The Daily Beast Podcast - Why There Might Not Be an Omicron Booster w/ James Carville

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

Dr. Peter Hotez explains what we have to worry about when it comes to the new Omicron variant, James Carville breaks down the comms strategy that would give Biden and the Dems an edge in the media (and maybe on Fox News) and Daily Beast media reporter Zach Petrizzo explains why My Pillow Guy Mike Lindell staged a protest against Fox and why right-wingers like Sebastian Gorka and Charlie Kirk have a bone to pick with him. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Jong-Fast 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 up to down. On the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and figure out how to get ourselves out of it. And I'm producer Jesse Kennan. I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails.

What a great show we have today. Vaccine scientist, Dr. Peter Hotes, is going to give us this straight truth on the latest COVID variant and other medical issues. Then we'll talk to the Daily Beast, Zach Petrizo, about the latest drama at Maga High and the clicks sure are fighting. But first, we're joined by show favorite and legendary Democratic strategist James Carvel. Welcome back to the new abnormal James Carvel. Glad to be back, Molly. What's abnormal? I say, what's normal? Right, exactly. I mean, first, let's talk about the economy is good.

It's really good. It's really good. It's so good. And, you know, there are supply chain issues, but it's happening everywhere. Inflation is a worldwide problem to be expected. And yet, Joe Biden is being blamed for all of it. Yeah. Well, first of all, a couple of things. It takes a while for economy to gain the kind of traction where people feel it. I remember in 1994, the economy was actually quite good, and we got slaughtered because people thought it wasn't good, and people were trying to tell them it was. I think this economy's good enough that people are going to start to feel it. What the Biden administration has to do is put people out there to refute this nonsense and just talk about how good and how historically good

this economy is and how Biden's investments in the country are paying off. And now, they don't do that enough. We've got to get out more. We actually were texting about this this weekend because we both are very agitated about the lack of the Biden administration's ability to narrate. And it seems to be like there is like a narrative void and the people who are stepping into it are the far right media. Right. Exactly. But if you don't have people out, if you don't have, they don't realize the power that they have. They need to send people out. They have very good communicators in that administration. I don't see them enough. That's be planting op ads. They've got to tell their side of the story. What happens is, of course,

everything Fox is going to report about Biden is going to be negative. And the rest of the press is all looking for something negative and wants to show everybody how objective they are. So they run all of these negative stories. So the guy is getting it from every end. And they've got to start shooting back. They'd be very determined about it. If you were in charge of this White House, what would you do? I would say, Mr. President, designate one person who's going to be in charge of our communications effort. and make sure that you visit with that person 10 minutes every day. And have the she or he or whatever, then goes out,

starts blind people up to make appearances, to write pieces, you know, to show up, to schedule, everything that has a meaning. Every cabinet secretary that's ever run for statewide office, let's put them out there and communicate, let's keep the bureaucrats off. And if somebody says something wrong, correct them right away. It'd be very, very, very aggressive. They don't realize the power they have. Yeah, no, I agree.

I mean, I feel like Mayor Pete should be on Fox News every day. Mayor Pete, what about Secretary General Mounted, Commerce? What about Jennifer, Secretary, Jennifer Graham, and energy? Mitch Landrew might be the best political communicator I've seen in my life not named Bill Clinton. That guy needs to get out there and be on TV talking about all the infrastructure we are building. This is historic. And Mitch Landry, I want to take a big. minute to talk about Mitch Landrie. We've had him on the pod. If you're thinking about trying to win

over independence, Mitch Landrieu reads like a Republican. Yeah, and they could put him in a lot of, you know, where you have these suburban projects. I mean, get him around the country and, you know, have him talk and cut ribbons and, you know, talk about what's coming to. You are, but you got to go out and aggressively sell. The White House out of the White House that's as you, well, they'll come to us with the White House. No, you go to them. I don't know if the mountain of Mohammed and Manhattan to the Mountain War, whichever it is, you move toward them and you just got to be aggressive and you've got to give this job to somebody and give them full power. They should engage with this right-wing media. Yes, man Pete, but a lot of people can

handle themselves on Fox. I'm not sure Fox wants how much they want, but you can, you can certainly say we've put out any number of people to appear on Fox. Right. And if Fox rejects them, that That's an op-ed that I'd like to read. Right. And they get to all kinds of stuff. Some people have it. They haven't got a trade. Just how good this economy is.

I mean, if you're the average worker, the quit rate shows you how secure people are at their jobs, which is like a great thing for an economy, that hourly employees feel secure enough that they'll quit one job and they'll know they'll get another. Right. No, no. I agree. So we'll talk about Biden for a minute. I also think these long speeches that Biden gets.

Gibbs are not helping him. No, but he's one, his ability is to communicate. He has certain ability, and that's what he's going to have, and that's what he's going to do. And they can put him out, and he does much better, I think, interacting with people. Yeah, me too. But Biden is, but one resource they have. Right. They have all kinds of other resources that, that I don't think they've deployed yet. But do you think, I also think that Biden should do sort of more town hally stuff. He should speak. I mean, it seems to me, again, like Democrats are bringing policy to a messaging fight. I think him doing town halls is fine.

You know, he doesn't use a lot of jargon. Like anybody else, he can be not the most articulate guy in the world, but he comes across. He speaks pretty plain English, which is a help. Right. But I feel like he needs to speak sort of shrewdly. shorter, catchier, like, no, we don't need a half an hour of him. We need 10 minutes. Right, right.

He rambles. Yeah, and everybody rambles, but it's not good for getting airtime for him. Right. Then they can work on it. Yeah. I personally think he should come on a podcast because he can add out those rambles intent. Yeah. Yeah, he's not coming on this budget.

I mean, he's more than invited, but I don't think he'll come. But I do think you do see, you don't see, I mean, look, nobody. wants the Trump administration, nobody ever wants that. But they went on a lot of stuff. I mean, they would go, those guys would go on television, would be on television 50 times a day. They'd be on Fox wall to wall to wall. You know, until CNN and MSN stopped putting some of them on because of the lying, they would be on anything. Yeah. And say anything. Right. The whole disconnect. I'm reading this book. I don't know if you've got it yet, but there's Fantasyland by Kurt Anderson. Oh, Kurt Anderson. Yes, we love Kurt Anderson. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Unbelievable. Just how crazy. I mean, there's a real chance that more than half the people in this country are goddamn crazy. That's, and that's what people are really excited about. The people I used to be amused by now to go to the country. I couldn't recommend this book enough. Kurt Anderson is a frequent flyer on this podcast. I think it's worth thinking about, we were just talking about this because I was watching War Room this weekend. end with woke teenage son. And I was wondering, like, you had a completely different media ecosystem back then. Like, you would never have a television channel that was, you know, like Tucker Carlson,

pushing lies and stuff and not being rebuked. How do you think Democrats can possibly adjust to this? You're right. First of all, and they had, journalism was prosperous back then, but actually made money. Right. You know, I don't know how many people we had on a campaign plane. You know, everybody had a, guy covering of somebody covering us and it was different because you didn't have the internet you had CNN but you didn't have Fox sent but you still take the deck it's not how the methods of communications or what you communicate what you communicate is a constant and you know we think the world changes think of how much the world changed when the first when radio came

yeah you were sitting there with nothing all of a sudden you had like instant news and you know Rose out head, fireside chats. And you certainly have to adapt in the ways that you communicate as technology changes communications. But the fundamentals of good communications are unchanged. And that's what they had to work on. So last night we learned Matthew McConaughey will not be running for governor in the state of Texas, which a lot of people thought might be our only hope of being Greg Abbott. So it looks like federal or work will be the winner.

I mean, of course, is he a Democrat? Was McConaughey a Democrat? Not clear. Yeah, but I think a lot of people rested to hope that at least it wouldn't be Abbott, who's proven to be a psychopath. James, do you think after what Beto O'Rourke said about guns, he can win in Texas? You know, if Beto can show some growth, say, you know, I ran for governor and I ran for president. And I delighted me, said it was I wanted to be, I wanted to run for president the worst possible way and I succeeded. And he just brush it off and say, you know, I learned. and I thought I knew more than I knew.

You got to show, if your narrative includes growth and some redemption in it, then you have a chance. Without that, you have no chance. I mean, do you think he has a chance, though? People love him. I'm weirdly enough. I think the guy is smart enough and skilled enough that, you know,

and if he just stays punchy and, you know, doesn't get bogged down, I don't know. Look, he came close to the Senate seat. And if this economy keeps hunting, I don't know, it might help Abbott being incumbent, but, you know, Biden'd be that big a drag. Right. And you also have to think about the power grid. I mean, you have people freezing to death in their homes. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I mean, there's a, look, I think that Texas could do better than it's doing. I mean, in response to the virus, have been just heartbreaking it so bad. I think some of the best doctors and medical centers in the world in Texas. Right.

I mean, think about that. No, I know. Dr. Hottaz is in Texas. Yeah, several things would have to fall in a place from him. But it could. He's got an enormous talent. And he just channels it properly and, you know, doesn't get too expansive. But, you know, it could be that people are looking for something different.

If that's the case, boom, you got a shot. So, James, the thing I've been thinking about is every part of it, has conflict, you know, right now the Republican Party, obviously, has the conflict of crazy people. Yeah, fascism, crazy people. Are they pro-fascism or are they anti-fascism? And by the way, it's not a conflict. They're pro-fascism. Yes, but also that they need to be beholden to the economy since they love to say that's everything.

It seems like this wokeism versus, you know, the fact that the left scenes don't only come out if there's civil rights issues. Is that true? I want to see if he accepts the premise. Do you think that you can mobilize and get Democrats elected if you're not mobilizing using civil rights? And isn't that what wokeism has become? I don't know because now I'm told it's a word that only old people use. I think that the extreme identity language left is a drag on the Democratic brand. I think he's basically naive people, but they're decent people.

They have any reason to think that they're not good people. good Americans, anything else. There's no way, in no way, shape, of form, but that's the equivalent of the extreme right in the Congress. I mean, storming the capital. I mean, those people are evil. I think our extreme people are a little impractical. Their extreme people are out of their minds. If my daughter said, Dad, I got a job as a deputy communications director in the ALC's office, I'd say, fine, that's great. You're going to meet a lot of people and, you know, be a different experience and probably disagree with a thing or two, but have fun. If your kid comes in and says, I'm going to be the ledge director for Margie Taylor Green,

you'd jump off the bridge. Your whole life is over. It's got a carpable event. I have to be a little careful to say, I'm not using this as an equivalency. Now, if we looked at what Pew did, and this is very important, they broke the country into nine different groups. You had one with the independents. and there were four different democratic groups

and four different Republican groups. And by the way, the progressive side was 11% of the Democratic Party. And it was the only part of the Democratic Party that was majority white. So they died even selling it to their own people. If you looked at it, if that was what the whole thing was about, literally they are the smallest group of all nine groups

and they're 6% of the country and they make 60% of the noise. It's mostly, believe it or not, if you look at the poll, it's mostly white people. But I mean, I do think, you know, we could just get Biden out there talking a little bit more. I mean, one of the things that strikes me is we have, you know, when the stimulus came out, we had Republicans taking credit for it. Yes. A lot of you hear from the Democratic side is, well, what's not in the bill. Well, don't talk about what's not in the bill. No, I never voted for something for what's not in it. And always the default position is, well, it's not everything you want it, but it's better than nothing.

No, it's the most transformative, unimaginable thing that you can believe. And our country is entering into a phase that, we frankly, where workers have so much influence, we've never had a period like this in history. Right. I mean, just get out and it's not hard. You've got some good selling shit to do. Yeah. You know, look, Democrats have policy disputes.

Republicans have personality disputes, right? Like how much are they going to worship Trump? How much are they going to break the law? Like these two things are not comparable, but it's not the media's job to, I mean, I guess on the opinion side, it is the media's job to tell people. But, you know, on the reporting side, this is really the Biden administrations. You know, they need to drive this home. Yeah, and they need to start right away.

They don't value selling. And everybody wants to go home for the holidays and tell her parents and friends about how they working a policy in the White House. And I'm going to work somebody who works in sales. We've got too many people in policy, but I have nothing in sales here. Call it marketing if you want. Maybe that's more sophisticated. Thank you so much, James.

Will you come back, please? Of course. For you, anything. 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 Soladad 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's fearless journalism as well as getting full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member, head to New Abnormal. That's New Abnormal.com. That's New Abnormal.com. Dr. Peter Hotes is a vaccine scientist and anti-science debunker, as well as the author of Vaccines Didn't Cause Rachel's Autism. Welcome back to New Abnormal, Dr. Hotes. How are you, Molly? It's good to hear your voice. I wish it were under better circumstances, but...

It's great to have you. You're doing the rounds big time. Talk to us about what, I mean, it's Omocrown, right? Not new. Yeah, right. It's Omicron, or as many are mispronouncing an Omnacron. Yes. They both sound like Autobots or Transformers either way. I've heard some reasons to be hopeful. I've heard some reasons to be, obviously, we're all very concerned. Where are you on this? Well, I think what you're seeing is a lot of global leaders and even UN agencies trying to partly compensate for lapses in the past and sort of overre maybe, I don't want to say they're overreacting, that would be unfair, but they'd clearly want to show that there's a display of force here, and some of it is appropriate, some of it is misplaced. Let's first talk about the variant itself and how

much of a concern it is, and let's then talk about the global response. So the variant, first of all, in terms of, you know, people are making a big deal of the fact that it's in multiple European countries, it's in Canada, it's likely in the United States. We've always had crummy genomic surveillance, and we've talked about that. Right. So that's why. why the fact that people are excited, it's not here, it's here. If it's in Canada and Australia and in Europe, it's almost certainly in the U.S. and probably in a lot of Latin American countries as well. But the first point I make is, I don't want to say so what, but the truth is, oh, just

about every variant has pretty much behaved that way. The minute we find a new variant, it turns out it's all over the map. And we shouldn't use the fact that it's in multiple countries already as some sort of smoking gun that, oh my God, this is the most transmissible thing we've ever seen. I would not come to that conclusion. So that's the first point. The second point is severity of illness, no evidence that it's much different from any other variant of COVID-19, which is bad enough. But, you know, we're hearing different reports, oh, it's only mild illness. I think part of that is because it was first detected among younger people. And then we're hearing reports that there's some very sick people in South

African hospitals. I think the most likely scenario is that it's about the same as the other coronaviruses, which is bad, right? I mean, that's not good either. I think the third thing then is all of the mutations in the spike protein, which is a concern, especially the fact that it's in the receptor binding domain, the part that binds to the host receptor. If you look at some of the mutations, they're the same as two of them that appeared previously that were partially resistant to vaccines. There was another one from South Africa that arose last year, the B-1-351, which is the beta, and then there was the Lambda. And I bring that up because, one, in this case, the vaccines, it's not like they were stopped working. They were just, there was a lower level

of virus-neutralizing antibody. And I think that's a possible scenario, but I'll come back to that in a minute, but also the fact that those variants didn't go anywhere. In fact, the reason you forgot about beta and lambda is because even though they were of concern, they didn't out-competeer Delta. And then in terms of whether the vaccines will work, I think, you know, what I've seen in the past is when you get really high levels of virus-neutralizing antibody, there's usually some cross-reaction to whatever variant you're looking at. And I would say that's a possible scenario. And particularly in those individuals who either got three immunizations or those individuals who've been infected and recovered and then get vaccinated. Can you explain that to us a little bit?

Yeah. So the way it works is if you take... take either an experimental animal or a person that's been immunized with the vaccine. You take from their blood the antibodies and you show that they can neutralize the virus in the test tube that it's been made to. But then you can also test it against other variants and show that it either cross reacts and cross-neutralizes the virus or that new variant or that there's a diminished amount of virus neutralizing the antibodies. So, for example, let's say you got the Pfizer vaccine and you know you got really high levels of virus neutralizing antibody against the strain of the COVID-19 virus that you were immunized against. What it'll do, it'll show varying degrees of decline in virus neutralizing antibody against other variants, the worst being the beta and the lambda in the past, although still enough to give you protection. And I think that's the key point. So the point is if you have a very high amount of virus neutralizing antibody, either because you've got a third immunization or because you've been infected and recovered and then got vaccinated, those two scenarios will, I think there's a good possibility will give you enough virus neutralizing antibody to cross-neutralize the Omicron variant. At least that's the hope. But the term Tony Fauci used today I heard was spillover. There's enough spillover antibody. And I guess that's a good a term as any. And so that's the hope.

But we don't, and I think that's a likely scenario so that we will not necessarily need brand new booster specifically tailored to the Omicron variant. I don't know that for certain yet. And our lab is now looking at this as is Pfizer for our vaccine as is Pfizer and Baderna and J&J. And we'll know over the next week or two where we stand on that. And then there's one more point about the transmissibility. Yes, tell us. Okay. So then the last piece is transmissibility. And there are, you know, Clearly in this one province in South Africa, it really accelerated where Pretoria and Johannesburg are the most urbanized part of South Africa. Whether that translates globally, we don't know yet. We have seen the other, this variant pop up elsewhere, and so far it does not have seemed to have accelerated.

But there's a worry. The big worry is whether it has the ability to outcompete the Delta variant. So, for instance, originally we had the original isolate, then we had Alpha, then came out of the United Kingdom. and it out-competed the original variant in the U.S. In the beginning part of this year, then we had Delta and Delta out-competed Alpha, so it became the dominant variant. The worry is now this one will do the same.

We don't know that yet. I mean, Delta is a pretty high bar. It's a pretty transmissible variant. So it would take a lot to out-compete Delta. But those are the things people are concerned about. So severity of illness, not so much. The fact that it's in several countries, not so much. First part of concern is how much decline in virus-neutralizing antibodies will you get in individuals who are fully vaccinated and then how transmissible it is.

So for now, the most important thing a person can do if they're concerned is really what a person will do if they're worried about the Delta variant, which is already here and now starting to go up again. You want to make certain you're fully immunized, and that means getting a third immunization. if you're eligible for it, that's going to be really important. Second, vaccinate your kids. And third, if you've been infected and recover, get vaccinated because that will build in higher levels of virus-neutralizing antibody, more resilient. So there's some evidence that this virus may be more transmissible to people who have natural immunity.

I've seen a lot of Republican congressmen are very excited about natural immunity, including Rand Paul and every sort of libertarian congressmen. Yeah. They're very excited. First of all, I think it's weird that they're excited. I mean, that's just weird. They're obsessed. They want to discredit vaccines.

I mean, which I don't know. Right, exactly. So they're like natural immunity as much, yeah. I've said since the beginning that natural immunity is overrated. And I say that because when you looked at the original clinical trials of the vaccines, as controls, they used serum from so-called convalescent patients. And there was a lot of variability. Some of them had really high levels of virus-neutralizing the antibody and were likely to be protected. Others had next to none and were highly vulnerable. And there was no way to know where

you were. We still don't have tests that are perfect correlates of protection by any means. And so since you don't know, and since we don't have tests for it, just get vaccinated. and that's going to really build in resilience. But you're right, it's this bizarre culture that, you know, there's something magical about natural immunity. But are you seeing any evidence that natural immunity, that people with immunity do less well against this new Omicron? Well, we know from studies from the CDC that they do less well against even the Delta variant, right? So now there's two studies showing if you're infected and recovered, if you also get vaccinated, you're twice less likely to get Delta. There's two studies, including one out of Kentucky.

Second, there are studies, one study in the U.S. showing that people who get, who are not infected and recover just get vaccinated are five times less likely to get infected. The thing that the Rand Pauls of the world and those people focus on, there is one study out of Israel, showing that natural immunity seems to be superior than two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. That paper's not been published yet. It's still in pre-print form. And I, I, there's something about it that I can't quite piece it together because it doesn't make sense to me. And I'm wondering if they did it at a time when immunity was waning to the two doses and, which would make sense. But I'm waiting to see that one get published in period. Bottom line is get vaccinated.

Right. It seems easy enough. to do it. But, you know, we do have like a large percentage of this country. I mean, we're still at like 60%, right? Molly, the number is, I just looked at the numbers again, and you can do this by going to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation website, health data.org and putting your data precursor on the mouse over the dates. If you look from June 1 to now, we've lost more than 150,000 Americans and more than 85% of those are unvaccinated. So basically, close to 150,000 unvaccinated Americans have just needlessly lost their lives to COVID out of defiance, out of refusal, out of anti-science aggression. I mean, anti-science aggression is now, you know,

the kind of stuff that Rand Paul does and others is now, I think, the leading cause of death among young people in the United States. That's how awful it's gotten. Is that really, a high rate of young people dying of COVID? I think so. I think, you know, when you look at the 150,000 deaths, I think, you know, given the who was in, this is since the summer, right? So if you look at people who are in our ICU's and, for instance, in our Texas Medical Center, a lot of them 30s, 40s, 50s. By definition, anyone younger than me is young. That's how I feel too.

That's the theme of this podcast. That's the definition. So if you're under 60, then you're a young person. I love it. Let's talk about my life. because that's what I really care about. I have a kid, woke teenage son, perhaps you've heard of him, who is 17 and got vaccinated in February. Should I get him a booster? I don't know if he'd be eligible.

I think the cutoff is 18, right, for getting the third immunization. I don't think it's been approved for the 12 to 17-year-olds yet. The reason I'm asking this question is because with young men, there's a risk of myocarditis. I mean, it's pretty low. It seems to be the highest in the 16 to 20s. 29-year-old men. Right. And it's still rare. It's between 5 and 16 per 100,000. So one, you know, split the difference, 1 and 10,000. So it's still rare. So I don't know what the reason why the boosters haven't been proved yet for the 12 to 17-year-old. It may just be a matter of waiting for additional safety data. But are you, I mean, if it were your kid, would you push to have that person boosted or would you just wait?

I hate to publicly go against official recommendations of the CDC and FDA, but I think it's going to wind up. We'll eventually go down to younger age groups for the third immunization. Yeah. What could the Biden administration do if they wanted to, that would be a game changer here? Well, what we've got to do is help vaccinate the southern hemisphere to get vaccinated. I mean, that's the problem. Now the African continent is unvaccinated. It may maybe 6% rounds off to zero.

And South America is way under-vaccinated. So is Southeast Asia. And if we know new variants arise out of large unvaccinated populations, what do we think is going to happen? So I don't like criticizing the Biden administration too much because I think they're generally good people and they're trying to do, they're trying to do the right things. Sometimes they don't make perfect decisions, but it's never based on malice. And it's always based on being very thoughtful.

In this case, they're not. in terms of there doesn't seem to be really global strategic thinking coming out of the White House or State Department. Because, you know, you heard it today when Biden said, hey, we just gave out 275 million doses for 110 countries more than any other country. That's true, but big deal, right? I mean, it's, you know, the numbers are we need nine billion doses to vaccinate the Southern Hemisphere because you've got a million more than a million people in sub-Saharan Africa. You've got 650, 700 million people in Latin America. You've got another billion people in a smaller low-income country. Just three billion people, three doses, nine billion doses.

And who's going to do that? And then the Biden administration says, well, other countries have to step up. Okay, I get that too. But at the end of the day, someone's got to lead. And who's going to lead? Is it going to be Putin? Is it going to be she? I mean, is it going to be some nameless bureaucrat in the European Commission?

I mean, come on. You know, Joe Biden say, come on, man. You know, you're it. You got to do this. Yeah. Lead Charlie Brown. So I was openly critical on MSNBC today, but somebody has to say it. Someone has to say it.

Your sense is optimistically anyway that probably this is not going to be a huge game changer in America. My hope is that the virus neutralizing antibodies after the third immunization are sufficient. to continue neutralizing this Omicron variant, and we'll find out next week or two. And my hope is that this globally does not have the ability to outcompete Delta. So I think the WHO was appropriate in sounding the alarm. I think the G7 leaders reacted in a way that I'd hope they would not react, which is to basically isolate Southern Africa.

And I thought that's profoundly disappointing, not unexpected, but still disappointing. That's pretty depressing. Ultimately, you really do feel that South Africa was punished for its ability to sort of detect the new variant. Well, they're punished twice. They're punished twice in that, and not just South Africa, because it's also Botswana and Malawi and Namibian. And so they're punished twice once by not getting more help and giving them the opportunity to vaccinate their own populations. And then when the inevitable happened, we punished them again by isolating them and through travel and everything else. So they can't even fight the epidemic. Oh, so depressing. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Hottes. I hope you'll come back. Sure, I always love talking with you, Molly. Zach Petrizo is a media reporter at The Daily Beast. Welcome to the new abnormal, Zach Petrizo.

Thanks so much for having me. You are a new Daily Beast staffer, and I've always been a fan. Let's talk about my pillow, because I feel like there's trouble in my pillow land. Big trouble, yeah. Mike Lindell passed holiday weekend, had a big 96-hour straight virtual event, which didn't go too well. Yeah, what happened there? Yeah, I mean, like, he was pretty psyched about this whole thing. He initially had a Supreme Court complaint that he was going to lodge. At least one source is familiar with Mike said he was going to bring it to like the physical Supreme Court. He was like super excited about basically bringing this complaint to the Supreme Court. It ends up, you know, he was flying around the country trying to get a signature from Attorney General who, you know, ended up just never signing on to this complaint. And it turns out, you know, the complaint moved absolutely nowhere, as you can imagine. And, you know, on Sunday night, after the 96 hours, you know, he basically came on camera and was super depressed and really upset and basically had a meltdown.

What happened? Basically nothing. So there's no Supreme Court filing, of course, that was filed with the Supreme Court or anything like that. And he continues to kind of go after right-wing targets now. For example, as we reported at the Daily Beast, he's going after Salem Media, which, of course, is the radio network home to the likes of, you know, Charlie Kirk. Sebastian Gorka, Dennis Prager. So now all these Salem radio hosts are kind of mad at him. Wait, they're mad at him?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. They think that they've been, you know, successfully hawking, you know, plenty of betting products galore. And they feel betrayed by Mike Lindell because they think that they've always been kind of with him. But Lindell says, no, no, no, that's not the case. You know, he claims that Salem Media, you know, was trying to cancel his voice out. So there's a big, a big dispute there. But he still loves bingo, Dan Bongino. Yes.

Because Bongino's selling pillows with a like special code, Dan, right? Or Bongino. Yeah. It seems like they're still on pretty good terms. But as we know, both Lindell and Fox News, which of course, Bongino is employed by Fox News as well. Like, they're not at a great point either. I know the Daily Beast we also reported, you know, there was a protest out in front of Fox News. this past week that Mike Lindell orchestrated, which was, you know, like a hodgeposh.

Wait, Mike Lindell organized a protest against Fox News this week? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, big news. God, I've never been so sad to not go into my office and see this. Why? This was interesting. I mean, it's basically Mike Lindell trying to get back at Fox, even though, you know, of course, all his products are still being sold on Fox nowadays. Is it unusual to have an advertiser launch a protest against the network they're

advertising on? Very strange. And his big thing is like, you know, let's go out in front of Fox. They had like 12 people out there in front of Fox News headquarters. And these people were yelling things like, like Frank Speech, which of course, would be like, what the heck is that? That's the name of his website, right? Right. Right, right. Which, of course, no one knows anything about if you're a random, you know, New York are just going to work? Like, why are these actions just random walking up yard signs and yelling about Frank speech, right? That is amazing. But the My Pillo guy is not the only member of the far right who is melting down.

I think we need to talk about one of Trump's favorite lawyers, Linwood. Linwood's an interesting guy. One might say. He's just, you know, I ended up speaking on the phone a couple times last week and over the weekend, etc. And he's just such a character. But nowadays, he's accusing basically all. all these fellow right-wingerers from the likes of Sebastian Gorka to others of being, you know, somehow like deep state plants.

As one does. Yeah, of course. So there's a real rift there between kind of Lynn Wood, who, you know, was kind of called out by Kyle Rittenhouse after that, that whole thing on Fox News and was kind of... Explain to our dads who know a little bit about this, but not quite enough. who Lynn Wood is and what his beef with Kyle Rittenhouse was. Sure, yeah. He was initially the lawyer that was representing Kyle Rittenhouse,

along with another lawyer by the name of John Pierce. Long story short, these lawyers, you know, kind of fell into bad graces with Trump World when they decided to keep, you know, him, Kyle Rittenhouse, in prison for an extended period of time. And since then, of course, Kyle Rittenhouse has been acquitted, but even more fallout from that whole thing

has kind of been these two lawyers and who gets the bail back from the initial bail that was set to release Kyle. So there's a big dispute on who gets that bail money. Lynn Wood claims that he should get it and other people claim that it should be given to the family and others. We're kind of waiting to see who exactly gets that. But in the meantime, you know, Lynn Wood is going crazy, called up the Daily Beast, told us that Seb Gorka is a deep state plant with a fake accident. Yes. Seb Gorka is a deep state plan.

Yeah, with a fake accent. Sounds right. Yeah, yeah, and like a fraud. And then Seb Gork, of course, responded by saying that he wants to charge, of course, Lynn Wood with some type of fraud in maybe civil court or something. So there's a lot of war words and I guess perhaps legal troubles ahead. That is amazing. So Linwood doesn't think Mike Flynn is really cute.

Anon. Can we discuss? Yeah. You know, I think this is interesting, right? some of the Daily Beast will know. The thing that Lynn Wood does is sometimes we'll secretly record your conversations. But of course. It seems like this is the case here. So, of course, you know, he kind of recorded Michael Flynn in this in this audio recording, which has since been leaked by Wood of Michael Flynn saying that, you know, QAnon is like total

nonsense. And of course, a lot of the Q&ONP proponents, a lot of the supporters of the far-right conspiracy theory believe that, you know, Flynn is somehow involved with this conspiracy theory but yeah, no, of course the whole recording thing is kind of interesting because I know I was on the phone with Lynn Wood and I was actually choking

over a burrito. That's right. Word of this story has made the round, Zach. Yeah, yeah, and I was just you know, I was kind of eaten and he called me up late at night and so on. And he says,

He says, oh, you have COVID. I say, no, I'm just choking on a burrito. And I kind of was talking to him about his dogs and et cetera. And it turns out this whole audio clip, he was like secretly reporting and posted to telegram. So I don't know the status between Wood and I now, but I think he sees me as an ally. But of course, Will Sommar, another reporter at the Daily Beast, is demonic. Is unsavable, right?

Will Somer is unsavable. But you are not. he also released some of his Tucker Carlson tax. Yeah, this is really interesting. I know that he told a little bit of new reporting here. He ended up telling The Daily Beast that, you know, him and Tucker initially were like friends. And he saw them as friends at one point when Wood claims the Daily Beast that he invited him to like visit his large acreage and hang out with them and visit.

You know, it remains unclear how close Tucker is with Lynn Wood. and exactly how real all these messages are. But it is interesting that there is potentially this new level of animosity between Lynn Wood, of course, who has really fallen out of the Trump world races. I mean, just seems like everyone hates him now. But, you know, not too long ago, you know, some people did champion his work. Work, quote unquote. Really seems like there's a lot of a lot of riffs at Maga High now.

You know, people can't sit at the same table anymore. It really is the wheels are coming off the bus these days. Yeah, I would say, I would say it's, especially when we're talking about, you know, a lot of these 2020 dead enders, right? Because a lot of this stuff, in my opinion, is financially motivated, right? A lot of it is. And there's an incentive to push the glide, of course, right? Whether that's promo codes or whether that's, you know, whatever. How do you?

I was one of the worst sentences I've had to contemplate it so long. Oh, it's a fuck democracy. We need promo codes. Yeah, promo codes. There's an incentive to sell the big lie because of promo codes. Yeah, and, you know, it's a booming industry. Right. I think there's some fall out from there.

And I especially think, you know, as we push further and further away from 2020 election, you see people like Mike Lindell and others, like, continue to spin their wheels. And now one of the interesting things is, like, people are turning on Mike Lindell. And people are turning on these people because, you know, their hypothesis never came, you know, to life, whether that was overturning the election or whatever have you. So, you know, now people are just upset at them. So there's this whole new layer of frustration and anger directed at these 2020 dead enders. Yeah, because they couldn't actually do the coup they were trying to do. I mean, I guess that's good.

I mean, I don't know. It all seems bad. Yeah. It seems bad. And it seems like, you know, all the other characters are kind of hanging on to the edges, you know, whether it's people like Roger Stone or whether it's other folks, Q&Aidjacent folks, that really see this as an opportunity to kind of keep raising money. I know, you know, Roger still has a promo code and others. So it's like, you know, they're hangar-oners on the sides of this whole mess, too, that surely are, don't keep pushing the big lie, I think, at least until. possibly the end of time.

Zach, I'd love to get you on one more story you wrote since you've been chronicling some things that I just don't think got enough attention. Right-wingers turn on Glenn Yonkin over his LGBTQ staffer seemed to be a story that I feel like did not get enough Jews. Could you tell us about that? This was a surprising story because I initially had covered, you know, the race race in Virginia, went across the state, et cetera. And there was this big grassroots support for Yonkin.

I think, you know, a lot to do with the school boards and et cetera. But, you know, after the election, of course, we've seen this kind of like turn on Yonkin, right? We've seen these more MAGA characters and these more even, you know, right-wingerers on Twitter, these pundit types really begin to turn on Yonkin. And one of the instances that they're turning on him over is this LGBTQ-stopper. Which is so ironic because if you think about Trump world, they're always saying they're not anti-gay, they're not anti-gay. And then here they are mad at someone for having a gay staffer. Yeah. And this staffer has been pretty loyal from what I've been told and what I've learned

and as a hard worker and et cetera. So it's quite interesting that this person is now being kind of used as this pawn and it's pretty messy. And then, you know, of course, there's other things. Glenn Yonkin isn't moving fast enough on. For example, he said that the vaccine mandates in Virginia would ultimately be tossed back to, you know, the local subsidiary. in the state and it wouldn't be necessarily regulated by him, which, you know, has a lot of the Magarol types from, you know, your sub-forcas to your other pundits, to your newsmax punts, really upset about this, about him not being like, you know, Ron DeSantis and not being right-wing enough. But I think there was some writing on the wall that he wasn't going to be super right-wing,

but, you know, was kind of doing a careful two-step on the campaign trail. So it should be interesting to see how this all pans out with Youngkin. You know, it's interesting to me as we talk about Yomkin, he really did thread that needle. I mean, I think he's very right-wing, but ultimately he was elected as a sort of Jeb, right? He wasn't elected as a Trump. He stayed far away from Trump. He didn't say Trumpy stuff. He ran, you know, he, even though he has a very right-wing world, you know, he is, he came into power as a sort of more acceptable Trump. So if the far right wants to get back into power, they really need to destroy Yomkin. Because otherwise, the message is you can elect a Jeb Bush.

You don't need a Donald Trump to get the base on board. And I think that's very dangerous for them. Yeah. No, that's very well said, Molly. No, 100%. They have this weird two-step going on, right? Where, you know, I think some of the, you know, more DC operative types think that they can win with a Yonkin in different places. But, you know, a lot of these Trump-aligned folks say, you know, Yonkin isn't even right-wing enough, right?

and there's a lot of pushback in terms of the future of the Republican Party on where those candidates should lie. But I do think that this two-step that Yonkin was doing was very strategic, right, and very purposeful. And yeah, there's something to be said about that being the strategy in 2022 and it's just not working or working. But at least for now, we know that it's not working with the hardcore maga types. Right. I mean, if anyone has the most to lose here, it's a hardcore maga type. If the Republican Party discovers they don't need them, then it's over, right? Yeah, they're pretty upset, and I don't think they're just going to let this go, right? And they're going to keep carrying it with them in 2022 and et cetera.

And, you know, I think when it comes to Trump, they always want it to be that Trumpian character and that's that. So I think it'll be something to watch. There's a collision course there for sure. Thank you so much for joining us, Zach. This is great. Thank you so much for having me, guys. 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 of the first to listen to 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 Tsubisang 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. Jesse Cannon. Molly Jong Fast. Who is it today? Today, I would like to talk about the junior senator from the state of Texas.

Hmm. Show favorite. Your favorite in mine, Lion Ted. A face even his mother could like. He's a Canadian. I mean, he wasn't even born in his country. Canadian people could be. good looking come on molly jesus now you're going to be canceled listen i love canadian's and i want to add

that i'm actually probably more famous in canada than i am here uh i love canadians but he is the worst export ever to come out of that country lion ted and this is correct today one of his big things is very mad at dr anthony fowtry oh you sound excited can't wait to hear why uh because guess. Hmm, let me guess. Something with a vaccine or telling somebody to wear a mask that infringes on personal freedom. And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. He's very mad at Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Fauci hits back on critics like Ted Cruz, what happened on January 6th, Senator. And then, of course, Ted, because, I mean, he basically just wants to be Ben Shapiro at this point. Really, all Ted has no interest in any of the, like, actual stuff. He then tweets out a New York Post, you'll remember the New York Post as being owned and completely run by Rupert Murdoch that Rand Paul and Ted Cruz ripped Fauci over I represent science claim because Lion Ted doesn't think that Dr. Anthony Fauci represents science. I mean, I don't know. What do you even say to this?

I mean, I don't think Ted Cruz is a doctor. I don't think Ted Cruz is a serious person. and he left that behind a long time ago. I mean, why even bother being a senator at this point? Clearly, it has to do with something that campaign finance reform would fix. Who's to say? Might be that wife that works at Goldman Sachs. That's right, Heidi.

Tell us, Jesse, who is your fuck that guy? Mine is one Lauren Bobert, one of the people of the running, because Molly, we have to remember Louis Gomer by leaving the Congress. So the race is open for the dumbest member of Congress. for 2022. I think it's pretty unlikely that Louis leaves the Congress. But go on. Yes, yes.

Okay. Well, if he happens to be elected Texas Attorney General, one Lauren Bobert, and if she happens to actually get reelected, which, you know, the jury's still out on that one. She went on camera, made up a lie about an incident where she basically bragged about calling Ilan Omar a terrorist. Some disgusting anti-Muslim behavior. But interesting thing. One of the few times these people ever have apologized for doing something because she knew she was in hot water, which is shocking since Kevin McCarthy is basically like a neuter at this point with the way he approaches his caucus.

But I really have to say like the most egregious part of this is the unimplied thing that she lied about this because she thinks it's so cool. And that's what's really distressing is that to her audience, it is so cool to uphold. brag about being an anti-Muslim and owning a lib. Yeah. I mean, it's really fucking sad. It really is. 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? 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.