The Daily Beast Podcast - WTF Is Wrong With Kyrsten Sinema?

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

It’s bad enough Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat, turned down the minimum wage hike with that oh-so-cute thumbs down. Now she’s threatening to derail the whole Democratic agenda, insisting on archaic Senate rules that give Mitch McConnell and the Republicans outsized power. “I think is a lot of people feel that this groovy, bisexual Senator should be voting in a groovy way and not like a terrifying conservative,” Molly Jong-Fast says on the latest episode of The New Abnormal.  “Do you see a world in which Democrats can get her on board for filibuster reform?” she asks Senate veteran Adam Jentleson. “I definitely think that,” Jentleson answers. “I think she's miscalculated a little bit. I don't think she can afford to be out as far to the right as she is right now. Even [centrist West Virginia Sen. Joe] Manchin has started to shift a little bit. And so she's kind of out on a limb.”  “Joe Manchin can say, I am the only Democrat who can hold this sea, it's me or a Republican… and that's valid,” Jentleson adds. “He's generally a pretty reliable vote for most of the things we want to pass. He can be very frustrating, but it's literally him or a Republican… Sinema cannot say that she's the only Democrat who can hold that seat. There are other credible Democrats who could run in a primary and win the general election.” Sinema’s fellow Democrat, Sen. Mark Kelly, is up for reelection in just two years. “For him to win, he needs to accomplish a lot of things. He needs to be able to go to voters and say, here's what we did,” Jentleson adds. “And so I don't think that Sinema can, can tell Mark Kelly to go jump off a bridge... It's just untenable to say, ‘I'm going to stand in the way of all the things that Democrats want to do because of my love for the filibuster’ in a purple state. I don't think this is a long-term sustainable position.” Then, former Stockton, California mayor Michael Tubbs talks about his push for universal basic income. And The Daily Beast’s Diana Falzone takes us inside Fox News, as staffers there lose their minds in the face of a challenge from an even crazier conservative network. “They’ve dug in their heels. And now they're going to give the viewers what they want, which is this red meat of cancel culture of Dr. Seuss of Mr. Potato Head,” she tells Jong-Fast. “Things will get even more, as the staffers say at Fox news, ‘Foxifized,’ which is the war on Christmas, the war on men. There’s always a war going on.” 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 Rick & Molly 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. On today's episode, we're so excited to talk to former Stockton, California mayor, Michael Tubbs. He's going to tell us all about how UBI actually affected his city and the unexpected outcomes from it. Then we're going to talk to Diana a foul zone about newsmax and Fox News and how bad it's going over there. You of course know him as the author of Kill Switch, the rise of the modern Senate and the crippling of American democracy and a former deputy chief of staff to former majority leader in the Senate, Harry Reid. And today he's going to talk to us about what else, the filibuster, as well as how Dems can lead on issues.

Hi, Adam. Hi, Molly. Welcome back to the new of normal. Thank you. It's great to be back. We're so excited to have you because all roads lead to the filibuster. Yes, they do. You know, it's funny, we had you on maybe like two months ago or maybe two years ago because time has no meaning. Was it two months ago? Was it six months ago? January, yes. So January, that was five years ago. So that makes sense. And during that time, we talked about, because you wrote this brilliant book and you are just sort of master of this topic,

the filibuster, has the world just come around to your way of thinking? Well, I don't know about that, but I can say that I'm very happy with the way things have developed since we last talked. And it certainly seems that there's, I don't want to say, consensus that might be too strong a word. But there does seem to be a wide range of opinion behind the idea that the filibuster needs to go. And I think that that's more a function of the fact that Republicans have done such a bad job at putting up any semblance of cooperation than anything else. But, you know, you have, you now have an issue that sort of used to occupy the left end of the spectrum, you know, in the Democratic primary, only a few candidates favored getting rid of

the filibuster. But now the, you know, a range of opinion favoring getting rid of it or at least reforming it goes from, you know, Elizabeth Warren all the way to David Brooks. So I think that the need for some kind of change, some kind of reform, and the prioritization of the, of actually getting a government that works and is able to pass things again, does seem to have developed rather quickly, and I think that's a very positive thing. Why do you think it's happened like that over the last two months? Well, you know, it's interesting.

I think that a lot of it has to do with Biden. I think that he's just been such a comforting presence, and I think that the policies that he's been putting forward have been so common sense, and he's been advancing them in such a, you know, methodical, reasonable way that people just want to see more of that. And then on the other hand, I think you have a Republican Party that's just continuing to spin out into the stratosphere of crazy. Green eggs and ham. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's literally you have one party that seems to be doing all of the work that it takes to govern this country.

And the other party is talking about green eggs and ham. Right. And so the party that wants to get things done and that is proposing, you know, very popular policies that have broad bipartisan support out there in the real world, you know, I think people are thinking, well, maybe we should just actually let this party do what it needs to do to fix the challenges we face in this country. And I think the Republican, you know, the, you know, just mountain of crazy that is the Republican Party right now is helping that people come around to that view, I think. It's interesting because you, can we talk about your time working for Harry Reid? Because I feel like it informed. So when were you there and set the scene for us?

Do a little cinema for us. Sure. I was there from 2010 until 2017. And, you know, this was a time when I think we saw the Republican Party really start to pivot in the direction that it's gone now. I mean, you could certainly make the argument that it's been headed in this direction for a long time. You know, the Rick Pearlstein books, you know, kind of show how it goes all the way back to Goldwater and the shifts that happened in the 60s. But, you know, up through and passed Obama's re-election in 2012, there was still this sense that maybe the Tea Party was a fad that maybe the Republican Party was. going to come back to a moderate governing party. You know, obviously after the 2010 election, they had that autopsy where they said, we got to broaden our appeal, we got to reach out to women and non-white voters. And then they just were like, let's get a really racist. Yeah, exactly. Maybe not. But I think it was that period that really shifted things for me, and I think for a lot of senators, too, where it didn't happen. You know, Obama said after his 2012 re-election that maybe now the fever was going to break, it obviously didn't break. It only got worse.

And, you know, that was a pivotal moment for me. And I think people's ways of thinking. And it's still, even then, you know, people like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul still sort of seem to be the outliers. But now clearly they are firmly in the mainstream of their party. So I think that was what was sort of unique about that era was that was when we really saw this start to develop even before Trump came on the scene. And you worked for Harry Reid. Tell me why Harry Reid was so successful. Well, I think Reed was one of the people who identified this trend in the Republican Party earlier than a lot of others. I think part of that was. was being from Nevada where there was a real strong Tea Party presence. He ran against a Tea Party candidate in 2010. And I think that election and that experience helped him realize the direction the Republican Party was going in earlier than a lot of other people. And I think he realized there's no negotiating with this party. And that combined with, he has all the qualities that have made other Democratic leaders great. He knows his caucus really well. He knows the ins and outs of Senate rules. He knows how to work the floor to his advantage. But he had no misconceptions about who Mitch McConnell was

and what he was trying to do and the direction he wanted to take his party. And I think that helped give him some strategic insight that others didn't quite have at that point. And then on top of that, one thing that made Reed really effective was that he didn't care what people thought about him, often to his own personal detriment and his own political detriment. But he was very willing to sort of take heat and take unpopular stances on behalf of the caucus in order to get them somewhere that they needed to be. He was a former boxer. And one of the things he would tell you about his lessons from being a boxer was not just about learning how to punch hard. but learning how to take a punch and absorb blows

and know that if you're going to get into the arena, sometimes you're going to have to take some hits in order to get where you want to go. And so he was never afraid to take those blows. He didn't run from bad press if he thought that it was in the service of achieving a larger strategic objective. That's so interesting.

I mean, and that is so fascinating. So I'm curious to know there's a theory that you could sort of override the filibuster for just voting rights. What's your thinking on that? Well, you could. The sort of baseline thing we should sort of establish for your listeners is that you can write the rules however you want. You need 51 votes to be behind the change. But if you have 51 votes for something, you could write the rules to say the sky is green and all sky-related legislation should reflect this fact. The Senate is designed to be an evolving body that reflects the will of its members. And if you have a majority of the body saying this is the way it should be, then that's the way it is. So yes, you could absolutely create a carve- out in the filibuster where, you know, sort of like we have with reconciliation right now, where, you know, bills that meet a certain set of criteria are not subject to the filibuster, they get to

pass with a straight majority vote. I think the passing voting rights is one of the absolute most essential things that Democrats have to do, not just in the next two years, but in the next six months. And so if that's the only way that it's possible to pass voting rights, that's an option that should be considered. However, I think there are some drawbacks to that approach. And it's kind of interesting to me that that doesn't seem to be the option that's that's currently gaining a lot of traction with the caucus. Even with people like Mansion, you see folks kind of leaning more in the direction of a talking filibuster idea, which has its own pros and cons. You started being able to combine the talking filibuster with the ability to impose a higher number of votes. So just to be clear,

every bill that passed the Senate, you know, from the first 150 years of its existence through the 19th century into the 20th century, every single bill that passed the Senate only had to clear a majority except for civil rights. And in the Jim Crow era, senators started to figure out a way to apply the supermajority threshold to civil rights and require to have a two-thirds majority to pass. But the only thing, you know, before that supermajority threshold started to come into being, the only way you could delay a bill was to stand on the floor and talk. You could get together with your buddies. You could coordinate. And so by coordinating, you could often make it, you know, last for weeks at a time. But at the end of the day, that talking filibuster would always yield

every single bill that was up against that kind of talking filibuster eventually passed because you eventually run out of steam. So either you convince the other side that you're right and they should come over to your way of seeing things and the bill dies that way, or more likely, they just wait you out, they let you have your say and then they move forward. And that is what used to happen. The thing now is that the 60-vote threshold has come into play.

And so one of the questions with the talking filibuster is, what is the enforcement mechanism after things have gone on for long enough that allows you to start to bring it to an end. And what is that? That's a talking filibuster? Well, there's sort of the talking filibuster with no teeth and the talking filibuster with teeth is sort of the way I would think about it. And, you know, if you just have a talking filibuster where senators can talk and talk and talk, and there's no way to make them stop without, and the only way to make them stop is to clear

the 60-vote hurdle, then you are in a lot of ways sort of back where you started. I think that a lot of other, you know, sort of maybe smaller board legislation will will make it find it easier to pass. I think it's because it's, you know, takes a lot of effort to apply a filibuster once again. Maybe Republicans won't do it against a lot of, you know, minor bills. But I think for the big ticket issues, if it takes 60 votes to cut off a talking filibuster, you're still going to eventually have a problem because Republicans will find a way to keep talking through something like the Voting Rights Act. That said, I think that, you know, any progress is good. And I think once you start the ball rolling on reform, it gets very hard.

to stop it. The question I used to always ask every congressman was what broke Devin Nunes's brain. But now that like everyone's forgotten about Devin Nunes, I feel like I can't work into conversation anymore. But couldn't the Supreme Court just gut this thing the moment it gets passed? I mean, it would have to get kicked up, you know, with lawsuits. But I mean, couldn't that just, like, doesn't this super conservative Supreme Court have the power just to undermine this whole thing? I mean, yeah, the Supreme Court can just can do, you know, whatever at once. And we've seen them create, you know, laughable pretext to advance conservative causes. I mean, the Citizens United decision, you know, was a joke to most intelligent observers on both sides of the aisle.

So, yeah, I mean, that that is always a risk. But I think that the people who are writing the law have thought through a lot of the objections that Roberts and others have put forward in the past and are trying to write it in a way that, you know, will make it hold up as strongly as possible to conservative objections. But I think that you still, you know, even if that were to happen, and you still got to pass the law. And I think you can't give up on it just because you expect that there might be a defeat in the courts at the end of the road.

And there's going to be a long way between here and there. So I'm not sure what happens. I'm not a legal expert, but I think that you have to put laws like this on the books, move them forward, you know, see if the courts will uphold them. And if they don't, then you come back to the drawing board and try again.

But I think this is such a critical issue that there's no way you can just sort of let it go. You have to keep putting these laws on the books, and you have to keep pressing. the case. And if Republicans strike it down, that just makes the case for court reform, you know, and things like that. So it's all, it could be an iterative process, but we have to keep making progress towards that goal of getting this law established. That makes a lot of sense. I have another question, which is the thing that I want to know is for a mansion and a

cinema. Two things. First of all, cinema has taken, and look, I'm not in any way endorsing cinema, but she's taken a lot of flack for a lot of reasons, and one of which was her, like, incredibly tone-deaf, thumbs down in the miniskirt. But also part of it, I think, is a lot of people feel that this groovy bisexual senator should be voting in a groovy way and not, like, a terrifying conservative. Do you see a world in which Democrats can get her on board

for filibuster reform? And what do you think is going? on there. And she's also up for re-election in two years. Yeah, I definitely think that there is a way that she can get on board. I think she's miscalculated a little bit. I don't think she can afford to be out as far to the right as she is right now. Right. You know, I mean, even Manchin has started to shift a little bit. And so she's kind of out on a limb. Joe Manchin can say, I am the only Democrat who can hold this seat. It's me or a Republican. Right. And that's probably true. And it's 100% true. And that's valid. And I wouldn't, in a lot of defend Manchin on that basis because he's generally a pretty reliable vote for most of the things we want to pass.

Right. It's very frustrating, but it's literally him or a Republican. There's no other choice. And he's in an R plus whatever, two million. Yeah, but I mean, you know, we've won two consecutive elections in Arizona. Cinema cannot say that she's the only Democrat who can hold that seat. There are credible, there are other credible Democrats who could run in a primary and win the general election. So she can't afford to be out as far to the right as she is. So I think it's inevitable that she's going to have to recalibrate her position a little bit. I also think, you know, Mark Kelly, you know, she's up for reelection in 2024. Mark Kelly is up for reelection in 2022 because it was a special election, so he has to run again.

And so, you know, for him to win, he needs to accomplish a lot of things. He needs to be able to go to voters and say, here's what we did. And they're really good and big, important things that improved your lives. And so I don't think that cinema, even, you know, with the Kelly dynamic, can long term tell Mark Kelly to go, you know, jump off a bridge. I'm sorry, we're not going to pass anything. because I care so much about the filibuster, which is kind of a random stance for her to take. So I think that eventually the pressure is going to become too much for her,

not just from the left, but from her colleagues like Mark Kelly and hopefully eventually the White House, where it's just untenable to say, I'm going to stand in the way of all the things that Democrats want to do because of my abstract love for the filibuster. In a purple state. It's just not, I don't think this is a long-term sustainable position. Yeah, that is some, that is a,

a very strange phenomenon what's happened with her. And it's just, it seems like, mansion makes sense, right? But cinema just doesn't make any sense. Also, I thought Mark Kelly really was, he won Handelie. Yes. Yeah, I think eventually it was, yeah, it wasn't a nail biter, but it was, he was leading the polls by, you know, seven, eight points. I think he won by closer to a couple. But, but yeah, I mean, he won decisively, and I think he's the favorite to win in 2022, but it's a midterm year. You know, our base, we have, you know, problems with turnout in midterms generally. And, you know, all the Democrats on the ballot in 2022 are going to have to make a really

strong case to voters. And, you know, we pass this, this ARP American Rescue Plan, which is amazing. But we can't just not pass anything else between now and next November, which is basically what would happen if the filibuster remains in place, you know, even if you pass an infrastructure bill through reconciliation, that's not enough. And so, and especially, you know, when you're talking about, you know, about voting rights in Arizona where there's major voter suppression going on. Right.

You know, I just don't think you can say, I'm going to let this Jim Crow Relic stand in the way of these things that need to get done. Do you think giving people money is popular? I do. I do. I mean, I think, look, I think someone smart said to me today, you know, that there's nothing more tangible than a shot in the arm and a check in your bank account. And, you know, it's popular.

People like it. And it shows that government works. And frankly, I don't think that this modern Republican Party, this, this this Green Eggs and Ham Party has an answer for government that works well and gives people stuff they like. They're not used to that because because of the filibuster, Democrats have not really been able to be as aggressive on that front as they would have wanted to. But if we get rid of the filibuster and pass popular things that give people stuff they like,

this Republican Party can't win with green eggs and ham. If we don't pass things that people like and we run into the same gridlock that people are used to seeing, then maybe the Republican Party can win with green eggs and ham. but they can't beat a government that works and passes popular stuff. The Green Eggs and Ham Party, that's what I'm taking with me, Jesse. That's the title, I think. Yeah. Shot in the arm and a check in the bank.

Thank you so much, Adam. It was great to have you. I hope you'll come back soon. Absolutely. Definitely. Anytime. Diana Falzone is a contributing writer to The Daily Beast, but she formerly worked at Fox News,

which she's going to talk to us about, as well as how bad it's going over at Newsmax. I'm extremely excited to have you on the pod for any number of reasons, but one of which is that you have this incredible story about having worked at Fox News. Yes, and unfortunately, I can't talk about any of it because upon my exit, I signed a non-disclosure agreement, not really understanding exactly how extensive that would be and limiting. So what I can say is that I had a gender and disability discrimination lawsuit. in May of 2017, and then I settled and left the corporation after several years working there in March 2018. Can you ever be let out of your NDA? Well, I've asked several times and have never received a response. So that sounds like, no. They're not out to do it. No, it doesn't seem like

there's any rush there on Fox News's end. That's really so terrible. So let's talk about the piece you wrote, which I think is really interesting. Newsmax, so there are basically, there are two baby foxes, right? Newsmax and OAN. But you wrote about Newsmax. Talk to us about Newsmax and what's happening there. So I also want to credit my Daily Beast colleagues, Lloyd Grove and Justin Barragona,

who worked also very hard on this piece. And Lloyd Grove is fantastic and has been at The Beast for a million years. And Justin is like amazing. So they're both fabulous. Yeah, there's some cool dudes and I'm very lucky to work with them. So we, you know, we were seeing that the ratings were collapsing for Newsmax. And Newsmax came kind of out of left field because they didn't even register for the first six years on Nielsen. They were this fledgling upstart by Chris Ruddy, friend of Donald Trump in May 2014. So when they became big, when they broke out after the Fox News viewers got very upset over the Arizona call, which resulted in Chris Starawalt losing his job. Let's just back up for a minute. So what happened here was that Fox News used to have a very well-respected decision desk. And that decision desk called Arizona, was the first to call the state of Arizona for Joe Biden.

and that got Fox viewers furious. Yes, very mad. And Jared Kushner, right? Didn't Jared Kushner call them too? Every, yes, it caused a lot of outrage. Social media, which you are a queen at, blew up, and they were upset. It was like a child who felt let down by their parents, and they're like, screw you, of divorced parents, and to screw you, I'm going to go live with dad.

And dad is Newsmax. Right. So Newsmax fed them everything that, Fox News wasn't at the time, which was election conspiracy theories. You saw, I like to call him the pillow guy. You saw the studio on there, just spewing stuff that was just, there was no evidence to it, but it was exactly what the viewer wanted. And after all, it's infotainment, right? So, so again, when you're watching news, take, you know, take all the sides and then make your own opinions. But after the Fox viewers left, Newsmax saw this huge rating. Greg Kelly's show actually beat Martha McCollum show in ratings, which then sent an entire hizzy internally at Fox News.

So I was being told by Fox News staffers, hey, we're getting told by our supervisors to watch Newsmax to find out what they're doing and try to do it better and compete with them. And my thought was Fox News is being rattled by this. alternative conservative network, which you never would think, right? But that's exactly what was happening. Will you explain where OAN figured into this? OAN kind of really doesn't. I mean, there are very, I mean, when we talk fledgling, they're third. I mean, a distant third at that. So they're not really folded in in this as much. I mean, when you think about head-to-head in terms of conservative networks, it would be Fox and Newsmax. And Newsmax was only head-to-head.

head for a very brief moment in time. Because what we've seen in these four months is that they have dwindled in a very big way. So the fear that the Fox News insiders were having about Newsmax coming out strong under a Biden administration, well, Fox wasn't going to have that happen. They made some very swift moves, one of them being that they were going to do this ideological purge of sorts, a big layoff of Fox News digital staffers who were on the straight news. side. And then you also saw their long-time politics editor, which was Christar Waltz, who was part of that decision desk, the retirement of Bill Salmon over there in the Washington Bureau. So you lost a lot of the straight news people. And you saw a pivot more into punditry, into editorializing

news and pushing farther right. And I believe, based on what I was told by Fox News Insiders and Newsmax insiders, is that this strong right pivot was in a response to Newsmax. just outdoing them. So they thought, okay, well, we're going to have to be Newsmax on Starways. We're just going to have to take the crown back. And they did it. And they did it. And they did it. And they did it. And one of the Newsmax insiders recently told me, he said, you know, Fox News is going to just be back on top. And right now, Chris Ruddy, who is the head of Newsmax, he has big decisions to make. He's either going to make the right ones or they're going to go into obscurity. and be lost. And he was saying they either need to get really big name talent,

such as someone like a Megan Kelly to bring eyeballs there, or they're going to have to do something big and put in big money, get better advertising. Otherwise, we're not going to be talking about them in two years from now. They might not even survive it. Do you think that the situation with Fox News is that Fox News became even more right-wing and radicalized as a way to take its viewers back from Newsmax? A hundred percent. Yes, without a doubt.

So it's Fox News, but worse? Yes. When I say like Fox News became Newsmax on steroids, but with the fear of being sued, because remember, you still have all of these looming lawsuits with Smarkmatic. That was the other thing that set Newsmax back. And Dominion, right? Yeah, Dominion. So they have to be careful, too. So there's, so there, there is definitely a leaning for Fox News.

And we just heard Lachlan Murdoch say that. He wasn't, I believe he wasn't aware he was being recorded. Right. And he said that they were going to be the loyal opposition to Joe Biden. So they said it out loud. I mean, Brian Stelter said that on CNN. Finally, Lachlan Murdoch announced what, who they are and what they represent, which is the loyal opposition to Joe Biden or any, or any Democratic administration for that matter.

So yes, they dug in their heels, and now they're going to give the viewer what they want, which is this red meat of cancel culture, of Dr. Seuss, of potato head. I mean, we've seen this for years, though, with Fox News. Things have always been, as the staffer say at Fox News, Foxified, which is the war on Christmas, the war on men. There's always a war going on, right? Right. Fox has also the issues with the lawsuits too, right? They've been plaintiffs in some of the other lawsuits as well.

Yes, and I also think that as much as we're talking about what you see on screen on Fox News, there's a lot going on internally. I mean, we cannot ignore the fact that the New York City Commission on Human Rights is currently doing an investigation. They won't speak about it. I've confirmed it several times throughout. for the sexual harassment or something else? They won't tell me exactly what they're investigating, but it's workplace culture, which can be a breath of issues. Right. I mean, it does seem like, and again, I can talk about this and you probably can't,

but it does seem like the sexual harassment issues at Fox News are not over. They're definitely not over because you have a federal lawsuit going on right now with Fox News contributor, Britt McHenry and her colleague, former colleague, Fox News contributor, Tyrus. The handling of it has sent Fox News Insiders, their minds are exploding because Britt McHenry filed, I believe, in December 2019. And she has been on the channel one time via phoneer over the Tiger Woods accident, whereas Tyrus has been on countless times. And staffers have said to me, it doesn't make sense.

Why are they both not off air or why are they both not on it while this is going on? It seems like Fox News is picking a side and that side is Tyrus, the alleged sexual harasser. Right. I mean, that's sort of the brand, isn't that? Well, the brand was supposed to have clean things up, especially when they made the decision of putting Suzanne Scott as CEO in place when Shine departed. But anyone who knows the history of Fox News knows Suzanne Scott's ties. And Suzanne Scott has said that she was unaware of the sexual harassment and the alleged sexual misconduct on behalf of Ailes and others, that it was all of a shock to her. But I've spoken to dozens of current and former Fox News staffers, contributors and anchors, as has Lloyd Grove. and we did a piece on that about Suzanne Scott's reputation.

And she certainly had firsthand knowledge of what was going on. And many staffers said that she turned a blind eye. Yeah, that's so shocking. Who could have seen that? It's just shocking. I'm completely shocked. So very shocked. You sound it.

I'm just blown away by these allegations at Fox News. This was amazing. Thank you so much. 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 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 fearless journalism, as well as getting full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member, head to new abnormal. That's new abnormal.thedailybeast.com. Michael Tubbs is the former mayor of Stockton, California. He's currently serving as a special advisor to economic mobility and an opportunity for California governor Gavin Newsom.

And we also have a special COVID podcast guest appearance from his 16-month-old child. Michael Tubbs, I'm so excited to have you here. I don't know if you remember meeting me a couple years ago when you spoke at the Arena Summit. Like any good politicians, I'm lying and say absolutely. Yes. I vaguely remember. I'm not that memorable with the two colored hair. I want to talk to you about universal basic income.

Can you tell us a little bit about how you got involved in this idea? Yeah. Well, I first heard about universal basic income in college, actually. studying Dr. King. And his last book, When we go from here, he talked about the need to abolish poverty

with a direct way by a guaranteed income. Now, I remember reading that and saying, it'd be really cool one day to be part of that discussion. Those that I know, 10 years later,

be part of that discussion. And my first year as mayor in 2017. So you became mayor of Stockton. How old were you? I was 26 years old. So about less than 10 years after that, sort of, Seven years after that epiphany or that interest in Dr. King, I was elected mayor and I had a policy team research for me best ways to end poverty.

I just viewed poverty as the crux of so many of the issues we were solving for in Stockman. And they came back to me with a guaranteed income and said that in Kenya, in Brazil, in Mexico and other places, they were doing cash transfers to people. And I said, well, that's interesting. Is there anything in the States? And there was nothing we can point to in the last 40 plus years. In the 60s, there were some experiments. There's been some measuring of the LASC and Permanent Fund. And last one, I decided that we would test, at least test the idea to see if it worked,

to learn from it and at least have a conversation about why do you have so much economic insecurity in our country. How do you even do that, though? Like, where do you get the money for that? Yeah. So everything is so, I, as a spiritual person, but everyone. It just lined up perfectly. So literally the next week, Molly,

I found that conversation with my staff. I was in a meeting with the Economic Security Project at a conference. And Natalie Foster, when the co-chairs told me she was looking for a city to partner with to test this idea of basic income, had I heard of it. And I said, Natalie, literally I have a task force working on this idea. We're working really hard on this. We are ready to go. And so we were able to get private funds through the Economic Security Project.

co-chairs Chris Hughes, Nali Foster, and Dorian Warren to put the million dollars in to do the investment, the cash disbursements to the 125 families in the city of Stockholm. First, explain to me how you found the people to give money to. So we created very broad selection criteria. And to qualify for the program, you just had to live at or below. You have to live in the census tract that was at or below the city's median of 46,000, which means that there were people in a program who made more than 46,000 and people who made lessen. And we sent letters out.

We sent 4,000 letters to addresses in those laptops. And we had a brilliant research team, Dr. Stasia, Dr. Amy, from University of Pennsylvania and University of Tennessee, who used the responses to the initial inquiry to create a treatment group and a control group, treatment meaning the folks who received the guaranteed income, control group meaning the people who didn't to really compare the impacts between the two. It made it really reflective of the city. They were really reflective of each other. And one interesting stat is that 70% of all the folks in the treatment group were women.

And I think that's why the data is so good, honestly. Explain to me what the data showed. So the data showed really three big things. The first one being, and I spent years arguing with people about this point, that a guaranteed income would not make people stop working. In fact, it would allow people to maybe find full-time jobs. that's what they choose to do. And what we found is that those who received the guaranteed income

were able to transition from part-time work to full-time work more than double the rate than those who didn't receive the guaranteed income. And that's because the $500 allowed them to pay for transportation, to get a car fixed, to take time off their part-time job to afford to a try for a full-time job, etc. So the thinking there is you have to have a certain amount of money to get a full-time job. I think people really underestimate just how expensive it is to be economically insecure, how even a small $100, $200 risk you're not able to take. And I say that because for a lot of folks who have part-time jobs don't have pay time off.

So taking a couple hours away from your job to interview for a full-time job you may be qualified for is risking hundreds of dollars. And if you live paycheck to paycheck, you just can't afford to take that risk. not because you don't want a full-time job, you can't afford to take time off to a platform. Right. Which is actually bizarre when you think about it. And the second to our big finding was the mental health and emotional well-being impact.

And not surprisingly, those receiving guaranteed income were just happier. They had lower levels of stress, lower levels of depression, lower levels of anxiety, actually comparable to clinical trials of Prozac in terms of the delta between when they started and where they ended out. And I think for me, that's just super, that's a super compelling stat because it tells us that so much of the mental health and depression and anxiety we see may be triggered by economic insecurity, may be triggered by the fact that people are worried about how to pay their bills. That makes a lot of sense. So now, explain to me what the data showed. Yeah, so the data showed that the guaranteed income allowed folks to breathe.

So many of the recipients kept saying, I'm able to breathe. that they were healthier, that they started before the program at mildly depressed based on the Kester scale and after just one year, we're down to normal levels of stress and anxiety. They talked about how they were able to be more present as parents, more present as partners. They were happier.

A lot of the women reported be able to take care of themselves for the first time and to invest in themselves or take a day off to rest. As I mentioned earlier, people worked more. and also this idea, or we're able to find full-time employment, and also this idea of income volatility, the fact that those received of $400 were able to weather an unexpected emergency, which I think is super compelling and very important to take note of,

particularly given what we know 2020 and this year has been with COVID-19 and those impacts that no one saw coming. And I'm excited for next year when we released 2020 data because I think it'll go to show just how much a guaranteed income is imported at all times, but particularly important during a pandemic. And it represents, in my opinion, and part of pandemic preparedness of contingency planning, et cetera. I'm curious to know what you think.

But it sounds to me like these are things that will prove that Biden's stimulus package is actually, because you don't have people with the minimum basic income who just decide like, I'm not going to work anymore. Forget it. Yeah, it is so funny. We have to shut that from the mountaintops. This notion that people don't want to contribute, that people don't want to be productive,

that people don't want to do things inside and outside of the house, this isn't true. And we also have to broaden our definition of work. There's so much work that's done that isn't compensated. So that's probably my favorite stateline only because I argued with the likes of Sarah Palin and Chuck Woolery on the very point that, no, it's not, people aren't going to forget to work hard. People aren't so magically become lazy, but people have to be more productive. more efficient and have more agency, have the ability to say no to a terrible job or say no to an exploitive labor relationship.

Do you think Sarah Palin is just not smart or did she get dropped on her head as a baby? Well, one thing Sarah Palin did that was smart when she was governor and she increased the payment out of the Alaska Permanent Fund. That's literally how she became popular. She said, I was going to have more money for free from our oil reserve.

That's pretty funny. She was. I mean, Alaska does have minimum basic income and it works very well there. Well, and they get it's like we should pay people to live in Alaska. Like, that makes sense to me. It certainly does. Talk to us a little bit about you have a sort of amazing

and also kind of disturbing story of how you lost your re-election. It's so bizarre, Molly. So essentially, we're doing all these good things. That's because I'm saying they're good. objectively good things. Like, pompousized down, like, property values up, crime down, money coming in, jobs coming in.

But while doing all these good things, it also happened in the context of Stockton being a news desert. Stockton's a city of 315,000 people with one newspaper. And that newspaper laid off 33% of its staff my first day as mayor because of just changes to the news industry. We have no local kind of broadcast media outlet. You share our media market with Sacramento, which is an hour away. So in that vacuum, nefarious actors, a mixture of right-wing, sort of ultra-conservatives, and just bitter charlatans community of the job, came together to form a page called 209 times. And this page, really, for four years, manipulated the Facebook algorithm.

And every single day for four years told a couple of stories. one that Michael Tubbs is a criminal two Michael Tubbs was corrupt and three Michael Tubbs was lazy and anyone listening and realized that Michael Tubbs is also the first black mayor would also

realize that these were like textbook anti-black tropes and racism that black people are lazy black people are a criminal and black people are corrupt there was no way I was legitimate as a mayor and while we're doing all these good things every day for four years

years. I'm saying like literally Molly, just like different realities. So there would be conversations about how I brought in $6 million from the state that we never had to address a homelessness issue. And they posted that I had stolen $60 million that was supposed to go to homelessness. Like bizarre things like that. So I figured that most people love me, hate me, whatever, at least rational actors would be like, oh, that doesn't make sense. If this black guy was stealing money, this black guy would be in jail. Duh. But no, people. really believe this. So now, even now, if you go to some parts of the city, you talk to people, they don't say, oh, he stole money from us. And I think what we did wrong is we just didn't take it

serious. Because it was so goofy to me. This is so stupid. We don't have time. We're going to keep delivering for people. We're going to keep doing the work. But a lot of people, that was the only conversation they were having with themselves and their computers was with this fake news, Facebook page. And then they got in the way the Facebook algorithm, works and rewards sort of outlandish and clicks and craziness. So the crazier the stories got, the more engagement it got, the more the viewership went up, the more that became two weeks before the election, the state had to put on a press release because they said I had struck a deal with the governor to put all the

homeless people in Northern California at the stock of fairgrounds. And I had shut down the fairgrounds for that purpose. And Molly, the crazy thing is, the meeting they mentioned, I wasn't even there. Like I just wasn't even in attendance. Number two, it wasn't even discussed at that meeting. Number three, I have no authority to close down the fairgrounds. It was just patently false, but so many people believe it. And now, in addition to guaranteed income, I'm very laser focused on combating disinformation

because, I mean, I'm good. But it's just terrible for democracy. We can't really solve these big problems when people think the world is flat. Did Facebook ever come to you? say like, we're sorry we've ruined your life or anything? They didn't ruin your life, you know what I mean? But they didn't ever say like we didn't, you know, we shouldn't have let this happen or anything?

No, and actually I spent a couple of years reaching out to Facebook trying to get them to take down this site or to at least the tag the site as fake. I'm like, though, people in my community think this site is news. If you guys have it under news, can you change its heading? Call it satire. Call it something. It's not news. but they just really follow up or follow back.

So definitely, and then I've been, in the past couple months, been talking with this information experts throughout the country and this pink slime issue, time article about how Sinclair Network has a, these pages and blogs are popping up in community sites. Have great people, but have people who may not be as sophisticated in identifying credible sources. So it's, yeah, it's heartbreaking,

but it's a thing's opportunity for us. to kind of uplift sort of the importance of journalism, even if you don't agree. Even if it's like not, it's not all rainbows. Because I wasn't perfect for sure. So the issue wasn't critiqued. The issue was just blatant racism and falsehood that people believed and became a reality. So, Michael, you're in California politics. And so a lot of the discourse about governors has been drowned out by Molly and I's terrible one.

But right now I see that Governor Newsom is fighting a recall effort. I wanted to see if you could talk to us a little bit about that since I saw you've been vocal about that on Twitter. Yeah, I mean, we all see this for what it is. The Republican recall is just a failed intent at relevance in California politics by the Republican Party, which doesn't hold a statewide office in the fifth largest economy in the world, which has a very small minority in the legislature. And this isn't really serious about governing our putting short solutions to, to, to California problems.

They're nationally in California. They're a party in grievance. This sucks. This sucks. This sucks. I think Democrats are not perfect, but at least we try to fix things. At least we say this sucks, but this is how we could make it better. And they just want to burn the house down and then rule over the actions or own the actions.

It's very bizarre. You don't think that Rick Cornell is going to be governor. Not on my state. But I'll just say I do think it's an opportunity, though, to really sort of high. highlight what is it about the governor that makes him so upset? Because they had started talking about recalling him before COVID-19. They're upset at criminal justice reform. They're upset.

They're going to say stimulus. They want to recall the work we've done on climate change and emissions. Like, like, it's so, I mean, he's just saying people, I think Joe Biden should be recalled because he's not the president. So I just can't take it too serious. Yeah, it does. It seems like they're just completely nuts. There are a lot of swinging districts, though, in California.

Yeah. How do Democrats hold on to those? We have to do a better job at messaging and talking to people and repeating ourselves and repeating ourselves and repeating ourselves. I think a lot of Democrats fall victim to kind of what I do, just thinking the work is enough. Say, if you do it, people will see it. It's all good. There's so much to do. I don't have.

But, no, it's actually taking the time or investing in the infrastructure to really communicate. what is that we're doing and also define the other side. I think the Republicans do a good job of painting Democrats or liberals. We have to do a better job of defining who the Republicans are. They're not a serious party. They bring guns to the Capitol. They stormed the Capitol. They went Donald Trump to be president again. We literally have to just, it's like cartoons. It's really goofy. We listen to them speak or what they say. They're not serious about the business of governing during a during a crisis. And we should have to do a better job of like defining that.

Like, look, we may not be perfect. You might not agree with everything we want to do. But these guys don't want people to vote. These guys don't want the press to operate. These guys don't want working class people to have financial relief. These people don't want COVID vaccines. Like, what? Right.

No, it's completely crazy. What's next for you, Michael Hobbs? Yeah. So I'm running marriage for a guarantee income full time. So we have 44 mayors who have. sign on to do similar to what we've done in Stockton. I am now a special advisor to Governor Newsome on economic mobility and opportunity.

So kind of helping think through sort of how you make the goal to stay one with the opportunity for all with a focus on Central Valley where I'm from, interested in doing some things and kind of the media space. So stay tuned for that and being a partner, being a father, and also not being a mayor, so not going to city council. Do you miss being mayor or now? Well, I wish I could, but everyone keeps calling me like I'm still the mayor.

So, I mean, it's like being the mayor without any of the bad stuff. Like, I don't have to go to the council meetings, I don't have to listen to. And the thing is, public comment is not bad, but public comment at the council meeting attracts a certain type of heat person who just, it's not, again, just not serious. It's like, yeah, it's not even what happened. So I don't miss that at all. I don't miss some of my colleagues who would just lie. Or would just like not do anything but then take credit when things were done. So I don't miss that at all.

But I miss sort of the authority to kind of make decisions on behalf of the city. Hi, Jesse Cannon. Hi, Molly. So I hear you have a fuck that guy that kind of looks like this soul has been sucked out of his body at all times. You know, I don't think sometimes he looks bad, but sometimes he looks bad. but sometimes he looks okay. I think we're drawing the line at different places. Well, look, you know, nobody looks great on Tucker Carlson.

Right? Did you see that really good meme about Tucker that said, why does Tucker Carlson always look like a dog trying to understand a magic trick this weekend? That one really... That really summed up that confused face, Tucker always has, where he's like indignant, even though the person's just saying baseline stuff.

I mean, the only thing I would say is that dogs are, wonderful and Tucker Carlson is not wonderful. So comparing him to a dog seems very unfair. Our fuck that guy is not Tucker Carlson today, though he may very well be our fuck that guy next week. But today, or at least my fuck that guy, his claim to fame is that he used to work for the New York Times. He wrote for the New York Times. He wrote a book about how marijuana is bad for you. As a sober person, I don't have a horse in this race.

Then he writes spy novels, but he happens to be Fox News's go-to for all your needs coronavirus. He has no medical training, no medical background, but he is a bad faith actor. He sort of hit all the notes, just the way Trump has. But he's back. And now, after 534,000 deaths, he no longer is here to tell you coronavirus isn't that bad. he's now here to tell you that M RNA vaccines are actually the same as

gene therapy. They're not, they're not in any way the same as gene therapy. Gene therapy is about changing your genes. MRNA vaccine is about injecting a tiny bit of mRNA to teach your body how, teach your immune system how to fight the virus, in this case,

coronavirus, and then actually the mRNA goes away and is out of the body and your genes are not changed and it's not the same as gene therapy. It's like the difference between a box of donuts and a bottle of Diet Coke, okay? Not the same. They are both food things-ish, but they are not the same. And so now Alex Berenson's spy novelist and former New York Times reporter is now on the anti-vax campaign,

and he wants us to know that vaccines are dangerous, they are not dangerous. He wants us to know that mRNA vaccines are the same as gene therapy. they are not the same. He wants us to know about, you know, everyone who's ever died after getting a vaccine was really killed by the vaccine. And I'm here to tell you that millions of Americans have gotten the vaccine, including myself, right, who was in the trial, who was, you know, fucking around with this last summer. And I'm telling you, the vaccines are safe, they're effective. And the only way we're ever going to get out of our houses is if people fucking take them. So Alex Berenzen, go fuck yourself. Yeah, and I have to say, I wish there was a way that we could just punish people who are constantly wrong about things, but I have to keep pivoting on their grift to be constantly wrong and missing for the public and help people since that's what he's doing. But this plays well into my fuck that guy. Anthony Fauci had a great saying this weekend where he said, when talking about the governors who have decided to open up right as these vaccines are

distributed, that you should not spike the ball on the five-yard line when you're going for a touchdown. And that's what a lot of people are doing. I regret that I went out this weekend for some long walks, and it was really disheartening to see how much of New York City is acting like this whole thing is over and we're all fine. Even if you've had the vaccine, which I have, you still need to wear a mask. I wore the mask all weekend. You need to wear the mask. So my fuck that guy is everybody not remembering that you could still hurt so many people by not wearing a mask. There's so many people who could still die. Please, we're so close.

But it could be over. And you know, the other thing, which I think we should mention because it's not getting so much media attention is that Europe is actually locked down again. Yes. So there is a really good way to avoid a lockdown. It's just washing your hands and wearing a mask and not taking. risks for a couple more weeks. Yeah, with these variants we have going around now, starting to do early celebrations before we should

could allow these variants to spread again and allow this to be prolonged even more. I know it's not fun, but we just got to do this a little while longer. 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, who will help us understand what's happening to our country and the world.

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