparently what elected at two-thirds wants everybody to have a chance to vote and by 60% wants to pay people, you know, a living wage should be a place that you can win an election. Well, you see, I mean, Nikki, we had Nikki Fried on the pod and she talked about how, and she, I mean, she won as the state ad chair, which is the third most powerful position in the state. and she ran on this very kind of appealing to Republicans' weed, weapons, and water.

Right. You're right. It is a very powerful position in Florida. You know, we just got to be very smart and nominate somebody that really matches up well with root yard. It's going to be hard to do, but I by no means think that that's off the table. Louisiana, maybe if John Bell ran, which is certainly not a given. Right. It's a very tough, very, very tough sledding there.

But Louisiana has a weird, can you explain you guys have this primary system that could, right, like Georgia? Well, it's a little bit different. We have what they call a jungle primary where everybody runs, you know, Republican Democrat run together than the top two face a runoff. You could have two Republicans. You have a Republican of Democrat. Theoretically, you could have two Democrats, which is highly unlikely. But I think people are not disenchance. And with it, since it work okay, I don't get a lot of thought.

Right. You'd need a bit of only way to have a say. I think they're very worried about New Hampshire because the government may challenge Maggie Hassan. Yeah. We could be like a problem. Of course, Arizona should be okay, but, you know, Nevada, you know, there's a couple of holes. You've got to, you know, look it over your shoulder. But, you know, if Goldman Sachs is right, and we have 8% growth, then we'll do fine.

Are you worried about inflation? Well, I'm 76, so I've got other things that worry about me concerns. I guess I don't know if Larry Somers is worried somewhat about it, then I'm worried somewhat about it. Right. But that would be the best answer I could give you. I have no idea. I've been waiting for inflation forever. We hadn't seen it.

Right, exactly. I was watching War Room the other day. Have you watched it since? You know, I did. And recently, and I, you know, about the age where I can say, this, that was a good movie. It's a great movie. It really is a great movie.

Yeah, it really is. Like, oh, this is all the fusses about. And I showed it to my class. And if you look at a movie in 1963 called Crisis about Robert Drew, It's one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. And Pennybacker was like the assistant director on it. And Crisis was just unbelievable access they had filming George Wallace and Bobby Kennedy and Nick Katzenback and the integrating of the University of Alabama.

But, I mean, it was as good a documentary as I've ever seen. The War Room is nothing but echoes of crisis. To that kind of filmmaker, Robert Drew, is some kind of a god. I highly recommend this. this documentary, not just you, but anybody listening to this podcast. You're not going to walk away at all, disappointed. Yeah, I was

really, I was watching it and I was just surprised. I mean, do you think with Clinton, one of the things that's so interesting to me is he sort of comes out of nowhere and wins. Do you think that there are more Democratic candidates like that who could

do that now, or do you think the culture is so sort of, people are so dug in? Well, I mean, the first, The first thing is, I mean, Bill Clinton is so talented. People just have, it's hard to explain to people, just what a talented politician he was. And the way that he could see opportunities and, you know, understand things. And probably, you don't, you're not going to see, like, major movement where somebody goes from 2%, you know. Right.

To whatever. But I don't discount the possibility at all. I mean, Obama was the same thing in kind of 08. Right. Biden was, you know, a different person for a different time. But I don't know if it's likely, but it'd be fun if it happened again. Yeah. You know, like a little unpredictability.

You guys also were a dream team. Well, we did. And the thing that really helped us was being in Little Rock. Because you're in Washington. You know, everybody wants a great beard to say. And I'd say, look, if you want to be here, if you're not here, you don't count. We're not going to do it on conference. Right? Because everybody, you know, see, Washington, everybody's got their lobbying clients and they got the other political clients.

And, you know, and it's just distractive. I would highly recommend any campaign. Just stay out of the major metropolitan East Coast area. It'll affect you thinking. It just will. I think that's a useful piece of advice. Basically, Republicans have decided that from losing Georgia, they need to make it harder to vote. And so they passed this pretty restrictive voting rape bill, which is very long and complicated. And now Delta and Coke are pushing back. So Republicans want to cancel Delta and Coke.

And I'm curious to know what your take on it is. All right. So I'm sort of proud to say yes. I was the first person to call for corporate involvement in Georgia voting. And it was back in August on Morning Joe. I think Bill Crystal was on there with me. And I said they got all these corporations there. and they got all this power to Georgia legislature

they ought to be using for this. So what we had here was a failure to anticipate. These corporate lobbyists should have gone to these Republicans and say, look, don't try this shit, man. Because this is what they're going through. Think of the Democratic coalition in a Republican coalition. So you're a marketer.

Are you trying to market older, uneducated people or younger educated people? Are you trying to market diversity? Are you trying to market a single demographic? And they don't, the marketing components of Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines and, you know, all these other places, they don't want to be seen as downwind of the Democratic Coalition because that's who everybody wants. I mean, even your site, you want, you know, you want younger, educated people that are going to get attached to it. And they're caught in a real vice here. and I give him a lot of credit to Ken Chen Chen Hennelk and all of these black businessmen

that CEOs are putting it out and then you know what I think baseball did and it's good they need to be involved this is outrageous this is a great issue against 64% of people in Florida weren't to allow felons so it's just it's a it's a basic fairness and it's a good political argument I think for Democrats I don't think we should and it's just morally repulsive with you and I'm all right. We go vote. We don't think about it. Everybody vote. Yeah, and Grandpa voted. You know what I mean? And my uncle. They're doing a real good job of really agitating people. And I think kind of

agitating in a good way in Georgia. I spent a lot of time talking to people there. I got a lot of friends there. And this story is going nowhere. And it was a stupid thing they did. And so they want you to believe that one morning at 6 o'clock, the Republican Party of Georgia decided they wanted to make voting fair, so they came up with a 98-page bill that they passed through the house at, you know, nine o'clock in the morning, and then it passed through to the Senate at nude, and then the governor and six other old white guys under a plantation painting, locked themselves in a room to sign it, because we're just trying to help. If you people would just let us help you, it would be a lot better off. Right. Yeah, you know. I mean, it is, it smacks of a certain kind of really

oppressive. Right. You don't, you didn't like the way to, and by the way, and by the way, they had just run a really successful election. It would be audit the GBI, the this, to that. And there's not any glitch in that election no more than slightly what you'd expect. Right, exactly. And so this is outrageous what they do it. It really is. And in its language and what it tried to do and the message is set.

This is our state. We control it. We're not letting you have any part of it. Yeah. I don't care how many votes you get. Yeah, it's really grim. Thank you so much, James Carver. of all, great to have you.

Will Summer is a reporter at The Daily Beast covering the fringes of the right wing and is also the host of the Daily Beast's brand new hit podcast, Fever Dreams, which covers the rights plan to retake power and the fringe elements influencing the Republican Party, which I highly suggest you subscribe to. As well, I want to give a spoiler warning since this interview spoils much of HBO's new documentary cue into the storm.

So welcome Will Summer back to the new abnormal again. Thanks for having me. always a pleasure. So we watched this. It was called Q Into the Storm on HBO Max, and we all watched it last night, and it had this big reveal, which we all kind of knew, right? Yeah. So, I mean, look, so the revelation, right, is that basically, I would say a sort of preponderance of the evidence suggests that Ron Watkins, the son of the owner of A. Chan, is behind QAnonan. And this had sort of come out, you know, while they were working on this documentary,

Frederick Brennan had also worked with Reply All, the podcast, which had also sort of made that argument. I think Colin ended up having sort of more, like, harder evidence of it, but, but yeah, I mean, I think sort of by some conjecture, like, people had kind of already figured that out. Right. I mean, there was, he was

on Reply All, and he was on a couple of other places, Frederick Brennan, saying that Hugh was Jim Watkins and his son. Right. And, I mean, I think to Colin's credit in the documentary, I mean, I think, obviously, Frederick is himself sort of an interested actor here. Yeah. You know, he's obviously got a feud with the Watkins.

But I do think that, I think, given the reporting in the documentary, that I think we see that that thesis, I think more or less bears out. I don't think, you know, I don't think we've seen a smoking gun per se. But I think if we don't get more information on that, I think it's fair to say that the people who currently control Q are the Watkins. And they control the board that Q posts on. So it would make sense. But the moment that is like pointed as the slip up, can you explain that? Because there's a moment that's sort of like the moment that the younger Watkins

reveals himself to be cute. I didn't totally see that. Can you explain? Yeah. You know, I think people are going to see that moment differently. It's certainly not like the jinx where he was like, you know, I love to murder people.

But they really did try to play it like that one. Yeah. Right. Exactly. So like, I mean, for this like years-long process, there's been this, like Ron Watkins, who's, you know, the people, the one people say is behind Q is, he's kind of playing this weird game where at times he's like, what's Q? And then other times he'll just like get really into the nitty gritty of like drama between the Q&on influencers and all this. So then he's talking to, he's talking to Cullen very much like a couple days before January 6th. Ron has had this kind of like he's become, either. his own right, in his own name, he's become kind of a pro-Trump influencer. And he says, yeah, you know, the board for several years has been my efforts to teach people these intelligence gathering things. And maybe that's not clear in the video, but that's kind of

how people describe Q in general, like pro-Q people. So he's sort of positioning himself as the force behind Q, the board. And then suddenly he says, but I'm not Q. So, you know, I agree. It's not a smoking gun in the way that I think we might want. But it sort of seems as though he was sort of bragging about his influence behind Q and then suddenly has to, it goes, oh, wait, I've gone too far. I need to say I'm not Q. Right. So Will, do you have any theory on, because everybody's left wondering who was the Q

before this? Do you have any places you're looking at? Yeah. I mean, I think that is much harder to figure out. And I think we may never know. I mean, you know, as made clear in the documentary, there's, a lot of, there were a lot of these kind of of Q-like characters that preceded Q.

There was a guy who's like, I'm in the FBI, I'm in Hollywood, whatever. And then for whatever reason, Q took off in a way that the others did not. And I think, you know, people say it's Paul Ferber, who we see in the documentary, the South African guy with a big mustache. Right.

There's kind of like this group surrounding the original Q. But what also, I mean, what's interesting as well is, there's not even a one solid Q in the beginning. I mean, Q does not use the name, like all these posts that are, attributed initially to Q, do not use the Q name. I mean, so it's really you get into this kind of like fight over the canon of like who's Q, who's not Q.

Fight over the canon is so. Oh, I mean, absolutely. I mean, you know, it's what's a legitimate Q post? And so the, so like people say Paul Ferber. Right. It's a what's legitimate in this world of fakes, which are also fake? Exactly. And so you get, I mean, really, if you want to talk about canon, you get into a point where

you have like someone like. Paul Ferber who says the first cue was real, but after January 2018, when, you know, people would say the Watkins wrestled Q away, he's like, the previous stuff about, you know, eating kids and all that, that was real. This stuff's fake. So, you know, I mean, there's all these just varying degrees of credulity. So there's a lot of criticism about this documentary, and I don't quite understand why. Can you explain? Yeah, I mean, I think Yeah, I mean, so this gets into sort of like, there's a lot of like drama in the world of people tracking this kind of stuff. I think there's a lot of people who don't understand that, I mean, this is a documentary. It's going to have to be interesting, right?

I mean, I think some people sort of want like a white paper that's very dry, but we should want people to watch it, I guess. And so, you know, there was a lot of claims that, you know, oh, it made Q& look too cool. I mean, it struck me that like, it didn't seem very cool today. If you see like Jim and Ron Watkins, they're talking about like sex stalls and here's my pig farm. I don't see that and it's like, this is badass. Like I want to join QAnon. I think I think these people are telling on themselves if they think that's cool.

I have to tell you that pig farm did not look great. You're not playing with a family vacation to one, Molly? Yeah. I mean, that was not like, oh, I got to get in on this. I think the main claim is that it's continued to sort of like spread this kind of far right disinformation. But I didn't see that, but I'm curious if you saw that. Yeah, I mean, this is something that I think, you know, people in my line of work like grapple with a lot.

And so, I mean, I think for me, the measure is always like, is it having an effect on the real world? Like, I typically don't want to do a, like, you know, look at what this zany person said online, you know, if that's where it ends. But, you know, for me, that line was crossed in, I think, the summer of 2018, when you had a guy blocking a bridge by the Hoover Dam with like an armored truck, a QAnon guy. At some point, you have to, and now, of course, it's only become more so. We have people in Congress. And, you know, we have Q&M people like trying to beat up cops in Congress.

Yeah. And so at that point, you have to say to the audience, like, these are not babies in our country. Like, we need to trust our people both as citizens and as an audience that they deserve to know what's going on. Yeah. No, I think that's right. And I mean, I think we have to just assume, I mean, not covering this stuff is also detrimental. Right. And certainly, I mean, I think there's an argument over this. And, you know, we know that, you know, sort of at the end of the documentary, Colin basically addresses that by saying, you know, maybe by showing you who these people are, that kind of takes some of the wind out of Q&O. Yeah. And do you think it does? You know, it's a good question. I mean, in many ways, I think QAnon in some ways has sort of progressed past the need for Q.

Right. And that, you know, either you could see a new Q rise up or that I think, you know, even years ago, they were saying to one another when Q would disappear for a couple months. They would say, you know, well, maybe Q's fake. Maybe it is just a guy in a basement or a guy in a pig farm, as the case may be. But what Q taught us is real. And so the messenger is less important. What Q taught us is real. Right.

Jesus. Yeah. So interesting. So, Will, I thought one of the most interesting things. that like talking about what a documentary can't delve into because it's not really the subject, but this Jason Sullivan thing of having this Twitter army that could amplify a message. Can you break that down and enlighten us a little bit more on this? There's sort of like this, and I don't know if this is the same thing,

but in this field there is sort of a possibly apocryphal botnet that people who are either associated with Roger Stone or various far-right figures can use to amplify their messaging. There's a lot of talk about this. I haven't seen a ton of reporting on it to verify it. I mean, certainly, you know, if this Jason Sullivan guy is claiming he has this power. I mean, I'm a little suspicious of, you know, you have Ron Watkins saying something like, yeah, I've like the most powerful Twitter account ever when I log in. I mean, that just seems a little bogus to me.

Conversely, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a botnet that these people are using to amplify their message. It is curious. I mean, I've heard references to this outside of, outside of QAnon and outside of the documentary. So certainly there is this kind of belief. But on the other hand, I mean, and this kind of gets into what you deal with with these people is that they love to lie constantly. And so you kind of are constantly, you have to judge like, is this in this person's interest to make me think that? So on. Just anecdotally, from my experience, you do wonder why a Charlie Kirk has 4,000 retweets on a tweet.

You know, that doesn't feel natural. That feels like it might be a, and Don Jr., too. And how much we've seen things like Daily Wire doing all those dumb Facebook pages that just amplify their bullshit, too. It's not something that seems completely out of the range of possibilities. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and I think sometimes these actors will, to their own interests, sort of dress up how, how sort of dastardly or interesting this is. Like, if you just say, well, yeah, the Daily Wire has a bunch of Facebook pages and they post the article on it, and then they kind of have this, like, a network effect. I mean, that's not super interesting.

But if you phrase it as this Roger Stone Associate did, where it's like, we have like the death star of, you know, Twitter or whatever, I think there's a lot of variations. And the thing also, I mean, you see this in the documentary with Omar Navarro where there's all this kind of like loose talk at these parties and people are like trying to portray themselves as more plugged in than they are. I mean, it is very difficult to sort of sort of sort of sort of the truth in these situations. And they want you to be wrong because it helps their narrative. so they're going to be constantly pumping disinfo. Right, and they want to be seen as more, you know, often these actors, I think, want to be seen as more plugged in than they are. And so they'll say, well, I heard that Bannon's working on this or something like that. Right.

How involved is Roger Stone in all of this? You know, it's a great question. I mean, again, that's someone who, you know, loves to sort of promote his own legend and who was also sort of seen as lurking behind things. I mean, I think Roger Stone would have been a fool given his line of work. if he wasn't, you know, saying, hey, why don't we see what the supposed king of QAnon is up to or see if he wants to work with us? On the other hand, I feel like, you know,

I mean, it's difficult to suss out. I mean, I think for me, you know, there's always been this, and you see this in the documentary and you see this in some other theories of who's behind QAnon. People say, well, it's probably Roger Stone or it's Steve Bannon or it's Michael Flynn. But I think QAnon is just so weird

that no one could have come up, no one could have set out to create that in that way. I mean, you never would have just sat around and it's like, Yeah, okay, we're going to start, and it's going to be this guy named Q and, like, all this stuff. I think they may have tried to harness it after it started, but I think in terms of it just has to be some random person who started it. The thing about the game was really interesting. Cicada.

Cicada. Like, that was a real, I thought that was like a real deep dad. And that guy seems like a really bad actor. So I have had a lot of dealings in my time with Thomas Schoenberger, the gentleman played by the cicada in the documentary. This is sort of like if you, particularly before a lot of these documentaries and podcasts came out, if you Googled like who's behind Q&N in the summer of 2018, a lot of it was focused on Cicada. And Thomas Schoenberger and there's like a billion other characters around Cicada. And they all hate each other.

And they're involved in these like incredibly complex feuds that basically mean nothing. And they're just totally pointless. And so you really, I mean, you know, I think Colin gave you just the right amount of Cicada, which is not very much. because like you just like I have spent just so much time going through Cicada stuff and just being like like you know you spend like a day on it and it's like but what does this matter at all? I mean these guys like there's another guy named Defango who like used to be Thomas's best buddy and now there are arch enemies and DeFango really kind of tried to set Thomas up as the creator of QAnon and there's like these guys will do like insane tactics on one another. I mean I don't think they get into it. Thomas. has a couple convictions or at least, or like restraining orders for stalking and stuff. I mean, he's really, like, it's really crazy stuff.

I mean, and yet it also gets down to a very, like, you know, he's like, I'm this great composer. I'm like, you know, he's kind of hinting that he's involved in, like, intelligence work. But really, it gets to be very mundane, like trolls fighting each other online. But I think my favorite Schoenberger stories, which I reported out for The Daily Beast, was Ed Battowski, who is this wealthy Fox News type guy,

who was a proponent of Seth Rich conspiracy theory. Yes, that's right. Didn't you have to pay them? Yes, so he just had to settle with the rich family. But a couple years ago, now this is according to several accounts, Patowski denies this, but he basically had a meeting at his house

with Defango and Thomas and, like, Lara Logan's husband, and a lot of these really weird characters. And, you know, several people there say the possibility of wiretapping Seth Rich's family was discussed as sort of like Thomas and Defango where these internet henchmen, it's a really weird universe.

Yeah, that really sounds terrible. So, well, can I ask one thing before we let you go. Yeah. There's been a lot of talk about a, you know, sex trafficking rig, but it's come from... It's not on the left. It's not on the left. It's coming from one of Q people's favorite congressmen. How are they reacting to the news?

Yeah. Are they going to be okay? Yeah, you know, I have seen on some aspect. I mean, part of Q&ON is, like, people are very willing to turn on anyone who isn't Donald Trump. So, like, like, Mike Pence, for example, like, they loved Mike Pence until they didn't. And then suddenly, you know, as we saw in the documentary with Ron Watkins saying, like, Mike Pence is the traitor, you know, and everyone turns on him. So, you know, on one hand, I have seen a look, some Q&N people say, like, you know, Matt Gates is, you know, who, oh, sad to see Matt Gates's deep state too, you know, out with him. But the vast majority of people are saying, you know,

This is another deep state plot. The cabal is out to, you know, injure the only honest man in Congress, Matt Gates. So, you know, it's sort of their commitment, I think, to stopping sex trafficking, you know, only goes so far. Oh. Thank you. Hey, folks. If you haven't heard every single week, we do a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast Membership Program. Sometimes we interview senators like Corey Booker or the folks who explain what's happening behind the scenes.

in media like Jim Acosta or Soledadad O'Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner. And sometimes we just have friends around to analyze what's happening in the news. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a beast inside member where you'll support the beast fearless journalism, as well as getting full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member, head to newabnormal.com. That's new abnormal.

That the dailybeast.com. Sean Donovan is the former United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, as well as former director of the OMB under Obama, and is presently running to be mayor of New York City. And for this interview, we're joined by a Daily Bee senior editor, Harry Siegel. Sean Donovan, thank you so much for joining us on the new of normal. Great to be with you, Molly. As someone who lives in New York City and has lived in New York City my entire life, nobody seems at all interested in this mayor's race.

Can you explain what is happening? Why can't we get people to pay attention to this? Well, you know, Molly, obviously we got a couple different crises going on in this city at the same time. We obviously have a COVID crisis that literally, and you know, I've worked on housing my entire career, we got folks that are deeply concerned about paying the bills, about staying in their homes, about feeding their kids. And in the midst of crisis, it is, it's hard even to focus three months out. But what I also hear when I talk to New Yorkers is you say, what do you think about this mayor's race?

They say this is the most important mayor's race of my lifetime. So ironically, even if it feels like people have other things that are more immediate, I also think they're focusing not just on the urgent, but also the important. And they know that this mayor's race is really important. So if they know this is important, and there's a new poll app that shows 50% of people don't have. of a top choice. How are you going to go about introducing yourself? I know you're one of the first candidates up on TV. And is that registering right now with voters, as you're saying it? I think it is registering. We're definitely seeing more New Yorkers that get to know me. And what we're finding is when they do get to know me, they support me. And the reason is,

because I think fundamentally what I'm hearing from New Yorkers is they want two things. They want change and they want experience at this moment. And by change, I mean they want a public servant, not a politician. They want someone who isn't part of the current status quo in our politics in New York, but they also want experience. 75% of New Yorkers say that government experience is really, really important to them in this moment of crisis. And so because I'm the only candidate that really combines both those things coming from outside the status quo in the city, but also the deepest, broadest experience in crisis.

What we're finding is when they get to know me, they support me. And that's encouraging. You've talked a lot about your experience with the Obama administration and your earlier work in New York, like with East Brooklyn congregations and elsewhere, but you were also Bloomberg's housing guy. And that was an era where the city felt increasingly expensive to a lot of New Yorkers. We had the rent is too damn high candidate. So what policies from that era that you were involved in in New York and as part of the establishment here, would you want to correct as mayor? And what policies that you enacted at the time would you double down on?

First, what I would say is that we made a lot of progress on affordable housing at that point. And we should remember, I came in as housing commissioner when we were still recovering from the effects of 9-11. And particularly as my tenure went on, we saw the emerging mortgage crisis that was actually taking away people's homes. The price of housing wasn't rising. It was actually dropping as a result of so many foreclosures and other things in a lot of neighborhoods, particularly black and brown neighborhoods where folks own their homes. And one of the things that I'm particularly proud of from that period is that I created

what's called the Center for New York City neighborhoods. It was the very first in the country and really most innovative response to the oncoming foreclosure crisis. And to go directly to your question, Harry, about what I would double down on. What we found is that we needed to get directly to people in their homes. So many people who were on the verge of foreclosure or eviction, and they were even embarrassed to pick up the phone. Their foreclosure notices, the utility bills were building up on their table, and they were paralyzed with fear, with shame. So one of the things we started doing was investing in housing counseling,

in legal services, as well as mortgage modifications and other things to make their loans affordable. But one of the things I would double down on, at this moment, when we have a looming eviction crisis because of more than 500,000 New Yorkers who've lost their jobs, What we need to be doing is investing in housing counseling, community organizations that do outreach to those families and the legal services that will keep people in their homes. It's incredibly effective. I know Mayor de Blasio's talked about this. He started in a couple neighborhoods. We need to do that citywide to make sure that we can keep people in their homes. So you're introducing yourself to a lot of New Yorkers right now. You're up on TV doing this. You've talked a fair amount, which has been interesting about your father's immigrant story and path to citizenship in the U.S. So two things here. I'm hoping you can touch on separately. First, if you could take us through your family history from Panama to Peru to the U.S. And then I'm hoping you can also talk about your father's support not for your campaign, but for this independent group, you start NYC, where he's effectively the sole sponsor and has put in

a million dollars, whether or not that is in fact an independent contribution. You're in the matching funds, the city program here. the campaign finance program, everyone's in except for Ray McWire, and how that works and if that's, in fact, independent. Well, Harry, I am deeply proud of my father and his, really, it's an American dream story. My grandfather was one of 10 poor Irish kids who grew up on the south side of London to try to make a living. He actually got on a boat alone to West Africa and then to South America, to Vaude Paraiso, Chile, after the 1906 earthquake. Like so many immigrants, he learned a new language.

He found enough success to send my dad to school here in the U.S. My dad grew up in Costa Rica in Lima, Peru. And my dad came to the city, had enough money to buy stationary, to mail to his first few customers, and found success, worked hard, lived his American dream. And so it's a story I think so many New Yorkers can relate to. And as you said, one of the moments I remember every day of my life the last five years is that I got to be the keynote speaker at his citizenship ceremony in the great hall on Ellis Island, a moment I will treasure till the day I die. And so I'm deeply proud of him. And his story is one that has really inspired me. And I think it's why I was so outrage at the racist. attacks of President Trump on immigrants. It's why as mayor I would put immigrants at the forefront

and ensure that we're giving everyone, every child that grows up in this city or comes to this city the chance to be successful and build their own American dream. And it's why I put equity at the center of my campaign. I will also be very clear that I take the clear hard line between my campaign and any independent groups out there that may get involved in the campaign, I take that hardline very, very seriously. And I cannot and will not talk about the specifics of what they're doing, because I don't know. We have no communication about what any of those, and there are obviously dozens and dozens of independent groups out there that are involved in this campaign. I am also a lifelong New Yorker and I have parents who grew up.

here and grandparents who grew up here and feel very attached to this place. It seems to me that Bill de Blasio is extremely unpopular. In some ways, right, he is very ideological. In a way that I would think I would agree with, and yet somehow everything he does just seems wrong to me. You have progressive ideology, too. How will you be different than Bill de Blasio? Because I think Bill de Blasio is everyone's worst nightmare. I think we need a mayor who has a mayor who has a both compassion and competence. And I think we've certainly seen over these last eight years that when you put politics and ideology ahead of people, you don't actually make change. And I always think about what Fiorella LaGuardia used to say, there's no Republican or Democratic way to take out

the trash. At some level, the mayor of the city has to be able to roll up their sleeves and actually make the city work for everyone. So first, the way I would be different is I've actually led and managed at a scale in public service that nobody else in this race has. Nobody else has managed a $4 trillion federal budget, dramatically reduced a budget deficit while still making big investments in health care and housing. Nobody else in this race has sat side by side with Dr. Fauci in the Situation Room at the White House and made sure that an emerging global health threat didn't become a pandemic that cost tens of thousands of New Yorkers their lives. And nobody else has worked side by side with community organizations and New Yorkers to build 5,000 Nehemiah homes

or to build Via Verde in the Bronx, the most sustainable, beautiful, affordable housing. And that gets me to my second point. Part of this is just competence and focusing on making government work for everyone. The second part is that if you're actually going to get progressive things done, if you're going to if you're going to attack inequality, you actually have to build coalitions to do that. And what I find is that this mayor hasn't been able to build coalitions for what I call equitable growth. And what does that mean? That means bringing jobs, bringing new housing that benefits everyone and being able to bring everyone to the table and really build consensus at a community level to get big things done. And that's not the work of politics.

That's the work of really rolling up your sleeves and working with communities, just like I started to do 30 years ago. And I really don't think anybody in this race has the record that I do of building coalitions for equitable growth that is what we need. at this moment in New York City. Sean, one of the things that's really been alarming to me is Andrew Yang's been for years criticizing the teachers' union in a way I find out of bounds personally. But now as well he's talking about having yeshivas have separate rules than New York City public schools.

I want to see what your views are on the subject. Let me just say generally, I think what we've seen time and time again from Yang is that he's a rookie. He obviously is a rookie in terms of, even. caring about city politics and voting, but he's a rookie in terms of really understanding what it is that makes New York City work and grow and what's going to bring this city back, whether it's focusing on illegal casinos on Governor's Island, whether it's saying, oh, well, as mayor, I would take over the subway and then backtracking when he actually started to

understand that there's no way to fund that. And for me, this is not time for a rookie as mayor. This is not time for someone who needs on the job training. And I go back to focusing on on the work that I've done. Nobody in this race has helped recover in this city and across his country from crisis after crisis the way that I have. So with that, Yang is kind of going on and on about how he has a direct line to Washington because of his presidential campaign. Who do you think would be the mayor with the most valuable connections to the Biden administration? Well, I got to chuckle at that one. The idea that you've met President Biden backstage at a debate and that that somehow is a deep relationship that's going to help New York City, it just doesn't work that way. And let me be very clear.

It's not just that I've worked in the trenches side by side with President Biden and with Vice President Harris, who I worked with very closely when she was state AG on the mortgage crisis. many other things. It's that nearly every single senior official in the Biden-Harris administration is not just a colleague, but a friend who I helped rebuild the country with after the Great Recession. It's that nearly every senior leader in Congress is someone I know personally and I've worked with very, very closely. In fact, take a look over the last year. Andrew Yang wasn't asked to testify in front of Congress about how to keep people in their homes across the country. He wasn't on the phone, in the last few months, being called by leaders in Congress on both sides of the aisle to help

figure out how to make sure that we fund housing and food and transit and all the critical things for our recovery in the COVID relief packages. I've been doing that. And that's very directly. We need a mayor who can finally get the help to New York City that we need in our time of need because they know not just they have the relationships. I was budget director. over the $4 trillion budget. I know exactly which programs can help us. And we should remember, every year New York City sends more than $20 billion more to D.C. than we get back in return.

It's time we have a mayor who can finally reverse that trend. And I'm the only one in this race that really has both the deep relationships and the knowledge to be able to do that. Does the city really want to have to Bill de Blasio, another white mayor from Brownstone, Brooklyn, who promises to be a champion of the underclass? Well, I think, Harry, you said the key words, which is promises. This isn't about rhetoric. And if you look at my record as a public servant, what you will see going back decades is that I have always put equity, racial equity, at the forefront.

Whether it was the work I did that we talked about earlier with Bishop Youngblood and East Brooklyn congregations building black and brown wealth, 75% of those folks bought Nehemiah homes moved directly out of public housing to buy their first home. Look at the wealth that was built for families. We talk about the threat of gentrification of black and brown people being pushed out of the city. There's no better solution than building wealth and opportunity. It's why equity bonds is one of my signature proposals building on Cory Booker's baby bonds that would ensure that a child born into poverty would graduate high school with almost $50,000

in an account to be able to go to college, buy a home, start a business. those are the kinds of efforts that I would move forward as mayor to create real equity in this city. And they can look back at my record. They don't need to take my word for it. I haven't just talked to talk on this. I've walked a walk. You may remember, Harry, when President Trump still had a Twitter account, he was attacking my work, saying that we had just, quote unquote, destroyed the suburbs, because I made sure that black and brown people could live wherever they choose as HUD Secretary. That's the kind of work that I've done again and again in my career. And I think when New Yorkers really look at who do they believe can advance racial equity in

this city, who's really done that work over 30 years, I think they'll decide that I have a record that nobody else in the race does. And by the way, they also are across every racial group, every geography in this city. I've been to every borough again and again with New Yorkers, what I hear is the most important thing at this moment is to get us out of this crisis. And nobody has the leadership through crisis, the record of rebuilding in this city across the country that I do. Awesome. Thank you so much.

This was fabulous. We really appreciate you coming on. What's crazier than QAnon, more outlandish than Pizza Gate, and scarier than a Mexican getaway with Ted Cruz? The answer is what the American right wing has planned next. Be one in the first to listen. into fever dreams, new podcasts from The Daily Beast, tracking the conspiracy slingers,

orange acolytes, and straight-up grifters pushing to retake power. Every Wednesday hosts Swin Subisang and Will Summer checking in on the movement of the radical right. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash podcasts or your favorite podcast player to catch the first episode and get subscribed. That's fever dreams,

which you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Jesse Cannon. Hi, hi, Molly jog fast. So tell me, So many candidates. Who is your fuck that guy? So he is someone who I think has actually been our fuck that guy before. Oh, yes.

But he is sort of, I mean, I hate to say this because I hate to give him this. But he's sort of right now the heir apparent to Trumpism. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he's really doing the imitation well. Like, I actually would say you watch him on the TV. It's like he's trying to do. like this Voltron of Chris Christie Ed Trump, which is really scary. Of course, I am talking about Florida governor, tan man extraordinaire, Ron DeSantis.

Oh, I like that. Well, he's very tan, right? He's very, very tan. I mean, not as tan as Donald Trump, who has this sort of orange glean to him, but he's quite tan. It's the Chris Christie in him that's making him a little more pale. That's right. So Ron DeSantis has had a tough weekend, let's be honest. on Friday. There were continued revelations of his bestie Matt Gates, Florida's first district

congressman. Will he or will he not get arrested for sex trafficking? Will he or will he not be perp walk? We still don't know, right? Mike, can I interrupt to say my favorite underreported part of the Matt Gates, Rhonda Santis connection? You only have one? Yes, you may. Okay. So no one's talking about this. This is the quote that has stuck with me. And it's from the Washington Post that said at times in recent years though Gates was known to remark about hanging out with crowds younger than himself. Three people involved in the 2018

gubernatorial campaign of Ron DeSantis said that Gates, an advisor who later helped lead DeSantis his transition team, repeatedly suggested that events be scheduled away that would quote unquote end the night in a college town. But why?

Why? Why? I'm just going to say this. So the listeners may know I come from the music business. And I've been known to work with some pretty shady characters. And if anyone said this even in the music business, we'd say, get the fuck out of here. Yeah. I mean, you want to end your night in the college town. If that isn't like a little bit of guilt by just saying stuff that sounds very guilty, that's it. So Ron DeSantis this weekend, and this has actually been reported. And in fact, when we had Nikki Fried on the pot, she talked about this, too.

And, you know, it's interesting. We do see this phenomenon where there's a story that's reported, but it doesn't really catch fire. And then it's reported again, and it sort of does. And DeSantis' relationship, super sketchy relationship with the grocery store Publix. And you know that the Publix heiress is a large DeSantis donor. She's a large R&C donor. She's very ensconced, and she was also involved in donating to the January 6th, quote-unquote, stop the steel rally, which was really just trying to stop free and fair elections. So, of course, DeSantis has worked at a situation with Publix where Publix gives the vaccine.

There's, Publix actually receives money for this because the government funds the vaccine. And there we have it, ladies and gentlemen. So here is Ron DeSantis offering pay for place. with Publix. We knew about this for a while, but somehow this weekend, the story really came to a head when 2020 did a big expose on it.

I thought it was 60 minutes. Yeah, sorry, when 60 minutes did a big expose on it. So Ron DeSantis, you can go fuck yourself. Well, my fuck that guy is a kind of conglomerate. It is the social media companies because they are the only thing more dangerous than the air between sheetrock wall and Matt Gates' fist right now, in that they are constantly playing with fire with our republic.

I mean, we discussed with Will Summer, this shady character, this Republican operative named Jason Sullivan, who was basically saying he had a botnet to promote right-wing ideas. And, you know, Will got into that, this might not be true. But here's the thing with this. That is a tumor inside these social media companies. And the fact that they don't get MRIs, check on this shows exactly why we need to hold them to more account.

And I'm just continually disgusted. You know, we all were like, great, they ban Trump and everything. But this just shows how not seriously they take their role because we have to remember, just as the Q& of the Storm documentary showed, when you break people's brains with these thoughts, they're not easy to put back together and they need to take it seriously that these dumb, ridiculous conspiracy ideas do not run rampant. Yes. Fuck those social media companies.

We have to see what the Supreme Court says about all of this with Section 230. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics and science. We'll help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you again. on the next episode. Want more great listens?

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